Summary:

Carth knew that Revan might leave to finish what she started, whatever that happened to be, but worry has brought him to the covert doorstep of the Jedi after six months of waiting without any answers to calm his fears. The ever-poised Bastila Shan seems stern as always upon greeting him, but Carth discovers that she may be just as worried as he is, and that the Force may have something more sinister in store for them all.


3954 BBY, Coruscant
a year and a half since Revan saved the Republic, six months since she was last seen
Carth

The weight of Carth Onasi's boots pounded the loading ramp of his personal vessel, having just landed on Coruscant, demanding answers and already annoyed that he wasn't met with any.

With a datapad clutched in a white-knuckled fist, he leapt the distance between the still-descending ramp and the landing dock. Blood thrummed beneath his skin, setting him aflame with his uncontrollable impatience.

Before he could question the droid waiting idly at the security console, a shrill voice met his ears, and despite the dissonance its presence instantly set him at ease.

"Now, Carth-?" Bastila approached the loading ramp, evident that she had been waiting since Carth had made his request for landing clearance, her arms folding across a canvas of brown cloth that shielded her from the nonexistent cold as she demeaned his choice of arrival with a scowl.

Carth brandished the datapad in his hand, half-expecting it to speak for itself. Trying his best to ignore Bastila's smug righteousness, his thoughts found their voice before she could even finish her sentence, "We've waited long enough, now where is she?"

There was no time for pleasantries. He spoke each word evenly and still they sounded desperate when they finally took to the open air.

Admittedly, he was not at his best. Having lost sleep for near six months in an empty bed filled only with worry and wanting, Carth was sure that Bastila searched his sunken eyes, sleepless, wondering what had taken him so long. She sighed. She knew he was not cross with her, but with the situation that they were equally entangled in, paths crossed in a promise they both made long ago. Revan had never disclosed with him who else might have known, but it would only make sense if the others knew, if Bastila knew, and that was why he was standing before her now.

"Come with me," was all that she said, sweeping about and leading him across the landing pad before he could utter another word.

By her stance, he could tell Bastila knew this moment would come to fruition, and she was already prepared - though despite the dire circumstances it was difficult to imagine a scenario in which Bastila was not prepared. She met every moment with unwavering surety, no matter her doubts, regardless of training or lack thereof. She waved a hand at the lift command console that greeted her upon entering the elevation pod, its doors shutting swiftly once Carth entered at her side.

The lift began its descent, though the unquestionable darkness that followed may have suggested that time had frozen still. Maybe it was the anticipation, the desire for answers that made the galaxy spin slowly in the time he had waited. Carth felt the lift dive below the pier, far beyond Coruscant street level, and head toward what he was certain was the center of the planet itself.

In spite of his general dislike of the woman beside him, he trusted her enough to know that she had not sent them plummeting to almost certain doom at the planet's core, and in fact, knew exactly what she was doing. At a seemingly insignificant point in their journey downward, Bastila flourished her hand over the console, bringing the lift to a complete and utter stop. There was no repercussion, in fact it felt as if they glided to a gentle halt instead of abruptly arriving as Carth had anticipated. Upon stopping, the doors opened. Light poured in from an empty hall through which Bastila began to navigate without hesitation, easing in and out of identical paths without a second glance. Carth did his best to keep up, his datapad in hand, head flashing about in some petty attempt to keep track of where in the Force she was taking him. Before his queries found a voice, Bastila opened one final door, this time opening into a small meeting room encased in glass, surrounded by sprawling floors that were meant to be full of adolescents in Jedi's training robes but now stood empty.

A vision come to life, though cut short by the nightmare that was happened at Katarr – something she said long ago came back to him from the depths of his memory, instantly dredged up at the sight – A secret Jedi academy, to rebuild, to strengthen their numbers, at least while the Sith threat still looms on the horizon, as it always has.

A threat on the horizon. The datapad in his hand.

Bastila took a seat at one of the long chaise lounges situated about the room, and Carth suddenly took in the room's portents: two lounges sat situated along the farther walls, separated at the corner only by a plant whose origin he knew nothing of, and along the wall adjacent was a console, sitting idle and humming softly.

"You knew I would come," Carth found himself realizing the truth of his words as he spoke them. "Today."

His fearful rage dissipated into growing uncertainty as he took a seat opposite Bastila.

"I felt something in the Force." She replied curtly, sounding almost as if she were making up some excuse, and one that a non-sensitive could not possibly verify – but the wavering of her expression gave it away. Bastila was never keen on not knowing things so her curtness was due to the unfavorable nature of being taken by surprise.

"So you asked why I was here, even though you knew full well, because…?" he drawled on, begging her to finish the sentence, if not just to annoy her… for old time's sake.

Bastila clicked her tongue impatiently, offended, and scoffed "I didn't want to be presumptuous."

She tucked a loose lock of sand-brown hair behind a pale ear as her other hand waved in the void of the air, commanding the Force to control the console on the other end of the room. "The Force works in mysterious ways. Besides, it's not like you presented yourself any better," she added to save face.

Before Carth could retort, the room's lights dimmed to accommodate the console whose screen projected before them, and sight of the secret Jedi academy beyond fell away. A series of numbers filled the active page, a pale blue against a dark transparent grey, cascading down the wall until it stopped, becoming still.

Carth squinted. It only took him a moment to realize, "These are coordinates."

"Precisely."

Concern crept into Bastila's voice, consuming what outward demeanor she usually donned to mask whatever inward feelings plagued her. The thought of her mask slipping undoubtedly rattled her nerves, but for Carth it was comforting to see. He preferred moments when she allowed herself to be human, as long as those moments did not involve berating him for something.

"You know I was the last to see her," Bastila began, Carth watching as her long fingers folded and unfurled, falling in and over themselves with each moment she spent thinking of her next words, "And though I know little of where she went, or why, these are her final coordinates."

"You-?"

"I asked T3 to keep a detail on her whereabouts-"

"You managed to bypass T3's security coding? But she had him set to-"

"I did not do anything intentionally. You see, when Revan set off, I merely told T3 to 'keep an eye on her' as a turn of phrase, but then I began receiving these," her hand gestured toward the screen, "I was not sure what they were until near the end. I figured it might have been a virus or some sort of glitch, given our new systems, but once I looked into the final batch of numbers I knew exactly what they were."

Several images propped up on screen at a subtle flick of Bastila's fingers. They depicted various locales, mostly, each remote and empty. There was one image, however, of a place he recognized from a time when he and the woman across from him once traveled the galaxy together despite their bitter differences in hopes of saving it from their amnesiac companion.

"I'm not so sure about the rest, but that-" Carth pointed to the image of a gate flanked by blood orange tents on the brink of a desert, "That's Anchorhead."

Carth saw Bastila nod in affirmation from his peripheral as he leaned forward to get a closer look at the images on the screen.

"As you know, Revan and Malak had been to Anchorhead sometime during the war to find the star maps that led to the-"

"So what would bring her back?" Carth interrupted, too impatient to hear Bastila voice her predictions. He already knew what she was thinking.

"I would have thought the same thing, unless she told you about what brought her to me in the first place."

Bastila folded her hands in her lap once more as Carth turned to face her, her features aglow in the light of the screen.

"Her dream?"

Bastila nodded again. She did not seem one for words once they had arrived at what Carth presumed was her office, and her tells were showing more and more with each question. The fact that Revan's disappearance and subsequent silence bothered her this much to forego her usual uppity bit set his bones at ease, slightly at least.

"Revan felt as if she were on Tatooine, at an ancient Sith site of some sort. She came to me asking whether this particular memory had anything to do with what the Jedi implanted, since Darth Malak was nowhere to be found in this recollection and it had nothing to do with the Star Map there, but we had done no such thing. The Jedi - meaning Dorak, Vrook and the others - only implanted generic, bland memories, basic images of parents, being young and what-have-you, but nothing so specific. With, erm, Malak being dead," Bastila had a bit of a visibly hard time enunciating Malak's name without disdain, though Carth could not blame her despite knowing the man he once thought the Jedi Knight to be himself, "Revan was not entirely sure who to consult about this particular memory, about what it might mean."

Bastila swallowed, waiting a moment to allow Carth to answer, perhaps, but he remained silent as he awaited her next words, "Save for her first, and last, master."

Carth cocked his head, not out of complete confusion but instead out of willful clarification. After defeating her old friend and apprentice, Revan had spent her time with Carth recreating a new persona, leaving any old selves behind, so talk of her life before was seldom and rarely discussed at length.

"Master Arren Kae." Bastila answered for him, almost expectantly.

The name was not unfamiliar, though he internally admitted to himself that he may have done well to pay better attention to Revan when she did talk of the past.

"My guess is," Bastila began, cycling through the images displayed with a flick of her wrist, "that wherever these coordinates are located, which according to Republic navigation records are somewhere either on the Outer Rim or just on the border of the Unknown Regions, is where she believed she might find Kae, and perhaps found her at some point."

"Or so we can hope," Carth nursed his stubbled chin with his fingers, fingers that itched to be anything other than idle. His boot tapped mutely on the carpeted floor of Bastila's chamber as his eyes flicked between the images on screen. "When was the last coordinate sent?"

"This morning," Bastila sighed, getting up and wrapping her robes about her again, equally unsure of what to do with her idle limbs, "which is why I thought you might come. But I didn't get these numbers in batches or one by one, quite the opposite actually. They were sent all at once, and they were jumbled. Almost as if they were sent in a hurry, like an afterthought."

Bastila's voice was controlled but Carth could hear the fear behind her every syllable. His blood ran with anxious electricity under his skin at the thought that even Bastila could not contain her worry.

"That's not like her," Carth voiced, the thought escaping his lips as easily as a breath. "So you think T3 sent these? As a warning of some kind? Honoring your request, maybe?" Bastila nodded. "And there's no way to locate where the message was sent from?"

Bastila shook her head. Carth knew she would have checked the signal before looking into anything else, but he felt is chest near bursting with questions and he knew not to expect any satisfying answers to quell them just yet.

"Not quite. I checked first thing, of course," Bastila huffed, and Carth almost smiled inwardly at his intuition but the sentiment turned more into a bitter laugh at the direness of it all. "Revan was hiding her tracks, and given her affinity for the skill so much so that she, quite effectively, hid secrets from herself. I'm not sure how to decode this, but-"

Carth had been so lost in thought and focused on controlling the sense of defeat that began to blanket his spirit with the lack of any real answers that he hadn't noticed that Bastila was physically typing away at the console again, foregoing the Force for something more tactile to voice her frustrations through the heavy pounding of keys.

"Either Revan has completely hacked the Hawk so it spits out some nonsense location of origin when you track the incoming messages so we cannot follow her, that or-" Carth stood up as the screen dissolved into a map of the Republic and the known galaxy surrounding it. A small, blinking light, ominous in its loneness in an empty patch of screen, emanated from the blackness that enveloped the outer portions of the map.

"The Unknown Regions."

Bastila turned from the console to look at Carth and nodded with wide, grey eyes glowing vaguely in the light of the screen, a miniature galaxy swimming in her mirrored pupils.

"I was considering calling you myself, but then I received your message requesting landing permission. I was hoping-" Bastila sighed again, unable to feign much confidence, "I was hoping you'd come with news. When you asked me where she was, I knew this was, I don't know, fated perhaps. Something that the Force intended for us to find... and to follow."

Carth would have very much liked to scoff at her explanation, but as much as it might have soothed the tension mounting in his chest, he knew she was speaking the truth. Bastila would not betray her features to doubt unless it was all-consuming, unless it was sincere.

"What does the Force want exactly? For us to know that she's missing? What good does that do us-?"

Before he could continue his tirade of complaints, Bastila extended a gentle hand to steady him, her eyes still wide and full of uncontrolled uncertainty, but there was something about her expression that was also certain as well, though Carth could not quite understand why or how he knew it. The hair on his arm prickled at the thought and he pulled away.

Bastila's hand remained extended in comfort, almost as if she expected him to react this way.

"This is the beginning of something. Whatever Revan's memory entailed, whatever the exiled Kae had to tell her, and wherever she is now… I don't know, it's somehow connected to this," Bastila's arms extended to her sides, indicating the secret academy now hidden from her office, "And there's one other thing."

This last bit Bastila exclaimed almost erratically, suddenly remembering something, as she resumed her position at the console. Carth took a deep breath and watched with a furrowed brow as he approached to watch over her shoulder, briefly glancing down at her nimble fingers before looking up again at the screen as the images changed. The photos of the coordinates Bastila managed to trace faded away. A rap sheet took its place, detailing the basic information for a certain Nevarra Draal. This Nevarra shared the same false name and looked an awful lot like the woman Carth was first stranded with on Taris, the woman he roamed the galaxy alongside in search of a Sith Lord's trail that actually ended up being her own. As much as the woman looked like Revan, however, Carth could tell that she was slightly younger, that her eyes were more angular and that they were green as opposed to Revan's warm brown. They were not one and the same.

"This is the identification papers we used to get Revan into the Republic ranks after we, erm, well-" Bastila swallowed her words before continuing, "The records are actually quite legitimate looking, though also falsified. It was produced for us by Atris who found that Revan's exiled General bore a striking resemblance to her, especially when done up in this fashion." Bastila referred to the short black hair dyed bronze and the ochre eye makeup. "Revan's Left Hand, General Valen was exiled, I'm not sure if you know, a short time after the Mandalorian Wars came to a close. Master Atris, General Valen's former mentor, took up the task of keeping tabs on her, given that she was a liability to the Council as well as to the Republic after what happened at Malachor. In her exile, General Valen made several false personas to use as identification and Master Atris convinced us to use this abandoned file as a source."

Carth took in the image of the General, a girl he had heard much about but had never seen. As a pilot, Carth had seen much of Malak, especially before the Jedi officially became involved in the Mandalorian Wars when the Jedi Knight still went by the nickname Squint - which was both amusing and disconcerting to think back on, now - but Carth had never seen General Valen, who was responsible for heading Revan's ground troops. She was a prodigy, a star soldier, surpassing legends of even the famed Jedi Master Kavar at only twenty years old. Carth recalled a time when everyone expected Kavar to lead the Jedi to war, but after being called to a seat on the Jedi Council instead, the enigmatic young Revan took his place. Soon after, General Valen joined Revan's ranks and became the leader of her ground forces, whereas Revan's Right Hand, Malak, took the command of her fast-growing star fleet.

The exiled Jedi looked so much like his Revan that he could not look away, though he saw where they differed when he imagined what Nevarra looked like now, or more recently at least. Even back when Carth had first met her, Revan posing as Nevarra was visibly a bit older, in her mid-thirties as opposed to her mid-twenties, and looked a bit friendlier in comparison to the image displayed.

"When Revan asked where her memories had come from, she asked about the false ID we gave her when we," Bastila swallowed, still slightly uncomfortable with her role in altering Revan's memories, "When the Jedi reprogrammed her. When she saw that we had used her identification records, she, well, I'm not sure, exactly."

Bastila's voice trailed off into silent musing, not quite finishing her thought.

"She felt something?" Carth surmised, gathering what he knew of Bastila's account and what little he knew of how Jedi and how they reacted to the Force, something which still eluded him completely.

Bastila nodded, her lips pursed, unsure of what else to add. She was so used to having the last word that Carth almost enjoyed watching her struggle with the silence that followed.

"I am not sure what she felt, or sensed," Bastila finally said after a considerable pause, "But whatever it was, she felt as if Master Kae might know. And who knows, perhaps she sought General Eden Valen out as well, after all."

"Where is Arren Kae now?" Carth asked.

The Jedi shook her head. "No one knows. She was exiled shortly after Valen was. She was even accused of influencing Revan's dissent through her teachings, for not seeing what would later become of her pupil. Unlike Eden Valen, however, Kae fell under the radar. No one has heard of, or from, her since."

"So that's where you think all of these other images are from? Places where Revan thought Kae might have been hiding."

Bastila nodded.

"What about General Valen?"

With another heavy sigh, Bastila lowered her head, looking away from the screen and at her hands instead. "Master Atris had been keeping tabs on her, but with the tragedy at Katarr…"

"Right, I'm sorry." Carth consoled as best he could, already guilty that he had forgotten, that he had failed to commit every Jedi's name to memory since learning who Nevarra really was, who Revan really was. Even still, he should have realized. In Nevarra's attempt to recover her memories as Revan, she had urged them both to keep rebuilding, for she feared the true storm had not yet come to pass. In the wake of the war, Carth was to continue supporting stable governments and weeding out the weaker systems, and Bastila was to bolster the Jedi ranks in whatever way she could, in secret if possible. Another massacre had urged some Jedi to begin preparing for such destruction in secret, sometime during or before the war, Carth could not remember. But whatever those plans were, Nevarra thought them wise. There was so much fear in her eyes before she left, and despite the waking worry that still kept Carth awake at night, he knew that Nevarra would tell him what troubled her if she knew, and understood her desire to find the truth of that fear alone. She still felt immense amounts of guilt over what she had done, but more importantly, what she had forgotten. If only Malak had listened, if only he had submitted and told her what he had known back then...

"She's still out there, I feel," Bastila began, closing her eyes as if it would better her memory, "we were almost rivals, you know, the exile and I. Prodigal padawans, each with a gift. She had her Force bonds and I had my battle meditation. I still think that she might not have been driven to war had the Masters not feared her power so, but…" Bastila let out a low breath, laced with regret and remembering, "We were friends, once."

She shook her head and opened her eyes again, this time looking pointedly at Carth.

"I know you're not one to believe in the Force, but I know you believe in her."

At the mention of 'her', Carth knew she meant Revan, even if in their more private moments she had expressed her desire to be known as Nevarra now, instead.

Carth nodded solemnly, still feeling far too unaware of it all, oddly unnerved at the fact that Bastila, a woman nearly two decades younger than he, would have a better idea of where his wife might be, and not just for the sake of being there but in the scheme of things, whatever that meant. He shook his head, and despite his doubts he knew that he trusted Revan, that he trusted Nevarra, far more than he trusted himself with anything the galaxy could throw at him, but he would counter each blow as it came, as long as it got him closer to her, no matter who she felt more like these days. He was ready for anything, anything other than the inaction that had plagued him since the day she left.

Gathering his resolve, Carth swallowed whatever doubts and frustrations had led him here and asked, "So, what comes next?"

Nevarra has asked him to remain calm, to trust him no matter what became of her, and regardless of the promise that both he and Bastila had made not to follow her, it was clear that neither of them were meant for inaction or idleness. But it wasn't just the foul feeling of being left in the dark with only blind trust for company that bothered him, it was an ever-pervasive bad feeling that gnawed at the outer edges of his mind, the same gut feeling he saw possessing Bastila now.

Despite their differences, they had this in common, at least.

Bastila read his expression, and nodded curtly, as if gathering all of the wandering thoughts in his mind and processing them in an instant. His observation was not far off, despite how much he lamented the fact, knowing that Bastila most likely probed the Force whether she meant to or not. In spite of decorum, he figured she may not be able to help herself given how palpable his raw emotions were stirring beneath the surface, something Nevarra used to make fun of him for…

"We find her." Bastila said. "Well, not her her, but-" she nodded towards the screen which now displayed General Eden Valen's somewhat disguised visage, Revan's near twin if one did not know any better.

"The last we heard of her according to Atris' records, she was working as a scavenger, particularly interested in post-war sites as you might well imagine. We don't have a heading, but-"

"We have Anchorhead. It's something. Hell, it's better than nothing," Carth heard himself say, though even his own voice sounded alien, as if it were transmitting itself to him from light-years away. Entranced with the image on screen, he conjured memories of Revan when he only knew her as Nevarra, a smart-mouthed recruit that just happened to escape the Endar Spire at his side. Part of him wished that things had stayed that simple.

Whatever ill omens Carth had collected over the past few months now seemed oddly intentional and somewhat justified in light of Bastila's shared convictions. The bad feeling that took root in his gut the moment Revan left spread outward and over his bones, settling in the depths of him. He wondered if this is what Bastila felt when she sensed 'disturbances' in the Force or what had Revan felt that night and prompted her to leave in the first place.

"We'll find her. We have to."

Bastila's eyes locked with his and after a moment she nodded, her face solemn but intent. Perhaps she felt sorry for him, and maybe there was good reason for it. Carth couldn't sleep, but it wasn't the lack of rest that bothered him. Whatever Bastila felt, whatever she knew, and whatever the Force told her, Carth could read it on her face – there was hope, and that was something.