3951 BBY, Peragus Mining Facility
Atton
"You're handy with that thing, you know that?" Atton said as he eyed Eden's pilfered shock stick after it granted them access to yet another jammed causeway. Eden snorted at his attempt to break the silence.
"I try," she said. Eden raised her eyebrows as she afforded Atton a glance, the first one in a while. Since they left Kreia behind, Eden had avoided Atton's line of sight entirely, as if acknowledging anything other than the hallway in front of her would allow their pursuers to catch up with them.
They made it through the bridge without uttering a single word to one another, and Eden had only muttered a few cryptic things while scanning the logs in the medbay. Atton didn't mind the silence for the moment. He had watched on in abject horror as the security feed at the medical terminal showed the walking corpse they'd left Kreia with escape from a kolto tank and proceed to kill everyone in the vicinity. Something about the man, or the man the Sith had once been, seemed oddly familiar to Atton once he saw the withered, scarred flesh up-close. If Atton had been yapping enough, he was afraid he might betray something from his past to Eden without realizing, so keeping things quiet was ideal.
"I'm serious," Atton continued, unable to keep the awe from his voice. As much as the quiet had been a comfort, Eden's unease was beginning to eat away at him now, if only because he was growing anxious the longer it took them to leave this damn ship. "That's a shock stick, probably the most pathetic weapon this side of the Outer Rim and yet you've managed to maim six stealth-cloaked assassins with it so far."
The muscle in Eden's jaw tensed again, pulsating like a tendril beneath her skin at Atton's words.
"I didn't just stun them," she said after a beat, her voice low. "I…"
Eden looked as if she wanted to swallow her words instead of say them.
"They're dead."
Atton didn't say anything. Part of him knew they left no survivors in their wake so far, but up until now he hadn't questioned how. Of course it didn't make sense on the surface, but it did the more he thought about it. Through the Force, Eden could probably amplify the electrical charge of the measly conductor at the end of her sorry excuse for a weapon. That and… Atton hated to admit it, but he hadn't thought at all about the lives they'd ended since the moment they stepped foot on this ship. They weren't lives to him, just obstacles.
"Still," he continued. "It's gotten us this far."
"Yeah, well let's hope it's worth it."
Eden tore her gaze away from Atton as she busied herself with a nearby security panel, something akin to shame passing over her face. She pressed sequences into the panel with a fury Atton was too scared to question until the door beyond opened only half an inch. Instead of trying anything else, Eden jammed her shock stick between the begrudging doors and forced them open with a thorough shove and a wave of electricity.
Atton tried not to look slack-jawed at the display, if only because the contents beyond the doors was more worthy of his awe at the moment.
"Holy hell," he breathed.
"Huh?" Eden breathed, winded, before taking a gander herself. "Holy hell is right."
Beyond the second-to-last malfunctioning door in the hall was a cache Atton wanted to own in full as soon as he laid his eyes on it. Thankfully undamaged, the room was full to the brim with the latest tactical equipment, rifles, blasters, melee weapons… Atton was hardly conscious in the span of time it took for him to cross the room and begin rummaging, placing weapons on his belt, in his pockets, anywhere he had room.
Eden took a more measured approach, slowly advancing into the room as her eyes did most of the exploring before her hands did. Atton felt her gaze scan the space in its entirety before settling on the far wall, taking a few blaster pistols and a few holsters along the way.
Despite the weapons other than the shock stick now hanging from her belt, Eden was particularly drawn to the collection of collapsible quarterstaves on display. Atton paused, watching as her right hand hovered reverently over the longest of the bunch. Eden's fingers closed over its hilt before she plucked it gingerly from its velvet cushion to test its weight in her palm. She tossed and caught it a few times before closing her fist tight over the grip, her knuckles growing white as she flipped a switch, elongating the staff instantly until it was about as long as she was tall.
Eden's eyes glazed over as she fell into formation, an entranced smile overcoming her as she stood facing an imaginary opponent on the other end of the room as she swung and parried at nothing and no one. Atton didn't realize he was staring like an idiot until Eden paused halfway through a formation, turning around to face him and pausing the instant she caught him ogling.
"What?" she croaked, the spell broken. Atton scratched the back of his neck before busying himself with the supply crate at his side again, aghast with the amount of battery packs and health stims loaded inside.
"Hey, does that bag you grabbed have pockets?" Atton changed the subject. "You might want to stock up."
Thankfully, Eden took the bait and retracted the staff as she approached. Atton swallowed and hoped whatever stupid expression just took over his face had dissolved by the time she neared. Eden whistled, looking at everything and anything but Atton again, and began filling her newly acquired bag.
Thank the Maker.
"We should get out of here sooner rather than later," Eden said as she stuffed a few more health stims into her already overflowing pockets. "I have a feeling we're beginning to overstay our welcome. Plus, we're rounding on the fuel line again so we should be only a few minutes from the Peragus hangar bay by now."
"Best news I've heard all day," Atton sighed, keeping another smile from his face though for a completely different reason this time. "Lead the way."
"Gladly."
There was only one other door in the corridor they could have exited from so it wasn't a wonder where to go next. Instead of the usual hallways they had come across so far, the last door opened up to a skeletal causeway that spanned the entire engine core. Eden pressed forward as if it were a hallway like any other, but Atton couldn't help but look down.
"Hey, can we… can we just scale it back a tick?" Atton asked, not sure if his request came across effectively as Eden continued forward without fault. "I just…"
Atton had never known himself to be afraid of heights but the sight of the engine's reactor at the center of the cruiser's engine several stories below with nothing to separate them but air and an un-railed metal causeway put his heart unexpectedly somewhere in his throat.
Atton's eyes bore into the glowing orange of the engine running beneath them, its ever-present humming now a deafening roar in his ears.
"We're almost there," Eden coaxed, "We just need to…"
He counted Eden's footfalls as they neared but he didn't look at her until the sound unexpectedly stopped.
Just as Eden approached him, she collapsed in a quiet heap, her eyes wide and staring as she cradled her left hand, mouth agape in a silent scream.
"Wh-what's wrong?" Atton sputtered as panic surged through him, any fears of falling into the engine core evaporating in an instant. "Are you alright?"
Eden paled. Atton rushed to her side, reaching for her hand as if another set of eyes might fix whatever plagued her. As soon as Atton's thumb brushed against her clammy palm, Eden snatched her hand back and whimpered. It wasn't a pitiful sound that escaped her throat but a harrowed one, like an apex predator caught in a hunter's trap, thrashing against painful restraints that kept it hurt and hindered. Atton's eyes scanned the length of her arm but found nothing wrong.
"Damn it, hold on," Atton groaned, wrestling against the sinewy weight of her as he wedged his arm under Eden's shoulder and lifted her up. "Can you walk?"
Eden winced but nodded as she leaned into Atton as he held her steady. He could feel her fighting beneath him for control, to stand on her own two feet, but even then she was barely limping with effort.
"I'll drag you if I have to," Atton said through gritted teeth, not betting he could make it out of here alone. "It's only a little farther, don't give up on me now."
Atton's earlier fear dissolved and made room for a new one to take its place, one that whispered a survivor, through and through insidiously in his ear. He glanced at Eden as he hauled her along. Her senses were thankfully returning, or so her blinking eyes told him. She at least wasn't losing consciousness, and despite Atton doing most of the work Eden's legs began making strides alongside his belabored ones as they limped in unison down the hall.
"What just happened to you?" Atton heard himself ask after a few tense moments, not realizing he'd spoken aloud as he tried to read the woman's expression, the color thankfully returning to her face.
"My hand…" she struggled, as if her tongue were too swollen to speak. Eden stilled, her breath steadying as her gaze finally settled. She exhaled deeply, before admitting "My hand felt like it was dipped in molten carbonite."
"Your hand is fine, I didn't see any injuries. Maybe you hit a nerve," Atton said, scrambling for logical ideas, "Or tore a ligament-"
"It's Kreia," Eden interrupted hoarsely, "I think she was wounded. Badly."
"Huh?" Atton's gaze flashed to Eden's hand again, finding it still intact. "How do you know that?"
They were nearing the access panel that would hopefully grant them passage out of here, and he hoped Eden would be cognizant enough by the time they got there to sprint if she had to as they made their dashing escape.
"I think… I think I felt what she felt, through the Force."
Eden winced as the words passed her lips, and somehow Atton knew the pain came from her admission and not whatever physical phantom pain had dogged her a few meters back. Atton didn't even know where to begin parsing out Jedi drama from what little he actually knew of their inner workings but a voice still repeated in his ear, a memory that refused to die, reminding him... It is your connection to the Force you must thank, for it is the reason you yet live.
"Look - if she's in pain, then that pain's buying us time we can't afford to waste." Atton leaned Eden up against the access panel as they approached it. "Especially if Sleeps-With-Vibroblades gets tired of playing with her and decides to use us for target practice next."
To their immediate relief, enough of Eden's strength had returned to keep her from collapsing completely without aid as Atton let go of her and hastily typed in a hackneyed security sequence, gaining them access to the other end of the fuel pipeline.
"Sleeps-With-Vibroblades, that's real cute," Eden grimaced, bracing herself between the access panel and the wall to stand upright on her own again. "And point taken."
"I can't even pretend to imagine whatever it is you're going through," Atton said, doing what he could to block access to the way they came by way of sabotage, overloading several of the access panels throughout the ship. "But at least you're bouncing back it seems."
"We'll see about that," Eden laughed darkly, shifting her weight from foot to foot. "This isn't exactly my best work."
Atton furrowed a brow at her before damaging the very console he was using with a bad code and a round of blaster fire just in case, urging Eden onward. The fuel line terminated in what looked like a bank vault, a large round seal of silvian iron barring access back to the station in a magnetic closure haloed in orange light.
"Huh," Eden whispered as Atton slammed his hand on the manual override panel, revealing a lever beneath. "My first saber hilt was made of this stuff."
Eden extended a reverent hand just as the door demagnetized and swung open. Atton was about to rue the fact that neither Eden nor Kreia had a lightsaber when his eyes fell on what lay before them beyond the open door. His desire that the opposite were true grew tenfold.
In the empty Peragus-side of the fuel line stood ten assassins, each in a state of decloaking as the vault opened.
"Shit."
Atton was about to ready his blaster again but before he could line up a single shot, each of the figures before them fell in an electric heap.
"Now you," Eden was already cooing as the bodies fell around them. "You I like."
The wave of assailants fell around them to reveal a single beat-up utility droid, its multifunction arm extended and brimming with electricity as it perked up at the sight of Eden.
"Haven't you learned your lesson about trusting strange droids?" Atton groaned, trying to ignore the body count as Eden made a point of doing just that. Eden tsked as if this was an ordinary conversation held under normal circumstances, as if they weren't running for their lives and surrounded by dead bodies.
"This little guy is our ticket onto the ship in the docking bay actually," Eden said, rubbing the droid's metal intelligence receptor. "He's the one that made our escape even possible, remember?"
"Ah yes, the lone droid you managed to contact from the main computer," Atton said.
"Don't go overdoing it, we need backup." Atton realized Eden was talking to the droid now, who whistled a belabored series of bleeps in response. "I appreciate you taking out that entire…" Eden looked at the body count with her peripheral vision, paling before she uttered, "legion... but I really need you to focus on getting us out of here. Understood?"
The droid stood at attention, its mechanical arm still extended. As if noticing it was still activated, the droid whirred as it retracted the arm and reenacted its previous maneuver as if no misstep had taken place. Atton rolled his eyes.
"When you said you had a thing with droids, I thought you were bragging. Now I realize it's just kind of… weird."
"I knew we couldn't trust the HK back there, and while I'm glad Kreia did what she did there was more information I wanted to get out of it first. But that's a story for another time." Eden stood again, rubbing her hands on her pant legs as if she hadn't just collapsed in utter agony minutes ago. "Can you lead us to the ship?"
She directed the last part at the utility droid, which perked up even more if that were possible and began zooming down the hall, begging that they follow.
"Here goes nothing," Atton muttered. He glanced at the closed fuel line hatch as they left it behind, growing smaller and smaller into the expanding distance, hoping that whatever he and Eden had done to bar the way was enough to buy them time.
He doubted it.
3951 BBY, Dantooine Grasslands
Mical
The Dantooine grasslands had always been quiet come nightfall, the silence only pin pricked with the occasional whistling of wind through grass. But now all was unearthly quiet and eerily so.
Ahead of him were Asra and Darek while Zayne trailed behind, his lightsaber unlit but at the ready.
"Beware of kath hounds," Mical warned the group as they edged onward into the dark. "They're most active at dawn and dusk."
The sun set not long ago, and while this side of the planet was already swathed in darkest night, it would be some time before the hounds roaming these hills would find rest. All was still for the moment, but Mical feared it would not be for long.
"Noted," Asra whispered from a few paces ahead of him.
Darek's silhouette nodded in acknowledgement as he led the way. Though limned in silver light, the tall grasses were thick enough to hide the depths of the landscape's sprawling fields, blanketing most of Mical's field of view in shadow. But Mical didn't need light to see. Not keen on advertising why, he fell into step behind Darek's lead, guided by a scope positioned over his right eye as he led them towards a spot Dillan had spoken of earlier.
"I don't see why the Republic wouldn't step in to help here, leverage or no," Mical muttered as he felt Zayne near him from behind. The semi-Jedi sighed and nodded in agreement.
"And now it's our problem," Zayne said. "Lucky us."
"It's like this everywhere," Asra huffed in an annoyed whisper. "Most of the Outer Rim, really."
"It's not right," Mical said, shaking his head.
"Why d'you work for 'em, then?" Asra pressed. "The Republic?"
"I didn't think I had a choice," Mical said. "In fact, they offered it as my only option."
"They?" Asra echoed.
"The Jedi," Mical answered, waiting for the confusion to settle in, but Asra only laughed.
"Oh, so you're another one, huh?"
Mical couldn't help but chuckle if not for the absurdity of it all - being here again yet placing his trust in a Sith no less to get him out of it.
"Well, sort of, not really," Mical began. "I had no one to train me, so I was shipped off. You could say the Jedi Civil War truly started during the Mandalorian Wars, what with so many of them either staying put and doing nothing or leaving for the front lines. I was left without a Master, so they sent me to the corps."
"Wait, really?" Asra truly paused now, stopping to turn and face Mical with a look of utter confusion. "They can turn away Jedi?"
"Oh yes," he said. "They do it all the time."
"I'm not really a Jedi myself," Zayne chimed in. "But that's a different story. And at least I got to build my lightsaber before being unceremoniously outed."
At this, Zayne nudged Mical playfully in the shoulder. Mical tried his best not to smile, wondering all the while what his first saber might have looked like if given the chance. He'd imagined it a few times when he was younger but had sworn off of what if's after the war. All he knew was that it wouldn't have looked like Zayne's, a butter-yellow blade erupting from a worm-like hilt cast in silver. It's a wonder Zayne's parents were bankers from Phaedra and not worm riders from the Dune Seas of Tatooine.
"Y'learn something new every day," Asra sighed. "I thought the Jedi just-"
Asra didn't finish. Mical almost dismissed her trailing sentence for disinterest before he realized she was no longer following Darek's lead and was instead frozen, looking at the ground.
"What is it?" Mical asked, stopping in his tracks and holding out an arm so Zayne quietly did the same. Darek paused ahead of them. Without a word, the man retrieved a glowrod from his belt and extended it, shedding a pale light on what had taken hold of Asra's attention.
At the tip of Asra's boot, almost hidden in the grass, was a blood-covered finger. Only the tip extended out of the thicket, as if pointing at them all, silently beckoning their attention. Asra swallowed, her gulp loud in the silence that followed, and parted the grass to reveal the rest of the body.
"A scavenger from the looks of it," Mical uttered, his throat thick with bile once he took in the full sight. "Still fresh, judging by the lack of… smell."
"I take it you were in the med corps?" Asra asked, furrowing her brow as she knelt beside the body to get a better look. With one arm still outstretched to reveal the corpse, she prodded what appeared to be a Sullust with the nose of her blaster. The body barely moved. Clad in spelunking gear and accompanied by several emptied satchels at its side, this was a scavenger alright.
"Unfortunately," Mical said. And this isn't even the worst of it.
Mical only knew the scavenger had been Sullust because of the jowl folds near its neck, otherwise the person's face had been beaten to such a bloodied pulp that all other features were indiscernible. Blood soaked the soil beneath the body but wasn't splattered on the grass.
"They were moved," Mical said, moving closer despite not wanting to. "They were beaten elsewhere, and then hidden here, and left to bleed out."
"Why here?" Asra asked in a shallow breath. "It's hardly out of the way."
The path they'd carved through the valley had been well-trodden, true. So that meant this was-
"An unintentional murder," Mical concluded. "This Sullust wasn't meant to die, at least not yet. Not here. Something or someone must have been coming, so the killer haphazardly hid the body and ran."
"The bags are empty," Darek said, shining the slim glowrod over the outturned satchels. "Could have been another scavenger, possibly. Jealous of this one's find."
"It's possible, especially since the main stores have been completely cut off since the Jedi Temple collapse, according to Dillan," Mical said, turning the idea over in his mind. "Maybe this sorry scavenger was the first to break the seal. We don't know much about their group, do we?"
"And neither does Administrator Adare," Zayne added. "I didn't realize you were a proper detective in addition to being a medical officer, a scout, and an historian."
Mical blushed as he stood, shrugging. "It comes with the medical gig," he said. "Determining cause of death is quite common when you join the corps in the middle of a war."
Zayne's expression soured at that, fast realizing that his humor wasn't about to lighten the fact that they were standing beside a body beaten to death.
"There's either in-fighting among the scavengers or they're getting closer to something they shouldn't be," Mical suspected, trying to gauge the time of death judging by how caked the blood was on the Sullust's fingers. "In which case that might lead us straight to this resistance force that Dillan and Adare are complaining about."
"But don't we already know that the Golden Company has moved in on the old Jedi Temple? If they've set up a stronghold there, it's only a matter of time until they bring in the equipment they need to dig deeper and get to the really valuable stuff," Zayne said. "If a scavenger was stupid enough to continue spelunking against their better judgment—"
"Wait," Mical cut Zayne off, a glint of white glistening out of the battered red of the Sullust's face. Gritting his teeth, Mical inhaled and held his breath as he approached with a gloved hand. With a tug, he tore the bit of white free from the beaten meaty flesh of the Sullust's mashed face.
"Is that… paper?!" Asra gasped, leaning into Mical to get a better look before growing disgusted at the blood and bit of residual tissue on the folded corners. "Hard to believe that stuff still exists."
"It is actually," Mical said, a bubbling anger growing in him as he realized just where this exact sheet of paper came from. Paper was still used by some, Erebus' notes and diagrams instantly coming to mind as he examined the piece in his hands now, but Mical knew this particular piece to be from the hidden Jedi stores overseen by Master Zhar Lestin. There were two sets of writing on the ancient page: one printed in primeval deep blue scrawl reading there is no ignorance, there is knowledge; the other was written hastily in red. Zayne and Darek leaned in now too, their eyes wide as they watched Mical unfold the bit of parchment.
"This is sacred text," Zayne seethed as the realization sunk in. He leaned closer to Mical, his shoulder jutting into his side as he nearly wrenched the paper from Mical's grip, but Mical held it firm. Mical shot the half-Jedi a pointed look before undoing the last crease, revealing the newly written message in full.
"This is your first and last warning," he muttered, gooseflesh rising along his arms as he read the scrawled crimson aurabesh. "The villagers are next. The Sandrals first."
Mical instantly recalled the face of Nurik Sandral, another local farmer from his childhood here. He'd smiled warmly, his dark eyes crinkling with mingled joy and relief when Mical and a fellow Padawan had returned his farm dog after the pup had run off to play in the fields around the Academy while the family was still training it to herd cattle. Though he doubted Nurik survived Malak's attack, the man did have children, and a son Mical particularly recalled for his interest in archaeology, one that very much mirrored his own if not inspiring it in the first place. There was no way of knowing whether Casus was the surviving Sandral on Dantooine without visiting the farmstead himself, but whoever it was now had a target on their back.
"They didn't say things were this bad," Asra shuddered. "This is a whole new level of wrong, and more than just another problem they've got on their hands if that's the case. Even if not everyone in these parts respects the Khoonda Initiative, they'll still be held responsible for stuff like this happening on their turf."
"You sure we can't chalk this up to a literal Sith taking up temporary residence on these grounds?" Zayne asked, though his question was more-so aimed at Mical than anyone else. "It can't be a coincidence."
"Positive," Mical said almost too quickly. No one had questioned Vash, the actual-certified Jedi that outwardly trusted Erebus more than anyone or at least gave the man the benefit of the doubt, even if nostalgia played an unwitting part in it alongside her mysterious Force visions. But it wasn't Master Vash that assured Mical's opinion. It was the way Erebus had handled himself back on Nespis - quick to lie but not quick to kill. At every turn, Erebus chose to incapacitate or stall their pursuers. While that didn't solidify the Sith's trustworthiness, it did confirm one thing for Mical.
"If it makes any of you feel better, my trust doesn't extend further than what I perceive to be his own selfish interests," Mical said. Now both Asra and Darek were watching intently, listening to his response with mingled doubt and curiosity. "Right now, we all have the same goal: to find Master Vrook. And so far as that is concerned, I have no doubt that the Sith will assist us in finding him. Beyond that is when I suspect we should be worried."
Mical worried, yes, but part of him was also curious just what the Sith was capable of. And while he didn't want to admit it to himself, he was eager to find out.
3951 BBY, Peragus Mining Facility
Eden
For unfortunately the umpteenth time today, Eden wiped blood away from her lip, knowing it still wouldn't be the last time she did so. It didn't help that it wasn't even her own blood.
"That the last of them?" she hollered toward the cockpit as the last assassin standing in the cargo freighter's common room collapsed among their comrades. Eden shoved the body aside, putting out of her mind the weight of them and the stench of death to follow, at least thankful that all their present pursuers were polite enough to wear masks rendering them each anonymous and easy to forget.
"It better be," Atton yelled back at her, his voice floating like an angry specter in her direction. "If it's not, I'm blowing this hunk of junk to pieces, mark my words!"
Eden followed the smuggler's ire, eventually finding him hunched over the pilot's controls with a black eye and a split lip, angrily typing in launch codes his bloodied fingers couldn't punch in fast enough.
"Where we headed?" Eden asked, suddenly remembering she had the Force at her disposal. Amid the mass of dead bodies and the pit of dread growing steadily in her chest, Eden felt a presence step onto the retracting loading ramp. "Wait-"
"Telos IV," Atton muttered, rolling his eyes and groaning as soon as he registered Eden's words. "What now, another one?!"
Atton groaned again as if a league of Sith Assassins were just another afternoon inconvenience, like a flurry of spam crowding your inbox or a persistent telemarketer chiming your apartment comm just a little too early in the morning.
"I'll handle this, just get us the hell out of here."
Eden stalked back to the loading ramp, wondering if she should shovel the remaining bodies out of the still-closing incline before she had to resort to the airlock once they were free of this ghost-outfit. It might help her sleep, eventually, if she could get the image of the miners out of her mind…
Eden readied her quarterstaff, elongating and readying it in the time it took her to approach the cargo freighter's garage. She turned the final corner toward the exit, staff at the ready, but there was no assassin awaiting her there - just a harrowed-looking Kreia gripping an empty sleeve with a white withered hand.
"Kreia!" Eden gasped as the old woman rushed past her, limping towards the cockpit. "Your hand, what happened?"
Kreia turned mid-stride and winced, her lip curling beneath her lowered hood.
"There is no time, we must leave," the woman uttered in a rushed breath. Eden followed on Kreia's heels until they arrived at Atton's back again. The man was muttering to himself and shaking his head, but even as Atton acknowledged their presence he did nothing to voice it, the frustration on his face only growing more pronounced as the ship moseyed out of the docking bay and flew uncertainly into the asteroid field ahead.
"If they hit us, we're dead. But if they keep missing us, we're dead! That's great odds," Atton moaned as his fingers continued making delicate but deliberate calculations with lightning speed.
"Never mind the odds, you can get us out of here, right? What about hyperspace?" Eden asked, leaning against the co-pilot's chair as she glanced at the peripheral monitors, watching the Harbinger detach from the fuel line and pursue with all blasters firing. A few asteroids jostled ahead of them, some smaller ones combusting uncomfortably close as the ship sped past.
T3-M4 reiterated Eden's sentiment, asking if Atton could use the asteroid belt's map to jump beyond the fray and slingshot the ship into hyperspace, but Atton's eyes only flashed with absolute rage.
"Somebody shut that trash compactor up!" Atton hissed. "I need to concentrate."
"I take it that's a no," Eden muttered at T3 who bleeped morosely in response.
"What of the asteroids?" Kreia asked. "They can be destroyed by us as well as them, can they not?"
Atton sighed, his shoulders slumping as he shook his head, considering Kreia's question just as much as it clearly bothered him to do so.
"That'll take out the whole field, the colony, and maybe us. We may not even be able to jump to hyperspace in time."
But Kreia was unwavering. She steadied herself against the cockpit wall and nodded, resigning her fate to whatever Atton decided.
"Then we die here. Choose now."
Kreia's words fell heavy into the silence that followed. T3 nudged his head in Eden's direction, a silent blip clear in his expectant eyes, aglow with worry.
"There has to be another way," Eden said, her eyes still locked on T3's intelligence module. "Can we keep evading them until we clear the field?"
Atton cocked his head and grimaced, weighing the possibility of Eden's request even as he tried it, keying in sequence after sequence whilst maneuvering the manual controls all the while. Eden white-knuckled the co-pilot's chair as they swerved every which way, evading both blaster fire and asteroid debris. It only took moments before the Harbinger began deploying its heavy artillery, blasting several asteroids at once, growing closer with each strike.
"Shields are down to sixty-two percent," Atton said, still typing furiously as Eden finally took the co-pilot's chair.
"Rerouting emergency power to the shields," she said as she took command of the computer, her eyes scanning the readouts as their chances of surviving grew lower and lower.
Atton shook his head again and laughed, a dark look lacing his hungry eyes.
"Looks like they already hit life support, it's-"
"Offline," Eden finished for him, sighing as she keyed in another command only for the co-pilot's screen to scream at her in flashing red letters that there was only roughly four minutes left of oxygen left on the ship. If an asteroid didn't do them in, they'd be gasping for air until one finally blew them to bits.
Eden swallowed hard, her saliva almost a stopper in her throat as she tried to digest the idea forming in her mind just as she was about to speak it into existence.
"We don't have any choice," she said, her voice gravelly, a ghost of something it once was on a day nine years ago when she uttered something similar to an Iridonian engineer, waiting expectantly for her order. "Do it."
Atton's eyes flashed wide in her direction, unsure, but he paused once he caught her steely gaze. Eden held her ground and nodded. Atton maintained eye contact, as if hoping Eden might change her mind, but after a beat he let out a harrowed sigh and shook his head, relenting.
"Whatever you say, captain."
As you say, General, the Iridonian had said to her on the bridge of the ship Revan had gifted her all those years ago. He was so sure, so confident, Eden felt the pride radiate from him as he made it so. No pride radiated from Atton now, but the memory hurt now just as it had then, or shortly after, like a splinter in Eden's mind. Only this time, the dread of death did not follow, it preceded the blow, and the decimation of Peragus wiped her slate clean.
Atton input the command for the chase cannons to fire, punching the execute button on completion and turning around as if he might be able to see the damage through the metal walls that separated them from the disaster that was no doubt to come.
Eden instructed the stern-facing cams to display on the cockpit's dashboard, presenting for them all in full color the utter destruction of the asteroid belt that surrounded the Peragus station behind them. Atton had only been given a second to act, but within that moment he was able to pin-point an already pirouetting mid-size asteroid. When the torpedo struck, the debris didn't just obstruct the advancing Harbinger, but set off a chain reaction of explosions that made it virtually impossible for the Republic cruiser to follow. Just as the explosions neared the open fissure of the Peragus gas giant, Atton slammed the controls. The explosions, the Harbinger, and the soon-to-be-destroyed station all swirled into a distant white-blue blur as they finally jumped to hyperspace.
"Well now that we just destroyed a planet," Atton gasped, letting out a massive breath as he relinquished his command of the keyboard now set to autopilot. "Maybe one of you can tell me what the hell is going on?!"
Neither Kreia nor Eden rushed to speak. Atton turned in his seat and looked furiously between the two of them, fuming as he awaited an answer. "Between assassin droids, a man that looks like he sleeps with vibroblades, and being target practice for a Republic warship, I was better off in my cell."
"That Republic warship was the Harbinger, bound for Telos," Kreia directed at Atton, though Eden recalled already relaying this bit of memory to him earlier, not that the reiteration would ease him any, "And many roads lead to Telos – as does ours."
"Not like we have much of a choice, the Peragus astrogation charts being what they are, but – wait a minute, how did you—?"
"The navigation history of this ship is locked, last I checked," Kreia said. "I assume the Peragus staff had no luck otherwise, so that is where we must go since it was where the Harbinger was bound before our unfortunate encounter on Peragus."
"Unfortunate is one way of putting it," Atton scoffed as he turned back to the controls again.
"An unfortunate coincidence that at least made sure we saved your sorry ass," Eden said. Atton's eyebrows shot up as he turned around to better register Eden's barb, as if to verify she'd even said it, both shocked and guilty at the admission before returning his attention to the controls.
"True," Kreia resigned in unison, "Though as one trained in the Force, you know that genuine coincidences are rare."
There are no coincidences, there is only the Force Alek's memory repeated in Eden's mind as she watched the old woman. Kreia's eyes remained veiled, but Eden felt her gaze bore into Atton's back at the controls, now pointedly turned away from them as if in protest despite their part in saving his life.
"One coincidence I cannot yet reconcile, however, is how we made it to Pe–" Kreia began, piecing their journey together before T3 butted in with a series of bleeps that drowned the woman out. "Be silent! We're having a conversation here."
"He says he repaired the ship once we first escaped the Harbinger and got us to Peragus," Eden translated, piecing together the droids' remaining string of binary as it spoke despite Kreia's rude protests.
"Repaired this ship, my eye," Atton grumbled. "Next thing you know it's going to claim credit for saving our skins from that Sith Lord."
Kreia snapped her head back in Atton's direction, a smirk crossing her face. "And how would a smuggler like you know a Sith from a shyrack?"
"I fought in both wars," Atton countered. "Overdramatic, weird get-up? Revan and Malak set quite the precedent; I can only assume that a walking corpse would be the next best thing at inspiring fear among the masses."
"That Sith attacked you out there? In space?" Eden directed at Kreia now, feeling about as stupid as she sounded once she heard the words cross her lips. She grimaced, swallowing what she was about to say next and planning her next words this time before she spoke. "I know it sounds obvious, but from what I remember, when the Harbinger came across this ship, the other they found in stalemate was empty. There were no life signs on board."
Eden wasn't sure what response she anticipated, but Kreia's pointed stare answered it all.
"Oh."
She'd only heard stories. Revan was known more for her cunning than for her predilection for the Dark Side despite her claim to the Sith mantle, but Eden remembered what they'd said about fallen Jedi like Exar Kun and Ulic Qel Droma, and the things those men were capable of. The image of the man from the Harbinger's barracks, half-dead yet walking still, somehow made more sense now – his garb, his gait. He was either rekindling whatever lost empire Kun had promised decades ago or he had been a part of it once.
"That man we saw back on the Harbinger," Eden began, her throat already dry as the realization settled into her bones as she accepted the truth of it. "He's the reason we had to escape? To Peragus, I mean."
"Do you recall any more of it now?" Kreia asked, curiosity lacing her voice more than concern. Eden shook her head.
"A little. I remember the luxury power going out, and making my way to the medbay." What she did remember more of now was Tatooine and the moments before she fled, her records laid bare for the entire galaxy, a league of mercenaries already counting the credits they'd claim for the price on her head as they stalked her shop. But more than that, at the very forefront of her memory was Aiden, all grown up and cloaked in night-colored cloth, his eyes an inhuman green, luminous as a poisonous plant when they set with rage at the sight of her. "Why are the Sith after us?"
"The better question is why the Sith are after you," Kreia corrected. Eden winced, willing the image of her brother away. "You are the last of the Jedi. Once you are dead, then they have won."
"But I'm not a Jedi, I was exiled," Eden snapped, wishing to say more but finding her tongue suddenly too dry to obey her. I left. I warned them but they didn't listen, and I chose to leave.
"Exiled or not - the Sith believe you to be a Jedi Knight, and that's all that matters."
"Technicalities aside, I know I'm not the last Jedi," Eden sighed, frustration mounting in her bones alongside a palpable exhaustion that was beginning to weigh heavy. She gestured vaguely at Kreia though no intelligible words passed her lips. Before Eden could feel bashful for half-accusing Kreia of being a Jedi or otherwise, or finishing her original thought, her eyes fell on the woman's injured arm, limp and lifeless. "Shit, we can talk about this later, you need to rest."
Without another word, Eden rushed to Kreia's side and urged her down the hall, Atton's sigh of relief following them as they came upon the bodies piled in the common area. Bile rose in Eden's throat just as Kreia extended her good hand, sending the pile towards the loading ramp and out of sight.
"You can't be so injured if you can muster that," Eden muttered as she ushered Kreia along to the first dormitory they came upon, already hoping there were others, not eager to share a bunk with anyone just yet. Kreia smirked, a ghost of a laugh coloring her deep voice as she entered the room and sat on the nearest bed.
"I'm surprising even myself now, it seems," Kreia said. She adjusted her robes, smoothing the brown fabric over her lap, eliminating the creases with her remaining hand.
"You may not be the very last Jedi," Kreia continued the conversation from the cockpit, her voice finally betraying whatever agony her missing hand was causing her. "But the Jedi Civil War nearly destroyed them. By war's end, barely a hundred Jedi remained. Many fell in battle… and many more were seduced by Revan's teachings."
"But what about the Jedi on Dantooine? And Coruscant?"
Kreia sighed, as if gathering strength before answering.
"The Jedi Academy on Dantooine is nothing more than a crater that echoes with the ghosts of dead Jedi. And the Jedi Temple on Coruscant lies empty. The waters in the Room of a Thousand Fountains have fallen still, in reverence to the fallen Jedi… and those now lost."
Kreia let out a harrowed sigh but remained upright, steadying herself as she gathered her thoughts.
"Many Jedi blamed the teachings of other Jedi Masters for Revan's fall… and the civil war that followed."
"If any survivors still live, then we need to warn them," Eden breathed, thinking of Atris and Kavar, despite the change in their demeanors the last they spoke. Like the parents Eden hardly remembered, her father least of all, they still felt like blood to her and the idea of them being hunted down made a forgotten part of her hurt more than she expected.
"Perhaps, but they are Jedi no longer. If the Sith have not already slain them, then they will not help you, nor can you help them."
Eden stilled. Then they are Jedi no longer. She wanted to question Kreia, ask her to elaborate, but part of her already knew. If things had grown this bad, then any dissolution of the Jedi meant that the Code was already thrown to the wind. So long as the Jedi did not preserve and protect the Republic, they were only Jedi in memory.
"Then how do we stop these Sith?"
"That… is not an easy question to answer. This threat is greater than you know, and I believe it is not a battle that can be fought." The old woman gripped her stump of a wrist, wreathed in the hollow of her sleeve, "but I have just as complicated of a past as you, which is why I sought you out myself. I believed the Sith would come as soon as you returned to Republic Space…"
"Your hand—" Eden began, her eyes stilling as the memory seared itself back into being, a flash of unbearable heat followed by impossible cold shuddering over her own wrist at the recollection. "When you lost it, I felt it too."
"That does not surprise me – any more than you hearing my thoughts when we were apart aboard Peragus. The pain, however, was unexpected. If I could, I would have shielded you from it."
Eden had felt the pull of the Force when those died around her, the echoes of her platoon's deaths on Dxun still a wound in her mind if not in the Force itself since she'd been dead to it. At least until now. But sensing a stranger's thoughts, a stranger's pain – that was something she had never heard of before, let alone something she wanted to grapple with.
"If I felt the loss of your hand, what would have happened if you had died?"
"I do not know," Kreia resigned, her voice tired, "I fear that the consequences would have been more… extreme."
"Could it have been lethal?" Eden asked, wondering if the pins and needles she felt in her hand were conjured of her own imagination or some inkling of what Kreia felt now.
"Possibly, yes," Kreia whispered. "And I fear it might work both ways. I would not wish to test it, nor should you."
"I can agree to that."
Kreia nodded and sighed, leaning into the bunk she sat on until she was laying down in full. Her hood still covered most of her face, but from this angle Eden spied the sliver of white that encompassed Kreia's blind eyes, both answering her inner suspicions while also raising more questions.
"I have more questions," Eden said, wondering just how much of her inner thoughts Kreia could surmise sans conversation, "But I'll let you rest."
Kreia almost laughed, chuckling at first but coughing instead before she shook her head. "Yes, I think that's wise."
Eden watched as Kreia surrendered to exhaustion, wishing to do the same, but knowing that the tumult inside her head would keep her awake as long as it would keep her. Eden backed out of the room, mind ablaze. But despite all of the questions that roamed her brain, the one she kept circling back to was about her brother, and where he factored into the Sith hunting her now.
3951 BBY, Dantooine Outback
Erebus
Agreed the almost-Jedi had said, looking Erebus dead in the face, his blue eyes almost black as his pupils dilated at the sight of him, both cautious of what he was getting himself into as well as eager to do whatever necessary to meet his goals.
Erebus had sensed it in Mical back on Nespis: the drive, the ambition. But unlike Erebus', it was tempered by even-mannered civility and sharpened by the edges of realistic expectation.
Erebus did not anticipate waking to the memory of the man's face, as if having dreamt of Mical, or least of all thought of him. The remainder of his slumber was a pleasant blur, consisting otherwise of agreeably empty thought highlighted only with deepest rest. A dreamless sleep. And still, he awoke to the memory of Mical's face, agreeing to something Erebus knew he too would one day come to regret…
"Feeling any better?" a voice asked from beyond the closed door, echoing in his cargo bay.
"Barely…"
Erebus sat up in his cot, willing the energy to rush into his bones only to find himself cringing with the movement, his ribs surely bruised.
"Well, at least you're not lying." Vash was in his peripheral vision now, looking worried. The woman stepped into the doorway, crossing her arms over her chest as she watched him struggle. Erebus would laugh were it not for the sharp pain that threatened to plague his sides if he did.
"I do that quite a lot, actually," Erebus groaned as he got to his feet. Now that he was standing, his body actually felt better for it, as if operating on a delay. Once his vision cleared, blacking out at the edges for just a moment before overcompensating and growing hyper-focused on the room around him, his limbs felt lighter, his head unclouded.
"Hm," was all Vash managed. Aside from her sour mood, Erebus felt better than he had in days.
Despite the lack of view, there was something eternally comforting about his bunk. Tucked at the back of the ship, it was the closest thing Erebus had to a home in the last six years. Other than the occasional few-month stint he'd spend researching in his corner of the Trayus Academy, Erebus spent most of his time exploring the utmost edges of the Outer Rim, occasionally toeing the line into Unknown Regions territory. And all the while this ship was his anchor, this room his sanctuary.
"I did my best to heal your wounds, but you probably know that the damage is worse than that," Vash muttered. "What I want to know is if it's worth it?"
The Dark Side of the Force. None of what Erebus had managed through his connection to the Force was particularly dark in nature, but the way he fueled it was. Not only that, but he'd been running on no sleep and several injuries all compounded on each other until his body could no longer handle it without collapse. That is, unless he were to take a page from Nihilus' book.
"It was for the moment," Erebus relented. "Though I'm sure you know of far worse fates."
Vash's mouth thinned to a line as she watched him get up and cross the room. The more he shifted the better he felt, the movement lubricating his joints enough to ease the stiffness though not completely dull the pain. Another day should do it. He'd been in worse spots before, but never with a talented Force wielder by his side to channel the Force into his healing. There were a couple of acolytes back at the Trayus Academy assigned to Erebus that would travel with him on occasion - Mellric and Uruba, one Twi'lek and one Mirialan - but neither had particularly strong connections to the Force and were instead tasked to mind Erebus' pilfered artifacts and run tests at his request. Uruba had healed him twice, and she was quite good at it, but just as good as any non-sensitive medic might be. He wondered if either of his acolytes cared that he was gone, if only because it meant they were bored without an assignment to keep them busy.
"I've been open-minded so far," Vash sighed eventually after giving Erebus the space to stretch and work the sleep from his eyes. "But now I need some questions answered, if we're to continue traveling together."
Erebus read every line in her face, watching as Vash's mouth pressed into an even thinner line if it were possible, her lips nearly white with the effort. Erebus inhaled, readying himself for a conversation he knew he didn't want to have, and exhaled as he released his discomfort and launched into a characteristically sardonic reply.
"Where should I begin?" he smiled, but Vash's expression remained unchanged. "I can tell you my favorite color, or perhaps my favorite bit of Sith history if you're feeling rusty."
Vash didn't even sigh in response. She waited a beat, blinked, and spoke as if Erebus hadn't said anything at all.
"Something tells me I should play along with this slave masquerade your friend has now created for us, though I relish to think at where she got that idea," Vash said in a single displeased breath. "But aside from that, I'd like to know what she meant by sending you the Japrael System, not just to meet with your eponymous Sith Master, who as you can imagine I'm just dying to meet, but what plans you're to be resuming there?"
"That?" Now Erebus truly wanted to laugh. "That's why you're upset? That this has suddenly gotten political?"
Vash didn't say anything, but her seething silence gave Erebus the answer he expected.
"It's not as devious as you might think," he said. "We have no interest in the fate of Onderon itself, just what's hidden on its moon. It's been overrun by Mandalorian clans so we can't survey the area without stirring something. But as you likely know, the temple there belongs to a certain Freedon Nadd, the very Sith responsible for turning Exar Kun to the Dark Side. So you can see why it's imperative that you play along with this unfortunate charade, no? We might find some real connection between Kun and Revan, or wherever it is you think this bread trail of yours is leading."
He made it sound as if it were one-sided, but Erebus couldn't deny how curious he was about the pyramids and how they factored into both Exar Kun's and Revan's histories, however mysterious.
"Hm," Vash hummed, her eyes narrowing. "Does this have anything to do with your sister as well?"
"My-?" Erebus sputtered.
"Well?" Vash pressed.
Erebus swallowed. "It's just a theory, but given what I saw from my link with Eden during the war, I have a feeling this is all connected somehow. My sister, Revan, Exar Kun… but how did you know?"
Vash's expression eased, her mouth relaxing as she sighed.
"Intuition, mostly. I see a lot of your sister in your work, or at least I see you've revisited the places she's been," Vash admitted, letting out a loosed breath. She walked beyond the doorway and into the cargo space now, her eyes scanning Erebus' many notes and diagrams lining the walls. "But I thought you said she never turned to the Dark Side?"
"No, never," Erebus said, his voice a husk, almost a whisper. "But she's everywhere on the Outer Rim. When I didn't sense her through the Force anymore, I think part of me just wanted to seek her out. Even if only as a ghost. But it's odd, no? That everywhere a Dark Jedi tread, Eden had been there as well?"
Erebus expected Vash to perk up with shared curiosity, but she didn't.
"So you weren't hunting her?" Vash countered. He leaned into the doorframe, as if physically taken aback as he was mentally by her response. He was, of course, were it not for the brief moment he spent on Anchorhead mentally calculating whether capturing and bringing Eden in to Nihilus for further study was an option worth weighing.
"No, of course not." Erebus said before huffing a hollow laugh." "Is that what this is really about?"
But that won't stop Sion from hunting her, Erebus thought, thinking back to what Visas said, at least comforted by her assertion that Nihilus was not after Eden. At least not yet.
"I'm sorry," Vash said, "It's just… she's been on my mind a lot these last nine years. I worry that we did the wrong thing. That letting her go, exiling her… that it only put a target on her back. Away from us. To deflect blame, maybe, to avoid the introspection we so desperately needed. But mostly… blame. Yes, blame. There just… is no better word for it."
Well, you're not wrong.
Erebus didn't say it, but he might as well have, judging by the look of guilt that crossed Vash's face.
"I want to blame you," she said, her voice harrowed suddenly, stricken with emotion that she quickly swallowed before continuing, "But I blame us more."
"Us?" Erebus echoed. "The Jedi Council, you mean?"
A flash of recognition crossed Vash's face before she nodded fervently, willing her emotion to nothing as a look of calm took its place.
"Our Council had a lot to answer for. For Revan's betrayal, for what our Jedi protege committed during the war that preceded it, but also… for our inaction. For letting the Mandalorians do what they did, and to the point to which we let it escalate."
"So that's why you're trusting me," Erebus said, "You think this is your penance, your payment for what happened back then?"
Vash didn't say anything, but she didn't have to.
Erebus wanted to refute her, to laugh at her and call her folly. But he couldn't. Maybe she was right. And maybe this was his punishment for abandoning faith in his sister long before that.
"Okay, I'll bite, and I'll be honest this time," he said, his voice low. He knew little of what political nonsense brewed on Onderon now, but he was willing to loose what he did know if it meant getting closer to what Nihilus was after, to what Eden had found on that moon years ago. "What is it you want to know about my business in the Japrael System?"
"It's not about what I want to know, exactly but who we may encounter there," Vash said, but now it was Erebus' turn to interrupt.
"Wait, wait, wait. You know someone on Onderon, someone that could blow our cover. That's what this is about," he near whispered, the realization sending a wave of goosebumps down his arms as he spoke the revelation into existence. "And not just anyone, but someone also close to Eden."
Vash could only look at Erebus with a steely stare, hoping that he would be kind enough to play along just as much as she was, so long as it meant seeing this Force vision through to the end, wherever that led them.
"It's Kavar, isn't it?"
Eden's would-be Master had chosen a seat on the Council over becoming her tutor, and Erebus never forgot the red-hot ire Eden felt in the wake of his choice. Some in the Order had whispered that it was his dismissal that led Eden to follow Revan to war. From what Erebus knew, the rumor was not far from the truth.
"It will complicate things," Vash said evenly, verifying Erebus' suspicion as a world of worry began to brew behind her eyes. "If we are to make it through this, it will have to be done carefully."
"That goes without saying," Erebus breathed, exasperated.
Vash sighed and turned to face him again, in full. Her dark eyes looked him up and down, but carefully now and without disdain, a knot forming between her brows before she spoke.
"What does it feel like?" Vash asked, her voice soft, almost faraway. "The Dark Side of the Force?"
Erebus didn't know what to say. It was many things, as the Force was by nature, always. But where the Light flourished in peace and balance, the Dark Side fed off of emotion: fear, anger… and each time Erebus drew from it, it was -
"Cold," he said eventually. Even when his anger ran hot, it was numbing, like touching ice for far too long. "It's always cold."
Vash's eyes honed in on his own as she nodded, once, twice slowly and then a third time, definitively, as if affirming the thought for herself more than she was outwardly acknowledging that she understood what he said. "Why does it take so much out of you?"
"The Dark Side isn't all the Jedi warn it to be," Erebus said, a laugh forming at the base of his throat but refusing to erupt despite the irony of the situation. Vash was watching him with rapt attention, and Erebus wondered if anyone who never delved into the Dark Side could truly know what it was like without experiencing it for themselves. If his words would do it any justice. "It feeds off emotion, yes, but not just negative emotions, but baser ones. The stronger the better, which is why anger and fear are so prevalent, but it's more than that. It's like wading through a pool. The Light is more like a pond or a basin, easier to float in and become one with, to find balance. But the Dark Side is more like an ocean… it's like diving fathoms deep and not coming up for air. You can either stay down there and adapt to the pressure, or eventually come up for air."
Erebus opened his mouth, about to launch into another description, but instead he paused and pursed his lips. It wasn't his best work and he was willing to chalk it up to exhaustion, but despite his less than stellar explanation Vash nodded, a look of knowing overcoming her features as she soaked in what Erebus said.
"When your sister came to the Council for judgment," she began, swallowing a breath before continuing, still searching for the right words in the pause, "She felt… empty, but not as if she were lacking. It was as if… she existed over a chasm, or an abyss, unfathomably deep and full of pain, and not entirely her own. I described it as a blackhole earlier, but it was more than that. She was like a wound, but with a gravitational pull."
Like Nihilus, Erebus thought.
"But you're right, she didn't feel…" Vash sighed, "She didn't feel Dark herself, but as if she might be pulled in at any moment, like swimming at the mouth of a whirlpool on the edge of a storm."
"I'm surprised you remember so much," Erebus said, missing his sister even as he recalled the exact feeling Vash described, recalling the sensation itself the last time he felt her through the Force the day before.
"There isn't a day I don't think about it," Vash admitted. "Not just out of guilt, but because that feeling, that feeling…" Vash shook her head, her eyes far off in memory, "It's so visceral, and so… haunting. I cannot forget it."
Erebus said nothing, knowing there was more truth to what Vash had said earlier about seeing Eden in his work. Perhaps the reason he'd been so easy to break wasn't just because Atris had so battered his resolve, but because he was so desperate to reunite with his twin that he was willing to align himself with the next best thing – Nihilus, death personified and negated all in one.
"We find Vrook first," Vash said eventually, after soaking in the silence that followed between them. "Then we can worry about the rest."
The rest? Erebus wasn't surprised that other Jedi remained but he had to wonder who else had survived the massacre at Katarr. If fate would have it, he would soon find out.
"Will your employer want an update on that, too?" Vash asked, her voice pointed and sharp.
"Likely," Erebus said. "But if I take out the Golden Company, here and now, that should quell any disquiet he has about my being here."
"Curious that your friend failed to mention that," Vash added. "Especially after she killed the remaining mercenaries in that room with us."
"As much as I'm not fond of her, I am glad of her for that at least," Erebus huffed with relief at the thought in hindsight. "But you're right. If the Golden Company are after any remaining Jedi or Jedi artifacts, I'm surprised she didn't ask us further questions. My Master was on Nespis, and as you guessed is likely the reason it no longer exists, but still… to think that would be the end of it is short-sighted."
Vash nodded in agreement, though her eyes were shining, her lips pursed again. Erebus cocked his head, wondering, before the realization dawned on him. Oh.
"Your… Master," Vash asked, her voice choked before she regained her composure. She straightened herself, pushing her shoulders back as she shook off her emotion again. "You uttered his name, back there in the old medbay."
Shit. He had, to Visas. Not that it mattered if Vash knew, but part of him had made an internal point to keep these two spheres of his life – past and present – forever separate. Somehow, betraying to Vash the name of the entity behind the deaths of so many Jedi was something he did not want to be held responsible for. But the dam had broken, and he was the one who threw the first stone.
"That name," she continued. "Was it… chosen?"
"Chosen?" Erebus balked.
Vash nodded.
"Exar Kun and Ulic Qel Droma never changed their monikers. Revan never told us her true name, but was called Revan when she was found. I was first introduced to Darth Malak as Squint, and though his given name was Alek he later began calling himself Captain Malak during the Mandalorian Wars. And as for you—"
"Ah, I see…" Erebus breathed, understanding the truth of Vash's question now, a discomfort rising within him at the thought. Do you really want to get into this right now? "I believe it was attributed to him in the aftermath."
"Aftermath?" Vash asked, her face scrunching up at the word. Erebus smiled a sour smile.
"Of Malachor."
"Malachor," Vash echoed, her face growing a shade paler though her expression betrayed nothing otherwise. "He was a survivor of Malachor V?"
Erebus only nodded. Vash's eyes went wide but said nothing else. That meant Nihilus had either been a Mandalorian, a Jedi, or a Republic soldier, but he would relish in letting Vash try to figure that one out for herself, divulging nothing further.
"It's possible his original name was forgotten, but it would be ironic if it were not chosen, no?" Erebus was trying to be funny, trying to cut the tension in the room with anything he had, but he came up empty. Vash did not laugh.
Nihilus. It was almost a joke. Not that it made the truth of what Nihilus was any less terrifying. If anything, it was absolute truth in advertising. But Sion? Erebus had never heard that name before, and what words he knew in other languages he was familiar with did not align with anything about the man – he was likely born with that name and too stubborn to part with it. As for their Master? Rumor had it she'd created it as a title to be passed down to her true successor. So far, no one else had been up to the task.
"And Erebus… where does that name come from?"
At this Erebus laughed, his voice hollow and his memory aching. He looked down, almost bashful, before looking up at Vash again through the waved fringe of his long hair, feeling very much the child again in her presence.
"Aiden was my grandfather's name, and while I remember being fond of the man once I never liked the idea of borrowinghis name as well. Because that's what it felt like… borrowing," he said, wondering if he'd ever truly felt like his own person until he left that back alley on Coruscant caked in his own blood, beaten and broken but seeing more clearly than he'd ever had before. "Erebus was also borrowed I guess, though I don't remember where from. An old myth maybe, my research never dredged up anything concrete. But the name always stuck. So even if I'd heard it before, even if it was borrowed… it was still chosen."
Chosen. Aiden had never been chosen for anything. Never the first choice. At least not as a Jedi. His appointment as Atris' apprentice had not been ideal, at least not for her, and while Nihilus was more hunger than man at least he had chosen Erebus to work for him, even if he had killed his original Sith Master to accomplish it, denying him of the honor of inheriting his Darth title other than by appointment only. It was something, and up until now it had been more than enough.
"Very well then," Vash said after a long moment, realizing Erebus would not reveal more. A wealth of emotion welled in her eyes – something akin to disappointment – though nothing crossed her features, which were still as stone. Vash blinked and her curiosity was willed away, slate clean, "I should… work on my acting skills. If we're to get away with this charade of yours."
"It's not my charade, I didn't come up with it," Erebus countered, though this time he didn't have the heart to be snarkier about it. "But you're right. We both need to work on our story if this has any chance of working."
You may bring your Jedi slave if you wish, Visas' voice echoed in his mind. Though Master may have other plans for her.
Not if Erebus had anything to say about it. Not if Erebus didn't have other plans of his own.
