Shattered Knight

by Tim Radley

KoTOR: Eight months on from the fall of the Star Forge the expected peace has not come to the Republic. The news of Revan's return has become a source of schism and conflict within the galaxy, and Revan himself has his own demons to face.

4. Sea of Madness

4. Sea of Madness

The Force swirled with raging tides of insanity.

Bastila could feel the echoes of recent, violent death like spreading ripples on a pond – thousands upon thousands of deaths. That echo of death wasn't the worst of it though. There was also an oily, whispering taint that spoke directly to the darkness inside her. She couldn't, consciously, understand the words being said, but they set her teeth on edge and left her wanting to scream – to bury her head in her hands and weep.

At her side, Zikl was silent and tense. The Nautolan's green skin looked paler than usual, slightly greasy. Through the Force, she was aware of his uncertainty. Perversely, she found his discomfort almost comforting, though another part of her hated herself for that; the bitter pettiness of it.

"Manarb Station should be there in front of us," Captain Rafe Organa was saying, his voice tight. The view screen in front of them was resolutely blank, save for the yellow-green arc of Manarb V – a sickly looking methane gas giant.

"Hate to break it to you Captain, but it ain't." Canderous's reply was typically sour.

"Sir, we've picked up an entry wake," one of the bridge officers on sensor duty stated.

"The station?" Organa didn't wait for a response, able to fill in the answer well enough for himself. "Centre on it."

Abruptly the gas giant grew to fill their entire view, its atmosphere a mass of swirling storm patterns, all in noxious shades of yellow, green and brown. They zoomed in on a particularly turbulent patch that looked almost bruised, darker than the surrounding cloud.

"There, sir. Sensors detect traces of metals consistent with Republic hull materials several hundred kilometres deep."

"Could it still be intact?"

"Er, sir?" The officer sounded slightly sick. "All that we're picking up is fragments. The rest of it must be too deep for sensors to register. At that pressure and turbulence, and the radiation levels it would be experiencing . . .. There's not a chance, sir."

Manarb relay and supply station had been home to getting on for six thousand Republic fleet, intelligence and research personnel. Although it was hardly the busiest waypoint in the Republic, at any one time it was still likely to have somewhere in the region of a dozen ships, ranging from heavy cruisers to light military transports and medical vessels, in dock.

And all that was left were trace fragments.

"We're picking up debris from a Corellian heavy frigate, sir," another of the deck officers interjected. "Out beyond the third moon. Wait a moment; they're life rafts . . . seven of them. The signal from their tracking beacons indicates that the ship was the Klatooine Junction."

"Seven life rafts?" A Corellian heavy frigate had a typical operational complement of three thousand. A life raft could, at a push, hold eight.

"Seven is all we're picking up. If there're more then their tracking beacons aren't functioning, sir."

A grimace twisted the Captain's face. A standard Republic tracking beacon was designed to be near indestructible, with enough life in its power cells to operate it non-stop for close on ten-thousand years. Realistically, if a tracking beacon had stopped functioning, it was because the life raft it was attached to had been utterly destroyed. "Bring us round to pick them up, Mr. Andalo."

"Aye, captain."

Organa turned to face Bastila. "Your thoughts?" he asked her quietly, voice and expression neutral. She could sense a kind of grim hurt from him, as if he regarded what had happened here as being on some level a personal failure.

She struggled to locate something within herself that approximated to composure. "We continue to need advice from the Jedi Masters, Captain. We have to know what was taken from the pirate asteroid."

"You don't think that what happened here takes precedence?"

The Force disturbance continued to call to her; a demented siren song. "This is part of the same thing, Captain Organa." She hesitated, moistening lips that felt painfully dry, but the sense – the premonition almost – she was getting through the taint-infected Force remained almost unbearably strong. "This is just the start of it."

-s-s-

They were overmatched. Badly overmatched.

Tamar parried the flurry of lightsaber blows that rained in, as he'd parried all the countless flurries that had come before it. He could feel his breath starting to come hard and fast, the Baragwin assault blade seeming much heavier in his grasp than it had even a few seconds earlier. His attempt at a counterattack was brushed aside with contemptuous ease.

Very soon, they were going to progress to being fatally overmatched.

If it had simply been a matter of two one-on-one lightsaber duels, it might have been different. One-on-one, against one half of Celyanda, he would even have been confident of his abilities. But like this . . .

A single entity with two bodies perfectly attuned to one another. It was difficult to truly grasp the implications until you saw it; until you faced it. They blocked and parried for each other in perfect split second unison, creating a defence that was, to all intents of purposes, utterly impenetrable. Their attacks came seemingly from every angle at once, coordinated to the nth degree. It wasn't teamwork. It was far beyond, that – a left hand and a right hand working in perfect harmony. Only the wonders of Verpine prototype shield technology had prevented him and Yuthura being cut down in the first few seconds, before they'd come to terms with exactly what they were up against.

Those shields were long faded now, ripped to shreds by repeated assaults.

Simultaneous attacks from each half of Celyanda had Tamar retreating desperately. A searing white lightsaber blade crept through his defences, its tip scorching a black-edged gash through his Mandalorian armour. Near miraculously it missed the flesh underneath. Yuthura came across to block, stabilising the situation slightly, but he was panting hard now. The sense he got from her was that she was equally close to the end of her tether, operating solely on sheer iron strength of will.

They'd tried to work the twin halves of Celyanda apart, so that they couldn't reinforce each other so readily, but it had proved impossible. Celyanda was the one controlling the fight, not them. And they were the ones being manoeuvred.

He parried a saber-stroke aimed at Yuthura's undefended side, then narrowly ducked underneath a strike that would have taken his head off. A near miss drew a soot black stain across the surface of his breastplate. Beside him, Yuthura gave a strangled yelp as she lost a shoulder plate and a layer of skin.

Another couple of paces forced retreat. It was an odd feeling, knowing that you were losing a fight where the stake was your life. It wasn't quite fear. It wasn't quite anything he could explain. Another backward step and the chair Yuthura had been sitting in was directly behind him, blocking him off.

Gritting his teeth, he launched a flurried attack designed to break the momentum of Celyanda's remorseless advance. It earned him another hole in his armour, but adrenaline covered over any pain. Then he leapt backwards. He landed on the chair's back and pivoted over on it, before kicking it up – straight into the male half of Celyanda's face.

Celyanda's lightsaber sliced the chair apart before it could hit, but Tamar was able to take advantage of the brief distraction, Force pushing him backwards. He slammed hard into a vine-covered pillar. Immediately Tamar launched himself at Celyanda's other half in a near-frenzied assault, desperate to make the brief advantage tell.

Alongside him, he was aware of Yuthura manipulating the Force, animating the vines around the pillar and wrapping Celyanda's male half tightly in place.

Celyanda's female half retreated before him rapidly as he pressed her hard. Even singularly, she was a master swordswoman, but Tamar was bigger, stronger, just as skilled, and driven by desperation to finish things while the opportunity was still there. He worked her defences this way and that, his focus a white-hot iron core, driving her before him. A parry off a particularly brutal hack left a minute opening and he seized upon it instantly, following up to score a vicious looking wound in her shoulder.

She cried out in pain. Blood spurted and bone crunched. Her twin screamed in unison, a matching wound appearing in his flesh, blood blossoming to stain his pristine white tunic . . .

Then both wounds closed over, healing completely in an instant.

Shock made the momentum of Tamar's attack falter. He narrowly twisted away from a series of deft saber strokes directed at him in counter. Suddenly there was blazing heat on the side of his face. Sweat poured down his neck. His skin felt as if it was on the verge of blistering.

It was a ball of raw plasma – an incandescent miniature sun – materialised in midair in front of Celyanda's vine wrapped half. Celyanda's female half disengaged from him during his brief instant of distraction, somersaulting backwards through the air to safety.

As Celyanda hurled the plasma ball towards Tamar, Yuthura shoved him hard with the Force. He gave a choked cry of surprise as he went sprawling, head over heels.

The plasma ball shrieked through the space he'd just been occupying as he tumbled out of its path. It burned through the base of another vine-entangled pillar, then disappeared on through a wall, vaporising a neat circle through solid marble. The air boiled and fizzed angrily in its wake.

Tamar came back to his feet. Fire almost as hot as the plasma ball seemed to be burning in his muscles from lactic acid build-up. Breathing in, the air was still hot in his throat, scorching it raw. Little tremors that he couldn't completely stop were passing through his shoulders and down his arms, his sword blade wavering.

A harsh cracking sound came from the damaged pillar directly behind him.

It toppled over, its fall steered towards him by Celyanda's will. Twisting round frantically, he held his hand up in front of his face and caught it using the Force. He could hear his teeth grinding and squeaking together as he gritted them against the sudden strain.

Celyanda's male body was free again, the vines withering and falling loose the moment Yuthura's focus left him. Both halves now stood side by side once more, separated from them by about twenty feet. Their incandescent white lightsabers were held at the ready. They resembled beautiful golden angels of vengeance and destruction.

"Run?" Yuthura suggested, her voice strained, as she looked at them. The violet blade of her lightsaber trembled fractionally from fatigue.

"Run," Tamar agreed with a nod. Groaning with the effort, he picked up the pillar – a ton or so of solid masonry – and hurled it directly towards Celyanda as they started to advance.

-s-s-

Juhani had nowhere left to retreat to.

She'd tried to locate one of her lightsabers in the gloom, but she hadn't been able to sense it anywhere within range of her pain addled thoughts. As the Rakghouls drew closer, the putrid half-rotten scent of them strong in her nostrils, she bared her teeth, nascent claws sliding from their finger sheaths. Fighting down the pain of multiple injuries – blaster burns; cuts and bruises; possibly even broken bones – she drew upon the Force, augmenting her battered muscles and reflexes in readiness to fight.

Even wounded as badly as she was, she would ensure they would not find her easy prey. The calm serenity that settled over her didn't seem entirely rational.

A thunderous bellow echoed from close by. Something flew through the air, slamming into a plastocrete wall with a horribly wet, mushy sounding thud. The impact was hard enough that it left a dark smear behind, and the missile flopped to the ground. Another Rakghoul, she saw, this one reduced to a misshapen sack of splintered bones.

There was another bellow. Zaalbar, her brain belatedly filled in.

Through the Force she could feel the Wookiee's mind, half-mad with rage as he charged forward, attacking in berserker frenzy. Rakghouls twisted away from her to face the new threat. Bacca's blade sundered flesh and bone with equal ease, tainted black blood splattering like hot tar.

Several of the Rakghouls still decided to lunge at her, for all the danger from the other direction. Hissing, both as threat and against the pain that surged through her abused limbs, Juhani hurled herself forward, meeting them head on.

She knocked the nearest one down, and then flipped over the back of the next as it charged at her, a Force enhanced kick taking a third in the side of its bald skull and knocking it flying. A fourth slammed into her – a missile of claws and teeth and stinking, dirty grey flesh.

She rolled backwards with it, using its own momentum to flip it away from her. As she came up to her feet again, her body screamed in protest. More Rakghouls closed inexorably in.

"Juhani!" Zaalbar's roar was barely coherent. "Catch."

She held out a hand and the Force guided her lightsaber smoothly into her grasp. It ignited with a snap-hiss, the blue light from it startlingly bright in contrast to the previous darkness. She whirled, blade spinning, severing one Rakghoul's head before piercing another straight through the chest.

The remaining few fell quickly under their combined onslaught.

As the edge of adrenaline rush faded Juhani staggered, falling against a plastocrete wall that ran with poisonous snowmelt. The ground was looping and swaying beneath her feet and her breath came in fast, ragged gasps. After a moment, she dropped down onto her haunches, tremors passing though her legs and back.

Zaalbar loomed over her massively. She could sense his concern without him having to say anything.

"Mission?" she asked him quietly when her head had stopped spinning quite so badly. "The others?"

He made a mournful barking sound that didn't translate directly.

"We lost then," she said quietly, for the first time seeing him properly – the blaster burns and the dried blood and assorted filth matting the rest of his fur. He wasn't part of a victorious search party looking for survivors. He'd been wounded and knocked down into the blighted depths of the under city, just like her. The sense of despair, rising like a black tide inside her, was near overwhelming.

"They hit us too hard and fast" She could feel his frustration and barely contained, frantic anger. "What happened, Juhani? You didn't get any warning of them? I've never seen you fight so . . ."

"Ineptly," she finished for him when she could speak.

Yes, inept is the word you're looking for. Beneath her fur, she could feel herself flushing with shame and embarrassment, remembering the fear and near panic that had consumed her when she realised she couldn't find the Force. With an indrawn breath, she forced herself to be calm – self-rapprochement was not useful in the current circumstances. "Something stopped me from . . . being able to reach the Force."

Zaalbar growled. "They had a Jedi with them? A Sith?"

Juhani frowned. What she had felt . . . she had never even heard of a Jedi being capable of doing such a thing. "Perhaps." There was doubt in her voice, but she couldn't think of an alternative explanation. The way her head was pounding it was difficult to think at all.

A whining note vibrated from deep inside Zaalbar's chest.

"I'm sure Mission is okay," she said firmly, recognising its source. "I saw her using her stealth field. She is tough and smart. More so than any of us, perhaps. If anyone could have escaped from that ambush, then it is her."

"If they have harmed her. If they have so much as touched one of her lekku . . ." Zaalbar threw back his head and let loose a thunderous roar. It echoed wildly off the surrounding walls and made Juhani's head feel as if it was going to split open.

Then, abruptly, he was calm again.

No, not calm, Juhani realised. Resolved.

As must she be.

"You are injured" he said, peering down at her in concern. "Badly injured. You can't heal yourself . . .?"

"I . . . I don't have the same skills in that direction that Jolee, Tamar and Bastila possess," she admitted. She had always concentrated more fully on the warrior skills. "I can put us both into healing trances, but only when we get somewhere safe where we can rest." Pushing the pain and weakness away into the background, she stood up. She could still feel her leg muscles twitching and spasming, and the throbbing in her head persisted over everything.

From a belt pouch, she took a kolto pack, splitting it in two and tossing half to Zaalbar. Forcing her hands steady, she injected her half into her thigh muscle, just above the raw, seeping blaster wound she had there. The burn of it was like cold fire in her veins, pain and relief together. She heard herself gasp involuntarily.

Going back over the fight with the Rakghouls, she tried to remember if she had taken any wounds. She couldn't feel any trace of infection or disease within her, but the effects of her other injuries might be masking it. Even a missed scratch could be deadly. Better safe than sorry, she acknowledged silently, taking out an ampoule of serum and injecting that into herself too. "You have any of these?" She asked Zaalbar, holding the empty ampoule up. "You need to take one."

For a moment, she thought he was going to protest, but he just nodded. As the kolto gradually started to clear her head, she started looking around them, trying to locate some hint of a way up, back to the surface.

But there was nothing she could see in the immediate vicinity. "Come on, let's get moving," she indicated the direction that felt most right.

It was going to be a long trek back.

-s-s-

The gates slammed closed, mere feet in front of Celyanda.

Tamar held them with the Force while Yuthura drove her lightsaber through a control panel, sealing them shut in a shower of blue-white sparks as the control mechanism shorted out. From immediately behind them came a harsh sputtering noise, as of lightsabers trying and failing to cut their way through cortosis fibre.

Cortosis fibre was a rare and rather brittle substance with the unique property of being able to refract – and therefore withstand – the focused beam-blade of a lightsaber. There was a small amount of it alloyed into Tamar's Baragwin assault blade, allowing the weapon to stand up to a saber duel. It was prohibitively expensive to use on any kind of larger scale – such as in armour or structures – however.

In this instance at least, Darth Auza's paranoia seemed to be working for them rather than against. As one, they turned and sprinted hard.

"We need to split up," Tamar stated between panting breaths as they paused briefly to seal a second set of gates. From some way behind came a loud crash accompanied by the squeal of rending metal. Celyanda had obviously given up on the lightsabers.

"We do?" Yuthura's response was so bland that it made him glance at her sidelong as they started running again.

She was giving nothing away.

"I need you to get back to the skyrunner. Get it airborne," he told her. Through the Force, he was aware that Celyanda had reached the second set of gates, and glanced back over his shoulder involuntarily. These ones weren't reinforced with cortosis fibre, so didn't prove much of an obstacle.

They emerged into the bright sunlight of one of the palace's many gardens. Several mind-wiped slaves lounged around, watching them in vacant cow-eyed incomprehension as they passed through.

"If your desire is to protect me, it is misplaced," Yuthura noted as they continued to jog. He surmised that what lay underneath her words wasn't quite so neutral, but she was keeping it extremely well masked. "Both of us together barely survived back there."

Celyanda was gaining on them. "We need a way out." His tone was grim as they quickened their pace, footfalls pounding on the marble floor. "If they cut us off from the skyrunner . . ." He made a gesture. "We're womp rats in a barrel-shoot."

They rounded another corner into a long glass-floored corridor, serene white cloud tops below their feet. As an automated door closed behind them, Yuthura paused to seal it shut with a deftly placed bit of sabre welding. If they were lucky, it would hold just slightly longer than it took to seal. "And meanwhile you'll be doing what?"

"What we came here for – which wasn't a nice, friendly chat with a Sith Lord." Given the circumstances, the calm and casual tone of their conversation struck him as being wildly absurd. "I'm going to try and grab this place's computer core. Download the comm. logs if I can."

He heard Yuthura let out a breath as they resumed running, and felt a brief hint of exasperation surface in her. "Not to cast doubt on you're abilities or anything, but if they catch up to you . . ." A brief, negatory flick of a head tail.

"Maybe I can talk to them," he ventured. "They're not dark in a true sense."

"I didn't get the impression they were much for conversation." A flash of deep frustration. "If you're alone when they . . ."

"But I won't be alone." He smiled. "You're going to be giving me air support."

They reached the point where their paths had to diverge, pausing briefly.

"This would work much better if we reversed roles," she pointed out matter-of-factly, looking behind them to where they could still sense Celyanda's remorseless approach. "You're the more experienced pilot, and I know my way around here better than you do."

Tamar could tell that a big part of her wanted to shout at him: to grab him and try to shake some sense into him. The surface was still as calmly controlled as ever, though, constrained by iron bands of discipline.

"You're missing one vital factor," he told her simply. "I have something you don't."

"And what's that?" The brief look she directed his way showed both irritation at his flippant tone, and fear . . . for him he realised after a moment.

He reached over his shoulder, patting the module built into the back of his armour. "A rocket pack."

-s-s-

"I trust you have good reason for contacting me like this, Jedi Bastila?" The Jedi Master, Mida Tapawan, peered at her owlishly. Hunch shouldered and seemingly swamped by her Jedi robes, she looked like someone's frail and querulous old grandmother.

Bastila was shocked. It had been only been a year – albeit an eternally long year that seemed to have encompassed several entire lifetimes and taken her to a completely different universe from the one she had once inhabited – since she'd last seen Master Mida in the Dantooine Enclave. To look at her now twenty years could have passed.

The bluish light from the holographic image of the Jedi Master was the main source of illumination in Captain Organa's ready room. The captain, Canderous and Zikl stood alongside her, Bastila herself occupying the central position being beamed back.

She inclined her head respectfully, trying to hide her feelings. "I am in urgent need of guidance and information, Master."

The old woman's lips twisted sourly. There was an air of weary bitterness and strain about her that was palpable. Bastila found herself wondering if the suspicion and distaste she thought she saw in the woman's eyes was really there, or was merely a product of her own self-doubt. "You picked a very bad time." It was almost a snap. "You are aware of the situation the Order faces on Coruscant?"

"I heard . . . about the council, yes."

"Damn Revan," she heard Master Mida mutter beneath her breath. "I cautioned against . . ." She stopped abruptly, her gaze refocusing on Bastila in front of her. "But too late for that now."

Bastila felt herself stiffen defensively. She realised then that Master Mida's suspicion had nothing to do with her fall, or indeed any other aspect of the woman's personal opinion of her. It was down entirely to the link she shared to Tamar – with Revan. Her mouth tightened. "You don't truly believe he is guilty, do you Master?"

There was a long, echoing pause.

"What I believe, young Jedi Knight, is scarcely relevant. The republic at large believes that Revan has gone dark again, to a degree that even finding evidence that completely exonerates him will be unlikely to sway that belief." Her eyes hardened, glassy beads. "He has escaped from Republic custody, running from the legitimate force of law. In the eyes of the galaxy he has damned himself."

Bastila's mouth set stubbornly. "But surely if it is proved he played no part in the Council's murder . . ."

"It will not matter, Jedi Bastila. Truth and justice are nice concepts, but most people – even, alas, the Republic Senate – only want to entertain them as long as they do not prove inconvenient, or conflict with their prejudices and beliefs. People have been looking for reason to hang him from the moment we announced his return and redemption. We were foolish . . . complacent and naïve." A sigh of bone deep weariness, where she seemed to shrink in on herself even more. "Now they have their reason, and I fear that whoever tries to stand alongside him will simply share his fate."

Bastila was dumbfounded, not quite able to take in what she was hearing. "The Jedi Order would never allow that to happen, surely? We have always policed our own . . .."

"The Jedi Order is in no position to do anything about it!" Master Mida's voice, brittle and sharp, was a whip-crack. A significant pause followed before she finally spoke again. "Even if he is completely innocent." She gave a shake of her head. "But this is not what you called me to discuss, is it Jedi Bastila? Out with it, then. I don't have time to waste."

Bastila was so flustered that it took her several seconds to compose herself. As calmly and emotionlessly as she could, she went through their encounter with the Sith at M4107: the fight with the mind-burned pirates, and the recovered salvage from the Flying Kuat. She went on to explain about the destruction of the Manarb V way station and the Force disturbance they had encountered – and her belief that the two events were connected.

"Explain what you mean by disturbance in the Force. It is a vague term. Be precise," Master Mida interrupted her.

Bastila hesitated. The disturbance was still there for her to feel – a slick of venom – but it was difficult to actually put it into words. "It was as if whatever process had been used to destroy the pirates' minds had spilled over to taint the Force. An incoherent roaring, like hundreds of maddened voices trying to talk at once, though not in any language I could understand. Jedi Zikl and I felt something similar here at Manarb, but on a vastly larger scale. It is . . . horrible, like a sickness in the Force itself."

Master Mida merely grunted. It was difficult to tell from her expression, but Bastila got the definite sense she was not particularly impressed – or interested – by what she had heard.

She pressed on regardless, finally finishing. ". . . So you see the significance of this. It is my fear that the Sith intend to use whatever they have recovered from the Flying Kuat to help launch a major offensive here on the outer rim."

"And that is it?"

Bastila blinked. She barely managed to keep herself from gaping. What more do you want? "I thought at the least it was my duty to inform those with more wisdom than I of the situation, and seek advice on how to proceed. If there is any information available on what the Flying Kuat was carrying . . ."

Master Mida's lips compressed so much they almost vanished. "Correct me if I am mistaken, Jedi Bastila, but am I right in thinking that both yourself and Jedi Zikl are Jedi Knights, hmm? Not freshly minted Padawans?"

Bastila felt colour start to rise in her cheeks, and fought hard to prevent it worsening. "That is correct," she stated stiffly. Despite her own inner doubts on the matter of her status, something about Master Mida's tone made her bridle.

"Then perhaps its time you started acting like it. A Jedi Knight is supposed to be capable of acting responsibly and maturely; of carrying out the will of the Force, and the Jedi Order with skill and wisdom under their own initiative; of responding to and dealing with crises as they arise without the need of constant supervision."

Bastila swallowed and bit back on a snapped response that was likely to simply inflame matters. She inclined her head. "As you say, Master."

On Dantooine Master Mida had always been known as someone who was friendly and approachable, happy to give her time and share her wisdom with any Padawan who asked – albeit with the attendant risk of having your ear talked off. Now though . . . It wasn't just her appearance that had changed. Her entire personality seemed to have altered with it, twisted and transformed by the strain of recent events. Bastila supposed that anyone who had known her a year ago would be equally as shocked by the changes they saw.

"However, if the Sith are intent on . . ."

"Quite frankly, Jedi Bastila, whatever the Sith are intent on at the moment is unlikely to match any of the iniquities the Republic is in the process of inflicting on itself. I take it the latest news hasn't reached you?"

"News?" Suddenly it was like an icy cold finger scraping down her spine. "What news?"

Across the hololink, Master Mida looked grim. "Last night a bill passed before the Senate. It set forth a change to the Republic's relationship to the Jedi Order, suspending all of our advisory, legislative and judicial privileges pending a full and detailed review of our activities and role within the Republic."

The ominous feeling inside Bastila intensified. "There have been such attempts before in our history. Always the Republic has seen the wisdom . . ."

Master Mida cut Bastila off. "This wasn't simply a bill tabled by a fringe group with a history of distrust for us. It was tabled by Senator Oris Gallavon of Telos. You recognise the name, hmm? A man noted and respected by all for his moderating influence and calm, considered authority. He is no isolated extremist. Indeed, there are whispers that he is one of names on the shortlist from which the next Chancellor is likely to be drawn. In the past we have always been able to count on him to support our position."

She paused, fixing Bastila with a long steady look. "The single bright spot is that the bill didn't receive the seventy percent of the Senate vote needed for it to pass directly into law on first reading. It received 54. With only 28 of the vote dissenting, and the remainder abstaining. You understand senate procedure? Having received a simple majority of the vote, the bill now passes into an amendment phase, before being resubmitted for the Senate's attention. Soundings suggest an amended bill is likely to become law in less than two weeks. There is no Council to fight our corner, or dissuade the Senate from this parlous course. In two weeks the Jedi Order, in its present form is going to cease to exist."

"I'm sure . . ."

"You're sure of what, Jedi? That it will all sort itself out?" she snapped. In that instant, Bastila suddenly understood that the old woman was, beneath it all, absolutely terrified. "It pains me to say it, but the Council made many grave mistakes over the past months. They severely underestimated the strength of galactic feeling against them on the Revan issue. Now, short of us finding and delivering Revan for visible and exemplary justice in the meantime, we are going to be made to pay a price in his stead. The effects on long term Republic stability are likely to be devastating."

She shook her head emphatically. "I'm sorry, Bastila, but all our resources are, of necessity, directed elsewhere right now. You and Jedi Zikl are going to have to deal with this Sith incursion on your own, with very little back-up." A sad sigh, her tone moderating slightly. "I will see what we can find in the archives concerning the Flying Kuat. For now do whatever you deem necessary to resolve with the situation." A slight hesitation. "I have every faith in your abilities."

Bastila had just opening her mouth to respond when Canderous barged into her side, levering her off the main comm. position. Since he was in the region of two-hundred and fifty pounds of permacrete-hard muscle, she was forced to yield ground or end up sprawled inelegantly on her backside.

Master Mida's lips twitched in apparent distaste as she looked him up and down. "You are General Canderous Ordo, yes? I have heard of your many . . . deeds. You wish to say something to me?"

"Don't worry yourself. I'll be brief. Am I to understand, Jedi Master, that you are giving Bastila here full authority and command over this mission?"

Master Mida looked startled for a moment, before eventually nodding. "Why yes, General Ordo, I believe I am. Do you object to that?"

"No, not at all. I just wanted everyone to be quite clear, so there can be no misunderstanding." Smiling tightly, the Mandalorian reached across and switched the channel off. The image of Master Mida flickered once before vanishing.

For a brief moment, there was silence. A very brief moment.

"Just what, in the name of the Force, do you think you're doing?" Bastila demanded.

He just smirked at her. "Hey, Princess, you should be thanking me. You've just been promoted. I guess that makes you what, Queen now?"

Before she could issue any kind of retort, the comm. link warbled. "Captain, you're needed urgently on the bridge."

-s-s-

Tamar cursed beneath his breath at the inordinate amount of time it was taking to transfer the comm. logs onto his datapad. It had already taken him what seemed an entire age to hack his way into the system using the computer spikes that T3 had made for him.

Computers were definitely not his forte.

He could feel Celyanda drawing closer by the moment, drawn to him by the none-too-subtle call he was putting out across the Force in an effort to make them fix on him rather than Yuthura. His gut clenched tight, churning.

Over the Force, he couldn't see their two bodies. He simply felt a single looming presence, like a vast and bad tempered giant stomping its way remorselessly towards him. In its face he felt tiny and weak – a bug ripe for squashing.

Finally. The datapad popped free from the output slot and he snatched it up. Navigating as swiftly as he could through the computer terminal's menus, he pulled up a schematic of the palace. It was an incredibly complex array of overlapping networks and lines, almost impossible to take in quickly. As he stared at it he strove for a calm, clinical meditative state, but it was difficult to achieve amidst the other pressing distractions.

From the corridor directly outside came a dull crump.

Tamar sensed a brief flaring of pain and outrage as one of Celyanda's bodies was caught by the exploding frag mine, picked up like a rag doll and slammed back violently into a wall.

A normal person would be unconscious, dying or perhaps killed outright. The damage that he sensed told him that much. After a scarcely more than a second though, he sensed Celyanda rise to their feet again, wounds closing over as the Force flowed, seemingly spontaneously, to repair them.

He finally found what he was looking for on the schematic. Switching the terminal off, he turned and ran for it. This was very definitely not the ground on which to try to stand and fight.

Behind him, the door opened. Another mine went off.

This time Celyanda was ready for it, able to shield themselves from the worst of the explosion's effects. So much for that.

He ascended two flights of steps, legs pumping, not looking back. A left turn. A rapid, Force-enhanced sprint along a corridor. The schematics remained fixed in his minds eye, superimposed over reality. A right. Collared slaves regarded him with blank indifference as he passed them by.

The main computer room was locked. Rather than waste time with security spikes he was none too adept at using, he used his Baragwin assault blade as a key. It proved effective enough, and in the circumstances, the alarms that it set off scarcely seemed relevant.

Inside everything was neat and sterile. The central computer core was impossible to miss – a good thing, because otherwise he was sure he would have contrived a way to do so. Dropping to his haunches in front of it he wrenched open an access panel, reaching into the inner workings and unceremoniously yanking the data core out of its setting. More alarms went off, slightly different in tone and frequency to the first lot, providing a discordant counterpoint to the general cacophony.

He stashed the data core in a storage compartment built into the thigh plate of his armour.

Celyanda stood in the broken doorway behind him, cutting off his retreat. He knew this without having to look round. Taking a deep breath, he rose to his feet.

Calm.

And strangely, he was.

He turned and looked from one to the other. Their lightsabers bathed the room in harsh white glare and their eyes reflected, bright and impassive – mirrors.

"Why, exactly, are we fighting?" The sound of the alarms all but drowned out the words.

No response was forthcoming.

"I'm not your enemy. I don't want to hurt you," he tried again.

Again, nothing. Not even a flicker.

"I don't want you to hurt me." Which was probably a more realistic assessment of likely events.

Celyanda started to advance on him. Tamar got the distinct impression that nothing he was saying was registering in the slightest; that he would have more chance of getting a useful response from one of the mind-wiped slaves.

Stop! He formed the word through the Force, trying to place it directly into their combined mind.

For a wonder they did. They seemed more perplexed than anything. Do not be afraid. You will be freed from the confines of your flesh and made one with the Force.

Their voice, mind to mind, felt rather like something trying to scour the insides of his skull out. He winced involuntarily as it sent pain spiking through his temples. Um, thanks? But really, there's no need.

Let go of your fear. It is but a transformation. You will become so much more than you are now.

More pain spiked in his skull. He didn't think they meant for it to hurt him. They were just talking very slowly and loudly, like a tourist trying to make themselves understood to a local who didn't speak the same language. He switched back to verbal, hoping that they'd follow. "There is no death, there is the Force. Yes, I'm conversant with that philosophy. But I was kind of hoping for about . . . say, fifty more years before I got chance to put it into practice at first hand."

It will free you from your loneliness and isolation. There was no sense of malevolence or anger, or indeed any other darkside emotion from Celyanda – just something rather vague and alien that was almost, but not quite, compassion.

Tamar winced. Each sentence was punctuated by what felt like a hard punch to the side of his head. "Do you think you could speak a little more quietly, perhaps? Or use your mouths. I know you can manage that."

Ultimate unity shall be yours.

This time the pain in his head was somewhat lessened – a dull throb. "What if I was to say I didn't want ultimate bloody unity? That I am quite happy in my 'loneliness and isolation', however pitiful you might find it?"

You are blind. Celyanda seemed sad, but unsurprised. You do not understand.

"How about if I release you from your loneliness and isolation instead of you releasing me?" he asked reasonably. "I am surely less deserving of such a profound boon than you are."

No! Tamar let loose a strangled cry, the pain in his skull so intense that it made his vision wash out in a sea of red and black. I have already achieved unity! You will not sunder me.

Gasping as his vision slowly returned, Tamar decided against pursing that line of questioning any further for the moment. It was likely to end up with an aneurysm on his part. "You know that you are serving someone who claims the title of Dark Lord of the Sith? That you are serving the darkside of the Force?"

There is no darkside.

It wasn't quite the answer that he'd been hoping for. "Auza is using you as enforcer and assassin. He doesn't remotely care about you."

There is no lightside, Celyanda continued as if he hadn't spoken. The Force is all things. It does not care about meaningless impositions of morality. Morality is a thing of singulars, but singulars are blind to the true nature of the Force. Sith. Jedi. Both are equal in their ignorance, seeing only what they want to see.

"But at least the Jedi try not to harm others."

Big mistake, Tamar realised even as he said it. He felt the abrupt end of the conversation, as if Celyanda had flicked a switch. They resumed their advance – cold and remorseless.

The Force flowing through him, enhancing the power of his legs muscles, he sprang directly upwards, grabbing hold of a light fitting and using it to swing himself straight over their heads. White lightsaber blades cleft the air, missing him by millimetres.

As he landed, Celyanda was already facing him again.

He parried a lightsaber slash whilst simultaneously drawing his legs up to hurdle a sweeping blow that would have cut him off at the ankles. Then he gave ground steadily, retreating towards the door as he made parry after parry.

Twisting away from one attack, he ducked fractionally beneath the follow-up, narrowly deflecting another blow so that it skewered the wall beside him rather than his chest. That bought him a fraction of a second's leeway. Reaching out with his mind, he grabbed hold off every loose object in the room – mainly boxes of parts and peripherals stored on shelves against the walls – and yanked them indiscriminately towards him.

Celyanda caught them all, easily. They stopped, hanging serenely in the air.

Using the brief respite to break off from the fight, Tamar ran for it. He needed to be somewhere in open air, where Yuthura could reach him. Celyanda started hurling the boxes after him, but little flickers of warning carried on the Force enabled him to evade them. He sprinted hard, hoping to open out a lead.

Celyanda kept pace easily, unhampered by the encumbrance of armour. One half hurled a lightsaber at his back, which he didn't sense until the last possible second. It clipped a shoulder plate as he veered round a corner in an effort to evade it. Burning pain stabbed through him, but he managed to stretch his lead slightly as they broke stride to pull the lightsaber back to their grasp.

Bursting through a pair of doors, he emerged into the startling brightness of another garden. He slowed slightly. Force lightning filled the air around him.

He staggered, muscles locking tight as electricity grounded itself through his body. His jaw clamped down hard and he bit his tongue hard enough that he could taste blood, hot and metallic in his mouth. Despite the searing agony coursing through him, he was unable to cry out.

When the lightning faded to no more than static hanging on the air, he realised that he had fallen to his knees. It felt like his insides had been burnt to ash and he gasped raggedly, muscles twitching and shuddering. He could feel Celyanda's monstrously looming presence closing in fast. Thud. Thud. Thud.

Groaning, he rolled, springing back to his feet and trying to parry the lightsaber blade flashing down at him. The Baragwin assault blade went flying from his unsteady grasp. A dull roaring noise filled his ears and he stumbled back from Celyanda, trying to the last to evade, or at least delay the killing strike . . .

But Celyanda was no longer even looking at him.

Instead, they were looking behind him, at the spot where the Ajunta's Blade had just risen into view – hovering above the palace rooftops, its sleek shark-like nose pointed directly at them.

-s-s-

"Just what, in the name of the Force, were you thinking?" Bastila, finally able to get Canderous alone for a moment, let loose the seething anger that had been building inside her. The air around her seemed to crackle.

They were walking back from a hastily assembled briefing. A short while ago seven battle-damaged Republic capital ships had dropped out of hyperspace on the edge of the system. They brought news that a Sith strike force had struck the Republic military base in the nearby Hoth system within the past day, all but annihilating it. These were the survivors. Further details were, for now . . . decidedly garbled. A hasty conference had ended with the rapid determination that they would retreat to Tylace – a minor system adjoining Manarb, and uninhabited aside from a listening post – and regroup there, working under the assumption that the Sith had been able to track their hyperspace vectors when they fled from Hoth.

The Mandalorian just looked at her, eyes flat and impassive. It was like trying to read an expression from a plasteel starship hull. "I don't know what you mean."

"Well yes, you've obviously been kicked in the head a few too many times. I can see why you'd have trouble understanding anything!" She swallowed, struggling to control her temper. The Force, normally a calming influence, in its present state of tainted turmoil seemed simply to be feeding the discord inside her, winding it tighter and tighter.

Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides, her breathing coming too fast. She could see herself inside her head, grasping the big Mandalorian's throat and Force choking him until his face turned purple, eyes bulging as he dropped to his knees before her, mouth moving feebly as he struggled vainly to draw breath. It was a strangely seductive image, and almost without realising it, she was tapping the Force, reaching out and letting it flood into her . . . So very easy.

No. A small, shocked note emerged from her throat. No.

This . . . this wasn't her. Not any more. She whirled away from the Mandalorian so that he didn't see her flushing crimson. "I . . . I'm sorry." Calm. Calm. But the Force was a madly whispering cacophony of insanity.

He fell into step with her, matching her rapid pace without having to extend his stride. If he saw any indication of the turmoil within her, he didn't let on. When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly quiet, as near to tentative as it got. "Look, you handled yourself well on the asteroid. For the first time in a long time you were . . ." A vague gesture as he struggled for to find the correct word to express what he wanted. ". . . alive."

"Alive? As opposed to what? Dead?" She laughed harshly, feeling the anger rising spontaneously again, struggling to hold it back. "You've been watching Tamar too much, haven't you? You're trying to do what he does. Aww, it's kind of sweet. A fifty-year old bone-headed Mandalorian merc reduced to a kinrath pup trying to emulate its master. Pathetic, but sweet."

Canderous simply laughed right back at her – surf crashing onto rocks. She concentrated hard on looking directly ahead of her as she walked; keeping her mind focused and shutting out the whispers.

"You're a warrior, Bastila. A fighter." he continued, his laughter subsiding abruptly. "I've fought alongside you. I know you, at least in that. On the asteroid, the warrior came back. And you know what? It was good to see. It's back now too. If you grasp it."

She suppressed a shudder. What was back was a near lapse to the darkside – a repetition of past failings. It was a danger that was going to be ever present in her now. "So, you want me to lead this Force forsaken expedition. Why?"

Canderous grunted. "Organa is competent enough, I'll grant, in a textbook kind of way." There was a certain sneer in the way he pronounced textbook that made his true feelings on the matter clear. "But Zikl's as green as his skin. And no one was going to give me the job. That leaves you."

"I'm not fit for this." Her voice was little more than a whisper.

"You know your problem, princess?"

"I thought you said I was a queen now?" she replied tartly.

She didn't have to look round to see the smirk. "Same problem as all the Jedi I've met. You think too much."

"I suppose to a Mandalorian thinking would be considered a flaw."

He snorted, but didn't rise to the provocation. "Sometimes you need to act. Sometimes thinking too much is the very worst thing you can do."

Bastila got the sense then that he wasn't really talking about her anymore at all. She shot a sideways glance his way, but his eyes were fixed firmly ahead and he was as grimly impassive looking as always. And right now, she couldn't trust anything she felt over the Force. "Why do you care all of a sudden? Not so long ago you wouldn't have deigned to spit on me."

She saw his grimace. "Because of some damned ronto-loving bastard of a . . ." He shook his head as he trailed off. "We're talking about you here, princess. Not me."

"So what? This is your idea of therapy for a fallen Jedi?"

He shrugged. "If that's how you want to look at it. As an alternative, I can try repeatedly knocking your head against the hull plates to see if I can get some sense in there. Your choice."

-s-s-

That worthless . . .

Yuthura could sense Tamar's presence through the Force as she sat back in the pilot's seat. She could scarcely avoid doing so, the way he glowed like a homing beacon – drawing Celyanda to him, away from her.

Forgoing the usual start-up sequence, she felt the angry vibration as the engines fired up – a low frequency thrumming that passed through the skyrunner's hull and up into her body.

She could still feel the brief moment of contact between their fingertips from when they'd parted. A burn. An itch. It was maddening. Comforting. She couldn't decide which. Somehow, he'd opened gates in her that she'd thought rusted shut a long time ago. Some of what lay behind those gates scared her a great deal.

Anger flashed again. At him and herself both.

Once she would have used that anger, focusing on it and forging it into a fiercely burning blade of Force within her – hot and pitiless to smite those who stood in her way and thwarted her will.

She still could. It was so easy. All she had to do was reach out, and the power would be there – to be shaped by her will, servant to her needs and desires. The temptation, despite everything – because of everything – was strong. It would always be strong: a drug whispering to an old addict. Except now, she could see that she was the one who would be the servant if she gave in to it.

Sometimes, though, that didn't seem like such a bad thing.

She let go – a simple exhalation of breath – and sought the Force through calm and peace instead. Anger, desire, and turmoil melted away. Serenity now. Flay later.

Grasping the controls, she tried to let go of her body, becoming one with the craft to the point where she wasn't piloting the skyrunner – she was part of it. Together they lifted off the landing pad, and she was able to imagine she could feel the flow of air around her, over her skin.

Tamar was no longer broadcasting his position, but it was clearly enough. Eddies and currents and flows swirled around him and Celyanda, mirroring the storm swirling around the Eye of Simus.

As she guided the skyrunner towards it, automated defence turrets built into the palace's spires swivelled towards her. She sensed just before they started to spit blaster fire, rolling the skyrunner out of its path pre-emptively, then countering with return fire of her own, lancing them with surgical precision.

She felt a near miss as heat on her face, destroying a second automated gun-turret, then a third with effortless precision. The storm of Force centred on Celyanda and Tamar grew even more intense, and she homed in on it, blasting the air brakes so that she didn't overshoot, switching off the main thrusters so that she hovered on repulsors.

Below her was one of the gardens, replete with topiary and an ornate marble fountain.

Tamar was on his knees, fading traceries of Force lightning flickering around him. As she watched, he rolled and made a last ditch parry. His sword was knocked from his unset grasp, leaving him defenceless.

Up here! Her silent cry, directed at Celyanda in an effort to draw their attention, was pure desperation.

Celyanda's finishing stroke was stayed as they looked up and saw her. She felt their eyes meet and lock over the distance. Willing Tamar to stay down and out of her line of sight, she opened fire.

Somehow, one of Celyanda's bodies managed to yank the other out of the path of her lasers and she ended up doing nothing more than stitching a neat line of miniature craters in the dirt. She tried to bring her guns back to bear, but they split up, running for cover in opposite directions.

Tamar, who had thrown himself flat to the ground, now scrambled to his feet, snatching up his fallen blade and moving to intercept Celyanda's male half.

No, no, no, no. She cursed him beneath her breath. Let him go.

He didn't. Gritting her teeth, Yuthura brought the skyrunner's nose about towards the female half, who was darting for a pair of gates leading back inside the palace. She opened fire again, but the Force was guiding Celyanda's movements away from where she was firing, and she missed. A geyser of boiling water erupted from the fountain where a laser blast hit it. Celyanda made it inside.

Yuthura could see Tamar and Celyanda's male half duelling in the centre of the garden, blades locked together. As she watched Tamar head-butted his opponent viciously through their crossed blades, sending him reeling, blood poring from his face.

Her attention was yanked away as she felt a powerful surge through the Force.

Something akin to an ion-storm crackled around the skyrunner and the controls went absolutely haywire. The craft lurched violently sideways, out of control, veering towards the rooftops.

She caught it at the last possible second, one of the skyrunner's atmospheric manoeuvring wings scraping across the roof tiles and ripping them loose in a mini-cascade. The repulsors howled from the strain and her lasers refused to fire when she hit them. Gritting her teeth, wrestling with the controls, she switched over to the pair of torpedoes the skyrunner was carrying. Their guidance systems were fried, but she didn't let that worry her, aiming and firing manually through the gates.

There was a low, rumbling crump on impact, a rippling shockwave spreading out through the garden and sending Tamar and Celyanda's male half sprawling.

Yuthura felt a brief, blazing howl of pain and outrage from inside as the air boiled and the ceiling collapsed. When the effects of the explosion subsided though, somehow, pinned beneath tons of fallen rubble, body battered and broken and burnt, Yuthura could feel that she was still alive. A flow of Force from her other half sustained her, steadily regenerating flesh and tying her to life.

Below her, Tamar and the male half of Celyanda were back up and fighting.

Deprived of his twin, Celyanda seemed suddenly to be getting the worst of things, being driven back steadily, bleeding from a wound in his side. Abruptly he broke off from combat, Force jumping up and away, onto the rooftop.

He was directly centred in her line of sight, almost level with her. There was no way he could evade. She didn't hesitate. She pulled the trigger.

Her lasers were still dead from the ion storm. The only thing that happened was a high-pitched beep, a warning light flashing on the control panel in front of her.

Yuthura let out a breath and instead opened the skyrunner's exit hatch. Get in. Get in. Get in.

Whether Tamar heard her or not was open to question, but he did what she was willing him to do. He fired off a short burst from his rocket pack, propelling himself up the forty or so feet needed to grab onto the skyrunner's boarding ladder.

In front of her Celyanda was forming another of the plasma balls they'd seen earlier. A bright, incandescently glowing point formed in the air between them, expanding rapidly and making the air around it distort wildly with heat haze.

Tamar's shout reached her ears: "I'm clear."

Taking a deep breath, Yuthura yanked back hard on the controls and fired the thrusters. She was slammed back hard into her seat as they soared away into the Dantalus VI sky.

The plasma ball missed their tail end by less than a foot, but they were away.

-s-s-

A piece of wreckage moved in the void. A second or so ago it had just been another piece of floating debris from the unfortunate Klatooine Junction. Now, with no one around to observe, its configuration had changed markedly – a spherical black central body, about a metre and a half across, with a number of arms sprouting from it so that it resembled an asymmetric spider.

A Sith spy drone.

It had been sending out brief, encrypted tightbeam bursts for the past few hours since the Starlight Phoenix, and the other four ships making up its taskforce, had arrived in the Manarb system. The broadcasts of the Klatooine Junction's life rafts had provided it with the perfect cover for its own stealthy signals.

After a few minutes, a dozen Rakatan Star Cruisers dropped from hyperspace. Their sleek black shapes resembled nothing so much as a school of titanic sharks that had just scented blood in the water. The vessel at their vanguard bore the name Excelsior.

At their arrival the spy drone began to transmit the catalogue of readings it had taking from the Starlight Phoenix's hyperspace wake.

-s-s-

"Can we talk for a moment, old man?" There was definite tension – and urgency – in Carth Onasi's voice.

Jolee Bindo looked up from the workbench, where he appeared to be engrossed in some schematics the Rodian, Suvam Tan was showing him. "Old man? I do have a name, you know. Or would you prefer if I started calling you, ooh I don't know, lets say, young pup?"

Carth stifled an impatient sigh. "Okay, fine. Can I talk to you for a moment, Jolee?"

"Sure." He made a waving gesture. "Go right ahead."

"I meant in private." Carth nodded pointedly in Suvam's direction, indicating that he didn't want the Rodian overhearing what he had to say. Suvam was either too engrossed in what he was doing – or too polite – to notice.

"Ooh. Must be something important." Jolee stood up. The look in his eyes didn't match up to his flippant tone. "Shall we go for a walk then?"

As soon as they were out of Suvam's earshot and line of sight Carth proffered the datapad he was holding. "Have you seen this?"

"It's a datapad." Jolee snorted. "Hard as you may find it to believe, we had them back in my day too. I dare say I'm quite familiar with them."

A hiss of exasperation escaped Carth's lips. "It always has to be difficult with you, doesn't it?"

A shrug. "When you get to my age you learn to take your little pleasures where you can find them."

"I meant what's on it."

Jolee glanced down at it briefly, then back up at Carth again. "Since you're obviously so impatient why don't you summarise for me? That way, both of us save time."

They stopped walking at the door to Carth's quarters. Inside everything was so sparse and neat that an intruder would have been hard pressed to tell it was in use at all. Carth gestured for Jolee to sit in a plain, fold-up metal chair while he perched himself stiffly on the edge of his bunk. "There was a raid on Taris," he stated tersely. "One of the forward evac and survey bases was wiped out. Two Republic freighters were destroyed, and another vessel is listed as stolen."

"The Ebon Hawk."

"Yeah." He scrolled down the information displayed on the datapad. "There's a list of names. Those confirmed dead in the attack, plus a number who are still listed as missing. Juhani , Zaalbar and Mission's names are all on that latter part."

Jolee sighed, closed his eyes and leant back in his chair. "Let me guess, Carth. You want to go to Taris."

For a long moment, Carth simply looked at him. "Unless you can come up with a better idea."

"Hmm, let me see." Jolee took on a musing look. "Maybe I can at that. How about not going within a dozen light years of Taris?"

"So what? We continue sitting here on our hands, waiting for Tamar to get back, then go to Taris? We have no initiative of our own? We can only do anything when he's around to hold our hands for us? Every hour that passes makes it more likely that Mission and the others will move from the list of the missing to the . . ." He couldn't quite bring himself to say it. "Other list."

Jolee sighed. "Calm down, Carth."

"Calm down? I'm calm, old man. Can't you hear just how bloody calm I am from the grinding of my teeth?"

"Taris is three days away, bare minimum. Juhani, Zaalbar and Mission are all extremely capable individuals. In three days they'll either be fine or . . . there's nothing we can do anyway." Carth opened his mouth, but Jolee spoke over the top of him. "And it is, of course, a trap."

"A trap."

"Think about it. If you're a Sith lord, or the head of Republic Intelligence, and you're trying to urgently track down Revan, what do you do?" Jolee folded his arms and leant forward again. "Do you task all the ships and manpower you possess to search the galaxy on the off chance you find his trail, or do you, say, contrive a threat to his friends, leak the news out, and wait for him to come running? I know which one I'd pick."

"So it might be a trap," Carth conceded after a long pause. "All the more reason we should check it out now, before he gets back and goes running after them himself."

"And of course he'll be much less inclined to do something stupid when he has five of us in need of rescuing instead of three."

"You admit they need rescuing then?"

"Hell's teeth, why is that people below the age of sixty are so damned infuriating?" Jolee let out a calming breath. "As far as we know, the information on that datapad could be completely fake. They could be completely safe, right now."

"Or it could be real."

"Or it could be real. The point is, we simply don't know."

For a long time Carth simply looked at him. He half wondered why he'd felt the need to ask; why he hadn't just fired up Morgana and said they were going. Did he just need to hear someone voicing his own silent doubts? Did he need someone else to take the decision out of his hands, so the guilt of abandoning friends wasn't solely his? Because that smelt dangerously close to cowardice. "Then how about we go and do some investigation. Find out if it's real or not."

"Wow. A sensible suggestion. I'm impressed." Behind the sarcasm there seemed to be sympathy in Jolee's eyes.

Carth looked down at the back of his hands. There was something else on his mind too of course. It had been on his mind for a while now.

"Do you trust her?" he blurted before he'd really decided whether to bring up the subject or not.

"Who the what now? Did I just phase out and miss something there? I hear that can happen when you reach a certain point . . ."

"Her. Yuthura."

"Hmm, nice lass. Wonderfully shapely headtails. Has a few issues, but we can hardly hold that against her, can we? Glass houses and rocks, and all that."

"Last time I saw her she was a Sith Master. Now, what? She's supposed to be our best friend? Don't get me wrong. We couldn't have got Tamar out of custody without her, but . . ." Carth grimaced. "I know one thing. People don't change, just like that." He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

"They don't? Well there's me told." Jolee's eyes fixed with his, suddenly stern and piercing. "Maybe you're right. Maybe people don't change, just like that. And maybe she really hasn't changed so much at all. But you don't think that, just perhaps, that points to exactly the opposite conclusion from the one you seem to be reaching?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, me? Just an old man rambling. Just wondering if the Sith could possibly be worthwhile people too. You know, like you and me. And your son."

Carth glared daggers at him, but Jolee gave no sign of noticing. "The point is, Tamar trusts her. More than simply trusts her, I think."

"More than trusts her? What's that supposed to mean?"

Jolee just shrugged. "That they're friends, maybe? Oh, do your own maths. I can't be explaining every damn thing."

Before either of them could say anything else, Suvam's voice came over the Station intercom. The Rodian sounded distinctly agitated. "Umm, we seem to have developed a situation here. Maybe the two of you can find somewhere real good to hide? I can maybe explain the two droids, but you two are a dead giveaway, I'm thinking."

"Slow down, Suvam," Carth said firmly. "What's up?"

"Oh, umm. A Republic Frigate has just hailed us. It's sending a shuttle over to dock. Be here in about five minutes, tops."

Carth tried to will that he'd misheard – or at least misinterpreted. It never rains but it pours.

Jolee simply smiled brightly and stood up. "Well then, what are we waiting for? Why don't we go and meet our guests? There's no call to be rude, is there?"

-s-s-

"Look here." Canderous's broad, calloused finger stabbed at the holographic star chart in front of them. "Hoth falls, and that leads to straight to Andat. Then Bespin and Varonat. A row of dominoes stacked up and waiting to be toppled. After that, the entire Corellian trade spine is opened up for the taking. A lightning thrust along there and one of the Republic main supply lanes is in Sith control, and the Core systems are vulnerable. In a single stroke most of the damage they suffered at the Star Forge is overturned."

"They had at most a dozen ships, Mandalorian." The speaker was a holographic image of a Mon Cal – a Captain Ockona, of the Republic battle cruiser, Stormtide. "I hardly think it likely that they would attempt such an audacious move with so small a force."

Canderous fixed the Mon Cal with a hard glare. "A dozen ships that you saw, Captain. And it was enough to take Hoth with ease, wasn't it? The single best defended system in the entire sector and they didn't lose anything larger than a few fighters." He shook his head. "You Republic are obsessed with numbers, but numbers don't matter. It's all about the amount of force you can bring to bear at any one point. What does it matter what you have in reserve if it isn't doing anything useful? Seven years ago you outnumbered us ten to one, yet we would have defeated you utterly if it wasn't for one man – Revan."

"I still think you err in your assessment, General." Ockona sounded slightly huffy.

"Really? From what I hear, half the Republic fleet has been pulled onto the search for Revan. That looking like a setup to any of you . . . gentlemen, or is it just me?" Canderous's lips twisted contemptuously. "A dozen ships – a dozen Rakatan ships, I might add, superior to anything in the Republic arsenal. Now that Hoth has gone, what exactly do you have in the vicinity to counter them? I count eleven capital ships here, one all but crippled and another six damaged to one degree or another. I'd estimate you could maybe scrounge up another eight or ten from the surrounding sector now that both Hoth and Manarb have been taken out. They attacked Hoth for a reason, Captains, and it wasn't down to the invigorating weather they have there."

"I agree with Captain Ockona." There was a long moment when the assembled starship captains were utterly silent, turning to look at Bastila as she spoke up. "Although not, perhaps, for the same reasons he has. They're not striking the trade spine."

Canderous turned slowly and looked at her. A very imaginative person might have detected a hint of a wry smile about his lips. "Care to share your interpretation with us then, Jedi Bastila?"

Bastila moved alongside him, gazing up at the holographic map. "If you were talking about Mandalorians – or even the old Revan – your analysis of the threat would be spot on. But you're not. The Sith don't fight for the greater glory or good. They certainly don't sacrifice themselves for victory – only a victory that you, personally, can live to appreciate and gain from is worth winning for a Sith. The fight for themselves and for the power they gain through it. And they use overwhelming force, whenever they are able to." She didn't need to tell him that her experience of the Sith philosophy was very personal – she wasn't speaking from second hand knowledge here. "Such a raid as you describe is, in essence, a suicide mission, for all that its success would open up the possibility of ultimate victory for the greater Sith cause."

"So why attack Hoth then?" This was Captain Organa; along with Zikl the only other person physically present in the room. From the look on his face, it seemed to pain him slightly to be taking Canderous's side.

Bastila's lips pursed. The focus of her eyes looked to be miles away, somewhere that wasn't altogether pleasant. "A test of whatever artefacts they stole perhaps."

"A test?" Captain Ockona sounded indignant.

"The Force was used against us at Hoth, Captain Ockona. And he a way none of us has experienced before." The new speaker was Captain Ryla Vance, a petite and pretty blonde woman, who looked – from the slightly grainy holographic image – to be no older than her early twenties. In the years before the Mandalorian wars, it would have been unheard of for someone so young to have command of her own starship, especially something as significant as a heavy frigate. Events since that time meant that nowadays competence was the only criteria for command.

"Could you elaborate on that, Captain?" Bastila asked her.

Captain Vance seemed to draw herself up straighter – palpable pride at being addressed in person by perhaps the most famous and celebrated war hero in the Republic. "I had the privilege of fighting at the battle of Drucken Well, Jedi Bastila. I had just been promoted to lieutenant and it was my first, and so far only, experience of fighting under the effects of Battle Meditation. I suppose what we experienced at Hoth is how I imagined it must be to face battle meditation from the other end."

Bastila tried to hide her surprise. Battle Meditation, at least to the degree where it could be used to influence entire star battles consisting of tens, or even hundreds of thousands, of personnel spread across millions of kilometres of space, was an extremely rare trait. Bastila was the first person in almost forty years, since the time of Nomi Sunrider, to be known to possess the ability with any strength – which was what made her so valuable to Republic and Sith alike.

"You are sure of that, Captain Vance?"

She frowned, then coloured slightly, looking almost ashamed. "It was like . . . I don't know, it's difficult to describe. A kind of collective buzzing in our skulls? It became all but impossible to think coherently, and coordination and communication broke down alarmingly. Orders were mislaid or misunderstood, or ignored completely in the heat of panic and paranoia. Tempers frayed and there was a huge incidence of friendly fire incidents. Brave, reliable men and women deserted their posts. It was an utter shambles." She ignored the reproaching look Captain Ockona directed her way. "And this is from experienced individuals, who have been blooded in battle many times before. It was like . . . I don't know; like we were all afflicted by a kind of temporary madness. It may not have been battle meditation. I don't claim to be the expert here, but it was something. Something I don't particularly care to face again on those terms."

Bastila struggled with her expression. Ryla Vance's description was far in excess of anything that battle meditation was capable of, at least in her own experience of using it. Sure, it could be used to lower the moral of enemy troops, and decrease their cohesiveness to a degree, sowing confusion and exaggerating fears, but nothing to the degree that was being described. Primarily it was of use in improving the coordination and moral of your own side, increasing the effectiveness of even the best soldiers by as much as three or four times.

The Force disturbances that she'd felt at Manarb and M4107 came back to her; the whispering madness; the mind burnt. At least now, she thought, she had a good idea of the purpose of whatever that had been recovered from the Flying Kuat. As much as it made her shudder inwardly. "Thank you, Captain. That's very helpful."

The Captain actually smiled at her. "With you to lead us, Jedi Bastila, I know that the outcome will be very different next time. Just as it was against Revan's forces at Drucken Well."

At those words – the simple faith and unquestioning admiration in them – Bastila found she could scarcely keep on looking at her.

"If not a test, perhaps the Hoth raid was meant as a distraction." Captain Organa spoke up suddenly, moving alongside Canderous. "Something that they know will draw us into a response, forcing us to call on ships from surrounding sectors." He indicated three more major Republic military bases in the vicinity. "That way, with all our non-critical ships already recalled to search for Revan, they open up all these systems, here, here and here, for the taking."

Before he could expand on his point one of the gathered holographic Captains abruptly flickered and then vanished.

The red alert alarms went off.

-s-s-

The stars turned to bright lines again as the made it to hyperspace. Finally, Tamar allowed himself to relax slightly. Slumping back in the co-pilot's seat and closing his eyes, he let out a long breath. Beneath his scorched and holed armour, his muscles began to shake as the tension eased and the flow of adrenaline that had been keeping him going gradually subsided.

An old style wedge-shaped Sith Dreadnaught had attempted to intercept them as they'd left Dantalus VI's atmosphere and they'd spent many long, fraught minutes evading turbolaser blasts that would have transformed them into floating vapour if they'd hit. If the Dreadnaught had been one of the faster Rakatan designs, or if the Defel brothers hadn't modified the skyrunner for extra speed – perhaps with the express purpose of evading law enforcement – they would definitely not have made it.

A short and risky hyperspace leap had taken them out to the edge of the Dantalus system, beyond the Dreadnaught's immediate reach. Now, a couple more short leaps on, they could feel reasonably safe in assuming they'd evaded interdiction and program in their real destination – a point near Manaan where they could send a signal to Carth, Jolee and the droids to meet up with them.

Next to him, Yuthura kept on staring straight ahead. She hadn't said anything beyond a few clipped orders since he'd they'd escaped Auza's palace. She didn't say anything now.

He became more and more aware of his injuries as the seconds passed. Lightsabers cauterised the wounds they inflicted, so there was no danger of bleeding to death. He had the rather uncomfortable feeling that he'd sustained some quite nasty tissue damage though.

After a few seconds more, he moved to unfasten himself from the harness belting him to his seat, wincing at the discomfort even that much movement caused. He rose stiffly, hobbling into the cramped space behind the seats that acted rather laughably as living space.

"You're angry with me, aren't you?" he said quietly as he began the rather painstaking job of extracting himself from the Mandalorian armour.

She didn't answer right away. His back was turned to her but he could feel her eyes on him. "I . . . I don't know what I am right now." A pause. "There are still a lot of things I'm not very good at."

"There are some things none of us are very good at." A hiss of pain escaped between clenched teeth as he tried to reach over his shoulder to free a clasp. His body told him in no uncertain terms that it wasn't going to comply.

A moment or two later Yuthura was standing behind him, fingers deftly unfastening the troublesome clasp.

"Thank you." He managed to get the bulky shoulder plates off over his head with only a slight wince as he unavoidably stretched the injured muscles of his side. "But you are angry with me. I can tell."

"I have no reason to be angry with you," she said blankly. This close, he could smell what he thought was her sweat. It was a little like burnt cinnamon; not at all unpleasant. "Everything went successfully. We accomplished what we set out to, and we are both still alive."

Everything went successfully providing T3 can extract something worthwhile from either the comm. logs or the data core, he thought but didn't say.

Silently she helped him with more of the clasps and fastenings of his armour, until he'd managed to get out of the badly scarred and holed breastplate.

"I'm sorry."

She laughed, startled. "You are, aren't you? Even though you have no idea at all what you're apologising for."

"I'm apologising for making you angry." Finally, he was out of the armour entirely, standing there in skin-tight underarmour. It had been burnt through in several places, most notably a huge patch on his left side. The skin underneath showed various degrees of burns.

"Don't." She touched his shoulder; turned him round. "You can't apologise for other peoples' flaws." Her eyes met his. About six inches shorter than he was, at this proximity she had to tilt her head back slightly. The tight confines of the skyrunner meant they were very, very close.

Her fingertips probed gently at his wounded side, their touch feather light. Suddenly she was channelling the Force into the charred muscle tissue. The sensation made him gasp.

"It was the first thing I had my old master teach me when I returned to Dantooine," she told him at his slight look of surprise. "I knew so many ways of causing harm and destruction through the Force . . ." she trailed off, looking down, concentrating on shaping the Force so as to regenerate the tissue and draw away the pain. "I hoped it would help me become . . . something better than what I was."

The shoulder of her jumpsuit was torn, the skin beneath it a raw and angry shade of indigo, seeping clear fluid. It looked horribly painful. As the Force continued to flow from her into him, and he felt his strength gradually returning, he laid a hand over it as lightly as he was able to and started to weave his own threads of healing Force, channelling it into her.

The effect was immediate and . . . startling. Suddenly Force was flowing from one of them to the other and back again, forming a connecting loop between them.

He could feel Yuthura's heartbeat as part of himself, and it seemed to synchronise itself exactly with his own, picking up speed and rhythm; likewise her breathing. Every one of his senses was instantly hypersensitised, and for a very brief moment his awareness of her – scent; texture; even emotion – was almost total. Their minds touched together . . .

And they both flinched back almost simultaneously, the Force ceasing to flow. Too much. Too soon. Too scary. They were both left gasping, stunned by what they had seen.

He blinked stupidly, semi-dazed. His breath came too fast and his heart thudded, thunderous in the close confines.

Her eyes glistened as they looked into his. For a brief moment she looked utterly, utterly startled by what had happened – all the residual cynicism and regret and compounded pain stripped away to leave her looking much younger and softer-edged than she usually was. Her composure reasserted itself quickly, but she didn't turn away from him, as he expected. He didn't turn away either.

Without there being any conscious decision, their faces started to drift closer together.

He stopped, flushing. Their lips were separated by bare millimetres and he could feel the warmth of her breath against his skin. He started to draw back, but her hand went to the back of his neck and caught him, holding him firmly in place. She was very strong.

Though soft, her voice was authoritative. "We are neither of us children anymore, Tamar." Then, more insistently. "Stop. Protecting. Me."

He stopped. Time dilated and thoughts froze. The universe contracted down until it was just them and that cramped, intimate space – nothing else. Then they were in each other's arms, lips coming together in a kiss that was almost ferocious. Her head tails snaked around him, embracing him like an extra set of limbs. Searching fingers found the zip in the back of his underarmour.

Everything was swept away.

-s-s-

A startled gasp escaped from Bastila's lips as the bond flared to life. For one, awful, awful instant she thought that it signalled Tamar's demise – that what she felt was his suddenly becoming one with the Force. But, after a moment longer, she realised that, no, what she had felt had not been death.

Not remotely death.

Then the link died back again briefly before flaring once more, leaving her flushed and trembling, her concentration in tatters, all but thrown out of her battle meditation entirely. Anger, embarrassment and confusion warred, along with other emotions she didn't understand, puncturing any semblance of serenity within her. She clamped the link down hard, forcing it away to the farthest recesses of her mind.

Suddenly she felt the formations of Republic fighters wavering, and her attention snapped back to the here and now. The dark presence she could sense, looming over everything, lashed out at her with renewed vigour as if it sensed her distraction, its anger volcanic at being thwarted for so long.

Brutal, sticky, grasping fingers of Force jabbed at her mind, and this time they penetrated – perforating her defences and violating her being with their taint of utter foulness. Dimly, she felt her physical self screaming in agony, but that seemed entire light years away. She struggled desperately, trying to fight back as her assailant attempted to rip her consciousness from her body and leave her shattered, lost and unravelling, adrift in a sea of madness.

Another scream wracked her, though she was no more aware of it than the first. She fought to embrace the Force, though the effort left her feeling as if she'd been scraped raw. The darkness battered at her, sending her tumbling before it like a leaf blown in the wind, utterly helpless.

Someone caught her.

It was Zikl – a pale, wispy thread of pure silver light – standing beside her. Even viewed purely as a thing of the Force he seemed tentative somehow, but there was also a lining of unwavering strength to him. The Nautolan extended a hand to her. "Take my strength," he said to her, calm despite his obvious fear. She saw his real face, superimposed like a vague ghost over everything. "Use it."

She gaped at him – started to protest – but he just shook his head, braided head tails rippling. Finally, she accepted his grasp, and renewed strength flooded into her.

Then the darkness was lashing out at her again.

It was clumsy, she saw this time: brutish, and uncoordinated, with no subtlety to it whatsoever – a bludgeoning hammer reaching out across the void and smashing all of the minds and consciousnesses that it found in its path. The power of it though, almost rendered that clumsiness irrelevant. It was clumsy like a tornado or a hurricane.

Drawing upon the strength that Zikl offered, she skipped aside from it like quicksilver, darting away from its reaching grasp. She could feel its towering rage. Again and again, she evaded it as it strived to smash her. As long as it kept on concentrating on her, it was not concentrating on the fleet. As long as she could keep ahead of it, there was still hope of victory.

Eventually though, even with Zikl's assistance, weariness set in. She stumbled, and suddenly the darkness loomed over her: a tidal wave about to break and sweep her away.

"Use me." Zikl told her as the darkness rushed towards them. His light was flickering like a wind blown candle; weak and sputtering. "Don't be afraid."

"But I'll . . ."

"Use me!" For the first time that she had known him, there was command in his voice – authority that would not be denied.

Gulping heavily, she did as he told her, draining the last of the Force from him and channelling it through herself, augmenting it with her own strength as a blazing lance of energy.

The light momentarily sliced through the enshrouding darkness as it descended towards her, throwing back the shadows to reveal the assailant that lay behind it – a stooped, hollow thing of shadows and malice, bowed beneath the crushing weight of a huge black crown. Its eyes met with hers, empty of everything – spiritless and bleak.

For a brief moment, she glimpsed exactly where it physically was. Then she thrust the spear of light hard into its face, retreating frantically, searching out her body and consciousness.

"The Excelsior! Throw everything you've got at the Excelsior." Bastila's eyes snapped open, struggling to focus on her immediate surroundings. Blood was streaming from a ruptured blood vessel in her nose, turning the lower half of her face and the front of her Jedi robes bright red. She swayed, eyes unfocused.

She realised dimly that she was holding Zikl's hand, though the Nautolan lay unmoving on the deck before her. There was only the weakest, most tenuous sense of life from him.

"The Excelsior . . ." This time it was barely more than a whisper.

A moment later, she collapsed, unconscious.

-s-s-

Captain Organa watched helplessly over the viewscreens on the Starlight Phoenix's bridge as another volley of turbolaser blasts pounded into the Stormtide.

The battle cruiser's hull was battered and charred, as many as half its decks sliced open to vacuum. Gun nacelles had been obliterated, leaving it all but defenceless, and the fires burning in its main engine had only just been extinguished by the vacuum as they ran out of oxygen to feed on. Sith fighters continued to strafe it, and more turbolaser blasts from a pair of Rakatan vessels bombarded it repeatedly.

They had already lost the Hoth Aurora, the Sullen Moon, and the Ventura. Now Captain Ockona's vessel was equally doomed. Organa's fist clenched at his side, knuckles turning white.

For a short time, it had looked like they might succeed in achieving an improbable victory, even without Bastila's battle meditation to aid them. At least the other looming, debilitating presence was gone too. Ockona and three other ships had managed to break through the Sith lines, zeroing in on the Excelsior, and pounding it in a crippling crossfire.

Bastila had been right about the ship being important – half the Sith strike force had immediately broken formation and desperately wheeled about to try to protect their flagship. This had given Organa and Vance the perfect opportunity to launch their own counteroffensive, striking at the turning Sith vessels mercilessly from the rear.

Two of the Sith ships had exploded, their reactors overloaded by the damage they had taken. The Excelsior had looked like it might be the next, fires burning on board and its shields less than tatters. But then the Hoth Aurora had been taken down by sheer fluke, a dying Sith Gun ship penetrating a hole in its shields as it spiralled out of control, smashing into the battle cruiser's command decks.

That had given the Excelsior the moment of respite it had needed. Ockona's offensive thrust had faltered, and the Excelsior managed to break off and make the leap to hyperspace, fire still flickering on several decks.

And with their flagship safe, the rest of the Sith strike force had appeared to regain their heads. Now it was the Republic's ships that were out of position and overstretched, with Ockona himself fatally isolated.

They had actually managed to sell themselves ship for ship – a remarkable achievement considering the superiority of the Rakatan designed vessels, and the fact that more than half their own ships were already badly damaged. But now it was as good as over. Their lines were stretched, every surviving ship bore severe battle scars, and the Sith formations had recovered.

There was no prospect of Bastila regaining consciousness anytime soon. No Battle Meditation to the rescue. In minutes – maybe seconds – it was going to turn into a rout. If they stood and fought, they would be annihilated.

The Stormtide exploded; a brilliant utterly silent flash.

Organa stared at it grimly, the after image of the explosion burnt into his retinas. Then he did the only thing he could. He signalled the retreat.