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.

10. Distorted Vision

10. Distorted Vision

"So what's the problem? Can't an old man get any rest at all round here?" Jolee's voice, as he climbed the ladder up into the gunship's cramped bridge, was decidedly tetchy.

"A Hutt battlecruiser," Juhani answered calmly, without looking round at him.

Strangely, although events had just taken an abrupt turn for the worse, she felt more at ease and in control of herself than she had since Belaya had picked her up from Taris. It was as if, for her, inner and outer peace had become stuck in some kind of twisted inversely proportional relationship.

Magnified on one of the view screens was a truly titanic – and also quite horrendously ugly – looking vessel.

In the case where a ship was not required to perform any atmospheric manoeuvring, any streamlining or aerodynamic qualities it had were pointless outside of pure aesthetics. If the ship in front of them was anything to go by, then the Hutts clearly understood this fact, and had thus embraced the functional, rather than the stylistic elements of starship design. It resembled an enormous metal brick with engines at one end, a whole multitude of guns at the other, and fighter bays in between. This particular example was heavily battle-scarred, and showed signs of extensive patchwork repairs and additions that made it look like it was suffering from a series of particularly virulent tumourous growths.

"And this was sufficient reason to wake me from my nap, was it? I've seen Hutt battlecruisers before, you know. They don't get any prettier from repeat viewing."

"If we hadn't woken you up, you would only have complained all the louder afterwards," Juhani stated reasonably.

"Bah, when you've got to my age complaining is one of life's few remaining pleasures. You youngsters are such killjoys with your damned logic." He peered at the screen intently. "So why, particularly, is this Hutt battlecruiser worthy of my attention?"

"It's heading into the Maw," one of the gunship's crew stated by way of answer.

"Well, we are near the borders of Hutt space. And I don't think I'd be going too far out on a limb to suggest that Kemo Dreya draws a substantial portion of his clientele from among those of a Huttese persuasion."

He was concerned though, Juhani could tell. He was simply voicing the innocent explanation as a matter of form, to ensure someone had done so. "About a minute ago it blasted one of Dreya's relay stations," she informed him. "Even for a Hutt, I think that would probably be considered impolite as a conversational opener."

"Ah." A pause. "Do we know who it might belong to?"

"I believe that Director Marshall is looking into the matter. The markings on it indicate its name is the Rancorous."

Jolee nodded vaguely at Juhani's words. On screen, the Hutt battlecruiser started releasing clouds of tiny-looking objects in its wake – pulse mines, effectively blocking anyone from directly following its route.

"Do you think Dreya betrayed him, then?" Juhani murmured, quiet enough that only Jolee would hear.

"More likely one of his guests or employees. Why destroy the relay otherwise?" He paused again, voice dropping even further. "Or it could, of course, be the other case we discussed."

That somebody on board their own vessel had a grudge against Revan, and was acting as an informant against him. It would explain why both pirates and Sith had been able to lays ambushes for the Winding Way. "I think, perhaps, while there are still alternative possibilities, we should not get too paranoid about those on our own side."

"Nor should we blind ourselves to something simply because we don't like the idea." He sighed. "But yes, for the moment I tend to agree."

"Should we follow?"

"Jedi Juhani," he murmured, ever so slightly reproachful. "You don't need to wake an old man from his shuteye to make that kind of decision for you, now do you?"

After a moment, she nodded, feeling her cheeks heat slightly beneath their covering of short fur. "No, I do not. I do, however, have need of a pilot who is force sensitive, to navigate through the black holes' gravitational fields. We can clearly no longer follow directly along the marked lane. From the stories you tell, you were quite an accomplished pilot in your youth."

"And in my middle-age too. Damn it, if I'd thought anybody was actually paying attention to anything I was saying, I'd have shut the hell up a long time ago." A rueful exhalation. "That'll teach me, won't it?"

She thought he seemed pleased though, despite the bluster. He stepped forward, tapping the man currently occupying the pilot's position on the shoulder. "Hey there sonny, I think you're sitting in my chair."

-s-s-

Rath Gannaya looked over his shoulder as Kreed entered the Shadow Dancer's bridge. "Everyone accounted for?"

"Everyone accounted for," Kreed confirmed heavily.

He didn't, Rath noted, sound particularly enthusiastic, but that was something that could be addressed later. It failed to put a dampener on his mood, which was quietly ecstatic. "Theda, my dear. Could you contact the lovely Mr. Dreya?"

"Aye, aye, Captain." They shared a brief smile.

A second or so later a holographic representation of Kemo Dreya's face appeared, blue-tinged and ghostly. The expression it bore suggested that he'd inadvertently swallowed a wasp. As Rath sat down in front of the comm. station, the expression became, if anything, even sourer. "What is it now Gannaya? My patience with you is being sorely tested."

Rath smiled broadly, knowing it was just about the most infuriating thing he could do in the circumstances. "I thought you'd be pleased to know that our business here has been successfully concluded, and we're ready to depart."

Dreya glowered. "Then I will gladly instruct control to open the first available departure slot for you."

"Why, thank you."

The look he got back was cold. "I don't appreciate my hospitality being abused and my neutrality flouted like this, Gannaya."

"Oh, come now . . ."

Dreya overrode him. "Consider yourself banned. Permanently. If you ever show up here again, you'll be met with guns blazing."

Rath raised an eyebrow. "Overreacting a tad, aren't you Kemo? Did I not keep my word perfectly? There wasn't so much as an accidental blaster charge to trouble your sensibilities. Let's not be rash about what was, after all, a simple business deal."

It cut no ice. Not that he'd really expected it to. "Be grateful I don't take any further sanctions. I'm strongly tempted to."

Rath sighed extravagantly. "Well, I'm sad to hear that Kemo, truly I am. And I hope, when you've calmed down slightly, you'll reconsider." If anything Dreya's glower deepened. "But I get the sense from your expression that I'm wasting my words, so I'll just say one more thing. In order to ensure your precious peace, you might want to prevent Revan's vessel from departing anytime inside the next few hours. Of course, that is simply a polite suggestion, and should not in any way be construed as a threat. Now, I'll say goodbye, and hope that the next time we exchange words will be considerably more cordial."

As Dreya started to speak again, Rath cut the line. "Self-righteous bloody ronto lover," he muttered, before turning back to Theda. "Prepare us for departure. We should be receiving an exit lane slot anytime now."

"Already received it," she replied. Her hands moved rapidly over the controls in front of her, initiating the start-up sequence.

If I'd known how smoothly this was going to go, I'd have got something in to celebrate with. A nice bottle o f . . .

A teeth-rattling vibration juddered through the Shadow Dancer's superstructure, before dying back. The instruments in front of Theda lit up in an array of brilliantly flashing red, several dozen different warning telltales beeping simultaneously in strident discord.

It became abruptly clear that something was very wrong indeed.

"What's the problem?" Rath's sense of burgeoning elation snapped off instantly – akin to being dropped without warning into the middle of an icy lake from a great height.

Theda was muttering beneath her breath, her face lit up by incarnadine neon glow. The warning telltales continued to beep incessantly. "The main drive's dead." Her voice was clinical.

"What do you mean, the main drive is dead?" Rath leant over her shoulder and tried to make some kind of sense of the displays. Suddenly, his heart was hammering in his chest. This is how the house of cards collapses . . .

"I mean its dead. Non-operational. Completely frakked. Choose your own profanity. Main and auxiliary power lines have been severed, and there's some kind of problem being reported in the main core." Glancing at another pair of telltales, she swore fluently. "And just for good measure, there's no power getting through to the main landing repulsors."

"Shall we go and pay Revan a visit?" Kreed cut in, his voice flat.

In that moment, Rath had a startlingly strong urge to throttle the Mandalorian.

-s-s-

In her mind, Bastila felt them. Thousands of lives spread out around her, linked together by the diffuse touch of her will through the force.

As always, it filled her with a strange, intense mixture of exhilaration and something else that was close to terror. The sense that she was being drawn too thin, spread out over too great a span, and would be lost entirely – cut adrift on the force until she was entirely subsumed – if for some reason her concentration were to fail her. A minute portion of her almost wanted that failure – a tiny voice that whispered at her to jump over the edge of the precipice, and for a brief, shining moment, be free.

As always, she was able to ignore that voice.

At her behest, formations of fighters and capital ships responded to orders in near perfect unison. Actions and reactions meshed, and each individual burning speck of will became a part of a vastly greater whole – a frictionless cog in a gigantic, smoothly oiled machine. She didn't direct tactics or strategy. She simply caused those tactics and strategies to be carried out with maximum efficiency and co-ordination, bolstering moral and will, strengthening resolve, enhancing skill and potential.

Over on the far left flank she felt the agonised flaring of multiple lives extinguishing, and sensed Republic formations wavering, on the verge of collapse. Coolly and calmly she responded, strengthening and reinforcing, soothing away fear and discord, whilst simultaneous reaching out and sapping at the moral of the attacking Sith forces – sowing doubt and confusion through their ranks and causing their strike to falter.

What could have become a fatal turning point, Republic lines punctured and formations disarrayed, the entire left side of the field collapsing in on itself, became nothing more than a slight mishap. As soon as the situation stabilised, her attention moved on, joining a counterthrust stabbing at the heart of the Sith battle force.

More lives extinguished, dark and violent ripples spreading out around her.

She held herself shielded from the worst of the effects, forcing herself to remain fully focused, separated from the horror of it. Her earlier attempts to make herself feel and experience the deaths around her now seemed nothing more than a shocking self-indulgence. In a battle like this, the only sensible thing you could do was try to win and end the fighting, as quickly and cleanly as possible.

A Sith formation fragmented, one of the Rakatan-designed battlecruisers turning tail and retreating under an incoming barrage. A second battlecruiser tried to stand fast, and was caught up in a withering crossfire, every shot aimed at it hitting home with uncanny precision and accuracy.

Then it too, finally, attempted to flee.

It was far too late. Turbolaser blasts from a Republic dreadnaught pulverised its engines, while a heavy frigate strafed it simultaneously in a close pass. Something critical was hit, and the Sith vessel detonated in a brilliant flash.

More than five thousand lives extinguished in a single instant, a howling scream that echoed through the force. As the shockwaves from it washed over her, Bastila shielded herself grimly, fighting down horror and pity – wrestling down the dark memory flashes and tormenting voices from the near past.

Another Sith capital ship was crippled, floating dead in space, fires spreading through its decks. Then the entire centre of the Sith forces began to disintegrate, Republic ships cutting through enemy lines seemingly at will. Bastila forced herself to concentrate all the harder, though she could feel fatigue creeping up on her, dimly aware that her body was trembling with the effort, sweating profusely.

Finally, the disintegration turned into full-scale retreat. Sith vessels disengaged across the board and made desperate leaps to hyperspace. Rather than press and pursue, the Republic forces let them go.

The Battle of Daragba, after raging intensely for over three hours, petered out with a whimper.

Bastila let herself withdraw, returning to her body with a metaphoric crash.

She was shaking. Her breath came short and fast. Briefly she scrunched her eyes closed as the brightness of her surroundings became too much to bear, pressing the heel of her hand against her brow as pain stabbed through her skull.

That, however, was all par for the course when she'd been using battle meditation for a prolonged period. Slowly her breathing slowed and calmed, and the pain in her head subsided somewhat, her eyes readjusting to her surroundings. She picked up the water bottle beside her and drank deeply. Then she unfolded herself and stood up, legs trembling from being locked in the same position for so long.

She felt cold – almost panicked. It had all been too easy.

Around twenty thousand dead, over four thousand of those on the Republic side. And that counted as too easy. She wasn't sure if it was more appropriate to laugh, or to weep. But the fact remained, utterly incontrovertible.

Darth Malefic had not been there.

There had been no dark presence, looming over the battlefield, crowned in madness, lashing out of the Republic forces and striving to shatter them. This had been no repeat of Tylace. And although there was a part of her that was desperately, giddily relieved over avoiding that confrontation, there was another part of her that was equally as desperately afraid.

It meant that they had arrived too late.

Rather than being won, the battle had been lost before it was even fought.

-s-s-

"W-Wait a minute. You did what!" Mission's voice rose stridently, incredulous. "You traded Tamar for me? You traded him to those . . . those slime sucking nerf-herders? You . . . you can't do that." She stopped in her tracks, hands on hips, her lekku quivering defiantly.

Yuthura stopped too and, for a moment, just looked at her.

For some reason it brought back uncomfortable flashes of herself at that age: already a pleasure slave, far too old for the number of years she'd lived. Her own fires had been buried deep inside, behind layers of masks and shackles carefully constructed for the sake of her sanity and survival, a slow burning fuse that would eventually become ferocious rage and hatred. On the surface, the differences were profound, but there were also similarities that were almost painful.

"How, precisely, do you suggest I should have stopped him?" she asked quietly.

Mission's jaw clenched. "You should have done something."

You should have done something. Found another way. A cuttingly precise summation of her own thoughts on the matter. She hid a grimace, looking round at the sterile, curving corridor they were walking along. One of Dreya's employees was walking the other way, but he barely gave them a second glance. "Let's keep moving. We're not having this conversation here."

Mission's arms folded across her chest defiantly. "I don't take orders from you. Let's get that one clear right now. You might not care anything about what happens to Tamar, but I do. He's my friend. If you think I'm just going to be a good little girl, and do as I'm told, and let this happen. Well, you're . . . you're wrong."

"Yes, what could someone like me possibly care about Tamar," Yuthura murmured, barely audible beneath her breath. Then, "I really don't have time to indulge you in this, Mission." Her head tails flicked, signing rapidly as she spoke those dismissive words. We can't talk here. Odds are we're being listened to. I am not abandoning him. I know you don't trust me, but we are on the same side here. Please try to believe that.

After a fractional delay, Mission signed back: fine. She didn't look happy. She did, however, stop protesting – although Yuthura got the sense that any co-operation was extremely provisional.

A few minutes later, they were entering docking bay six, walking rapidly.

"That's your ship?" Mission asked warily. They stopped in front of the Ajunta's Blade, Yuthura taking a remote control from one of her pockets and lowering the entrance ramp.

"In a manner of speaking. Tamar borrowed it, actually. From a pair of Defel brothers." Yuthura started up the ramp. "We should probably have returned it before now, but events have been . . . rather hectic of late."

She trailed off as she realised that Mission wasn't following her anymore.

She'd stopped at the bottom of the ramp, and had a look in her eyes that suggested she was about to bolt. "W-What did you just say?"

"Mission?" The brief flash of annoyance faded as she saw sudden and genuine fear on the Twi'lek girl's face.

"About Defels. You said Tamar borrowed it from some 'Defel brothers'."

"That's correct." Yuthura walked slowly back down the ramp. A bad feeling was growing inside her. "Kreish and Navesch, their names were. They were working as the bodyguards to Suvam Tan. You know the Rodian, don't you?" Then, more urgently. "Mission? What's wrong?"

Mission started to back off steadily. "Only, Rath employs a whole bunch of Defels. Some kind of monastic warrior order of them, or something. They call themselves 'the Brothers'."

It was like a knife going in.

Suddenly a whole number of things made a lot more sense – like how Gannaya had managed to track them here. Yuthura swore, hitting the earpiece she wore, opening a channel to T3. If the Ajunta's Blade allowed Gannaya to do more than simply track them . . . if it allowed them to listen in on the cockpit . .

A short conversation later, she was ever so slightly reassured.

According to T3, just under twenty minutes ago, the Shadow Dancer had requested – and been granted – a departure slot. As of yet, it had made no move to leave, although station sensors had detected a brief and abortive attempt from the vessel to power-up. All of which strongly suggested HK had gotten through successfully and managed to complete the first stage of his task.

So not quite as bad as she'd for a moment feared. But possibly bad enough.

She broke off the conversation with the utility droid as she realised that Mission had made it quickly and stealthily across the landing bay, back to the bulkhead doors leading to the rest of the station. "What are you doing?"

Mission whirled guiltily. Her head tails flattened. Her expression became defiant, and the sense Yuthura received over the force indicated that the girl was entirely ready to fight if she had to.

Yuthura started walking towards her. "We don't have time for this, Mission."

"How do I know that anything you've told me is true?" The surface was tough, but Yuthura could detect turmoil and lonely uncertainty within her. "For all I know, you could be working with them, and this is all some kind of . . ." A nervous flick of her head tails. ". . . ruse or something."

"T3 . . ."

"Is a droid. Droids can be reprogrammed, their memories wiped."

Frustration spiked. There was a brief moment where the urge to reach into Mission's head and simply make her co-operate became powerfully appealing. She shoved it away. That was a breach of trust from which they'd never recover.

"You don't know," she said eventually. "There is nothing I can tell you that you can't explain away, if you want to." Her words sounded clumsy to her ears – nigh on idiotic. "But what are you going to do otherwise? Where are you going to go from here on your own? How are you going to help Tamar?"

"I'm not helpless."

"No, you're not. Which is the reason I need you to help me here."

For a moment, it looked like Mission was wavering. Then her expression tightened again. "You were a Sith. The headmistress of the Korriban academy, right?"

Yuthura nodded.

"So why do you care about him? Why does this matter to you?"

Yuthura let out a breath. "There are just about a million different reasons and answers I could give. But the one that matters – the one that matters above anything else to me – is that he is my friend."

And that was, she realised, absolutely true. Love – whatever else they had, or might potentially have – paled before that single fact. "So we do have at least that one thing common, even if there is nothing else." She hesitated, wishing she was better at this, and that the words came easier instead of clogging in her throat. "He was my friend when I hadn't had anyone who I could call a friend in so many years I'd almost forgotten that the possibility still existed. He was my friend where there was no possible advantage to him, and by rights he should have simply killed me." She fixed Mission's gaze with her own. "And I absolutely refuse to lose him like this."

Finally, Mission nodded. "I – I believe you."

Yuthura flinched, and felt something inside that was acutely painful. A year ago, she could have spoken exactly the same words, in exactly the same tone – except they would have been carefully constructed manipulation, designed to give her a hook on which to gut their recipient.

Mission stepped away from the bulkhead doors. "So, what do we do? And before you start, it is we. No getting me to safety 'because it's what he wanted', because honestly, he's a bit, well . . . thick sometimes. I'm sure you've noticed, right?"

She managed to smile. "I've noticed."

That smile faded quickly. There was no magic plan of action they'd worked out in advance, beyond the first step of HK preventing the Shadow Dancer leaving Dreya's Bastion, buying time to come up with something else.

Unfortunately, something else was proving elusive.

She didn't answer Mission verbally. Instead, her head tails signed with a lot more confidence than she felt. HK-47 has stopped them from departing for the moment.

The assassin droid would, by this point, have switched over to the primary purpose for which Revan had originally built it, and would continue at that purpose until it was destroyed. Yuthura didn't dare let herself hope it might succeed.

So now we visit Dreya. We put the pressure on. We get him to turn that pressure onto them.

-s-s-

The Defel stopped. It had obviously heard something, from the way its posture suddenly became tensed – hyper-alert.

It began to look closely around the droid storage bay, peering between the towering hulks of the battlefield assault droids, scarred surfaces gleaming softly in the dim light. It gilded past a deactivated utility droid and a rack containing a variety of mechanical limbs, a dark and haunting wraith.

A few metres beyond the utility droid, there was a humanoid droid made of dull red metal. For a moment, the Defel stopped in front of it, peering at it curiously. It was just as obviously deactivated as the utility droid though, slumped forward like a carelessly discarded marionette, utterly silent, with no hum of latent power.

The Defel moved on.

There was a flicker of movement – a soft whirr of activating power cells. The Defel didn't even have time to turn around. There was a soft thud, accompanied by a wet and unpleasant tearing sound. A mechanical hand clamping over the Defel's mouth stopped it making any other sound.

A second or two later, it was lowered to the floor.

Dead, the light absorbing properties of the Defel's hide gradually faded, and its bulk assumed a greater solidity. Congealing blood slowly spread out around it.

"Observation: you should have kept on walking, meatbag."

-s-s-

"What the hell have you done?"

At the sound of Rath Gannaya's voice, edged by very definite anger, Tamar shifted from where he was lying on the cell's single bunk, fingers interlocked behind his head, and sat up. "Well, for about the last half hour or so, I've been staring at the ceiling," he stated mildly. "It is not, to be honest, a particularly interesting ceiling."

Silence dragged.

"You know very well what I mean." Rath was slightly calmer this time, but his expression bore a distinctly fixed look that suggested this was merely a surface sheen. "What have you done to my ship?"

Tamar had felt the vibration that passed through the Shadow Dancer when it had tried to power up. He did indeed know exactly what Rath meant.

I owe you one, HK.

He scratched his chin. The stubble indicated a need to shave. "Let's look at the situation calmly, shall we? I'm inside a two and a half metre square cell, behind a battlefield grade forcefield. There are four tanks in the room outside, one or more – and possibly all – of which contain ysalamari, cutting me very effectively off from the force. And on top of that, I'm wearing a disruptor collar. You don't do things by half measures, do you Rath? Should I still call you Rath by the way, or is Mr. Gannaya more appropriate now this is a prisoner-captor type of relationship?" He kept his expression carefully impassive throughout.

"It would be very easy for me to kill you."

Standing beside Rath, Tamar noted the big and extremely tough looking cyborg carefully. A Mandalorian, by the visible clan tattoo on the arm that was still flesh and bone. Dromos clan, his brain supplied, the information obviously coming from that same shadowy place where his detailed knowledge of the tactics of space battle resided.

It certainly wasn't anything he had any memory of learning.

Before answering, he lay back down on the bunk, and resumed looking up at the not particularly interesting ceiling. "Yes it would. Very easy indeed, I'd imagine. I note the air vents. You could gas me without ever dropping the forcefield, I'm sure. And this disruptor collar? Slightly heavier than one might expect. An explosive charge, I take it? Sensible precaution."

After disabling the ship's drive unit, HK's next move should have been to slice its way into the Shadow Dancer's security system. Tamar was betting that this cell was wired up to the gills with monitors and microphones. Hopefully, the information he was giving out might prove useful, if it was heard.

"Would you like me to have Kreed here start breaking bits of you?" Rath's tone was equally as conversational as Tamar's.

"Not particularly. Nice of you to offer, though."

The skin around Rath's eyes creased. "Your failure to grasp the particulars of your current situation is remarkable."

Tamar continued to stare at the ceiling. "I think I grasp the situation quite well, actually. We made a deal, and here we are, deal completed. I'm in your power. You can kill me at will – although it will cost you at least two-thirds of my bounty if you do so. You can torture me. Maybe if you expend enough effort at it, you can break me. I'm not going to make any idiotic boasts here. What you can't make me do, though, is willingly co-operate just because you're having a few technical difficulties."

A sideways glance showed Rath thumbing something inside his pocket. Abruptly, the disruptor collar switched on. With no connection to the force, there was no possible way for Tamar to resist it, and everything around him faded into a gently buzzing fugue state.

-s-s-

"Jedi Bastila!"

At the shout, echoing across one of the Starlight Phoenix's landing bays, Bastila stopped and turned around.

It was Lieutenant Jansa – the science corps archaeologist who'd accompanied her on Drumond Kaas – looking distinctly flushed as she scurried to catch up. Bastila could sense a nervous mixture of excitement and apprehension from the woman, almost boiling over. "Lieutenant?" she prompted calmly.

Jansa came to a halt in front of her, panting and flustered. A transparent sheet flapped in one of her hands, covered in an intricate tracing of lines and arcs drawn in numerous different colours. "Thank the force I caught up with you in time." Her free hand darted nervously through her short-cropped hair as she spoke.

"What's wrong, Lieutenant?"

She looked meaningfully at the two republic commandos flanking Bastila. Bastila gestured that they should continue to the waiting dropship, and she'd catch up. "Well?"

Jansa swallowed. The words tumbled out. "It's the map we found on Drumond Kaas. It's . . . well, I think it's been altered. No, I'm sure it has been altered." Her hand swept through her hair again, leaving it sticking up in sweaty spikes. "I'm sorry. I haven't had any sleep in two . . . three days? The caffa's got me all jittery. What I mean is, it's pointing to the wrong place. Not the place that Bailor Drumond intended it to point to, anyway."

"You're certain?" Bastila knew that the words were stupid even as she spoke them. She could feel Jansa's certainty to the point of panic.

"I . . . look, see these symbols, here, here, here and here?" Her fingers touched points on the transparency. "It's easier to see on the hologram, but that's in one of the labs, halfway across the ship." A rapid headshake. "They don't fit with the rest of the pattern. I've gone over it time and again, and I keep coming to the same, unavoidable conclusion. Velta Laska agrees with me – it's not just me being paranoid here. Someone has deliberately altered it. I can show you my workings, but they're back in my quarters . . ."

"I not questioning you," Bastila told her, peering at the mess of lines and markings and struggling to make the slightest bit of sense of it. "But I thought we'd already been over this in the briefing?"

Jansa flushed. "We were too hasty. We didn't look closely enough, because at a glance it is very convincing."

"So what you're saying is: Darth Malefic has not only got here and away again before us, he's also altered the map, so now we have no way of even finding where, or what, he was looking for." Her voice sounded eerily calm, which made it a liar.

"Erm . . . possibly not."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, um, the alterations seem like they where made quite some time ago. As in years ago, rather than simply months."

"Revan," she murmured, as she stared at the sheet. "Revan altered it to cover his back trail."

"Why not simply destroy it entirely in that case?" Jansa sounded puzzled. "It wasn't like the Rakatan star maps you described. It wasn't self-regenerating. It was just a lump of metal."

Because at the stage he found it, Revan wasn't a destroyer, Bastila thought. He might not have been a Jedi anymore, but he wasn't yet a Sith. She looked up from the transparency. "If you can tell it's been altered, can you extrapolate back to what it was altered from?"

"No," Jansa shook her head emphatically. "I've even tried pushing models through the ship's computer. The person who altered it – Revan, or whoever – knew exactly what they were doing. They didn't simply alter the symbols needed to change the location it showed. They also altered any symbols you could use to interpolate the original ones from."

Bastila was now distinctly puzzled. "So that would mean . . . Malefic has the altered version of the map too, and if the alterations are as hard to detect as you say . . ." She stopped herself and shook her head distractedly. "No. No, if he didn't find anything, he wouldn't have left. He would still have been here when we arrived. Which clearly he wasn't."

"Unless he did find something. The map could have been altered to point to something plausible." The excitement dropped abruptly out of Jansa's voice. "Or, say it was Revan for now. Maybe he left notes on the alterations he made. Perhaps it was only the Jedi he didn't want following him. I mean, this Darth Malefic has to have access to information we don't in order to lead him to Drumond Kaas in the first place, doesn't he?"

Which brought them back round to more or less where they'd started.

Before she could say anything else, Canderous's voice interrupted, dry and drawling. "Trust it to be the women keeping us all waiting. Trouble choosing your outfit or something?"

"Patience!" she snapped, turning her attention back to Jansa and pointedly ignoring him. "We need to go down and assess the damage anyway. Perhaps we'll manage to pick up some indicators that aren't obvious from up here." She couldn't manage to feel too optimistic though.

The thought of having to answer the Jedi Council's summons, nothing accomplished except for running smack into a dead end, loomed large.

"I want to come with you, Jedi Bastila. I . . . might be useful."

After a moment's pause, Bastila nodded.

"Finally," she heard Canderous mutter as she turned around.

-s-s-

It was near impossible to have any kind of accurate sense of time whilst under the effects of a disruptor collar. Nevertheless, Tamar had the sense that he hadn't been under for long. Minutes, rather than hours or days.

"He will kill you, you know." The voice was female – rather compelling. "Don't overestimate the value he places in your monetary worth."

He looked up. Rath and Kreed were gone. In their place was a Zeltron woman, tall and – as with most of that species – extraordinarily physically attractive. He looked at her face . . .

And suddenly the memory-hallucination he'd had on the orbital station above Coruscant came back. Her, pale and silvered by the light of three moons – two white, the smallest red – as she stood upon the balcony of their shared bedchamber.

One face was pale, the other a shade of dusky red-violet. Aside from that, though, they were almost identical. A face that he had, apparently, once burnt off.

Tamar's heart was suddenly thudding as he realised that Rath Gannaya's interest in him was nothing remotely to do with money. He was in a lot more trouble than he'd thought.

She seemed every bit as startled as he was. For a second or so, he could see her struggling to speak. "You know me. You know who I am."

There were stories – myths, legends, and old spacers' tales, which tended to be dismissed by the more educated – of people encountering Zeltrons who looked inexplicably like someone familiar. A lost lover perhaps, or maybe a flame from the past that a person had never entirely managed to move on from. Or simply an unrequited fantasy.

Some, who didn't simply dismiss the whole thing out of hand, theorised that this phenomenon was due to the strong pheromones that Zeltrons gave off; combing with their emotion-altering empathic abilities to subtly – or not so subtly – alter an onlooker's perceptions into seeing whatever it was they most wanted to see. Others went even further, suggesting that a Zeltron's appearance altered genuinely over time to more closely match those external perceptions.

Tamar found himself wondering if this woman would look the same to him if he could still touch the force. "And you don't?" he asked quietly.

One of her facial muscles twitched. "Rath is, in many respects, a very private man. Even with those who are closest to him."

He nodded.

"But you did recognise me – this face you see. I felt the recognition, and your alarm." She might look like her, Tamar thought, but the timbre of her voice was very different – at least from the woman he had encountered on Coruscant.

"'You' were my lover, I think," he said eventually.

She blinked, visible shock passing across her face. It was suppressed quickly, but he didn't need the force to tell him that she was still shaken underneath. Badly shaken. "You think?"

"My memories are a . . . troublesome area."

"Did you kill me . . . kill her? Is that what this is really about?"

"No, I'm fairly certain I didn't kill her." He watched her closely as he spoke. Without access to the force, it felt like half the information was missing and he was fumbling blindly in the dark. "You see, I met her again fairly recently. Right after the death of the Jedi Council. She was the Dark Lord of the Sith."

The Zeltron woman's lips tightened. Then she whirled away abruptly, walking out and leaving him alone.

-s-s-

"Internal scans don't pick up any unaccounted for life-forms," Ygress warbled. The Verpine's damaged left antenna twitched intermittently as he spoke. His narrow, nimble-fingered hands traced over the softly glowing display screen, pointing out the relevant raw data. "Station records show that only three individuals entered Dreya's Bastion from docking bay six. Revan, Yuthura Ban, and their utility droid. The utility droid is currently in the station's central computer facility. Yuthura Ban and Mission Vao are currently in Kemo Dreya's offices."

Rath swore under his breath; forced himself to take a deep breath and calm down. Stress was sending splitting pain spiking through his skull. His hand came up to rub the bridge of his nose. "The skyrunner is designed to be a two man craft, but can accommodate four, at a push. Correct?"

"Correct."

"Then there was a fourth person on board." Stating the obvious, but stating the obvious was sometimes a very useful thing to do, Rath had found. The obvious had a habit of either biting you on the ass if you took it for granted, or not being quite as obvious as you thought once it was verbalised.

"The station logs show no evidence of a fourth individual." Again, Ygress pointed out the relevant section. "According to them, the only activity in bay six since Revan's arrival was Ban and Vao entering, then exiting again several minutes later. This occurred after the initial sabotage to our engines." He scrolled further down. "Neither are there any records of anyone entering docking bay three, save for Revan, Kreed and Theda."

"Then the records are wrong, aren't they?"

"Logic suggests so."

There were times when having a conversation with Ygress could be infuriating. This was definitely one of them. The Verpine had an entirely different sense of priorities and urgency to everyone else, and right now, he seemed – by his normal, twitchy, near hyperactive standards – to be in a state of perfectly unruffled calm that approached lethargy.

Rath struggled to contain his temper.

Then something near painfully obvious occurred to him. "You're hacking the station's computer systems to get this data. If you can do that, I'm betting their utility droid can do exactly the same thing."

Ygress tilted his head, mimicking a human in thoughtful pose. "Possibly. It is currently interfacing with Master Dreya's slicing cluster though, which is not connected to the stations other networks." Antennae movements hinted at slight frustration. "Otherwise, I would be able to retrieve a copy of what it is trying to slice."

"But there will be other terminals it could use nearby. And it likely hacked the system before we arrived, so it can prevent you detecting it, and hide information it wants to hide."

"More doubtful."

In someone else, Rath might have taken that to be a sign of ego – of not wanting to admit that there was someone else as, or even more, talented than themselves. The problem was, Ygress had virtually nothing in the way of ego, at least in the conventional sense. In many respects, he was almost an idiot savant, oddly childlike – albeit a child with traits that trod the borders of psychosis, and a sense of humour that occasionally strayed towards the genuinely chilling. "Explain?"

"One source slicing a system has minimal impact on a second source doing similar, unless by its actions it degrades the system being sliced. There is no sign of this. In addition, Dreya has very sophisticated security auditing. As long as I don't change anything, and restrict myself to monitoring, I escape detection. As soon as I do anything more concrete, like attempting to alter data, I trigger numerous telltales and alarms. The droid would face the same circumstance."

"So if the station records haven't been altered, then what?" A thought occurred. "If no one entered the station from bay six, or bay three from the station, then could they have got round from bay six to bay three externally?"

Ygress made a clicking noise, head waggling thoughtfully. "All external airlocks are monitored. And radiation levels outside would result in a fatal dose being received in a short period of time for any species I am aware of."

The answer was neither a yes nor a no; simply a statement of facts. Ygress liked facts, and preferred to leave them clean and unsullied by presumption.

Before Rath could follow the thought through, his comm. unit warbled. It was Ravelasch, reporting tersely that nothing untoward had been discovered on the initial sweep of the ship.

"How long until repairs are complete?" he demanded of Ygress as the conversation with Ravelasch cut off. Impatience edged his voice.

"Four to five hours. Driggs, Meitak, Tyce and Durga are assisting".

Too bloody long. Sitting exposed in the docking bay of a space station whose owner you'd managed to severely piss off, with a former Dark Lord of the Sith in your brig, and an unknown element running loose on your ship, for four to five hours was not a good position. That was putting it mildly. "I can give your more men."

"Five is optimal for the task. But I will take more men as is needed to expedite matters."

Rath started to say something else, but this time it was Ygress's comm. unit that interrupted. He watched the way the Verpine's antennae moved with growing apprehension. Not good news.

"Well?" he demanded when the conversation was over.

"Our intruder has located our stash of spares. There has been considerable damage to specific parts required to repair the main drive."

For a moment, Rath struggled not to lash out in frustration. He could scarcely believe the speed with which the situation was unravelling. When he spoke again, his voice was held together by a brittle kind of calm. "What effect does this have on repair schedules?"

"Unknown until I assess the damage first hand. We may still be able to cannibalise what we need."

"Or?" There was definitely an 'or' in there, Rath thought grimly.

"Or we may need to secure another source of spare parts."

Rath's thoughts were suddenly whirring – a tumbling, frenetic mess of activity. To be able to sabotage their drive was one thing. That just required an understanding of ship-design. To be able to locate the spares though . . .. He swore abruptly and fluently. "Turn our computer systems off. Now."

Ygress's head tilted to one side, the Verpine's expression showing no flicker of understanding. "Why would we want to do that?"

"Because our intruder has sliced into it," he explained with a grim patience he didn't remotely feel. "And right now it's likely providing them more of an advantage than us . . ."

His comm. unit warbled again. Rath stifled a groan. It was Ravelasch again. Just when it can't get any worse . . .

But it could get worse, and did.

The dead body of Tagalon – one of the Brothers – had just been discovered.

-s-s-

"I think you misunderstand me." Yuthura's voice held a silken quality, almost purring. Her eyes bored into Kemo Dreya's across the short distance of desktop between them. Dreya's expression was fixedly uncomfortable. "I am not making a suggestion, or asking your permission. I am informing you, out of politeness, what is going to happen."

"Lady Ban . . ." he started, placating.

She cut him off. "When myself and Tamar entered this spacestation as your guests, we agreed to abide by certain rules and standards of behaviour set out by yourself. Our understanding was that all other guests would be held to those same standards too. Clearly we were mistaken."

"I assure you that Mr. Gannaya acted entirely without my sanction." A tight smile that was halfway to being a grimace flashed briefly and was gone again. "Indeed, I have already taken steps to punish the man. He has been forbidden from returning . . ."

"That hardly corrects the matter in hand, does it?" Yuthura leant forward, every movement filled with a lithely fluid grace. Her eyes remaining fixed on his face, and she bared her sharp white teeth in an expression that couldn't remotely be mistaken for a smile.

"I would remind you that you entered into the transaction that took place of your own free will. While it might . . . distort the spirit of the rules I set out, I can hardly be expected to interfere in a voluntary business transaction between two consenting parties." She could feel his fear as he spoke, which rather undermined the reasonableness of his tone.

"Under what law does consent obtained under duress count as consent?" she enquired, trailing a sharp-nailed fingertip across the top of the desk and producing a high-pitched squeaking, scraping sound.

He started to answer, but she overrode him again. "Now, as I have already said, you are either going to do something to rectify the situation, or I am. I leave that to you."

"I am not going to allow you to provoke some kind of bloodbath, Lady Ban," he said, nearly managing to sound emphatic. Unfortunately, she thought, he wasn't entirely without a spine on some matters.

Mission sighed in ostentatious disgust. "This would go so much easier if you did that neato force lightning thing."

"Do you think so?" Yuthura asked dryly.

Mission nodded emphatically. "Yeah, I think I'd find it kind of persuasive. Or maybe you could try force choking. That looks pretty cool too. Though it does make it difficult to talk when you can't breathe, I suppose. Hey, I mean I'm not the expert here, am I?"

Yuthura smiled. "You must excuse my companion. She has a rather . . . enthusiastic outlook. Perhaps you'd like to explain to her why we don't need to resort to anything nearly so unpleasant, and that a diplomatic solution is so much . . . healthier for all of us."

Before Dreya could respond, the doors behind Yuthura and Mission beeped and slid open, Dreya's young Neimodian assistant entering, head bowed and distinctly nervous.

"What is it Parvus?" Dreya snapped. "I thought I made it clear I wasn't to be disturbed?" Despite his tone he looked relieved, the irritation merely something that was manufactured as a matter of form.

"It is . . . er." A darting sideways glance at Mission and Yuthura, before he swallowed, continuing. "Those guests you asked to be kept informed about. Their leader is on the line, wanting to talk to you urgently."

"Tell him to wait . . ." Dreya started.

"Put him through to this office," Yuthura overrode him. Her voice contained far more authority than his. "I'm sure we're all terribly interested to hear what he has to say."

The Neimodian's gaze flicked uncomfortably across to Dreya. After a pause, Dreya nodded through gritted teeth.

"Gannaya doesn't need to know we're here," Yuthura warned quietly.

A second or so later, a holographic image appeared, floating above Dreya's desk. Not having seen him before, she experienced brief surprise at the fact he bore closer resemblance to a Republic senator than the stereotype of hard-bitten merc and bounty hunter. Beside her, she felt Mission tense.

"What do you want? I thought you were supposed to be leaving?" Dreya snapped.

Rath smiled thinly. Yuthura thought there was definite strain underlying this expression though. "There was a minor accident involving my ship's drive unit. Since you're so eager to be rid of me, I thought it would be in both our interests if you were to expedite matters by providing access to the spare parts we need to most rapidly affect repairs. I would, of course, be only too happy to pay full market value, plus an inconvenience surcharge for your trouble."

Dreya snorted. "You've got some nerve."

Rath affected a nonchalant look. "If you want to look at it that way. I prefer to think of myself as practical. This way works best for both of us, I feel. The alternative leaves us stuck with each other for longer than either of us would like."

"Fine. I'll arrange for the spare parts you need." Dreya glowered.

Yuthura put a hand across Mission's to restrain the outburst she sensed brewing just beneath the surface.

"I have to say that is uncommonly civil of you, old friend. I was expecting to have to face at least a little gloating."

"The price for the parts is the release of Revan," Dreya added flatly.

Rath's expression went tight. "I'm sorry? I think I must have misheard you there, Kemo."

"You heard fine. What the two of you do after you both leave my station is none of my concern. My guests kidnapping or killing one another, on the other hand, clearly is." Dreya took a deep breath. "You made a bold play. It didn't quite come off. Suck it up and move on. If we sort things out satisfactorily, I'm willing to forget the past twenty-four hours ever happened and revoke the barring order. Anyone can have a bad day, after all."

No reply was immediately forthcoming. Then, after several heartbeats, "Ban's really got you rattled, hasn't she?"

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, I can see how it goes. It's the scary Sith Master element, balanced against that undeniably oh so sexy Twi'lek factor. Very easy to leave a man off balance, I'm sure."

Dreya's gaze flicked involuntarily Yuthura's way.

Understanding flashed across Rath's face. Yuthura tensed. "Ah, she's still there with you. That explains a lot." A flash of fake, politician's smile. "My pardon, Lady Ban. I'm usually much more the gentleman, but it's been a hectic day. I think I'll call time on this conversation, if it's all the same."

The holograph disappeared abruptly.

-s-s-

"I know someone's there. I can sense your presence."

The only effect that Bastila's words had was to disturb a vaguely bat-like creature, with a wingspan getting on for two metres, from its roost. She jolted in shock as it swooped directly over her head, and then ascended rapidly through a gap in the treetops, out of sight.

"Obviously didn't want to get to know you," Canderous commented from behind her. "Can't possibly imagine why."

"More likely scared off by your ugly mug." She let her voice rise just loud enough that she knew it would carry back to him.

There was a dry answering chuckle. "I prefer to think of myself as . . . rugged looking."

"Shh!" Abruptly she held up a hand for quiet, looking round slowly, listening hard and trying to extend her senses outwards.

The bat-creature hadn't been what she'd sensed. Whoever that was, they had a very definite force presence – albeit one that was very tightly contained. Something was interfering with her ability to get any kind of directional sense on it, but they were close. Close enough to be watching them.

The Northeastern continent of Daragba – where Revan had chosen to set up his Republic base – was temperate in climate, and this particular region of it was heavily forested. Right now, it appeared to be autumn, the foliage of the trees around them turning shades of rusty orange and red, contrasting with their soaring, silver-white trunks in a manner that was truly spectacular to behold. Fallen leaves carpeted the forest floor, brilliant jewel-coloured toadstools growing up through the mulch. Every now and again, they would see objects resembling giant puffballs, more than a metre across, nestling between snaking masses of tree roots, while large iridescent beetles the size of womp rats scurried away at the sound of their approach.

The base itself was about a hundred kilometres behind them. Teams of Republic soldiers were still locked in the process of clearing out the mass of booby-traps the Sith had left behind when they'd abandoned it.

Bastila had belatedly sensed Darth Malefic's touch on the place as the dropship came in to land. It was the same disturbance to the force that she'd sensed both at Manarb and M4107 – a howling, cackling sea of madness. Here, though, there was an additional element – a strange, distorting mask that hadn't allowed her to detect the underlying disturbance until she'd gotten within a few miles of the source. Perhaps it was the same distortion that now prevented her from zeroing in on their watcher more clearly.

On landing, they'd been met by the mind burnt.

Although it had hardly come as a surprise, it had still been horrific; having to slaughter those who had once been loyal servants of the Republic, but were now nothing more than mindlessly ravening monsters – Rakghouls, but worse, since they still wore the faces of those they once were. The fighting had not gone on for long, but while it had lasted, it had been savagely intense, draining as much on a mental level as a physical one.

Once the fighting had died down and the landing area was secured, herself, Canderous and Jansa had moved out to try to track down the location shown on their map. The hope was to get there before night set in. A makeshift road – little more than a dirt track really – cut through the forest, and had gotten them to within ten kilometres of their target, before they'd been forced to abandon the armoured hovercraft they'd appropriated due to the denseness of trees and undergrowth. For the last hour or so, they'd continued forward on foot.

And for the last several minutes, they'd been watched.

Bastila didn't get the sense of any malevolence, but then again, she didn't get the sense of friendliness either. She cleared her throat. "We don't mean you any harm, whoever you are. I'm Jedi Knight Bastila Shan. I just want the chance to talk to you."

Her words echoed – overloud in her ears. The forest around them had gone preternaturally quiet.

"It's the trees, you know – or to be more accurate, the tree." The voice came from directly behind them. They whirled collectively, Canderous's massive heavy repeater up and aimed in an instant, the hilt of Bastila's dual-bladed lightsaber leaping to her grasp. "That's why you can't sense me properly. And why I can't really sense you either. Except that you're powerful. This place seems to attract the powerful of late."

"And a Mandalorian," the voice continued dryly. "You lied to me, Jedi Knight. There is never a circumstance when a Mandalorian doesn't mean harm."

The speaker was a woman. She looked to be somewhere in her early fifties, coppery red hair showing a few threads of grey. Lean to the point of gauntness, all trace of excess fat had been rendered away to leave a raw, stringy looking construction of tough sinew and peeled bone. The mottled green robe she wore was heavily patched, and a lightsaber hung openly from her belt.

She seemed to have stepped out of thin air.

Canderous snorted contemptuously as his gaze settled on her. "Think you know us well then, do you?"

"Well enough," came the response. "You kill enough of something and you can't help but get to know it – however much you might despise it."

Bastila saw Canderous looking the woman up and down appraisingly. His expression caused a rapidly expanding sinking feeling inside her chest. "Great." Canderous's words were a growl. "We can't go anywhere without tripping over some fraking nutball of an ex-Jedi."

"Who are you?" Bastila interjected hastily, trying to assert some kind of control over the situation before it degenerated entirely.

"Me dear?" The woman dragged her gaze away from Canderous. "My name is Xedra. Xedra Adath. No one of importance. Not anymore. Not ever actually, except perhaps in my long gone dreams." She stepped forward, leaves rustling softly beneath her feet. "You're a Jedi Knight you say? They must be getting younger these days. You scarcely look more than a child." She shook her head vaguely, frowning. "But not that much younger than he was, I suppose. And there was a time when I would have followed him to the ends of the universe and back."

The woman's eyes were piercing; fever bright. Bastila felt distinctly uncomfortable, subjected to their stare.

"You're talking about Revan, aren't you?" Canderous stated, interrupting. "You're one of the Jedi who followed him. Disobeyed your leaders and joined the war."

"Oh, be silent," Xedra snapped. Bastila could feel the thread of force woven in with the words to give them the power of compulsion.

She turned her attention back Bastila's way. "So now the Jedi and the Mandalorians keep company." Her gaze flicked over Jansa, silent and unobtrusive in the background. "And a Republic uniform. How soon it is all forgotten."

Canderous gave another contemptuous snort, shrugging the compulsion binding him off like water from a gizka's back. "The war's over, lady. That one at least. Living out here . . ." He looked around pointedly. "I guess I can see how you might have missed it."

The woman made an exasperated noise. "Always were the most obtuse things, next to Hutts," she muttered. Then, more loudly, "The war is over, and you lost Mandalorian."

Canderous shrugged. "Win. Lose. That was never remotely the point. The point was always to test ourselves."

Something furious sparked in Xedra's eyes. "At least the Sith war with a purpose, however twisted that purpose might be. At least they are understandable. Your kind though . . ." Bastila could feel anger seething inside the woman. "Bloody butchers, the lot of you."

"We didn't come here to debate the ins and outs of the Mandalorian war." Again, Bastila tried to draw the conversation back on track.

For a long time, there was no response, Canderous and Xedra eyeballing each other – a pair of starving dogs face to face in an alleyway, neither prepared to back down. Bastila half expected to see them bare their teeth – to growl at one another.

Finally Xedra turned away from him. "No. No, you didn't at that." She smiled – moved her lips in the manner of a smile at least. "You came here to seek the nexus. The vision well. Of course you did. You're the third in the past few months. It's almost become a tourist attraction."

"The vision well?" Bastila echoed.

Xedra's face took on a strange, contemplative look. "Yes. The vision well. And whether you know it or not, that is what you're looking for." The smile that wasn't a smile reappeared. The look in her eyes was cold. "I suppose we should go somewhere more conducive to conversation." A sigh, containing annoyance and other emotions that were harder to unravel. "Come then, Jedi Knight named Bastila Shan. Follow me. Bring your pet dog if you must."

-s-s-

"We're in." Ravelasch's voice crackled over the comm. unit.

"Good. Keep me posted." Rath switched the link off.

Since they weren't going to be getting anything in the way of help from Dreya, Rath had concluded that their next best option for acquiring the spares they needed was to scavenge them from the pleasure yacht they shared the docking bay with. It was called the Ryloth Dancer, and bore a distinctly tacky hologram on one side of it, above its name and registration number, depicting a lithely cavorting green Twi'lek dressed in a dazzling smile.

Ygress had identified it as belonging to one Veb Setanta – a spice runner with an inflated sense of his own importance, and a propensity towards acts of extreme violence. In the circumstances, Rath had absolutely no hesitation in making himself a new enemy.

Another call came through. It was Kreed. The Mandalorian didn't waste any time on preamble. "We've got our visitor cornered in the aft hold. It's a droid."

"Any difficulties?" HK-47. Revan's personal assassin droid. Obvious enough, with the benefit of hindsight.

"Meitak and Durga are both down. They'll live. Probably," came the terse reply.

"I'm on my way over."

"We're about to go in. We're not waiting for you."

"Fine."

Rath heard the exchange of blaster fire, followed by a pair of loud detonations when he was a corridor length away. Silence followed.

When he entered, the hold was still filled with smoke. Black scorch marks from the grenades were burnt prominently into the floor. Kreed was crouched over the fallen droid's shattered torso. One of its arms had been blown clean across the hold, while a metal leg lay nearby, similarly detached.

At the sound of Rath's approach, the Mandalorian looked round. There was a blaster burn on the metal portion of his torso, and another on his upper thigh. He held up the droid's severed head. It trailed blackened wires, one of its optic sensors completely shattered. "Got the bastard. Went down easy enough in the end."

"Not without getting a couple of shots in," Rath pointed out.

Kreed simply shrugged. "Less than scratches."

But plenty enough to cripple or even kill someone less well armoured.

So ordinary looking, to cause such trouble, Rath thought as he looked at it. But then again, that was undoubtedly the point of an assassin droid. Not much use if you saw it coming. "Give the remains to Ygress. Maybe he'll be able to make something useful out of it."

Then he turned away. A modicum of his earlier optimism started to come back.

-s-s-

"What is it now, Parvus?" Dreya snapped at the nervous looking Neimodian.

Parvus laid a datapad on Dreya's broad desk. "We've just found out . . . well, one of our relays has been deliberately destroyed. The one at the start of the Vester-Koth approach lane.

Dreya's eyes flicked rapidly from side to side, devouring the information in front of him. "When did this happen?"

"Er . . ." Parvus managed to look even more uncomfortable, if possible. "Round about nine hours ago."

"And why am only just finding this out?"

"Um, it looks like someone tried to bury the information." Parvus's face drooped. "We may have a traitor."

-s-s-

The force field dropped.

Tamar was aware of this immediately by the marked change in the ambient humming of the ship around him. He didn't react externally, continuing to lie motionless on the bunk, chest rising and falling steadily, and giving the general appearance that he remained deep in meditation.

A shadow passed over him.

Someone was standing on the threshold of the cell. The quality of the whisper soft sounds the person made told him immediately that it wasn't HK – as he'd allowed himself to briefly hope. Droids, as a rule, did not tend to breathe.

He waited for the person to say something, but nothing was forthcoming. Finally, he moved his head to look round.

It was the Zeltron woman, back again. Theda. She held a blaster pistol down at her side. As he sat up, she lifted the pistol and aimed it at the centre of his chest. "Don't."

He raised an eyebrow. "You're going to shoot me?"

Something passed across her eyes. She should have simply pulled the trigger straight off without pausing, he thought with a clinical detachment from the situation. She certainly shouldn't have let herself get drawn into speaking. But hardened merc though she was, she wasn't a killer. Not a cold-blooded one, at least.

For a Zeltron, with their acute empathic senses, that would be difficult.

Her face became like marble – closing herself off to do the deed. "We both know there's only one way this can end." Her voice was so soft that it was barely audible. "You're going to end up killing him. I can't let that happen."

He knew that she meant Rath. He stood up, movements smooth and coiled. "What if I were to promise that I won't harm him?"

"Then you'd be lying." The marble fractured briefly. "I knew he had other reasons for coming after you than those he said. But this . . .." Her voice trailed off. "He's trying to prove himself, I suppose. Even though it means throwing away everything that he is. I can't stand by and watch that."

"Would he thank you for this?" His voice was quiet.

"No." Her finger tightened on the trigger, and he could see that she had made peace with her decision. "But I'm not asking him for thanks."

His muscles tensed to lunge across the space between them.

There was the sound of a blaster discharge, artificially muffled and surprisingly restrained.

-s-s-

"What have you done to my droid?"

Kreed dumped the mangled collection of parts on the worktable in front of Ygress. He recognised the warning note in the Verpine's voice; the stiffly upright posture – one thing Ygress definitely did not appreciate was having his toys abused. "Look again bug-eye. It's not one of yours. Revan's personal assassin droid. HK-47. Rath thought you might be interested. It's supposed to be pretty advanced." A shrug. "Not that it looks anything special to me."

The Verpine stepped forward, leaning over the dismembered droid parts, antennae waving, making a steady clicking noise that didn't translate into anything Kreed could understand. He suspected it was analogous to totting.

After watching him for a few moments longer, Kreed let out a breath and turned away, intent on leaving Ygress to it.

"No." The Verpine's voice stopped him before he reached the door, surprising in its emphaticness. "This is definitely my droid. I hadn't assembled it yet. See this arm? The serial number on it is one from my inventory list."

"You're sure?" But of course, Ygress was sure. The Verpine didn't deal in uncertainties.

Kreed swore venomously beneath his breath, activating his comm. "Rath, we've got a problem."

-s-s-

Tamar crouched over Theda's body, gently touching her charred hair. The blaster shot to the back of her head would have killed her instantly, the shockwaves passing through her skull turning her brain to mushy pulp. Her eyes stared at him blankly. "You had to kill her HK?"

"Statement: yes master, I did. The meatbag had a gun pointed at you. It is my duty to protect my master's life above all other considerations." A pause. "And I do so enjoy it."

He stared at the blood red assassin droid, and wasn't sure what he felt. Relief, yes, at still being alive, but . . . I have to deactivate you, don't I? When this is over. I should have done it before now. You're never going to change, and you're always going to keep on killing whenever a loophole in your programming allows it. Like you say, you enjoy it.

"Observation: master, you are injured."

Tamar touched the side of his head and winced. Theda had managed to get a shot off just as HK had in turn shot her. Her aim had been knocked fractionally off, and she'd missed narrowly to the left of his head. Only, apparently not quite missed. About a centimetre had been clipped off the top of his ear, and there was a raw burn along the side of his skull. Now that the flow of adrenaline had subsided, the pain began to swell.

"If the meatbag was not already dead, I would gladly kill her for you all over again."

He took a deep breath and stood up, forcing himself to concentrate on the immediate problems of the here and now. His hands came up to the collar around his neck. "I need to get this off. I think there's some kind of kind of explosive charge, probably with a radio frequency trigger."

"Indeed master. I heard you saying so earlier. I am constantly impressed that the water sacks you meatbags use as processors can produce something that resembles coherent thought." A slight pause. "Other meatbags than yourself of course, I mean. Ha, ha."

"Of course."

"I took the liberty of flooding your cell with a jamming frequency. It should be perfectly safe to remove the collar. If you would just turn around, master?"

Should be? Tamar suppressed the sudden urge to protest, and a few seconds later the collar was off, in two halves in the assassin droid's hands. He moved quickly across to the ysalamari tanks, studying them carefully.

"Query: master, should we not be going now? I arranged a distraction, but it will not fool even these simpleminded meatbags for any length of time."

Tamar didn't respond. Carefully he broke the seal on one of the tanks, sliding the upper casing off. The interior was bathed in soft light. There was a tree branch of a variety he didn't recognise, kept alive by a carefully regulated flow of nutrients. Attached to it, its claws grown into the heart of the branch itself, was what could only be the ysalamari. It didn't, in all honesty, look like much.

He felt it tense as he touched it, but it was sessile and unable to move. Steeling himself, he crushed the back of its skull, wincing at the feel of it – the soft crunching sound it made. Much to the mockery of the others, he hadn't even been able to bring himself to poison the gizka infestation that had plagued the Ebon Hawk, and this turned his stomach to a degree that was entirely out of proportion.

"Take care of those two, would you HK?" He kept his voice neutral as he opened the second tank.

"With pleasure, master."

As the last ysalamari died, it was like waking up – surfacing from beneath the sea and being able to breathe again.

He could sense more of them; or rather, he could sense blank areas of the force, hemming him in from all sides. This one small island though, was free. He reached out, concentrating hard, not sure if it would work or not.

Yuthura, I need a distraction . . .

-s-s-

"In order to properly understand what the vision well is, you must first understand something of the history of this place, and why it was created."

Xedra had led them a few hundred metres through the forest to a ramshackle cottage built – if that was the correct term – around one of the soaring white-trunked trees. The interior was neater and more commodious than the shabby looking exterior suggested, but for all that, it was still extremely sparse and basic. The beamed ceiling was low enough that the top of Canderous's head scraped against it when he stood up, and the light filtering through the small windowpanes was distinctly dingy, leaving large areas heavily veiled by shadow.

"Or you could just get to the point without embroidering it with all this unnecessary Bantha crap."

"Be quiet," Xedra and Bastila both snapped at Canderous together.

Canderous simply chuckled, rough and rasping. His chair creaked under the strain of his armour-plated bulk.

Bastila watched Xedra's eyes narrow, the older woman's teeth grinding. There was genuine hatred there, she thought, and it hadn't lessened since their initial meeting. It had simply become more tightly wound.

Canderous – by virtue of being Canderous – was hardly helping matters. She even thought, perversely, that he was, on some levels, actually enjoying Xedra's profound dislike.

Contrary bloody bastard. Sometimes recently, he'd managed to resemble a normal, even reasonable and insightful human being. Others though . . .. She found it impossible to remotely understand him.

Xedra's expression smoothed over. She resumed talking, the focus of her gaze drifting to somewhere miles distant. "Many millennia before the rise of the Republic, this planet was the centre of a civilisation that spanned over a dozen star systems. Once, virtually this entire continent was a single vast city."

"That's interesting." Jansa's voice made Bastila jump slightly. The woman had been so quiet and unobtrusive up to now that she'd managed to forget she was still there. "There's no sign of that from orbit, or from the lay of the ground. Even after thousands of years you can usually spot such things if you know what to look for."

"It was destroyed in a war. This entire world and the larger Daragban civilization, come to that. Levelled to the ground. Obliterated utterly, with painstaking care and effort. " Xedra spoke in flat, brutal tones. "The only traces you'll find now lay buried deep beneath the planet's surface."

Her face twisted, sour and annoyed. "Anyway, I digress. The ruling race of this civilisation – call them Daragbans if you like – were inherently force-sensitive. They made use of the force to a degree that we would now find difficult to envisage. Even someone familiar with the Jedi enclaves in places like Coruscant, Dantooine and Ossus would be startled, I think. The force was an integral part of their system of technology, used in even the smallest facets of every day life – almost as commonplace as the way we use electricity."

It seemed a startling idea when compared to Jedi – and even Sith – teachings. "Which is why there's this strange interference in the air," Bastila murmured.

"Partially," Xedra agreed. "As I said before, it is just as much down to the tree."

"The tree?"

Bastila got the impression that, behind her eyes, Xedra's thoughts were chasing down pathways that were nothing at all to do with their current conversation. "Have you tried tracing the roots that ridge the forest floor?"

"Yeah, because our main reason for coming here was a nature ramble," Canderous muttered.

Xedra ignored him. "If you had, you would see that they all connect together – a vast network spreading across thousands of square-miles. The individual trunks, rising above the ground are not discrete plants but part of the same, single living entity. Something about it seems to attract the force to it in a way I can't explain. Sometimes I wonder if it might even be sentient somehow – the flows of force akin to brain activity."

Bastila was aware of Canderous looking at her pointedly. We're really wasting time listening to the ramblings of a person who not only talks to trees, but thinks they understand her, his eyes seemed to say.

Xedra's lips pursed. "Anyway, back to what we were truly discussing. I'm sure that you're getting impatient. I know your Mandalorian friend is."

Bastila didn't say anything by way of response. For a wonder, Canderous kept his mouth shut too.

"One of the more spectacular creations of the Daragban's was a structure they carved deep into the earth, its shape designed to draw in flows of force and allow them to be shaped in such a way as to give someone standing at its bottommost point a window from which they could glimpse the future."

"This vision well you mentioned."

Her mouth twisted wryly – tacit agreement. "For a time – a few hundred years perhaps – all was well. Their civilisation flourished – peaceful and prosperous. Then the Daragban's received a glimpse of a near future that they weren't prepared for. They saw their own complete and utter annihilation, just a few years hence, in a terrible war."

For several heartbeats, silence stretched out. Finally, Xedra went on.

"As you might imagine, the Daragbans were somewhat . . . disturbed. Especially given that previous visions taken from the well had come to pass with, a few minor discrepancies aside, getting on for a hundred percent accuracy. More readings taken from the well showed the same thing, persistently and unchangingly: the entire Daragban civilisation would be wiped out in a vast war that would start in just a few years time.

"In panic, the Daragbans tried to assure themselves that the well showed only one possible future; not the unavoidable certainty of what would happen. But of course, they couldn't simply take that on faith. They decided to create a second well at a different location, in the hope that it would show a different possible future outcome."

"And it did, didn't it?" Bastila murmured. Suddenly she saw what the changes that Jansa had identified to the Drumond Kaas map had been designed to do. "It showed them exactly what they wanted to see."

"Very perceptive, Jedi Bastila." Xedra's smile was chilly – patronising. "The Daragbans built their second vision well subconsciously wanting to be deceived and reassured. In that respect, they succeeded admirably. The second well showed them arming themselves, turning their entire infrastructure into a perfectly oil machine of war, and successfully repelling the oncoming threat. It was so much more palatable than the first vision, so they went along with it – despite the reservations of a few."

"But the first vision came true anyway."

The older woman snorted. "Another force sensitive race – a cruel and powerful, warlike race – was drawn to Daragba. Perhaps they sensed disturbances in the force as the Daragban's set their war machine in motion. Perhaps it was simply something that would have happened anyway." The intonation of her voice made it clear which one of those she believed.

"Normally conquerors and slavers, this race for once didn't fight to either conquer or enslave. Instead, they saw the Daragbans – an advanced force sensitive species controlling a miniature empire, churning out masses of advanced weaponry and ships – as a palpable and deadly threat to their supremacy. They fought to annihilate; a war of extinction." The look in her eyes became bleak. "They won."

"This second race. You're talking about the Rakatans." It was a cold certainty.

"The Rakatans," Xedra agreed after a barely noticeable pause. "So. I have told you about the vision well, Jedi Bastila. Now it is your turn to do some telling of your own. Why did you seek this place, and how, in the name of all the force, do you know about the Rakatans?"

-s-s-

"Rath."

There was no response. Rath Gannaya remained motionless, crouched over Theda's body, cradling her in his arms and seemingly oblivious to anything beyond her.

"Damn it, Rath! Get a hold of yourself." Kreed's voice was harsh – uncompromising.

The Mandalorian waited for several seconds, but no more of a response was forthcoming. Finally, he lost all patience. Grief for a fallen comrade was one thing, but it had to come later. The living always took first priority. He grabbed hold of Rath's shoulder roughly . . .

And Rath shrugged him off, almost casually, laying Theda carefully down and standing up again. When he looked around, his face was far too calm to be natural. "Yes, Kreed? What is it?"

Yes, Kreed? What is it? The mildness of those words was even more disturbing than the calm. Kreed shoved the doubt away. As long as he held it together, the how didn't matter. "A Hutt battlecruiser just showed up out of one of the Bastion's entry lanes. Ygress reports that its arrival wasn't expected, and has caused quite a stir."

"Interesting," Rath allowed.

"It's the Rancorous. Which makes it slightly more than 'interesting', don't you think?"

"So somebody made a call to Seboba. Dreya's screening must be getting a little lax these days." The calmness – or perhaps blankness was a better description, Kreed thought – remained unruffled.

"Or he managed to put a tracker on us on Nar Shaddaa."

"You're never going to let Nar Shaddaa go, are you Kreed?" Rath shook his head dismissively. "And what about Revan?" The tone of his voice altered subtly, but to someone who'd known him as long as Kreed had, noticeably.

It would have helped if you hadn't decided to power down the computer systems. Kreed kept the thought to himself. Right now, it didn't fall under the constructive category. "Nothing yet," he said simply.

An unreadable grunt. "We don't risk anyone else's life capturing him. If he can be taken alive, then fine. If not . . . equally fine."

The briskness of the words didn't fool Kreed for a moment. Things had suddenly gotten very personal. No, he amended internally, they had always been personal. If was simply the nature of the 'personal' that had now changed.

"Well, Kreed. Get to it."

-s-s-

As the bulkhead door whispered shut at her back, Yuthura was dimly aware of Mission – with her stealth field switched on, no more than a vague, flickering ghost of an outline – moving away from her. She made herself keep her attention fixed on her own part in this, and trust the girl to take care of herself. It was difficult. She didn't like to think about Tamar's reaction to her allowing Mission to get involved in this, when the whole point had been to get her to safety.

But the alternatives had run to forcibly putting the girl into a stasis trance, and anyway, Yuthura had understood perfectly where she was coming from. Plus I need all the help I can get.

In front of her, the sleek bulk of the Shadow Dancer was a blank-spot in the force.

There was no trace of the brief, urgent mental contact she'd had with Tamar – his voice so loud in her head that it felt rather like iron spikes being hammered through her temples. Thankfully the ysalamari force-bubble effect didn't extend far enough beyond the ship to fill the docking bay entirely, though she'd come prepared for that to be the case – wearing light, flexible black armour, and armed with blaster and grenades as well as her lightsaber.

Dreya had been 'persuaded' of the wisdom of turning a blind eye to the violation of his rules this constituted.

She edged around the bulk of the Ryloth Dancer, clinging to the shadows. She was aware that Mission was already halfway across the bay now, moving rapidly.

It was force sense rather than anything else that made her freeze. There, in front of her. A shadow that was moving in a manner that no light source could adequately explain. A second and a third. Defels, all around her.

As yet they hadn't spotted her, but all it would take was the one directly in front of her to turn around about 45 degrees . . .

She forced calm, slowing her heart rate and breathing to the minimum possible. Her mind reached out, skimming across their thoughts, until she reached one that was hauling a crate that was fractionally too heavy for it to handle comfortably. Its concentration was distracted by the effort it was making, and it was relatively easy for her to implant the suggestion that it had heard something across the other side of the bay.

"Wait, over there . . ."

As soon as the others were explicitly listening for something, it became possibly to make them hear what she wanted them to. A second or so later, they were moving swiftly away from her in disciplined formation, one of them calling in over its comm.

Yuthura let out the breath she'd been holding and darted towards the Shadow Dancer.

About three-quarters of the way there, the ship's rear exit ramp began to lower. She ducked into the cover of one of the landing gear housings . . . and felt all connection to the force cut off abruptly.

Everything degenerated into chaos.

Part of it was perceptual. The sudden deadening of her senses, combined with a disorienting sense of vulnerability verging on agoraphobia, made it seem like the entire landing bay had altered abruptly around her.

Most of it, however, was real.

The sound of blaster fire came from inside the Shadow Dancer – lengthy and strident bursts of it. She heard one the Defels shout a warning to the others. Across the landing bay, Mission had obviously reached her target. There was a loud explosion accompanied by a brilliant incendiary flash. Fire alarms went off cacophonously, the air clouding with freezing white mist as automated carbon dioxide extinguishers activated.

Monitoring from outside, T3 took his cue, the main bulkhead door sliding open and everything except the dim red emergency lighting going out, plunging the docking bay into near-darkness. Loud random noises were piped in over the intercom system, mingling with the fire alarms in a truly appalling racket.

Quickly Yuthura rolled a grenade underneath the ship's bow. The explosion was not meant to do damage, but simply to add to the sound and fury – and hopefully prevent any of Gannaya's mercs realising they were facing a grand total of two Twi'leks.

She peeled away from the landing gear, back outside the range of the force bubble. Reaching out, she grabbed hold of every loose object she could find – toolboxes, refuelling pipes, metal gratings and oilcans; any other assorted junk that wasn't tied down – snatching them up with her will and sending them flying randomly threw the air like the work of a dozen competing poltergeists.

More blaster shots rang out, the Defels spooked into making their own contribution to the chaos.

One shot, whether by accident or design, passed within centimetres of her head.

Immediately Yuthura snapped on her lightsaber, its violet blade incandescent in the gloom. Continuing to direct the flying objects in their swirling flight, she sent out waves of confusion and fear through the force, easily deflecting the half-hearted and erratic blaster shots she drew.

HK and Tamar had made it to the bottom of the ramp. Another explosion rang out, Mission further adding to the distraction. Yuthura cut down a Defel that tried to rush at her with a vibroblade, separating it from shoulder through to hip. A second was shot in the back as it came at her.

There was another explosion. She could taste smoke, acrid in the back of her throat. Then she could feel Tamar outside of the force bubble, all grim concentration and flowing adrenaline.

"Catch." She took his lightsaber from her belt, tossing it back approximately in his direction, relying on him to draw it in.

A fraction later, she heard the snap-hiss of it igniting.

And about thirty seconds after that they were clear, the bulkhead doors shutting with a pneumatic hiss at there backs, cutting off another volley of blaster shots. Mission phased back into vision as her stealth unit switched off, grinning from ear to ear.

Then Tamar stopped abruptly, leaning against the wall, breath coming short and fast. Now that the adrenaline rush was fading slightly, she could sense that he was in was in considerable pain, having taken at least a couple blaster shots during the escape. Ahead of them, superficially at least, HK was in far worse state, extensive areas of the assassin droid's casing charred black.

Yuthura felt Tamar start to channel force, soothing pain and repairing tissue damage. She started to move to his side, intent on helping, but Mission beat her to it.

"Damn it, you lunking great nerf-herder, what do you think you're playing at?" The Twi'lek girl jabbed a finger accusingly at his chest.

"Nice to see you too, Mission." He smiled at her warmly once he'd recovered slightly. "And thanks for the rescue."

Mission exhaled softly, then, after a moment's pause, hurled herself into his arms, hugging fiercely as if she was trying to reassure herself she wasn't just imagining this. After a moment, Tamar embraced her back.

Standing back from them, Yuthura watched silently, trying to sort out what she felt. Relief yes, and in some measure, elation, but also for reasons she couldn't pinpoint, a lingering sadness that almost amounted to a sense of loss.

Her eyes met with Tamar's over Mission's shoulder.

He indicated that she should come over and join them with a shift of his eyes, but she refused with small shake of her head – a fleeting smile.

-s-s-

"Wait a minute. Revan is alive?" Xedra's tone was sharp as she interrupted Bastila. She looked stunned – a mixture of fear and a whole multitude of other emotions showing nakedly through to the surface. Her hands shook, having to grip the arms of her chair tightly to steady themselves.

Canderous snorted contemptuously. "You've been living within a hundred kilometres of the largest Republic base in the sector, and you haven't managed to pick that one small fact up? That's . . . impressive."

"I wasn't speaking to you, Mandalorian." She glared daggers. "Another word, and I will shove my lightsaber so far up your rear you'll be able to see the glow shining out of your ears."

Her gaze snapped back round, and Bastila could see that she was struggling not to hyperventilate. Even over the interference from the trees, she could clearly sense Xedra's profound agitation. "Tell me. Tell me now." Her voice was raw.

Bastila went over the story as quickly as she could, her voice stumbling several times, both at the near frightening intensity of Xedra's scrutiny, and the constant expectation that Canderous would butt in and contradict her, or otherwise do something to deliberately provoke the woman's wrath. For a wonder though, he kept quiet.

"Those damned bastards," Xedra muttered when she'd finished. Her gaze was miles away. The lines of her face looked deep and harsh.

"I'm sorry?"

"The Council. Who do you think I mean?" A harsh laugh. "Still, they got their comeuppance in the end, didn't they?"

The sheer, bitter venom in the woman's words left Bastila briefly too surprised to speak.

"Do I shock you, girl? I do, don't I? How could I even think such things about the wise Master Vandar and company?" Her glower was dark – almost baleful. "Cowards the lot of them, so paralysed by fear and doubt that they were willing to let billions die at the Mandalorians' hands for the sake of a vague premonition. Not willing to admit they were wrong and help us, even when the decision had been removed from their fumbling and indecisive hands."

Bastila's protest was automatically ingrained. "They saw what would happen afterwards – the darkness that would come. If Revan and Malak had trusted . . ."

"Enough!" Xedra's breathing came raggedly – a grating saw. Bastila struggled not to flinch back from her, genuinely frightened by what she saw in her face. "What happened afterwards was not an inevitable consequence of what came before. Our joining the war against the Mandalorians and their fall were entirely separate events. There was no fate. No destiny. The darkness that the Council foresaw came about as much from their inaction as for any other reason."

"The Jedi wouldn't have abandoned the Republic. When the time was right they . . ."

"When the time was right?" Xedra sounded incredulous. "I don't know what they told you, Jedi Bastila, but the Republic wasn't years away from defeat. It wasn't even months. It was a matter of weeks." Her gaze flicked to Canderous. "Tell her Mandalorian. You know."

For a moment, Bastila thought he was going to snap at her and refuse, but he didn't.

Instead, he sucked in air between his teeth, making a low whistling noise. "She's right, more or less. At the point Revan joined the war, the Mandalore was ready to make his decapitating stroke. A major attack that was just a feint, to draw the larger potion of the Republic fleet into protecting Palastre – a key strategic point on the Perlemian trade route – while we made unopposed lighting strikes deep into the heart of Republic territory, taking out the shipyards at Kuat, Isodor and Bilbringi. It would have removed the Republic's one absolutely critical advantage over us – its ability to produce ships in greater quantities and at a far faster rate than we ever could – in a single stroke.

"If that had come off, the Jedi might still have been able to reinforce the Republic enough to keep us out of the deep core, but they would have lost the ability to turn us out of the territory we'd already gained. The map of the galaxy would have been permanently redrawn." The look in his eyes was distant – strangely regretful.

"Except of course, the Republic didn't buy the feint. They sacrificed Palastre, in a way that startled us. It wasn't something they would have even considered before, and consequently they managed to turn our strike forces back with ease. We knew right then there'd been a seismic change – that for the first time we were truly in a war. After that, Revan got his command over a third of the fleet, and the rest, as they say, is history." Canderous's expression was impenetrable.

"Of course, you might want to take that with a large shovelful of salt. All us defeated soldiers have their 'what if' stories." A shrug. "Your choice."

"So do you have anything else to say, girl?" Xedra pressed.

Bastila struggled to find the correct words – anything to calm the anger she sensed in the woman. This wasn't something she wanted to argue about. "The past is past. We all made mistakes, and they cannot be undone now, however much we regret what's happened. All of us have to take things as they are and move on from it."

Xedra made a contemptuous noise. "You spout enough inane platitudes to be a Master, girl. Do you truly, believe a word of what you say?"

A lengthy pause, the look in her eyes becoming distant again. "I watched the two of them – two of the finest people I have known – slowly consumed by what they had to become for the Republic's sake. And I will never forgive them for standing aside and letting that happen, just to prove their point. Not ever."

And personal responsibility counts for nothing? Bastila got the sense that nothing she could say would do anything other than inflame matters – that on this, Xedra's mind was fixed beyond changing. At least in any way she could manage.

Silence dragged.

Surprisingly, it was Jansa who broke it. "So why didn't you follow them right to the end, if that is how you feel? Why turn away from them and remain here?"

It took Xedra a long time to respond.

"I don't hold myself better or stronger than they were, if that's what you mean." A weighty pause. "If a friend does something you regard as folly, is it friendship to follow them in that folly, even so? But no. That sounds vaguely noble of me. The truth was, I was tired. Tired and scared, and with no will left for what their path led to." She sighed. "I loved him – not that way, but a kind of love all the same – but towards the end I think I hated him too, and I had had enough."

Curiosity was a burning itch. After a hesitation, Bastila asked tentatively, "What were they after? Revan and Malak I mean. Why did they . . .?"

"Become Sith?" Xedra raised an eyebrow. "It wasn't as simple as that. I think their intentions were still good, but they were different people by that stage. They couldn't not be. Ironic really, but in the end I think a large part of it came down to him searching for the darkness the Jedi Council claimed to have foreseen. He didn't simply disregard the danger. Quite the opposite, in fact. He almost became obsessed by it – proving the Council wrong. So he set out to find and know their coming darkness, and then defeat it before it could undo what we had all given so much to achieve." The volume of her words dropped, becoming barely audible. "And that led him here, to the wells that imparted visions of the future."

"And what did the well show him?"

Xedra looked at her for so long that Bastila didn't think any answer was going to be forthcoming. She started to grow increasingly uncomfortable under the scrutiny.

"I don't know. I'd already left them by that time."

The answer surprised Bastila. She'd assumed their parting of ways would have occurred afterwards, as a result of what was shown.

A bitter smile combined out of self-mocking and self-loathing. "It was fear." She exhaled heavily. "Fear of knowing what the future held." Her blunt fingertips traced idle patterns on the arms of her chair. "To my mind there is no worse kind of damnation than that. The Daragban's saw the future. The Jedi saw it too, before the wars with Exar Kun, and then again with the Mandalorian war. Each time, in trying to avoid that future, they acted in exactly such a way as to bring about what they had foreseen. To know your future is to know your doom, and I wasn't prepared to know that. Revan, of course, saw it differently. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge."

"Yet you've stayed here, all this time," Bastila murmured.

"Yet I stayed here," Xedra agreed.

Her gaze frosted over again – sharp and watchful. "So Jedi Bastila, you managed to find the map we altered on Drumond Kaas – force-forsaken hellhole that it is. Are you simply following the one who came here recently? The red knight. The hollow man, with his crown of misery and madness."

"Darth Malefic."

"I do not care what he calls himself. I did not care for him at all, so I remained hidden from his sight. You were close to catching him. Less than three days, you missed him by."

"We need to find him. To stop him. He seeks to follow the same path that Revan took."

"Then he's out of luck." Xedra sneered. "He went to the wrong well – the one that lies and shows you not the future, but what you want to see. Who knows what phantom it has him chasing? Who cares? You've done your job, Jedi Bastila. Leave this Sith to whatever doom awaits him."

Bastila shook her head. "No, I can't do that. Even if what he saw was a lie, it could still lead to great harm."

"You said we were the third visitors in the past few months," Canderous interrupted. "That implies there was someone else, apart from Malefic. Who?"

Xedra stopped and looked at him again. Bastila steeled herself for another outburst, but none was forthcoming. "A woman, all in black. Four months back. The first person to come seeking the well in all the years I have been here."

"Another Sith?" Bastila was thinking about the 'true Sith Lord' Derren Horvath had boasted about serving.

"If wearing black is enough to label you a Sith, then maybe. She did not seem to be a Jedi, for all the fact that she carried a lightsaber. Her mind was disciplined, and with the trees, it was impossible to get any kind of true sense of her. Powerful, like you are, though." A grimace. "I was curious about her, I admit, so I followed. She didn't see me, I don't think."

"And what did you see?"

"I saw her descend into the false well. And there she did something with the force. I couldn't tell what, except that she wasn't using the well for its intended purpose. She spent no more than fifteen minutes down there in all, before she left." Xedra's tone became musing. "Perhaps she altered something. Perhaps this Darth Malefic of yours saw what she wanted him to see, do you think?"

Bastila wasn't entirely sure what to make of that. Everything seemed to be getting more and more complicated, when she'd hoped that coming here would lead to some kind of resolution. "I need to go to the well," she said finally. "I need to use it."

"After all I have told you of it? Are you stupid, girl?"

Bastila's expression didn't alter. "I'm doing what I have to do. If what you say is right, and this woman did alter the well in someway, then perhaps it will show me the same thing that it showed Malefic. And if not – what I know to be lies cannot hurt me."

"You're sure about that, are you?"

To tell the truth she wasn't sure about it at all. "You could come with us, if you are worried. Perhaps your wisdom might help me."

A snort.

"What other reason did you have of revealing yourself to us?" Bastila persisted. "You could have simply ignored us, like you did with Darth Malefic."

Xedra didn't say anything.

"Surely you've spent long enough out here, alone, whatever your reasons? There comes a time when you have to stop looking to the past and move beyond it."

"And what could you possibly know about that, girl?"

"More than you might think, perhaps." Bastila voice was soft. Then. "You could see Revan again perhaps. I think that he would welcome the chance to talk to you."

A shudder passed through her. The temptation there was plain. "And see what kind of mockery the Jedi Council has made him into? No. No." She shook her head emphatically, though Bastila sensed more turmoil underneath. "No, I don't think I could bear that. Not now."

She stood up, looking old and drained. "Still, I won't stand in the way of you doing what you think you must, Jedi Bastila. Chase your Darth Malefic, if you think it so important. I'll even give you some information that might prove . . . useful. A warning, if you like."

"Oh?"

"Your red wrapped Sith left something behind when he departed from here." She sounded amused, in a fatalistic kind of way. "A creature, it was. So large that it had to be airlifted into place inside a gigantic cage." She wandered over to the sink, in front of the window, and there picked up a half-drained glass of water. "A terrible thing, possessed of a ferociousness and rage far beyond that of any natural predator. Already it has turned the woodland around the well into a no go area, the local wildlife completely devastated. Soon it will have to start wandering further field in search of prey, though it appears to kill for other reasons than simply to eat. Soon it will find its way here."

"A terentatek," Canderous stood up too. He seemed almost eager, a definite gleam in his eye.

"A terentatek," Xedra agreed with a nod. "The biggest I have ever heard of."

-s-s-

Jolee guided the gunship smoothly into the neutral gravity zone surrounding Dreya's Bastion. "I don't suppose you've had any thoughts about how we're going to deal with this thing, have you?" he asked almost airily, nodding at the view screen as he spoke. "Because, although undoubtedly a fine vessel, I'm thinking we're just slightly overmatched."

The view screen showed the Hutt battlecruiser hanging dead centre, considerably magnified. Its massive, bloatedly ugly bulk loomed over the space station, for all the galaxy like a drunken bully about to kick down an ornate sandcastle.

Juhani remained quiet, not having come up a good answer to that, despite spending getting on for ten hours attempting to find a solution. Hoping to take them by surprise and get in a lucky hit did not really count as a tactic.

"Ah, well. I was just wondering." In the pilot's seat, Jolee shrugged, before continuing. "Because, personally, I haven't been able to come up with the slightest idea either." He paused, ruminating. "Well, apart from the obvious blaze of glory type scenario. But to be honest, I'm thinking that a blaze of glory – for all its undoubted upsides – is not going to do my joints much good."

As he finished speaking, the Hutt battle cruiser opened fire.

A concentrated turbolaser volley, utterly silent in the void, completely obliterated docking bay six.