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.

11. Big Game Hunting

11. Big Game Hunting

"How's she doing?"

The Sullustan, Witnik Nayn, looked up at Carth's approach. His mouse-like ears twitched, the heavy, overlapping jowls of his face making it difficult for a human to tell much from his expression.

"Sleeping," he said finally. "Which, from the look of it, is exactly what you should be doing."

"I'm fine." As he said it, Carth struggled to stifle a yawn, which undermined his position just slightly. His body felt – for all the kolto treatment it had undergone – as if he'd just endured an hour-long sparring session with Canderous, his limbs so stiff and heavy they seemed to have lead weights attached.

"You haven't gotten any better at lying over the years, have you Carth?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"But still a master at the uptight defensiveness. It's kind of reassuring in a way. No matter what changes around you, some things always stay the same." Witnik turned back to what he was doing – fairly typically, tinkering with something mechanical, seeking to extract an extra few percentage points of performance or efficiency.

"I think I resent that."

There was a high warbling noise that constituted Sullustan laughter. "If you can't handle the truth . . ."

Carth knew Witnik from the Mandalorian war, where the Sullustan had served as a fleet mechanic in the same battlegroup as him. When he'd been posted to Berchest at the war's end, Witnik had been one of the few people there he'd served with previously. They'd ended up spending many long and lazy afternoons whiling away the time playing cards and talking about this and that.

Until a few days ago, he hadn't seen Witnik in years. But, badly wounded as he was, with all his intelligence contacts blown, and the strong probability that the Sith were still looking for him, the Sullustan had been just about the only thing that had come to mind as any kind of option. He'd ended up rolling up on Witnik's doorstep in the early hours of the morning, staggering under the weight of Yolanda's comatose form, and there collapsing.

Witnik had seemed remarkably unsurprised to see Carth, but that was fairly typical of his nature – whatever happened, good or bad, was greeted with an accepting shrug. When he'd found out what was going on – the small fraction of it that Carth had let slip, anyway – he'd insisted upon helping them get off Berchest. Carth hadn't protested as much as he perhaps should have. The Sullustan owned a modified light freighter – of a sort that, Carth couldn't help but notice, was ideally suited to smuggling work – on which they were now travelling.

Where they were travelling, aside from away from Berchest, was a more open question.

A search of the holo-net had rapidly told him that his preferred option – a rendezvous with the Long and Winding Way, and Tamar and Jolee – was now out of the question. The spike of fear that had caused had lasted until he'd managed to find detailed official records of events, which strongly suggested that Jolee at the least had survived.

And if Jolee had survived, it was impossible to imagine that Tamar had not. Irrational though that was.

The back-up plan consisted of waiting until Yolanda regained consciousness and this time not taking no for an answer when he asked his questions. Or it had been, until a few minutes ago.

Witnik's chosen phrasing finally registered. "Sleeping rather than unconscious?"

Witnik looked up at him again. "She regained consciousness briefly about an hour ago. Went to sleep almost immediately. Best thing for her, if the sickbay monitors are anything to go by." His dark, beady looking eyes fixed Carth intently. "What happened to her anyway? You never did say. It looks almost like . . . well, like the life's been sucked right out of her."

"Pretty much," Carth muttered beneath his breath. He pictured bright baleful orange energy, zigzagging between her chest and the Catcher's hand. Then, "And you didn't think that was important enough to tell me?"

Witnik made a rude sounding noise. "I am telling you. Now. You were asleep too, and besides, she's not in any condition for you to be breaking out the electrodes and the vibro-blades just yet."

Carth grunted noncommittally.

"I did that DNA test, like you asked," Witnik added, almost offhand.

"Oh?"

"Always hit and miss in this day and age, with all the migration and intermingling you humans get up to. Highest probability from the profile is that she's from Emberlene. If that's any use to you."

Carth made a noncommittal sound. What he knew about Emberlene was strictly bare bones stuff: a matriarchal society, extremely authoritarian, with a strong warrior tradition. It had kept itself largely isolated and neutral throughout all of the recent galactic troubles, although there were stories of small groups of exclusively female warriors from there hiring themselves out as bodyguards, mercenaries and even assassins over the past few years. To those in the know, they'd acquired a reputation for extreme skill, efficiency and deadliness – useful if you wanted a slightly more circumspect weapon than an Iridorian or a Mandalorian.

So it was, Carth thought, just possible she actually was Jerstyl Daxar's PA – albeit an extremely talented and specialised one. Of course, every other possibility remained open too.

"Any luck with the box?" He was referring to the combination-locked container he'd seen Yolanda trading for in the Berchest nightclub, before the mercenaries she'd been dealing with had double-crossed her.

"Yes."

"Oh?"

"And all of it's bad." Carth thought Witnik looked embarrassed from the way his ears drooped. "The security on it is a sight more complex than I can deal with. Anyone tampers with it, or gets the combination wrong more times than the trigger limit allows, and . . ." A hand gesture indicating an explosion. "Bang. Whatever's inside gets atomised."

Carth grimaced. It figured.

"Another thing to ask her." He blinked, then amended quickly after seeing the look on Carth's face, "Later on."

"Except for the fact she almost certainly doesn't know the combination," Carth muttered, primarily to himself.

"Hmm?"

"I saw her trading for the box," he explained. "The trade went bad, and a gunfight broke out. She snatched it. I very much doubt the mercs she was trading with were stupid enough to tell her the combination in advance."

"Ah well." Witnik scratched at one jowly cheek. "There are people who make cracking this kind of thing a speciality. Just because I can't do it, doesn't mean that someone else can't. I know some names if it helps."

Carth nodded distractedly. None of this, he reminded himself, was what he'd come to talk to the Sullustan about. The dark, ominous sense left over from his dreams came back – heavy and cloying. "What's the nearest safe, Republic-allied world to us? Preferably one with a large spaceport on a number of connecting trade routes."

Witnik's ears tilted inquisitively. "Something come up?"

Carth didn't immediately respond. The only answer he had was the sort of answer that looked, well . . . not entirely sane. "I think someone's looking for us," he said simply. "You've already done more than I could ever have asked you to. I don't want you getting dragged in any further than you are."

"Phfft." Witnik waved him away. "Don't be stupid. Do you know what I've been doing these last few years? Repairing protocol droids and doing short freight runs round the Colonies, as and when. Not exciting, Carth. Really. Much as I never thought I'd say it, I've almost come to miss the fleet. And I really hated the fleet."

"The last person who I involved in this died." Guilt still haunted him whenever his thoughts strayed to Bliss. It rose up again now, and he struggled unsuccessfully to push it away. "So, answer the damn question." It came out sounding harsher than he'd intended.

Witnik shrugged. "Berchest was a safe, Republic-allied world, with a large spaceport on a number of connecting trade routes."

"One without the hordes of Sith agents would be fine."

Witnik shook his head. "It's not good, Carth."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"People are starting to look to their own safety, and they see the Republic Senate – and especially the Jedi – as being out of touch, indecisive and unable to adequately protect them. They're looking to form new alliances and position themselves more neutrally. Hoping that any reignition of conflict will pass them by, I'd guess. I think you'll find a lot of places like Berchest now – still nominally part of the Republic, but in reality . . . not."

"This is bloody ridiculous. Didn't we just win this damned war?"

The look he got back was calm and unflinching. "No Carth, you didn't win this damned war. You helped prevent the Republic getting its ass kicked – imposed a stalemate where neither side was strong enough to defeat the other in open war. You gained us all a bit of a respite, but I'm thinking that's running out now." His ears drooped. "There's not many places are going to be safe for you right now, and I'm thinking from what you say about Coruscant, nowhere at all is out of bounds for the Sith."

Carth's jaw clenched, but he just nodded. Why do we bother? If it never gets any better, what's the point? Another dark thought to be shoved unceremoniously away to gibber quietly in the dark corners.

"So what's got you spooked? Better out than in, as my Uncle Neknor used to say. Of course, he always did talk a load of garbage . . ." Witnik trailed off, but his gaze remained fixed to Carth, containing the kind of quietly determined look that said he wasn't about to let it drop.

Carth looked away. The dream had left him lying in a cold sweat, his breath coming fast and shallow. "I told you about the Dark Jedi we ran up against." His voice was neutral – emotionless.

"The one you sent for a swim?"

"He survived."

It had been almost identical to the dream he'd first had on Berchest, before the Catcher came after him. The dark, shadowy figure, stalking him remorselessly, impossible to evade. Looking for him. Looking straight at him with eyes that burned and saw clearly across the vast distances of intervening space.

Witnik tilted his head to one side. "And how can you know that, hmm? Last thing you were convinced he was dead. You're sure paranoia isn't getting the better of you? You don't have to be inventing enemies."

"I know," Carth's insisted with grim fatalism, "Because I can feel him looking for me."

-s-s-

Juhani gripped the arms of the flight-seat tightly, her claws leaving marks in the synth-leather. She felt her stomach lurch under the gunship's artificial gravity as Jolee sent them through another tight loop. A fraction later, a violent shudder passed through the hull as incoming blaster fire splashed and deflected away off their shields.

In front of them, the scarred side of the Hutt battlecruiser loomed like an enormous plasteel cliff face, details – gun blisters, sensor clusters, viewports – getting larger and more defined with a rapidity that was terrifying. As it began to seem like a collision – with accompanying crashing, fiery death – was inevitable, Jolee yanked back hard on the controls.

Abruptly Juhani was squashed down so hard into her seat it felt like she was being ground beneath a giant's thumb. She couldn't move so much as a muscle, her face pulled back tight against her skull and her teeth bared in a rictus grimace. The Rancorous's hull loomed so close in front of them that she could see the fine texture of metalwork down to individual scratches and micro-craters. As the pressure grinding down on her became even more intense, her vision started to go first red, than black around the edges, contracting down to a narrow tunnel. A cry of panic rose in her chest but stuck fast in her throat . . .

Then they were flying level again, the pressure gone so abruptly it left her head spinning. The side of the battlecruiser whizzed past beneath, grey metal plain rather than cliff face now.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

Whoever had come up without one had obviously never spent time on a ship piloted by Jolee Bindo. Her breath came raggedly, heart thudding. The officer occupying the sensor position was slumped forward, having blacked out under the g-forces they'd been pulling. As she watched, he twitched and spasmed a couple of times, before coughing and jerking back to consciousness.

More violent shudders passed through the gunship's superstructure at near misses from the Rancorous's gun turrets. Jolee sent them lurching through another series of stomach churning evasive manoeuvres, answering with strafing bursts of turbolaser fire that were scarcely more than gnat-bites against the giant Hutt ship.

As she struggled not to be violently ill from the rapid shifts of acceleration and momentum, Juhani began to feel distinctly nostalgic for Carth's piloting skills. He managed to bring a certain finesse to manoeuvres, instead of leaving you with the sense that you were riding bareback on an out of control Reek, clinging on for dear life.

Earlier, they'd rapidly reached the conclusion that trying to take the Rancorous on at range was tantamount to suicide, inevitably resulting in them either being picked off by turbolasers or overwhelmed by fighters. Most of the Hutt ship's firepower was located at its front end, so instead Jolee had tried to bring them in close alongside the vessel, where the relatively light gun density would at least give them a theoretical chance of survival.

It had worked up to a point. That point being, they were still alive.

Behind them, a Hutt fighter exploded in a silent flash of vapour, shot down by one of their rear gunners. More blaster fire stabbed at them, warning lights and alarms going off in addition to the violent jolt that threw Juhani forward in her seat and blasted most of the breath from her lungs. Dimly she heard Jolee swearing to himself as he wrestled with the controls.

The chances of them taking the battlecruiser out in combat were so miniscule as to approach zero. Therefore, they'd all agreed that their best bet was to try to fight their way through to one of the Rancorous's landing bays and usurp control from the inside out.

It was all alarmingly reminiscent of the escape from the Leviathan. Except this time, insanely, they were attempting to do it in reverse. At what point it had even remotely resembled a sensible idea, Juhani couldn't say for sure. It certainly didn't now.

Another judder passed through them, and for a moment – as the gunship veered sideways – it looked alarming like they were going to slam straight into the Rancorous's side.

Jolee brought them under control again, seemingly at the last possible instant, but they were going too fast and overshot the landing bay they'd been aiming at. That led to another nigh on suicidal manoeuvre, Jolee sending their ship through a rapid 270-degree turn that threw Juhani sideways so hard it left her dazed and bruised, despite her restraints.

The shields covering the entrance to the landing bay were still up. They were heading straight for them with no room to turn aside.

Juhani's eyes grew briefly wide as saucers, but a controlled burst from their front-facing ion guns made them fizzle for just long enough, and they were through. Suddenly they were in atmosphere, still flying much too fast, rows of brilliant landing lights strobing rapidly past.

Her heart had just about started to subside back down from her throat when they hit the deck. The impact was tremendous, bouncing her into the air before her restraints slammed her forcefully back down into her seat. The shriek of rending metal rose to overwhelming, eardrum shattering pitch, sheets of incandescent sparks flying up past the bridge windows. As they slid, the gunship started pirouetting round with all the grace of a tauntaun trying to roller-skate on an ice sheet, the deck tilting slowly sideways beneath them until the angle became so acute that they were in danger of toppling onto their side.

A series of thudding impacts vibrated through the gunship, punctuating the shrieking wail as they careened through a rank of fighters, clipping off wings and nose cones and sending maintenance droids scurrying for cover. There was a loud explosion and another tremendous jolt as they smashed into a refuelling rig and straight on through.

As the wall of greasy black smoke cleared in front of them, the rear of the landing bay loomed into view, approaching fast.

They weren't decelerating quickly enough.

Sparks continued to fly, the blaring of alarms all but drowned out by the incessant scream of metal on metal. There was no way they could possibly stop in time. Juhani flinched away reflexively, her head twisting to one side as she grabbed her seat's arms once again in a death grip . . .

She must have blacked out briefly.

When she came to again, there was harsh ringing noise in her ears and a splitting pain pulsing through her skull with every heartbeat. The air tasted acrid. It tickled the back of her throat, making her cough violently and exacerbating the heavy, bruised pain in her chest. Her restraints were cutting into her so tightly that they were in danger of cutting off circulation.

After a moment, the ringing resolved into the sound of external alarms rather than generic white noise accompanying the sound of blood rushing in her ears. The blurred, hazy quality of the air didn't fade and she belatedly realised there was a small electrical fire burning nearby, inside a shattered control console.

One of the other crewmembers groaned loudly. Juhani gritted her teeth and forced herself to move, hands weak and unsteady as she unfastened her restraints.

Jolee was already up and in the process of dusting himself down. He glanced back at her. "Perfect landing, wouldn't you say?"

-s-s-

"Xedra wasn't exaggerating," Canderous said quietly. He sat back on his haunches on the forest floor. Beside him in the damp earth, there was a footprint. A very large footprint. "A third again as big as the one on Korriban. Even bigger than that, maybe."

Bastila peered over his shoulder. She was distinctly on edge, a jittery, skittish feeling she couldn't suppress leaving her wanting to bolt – to get away from this spot right now.

In part, it came from the atmosphere in the forest around her. It was too quiet, no sign of any of the abundant life that had been in evidence even a few kilometres back. The stillness was eerie, and perhaps it was just perception, but even the insects seemed to have vanished.

Another part of it came from Jansa, who stood off to one side, radiating nervousness. Her gaze kept darting round near-frantically, and every slight sound or hint of movement had her jolting sharply. That nervousness was contagious.

She swallowed – forced herself to concentrate. "It's two days old. At least."

"Nearer three." Canderous didn't look round at her, but she thought he sounded grudgingly impressed.

"I wasn't born a Jedi, you know. My father was a treasure hunter. He taught me how to read tracks, and a few other useful skills besides." She wasn't sure why she bothered to give an explanation, especially one as relatively personal as that. Her jaw shut tight on the words as soon as they were out.

"They took you early, didn't they?" he said quietly after a pause. "The Jedi."

She frowned, searching for a hidden barb in his words but finding none. "When I was eight."

He made a soft noise that might have been a stifled laugh. "They take Mandalorian boys for war training at eight. We're assigned to war parties and start fighting by the time we're thirteen. So maybe we do have a little in common after all."

Not so long ago such a suggestion would have at the least brought an angry denial. Now . . . she wasn't sure what now was, but things had certainly changed. For one thing, she realised she no longer felt uncomfortable round the Mandalorian. "Both of us object warnings on the dangers of missing out on a proper childhood."

"Yeah, something like that," he agreed quietly.

He stood up, moving across to a silver-white tree trunk, which bore a series of deep and vicious looking gouges. The dark orange sap that had leaked from the wounds had hardened almost solid.

"What are you trying to get at," she asked after a moment's silence. He never just said something. There was always an underlying barb or point.

The shrug of his massive, armoured shoulders was almost like a seismic shifting. "I'd heard of this strange Republic tradition. 'Conversation', I think it's called. Thought I might give it a try."

Bastila's lips pursed. She wondered if she was being mocked. "And you want to have this conversation while we're out hunting terentateks?"

"Terentatek singular will do for me." Another hefty shrug. "Besides, it's not within a couple of kilometres of us right now."

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

"And you're not, Jedi?" he countered. "Look around. There're no fresh spoors, and besides, something that's as big as a full-grown rancor is going to struggle ever so slightly sneaking up on us in these woods."

Bastila wasn't quite that confidant. The one they'd encountered on Kashyyyk had come upon them with a speed and relative quiet that had been terrifying, looming out of the gloom of the shadowlands. She got no sense of it anywhere close by through the force, but that could just have been down to interference from the trees. It was difficult to think of the trees as a singular entity, despite what Xedra had said.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked eventually.

A hand came up to rub his jaw. "Always wanted to test myself against a terentatek. Properly I mean. Not just as Revan's bagman. Seems as good a way to go as any, if it comes to that. A worthy opponent, I'm thinking."

"That isn't what I meant." Her voice held a hint of exasperation. Why are you here, fighting on behalf of a people you went to war with? You can't explain it off as loyalty Revan anymore.

Canderous grunted. "I know that. Give me just a little credit, Princess. And try learning what a hint sounds like."

"Because you're the expert at taking hints."

"When I ignore hints I do it deliberately. Not because I'm blind to them." She thought that, beneath the surface, he was uncomfortable though. That he didn't answer because he didn't fully know what the answer was.

He changed the subject, walking forward again. "You ever faced a terentatek before?"

"On Kashyyyk." She fell into step beside him, lightsaber to hand. Behind them, Jansa hurried to keep up.

"Tamar use the minefield tactic there too?"

Bastila nodded. "We baited it with a Kinrath carcass. Unfortunately, we underestimated the amount of mines we needed. It charged straight through the lot and was still standing at the end of it." Charred, gaping wounds dripping black blood onto the forest floor, growling in rage. "Tamar decoyed it, while myself and Jolee used his distractions to get inside its reach and finish it with our sabers." The coolness of her words did nothing to convey her memories of the events – the pounding, near-paralysing terror as several tonnes of raging darkside fury charged at you; the grating steam-engine sound of its breathing; the stench of it; the impossible speed it moved. The way the ground itself vibrated and shook.

"We've got four frag mines," Canderous noted.

Bastila shot him a sidelong look. "On Kashyyyk six weren't enough."

"We'll just have to be inventive then, won't we?" He favoured her with a slanted smile. She didn't like the look in his eyes – the eagerness that she saw there.

"Perhaps we should return to base," Jansa put in from behind them. "Come back with assault walkers and tanks."

She heard Canderous snort. "An extra day and a half, minimum. You think we can afford to get that much further behind this Sith Lord of yours."

Bastila was almost tempted to take Jansa's side, because she knew with absolute certainty that Canderous wasn't worried in the slightest about losing ground on Darth Malefic. He just wanted to bag a terentatek. The problem was though, he was right.

"Better to lose a bit of time than to end up as an aperitif," Jansa argued.

"We keep going." Bastila's voice held firm finality.

At least he didn't smile, or give any other sign of victory for that matter. She'd have been tempted to slap him if he had. His words, when he spoke, were all business. "We need to find ourselves a killing ground. Somewhere we can control the approach routes. This is right out." He gestured ahead of them, where the forest opened out slightly, dipping into a shallow trough between higher ground on either side. "That way looks a good bet, terrain-wise." He glanced down at the global positioning system built into the wrist of his armour. "And as luck would have it, the Well's in that direction too."

As he finished speaking, a strange noise, getting rapidly louder and nearer, drew Bastila's gaze up, through the gaps in the treetops.

The sky had, temporarily, turned almost black as a flock of several hundred giant Daragban bats passed directly overhead, disturbed from their roost.

-s-s-

The bulkhead doors slammed shut just ahead of the turbolaser impact.

Despite being shielded by more than a metre of solid plasteel, the shockwave was enough to pick Rath Gannaya up like a discarded toy and hurl him close on six metres through the air, before crashing him back down with brutal force. Sharp pain flared through his hip, the air blasting from his lungs, and the roaring noise in his ears drowning everything else out.

A fraction of a second later, Kreed slammed into the deck beside him, hard enough to leave a sizable dent in the metal.

As Rath struggled to draw breath back into his lungs, simultaneously hauling himself back to his feet using the wall as support, strong hands grabbed him, helping him rise. It was Ravelasch. Centimetres from his, the Defel's eyes were the only solidly defined part of him, giving the illusion that they were glowing.

Rath tried to speak, but only managed to produce a thin wheezing note. He wiped his hand across his mouth and it came away smeared in blood. Doubling over, he spat a mouthful of red-stained saliva. "Everyone accounted for?" he finally managed to get out.

Ravelasch inclined his head. "Two more of our brothers were lost during Revan's escape. Everyone else made it. Yourself and Master Kreed were the last out."

The Mandalorian cyborg groaned, as if on cue. He pulled himself up to his feet, glowering as he tested the operation of one mechanical knee joint. It seemed to be sticking, the servos skipping and jamming. There was a sizable looking swelling above his biological eye.

Looking away from him, Rath tried vainly to interpret something from Ravelasch's expression. But with a Defel that was always next to impossible. "I'm sorry for your losses," he said at length

"It is the way of the circle. Death is our ever-present companion on the path we walk. We do not fear her embrace."

And you really believe a word of that? Rath hid a grimace.

A sense of unreality that was superficially similar to calm had settled in. Theda was dead. Three of the brothers were dead – more than had been lost in the previous six years. Another four of his men carried incapacitating injuries of various degrees of seriousness. Revan had escaped from their custody with an ease that was downright embarrassing, and given that they had a Hutt crime lord with his own personal battlecruiser after their blood, the chances of recapturing him in the near future seemed remote. To top it all, the Shadow Dancer – his ship, effective home, and most prized possession – had now been destroyed.

How you were meant to respond to that was something he couldn't remotely fathom. His emotions seemed to have absented themselves entirely. "Try and get a message through to the Ebon Hawk. Tell them we need evac. Soon would be nice."

It was just going through the motions – reacting in a manner that the others would expect.

"It's going to take him at least sixteen hours to reach us." Kreed's voice was a bass rumble. "And that's assuming Seboba won't by jamming outgoing comms. Which we both know he will be."

"Aren't you just the font of good cheer?" Rath's lips twisted. Do I hate you, Kreed? I think I might. If I could summon up the energy. "I don't propose we just sit on our arses and twiddle our thumbs in the mean time. Why do you think we risked being vaporised getting those out?" His gesture indicated the pair of assault droids, each with modified ysalamari tanks built into their armoured torsos. Retrieving them had come within seconds of costing them both their lives.

Kreed didn't say anything, but the look he favoured Rath with spoke volumes.

Rath ignored it. It was easy. "There'll be boarding parties," he told Ravelasch. "I intend to be ready for them. We'll grab one of their landing shuttles and pay our old pal Seboba a visit."

"And Revan?" Kreed asked.

The looked at each other for several long and protracted seconds. Finally, Rath smiled tightly. "Has exactly the same problems that we do, I'd imagine."

-s-s-

Another violent jolt passed through Dreya's Bastion, the superstructure around them groaning ominously.

"What's going on?" Tamar asked T3 over his comm. unit. The lights around them flickered distractingly. Maintenance droids and member's of Dreya's workforce rushed past in various states of urgency and panic.

A warbling series of beeps quickly told him that docking bay three had now been destroyed in addition to docking bay six, and that the culprit was a Hutt battlecruiser.

"Any casualties?" Tamar wasn't entirely sure which answer he wanted to hear. In cold practical terms, 'yes' probably suited them better. The fact that both bays three and six had been targeted was certainly suggestive as to their attackers' intent – and that they had inside information.

The short, flat noise T3 made in response indicated that the utility droid didn't have any information on the subject.

"Wait a minute. Did Tee say Hutt battlecruiser there?" Mission interrupted.

He looked round at her – her head tails held flat and tight, her expression pensive. "You know something about this?"

Mission seemed hesitant. "Maybe. Some Hutt crime lord tried to grab me on Nar Shaddaa. Seboba, his name was. Apparently, he's got some major beef with Gannaya's lot. I'm guessing he wants to grab you to put their noses out of joint as much as for the bounty."

"Information: Master, I am familiar with the name Seboba," HK-47 put in. "I told you about my former master on Sleheyron, Bochaba the Hutt, did I not? I believe it to be Seboba who was the main instigator behind my former master's assassination. It is likely that he took over the running of Bochaba's networks. By reputation he is a ruthless and violent individual, even by the standards of the Hutts."

Tamar thought that HK sounded approving.

"I too am familiar with the name," Yuthura murmured. As he looked at her, her lips formed a pale ghost of a smile. "An associate of Omeesh's."

"Oh?"

She shook her head. "There's no more to tell than that. Just a name I heard."

Tamar looked at her, concerned. Since their reunion she'd seemed strangely distant, something clearly troubling her. But right now was hardly the best time to be going into that. "Well I'm glad it's someone we're at least sort of familiar with who's trying to kill us," he muttered. "So much more heartening than it being a total stranger."

The attempt at humour fell decidedly flat.

T3 interrupted with the news that a small fleet of dropships and landing shuttles were on their way over. Dreya, apparently, was going through several different stages of apoplexy, although the Hutts were completely ignoring him.

"Which landing bay?"

"Beep-woo."

All of them, apparently. "We're closest to four. Meet us there as soon as you can."

T3's affirmative chimed in his ear.

"You had any luck with the data-core?" he added after a fractional pause.

According to T3, decryption had been successfully completed almost two hours ago.

"And was there anything useful on it?"

The answer he got back was prolonged and decidedly rude. T3 explained at indignant length that, firstly, it had been rather busy with other matters these past couple of hours. Secondly, that there were, in total, several entire teraquads of data on the core. And thirdly, Darth Auza hadn't seen fit to include any sections conveniently entitled 'Top secret incriminating evidence here!'.

Tamar apologised quickly before breaking the conversation off.

"Bay four, I'm guessing," Yuthura stated, a dry slant to her words. He looked at her again. She seemed . . . tense.

Finally, he nodded. "Our new Hutt friend is sending some visitors over. It'd only be polite to make sure they have a proper welcoming committee waiting." He slid his lightsaber free from his belt as he started walking rapidly. "And since they've gone and destroyed our only means of transport I'm sure they'll only be too happy to provide us with a ride out of here."

-s-s-

"Tell me about the Catcher."

Carth saw Yolanda jolt. She was in the middle of brushing her teeth, stripped down to her tank top. Anger flashed in the reflection of her eyes, but after a moment he realised it was directed primarily at herself – at allowing someone to catch her so far off guard.

"We're both still alive. I was presuming that meant he was dead," she stated neutrally. "Do you make a habit of sneaking up on women while they're washing?"

He ignored the second part. "He survived."

"Well that was careless of you, wasn't it . . . I'm sorry, I don't know your name."

"Valdan," he answered, giving her the alias he'd been using on Berchest.

She spat into the sink, then rinsed her mouth out, gargling. "Right."

"In the same way that you're called Yolanda."

"You can call me Tera or Shossa if you prefer." She wiped her face on a towel, turning to look at him directly for the first time. There was a cold, unblinking watchfulness to her expression that was distinctly unsettling. Without make-up or any hint of adornment, she looked very, very hard. "So what exactly do you want to know about the Catcher, Valdan?"

"How about we start with everything you know about him, and go from there?" Carth suggested.

She moved past him, back to the sickbay. He followed close on her heels. "And what are you going to pay me for this information? I don't think you have anything I want."

"Let's consider it the fee for my not leaving you to die on Callius's streets, if you insist in thinking in those kind of terms." He sat down opposite her. "Or we could just pretend we want to be nice and cooperative with each other. That might be, oh, I don't know, quite pleasant?"

She snorted, but after a second or so of silence, inclined her head. Impressive cheekbones, he noted as he looked at her. Not the sort of person that the word pretty was remotely appropriate for, but definitely possessed of a certain something – like a particularly sleek and deadly space-fighter.

"The Catcher is a Sith Assassin. An extremely powerful Dark Jedi. Last I heard, he was in the employ of Darth Auza, at least in so far as he ever works for anyone outside of his own amusement and whim."

"You know more than that," Carth pressed when it became clear she had no intention of continuing. "More detail I mean. You made that clear on Berchest."

She didn't deny it. "I know anecdote and hearsay, most of which is probably exaggeration or downright fabrication. And fascinating though some of it is, I don't see how it's remotely relevant."

"We're stuck in hyperspace for the next few hours. You have something else pressing you need to do?"

"Well, my nails could use a little work . . ." She held up a hand, displaying calloused blunt-nailed fingers.

Carth's expression didn't so much as flicker.

Her lips quirked into a half-smile. "If the stories are right, he was from Adrapos. It's a planet spinwise along the inner rim from Berchest. One of the living dead, so they say."

Carth blinked. "The living dead?"

"Oh, I don't mean literally living dead." It came out as a drawl, but her expression remained tightly contained and watchful. "That's what they called them, though. It was a big news story about twenty years ago, I think, uniting the galaxy in a sense of moral outrage. For all of five minutes before everyone got a bit bored and depressed by it, and decided to change the channel."

It stirred a few very dim and distant memories. "Plagueships, right?" He snapped his fingers suddenly as bits and pieces came back. "There was an epidemic. In an attempt to safeguard the rest of the Adrapan population, their government shipped the infected off world in a fleet of specially made plagueships." He would have just have been starting out at the fleet academy at the time, lots of other things on his mind.

Yolanda smiled thinly. "That's the official line. In reality it was ethnic cleansing; the removal of undesirables and dissidents. There never was a plague. Not in the conventional sense. The Adrapos government conducted controlled releases of bio-weapons on their own people to start a panic, then used that as an excuse to shove more than five million of their enemies onto twenty vast, automated ten-kilometre long spaceships with barely enough supplies to last a week, before firing them off on a one way trip into hyperspace."

"You seem well informed on the matter."

Her smile took on decidedly dark and unpleasant cast. "Oh, not firsthand. It was well before my time. Guess who supplied the bio-weapons though."

"Jerstyl Daxar," Carth stated heavily.

"More than just a pretty face I see." A tiny headshake. "Lovely man, my old boss, don't you think?"

"So why did you work for him?"

The look in her eyes changed back to coldly watchful. "Now that's an entirely different story. And not one you can afford to pay for."

Looking at her, Carth felt a flaring surge of frustration. He pushed it aside. What could he say? I'm trying to save the galaxy here. How about some cooperation? "So the Catcher was one of those on the plagueships."

"That's what I said, isn't it? The way I hear it, one of the ships malfunctioned about three years into its supposedly endless journey. Its hyperdrive failed, and it fell back into normal space on the edge of the Khar Zaran system."

Carth recognised the name of one of the Sith core worlds well enough. "Three years in hyperspace? Surely that would take you . . ." He tried to do some calculations. "Well out beyond the galactic rim, into the void?"

"Slow ships, Valdan," she murmured. "You don't waste modern tech on a vessel where the only purpose is for it to disappear forever." A dismissive gesture. "Anyway, all this was way before Revan, and compared with now, the Sith were barely more than a remnant, mainly preoccupied with infighting. No one expected to find anything of value on a plagueship, so the derelict vessel was left to drift for weeks before a down on their luck salvage crew decided to take a look."

"I'm guessing they weren't expecting to find anyone alive."

She nodded. "There were close on a dozen survivors. Out of a quarter of a million. Imagine it. Surviving for three years on a horrendously overcrowded vessel that has enough supplies to keep everyone properly fed for about a week, and barely enough power to sustain basic life support, let alone things like, say, proper lighting and waste disposal. I've tried to think of a hell worse than that, and to be honest I'm struggling. Imagine what you have to do to survive for three years like that."

Carth was imagining. He felt nauseous.

"One of the survivors was a nine year old boy. A very obviously force sensitive nine year old boy. Force sensitive children are a valuable commodity among the Sith. I'm sure the salvage team did very well out their find. Probably made enough to retire, if they were so inclined."

"And the other survivors?"

She gave him a measured look. "Were not force-sensitive, and therefore not valuable. Nothing was recorded about their fate. If it makes you feel better, imagine them living happily ever after."

It didn't particularly. "And what does he want with you?"

Yolanda shrugged, her expression one of studied indifference. "Loose end, I'd imagine. Though to be honest, I find his interest in you a far more fascinating subject."

Carth shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "I don't follow."

She clearly wasn't even remotely fooled. "Come now. He was seemed much more interested in you than me, don't you think? Now why would that be?"

Carth shrugged – said nothing.

After a moment, she pursed her lips. "Another thing I heard about the Catcher. Since you want to know everything. He has this obsession with death. I guess being around so much of it when you're a child might do that. Maybe that's why he remains with the Sith – because it gives him the chance to study his obsession at such close proximity. He certainly doesn't seem to be interested in power, in the conventional sense at least. Something of a loose cannon, all told.

"Anyway, that's straying from the point. As part of his obsession, he's reputedly developed a rather . . . unique method of interrogation. Supposedly, he creates some kind of force link to a person by leeching away some of their life-force and taking it into himself. We both had the misfortune of feeling that firsthand, didn't we?" A twist to her lips, and an echo of something that might have been fear in her eyes. "While the link still persists, he kills the person in question. As the brain dies, all of its carefully constructed defences collapse, allowing him ever so briefly inside. You can't resist it. You can't fight it. No mental discipline or resilience will protect you. Because you're already dead."

He stared at her. "How can you know this?" he asked finally.

"It's my business to know," she snapped. "You asked. I told." She paused, tilting her head back so she was looking at the ceiling rather than him. "He killed your friend, Valdan. Now, what do you think he could have seen in her dying brain that has got him so interested in you?"

Carth's lips tightened. He didn't say anything. The Catcher, he remembered, had used his real name.

"Now, I can't see a Sith assassin caring overmuch about a rather mediocre Republic intelligence asset going by the alias of Valdan Mayer, can you?" She looked back at him again – implacable. "But from your expression, I think you know exactly the real reason he wants you, don't you?"

Silence fell. Carth still had a whole multitude of other questions he wanted answered, but he could sense that any semblance of control he had over the conversation was well and truly gone. He was only going to end up revealing far more about himself than he was going to learn about her.

He stood up, turned on heel, and left.

-s-s-

Terentatek dung, perhaps unsurprisingly, stank.

The vast mound of it, easily enough to bury a human in, was relatively fresh. Less than a day old, certainly. Sticking out of it, badly scarred by digestive juices and bent out of shape, was a breastplate. It still bore enough traces of orange for its Republic origin to be clear.

The Sith, it seemed, had left plenty of al fresco food to ensure that their pet didn't stray too far afield from the spot they wanted it to guard.

Bastila turned away, her nose wrinkling in distaste. Canderous was further up the slope of churned mud, inspecting the huge cage of badly buckled plasteel that had once housed . . . their prey? . . . their hunter? She still wasn't sure which. Rain dripped down through the foliage steadily, a grey shroud that muffled her other senses as much as the trees muffled and interfered with her perception of the force. It left her feeling tense; almost claustrophobic – and yes, she had to admit, scared.

You couldn't pretend away your feelings. That was clear enough to her now. Denial and repression were not what the Jedi code was about. It was about acceptance and understanding. A lot of people seemed to have lost sight of that though, listening only to the words.

She drew a shaky breath in. So I accept my fear.

Unfortunately, acceptance didn't make it go away. It wasn't the terentatek. At least, it was no more than peripherally the terentatek. That was just a physical manifestation, and in some ways, it even made things easier to have something tangible to focus on. No, her fear was the situation. She'd gone against the new Jedi Council's will. She was walking on a planet, which, if it hadn't been the place of Revan's fall, had been a very significant stepping-stone along the way. And she was about to do something she wasn't sure she remotely had either the strength or resolve for.

Her gaze turned to Canderous again, as grim and grey as the day. Do you ever get afraid? Feel doubt? Feel anything? It wasn't something she could really ask him though.

Apparently noticing her gaze on him, he tossed the object he was holding so it landed with a heavy thud at her feet, splattering mud up the front of her robes. It was a Republic helmet, with a massive dent in one side of it. Anyone who'd been wearing it while the dent was inflicted was not likely to be in good shape.

"Someone left it some snacks to be going on with."

"I know." Her answer was heavy. There'd been so much brutality of late that one more piece was something almost to be taken for granted. That was the worst part. It almost didn't shock anymore.

Canderous grunted. Maybe he'd expected more of a reaction. He gestured at the churned up mud, then the surrounding trees with their torn off branches and gouged trunks. "It comes back here regularly. Its lair, near enough. This is where we fight it."

Bastila just nodded.

"Something troubling you, Princess? You seem preoccupied."

"I thought I asked you not to call me that," she said absently, going through the motions by rote.

"Yeah? Well you should know by now some things just ain't gonna happen." He favoured her with a slanted half-smile, rain running down the craggy contours of his camouflage-painted face. It faded quickly. "You sense something?"

"No."

He looked as if he was going to say something else, but Lieutenant Jansa's voice interrupted, thin and taut. "I see it, I think. The Well, I mean. A hundred metres north."

They exchanged a look. "Go take a look then," Canderous muttered. "It's what you're burning for, isn't it?"

Again, she said nothing, longing and dreading together. Of late, he seemed to be able read her feelings far too well. It rankled to that small prideful part that remained. A Mandalorian, with all the sensitivity – force and otherwise – of a rock, yet he was still better at discerning her emotions than she was his.

"Don't go down," he cautioned as she stepped past him. "If the terentatek traps you there . . ." He trailed off, then added. "And I might need your help in the fight."

That gruff admission startled her, but when she looked round at him, he'd already turned away. For a moment, she watched his broad, armour-plated back as he efficiently went about the business of laying mines in the churned mud, preparing his killing ground. Then she turned and walked up to where Jansa was standing.

"There." Jansa pointed between the trees while holding her global positioning system up for Bastila to see. Exactly the spot the map on Drumond Kaas indicated. Down to the metre."

At first glance, there wasn't much to see. There wasn't a whole lot more on second glance either. Just a clearing in the trees that was rather smaller than she'd been anticipating, with the ground dropping away, out of sight. From Xedra's words, she'd been subconsciously expecting something rather more impressive. Something with a kind of dreadful splendour.

She reached out with her mind, but there was nothing there for her to feel. Nothing that managed to penetrate through the persistent interference of the surrounding forest, at least. "Well, let's take a look then." Her words sounded over-bright and forced to her own ears.

Up close, the Vision Well resembled nothing so much as the holos she'd seen of sarlacc pits – a funnel of bare earth dropping steeply into a dark, mouth-like pit about eight metres in diameter. All it was missing was the fringe of thick, fleshy tentacles ready to ensnare anything unfortunate enough to blunder into the funnel.

The funnel of earth had been churned up by massive clawed feet, and sections of the stone lip of the well had collapsed inward, whether by natural erosion or the efforts of the terentatek, it was difficult to say at this range. Taking a deep breath, Bastila started to inch down the slope of slippery mud, her footing perilous. Behind her, she heard Jansa's breath catch.

As she got closer, she was able to pick out fragments of a spiral staircase, descending around the well's inside rim. Large sections had been broken off, rendering it impassable. Closer now, she could see that most of the damage had been inflicted recently, the exposed edges of broken stone still jagged, with none of the pervasive lichens and mosses having taken root.

Part of her wondered why Darth Malefic had gone to the trouble of leaving the terentatek, when he could have simply had the thing filled in to cover his tracks. But the answer was obvious enough.

You don't destroy something you intend to use again.

And a taste of what it gives is addictive. The thought made her shudder. It wasn't particularly cold.

The toe of her boot clipped a stone, knocking it loose from the mud and sending it clattering down into the well. From the time it took to fall silent in its bouncing descent, she estimated that it had fallen getting on for ten metres.

"Is . . . is someone up there?"

The voice, coming up from the well, trailed away into a ragged groan. Bastila jolted so hard in surprise she almost lost her footing. Her heart thumped hard inside her chest, and it took her several heartbeats to find her voice. "Who are you? Are you hurt?"

The pained, hollowly echoing cough that came by way of response answered the second part of that, if not the first. "Get away from here! Get away now!"

The vehemence surprised her. She resumed inching down the funnel slope. "I'm a Jedi. I can help you. If you're injured . . ."

A hollow noise that might have been intended as a laugh answered, before trailing off into more coughing. "Against that thing? Against the creature?"

"The terentatek?"

"I don't know what the damn thing's called! It . . . it . . . Asmunds. I saw it . . ." The voice trailed away again and Bastila heard a sound that she thought might have been a sob. Then, abruptly, it rose again, almost hysterical in pitch. "It keeps coming back. It's trying to get me. Clever . . . cleverer than you'd think. My legs are broken. I think my legs are broken . . .. My water's running out. Damn. Damn, it hurts . . ."

"We'll get you out of there," Bastila started.

"No!" The response was instant – angry; frightened. "Aren't you listening? It's still up there. I watched what it did to Asmunds. I don't want to watch – to hear – it do the same to you. I won't watch! I won't listen!"

"Shush. It's not here now. Do you think I could stand here, talking to you if it was?"

A grating, rather hysterical sounding laugh was the only immediate response. Then, "It was there . . . an hour ago? Maybe more . . . maybe less. Slavering and slobbering over me until it got bored. No, not bored. Until something else took its interest." The voice broke off briefly into more coughing. "You can feel its footsteps down here. The stone vibrates. I felt it walk away, and I felt it stop again. It hasn't moved since. Maybe it's sleeping. I don't know. But it's close. Very close."

Bastila digested the words. If it were as close as he implied, then surely she would have sensed it . . .?

But no, terentateks were highly resistant to the force, and with the interference from the trees . . .. She grimaced, scrambling rapidly back up the slope. Perhaps the terentatek on Kashyyyk had taken them so much unawares because of its lack of force presence, rather than any particular stealth.

The thought made her blood run cold.

"You think he's right?" Jansa asked.

Bastila's attention was too distracted to answer, scanning every inch of the surrounding forest, this time using the force in an effort to sharpen her existing senses rather than reaching out through it itself. She noted bent back branches and churned up mud and leaves – scratches in tree trunks, a giant staved in puffball. The traces existed in every direction though, and it was difficult to put them in order of age when they'd been created so closely together.

Jansa suddenly made a tiny, incoherent sound that had Bastila whirling.

The terentatek was watching them from about fifty metres away – a vast green-black shadow lurking between the trees, utterly silent and utterly still.

There was no roar. No growl. No challenge. It simply charged.

-s-s-

Juhani's lightsaber blades whirled, twin flashes of blue lightning casting wildly shifting shadows across the scarred and fire-blackened walls of the landing bay. Incoming blaster fire scattered and deflected away from her, leaving her unscathed – an eye in the storm of surrounding chaos.

The blast doors clanged open again, letting in another stream of reinforcements headed by a pair of giant, spider-like battle droids. The hail of blaster fire abruptly quadrupled in intensity, her efforts at deflecting it growing ever more frenetic and her forward momentum faltering

Abruptly crackling bolts of ionised energy leapt past her from Jolee's outstretched hand, flickering around the pair of droids and reducing them to matching piles of sparking, smoking scrap.

In the brief instant of respite that gave her, Juhani drew upon the force to augment her leg muscles and leapt forward, flying more than twelve metres right across the landing bay, directly into the middle of the densest group of their assailants. Her lightsabers traced breathtakingly rapid, ruthlessly efficient attack patterns, slicing through armour and flesh alike with similar ease. Somewhere behind her, she could hear the distinctive firing not of Zaalbar's bowcaster, punctuated by the Wookiee's bellowing battle cries.

The air stank of fried electrics and cauterised flesh. One Echani mercenary managed to switch from his blaster rifle to a pair of elegant looking vibroblades just in time to parry her attacks, but a force-enhanced flurry battered his defences aside. Moments later an incandescent blue blade sliced through his chest.

Briefly there was a respite – stillness and almost calm. A short distance behind them, the Republic gunship crackled with flame. Beyond the landing bay, the distant clamour of alarms could be heard.

Juhani drew in deep breaths, calming the edge of the instinctive Cathar berserker fury that was always there lurking, ready to try to usurp control, when she fought. As soon as she felt slightly steadier, she began to rebuild and reinforce the layers of defences and force enhancements she kept herself surrounded by. She tried unsuccessfully to block out the smell of cauterised flesh from the corpses cluttering the deck around her.

"Do you feel that?" Jolee murmured, moving to stand next to her.

After a fractional pause, she shook her head, regarding him curiously. "What am I supposed to be feeling?"

"Another force user. Throwing their weight around."

"There is a Dark Jedi on board?" She frowned in concern.

Jolee's head tilted fractionally to one side, as though he was listening to a distant sound. "No." Then, suddenly. "It's Tamar. I'd recognise that bonehead anywhere." He grimaced, seeming to strain, before shaking his head. "The idiot's got his defences up and isn't listening. I suppose it was stupid to think he'd sit tight and let himself be rescued."

"Can't you reach him by communicator?"

He let her hear the thin hissing of static that indicated the landing bay was being jammed.

"Can you tell where he is then?" She still had no more than the vaguest sense.

"Over there somewhere. Several hundred metres away at least. It's hardly pinpoint." He looked at her pointedly. "And it seems to be a sight more than you can manage. You need to work on your perceptions, girl. I could do better than that even when I was barely a Padawan. Not that I suppose I can blame you, given recent events. Remind me later, when things are a bit less fraught. We'll go over it."

Juhani inclined her head respectfully. "Master Bindo."

Jolee's grimace looked pained. "Please, girl. What did I tell you about that? If there's anything worse than lack of respect, it's respect."

There was a loud clang directly behind them. Belaya had finally managed to cut an opening through the landing bay floor, exposing the network of cramped tunnels and service ducts that lay beneath.

"I think the time is right for us to make ourselves scarce," Jolee muttered. Juhani nodded agreement.

A few seconds later, the landing bay doors burst open again, letting in another influx of ragtag troops. All they found though, was the still burning wreck of the Republic gunship.

Everyone else was gone.

-s-s-

Yuthura looked out of the dropship's cockpit, a wry twist to her mouth as she took in the scene. Her head tails lay motionless on her shoulders – tense. She gripped the hilt of her lightsaber firmly. "You think he took the opportunity to betray us?" She indicated the terrified looking pilot with a nod.

After a brief pause, Tamar shook his head. "I think the fact we were flying in the wrong direction was enough to give us away. And no matter that we gave all the correct responses."

"So, um, we do like, have a plan for getting out of this," Mission put in. "Um, don't we?"

The dropship they'd hijacked from Dreya's Bastion had put into the Rancorous's forward port fighter bay, landing safely and sedately in the middle of it. Up to that point, everything had been going absolutely swimmingly.

Then what looked like several entire legions of heavily armed troops – assorted humans, Rodians, Weequay and Klatooinians, plus what looked to be a fairly hefty contingent of Echani mercenaries – had emerged from every direction at once, including beneath the landing bay deck and even abseiling down from the ceiling. Mixed in with the troops were a number of huge, gleaming battle droids, along with miscellaneous pieces heavy assault weaponry.

You didn't put a welcoming committee like that together on the spur of the moment. Obviously, their arrival had been anticipated.

"Suggestion: Master, exterminating the meatbags would appear to be a good first move. We could start with this one here."

"I'll bear that in mind," Tamar noted. Yuthura didn't detect any particular enthusiasm, watching him as he leant forward across the ship's controls. "I think maybe if we . . ."

He trailed off abruptly as everything around him powered down. From the back of the ship, Yuthura heard the soft murmur of hydraulics as the rear exit ramp spontaneously deployed. As she looked on, he tried several different control sequences in rapid succession, but nothing he did had any effect.

The pilot blanched, shying back from the controls and holding his hands up. "It wasn't me! I swear! I swear! I didn't do anything!" Yuthura could sense fear bordering upon hysteria radiating from him, and concluded that, if he was a liar, he was just about the best she'd ever seen.

"Query: shall I . . . dispose of him for you, Master?"

"No!" As the captured pilot tried to flinch back, Tamar sighed and reached out, gently touching the man's forehead.

Yuthura sensed him manipulating the force, and a moment later, the pilot slumped backwards, seemingly deep asleep. "Better that way for all of us," he murmured, before sighing heavily, looking disgusted with himself.

"I was merely offering to help, Master . . ."

"Woo-wee-be-beep," T3 chimed over the top of HK. Apparently, an external signal had been received and the dropship's computers had locked the utility droid out of the primary control functions at the same time as the manual controls were being shut down.

"Can you override it?" Tamar's voice contained a quietly grim urgency. She got the impression that underneath, he was fighting down the urge to lash out and thump the unresponsive controls in front of him.

"Beep-wop-woo-beep." Not without several hours work, was the gist.

"What systems can you still access?"

"Um, I hate to be picky and all, but I think they're getting ready to storm us." Glancing across at Mission, Yuthura saw the girl's head tails gathered in close around her throat. She was gripping her blaster pistols tightly, face pinched and nervous.

Yuthura didn't really have any reassuring words to give, although she herself felt surprisingly calm. Perhaps irrationally calm, given the circumstances. Her thoughts strayed to Seboba, and a pang of guilt briefly intruded. What she'd told Tamar earlier hadn't been a lie per se, but . . .

"Beep-beep-woo-beep-wee-bop . . ."

"Stop. Go back a bit. That includes the coolant systems, right?"

T3 beeped the affirmative.

"Then vent them. Every last millilitre."

"Woooo."

"Yes. That is rather the idea." Tamar's tone was light, but Yuthura could see the intensely pained look around his eyes. Part of her wondered if that had been the start of what happened to Revan – the only way of getting past those feelings had been to murder them stone dead. There is no emotion, taken to far too brutal and literal extreme.

"My compliments, master. Ingeniously nasty. I have to confess that I had started to think you had gone soft."

And that was surely a great help.

Before anyone could respond to HK, an amplified voice, clearly audible inside the dropship, boomed out. "Jedi Knight Revan, we have you surrounded and are in full control of the hijacked ship. You cannot escape. Surrender, and neither you nor your companions will not be harmed. Offer resistance, and you will compel us to respond with extreme force. You have thirty seconds to comply." It was so precise it sounded like a recording.

"Beep?" T3 inquired.

Tamar's eyes met Yuthura's. After a moment, Yuthura gave an almost imperceptible nod and they shared a wordless, near invisible smile. Then he looked quickly round to Mission.

She thrust her chin out with more confidence than Yuthura sensed that she felt, and simply tapped her belt. "Hey, worry about yourself. They'll never even see me coming."

"HK?" His voice was soft.

"Statement: As always I am ready to serve to the very best of my abilities, Master. You should not doubt that."

"Our goal is to get through all that out there as quickly and cleanly as possible. Not to rack up a body count." There was a rather pointed note to Tamar's words.

"Master, you constructed me with the most advanced tactical sub-processing unit available. I am insulted at the implication that you think me but a simple butcher. Although I am, of course, also capable of excelling in that role. Should it be required."

Tamar looked back to T3. "Go ahead."

Nothing happened.

"Beep!" T3's frustration was clear. "Beep-beep-woo-beep!" Although it was still able to access the coolant system, built in safeguards, designed precisely to prevent this kind of release, were resisting the utility droid's efforts. It was trying to work around them.

"This is your last chance," the voice from outside informed them, somewhat predictably, as the thirty seconds expired.

"Tee, any time now would be good."

"Beep." This time the noise T3 made was one of satisfaction.

The coolant fluid vented explosively at the same time the signal was given to storm the dropship. Stored at a stable temperature barely above absolute zero, it boiled and evaporated on contact with the landing bay's air, hissing angrily as it created vast clouds of freezing white vapour on all sides of the dropship simultaneously.

Those troops nearest the ship were frozen solid instantly, still locked in formation. Scores toppled over, shattering like brittle glass. Yuthura felt the pain, shock, and confusion of those slightly further away as they flinched and cowered back, desperate to escape the vapour's killing touch.

Beside her, Tamar's lightsaber ignited, brilliant cyan. Her own violet blade joined it a fraction of a second later. The clouds of vapour began to thin. She could feel the force gathering like thunderclouds around Tamar.

"Go." His voice was firm and commanding, containing not a hint of doubt.

In the corner of her vision, Yuthura saw Mission blur, then vanish as she activated her stealth field. Closing all distractions out, she fell into step with Tamar, advancing down the dropship's exit ramp. His presence at her side was strong and implacable, and she drew strength and confidence from it, reaching out ahead of her and using the force to amplify the general confusion and transform it into full-blown fear and panic. More troops tried to break and run, others opening fire at phantom targets only they could see.

Directly behind them, HK provided cover, an unceasing volley of shots from his blaster rifle slicing into targets with the precision of a surgeon operating with a laser scalpel.

The only accurate shots that came back were sporadic, originating from the various assault droids. Yuthura's lightsaber moved to block and intercept almost independently of conscious thought. Beside her, Tamar's did the same, together with her forming an impenetrable barrier.

Brilliant flashes of smoke and light and noise resounded, Mission rolling flash grenades across the deck. Their random seeming detonations intensified the chaos and gave the illusion that there were far more than just the five of them. Waves of buffeting force, originating from Tamar's outstretched hand, scattered Seboba's troops like a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum and wiping the table in front of him clear of toy soldiers.

A clear path opened up before them. No one offered more than token resistance.

-s-s-

"It's stopped firing on the Bastion," Kreed noted sourly from the shuttle's pilot's seat. That seat still bore the blood of the erstwhile pilot, along with a gaping tear that spewed stuffing.

In normal circumstances, Rath thought disconnectedly, Theda would have been sitting in that seat.

He suppressed the thought angrily, struggling to concentrate on the here and now. Force knew, things were complicated enough. "Well, I doubt Seboba wants to destroy it. Some of his friends in the Exchange would be less than impressed by that particular action." His voice actually sounded controlled. Exactly as it usually did.

"It's more than that," Kreed insisted. "Look at the screens. The fighters are being recalled. The shuttles and dropships are heading back. We should have been challenged by now, but not a whisper." He grunted. "Something's got them stirred up like a nest of womp rats in mating season. I think we can both guess what that means."

"That Revan's had the same idea we have, and isn't proving a docile house guest." Rath kept the tone of his voice mild. "Only to be expected don't you think? There weren't exactly a whole host of other options once our Hutt friend destroyed both of our means of transport."

In the view screen, the Rancorous – huge and scarred and ugly – grew steadily larger. "And that changes nothing?" Kreed asked, keeping their course steady.

The words were deceptive, Rath thought. Loaded. He gritted his teeth; kept his own response outwardly mild. "And what, exactly, would it change? If anything, it makes our job easier. Lets us slip in and take advantage while Revan and dearest Seboba keep each other occupied."

There was a lengthy pause. "Or lets us slip away unnoticed. Rendezvous with the Hawk. Cut our losses and live to fight another day."

"I thought you had more steel in you, Mandalorian." Still Rath remained outwardly calm. "I thought you wanted to test your mettle against Revan. And I thought you, above anyone, would appreciate the chance to take a bite out of the Hutt."

The pause this time was equally lengthy. "Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe even an old Mandalorian's perspective can change." Rath saw Kreed's massive shoulders shrug. Then he sighed. "Whatever. Just making a suggestion. You're the boss."

I'm the boss. It was a strange and bitter thought.

The Rancorous kept on getting steadily larger in front of them.

-s-s-

Bastila jumped back just in time to evade a pulverising smash from one of the terentatek's front claws. The impact made the ground shake and left a deep crater in the damp mud. She tried to counterattack, but was off balance and at the limits of her reach, the tip of her lightsaber no more than scraping the armoured hide of the monster's massive forearm.

It hissed, a blast of stinking breath issuing from a mouth that could easily swallow her whole. Teeth, like giant shears, clacked together noisily. Another swinging arm, which would have torn her in half had it connected, sent her scrambling rapidly backwards again.

Sweat ran down her face to mix with the rain. Her breath was coming too fast already.

The biggest problem was that she couldn't get close enough to it. For all the terentatek's truly monstrous, ground-shaking size, it was terrifyingly fast and agile. If she was to get near enough to lay her lightsaber on its flesh, she knew she had to kill it instantly. Anything less, and the next moment it would have her in its grasp and tear her apart.

So all she could effectively do was run, and as soon as she started to slow or tire . . .

On its initial charge, an attempt to wrap it in a stasis field and hold it – to buy herself some time – had slid straight off as if it wasn't there. And then it had been on top of her – a monstrous, stinking mass of animal fury: shatteringly powerful; frighteningly huge.

She could feel its hate – hot and bloody. It wasn't simply a predator. It didn't hunt simply from instinct and the need to feed. It felt like a living black hole of darkside energy; a ravenous manifestation of it.

It lunged again, leading with its monstrous jaws.

Again Bastila danced back out of range. This time though, she misstepped. The lip of the funnel was there beneath her heel, mud sliding out from beneath her. Her attempts at maintaining her balance only made things worse, and suddenly she was tumbling backwards, head over heels down the slope, crying out involuntarily.

She slammed into the stone lip of the Vision Well with crunching force. Her lightsaber bounced free of her grasp, spinning up in the air, yellow blades flashing, before tumbling out of sight into the Well's gaping mouth.

Her breath was slow to catch. She groaned, her ribcage feeling like one massive bruise. Suddenly there was a sharp, splintering crack.

Bastila rolled frantically as the lip of the well crumbled and broke off beneath her. For a moment, she felt herself hanging over empty air, sliding back. Then she stopped herself, hands clawing desperately into the wet mud and gripping tight as she gasped. For a moment, her legs swung ineffectually in empty space, before her feet managed to find purchase on the broken stone.

From below came a stifled groan, providing brief reassurance that she hadn't managed to crush the person at the bottom of the well to death beneath falling debris. Then a shattering roar from startlingly close by jerked her attention back to more immediate matters.

The terentatek was crouching down over the edge of the pit, fishing for her with its front claws. As she looked up at it, she could feel its breath on her face like heat from a furnace. Its eyes, relatively tiny on either side of its huge, armoured skull were dead black – infinite tar pits.

Gritting her teeth, straining with effort, she started to inch herself away from it, around the well's rim.

A claw large enough to completely impale her slammed down hard, knocking mud and debris loose in a miniature landslide. It missed hooking through the meat of her shoulder by a matter of millimetres. It did, however, manage to slice through her Jedi robe, snaring it. Growling eagerly, it began to winch her up with the tiny hold it had.

She groaned, struggling to hold on, muscles straining, the skin of her hands beginning to tear. Abruptly the entire sleeve of her robe ripped away, and it lost its grip, its growl changing to one of angry frustration.

Before it could try again, a blaster shot rang out. The terentatek howled, the sound deafening at such close proximity, making Bastila's skull resonate. She sensed its massive bulk shift and draw back as its attention transferred to this new target.

It was Jansa, and her blaster was only slightly more useful against something that size than a water pistol. A second shot hit the thick hide of the terentatek's torso. Bastila doubted that it even managed to tickle.

The ground shook. Bastila swore beneath her breath. Jansa didn't stand a chance.

With urgency bordering on desperation, she made herself concentrate and block out all distractions. Instead of directing the force at the terentatek, which would more than likely resist her efforts, just as before, she used it to whip up the leaves from the forest floor in a swirling maelstrom and blow them in a flurry into its face.

Temporarily blinded, sneezing convulsively, its charge faltered, allowing Jansa to scurry away. For the moment at least.

Using the brief respite, Bastila hauled herself upwards, until she could stand again, precariously balanced on the Well's edge. "I'm down here, idiot!" she yelled up, hoping to draw its attention back onto her.

Where the hell is Canderous? She sent a pummelling wave of force slamming into the terentatek's back legs as it ignored her shout.

The attack bounced off, seemingly without adverse effect, though it did succeed in drawing the creature's attention back to her, which was success of a sort. Mud and more debris broke loose and slid down the pit towards her as its shadow loomed over her . . .

Jansa shot it again, hitting the side of its muzzle.

No, you idiot. Just run.

The terentatek whirled back again . . . and a vast geyser of earth and fire exploded between its legs. This time its enraged bellow also contained definite elements of pain.

More blaster shots slammed into its armoured head, again and again. These shots were much heavier than those from Jansa's gun, and actually seemed to have some effect, snapping its skull back with each hit. It charged, away from the well, and away from Jansa. The noise coming from it sounded like an overheating steam engine.

Canderous. About bloody time.

As the ground shook beneath its pounding footsteps, she scrambled back up the muddy slope.

At the top, she paused to catch her breath, crouched on her haunches. The terentatek's broad, spike covered back was turned to her, and it was in the process of trying to squash a tiny looking dull-grey metal figure that was dodging away from it between the trees, pausing every time it had brought itself a little time and space to fire off another volley of shots from its heavy repeater.

She watched, heart in mouth, as a series of pulverising blows got closer and closer to landing on their target. One swing hit a tree beside Canderous so hard it almost knocked it over, the silver-white trunk splintering but holding just barely.

Then Canderous stumbled, falling on his back amid the leaves and mud.

Her lightsaber was somewhere at the bottom of the well, and like most Jedi, that was the only weapon she ever carried. Her force powers seemed to bounce straight off the terentatek to almost no effect. If she didn't do something though, and fast, he was as good as dead.

Another grenade went off directly in the terentatek's face, flashing brilliantly. It reeled back, roaring in fury, and Canderous managed to get his feet under himself again. A flailing arm, as thick as a tree-trunk itself, caught him a glancing blow.

He flew almost six metres through the air before another tree trunk interrupted his flight. Without his armour, the impact would have probably killed him. As it was, he fell limply on the forest floor, twitching feebly.

Its vision clearing, the terentatek closed in fast for the kill, black blood dripping thickly from its nostrils and mouth. Canderous tried to rise again and failed, slumping back.

Bastila summoned lightning, not in instinctive desperation as she had in the swamps of Drumond Kaas, but coolly and deliberately. The air around her ionised and crackled with latent static. Electricity ripped from her fingers with ferocious intensity.

It missed the terentatek entirely.

The terentatek had never been the target.

Instead, the lightning cracked against the tree the terentatek had almost knocked over when swinging at Canderous and missing. There was a sharp splintering noise, the trunk charring black and some of the smaller branches bursting into flames.

Bastila followed up with a sharp force push. The tree's trunk broke jaggedly, toppling forwards, guided in the correct direction by the way she'd pushed it. Just as the terentatek started to scoop Canderous up towards its gaping maw, the tree slammed into its back.

There was a sickening crunch and it collapsed, face first into earth.

Canderous fell from its grasp. Thankfully he was still moving, albeit weakly. Bastila let out a long breath, shuddering in relief.

The terentatek let out another thunderous roar that must have echoed through the forest for kilometres. It started to struggle out from beneath the fallen tree. It didn't seem to be anything worse than stunned.

Bastila stared at in disbelief.

The tree rolled off entirely. Canderous had managed to haul himself up, onto his knees. His repeater had been knocked from his grasp and was nowhere immediately in sight. He was in the process of unstrapping his Baragwin made vibro-sword from across his back.

The terentatek lunged at him, jaws-first, sliding rapidly across the forest floor on its underbelly.

Somehow, Canderous managed to twist away, simultaneously driving his vibro-sword down into the top of the monster's skull as its teeth closed on empty air. For a moment, the thick bone of the terentatek's skull resisted, but she could see Canderous grimacing, putting the entire weight of his not inconsiderable bulk behind the blow.

Finally, there was a crunching, splintering noise and the sword went in, almost up to the hilt. It pierced right through the creature's brain, the palate of its mouth, and then its tongue, pinning its enormous jaws together. It spasmed violently, back legs clawing reflexively at the earth. One last shudder, and finally it lay still.

A moment later Canderous staggered, before sitting back clumsily with an audible grunt. Bastila hurried across to him.

Up close, she could see how the terentatek's claws had left deep dimples in the metal of his armour. Blood was trickling steadily down one side of his face. As he looked up at her, his eyes were alarmingly unfocussed. After a moment, when he became aware of her scrutiny, he forced a twisted looking grin, bloodstained teeth giving it a decidedly savage aspect.

"See, told you how proper preparation was the key. Fell right into our trap." His laughter boomed.

-s-s-

Carth slid wordlessly into the co-pilot's seat alongside seat Witnik Nayn.

"So it went that well, did it?" the Sullustan inquired after a lengthy period of silence.

"I don't know what you mean," came the sour retort.

"Uh-huh." Witnik waggled his head in the Sullustan equivalent of a knowing nod. "She's attractive then, is she?"

"What?" Nonplussed didn't begin to cover it.

A shrug. "Well, you obviously didn't get what you want. The sulky set of your bottom lip tells me that. And if she was a man, you'd just have threatened to beat the tar out of him until you got what you needed. You can be quite the grim and intimidating bastard when you need to be. Attractive women, though – they leave you flustered. You let them walk all over you."

Just for a moment, he was left speechless. "I most certainly do not," he managed to bluster.

The only response that evinced was an indulgent chuckle.

Carth's teeth set on edge. "You know, over the years I'd forgotten quite how much crap you talk, Witnik. I guess memories smooth off the rough edges."

Witnik glanced at Carth sidelong. "You're telling me she's not attractive then? I mean, I'm hardly an expert, and human women aren't really my taste. Strange faces and way too tall. But you pick up some things over the years, living among your kind, and well . . . what's the saying? All the requisite bits look like they're in the right place."

Carth made an incredulous noise. "Her attractiveness or otherwise has nothing to do with anything. It's simply not relevant in the slightest." He realised his voice was rising much too loud, and clamped his jaw shut.

"Ah-ha. So I was right first time. You do find her attractive."

"We are so not having this conversation."

That simply produced another chuckle, but Witnik did, for a wonder, let the matter drop. More silence settled in.

"How long till we arrive at Veltris?" Carth asked after a while. It hadn't just been his difficulties with Yolanda that had driven him to take refuge on the bridge.

"An hour. Maybe less."

Carth grunted. "We want to change our jump plan. Come out of hyperspace early."

Witnik's rapidly indrawn breath whistled through his teeth. "Did you just knock your head or something?"

"I'm serious."

"This isn't a state of the art fleet cruiser, Car . . ." He stopped himself abruptly, realising he was about to use his real name. "We're . . . well, we're a couple up from a heap of junk, but my computers aren't anything like good enough for those kind of calculations. First rule of hyperspace. Remember that? You don't try and change the jump plan mid way."

"I know the rules well enough, and we've both done this kind of improvisation in the past."

"Not around a fraking solar gravity well we bloody haven't." Witnik muttered something else unflattering beneath his breath. His mouse-like ears quivered.

"Look, Veltris is a relatively clearly system beyond the fourth planet. It's not that much of a risk."

"Conveniently forgetting the Vel Stradum asteroid belt for the time being, eh?"

Carth winced, realising he had forgotten that small detail. "If we come out early enough we'll still be well clear of that. Witnik, we've both had to do emergency hyperspace ditches in the past. Think of this as the same thing, if it helps."

"The key thing about those other occasions," Witnik muttered, "Being that they were emergencies and we had no choice in the matter. How in the name of the force is this like that?"

Carth took a deep breath, weighing up carefully how to explain. "If we stick to the initial jump plan, someone is going to be there waiting for us. Someone we very much don't want to meet."

About thirty minutes ago, his thoughts drifting, tiredness drawing him in, he'd found himself thinking, for no reason he could fathom, about details of their hyperspace exit co-ordinates. As suspicion flared in him, he'd caught a brief flash of a dark presence, distantly connected to him. It had vanished quickly, but it had definitely been there. And he'd known with cold certainty that he'd just told the Catcher their flight plan.

Witnik looked at him strangely. "Is there something you want to tell me? This isn't the first time you've implied . . . strange knowledge." A hesitation, before he continued cautiously. "I . . . I heard something about your son. He get it from your side of the family?"

Carth was startled into a parody of laughter. "Me? Oh come on, Witnik, you can't be serious." He shook his head, then sighed. "I've spent quite a lot of time around Jedi fairly recently, and believe me, I have less force sensitivity than the average Arborean tree slug." A pause, before he added quietly, "Dustil gets it from Morgana's side. One of her great-great-great uncles, or something, was a Jedi Knight. And there were a couple of others – not Jedi, but those with . . . let's say, eccentric tendencies. They say it can skip whole generations and manifest randomly somewhere on down the line. No one really knows how it works."

"So how do you know?"

Carth shook his head again. "Just trust me. If we come out of hyperspace where we planned, we will regret it." If it wasn't the Catcher himself waiting to grab them, it would be his agents. Witnik's ship was not built to fight them off, no matter how skilled the pilot.

"The Catcher can see into your head, Valdan?"

Both of them looked around, startled. Carth had left the door connected the bridge to the rest of the ship open, and that had allowed Yolanda to sneak up on them without them noticing. Now, as they watched, she slid herself nonchalantly into a spare seat and raised an eyebrow enquiringly. How she'd gotten out of sickbay, which was supposedly locked and alarmed, was an open question.

"I'd do as he says, Sullustan," she said when it became clear Carth wasn't going to answer. "Loathe as I am to say it, I think he does know what he's talking about."

-s-s-

Tamar both heard and felt Mission's cry of pain. It punctured through the almost trance state he'd fallen into that had reduced the universe around him to a simple matter of combat – reaction and physical response with no other complications.

He span back, and saw her slumped against the wall of the dingy metallic corridor, her stealth field flickering around her. A vaguely spider-like battle droid had emerged directly behind them, and was scuttling forward to finish her off. As he watched, T3 attempted to block its path, but the utility droid was simply batted aside, spun through 360 degrees and bounced hard off the wall.

Immediately he force-jumped to intercept.

His initial lightsaber strike simply bounced of the spider-droid's shields with a resounding crack. It was enough, though, to get its attention away from Mission and onto him.

Rending metal pincers came within millimetres of finding his flesh as he danced away from their grasp. Volleys of blaster fire came even closer, leaving a staccato line of black scorch marks along the wall behind him.

Another lightsaber blow was deflected away by the droid's shields, although they were now flickering, obviously weakened. As lunged at him with its pincers again he smashed it back against the wall with a sweeping wave of force.

It bounced straight off, obviously of impressively sturdy construction. Immediately it got its feet under itself again and started scuttling straight back towards him. He turned a couple of blaster shots aside with his lightsaber, the spider droid's shields sputtering as T3 recovered and started taking pot-shots at it.

As it came into range, Tamar lunged forward like a fencer. This time, the shields sputtered out entirely and the tip of his lightsaber sliced deep into the droid's metallic torso. Half its legs immediately stopped working and it tipped over onto one side. Briefly, it struggled to right itself, but he drove the lightsaber in deeper. Finally it died entirely, sparking intermittently and leaking black smoke.

Yuthura and HK, he noted, were about twenty metres further along the corridor engaged in their own firefight with a squad of half a dozen Weequay. The brief sense he received from Yuthura suggested that they were on top of things.

He dropped down to his knees beside Mission, gently holding her back as she struggled to rise. "Steady." His thumb found the trigger on her belt that turned her stealth unit off, and she resolved fully into view.

The blaster shot had struck her halfway down her back, charring the flak vest that was a part of her light armour. Her teeth clenched tightly together and Tamar didn't like the way her head tails were trembling. She was trying to apply a kolto pack to the wound, but was struggling to twist round far enough to reach properly.

Wordlessly he eased the kolto pack from her grasp and applied it for her, hearing her gasp and feeling her shudder. Focusing, he sent gentle feelers of force into her flesh, helping repair burned skin and damaged tissue.

Mission made a gulping noise. "Um, thanks." She looked somewhat embarrassed. "Sorry. It caught me unawares . . ."

She'd just started to rise again when the entire corridor between them and HK and Yuthura exploded.

-s-s-

"Perhaps you could attach it your wrist with a piece of string," Canderous commented to Bastila as she retrieved her lightsaber from the hard, broken ground of the Well floor. "You know, like they do with small children and mittens, to stop them losing them."

Bastila ignored him, carefully inspecting the damage. There was a massive dent towards one end of the hilt, along with several other scratches and abrasions. Depressing the ignition stud produced only a brief, spluttering noise. Neither of the two blades ignited. She switched it off again.

"Broken?" he inquired.

She nodded distractedly. The panel in the side that gave access to the inner workings had buckled, and she had to strain to open it. Inside was a mess, all three crystals jolted out of alignment and several other critical components knocked out of their proper housings. It was going to take a lot of painstaking work to get it working again, if it was even salvageable at all. Sighing to herself, she closed it up again and stuck it through her belt.

"Here, take this."

She blinked at Canderous, startled as she realised that he was offering her his vibro-sword.

"It won't bite," he said after a short while, when she made no move to accept it. "And it's not like it's a betrothal gift. I don't expect anything from you in return."

After a moment longer, she shook her head. "No, I won't need that kind of weapon for what I'm about to do." A pause, then, somewhat awkwardly, "But thank you for the offer."

Canderous shrugged and sheathed the weapon across his back again. "Suit yourself."

She took a deep breath. "It's time, I think." Then. "I need to be alone to do this. No distractions."

He didn't say anything; didn't make any move right away either. The look on his scowling, granite-hewn face was a strange one. "You okay?" he asked finally.

"You're the one who's injured."

His shrug eloquently communicated, bah, you call this injured? "Wasn't what I meant, and you know it, Princess."

She met his gaze levelly. "I don't think there's anything to be gained by putting this off, do you?"

Another shrug, and he turned away from her, walking towards the rope winch leading back up to the surface. "I know this scares you," he said with his back still turned to her. His voice was difficult to interpret. "No shame in that. I . . . respect the way you're dealing with it." Then the winch started up with a motorised hum, hauling him upwards.

She was glad – she had absolutely no clue how to respond to that. She watched his back right up until he'd reached the top and disappeared from view.

The light that filtered down from the surface was pale and diffuse. It had stopped raining about half an hour ago, but water was still trickling steadily down grooves in the stone walls. The floor beneath her feet was damp and muddy.

She let out the breath she'd been holding, and tried to quiet the whirring of her thoughts.

It had taken them over an hour to get the Republic soldier – Chabe Landar his name was, though he'd been loath to give that up – back up to the surface. Both his legs had been broken in the fall to the bottom of the well, and he'd been suffering from a combination of dehydration and blood loss. The worst of the damage, Bastila suspected, was mental though. She'd done what she could for his physical injuries – which wasn't much more than make him more comfortable; the leg breaks were bad enough that they'd almost certainly need surgery, well beyond her abilities. Then she'd put him into a healing trance, leaving him with Jansa.

Her gaze cast about her, but there wasn't a whole lot to see down here. Inside, the Vision Well was no more spectacular than it had appeared from the surface. In many ways, it was almost a let down.

Perhaps she'd built it up too much in her head from listening to Xedra's words.

For starters, there was almost nothing in the way of decoration – just lots of very plain stone. The way it had been carved was . . . slightly odd, creating strange geometries she wasn't entire sure she grasped – not from the perspective she got from standing at the bottom of it, anyway. The overriding impression, though, was of a piece of purely functional design, created for one very distinct purpose, with no adornment of unnecessary flourishes.

Given what she knew, she supposed that made sense. The Daragban's had built it in a hurry, in a state which must have been akin to controlled panic. There would have been no time for architectural niceties or indulgences.

Smoothing down her torn and mud-streaked robes, she sat cross-legged on a relatively dry piece of ground. The stone was cold and uncomfortable beneath her.

Sensed through the force, the well wasn't quite what she'd been expecting either. Not that she'd had any clear idea what to expect. Just not this.

Initially there didn't seem to be anything there to sense. Until you noticed that the pervasive background of interference from the forest was simply . . . gone. Indeed, there was a kind of pin-sharp clarity that, if you concentrated on it long enough, became quietly exhilarating.

If you concentrated for even longer, you began to sense other things too. Little flickers; residue of distant sorrow and darkness, whispering so softly she couldn't quite hear, no matter how hard she strained. It was very subtle, to the point that she half wondered if it was nothing more than her imagination, projecting things that weren't there.

She closed her eyes – tried to find the centre of calm and tranquillity she would need.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing – the thing that had a tiny part of her gibbering quietly in fear – was that she knew how it worked, and exactly what she had to do. Where the knowledge had come from, she had no idea. One moment it had just been there: totally clear and transparent, as if on some level she had always known.

Slowly, carefully, she began to draw on the force, readying herself to step past the point of no return.

The Well spoke to her.

-s-s-

As the contact with Tamar broke off, Yuthura climbed back to her feet. Beneath her, the floor seemed to be tilting through slow loops and her head felt truly horrible. Perhaps she'd lied when she'd told him she was okay.

A ragged piece of shrapnel had embedded itself in her left bicep. Gritting her teeth, she ripped it loose, blood streaming thickly from the re-opened wound down her arm. Healing force, channelled through the torn flesh, gradually slowed the blood flow to a trickle.

One of the Weequay had hit an exposed pipe that ran along the wall. It must have been a power line, or something similar.

All told, it was something of a minor miracle that had been the worst injury she'd suffered. HK-47, standing directly behind her, had blocked off the worst of the effects of the explosion though.

She glanced back at the assassin droid with a sense of vague distaste. Although it looked rather blackened and dented, it still appeared to be fully functional, its shields having held out well. Its eyes flared amber at her scrutiny. "Query: are you looking at me, meatbag?"

"Just checking you weren't damaged in the explosion," she said.

"Assurance: I am fully functional. Would you care for a demonstration?"

"Perhaps I'll pass right now." All of the Weequay, thankfully, had been dealt with. There'd still been one standing when the explosion hit, but presumably, HK had eliminated it while she was still on the floor, struggling with small matters like clinging on to consciousness.

HK had turned around and was inspecting the new formed blockage in the corridor behind them. In the middle of all the twisted metal something was still burning, everything glowing a cherry red colour that was almost cheerful. Waves of heat radiated from it, and it was clearly impassable. "The master . . ."

"Is fine," she stated. Their minds had touched briefly, and they'd both taken pains to assure themselves of that fact.

"You are certain?"

"Quite certain." She supposed that the droid's loyalty and concern for Tamar should have been touching, but if she was honest, she found it closer to downright creepy.

Stifling a groan, she searched the corridor ahead for signs of movement. Her surroundings were intensely familiar, and each moment she could feel carefully roped off, buried parts of her past breaking free, forcing their way to the surface like rotten corpses rising up from the grave. It wasn't a pleasant sensation.

Indeed, it was difficult to think straight at all. The dull pain in her skull wasn't helping.

A significant part of her childhood had been spent being transported on ships similar to this – these dingy, dirty corridors with there exposed pipes, foul air and chemical and radiation leaks, no expense wasted on parts of the ship that only hirelings, lackeys and slaves would ever get to see. The upper decks, where the Hutts themselves were housed, would be opulent to an insane degree, even on a warship like this. Down here in the bowels of the vessel, though, was another matter entirely.

Dim lighting flickered and hummed constantly. Smoke from the explosion still tasted acrid on the air, the atmospheric scrubbers doing no more than keeping things at the bare minimum survivable standard.

"Come on," she gestured ahead of her. "Follow me."

Last time she had been in a place like this she had been a powerless; a thrall who existed purely because of her value as a commodity. Now though . . . Now was very different.

There was a kind of grim comfort and satisfaction to the thought.

They reached a branch in the corridor. "Straight ahead," Yuthura stated flatly. She could feel anger thrumming fiercely beneath the surface – a thousand remembered cruelties and abuses, both witnessed and personally experienced. As the smoke stung her eyes, it felt like each forward step was taking her further back in time and further into the darker recesses of her own head. It wasn't rational, but it was powerful. Difficult to fight.

"Correction: that direction would be better for us to rendezvous with the master."

Yuthura looked at HK coolly. "Are you an assassin droid or a poodle?"

"Have a care, meatbag. My programming only forbids me from harming my master. Other orders can be . . . reinterpreted."

"Our goal is to reach the command decks and assume control," she told it flatly. "That hasn't changed."

"Technically not . . ."

"Tamar and the others will rendezvous with us there. Trying to find each other in this warren is going to turn into a farce."

Yuthura started walking again, not waiting to debate the matter further. "Besides, I thought you would be eager." She realised then that her own eagerness burned, the fires fed with each indrawn breath. She told herself it was under control. "You get the chance to hunt some Hutt-sized game."

-s-s-

"See? I don't know what you were worried about. Perfectly routine." Carth's attempt at sounding nonchalant failed to come off in the slightest.

The Vel Stradum asteroid belt was visible on the viewscreens, no more than a few thousand kilometres in front of them. In hyperspace terms they'd missed emerging right in the middle of it, which would have been . . . interesting, by around half a second.

Witnik directed a withering look his way, but didn't deign to speak.

"Although we do have a reception committee waiting for us." Yolanda indicated the sensor screens, which showed a cluster of ships a few million kilometres inwards.

"They could be there for absolutely any reason whatsoever." The doubt in Witnik's voice was clearly audible though.

"Exactly where we would have emerged from hyperspace if we hadn't had a change of plan?" Carth didn't need to look at Yolanda to know that one of her eyebrows was raised in that particular way she had. "And well away from any recognised space lanes."

Witnik had no answer to that. His ears twitched.

Carth took a deep breath. "Any sign they've spotted us yet?"

"They haven't made any obvious moves."

He nodded quickly. "Okay. We power down everything except bare minimum life support, and I take us into the asteroid field on manoeuvring jets. There we find a heavy metal asteroid to hang out next to and wait for them to realise we aren't going to show. Any arguments?"

There were none.

A few minutes later the bridge was considerably dimmer and quieter, the only sound the whisper-soft electrical hum of the controls in front of them. You didn't really notice the pervasive other noises that every spaceship made until suddenly they were absent. It was somehow eerie.

Composing himself, Carth began to guide them ever so gently forwards.

"There is one problem that's just occurred," Yolanda said suddenly.

Oh yes? "And what's that?"

"If the Catcher was able to find you in hyperspace, what's to stop him finding you again now? We may just be making ourselves into sitting guntek birds."

Carth didn't say anything straight off, concentrating on manoeuvring the ship. In the viewscreen asteroids loomed like floating mountains.

"It's a good question . . . Valdan." Witnik put in.

It was. He moistened his lips. "I've only ever felt the Catcher connect to me when my mind's been quiescent. Either when I'm asleep, dreaming, or when I'm doing nothing except letting my thoughts drift. As long as I keep active – like now – there shouldn't be a problem."

After a pause, Yolanda spoke again. "That could just mean you're only able to sense him when you're not distracted by anything else. He could be with you all the time."

"Then why is our welcoming committee still sitting around, twiddling their thumbs? If he was in here now, he'd know what we were doing." Carth shook his head stubbornly, "No, I think it takes him a lot of effort to reach me, and he can only do it intermittently. Whatever link he's forged with me, it's not active all the time."

It sounded like it made sense, at least. His mouth felt dry. Put like that, it also sounded absolutely terrifying.

"You're sure on that, are you? Willing to gamble our lives on it?"

Abruptly, Carth came to a decision. "Take the controls, Witnik." He started to unstrap himself from the flight seat.

"What are you doing?" the Sullustan asked.

"Going to sick bay." He could feel a patina of sweat forming on his brow. The idea that his thoughts were no longer his own – that they might be inadvertently betraying them, even now . . . "Yolanda's right. We can't take this risk."

"What are you going to do there?" Witnik sounded concerned.

"I'm going to put myself under. So far under I'm not even capable of dreaming. I'm pretty sure he can only get glimpses of what I'm explicitly thinking and seeing, so if I can't think about anything at all . . ." He trailed off. "While I'm under, make a hyperspace jump. Make several hyperspace jumps, in fact. And don't, whatever you do, let me know where we are. If I don't know something, there's no way he can."

"He might have linked to me too," Yolanda said quietly as he started walking past her. "You were there on the bridge. You saw what happened. He could have linked to both of us."

He stopped and glared at her. "Have you felt him in your head? Has he come to you in your dreams?"

Wordlessly, she shook her head.

"Then you're okay, I think. I'm betting he can only be bonded to one person at a time, and like you took such delight in telling me, it's me he's interested in." And Carth was starting to get some uncomfortable thoughts on why that interest might exist.

He strode past her, off the bridge.

Damn it Tamar, sometimes I wish to hell I'd never met you.

-s-s-

"She'll be okay."

Canderous's gaze snapped round to Jansa, glowering at her. She flinched and looked away from him quickly. "Yeah. Of course she will. That's not even a question."

What do I care?

More than he should.

Abruptly he stood up, ignoring the protests of stiff and battered muscles. He walked back over to the corpse of the terentatek, huge and terrible even in death. After staring at it for several seconds, he freed his sword from his back. Custom dictated that he take a trophy, but he didn't make any immediate move to do so, just standing there, looking at it. The huge, stinking, dead mass of it.

In theory, one of the greatest hunts a Mandalorian could undertake – something to be sung of with pride in a warrior's list of conquests and deeds.

Yet he . . . didn't care.

An almost imperceptible headshake, and he sheathed his sword across his back again. There was no clanhold, on which's wall he could mount the skull. And no one would ever recite his deeds. Least of all himself.

It wasn't self pity. It was simple acknowledgement of fact.

Things change, and if you don't change with them you become obsolete . . . extinct. A sour grimace twisted his face.

There was a sound behind him, from the Vision Well. He turned around, in time to see Bastila pulling herself over the lip and standing up. She was a mess, robes covered in mud, one arm and shoulder torn away to leave the arm beneath bare. Her hair was twisted and tangled, half-fallen out of its normal orderly and practical arrangement. Her face looked extremely pale.

As she got closer, he saw that her eyes were rimmed with red. She'd been crying, and very recently.

Once such things might have been cause for contempt. Now . . . now they just were.

"Well?" His voice was hard, unyielding as stone. "What did you see?"

She didn't answer right away, looking at a point in space somewhere past his shoulder. When she eventually did speak, her voice was quiet but clear. "I saw things that can never be, and things that I can never have. No matter how much I might want them." She looked back at him then, meeting his gaze directly. There was a toughness and determination there. She may have been crying, but she definitely wasn't now.

"And I saw something else. Something that wasn't simply extrapolated from my own desires and wish-fulfilment fantasies." She took a deep breath, doubt showing ever so briefly, before being banished firmly. "I know where we have to go, and we have to move quickly."