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.

20. Gunboat Diplomacy

20. Gunboat Diplomacy

"You really want to know what I'm doing, Revan? Why I killed the Council?" There was venom in the voice of the masked and hooded figure. An acid corrosive enough to etch hardened durasteel. "I'm doing what you should be doing. I'm doing your job."

The hologram flickered and crackled, blurring out with atmospheric interference. Grimacing, Tamar reached across and turned it off. "Anyone can fake a hologram, you know that Jolee? And this one doesn't even look like a particularly convincing fake."

"Ah, but kid, you have the word of a Council appointed Jedi Master to back you up."

Tamar turned around slowly. His expression contained the strong suggestion that he didn't find that quite as reassuring as he was probably supposed to. The Rancorous still sat in orbit of Eres III, at the moment in the shadow of the planet's night side. The fires of the xoxin plains, visible through the viewing wall directly behind him, seemed even more savagely intense against the contrast of the surrounding blackness.

"Hey, don't look at me like that, sonny. It's not my fault you've gone and gotten your head stuck up your ass here."

Across the room, Yuthura appeared to be struggling with a cough all of a sudden.

Yeah, thanks. Tamar shot a sour look her way, before returning his attention to Jolee. "Could you please quit it with the 'kids', the 'boys', the 'sonnies', and for that matter, any other diminutives you might come up with in the meantime?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." Jolee's look of wide-eyed surprise was so comical that Tamar almost smiled. Almost. "Am I annoying you at all?"

He forced himself to relax the tension tightening his shoulders and breathe normally. "Not in the slightest."

Yeah, I get the message, old man. Lighten up. Accept the situation for what it is. There is peace and all that. Both Mission and Canderous – surprisingly – had shared similar sentiments, in their own inimitable and very different ways.

"Really? Damn. I guess I'll just have to try harder."

"Don't extend yourself on my account, old man." Tamar deliberately spoke over-loudly, as if to someone who was partially deaf. "Shouldn't you be taking a nap or something about now, anyway? You don't want to overdo it at your age. It'll give you gas, and you know how unpleasant that is for everyone."

There was a clearly audible snorting sound.

Both he and Jolee turned and looked at Bastila. She stood watching them with her arms folded across her chest. "Do you think the two of you could at least try to be serious for a moment here?" The expression on her face suggested she didn't see the funny side.

Jolee glanced across at Tamar and raised an eyebrow. "Well, sonny?"

The all too fleeting sense of levity was rapidly crushed. Clawing tension reasserted itself. Morrigance reasserted herself, to be more precise about it. He nodded heavily, then switched the holo-recording back on, fast forwarding through it to a particular point. Back to work.

"But there are other methods of shaping something than simple brute force. Better methods, that don't leave you destroying what you're trying to shape."

Expression fixed, he rewound it and played it again – as if he was attempting to unpick a particularly devilish puzzle.

"Why kill the Council?" He glanced across at Jolee again as he spoke. "Better methods that don't leave you destroying what you're trying to shape."

"That look says you're thinking." Jolee commented idly. "Always makes me nervous, that," There was a gleam to his eyes that seemed totally out of step with the casual tone of his words.

Tamar grunted. "Makes a change from you going on about me not thinking, I suppose." A tired headshake. "Why kill the Council" It was muttered this time, barely audible, and he answered the question almost without pause. "So that you can build something new in its place. Something that's more to your liking. Something you can shape the way you want it to be shaped. Better methods than destroying." His fingers drummed on the console. "Does that make sense to you, Jolee? Because I keep coming back round to it over and over again."

"What are you suggesting exactly?" Bastila had now moved to stand at his shoulder and was staring at the frozen holo-recording. That first moment of close proximity between them was oddly disorienting as, across their shared bond, it briefly felt like he was standing in two places at one once, fractionally out of synch with himself.

Their eyes met as he glanced back at her. It was oddly uncomfortable how even the tiniest of gestures contained faint echoes of past intimacies.

"That she's controlling the new Jedi Council?" she went on. Her voice was cool and clipped, strangely distant, as if she felt nothing at all.

And there it was, baldly stated. What his thoughts had been skirting round and he'd been waiting for someone else to say.

"That is utterly ridiculous," Bastila answered herself before he'd even opened his mouth to reply. He could hear the tiny fracture of uncertainty underlying her words though.

"I . . . Maybe not controlling." He intensely hoped. "Not directly. Influencing perhaps. Perhaps not even that. Just prodding in a particular direction, towards or away from where she wants them to look." His thoughts were skipping along ahead of themselves, playing join the dots. The dots formed a decidedly unpleasant looking pattern. "What greater power is there than to turn an enemy to your cause?"

Which, of course, was an absolutely idiotic thing to say. He knew that even before Bastila's looked hastily away from him. He could feel her actively blocking out the bond.

Frak.

"Everything keeps on pointing back to the centre, doesn't it? Back to Coruscant." Yuthura's intervention came as a relief. Her eyes met his and held them. He wished he could . . . he wished there was some time. "Everything in Auza's data files. Everything we piece together." She bared her teeth. "Back to where we started."

Back to where there's no possible escape for us.

He tried to smile reassuringly, but he couldn't even reassure himself. Escape was never an option anyway. His eyes closed briefly. When had he even started to think in terms of being allowed to have an after?

"Seems that way," Jolee agreed. He managed to sound almost cheerful.

Tamar rewound the holo-recording a short distance and let it play again.

"And so the Sith would be manipulated into engineering their own destruction, just as the Jedi were being influenced into sitting aside and placidly accepting their own annihilation. The will of the Force. You have to admire it in a way, rebalancing itself in a single stroke. Starting everything afresh."

"The will of the Force." Jolee broke the cloying silence that had settled in. "Five words I've come to loathe more than any others in my time." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Although when I come to think of it, 'Jolee, what do I do now?' runs them pretty damn close."

"That's six words," Tamar said absently.

"Wow, and I didn't even see you using your fingers to count there, kid. Impressive."

"Damn straight, I'm impressive." Tamar's expression remained fixed, going through the motions. He just didn't have it in him right now.

"Service to the will of the Force is the entire foundation of what the Jedi Order is." Bastila sounded vaguely defensive as she said it – stung into a comment she knew she was going to regret, but at the same time unable to stop herself.

Jolee shook his head, suddenly looking profoundly old and weary. "I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with letting the Force inform and guide your actions. Quite the opposite. But you can't use that as an excuse to renege on your own responsibilities and withdraw from the real world. You can't use it as an easy way out." He sighed. "And yes, I am a fine one to talk about that, but I've had this conversation with Vrook Lamar on at least a dozen occasions, and it was tedious enough the first time out. There's nothing worse than two old men arguing. Well known fact."

Two old men who didn't have the chance to argue anymore. Tamar could hear the underlying melancholy in the words. "And could she actually be right?"

Jolee's head swivelled, his face drawn in a grimace. "What if she is? You going to lay down and let her win?"

Tamar simply raised an eyebrow at the sudden heat in the old man's voice.

"Can't know the will of the Force kid. It's arrogance beyond folly to think you even remotely can, and I guess the Jedi are guiltier of that than most." Another headshake. "No, I'm pretty sure that the 'will of the Force' doesn't need anyone telling it what it is or isn't, and can take care of itself well enough. The universe has lasted this long without us minding its business for it, so I expect it can manage well enough now." He looked from face to face, as if challenging each of them in turn to disagree with him. "We should look to our own concerns first. What we can influence."

"That last bit sounds very nearly Sith-like," Yuthura commented quietly after the silence had dragged on for a second or so.

"Talk enough vaguely profound sounding bantha-crap and by the law of averages, you'll eventually hit upon a few truths. I should know. I've been living pretty well off that for years." They held each other's gaze, and Tamar had the impression of something unspoken passing between them. "But I think you know well enough what I mean."

Lekku rearranged themselves on her shoulders and she nodded.

Tamar was strongly aware of Bastila's gaze on him again – that she was going to say something. He turned and looked at her.

Her lips pursed. Awareness of his awareness. "You said that afterwards you were going to come back with me to Coruscant. To face the Council."

And is this not afterwards? Has that changed? He could hear the unspoken questions. Is this going to be another excuse not to face up to the inevitable? Another excuse to charge off somewhere else?

Before he could say anything, Jolee had clapped his hands together loudly enough to make them both jolt. "Well that does indeed sound like an excellent idea." There was a gleam to his eye, the weariness seeming to have slid away. "So that's all settled then."

At that moment, before anyone else could say anything, the door behind them opened.

It was Canderous. His expression looked grim, but that was, Tamar conceded, a bit like saying water was wet. Best not to read too much into it.

Not bothering to waste time with any preamble or pleasantries, Canderous strode across to join them. He seemed completely unphased by the fact that they'd all stopped talking and were now staring at him.

After a moment, he nodded towards the holographic image of Morrigance, frozen mid-speech. "So this is the woman who's kicked your arse at least twice now, is it?

"That's her," Tamar confirmed, somehow faintly amused.

Their eyes met. Canderous snorted in a manner that suggested he wasn't remotely impressed. "Can I make a suggestion here?"

"I'm surprised you feel the need to ask."

Canderous chuckled, low and rumbling. "Stop fraking about like this bunch of Echani fairies you've taken to associating with, Revan. You're picking up bad habits. Next time you run into her, just fraking kill her."

Just fraking kill her. Jolee's scolding words of earlier came to mind: you can't save everyone. Stop and take a look at the bigger picture for a moment here.

Like I'm doing this deliberately here. He gritted his teeth and suppressed the first retort that came to mind. "I'll take that under advisement."

"Is there something you actually wanted, Canderous?" Bastila interrupted. Her tone was icily brittle. It surprised Tamar how personally annoyed she sounded.

"Oh, excuse me, Princess. Am I interrupting private Jedi business here?" There was obviously more, unspoken, passing between them that Tamar couldn't remotely interpret. He wondered, briefly, just how many loops he was out of here.

"But yeah. Now you mention it. I did stop by for a chat" There was a suggestion of smirk. "Our sensors have picked up a bit of an altercation through the Eres satellite network. It's the other side of the planet to us at the moment, but the local planetary defence force has just scrambled the nearest it can manage to an interstellar fleet."

"And?" There was an and coming, of course.

"And a Republic taskforce – half a dozen capital ships strong – has just dropped out of hyperspace. Currently there seems to be a bit of a standoff with the locals. How long it'll last is anybody's guess." There was a kind of grim glee audible in the Mandalorian's words.

Tamar wanted, suddenly, to swear. No prizes for guessing why the Republic was here.

"Looks to me like someone went and tipped them off."

-s-s-

Yolanda watched Carth's back until she judged that he was out of earshot. Neither him, nor the young Jedi walking alongside him – talking with earnest solemnity now that she had recovered from her initial bout of pique – appeared to notice her dropping behind. Then she stepped behind one of the tall white columns supporting the high arched ceiling of the Jedi Temple's grand entrance colonnade.

Light and uncluttered serenity. Silence and empty space. It reminded her in many respects of the entrance chamber to a mausoleum.

Apposite enough in the current circumstances, she though with a wry twist of her lips. Over the past five years, at least three times as many Jedi had died as were still left alive.

Her hand came up to her ear, activating the commlink she wore. She attempted to shove all the distractions running through her head aside and focus purely on the matter in hand.

Split and focus. Compartmentalisation. Something that, up until now, she'd always considered herself to be an expert at. Now she was realising belatedly that you were only truly good at it until the moment you found the situation you couldn't separate yourself from. Just like you were only ever brave until you finally found the thing that made a coward of you.

Rapidly and dispassionately, she recited an address. It was the same address where Jedi May had said she had arranged to meet with 'Carth'.

The address was parroted back, verbatim.

"Confirmed." It was all a bit like a banking transaction. On the surface, anyway. "Your mark is a Dark Jedi." She ran through a rapid and clinically precise description of the Catcher. "Do not approach. Do not engage under any circumstances. Lock on and track until further word is received."

"Understood."

"Out."

As simple as that. She almost laughed, but caught herself.

After all, it wasn't really done to laugh in tombs.

-s-s-

"This place." Carth was looking up at the vaulted ceiling, late afternoon Coruscanti sunlight shining down on him in dazzlingly brilliant shafts. "I don't suppose it ever gives you the creeps does it?"

Thalia May's startlingly pale and intense looking eyes blinked. She was obviously confused by the abrupt change in conversational tack.

After a moment, she said: "I spent years in the Sith academy on Korriban, surrounded by people who would gladly have killed me simply for the prestige it gained them. I helped excavate the tombs of ages old Sith Lords who aren't entirely dead yet. For over a week I was hiding out in caves with Shyracks, Tukata and Terantateks, hunted by Sith and trying not to think about which one of the several dozen equally horrible ways I might die. So to answer your question. No, not really."

Carth grunted, feeling rather embarrassed. But a part of him, however irrational, still wasn't sure he wouldn't have taken even Korriban for preference. There, at least, there would have been a concrete reason for feeling the way he did now. He shook his head. "Never mind."

Thalia was frowning though, looking back over his shoulder. He wondered if, for all her words, he'd struck a nerve.

"Where's your . . ." There was the tiniest hesitation. "Friend?"

"What?" It took him a moment to realise what Thalia was getting at. Somehow, somewhere in the twenty or so metres between where they stood now and the temple doors, they'd lost Yolanda.

Something inside him clenched. He swore under his breath – a particular interesting phrase learned from a Kel Dor during his squadron days back near the start of the Mandalorian Wars. As he scanned the way behind them, his hand moved instinctively for the blaster holstered beneath his jacket.

"I shouldn't imagine that will be necessary, Captain Onasi. Not in here, at any rate."

The voice didn't belong to Thalia. It had an oddly musical undertone to it. Carth whirled instantly, heart thumping.

The speaker was an Omwati. The fine-boned, delicate looking face was almost a full head below his, surrounded by feathery brown down.

After a moment, feeling slightly embarrassed by his overreaction, Carth forced himself to relax and stop glaring. He noted the robes of a Jedi Master, and the accompanying aura of unflappable serenity that was all too familiar. Something inside him plummeted as he found himself looking into a pair of very large, calm brown eyes.

Dealing with Jedi Masters, in his experience, made extracting blood from stones laughably simple by comparison. Right now, Dustil still missing, the Catcher Force knew where, he definitely wasn't in the mood for it.

"Funny. Given some of the things I've heard about this place lately, I'd have thought that having the means to defend yourself was a definite requirement." Even as the words slipped out, Carth knew that their harshness was unwarranted, and in the circumstances, likely to prove counterproductive. But it was too late to summon them back. He did however, finally let go of his hold on the blaster's grip.

There was a flicker of something in the Omwati's eyes that might or might not have been pained. It was quickly smoothed over. "Your companion appears to be just catching up with you now."

And she was.

Perfectly expressionless, and apparently unconcerned, Yolanda stepped up alongside him as if she'd never for a moment not been there.

He shot a questioning look her way, but she chose not to see it. Her face remained absolutely impassive. The words, where the hell have you been, rose to his lips but he strangled them back, all too aware that both Thalia and the Omwati Jedi Master were both watching him intently.

Not, all in all, the time to have this kind of discussion.

The thread of his temper frayed, on the edge of snapping. Dammit Yolanda.

Her gaze bounced straight off his.

The Omwati made a show of not noticing, turning his attention Thalia's way. "And . . . Jedi May. My apologies for not extending my congratulations on your Knighthood earlier. My duties must have been distracting me more than I thought, because the announcement somehow managed to entirely pass me by."

Huh?

But whatever the Omwati was getting at, it seemed to strike a nerve. Thalia was suddenly stammering, the skin of her cheeks darkening. "I . . . I can explain Master Kwex." Carth saw her swallow nervously. "There was no announcement, because I. . ."

"I would suggest that you have the robes cleaned before you return them to their rightful owner," Kwex interrupted, smiling fractionally. "That way you can honestly say that you were simply being thoughtful."

Thalia's jaw clamped shut. After a moment, she nodded. "Thank you, Master Kwex." She turned and started to hurry away, seemingly very glad of the opportunity to escape.

He still needed to ask her about Dustil.

"Wait!" Carth called after her, not caring if he was being rude. "We haven't finished."

"You have questions, Captain Onasi," Kwex said. "Perhaps I can help you."

"Damn right, I have questions." Carth looked back at the Omwati. The fraying thread snapped completely. "First off, before everything else, I want to know what the hell you've done with my son."

-s-s-

Kreed got bored of staring at Nikos's back. "I know you're awake, boy. And since you've had me running messenger duty, I thought you might be at least vaguely interested in what I had to tell you. I see I was wrong."

Nikos jolted upright and turned around so quickly that it was almost comical. Kreed kept his face carefully impassive as he watched the young man struggling to keep his expression hard and cynical. He wasn't very successful, especially judged through the infra-red eye.

"You found her? Elendri?" The edge of eagerness in Nikos's voice trod the borders of desperation.

For a moment, Kreed considered lying. Yeah kid, she's fine. Perfectly safe. Now tell me what I want to know. It would probably go easier that way. Something held him back, though. It felt like it crossed a line somehow, which – given some of the acts he'd been a party to down the years – was sickly funny if you thought about it.

"I went to the address you gave me and waited. There was no one there. No one came."

Nikos's mouth opened. The flash of fear that briefly showed through almost made Kreed feel sympathetic. Almost. He cut him off before he could let loose the inevitable flood of jabbering questions. "I asked around. No one's seen her for the past twenty-four hours. She hasn't been into work." He snorted. "Her employer's a charmer, isn't she? All heart."

Suddenly Nikos was on his feet, pacing frantically in the confined space of his cell. Kreed half expected him to start pounding on the forcefield separating them with his bare fists, but self-control reasserted itself and he stopped.

"I have to get out of here." There was quiet, barely contained ferocity. "You understand that, Mandalorian?"

"Just the same way you understand that I can't let you out of there. Yeah kid, I think we're both aware of our respective positions on this one." Kreed didn't bother to hide the edge of boredom in his words. He had a dozen better things to be doing than rehashing the blindingly obvious.

The look that he got back was pure venom – blackly consuming hate.

"And, yeah Sithboy. I know. If you could still touch that Force thing of yours, I'd be all toasty warm and dancing with lightning right now. But hey, you can't. So, if I want to, I can drop that forcefield there and rip your fraking head off any time I choose. Sometimes life just flat out sucks, doesn't it?"

"Do you even have any balls, tin man?" That venom overflowed, spilling corrosively. "Or are you some kind of eunuch now? Not even half a man anymore."

Kreed simply smirked. "And I haven't heard that one several dozen times before, kid. Really. But anyway, when I want to be insulted, I can get that from Shak. He's always happy to oblige me, although come to think of it, he's no more creative than you are."

The silence that followed was sullen. Nikos resumed his pacing. Kreed could see the heat of his skin, glowing brightly; the too rapid flow of blood through veins just beneath the surface.

He sighed in disgust, most of it directed at himself. "Look kid. What could you do even if you got out? Whatever was going to happen to this girl of yours has happened. Sorry to be brutal here, but she's either safe, or she's dead. No action from you at this point is going to make the slightest shred of difference."

He made a couple of false starts before muttering: "You don't know that."

Kreed could hear the despair. "You do know that," he countered.

Nikos collapsed back onto his bunk, staring up at the ceiling. Briefly, Kreed considered leaving him to stew for a while in the vague hope that he'd be more inclined towards cooperation after he'd had time for the reality of the situation to sink in a bit further. But he half suspected that time would only make him more stubborn, and when it came to it, he had his own reasons for pressing.

"I came through on my part of the bargain, kid. It's time for you to follow through on yours."

There was a snort. "You could be making all this up. Why should I believe a word you say?"

For frak's sake.

"Because I'm telling you, you stupid little asswipe!" Kreed drew in a breath, then added in more measured tone. "And if I was making all this up, I'd have told you everything went fine and she's okay. Much easier for me that way."

Silence.

Kreed grunted. "So let's start with your real name, shall we 'Nikos'?"

More silence. Predictably enough.

"My boss already knows it, I'm sure. Think about it. Why else would he be keeping a worthless waste of oxygen like you?" Rath hadn't been very forthcoming when Kreed had confronted him about it, still pretending ignorance. And Kreed hadn't felt inclined to push matters through to a full-scale confrontation on the subject. Not yet, anyway.

Still no response, which was getting more than slightly annoying.

"So telling me loses you nothing, whichever way you reckon it," he pressed.

"Since your boss obviously doesn't want you to know, it seems rather stupid on my part to risk antagonising him by telling you."

Kreed found himself gritting his teeth. "Yeah, very cleverly reasoned there, kid. You're a veritable genius. Funny though. You were willing enough to trust your girl's life to me – a half-mechanical Mandalorian thug you know next to nothing about. But you won't trust your name. Interesting set of priorities you have there."

Nikos's face was burning – a bright glowing disk. "You're no use to me anymore anyway."

Kreed shrugged. "I guess that's about what I expected from a Sith. No honour. Word means nothing. Yeah, no question, you managed to get the better of me on this one. Congratulations. Silly me."

They stared at each other for a moment. Nikos was the first to look away.

"If it were to gain me anything, I could make further efforts to find out just what happened to this Elendri. I have contacts. I could call in favours. If."

Nikos opened his mouth, then closed it again; wetted his lips. "Dustil."

"Dustil?" Kreed considered it a moment, but it wasn't immediately familiar. After all that messing about, it was in fact, damned anti-climactic. "You have a surname to go with that, Dustil?"

"Yes thanks."

Almost despite himself, Kreed felt one corner of his mouth twitch upwards – a fragmentary ghost of a smile. "Well then. I'm very happy for you." He decided, on balance, to let it pass for the moment. There were other things he wanted to know more. "So, anyway. These Sith you implied were after you. Was that just some line of bantha-crap you were spinning me, or is there really anything in it?"

He saw Dustil glance down briefly at the floor before taking a deep breath. "She said her name was Morrigance . . ."

-s-s-

His name was Cardo.

Cardo Bruss. He possessed the sort of face you could walk past every day of your life without ever truly seeing. Three weeks ago, he had been called Threm Mothma, and two months before that, Prax Arcan. It was so long since he'd been his real self that that aspect of him scarcely seemed important any more. If you spent all your life being other people, then eventually there came a point when it stopped being a pretence.

Right now, Cardo watched. It was, after all, what he did best.

And three storeys below his position overlooking the secluded square, his target came into view.

Human. Male. Dark-skinned. Late twenties. 1.82 metres tall. 90 kilos, give or take. Last seen sporting a shaven head and neatly-razored beard. Every point in the checklist ticked off precisely.

Punctual too. Punctuality was a trait that Cardo admired. It made his work so much easier.

And a Dark Jedi.

Cardo's Force talents had never amounted to much – just the tinniest of flickering flames. If he'd been sent to one of the Sith Academies, he would never have made it through that kind of training alive. Fortunately, his current employer had been able to see more than that in him, putting his particular abilities to use in fields that suited him far more.

As a spotter and tracker of other Force sensitives, he had proved himself to be second to none.

Even old Jaq had had to defer to him on that one skill, and everyone had always acknowledged Jaq as the master. Cardo smiled slightly in reminiscence. Jaq had certainly had the knack for making them scream.

This one below him now figuratively shone with power.

The Catcher. Cardo knew both the name and reputation, and gazing down at the man below him, waiting calmly in the shadows, he didn't doubt any of it for a moment. It was an honour, in its way. Two consummate professionals, both at work.

Do not approach. Do not engage under any circumstances. Lock on and track until further word is received.

With steady, measured movements, Cardo opened the long, slender case he carried and pulled out a number of segments, which were assembled smoothly and swiftly into something that bore an extremely strong resemblance to a sniper rifle.

Whatever you say, lady. Whatever you say.

Shifting the rifle to his shoulder, he drew a bead on his target through the telescopic sight. The Catcher hadn't shifted in all this time, and appeared to be entirely unaware that he was now square in the middle of someone else's gun sights.

This was the tricky bit. Sometimes – very occasionally – they sensed it, just before he pulled the trigger.

But not, apparently, the Catcher. The Catcher kept on scanning the square impassively; kept on waiting, apparently entirely calm and in control.

Hunting the hunter. Cardo found that notion obscurely satisfying.

The beam produced by the rifle was invisible except when viewed through the rifle's own sight, where it showed up as a thin, precisely defined green line. In itself, it was harmless. It acted purely as a painter, marking its target with a signature of charged particles that could be tracked from as far away as a spacecraft sitting in orbit.

A favourite trick, on those occasions where they hadn't wanted to capture a particular Jedi for the purposes of reconditioning, had been to paint one with the charged particles and let a capital ship or weapons platform take them out from several thousand kilometres away. That kind of turbolaser shot was far beyond the capability of a lightsaber to deflect, and had a blast radius no amount of prior warning would help you dodge.

Perhaps it lacked a certain visceral satisfaction, but to Cardo, the comedic value more than made up for that lack. He often had himself in stitches imaging the expressions on their faces just before the annihilating blast hit home.

This time, alas, there would be nothing quite so . . . dramatic.

The beam struck true, hitting the Catcher's shoulder. He didn't appear to notice or react. If they didn't sense the trigger pull then they never did. Cardo held it in position for a three count, making sure that the signature he painted was a strong one.

Except . . .

Visible in the sight, the beam from the rifle was emerging from the Catcher's back to hit a spot on the wall directly behind him, painting that instead.

As Cardo stared, understanding dawned. He realised belatedly that there was no longer any kind of Force sense from the figure standing down below.

Which meant . . .

Cardo swore, ducking away from the window and pressing his back tight to the wall as he hastily disassembled the rifle. His heart thudded percussively. His hands wanted to shake and he could feel sweat suddenly beginning to bead on his forehead.

Hunting the hunter. Suddenly that took on a whole new and particularly horrible meaning.

Inside Cardo's head, as if on cue, gleeful laughter resounded. Suddenly, his throat had contracted down to something like a pinhole . . .

And from beyond the room's doorway, intense blue light flared.

-s-s-

It was akin to racing through a maze that was rapidly unmaking itself behind your heels, collapsing into a chaotically churning sea of decaying synapses and misfiring neurons. To slow or stumble was to be caught up in the inexorable slide into entropy and lose oneself utterly. Somehow, that danger only added a piquancy and thrill, which was in its own way powerfully addictive.

Images and patterns flashed in front of the Catcher as he sped unerringly through the unravelling labyrinth. Scents, sounds. Everything keyed in a way that defied logical examination.

To an inexperienced eye, the sensory flashes were simply another symptom of the encroaching chaos, utterly confusing and near-overwhelming in their intensity – an overlapping collage of hallucination and insanity. The Catcher, though, was able to spot threads amid the jumble, zeroing in on what interested him and discarding what did not, chasing it down through twisted, near infinitely complex pathways fractions before it was swallowed up and lost forever.

And the more he chased, the more was revealed; little disordered fragments accruing into something larger. A name. Another. A flash of mirror-polished metal. A face, imprinted on a datapad. An address. A voice, cold and blank – oddly familiar. A building. The voice again. And there, with crystal clarity: the boy has been secured.

There was more, but the rate of decay was increasing exponentially now, everything twisting and distorting, like film warping in fire. The critical juncture had been reached.

He let go. No, this one would not enhance the collection. Another Sith-twisted killer, damaged beyond repair. Too many of those already . . .

The last remnants of the man who called himself Cardo Bruss slid away, swallowed by the frothing tide of onrushing darkness. For a moment, the Catcher stood watching the whole vast entropic tsunami – a titanic, all-consuming black wall – sweeping down towards him, as if daring it to take him too.

Then, at the absolute last instant possible, he drew away.

-s-s-

"What was that?"

Bliss, several metres ahead of Ulvol Ellas and moving rapidly despite her all too apparent handicaps, was no more than a wispy outline of flickering blue in the pervasive dead grey fog. She gave no sign of having heard him, and didn't pause, simply dwindling even further as his own pace faltered.

"Please, Bliss. Wait. Talk to me," he called after her, louder this time – more urgent.

She heard him. He knew that she heard him. Here, hearing wasn't truly a function of sound, and he was starting to reach the hesitant conclusion that there were no physical laws anymore; simply the limitations that your own consciousness chose in order to anchor itself.

The implications of that . . . as yet he hadn't had the chance to fully think it through.

But despite hearing him, Bliss didn't pause or give any acknowledgement. She wanted to get away from him, he knew.

With a sigh, Ellas started to run. What did it matter now if it was beneath the dignity of an adult Camaasi to run? In this place, dignity was barely even a concept, and a Jedi who allowed himself to be crippled by the need for dignity was barely a Jedi at all.

Not that you were a Jedi when you died.

He ignored the pessimistic inner voice. Unfortunately though, running didn't seem to help him close the gap between them. She wanted to be away from him just as much as he wanted to catch up to her, and with no physical factors involved, that meant stalemate.

Frustration surged. He needed to talk to her. He needed to . . .

And there, amid the frustration, another realisation crept up, almost taking him unawares. This place . . . the Force. It had to, in some way or other, be a construct off it, and whilst he might no longer be able to look inward and touch it like he once had, perhaps he could reach out . . .

Blink. Snap.

Everything around him shifted instantly and completely. And there he was, standing directly in front of her. The suddenness of it made the entire burned, colour-drained forest gyrate.

"So what is it, fool of a Jedi?" Fire dripped and spat, fuelled by her rage. He tried not to flinch away from the heat, telling himself that it wasn't real.

Now that he was standing in front of her, under the scrutiny of her boiling eyes, it became difficult to put it all into words.

But a short time ago, for the span of a few seconds, the entire universe around them had been somehow . . . different. A weight that he'd barely been aware of when it was there, had lifted.

Now it was back, heavy and oppressive.

But in that brief span of its absence, he had experienced something like hope – the belief that there were other, different possibilities to this.

-s-s-

Slowly, breathing deeply, the Catcher raised his head, his forehead breaking contact with that of the now cooling corpse. He still remained crouched over the body, for all the unpleasantly strong stench of charred flesh that hung on the air.

In his head, he was distilling the images he'd glimpsed; the sounds and voices, fitting it all together into something that – to him at least – contained a semblance of coherence.

It had been something of a surprise to find that this man had once been a Sith: a Jedi killer and one of the assassin corps. That had been absolutely the last thing he'd been expecting to find. Since his nominal employer, Auza, was now dead, it meant there were other players in this game he hadn't previously been aware of.

He wasn't quite sure yet how he felt about this.

The voice, familiar but not quite: the boy has been secured.

The boy. The boy. The boy.

Then shortly afterwards, connected to the first: place yourself at Yolanda's disposal during my absence.

Yolanda. Another link. Another line. There had been a Yolanda in Carth Onasi's head. The woman accompanying him on Berchest and Kamari. Was she a Sith too perhaps? He turned the notion over like a jeweller with a precious stone, looking at it from different angles and trying to spot flaws. On several levels the irony of that was quite delightful.

Do not approach. Do not engage under any circumstances. Lock on and track until further word is received. Yolanda's voice this time.

So given all of that, the boy must be . . .. He grinned. There had been no images or names in Bruss's dying thoughts. No explicit connections. But the Catcher could extrapolate the boy's identity well enough on his own. Oh yes.

And then he was back to that other voice. The first one. He let it resonate inside him, until his entire being thrummed with it. The one he knew, or should know.

A mask – a mirror where a face should be. Where did that come from? The voice originated from behind the mask, its humanity stripped away and rendered into something frigidly mechanical.

A mask, like Revan's.

A voice connected to Revan's.

A voice of the past. A voice that, until just now, he had long assumed belonged to one of the dead.

He stopped, rocking back on his haunches. Could it be?

"Morrigance?" he asked softly, brow creasing. His eyes were focused on something far beyond the room's fire-blackened walls. Slowly, a smile spread across his lips. "Is that you?"

Abruptly, he stood up, the movement reminiscent of an uncoiling serpent. In his mind 's eye, he saw a path, winding its way through the gloom. It glimmered enticingly.

And suddenly Jedi Padawans named Thalia May – and the reasons for them missing rendezvous – seemed much less interesting than previously.

-s-s-

Tamar stared at the ship filling the view screen in front of him.

It was an impressive looking ship, and in all probability worth staring at. A brand new, state of the art Coruscant class heavy battlecruiser that almost matched the Leviathan for size and sleek, predatory deadliness. From what he'd heard, the Coruscant class incorporated painfully learnt lessons from Rakatan technology, urgently commissioned by Fleet Command in an effort to counter the Sith fleet's vast ship for ship superiority.

The first one had rolled of the Kuat shipyards production line five months after the battle of the Star Forge, too late to make a difference to the war that had been its origin. Supposedly, there were now a grand total of four of the things in existence. Astronomically expensive, production had immediately been scaled back with the end of open hostilities. Rumour had it that Kuat systems had been brought to the brink of bankruptcy trying to produce the things on schedule and to cost.

Yet one of the four was all the way out here, in a system on the outer rim that was no longer even a part of the Republic.

Compared to it, even the Rancorous seemed relatively puny. They were certainly heavily outgunned. And that didn't even take into account the trio of interdictor frigates lurking in the Republic vessel's shadow.

"Well, they're serious about this." Canderous commented dryly. "Got to give 'em that much."

Tamar grunted. Far too serious for his liking. He tried, not very successfully, to make light of it. "Kind of gives me a warm glow, you know? Makes me feel all wanted."

"Yeah. I'll bet."

"We're being hailed," one of the Echani bridge crew – a white haired female – stated. The actual voice was calm, but Tamar could sense the underlying tension. "They're demanding that we immediately power down all weapon systems, drop shields, and prepare to be boarded."

"Belay that for now, shall we?" Yuthura stated, stepping forward. Tamar could sense the tension in her too – see it in the unnatural stillness of her headtails and the way she held herself, one hand clasping the other wrist behind her back. He recognised the body language from when he'd first met her on Korriban. Armour on. Universe locked out.

He stifled a sigh; nodded towards the comm. officer. The situation wasn't just going to sort itself out on its own. "Open a channel, please. I'll try to talk to them."

However much good that might accomplish. People with big guns tended not to be good listeners. They generally didn't have to be. And he already had a fair idea of what they wanted.

"No. Hold that."

Tamar jolted. The voice was so far outside its normal tone that it took him a moment to recognise it. He looked round, frowning. "With due respect here, Jolee. This isn't the . . ."

"With due respect, I'm the Jedi Master here, and I'm pulling rank on you. Now, kindly stand aside." There was no hint of crotchety old man. No rambling. No faked senility. Just quiet, steely resolve that suggested in no uncertain terms that arguing with it would be entirely futile.

Tamar barely managed to keep himself from gawping.

A brief bit of the normal Jolee flashed through. "You talk to them, sonny, and that's half our options gone, straight out the airlock. So go stand somewhere back there . . ." He made a vague waving motion towards the back of bridge. "Keep quiet, and do what you do best. Look dumb and hopeless. Yeah, that's it perfectly. Well done."

"Wait. You aren't seriously thinking of resisting here?" Bastila started, apparently unable to contain herself. "This is . . ."

"Not now please, Bastila." Jolee told her calmly, startling her to silence.

He stepped up to the comm. position. "Now, if I could . . ."

Tamar had about a microsecond of advance warning through the Force. Not enough time to even start to brace himself. Before Jolee could finish what he was saying, there was a thunderous jolt. The deck tilted violently beneath him and suddenly he was flat on his face, struggling vainly to draw breath back into his lungs as his mind tried to rewind and fill in the intervening steps. The pain in his skull was somewhat akin to being nailed between the eyes by a hydrospanner.

The Republic battlecruiser, grown impatient from the lack of response, had opened fire.

His head cleared slowly and he hauled himself upright, the sharp reek of smoke and fried ozone filling his nostrils. The comm. console, its operator still lying in a heap, crackled to life.

"Hutt vessel identifying itself as the Rancorous, I repeat, power down your weapons now, lower your shields and prepare to be boarded. We are fully authorised to use all necessary force in obtaining your cooperation. The next shot will not be a warning."

Oh yeah. Some bloody warning.

Jolee, blood trickling down his face from a nasty looking cut on his scalp, leant on the comm. console like it was a walking frame. He coughed, clearing his throat. "This is Jedi Master Jolee Bindo, on warranted business of the Jedi Council. Identify and explain yourself, boy. And be sure to make it damn good. I really don't appreciate being fired on by my own side."

There was a pause where the open comm. channel crackled and whistled hollowly. Not quite the answer they'd been expecting, obviously.

Tamar took the time to glance across at Bastila, who was rubbing at a rapidly forming bruise on the side of her face. She looked shaken but was blocking him off, that act seemingly instinctive now in times of stress. Canderous was scowling in a manner that suggested he'd quite like rip someone's head off and spit down their neck. It didn't matter who particularly, just whichever unfortunate bastard happened to be closest at hand. It looked like the floor had taken more damage where he'd hit it than vice versa.

Of those not occupying the bridge's acceleration couches, only Yuthura seemed to have escape entirely unscathed.

Suddenly there was a voice speaking in his ear. "Hey, what the hell is going on, you guys? Me and Zee are trying to have a game of Dejarik here."

Mission. In other circumstances, Tamar might have smiled. "Trouble," he answered her sub-audibly after a slight pause.

"Well durr. That figures. But you think maybe you could time your trouble for when I'm not winning here?"

"I'll bear that in mind for next time. Now, find somewhere you can strap yourself in. Things may get a little bumpy from here."

Mission started to say something else, but he cut her off. "Sorry, Mish. Can't really talk now."

The comm. station came back to life: "To re-emphasise, Jedi Master Bindo, power down your weapons, lower your shields and prepare to receive boarding parties."

"Yes, I heard you the first time. Tell me sonny, what flavour of idiot do you take me for, exactly? You trigger happy parade of nerf-brains open fire on us without provocation, and you now expect us to give you a clearer shot for next time?"

The pause was much briefer this time.

The voice on the other end of the link had changed. It was now female; hard as starship hulls. "Master Bindo, this is Admiral Morna Rey of the Republic Command Ship, Unerring Vigilance. The warrant I have just tightbeamed across to you gives me full authority, in the name of Republic Fleet and Senate, to either detain, or if necessary, to eliminate anyone standing in the way of its execution. Any orders under which you may be operating are hereby immediately superseded, and I must insist upon your full and unequivocal cooperation. I trust I am one hundred percent clear?"

Jolee made a gesture to cut the comm., and a moment later pulled up an image of the transmitted warrant, replacing the Unerring Vigilance on the main view screen.

On a quick scan Tamar picked out words such as 'Tamar De'Nolo', 'mass-murder', 'treason', 'evading lawful arrest', 'alive or dead', plus an extremely lengthy and detailed list of sanctions that would befall anyone who impeded or otherwise refused to cooperate with the bearer of the warrant in any way.

"This is all very interesting, Admiral." Tamar saw Jolee scratch the tip of his nose. The flow of blood running down his face seemed to have slowed slightly. "And don't hesitate to correct me if I'm mistaken here, but the authority and actions of the Jedi Council do not come under the jurisdiction of either Fleet Command or the Senate. So I don't really see how any of this applies to me."

Across the link, there was a hiss that wasn't just static. Static, as a rule, tended not to do exasperation. "Master Bindo, I have written assurances that the Jedi Council will cooperate fully in this matter."

"Funny, no one seems to have bothered telling me about this . . ."

"Then I suggest you . . ."

Jolee continued as if the Admiral hadn't started speaking. "When I receive direct notification from the Jedi Council, I assure you that you shall have my full cooperation. Until that time, I have my own orders, and must ask respectfully – " There was nothing remotely respectful about Jolee's tone of voice then " – that you stand aside."

Tamar almost laughed despite himself at the sheer barefaced audacity.

"You don't deny that Revan is aboard your vessel." Suddenly even the brittle veneer of civility was gone from Morna Rey's voice.

Jolee's head tilted, as if in surprise. "Since Revan has been declared legally dead, I'd be absolutely astonished if he was."

"You know very well what I mean, Jedi!" There was a pause, the Admiral seemingly attempting to re-gather the fragments of her temper. "We may all be pantomiming that nonsense in public, but I don't need to taste nerf crap to recognise it . . .."

Whatever else the Admiral might have been about to add was lost as a proximity alarm went off and the comm. link went dead.

"Sir, we've got another dozen ships come out of nowhere directly behind us."

Tamar fought hard not to swear. "More Republic?" Not that there'd been much chance of evading anyway, but if it was, that option had suddenly dropped away to nil. He was aware of Jolee glowering at him, but ignored him.

A delay, feverish activity among the bridge crew. "Negative."

The viewscreen shifted to present an aft view; several mismatched corvettes, a small collection of gunboats and, at the centre, one much larger vessel. The sight of it stirred an uncomfortable, crawling sense of familiarity.

Obviously not all of the old Mandalorian invasion fleet had been turned into high tech bank vaults. Some had been more salvageable. The garish blue, grey and red colour scheme of the Eres navy did little to disguise its sleekly muscular lines.

To no one's great surprise, the comm. crackled to life yet again – a third different voice this time. "This is Captain Naveen of the Independent Eres III Navy. Unerring Vigilance and the Rancorous, stand down immediately. I repeat, stand down immediately. You are in violation of Independent Eres III territory and regulations . . ."

Tamar couldn't help but roll his eyes. Here we go again.

-s-s-

Blue flame flared briefly in the light of an apartment window, then died.

A few people noticed it in passing, but they simply hurried onwards, trying to pretend that it hadn't been anything truly out of the ordinary. This wasn't the sort of neighbourhood where inquisitiveness was considered to be a virtue.

A few seconds later, all evidence of his presence safely incinerated, the Catcher descended the fire escape at the back of the building. His head was abuzz with newly lifted images and patterns.

Ahead of him, the trail had taken on a greater solidity. Another link had been forged. The Catcher smiled.

To the Agatan. A particular landing bay. A particular ship. A mercenary named Rath Gannaya.

-s-s-

The silence had an edge of near-monomolecular sharpness.

Then both Carth and Thalia started trying to speak at once, over the top of one another. A short time later, they clammed up again at the exact same moment, glaring at each other.

Seated off to one side, Yolanda watched the scene play out with a combination of cynical amusement and all out dread. It was a piquant but not altogether pleasant mixture. At least – and this counted as the smallest of mercies – Carth seemed to be so focused on the matter of his son, that the idea of using Thalia May to chase down and confront the Catcher had thus far escaped him.

It certainly hadn't escaped her.

She tried to breathe normally; tried to see a way through this that didn't involve everything disintegrating into jagged little pieces around her. Except . . . the more she tried the more convinced she became that there simply wasn't a way through. One way or another, she had to let something go.

That should have been so very simple.

"You Jedi just can't stay out of matters that don't concern you, can you? You always have to interfere." The venom in Carth's voice took her by surprise. There was real fury in it. "Every fraking time."

"I . . . I hardly think that's fair." Thalia seemed to Yolanda to be struggling to meet Carth's gaze then. "Your son was . . . in trouble. He needed help, and it wasn't as if you were around to give it."

Ouch.

Earlier on, Master Kwex had led them all through from the Temple's grand entrance hall to his quarters, doing a fair impression of an infinitely patient schoolteacher chivvying along unruly and oversized children. They were now ensconced in his personal quarters, which – a couple of sweeping, airy sculptures that Yolanda assumed were mementoes of his homeworld aside – did a very good job of conforming to every stereotype of unworldly, detached from reality Jedi Master there was going. Minimalist barely began to describe it.

A self-deprecating smile had pre-empted their reactions. My apologies for the state of the décor. Unfortunately, the majority of my possessions perished on Dantooine, had been the words.

Yolanda concentrated on the wood grain patterns of the plain table around which they all sat; let the surrounding turmoil pass over her. It didn't help with her internal search for a solution.

Carth, inevitably, boiled over. Not even Master Kwex managed to leap in in time to head it off.

"So this is my fault all of a sudden, is it?"

"I . . ." Thalia began, but it was like trying to swim uphill through setting plastocrete.

"Dustil was doing absolutely fine right up until the moment you showed up on his doorstep, wanting to drag him back. He'd already told you he wanted nothing more to do with the Jedi or the Force, but you just couldn't accept that, could you? Couldn't take no for an answer. Where do you get off exactly, barging in to peoples' lives and tearing families apart; ruining their lives?"

"Captain Onasi, please." It was Kwex who cut in, fire-fighting futilely. "There were other, urgent considerations at issue here . . ."

Carth rounded on him. "So you had something to do with this too, did you?"

Kwex blinked, taken aback. "Not personally, no . . ."

Carth's anger didn't seem to be fading. If anything it seemed to be gathering strength and intensity, the flames fanned and fed. "If any of your next few words involve phrases like 'the Will of the Force' or the 'Need to put aside personal attachments' then I suggest you just stop. Right there."

As she looked at the Omwati, Yolanda felt a small pang of sympathy. Particularly since Carth at the moment looked capable, and all too willing, to rip Kwex's head off at the slightest provocation, real or imagined.

It was certainly instructive. A side of him she hadn't seen.

"I do sympathise with your viewpoint, Captain. Honestly." The Omwati seemed to be picking his words with great care. "But it isn't, alas, quite as simple as you would have it. When the Force chooses to manifest within an individual, for good or ill, it cannot simply be denied or ignored. It won't simply go away if you pretend it isn't there, and if a person fails to receive proper training and instruction on how to cope with what they are experiencing then the consequences can be terrible indeed – and not just for themselves . . ."

Carth snorted. Loudly. "Proper training and instruction?" Sarcasm didn't so much drip as pour.

The silence lasted for all of a heartbeat, before Carth plunged on.

"It seems to me that half of those you train end up falling to the dark side, while the remainder end up so scarred by the experience that they're barely functional as sentients. From what I've seen, those who do come through more or less intact, do so despite the training they receive rather than because of it."

The pale fan of lines around Kwex's eyes hardened perceptibly at that.

When he spoke again, his voice was quiet, but there was now a definite steeliness to it. "We Jedi are far from perfect, Captain, I acknowledge. And some of our number in particular are still to come to terms with just how imperfect we have actually proved ourselves to be. Our mistakes in recent times . . . to call them disastrous would be to understate, and collectively we have yet to take proper responsibility for that." He leant forward slightly then, fingers steepling together. "But to judge someone or something solely in terms of their mistakes and failings is, I have always felt, never a satisfactory response."

A grunt. Nothing more.

Kwex was looking at Carth penetratingly now. "Do you know anything, perhaps, of galactic history from before the time the Jedi Order came into existence?"

"And what the frak does that have to do with anything?"

Yolanda had to suppress a jolt. For all his anger, hearing Carth swear in front of a Jedi Master just seemed . . . out of character. Perhaps it was all down to the sudden hair loss, she thought dryly, but couldn't raise much in the way of amusement at the thought.

Kwex sat back again, and the steely edge submerged itself. "Just that, for all our flaws and imperfections, I think the alternatives are much, much worse. Continuous chaotic Force-wars between those driven to madness and delusion by their own untrained powers. In response, the cycles of galaxy-wide genocide against anyone even suspected of being Force sensitive. Galactic civilisation almost died in those early days before it had the chance to fully form. We would do well to remember what our dissolution would mean alongside everything else. And the Jedi do not have a monopoly on errors, even in recent times."

After a prolonged silence, Carth too seemed to step back – albeit by fractional degree. Yolanda noted the set of his shoulder muscles shift just slightly.

Though he couldn't, apparently, resist one more dig. "Funny, isn't it, how your interest in the spiritual welfare of my son managed to persist solely for the amount of time that he was conveniently at hand, then vanished entirely the moment he went missing." He glanced Thalia's way. "Assuming that you're being entirely honest as opposed to semantically creative when you say that you have no idea where Dustil currently is."

Thalia started to rise to it, but Kwex stayed her with a slight gesture of one pale blue hand.

"There, I think, we can both agree we have been seriously remiss. Padawans May and Algwinn are the only ones to emerge with any credit here at all." The last part was emphasised, but if it was meant to placate Carth, then the effect seemed negligible.

And if he's run away off world in an effort to escape the Jedi's attentions, that's just about the best thing that can have happened right now. Think about it a moment, please Carth.

"We will, of course, render any aid we can in locating your son, Captain."

"Just. Tell. Me. Where. He. Is."

The length of Kwex's pause told Yolanda immediately that it wasn't going to be remotely as simple as that. And any answer was going to involve technical explanation of the nature of the Force, and why it wasn't possible, which was going to be like waving a red-rag to a Reek in Carth's current mood.

Thalia, however, forestalled any of that by clearing her throat. Yolanda wasn't sure whether to be impressed with her bravery or lament her stupidity. "I didn't just forget about Dustil when he disappeared, Captain. Part of my duties as a Padawan involves working with the dispossessed of the undercity . . ."

And by implication, the less . . . salubrious elements too. Yolanda picked up on the tiny sidelong glance that Thalia directed Master Kwex's way, but from what she'd seen, she suspected that the Omwati was far more worldly and practical than his appearance and air initially suggested. He was hardly going to be shocked.

"I managed to trace some of the steps he took after his . . . disappearance. I know he conducted a transaction with an identity broker by the name of Terrol Chan, although when I approached him, Chan declined to deal with me. I never had the chance to pursue the matter further . . ."

At that, Carth shot upright as if he was spring-loaded. Something to do. Something to chase. In a way, he was so predictable. "Well then. It looks like you're going to show me how to find this Chan, doesn't it? Right about now would be good."

"Captain." Master Kwex rose to his feet too. "I implore you to show patience here, and consider the consequences of rushing in blindly. This Sith assassin that you mentioned. There was a reason he was trying to lure Padawan May into meeting with him."

Carth glared daggers at him.

"Perhaps it would be more beneficial to your son if you concentrated – with our help – on seeing to the assassin's apprehension. It would seem to me a less . . . speculative course, and avoids the risk of leading him in Dustil's direction."

And suddenly Yolanda would have quite happily snapped the Jedi Master's slender, bird-like neck with her bare hands. Her skin felt like ice.

"You don't have children, do you Master Kwex?" Carth asked quietly.

"No, I don't."

"Then I wouldn't expect you to understand." Carth started to turn away, and Yolanda felt a vast swell of relief.

Which cut off again in the very next instant as Kwex spoke again. "Someone who I understand is a good friend of yours arrived back at the Temple recently. Could I suggest that you at least speak to her before you depart?"

He stopped. "Who?"

"Jedi Juhani."

-s-s-

The Orbital weapons platform's defensive shield flared brightly, before caving in under concentrated fire from four sleek, blade-like Living-Fleet destroyers. Its armour held out just under a second longer against sustained, withering bombardment. An instant later, the entire thing exploded in a silent flash of superheated vapour.

Instantly, swarms of drone fighters poured through the gap that opened up, moving in ever-shifting, precisely mathematical formations that made the watching Admiral Bortha's flesh creep. Ragged, over-pressed squadrons of defending snub fighters attempted desperately to come about and intercept, but were despatched summarily with a precision that bordered upon the surgical. More, smaller winking lights, that flared briefly, before fading away in motes of sparkling dust.

A lightshow. That's what this had been reduced to.

It certainly couldn't be said to qualify as war.

And Bortha had long since had to re-evaluate any prejudices he'd held on the relative merits of drone and living pilots. Grim observation had shown that there was indeed no contest.

Almost resignedly, his attention shifted from one breach in the enemy's lines to another. Three Living-Fleet battle cruisers, tight abreast as if this was nothing more than a training exercise designed to showcase the talents of their captains, picked apart a gigantic but less manoeuvrable dreadnought mercilessly.

Eventually, one of the massive vessel's portside engines blew out concussively, sending its crippled bulk spinning away like a drunken Gamorrean attempting a balletic pirouette. Bortha watched the chaotic, spiralling path of its fall as though hypnotised by the sick inevitability of the spectacle.

The dreadnought's uncontrolled plunge terminated abruptly as it slammed into a vast construction bay in which the hulking shell of a ship very similar to itself was taking shape. The flash of light from this was the brightest yet, a shell of white-hot glowing plasteel debris fragments expanding rapidly outward in silently serene and deadly splendour.

Those scenes were repeated right across the board, all the myriad and supposedly impregnable defences of the Dantalus shipyards seeming to collapse in on themselves at once under a relentless assault that appeared to come simultaneously from every direction. Only the surrounding vacuum prevented the entire thing going up under the sustained pounding it was receiving, and that was just a matter of time . . .

The bizarre synchronicity of the situation mocked Bortha incessantly – a constant, sniggering laughter echoing inside his head.

This was always how Darth Malefic's campaign of ascension had been going to culminate – one final all out assault on Darth Auza's stronghold, at the end of which Malefic would be left unchallenged as the one true Dark Lord of the Sith. Except . . . inside Bortha's head, it had never, ever been quite like this.

For one thing, Auza was already dead. Which rendered this assault more or less entirely superfluous.

And as for Malefic . . .. Bortha suppressed a heavy shudder.

Another half-assembled hulk tore free of its moorings and smashed apart. A third exploded brightly. The sheer wastefulness of it all burned sourly in the back of his throat. It seemed to hark back to the later days of Malak's reign, where destruction was an end in itself rather than a means. Telos. Taris. Collective insanity.

Through strength, I gain victory.

Except a victory in which you ended up destroying the prize you sought didn't, to Bortha, seem like much of a victory at all.

So they were destroying one of the three largest shipyards in Sith space, when they already lagged so far behind the Republic in that regard it was frightening. And if rumour was to be believed, Ziost had now disintegrated into so many fragmentary and conflicting factions intent on each other's mutual destruction that it was virtually impossible to count them. The Sith had become a snake ravenously devouring its own tail, assiduously destroying themselves without need of any outside intervention.

And there, briefly, hatred flared.

Hatred of a reflective steel mask, and the name Morrigance Fel. Hatred of the unending, self-destructive stupidity that went on and on. From where he was sitting, it had almost begun to seem like she was hell bent on bringing every last one of them crashing to their doom – of fanning flames to the point where all that would be left was fine grey ash.

That hatred soon faded though, collapsing under its own weight into a smouldering mix of low grade anger and despair.

And fear.

Let us not forget the fear.

Bortha almost laughed then, but Captains – no Admirals, he reminded himself bitterly – did not go in for such hysterical displays. They especially did not do so in the presence of subordinates.

No, in the Sith Fleet, one had to be a Dark Jedi to get away with the more actively frothing varieties of madness. Then, of course, it was practically de rigueur.

Malefic.

Bortha felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. The battle still going on, nominally under his command, faded to a kind of animated wallpaper. His input would make exactly zero difference to the outcome anyway.

Malefic.

And though his body remained fixed firmly where it was, his mind descended, sucked back into the heart of the ship beneath – drawn into the centre of an inescapable singularity.

Pressure, screaming in his skull. Each forward step was like wading waist-deep in molasses.

He could taste blood in his mouth from where he was, almost unnoticed, biting down too hard on his bottom lip. Flanking him, Lieutenants Valaska and Benazares shied back like scared dogs trying to pull free of the leashes dragging them along.

Not that he blamed them. If he could have turned back then, he would have done.

Frak the idea – the sheer, insane ludicrousness – of facing Malefic and trying to explain himself. How that notion had even begun to germinate, he could no longer remotely comprehend.

Except now, it had become a kind of compulsion, free will an irrelevance. Walking, hypnotised, straight down the monster's throat.

Except now, it was far too late.

There was a circle of light in the hot, throbbing, living darkness ahead. In the centre of that circle of light was the cage. Inside the cage, trapped and cocooned, was a singe figure.

Was Malefic.

If you could still call him that.

Bortha stared. Something gibbered in the basement of his head.

What was left of the would be Dark Lord resembled a mummy dressed in the most truly bizarre and elaborate of burial regalia. So many fibres and threads and glittering metal cables wrapped and pierced the body in the cage that it seemed like they were growing out of him, alive. Malefic's previously monumental physique appeared to have withered and collapsed – a seedpod that had split open, its contents sprouting and blooming in a frenzied, fecund tangle.

Amidst all that, the only part that seemed undespoiled was the face.

That face . .

The eyes blinked, slowly – lizard-like. Bortha jolted violently – took a hasty backwards step. That face was looking at him.

To begin with it seemed as white as polished bone, all colour drained from it, the scar running down the middle a livid lightning flash. As Bortha watched, flickers of colour – shoals of tiny, darting fish – played fleetingly across the surface scales.

That colour became more and more intense.

The pressure in Bortha's skull intensified to shattering proportions. Dimly he was aware of letting out a strangled, groaning scream, a blood vessel inside his nose bursting from the strain.

"You, I am ordered not to harm."

It was impossible to tell if the words were spoken aloud or simply planted directly into his head. With them came the rancid foetor of insanity.

At his side, Lieutenant Valaska let out a thin, desperate wail. A fraction of a second later, he jerked up off the ground like a puppet being yanked around by a particularly clumsy puppeteer. Benazares, looking around frantically for somewhere to flee, managed two faltering steps before he too was lifted of the ground.

"You, I am ordered not to harm."

And Bortha knew then that all there was left was the monster. Dark Lord redux.

Both Valaska and Benazares were now making strange, thin whining sounds – too terrified to manage anything quite as coherent as a scream. Valaska was kicking wildly, trying vainly to jerk free of the force holding him. Benazares simply hung there limply, sweat pouring off him in torrents as he slowly revolved.

Bortha screwed his eyes shut. The air pressure changed abruptly.

Cringing, Bortha felt his ears pop. The sound – a horrible drawn out twisting, tearing, cracking and buckling cartilage sound – was enough to leave him gagging, bile rising into his throat. It just would not stop.

Briefly, Benazares did manage to scream, though it choked off quickly into gruesome, liquid gargling as the tearing cartilage noise became much softer and wetter. Something splattered and dripped copiously across the floor.

You, I am ordered not to harm.

The hold – the compulsion to remain where he was – shattered. Bortha turned and fled, leaving what was left of his two officers – little more than gelid sacks of pulverised, semi-liquescent flesh and bone splinters – still floating and twitching in the air.

Malefic's laughter – the ship's laughter; whatever the hybrid really was now – echoed madly after him.

Vorsk Bortha drew in a shuddering breath; came back to himself.

In front of him, up on the viewscreens, the battle was winding down to its inevitable conclusion, what remained of Dantalus's defenders attempting to break clear of the slaughter and flee. Even at that, they were only sporadically successful.

Describing it as a rout dignified it with too much order and control.

The shipyards themselves looked to have been pounded down to semi-molten metal and twisted, drifting fragments.

So here he sat, Admiral of the Living Fleet. Master of everything he surveyed. In his head laughter seemed to echo hollowly, and the fear threatened to rise up and swallow him whole.

Master, at least, until another loophole or oversight in Morrigance's orders allowed that mad thing bound at the ship's core to decide otherwise.

-s-s-

"Enough!"

Silence. Just briefly, fragile as eggshells. The arguments cut off.

Memories of school playgrounds that had never, ever been his played briefly in Tamar's head. There were certainly more and better examples of decorum and diplomacy in those false constructs than currently being display in front of him. Even Jolee seemed on the verge of being drawn into the incipient melee, though Tamar couldn't quite be sure if the old man was truly as wound-up as he appeared or simply delighting overmuch in doing the winding.

Here, was back on the surface of Eres III. Or to be unequivocally precise, one-hundred and twenty storeys above the surface of Eres III, in the topmost office of the soaring crystalline spire that was the planet's Federal Government building.

Currently occupying said office, and doing their utmost to impersonate a particularly argumentative and disruptive group of small children, where Republic Fleet Admiral Morna Rey and entourage, Marshall Prion Vexil, supreme commander of Eres III's armed forces – plus entourage – and President Sorin Dayda, duly elected leader of Eres's civilian government, with accompanying aides.

And of course, himself, Jolee Bindo and Bastila.

All within a space slightly less than forty metres square. If either Morrigance or Hulas was still in the immediate vicinity, then as targets went this one had to be pretty damn tempting. Although getting past the several million tonnes of heavily armed capital ships still facing off with itchy trigger fingers in orbit would have been quite a trick even for them.

The person doing the shouting for order was President Dayda. Tall, blonde and hologenic, at the start of this little 'meeting' she'd borne an air of quietly self-confident calm and composure that wouldn't have looked out of place in a Jedi Master. Right now, that composure was starting to look decidedly frayed.

Her right hand – as metal as Canderous's now was, though on her the artificial arm apparently went right up to her shoulder rather than just the elbow – drummed distractedly on the surface of her desk. An extremely visible reminder of the prominent role she'd played during the resistance against the Mandalorian invasion, in some quarters it was snidely maintained that the arm was the only reason she'd ever managed to get elected.

From the way she glanced at him every now and then, an oddly contemplative look in her eyes, Tamar was certain that she'd also known him previously as Revan.

Which was an . . . interesting complication.

"Now," Dayda's voice sounded borderline tetchy at this point. "Do you think the pair of you could please back down and try to behave like adults here?"

This was directed towards Morna Rey and Marshall Vexil. The pair of them were facing up like the alpha kath hounds of two separate packs on the border of their respective territories. Over the course of the past few minutes, Tamar had formed the distinct impression that there was a long and bitterly acrimonious history somewhere here.

In fact, Morna Rey seemed to hate Vexil almost as much as she hated him.

And Bastila. And possibly the entire universe in general if surface impressions were anything to go by.

On coming face to face with Admiral Rey, any slim lingering hope Tamar had had that she might in some way be aligned with, or sympathetic to, Admiral Dodonna's way of thinking had fled instantaneously. The look in her eyes had left him wondering which of her loved ones he'd killed.

Right now, that hate shone brighter than ever. "I can see that I am wasting my time here, President. Since it now seems obvious that you have absolutely no intention of cooperating with the warrant I hold, there doesn't seem anything constructive to be achieved by talking further."

She made a short, sharp gesture to one of the officers accompanying her. "I'll leave you to the company of these traitors."

Tamar was interested to note that she seemed to include both Vexil and Bastila in with him. Indeed, as Rey turned and strode towards the exit, she paused briefly in front of Bastila. What was said was quiet, obviously intended only for her ears, but he was close enough to pick it up.

"The rest of the galaxy may be labouring under the misapprehension that you're some kind of hero, Jedi. I, however, know what really happened on the Star Forge. If it was down to me, you would have been executed."

From Bastila there didn't, outwardly, seem to be any kind of reaction at all. Not so much as a flinch.

Rey's attempt at a dramatic exit came up short when the office doors remained resolutely shut in front of her, barring her way.

Dayda cleared her throat. "Since we're being direct and to the point here, Admiral Rey, I thought I should repay the favour."

The tightly compressed rage Tamar sensed boiling off Rey then was intense enough to make the average Sith Lord slink away with feelings of embarrassed inadequacy. It really was extraordinary.

Dayda went on, oblivious: "You have aggressively and unapologetically violated Eres III's sovereign space. You have opened fire without provocation on Eres naval vessels and installations, and generally acted in violation of interplanetary convention and law since your arrival. Wars have been started over less. I've tried to be patient, and I've given you ample opportunity to explain your actions – which I note you have not taken. On that basis, you can consider yourself under formal arrest while these acts of aggression are officially investigated."

Rey turned around with carefully measured lack of haste; let out a short, barking laugh. "Let me get this straight. You're having me arrested?"

"I don't think I said anything that was too difficult to understand, did I?" The snap in Dayda's voice was hard. Definitely not someone to be overawed or bullied.

"I think it's you who doesn't entirely appreciate the situation here, President." Admiral Rey actually smiled then. Inwardly, Tamar winced. "Within an hour's hyperspace jump, there are enough Republic warships waiting for my call to overpower what passes for your navy five times over. I am empowered to use any and every means available to me to ensure the capture and return of Revan as a matter of overriding urgency. If you attempt to take me into custody, I shall have no choice but call upon all of these resources to prevent such an occurrence."

There was what seemed like an extremely lengthy and weighted pause.

"So, you'd casually take the Republic into another war over this, would you Admiral?" Dayda said finally as Marshal Vexil seemed to be too caught up in the act of outraged spluttering to manage to launch immediately into another verbal counterattack.

"I think you'd be better off reversing that question, don't you? Are you really willing to provoke conflict with the Republic for the sake of him?" A finger jabbed violently in Tamar's direction.

Vexil finally found his voice. "This is absolutely outrageous!"

"Although to be fair, I would hardly dignify what would inevitably happen as a war. A minor skirmish perhaps, at best." This time Rey's smile, directed Vexil's way, was distinctly patronising.

"Not so minor, I think." Dayda had stood up, moving around her desk and standing with her arms folded across her chest. "If the Republic is seen to be so casually violating an independent system's autonomy it would prove very awkward for it indeed. And we have treaties with a whole host of other systems, all of whom would intervene on our behalf. Personally, Admiral, I'm more than willing to gamble that – whatever authority you may have been given – the Republic Senate would be far too embarrassed by your proposed actions to do anything other than hang you out to dry."

The two of them glared at one another, neither of them backing down or giving the other so much as an inch. It was all strangely fascinating to watch.

Except he wasn't, he reminded himself, a disinterested spectator.

"So." It was Dayda's turn to smile. "I think we're starting to understand each other, but just so we're categorically clear. Jedi Revan here is an honoured guest of the people of Eres III, and has been afforded our full protection. I am, however, in the spirit of maintaining good diplomatic relations with the Republic, willing to rescind my previous arrest order and allow you to make your way directly out of system, Admiral."

Morna Rey didn't say anything, but Tamar had the impression that, had he been standing fractionally closer to her, he would have been able to hear her teeth grinding.

"Contingent, that is," Dayda continued. "On you providing us with satisfactory assurances that you will remove yourself and all Republic ships under your command so that they are no longer threatening our territory."

Which was, all things considered, taking everything more than far enough.

Steeling himself, Tamar stepped forward. "If I could just step in and say something here . . ."

"No boy, you cannot." Jolee cut him off immediately. Tamar saw President Dayda raise an eyebrow. From the quickly suppressed flicker that passed across her face he got the impression that she was amused. "Keep quiet and do as you're told.

"Now that was an extremely generous offer, Madam President," Jolee went on. "But Jedi De'Nolo is already voluntarily under the Jedi's protective custody. All we seek here is safe passage to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant." Jolee turned towards Admiral Rey as he said this. "Which makes this little disagreement here all the more unnecessary. I'm sure, with a little calm negotiation, a compromise that suits us all can be reached."

To Tamar, the idea of Banthas spontaneously sprouting wings and flying in formation seemed a much more likely prospect.

"Revan will be taken into Fleet custody. The Senate's jurisdiction overrides any claim the Jedi might have."

And straight back, for about the fourth time, to that argument. Damn it Jolee . . .

"In your opinion, Admiral. Unfortunately, the law as I understand it does not appear to back you up. Leaving that aside, surely we both seek the same thing here though? A return to Coruscant?"

Admiral Rey snorted. "My orders say nothing about Coruscant. Revan is to be taken, initially, to a Republic processing facility on Hoth for threat assessment prior to incarceration."

Tamar felt an icy prickle run down his spine. Somehow, he suspected, incarceration wouldn't be the half of it . . .

"Hoth. Coruscant." Jolee sounded airily unconcerned. "A matter of nicety surely? Qualified success is surely far better for you, Admiral, than complete failure. We are both, after all, on the same side here."

The urge to laugh at that had to be strangled back hard. Rey didn't immediately say anything.

"And I'm afraid Hoth simply won't do at all. Too cold for an old man's bones. If you insist on that, I'll have to take President Dayda up on her kind invitation."

"Perhaps it was slightly stronger than an 'invitation'." Dayda interrupted. Both Jolee and Admiral Rey turned to look at her. "And I think I'd like to hear from . . ." a hesitation. "Jedi De'Nolo here on what he personally wants to do."

And then everyone was looking straight at him.

Briefly, Tamar tried to weigh up the reasons Dayda was seemingly so willing to go, unasked, so far out on a limb for him. Personal? Political? From an entirely practical standpoint, and in the interests of protecting her home system, it surely made most sense to get him shipped out of there at the first available opportunity before washing her hands of the whole business.

He pushed the thoughts aside. "I can assure you, President, that Master Bindo has my full cooperation, absolutely voluntarily. And I do indeed want nothing more than to return to Coruscant at the earliest opportunity."

President Dayda held his gaze unflinchingly for several heartbeats, before finally lifting one eyebrow just slightly. Your funeral. Don't say I didn't try to help you, it seemed to say.

Admiral Rey, of course, was not about to start being compliantly accepting at this point. "You seriously think, Master Bindo, that it is a sensible idea to convey the one time Dark Lord of the Sith, who, need I remind you, is wanted for the murder of your Jedi Council the last time he was there, straight to our capital and seat of government with no more than the shakiest and most tenuous of restraint?"

Jolee simply scratched his chin. "Ah, yes. Would it perhaps change your opinion at all if I could convince you that Jedi De'Nolo here had nothing whatsoever to do with that last little bit?"

-s-s-

Morrigance watched eastside docking bay four-delta – one of several hundred near identical landing pads in this quadrant of the Agatan Freight port alone – draw smoothly and steadily closer. The converted yacht, sleek and gleaming and heavily armed, was hardly typical of the traffic that the freighter port normally serviced, but she knew that no undue notice would be paid to her arrival. There were some places – even on Coruscant – where curiosity did far, far worse things than simply kill the cat.

Landing lights flashed. Unloader droids, huge and small, rumbled about their business, while in the background scores of other spacecraft – ramshackle bulk transports in the main – rose and descended continuously. She barely registered any of that.

The majority of her attention was still far, far away from here in a place of flame and searing wind that howled like a coven of maddened banshee.

He had made it off the hotel. She had received positive confirmation of that now, but deep down she had known well enough already. He wouldn't make it so . . . simple as that. Not him.

Her breath echoed hollowly within the confines of her mask.

His face – the impostor who wore that face – stared back at her through a barrier of transparisteel.

But he didn't matter any more. This wasn't about him.

It had never truly been about him.

No? So tell me, why does it cut so deeply? It was his voice. His old voice, where the soft-spoken barbs were always the ones that hooked you.

It's not the scars I left on your flesh, is it?

She almost laughed then, at herself. Her breathing echoed more loudly and she attempted to shove all thought of Revan aside.

Slowly, the flames began to die back. The howling faded to nothing more than a sigh.

He was gone now. This was not revenge or justice, or anything else. There was nothing to prove, and she would not allow him to distract her any longer. Besides, it was out of her hands now, already set in motion. In a way, it would be far more satisfying to see him pulled down from a distance by others like this than to participate directly.

The yacht touched down as lightly as a feather settling. She undid the clasps securing her to the seat and stood up. Celyanda silently did the same without any need to be told.

The yacht's exit ramp opened in front of her with a pneumatic hiss, curls of white steam rising from the corners into the air. She started down rapidly, boot heels clicking sharply, the note of the sound changing as she stepped onto solid oil-stained plastocrete.

Too much had been neglected in her excursion to Eres III. Too much had been left to chance.

And there was a lot that she still needed to do.

Right now there was Dustil Onasi.

-s-s-

Dustil looked up sharply at the sound of approaching footsteps.

His head span, the light beyond his cell disorienting. He'd been dozing, sleep creeping up on his blindside and taking him unawares. Since he'd been captured – hours; days; weeks ago – time had become a vague smear. And – partly through choice, partly because he hadn't been able to stop the endless self-destructively coiling turmoil of his thoughts – he hadn't slept at all during that time.

He kept thinking about Elendri, endlessly, over and over, round and round. At some point those thoughts had twisted and warped until he hated her for doing this to him. For making him feel like this.

At times he hated everything, starting with himself.

He'd also come to realise that being without the Force through choice and having it snatched away from him by external means were very different things. The sense of utter helplessness kept taking him back to other helpless times, after the bombing of Telos. It left him wanting to scream – fear and fury and frustration.

Black hole of bad luck . . .

Except now, that black hole seemed to be collapsing in upon itself, feeding on its own core. Feeding on him.

The footsteps didn't belong to the Mandalorian. Juggles with frag grenades, or whatever the frak had left him like that. Something inside Dustil sank. He could feel his hands shaking like those of a glitterstim addict too far removed from his last fix. He couldn't make them stop.

Instead, it was their leader. Rath. To start with, Dustil had found it difficult to fathom how a man like that could be in the command of the others he'd seen.

And walking behind him, a glowering shadow, was that sadistic bastard of a Trandoshan. An involuntary spasm passed through Dustil's body, the side of his ribcage aching sharply. His hands clenched into fists at his side.

The Trandoshan seemed to be grinning at him.

"Time to go."

It took Dustil a couple of heartbeats to digest those words; to understand what they meant. Even when the forcefield cutting him off from the rest of the ship – the rest of the universe – dropped he didn't immediately grasp it.

Instinct took over. Sith-honed instinct.

Barely thinking, he launched himself straight at Rath's throat.

Unfortunately, sleep-deprived reflexes failed entirely to match up to intent. He had a fleeting impression of Shakrill starting to move in the periphery of his vision, before he hit the back wall of the makeshift cell with a clearly audible crunch. He slid to the floor with boneless lack of grace.

Gasping hard, straining to draw air into lungs that felt like they were being constricted by red-hot iron bands, Dustil attempted to rise. Something impacted with his mouth hard enough to numb his entire face and he dropped hard, vision redding out.

"Enough! He's supposed to be delivered unharmed!"

Delivered?

Something landed on the floor beside him with a heavy metallic thunk. His vision cleared slightly, though he could still see the blood vessels in his own eyes superimposed over everything else. Rath was standing over him, his expression one of vaguely affronted distaste.

Coughing, lungs burning, Dustil spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva.

"Put those on, please. If you've finished acting like an idiot."

'Those' were a pair of heavy and extremely solid looking magna-lock cuffs. Dustil eyed them unenthusiastically, making no immediate move to pick them up.

"You can put them on voluntarily, or Shakrill can put them on for you." Rath sounded disinterested. "And you've just experienced exactly how gentle he can be."

Stifling a groan, Dustil reluctantly did as he was told before struggling to his feet. The ship seemed to sway beneath him as if they were now airborne and experiencing light turbulence. There was a high, thin, perpetual whining note playing in his ears.

"Now please, after you. I don't particularly want to be late."

Glowering sullenly, Dustil moved in the indicated direction. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. His lips felt like they had swollen to several times their normal size. "Where are we going?" It came out all mushy and blurred, as if he was trying to speak through a mouthful of cotton wool.

Rath didn't answer. As they walked through the Corvine – the Ebon Hawk – towards the exit, Dustil noticed Kreed, or at least, the red glow from his artificial eye, watching him from the shadows.

Wait, wait. I need to . . .. Shakrill nudged him less than gently in the back, forcing him onwards.

They paused, waiting for the exit ramp to descend in front of them. Dustil tried again: "I said . . ."

"I heard what you said. I chose to ignore you." Nevertheless, a moment later Rath continued. "Amazingly enough, someone is willing to pay me for the dubious pleasures of your company." Then. "I know. I'm as amazed as you must be?"

"Who?" But inwardly, Dustil thought he knew already. His heart began to race.

"You'll see soon enough. Now, can we get a move on please?"

-s-s-

Yolanda listened to the quiet trilling on the end of the comm. line. She'd been listening to it for over a minute now. No one had answered. Part of her knew that no one was going to answer.

Finally, reluctantly, she gave up. It felt like there was a pressure spot behind her eyes and it was attempting to bore its way directly into her brain. The urge to hit something – anything – was strong.

That was the fourth and last of the main contact numbers she'd tried. The first three had yielded exactly the same results as this. No excuse or innocent explanation she could come up with satisfactorily explained all of them becoming indisposed at the same time.

And the tail she'd supposedly set on the Catcher seemed to have vanished without a trace.

Which, in her mind, all pointed unerringly to one thing. He'd screwed up. The arrogant bastard had ignored her warnings and got cocky. Tried to be flash. Tried to do too much, because hey, I was a Jedi hunter, elite of the elite, and I know better. And the Catcher had caught him.

And because the Catcher had caught him, this entire corner of the network had come crashing down.

Her hand came up; raked through her hair – short-cropped and non-descript brown currently; as close to its natural state as it got. Inwardly she told herself not to succumb to paranoia; to leap to unwarranted conclusions before she had any firm evidence.

A glance down at her chronometer. Twenty minutes.

Twenty fraking minutes. How long, exactly, did it take to greet an old friend anyway?

Hadn't he been the one in such a dementedly reckless hurry to go haring after his son anyway?

She swore loudly enough to attract an odd look from a Zabrak Jedi Knight apparently taking a meditative stroll through the Jedi Temple's formal gardens. Their gaze met briefly. He was the first to look away.

For a moment, she thought about just upping and leaving. Damn the fact that she'd been ordered to stick with Carth. She'd also been ordered to keep the Catcher occupied, when it came to it.

And she'd certainly succeeded in doing that, hadn't she? She smiled bitterly.

Like that, she came to a decision – started walking. This whole damn place managed to give her the creeps somehow, as if it was in some way removed from the surrounding of the universe. Over everything else, she wanted to be the hell away from it.

It was as good an excuse as any.

"Yolanda!" Carth's voice called out from behind her.

After a slight hesitation, she stopped. Closed her eyes.

-s-s-

"Anyone can fake a hologram."

Tamar was dryly amused to hear his own words of earlier on echoed almost exactly by Morna Rey as the image of Morrigance flickered out. He glanced across at Jolee; raised an eyebrow and didn't do a very good job of concealing a smirk. Well, old man. You're in charge here. You explain to her . . .

He didn't miss the evil return look he got. Which was quickly replaced by full on charm directed in Admiral Rey's direction. Tamar suspected that Jolee would have had better results trying that charm directly on her flagship.

"Admiral, you have my personal assurance as a Jedi Master that it is entirely genuine. I witnessed the conversion you've just seen personally, and can testify to the hologram's veracity."

"And of course, Jedi have never been known to . . . interpret the truth creatively when it suits them."

Hah. Got you there, old man.

Jolee simply smiled blandly at her. "Is there really that much scope for creative interpretation of anything I've said to you, Admiral? I'm perfectly happy to hand over a copy of the hologram for full forensic analysis if you truly have doubts over its authenticity."

But of course, Tamar, thought, whether or not he had had anything to do with assassinating the Jedi Council was of precisely zero interest to Morna Rey – and by extension, the Republic in general. Jolee knew that. Everyone in the whole damn room probably knew it; even Bastila if she was willing to be honest with herself. It was the past that mattered here. Not his nominal guilt or innocence over present day crimes.

"This changes nothing." Morna Rey's expression was closed, more or less confirming his assessment.

"I agree." If anything, Jolee's smile broadened. "It certainly doesn't change the fact that, whatever your orders may be, Admiral, Jedi Knight Tamar De'Nolo remains in my custody."

Rey sniffed contemptuously. But even that much seemed to count almost as a concession given her previous stance.

Jolee went on. "I would of course eagerly accept your escort as we return to Coruscant. I'm sure all of us would feel much, much safer that way."

Tamar thought he heard a quiet intake of breath from Bastila. Rey herself didn't seem to react at all. Outwardly anyway. Which, again, almost managed to seem like a tacit acceptance from her

The offer made a kind of sense, he supposed. If it had been either Hulas or Morrigance – as seemed likely – who had tipped Admiral Rey off to his presence here on Eres III, then it made it that bit more problematic for either of them to make any further attempts to get at them if Rey was actually accompanying them. But, looking at Rey's expression, it still seemed very much like a matter of getting into bed with a slightly different species of poisonous snake.

And as soon as they were safely outside the protection of Eres III's space . . ..

"And how much safer again will we all feel if I send Marshall Vexil to accompany you on your way as well?" President Dayda interrupted. "Just as further insurance against any mishaps, you understand."

Jolee looked round at her. He blinked in what Tamar assumed was feigned surprise, since it certainly didn't come under his normal range of expressions. "Now that is a very kind offer, President. But really, I wouldn't want to put you to any more trouble than we already regrettably have . . .."

"Did I give you the impression that was an offer, Master Bindo? Because it wasn't. I'm afraid I'm going to have insist here. Anyone who cares to debate the matter can do so at length from their cell while they wait for charges to be brought over the farrago that took place in orbit."

"Well . . . put like that, it would indeed seem churlish of an old man to refuse."

Which is of course what you were fishing for all along, you cunning old . . .. A certain amount of rueful admiration accompanied the thought.

"And if that's all settled . . .?" President Dayda looked to Admiral Rey particularly then, but the Admiral seemed to be too busy looking Vexil's and didn't say anything.

The lack of reaction from her in general made Tamar feel suddenly very, very uneasy indeed.

"Then I would ask you all to leave and allow me to return my attention to more pressing matters of state. I think quite enough time has been wasted on this already."

"Of course, Madam President." Jolee inclined his head. "You have my apologies that events dictated you ever needed to become involved." Then, towards Tamar and Bastila. "Do come along, children."

Tamar had nearly reached the door when President Dayda spoke again.

"No. Not you, Jedi . . . De'Nolo. You, I'd like to speak to a moment longer. In private."

He looked back at her slowly. "Of course." It wouldn't have been entirely true to say that he was surprised by this, but his wariness levels ramped up several notches.

It took several minutes for Dayda to persuade her aides that private meant minus them too. Eventually she all but yelled at them: "Look, if this is Darth Revan, he could have killed everyone in here already without breaking a sweat. The fact that he hasn't suggests he isn't going to."

When they were finally alone, an uncomfortable silence hung on the air, reminiscent of the toxic smoke given off by the xoxin plains.

"I'm assuming here, President, that you knew me once," he said finally.

She appeared to be studying him – a fascinated curiosity that she wasn't quite able to conceal. Her lips twitched near imperceptibly. "You know, I had assumed – like most of the rest of the galaxy – that the Jedi were simply creating a convenient fiction in regard to the extent of your injuries."

"Nobody trusts us much any more, do they?" He let out a rueful exhalation. "The Jedi, I mean."

"And you are surprised by that?" Dayda shook her head, dismissing the Jedi as a subject. "I was watching you through the entire meeting. You noticed the fact I recognised you, I think, but there's no actual recognition, is there? You don't remember me at all."

Tamar hesitated. "I don't remember anything much, and what bit I do remember is not mine to control. If Malak hadn't forced me to recognise the truth, I think I would have gone on living the fiction quite happily."

"Malak." She looked away from him briefly. "How much did it hurt you to cut him down?"

"I . . ." He trailed off, unable to answer, astonished not so much by the question but that she be the one to ask it. "How well did I know you?"

She shrugged, a hint of colour flaring to her cheeks, the politician's façade fracturing. "Not quite that well, I assure you."

He didn't say anything – wasn't sure what the appropriate response was here.

"Though believe me, that wasn't through the lack of a quite embarrassing amount of trying on my part. To be honest, I should be very grateful you don't have any memories here." A half-laugh. "You were either far too noble, or didn't find me attractive enough. One of the two."

"I'm sure that last part can't be true."

One corner of her mouth turned up. "He had a way with words too."

"Really?" This was getting very uncomfortable now, especially given their respective positions here. "I can't seem to stop putting my foot in my mouth."

There was a lengthy and somewhat embarrassed pause.

"And then, of course, I lost my arm and we won the war. Or the battle – of course, that's what it was to you. Just one of many. And you left. All those other worlds in need of saving."

Their eyes met again, and this time there was something sharp and unforgiving in her eyes. "There were times, even up to the point where you . . . died that I wondered if that's what you were still doing. Trying to save everyone in your own particular, remorseless way."

He breathed out. "That excuse doesn't work. There is no possible set of circumstances where that excuse can ever work." No excuse of any kind could ever work at all.

She was back in studying mode, almost clinical. "Don't get me wrong. I wasn't using it to excuse you. Deciding that we needed to be saved. Deciding that you knew best, and would see it through no matter the consequences. There's no sin quite like that kind of pride, is there? Knowing the universe's will, or assuming that you do."

Another pause, then: "Of course, standing next to you, it was easy to believe that you shared the universe's secrets. I don't think even you realised quite how willing people were to follow you pretty much anywhere."

Tamar hesitated. "President . . ."

"Sorin, since we're so familiar." That same twist to her lips again.

He decided to leave off name and title altogether. "I don't think, somehow, that you asked me to stay behind to reminisce with a man whose memories resemble so much scrambled clawk egg."

"Not entirely, no."

But she didn't immediately elaborate. "And it seems to me you're taking quite a risk, going out of your way for me. Surely it would have been much more in Eres's interests to let Admiral Rey have me without all this . . . fuss."

She snorted. "And that's where you're wrong, isn't it. The consequences of me letting the Republic trample all over our independent status the first moment it becomes convenient for them to do so would have been much, much more damaging for us in the long term." The look in her eyes became almost contemplative. "Once, you would have understood that implicitly."

He made a noncommittal noise.

"So, Revan. Sorry, the new name just doesn't seem to fit in my head." She didn't sound at all sorry though. "Do you really want to go to Coruscant?"

"Want is perhaps too . . . enthusiastic a word. But yes, in essence."

Dayda snorted a second time, seemingly exasperated and turned away, walking back round behind the broad expanse of her desk. "Why?"

"You saw the hologram."

She still wasn't looking at him. "Not guilt then?"

The question took him slightly by surprise, but he just shrugged. "I disabused myself of the notion that dying would help anyone but myself. Yes, there's guilt. But frak that. It doesn't make any of it better."

"Really?" She looked up, eyebrow raised enquiringly.

"Really." Really?

"Well then." She folded her arms across her chest. "In that case, I shouldn't keep you from your . . . friends. Is that right? Are they friends?"

"Oh yes. They're friends."

Dayda nodded. She almost seemed surprised by the emphaticness of his response.

He turned away from her, heading for the door. Inwardly he was quite relieved that it was over and hadn't turned out to be anything worse than that. What lay ahead though . . .

"Oh, and one more thing."

Tamar stopped; looked back at her.

"Stop trying to save the galaxy, Revan. I think the galaxy can cope."

-s-s-

It had been a good day, the Catcher reflected. Much had been achieved. A difficult trail had been drawn out to the surface and followed successfully. Here it ended.

One way or another.

The heavy freight door directly opposite him clanked once, then opened with a whirr of concealed machinery. Three figures stepped through it.

He'd been able to sense their approach for several minutes now, so it didn't come remotely as a surprise.

In total, he'd been standing there, on the landing bay's periphery, for almost an hour, watching. Waiting patiently. No one had noticed him. Not even the Defels, who were very good indeed at noticing things.

When it suited him, the Catcher could be extremely hard to spot.

These three though – these three saw him straight away. He felt the quiet flows of misdirection he was weaving break down almost instantly, stripped down and prised apart by someone who knew exactly what to look for.

But then, it would have been ever so slightly disappointing to have it any other way.

The three figures stopped abruptly, staring collectively right at him.

Across the landing bay there was some activity from the ship. That strange ship, which looked on the surface like a standard stock freighter, but was somehow at the same time a gaping sinkhole in which the Force did not appear to exist. From the sound, its main boarding ramp was being lowered.

None of the four of them looked around.

In the circumstances, allowing oneself to be distracted even slightly would have proved . . . imprudent. But if that really was Dustil Onasi, then the Catcher's day was about to become very much more than good.

"You." The voice, cold and emotionlessly female, was identical to the one that he had teased free of the Jedi killer's head.

The Catcher smiled warmly in greeting.

Morrigance's mask reflected it right back at him.