THREE

All he had to do was get the ship safely into hyperspace, and he would have four quiet, solitary days in which he could get himself piss drunk and forget all about Case and the mess that had become. He could forget about his humiliation when she hesitated on his proposal and the sick horror when she reached into his head and made him think something he didn't believe. Like he wasn't even human.

Carth carefully edged away from Coruscant's gravity well and engaged the standard engines to clear him to the hyperspace route. He used to be able to get back to Telos from anywhere in the galaxy without a second thought, but the recent destruction of the surfaces of Dantooine and Taris had subtly altered the gravity dynamics of the sector. He had to calculate the whole route from scratch.

A warning light flashed, and he kicked underneath the console. The red light faded out. Not for the first time that day, Carth wished for the relative luxury of the Ebon Hawk. That had been a nice-sized ship, and she'd handled surprisingly well. The Solar Wind sounded like she'd be fast, but the military-issue hyperspace cruiser was just one step up from a retired fighter shuttle. It was slow, it was old, it and it barely had room for one crew member. Cargo hold big enough for a speeder and bunk, control room and bridge, that was it. It didn't even have rear gun turrets—if he needed to fight someone, it would have to be head-on.

"You are leaving Coruscant space, Solar Wind," the space traffic controller said over his comm. "Good journey."

"Thank you, Coruscant Control. Solar Wind out."

Coordinates programmed, Carth engaged the hyperspace drive and felt the familiar push back into the pilot chair as the stars streaked out ahead of him. A moment later, there were no stars to be seen, only the dim glow that told him he'd hit hyperspace without incident.

A sudden crash in the cargo hold brought him up sharply in his seat. There wasn't even anything hung up on the sidewalls in there, not with the cheap stabilizers the Solar Wind equipped. Nothing should be crashing. He quietly unbuckled the restraints, unholstered his blasters and made his way back to the rear compartment. He listened at the heavy metal door and heard coughing. Someone was aboard.

He kicked open the hatch and trained his blasters on the faint shimmer next to the speeder. "Turn off your stealth generator or I'll shoot," he ordered.

"No, don't shoot, I'm sorry," a familiar voice replied. A second later, the shimmer solidified into a miserable blue Twi'lek crouched under the speeder wing.

"Mission!"

"Yeah, it's me," she replied, staring at the ground. She looked up. "Hey, point those things somewhere else, will ya?"

Carth realized his blasters were still aimed squarely at her forehead. He reholstered them and helped Mission to her feet. "What the hell are you doing here? This is a military assignment!"

"Seemed like fun?" she asked hopefully, a sheepish grin on her face.

Carth glared at her silently, arms crossed. So much for getting piss drunk, he thought.

She finally broke under his scrutiny. "Okay! Okay! You don't have to be such a jerk! I came to your room to ask Case about Dus—something, and I heard you guys arguing. I bribed the Enclave welcome attendant to tell me which ship you'd been assigned, and I sneaked aboard on the speeder while they were loading it. Pretty smart, huh?" She looked ruefully at the speeder behind her. "But this hunk of junk jumped into hyperspace like someone kicked it, and I fell off the speeder. Aren't you supposed to be some big war hero or something? You'd think they'd give you a better ship than this pile of poodoo."

Carth sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I'll go back up to the bridge and take us out of hyperspace, go back to Coruscant. It will make me late, Mission, and I don't like to be late."

"No, don't take me back! I want to go with you!"

"You can't come with me—it's too dangerous, and I won't have time to watch you. Why don't you want to go back to Coruscant? The Council said you could stay there as long as you wanted. I'll be back in a few months, and Case said she'd be back in a couple, too."

Mission studied the ground. When she looked back up, Carth was surprised to see tears brimming in her eyes. "I don't want to get left on Coruscant by myself," she said in a small voice. "Sometimes, people say they're going to come back for you, and they never do." She actually looked like what she was for once, Carth realized—a half-grown girl, scared to death.

Carth couldn't stand to see her crying. He opened his arms, and she buried herself in his jacket and clung to his waist like she was drowning. "Mission," he said quietly, "I thought you didn't need a bunch of old people watching what you're doing."

She sniffed and spoke into his chest. "I know, I don't, but. . .but. . .without Big Z, I just—" She pulled up and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "I've never had anyone who worried about me before, except Big Z, and it just seemed like you and Case did. . .I guess I liked having you around a little."

Carth sighed again. He didn't know what it would be like to be completely alone at fourteen. He shouldn't have assumed that she didn't want arrangements made for her while he and Case were on their assignments.

"I'm sorry, Mission," he said. "I should have talked to you about what we were doing. But you still can't come with me on this trip—it's too dangerous."

"You asked Case to come with you," she challenged.

The back of his neck grew hot. If she knew that, then she knew about—

"And what the heck happened between you two? First you ask her to marry you and then you run away like she turned into a Gamorrean? She cried for an hour after you left, you know."

"She did? But she—" Carth cut off his words. "No, I'm not discussing this with you, Mission. It's none of your business, and that's the end of that."

"But—"

He turned away and walked back up to the bridge without another word. It didn't matter that she was sorry after she mind-raped him—it was the fact that she'd done it to begin with that mattered. Maybe she just made a mistake, Onasi. Like you've never done that.

"Fine! Don't talk to me! I'll just stay back here and drink all the Corellian whiskey you stashed in this locker! Carth? Aw, come on, you don't want me to become a cantina girl, do you? Carth?"

He smiled in spite of himself. Mission was a distraction, at least. He had to figure out what to do with her, though. Maybe he could leave her with some people he still knew on Telos. They'd keep her safe while he was figuring out what the Sith were up to. He pushed down the nagging sense that nothing was safe enough on Telos, that every home was a target for another bombing. It was different now that Saul was dead. He hoped.

It was a dream. He knew because it was always the same dream.

He was standing on the bridge of the Leviathan, but not as he had seen it last, when they were looking for the Star Forge. It was the Leviathan as it had been when he was stationed aboard it, seven years ago. She had been new then. It was an honor to be assigned to her.

He knew, as he walked through the bridge doors, that the ship would be empty. It always was. His boots clanked hollowly as he walked down the hallway. He automatically checked for his blasters even though he knew they wouldn't be on his belt. Officers were required to wear a sidearm while on active duty, but he never had them on the ghost ship.

Suddenly, he was running, desperately looking through the ship, looking for—someone. He could never remember who, or why. But the panic in his chest grew and the air caught in his throat and he knew that he had only a short time to find this person. A terrible tragedy was looming and he could prevent it if he could just find someone, anyone, on this ship.

As he always did in this dream, he came to the door of his quarters. Junior officers bunked two to a room, but he knew no one would be inside. It didn't matter how many times he went through the door, the person he had come to find was never there. But he went through again. Maybe this time would be different.

Instead, as always, smoke poured out of the room. Acrid, rancid, choking smoke that let no light through. He coughed and knew he shouldn't go inside, but there might be some slight chance, some difference in this dream that would let him find—whoever it was. He had to try. Two meters in, he went to his knees, no breath in his lungs, and he knew he would black out and wake up, shivering and sweaty, in his bunk. He always did. Unless this was the time that he died here.

The smoke dimmed before him.

"Carth!" Someone outside the room. There was never anyone on the ship. It was only him. He was the only one left.

Without transition, he was outside the room. It was Case who had called him out. She was dressed in her battle armor and her yellow lightsaber was ignited in her hand. She looked at him, smiled.

"I'll go." she said.

"Who are we looking for?"

She didn't answer, only walked into the room. The light from her saber glowed sickly for just a moment before it was eaten by the smoke. She would die inside. She had gone in to die.

"No! Case! Don't go!"

He tried to go in after her, drag her back out, but the door was suddenly closed and locked. He rattled the handle, pounded on the door. "Case!"

She was gone. He was alone again.

"Case!"

He jerked awake and for a panicked second didn't know where he was. He recognized finally that he was slouched down in the pilot chair of the Solar Wind, feet propped up on the control panel. He didn't think he'd shouted aloud this time. He got to his feet and tried to calm himself by running a routine check on the hyperdrive. He was drenched in sweat and he still had the panicked sense that he'd lost someone. It was the same damn dream.

He'd stopped having the dream when he killed Saul. Four long years of the dream, of waking up terrified, of terrifying his occasional bedmate with his shouts, of never getting a complete night's sleep. Killing Saul hadn't brought him peace, but it had at least stopped the dream. And now it was back, and this time Case died. He knew he wouldn't be able to stop her from going in the room, no matter how many times he had the dream. She would die every night. He leaned his forehead against the panel. He didn't think he could take it again.

"Did you sleep at all, Carth? You look like ronto puke." Mission came into the bridge from the cargo bay. She was balancing two cups of caffa and two protein bars. He took one of each before she dumped it all on the controls.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I was just. . .checking the hyperdrive."

Mission slung herself into the pilot chair and set her caffa down on the throttle gauge. A pointed glance from Carth and she moved it poutingly to the floor. "Are you sure you don't want to crash in the bunk for a while? I'll watch the ship." She looked irritatingly refreshed after an apparent full night's rest.

He shook his head, gulped the hot beverage. "I slept enough. I need to catch up on the news on Telos, anyway. What are you doing today? Besides cleaning the intake vents, of course."

"Aw, Carth, why do I have to do that, anyway? It's so gross! All that spacecrud."

"You snuck on the ship, missy, not me."

She sighed dramatically. "Fine. Waste my talents, see if I care! I could be the next great starpilot, but noooo."

"It builds character. And if you do a good job, I'll teach you how to calibrate the engine throttle."

"Okay, then. But you'd better not go back on your promise!" Mission opened her protein bar and chewed thoughtfully. The viewscreen glowed dimly. "So, tell me about Telos, Carth. What is—was—it like?"

"It's a small colony, only about forty years old. My folks were part of the first group of colonists, so I'm a first-generation Telos native." He let the small talk and caffa clear the last of the dream-induced panic from his brain. He was glad to have someone on board to distract him from the dream's disturbing new manifestation.

"Where were they from?" she asked.

"Voran 5. They were tenant farmers and the Republic was giving land away to anyone who would agree to farm it for at least fifteen years. They jumped at the chance. There's no native intelligent species on Telos, so most of the planet is arable. Lots of fishing, too." Some of his earliest memories were of helping the fishermen unload the boats after the summer storms. The fish were usually bigger than he was. "It was one of the most beautiful planets in the galaxy. A good place to raise a family. I couldn't wait to leave when I was a kid, but I couldn't wait to get back after my last tour of duty."

"That sounds really nice, Carth. I guess—I guess it's not so beautiful now, is it?"

He shook his head, his lips pressed hard together. "No, but I hear they're making good progress on the reconstruction. You know, they thought that it would be uninhabitable after Saul—after the attack. But a few people refused to leave, and then others came back. My home settlement, Marne, was one of those places. Hopefully, in another twenty years, it will be completely repaired."

"Twenty years! That's, like, forever!" Mission exclaimed. "I guess the people must really love it there to spend so much time fixing it. I don't think anyone ever cared that much about Taris. I mean, it was home and everything, but it's not like I wanted to stay there forever." She crumpled her protein wrapper and got to her feet. "I guess I'll go clean out those disgusting intake vents. I should have gone to Kashyyyk—Big Z wouldn't have made me do this."

Carth chuckled. "No, you'd be scrubbing moss off the meeting house. Get to it, girl, and we can tune up the throttle later."

She left the bridge, still grumbling, and Carth downloaded his assignment specs to a datapad. It was about time he got back to work.

Mission tried to keep the excitement off her face the Solar Wind touched down at the Republic spaceport on Telos. Things had been so exciting for so long when they were looking for the Star Forge, and then they'd spent three long months on Coruscant doing nothing much. It was good to be doing something again.

Carth came back to the cargo bay. There wasn't a co-pilot chair on the small ship, so he'd made her sit on the bunk while he took the ship into the atmosphere. Typical overprotective Carth. He'd insisted on bunking on the bridge, but even through the cargo door, he'd woken her up with his shouts the last three nights. She had been pretending like she didn't hear anything, but it worried her. She hoped things would be better when they got to Telos.

Carth had his blasters holstered and his flight jacket on. "Ready to go?" he asked.

"I thought they'd never let us land," she replied, making sure her shock stick was handy. She preferred blades, but thought they'd be a little suspicious strapped across her back. She wasn't a soldier, and she didn't think the locals would take well to an armed Twi'lek wandering their city. So she left them in the speeder.

"They were running some sort of clearance check on the ship," Carth explained. He shook his head. "Security is a lot tighter since I was here last, but they've had a lot of problems in the last year, so I suppose it's to be expected."

They walked down the gangplank and were met immediately by TSF soldiers wielding blaster rifles. "Stop right there," the first ordered.

Irritation showed on Carth's face. "What's the problem?" he asked.

"All visitors are subject to search at the Republic Embassy. You are required to come with us."

"We're not visitors—we're here on official Fleet business. I'm a citizen of Telos and a Fleet officer, and this is not how I expect to be—"

"Captain Onasi!" a heavyset man in Republic colors entered the docking bay. He waved off the police. "I've been expecting you! Come right this way." Mission thought he looked vaguely familiar, but couldn't place him.

"Roland Wann?" Carth asked. "What are you doing here? I thought you were on Manaan."

Mission realized that it was the same official who had been running the embassy on the water planet. She hadn't liked him much then—he was pretty sleazy—and she didn't like him any more as he ushered them into his office.

"Well," he blustered, waving them to chairs, "after you and your Jedi friends blew up my kolto plant, the Diplomacy Consul dismantled our operations there. So I'm running our little outpost here on Telos."

Wann's office was furnished well—very well, Mission thought, for a "little outpost." The walls were paneled in a pale golden wood, and holos of foreign landscapes were placed around the room. One entire wall was covered in a holo of what she assumed was Telos, with different locations highlighted.

"How is the reconstruction going?" Carth asked. Mission saw him glancing surreptitiously around the room. She didn't think he liked the posh surroundings any more than she did.

"Oh, fine, fine. As well as can be expected, I suppose. You know these outland colonies—everyone's so suspicious of government. But we're trying. Now, the Fleet told me you were coming, but didn't say why. Is it pleasure? Or will you be with us for a while?" In spite of his cheerful words, he didn't look happy at the prospect.

Carth smiled tightly. "I don't know how long we'll be on Telos. I'm here to help coordinate the reconstruction with the Fleet, and Mission here is with me."

Wann seemed to notice her for the first time. He leaned across the desk and shook her hand. "Mission, nice to meet you. Such a pretty blue color. But, how old are you, dear? Shouldn't you be in a Republic school?"

Mission sputtered, "I ain't—"

Carth cut in smoothly. "Mission's parents were friends of mine in the Fleet, but they were on Taris when the Sith attacked. She's traveling with me and attending classes remotely."

"Ah, remote learning. It's been a great success. Well, I wish you the best, dear, and I'm sorry to hear about your parents. Terrible thing, that was. Maybe you can be a pilot when you grow up, like Captain Onasi." He was just oozing condescension.

Mission smiled and held her tongue only by imagining impaling Wann with the fancy pen set on his desk. She smiled widely and said breathlessly, "Oh, I don't know, Mr. Wann. That seems like such an important job. I'm just a kid. Maybe you can teach me what you do, though? I'd just love to see what you do all day!"

Carth managed to turn his laugh into a cough. "Er, right. Listen, Roland, we're on our way to Marne. Is there anything else we can help you with?"

Wann jumped to his feet. "Marne? Of course, of course. That was your home colony, I believe. The local government there has been rather—reluctant to accept oversight from the Republic. Well, you'll just need the vaccine before you go—"

"Vaccine? What are you talking about? The Fleet makes sure I'm up on all my immunizations."

Wann pressed a button on his desk. "Santo, would you please send a medtech in here? We'll need two vaccinations." He smiled in what Mission imagined was supposed to be a reassuring way. "Oh, it's nothing to worry about. Since the attack, we've had some problems with the water, and several people have become ill. Some seriously, I'm afraid. But we've together a vaccine that should keep both of you perfectly healthy. I'm afraid it's required before we can allow you out of the Embassy. After all, the Fleet would be very unhappy with us if its favorite war hero came down with the Telosian flu, wouldn't it?"

The medtech came in with a tray of syringes. She smiled brightly. "I hope no one here is afraid of needles!"

Mission hated them. In fact, she felt a little green just looking at the antiseptic tray. But Carth had already shrugged out of his jacket and rolled up his sleeve. She didn't want to look like a baby in front of everyone. She pushed up her own sleeve nervously.

The tech approached Carth first. She was very fair and had bouncy blonde curls. "I just need a tiny bit of information first, Captain. Okay?" Her voice went up perkily at the end of each sentence.

Carth sighed. "Yes, of course. What do you need?"

"Okay. Um, your age?"

"Thirty-nine."

"And your place of birth?"

"I was born outside of Marne on Telos. Look, isn't all of this in my file?"

The tech blushed and looked helplessly at Wann. Wann stepped up and clapped Carth on the shoulder. "Of course, of course. We don't want to delay you, Captain. We just need to give the proper form of the vaccine. It varies depending on how much exposure to Telos you've had. You still own some land here, yes? How long since you've been back?"

"Four years. I was here after the attack, but I haven't been back since then."

Wann looked at the tech and made a quick gesture. Mission looked at Carth sharply, but he was staring impatiently at the ground. The tech pulled up a bottle and put the syringe inside. "Okay, the 420 strain, then. Now, don't worry, Captain, you'll feel just a teeny little prick." She injected the vaccine into his right arm. "See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Carth ignored her, quickly rolling down his sleeve and putting back on his jacket.

The tech turned brightly to Mission. "Oh, my, you're so pretty!" she exclaimed. "You could be one of those dancers!"

Mission glared at her. "We don't all dance, you know." The tech flushed again.

"Mission—" Carth warned.

The tech recovered quickly. "Okay, sweetie. Now, you weren't born here, were you?"

"No, I was born on—"

"Okay, that's all I need. You get the 450 strain. Now, don't move!"

Mission couldn't look. But it really was just a tiny prick, less than a medpac, even. "Is that it?" she asked.

"That's all, sweetie! Now you two can go. You might feel a little tired in about 28 hours, but don't worry about that. You'll need a booster if you stay on Telos for more than two years. Bye-bye!" She swept out of the room.

Carth shook Wann's hand. "Thanks for your help, Roland," he said. "I may be back to see you if the Fleet needs something."

"Oh, anytime, anytime, Captain. You come back whenever you need anything. We'll keep your ship docked here, of course, but it only takes 28 hours to process your leave papers. Just give us warning and we'll have her ready for you to go." After insisting that they come to his office, Wann seemed to be hustling them out as quickly as possible.

The speeder had been unloaded while they were in Wann's office, and they hopped in. Wann gave them a mock salute. "Fly carefully, Captain! And, Mission, you just let me know if you want to join the Republic school here on Telos, okay? I even teach a class or two myself."

"Yeah, right," Mission grumbled. Carth hit the accelerator and they were gone.

Mission stuck out her tongue when they were out of eyeshot. "That guy is seriously slimy, Carth."

Carth nodded. "I'm not sure what was going on there, but it's a little suspicious, if you ask me. Wann's too important to be stuck here on Telos."

"Don't you guys work together or something? You're both Republic, right?"

"No, Fleet and Diplomacy are different wings of the Republic government. We have a long history of disliking each other. I've always thought Diplomacy was too covert for its own good." He frowned. "I don't really know why Diplomacy would be here at all. Telos is part of the Republic, and there's no non-members to negotiate with or worry about."

"Well, at least we don't have to stay there," Mission said. "How long will it take to get to Marne?"

"Only a couple hours," he replied, a little distractedly. He must still be puzzling over the exchange with Wann.

Mission studied the landscape as they flew. There were tall mountains in the distance, jagged, snowcapped, and faintly purple in the late afternoon sun. The sky had slanted to gray, a few thin clouds casting shadows as they skimmed the high grass. It was beautiful, especially in contrast to the land stretching out immediately before them: grassland marked with boulders, gray lakes reflecting the sky, and enormous scars into the earth, like a giant had clawed the ground. No grass grew in the jagged creases, and the earth around it was dead. It smelled faintly of sulfur. They passed what Mission assumed had been a house, or a farm. It was a burned-out shell, ash crumbling into dust around it. She thought she saw a hand, or just the skeletal remains of a hand, before she turned away.

"Oh, Carth," was all she could manage.

He sighed and smiled a little. "It's better, believe it or not. This is the same way I came when we landed after the attack, and nothing was growing here. It was all bare earth and smoke."

"But it's still so empty!"

"It will be, for a while. But maybe we can change that while we're here. We can't do much, but it all helps."

Mission thought about that as they rode in silence. It would really be something to make a difference here. She'd never built anything worth keeping before. She was suddenly distracted by a haze in the distance. She leaned forward and pointed. "Hey, what's that?" she asked.

"What?" Carth squinted ahead. He checked the instruments on the speeder dash. "Mission, did you bring your stealth generator with you?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Activate it."

She was indignant. "Why? Are we being attacked?" She wasn't going to just hide every time they came to a battle.

Carth kept the speeder to its maximum speed, but as they crested a small hill, two speeders flanked them and one came up behind. "Do it now!" he ordered.

Mission flipped the switch on her belt and saw her hands fade out to a shimmer in front of her. She clambered around to the back of the speeder and pulled her shock stick, cursing her lack of blades. She knew what was about to happen—she'd seen speeders get jacked plenty of times on Taris.

As she expected, a fourth speeder pulled out of a crevasse and jumped in front of Carth's vehicle. It slowed, forcing Carth to slow as well. "Hang on!" he shouted, and cut the engines completely. They stalled out with a jerk and the speeder dropped the few feet to the ground. The hijackers, still going full speed, zoomed ahead. Mission was expecting the drop and managed to leap clear. Carth was already on his feet and firing at the rapidly returning speeders.

He caught one of the speeders in its stabilizer and it crashed to the ground, spraying Mission with debris and dirt. The other speeders had stopped out of Carth's blaster range and their occupants ran toward them, their own blasters firing. Mission carefully ran a large perimeter around the approaching group, hoping that Carth could hold them off until she got close enough to help.

Three of the six made the mistake of stopping close together. Without a second's hesitation, Mission lobbed a frag grenade at them, and they disappeared in the smoke. When the haze cleared, all three were dead. She grinned ferociously. Take that, thugs!

The remaining three looked around them wildly. One of them, a human with shocking red hair, shouted, "It's the blue Twi'lek! I told you I saw one!"

Carth took him down with a well-placed shot. The other two humans glanced at each other and lobbed grenades of their own. Carth tried to leap away, but they went off before he could get far. A brilliant flare of light and concussion. Flash grenades. Carth blinked and shook his head, but Mission knew he couldn't see to shoot. She had to stop them before they got to him!

Running at her top speed, she barreled into the legs of the female and dug furiously at the small of her back with her stick. The woman cried out and bucked, but quickly blacked out from the pain. Mission turned to attack the other, but suddenly found herself in the air with a hand around her throat. "Got you, bitch!"

Mission squirmed and tried to pry her attacker's hand from her throat, but he was huge with strength to match. She dangled, couldn't breathe. With a jerk, the man wrenched the stealth generator from her waist. "Think you can hide from me, huh, girlie?" His voice was harsh, like sand. Mission felt herself slipping into blackness.

Carth came up behind the man and put a blaster to the back of his head. "Drop her. And put your hands in the air."

The man hesitated only for a second before dropping Mission roughly to the ground. She lay there, unable to move, gasping for air. The breath burned in her throat. Her attacker put up his hands, but suddenly spun and kicked Carth square in the chest. Carth stumbled backward, losing one of his blasters. "Still can't see too good, eh, Republic?" the man taunted. He reached for the fallen blaster while Carth struggled to his feet.

Mission looked around desperately for something, anything, to use as a weapon. Her eyes caught on a fist-sized rock just next to her head. She grabbed, desperately, and flung it forward. It missed, but caught the man on the ear. He roared and clutched at it, blood coming from between his fingers. A second later, he was flat on his back, a smoking hole in his chest.

Mission collapsed back to the ground, gasping and sobbing. She lay there a moment pushing herself to her feet. She scrubbed her face with her shoulder. She always lost it after a battle.

Carth was ahead of her, checking on the unconscious woman that Mission had shocked. He looked up as she approached, squinting. "You okay, Mission?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She was glad her voice wasn't too shaky. "You?"

He nodded and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. "Flash grenades don't hurt you. What did you do to distract him?"

She grinned. "I'm not bad with a rock."

He returned her grin. "Nice job, kid."

"Not bad yourself, shooting someone when you're half blind. Who the heck are these people, the welcoming committee?" The woman was still face down. Mission rolled her over with the toe of her boot.

The woman was pretty, with long, dark hair tied up into some kind of complicated knot. Young, though older than Mission. She was wearing loose trousers and a tunic. "Gee, she doesn't look like someone who was trying to kill us," Mission remarked.

Carth was rummaging through the big attacker's pack. He held up restraining collars. "They were kidnappers, not assassins."

"Kidnappers?" Mission was surprised. "But they were shooting at us!" She looked down at the woman's still-holstered blaster. It was set to stun. "How did they even know we were here?"

Having taken everything of value from the corpses, Carth made for the speeder and its comm. "I'm not sure they knew who we were—they might just attack anyone coming from the Republic base." He flipped the comm to the base frequency. "Republic base, this is Captain Onasi. We were attacked en route to Marne, five contras down and one injured."

"Copy that, Captain," the base guard replied. "We'll send a sweep crew your way immediately. Do you require medical aid?"

"No, we weren't hurt. The surviving contra is stunned, but she'll be fine."

"Acknowledged, Captain. Please secure the survivor and await our sweep crew. Republic base out."

Carth tossed Mission a stim. "Wake her up."

Mission injected the stim and backed up, shock stick ready. The woman moaned and blinked. She tried to sit up and gasped, clutching at her back. A moment later, she realized where she was and looked up at them warily. "Who are you?"

Carth's blaster was aimed squarely at her head. "We're asking the questions here, sister. Who are you?"

The woman glared and said nothing.

Mission saw the woman surreptitiously reaching toward her blaster. "Sorry, lady," Mission said, holding the missing blaster up by the barrel, "but we're not that stupid."

The woman managed to haul herself to a sitting position. She panted with the effort. "I won't tell you anything, even if you torture me."

Carth rolled his eyes. "The Republic doesn't torture its citizens, even violent ones like you."

The woman sneered at him. "You are stupid if you think that. The Republic has occupied our planet, killed our citizens, and now seeks even to turn our children against us. Sith, Republic, there is no difference to the people of Telos."

"Geez, lady, you're really full of it." Mission couldn't help herself. This woman sounded like the crazies from the Taris Undercity. "Who do you think's paying to rebuild your planet? It ain't you, that's for sure. And if you think--"

The sound of an approaching speeder in the distance interrupted her. The woman's eyes widened in panic and she desperately tried to get to her feet. "I will not be taken!" She reached her right hand around the back of her head.

"No!" Carth leapt for her.

There was a small pop, and the woman collapsed, lips turning blue. She had a small smile on her face. Mission looked on in horror.

Carth bent over the woman's body briefly, then shook his head. "Damn."

"She killed herself?" Mission was incredulous. "But that's crazy! No one was going to hurt her! Jail is probably better than whatever cave she was living in, anyway."

The speeder they had heard pulled up, and two Republic police jumped out. "Captain, Miss Vao," the leader, a Duros, greeted. He looked beyond them to the dead woman. "Another one killed herself, huh? Well, saves us the trouble of interrogating her."

"This has happened before?" Carth asked.

The subordinate police officer shrugged. "Crazy separatists. They blame the Republic for their problems, as if they would be better on their own. They always kill themselves before we can interrogate them."

"If you know that, why don't you stop them before they trigger the poison release?" Carth asked. Mission could see the disapproval on his face and hid a grin as the younger officer wilted. This local cop was no match for Carth's "authority voice."

"Well, sir, I, uh—"

The superior officer broke in briskly. "I'm afraid that's a matter restricted to the Diplomacy Corps, sir. Thank you for your help, and we apologize that your trip was interrupted. Have a safe journey to Marne." The Duros gestured sharply to the younger man, who slung the woman over his shoulder and put her in the back of the speeder. He covered her with a tarp.

Carth's eyes narrowed. "You're done with us?"

The Duros sighed. "Yes, Captain, that is what I said. I know that the Republic Fleet doesn't respect the local police, but we have the jurisdiction here, not you. Please, be on your way."

"Whatever you say, buddy. Come on, Mission. Let's go."

They got back in the speeder and resumed their heading. "What was that all about, Carth?" Mission asked.

Carth frowned. "They didn't take our statements. They should have—they don't even know what happened." He fumbled around behind him and came up with a datapad. One eye on his flying, he scrolled through it.

Mission thought about the dead woman who had attacked them. She was still a little disturbed by the dead smile on the woman's face. She couldn't imagine just killing herself like that. But before the woman died—she almost sounded like she was happy.

Carth frowned at the datapad. "There was something wrong with that entire exchange."

"You mean, they weren't real cops?"

Carth shrugged. "I don't know. They might have been. I don't know a lot about police procedure, but I don't think they were handling that woman's body properly. They didn't make any attempt to preserve evidence."

Mission wasn't too surprised. There had been corruption on every other planet they'd been to—she didn't see why should Telos be any different. "You think Wann's dirty?" he asked.

Carth put the datapad down. "I hope not, Mission, but anything's possible. Maybe we can find out more when we get to Marne."

Mission rummaged around in her sack and pulled out a protein bar. Battles always made her hungry. "I hope you guys have some decent food on this planet," she said, opening the package, "because I'm getting really sick of these protein bars!" A smile cracked Carth's serious expression, and they continued on their way.