Hi everyone...all 3 of you! LOL. Sorry for the long pause between updates. Hope it was worth the wait! Thanks to everyone for the reviews and encouragement.
As usual, LA , Bioware, Obsidian, and pretty much everyone BUT me owns the characters and settings and stuff.
Carth paced the small room with nervous agitation. His scheduled meeting with Dodonna was going on fifteen minutes late. He stopped briefly to rub his eyes and temples: apparently he had more to drink last night than he thought. He tried to smooth out his jacket, but gave up—he hadn't changed since the party—his black dress uniform was rumpled and creased in the wrong places, his medals and insignia hopelessly jumbled together. Beyond his attire, he himself was no better: bleary eyes, pallid skin and a bit more than stubble covered his chin. Two days of little to no sleep seemed to be his limit these days, even with the handful of stims and potful of caffa he had loaded himself with trying to stay on his feet. Mission wasn't far off calling him old anymore, he grudgingly admitted as he raked his hands through his tangled hair. He pressed his personal comm to distract himself from the wait. "Bastila, anything?" he asked eagerly.
"Not since five minutes ago when you last called, Carth. He is still in the cantina. This tracer idea you came up with was brilliant, and the way you tagged him with the track-patch was well played, but it only does so much," she responded.
"Sorry, I didn't have time to pick up the psychic-Force tracking equipment," he said sarcastically.
"Does the Republic have such a device?" Bastila's voice returned full of amazement.
"I am not even gonna answer that, Bastila," he deadpanned back.
"Ah, I see," her answer was flat and toneless.
Carth could detect Jolee snickering in the background. He allowed a smile to spread across his lips.
"Mission should be back any moment now with a detailed report."
"What? She scouted out ahead and you let her?"
"She was wearing her stealth pack, Juhani escorted her half-way and to be honest, Carth, she fits in better here than the rest of us: this is an…interesting…part of town. Reminds me of the Taris Under City, but not as nice."
Carth could hear the revulsion in her words. He wished so badly that he could see her discomfort; it had to be a damn rough and seedy neighborhood to make a Jedi uneasy. Especially one of Basilta's abilities and demeanor
"I am glad Zaalbar agreed to stay behind—we are attracting enough attention as it is."
"I suppose you weren't going to stop her anyway," Carth admitted. "How long has she been gone?"
"Not terribly long," Bastila stalled.
"How long? Do you have a plan if…?"
"Carth, she has proven her abilities time and time again. I trust her."
"I do not trust Canderous or HK. That droid can scan life forms through a stealth field, Bastila. Did any of you stop to think about that before she ran off?" Silence was his answer. "Bastila!"
"Here they are…" Bastila responded after too much time for Carth's liking. Carth relaxed at the news; he hadn't realized how tense he had gotten. There was a brief pause. "She says Canderous is still in the cantina, sitting in the back; remarkably, he is nowhere near the dancing stage," Bastila commented with genuine astonishment in her tone. "He seems to be waiting; HK is with him. Mission believes there is something wrong with HK's energy cells; they may have been damaged when Yuthura disabled him, and energy cells are the only parts we do not have on-hand for his repair. He is going into stand-by quite often."
"That's a lucky break—HK would have detected her otherwise, you know that. Try to keep her from doing that again—just rely on the tracking equipment, and keep your distance!"
"Okay, dad!" Mission called into the comm derisively. "Gonna lock me in my room with no dinner?" she chided.
"No shopping…" he said with a smile.
"Hey! No fair!" she cried back.
"I hear the Admiral…looks like my meeting will finally get underway," he said as he looked towards the hall; he had detected footsteps. "But call me as soon as something happens. Don't stand on ceremony—I will interrupt my meeting. Onasi out," he said pressing his comm. He stiffened to attention and snapped a salute when Forn Dodonna entered the room.
"Carth, sorry to keep you waiting…at ease," she said with a familiarity that comes from years of command. "Come in please," she called behind her as she went into her office. "I have to say, Captain," she said sternly, tossing herself into the ornate chair behind her enormous desk, "you look like hell."
"Yes Sir, sorry Sir," he answered sharply.
"No need to apologize…take a seat," she continued. "You look about how I feel. I was just in a meeting with the brass and some of those Jedi from the Council. We've been at it all night, and we have little in the way of plans or strategy to show for it." Carth relaxed into his chair. "Well, other than to find and eliminate the target, of course."
"WHAT!" Carth bellowed as he bolted from his seat. Dodonna looked up at him in surprise. "You cannot be serious! You are talking about a hero of the Republic here, twice over!"
"And she has now turned against us, again. Believe me, Carth, I appreciate what Revan did for us with the Mandalorian Wars and the Star Forge, but there seems to be a pattern here; we cannot afford to allow this to play through. To that end, the Republic and the Jedi are in full agreement: We must remove this threat. The Republic is even more desperate today than it was after the Mandalorian Wars—it would not take much effort to overwhelm us completely this time. The Sith armada is still a massive power to contend with; with Revan at the helm…"
"But we can capture her, turn her back to our side; you see how effective she is. I thought the Jedi were against killing prisoners anyway," Carth pleaded. His throbbing hangover made it difficult to think, though he doubted he could have said anything differently otherwise given what he had just heard. How could they turn against their champion so quickly?
"They tried that before, and see how well it worked out. It would be a dream come true to have her on our side, but it is better to have her fight for no one rather than gamble on convincing her a second time. I shouldn't even be telling you this, Carth, it's a need-to-know basis and frankly, the brass doesn't want you to know. This information is confidential; it is not to leave this room, that's an order."
"Sir," he barked as he offered another crisp salute. His nostrils flared and his lips twitched.
"Carth, stand down, don't be so formal with me. I gave you that information as a friend, not as your commanding officer. They want this kept as secret as possible, to catch the Sith off guard. Having you and your team sniffing around will alert them to our operations: you are highly visible and recognizable these days."
"But they do not seem to care about…"
"And neither should you, Carth. There have been…rumors, Captain, and your behavior seems to confirm them. I cannot comment on whether this type of relationship is appropriate, I know the Jedi have certain rules, and we cannot jeopardize our working agreement with the Council; nor can we allow someone with so great an emotional investment to risk the mission or anything else. Am I clear?" Carth remained perfectly still, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes focused on the back wall of the office. "Good, now on to the agenda for this meeting. First, I want a full report from you on last night's attack. I've gotten sketchy details, but nothing solid."
"Sir, there is not much to tell," Carth said, his tone direct and short. "Approximately 25 minutes after the start of the function, the Jedi escort left and we came under attack from a small contingent of Sith."
"Yes, the Jedi were ordered to reconvene with Republic soldiers posted at the dining hall. Details, Captain. I know this already. We have on record here a dozen to maybe fifteen troopers, some half a dozen to ten dark Jedi, Yuthura Ban, and Revan. They took control rather quickly; was there no resistance?"
"We were placed in stasis prior to the arrival of the troopers. There were seven spies within the ranks of the Senate, many of them with Jedi powers," Carth explained. "And we had no weapons. We were defenseless and caught completely off guard."
"Ah, the spies—we had no intelligence on them," Dodonna said out loud as she took notes.
"But you knew about the others?" Carth asked training his gaze on her.
"Not Revan of course or any other names, really…"
"I think you need to back up a little, Admiral. Are you telling me you knew about this plot in advance?" Carth leaned on the desk, his eyes locked on Dodonna's.
"Stand down, soldier," she commanded. Carth did not budge. She leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath. "Two days ago, we captured a couple of Sith troopers. Under interrogation, we learned of their plans to stage an attack on the ceremonial dinner held in your honor. We contacted the Jedi and worked together to form a plan based on the intelligence we gathered. We sent guards to the hotel, but you were not there…"
"Okay, that explains why you rounded us up. Why didn't you tell us the reason? We would have fully cooperated, you know that," Carth growled.
"It was determined that the less anyone knew, the better in order to subdue these rebels. We planned a counterattack centered around the information provided for the dining hall."
"You used us as bait?" Carth shouted with disbelief. "You took our weapons and told us nothing of the danger you placed us in? You set us up!"
"Captain, we had ample security provided at the hall where we were told the attack would…"
"I cannot believe this! Admiral, don't you think it is just a little too convenient that a couple of Sith troopers with info about an attack happen to get captured the day before the event? They claim to have been here for some time plotting, and I would have to agree—this was too well orchestrated; their plan went through flawlessly."
"So you believe Revan was in contact with them, coordinating this stunt?"
"I did not say that! Yuthura said they had a slight change in plans: I assume they originally meant to humiliate us all, including Jiara. But, somehow, Revan came to be with them. I am not sure, but it is not right to me."
"I see, so it is possible that they had intended the assault on the dinner up until the last moment and Revan had them switch venues?"
"Possibly," Carth said weakly. "But I don't think so—no, the dinner would have been too ambitious for that small a group: hundreds of people would have been in attendance including Jedi Council members, hundreds more tending to the guests, not to mention the news coverage," Carth said, his voice becoming more animated and agitated. "No Admiral, you were fed false information all along, you cannot try to slip away from the fact that they duped the Republic completely!" Carth yelled.
"Yes, in retrospect…" she began.
"You put my life, the lives of my crew, the lives of the entire Senate and diplomatic corps in danger just to capture a handful of Sith! What was the Republic thinking?" Carth paced the room for a few steps, then turned back to Dodonna with a look of shock and realization. "This was more than that, wasn't it? This was going to be a grand spectacle, thwarting a Sith plot live on the holo-vid reports." Forn remained silent as she looked down at her desk. Carth turned his face up to the ceiling as if he were searching for the right words. "Since when does looking good come before doing good? I thought the Republic stood for something—justice, integrity…I don't know. But I do know if my life isn't worth anything beyond a good holocron entry…." he yelled as he reached for his medals. He ripped away his insignia and ribbons, then slammed them on the desk and pushed them towards Dodonna, a spine-chilling scrape and squeal echoing in the room as deep gouges formed in the mirror-polished desk top. "I resign my commission."
Forn Dodonna studied the pile of medals for a moment, then slid them back towards Carth. "Are you sure you want to do this, Admiral?"