Rian:
With a squeak, I reflected the war droid's blast back at it with my lightsaber. So I wasn't dead, I still felt like I wanted to die. Every sudden movement I made caused the contents of my stomach to slosh around erratically. Whoever said that blue ale was mild must not have drunk a case by their lonesome.
Bastila enveloped the droid in a whirlwind of Force energy and slashed at it with her double sided lightsaber while Carth riddled it with blaster holes. And Bastila had made it sound so difficult. I snorted as I wiped cold sweat from my brow.
"How are you feeling?" Bastila made a tentative reach for my forehead with her hand.
I swiped her palm away. "I'm fine," I insisted.
The look of shock on her face was quickly replaced with a tight-lipped rage. If what the masters said about our bond was true, I would always be able to vaguely sense her immediate emotions. I think being able to sense those things about Bastila had made me even more irate to her, if that was possible.
The day those bottled tight emotions explode, she will be very useful.
"Yeah, whatever," I muttered.
"What are you grumbling about?" Carth asked.
I froze. Relief flooded through me when I realized that it was concern in his eyes and not more suspicion.
It was beginning to seem like it was always coming down to either telling the truth or lying through my teeth with Carth. I think I had actually gone with truth every time. I chuckled inwardly, not that he believed the truth any more than he would if I told him that in a past life I had been a Wookiee call girl that tap-danced for Exar Kun.
I sighed. "I don't know."
Carth peered nervously over his shoulder at Bastila before he turned back to me. "I think Bastila might have been right about you needing more time," he spoke quietly.
"There is no 'think' in the matter, Onasi," I mumbled. "I feel like crap."
"Then why didn't you admit to it in the first place?"
So Bastila hadn't been as oblivious to our conversation as I had hoped. There she was with her damn nose in the air like I was sullying her precious little ruins. I groaned and kneaded my temples. Bastila had better be careful, I thought, if she comes too close to me I might puke on her pretty little Jedi boots.
"Bastila, can you do me a favor and explore the rest of this room while I tend to this?" Carth asked.
Bastila sniffed loudly, but I heard her walk away.
"Blue ale could not have done this," Carth decided. "I saw what you were like with too many Antakarian Fire Dancers in you on Taris. You didn't take anything else while you were in the med bay, did you?"
"I've been having nightmares lately."
"So what did you take?"
"Who said I took anything?"
"Rian—"
"I didn't take anything," I hissed. "Ever since we rescued Bastila things have just gotten worse."
"Worse?" Carth asked. "From what?"
I chuckled. "You think that if I understood or could control my nightmares I'd drink as much as I do?"
Carth grinned. "Actually, yeah, I do. You just have an excuse now."
"Just forget I said anything," I grumbled.
Funny, I felt my eyes drop to my feet.
"Hey, look at me."
Carth gripped my chin firmly between his thumb and forefinger. I forced myself to look him in the eye. I had never really paid much attention to them before, probably because if I did, they'd scare the hell out of me. Deep pools of shadow, what made him wear hurt so easily?
"If something's bothering you, talk to me," he urged. "Or talk to someone, hell, talk to the droid."
"Not a chance, pal," I snorted. "I wouldn't be surprised if that droid started broadcasting all my dirty little secrets over the holo-net. There's something snarky about that tin can."
"Fine. Don't talk to the droid." Carth laughed, but turned serious again. "But I mean it. It's not good to keep things bottled up inside."
"Sounds like pretty reasonable advice," I said slowly. "So why don't you follow it?"
"Don't start this again," Carth groaned. "Look, I've dealt with my demons, but I did it the hard way. You should learn from my mistakes."
"But if you don't tell me about them, then I can't." I stuck my tongue out.
"Don't push your luck, sister."
There. He was smiling again. He might have actually been attractive if he didn't constantly look as though the weight of the galaxy was hoisted on his nicely toned shoulders. I definitely needed another drink. I think I still had some gin in my water canteen.
The resonant sound that Bastila's boots produced as she walked towards us rattled in my brain. Maybe a gin kolto cocktail would be better. Bastila stopped abruptly a yard or so away from us and cleared her throat.
"I found something," she said.
"Is it something for my headache?" I muttered.
"Do either of you have a datapad?" Bastila asked.
"You can use mine," Carth offered. "What do you need it for?"
"The war droids were guarding a port of some sort," Bastila explained. "It appears to be the size of a datapad. There's probably information there."
Information, my decaying liver! It was a damn test, in an alien language no less.
Bastila's expression, though still haughty, had drooped at this realization. "Do you understand any of this?" she asked.
"Why would I?" I crossed my arms as I peered over the console.
The question was scrawled across the top and fortunately it was multiple choice. All the possible answers were in a smaller font beneath the header. So we could get lucky and guess.
Or you could pick the wrong answer and die.
Damn singsong voice in the back of my head. I wished I could identify it. I sighed. The only thing I could do was pick one randomly.
"You look troubled," Bastila noted.
"There are four different choices." I shook my head. "The only thing that I'm certain of is that if you pick the wrong answer, you're not going to live to realize it."
"Perhaps that's what happened to Nemo," Bastila mused. "Do you think that we could discover which answer he selected to help narrow it down?"
"How do we do that?" I asked.
Bastila frowned. "I don't know."
"What if I just pick one?" Carth suggested. "I might get lucky and if not, well, I'm not that important."
"Don't be stupid," I snapped.
"That is the most illogical thing I've ever heard, Carth Onasi," Bastila chided. "There are only three of us. There are four potential answers. Hypothetically, if we all chose, one after the other, we could all still pick wrong answers and die."
"So you think we should just stand around and talk about it?" Carth demanded. "That's not going to accomplish anything."
"And neither is throwing your life away foolishly," Bastila hissed.
"How hard could it be?" Carth rationalized as he brought his finger down towards the first answer.
Wrong.
"Carth, don't!" Without thinking, I smashed my own finger down on the answer second from the bottom.
Frozen, looking at Carth's aghast face, the only thing I was aware of was Bastila's rising blood pressure.
The grinding sound of stone against stone sounded in the distance as the second door slid open.
Good job.
"You did it." Bastila nodded, a practiced attempt to hide her rattled nerves.
I unscrewed the lid to my canteen and took a deep slug. I grimaced. Somebody had replaced my gin with water. Bastila shot me a knowing smile. Damn her.
"We should probably go see what's in the next room," I muttered.
"Yes," Bastila said. "Let's."
The Jedi turned on her heels and hurried towards the room on the other side of the ruins. I went to follow, but Carth caught my arm.
"How did you know which one was the right answer?" he asked.
I shrugged. "I didn't. But I figured your choice had to be wrong."
"I'm going to forgive you that only because you saved my life," Carth grumbled. "Let's go see what Bastila's found."
"What Bastila's found only because I put my neck on the line," I interjected.
"Like an idiot, I might add," Carth countered.
"Only to save your idiot neck."
"Point taken."
Bastila failed to greet us at the unexplored tomb's door. I assumed she was still safe because I hadn't heard any girly shrieks of Jedi rhetoric. A light coming from the center of the room cast the room in blue-violet shadows. Not a light, a holographic globe.
Bastila had waited for us, silently awestricken. I cleared my throat and she closed her mouth.
"What is this?" Carth asked.
"This must be what Revan and Malak found when they entered this temple," Bastila murmured. "This must be where their journey down the Dark Side began."
"I don't get it." I stretched my underused muscles. "Is this supposed to be the Star Forge?"
"This is a map," Bastila realized. "Some sort of intergalactic navigational chart. Revan and Malak must have used this to lead them to the Star Forge. We could use this map to follow their path and find the Star Forge ourselves. But we must be wary; they may have laid traps or concealed what they found."
"So we still don't know what the Star Forge is, huh?" I asked.
"No, but Revan and Malak were very interested in finding it," Bastila replied. "It must be a tool of some type, or maybe a weapon. Perhaps the council can tell us more. But I think this map might be the key to finding the Star Forge, whatever it is."
Bastila circled the map closely and pointed at a dot in the grid.
"See this world here? This looks like Korriban, a Sith world." Her finger trailed to the next visible planet. "And if that's Korriban, then this is Kashyyyk… and that, Tatooine. And here's Manaan. But there are pieces missing. Incomplete hyperspace coordinates, corrupted data and there doesn't seem to be anything indicating where the Star Forge itself might be."
"So maybe the worlds we're looking at would have more clues." I shrugged.
"I was thinking that too," Bastila replied. "This map can't take us to the Star Forge, but I know that Revan and Malak visited Korriban at least once. Perhaps they discovered something more there. They may have found something on each of the other worlds that completed this map. Maybe if we find all the pieces they will lead us to the Star Forge… And some way to destroy it."
"That sounds like quite the supposition." Carth crossed his arms. "What if you're wrong?"
Bastila placed a hand on her hip. "What if I'm right?" she asked.
Carth glowered, but backed down.
"We can't ignore this," Bastila continued grimly. "Finding the Star Forge might very well be the key to defeating the Sith. We must inform the council of what we have discovered. They must decide our next course of action, though I suspect our task has only just begun."
"Can it begin after I get a quick nap back at the Ebon Hawk?" I asked.
Carth chuckled. Bastila scowled.
