"--it with Sleeping Beauty there? You said you healed her!" Damn that crone. Told 'em she was bad news, but does anybody ever listen to Atton Rand? 'Course not. Not that a bunch 'a uppity Jedi would even think of throwing a 'harmless' old wench out. Oh no, they've just gotta wait until--
"I have done what I can for her physical injuries, yes. But you of all people should know that damage to the psyche is far more dangerous and difficult to tend to." If only I had spent more time on medical skills and less on the chronicles I might be able to do more. It is difficult to see her so...
"So we're just gonna hang around and pray to the almighty Force she plans on waking up?" Force this, Force that, damned Force is what got us in this mess in the first place! Now if I was the one in charge of this shindig... no, it won't be the uniforms, well, not just the...
"I don't see you coming up with brilliant ideas!" Loud-mouthed lout. Can't he see that we're all just as worried as he is? Just because he likes to leer at the Exile when he thinks she's not...
"The General is strong. I am sure that once--" It is Malachor V, all over again. Her, falling, is still in my nightmares. I cannot...
Gah. Soft-minded fools. Their precious Exile will either wake up, or she won't. All the hand-wringing in the galaxy won't...
I pledged to give my life for her, but even in that I have failed...
What was she thinking running off on her own like that? Told her I'd save her. Didn't even give me a chance...
Should've left days ago. Clans still need to be regrouped. Sure not getting done with me here on my...
Don't know how she does it. How does she make people, well, love her, just like that? I mean, even Atton...
A dark place...
I wish...
If I could...
There must...
"Not so loud, please!" were words Reni's lips intended; what emerged was an inarticulate groan.
Alright, so "whimper" might be more accurate an adjective.
"Observation: The Master appears to have repaired sufficiently for higher brain function. Clarification: There is ninety-eight-point-five percent probability that the small expulsion of air three-point-seven seconds ago was the Master's attempt to communicate displeasure at being woken up by a gaggle of noisy meatbags. Commentary: Such ineffectual behavior is typical of the meatbag predisposition for wallowing, yet another example of the inferiority of organic--"
"And the other one-point-five?"
"Hey! Who invited you to barge in here?"
"Elaboration: It is one-point-five percent probable that the Master wished termination of the causers of the Master's discomfort. Eager extrapolation: This would include every meatbag currently in the room. The ensuing carnage would alert the remaining meatbags on the ship, who would then rush in, who would then fall within stated parameters, who would then too be terminated. Reluctant admission: The Master has ordered me never to act on projections that may be wishful thinking on my part."
"Heh. I can see why she keeps you around, rust-bucket."
"How can you joke at a time like this, you Mandalorian schu--"
"Please." This time the "expulsion of air" managed to imitate a word, or so her own ears claimed.
"Master Renani?" A large hand felt her forehead. "Are you in pain?"
Cool tendrils of Force washed in, shoring the Exile with sufficient strength to peel off the number of voices in her head to one. "Thanks," she whispered, then began the unenviable task of prying open gummy, heavy eyelids.
A number of blinks were required to render the nearest blob to something resembling blond locks framing concerned blue orbs. If the visage should hold significance, however, no-one was informing her of it.
Darker blobs wobbled into peripheral view. "Hey, angel. Done with your beauty sleep?"
Mical, the word swam into mind. Another infusion of warmth later, Atton.
The scuffle of feet filtered in, accompanied by vague redistribution of light and shadow.
"I felt--"
"Is the General--"
The voices fell silent in the same simultaneity with which they had spoken.
Events floated lazily about, random as any school of daggert but for a niggling pattern as slippery as said fish. A few more droplet-words plinked on distended consciousness, each urging expression.
"Mand'l're?" Her tongue fumbled over itself. "M'rra? Drr--"
"We're all looking better than you, Jedi. Just get some rest, huh? Well, some more rest."
She had not much choice in the matter, as no amount of willpower prevented sight from narrowing to a vanishing slit.
The universe was vastly more cooperative the second time it dropped by. While the transition was still more fuzzy than usual, the Exile did manage to greet a solid, sane world. Silence was interrupted only by stock medbay bleeps; lighting was easy on out-of-practice eyes. In fact, she felt close to hundred percent of the extraordinary wellbeing that was the one thing the Force did not begrudge its servants -- weak tools being worse than none in games the stakes of which it played.
The only thoughts echoing an already-crowded head were her own, but it was still with the caution of the once-burned that the Jedi probed the aether, seeking to place herself in present reality. Moments later, she swung to feet in the unhesitant manner of those who took health for granted. A small smile chased around her lips.
"Redundant observation: Master, you have regained motor control! I do hope that none of your functionality has been impaired by the eleven-point-eight days you have remained offline. Derisive report: The Master's meatbags have demonstrated considerably sub-standard functionality (even for meatbags) in the interim. It is my fond wish to never repeat the experience."
"Thanks for the get-well card, HK. And don't call my friends 'my' meatbags."
"Supplication: But, Master! You have already objected to 'the Master's meatbag slaves'."
"Just call them my friends, okay?"
"Protest: But Master, the number of beings the Master assigns to 'friend' category makes such a classification completely ineffectual. Furthermore, the on-board meatbags have evinced a level of loyalty most unusual in meatbags of the none-slave variety. My logic circui--"
"Alright, alright! Don't wake the ship up."
"Observation: The Ebon Hawk, while superior in design to the meatbag physiology, lacks the ability to be 'woken up'."
"You are a protocol droid, HK. Or was that a joke peeking out?"
"Statement: Master, it is an established fact that I am a protocol droid of superior design, amongst numerous, to put it delicately, 'other' skills. My colloquy circuits have needless to say parsed the sentence as the paraphrase 'don't wake the ship's meatbag slaves up'. However, my contextual circuits failed to understand why the Master, as a meatbag of improved logical ability (such as meatbags go), is not currently rallying the Master's meatbags to more productive activities than the copious amounts of moping and sulking of late."
A chuckle escaped despite oft-broken resolutions not to encourage the assassin droid's... esoteric sense of humor. "What would I do without you, HK?"
"Projection: Eighty-percent likelihood dictates that the current Master would not have been alive to concern the Master's meatbag self about the loss, Master."
"A whole twenty-percent chance of surviving on my own, HK? I'm flattered. Okay, go do whatever it is you do on your down-time, provided it does not include unnecessary violence. And no, we are not going over the definition of 'unnecessary violence' yet again. And don't wake the crew up. They have more than earned their rest."
"Resignation: Yes, Master."
Reni followed the droid out on equally silent feet. The corridor was too at "nighttime" illumination, replete with Peregrine renditions of everyday objects. She thought she caught a flash of silver vanishing around a corner, identified a familiar subdued presence, but it may well have been imagination or, otherwise, the other's decision to elude. Shrugging, she set about re-orientating herself.
Whimsy took the Exile round the scenic route. More than once she found herself trailing fingers over scuff marks and instrument panels, as if nostalgia could be absorbed through pores in skin. The faithful vessel had witnessed much; no Force required to deduce it would see much more. Kr-- for a while she had been tempted to take off on it and bury herself in some remote, Force-free planet, but recognized it now as a passing fancy. Rant, rail, or whine, the former General could no more easily give up a sense of purpose than she could food and air.
That realization, more than renewed connection to the Force, more than assurances from friends and foe alike, told the Exile she had healed from the first destruction of Malachor V -- inasmuch as a wound of that magnitude could be soothed.
It was not the only skeleton-closet she put to order in the course of otherwise aimless meanderings. Cockpit, where echoes of Atton's laughter over her ignorance of card games, or actually any games, lingered. Security room, the least lived-in for the precise reason of for-now-quiescent banks of monitors. Machine room, the faint smell of charde; the creamy cool taste would forever be Mira's pouring out bits of personal history together with the unfamiliar beverage. Main hold, where three heads -- gold, silver, black -- had stood for hours pondering the fate of a misleadingly compressed galaxy, the holo-chart being barely her height in diameter. The bristly sphere that had presided over their "amateurish dabbling" was nowhere to be found, a fact for some concern.
The Exile pressed on, avoiding the dormitories lest she inadvertently rouse those whose myriad concerns and expectations she often felt ill-equipped to do well by, and particularly right now. Cargo hold, a personal refuge no stranger would suspect from a first glance of the barren, impersonal space. Engine room, where T3-M4 greeted her with a barrage of soft, concerned bleeps that brought back hours of peace immersed in the logical beauty of its circuits, basked by the pulse of an online hyperdrive.
Hangar-cum-work-area, Bao-Dur's domain amongst droids and wiring and parts-of-ship that she had never even imagined existed -- all those things he so loved, and understood better than anyone she had ever known. A sanctuary, where they had spent amicable hours tinkering over this or that, teacher and student refreshingly reversed, while a small spherical extension of the tech's will bobbed (anxiously, the Exile had always thought) between them.
The tech had laughed, once, when she confessed to leeching off his calm presence, and responded with a simple, "Anytime, General." The unadorned support had brought tears to her eyes then, threatened to do so now.
"You really never do sleep, do you?"
Bao-Dur dropped a multitool -- a mind-boggling event in itself. "General!" A frown drew his brows. "You should not be up."
"Actually, according to HK's 'brief' summary of events, I should have been up eleven days ago."
"Malachor V has never been kind to either of us. You, most of all."
The Exile came to perch at the edge of his workbench, a niche as comforting as an old blanket. "Don't belittle your pain, old friend," Reni said softly. "How are you?"
"Worrying about the troops again?" He shook his head, voice rich with mirth, and the wistful drift of her thoughts sidled to wondering, how could others miss the sheer detail in what they termed "bland"?
"We are the ones worried about you, General."
"You are all much more than 'troops' to me, as you well know. And I'm fine. Now stop avoiding the subject."
He studied her carefully, extended a probe of a tool he was still not accustomed to having. She allowed him enough access to her bodily workings to prove the verity of "fine" before gently batting him away.
Did Iridonians blush? There was no telling in the present light. "Sorry. That was rude of me, General."
"It was a skillful -- and kind -- use of the Force, actually," Reni praised. She let the subsequent silence repeat her original question.
"You are incredibly persistent, General, but you know that." She waited patiently through his self-examination. "Malachor V was... destroyed."
She nodded, suffering a pang but no great surprise.
"I... instructed my Remote to activate the mass-shadow generator. We do not know what happened, but it" -- wry humor shielding pain -- "evidently succeeded. With the Ebon Hawk as it was, Mira and you missing, nobody realized that G0-T0 had gone missing as well. What happened down there... I can only speculate."
The Exile did not speak, but laid a hand on his arm, soldiers commiserating fallen comrades.
"I'll be fine, General. Only a droid, after all, huh. Guess I'll be like everyone else now without that floating lump hanging around."
"You don't have to pretend to me, Bao-Dur. I, I miss it too."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Throughout the War, throughout this journey, you have always been with me. Bao-Dur and his Sphere. Guess I started assuming it was a fundament of the universe."
The bud of a smile rewarded her. "Didn't think you paid attention to techs, back then."
"You were the best. Still are. You didn't think it was easy, keeping a prize tech out of the greedy clutches of all those other Generals and Admirals, did you?"
The smile bloomed, and Reni answered in kind.
"So, General," he picked up after a companionable silence. "You have made your plans." It was not a question.
The Exile bowed her head, the inevitable settling around her shoulders like Salta's globe.
"We don't have to talk about it right now," filled her with immense gratitude. "All I ask is that you take me with you."
Reni could not meet his eyes, amber orbs that had looked upon her at her worst, her best -- and some incredible how never lost faith. "Bao-Dur..."
"You cannot deny that you will need help, wherever your journey takes you. And I have come too far to be able to rest without seeing it, you, through, General."
"I cannot justify taking you int--"
"Please. I have never asked anything of you, General. I ask this."
The trump card. How could she not...? How could she...? Reni pressed hands to temples, as if that had ever been effectual at baffling decisions. Not now. She knew that a damning (either way) choice would eventually be made, just not... now.
"I, I will consider it, Bao-Dur."
He sighed, but granted her temporary reprieve.
The silence was deafening. And then it was not.
"You can't just dump u--"
"But, but I thou--"
"Is this wise, Mas--"
"Why did I think you hero-typ--"
General, Exile, Jedi Master, and whatever else was sewn on her robes of the day, held up a warding hand. By some miracle, it halted the deluge.
Words, words. Words had ever been her allies, her enemies, her curse. How could words "sorrow", "joy", "regret", "pride" -- as ephemeral as the breath that speaks them -- hope to front for the agonies behind?
Renani understood very well why the Jedi eschewed strong emotion. Contrary to popular opinion, they were not exceptions in that regard. Every leader, military or civilian, learns the hard way the lesser evil in feeling too much versus too little. Every teacher, every parent lives a hundred moments where emotional distance is or should be applied. Every person draws around them veils of unfeeling to lubricate day-to-day interaction.
Of course, the "try" is often irreconcilably different from the "do".
"You all know that what the universe wants of us is rarely what we want of the universe, my friends." Reni glanced around the not-so-small circle they made around the deactivated holo-galaxy, reading dissension from even the Miraluka's typically overly-acquiescent face. They were not going to make this easy on her... not that she deserved it, after having used their talents so assumingly for so long.
"Atton," she turned to one of the earliest faces on the journey. "You have much to learn of being a Jedi, but in turn, the Jedi could learn much from you."
"Are you kidding? You want me to become one of those Code-spouting, robe-wearing monks? I said I'd help you, but I'm drawing a line right there, sister!"
"I'm not looking to force anything on you, Atton, certainly not the Jedi Order. Just pointing out that there are a lot of lost souls" -- like you went unspoken -- "who could use your help. You know what it's like out there for Force sensitives. Why not help the new Order out? You'll get a say in the future of the Jedi, keep them from making the same mistakes by becoming too insular. You could teach them to play Paza'ak."
"What, Atton Rand and a bunch of snot-nosed, whiny padawans?"
"If you want to do something else, I'll help however I can. I, I'm sorry I can't leave you the Ebon Hawk..."
"You'll need a pilot for her, then."
They both knew that Reni was a qualified pilot. She bowed her head, but injected a note of finality. "I'm sorry, Atton." In a weak attempt to soften the rejection, "Besides, you'd hate where we're going. I doubt they've even heard of Paza'ak there, either."
His silent glower warned her that they were far from done, but promised that the continuation would be less public. One sort-of down, a legion more to go. Breakfast caffa yet cycled with the air, but the memory of it had already telescoped to unrecallably long ago.
"Mira, you have always found what others could not. Perhaps you could find a place with the Jedi? There are many out there to be found, people like you whom the old Order overlooked, or considered too old to train."
"I, well, I suppose I've got nothing better to do." It was as much as a concession as the bounty-hunter was likely to make, but Reni thought -- hoped -- she'd detected a glimmer of interest in a goal beyond the next credit-chip, a seedling of resolve to carry it out. May your shade forgive me, if by this I have signed your death warrant...
She swallowed, but there was nothing to be done but press on.
"Mical, the new Order will need a new Council. Now that the Jedi Masters are... gone, few remain with the knowledge and dedication to gather a new one. You told me once that the Jedi are important players in the galaxy, my friend. Will you not help rebuilding them?"
"I, I am flattered that you think me capable," the Disciple wore a look of utter surprise. "But I am no a leader, Master Renani. My place is--"
"Wherever you choose it to be," Reni interrupted with a smile against the sting. "I am no leader either -- no, hear me out. If you call me a leader, then a leader is one who sees what is necessary and carries it out. If you so choose, Mical, you will be a great leader."
"I, I..." His throat bobbed, hard. "I will do as you ask."
"No, not for me! You have spent many years studying the Jedi, from far more aspects than others have had the foresight or ability to, Disciple. You saw how they succeeded, how they failed. What do you believe you should do?"
He did not want to lead, that she saw. It was what gave her confidence that he would strive for the ideals that many a Council member had thought to find in formulae, and in so doing prove an inspiration to all.
"I think... I begin to see why you dislike being called 'Master'."
Reni flashed him a smile for the rare show of humor.
"Visas. You are free, you know. You have been free for a very long time. Darth Nihilus never truly caged you, though he tried to make you believe it. It is time to use that freedom for yourself. Live by your own choices."
"Then I choose to remain with you."
The Exile winced. "I'm afraid that's one choice I can't allow."
"But, but I pledged to you my life! I can give nothing more..."
"Then give yourself a chance, my friend. Give your life to Visas Marr, and no other."
"But I... I don't know how."
"I am sorry, more sorry than you know" -- the General's voice cracked as she took another glance around, the otherwise casual act made poignant by awareness of the limited supply of such -- "to abandon you like this. All of you. But I abandon you amongst friends; they will not forsake you. The Jedi Order will welcome your help, as well, should you choose that path. But most importantly, you need to be your own Master, Visas."
"I will... I will try."
Reni let loose a -- as it turned out -- premature breath of relief.
"Mandalore--"
"I am going. You seek Revan. I intend to face her. Either I go with you, or I go on my own." The shrug of armor-clad shoulders was deliberately nonchalant, as if it meant little to him either way.
Why had she not anticipated this conversation to be the most difficult? "But your clans--"
"Will survive, as Mandalore have always survived."
"But the regrou--"
"Bralor and Xarga are competent enough not to make a mess of it."
"But you wan--"
"I'm not discussing this with you, Exile."
Surely the Force would forgive one instance of frivolous use, say -- hypothetically of course -- to shift the molecules of traction that kept all that heavy plating upright against the bulkhead.
Reni gave in to a sigh, pinched the bridge of her nose. Of course it had to be the one man not obligated to her by whatever modicum of authority others granted. The one man with the resources to significantly delay her efforts, should she try to embark upon it plus juggle impending pursuit.
Said man took her exasperated chuff as signal of consent, or maybe he already considered it given. The Exile readied and let loose a particularly venomous glare in the Mandalore's direction, and beseeched the Force for the others not to take his response as cue to topple her carefully built castle of words.
"And I, General?"
So snuck in the moment she had been dreading.
"Bao-Dur..." How come fortifying breaths never really fortified? "If I were stronger, I would not let you follow me into another Malachor V, old friend. I have already asked of you things that none should ever ask of another... But you are right, I am not strong enough to walk alone where I must go. And I think I'll soon have a small mutiny on my hands if T3 and HK had to rely on the skills of an 'inferior meatbag'. The Ebon Hawk might just decide to call it quits..."
Babbling did remarkably little to cover up the sudden surge of ill-feeling from all sides. Well, all except Bao-Dur, whose gentle aura was tinged with relief, and the enigmatic-as-ever Mandalore. Reni caught herself on the edge of flinching from the almost-physical waves of jealousy and hurt no amount of foresight could have prepared her for. She shot an apologetic look at the target of a good portion of the animosity.
"It is not weakness to admit that even you need help once in a while, General."
The Exile appreciated his attempt at levity, but "It is, when you know how much that help could cost the other. Horrible as it sounds, it is always easier to send strangers into carnage."
Malachor V was sufficiently far off the beaten path that the journey to Coruscant granted the Ebon Hawk's crew several weeks' hiatus. If the others suspected the nominal pilot of rigging a less-than-efficient course, they all viewed the act with varying degrees of favor.
Even if the overall mood was subdued, almost sullen.
"Guess I should be, be getting used to this, 'Master'." Atton managed to impart the title with a sarcastic flair that was all Atton, despite pants for breath and a currently prone position he showed no inclination of rising from. His attitude had grown significantly... darker in the days since The Talk, a fact which gnawed at Reni more so for her inability to do anything about it.
Silver beams were flicked off and their emitters holstered in one fluid, unthought motion. The Jedi stared down at her student, slowly retracting her hand when he ignored it and instead rolled onto his side. The amount of dirt he had to be picking up made Renani's rather fastidious -- a surprising trait, considering all her professions -- skin crawl in empathetic revulsion.
"After all," he continued, impervious to such mortal concerns as soil and exfoliation and the civilizations of bacteria that lived in such things, "this is why you're ditching me with that bunch of do-gooders, isn't it?"
Reni blinked, all concerns performing an abrupt hundred-and-eighty. After all, the man had only systematically brushed off all attempts at approaching The Issue for, what was it now, four days?
"'This'?" Confusion, 'males' be thy name... not that the Exile had much more success with those of her own gender.
"Oh come on. So it's supposed to be hush-hush and all, but everybody knows you're haring off to face the Sith. Can't have a clumsy padawan tripping you up there, can you?"
Then again, sometimes confusion is preferable to comprehension. "Atton, your concentration's just been off because of your... resentment. And anyway I am not leaving you behind because I lack confidence in your ability to protect yourself, or me for that matter."
"Oh yeah? Then mind explaining to me just why I'm yesterday's news just like that" -- he snapped his fingers -- "sister? And don't bother with all that 'restore the Jedi Order' bull. The others may buy it, but I sure don't give two hoots whether there's still gonna be a dustbowl full of 'saber-toting 'saviors of the galaxy' around in a couple year's time. And oh while you're at it, don't waste your breath on how big of an asset 'Atton Rand' can be to your precious Jedi, either. You don't set a thuvasaur to guard hatchlings, then come back and expect to have nuna to harvest!"
It seemed logical to follow the sinking of her stomach to a seat on the deck, grime or no. And, though Reni was aware that her calm only made Atton that much more angry, the alternative -- a full-blown rant on why couldn't they understand, why couldn't they all see how difficult this was for her too! -- was unacceptable.
"I'm only going to say this once." So, perhaps she was not as calm as she had thought. "My reasons have nothing to do with your skills. Or lack of them! This isn't some joyride I can just drag friends on. There are things out there -- not all or even worst of them physical -- that nobody, nobody, should ever have to meet. You have seen enough demons in your time, Atton. Why are you so eager to see some more?"
"Because I promised to protect you, damnit! You, you were supposed to be, to be..."
"Your atonement?" Reni stated gently, when it became apparent that he would not be the one to.
He jerked angrily away, flipping onto his back. "The witch was right. I am a fool."
"No, she was wrong about that." She nudged him insistently on the shoulder until he directed annoyed dark eyes her way. "You may pretend to be a fool, Atton Rand, but you are not one."
"That name doesn't mean sith-spit."
Names. They all had so many of them, didn't they? Reni held the dubious honor of boasting the most, but even T3-M4 tucked a small universe under the totem "Droid, utility model extraordinaire".
"That name means just as much as you make of it. You have a whole life in front of you to live, Atton. Don't throw it away on has-beens."
Silence.
"I can't be your atonement, Atton. I can't redeem you. Only you can."
How trite that sounded, how stock a phrase. How familiar that doomed route, one she had wasted years upon years following... only to find that there are no ends on a rainbow.
"And don't brush me off, because I know."
He turned to snap at her presumption, but must have caught something in her expression because the words never made it to birth.
The next shift surprised her, though she knew somehow that it shouldn't have. "I, I never had a chance, had I?"
The Master gaped for the second time that day.
"You know. Aw, c'mon. Even the Jedi aren't that ignorant, even if you're supposed to be above us base masses and all. The lust card won less games than one might expect, given that you're reputedly a celibate order."
Reni had no answer but a flaming face.
"I guess I'm just... not your type, eh?" A wistful smile crossed his face.
"I-I don't, I didn't, I mean, t-t-there hasn't been time to think about those, uh, things." Pathetic, even to her own ears. She dared style herself a battle-tested General? Idiot. Who was the Fool, now?
"Su-u-ure," Atton drew out, clearly dismissing her stutter as an attempt to spare him an unpleasant truth. He sat up so abruptly that only the Jedi's lightning reflexes saved them from collision, a fact over which he seemed almost disappointed. "I guess this is where we do the 'friends' speech, huh, angel?"
She rose to her feet in tandem with him, wishing desperately that she knew how to ease his pain. Denial -- the easy route, the safe route, the familiar route -- inevitably led to this, but self just could not seem to learn this particular lesson. "Atton..."
"Hey, hey, it's okay," he said, more for her comfort than his. "Some things, you just can't force."
The oblique reference to his "talent" for assuming emotions went in like a lightsaber.
"I'll just... just give me some time, okay?"
Since when had every conversation with her companions become minefields unto themselves? She knew not how long she had stood mutely in Atton's wake, but was snapped rudely out of it by a gravelly voice, so near she literally jumped from it.
"I don't see why you waste time on that di'kut."
Why was she surprised? She had acknowledged a frightening tendency to overlook his presence during her training sessions. She had (oh how Kr-- her old mentor would have railed) blithely, stupidly trusted the man. To have heard -- and stayed for -- all that... he might as well have rooted through her underclothes.
Fury snapped the Exile's spine to rigid. "That was a private moment, Mandalore. One you might have had enough honor to respect."
No outward response, but Reni caught a brief flash of... regret.
She bee-lined for the 'fresher.
"--and this huge lady barges in. I mean, huge! Could've sworn she was a Hutt, except that, hey, does anybody know if there are Hutt ladies?"
Bao-Dur hid a small grin. Atton was back to his old irrepressible self, even if it was in some subtle way quieter, less flippant, and the tech would catch him glancing the General with the look of a man who had lost something he wasn't quite sure he'd wanted before then. Still, he was unexpectedly cordial about it, hence the Zabrak had no quarrel with his issues.
So far.
The whole crew -- with the exception of T3-M4, who was hardly built for such things, and HK-47, who had threatened to fry a circuit in "horrified protest" -- were currently employed in the grunt work of hauling parts Bao-Dur had slotted on the Ebon Hawk's repair list. The planet was a small, heavily industrialized dump far from the Core but not quite into the Outer Rim, which made for relatively cheap (functional) parts available through various obscure local companies. Not Czerka, which soothed at least some of the conservationist tech's sensibilities.
He had expressed various concerns to the General over facing whatever they were going to face (her pained aura discouraged the most insensitive from pushing for details) with just a patchwork job, but she had smiled sadly and said that credits were credits and there were only so many to go around. She had further expressed confidence that a patchwork job by Bao-Dur "leaves in the hyperdust" a rehaul by most mechanics.
He figured he would just have to see to it being such. End of story.
Another concession to their monetary handicap was that, instead of hiring workers and transport, the crew had "elected" to shuttle the parts to the ship themselves. That was to say, the General had slapped her hands on her lap after a particularly annoying session with another credit-counting paper-pusher, declared "Fine. We'll just do it ourselves", and marched to the cargo area amidst stares and open mouths -- not the least of which were those credited to the Ebon Hawk's crew.
The rest was a foregone conclusion, since whatever task the General set her mind to, others inescapably found themselves adopting. With a significantly time-wasting banter-about of grumbles, whines, and wheedles, to be sure, but complying all the same. Bao-Dur tucked another smirk away as his General's clear, crisp voice barked out instructions from behind the corner of the neutrino hybridizer she was holding up (with a touch of the Force, he was convinced).
And the General wondered why he and everybody else followed her: it was "only" the natural order of the universe.
"I believe I am... thankful my old Master did not think to require such... activities of me." Visas' melodic, little-used tones startled the tech out of ruminations on the less-than-stellar reliability of neutrino hybridizers compared to unfortunately more expensive sublight drive components. Atton's loud complaints had consistently failed at the same task, having been tuned out pretty much from the start.
"Hah. What'd I tell you? Exile's a dictator under all that soft gooey... well, whateveritis." Mira. The diminutive redhead was all but invisible under a bulky if relatively lightweight stash of carbonite inserts, though her voice rang clearly enough around the obstruction. "Hint, hint!"
The General laughed, a rare sound that would have made the day worthwhile on its own merit. "Alright, alright, you win. Let's call a committee on the footwork for moving... aha! One set of alluvial dampers, coming straight up."
A chorus of groans demonstrated their reciprocal enthusiasm -- actually, two groans from the more vocal members of their party. Bao-Dur might have been tempted.
Still, it was a good day, one of too few remaining before the Ebon Hawk was scheduled for another peril but with painfully reduced company. The Iridonian had lost much when the Rim worlds fell, yet the General had a habit of transforming those around her to family.
These were sensations he had thought forever closed to him, and now refused to contemplate giving up.
Of course, a universal feature of families was the unavoidable, if usually petty, rivalries and conflicts. Except for the chilly gulf between the General and Mandalore, though, their friendships seemed to have weathered the latest squall with grace. Bao-Dur respected his General's privacy too much to pry, but the one seemed only to watch the other with perplexed wariness these days.
The tech was glad that the other four no longer spoke to him with (overly) jealous undertones, instead coming around to view, as he did, the General's singling him out as her only concession to herself. He wished often that she would allow herself more leeway in "selfish" things... but would he truly hold her in as high a regard if she did?
Alert!
All philosophical ramblings were cut short by the unpleasant jolt of a Force-warning. Bao-Dur hesitated for a fraction of a second before abandoning the electrophoto receptors in his care in favor of lightsabers. He winced as the fragile components crunched on impact, the package evidently having struck ground at just the wrong angle.
No coincidences within the Force, eh?
No time to count the credits in that climactic sound.
They were being swarmed -- quite literally -- by assassin droids. HK-50's, to nobody's surprise beyond the fact of the attack itself.
"Aw, damn."
Bao-Dur had no time to appreciate the pithiness of that sentence. Assassin droids' preferred weaponry were blaster rifles, and blaster rifles had at least twenty-five meters in attack range. A lightsaber, even Force-thrown, had considerably less reach... and, no less importantly, left the wielder unprotected while engaged.
Of course, judging from the dazzle of light winking from -- how many? Twenty? Thirty? -- muzzles, whether his lightsaber was in or out of hand may well prove a moot point in the recent future.
The tech had barely scoped out the math before a sheet of deck plating -- expensive, necessary, heavy deck plating -- crashed down before his eyes. His rather paler-than-usual reflection stared back not ten centimeters from his nose.
"Sorry, Bao-Dur!" The General yelled above the sizzle of blaster bolts on metal.
He shook off the inane question of whether "sorry for lack of warning? Proximity? Cost?" and verified that each of his comrades were hunched behind some form of impromptu shielding, most of which had only been magicked seconds in time.
"They're only gonna come 'round the Hawk, you know!"
"Gee, thanks for the obvious," Mira grumbled in Atton's direction.
The General ignored their pre-(in-?)battle banter and stared intently at the sheeting, as if she could see through it. And perhaps she could -- Visas, she'd mentioned, had shown her how the Miraluka perceived things.
A tremendous clang later, the rate of under-fire heating of their shelters slowed down.
"If we, uh, link up," the General sounded calm, if rather tired, "Visas can show us where to Force-fling the cargo containers." Her voice winced. "Sorry, Bao-Dur."
The tech shook his head. The loss of irreplaceable equipment was not what concerned him at the moment.
Much.
"What do yo--"
"I have nev--"
"Link up wi--"
"I, I am not--"
"Trust me?"
It seemed to Bao-Dur that the General made eye-contact with each of her fledgling Jedi in that brief eternity.
There was no question of consent from his quarter.
Atton was the last to nod; the General held his eyes a fraction longer before returning the gesture.
Once, Bao-Dur had witnessed his General murmuring to T3-M4 as they walked together along some place -- the details of which had faded in memory. The almost hypnotized cadence of her words, the trancelike rhythm of her steps, the flood tide of Force around her -- remained as fresh as morning dew. Moving meditation, she named it, with a small shrug in apology of a self-coined term. He had asked half-jokingly if she could do the same while conversing with him, and she had answered impishly, "Are you saying I could bore myself to sleep, Bao-Dur?"
At the moment, the Iridonian thought he perhaps understood a little more of the state she had been in. Their current situation was far from calm, but the patter of blaster fire droned from ears into mind, lulling, inviting...
Bao-Dur.
A touch of spring sky. Clear, sharp, warm with a hint of potential frost. He drew a giddy breath and recognized her. Neither invading nor beckoning, neither thoughts nor feelings. Just... there.
Visas.
A horizon. Shades of shapes beyond ken, stretching inwards and out. A boggling visage that constricted dizzyingly into Now, then smaller yet into Here.
Mical.
A ground. Steady, watchful, the grasp of a thousand leaves of a thousand events.
Mira.
A stream. Perpetual motion, yielding, taking, a creature for which the journey was the end.
Atton.
Bao-Dur waited for the next mesmerizing rendition. Quite patiently, thought it was admittedly rather difficult to feel anything beyond tranquil. Briefly, he wondered how the others saw him... but thought was a lazy animal in this place.
Atton?
Alright already. Sheesh.
A shield. A crackle of unseen energy, interchangeably lethal or benign.
So much like Telos. Explanation visited -- we see what is meaningful to us. His own? The General's? The Others'? It did not matter.
Focus. Visas...
...and they sunk like stones, the horizon contracting until Bao-Dur thought he might succumb to claustrophobia. And then there was no time to wonder at the six mirror-images that were corporeal selves, as movement begged attention as movement did of most sentients. Will o' wisps that seemed far too insubstantial to damage, until two flickered and waned under a boulder. Atton's handiwork, he imagined.
It might have been a rout, but the wisps caught on quickly, avoiding rock-strewn regions, making jagged unpredictable dashes as they converged. Add to that the edge of acute awareness that their somas were immobile and prone in this detached state, and Bao-Dur saw why Jedi did not, to his meager knowledge, fight like this.
At least he did not sweat, or the sensation was on hold if he did.
He only hoped to have a body to receive it in later.
One enemy wandered too close, then another. Unsuccessful in scouring for projectiles, Bao-Dur wondered a trifle frantically if pushing one of Their bodies out of line-of-fire would shatter the Connection.
The nearest wisp flickered out. The other followed.
Confusion wasted precious seconds before a seventh faint Presence registered -- knife-edged obsidian -- and he forced his attention back on the job. They had eliminated roughly two-thirds of the enemy, but the rest were closing in too fast, too close.
Must... get back before... too tired.
The dream dissolved even as Bao-Dur reached reflexively out to retain it. For long moments he blinked (eyes? He had eyes?) and rediscovered the art of breathing. Every movement took a second too long, as if his brain had forgotten how to execute them independent of conscious direction.
"'Sabers, now!"
The soldier thought instinctively to obey the command, but the hands were considerably less supportive of the notion... a disconnect similar to Bao-Dur's first experiences with his artificial limb. Two closely-spaced blasts effectively returned them to their senses -- at the unfortunate price of a useless shoulder and pain blaring through newly rediscovered nerves.
Bao-Dur gritted his teeth, spared a brief thought for how easily he had grown accustomed to having the Force to heal his injuries, how annoying the lack of mental strength was to do that right about now. Then he jumped into the fray of light and metal.
"Yaaagghh!" Mical brought his single green blade to bear across one grey "neck", saving the tech the effort of his frontal assault on the same droid, now rather useless minus central processing unit. A terse nod of thanks was all he spared before whirling, ears primed for more revealing blaster fire.
Only pants and some scattered moans -- purely "meatbag" sounds -- filled the air.
"Is everybody alright?"
"This is the fifth fripping jacket I've had to recycle since Nar Shaddaa!"
"Glad your vocal cords took no damage, Atton. Wish I could say the same for the rest o--"
"Perhaps we could cut the chit-chat and move to a more defensible location?"
"I do not sense any more threats, Mandalore. But perhaps we should."
Bao-Dur scanned the area to locate the sole voice other than his own that had not spoken, found her leaning against a hole-ridden container. "General?" Slight trembling, transmitted to a lightsaber blade (the other hand was occupied in keeping her upright), a nasty-looking but probably superficial burn (she did not favor it too much -- but kept in mind was that she had a bad habit of downplaying).
"Just tired. Gettin' old and all," the General said, the last aimed at Mira together with a wobbly grin.
He raised an eyebrow, but choose not to comment.
"You are right about the droids, Visas." The General's eyes returned to focus, after a quick Force-scan he would never know where she found the energy to perform. The hiss deactivating her lightsaber masked a sigh her lips described. "But I think we've just opened up a whole new can of threats. Of the clerical kind."
With utmost reluctance, Bao-Dur turned to face the horrors her nod indicated at a vector somewhere behind his still-aching shoulder.
"It could be worse," Bao-Dur offered. "The Ebon Hawk could have been damaged. Well," -- he had to append -- "further damaged."
Did that sound as unconvinced as it felt?
Probably, since five pairs of eyes turned as one to bestow near-identical stares of disbelief. One veil and one helmet turned as well, but Force Sight was not in Bao-Dur's arsenal. The tech secured his arms about his chest before they could perform a defensive rise.
"Ri-i-ight. And since we were already running on juma-juice and good intentions, that is an incredibly huge blessing... how?"
The General sighed, something she had been doing too often of late. "It's not Bao-Dur's fault, Atton. None of this is anybody's fault."
"Yeah? I'm sure rust-bucket over there has quite a few things to say about his clones."
"Redundant reiteration: The HK-50 units are vastly inferior copies made at a time when this unit was... incapacitated. Exclamation: It would have been quite impossible, even had my logic circuits malfunctioned to such a degree as to condone such a ridiculous act, for me to have overseen their production while I was scattered in pieces around the galaxy, mentally-impaired self-mutilated meatbag!"
Although quite impressively creative in its interpretation of "droid honesty", HK-47 could nevertheless not utter an outright lie. "Self-mutilated" caught the interest of every person in the room. Atton had certainly not missed the insult, had grown dangerously white with anger.
"That's enough, HK!" the General snapped. "We will discuss your lack of respect -- and your clones -- later." Her next words were clearly for the rest of them. "Right now we have more pressing issues, none of which will be solved by infighting."
Insert moment of guilty silence.
"Was, was everything we purchased lost, Master Renani?" Visas made atypical contribution.
Bao-Dur rubbed his neck as his General's querying eyebrow turned every regard towards him. "We did save some things, mainly those already onboard before the firefight. But the companies retracted them all as compensation for... auxiliary damage."
"Auxiliary" being quite the misnomer. Everybody winced.
"We are," -- the Disciple hesitated -- "lucky, I suppose, that they did not demand further reparations. Which would have been impossible for us to make."
"How would you rate our chances against starvation, Mical?" The General's question visibly startled the historian, although whether due the gallows humor or plain unexpectedness, Bao-Dur could not tell.
"Well, uh, we're not that badly off. And there's still plenty in the cargo hold."
"And you estimate it will last...?"
A thoughtful interlude. "Two months, maybe three. But... should we be worried, Master?"
"No, no, probably not," the General murmured almost to herself. Then Bao-Dur found himself once more the target of attention. "Can the Ebon Hawk fly?"
A frown crossed the tech's face as where she was leading pieced itself together. "Much like we could before landing here. I would recommend against it, seeing that we would be hard-pressed to defend ourselves in a fight. But we should be able to make it to Coruscant."
The General nodded, as if his assessment had just confirmed a thought. "I think," she began slowly, then picked up, "with G0-T0 gone, and the bounty-hunters... no longer an issue, there is relatively little risk of a space attack. The HK-50s' efforts don't seem to have reached the level of hijacking a starship" -- everybody side-glanced at the older model -- "yet. And if we plot a straight course to Coruscant, make a minimum number of stops along the way..."
She spread a hand in a gesture reminiscent of card games the galaxy over. "Our only other option would seem to be trying to pick up enough odd jobs to fix the Hawk. Out here," -- a wry smile crossed her face -- "well, let's just say, I'm sure you all had better retirement plans."
The strain in the room ebbed a little; Bao-Dur had not noticed before then how on-edge he had been. A chorus of nods voted for the "run for it" plan. Not all that surprising -- they were all people used to braving the edge, and not all that partial to slow death-by-tedium.
"But what about... after?" The Miraluka might be tentative, but nothing if not insightful. "You cannot ask us to send you off on a faulty vessel, Master. You cannot."
The General bowed her head. "I'm not going to go off on a suicide mission, Visas, and certainly would not bring others with me if I did. But you have all already done so much, I can't ask you to waste your time helping to refurbish the ship, either. Perhaps, perhaps it is time for me to look for... other avenues."
Meaning passage in some unsympathetic captain's berth. Meaning routes she might not even be able to take the droids on. Meaning she would leave Bao-Dur behind.
His vocal chords were one of those soonest in protest.
"Go to Telos."
The shock of a voice that had rarely been raised for many a day (since the cold war between him and the General, Bao-Dur observed) rendered an instant pin-drop silence. The General looked directly at the Mandalorian (something she had also not done for a while), and the temperature definitely dropped five degrees.
The tech made a mental note to check the environmental regulators.
"Telos?" His General enunciated with unusual care.
"I know a man with an... interest in locating Revan. He has the contacts to get the job done. Military contacts."
"I am not going to go on a witch-hunt, Mandalore. Or even under the guise of a witch-hunt."
"His intentions are purely benign. At least in the way you think."
"I need more than that to go on."
"What other choices do you have?"
She inclined her head, but in acknowledgment rather than acquiescence. "Not many. But I would rather take my chances."
Mounting tension skyrocketed so suddenly, Bao-Dur fancied an audible explosion of silence. The others shared his mute, morbid fascination of the clash between two Powers-That-Be; for a long while there was only the whirr of HK-47's servomotors as his head swiveled from one to the other and back to the one. Electricity tingled to the very tips of the Iridonian's horns.
"Are you questioning my honor?" The words came not as a shout, as Bao-Dur and likely every other might have anticipated, but with soft gravity. Almost (now he knew himself to be delusional)... regretful.
The two maintained eye-lock, inasmuch as possible with one set behind a helmet. Bao-Dur had the horrible feeling that it could only end in a duel, that being the stock Mandalorian response to everything, or so it seemed.
The General emitted a string of harsh consonants.
Mandalore returned in kind.
Both predators in their element, both oblivious to (he was not ashamed to admit) lesser contenders.
They left.
"Wow." Atton shattered the silence with a low whistle. "Bets, anyone?"
The Disciple favored him with a disapproving glare. "What did they say? How bad is it?"
Bao-Dur shrugged. Strange as it may seem in one who had fought the frontlines, he had never cared to learn the enemy's language; linguistics had never been his forte anyway. Still, it was his personal experience that most Mandalorian utterances concerned death and the dealing of it. Not exactly crèche-room conversation -- or, on second thought, perhaps for their crèches.
"'This is not our time'... no, place, I think," Mira corrected herself. "'This is not our place of battle'." She shrugged as well, but otherwise ignored their curiosity over her knowledge. "It's what the Exile said. And he said 'We will speak'. Strange, huh. The Mandalorians I know aren't all that interested in a heart-to-heart."
"Unless its a blade that goes in," Atton appended darkly. He roughly finger-combed his hair (did beings so endowed not find such personal violence, well, painful?). "Look, maybe we should do something. I know Reni can take care of herself and all, but..."
"I, I do not believe they will harm each other," Visas offered, and continued after a brief hesitation, "Not physically."
Bao-Dur was not the only one unsatisfied, but in the interest of avoiding bloodshed -- namely their own -- resigned to leaving well alone.