Day Zero...
The Jedi Master steepled her fingers, which the Admiral understood to mean that she was becoming impatient. It had taken him all of several months to learn what little cues she doled out, and he still felt that he groped the lesser side of the iceberg.
Revan was never so exhausting... was she?
He hated the fact that memory might be starting to wash out. He refused to contemplate that there might come a day when her face became another of the lost -- not the features the woman before him shared, but the ease of her smile, the tuck of her hair -- all the details that made Revan, Revan.
Just like Morgana...
"Carth, we both know I never meant to delay as--"
The door-chime barely echoed before the portal carded open. The Admiral blinked, more surprised by the Exile's apparent non-anticipation than by the arrivee herself. Bastila's self-appointed chaperonage was disturbingly reminiscent of when it had been Kaelynn and Carth -- disturbing, for he had not the slightest intention of graduating from one twin to the other.
"It has been five years," the Bastila of not-too-ancient memory had uttered. The lack of lecture, the wistful empathy, the nervous pluck of fingers, had all conspired to fell every one of his carefully prepared retorts. "It is no betrayal to move on, Carth. The heart is not made to hurt forever."
As leery of the platitude as he had been then, he examined the present with caution. Whatever little relaxation Reni permitted around him performed the scripted vanishing act. Still seated, she angled a strictly polite nod.
"I would like to understand," Bastila began without so much as a by-your-leave, "how you could simply decide to incur a debt on the behalf of all Jedi. With a people we have less than no knowledge of, no less!"
"If you like," the Exile acquiesced, "they asked, I answered. If you want details, the word 'yes' was involved."
At the far side of the drama, Carth sat bemused as well as rather guiltily amused. The sister, it seemed, beat Revan at tugging the Padawan's ponytails. The latter turned a shade that would have looked apoplectic on any other.
There was, however, no denying that birth had granted Bastila the ability to do "furious" beautifully.
"Your gall is unimaginable! This farce has gone on long enough. You will have no say in the reformation of the Order, so long as I am around to stop it. And you are not going anywhere, least of all with those creatures you seem to think so wonderful!"
The Exile rose, lending Carth full view of an ill-fitted back while she faced the other Jedi. "Try a little logic, Bastila. You don't want me here. I have duties elsewhere. Why should my departure trouble you?"
Her voice quietened, leaving him an uncomfortable eavesdropper of women who had to be cognizant of his presence. "Or is it not my leaving, but what I might bring back?"
The shade of the younger's face inverted, so drastically that Carth leapt from behind his desk, prepared to catch her collapse. But she only laughed, a terrible, hollow sound that heaped upon his already unscalable mountain of nightmare-fodder.
"That is preposterous." The mezzo almost managed not to wobble.
"My apologies." The alto was a scalpel, sterile, impartially cutting. "Perhaps I should have specified 'who'."
"You, you dare...! I care about Revan more, more than you, who are supposedly her flesh and blood!"
"But it is not Revan you are trying to keep, is it?"
"What are you impl-- you can't..." She faltered, but finished with a firmness Carth knew could not last. "You don't know what you are talking about."
"It is not I who needs to know, Bastila."
Two spots bloomed on ashen cheeks. Composed with full, wine-colored lips, the effect was a cross between ill and what the daughter Carth never had might have accomplished with her nonexistent mother's cosmetics. He moved protectively in, only to have his friend's reaction strike bolts through his feet. There had been defiance in her glare at the Exile, but the flash she treated him to was pure dread. It lasted a mere second, for she fled in the next in moves stripped of all her innate grace.
"What the frell was that about?" The Admiral found himself at a volume suited to outrage, plus one hand clamped around grey-sleeved forearm. His hold had to be bruising, yet neither words nor attitude seemed to perturb those pools of impenetrable black. "I know Bassy is a bit easy to twip for a Jedi, but your attitude isn't exactly helping matters. You do a great job of all that 'Jedi calm' flarg, but it's like you know all these invisible buttons to push! At least Revan... oh, stang it! I don't even want to pretend to understand what it is between you two, so will somebody just tell me what is going on!"
Lean muscles tensed -- all the warning he had before being robbed of grip and balance.
"Ask your friend, Admiral. She might just tell you, once she admits motives to herself." A stiff half-bow preceded an equally awkward apology. "Still, I should not have... We had best continue this conversation later."
A second person walked out on him that day, but Carth hardly noticed. Beyond the surge of adrenaline, he was brave enough to acknowledge the nip of fear.
He just had trouble deciding what, or who; of, or for.
Nine days before Zero...
Six days, nine hours of estranged silence had constructed for Bao-Dur a number of further understandings. One: his ability to stay angry at the General degraded with age and/or total count. The rest was could only be ruminated upon in places more private than thought itself. Even with the ghost-ship ambiance, present accommodations definitely did not qualify.
The number of times he reminded himself of that averaged to one per hour.
The tech groaned over another fumbled maneuver, and drifted to wishing he knew a curse that could do justice to the situation. After all, every other soldier managed to accrue profanities alongside survival kits and other trinkets of service.
The survival kit would have been welcome too.
Two irregularly shaped panels lay on the floor besides his artificial left hand, the latter in palm-up exhibition of electronic guts. From a full-length stretch over unevenly propped elbow and stump, his spine was rapidly developing cricks upon cricks. His eyes had quite forgotten how not to cross, and the beds of his fingernails ached.
The next four minutes involved pushing contacts aside with his littlest finger, not-so-incidentally undoing work of the past hour. As in the last attempt, the one before that, and the one before that, a falling trend for "time spent" was the only consolation.
Somebody had obviously neglected to take note of laws defining "adequate workspace". Furthermore, the designer of Bao-Dur's cybernetics needed to be informed that "workable by the single-handed" should have come with the addendum "tools not included". Nails and teeth might have satisfied Zabrak ancestors centuries removed, but were about as useful to him as the parabolic toothbrush-for-bulkheads.
He was working on drafting that mental letter on the side, whether or not beratings of past selves seemed to have uniformly disappointingly little effect.
When the last cantilever finally edged into the (correct!) slot, Bao-Dur's eyes prickled in anticipatory relief. He shut reality out for one eternity of ecstatic nothingness, with subzero pity for the sensory ghosts thus vanquished.
If she were there, the General would have magicked some dry observation that somehow made horrors sufferable. But she was not -- for which he was thankful even as he was unhappy -- and the tech admitted to being plain out of humor and barely hanging on to determination.
He tried to imagine... but how could it be possible to miss an imaginary voice?
At long last, it was a threatening pressure in his bladder that forced Bao-Dur to his feet. Amongst its other non-charms, the cell boasted a complete dearth of facilities, and he was not eager to find out what desperation might soon dictate.
No veteran of war ever forgot one of the firsts keys to breaking a captive. Humiliation.
Ominously, there had been no visits, no patrols, no hint of activity beyond his own. It was as if whomever had gone to pains to set the lure had immediately stuffed their catch in a to-be coffin and forgotten to memo.
Give or take another decade, Bao-Dur decided, then he might feel only rue instead of the deserved self-disgust.
He stood precisely one meter behind the seat, at parade rest so that hands were secure from tapping and feet from advancing without due notice to brain.
Head bowed such that only back four horns were in line-of-sight, Bez-Enth fast-paced a tempo upon the outdated interface. In interims, the tips rose marginally, allowing her to better take in some new ream of machine code flashing down the screen.
His friend had steadfastly refused his help since the day before, a sentence Bao-Dur considered unduly harsh. His passion had always been hardware, but the past year of adventuring had resurrected old skills swiftly enough. The General's Elite was not the Elite for being overly reliant on any one link in the chain; he was no slouch in the software department, even if the finer points of knowledge had moldered in the years of her Exile. She was not the only one who had sought penance in various degrees of isolation.
Yet, the tech's frown of the day was not over that old wound.
Bez-Enth would not have been pleased by the nature of how herself occupied his thoughts, but then neither was Bao-Dur pleased by her behavior of late. She considered troubleshooting the outpost's network to be a waste of her time, could not understand his inability to wait two days for the next transport -- or better still two weeks for the new installation -- and still eccentrically refused to let him handle the tinkering.
There were days where Bao-Dur found the "(wo)men are incomprehensible" opt-out to be sorely tempting.
There were also days where he found the motivation for pacifism to be exceedingly hard to come by, and that was before she had specified the distance -- physical and temporal -- for him to keep, lest he "bungle up" her concentration with his "infernal impatience".
/#Any progress?#/ he asked, having timed the first syllable to sound two hours (to the second) after the last query.
The circle of horns jerked to horizontal, and something unsavory assaulted his ears. Honey-brown eyes slitted as the woman turned, finalizing into gimlets of ill humor. /#When I said 'a couple hours', I didn't mean it's fine for you to demand a "sitrep" every two hours! You're retired anyway, or has that slipped your notice?#/
Bez-Enth had never been military, the tech reminded himself. When that failed, he made a note to ask the General about super-strength Jedi calming techniques, not subject to letting up should she favor "let me know when you find one, Bao-Dur".
/#This is important,#/ he asserted for the n-th time. /#The General and I have not touched base for over a week.#/
For some reason, he did not think that Bez-Enth would appreciate a recitation of the exact number of hours since he had told his General they had nothing to discuss.
She swiveled to face him; the moue did not indicate a state of pacification. /#Really? So Miss Does-No-Wrong messed up again, did she?#/
/#That is not of your concern, Bez-Enth.#/
/#Of course not.#/ A sneer entered her voice. /#Stars forbid that any of the ratty underwear shows to anyone but your precious "Elite".#/
Bao-Dur had not yet found a pleasant way of dealing with his friend's resentment, and so opted to again circumvent. /#You said you have other things to do. Why will you not let me work on this?#/
/#Because these are my systems you'll be scrambling up, dolt!#/
The frustration he had only just managed to whittle down cranked up to acute. /#You know perfectly well that I can code routine debugs blindfolded, which is all you can claim to have been doing for the past day! Don't you make it out as if I am some Academy grad you are saddled with watching!#/
Narrowed eyes widened into round. For one whole second there was only shock, then glassiness shattered into overbrimming emotion. Before her fore-horns could quite purple, the other Zabrak jerked around sharply enough that hydraulics in her seat squealed.
Equally as appalled by his own volatility of temper as by the extremity of Bez-Enth's reaction, Bao-Dur could not seem to muster more than a view of tremblingly rigid shoulders. Contrition stuck indigestibly mid-throat.
/#I, I guess I should have expected that,#/ she was first to speak. /#Our... relationship has never meant as much to you as, as...#/
He found a voice. /#Bez--#/
/#Don't. Just. Don't. Say. Anything.#/
He could not find enough kindness to lie an apology. Days of tension strung between his shoulder-blades, plus the barely-contained turmoil of recent history made it impossible to overlook the fact that she was in the wrong.
/#I have been on it, whether you believe or not,#/ Bez-Enth continued after half a minute of the silence she had demanded. She sounded small, tired, and without that one thread of defiance that would have assuaged Bao-Dur's conscience. /#I was going to tell it is nearly done, but...#/
He was not prepared for her sudden rise, nor the slam of a keyboard carelessly released. Still not to face, the Zabrak bit out a vehement/#Here, since you so obviously you don't need me for anything. I'll be in my quarters, when you decide to be civil again.#/
A decent interval later, Bao-Dur assumed the position she had just vacated. However, he felt naught of victory, and much of urgency's unforgiving claws.
end interlude
For one shivering eternity, she woke into the past: the sledgehammer of guilt, the shipful of dead, of dying... perversely all the more horrible for the fact that she no longer shared their suffering.
Relief came in the guise of a loud argument, the principals of which had definitely not made it to the original script.
"--don't care if he's Freedon Nadd reincarnated! He said so himself that Reni was fine when he arrived, and she sure ain't looking like she's up for a duel or two right now!"
"If it had been my intention to harm her, I would hardly have arranged to have no alibi, much less confessed to it, would I?"
"I never accused you of being too smart."
"If this is the courtesy the Republic extends potential allies--"
"If this is your idea of 'ally'--"
"We apologize, Ambassador Az. Padawan Rand is too close to the situation to think rationally--"
"Yeah? Well Padawan Shan is too busy fluttering her eyes and looking pretty to think at all!"
"Your ill-mannered belligerence is most telling of how little 'Master' Renani requires--"
"Be silent! The General will be able to tell us herself soon enough. If you don't suck up all the air with your incessant squabbling, that is."
Tipsily, Reni might have laughed had she energy to spare. Hindsight should have known that the vigilance she had given slip once would not suffer a repeat performance; sure enough, the aether carried news of unmistakable twined presences.
The aether...
"I can feel it, Doz-Halk," she listened to her own whispery babble. "I thought it was gone again, but it's not. It is still here, it is here and I can feel it."
"General?"
She was glad her eyes were shut, for it served better to hide the embarrassing excesses of relief.
"Thank the--"
"You really do like--"
"Did that schutta--"
"You worried--"
"Reni, are you--"
The count stopped at five other distinct voices beyond the two, an unpleasant reminder of the fact that if one went about fainting in populated space, one had better be prepared to face the subsequent interrogation(s).
Since not seeing events apparently failed to stop them from happening, the Exile turned to persuading her eyes to take up function. As the blobs coalesced, they were pleased to confirm what her ears had determined.
"Didn't blow up Telos," she kidded lamely.
Seven varicolored pairs of eyes blinked in uniform incomprehension.
She tried to sit, only to have one shoulder pushed firmly back into recline. "What happened?" she settled for asking.
"That was my question," Atton informed, and followed by assassinating the Ambassador with a look.
"We were speaking," the latter explained with insultingly little attention paid the former. "You collapsed, don't you remember?"
Reni did indeed not, but the bump on the back of her head had no such problems.
"Well? Can't you at least check her out or something?" Mira demanded.
Bastila colored slightly, but moved to oblige.
"Thank you, but I am fine." Shrugging off the restraining hand, Reni managed a position more supportive of the claim.
"Oh, you sure are. And I am a dancing Hutt," the pilot moonlighted as jester. The other protests turned out to be the less diplomatic, an odd reversal of roles.
None need have bothered. A realization opportuned at that same moment, after which the Exile might as well have slipped back to unconscious for all that she heard of any matter.
/#Are you trying to be obvious, or is it just a side benefit of incompetence?#/
The stubbled face succeeded in a scowl, but only after its eyes had been two seconds too long in one second darting. Whatever dubious intel the action might have garnered, it for sure earned the man the full force of his sovereign's contempt.
/#It wasn't easy, with you showing up in full battle gear,#/ he whined. The trait would have warranted execution had their population permitted culling.
/#You want 'easy', I have a blaster called that right here.#/
Civilian-garbed limbs jerked. Having assumed from the straight off that the di'kut had successfully broadcasted his identity to every being with sensory organs -- half-tranqued spies inclusive -- Mandalore did not waste the energy to be disgusted. Recognizing the man to have been the lad of the unfortunate stammer, though, he entertained himself by furthering the fellow's jitters with a snort. The Exile should be thrilled to hear of one more for her collection of Force un-coincidences.
/#I am to take you to--#/
/#By all means, give me one more reason to shoot you before the Republic dogs behind us get around to it.#/
The only semi-intelligent thing the other had accomplished to date was to not turn around, but that might have had something to do with the fact that he was out cold before the end of the sentence.
Mandalore flexed a powered fist, then toed the prone body with irreverence. "Scrag-end civvies," he complained to a forming bubble of spaceport-ers. Said bubble expanded as he looted the "body", surreptitiously palming an object or two amidst weaponry and, needless to add, credits. Unless he was horribly mistaken, their alarm-garnished curiosity should prove distraction enough for his tails to de-fang themselves over.
Shameful, he rated as he strode off, and drew up notes for improved drills.
Urgency was on his back, still.
A grunt forced its way through teeth as the Iridonian tech demanded ten more degrees of an already-strained left arm. Mechanical fingers, sluggish and rather crispy from a journey through eight centimeters of shock-field, neared an inconveniently placed panel by one precious amount. His eyes could not help but return to the circular-ish fizzle where his artificial arm sunk past the containment field, as futile as scrutiny was at this point. The tuning the cell's shield frequency would either hold, or it would fail. In the latter case, the hand that had made it to freedom would obey gravity above any amount of entreaty. Both futures were up to forces beyond Bao-Dur's control.
The knowledge did not stop his breath from bating every time the field, mere centimeters from his nose, burped from some minor imbalance.
Two centimeters up, to locate something that nebulously registered as a ridge. One centimeter left, along it. A correction, half a centimeter up. Half hand-span, nearer where a standard touch-pad would be located. A breathed prayer. And then...
... the sparkles crossing his eyes snapped, sputtered once, and winked out.
Bao-Dur sank to his haunches, along the wall he had spent the last hour hugging. Eyes screwed shut against the return of feeling, he allowed his body three seconds' complaint. Then he pushed to stand, to make it across to the right side of enclosure even though he had to blink back the residues of pain.
His jaw ached from a syren's clamp, that had to be deliberately relaxed.
Swift exploration located a console, as deserted as the rest of the immediate premises. Practiced hands hotwired a power supply, and the gratifying hum and generic prompt went a ways in making up for excruciating hours. The tech worked quickly, knowing from experience that the dregs of adrenaline were ephemeral.
There was still, after all, the mission to fulfill.
"If it pleases you thus / a message, leave us," a tinny version of the General's alto chanted.
Her penchant for limericks formed pinpricks into the anger that fogged Bao-Dur's mind. He had dared to tease the General about it once, to which she had maintained that her affliction was mild compared to Revan's. The present was such that he wasn't quite up to a smile, but it was a close call.
"You could have gotten this far earlier, Bez-Enth," he complained, though the accused was not around to hear. Of all the times to indulge in petty, nonsensical behavior-- but debating why the juja cake was crumbled (or if there were fingerprints already on it) could only be an academic exercise.
This was no time for academic exercises.
"If it pleases..."
Upon the sixth hearing, Bao-Dur was past less than amused.
"Transport endpoint not connected," a featureless voice took over. With some difficulty, the tech repressed a growl to inform it of exactly how helpful that was. Think, instructed self. You're getting too focused on one issue. Time to broaden the prospects.
Minutes later, the tech sat very, very straight, fingers at speed of thought.
The tech did not stake a verbal "of course!", but only because he was preoccupied. He had pestered Bez-Enth about the possibility: those little failures, those spatterings of misbehavior -- it had not taken long for "sabotage" to start screaming "attention!". But the resident whiz had scoffed that life wasn't always galaxy-shaking missions and omnipresent enemies, that "normal" did actually exist outside the hyperbole of his General's existence.
There was only Bao-Dur to blame for not better heeding his own suspicions. Czerka was hardly the most gracious of losers -- anything Telos had to be fair game, even minor outposts. The only real question was whether the compasses pointed in a direction more sinister than acts of revenge.
Whatever the motives, whomever the progenitor, the tech admitted that the bug was itself ingenious. Instead of attacking the more heavily guarded system functions, it burrowed into the user interface and translated instructions to garbage. What made it so difficult to pin down was that it produced consistently intelligent garbage.
Still, it was rather unbelievable that Bez-Enth had not--
It is all about asking the right questions, Bao-Dur had once bragged to a very young General.
And it was. And as he hit upon the right question, it came suddenly to be that his fellow Iridonian's antics dropped right out of his worry quota.
end interlude
/#Still overly fond of your own reflection, eh, Jareb? Can't be any other reason to surround yourself with idiots.#/
Being in the less than battle armor allowed the younger Ordo to lever a glare on top of arms over chest. Unfortunately, the deliverer's lack of stature plus the recipient's cantankerous nature equaled failure to impress.
/#Your stunt almost gave us away to those spies on your tail!#/
/#How lucky for the lot of you, then, that their incompetence surpasses yours.#/
/#There was a time where you would have been the first to have disposed of their bodies.#/
/#In case you haven't noticed, that War was over ten years past. And that this is no time to start quibbles.#/
Under the partial cover of elbows, the other's fists clenched. /#You talk like a pacifistic Republic dog.#/
/#What, not even "Kath hound"?#/
Muscles in a square jaw twitched; distance had apparently not bred, in the cousin, any fondness for humor. /#How you came to be styled--#/
/#Tsk. Before you start insulting my lineage -- which you might want to remember you share -- do stop and think a little about the current distribution of loyalties.#/
A swallow punctuated a pause. /#I apologize,#/ Jareb managed with the universal enthusiasm of younglings regarding "good for you". /#I am perhaps a little, ah, overeager.#/
/#Gets you nowhere with the ladies,#/ Canderous critiqued cheerfully. Will get you killed with this one, he could have continued, except that there was no point in making it too easy.
Another swallow, this time of something obviously distasteful. /#Might I ask, "Mandalore", when you plan to end this charade?#/
/#Hmm? Oh, that, of course. You said this room is secure?#/ The continuation was delivered in lowered voice/#It is critical that this remains completely need-to-know...#/
To his credit, Jareb waited a full five minutes. /#And?#/
/#What?#/
/#The plan!#/
/#Oh, that. Well, maybe it won't hurt... Nope. You'll get it along with the rest of them.#/
"Whaddaya think, Mir? Is it the dashing momma's boy looks or dazzlingly boring personality that Dissy has going for him?"
Mira scowled, ostensibly at her hand. "Keep it up, pal, and I'll say Bao-Dur has better chances with his 'General' than you."
"Pshaw, bot-boy? He's, he's, well he's an alien, for one!"
"Oh joy. Temper tantrums, crèche-school posturing, and closet xenophobia. Remind me who placed the order for you, again?"
"Aw, shucks, did I offend your delicate sensibilities?" She was not so immersed in the cards as to miss the lascivious, larger-than-life smirk. "You've been 'round the good ol' block, sister. Enough to know that there's no lighting the fire, so to speak, unless certain, ahem, parts fit."
"'Been around' lots of Zabrak, have you?" the huntress growled. One, seven, and nine in hand, with a precipitous seventeen on the table. Across the table, Atton sported an even ten. What pedigree of justice did the universe deal in?
"Why, you jealous?"
"You wish. And just so you know, there's more ways to life and, ah, love, than you can possibly dream up of in that sewer you call a head."
Propped upon one elbow, the rogue sprawled a little more comfortably and peeked from behind thickets of dark lashes. "So-o-o-o sure, are you. Wanna find out?"
Her hand wavered indecisively over face-down deck, until Mira made herself come to a decision. Idly, her mind flickered over all the forms of shock her opponent might exhibit at a "yes".
Just to check the effect out, of course.
"You planning to finish before I grow all wrinkly?"
One haughty second elapsed before she angled the new card to viewing position. She placed it on the table, but with a coy hand above the face.
"Oh c'mon, Mir. You know there's no beating me."
A predatory grin was his answer. That, and a triumphant, "Paza'ak!"
/#Come now, Canderous. We have been through much together, and it is overconfidence to think you can pull this off on your own,#/ Jareb came as close to whining as his nature ever allowed.
The grub looked and smelled surprisingly appetizing, considering the temporary status of the base. Having subsided on Republic fare for close to a year -- the product of galaxy-traipsing, not galaxy-class chefs -- the addressed paid more attention to selecting a full plate than his own throwaway/#Pull what off?#/
/#You know stang well. It does seem a little more insidious than we Mandalore usually go for, but of course direct strikes have never had much success against her.#/
/#Her?#/ Changing his mind about the pie, Canderous backtracked several steps to make a snatch. The other soldiers made way respectfully enough. Jareb grew a frown.
/#Yes, her! The Exiled General, the one you spent eleven farkled months gaining the trust of!#/
/#What about her?#/ Finally reaching a table, he set the pleasingly heavy tray down. The other Ordo likewise sat, sans comestibles but with plenty of mouth.
/#This is frelling tedious. When are you going to quit pissing around and get to business?#/
Mandalore was making serious headway through lunch. He thought to point that out, but decided that the breath would be about as judiciously spent as on a preaching Jedi. /#And what do you think that "business" might be?#/
It must be a test all but wrote itself over the opposite face. Canderous managed to enjoy several minutes of peace and good food before being dished a reply.
/#Since you haven't done the sensible thing and eliminated her,#/ the cousin posited with caution/#I can only assume she's a lead to fleshier prey.#/
He mumbled a noncommittal something over a mouthful of heavily spiced grain.
/#The most obvious candidate would be Republic pansies, or... or Revan,#/ was the thoughtful follow-up. /#Or perhaps there are secrets yet to be extracted. War tactics.#/
Excitement occupied Jareb for the next minutes, a condition Canderous found much to his convenience. It also provided some entertainment while he did justice to a hearty slab of meat tempered by preserved root vegetables. No significant rival for the five-plus-one team of jesters he had been observing of late, perhaps, but the fare more than made up for it.
He repeated the last point to himself.
By drips, the zeal on the younger's face oozed away, leaving a skeleton of unease more sour than the pickle. /#The plan is tempting,#/ he shifted to reluctant/#but I'm afraid the timing is all off. The clans need you, Mandalore. Now is no time for an extended absence.#/
The titled raised his head long enough for a smirk. /#You didn't even know about this#/ -- eyes indicated the helmet proudly occupying an entire sitting (not that there were any takers on crowding the Ordo party) -- /#until I crashed your miserable excuse for a covert base.#/
Valiantly ignoring the jab, Jareb persisted. /#Of course I'd heard rumors of a new Mandalore, but what were the chances, given that Revan had taken the Helm? Those other rumors, that you had traveled with him must be true after all.#/
A one-shoulder shrug accompanied /#Not much of a man, our Revan. But otherwise as fine a commander as reputed.#/
Confusion compressed Jareb's lips, but pride -- always ridiculously easy to provoke -- sealed them against query. /#If everything goes right, clan Ordo will lead the new generation of Mandalore! Forget the charade with the Wraith. Even if what they say about her lost powers aren't true, you have worked yourself into her confidence.#/
/#Know that for a fact, do you?#/
/#The Jedi have always been too trusting. Besides, there's the droids. One might think that she's set them to keep an eye on you, but I've seen the way you order them around, and how they take it like old news. I'll take the bet that you can get them to hack into some pretty high-level stuff too. Plus, she's dismantled the better half of her company for your escort.#/
Canderous merely grunted, but Jareb had never needed too many pats to look mightily pleased with his own cleverness.
/#I say we make her pay right now for what she did to our people,#/ he declared/#then move on to greater things. We are over fifty strong here, and I know you have a substantial number at your call. Nothing compared to our strength before the War, perhaps, but more than ready to reclaim our birthright. There will be no Jedi rescue this time. Wraith, Republic... we will dine on the fruits of their folly!#/
You can't ask us to let -- much less help! -- you do that.
"Sorry. I'd ask myself, but, you know..."
Your plan is insane, General.
"Already bioprinted 'yeah' on that one," the Exile replied. But no, she did not speak, must not speak -- memory censored before escape of the first syllable.
--until you learn to keep that Light-forsaken trap shut! Sith-spawned demons, the both of--
No! Not that memory.
Ten breaths counted before they resumed normal. She widened her eyes to striae of non-existent color.
Being Jedi transcends phobias, pontificated a voice. It resonated with a clip suspiciously like Bastila's.
"Why did it have to be this one?" Reni plead, carefully without voice.
The walls did not echo, yet pressed so close that they might as well have.
I don't think they accounted for your definition of "cargo" when they said "container".
"'No live goods'," she quoted. "What's a heartbeat or half per minute?"
She had been so heedful of internalizing the words. Silence -- at all costs, silence -- but the walls amplified each thought to a scream, and as mind would not still, neither would body.
Ya ungrateful li'l scrag! I'll teach ya to... ... the bellow of fury.
Dark. It was always dark.
Ri, Ri, won't get free... ... the tease of youth.
And small. She wasn't that large a being -- or was she? -- it was too small.
Ya can fedding well stay 'n there till... ... the immobility of hatred.
And silent. Poets wrote of the roar of silence; but she knew nothing of poetry -- how could a mere gutter-snipe?
If ya ain't gone and git us ridden with them demons, we'd be... ... the axe of resentment.
And worst of it all was the Nothing.
Ri da stupid, Ri da slow, Ri kin always take da blow... the cycling of violence.
Dark. Always dark...
Time passed, infinitely long, blinkingly short. Then, above the drowning weight of ghosts, a physicality to motion. It jarred her back onto a thinning thread of sanity.
The trance, General. You must. Life support won't last much longer.
She forced herself to count out seconds, then minutes, past the subsidence of activity. Then, and only then, did the keen of tears emerge.
She did not know whether it was from adult or child.
The lights were malfunctioning.
He groaned, an uncharacteristically verbose response to the thought of having to get up and fix. After all, none of the other crew could be bothered to soil their not-so-dainty hands, and the General... well, let's just say that the General fared significantly better on theoretical problems. It was only a matter of time before Bao-Dur resigned himself to living up to the "tech" part of his designation.
There was, however, one small impediment. His brain was currently stuffed full of psychotic glitterflies, and his limbs had been swapped around when he wasn't looking.
Had somebody already noted that in the void there was supposed to be sight?
Something -- scratch that, make it "many things" -- was not right.
The bed was too flat, too cold, too wide. Too hard, even by the Ebon Hawk's standard of quality back-breakers. Bao-Dur groped along it and found that it became a journey of minutes. At the pinnacle of the psychedelic experience, he contracted an involuntary yell when head intersected...
... a force-field?
He could not claim that his head was any clearer, but the picture suddenly was.
It was the cold that woke her. Not the leeching emptiness of kilometers above ground, but planetary night insinuating past durasteel barrel and cap. For a long moment her mind remained in another place, a place with absence deeper than chill could rival. Then it snapped back like a tired rubber band.
Frantic kicks were her bid for freedom. The latch fell open, she clawed her way out, fell to the ground heedless of dirt, scratches, even audience. Fortunately, there was none of the latter, though plenty of the first two.
For another eternity, she thought only to let senses and sensation tremble through her frame.
The Force responded sluggishly to her panicked mind, and her body was tardier still. There was only a slight pang of guilt to go with the thought that the Pair would have tied her down themselves, had they been privy to certain details of the "plan".
None of it mattered at the moment, though some opinions almost certainly would at later date.
"Renani," insisted she to self. "My, my name is Renani. I'm Jed-- I am Jedi."
--worthless chit 'tis what ya be.
"Please," she begged. There was no deciding as to of what or whom.
Never bringin' back nothin', eatin' us outta house an' home--
"Not... that's not real, not important, not now." And, when that failed to motivate: "K'atini! People are in danger while you wallow, hut'uun."
Reni tried to summon the comfort of a face, and was granted Nothing in answer.
The greater terror did manage to uncurl her fetal position, and eventually promote a more upright posture. Fingers clutched numbly at the fasteners of her robe, but the thick cloth and its thicker layer of spirits both proved betrayingly ineffective barriers. The Force was there still, but she might have had better luck slaking thirst on a mist.
It was in fact a blurry dawn, and her throat scorchingly dry.
The physical discomfort was the Exile's lifeline. Slowly, she walked, and slowly, the dying fog made way for the ungainly blocks of post-disaster architecture.
A small, clear vial oscillated to a stop inside the abandoned cargo container.