From the forest floor on Kashyyyk, you could not see the place where the branches met their end. You could not see the sky. That was why the Wookiees that populated this planet called it the Shadowlands. Here, shadows were the only things that existed. Shadows, and the eyes that glinted in the dark, reflecting the scant light that made its way from above. Shadows, and the paws and claws and exoskeletons that went with the eyes.
And now, one holointerface. I wanted to lock down at least one of the maps to the Star Forge, to make sure there was some sort of security in the case of inevitable pursuit. This particular interface would guard against even Malak, a precaution I felt was necessary after our disagreement over Telos IV. I had lost a world containing tens of thousands of potential recruits to the cause, not to mention a garden world and top agricultural producer. Malak had lost his jaw. I had chosen to spare his life. With Leona broken and worse than dead, and defected in any event, Malak was too valuable a commander to lose. Supposedly. In theory. Or perhaps I had spared him because I felt owed him something for our history. But it was the last thing that I owed him, and I did not delude myself that he had any love left for me now. Perhaps now he would finally come into his own, free of his dependence upon me. But if he chose to do so—I needed safeguards in place.
If I decided one day to take the Star Forge and leave him behind, he could not follow me. If we left it where it was, in the location we had yet to fully discover, it would be safe from our enemies. I gathered my tools, placed them inside my pack, and turned to go.
The morning they arrived on Kashyyyk, Aithne woke feeling she wanted nothing so much as to vomit. Whether it was Bastila and the Jedi's concept of her; her own imagination now, reacting to too many coincidences; or some weird freak of the Force, she hated, hated, hated feeling like she was in Darth Revan's head. She hated feeling like some part of her understood or was similar to Revan. Hated what she seemed to feel in these visions, the overall sense of being one of the most dangerous Sith in living memory and not feeling anything that she, Aithne, could identify as outright evil and other. She knew Revan had committed atrocities, even before ostensibly turning to the Dark Side, but in these dreams and visions, Revan wasn't insane. Revan wasn't a monster. Revan wasn't full to the brim with rage or hatred or anything truly alien at all, and that was the worst, most chilling part of it.
Bastila and the Jedi or Aithne's own imagination or some weird freak of the Force conceptualized Darth Revan as rational. Arrogant, yes. Sometimes. Cold. But also logical, analytical, sensible—and not at all lost to pity, poetry, compassion, or even some affection. Aithne could fit within that concept, and it terrified her. It nauseated her.
Mission's voice sounded from the bunk diagonal to Aithne's, above Juhani's and next to Bastila's. "Another Force vision, huh?" Aithne swung her legs down to the floor and looked up at Mission. Mission was the only other person still in the starboard dormitory. She was cross-legged on her comforter, shuffling her pazaak deck. She met Aithne's eyes. "You were kicking and whimpering all night. So was Bastila. Are you okay?"
Aithne shook her head. "Not really," she said. "Don't worry about it."
"Carth says we're due to land in about half an hour," Mission reported. "Czerka's given us clearance to set down on a docking pad, but they want some kind of docking fee when we get there."
"Because on the Wookiee homeworld, we really need to be paying Czerka Corp for permission to set our ship down," Aithne muttered. She wasn't fond of the Czerka Corporation. They were officially neutral in the current war, but their contracts were much firmer with the Sith than with the Republic. They strip-mined planets to depletion; didn't care much about local ecosystems, flora, or fauna; had a history of violence with populations of species that weren't noteworthy for spacefaring or a particular presence on the galactic stage; and they dealt in both indentured servitude and harder forms of slavery. They were ruthless, slimy, world-destroying capitalists in the worst, most amoral sense. But without their presence on Kashyyyk, finding a place to land even a freighter as small as Ebon Hawk might have been tricky. The Wookiee homeworld was notoriously undeveloped.
She dressed in a loose green tunic, brown breeches, and her toughest all-weather boots, fixing her lightsaber to a bracer under her tunic's long sleeves instead of to her belt. She didn't want to advertise to every Czerka employee she was a Jedi; no telling how quick the information could get to the Sith that way. She sat down and started braiding her hair into a crown around her head. "I'm gonna have to talk to Bastila," she muttered. "Dissect and analyze every detail of these latest 'visitations of the Force.'"
"Could you talk with Big Z after?" Mission asked. "He's been fussing over the supplies since late last night."
"We didn't miscalculate, did we?" Aithne asked, a little absently. "Zaalbar not getting his eight squares daily?"
Mission shook her head. "He sure can eat, can't he? Nah, we haven't had any shortages, but I think Big Z likes how you've been letting him help make up the inventory. Makes him feel all responsible and important, you know? He wants to help you as much as he can, because of his life debt, but sometimes it's kinda hard to know how to help a Jedi. So, he keeps watch over the supplies, like anyone here is going to sneak extra rations." She rolled her eyes. "Except, I think he thinks that someone is. Just check in with Big Z. He probably can talk more about food than he can about anything else."
Aithne frowned then. She knew Zaalbar had felt largely out of things since they had touched down on Dantooine. She had tried to help him by sharing inventory duties with him. Figuring out how he would fit into their operations moving forward was an ongoing concern. For now, the best she could probably do was listen to his concerns. "Thanks for the heads up," Aithne said. And thanks for leaving primary communications up to Zaalbar, she thought, but didn't say. "As soon as I talk with Bas, I'll look him up."
She gave Mish a nod and left the dormitory. The truth was, Aithne was rather eager to talk with Bastila, uneasiness about another Revan vision aside. Things had been unbalanced all through their voyage to Kashyyyk, and Bas's unusual reticence was a big part of the dynamic.
A couple weeks from Taris and six weeks on Dantooine. That was all it had taken for Bastila Shan to become a fixture in Aithne's life. She'd never been far away, physically or mentally. She was always available—tutor, verbal and martial sparring partner, unwanted lecturer, nuisance, and occasional friend. Entering with uncertain but persistent knocks into Aithne's space and into her head, no matter the reception she met there. Aithne didn't always welcome her. Even aside from the fact that Bastila bought into the Jedi Council's distrust of her and had never denied keeping certain things from Aithne on their orders, Bastila could be annoying. She could be prim, officious, and ridiculously naïve. But the truth was, Aithne had got used to her. Bastila was also scrupulously fair, and it hadn't taken Aithne long to see that beneath the dogmatic Jedi lectures, she was a kind, thoughtful, and well-intentioned person. Her mental presence had taken on a quality similar to the hum of Ebon Hawk's hyperdrive in Aithne's head, a constant background noise of emotion. And whether that emotion was anxiety, pleasure, peace, goodwill, or disapproval, when it was absent, things felt too quiet.
Lately, it'd been absent. Bastila had retreated firmly behind her mental shields. She left the dormitory before Aithne got up and did her best to be asleep before Aithne got back. Where she'd used to seek Aithne out for one-on-one conversations at every conceivable opportunity, she now seemed to be taking pains to never be alone with her. Meditations and exercise sessions now included Juhani. Since these were practically the only times any of them could draw out the Jedi Guardian, Aithne didn't mind. She did mind the way Bastila slipped from the room faster than the shy Cathar afterward. Bastila seemed to spend most of her time physically in the cockpit with Carth, whether or not he needed her, and Aithne had dark suspicions she was doing it because she knew Aithne didn't have the guts to step to Onasi again yet—or to make sure Aithne couldn't.
Since Aithne hadn't had the guts to go up to Carth's domain again yet, she didn't know if Bastila was still stewing over her encounter with Revan or reverting to her self-appointed duty as moral guardian. But she didn't think she had the luxury of waiting to find out which one it was anymore.
It turned out she didn't have to beard Onasi in his den this morning, though—she found Bas in the dining room, cupping a mug of caffa and staring down at her uneaten breakfast, some teal and yellow synth slop that looked far too fluorescent to actually taste like anything worth eating. Aithne grimaced. She'd be glad when they could stock up on fresh supplies on Kashyyyk. Outside of the emergency stores, they were down to synth slop, hardtack, some dried meat that was more salt than savor, and the ever-palatable high-protein ration bars. Carth hadn't calculated their rations wrong, but he hadn't been overly generous either, something Aithne put down to military economy.
She still scraped up some synth slop to put on her own plate and filled her own mug with caffa. She sat beside Bastila and waited.
"So. The Force has given us another vision," Bastila said eventually. "Like the one we shared on Dantooine."
"As useful as it might be, I kinda wish it'd stop," Aithne said.
"I am disturbed as well," Bastila said. "Yet it seems clear that these visions will eventually lead us to our goal. Kashyyyk is a lush but simple and undeveloped world. I would not have expected to find the alien technology of a Star Map here."
"On the forest floor," Aithne said. "The Shadowlands. And I don't think it's undefended."
"It would not be," Bastila replied. "The Wookiees of Kashyyyk make their home high among the wroshyr branches. Only their bravest warriors dare to descend into the forbidding depths of the forest. There are creatures far more frightening than mere kath hounds there. If the Star Map is located far beneath us on the planet's surface, as our vision seems to suggest, it is unlikely the Wookiees even know of its existence. No doubt things will become clearer once we discover the Star Map's location."
Aithne pursed her lips. It didn't seem that Bastila experienced the visions in the same way she did, precisely. She might have seen the Star Map, maybe even the holointerface that Revan had installed, but she hadn't recognized it or realized what it meant. She had seen through Revan's eyes, perhaps, but without standing in Revan's boots. That particular gift of the Force seemed to be granted to Aithne alone. Point nine, she thought, feeling sick again.
Instead of mentioning her thoughts to Bastila, she decided to nitpick at Bastila's phraseology. "You do realize you can say that about anything. 'Once we find what we're looking for, we'll know how to go at it.' Of course when we've found the Star Map we won't wonder where it is anymore. We'll be there."
"Someday when this is all over, you really should look into becoming a creche instructor," Bastila said, nettled. "You have the same anal fixation on minor details, the same insufferable sense of intellectual superiority."
"Lock me up with the most annoying members of the Jedi Order, why don't you?"
"I must say, sometimes you deserve it!"
"Aren't Jedi supposed to learn precision of speech along with all those tenets of diplomacy?"
Bastila huffed, but then she smiled, and Aithne knew she wasn't really offended, and that maybe Padawan Shan had missed her too the past several days. Just a little. "Apparently, I have to see Zaalbar about a supplies situation before we land or go anywhere on Kashyyyk," she said. "But when we do, I think you should stay onboard with Carth, Canderous, Juhani, and Teethree for a while."
Bastila stiffened. "Is there a reason you wish to leave me behind?"
"Yes; I'm glad you asked," Aithne answered, popping a spoonful of synth slop into her mouth and swallowing with a grimace. "Your rule of three, back on Taris. I think it's still a good idea. Making sure no one leaves alone, but we always have a force in reserve to rescue the scouting party or forward force. Czerka Corporation is officially neutral in the war, but they deal Malak and the Sith. I don't trust them as far as I could throw them. Quite a bit less now, actually, with the Force. You want to run a bet one or the other of them won't squeal to some Sith official for a hefty payout if they figure out what we're doing here? There's the Wookiees too. They aren't wild about Czerka either, and one or the other of the pair of them could go volatile at any point while we're here. If that happens, we should have a guard on the ship and someone who can report on the situation to the others."
Bastila looked disgruntled. "You speak with wisdom, though I fail to see why you want me to remain upon the ship. The Council gave this mission to both of us."
"When we have a lead on the Star Map, I'll come back and pick you up," Aithne promised. "Maybe Ordo or Juhani too. It'll depend. But until then? This is Big Z's homeworld." She shrugged. "He deserves a chance to go look around. And Mission is his best friend. I think he'd want to share this with her, and I'm not averse to letting him while we ask around the port."
She also thought it was probably a good idea if Bastila didn't go around telling the Wookiees about their simple, undeveloped world, but she didn't say this. She reflected that friendship with Bastila was coming to involve not talking with her about a whole lot of things. At any rate, Bastila agreed to her plan, they finished breakfast in a not uncompanionable silence, and Aithne went to find Big Z.
She found him in the garage, and he came to her as soon as she entered. "Mission said you had something to tell me?"
/I was checking our supplies in the cargo hold,/ Zaalbar said. /Something's not right./
"No one's been into the ordinary rations," Aithne said. "We're fine there."
/Yes, but someone's been into the emergency stash of food,/ Zaalbar told her. /Mission and I asked everyone, but nobody knows anything about it. You might want to check out the food stores the next time you're in the cargo hold./
Aithne promised to look into it and thanked him. It was, of course, possible that one of the crew was lying and had been sneaking extra rations. Even that they had a sleepwalker aboard who didn't remember their midnight snacks. Aithne had heard of both cases. It also wasn't an enormous concern, as they'd be landing on Kashyyyk this morning and would be able to resupply. But the Disappearing Rations were a mystery, and Aithne had always liked a mystery.
Accordingly, she headed to the cargo hold. While they did keep supplies here, it was becoming more of a combination gymnasium and armory than Davik Kang and other previous owners had probably intended. Their supplies fit in a few crates and barrels near the bulkhead farthest from the door. By the door, Aithne and Bastila had put down a large mat that offered more traction than the ordinary deck. They meditated with Juhani here in the open space, and when anyone wanted to exercise, they came here. There was a mannequin on the far end of the hold they occasionally set up and used for blaster target practice, and Ordo had fitted the walls around the door with a selection of brackets to hold various rifles, swords, shock sticks, and blaster pistols they'd picked up or bought during their time together.
Aithne ignored the practice mat and the weapons for now. Instead, she crossed to the part of the room they were still using to hold their cargo and opened one of the two barrels holding their emergency foodstuffs. She saw what Zaalbar had seen at once. Several packages had been opened and emptied—in ways an animal pest couldn't have managed. Aithne frowned. She examined the area around the container and saw several crumbs scattered across the deck. Their thief, whoever it was, was smart enough to open tin cans and hard plastic packages, but not particularly tidy or subtle.
Aithne swept the hold, centimeter by centimeter, panel by panel. Before too long, she found something. There was a hidden compartment in the center of the far-right bulkhead—there was a place to enter a passcode that she didn't know. Smuggling compartment. And if there was one, there could be others. Aithne began to feel around every panel in the hold. Finally, she found a panel that pulled away easily at her tug.
She stood back, feeling grim. The compartment she was looking at wasn't large enough for an adult human, though it was possible the person who had been sleeping there was an adult of a species like Vandar's that ran a lot smaller than humans did. There were two empty food packages there, though, and a worn blanket that had once been blue but was now more of a brownish off-white was folded neatly at the bottom.
Aithne heard a scraping sound behind her. She turned and saw a flash of brown and tan by the door, too small for Zaalbar. She leaped.
The child, a human, let out a shriek as Aithne seized her arm and pulled her back into the hold, preventing her escape. Aithne hit the panel to close the cargo hold door on the two of them and looked down at her captive, who was tugging at her and sniveling in a language she didn't know. She let the girl go, and she fell to her knees, crying and lifting her hands in a piteous, supplicating manner.
The girl was human, maybe eight years old. She wore a tattered brown men's tunic wrapped around her dangerously thin, dirty body, and very little else. Her hair was matted, tangled and filthy. Aithne thought maybe it was supposed to be blonde, but there was too much dust and mud in it to be sure—and something that looked a lot like dried blood.
She recognized some of what the child was saying now—it was a pidgin language made up of Mando'a and Basic. Slave speech, and that of a kid who had been taken very, very young. Aithne closed her eyes for a moment. Then she knelt beside the child, holding her hands up in the universal gesture for someone who intends no harm.
"Hey kid," she said, keeping her voice as gentle as she possibly could. "I'm sorry I grabbed you just now. Please don't cry. I'm not going to hurt you." She noticed a fading yellow bruise on the girl's left arm, and silently cursed herself. Then, she repeated her message in Mando'a.
The girl stopped her mangled pleas for mercy almost at once, though it took her a while to stop gasping and sobbing. Aithne had terrified her just now. Her eyes were huge and hollow and blue in her too-thin face. She stared at Aithne for a long time, chin wobbling, shoulders shaking. Then she asked in Mando'a if Aithne was sure she wouldn't hurt her.
/I promise,/ Aithne told her. /How are you called?/
The girl didn't answer. Aithne placed a hand upon her own chest. /I'm called 'Aithne,'/ she said. /How are you called?/
"Sasha," the girl whispered.
It was a long, long time before Aithne got the whole story from Sasha. She had hardly any Basic, leading Aithne to believe she had been three at most when she'd been taken, but her Mando'a was poor and broken. She seemed to have been more shouted and grunted at than anything else, and she communicated better with gestures than anything. Then when Ebon Hawk began to land on Kashyyyk, the little girl got scared all over again and wouldn't talk for another several minutes. But eventually, and with bribes from the emergency stores, Aithne learned where she had come from. She'd been a slave to some of the traitors and deserters Canderous and the others had killed on Dantooine, taken from her parents during a raid years ago. The raiders had treated her badly, except for one or two of their women, who had taught Sasha what she knew of Mando'a and given her treats when the men weren't around. When Ordo and the others had begun killing the raiders, Sasha had eventually found a chance to escape from her camp. She'd hidden on Ebon Hawk.
No one on Ebon Hawk shouted or hit, Sasha explained. She liked the laughing blue girl with headtails and her big, furry monster. Sometimes she snuck out of her hiding place and watched them from the shadows. She liked the little beeping droid and the stories Aithne told and the songs she sang. She liked how the crew fought in the cargo hold without hurting each other. Ebon Hawk was her home now. She didn't want to leave.
Even the compliment to her singing—which sometimes irritated the others—didn't change Aithne's mind, though. She already had one child aboard. Mission was a teenager. She'd been on her own for years, knew how to shoot a blaster and disarm a mine, and was at least marginally prepared for what they were doing here. Sasha was eight. At the absolute oldest. She was abused and malnourished and needed far more education and care than any of them could provide her on Ebon Hawk. She couldn't stay with them.
On the other hand, they could hardly leave her on Kashyyyk. The Wookiee homeworld was no place for a runaway human slave girl, and Czerka was also a horrible place to leave her. No. They'd have to take her back to Dantooine. It was possible that some of her immediate relatives had survived the Mandalorian raid on her homestead. If they hadn't, they might be able to find an aunt, uncle, cousin, or grandparent, or the Jedi could take her as an Enclave ward. They would have medicine and healing regimens to treat whatever health or nourishment issues she had after years as a Mandalorian captive, and language tutors that could teach her to improve her Basic or Mando'a or both, as well as reading and writing and other things a girl her age should know.
Until then, though, Sasha needed to be dealt with. After promising Sasha she didn't need to hide anymore, Aithne called a crew meeting.
CANDEROUS
Canderous didn't know what he'd expected when the Aruetii called the crew together about forty-five minutes after landing on the Wookiee planet. Orders, probably. Division into scouting parties, assignment to resupply. Not a half-starved, beaten slave girl. She'd apparently stowed away on the ship and been hiding onboard for going on three weeks.
Canderous tried to think when he'd last seen a more pathetic scrap of humanity. The kid—Sasha—looked like a mangy, vermin-ridden kath pup. She was wearing some cast-off scrap of cloth one of her masters had thrown at her like osik and could barely string three words together. But she already looked at the Aruetii like she was Ebon Hawk's personal sun. Hugged Moran's leg, nibbling on some freeze-dried cake while Moran brought everyone up to speed.
"She's an escaped captive of the Dar'manda back on Dantooine," Moran explained. "Taken with the rest of the plunder in a raid several years ago. She may have family still back there, or she may need to go to the Jedi. We'll return to Dantooine immediately after we retrieve the Star Map here, but in any case, until then, Sasha needs to be cleaned, dressed, fed, watered, and generally taken care of. Canderous, I'm placing her within your charge."
"Surely you will not do this!" the Cathar burst out, stepping forward. "This . . . brute will doubtless only further torment the poor child!"
Canderous bristled. He liked pulling the Cathar's ponytail; she was an idiot and a coward, and she deserved a lot worse after she'd frozen him and the others in those ruins. Anyway, she was a better bet for a good fight than Shan and Onasi put together. But there was such a thing as going too far. "Don't confuse me with those Dar'manda scum," he warned her.
"Are you saying you never enslaved and abused ones such as her?" the Cathar demanded.
Canderous glared at her. "I should take your head," he snarled. He jerked his hand out toward the girl, disgusted, and she flinched and began gabbling at Moran in a language that wasn't anything real, nothing any educated person could actually understand. Moran glared at him, gripping the girl's shoulders reassuringly. and Canderous swore viciously and stalked away around the table. "She's half starved. Filthy. Dumb. Worse than useless for any real work, let alone in a fight. You take a prisoner of war, if you aren't warrior enough to take one any good for anything, you train them up so they will be. You don't keep them like furniture, a drain on the camp just so you have someone to kick when you want to feel big and important. Those hut'tuun bastards . . ."
"So. You never abused your slaves. Merely trained them so their lives could be nothing but a drudgery. A paragon of virtue," Juhani spat.
Canderous shot a glance at her. "What? Were you someone's pet cat when you were her age?"
The Cathar lunged. "You insolent—"
"Juhani!" Both the other Jedi delivered the reprimand at once, and Zaalbar and Onasi had leapt forward to hold the Cathar back. Canderous sneered.
"Looks like I hit a nerve there, Cathar."
/Canderous! Stand down!/ the Aruetii ordered. Her voice was suddenly as hard and cold as ice, but when he looked back at her, standing in front of the terrified kid, her eyes were blazing gold. /You call me captain? Then obey my command! You are out of order. I grant Juhani offered you insult. You yourself have said the galaxy does not understand your people, and you yourself have just seen as well as I that Juhani may have reason to hate those who keep others in bondage. So: you are the senior warrior. Live up to it, and swallow her insult. Give her reason to know better in future./
The others were staring. Aside from Onasi and the kicked-kath kid, to some extent, none of the others understood Mando'a. Canderous wasn't sure if Moran was doing him a kindness, trying to make sure none of them understood her calling him out like an errant recruit, or if she was speaking right to the part of his brain trained to answer to angry camp chiefs. At any rate, he didn't have a lot of attention to spare for Shan hissing the Jedi Code to Juhani or the Cathar trying to catch her breath and relax. All he could think of was the Aruetii's thrice-damned nerve.
There she was, half his age, not a speck of armored plating on her, an outsider, a damned Jedi, speaking to him in the speech of Mandalore like she had the right of command. Like she hadn't known it was a joke when he said he'd call her captain. Only now, he wondered if he had been joking.
/You fought in the war,/ he said. /You had to have done. If you didn't, you should have./
Her eyes flashed, and her jaw tightened. Then her eyes flicked to Onasi, who had released his hold on the calming Cathar and was watching them now, looking just like a loaded ballista. /What should I say to this, Ordo?/ she asked. /Onasi? I could stand here a day and a night denying it. Both of you will think I'm a liar, and one of you that I'm a coward besides. Should I confirm it and become a liar in fact? It will not make either of you trust me more, and perhaps less, though you might respect me more as a veteran of the wars, Canderous. No. I will say the truth, whether or not you believe me: I have eyes. I have ears, and a brain between them, and I know the Mandalor of old. So./
Abruptly, she switched to Basic, flicking her eyes away and to the Cathar, standing across the room with Shan. "Are you in control again, Juhani?"
"I am," the Cathar confirmed. "I apologize for my . . . lapse."
Moran brought the slave forward again. "See it doesn't happen again. Sasha likes it here specifically because our crew doesn't shout at and hurt one another. You don't have to tell me why you're so sensitive about slaves and slavery. We can leave it in the past. But the next time you imply Canderous is someone who would suffer his captives to exist in such a state, I might suggest you'll be lucky if he does keep to a strictly verbal offense. This girl's captors were not only obviously sloppy, lazy, and cowardly, they were deserters. To compare Ordo with the likes of them is a nice little cocktail of all the worst insults in his culture."
"I don't need your defense, Moran," Canderous growled.
"I didn't say you did," Moran retorted, in a voice that had gone icy once again, without taking her gaze off of the Cathar. "And I am fairly certain Juhani meant to insult you."
"I did no—"
"No?"
The Cathar broke off. She seethed, then turned and gave Canderous a Jedi bow. "I . . . apologize, Canderous. I have no great love for Mandalorians."
"I could say the same about the Cathar," Canderous returned. "I don't mind a good fight now and then, but there are insults that are off-limits."
"There are," Juhani agreed from between grit teeth. "Perhaps we will discuss them, sometime when tempers are cooler." She looked up at Moran. "I still wonder if Canderous is the best person to leave in charge of the child," she said.
"There are three people onboard who might understand everything she says," Moran answered, again looking back to Onasi. "Of the three of us, only one who is completely familiar with the culture in which she has spent the last several years, however barbarized and perverted. Canderous has the best chance of making her comfortable and beginning her transfer from what she has endured to a place of healing."
Juhani's yellow eyes narrowed. "He will not be able to care for the girl in all the ways she requires," she said. "I ask permission to remain with them as long as the girl is in our charge."
"Why not just say you don't trust me and have done, Jedi," Canderous sneered.
"I do not—wholly," Juhani admitted. "Yet it is not that which was in my mind. Look at her: she will need help within the fresher, choosing new garments. Are you prepared to do this?"
Canderous hesitated. There was blood in the slave girl's hair. Probably parasites too. There also wasn't a damned bit of clothing that would fit her in the men's dormitories. They'd have to cut down something of Vao's, and even that would swamp the kid. She was old enough to start learning to fight, but that was something she should be taught by a woman too, at least initially.
He looked over at Moran. "Until we get her back to Dantooine, to her family or to the Jedi, she's a foundling?" he asked.
Moran tilted her head in acknowledgment. Canderous grunted, folded his arms, and looked back at Juhani. "You can clean her up," he said. "Get her dressed in something better than that rag. We'll talk about teaching her to defend herself. At least the basics. But I'm in charge of her, understand? She was a prisoner of my people, if you could call them that. However dismally they handled it. That makes her my responsibility. I need to undo as much damage as I can before she goes back to her kind."
The Cathar blinked her big, yellow eyes. She seemed confused. "I . . . of course."
The human girl had been listening hard for the past several minutes, frowning. She tugged on Moran's tunic and asked a question in her weird little language. It took Canderous a minute to understand what she was saying, asking whether she had to go with the scary Mandalorian and the strange furry lady.
Moran knelt. /They will not harm you,/ she promised in Mando'a. /They are angry because the others hurt you. Juhani is a Cathar and a Jedi. She will help you get clean and get you new clothes to wear. Canderous is Mandalorian, but he is from another clan—another camp—than the ones who hurt you. He is the one who killed them so they could never hurt anyone else. Until we return you to Dantooine, I am leaving him in charge of making you healthy and strong./
The girl, Sasha, eyed them both. "Na abds?" she asked.
Canderous stepped up to the girl. /I'm not going to hit you, kid,/ he said. /I might teach you how to hit other people, so no one you don't want to hit you hits you ever again. I might teach you how to build a blaster or say a sentence longer than a performing bird can manage. How does that sound?/
The girl stared at him for a moment, then said, /Sasha like them,/ to Aithne. She reached out and patted Canderous on the shoulder. /Good Mando,/ she told him.
Canderous glared up at Aithne and rose, heart suddenly aching for clan and kin. He hadn't helped train a foundling warrior for—he didn't like to think about how long. And now he was doing it with a Cathar Jetii? "You owe me for this," he hissed.
The Aruetii arched an eyebrow. "You think that's how it's gonna play out?" she asked. Her eyes slid past him to Juhani. "Control your temper around the kid. She's been hurt. I've told her you're not mad at her, but you can still scare her. And remember Ordo's not an enemy on this ship and is Sasha's best chance for closure and healing before returning to her people or the Jedi."
"I . . . understand," Juhani said. She started to move toward the kid, then stopped. "I—what did you say to him, and to Carth? Before?"
Moran's eyes flicked to Onasi again. "Something I said to Canderous and to Carth," she said. Her posture dared Onasi to talk. Republic didn't take the bait. Canderous figured she wasn't trying to spare him the humiliation. No, she was vulnerable. Didn't want to spread it around the whole crew that he and Onasi had both expressed doubts about her past now or that she wasn't sure she could convince them she wasn't lying. He could use it someday, maybe. Wasn't a lot of profit in it now though. There was a foundling to take care of for the next few weeks, and right now his only way into the war was right beside Aithne Moran. What might be more immediately useful was how nervous Shan was looking. Canderous glanced over at Onasi. Could be Republic's conspiracy theories had some weight. Shan really didn't want Moran saying anything she couldn't understand. She also didn't want Moran to know she didn't like it, because she wasn't going to come out and say anything.
Juhani only bowed though. "Very well," she said. "Come along, Sasha." She held out her hand to the kid, who looked from Aithne to Canderous.
/Go with Juhani,/ Canderous told her. /She'll get you cleaned up./
He followed them from the room, leaving the Aruetii and all her secrets to take care of themselves.
AITHNE
Aithne wondered if there was a second reason Revan wore the mask, aside from all the idea-is-more-powerful-than-a-person, gender- and species-neutral PR stuff. A Mandalorian war mask would really come in handy when you'd just had to shout down two of your subordinates while keeping calm enough not to scare an abused child, when you could feel your pilot spiraling into a paranoid meltdown and your Force bondmate in a near panic over your holding private conversations with your shields up with people who weren't her. Aithne was almost shaking. She kind of wanted to run away, or cry. But some Jedi idiots had put her in charge of this sideshow.
"Onasi, I want you to stay here with Bastila and the others," she said. "Guard the ship, keep the comms open. Big Z, Mish, you're with me. Scouting party. Zaalbar, take a weapons pack with a couple of swords sharp enough to cut through underbrush and a hunting rifle. Mission, slicer's and demolition pack as usual."
Mission blinked. "You want me?" she asked. "I mean, yeah, Big Z's homeworld! Sign me up! Just didn't expect it, you know?" She hurried away with Zaalbar to arm up.
"Mission?" Carth asked, folding his arms. "I mean, this is Zaalbar's world. That makes sense. But we don't know what's out there. You don't want to take a little more firepower?"
"Those two helped me take out an entire Sith base," Aithne answered. "I'm not taking Mission down to the Shadowlands. Just scouting around the walkways up here. Zaalbar's nervous about things here. I don't know why, and he's not talking, but I figure he'll be happier if Mission's with us, at least at first. Keep the comm open," she repeated. "Just in case."
Carth shot her a look full of distrust. Aithne met his stare, finally more annoyed than she was embarrassed about their last encounter. "Poke around the port if you must. Resupply with Czerka. Get some things for Sasha. Just don't go far. We'll all talk in a few hours."
"Fine."
Aithne met Zaalbar and Mission on the exit ramp five minutes later. They left the ship, and Aithne sighed. Kashyyyk. She could feel the moisture in the air, closing like an envelope around her skin. At least there wasn't a smell of salt or fish in it, but she just knew her hair was already curling up like some kind of frizzy halo.
She was right too. Mission took one look at her and choked back a giggle. She blushed violet immediately, apologizing, but the damage was done. "Just because you've never had a bad hair day in your life," Aithne muttered.
"You could wear one of those big, mysterious Jedi cloaks," Mission offered. "Throw the hood up and no one would even notice."
"Except Czerka, whose attention we are trying not to draw," Aithne retorted. "Ease off the J-word while we're here, okay?"
"That why you didn't want to take Bastila out with you?" Mission asked.
"One of the reasons."
The kid looked around. "A lot different from Taris or Dantooine here," she observed. "Hey, what's that noise?"
Aithne hadn't even registered it. Now she did—the shrieking of primates in the trees. "Tachs," she told Mission. "Brachiating, long-tailed, quadrupedal omnivores, about a third the size of a kath hound. Harmless nuisances, mostly. Doesn't stop people wanting to hunt them nearly to extinction. They have a gland in their brains that can be prepared a couple different ways in different stimulants and intoxicants. They're noisy, but they won't hurt you."
Mission walked to the edge of the platform. She looked down, then up at the arching branches overhead. "You can't even see the ground from here, but the sun still don't shine through the branches. How tall are these trees, anyway?"
"Excuse me," said a man in a gray and green uniform, clearing his throat from the sidelines.
"Ah," Aithne said. "You must be the tax man."
Indeed, this was the man sent to collect the fee Onasi had said Czerka wanted. Aithne looked down her nose at the man. She thought she could probably use the Force to weasel out of paying the fee, which she didn't particularly feel like giving to Czerka, but if she did that, the fee wouldn't go into the books. Someone would notice, and they'd have to deal with someone else coming after them for the fee later. Better to pay up and avoid the trouble. She withdrew the credits the Czerka employee wanted and handed them over, then gave him Ebon Hawk's registry information.
"And how long will you be staying?" he asked.
Aithne shook her head. "We'll stay as long as we need to in order to settle our business here."
"If you choose to occupy this landing pad for any extended period of time, we may need to negotiate an extended fee for the privilege," the Czerka employee insisted.
Beside her, Zaalbar growled. Aithne followed the direction of his gaze. On the neighboring landing pad, five Wookiees were being loaded onto a transport ship in chains. Aithne went cold inside. "Don't worry," she nearly spat. "We've no desire to linger here."
She shouldered past the Czerka representative, heading toward a walkway that led to a cluster of buildings further on.
"Aithne—they're—they've made those Wookiees slaves," Mission said. Her voice was small. "They're taking them away to sell, aren't they?"
/Kashyyyk, my home,/ Zaalbar said suddenly, with more sarcasm than Aithne had ever heard him use. /Carth told you there were worse places than Taris, Mission. This planet has become one, now that the Czerka are here./ His voice dipped low into a snarl, and his fists clenched. /I am sorry. I should have prepared you both for coming here. But I don't know if I've prepared myself./
Aithne folded her arms. "If there's anything we need to know, you better tell us now," she said.
/I didn't leave here voluntarily,/ Zaalbar admitted. He glanced sideways at Mission. /Mission must have told you how I was fleeing slavers, but there was more. I am an exile. The slavers on Kashyyyk only took me after I was forced to leave my village home, twenty years ago./
Mission started to protest, but Aithne held up a hand. "Why did they kick you out?" she asked. And is there going to be trouble?
/My brother made deals with the slavers and allowed them to get a foothold,/ Zaalbar told them. /I found out and attacked him. The fight was stopped, but my father did not believe me when I told him about my brother's actions. I was made an exile, disowned by my home and people. I should not be here. They will not accept me back./
"Big Z, that's awful!" Mission cried. "Why the hell didn't your father believe you?"
Aithne waited.
After a long moment, Zaalbar spoke. /When I attacked my brother, I was so mad I . . . I used my claws./
Aithne breathed in. "Mad-claw," she murmured. They were in trouble, alright. Zaalbar bowed his head with shame.
"So you used your claws," Mission said, angry. "What's the big deal?"
/You don't understand what that means to a Wookiee, Mission,/ Zaalbar said, pacing away from them. /Our claws are tools, not weapons. To use them in battle is to become an animal. It is madness without honor. I am forever a mad-claw in the eyes of my people. Nothing I say is to be trusted. They were right to cast me out./
Mission frowned. "That seems a little harsh, Big Z. I mean, doesn't everyone lose it sometimes? And you had plenty reason. Right, Aithne?" She glanced at Aithne, looking for support.
Aithne pursed her lips. "The situation supports that at least some of the Wookiees are aiding and abetting Czerka here and have been for a while," she said at last, gesturing around at the walkway, the Czerka employees in uniform. "But for a Wookiee to attack someone else with their claws, let alone blood kin?" She shook her head. "Put it this way: if you hadn't restricted yourself to insults with Lena, if you'd gone after her with your nails and teeth, actually tried to smack her headtails off, d'you think it would've mattered much to me what you had to say about her?" She paused. "You were provoked," she told Zaalbar. "And I'm guessing you were pretty young at the time. Things could've changed here in the meantime."
/The slavers are still here,/ Zaalbar answered. /This dock is theirs. I doubt anyone has risen to try and fight. Nothing has changed. I just hope I can prove myself to my people. It will be difficult to make them listen. I just don't know./
"Do you want to return to the ship?" Aithne asked.
/My village is near here,/ Zaalbar answered. /They will know you have brought me with you and will judge you for it regardless of whether I go in your company or not. I would rather not leave you without my protection and abandon all my honor./
Aithne nodded. She extended her hand, and Zaalbar clasped her forearm. "Then we'll deal with it," Aithne promised, "and I'll help you if I can."
/I don't have much hope,/ replied Zaalbar.
Mission stepped close to her friend. She reached out and took his hand. "There's always hope, Big Z," she told him. "You and me and Aithne'll fix things. You'll see!"
Aithne looked at Mission. She wanted to tell the teenager it was a bad idea to make promises they couldn't deliver on, but the girl was trying to encourage her friend. Did she really want to step all over that kind of impulse? She sighed. "We need to get to the Shadowlands," she said instead. "According to the vision Bastila and I had last night, the Star Map is located there. I want to ask around and see if anyone's seen anything that seems out of place down there."
Zaalbar growled. /I will take you to my village,/ he said after a long moment. /They will have guides there who can take you if I am welcome. And regardless, I think they will let me attend you there. Wookiees die in the Shadowlands all the time./
"Don't talk like that Zaalbar," Mission scolded him. "You're not gonna die."
"And you're not going to the Shadowlands," Aithne told her. "You can come to the village with us if you want, but I promised Carth and Bastila that once we find a lead on the Star Map, you're heading back to the ship. There's things a lot more dangerous than tachs out there."
"So what? You're gonna take me on an outing to the town, then pack me back to Ebon Hawk to wait with that Sasha kid?" Mission demanded.
"That's right," Aithne answered without flinching. "Hostile creatures don't just come at you in two dimensions here. You have to look up and down too. This is a strange world for you. You haven't trained anywhere like this. So, I'll train you, but I'm not taking you down to the worst place on Kashyyyk any more than I'd take any civilian before I'd been back on the ground for at least three weeks. That going to be a problem?"
Mission was quiet for a second. Then she grumbled, "Not when you put it like that."
"Great," Aithne said.
The Czerka docking officer had given her a pass to leave the settlement. Aithne flashed it at the guard at the gate, in the direction Zaalbar told them they needed to take to get to the village.
"Hey, what did you say to Carth and Canderous back on the ship?" Mission asked before they'd gone a few steps outside the settlement.
"And what makes you think I'll tell you? I didn't tell Juhani and Bastila."
"Yeah, but that's Juhani and Bastila, right? You can trust us, right?"
Aithne looked over at the Twi'lek and the Wookiee. She sighed. She'd been a little too obvious about her feelings for the Jedi if Mission was asking questions like that. She didn't want the kid putting the women who were supposed to be her partners on the outside. "Juhani's new, and she has a temper, but we like her," she told Mission. "She's a Jedi Knight and a decent warrior, and what's better than either, an honest woman, even if she doesn't talk too much. We have no reason to distrust her. And Bastila's supposed to be 'dragging me up to sane,' you know."
Mission wrinkled her nose. "I don't want you doing sane the way she does it. That lady's nose is so far in the air it's a wonder she can see to tie her boots on in the morning. Plus, she has almost no sense of humor."
"Neither quality means she's inherently untrustworthy," Aithne pointed out.
Mission shot her a look. "But you don't want her and Juhani hearing what you said to Carth and Canderous," she pointed out.
"I didn't want Carth hearing what I said to Canderous," Aithne corrected. "If things had been less tense and I'd've thought of it, I'd've asked Ordo out into the hallway or the hold. But I didn't think of it. Next time I will. It's just my misfortune Onasi studied up on Mando'a during the wars."
Mission blinked. "Oh," she said, in a different tone. "So, it was like a commander thing. You didn't want to embarrass him in front of the rest of us. That's alright then. And what, you were telling Carth not to share either?"
"No," Aithne admitted, "but I'm still not going to share with you."
"Sheesh, you're no fun when you get all moral and conscientious," Mission complained. "Give me the petty gossip! Wait, uhh . . . what's that?" Her voice rose sharply, and she stepped back and drew her blasters.
Aithne turned to see three tetrapod creatures about waist-high closing in on them. She ignited her lightsaber. "Kinrath," she answered. "Cave-dwelling on Dantooine, arboreal here, venomous and aggressive with a natural armor. Aim for the joints or just avoid them! Zaalbar, to me!"
Against multiple beast opponents, Aithne adapted her preferred Form VI with some Form V strikes—it was useless trying to outsmart most beasts; the thing was to just get the fighting done as soon as possible while not leaving oneself vulnerable to several of them coming at once. Honestly, lightsaber combat was less about artistry and more about butchery when up against things like kinrath. Aithne was just glad she had a lightsaber instead of her double vibroblades, though she missed having a second blade available. She was going to have to find or make a second lightsaber eventually.
She noted Zaalbar falling into combat against the kinrath like a child falling into a traditional dance, one known from memory since the beginning of memory itself. She used part of her mind to observe his movements, filing them away for future reference as the way the Wookiees fought these things.
Every so often, Mission fired a shot, but most often, Aithne and Zaalbar were in her line of fire, and she just did her best to keep back from the fray. Finally, the last kinrath fell, smoking. Aithne inhaled the scent of it and made a face. They smelled like Tarisian seafood.
"I thought I was done charbroiling crustaceans for a while," she muttered.
Zaalbar made the soft, burring noise that was his laugh. /But there is no stench of sea or city with it,/ he said. /Can you feel the wind through the trees? The sounds . . . the smells. I feel them all now that we are away from the spaceport./ He stamped on the ground. /This walkway is new, probably built by the slavers, but I remember the trees. My village is not far from here./
"Which way?" Aithne asked. Zaalbar pointed a massive shaggy claw off to the west.
/It has been so long since I left,/ he said. /I do not know what we may find there. I only know the way things were, and many things may have changed. I must warn you of one thing. I don't know if I will be a help or a hindrance to you here. My father was very powerful . . . a chieftain./
Mission checked. "Woah. So, Big Z, you're like a prince?"
Zaalbar laughed again, though this time, the sound had a touch of irony about it. /A disgraced and dishonored one, but yes, Mission. I was like a prince. Perhaps my father's feelings have mellowed, but if my brother has had his ear all this time, I may be very unwelcome./
"Or, seeing how bad things have gotten, we may find you are just the opposite," Aithne suggested.
Zaalbar shook his furry head. /I am dreading it, nonetheless. My shame was meant to be forgotten on some far away world. I never thought I'd come back. I'm sorry, I've taken enough of your time. We should press on./
But a few hundred feet down the path, they were obliged to stop. Three nervous-looking Czerka employees stood around a dead Wookiee, shot to death. The kill was fresh; the wound was still gushing blood. "This isn't good," one of the Czerka said. "I can't afford this."
"You think I can?" another snapped. "You know what they get for a healthy one of these things?!"
The third noticed them then. "We'll work it out later. We've got company." He stepped in front of the corpse and addressed Aithne. "What do you want, spacer? I'm Patrol Captain Dehno, and you're interrupting Czerka Corporation business."
"We have clearance from the docking authorities to leave the port. Last I checked, walking down the same street doesn't qualify as an interruption," Aithne said coolly. "Though, if your business is gunning down your stock, maybe we want to interrupt you anyway. You're afraid we might file a report?"
"The slave got a little rebellious," the captain told her defensively. "We had to put it down."
Mission made a sound of indignation, but Zaalbar roared. /You put it down?! We're not animals!/
Aithne felt a cold fury at the core of her very being. "No," she agreed. "But if we decide to put them down for the murder, they've got a whole host of friends back at the spaceport, mostly grouped around our friends on the ship."
/But their disregard for the life of this Wookiee is too much!/ protested Zaalbar.
"I agree," Aithne answered, without taking her eyes off of the patrol. "But attacking in anger has brought you to grief before, has it not?"
"That's right, slave," one of the patrollers said. "Know your place, or we'll have another accident."
Aithne's laugh cut across even Zaalbar's roar of outrage. "Oh, I'm not worried about your killing my friend—he is my friend, you know, not my slave, and I don't claim the command of him. He can do what he likes with you; I've just been offering him some advice. If there's an accident here, I'm pretty sure you'll come out the worse for it. I hope we can avoid that. But you won't avoid answering for this. Do your superiors approve of your killing Wookiees?"
"I don't like your tone, spacer," Dehno said, going white even as he tried to aim for an intimidating glare. "Do you mean to say your . . . friend . . . could murder us, and you would offer no objection?"
"Not no objection," Aithne said. "I've told him I think it's stupid. Then again, if all three of you go missing in the forest and no one ever finds you again, there's no way your friends at the spaceport can prove what happened to you or why. I imagine patrols go missing all the time."
Captain Dehno reached for the comlink at his belt, but Mission fired a single shot. Several things happened at once. The comlink went spinning away, blasted to pieces and sparking. Dehno swore loudly and clutched his hand to his chest, bleeding profusely but actually not blasted to pieces—Mission had used a low-powered shot. The two other patrol members drew their blasters, and Aithne activated her lightsaber, taking up a Soresu stance.
"Jedi!" all three Czerka said. Their faces had turned a rather interesting shade, Aithne thought—roughly the color of cold porridge.
"Nice shot," Aithne told Mission.
"Thanks! You know, I really meant to hit—"
"Don't tell them you're surprised you actually pulled off that insanely cool move," Aithne advised her, breaking in. "It just ruins the effect. Unless you're trying to scare them, make it seem like the next shot could kill them and you don't care if it does."
"I really don't," Mission said, ostentatiously upping the setting on her blasters again. Aithne couldn't have directed the girl better. She was so proud.
"Damn you," Dehno said through grit teeth, still clutching his hand to his breast. "Are you going to kill us, Jedi? For this Wookiee? I stand by my patrol. The creature got out of hand and had to be put down!"
"Got out of hand," Aithne repeated, as if mulling the words over. "Strikes me as an understandable response from a person you were attempting to forcibly take away from their home, friends, and family to be a slave on some other planet. At any rate, I'm almost certain you have protocols for Wookiee aggression that don't involve shooting them dead. You'll report this death to your superiors. You'll have the cost taken from all of your paychecks and second my recommendation you all be not only removed from the duty of taking Wookiee slaves but forbidden from bringing them in even on a bounty basis. It won't go near far enough, but you'll keep your lives."
It was a strong disciplinary measure for three Czerka who had killed a slave, Aithne knew, even a valuable one, but it was just plausible that a spacer threatening to raise an interstellar PR stink over Czerka slaving protocols could make it stick.
But she'd misjudged her man. "I—I won't stand for this kind of extortion and intimidation!" Dehno sputtered. "You said it: anything can happen in the forest! And with my comlink destroyed—do you know what I think happened here? I think this Wookiee attacked this fool, and we arrived just a little too late to help."
"Uh, Captain?" one of the patrolmen ventured. "That's a Jedi. And, uh, we have blasters. Don't Wookiees use those bowcaster things?"
Dehno was trying to draw his own blaster pistol with his offhand. "Would you just shut up and shoot?"
Zaalbar took three steps across the intervening space and cut down the captain, while his two men were still hesitating. As he did so, the patrolmen's blasters swung around. "I've got the left!" Aithne shouted and used the Force to leap on one. She cut the blaster out of his hand, and in an extension of the same movement clove the man nearly in two. She turned to her right, but Mission had gunned him down as ordered.
The three of them looked down at the three uniformed bodies. "Come on," Aithne said, seizing the ankle of one and dragging him toward the edge of the walkway. She heaved him over and watched him fall down into the fathomless depths of the forest. Zaalbar grabbed up Dehno and the third human corpse together and tossed them after Aithne's kill. "'What happened to Dehno's patrol?'" Aithne asked rhetorically. "'No idea. Must've run into a group of kinrath or something. We don't have the resources for a search party. Send a note to their families and adjust the guard rotation.'" She turned to Zaalbar. "How would your people treat his body?" she asked, gesturing to the dead Wookiee.
/We burn our dead on pyres, specially woven from the deadwood of the forest,/ Zaalbar answered. /He may have been from my village, but I do not know. We can tell them there what has happened, but if we try to take him, they may see me and assume we slew him./
Aithne nodded, and the three of them headed down the walkway. Mission's face was dark. "I just hate this!" she burst out suddenly. "Those guys—they didn't even care they'd killed that Wookiee! They treated him like just this . . . like he wasn't even a person! All they cared about was what might come out of their precious paychecks!" She turned wide eyes to Zaalbar. "You said how people treat you guys, but I didn't know it was this bad, Big Z. Can we—is there something we can do?"
Zaalbar smiled with his eyes. /There may be something. I do not know it. The problems of my people with Czerka Corporation . . . they have become larger than I know how to solve. But so long as you stand beside me against such injustice, wherever we find it . . . perhaps that must be enough./
Mission looked at Aithne. "Can you do something?" she asked quietly. "I mean, you were on track to cure the entire rhakghoul disease before Malak and the Sith hit. Could you . . . could you do something like that here?"
"You and Zaalbar and Carth were on track to cure the rhakghoul disease," Aithne corrected, still hating herself for that. "I made sure we got the cure, but I was still half considering turning it into the Exchange for the bounty if we had to when you guys gave it to Zelka." She was quiet a moment. "We have to find the Star Map," she said then. "And we have to keep Ebon Hawk safe against our departure. Those have to be our top two priorities. But—"
"But if we get a chance to put something else right, you'll do it, won't you?" Mission said. "You'll help the Wookiees."
"If we get the chance," Aithne said, "and if I can do it without jeopardizing our assignment. We have to remember we're out to beat Malak right now, not kick Czerka Corporation off Kashyyyk and burn the whole sorry company to the ground." But her wish that they could do just that showed in both her voice and vocab choice, and Mission seemed somewhat appeased.
"I guess we'll just put it on the to-do list." She reached out and gripped her best friend's arm. "Sorry, Big Z."
They continued down the path Zaalbar told them led to his village, running into a few more groups of kinrath on the way. But they were stopped just after Zaalbar told them they were very close by another group of three men. But these three men weren't wearing Czerka uniforms. They wore gray, with black cowls, and when Aithne saw them, her skin tingled.
"Mission, stay back from this fight," she said. "Zaalbar. That vibrosword have cortosis weave?"
Zaalbar roared an unhappy negative. Aithne pressed her lips together. "Take her," she said then, making a quick gesture toward Mission. "Take to the trees. Shoot from the branches and the shadows. Keep moving."
"But Aithne—" Mission started to protest, but Big Z had already moved to obey Aithne's order. He slung the kid over his back and jumped off the walkway, three meters out and one and a half down to a branch, fading from view.
Three scarlet blades slid from the lightsabers of the Sith opposite Aithne. "If you think the trees will protect your friends, you are mistaken," the foremost of the Sith said. "The Force is with us. Killing them may be more tedious now, but I assure you, it is far from impossible."
"I think you three may be a little too busy to go chasing a Wookiee through the trees," Aithne said, activating her own 'saber.
"Confident," the Sith replied. "Lord Malak was most displeased when he learned you had escaped Taris alive. He has promised a great reward to whoever destroys you!"
This struck Aithne. While she had predicted Sith dropping out of the sky at some point, she hadn't anticipated them knowing who she was until someone reported she was after the Star Maps. But she didn't have time to think about the implications, because all three Sith were on her. She had to command the battle—all three Sith had to focus on her, not only so they couldn't look for Zaalbar and Mission in the trees but so they might be left vulnerable to Zaalbar and Mission's fire, which otherwise they would be able to fend off. Aithne began dancing through the blades. She directed the Force to hold one of her opponents in stasis and in an extension of the same movement, chopped off his 'saber hand. She caught his red lightsaber in her offhand, spun it into a reverse grip, and ran him through, then turned to face off with both the others, rotating the saber again.
Now she truly was in command. She sensed the fear and hatred of her opponents spike. They would use it to fuel their attacks; it was the Sith way. But it would also leave them vulnerable. One of the Sith stumbled, impaled by a bowcaster bolt to the shoulder, though Zaalbar hadn't felled him. He turned toward the trees with a snarl, and Aithne sprang at him.
He fell at her feet, and Aithne faced off with the third of the Sith. He hissed at her, sprang away, and flung his lightsaber at her. She flicked her green saber up, knocking it off course and away. He could call it back to him. But fast enough? He tried, but Aithne stepped in, and before it got within a meter of them, she had cut down the last Sith with both her sabers. The entire combat had taken about thirty seconds. It wasn't the way civilians liked to imagine lightsaber combat, wasn't the way exhibition or sparring matches at the Jedi academy ran, where the duelists weren't fighting to kill. But often, it was precisely the way live 'saber play between two enemy Force practitioners went. The moment the stronger—or luckier—combatant spotted a weakness, they went in for the disarming or disabling blow. Or the killing one.
Aithne waited on the walkway for Mission and Zaalbar. They rejoined her in about another minute. Zaalbar slung Mission down off his shoulder, and she shoved him away. "Why'd you do that, huh?" she demanded of both of them. "I could've stayed in that fight! I came with you guys to fight the Sith! You don't gotta protect me all the time, geez!"
Aithne looked at her. "There's no cover here but the trees," she said. "No obstacles on the walkway big enough to keep you away from Sith with lightsabers, and neither one of you had a weapon capable of defending from a lightsaber attack. And because these guys were Sith, they'd've gone after you first."
She walked past Mission and Zaalbar to the bodies. The first pack she checked was the pack of the Sith she took to have been the leader of the party, the man who had spoken to her.
"Hey, don't just blow me off and walk away!" Mission snapped, following her. "If there are gonna be Sith chasing us now, we need to come up with a protocol or a strategy or something. I'm not just gonna run away and let you take on three Dark Jedi on your own! And I'm sure not gonna let Zaalbar pick me up anymore—what, what are you looking at? What's that?"
Aithne raised the bounty chit she'd found in the Dark Jedi's pack. "Thought so," she said. "One of the Dark Jedi mentioned Malak being mad I'd got away from Taris. Like, me, specifically. I wondered—"
She broke off, frowning. The first holo that came up on the chit was an image of Carth—a standard Republic service holo, with a block of brief, scrolling text giving details on the bounty in both Basic and Huttese. She pressed the cycle button, and the next image that came up was Bastila. The crest at the bottom of the image was different; it was an image from the Jedi records, not the Republic's. The bounties for bringing Onasi in, dead or alive, had been respectable enough—a bounty hunter might be able to live it up on the Rim for a few months on the proceeds. The bounty for Bastila's death was about 20 percent higher, but predictably, the bounty for bringing her in alive could've been a princess's ransom. The Sith wouldn't mind taking her out of the fight, but what they really wanted was to capture and turn her to make use of her Battle Meditation for their own cause.
But where'd they get the intel Bastila escaped Taris or that Carth was working with us at all? And neither of them is with me today . . .
More on reflex than anything, Aithne hit the cycle button on the chit again, looking for anything that might explain why Malak was after her. Then she stared.
The third image on the bounty chit wasn't an official Republic or Jedi records holo. It was a "sketch" holo, an artistic representation formed on a computer from a description. The woman in the image was clearly meant to be her, the way she'd looked on Taris—wearing a combat suit and wielding double vibroblades. And where Carth and Bastila's holos had had their names next to them, hers read Alias: Aithne Moran. Alias.
And the bounty . . . Aithne blinked. She shook the chit, then breathed out a shaky breath. Malak was offering more for her death than he was for Bastila delivered alive. It was enough for a bounty hunter to retire, and retire wealthy.
"What is that?" Mission repeated, in a very different voice. She was staring at the chit in Aithne's hand.
Aithne tried to laugh it off. "Mish, you disappoint me! And you claim you've got street smarts! Haven't you ever seen a bounty chit before?"
"Hey, you know what I mean," Mission protested, grabbing for the chit. Aithne switched it off and snatched it away from the kid. "What are you going for? And why just you, Carth, and Bastila? Why not me and Big Z? Or Canderous?"
Aithne shook her head. "The descriptions come from Taris. Canderous would've only been spotted with us at the very end."
"So, someone else got out," Mission reasoned. "Some Sith or bounty hunter or something, but not anyone from the base, or we'd be there, right?"
"Probably," Aithne said.
Mission looked worried. "Look, if Darth Malak has a bounty on you, maybe we should talk about it, you know? Make some plans."
Aithne looked at Zaalbar. He understood what she wanted.
/The time for making plans is not when we are in the middle of the forest, where my people or angry kinrath could come upon us at any moment,/ he said. /Let it be for now, Mission. Come./
"I just wanted to help," Mission grumbled, but she rose and fell in behind Zaalbar. They rounded the corner, and a giant wicker gate came into view.
/Rwookrrorro. My home./ said Zaalbar.
Suddenly, a guard moved out from the shadows. He held up a massive furry paw. /Stop where you are, outsider/ he growled. /You enter the domain of Chuundar, chieftain and leader./
Zaalbar stood taller. /Stand aside!/ he bellowed. /These two are with me, and I want access to the home of my people!/
/You have no rights here, mad-claw!/ snarled the guard. /Your friends should not have brought this taint upon our land! You must answer to Chuundar!/
With that the guard blew a tiny carved whistle.
"Zaalbar, do you know this Chuundar?" Aithne asked, getting a bad feeling.
/Silence!/ the guard roared. /The mad-claw is nameless with dishonor. His foulness disgusts me!/ Two burly Wookiees came out of the gate. /He and you will be taken to Chuundar now!/
"Just see here, you walking fuzzballs," Mission flared up, "You leave Big Z alone or—"
"Mission," Aithne hissed, grabbing the teenager's wrists before she went for her gun. "You want to kill people Zaalbar grew up with?" More Wookiees filed out of the gate. "Besides, there are a lot more of them than there are of us."
"No!" Mission cried, as one of the Wookiees hit Zaalbar, disarming him and taking his vibrosword. "No! You can't let them—"
She went for her offhand gun with her left, and a Wookiee stepped toward her. Aithne stepped in front of Mission, blocking her fire and the Wookiee's access to the teenager. "Everyone, stand down!" she ordered.
"They're taking Big Z!" Mission insisted, voice breaking, face panicked.
"For now," Aithne said. "Just hold it, Mission. We'll figure this out."
/You will do no violence here, human,/ one of the Wookiees said.
"For now," Aithne repeated, holding her hands up. "I'll vouch for my companion's good conduct, but if you attempt to disarm her, or harm her in any way, any promise of peace between us is null and void."
/You will come with us to see the mighty Chuundar./
"Fine," Aithne said. "He will explain why you have seized our friend, and the explanation had better be a good one."