Despite her words of the day before, Aithne Moran spent half the morning helping his village determine which of them had supported his brother's slaving activities. She proved her wisdom as well as her strength in evaluating who had been deceived and who had been a participant in the treachery against their own people. But soon, it was time for them to go.
Aithne led their party back to the throne room so they could take their leave of Freyyr. They found his father bent over a workbench in an alcove, laboring to reunite the parts of Bacca's sword. When the four of them entered, he straightened to salute them.
"My son," he said. "Jolee Bindo, Aithne Moran, Carth Onasi. Well met. What do you require?"
/I think it's time that we were leaving,/ Aithne said. /We wanted to say farewell./
"Perhaps it is time for you to take your leave," Freyyr agreed. "My people have already begun the attack on the Czerka filth. For all you have done for us, they will find it hard to accept humans here for many years. Yet know, Aithne Moran, that I, Freyyr of Kashyyyk, recognize what you have done, and would reward you. You have done us a great service, and Kashyyyk will remember you well past your lifetime. Because of you, I am reinstated as chieftain. We will return to the old ways, when honor and trust of kin ruled above all else. I'm not sure there is a reward that accurately reflects the value of what you have done. Our world is changed because of you."
Aithne just smiled. /So I fought a giant monster and gave you a bit of a push,/ she said. Then her face became more serious. /The real work's ahead of you, Freyyr. You know that. Circumstances allowed for me to help you, and I'm gladder of that than I can say, but I just as well might never have had the opportunity. I don't need a reward for anything I did here./
Zaalbar's father growled in approval. "This is a good human, my son," he said. "She is worthy of the honor you have given her."
"She is," Zaalbar agreed. "Yet I would ask for a reward, Father. I have thought about it a great deal. I would like Bacca's sword."
All through the night, he had thought on what both his father and Chuundar had said: their wish to spread Wookiee wisdom across the galaxy. As he left his homeworld, this time with the blessing of his father and his village, he wanted to take something of Kashyyyk with them that would symbolize this end, show his commitment to his people in his service for his lifedebt, against the Sith who had obliterated Taris and beyond.
Aithne seemed surprised by his request, but she smiled once again. /I like it,/ she told Freyyr. /The blade is a symbol of your people's power, honor, and justice, isn't it? I think Zaalbar should have it./
Zaalbar's father looked down at the sword in his hand, but newly restored. "I am tempted to say no," he said, "but perhaps I should consider it an investment. Zaalbar, do you understand what this will mean? It is the legacy of our people, held by chieftains . . . and future chieftains."
Zaalbar growled an affirmation. He knew he was not worthy to be chieftain yet. But still he felt that, alongside Aithne Moran, he could become ready. He could grow as a warrior, learn from her strength and wisdom, regain his honor. And when he returned to Kashyyyk, in fifty or in seventy years, he would be full grown and ready to take on the burden Bacca's sword represented. He vowed it. "I understand. I want this, Father. I'll bring it back one day."
/Yes, you will,/ Aithne promised.
"I have no doubt," Freyyr said. He nodded and handed Zaalbar the ancient ritual blade. "Let the two halves of the blade be made one. My son shall hold Bacca's sword."
It was good to be his father's son again, to take on the responsibility for his people again, even if he would not bear it just yet. Zaalbar raised the blade and roared, and his father roared back at him. Zaalbar sheathed the blade and slung it across his back, then ran to embrace his father. Freyyr held him tight before releasing him once again.
"Go well, my son," he said. "Honor your lifedebt. Represent our people."
"I will, Father."
/Farewell, Freyyr,/ the Bindo said, and Aithne Moran and Carth Onasi said their farewells in turn. Then the four of them left the village.
/Do you want to talk, Big Z?/ Aithne asked him, when they were a ways away from Rwookrrorro.
"I do not know," Zaalbar admitted. "You have seen more than I would have allowed and taught me some things, too. I am grateful for that. It will be a while before I know what my role will be in making Kashyyyk truly free, yet I feel going with you, bearing Bacca's sword, is the best first step to take."
/Why did you ask for it?/ Aithne wanted to know.
Zaalbar explained. Aithne listened, and she didn't comment on what he said. Just nodded and thanked him. /I'm sorry we couldn't stay longer on Kashyyyk,/ she said.
Zaalbar smiled down at his human friend. "You and I have important things to do," he said. "I don't feel bad about leaving this time. I know I'll be welcomed back. And it will be good to get back to Mission on Ebon Hawk."
Aithne smiled back at him. /I know she'll be happy to see you./
As they drew nearer to the spaceport, Zaalbar could hear the sounds of roars and screams resounding through the forest: his people, battling the Czerka. Many might die today, he knew, but it would be a better death, fighting for the sake of their freedom, than any they could suffer in chains away from home. The battle was clean. It was good. And he knew that in the end, his people would win the victory. They had suffered in silence for too long.
Aithne Moran led him and the others in support of his people in a few skirmishes—those that lay in their path to Ebon Hawk. Zaalbar fought beside his people, wielding Bacca's sword for their cause. He saw lives saved because of their participation, and slavers and scum destroyed.
At last, they were returned to Ebon Hawk. Zaalbar saw with pleasure that his people had posted guards upon their ship to make sure that the Czerka neither attacked nor stole the vessel. Aithne Moran commed the Jedi Bastila, and the ramp lowered down.
/Go ahead,/ Aithne Moran told him then, grinning. /Someone's waiting for you inside./
AITHNE
Ebon Hawk began its journey back to Dantooine without any real disruption to operations. Jolee took up residence in and responsibility for the med bay, sliding into place as the ship's medic and healer without a word, and Aithne realized with some chagrin that it probably was not a terrible idea they have a healer aboard. He sometimes joined morning meditation and sparring in the hold with her, Bastila, and Juhani, but just as often took his exercise with the non-Jedi members of the crew in the afternoons or evenings. Zaalbar, Mission, Juhani, and Sasha accepted the old man quickly; Canderous and T3-M4 ignored him; and Bastila and Carth maintained a wary distance, still, she thought, suspicious of the way Bindo had extorted a position on the crew from them.
In two days on Kashyyyk, Juhani had become much more integrated into the crew than she had in two weeks' journey from Dantooine in the first place. Aithne continued to sense Juhani's detestation of Canderous Ordo, yet the Jedi Knight had developed an effective working relationship with him in order to best fulfill the needs of their small guest. Among the Mando'ade, it was customary for women to train the girls as men trained the boys, so while Canderous had retained overall responsibility for Sasha's wellbeing, he appeared to have delegated the actual business of beginning to teach Sasha to fight to the Cathar. He was the girl's war chief, and Juhani apparently her teacher and immediate guardian. The three had formed a quasi-unit upon the ship, and though the dynamics were weird, Aithne had to approve of what they were doing, both with one another and with the girl.
Sasha was well dressed now. Adequate food was already starting to fill her out. Ordo had taught her the names of everyone aboard, as well as basic greetings and farewells for them all. Her grammar in Mando'a had improved, and while Sasha still had very little Basic, her vocabulary was expanding. She also seemed much more confident.
As they flew toward Dantooine, Mission spent most of her time with Zaalbar. She neglected her lessons a bit, actually. Aithne understood why she was doing it: she'd been scared out of her mind she'd lose her friend on Kashyyyk after everything that had happened on Taris. She needed time to assure herself he was really back and safe and with them. Still, Aithne knew she'd have to get after the teenager to recommit to her education again soon and hoped she hadn't lost the authority through allowing Zaalbar's capture or the continued delay in searching for Griff Vao.
The biggest strain aboard Ebon Hawk was between Aithne herself and Bastila. Aithne wasn't sure Bastila had picked up on it yet, but given the nature of the bond between them, she also wasn't willing to bet the younger woman hadn't. The truth was, Aithne was turning over and over in her mind whether she wanted to wait to research what might be going on with her connection to Revan until she was back in the Archives on Dantooine or if she wanted to see what else she could get out of Bastila. Bastila wanted Aithne to trust her. She wanted Aithne to be her friend, even though she herself had difficulty believing Aithne wasn't about to give in to the Dark Side. Aithne thought there just might be a way to get Bastila to tell her what she wanted to know—obliquely or outright, but she didn't know how she was going to manage it.
In the end, Bastila broached the subject herself during one of their morning meditation sessions. Aithne had been dwelling upon the issue as she meditated with Bastila and Juhani, and the Sentinel brought it up. "I sense your thoughts have been troubled of late, Aithne. You're distant: consumed with questions of the past and future. Can we help you bring peace back to your mind?"
Juhani looked at Aithne, and her eyes focused on her. Aithne felt the Guardian's Force signature, less focused than Bastila's, fix upon her. Juhani used the Force mostly to augment her physical abilities. She was stronger in combat than either Aithne or Bastila when her mind was clear, but her powers of intuition and her senses of the Cosmic and the Living Force were weaker. "I sense it too," she said. "Aithne, if you have been struggling, you should tell us. We are here to help one another."
Aithne decided to take a chance. She wondered: if Juhani were present, would Bastila be more or less hesitant to lie or hide the truth? "I've been struggling," she admitted. "We're off to a good start on our mission. We picked up the Star Map coordinates on Kashyyyk fairly quickly, despite the bounty hunters and all the other complications we faced there. But it still bothers me that of the three of us, the Jedi Council decided the newest recruit should run the show around here. It doesn't seem like good strategy—a woman whose Battle Meditation has been holding the tide against Malak in the charge of another Padawan, accompanied but not supervised by a brand-new Jedi Knight who has had her own struggles lately. I know resources are scarce on the ground, but you'd think they could afford a master for us if our mission was so important, or at least a senior knight."
Bastila searched her face. Aithne felt a sensation like a hand brushing over her mind. She stayed behind her shields, leaving out only one thought for Bastila to grasp: You said you wouldn't. She sensed Bastila's retreat, felt the other woman's shields strengthen in turn, and smiled blandly.
"Your powers—both of your powers—outstrip my own," Juhani offered. "You know by instinct what it took me years to learn. It could be that raw strength and the Force may see us through where strategy falters. I believe the Jedi Council trusts to the Force."
"The events on Taris proved that the Force wanted to bring us together for this mission," Bastila said, "and your intervention with Juhani back on Dantooine created a tie between the two of you as well, though it is not like the bond between the two of us, more akin to the bonds you built with the others at the start of our journey. So much for why we three are together. As for why we do not have a master, with the Sith on the hunt for us already, we can move faster and with more secrecy without one."
"But not without detection," Aithne pointed out. "Malak knows where we're going. Kashyyyk proved that. And the Jedi still want to leave me to it—leave us to it? After everything they've said about the call of the Dark Side?" She looked from Bastila to Juhani. She could feel turbulence rising within the Cathar. There was nothing from Bas, but a flush of her cheek said what her mind and emotions weren't.
"At times, the Council's tests are . . . unconventional," Bastila answered. "Juhani will bear witness to that. I admit, at times, I have wondered if my own journey aboard Ebon Hawk might be more than just a mission to stop Malak."
"Just a mission to stop Malak!" Aithne cried. The girl's complacency was unbelievable, considering what they'd seen.
But Juhani's brow furrowed. "You believe this mission might serve as your own trials?"
"I am a Sentinel," Bastila reasoned. "We are the investigators and support to the Jedi Order. It seemed reasonable that the Council might be watching to see how I might help and guide Aithne on our quest. I have wondered if Aithne's leadership might be more of a . . . formality. A way to guard me against the front lines."
"Yet the second I've got a knife headed at me, you take it as a matter of duty," Aithne returned.
"I—"
"I sensed it, Bastila!"
Bastila was red now, not merely pink. Obviously uncomfortable, and her shields were slipping. Juhani looked between them, confusion apparent in her yellow eyes. Aithne decided to press.
"You take the knife, and on the Sith bounty notices, they're paying more to kill me than they are to bring you in alive, Battle Meditation and all. Explain."
Bastila had fallen into a breathing pattern Aithne recognized from training—one designed to calm her body and quiet her mind. A form of passive meditation one could make use of during conversation or everyday tasks to release emotion and refocus upon the Force. Bastila met her eyes. "Think of the mindframe of the Sith, Aithne," she said. "A Sith exists upon his reputation. With each defeat that he suffers, his weakness is revealed to others eager to take advantage. On Taris, you singlehandedly made the Sith presence there untenable, to the point where they were forced to sacrifice the entire planet. From the fire of devastation they rained down there, you escaped with an asset they find valuable, namely myself. There were survivors to testify that you led our endeavors, that you were not even a Jedi at the time. Now, somehow Malak has become aware that we seek the Star Maps. Spies in the Order? It matters not. He is vulnerable, and we are aware. You are an embarrassment, and worse, you have proved yourself a threat. Furthermore, you stand between the Sith and their goal to capture me. Do you think there is anything Malak would not pay to see you dead? Your every step makes him a laughingstock."
Aithne stared back at Bastila. It was a good lie, she would give the girl that. Bastila was happy with it, anyway. The red had left her cheeks, and she was calm. But nothing Bas had said had explained the knife. None of it had alluded to the visions Aithne had been having, the reason she was able to find the Star Maps, and the nature of which was unlike anything she'd ever heard of in the Jedi texts. Not that that was much. Did they intend that? She remembered the books Dorak hadn't approved for her to take from the Jedi Archives.
"You would hoard knowledge to stave off your fears instead of facing them like a Jedi," Bastila told her. "You must learn to trust in the wisdom of the Council. We will come to know our destiny at the appointed time. You mustn't be so impatient." She smiled, gently, and it was a masterstroke.
Aithne regarded her. "'There is no ignorance; there is knowledge,'" she quoted. "Fear lives in the dark, and a Sentinel should know her job is to shine a light into those corners so what's living there can be faced. And I'm not the one chasing after my destiny. But then, that was your point, wasn't it?" Reflecting Aithne's attention back upon Bastila's own moments of arrogance, playing to a tendency Aithne realized she had demonstrated to point out the foibles and inconsistencies of others. Bastila was manipulating her. Bastila had been manipulating her from the beginning. Bastila had her moments—a knack for a plausible explanation—but she wasn't particularly good at it, nor did Aithne believe she truly wanted to do it. She was doing it on the orders of the Jedi Council—why?
She searched the younger woman's face. Between them, the cloud of confusion and doubt around Juhani deepened. Aithne flicked her eyes to the Cathar. "Enough," Bastila said. "You are intentionally provoking us now. We are not enemies, Aithne. If we are to succeed, we must do so together."
Aithne raised her eyebrows. "I agree. When you'd like to do so, I'm ready to listen."
Bastila threw her hands up and rose from the floor. "I don't know how to deal with you. Make problems out of nothing if you will."
"Well, ship rides are boring," Aithne drawled, falling back on passive aggression at having run into a wall.
Bastila paused at the door panel and looked back over her shoulder. "The Council did not make a mistake, placing you in charge," she said. "Despite the delusions of my pride and your comparative lack of training, you are the better leader. And even at your most difficult, I am glad to have you with us. Not just for the sake of the mission, but for my own sake as well."
It was a conciliatory tactic, but despite that, Aithne didn't sense any insincerity from Bastila this time. "Don't lay it on too thick," she advised. "You don't want to form a deeper bond between us."
"Normally, when someone says something kind to you, it's polite to reciprocate, or at least to thank them," Bastila said drily. "I suppose that would be too predictable."
Aithne made a face. She might as well keep on good terms. "No, I think a witty and ungrateful repartee is right up my lane, actually. Time to switch things up. Thank you, Bas."
"It would be nice if things aboard Ebon Hawk could be different than they are in the enclave," Bastila suggested. "I spent years being hounded by my instructors. Being told so often how gifted and important I was until I was sick of it. Constantly threatened with the Dark Side. When I was younger, I used to swear that I would never become as self-absorbed and stodgy as the Jedi Masters. It's ironic, really."
Juhani chuckled. There was an angry, sharp edge to the sound, and when Aithne looked over, she saw the Cathar's eyes cast down to the ground. She saw Juhani had employed the same breathing technique as Bastila had before. She frowned. Had she gone too far? Made the atmosphere in the hold too confrontational? Juhani was hot-tempered, and clearly still recovering from what had happened back on Dantooine.
"Mm," she replied to Bastila. "If we're a partnership of equals, for now—and friend," she added, to Juhani, "we might consider acting like it. You could cut short the lectures, and I could cut short the interrogations."
"Yes," Bastila agreed. "Giving me at least the same courtesy you ask Carth give you would be the fairest way to proceed, I think. And keep me from filing for a different partner, bond or no bond, citing 'irreconcilable differences.'"
"I'm told that's a reason for a divorce, not reassignment."
"Yes, well," Bastila shrugged. She smiled again, palmed the door open, and slipped out. Aithne wondered if she thought a few jokes had fixed all her missing answers, then turned to Juhani. The Cathar was the larger concern for now.
"Let's have it," she said, as the door swished closed again. "What's bothering you?"
"I may have been foolish to ask to come on this mission," Juhani answered at once, her voice low and throaty. "Regardless of how things were on Dantooine, that it would be good to get away for a time. The Mandalorian; the girl, Sasha; listening to you and Bastila speak—" she spat Bastila's name, and Aithne felt a spike of hot hatred flare in the room. "I do not know that I have strength enough for this."
Aithne waited.
"To hear you speak of Taris so casually," Juhani continued, "the destruction of an entire world! To know that it was because of you that it was destroyed! I never told you where I came from, did I? Where I grew up as a child."
Aithne's eyes narrowed, and she regarded Juhani. She had noticed the younger woman got even quieter at every mention of Taris. Her hatred of Mandalorians and the very personal hatred she had for slavery would also dovetail with a childhood on Taris.
"You made them destroy it!" Juhani accused her. "You and your precious Bastila. It was your fault for being there, your fault for rescuing Bastila! Without your intervention, the Sith would have had no cause to lay waste to my homeworld!"
Aithne raised her eyebrows. "If the Jedi never taught you to differentiate between fault and causality—"
Juhani cut her off, closing her eyes, and Aithne felt a wave of pain replace the anger and hatred. "Just let me vent my anger! Please! The Sith are all the way across the galaxy. You are here! I need . . . I need someone to blame, something. Anything! I hated that world, yet everything I learned as a child I learned there. It is as much a part of me as the air I breathe. I have this ache inside me where all my childhood memories lay, and now, every time you speak of what is past, I find your face there with them. If it was not for you, that world would still exist!"
Aithne nodded sharply. She stood and reached across. Without opening her eyes, the Cathar caught her arm and accepted Aithne's pull up. Aithne let her go, walked to the weapon wall, and took down two practice staves. She tossed one to Juhani, who caught it. "Maybe don't try to kill me this time?" Aithne suggested.
Juhani nodded too and took up a Shii-Cho stance. Aithne fell into her favored Niman—which wouldn't completely deny Juhani's desire to see her as an aggressor but wouldn't play to that desire either. Juhani waited for a moment; she was trying to control herself, but then she lost patience once again and struck out. They sparred for two minutes. Aithne counted out the breaths in the breathing pattern both Juhani and Bastila had been using aloud. Then she addressed the younger woman in Cathar, which, unlike Shyriiwook, could be spoken by humans.
/What do the Jedi say of your anger?/
"There is no emotion," Juhani replied in Basic, shaking her head to indicate she preferred Aithne refrain from using the language of her childhood. Aithne inclined her head in acknowledgment. "There is peace." She struck a few more blows, and Aithne countered.
"And who does your anger hurt?"
"Me," Juhani answered.
"And help?"
"No one."
"Since you've directed it at me, let me do what I can to help," Aithne said, taking the offensive for the first time. "Since you did not tell me where you were from, I couldn't avoid harming you through any accidental insensitivity. I'm sure it has been hard for you at times in the past couple of weeks. For whatever part I played in that, I'm sorry."
Juhani was silent for several more breaths. She countered Aithne's strokes. "You did not destroy my homeworld," she conceded. "That the Sith chose to destroy it because of your actions is not your fault. I am sorry." She paused. "Did you know what would happen when you were rescuing Bastila?"
Aithne held up a fist, and Juhani fell to rest with her. "Hours before it happened," she said. "It was the logical response for a completely evil and ruthless enemy to make to our actions on the surface, out of resources to expend on a ground search and unwilling to risk Bastila's escape. But even if I hadn't actually rescued Bastila, the Sith wouldn't have found her. It's a good chance what we did only cost Taris its last couple weeks."
Juhani's shoulders shook, and her eyes fell once again. "I understand you. But it is so hard to lose your entire past. You would not understand."
"No," Aithne agreed. "But two others on this ship would. Carth is from Telos. Did you know that?"
Juhani's eyes flicked up again, wide, and her mouth fell open. She shook her head and handed over her staff to Aithne. Aithne took it. She put the weapons back in place. "You haven't talked to Mission much either. I can tell. Know where she grew up, Juhani? Where we picked up her and Zaalbar? A couple months ago, not several years ago. Any guesses why she has nightmares every few nights and sometimes spends half the day dead quiet or crying?"
Juhani knelt on the floor again. Her hands came up to cover her face. "Not Taris?"
"Taris," Aithne agreed.
"Forgive me," Juhani murmured.
"Just talk to her," Aithne told her. "Talk to all three of them. If you want to get away from Dantooine—or Taris—you got to stop spending all your time there." She tapped her temple for emphasis; Juhani had dropped her hands from her face to her lap, though her despairing, humble posture hadn't changed. "You might also want to work on your envy."
Juhani no doubt was struggling with the destruction of Taris, but she'd heard much more in the Cathar's accusations: she was angry the Council had placed so much importance on Aithne and Bastila and their mission. She felt her own talents overlooked in comparison to Bastila's Battle Meditation, and she still struggled with the guilt and shame of the weakness she had exhibited in her own trials. She was jealous. She had found it relatively easy to admire Aithne, an older woman from the Rim. It was harder for her to view Bastila, a girl from the Core who had always had a privileged place among the Jedi, with any sort of humility.
Juhani boowed her head. "You see through me so easily," Juhani said. "You claim so many doubts about your ability, your destiny, yet remain so controlled. Scoff at the traditions and teachings of the Jedi, as I did, but never fall into darkness. And they all trust you—you and Bastila both. And they are right to do so."
"We'll see," Aithne muttered. She bowed to Juhani and took her own leave.
The next morning, Aithne woke up to the sounds of soft voices and muffled crying on the other end of the dormitory. She was not altogether surprised when she turned to see Mission and Juhani there, talking together.
JOLEE
A few days into the voyage, and Jolee was pretty much caught up on what had been going on in the galaxy. He was not reaccustomed to living with people. Not that the folk aboard Ebon Hawk were bad sorts. Zaalbar was probably his favorite. Knew when to shut up, he did.
His best guess now was that the Jedi Council were playing a very risky game. That Sith he'd seen in the Shadowlands—Revan, apparently—had met the appropriately sticky end at the hands of her own apprentice a few months or years after he'd seen her. That apprentice was now terrorizing the galaxy with the help of something called a Star Forge, and the maps—the one in the Shadowlands only one of a larger set—were going to lead them right to him. Or it. Blah blah blah, yadda yadda.
Except Padawan Bastila Shan's claim to fame was apparently witnessing the death of Darth Revan at the hands of her apprentice, and now she was following around Aithne Moran, a woman with whom she shared some mysterious bond and some mysterious destiny, and the two of them were having visions of the maps to the Star Forge. Aithne Moran, who both matched and didn't match the brain patterns that thingamajig in the Shadowlands had of Darth Revan, and whose fear and doubt was growing by the day.
Jolee didn't think she knew.
He wasn't sure if the Council was trying to use her or to give her a second chance, but whatever their aim, he had a feeling it could just as easily end up blowing up in their faces. You could see it in the possibilities around the woman. It was also just common sense. Lying to people wasn't usually the best way to get them on your side. Using the Force to literally brainwash a person and overwrite their identity? Well, that was even worse. It was also fairly advanced stuff, especially for masters purportedly committed to the Light Side. Jolee wondered how well it had worked.
From what he could tell, the Council had done a bang-up job on the construction of false memories for their 'Aithne' character. Whether they'd woven a complete life for her or simply implanted the suggestion of a past for her and allowed her imagination to do the rest, 'Aithne' believed in her whole history. She could tell stories of her homeworld, people she had known, jobs she had done in the past. She had beliefs, viewpoints on life, and many weren't favorable to the Jedi or the Republic. Inconvenient, from one perspective. From another, it made her a whole person, very unlikely to suspect her previous identity. And indeed, despite the mounting evidence of her connection to Revan, from what Jolee had heard from Aithne and Carth, the lass remained completely oblivious to what was in fact the simplest solution to the mysteries around her. And because all the other solutions she could think of were frankly even more terrifying than the truth, at his best guess, 'Aithne' was one bad day away from batshit crazy, notwithstanding whatever remained or didn't remain from her previous life as a Lord of the Sith.
She herself wasn't Dark, per se. Oh, the potential was there. She had tendencies to anger, lashed out in fear—though mostly by doing her best to aggravate the people she was afraid of instead of kill them dead. He was pretty sure she thought she was the most intelligent person in the galaxy, too, which was all the worse for her because most of the time she actually was the most intelligent person in the room. Had got her used to devaluing the capabilities of others and biting off more than she could chew, like she'd done when she'd signed on as guardian to that teenage hoodlum. She was arrogant, greedy for knowledge, more pragmatic than the Jedi liked their hero-types to be. She was also vastly compassionate and generally reasonable, with a fine sense of humor. A lass like that could go either way, and he had seen it both ways.
She also had an annoying habit of coming to pick at him after her chore rotations, when cleaning up after nine people had her in especially fine form. "Why are you here, Bindo?" she asked him one evening about a week into their flight back to Dantooine. She'd already had her dinner but plopped down on a stool around the table anyway.
Jolee gestured at his tray. "Why am I here? I was hungry."
"You're not an idiot. Humor me and don't act like one. You could've left Kashyyyk any time you wanted to in the last few decades. Why was it that you up and decided it was time to leave as soon as we showed up at your door? Why'd you feel you needed to extort us into taking you?"
Jolee pursed his lips. "You got yourself a fast little ship. Heh. I'd forgotten what engines sounded like. The closest thing to that on Kashyyyk is an uller in mating season. Ugh! Frightful!"
"Yeah, well, you win some, you lose some," Aithne rejoined. She waited.
"Or it could be the free food," Jolee mused, poking at the goop the synthesizer had dispensed onto his plate. "What's the gunk that comes out of the synthesizer on this bucket, anyway? Do you never clean the darned thing?"
"Two days ago, actually," Aithne told him. "If you're worried about it, I can put you on mess clean-up detail."
"You know, in my day, they used to warn Padawans about the effect power could have on them."
"They're teaching a shorter course these days. Don't worry; I've filed several complaints."
Jolee couldn't help his smile. Damn it, but the lass could hold her own. You had to appreciate that, even if he sensed no lessening of her resolve. She wanted to know why he was with them, but he was very uncertain that telling her would be wise. She could fall to the Dark Side easily in any event, but if he revealed the truth, could he hasten or ensure it would happen? "You know," he said, "you remind me of someone else I knew ages ago. Pleasant enough fellow, great destiny, all that. Breath like a bantha. Andor Vex was his name. The Force swirled around him like a hurricane, that's how great his destiny was."
"Whose destiny?" Mission asked. The Twi'lek rounded the corner with her own supper and sat down next to Aithne.
"Jolee's trying to tell me about some guy he knew once. An Andor Vex."
"Ooh. Story! I want to hear!" the girl said. Aithne rolled her eyes but sat her elbow on the table and propped her chin upon her fist in a listening attitude.
"Well, Jolee, you traveled with this Andor?"
"I did," said Jolee. "Just because someone has the Force swirling around them doesn't always mean they have a great destiny, but it doesn't hurt to check it out. Well, it turned out that poor Andor believed a wee bit too much in the infallibility of that destiny. That overconfidence turned out to be his downfall."
Aithne wrinkled her nose. "Well, you're more subtle than Bastila and the Jedi Masters," she remarked.
"Are you overconfident? I hadn't noticed," Jolee lied. "Even if I had, I would never comment on it. We're talking about Andor, remember? Let's see, oh yes, Andor's downfall. I was pretty young myself, when it happened. At the time, I thought that Andor's destiny couldn't be more boring."
"Why'd you stick around then?" Aithne challenged him.
Jolee took a bite of his lunch and winced. "Well, he had a much better food dispenser than you do. That, and the fact that even then I wasn't an altogether impatient twit."
Mission giggled, then stifled the sound behind her hand. Jolee grinned at the girl.
"However, I was about to abandon Andor to whatever the Force intended for him when his ship was overtaken by a Dimean warship. Now you've probably never heard of the Dimeans, but at the time they were a nasty lot led by a nastier overlord named Kraat. Tall fellow. Big teeth.
"Anyway, Kraat has us hauled onto the bridge of his ship for questioning, and that's when I knew that Andor's destiny was at hand."
"How'd you know?" Mission interrupted.
"Swirling Force, remember?" Jolee said, pointing to himself. "Jedi here?"
"And?" Aithne said, "Go on."
"Well, Andor decides that his destiny makes him invulnerable and starts making all sorts of demands. 'Free me now,' 'I'm not answering questions,' blah, blah, blah. 'Don't you know who I am?' Kraat decides he's had enough and begins crushing Andor's neck. I told the boy he should have kept his mouth shut. I think he agreed, too . . . or those could have just been gurgling noises. Well . . . well, anyway. Finally, Kraat has enough of Andor and tosses him aside into this giant energy intake shaft. Andor gets sucked in and starts bouncing around, heh, screaming . . . heh. Maybe Andor hit something sensitive on the way down or just didn't agree with the reactor core, but the next thing I know, all the ship's alarms are ringing."
Aithne's eyes were crinkled with amusement now. "You're kidding."
"You're making this up!" Mission accused him, laughing.
"I am not!" Jolee declared. "On my honor! Everyone panics, though, and I run, barely making it to the ship in time before the explosion. Kraat dies horribly, and the Dimeans never quite recovered. Changed the political course of the entire sector for centuries to come. I'd call that quite a destiny, wouldn't you?"
The girls just stared at him a bit. Mission even had her mouth open. Finally, she managed a snort. "I think you're crazy," she said.
"What?" Jolee asked. "Are you kidding?! What are the odds of that happening anyway? A billion to one? You should do so well as to be sucked into the engine of some evil Sith Lord, you know. Andor was a hero! Sort of." He shoved his last spoonful of dinner into his mouth, winced, and rose. "Anyway, I'm leaving. My throat is dry, and you're making me cranky."
"And Force forbid you stay and someone actually answer my questions," Aithne shot after him.
"Don't pout. Your face can freeze that way," Jolee tossed over his shoulder, without turning to see whether the lass was pouting or not. He could feel her anxiety like a little stormcloud in the supper room behind him. She was going to have to watch that need for control. In one respect, it was tempting to give her what she wanted, to tell her that he was curious what had happened to her and wanted to see what would come next. He didn't want to see ignorance, impatience, and fear lead to her downfall. On the other hand, he didn't want anger to lead there either.
CANDEROUS
They were three days out from a return to Dantooine. There, Moran said that she'd talked with someone who knew Sasha's people. They would give the kid back to them, or, if they couldn't find the guy Moran had talked to before, they'd hand her over to the Jedi until the Jedi found him. Canderous and the Cathar would be off babysitting duty and probably on a bodyguard detail, judging by the bounty that'd been passed around.
What happened to the kid after they dropped her back on Dantooine wasn't Canderous's responsibility. She hadn't been a captive of Clan Ordo; they'd never taken her on as a foundling. She was a Dar'manda's mistake, years behind on her training, only half coherent, with years of shit treatment to cut through as well before she could ever do any good to anyone. She was better off with the livestock she'd been born to, and once she was back with them, she couldn't be a liability to Ebon Hawk.
Still. Canderous hated a job half done. Sure, Sasha had stopped with the moronic dancing to try and make herself understood. She could say she didn't understand in Mando'a, Basic, and spacer sign. She could ask for what she needed—food, water, a place to crap—and ask what something was. She knew how to sew a seam and break a hold, how to disassemble and clean a gun, and better still, how to clean herself and her kit and quarters. It was about where she should've been three years back, with a thorough knowledge of Mando'a and a handful of battle songs and teaching chants besides.
He hated the thought of her back at the ass-end of nowhere, left with the incompetents who'd let her get captured in the first place. Those idiots wouldn't teach her anything, and next time some half-cocked thugs with guns came through, the kid would be right back where she started. Or worse. He didn't have time to get her shooting well enough to fend whatever came for her people off.
It wasn't his problem.
The Aruetii found him and the kid in the garage one night working. The kid had learned to take a blaster apart; they were working on putting it all back together.
/Not with the power cell,/ Canderous reminded her. /Save the power cell for last, unless you're trying to blow your own foot off./
Sasha made a face at him, but she put the power cell aside for later and went back to scowling at the other pieces of the gun.
"How's it coming, Champ?" Moran asked the kid, nodding at the blaster.
"Me no like the pieces like this," Sasha complained. "Me can—/I don't know word, Canderous,/" she mimicked taking the pieces apart—"all ways, but can make one way. /It's shit!/"
"'I don't' like, kid," Canderous told her. "When you're taking about yourself in Basic, you gotta use 'I,' and a whole other word to say 'no.' 'I don't like the pieces like this.' And you're looking to say 'take it apart' or 'disassemble.' You'd say, 'I can take it apart any way, but only put it together one way.' But you're right: it's shit. Get used to it."
/You're shit,/ Sasha muttered. /Chief./
"Her grown-ups are going to have so much fun with vocabulary," Aithne remarked.
"Just because you talk like a constipated professor," Canderous retorted. Aithne grinned.
"Start with the small pieces," she told Sasha, pointing. "Then do the big ones. It's easy then. It also helps to lay the pieces on the bench the way they will fit in the gun."
Sasha frowned, then found the way the trigger fit to the barrel. She exclaimed and started rearranging pieces on the bench.
"Thank you, Aithne!" She paused and cocked her head up at the Aruetii. "You /mighty/ warrior? Like Canderous and Juhani?"
"Not like them," Aithne told her. "I'm not one of the Mando'ade like Canderous or a Jedi Knight like Juhani. But I can fight, with my fists, with a lightsaber, with a sword, or with a blaster."
"You teach me /I don't know wo-/ you teach me also?" Sasha wanted to know.
"Good," Aithne complimented the girl, and she beamed. "No. We'll take you to your family on Dantooine, and they'll teach you, or maybe you can get one of the Jedi at the Enclave to teach you. If you want to be a warrior someday, you will learn. But we have to fight a war now, and you can't do that with us."
"Mission fight with you," Sasha argued. "Why no Sasha?"
Canderous spoke up then. "Two reasons. First, Mission's kept herself out of trouble for years. You just learned how to shower last week. An undertrained warrior is just a liability to everyone in her clan." He repeated himself in Mando'a, then added, "Second, a good warrior knows how to follow her orders. And our captain's ordered you to Dantooine." He paused, then added, /Train. Get better. Maybe you'll grow and we'll see you another day./
/When Sasha mighty warrior,/ the kid said. She frowned at the three last pieces of her blaster, thought, then put them together right. /I get better,/ she promised. /Soon I do fast, shoot all enemy of Ebon Hawk clan! All bad people!/
The Aruetii shot him a glance, like she was mad the kid wanted blood. Canderous scowled at her. "Better this than cowering like some kath hound runt," he muttered. "At least she knows now she can be a warrior." If those pathetic farmers let her be. "Alright, kid, stow the blaster," he told Sasha. "Stow your tools and go clean up. Lights out in half a watch. If you're back in good time, I'll tell a tale from the war before you bunk up."
The kid grinned, saluted, and moved to follow orders.
"You've got story bribes working alongside sweets from the stores?" the Aruetii asked, interested.
"She wants the stories more than snacks." Canderous looked down the hall after Sasha. "No one's given that kid much more than a curse or an order for as long as she can remember. She's starved for words and comrades as much as she is for bread." They were quiet for a moment.
"Aruetii," Canderous said.
"Mando."
/Captain. Don't let her get lost. Don't mess her over. Let her fall through the cracks. You meet up with her people in person, and if they don't have a gun and some basic skill, you charge her to the Jedi. She can be an acolyte. Don't let her be a sheep./ In Mando'a, the speech was as good as a threat.
Aithne looked at him. Then she reached her arm out. Canderous took it. They clasped forearms in a warrior's pact. /We'll provide for the foundling,/ she promised. /We cannot know her name. She can have no place among us. But she will be remembered. And she will grow strong. She will remember you./
Canderous grunted.
When Sasha returned, she was in Mission's old tank, face and teeth washed. She sat down at his feet like he'd taught her and grinned when Aithne did too. The grin practically turned into a glow when Aithne reached out and took her hand.
Canderous frowned. The kid was pathetic. She lapped up scraps of affection when what she needed was to learn how to look after herself. Trust her instincts and make her own decisions. He decided to tell her the story of the Battle of Althir.
He started with a short prelude, explaining how the battle had gained him command of an entire subsect of Ordo.
Sasha bounced up and down. /What happen?/
He set the scene. /For five days they had managed to hold off our forces. Keeping us to the outer rings of their world, preventing us from attacking it directly./ As he spoke, Aithne translated. Fortunately, this time, she went for a boring barebones translation instead of wasting her time with a poetic sense one. The kid didn't need poetry. They didn't have time for it. Sasha just needed to know how to talk without sounding like a moron.
/My task was to assault one of their flanks with a false attack,/ he continued. /The Althiri would be drawn out by the units I had sent in. Once they had surrounded these units, the bulk of my forces would attack from the rear and defeat them in detail./
Aithne gestured with her hands, showing Sasha what he was describing. /Do you see?/ she asked.
Sasha thought for a moment. /Enemy . . . go for these,/ she said, pointing to where Aithne's single index finger indicated the feinting warriors, /These not-real, then once attack, real warriors kill all enemy from back?/
/Good,/ Aithne told her. "Good."
/It work?/ Sasha asked, turning her attention back to Canderous.
/Things didn't go as I planned,/ Canderous admitted. Across the room, Onasi had come in. He stood in the doorway, arms folded, listening. The pilot knew Mando'a. Never spoke it, but he understood alright. If Canderous was any judge, he'd probably earned some of his fancy medals on intelligence missions in the wars. Had that kind of confidence. Had that kind of mind. He flashed his teeth at Onasi but kept talking to the women. /I saw an opening—a mistake they had made in the disposition of their forces—and took it! While fending off our main force, they had led their fleet split in two. The center of their entire fleet was left exposed!/
Aithne pantomimed the action for her, and Sasha saw it. She gestured at the opening between Aithne's outstretched hands, squealing and gibbering in a mishmash impossible to understand.
/If you've got something to say, pick a language and say it! Warriors do not chatter like tachs!/ Canderous rapped out.
Sasha stopped. Her cheeks went red, her eyes went sullen. She scowled, then she cursed, but then she nodded and bowed. /You get them, Chief?/ she asked. /You get . . . you kill enemy . . . for idiot mistake?/
/Good,/ Canderous said again. /I did. I turned my forces and assaulted the center of their fleet, decimating them!/
/You judged the opportunity worth disobeying your orders?/ Aithne asked.
Canderous knelt across from the other two. /This is a chance given to a warrior once or twice in a lifetime,/ he explained. /The chance to change the course of history in a single act. Their slow, ponderous ships could not turn to face us without being overwhelmed. Their command vessels were destroyed in seconds. Their ranks were overthrown into chaos. It was most amusing to watch the surviving ships scatter and flee. Several even tried to dive through the planes of the rings to escape us! They were shredded by the rings, or crashed into rocks, or were destroyed by our forces as we pursued them./
He eyed Sasha. /What did the Althiri do wrong, recruit?/
/Warriors no run away if they lose,/ Sasha recited. /They fight to the end!/
Canderous gripped her forearm. "Oya!"
Canderous's eyes slid from the kid to Onasi, then back to Aithne. "They fight to the end," he repeated in Basic. "As we did against your Jedi, Revan. Another time maybe I'll tell you about how the war with the Republic went. But that's enough for now. The kid should get some sleep."
/No want to go to bed!/ Sasha pouted. She turned to the Aruetii. "Aithne, please!" she added in Basic.
"Sasha, you have to go to bed," Aithne said.
/Kid, a warrior follows her orders,/ Canderous added.
/If orders idiot? Idiotic?/ Sasha asked. /Like Chief's, past Battle-of-Althir? Or Sasha see something? Like food?/
Canderous frowned. Aithne smirked. "You kinda set yourself up for that one," she noted. She stood, slapped her hands together. "Good luck with that, Chief."
And Canderous was left to explain the right times to disobey to a barely literate eight-year-old. "Thanks, captain. I'll remember this," he said.
CARTH
Carth watched them from the doorway— this enormous, brutal Mandalorian, telling stories and trying to teach morals to a kid. Morals were coming out a bit warped, but all in all, Ordo was doing a much better job than Carth would've thought. It'd been a couple weeks, and Sasha already mostly looked like a kid rather than some beaten animal. She was talking—not real intelligibly, but well enough you could see there was hope for her. You could see she had some fight, some brains. You could see she was a survivor.
"She'll be okay, won't she?" Carth asked Aithne as she came to join him. They walked together back to the mess and took chairs side by side.
"She'll be okay," Aithne promised him. "Either she'll be reunited with her family, or she'll grow up a ward of the Jedi. Either way, she'll have a mess of trauma to deal with as she gets older, but who doesn't these days? And she'll have a chance."
"More than a lot of people get," Carth mused. "My son . . . he was between them, Mission and Sasha, he was about twelve when it . . . when it happened. He'd be just . . . a little older than Mission, now. He never got that chance."
Aithne sat silent, waiting. Carth stared into the distance. He still had an old holo of Dustil and Morgana. If it weren't for that, he wasn't sure he'd remember now just how his son had looked. He hadn't been around enough when his son was growing up. Always fighting for the Republic. He'd missed birthdays, holidays, school festivals. Everything, at least once or twice. He remembered an athletic, kind of intense kid. Smart. Dark eyes and hair. What would Dustil have been like at Mission's age? Older?
"Saul led the Sith fleet to Telos," Carth told Aithne. "The planet refused when he demanded its surrender, and Saul proceeded to devastate its entire surface. Millions died."
He felt a hand around his and looked down to see Aithne had taken it. She was squeezing hard, but she wouldn't look at him. Instead, she stared at the wall. Her expression was unreadable.
"No one expected it," she recalled, voice distant. "The first major blow in the war, and it's not on any industrial world that can produce guns or starships, it's on an agrarian world in the Outer Rim. In retrospect, it makes sense—major hyperlane, a big agricultural producer, and just brimming in Force Sensitives, with a large percentage of the population either a reject of the Jedi Order or descended from one: weak enough to control, strong enough to make a big difference to the armed forces. But at the time—"
"We couldn't conceive of it," Carth finished. "Revan and Malak were heroes, and they open up the war with a genocide. And Saul did it. I thought my wife and son were safe, but by the time my task force arrived in response to call for help, it was already too late. We didn't have enough people or medical supplies. The colony was burning, and the dying were everywhere. I remember holding my wife and screaming for the medics. They . . . they didn't come in time."
He could see her now, face and body red and black all along its left side from the burns, blood and bruises, gasping from the pain, praying for an end and calling for Dustil again and again . . . until it was the end.
Aithne's grip on his hand was tight enough to be painful now. He didn't think she knew just how hard she was gripping it. He didn't tell her. The pain was an anchor. It kept him on Ebon Hawk instead of back home on Telos.
"Since, I've devoted myself to the fleet, to trying to catch up to Saul," he finished. "I miss them. My wife. My son. I know killing Saul won't bring them back, and it won't make me happy again, but my wife and my son deserve justice. Everyone on Telos does. And making that happen . . . it's all I have left."
The pressure on his hand lessened. Then Aithne had released him and drawn her legs up into her chair. Carth turned to face her. He hadn't meant to tell her any of it. But spending time with Mission lately, seeing Aithne, Canderous, and Juhani with Sasha—it had brought back some memories. He hadn't been around kids much since Telos. That didn't mean he was free and clear to lay all his baggage on top of Aithne. She didn't need or deserve that.
What must she think of me now?
But Aithne just watched him, arms around her calves and her chin atop her knees, her long face grave but sympathetic. "Seems like it might not be enough," she suggested finally.
Carth rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, yeah . . . I, uh, like I said, I don't recommend it."
"I'm sorry, Carth. I can't imagine."
Carth frowned. "I don't want you to," he said. "I hope you never have to go through anything like Telos. It's bad enough that Mission has. I don't even know why I told you all this, except—"
Aithne stopped him. "Carth. It's okay," she said. "Your past is a part of you."
"Sorry—I just—I haven't talked about them in . . . I've never talked about them, to anyone."
Her mouth quirked. "Well. I'm no specialist, but I don't think that sounds like the best way to cope. Thank you, for trusting me. What were their names?"
"My wife's was Morgana. My son was named Dustil." Carth was suddenly exhausted, as if just saying their names aloud to someone else after all this time had taken everything he had.
"What happened to Dustil? If you're comfortable telling me. You told me about your wife."
"That's the worst of it," Carth admitted. "I don't know what happened to him. Telos was glassed. The town where we lived, the towns where everyone lived were complete ruins. We never found any trace of him. I made inquiries, and I followed the reports from Telos for years, but . . . I stopped." He ran a hand through his hair. Dustil was probably a smear of ash on Telos's devastated surface, but the worst thing was imagining that he wasn't—that he was out there, somewhere. Alone. With no idea his father was still alive and had tried to find him. There were kids like that all over the galaxy. Like Sasha, taken from her relatives. Or who just woke up on a battlefield somewhere with no idea who they were or what had happened to them—their brains too rattled with everything they had seen. A lot of them died or ended up living lives that were worse than dying. To imagine his Dustil someone like that . . .
"Carth." Aithne waited until he met her eyes. She was pale. Her freckles stood out against her skin, and her eyes glittered. He couldn't handle it if she cried. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel sorry for him, or to add one more thing to her plate. Then he saw her jaw was tight. As he watched, she lifted her chin and shook her head. She was angry. Not at him—for him. "Sometimes there aren't words in any of the languages I speak for what I want to say." Her voice was low, passionate. "I'm sorry for what you've been through. What you've lost. I just got another big reason to wipe Malak off the face of the galactic map, if I needed another one. But I am honored by your trust in telling me what happened." She spoke every word slowly and carefully, making sure he heard each one. "Telling me the names of your family. I am proud and happy to be your friend. And I'm amazed and grateful that, after everything you've been through, you still have enough left to give the way you have."
Carth frowned. "No, I haven't done anything that anyone else wouldn't do—"
But Aithne cut him off, holding up a hand. "You're wrong there. Now's not the time to talk about it. I think we both need to rest. Take some space, take some time. But someday soon, if you want—you should tell me more about who your family was. And I should tell you more of what you do have left, and why." She extended her hand, and Carth took it, squeezed it. They both got to their feet together.
Carth looked across at her—Aithne Moran, or whatever her name really was. A conscript scout and a months-old Jedi on a desperate mission, who heard the voice of a dead Sith in her dreams. A woman from the hind end of nowhere on the Rim, who'd either been alone all her life or deserted from one war or another—from one side or another. Either way, she was still the dread of the Sith and the Republic's best hope. She was still brilliant, beautiful, and amazing. And he truly believed that whatever she might still be holding back, she was on their side, or wanted to be. She wanted to do the right thing. She wanted to be there for Mission, for Zaalbar, for everyone on the crew. Even for the Republic, albeit incidentally.
He was glad she was his friend too. He hadn't had one—really had one—for a long, long time.