Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to this chapter. Or any of it. That would be Bioware and Lucasfilm.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
MISSION POV
"You're kidding me," Mission said into the com-link. "I'll get them. We'll be down in ten minutes."
"What is happening?" Juhani asked her from her alcove.
Mission rolled her eyes. "Aithne's in jail for, and I quote, 'the grievous murder of many Sith'."
Carth grabbed his blasters. "Well let's go," he said. "We'll bust her out!"
"She doesn't want us to," Mission said, shaking her head. "Besides, without Jolee and Aytchkay, we don't have the firepower."
Canderous scowled. "That's never stopped us before. There's me, isn't there? Carth, Zaalbar, and Juhani aren't to be sneezed at either."
"Thanks for that," Carth said.
"You guys, she's on death row. You think it'll be easy to get her out from heavy guard? Her trial's in half an hour. She says some uppity Selkath Arbiter tried to represent her, but she declined him and is representing herself and Jolee. We ought to be there as, I don't know, character witnesses or something."
Carth snorted. "Character witnesses? This is Revan we're talking about here."
Mission and Canderous both scowled at him. He looked down, but continued. "Yeah, so she's Aithne, too. But even Aithne is probably very guilty of murdering Sith."
"So we'll lie, genius," Mission said, exasperated. "Let's just go, already."
They were there when the Selkath guards ushered Aithne, Jolee, and HK-47 into the court room. The three of them were weaponless, but they walked tall anyway, and Mission decided that the fish-faces couldn't have been too cruel.
The head judge, Shelkar or something, looked at Aithne with something approaching disappointment. /Aithne Morrigan, you have chosen to defend yourself and your companions in this case. You stand accused of the murder of many Sith. How do you plead?/
Well, Mission didn't exactly speak Selkath, but Carth said that was what she said. He continued to translate from beside Mission, voice tense, as Aithne began to speak. "She says there were mitigating circumstances."
One of the judges seemed to laugh. Carth frowned. "That one's making fun of her," he told Mission. "He doesn't want to let her off."
Aithne threw her head back proudly and continued on. "There was evidence," Carth murmured, "Of a plot to corrupt the missing Selkath youth- I didn't know they'd gone. Anyway, she went into the base to find out whether it was true or not. She says the Sith attacked her first, and the Selkath can look up the tapes if they don't believe her. She only defended herself in the pursuit of vital information. And she found it."
The head judge said something. Mission didn't need Carth to tell her that it was a demand for details. Aithne went to a guard holding her pack and removed a datapad. She waved it in the air, and croaked something. Shelkar croaked something back. Aithne walked up to the bench, placed the datapad on the podium, and retreated back to her place. Mission hid a smile.
"Force, she's good," she whispered to Carth and Zaalbar. "Bet she just found that at the base and came up with this whole story to get off for killing 'em all."
/Keep your voice down!/ Zaalbar growled.
The judges whispered together for a moment. Finally, Shelkar looked over at Aithne, Jolee, and HK-47. "She's done it," Carth murmured. "Whatever was in that datapad, it was good. They're releasing her without penalty."
Aithne bowed ironically as a Selkath came to release their bonds and return their weapons. She walked over to the rest of the crew.
"I'm going to go back to the Hawk, get out of these clothes, take a shower, eat some food, and hit the sack. Please and thank you."
Mission looked Aithne over. The woman was spattered in blood. Not all of it belonged to others. Her hair was greasy with sweat, and she was thin, pale, and tired looking. But her eyes had a bit of their old snap, and a smile lurked in the corner of her mouth.
She stood up and grabbed Aithne's hands. "And just what was that all about, huh?" she demanded. "Staying out all night, getting tossed in the slammer? Oh, come here." Regardless of blood and sweat, Mission hugged Aithne tight. Aithne squeezed her once. "Are you back?" Mission asked quietly.
Aithne kept her arm around Mission, but began walking back to the Hawk. "I'm doing my best, Mission. I'm doing my best."
Canderous let out an approving grunt. Jolee smiled a little wistfully, and grumbled something about how quickly young people bounced back these days. But then Carth caught Aithne's eye, and Mission felt Aithne go tense. The smile left the corner of her mouth, and she looked away from Carth quickly. Mission didn't, though, and she saw the hurt spasm across his face.
CARTH POV
Carth knew he'd messed up. He'd made a bigger mistake than he'd made yet with Aithne, but it didn't hit him just how far he'd set them back until Aithne contacted him over the com-link before he'd even heard the ramp go down on the Hawk in the morning. "Tell the others I'm out," she said bluntly. "Big Z and Canderous are with me. We're going for the Star Map."
Carth was nonplussed. Big Z and Canderous? What use would they be on Manaan? Diplomats and Selkath and water, and she was taking Big Z and Canderous? And the com-link. Honestly. "Rev…Aithne," he began. "We need to talk."
"Not now we don't," Aithne said. "Maybe not ever. Just tell them, okay?"
Carth sighed. "I'll tell them. Aithne? Be safe."
The silence crackled for a moment. "Over and out," she said finally.
Carth sunk down in his chair. He really didn't hate her. He couldn't. And the past two days all he could think about was about how badly he'd let Aithne down. Maybe Mission was right.
CANDEROUS POV
Revan was sulking again. For the greatest warrior Canderous had ever met, she did that far too often. It was sometimes hard to remember that she wasn't just a killing machine, but also a very young woman. Now, he got that Republic had really screwed up or whatever. As far as Canderous was concerned, with the way Onasi acted towards Aithne, the things he said to her, he should've gotten the vows over with and a baby made already. That's how they did things in the clans, anyway. And if Carth didn't straighten things out with Aithne soon, Canderous would knock his teeth out, Bindo be damned, but still! Revan had no business letting whatever was going on between the two of them affect her day-to-day business. She hadn't said a damned word in ten minutes. It wasn't as if Canderous minded. He could do without all the inane chatter Aithne and Mission and Jolee seemed to live their life with, but he'd gotten used to it from them, and it was throwing him off.
Anyway, she had to speak up when they got to the Republic Embassy. Wann looked up, and his expression reminded Canderous of the kath hounds on Dantooine- eager and greedy and more than a little bit stupid. "Have you managed to retrieve the data from our droid in the Sith base?" he asked without preamble.
Aithne scowled. "Nice to see you, too, Mr. Wann," she said. "I killed dozens of Sith. I got arrested. I was nearly killed by the Selkath whose neutrality laws I broke and got off on a technicality of a crazy coincidence, but yes. I got your precious data." She tossed the data Canderous assumed she'd picked up in the base yesterday on the table.
Wann examined the chip for several seconds. "Excellent," he said finally. "It does not appear to have been tampered with. So the Sith did not manage to copy its contents yet." He looked up at Aithne and her companions at last. "Hello, Ordo, is it?" Canderous jerked his head. "And a…a Wookiee."
"Zaalbar," Aithne told him. "Another of my companions."
"Not a slave, I hope."
Zaalbar didn't even roar in indignation. Aithne was already correcting Roland Wann. "No. A dear friend. An honorable prince of Kashyyyk. He follows because of a life debt."
Roland Wann looked at her curiously. "You…you aren't a traditional Jedi, are you?" he asked.
Canderous caught a bit of nervousness in his voice and smiled grimly. Aithne stared at Wann. "That's my affair. I give my word of honor that I'm not a Sith, however. And if you help me, you may very well help to win this war and save the galaxy. So. The information you promised me, if you please."
Roland Wann looked intently at her a minute, then checked a few files on his desk. "You did kill all the Sith at the base," he said in mild surprise. "And you freed Sunry yesterday morning. Very well. We are not supposed to speak of this, but we have exhausted all the other options, and you do seem…capable."
Canderous snorted. "That's one way to put it."
Aithne shot him a glance of annoyance. He stared back at her. "Get on with it, representative," she told Wann.
Roland Wann looked angered, but he continued. "The Republic is fighting for its very existence against the evil of the Sith Empire," he said. "As you also undoubtedly know, we are doing very poorly. We need much in the way of supplies and material to stem the tide of battle and bring us victory. Manaan is the sole source of kolto, the most powerful medical substance in the galaxy. Frankly, we need as much of it as we can get."
Canderous smelled a rat, and Zaalbar let out a faint growl. Aithne crossed her arms. "I see. What did you do?"
Roland made it a point not to look at her. "The Selkath conservatives with their neutrality treaties seek to treat the Sith and the Republic equally. This includes kolto exports. But a few more far-sighted Selkath see that if the Sith are ever allowed to win, the galaxy will be plunged into Darkness and there would be nothing to stop them from taking Manaan anyway. So we made a deal."
Canderous wasn't surprised. But he was a little impressed. He would have thought that the Republic would be too cowardly to resort to such trickery as Wann was implying. Aithne didn't like it, though. "You violated the treaty," she said flatly.
"Shh!" Roland commanded. "Not so loud!" He looked at the walls nervously. "Yes, it is a technical violation of the treaty, but it is sanctioned by elements of the Selkath government. We need only keep it hidden from the Sith. We recently began construction of a secret underground facility to harvest kolto directly at its source. We also hope to one day be able to synthesize it effectively. Current techniques are insufficient for the task, so we must mine it for now."
Aithne just stared at him.
Wann continued defensively. "The amount we take would hardly be noticed, since most is lost naturally before it reaches the surface anyway. We were nearing completion of the base when the digging teams reported some sort of obstruction. An ancient building or artifact. Possibly your 'Star Map'."
Emotion flashed across Aithne's face. Canderous shifted. He could understand why Revan wanted to take down Malak, but he knew right now she was more worried about the Princess. And the reasons for that escaped him. They wouldn't kill her. Wasn't that enough? "I have to go get it!" Aithne cried.
"Wait a minute," Wann said. "Transmissions from the base were cut off abruptly after that, and we haven't heard from the station since."
Aithne gripped the desk. "So something happened. What?"
Wann sighed. "We don't know," he admitted. "We just don't know. We've been hiring mercenaries to investigate, but none have returned. Neither have our own men. We sent that droid, but no luck."
Aithne went very still. "So now you're sending us," she said quietly.
Canderous shrugged. He actually rather admired the representative's shrewd handling of unexpected resources. "I took the liberty of having a submersible prepared for your departure," Wann said. "Here is a card to get past security. The submersible has been programmed to take you down, and up, should you need something. I would send soldiers…" he shifted uncomfortably, and Canderous changed his mind. The man was a coward.
Aithne snorted. "But you don't have them to spare."
Wann nodded guiltily. "And the Sith are bribing our mercenaries away," he added.
"So I'm on my own."
"I do apologize," Roland Wann said. "But please, while you search for your Star Map, find out what happened to the facility. There may yet be some survivors."
Aithne nodded brusquely. "I won't go out of my way," she promised. "But I'll tell you what I find out."
Roland grimaced. "That's fair. Good luck in your efforts."
Aithne led them a little ways from the desk and brought up her com-link. "Mish?" she said.
Canderous looked at Zaalbar. The Wookiee was frowning. "Yeah?"
"Looks like another big assignment has jumped into our path down here. Um…if we're not back in twenty-four hours, get together with Juhani and Carth and decide what to do."
Canderous scowled. "Stuff it!" Vao retorted fiercely. "That's you, Zaalbar, and Canderous down there, isn't it? You'll be fine!"
Zaalbar gave whatever passed for a laugh with him. /Aithne, don't torment her,/ he said loudly. Canderous had learned to understand him out of self-defense back on Dantooine. /Of course we'll be fine, Mission./
"Kid, I got no intention of dying," Canderous added. "Or of letting anyone else die." He hit Aithne on the arm. "Shut up," he told her.
Aithne glared at him. "Fine," she said. "We'll boldly go where no Republic soldier or merc has gone and lived to tell the tale, and we'll return triumphant heroes tomorrow afternoon."
"That's right!" Mission agreed vehemently. "Over and out."
Aithne put the com-link up, scowling. "Well, excuse me for wanting to inform the crew of what we were doing," she muttered.
"That's bunk," Canderous said. "You could've put it any way other than the way you said it, Morrigan, and it would've sounded better. And why'd you call the kid up? She's been worried sick as is. You should've called Onasi. Or Bindo. Or even that Cathar."
Aithne looked away, jaw tight. Canderous walked ahead to the sub bay Wann had indicated. "He's damn miserable too, you know," he called back over his shoulder. "You'll have to forgive him eventually."
Aithne's steps increased, and she passed him. Zaalbar clapped Canderous on the back, and strong as he was, Canderous buckled a little. /She will,/ Zaalbar said. /Soon, I think./
The Manaan ocean was Canderous' sort of place. No courts. No embassies. Just a whole lot of sharks. Bubbles of kolto rose up as they motored through the murky waters near the Hrakert Rift. The place had a lonely, dangerous sort of beauty.
When the sub finally docked on the underground base, Zaalbar insisted on stepping out first. He gripped Aithne's shoulder as he stepped out. /Go carefully,/ he growled.
Canderous and Aithne followed him out, gripping their weapons. The place looked like a battlefield. No less than four bodies littered the floor in the bay room. They looked like they'd been torn to pieces. Some were gnawed.
"Well," Aithne whispered. "This is cheerful. Come on."
At first the base seemed deserted. Water dripped here and there. The sound rang out like a musical instrument. Bodies lay everywhere, and out of the enormous windows, grinning firaxan sharks as long as the submersible with long teeth could be seen gliding silently through the waters.
It felt like years before they came to a computer. It was still working, as were the base cameras. Aithne flipped through the rooms in the base beyond them, searching for anything that might tell them what had happened. Canderous stood close so he could see.
Amazingly, the entire base wasn't deserted. Some Selkath were still slinking around. But Canderous could tell at a glance that something was off about them. They weren't the pompous, controlled idiots of Ahto City. The Selkath here reminded him of the rhakghouls in the Tarisian Undercity. They were tearing at one another. One of them had a trailing gibbet of meat dangling from its fish mouth, with just a bit of orange cloth attached. Just then, it looked up at the camera incidentally. Aithne shuddered. Canderous fingered his repeating blaster. Not a trace of intelligence or sanity remained in that beady black eye, just raw, animalistic cunning. And anger. Aithne hit a few keys, gassing all the rooms she could. Canderous watched as the insane Selkath fell down, asphyxiated.
"That's still not all of them," Aithne said. "The Selkath are insane. They're killing everything that moves. But…why?"
"Could be the Star Map," Canderous offered. "From what I've heard from Onasi and Bastila, your maps have this Dark Side energy."
Aithne shivered again. "We have to go on," she said after a long moment. "Still, this is creepier even than the one on Korriban. And it was in a tomb. Why can't the Star Maps ever be in a garden full of daisies?" Her voice shook. Canderous raised an eyebrow at her. She glared.
"You were afraid on that Basilisk droid!" she snapped. "So I don't like it underwater. If what I remember is right, I didn't then, either. And those Selkath just make it worse. Insanity…it's worse than the Sith."
Zaalbar nodded in agreement. He put a paw to her shoulder, and Aithne stood up straight.
As much as the insane Selkath frightened Aithne, they weren't much of a challenge, Canderous reflected halfway through the base. They were just as likely to kill each other as any one of them. There were nearly as many Selkath corpses lying around as Republic and mercenary ones. In addition, though the Selkath definitely wanted to kill them, they were mostly unarmed, and weak to boot.
Revan snorted after about the sixth group of them. "No wonder the Selkath are so set on neutrality. You get one good squadron of soldiers in here and you could tear these people apart!"
Canderous looked at her sideways, and she blushed. "Doesn't mean I want to," she qualified hastily. "I'm just saying you could."
They were mostly through the base when they encountered another human. He seemed as loony as the Selkath, if harmless. The man had stashed himself in a locker. They wouldn't have found him, but he was whimpering. Aithne tapped on the door.
"Somebody out there?" asked a sharp, frantic voice. "Fishy fishy fishy! Ha! You can't get me in here, fishy. I'm safe behind my walls."
"Sir?" Aithne said. "We're not Selkath. I'm a Jedi. My name is Aithne Morrigan. I have friends with me. Come out and tell me what happened. We'll protect you."
But try as she might, Aithne couldn't get the lunatic to emerge. He just kept sing-songing about how they were sure to end up as "lunchie munchie" for the Selkath.
Eventually Canderous stopped Aithne. "Leave him," he said. "This one won't come out of his little hole. He deserves whatever happens to him, the coward."
Aithne looked at him, and Canderous shifted. "If you really must, we can tell Wann up there he's down here. But we have to find your Star Map."
Regretfully, Aithne nodded. Then, in the corner, she saw an environment suit stacked next to some sonic emitters. She grabbed them. Canderous frowned. Wherever it was, it was outside?
When they finally got to a pressure door, though, they had been unable to locate any other environment suits. Aithne eyed the one they had, and Canderous crossed his arms.
"No way, Morrigan. You are not going out there alone."
Zaalbar stepped up next to him, agreeing. /I cannot honorably allow you to face this danger alone,/ he said.
Aithne sighed. "There's no honor about it. No ifs, ands, or buts. I'm going. I don't think either of you even know what a Star Map looks like, and I'm the only one that has a rough idea where to look. I'm going. You're staying. End of story."
Zaalbar shifted. /Mission will have my head!/
"Onasi will have mine," Canderous agreed. But he looked at her, and nodded. "Be careful, then."
Aithne began stepping into the environment suit without further ado. She engaged the pressure lock, and Canderous was forced to step back. But he watched her step out into the deep. "Good luck, Revan," he said.
AITHNE POV
The many tons of water pressed in around Aithne, and she felt her skin go up in goose bumps in response to the sudden chill outside her environment suit. She was deep, very deep down under the surface of the almost endless Manaan ocean. She felt nervously for her sonic emitter and walked forward. Every step was a strain in the water. Up ahead, she saw a yellow suit like her own. A surge of relief raced through her, and she quickened her steps, following him through a doorway that looked out on the open ocean.
"Hey!" Aithne called out to the survivor. Her voice was tinny and strange in the suit. He turned to face her, and so he missed the open mouth of a nightmare racing towards him.
"Watch out!" Aithne cried. But it was too late. The firaxa carried the screaming man away. Aithne shuddered. It could be just like that for her, too. This ocean reminded her how small and powerless she was in the big scheme of things. Attack could come from any direction. She wished fervently that the lightsabers beneath her suit would activate in this murky underwater land. Aithne took a deep breath, and the bubbles rose up from her suit and reminded her that her oxygen tank was running down. She forced herself forward again.
There was a low row of buildings through the water, just across the walkway. Aithne felt out with the Force, and she sensed the pulsing Dark energy of the Star Map just beyond them. Of more immediate interest, however, were the auras of the two sharks bearing down upon her from either side of the door. Aithne pressed the sonic emitter frantically. She heard a faint rolling sound as the two long bodies rolled over in the water, their brains shattered by the blast.
Aithne began to move towards the second complex. Two more sharks tried to attack her on the way. One she slew barely a meter from her face. But ten harrowing minutes from the time she first stepped out into the ocean, Aithne reached the second set of buildings.
She threw the suit off as soon as she stepped through the pressure door, and took her lightsabers out, activating her shield.
It was just in time. She heard the throaty croaks of Selkath, and four of the frenzied creatures threw themselves at her. Aithne reached out with the Force and sent a pulsing wave through the room that knocked the things off their feet. She followed it up with a Stasis. She couldn't afford to play fair here, especially now that she was alone. She cut the Selkath down quickly and moved on to the next room.
The only thing of note was a large purple force field. But beyond it, Aithne saw people. Two people, around thirty or so, stood trembling in lab coats behind the force field.
"Hello," she called.
"No!" the man cried. "You'll let the Selkath and the firaxan sharks in! I won't let you!"
"Kill them," the woman urged. "Kill her now!"
The man pressed a button on the wall.
"Ten seconds until complete depressurization," a computerized voice related cheerily. Aithne felt her organs protest. She looked around wildly, and ran to a computer in the compound. As her body screamed, Aithne deactivated the depressurization and unmanned the force field, returning things to normal.
"No, no," whimpered the man, clutching at the woman.
Aithne walked over to them, breathing heavily, the knots of fear in her stomach slowly unwinding.
"Calm down," she gasped, bracing herself on her knees. "I'm Aithne Morrigan. I'm…a Jedi, and a friend."
Slowly, the panic left the man and woman's eyes. They straightened. "Really?" the woman asked.
The man sighed. "We're scared," he said. "I…I apologize for the misunderstanding."
"You apologize for trying to kill me?" Aithne laughed shakily. "That one's new. People try to kill me every day. Don't often get apologies, though. Don't worry, I forgive you." She straightened. "Well. Look at you. People. And you're alive, too. Fantastic. Can you tell me what happened here?"
The man shook his head in sorrow. "When the Selkath went crazy, I thought everyone else except me and Sami went mad."
Aithne sighed. "As far as I can tell, if they did, it was a madness born out of fear. Different from whatever's going on with the Selkath. There was one guy that seemed to think that he could survive outside the base- a firaxa ate him. And there's another one that won't come out of a locker. But everyone else…" she broke off. "I'm sorry."
The woman nodded. "I'd hoped there were more," she said quietly. "When the Selkath went mad, though, the firaxa went frenzied, too."
Aithne winced. "Yeah. I'd noticed."
"My team," the man said brokenly. Aithne raised her eyebrows. He'd been a leader of some sort, then. "My team was torn apart and eaten before my eyes. I locked us in here. We heard the Selkath outside at the doors every once in a while…and strange noises echoing through the base."
"What do you think happened?"
The man stuck out his hand. "I'm Kono Nolan, and this is Sami. We were scientists working here on the Hrakert Rift project."
Aithne shook his hand. "Alright, but what happened?"
"We don't know," Sami said. "At least, not for sure."
Kono continued. "We were working outside in the Rift near the vent. Then there was this rumbling and my head felt like it was splitting open."
"This…this monster rose up from the Rift," Sami recalled, her eyes wide.
"It was a firaxa shark, I think," Kono corrected. "Bigger than any I'd ever seen before. Bigger than our submersibles."
"It was like it was screaming inside my head," Sami reiterated.
"Then all the Selkath started screaming, too, and they turned on us."
Aithne nodded. "Like those I've been killing throughout? There aren't many. I think they've been killing one another, too."
Kono nodded in agreement. "I think the sound the monster was making in our heads drove them insane," he hypothesized.
Sami looked thoughtful. "Well, maybe it was protecting the ruins by the Rift."
"It could have been," Kono Nolan agreed. "It might have a lair in the Hrakert Rift near the kolto vent. Hmm…that may explain some things, too."
Aithne was glad the coherent survivors of the massacre had been scientists. "Like?" she prompted them.
"Like why it reacted so violently when our construction efforts got closer to the vent," Kono said absently, his eyes distant in thought. "And why it is so large. It must be feeding off the kolto. It would have to be ancient indeed for it to reach that size. But with kolto as a food source…"
Sami caught his train of thought, eyes brightening. "And all those other firaxan sharks! Those might be its offspring!"
"Which would be why they all swarmed when it called out to them," Kono speculated. "Children coming to protect their mother."
Aithne's concerns were more practical. "Where is it now?"
Kono and Sami shuddered in unison. "Probably still out there," Kono said.
"Waiting for us," Sami agreed.
Aithne grimaced. "I have to go out there. What can I do?"
Kono considered. "Well, blasters don't always work," he said.
Sami looked over in the corner, where a tub of something stood. "We were working on a compound to drive them away, but we never got it working right," she said regretfully.
Kono Nolan's eyes flashed, though. "Still, flawed as it is," he said excitedly. "It should be ideal for this situation."
Sami shook her head. "You don't know what it will do!" she told her companion.
"Why?" Aithne asked. "What is it?"
"Well," Sami related, "the compound was supposed to be a repellent, but it turned out to be violently toxic to the firaxa instead. When used, it ruptured the shark's outer skin in seconds, and prevented them from drawing oxygen from the water by clogging their intakes."
Aithne imagined the sight, and made a face. "That sounds…unpleasant."
Kono shook his head. "It's exactly what we need," he insisted. "Something to kill the monster that destroyed our station!"
Sami looked grave. "But we don't know how else the chemical reacts," she protested. "We only tried it in a controlled environment. In the open ocean, who knows what it could do…it could even affect the kolto!"
"It'll kill the shark," Kono retorted savagely. "That's what we designed it to do."
Aithne considered, then turned to the woman. "Sami, what else could I do?" she asked.
"The monster seems to have been driven out by the machinery we installed at the edge of the Rift," Sami answered. "We've seen it out there on the cameras bashing itself against the machines. I think if you could destroy the machinery we installed, the shark would calm down and retreat back into its lair inside the Rift."
Aithne toyed with the idea. Blowing up machinery didn't sound nearly as disgusting as rupturing a giant firaxan shark's skin, and it would serve the Republic right for working around Manaan's people like that, and trying to use her. "How?" she asked, keeping her tone noncommittal.
"The Hydrolium gas we installed is a gas at one to three million sangen," the scientist explained. "It's a liquid at about four million sangen, and a solid above that. When it's a liquid, it's very explosive. If you inject enough of the Hydrolium gas into the tank, the pressure will be so great that it will turn into liquid form and start a chain reaction inside the machine."
Kono couldn't take it anymore. He burst out angrily, "But we'll lose everything we've built here! Years of work. No, look," he said to Aithne, indicating the toxin. "There's the toxin, ready to go. Just vent it through the harvester. Then we can go back to mining kolto."
Aithne bit her lip. "I'll…I'll think about it," she said, spying another environment suit near the door that she guessed led to the harvester, the Hrakert Rift, and the Star Map. "When I get back to the Embassy, I'll make sure to tell Roland Wann you're down here. There's no room in my own sub. And don't worry. I've taken care of the Selkath."
"All of them?" Kono asked, looking at her in wonder. Aithne nodded briskly.
"All of them," she confirmed.
"Thank…thank you," Sami said.
"You know what you have to do," Kono said, as she stepped into the suit.
"I just hope you make the right choice," Sami finished.
Aithne stepped out into the sea again with some trepidation, and immediately pressed her sonic emitter in a panic. Two sharks rolled over dead. Breathing in a shaky breath, Aithne proceeded.
Luckily, the harvester was not far. She went up to the panel, and cued the computer. Two options came up. View pressure controls, and vent toxin. Aithne hesitated.
A good Republic citizen would just press that toxin button. A good Republic citizen would kill the monster she could sense circling the Star Map now. She could leave the base and the harvester untouched, and tell no one of what transpired down here except representative Wann. It was good strategy, even, to leave the harvester. Revan or Aithne, she'd always been strategically inclined.
But for some reason her finger hovered over the button. She'd had enough of politics and being jerked around. She didn't like mess, and frankly, she kind of wanted to get back at the Republic for using her the way they had, if only in a small way. They'd still get kolto. And if Sami was right, it would be better kolto. She'd rather have Sith and Republic get the same amount of good kolto than have the Republic get more corrupted kolto. Aithne sighed. No use dissembling. Darth Revan or Aithne, I'm not a good Republic citizen.
Deftly, she maneuvered the Hydrolium gas in the harvesting machine to where there was four million sangen in the container pod. The screen flashed red, and up overhead, the great harvesting machine blew up with a spectacular release of bubbles and energy, though for all Aithne could tell the explosion was completely silent.
The great beast, a giant orange firaxa nearly as big as the harvester itself, swam up to look. Aithne sensed the Star Map down the walkway. Tentatively, she stepped towards it. The creature turned one eye stalk to look at her curiously, but then moved away, completely uninterested. The smaller sharks, its children according to the Republic scientists, suddenly lost the tension in their bodies and swam in all directions. Aithne smiled. She still didn't like it underwater, but the ocean seemed a little brighter, anyway.
The Star Map was a ways down the ancient highway at the edge of the Hrakert Rift. Aithne got there, and with some difficulty lifted the waterproof datapad she'd left out for just for this purpose. She had taken care to transfer all the Star Map coordinates to the more expensive pad just after she had the Manaan memory. She inserted it now, and the Star Map opened up.
This one was different. This time, the Star Map seemed to interact with her datapad a bit. And then, instead of displaying the usual mishmash of coordinates, it showed Aithne hyperspace routes. The Star Map swirled in blues and greens and white light, showing a planet, rather small, and just to the side of it: a space station. And then it was over. The Star Map closed, and Aithne removed her datapad, quivering in excitement. She looked at it. There were the clear-set of coordinates and instructions she had been searching for since Dantooine. They were to a world she couldn't recall visiting in all her years of fake memories. But she got a flash of the smell of salt and the grit of sand between bare toes from a memory somehow farther off, and she knew that if Aithne Morrigan hadn't been to this world, Revan had.
Her environment suit beeped. Aithne looked down at her readouts, and stifled a gasp. That wouldn't help her, with her oxygen meter at only fifteen percent! She had five, maybe seven minutes left. Aithne turned around as quickly as she could in her cumbersome aluminum can of an outfit. The main building was down on the right side of the path, but it looked miles and miles away through the murky water. Aithne quickened her pace, ignoring the burning in her muscles. The fire in her lungs when her oxygen went out would be much worse. It would be fatal, if she was out long enough.
The building kept looking farther away, though Aithne's muscles felt like iron in a forge. Her head began to pound as the meter reached three, two, one percent. Finally, meters from the door, the meter beeped. Aithne drew in a breath and her lungs didn't expand. Airlessness cut through her like a knife, and Aithne felt the blood slow in her veins. Still she continued on. Her face had to be blue, Aithne though. Like the ocean. Ha.
She stumbled and realized she'd reached the building. Her eyelashes drooped. In one last supreme effort she pounded her fist on the door of the building. Purple spots danced in front of her vision, turning to black.
Funny, that a little thing like oxygen deprivation should kill me. I'm Darth Revan, and I suffocated to death…that's funny. Ha. Ha….
CANDEROUS POV
Canderous knelt beside Aithne, chafing her wrists and steadily cursing in Mandalorian. If Zaalbar hadn't insisted on staying beside the Hrakert Rift door! It was lucky they'd found another environment suit tucked up inside a ceiling cabinet. He'd heard her pounding on the door, and Zaalbar had seen her outside the window. He'd been able to get to her not three minutes afterwards. But that so easily might have been too late. He'd seen oxygen starvation before.
Zaalbar had gotten her out of that suit and carried her to the sub, but now they'd been going up more than fifteen minutes and she still hadn't come to. At least her face had stopped looking blue and she was breathing normally again. Her hands had warmed up a little, too. They'd been like liquid nitrogen when he'd found her. She'd live.
But by Mandalore himself, if Onasi, or even Vao ever found out just how close Morrigan had come to dying back there Canderous wouldn't bet much on his survival in that fallout. The Wookiee was already practically having hairballs, roaring on and on about his dishonor and his life debt and how he should have put Aithne in that locker with the lunatic before he let her go out into the ocean alone.
Canderous had finally had it. "Enough," he said. "If you think you and I together could've taken Revan once she'd set her mind on something, well- we couldn't have. Just be glad. I may've been in the suit, but you found it, and you were the one that insisted we watch." He cursed again, imagining the alternative.
Aithne's eyes fluttered, and Canderous released her wrist. "Welcome back, Morrigan," he said.
/Thank Bacca you are alright!/
Aithne winced, putting a hand to her head. Canderous couldn't say he felt sorry for her headache. He figured she just about deserved it after everything she'd put them through. She blinked, recognizing the sub interior. She looked at Canderous, and he gestured at Zaalbar.
"Where's the Star Map?" she asked hoarsely.
Canderous took it off the co-pilots seat in the sub and handed it to her. "Here. You were holding it so tightly that Zaalbar here had to pry it out of your fingers to get you out of that environment suit."
Aithne looked at the datapad thoughtfully. "I ought to send these coordinates to the Republic and the Jedi," she said. "Because if I don't manage to beat Malak this time? I am not doing that again."
Canderous chuckled. Aithne sat up slowly, rubbing her temples. "How long was I out?"
/You were unconscious for about twenty minutes,/ Zaalbar put in.
Aithne grimaced. "Don't tell the others?"
Canderous fought looking too relieved. She was basically inviting him to pin this whole thing on her. He raised an eyebrow at her. "You don't want us to tell them how stupid you were? How you irresponsibly went out into open ocean alone, and then didn't make sure to reserve enough oxygen to complete your task properly?"
Zaalbar looked amused. /You would deserve the scolding you would receive and more,/ he said.
Aithne shook her finger. "Would." She looked from Zaalbar back to Canderous. "Aren't I going to get it?"
Canderous looked at Zaalbar for a long, considering moment. Both of them would be just as happy as Aithne not to have anyone know about this, really, but they let her sweat for a moment. Finally, he replied, "No."
Aithne heaved a sigh of relief. "Thanks." She looked down a moment. "For everything."
Canderous turned back to the dash to check on their progress back up to the Republic Embassy. "Don't mention it."
Aithne had almost completely recovered by the time they reached the Embassy again. Wann was pacing the corridor just outside the sub bay when Canderous and the others emerged. Aithne had to wave a few times to get his attention. When he finally noticed them, he jumped. Canderous sneered. Yes. A coward.
"You have returned. I feared that you, too, might have been lost. Did you find out what happened?"
Aithne had told them about her findings on the way up, so Canderous wasn't surprised when she explained. "I did. Your construction woke up a giant firaxan shark that lived in the Rift, feeding on the kolto. It drove all the Selkath insane. They…they killed nearly everyone."
Roland Wann shuddered. "That's…that's horrible," he said. "The entire operation wasted by a disaster we could never in a thousand years have foreseen. What happened to the facility itself? Are there any survivors?"
Canderous stepped forward a little, anticipating this next bit. "One question at a time," Aithne said. "Yes, Mr. Wann, there are survivors. Kono Nolan made it, and so did one of his associates, a woman named Sami. There was also this insane guy in a locker. They ought to be safe enough now."
Wann motioned an officer over. "Take the submersible," he ordered. "Retrieve Kono Nolan and Sami and try to coax the man in the locker out. They'll no doubt wish to leave after their ordeal." The officer saluted and left for the sub bay immediately.
He turned back to Aithne. "Padawan Morrigan, the facility? Was it damaged?"
Aithne shrugged. "Your buildings are a little bloody, but intact. But…the harvesting machine was destroyed. Sorry." Canderous could tell she wasn't. It had been a bad move, tactically speaking, if she really were on the Republic side. But Canderous knew she wasn't, and it really served the Republics right for trying to push Revan around.
The representative reeled. "No!" he cried. "That will set our work back years!" He sighed, face falling into deep lines. "It may even cost us the war."
Aithne's face hardened. "No. It won't. Because I found the Star Map. I know where Malak is. I have found the source of all his baffling supplies and ships. So, excuse me, but I have to be going. I have a galaxy to save."
Canderous tipped the thunderstruck representative a little wave as he and Zaalbar followed her through the Republic base. The door was shut. Aithne opened it.
"No, Padawan Morrigan! Wait!" Roland Wann called after her.
Zaalbar growled. Canderous rolled his eyes. And Aithne looked over her shoulder. "Too little, too late, Wann," she said sourly.
Four uniformed Selath stood there. /We have monitored an alarming number of detonations coming from the Hrakert Rift,/ they said. /And our spy cameras in the Republic Embassy have monitored you leaving in a submersible. You are under arrest./
Aithne held her hands up resignedly. /Yeah, yeah, I'll come quietly,/ she said. /This is getting to be too much of a routine here./