Months ago, when I first awoke from my so-called accident, I was made to believe that the resulting injury had given me terrible amnesia. I could only barely remember bits and pieces of my past; certain memories, weird associations, and the lingering feeling of anguish and anger whenever I tried to remember exactly how it was I received my head injury that would inexplicably leave my hands shaking and the room suddenly cold. Since then my medics had listed that the only concern they had for my recovery was a paranoia I had of losing my memory again that multiple therapy visits could not fix. The day I was able to hold a datapad without dropping it, I had begun to catalogue the events of each day to go over in the future, certain that one day I'd wake up and lose it all again.

By the time I'd gotten to Taris, I was a natural at cataloguing my thoughts in record time, and every night when Carth went to sleep I wrote all the events of that day in my tiny datapad for easy reading when I woke up in the morning.

I remember sitting in a small chair in that tiny abandoned apartment on Taris as I thumbed through my datapad, looking at the past few entries. I'd logged down even the smallest things. Who we'd met, what we had eaten; the way the warm red sunlight would shine against the Taris buildings to magnify the heat of the city during the day. The dawn came quietly that morning, drawing open the curtains of night ever so slowly until Taris' star began to shine brilliantly on the horizon. Our tiny room already smelled like caf, neither of us having slept much through the night. I poured myself my third cup of caf before the light that slipped through the window slats was finally bright enough for us to consider leaving.

Carth exited the 'fresher, pulling one of the sleeves of his jacket over his arm. I glanced up at him, quickly turning the screen off and ignoring his raised eyebrow. Standing up, I stretched and took another sip of caf, "We should be okay to leave, I think. That med center should be open by now."

"Good," Carth stuffed his arm into the other sleeve of his jacket, "no sense waiting around any longer."

I nodded tiredly, finishing what I could of the caf and pouring the rest down the sink, watching the liquid turn from black to clear as I turned the faucet on. Carth was standing near the door at the ready by the time I'd stuffed some ration packs and a filter bottle into my bag. He had hidden his two blasters underneath his jacket, and I'd followed suit and strapped a blaster underneath my tunic. I preferred to use a vibrosword to a blaster but I didn't want to catch the attention of a Sith by walking in Taris openly with a blade.

We took the elevator straight down to one of the southern platforms connected to our building and made our way to the med center. A large sign listing antidotes for multiple cures was posted at the front, with NO CURE FOR RAKGHOUL PLAGUE in aurebesh underlined three times just below. Carth and I exchanged a glance before I hit the door controls and the panels slid open to reveal a modest shop with a few sickbeds and some kolto stations. A sign pointing to bacta tanks in the back had been crossed out with a notice saying the tanks were not working at the moment due to a supply issue.

Two men were there as we entered — a greeter closer to the door, and an older man that glanced up casually while he was changing the bedding on one of the sickbeds.

"Any contagious illnesses, please take a mask and stand over to the quarantine station on the left. You'll be looked at shortly. All else please take a look at our inventory listed on the console to your right. Checkups please see my man at the front door," the older man intoned without looking up as he went back to fixing the bedding.

We stepped to the right and I brought up a selection of the center's inventory, running through the stock list to see what we needed. In time the man came over to see if we needed any help. He introduced himself as Zelka and gave us warm thanks for entering his shop. Carth chatted with him for a few moments.

"You haven't got any sort of antidote for the rakghoul plague then?" Carth asked. Zelka shook his head in response, clearly frustrated. "Unfortunately no. If I had even a vial of their blood and an hour of time I could most likely synthesize something to counteract the symptoms. With a few hours I may even be able to nullify the disease so it doesn't affect the victim at all. Even a shot an hour or so after a bite could stop the transformation entirely. But I've found no one willing to go down to the Undercity and actively search out rakghouls just to get a sample of their blood." The older man frowned, stroking his chin thoughtfully, "To be honest I know so little about the rakghouls I don't even know if a vial of their blood could be contained without issue. But if no one takes the risk then many will continue to die."

"What if we could bring you back a sample?" Carth asked. I glanced at him, surprised. He had been so adamant about focusing on the search for Bastila that we had had time for little else, even something as important as this. "If we have time," I cut in smoothly before Zelka had a chance to respond. "If we came across one on our travels, we'll do what we can to help you find the cure." I smiled at Zelka who nodded at me.

"That's all I can ask for, miss." Zelka stepped back and leaned tiredly against one of the sickbeds. "So, you're heading to the Undercity? At the moment, it's the only place to accidentally come across a rakghoul."

Carth nodded and Zelka shrugged, playing with the frayed end of a blanket, "Well I don't know why you're going there but if at any point you leave the Undercity proper, you'll no doubt run into one of 'em. Out there, it's no creature's land, but the rakghouls're giving everyone a reason to stay away." Carth asked Zelka a few more questions on the rakghouls, turning the conversation casually into Zelka and his work on medicine. I chimed in when I felt the conversation had changed appropriately.

"You wouldn't have happened to find any people injured recently, would you? Something consistent with a … say … ship crash on land."

Zelka stared at me. The eyes in his hollow, dark cheekbones were flat in the low lighting. "I'm sorry," he said, "I wouldn't know anything about that."

Everything about the response was normal. He maintained the same casual friendliness in his tone of voice, and his expression hadn't really changed from when he was talking with Carth a few seconds before. But — and I chalked it up to years of working around people that never seemed to want to tell the truth — I had that itch in the back of my shoulders that I got whenever someone was lying to me.

Carth exhaled and put a hand on the inventory console, the glowing screen lighting up his troubled eyes, "Pity that, you know, I just … I just hope whoever it is got the help they needed." Carth either had a much better Pazaak face than I was expecting, or he didn't share the same suspicions I had. Either way, I resolved to figure out what Zelka was hiding once we had Bastila with us. I knew the tales of the Force were exaggerated and my trial had proved they weren't all mind-readers, but I wondered if Bastila would have some intuition about this man that would explain why I had a feeling he knew more about the other escape pods than he initially suggested.

I was still mindful of our initial mission, however. Our conversation over, we purchased some supplies with Zelka peering over our shoulders until we exited the dimly lit shop. Just as we were about to leave, the older man pressed a small package into my hand, containing a quarantine-ready sealable bag and a small empty vial. I slipped the package with the vial for the rakghoul serum in my bag alongside the medpacs we bought and thanked Zelka once more before we left the shop.

We'd barely taken three or four steps past the closing doors when we were stopped by a tall man in Tarisian clothing. "There you are. You were beginning to take so long I thought the old man had finally snapped and taken some samples of corpses to further his study." I stared at him for a moment before the man stepped back, eyes darting between Carth and me, and backtracked. "Name's Gurney. I'm Zelka's assistant," he explained. " I overheard everything. I know the old fool wants you to give him the rakghoul blood for free with the hope of being noble and finding a cure. But, I says to myself, why would a smart, beautiful woman like yourself not also be a little more practical?" Carth snorted in the background. "Sure, you do the right thing, and I'm all for that! But doing the right thing doesn't mean you can't earn money too."

I arranged my expression into a very carefully neutral one. "A woman like me also doesn't like her time wasted," I said.

"I know someone that will pay you good money for that serum," Gurney said. "Thing about the cure? There's money to be had where there's suffering on that scale."

"That's disgusting!" Carth snapped. "How can you be such a horrible person?" He started say more but I held up a hand to stop him.

Gurney shot Carth a sly grin before continuing on. I knew Carth must have been livid, but we didn't need to attract attention from a shouting match. "All I'm saying is there's a way for you to be the hero while still getting paid to do it. Think about it. You give us the blood. We still make the antidote. Same as old Zelka here. But we have the infrastructure to support mass generation while still giving you a healthy dose of our … appreciation." His grin widened.

"Who are you speaking of when you say this 'we'?" I asked, confused, "I thought you worked for Zelka."

"For now … but I have a buyer lined up already."

"So what's stopping me from giving it to both of you?" I asked. I wasn't necessarily planning on it, but it couldn't hurt to understand what I was being asked to do, and we were short on money. He crossed his arms and snorted derisively at my question. "You give that serum to Zelka, he'll distribute it for free or next to nothing like the idiot has for the rest of his cures. And where there's free, there's no market. Now, Davik Kang's not gonna invest in something he can't make money off of."

I'd heard the name, however briefly, in our tours of the Lower City, and it gave me enough of an idea of the kind of man I was dealing with. "You want me to hand over the only hope of survival for the folks in the lower cities afflicted to a crime lord."

"Sh sh sh!" Gurney waved a finger in my face, "Not a crime lord! More of an … entrepreneur."

"He won't be more of anything if he crosses my path," I responded sourly, "now get out of my way. We're done here."

"For the sake of the sheer amount of money we could both make I'm going to not tell Davik you said that," Zelka's assistant said, gesturing with his hands to emphasize his point. "The offer is on the table. Now you come back here when you're ready to deal." He sent me another sly look, "Hey, why don't we talk about it over dinner?"

"If I were you I'd leave it pal, or your dinner will consist of soft foods for the next few months," Carth said in a mock sympathetic voice, clapping the man's shoulder. I had already started to walk off.

"Just remember the offer!" He called behind us.

We reached the Undercity mostly without incident. Carth and I stood in the awkward silence of a rickety elevator that creaked every few feet it dropped. We weren't too sure what to expect past the fact that a city somehow thrived at the bottom of the long drop.

"You think they're just rakghouls? Like a city of sentient monsters and this is how they lure people in?" I mused aloud, trying to alleviate the mood. Carth shot me a glance, the corner of his mouth twisting upward slightly in amusement. "Couldn't've checked this out before we got in the elevator?" he teased in response.

I shrugged, "Hey it's part of the job. Republic pride and all that. Sometimes you have to go into a rakghoul city to save a Jedi. It happens."

Carth leaned against the wall and chuckled at me, "Well ma'am you're doing the service an honour. No idea where we'd be without people with your dedication." He was silent a moment, and we both listened to the creak and groan of the ancient elevator as the sides scraped against whatever tunnel we were descending.

"You aren't really debating giving that serum over to that sleazebag are you?" he asked finally.

I turned my head toward him and frowned, "Look, I know I'm doing time for getting caught smuggling for money but that doesn't mean I'm some heartless old bat that wants to work for the Exchange. I mean, unless he offered me a nice freighter and a way off the planet." Carth started to mutter something but I shook my head to stop him, "I'm only joking. Look, I told you I was going to help you free Bastila, and that's what I'm going to do, alright? I had my loyal streak long before I met the Jedi."

Carth raised an eyebrow, "Loyal? Was that why you chose the serve with the Republic rather than do time?"

"No. You'd be surprised at how much more likely people are willing to deal with you if you say you were ex-military. It's mostly for resume reasons."

Before Carth could make a snappy remark the elevator jolted to a halt none-too-gently and the doors began to rattle open slowly even before the elevator had stopped shaking.

"Doesn't inspire much confidence," I said nervously. Carth cleared his throat and came up beside me, holding one of his blasters.

The city itself was uneventful. There was no welcoming party when we stepped out of the elevator, and thankfully no rakghouls either. There were a few helpful locals that were content to direct us around the place, but the city itself was smaller than a village and the makeshift tents they slept in weren't hard to find. Most of the others tried to ignore us.

There were two gates at either end. One seemed to have been a pen to store livestock but unfortunately seemed to now house infected villagers. It seemed a cruel thing, to lock them up and let them feel their own madness take over. The woman I'd confronted about it, who called herself a 'healer', asked me if it was better to kill them all instantly. She hadn't quite liked my answer. The second gate led out to the grounds and maze of tunnels that comprised the lowest level of Taris.

When we reached it initially, there was some sort of scuffle. A woman had thrown herself bodily at a man as the doors closed. She was screaming loudly while she scratched at him. I finally understood what was going on as three shapes moved from beyond the gate. One was a man, covered in grime and half limping, half running. The other two shapes were crouched, and grey. At first glance they seemed like small boulders that moved with inhuman speed. Then one of them stopped its pursuit, arching its back into the air and tilting its head with a loud screeching cry. It towered over the man.

It was obvious he wasn't going to make it. The woman had been trying to break past a man that I assumed was a guard of some sort and open the gate for the man outside, but as we neared the two of them, the gates rattled shut with a definitive clink as they slammed into the ground.

"RUN!" She yelled at the gate, reaching over the guard in another futile attempt to touch the controls. The man outside the gate tripped and went down instantly. The rakghouls didn't falter once, gracefully changing course to stop and bite down at the man with barely a pause. We heard his cry just before it was cut off with a gurgle.

Carth and I had reached the gate now. The woman had frozen in shock at the scene and was standing there pitifully. I felt sorry for her. As I stepped forward to offer condolences, the sudden movement broke her from her trance. She ran at the gate and grabbed the protective net, curling her fingers around the bars and yanking back as if she could open it herself.

"Hey, hey stop that don't get to close!" The guard yelled, "You'll-"

The second the man had died, the rakghouls had stopped biting into him, almost as if their purpose was not to eat him at all. When the woman had reached for the gates, one of them leaped forward with determination. It snapped at the gate, jaws closing tightly around the bars, and the woman fell back with a shriek. The metal of the gate rasped as the rakghoul's teeth found and lost purchase. The creature tried to angle its head this way and that to see if it could reach in somehow, claws grasping at the gate in an unnervingly intelligent manner. Safely a few few feet away from the gate, the guard inspected the woman for cuts and found she was okay.

"I am so sorry for your loss, miss," Carth said softly, dropping into a crouch beside where the woman had collapsed from mental exhaustion. "I just want to say-"

"You … you killed him!" She pointed an accusatory finger at Carth, and then at me. "You're the reason my Hendar is dead!"

"Woah," I said, holding my hands up and frowning, "how do you figure that? That man was on the wrong side of-"

"His name was Hendar and you killed him!" The woman's voice rose to a shriek as she forced the words past her mouth. She stood, hands balled into tight fists and took a threatening step toward me. The guard grabbed her shoulder, "Hester, stop spoutin' this nonsense. Hendar was attacked by rakghouls. We all saw 'em."

She angrily pointed a finger at the blaster showing under my open jacket, "They have weapons! What sick person would just watch and let something horrible like that happen? You should have saved my Hendar! You should have gotten bit yourself!"

Carth tried to pacify her, "Miss, you're in shock right now. It's normal to feel these-" He cut off with a gasp as Hester turned to him and swung a fist at his face. I quickly stepped forward and caught her arm mid-swing before her fist connected with his face, walking forward to pull her back and away from him. She tried to hit me instead, but I held her arms firmly by her sides. Tears streamed down her face. "You're a monster," she said quietly, collapsing back to the ground and staring up at me.

"Come on now," the guard said softly. He pulled her gently up to her feet and sent me a look that said I should have handled the situation better.

He took her somewhere, and by the time he returned the rakghouls had gotten bored and left the vicinity of the gate. The man was less than pleased to see us standing there still. "You're still here," he grunted.

"I would like to leave," I said politely, "I wasn't sure if I should open the gates without you here though."

"You wanna end up like poor Hendar out there?" He frowned at me.

"No. And I know why you closed the gate," I said.

The guard huffed and shifted the helmet over his face, "I would've opened it then and there upworlder, if you'd thought his life was worth saving. Guess we're not that important to the lives of those like you."

"Now you hold on just a second," Carth said, "we couldn't have done a damn thing to stop that from happening and you know it."

I cut the guard off before he could respond, "Look why don't you just open the gates and let us leave? We'll be out of your hair."

The guard made a careful show of inspecting the area outside of the gate before opening it, taking his sweet time. When we were finally able to duck under the slowly opening gates, they rattled shut before we had taken two steps past the entrance. I heard the guard spit something on the ground in disgust and I sighed, walking forward and taking in my surroundings.

"He was wrong," Carth muttered. "We couldn't have changed that situation any more than a freighter could've pulled out of a tractor beam. Not without luck. Not without a Jedi."

"Maybe we could've. Maybe I could have run out."

"And maybe you could have pulled out a lightsaber and cut the rakghouls all in half too," Carth exhaled and shook his head, "He was just as powerless to stop it as we were. Men say horrible things when they feel powerless like that."

"Do you really think that?" I stopped outside the gate and stared at him, ignoring his attempts to brush aside the guard's frustration. "Do you really think a Jedi can do so much? You have such faith in them. I get the feeling you think that if Bastila was here she would solve all our problems with a snap of her fingers."

"I mean she wouldn't snap her fingers. But … don't underestimate the power of the Force. It can be a great ally in situations like this. It's saved me from situations just like this where it seemed like everything was going against us."

"If they were so great at everything why are we even here right now? How is she the prisoner of some half-rate crime lord on a backwater planet like this? Why isn't she off, I don't know, saving people or something?" I gestured around us, "Maybe she could have stopped Hendar."

"It's the Force. Not gel. You can't freeze everything together and expect it to be fixed. Just wait til we get Bastila and you'll see. She'll have a good reason for what happened. There were rumours that Revan and Malak had been attacking Jedi in secret for some time. If they could capture Jedi, maybe there's a technique out there that we don't know about just yet that these scum used on Bastila."

Neither of us were interested in following what seemed almost like a religious debate too closely so I turned to examine the area we were in. The ground outside the Undercity was a vast wilderness with very little of note aside from the underlying faint smell of decay and other … rotten … things. Some constructs that could just barely be called buildings rose up ahead of us and the ground seemed to be a mix of soil and some other things I didn't want to think too hard on. But there were stretches that would go on forever with nothing to break the horizon.

It was dark; warm yellow lights were placed at regular intervals but spaced far enough that the shadows closed in on the edges of the small pools of light thrown by the industrial lamps. Here and there a red emergency beacon flashed a rhythm as it lit the area - Sith standard. They'd been down here to search the ruins of the escape pod, no doubt. We crossed into one after ensuring the beacons were simply there for light and not perimeter sensors. It was obvious the Sith did not intend to stay here long when they had come down initially.

Somewhere in the midst of pools of yellow and red light fighting against the oppressive darkness we had our first actual close encounter with a rakghoul. We had trekked through the grounds for at least a few hours until the tiny village had dwindled from sight. I heard blasterfire first, before a loud shout drew our attention to the right. The dark lit up suddenly with firework-like sprays of colour as a few men fought back one of the monsters we'd seen back before we left the village. As they moved, the light swallowed more of them until we could see a party of four or five men fighting off a crazed rakghoul. One of them screamed as the creature ripped into his arm with long talons. The man fell to the ground, whimpering and cradling his arm while the others continued to fire at the creature. It did seem to slow down bit by bit but the creature seemed mostly unaffected by the onslaught. The men were floundering, fumbling at their blasters and trying to hit the thing anywhere. Their attacks were reactive and sloppy, more to push the creature away from them with the concussive hit than to actually cause any damage.

Suddenly a shot directly to the rakghoul's face caused it to howl loudly in pain and stumble back a few feet. There was one man different than all the rest. His movements were methodical, his aiming precise. He flipped open the hatch on his blaster and tossed out the old power cells, smoothly pulling a replacement pack from his belt and sliding it into place. He stepped back as the rakghoul began to advance, but his shot stopped it dead in its tracks before it could even get to him.

This all happened in the span of a few seconds as we made our way to the scene. Carth and I had just gotten our blasters out before the rakghoul trembled, raising a shrieking cry, and toppled to the ground dead.

The man looked around at the group of men, terrified and still shaking. "We gotta fucking leave, Ordo," one man snapped, "The site's empty. Those damned Vulkars stripped it clean."

"Well," the man called Ordo said, "you folks barely stood a chance against this one creature. We'll trace their route back to the Lower City."

While the other man seemed like he wanted to debate that, he was cut short as Ordo's head snapped to the right. The man that had initially been scratched by the rakghoul had shifted on the ground and was trying to get up, cradling his arm. From the warm red light of a Sith emergency beacon, I could see the furrows on his arm clearly. There was surprisingly little blood, but something oddly coloured was slowly oozing from the cuts.

He glanced up to see the other man's gaze fall flat on him and immediately began shaking his head. "No. No! Don't you dare fucking think about it. It's just a scratch!" He had given up trying to stand up and instead scuttled backwards. His injured arm gave out halfway and he fell back down to the ground. Ordo casually unlocked his gun in a smooth motion and brought it up to his shoulder. "It's just a scratch," the injured man pleaded, lifting his one good hand in front of his face as if to protect himself.

The shot rang in the air. There was a soft thud as what was left of the dead man's arm fell back to the ground. None of the other men made any comment, but they did glare disapprovingly at the man who shot him. As if it was nothing, Ordo had already turned his attention on to us, appraising the blasters still held in our hands.

"You looking for something?"

"We … we saw the rakghoul," Carth said, gesturing to the monster with one of his blasters. "Came over to help."

"You call that helping?"

"You were too quick," I replied. "It's the first time we've met a decent fighter that can hold their own here."

He looked at me for a long few minutes before responding, ignoring Carth's uncomfortable shifting beside me.

"Flattery will get you nowhere," he said abruptly. Ordo shouldered his gun and began to walk in the direction we had come. "You look like you may be able to handle them yourselves. Time will tell," he said over his shoulder. The rest of the men cast us a distrusting look before following him.

"Cheery fellow," I said to Carth, who shot me a confused grin as he holstered his blasters. I crouched down near the rakghoul and poked at it with my vibrosword. It seemed dead enough. With the vial that Zelka had given me in one hand, I held the vibrosword with the other and drew a long cut on the rakghoul's arm, trying not to gag at the foul smell. The 'blood' oozed from the creature. Pressing the flat of my blade against one side of the wound to speed up its flow didn't really seem to do anything but the flow was steady enough that it didn't take too long to fill up the vial.

Once I had gotten enough, I rose again, stoppering the vial and placing it in a quarantine bag that Zelka had also given me. "Well there is a market for everything. Did you hear what they were saying? 'The Vulkars picked something clean.' You think the crash site is near here?"

"Must be. We should go take a look, see if there's anything they missed."

The crash site was impressive; most of the pod was still above ground, and the scent of burning fuel was still strong. The pod was warm to the touch, and the area around us seemed significantly warmer. Embers still glowed. "Seems like it burned for a few days at least," I said, resting my hand on the casing of the pod.

"Let's see if there's anything we can find before the rakghouls come by," Carth suggested.

Whatever thoughts we'd had of finding any untouched secret compartments, our hopes were all dashed as we entered the pod through a jagged hole big enough for us to comfortably walk through. "Nothing here," Carth called for the third or fourth time at the sight of a blaster mark ripping open the metal and an empty hole beneath.

We made our way out, "Well I hope Bastila will have everything she needs then. You think it's too much to hope the Vulkars will also be auctioning the extra medpacs they seal up in escape pods?" I joked, "Zelka's aren't that cheap."

Carth turned to look at me, "What, you think third place will net you the standard weeks' worth of ration bars?"

"Ugh," I groaned, "I bet that's the prize they have for any Hidden Bek winners."

"The ultimate insult." Carth had stepped out of the wreck of the escape pod only to turn suddenly and dive back in, grabbing my arm and pulling me back with him. A scattering of blaster shots followed us.

"It's the Sith!" He said, fumbling in his jacket for his blasters, at the same time we heard someone yell, "I know you're there, pubbie!"

"Ah fuck." I grabbed my own blaster and edged over to the side of the escape pod. The red glint of a beacon light bounced off of something silvery and I fired three shots at it immediately. Someone swore as I ducked back and another hail of slugs flew my way.

"There are only five," I whispered to Carth as we switched places.

"Only?" He held both his blasters out, counted to three and ducked out of cover, pelting a few things by the sound of it. He twisted back behind the escape pod wall, pressing his back against it.

"Five and something else," he said jerking his head in their direction, "Something on the ground they're guarding too."

I switched places with him as he grabbed a replacement power pack from his belt. "That sounds promising," steadying myself against the wall, and readying my blaster, I stepped out of cover. Two were down already and I fired until a third followed suit. Carth switched places with me again.

"One left," he called, and we both ducked out of cover, firing rapidly at the last Sith. One of his slugs grazed my shoulder but he fell down within a round or so too.

"Nice shooting," I said appreciatively, rubbing my shoulder. The graze had been light enough to only leave a burn mark on my skin.

"Thanks," Carth crouched beside the lump on the ground the Sith had been guarding. His eyes widened and he reached forward, "Wait, I think this is-"

Before he could speak something screamed in the distance. A blue shape dashed it in front of me and slammed Carth into the ground. It was on top of him in a second, hands rising and falling as it tried to attack him. Carth was redirecting the blows, and I grabbed it from behind and lifted the tiny frame bodily off of him.

I didn't realise who it was until I set her on the ground, catching a glimpse of her lekku and angry, round blue eyes. "Mission?" I asked, shocked. She punched me in the gut and I curled up as pain shot through my lower torso. "What the-"

"You leave him alone you hear me? I won't have any Sith lackey sell my friend for slavery!"

"Mission … stop …" I gasped out. But before I could do anything the shape on the ground roared and stood up to his full height. The poor Wookie was not doing well. He started to say something before gnashing his teeth and shrieking as his collar sparked to life.

One of the Sith I'd thought I'd knocked out had risen just slightly, holding a collar activator tightly in his fist. He was pressing the button now, teeth bared in a grimace, "I'll see … you burn … before … free." Blood dribbled between his lips in between words.

I twisted and slammed my foot into the man's face, snatching up the device from his twitching fingers before he could activate the infernal thing once more. The Wookie snarled at me when I grabbed the activator, but a few quick words from Carth calmed both him and Mission down enough for me to close in and grab his collar. I'd barely unlocked it when Zaalbar grabbed it from my hand and stood up, tossing the thing as far away from him as he could in one fluid motion.

"You saved Big Z!" Mission squealed, as if she couldn't believe it. She caught me off guard by appearing suddenly beside me and throwing her arms around my neck. "I don't know what I would've done if they'd taken him away! Oh, I'm so sorry for attacking you, I just saw you standing over him and then I saw red! He's my best friend, y'know, I wouldn't ever let anything happen to him."

I patted her shoulder awkwardly. The Wookie stood at his full height in front of us, twisting his head to stare at the collar as if to make sure it hadn't moved, and then back to stare at me with his large, soulful eyes. "You have done me a great service today," he said, in his native language.

Mission released me and stepped back, scrubbing at her face quickly and took a deep breath, "He said-"

"I know," I interjected softly, still staring at Zaalbar. "I was helping someone in need. There's no need to thank me."

Zaalbar exchanged a glance with Mission and roared out a question, "You understand my language?"

I'd dealt with quite a few Wookies in my time. No one ever carried boxes like the gentle eight-foot tall creatures. "I've been to Kashyyyk several times. I was always met with the most amazing hospitality by your people." I said.

Zaalbar nodded. "If you know of my people you know we value honour above all. And you have saved mine today, stopping those slaving thieves from sending me off to be sold. My life is yours, Yevana Mar. I swear a life-debt to you."

Mission spluttered at the same time my jaw dropped open in shock. "Z, you can't be serious! That's permanent!"

Zaalbar roared. "She saved my life. It is the only way I can repay her."

I shook my head, "Zaalbar. I … thank you. So much. I know the profound honour you are trying to bestow on me but I cannot accept this. I saved your life so you could be free, not pledge your life to me."

Mission gave the Wookie a glance and turned to me, grabbing one of his furry arms. "You can debate it all you want, once he gets something in his mind he won't change it. Probably 'cause all the hair in his ear's making him deaf or something." I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing at Zaalbar's indignant growl. "Well then it's settled," Mission continued, ignoring Zaalbar, "if Big Z is going with you then so am I."

I felt like my head would fall off if I shook it any faster, "Mission, you can't-"

"Hey, Big Z and I are a team! Mission and Z! We go way back. Besides, you have no idea how much trouble this furball gets into. I've spent the last few years keeping him alive and nobody does it as good as me." She pointed a thumb at herself.

Zaalbar looked at me, "I am in no position to make a request from you but I would rather have her with me where I can keep an eye on her." Carth and I exchanged a glance as Mission snapped, "'Keep an eye on her'? What's that supposed to mean, Z?"

At that time, standing in the filth of the Undercity, I didn't really know what I would do once I found Bastila and got off the planet. My secret hope was that this whole mission to find her would lead to some sort of medal that cut short my service and that I would go back to flying around in the galaxy, unperturbed by the general public. There were a lot of things on my bucket list that I had planned to do once I was free. Surprisingly, babysitting was not one of them.

"Well I hope you don't mind tagging along with us old folk," Carth said jovially, patting Mission on the shoulder. He shrugged at my questioning look.

"I won't leave you in the dust," she replied, beaming up at me. "Uh. So anyway where exactly are we going?"

"Actually …" I explained our situation to her, leaving out only Bastila's real identity and why we were really looking for her.

"Wow," Mission crossed her arms and tapped her cheek in thought. "Well okay. Gadon is right, I do know a secret entrance to the Vulkar base and I don't think anyone's used it in a long time. But I'm not sure. I kinda stopped going once Brejik took over. Wasn't anything there for me after, y'know."

"Well something is better than nothing," I said encouragingly, "we don't know any other way to get in. You could just show me where to go on the map and Carth and I can go."

"Whoa whoa this is not something you're gonna see on a map," Mission shook her head in amusement at my lack of knowledge. "So first thing's first. I gotta go with you. Only I have the codes to get in and it's a real nasty shock if you don't get it right. And I mean that literally.

"Secondly, Big Z can not come with us. I'm serious. Even if he didn't smell bad enough that a tach could sense him without working scent glands, for a guy with natural furry slippers, he makes more noise than a bantha with a bunch of pots tied to its back." She frowned at Zaalbar as he rumbled a noisy protest, "Don't you give me that attitude Z, you know I'm right!" The Wookie growled in disagreement but seemed like he was partly agreeing with her as well.

"That settles it," Mission said, "Z why don't you grab our things and take them to our new place?" Seemingly having lost all say in the matter, I entered the location of our base into Zaalbar's comlog as the two erupted into another argument over who had the most and heaviest items. Once their conversation had died down and Zaalbar seemed like he was finally ready to leave, I shouldered my pack and glanced over at my new companions.

"Well, Zaalbar. Mission." I nodded at each of them in turn, "Welcome to the group."

Zaalbar roared another thanks at Carth and me before he turned and walked back the way we had come. It was just the three of us now; Mission grinned up at me and pulled out a grey cloth, binding it tightly around her head to keep her lekku held in place.

"Alright. You want to go to the Black Vulkar base? It's down there." She gestured in a general direction as she spoke. "We should start heading there now before some rakghoul sees us here and thinks we'll make an easy meal. They're really hard to shake off once they get your scent. Had to hide upcity for a few days once after I accidentally stumbled into a nest." Even at the time I had no idea how she knew the land so innately when there were no glaring signs or landmarks to lead the way.

"Lead on then," I said, resigned. We headed further into the wasteland.