Chapter 12: Old Foes
::Hey, are you alright? A big chunk of the Fuel Depot just vented into space, I could see it from here. What's going on down there?::
Marina felt awful. She was exhausted, had a concussion, if not two, she was so sweat-slicked she felt slimy, and the only reason she couldn't smell the stink herself was because her helmet was splattered with her own vomit, some of it now stuck to her hair and face. The last thing she wanted to do was match wits with Atton. And yet, she didn't have much choice. She couldn't be sure, but she didn't remember seeing the assassin droid hit space.
::Atton, there's an assassin droid in the Fuel Depot. It's after me. It has the access codes to the facility. Lock off the turbolift however you can.::
::Wait, an assassin droid is down there and it's after-::
There was silence on the other end of the com for a few long seconds before Atton returned.
::I don't believe this. Now, of all times. There's a ship coming in, sending in a docking code. I . . . I have a bad feeling about this.::
He sounded shaken, and no wonder. The timing for this was awful, but beyond that, a sudden sense of dread filled Marina. This was very, very bad.
::Can you deny it access?::
::No, the whole process is automated. Normally I could, but while in lockdown the system just assumes whoever shows up is rescue and gives access. Whatever it is, it's big. The system is reading her as . . . a Republic Hammerhead-class cruiser, the Harbinger.::
Marina pushed ahead, making progress towards the Dormitory level as quickly as she could. She was still exhausted and feeling awful, but something uncomfortably close to raw terror was a powerful motivator.
At long last the airlock sealed behind her and Marina ripped off her helmet and threw it away as she collapsed to the ground with the return the station's of artificial gravity. She gasped for air between hacking coughs for a full minute before gathering the energy to slither out of her spacesuit. She still felt awful, and she was still probably never going to make it off this station, but it was infinitely preferable to die free of that nasty suit.
Okay, focus Marina. We're on the Dormitory level now. If there are any surviving miners, they're here somewhere, but even if there aren't, you need to end the lockdown so you can get to the hangar.
She took a deep breath and opened the inner airlock.
There were more bodies. She sighed. About as she'd expected. What there was, however, was something so glorious it made her smile in spite of it all: a supply closet. Of course it was locked, but the door didn't last long under a barrage of kicks. And she was into the glorious little room stuffed with lockers and an actual, legitimate workbench. She stepped inside, closed what was left of the door, and ransacked the place.
…
Atton Rand moved quickly, jogging back towards the administrative deck. He'd gone through all the records he could find and they confirmed what the Je . . . what the woman had said. What Marina had said. The assassin droid was after her all right. And now that the word was out there, in the frakking core databases of all places, it wouldn't be long before she had bounty hunters coming out of her ears. And right there, in the center of it all, was precisely where he didn't want to be. On the other hand, there seemed to be exactly one ship left on this station that was still spaceworthy after the droid finished off the rest of them, and the life expectancy of anyone who didn't make it off on that ship was fast approaching zero.
Still, it wasn't all bad. He'd found his old pazaak deck they'd confiscated from him, and he'd scavenged a bastardized mining laser that would do in a pinch for a blaster. Well, against rusty mining droids. With bad aim. One at a time. Maybe. Hell, it was better than nothing, and that's what he had at the moment.
He rounded the last corner in time to see the barricade he'd constructed in front of the turbolift shudder as the door tried to open. The assassin droid! The pile shuddered again and he looked around frantically for anything else to put on, but he'd stripped the bare. Well, there was no nothing else for it.
Time to hide.
…
Marina hefted the mining laser. She'd managed to jury-rig a new power cell from a high power drill to up the power output on her weapon, but it was still . . . questionable, at best. And it might explode. It probably wouldn't. It shouldn't. But it might. Maybe if she were to tweak the power output just a bit . . .
Come on, stop distracting yourself and get this done so we can get out of here.
She turned and faced the doorway and marched grimly onwards. She was pretty certain of what she'd find down here, and she wasn't looking forward to it.
The hallway was dark. Most of the lights were out, and the only illumination came from the handful of fitfully flickering glow lamps that were slowly dying themselves. She crept forward down the battle-scarred hallway. The miners had put up more of a fight here; the walls were scored with the black smears of mining lasers, the floors, were pockmarked by sonic and ion grenades. Both miners and droids still lay where they had fallen, bleeding hydraulic fluid and blood.
It seemed . . . familiar almost, like something tugging at the corner of her mind. She resisted it, focusing on the hallway, on the flickering lights, the pattern ingrained into the duracrete floor, on . . .
. . . the odd patterns worn into the rocky floor by water dripping from stalactites. Meetra shook her head, pulling herself back into the present. Her people were counting in her, the Republic was counting on her. Revan was counting on her.
"Alright people," she whispered, trying to keep her voice down to avoid echoes. "I think it's pretty clear what happened to the patrol. Field strip the bodies and fall back in."
Her Republic troops quickly moved through the bodies alongside her with the speed of long practice before falling back into formation. They'd seen a lot of dead Republic troops. Their faces were grim, hardened, but she tasted the bitterness of their fear on her tongue. Yet they obeyed and followed. That they always followed their almost veneration of the Jedi bothered her sometimes, but there wasn't much she could do about that now without shaking their confidence and cohesion.
She gave herself a little shake. Come on Meetra, stay focused!
Her lightsaber burst to life in her hands, its green glare joining the yellow light of glowrods slung under Republic blaster rifles, and together they moved forward through the dark caverns of Eres IIIon the hunt for the rest of the missing patrol through the area. They were down here somewhere—they certainly weren't up on the surface. Either way, it was pretty obvious they wouldn't be finding any survivors.
Marina stopped, hand on the ion grenade still locked in the dead fingers of a miner with a fist-sized whole in his chest. She looked back and saw that she'd come down the whole corridor. Her pockets bulged with grenades, some spare power packs from mining lasers, even a handful of MRE's.
She snatched her hand away and shuddered. And yet . . . the heavy clanking of droids echoed distantly in the quiet. It was necessary. But it was different this time! It wasn't the same.
She clung to those words, repeating them in her mind like a mantra, and slowly reached back down and pried the dead man's fingers off the grenade. Rigor mortis hadn't set in badly enough to require breaking fingers, for which small mercy she was grateful. She pocketed the grenade, swallowed hard, and moved one. There was nothing else she could do.
It wasn't long before another sound reached her – the wail of an emergency alarm. She picked up the pace, her half-melted boots squelching with each step. Easy, whatever happened here, a few more minutes wont make any difference.
Her feet didn't much believe her. She was in such a rush she almost missed the two mining droids guarding the large doorway marked "dormitory." They whirled on her and she dove to the side while bringing her own weapon to bear. They fired in the same instant. The droids' lasers marked new lines in the battered duracrete, but Marina's upgraded weapon cut through the droids' unarmored frames and melted the delicate electronics beneath. Both droids sagged to the ground and collapsed.
Marina breathed a sigh of relief and checked for more droids, but it looked like she was clear for the moment. Now, somewhere around here should be some way to turn off those alarms and open up those emergency blast doors over the dormitory entrance. Ah, perfect. A command console. She tapped it until it flickered to life. A warning screen blinked red in bold letters: Warning! Emergency Lockdown in Effect! She clicked through the command prompts until the alarm klaxon finally fell quiet and the pre-recorded voice echoed in the sudden silence.
"Emergency Lockdown ended."
The heavy blast doors blared out one last warning tone before slowly grinding open.
Yes! That was a lot easier than it could have been. For once. Still, that should open up most of the station. She should leave, just go straight to the primary turbolift, take it down to the hangar, and get out of here. The problems here weren't her problems, at least not for much longer. Leave the droid, leave Atton and the old woman, leave whatever miners were still alive, just leave it all behind.
She'd done it before, and she'd do it again. Besides, what did she owe these miners? They'd brought this on themselves. Hell, they'd tried to sell her to the exchange as a flaming Jedi.
And yet . . . and yet. Something was different. Not wrong, exactly, but different. She couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor bastards. They hadn't asked for any of this. They were just normal people trying to get by on some backwater refueling station when all hell had rained down on them. She shook her head violently, wincing at the sudden headache.
No! What's wrong with me? I have nothing to do with these people, I don't want to know them!
But it was there. She was . . . connected with these people somehow. What had happened to them was because of her presence.
Don't do this. Haven't you learned yet? Getting involved always turns out badly for everyone, especially them! You were just sentenced to death, remember?
By the time she'd finished the thought she was halfway into the dormitory.
About three seconds later she was back outside again, hacking and coughing as she tried to escape the faintly green gas that choked her.
They were dead, their bodies twisted in the anguish of their final moments.
Marina collapsed and just lay there, her face pressed flat against the metal floor grating while the embossed pattern imprinted itself onto her cheek. She coughed sporadically, her chest heaving as her body tried to push the poison out of her. But while her body fought on, her eyes were empty, her mind blank.
They were all dead, all gone. Once again, just like always, there was nobody left to save.
She lay there for a long time. She was vaguely aware of the buzzing of her comlink, of the clanging of failing life support systems, of the gradual cooling air temperature as the cold of space slowly overwhelmed the fading station. Still she lay there. There was no point in moving. No purpose in surviving. Surviving or becoming another victim—what difference did it make? What different did she make? None. She was just another face in the crowd, fading into the background, another number, a cold statistic.
That was just the way it was. The way it had to be. And she was so tired, so cold and alone.
But then something changed, penetrating through the haze. There was something out there, at the edges of the budding senses she'd done her best to ignore. There were cold spots, but more than that. Her mind grudgingly ground back to life. The cold spots were more than just cold; it was the icy chill of death.
She shivered and her eyes popped open. Death was coming for her, in as literal a sense as she possessed. Raw fear grabbed onto her and instinct, sensing weakness in her wall of apathy, pounced and dragged her to her feet. It was time to move.
Her silent footsteps ghosted down the dead corridors heading for the turbolifts. Marina watched, a passive observer behind her own eyes, as her instincts drove her onward.
The turbolift was locked down, but it was the work of a moment to rip out the interlock and trigger the emergency override.
She leaned back against the smooth glass of the turbolift, eyes taking in the patterns on the turbolift ceiling while she idly considered the final moments of Coorta and his cronies' lives at the foot of the lift. What did it feel like to be beaten to death by metal arms?
The lift shuddered as it neared the main level. The power was failing. The lift creaked to a halt a few centimeters shy of flush with the main floor and the doors wheezed to half-way open before they died completely. She sighed and wedged her way into the gap, squeezing her out between the doors.
Awaiting her was one of the two remaining sources of life on the station – Kreia.
"I have felt a disturbance. Our enemy is here. We must leave at once."
Marina nodded silently to her, not slowing as she brushed past the old woman, her attention elsewhere. She could feel them moving, those dead spots, drawing closer. She moved quickly, with long strides. Still, the dead spots closed.
They ran. Ran past the miners who had died for knowing her, past the shattered equipment that would never function again, past the silent medical facility, past the broken lives and ruined equipment into whose path she had wandered. Yes, it was time to leave. She could do no more damage here. And death was closing in, hot on her heels.
Atton whirled at the sound of footsteps as Marina raced onto the administrative deck, his face a strange mix of emotions there was no time to see. In an instant the half-smirk, half-sneer was back. "I found your pet assassin droid, and I'll hazard a guess that—"
"Shut up and grab a weapon!"
Atton jerked in shock at the imperative command in her voice, the absolute demand for and expectation of obedience, a tone he'd never heard her use before.
...
What in the... His thoughts only got that far before the words caught up and he stepped back from the barricade, snatching up the makeshift blaster he'd acquired. That was all the time there was before they struck. Atton rolled aside when he saw Marina duck, and he felt the disturbed air of a vibrosword's passage millimeters from his neck. He came out of the roll with his blaster leveled and opened fire on the masked, black-clad assassins that had come out of nowhere.
Stealth field generators? All the way out here? His first blast caught one in the chest, dropping him with a sizzle of burned flesh, and Atton shot a wordless thanks to the stars that they weren't wearing any armor. His next two shots went wide, one catching the cape of an attacker and the other adding yet another scar to the bulkheads.
They didn't seem to be coming for him, so he took a step back towards the narrow corridor of the docking arm and took a quick glance around. An older woman fought one of the assailants, her single blade knocking way the quick strikes of the huge double-bladed sword of her opponent, while at her back Marina fought two more of them, a sword in one hand and a bastardized blaster in the other. They were holding their own, but even as he raised his blaster to fire two, five, eight more assassins shimmered into existence as their stealth fields spun down.
Atton fired at them as fast as he could pull the trigger, ignoring the smoke coming from his makeshift weapon, in a desperate attempt to slow them down. He saw Marina move out of the corner of his eye. She ducked beneath a blade, then jumped nearly a meter in the air, nearly scraping the ceiling while she flipped forward over yet another assassin before kicking his barricade in front of the turbolift with enough force to send the furniture scattering into the assassins. She kicked it so hard he could hear the bones in her feet crack. She staggered backwards, in too much pain even to scream, and the old woman stumbled as well, from whatever her opponent was up to.
Everything seemed to hold still for half a second, an in-drawn breath, a heartbeat, as a new voice spoke from the now-cleared turbolift.
"Master, I thought I told you to s—"
A vibrosword clanged off the droid's armor as an assassin tried to decapitate it. The droid didn't hesitate, instantly opening up with its flamethrower, and Atton caught the glint of grenades in the glare of the flames. He glanced around but couldn't find any sight of Marina in the chaos. There was nothing else for it. He swore, turned away, and sprinted in the only direction without crazy Jedi, assassins that fought silently while their flesh melted away, and insane droids with flamethrowers. Behind him the heavy crump of grenades shook the corridor, sending him stumbling as he reached the airlock. Right. The airlock to the ship that had brought the assassins. Shit.
He felt more than heard the footsteps behind him and had the trigger halfway pulled before he even finished diving to the side. Yet even as he tried to fire his weapon flew forward out of his grasp and straight into the outstretched hand of the old woman.
"What in space is going on! Who's this? Another Jedi? What, did you suddenly start breeding while I wasn't looking?" Sweat broke out all over his body, and he didn't notice he was backing away until his back hit the airlock.
"Only a fool tries to kill his only hope of survival. And that is what you are, a fool. Take care where you point your toy." With that the woman dumped his blaster with distaste and turned back to Marina, who leaned heavily against her, face bone white against the woman's dark brown robe.
The moment her attention left him Atton darted down to recover the blaster, hoping against hope that the ruinous overuse and then clattering to the deck hadn't broken the makeshift components. Once it was safely back in his grasp he turned back to the others. Marina spoke strongly despite the fact that she looked like she couldn't go an inch further and Atton shuddered involuntarily. The force.
"It won't take them long back there. We need to keep moving."
Atton clung to his anger, desperately trying to keep some kind of control over the roiling madness of the emotions and adrenaline pumping through him. "In case you hadn't noticed," he spat between clenched teeth, "the only way forward is onto the ship that brought those freaks here."
"It's not like we have much choice." Marina still had the strange durasteel edge to her voice. Atton noticed she had some serious black and purple bruises on her face, and probably elsewhere. What the hell had she gotten into down there? Irrelevant. If she becomes a person to you, you die. It's as simple as that, as simple as it's always been.
"Yes, and there may be some clue as to where they came from and how they found you," added Jedi number two, ignoring him completely.
Marina nodded. "Let's go."
The docking arm was open. They charged down it, hoping desperately that the droid didn't get free. It would be pretty hard to miss them as they ran straight down an enclosed corridor. Thankfully they reached the end and crashed through the airlock onto the Republic ship.
Atton looked around quickly, trying to take everything in while catching his breath. The door sealed behind them and the last sounds of battle were cut off. It was quiet. The was the first thing that struck him. Aside from the sounds of the three of them breathing, there was absolute silence. That felt all kinds of wrong to him. Ships were some of the noisiest things in the galaxy. They creaked, people moved, computers beeped, engines roared—most of the time it was all filtered into the background, but now... now there was none of it.
He wasn't the only one that noticed.
"Something is wrong; I sense no one on board."
His temper snapped. Of course something was wrong, where had she been? "You sense no one on board? Sense any assassin droids sneaking up on us like last time?"
Of course the bitch would ignore him. Again.
"Everyone has been slain, yet there are no signs of battle; no carbon scoring, no blaster fire. It is the work of the Sith assassins."
"Yeah, your majesty, we got that. We have to find a way to get to the hangar, only somebody led us off the station entirely! You two are supposed to be Jedi? You're the worst Jedi I've ever met!"
Marina glanced sharply at Atton, who cut off his rant abruptly. "I saw this ship dock—when it came in the refueling pipe connected with the fuel depot, behind the force field. The lockdown should have disabled the refueling systems, so it should just be sitting there. I think."
Atton took a deep breath and visibly brought himself under control. "Look, I don't mean to cast another shadow on this, but even if you could reach the ship you came in on, it wouldn't matter. You'll need the orbital drift charts to clear the Peragus asteroid field. Unless you want to have the shortest flight out of Peragus ever recorded."
Marina nodded. "Then how did this ship dock here?"
"Well of course they have the charts, they'd have to. Okay, I get it, I get it. We'll single-handedly storm the bridge, steal their codes, fight our way through a ship full of assassins down to the refueling pumps, break into the pumps, crawl through them back into the station, break into another ship, somehow get it running, upload the drift charts, and fly away. Fine. No problem. Let's go then."
Atton started walking down the silent corridor towards the bridge, his face locked in a grimace, shoulders hunched defensively. Marina didn't ask how he knew which direction to go.
…
The ship was deserted. Nobody felt like splitting up with assassins still around somewhere, so they stuck together as they headed towards the bridge, quietly stepping over the bodies, ears buzzing with the silence as they strained to hear any hint of the Sith.
Atton had field stripped the first corpse they came across without a moment's hesitation. He now sported a military-grade blaster and wore the man's combat armor over the top of his vest. Marina had quietly done the same to the next corpse in their path. The old woman, Kreia, had taken a blaster and a vibrosword. Marina didn't ask why she refused armor. Her life, her business. Personally, she couldn't wait to get away from all of these people. She needed some time to be—
A twinge of the force twisted in her gut and she slipped to the side, avoiding the assassin's blade that sought to impale her. She spun and blasted the man twice in the chest, dropping him with a smoking whole where his heart had been. Kreia slipped through her own assassin's guard and impaled the black-robed man while Marina shot the third one off Atton's back. They didn't have time for this.
"Stay out of the main corridor. They may have a harder time tracking us."
Nobody wasted time responding. Instead they moved quickly through a side passage and into the briefing room. Marina quietly paused just long enough to upload the central terminal's contents onto her stolen datapad without the others noticing before they moved on. Either her maneuver had worked or they'd run out of assassins; they made it to the bridge without further incident.
The scene was much the same as everywhere else—lots of bodies dead at their posts, slumped over with a gory hole in their neck or chest. Marina ignored the scene and tossed her datapad to Atton who plugged it into the navicomputer while Kreia and Marina covered him. Moments later it pinged completion.
"It's done, let's get out of here. That way." Atton pointed and they moved quickly, cutting through the medical wing to stay out of the main corridors. Again there was no life, only a shattered bacta tank much like the one she'd woken up in on Peragus.
Kreia paused at the sight, her head tilting slightly to the side in thought. "He was here. A Sith Lord. I did not think he would come so quickly."
Atton swore. Marina shivered. They hurried on.
Atton led them down a narrow staircase and deeper into the bowls of the ship. Off the command deck everything was cramped. The corridors were narrow, barely wide enough for two people to cross paths while turned sideways. The ceiling was low and claustrophobic, all of it in an effort to save space, which saved air, power, and speed. The moved quickly with Atton to guide them until Marina abruptly stopped. Her head was spinning, caught in a sort of deja vu that wouldn't end. She'd been here. She knew here.
"What? Why are we stopping?" Atton looked back anxiously, the sneering demeanor finally broken by the thought of a Sith Lord prowling around, about to pounce in this cramped place with nowhere to run.
"This was my room."
"What? When?"
Kreia shook her head. "We do not have time. Whatever you must do, do it quickly."
Marina walked inside still in a sort of half-dream state. It did not take long. Her single duffel was right where she'd left it. Everything was still inside it. It felt like a piece of an alien world, a separate reality so far from what she'd been experiencing. She threw it over her shoulder and they moved on. They'd just arrived at the bulkhead that separated engineering from the dormitories when Marina and Kreia froze in the same instant.
Marina could feel her skin crawl. The pockets of death were still moving, but slower now. They gathered, waiting. There was no more hurry, no more rush. Because behind her, just down this long corridor, was one more speck of life, so twisted, so rotten she could barely sense it.
She turned. A shattered ruin of a man strode slowly towards them, his skin the gray of death, scarred by cracks that ran all across his bare torso. He spoke, his voice as cracked as his skin.
"I came to warn you, Jedi. You know not what path you walk."
Marina had no idea what to do, what to say.
Kreia, however, seemed to know what was going on. She took a step forward and turned towards Atton and Marina. "This battle is mine alone. I am not defenseless. He cannot kill what he cannot see, and power has blinded him long ago. Run, I shall be along shortly." And with that she pulled out her vibrosword and walked slowly towards the Sith Lord.
Atton wasted no time. He grabbed Marina by the collar and hauled her backwards through the airlock before blasting the control circuit. The action snapped Marina out of her funk. "Are you crazy? You just locked her in there with him!"
Atton looked up in surprise. "Yeah, that's the idea. If she wants to go kill herself that's fine by me, but I want off this rock. Come on, that won't slow him down for long."
They ran on through the tight confines of the starship until they reached the fuel tanks. They were huge, massive ferrocrete containers buried deep within the bowels of the ship to shield them from enemy fire. Marina ran over to the chief engineering officer's panel and pulled up the displays. She triggered the manual emergency override which popped the access hatch on the fuel pumps with a hiss of pressurized air.
Atton looked into the narrow, utterly black pipe barely wide enough to squeeze through. He looked up at Marina hopelessly. "Tell me you're joking. We are not going to cross back into Peragus through the fuel line. That's crazy."
Marina shrugged. "It should be insulated enough. Ships can't have frozen fuel coming across. Or would you rather stay here and wait for a Sith Lord to kill us?"
"Should be insulated . . . great. Alright, but I know I'm going to regret this."
Marina stepped past Atton and eased herself into the fuel line. It smelled strongly of fuel, with enough fumes still lingering to make her instantly light-headed. She wedged herself the rest of the way in. Her arms were almost pinned beneath her, with just enough room to get her elbows out and inch her way forwards, dragging her bag and vibrosword behind her. She could hear Atton moving behind her,
It was slow going in utter darkness. And the further they got, the colder it got. It was pretty obvious once they crossed out of the ship and into open space. It was absolutely frigid. Marina shivered violently, her skin protesting at every point it touched the icy metal. How long was this thing?
…
Kreia slowed her deliberate march to a casual walk the moment the blast door slammed closed behind her, lowering her vibrosword. Her air was calm, deliberate, controlled. The outcome of this encounter would not be determined by her ability with the weapon and they both knew it.
The Sith frowned at her, arms crossed. "I sense you my master. Faint. Weak."
Kreia ignored the mockery. There was no such thing as a weak Sith master – at least not a living one. "Your senses betray you, as you betrayed me."
Her former student's frowned deepened, troubled by her implications. Weak masters should not live, and yet . . . "After all that has happened, still you live. You are difficult to kill."
"For one as limited as you, perhaps. To have fallen so far and learned nothing; that is your failing." She had to tread carefully here, strike the right balance. He needed to feel weak, to feel like the student again, that he still had more to learn from her. Then, perhaps, he would reject her, humiliate her again simply to feel like he was still in control, instead of simply killing her outright. She could not allow that – she still had work to do.
He took the bait. "The failure is yours," he grated, temper rising. "No longer do your whispers crawl within my skull. No longer do I suffer beneath teachings that weaken us. And now you run in search of the Jedi. They are all dead, save one. And one broken Jedi cannot stop the darkness that is to come."
"Perhaps. We shall see."
So the gauntlet was thrown. Was he that confident in himself, that she was wrong, to make her eat her words? To watch as her last desperate plan failed and she was left in despair? The ultimate test to see who was the true master.
She raised her blade.
Darth Sion sniffed in disdain, ignited his lightsaber, and spun in a vicious overhand blow in a single moment. The blade sliced through Kreia's hand at the wrist. She dropped to her knees, the sudden agony overwhelming her aged body, but deep within the confines of her mind where no pain could reach she smiled. So easily manipulated, my student. So . . . weak.
"Go, old woman, and see for yourself. You have been defeated, and no broken Jedi can save you now. You are no danger to me."
She staggered to her feet, knees wobbling, and made her way past the horde of silent assassins and down, down, down to the hangar through the openings the Sith had made in the barriers.
…
Marina screamed.
Atton swore in the darkness. "What is it? What's wrong?" This was bad. There was no way to get past her and he sure as hell couldn't go backwards. "Dammit hold on, it's only a little further. Don't give up on me now! What happened to you?"
"I . . . I don't know." Her voice sounded shaken. "My hand it . . . I don't know. It's not so bad now."
"Well keep moving, we can't stop now."
She mumbled something he couldn't make out, but she started moving again, and that was all that mattered. Atton focused on just breathing as he crawled along. This had to end at some point, right? He kept crawling.
"Ouch, dammit."
"What? What happened?"
"I think I reached the end. Hold on, I have to figure out how to open this."
Atton tried to be patient, passing the time by waving his hand in front of his face. He couldn't see it. And then he could—there was light. He could see it now past the outline of . . . okay, he didn't expect to be quite that close to Marina. But then she was out and he scrambled out of the damn fuel line once and for all with a sigh of relief.
Atton looked past Marina who was busy staring at her hand. They looked fine to him. No doubt it was some more of that force crap. He was more interested in their surroundings. They were in some sort of fuel depot with a droid. It looked pretty messed up, carbon scoring crusted across the surface of it, but he wasn't lowering his guard. Not ever, but especially not now.
"Hey, princess, there's a utility droid here. It looks like it was hit by an ion charge and dumped here."
She ignored his dig, still in her scary-quiet mode.
"It's probably the droid that helped us earlier." She knelt next to it and started fiddling with it. It didn't take long before it buzzed backed to life. It warbled at her in its meaningless language.
"I know, we ran into that 'protocol droid' earlier, he attacked us, too."
Atton paced back and forth. "We don't have time for sweet talking the droid, we're in the middle of an escape, remember?"
She shot him a glare so hostile it shut him up and he turned away muttering to himself. A few moments of wasted time later and she rose back to her feet. She followed the droid's instructions and found a little metallic case with some sort of control circuit in it.
"What's that?"
She ignored him and continued on, still pissed, and the damned droid followed right after her, leaving him behind. He swore and jogged after them. Droids were loose running around, but the mining droids that were so frightening when they were basically unarmed didn't pose much of a threat against military blasters and decent body armor. The droid must have been giving Marina directions, because she led them straight towards the hangar. They moved quickly right up until they ran into the decontamination unit. Something was wrong with it, it was sealed shut. Surprise! Everything was broken in this dump. "I can't believe this, the door's magnetically sealed. The ship's right out there and we can't get to it."
The droid warbled something, but he ignored it as something clanged loudly behind them. Atton whirled, aiming his blaster at the empty corridor. "Princess?" She ignored him again. Of course. "I think we have company."
"Finished."
Atton turned to look over his shoulder. "Finished what?"
The moment he turned he knew it was a mistake. A huge metallic thud in front of him sent him diving backwards just in time as the HK-50 dropped through the ceiling and let loose with its flame-thrower. Atton swore and fired blindly as he fell back.
"To the ship, now!"
Atton wasn't about to disagree with the woman. He retreated, still firing blindly while explosions set off behind him. Was the damned droid out of its mind? Did he want to kill them all? He charged through the decontamination unit and broke out into the hangar, grateful to get an angle on that decon chamber exit so the droid couldn't keep trying to shoot him in the back.
He sized up the ship quickly. It was a Dynamic class light freighter, one of the less common Core Galaxy Systems ships, but by no means rare. It did seem to be modified though – they didn't usually come with the port and starboard fixed turrets as well as the dorsal and ventral manned turrets. That's all he could make out before he was up the ramp and charging the cockpit. Marina was already there getting the thing fired up while he dropped into the pilot's seat.
"What makes you think you're flying this thing?"
He turned to stare at her. "Are you nuts? I'm a great pilot, and you can complain all you want after we're out of here. Does this thing have a drop down turret?"
She didn't waste time answering, instead dropping into the co-pilot's seat and activating the turret while he kept going through the emergency take-off cycle. A moment later and the turret was lighting up the droid, which retreated back around the corner. He was about to turn on the shields, station atmosphere be damned, when the old woman dashed out of the corridor and past the droid like a bat out of hell. Atton swore quietly as the shields buzzed to life a moment too late to stop her.
Time to worry about that later.
They lifted off with an impressively smooth power curve and spun in place within the close confines of the hangar. The droid was back at it again, pounding away at the shields, but there was little a cobbled-together handheld weapon could do against a starship's shields.
He opened the throttle, scorching everything in the hangar as the primary engines fired, and he couldn't keep the sneer off his face. Suck it, droid.
A blast of green energy buzzing past the ship and he reacted instantly, instinctively.
…
Marina couldn't help but be impressed as Atton sent the ship into a steep dive, cork-screwing away from the Republic capital ship and shooting straight into the asteroid field. He moved quickly, hands confident on the controls as he kept his eyes on the visual displays that had the asteroid charts they'd pilfered superimposed over it. He was right to have taken the controls.
It also seemed he had the habit of talking to himself when he was focusing. "If they hit us, we're dead, but if they keep missing us, we're dead. Great odds."
T3 squawked in alarm before Atton broke in derisively. "Somebody shut that trash compacter up."
Kreia stumbled her way into the cockpit, a feat in and of itself considering the strain they were putting on the inertial compensator that couldn't quite keep up with their erratic movements. "Is there nothing else you can do, pilot?"
"I'm doing all I can, and that's not enough. What'd you do to make these guys so mad? Either they hit us and blow the shit out of us, or they hit an asteroid and make the whole field go nova."
Kreia was undettered. "Can we destroy the asteroids ourselves?"
"That'll take out the whole field, the station, and maybe us. We might not even be able to jump to hyperspace in time."
"Then we die here." She turned to face Marina. "Choose. Now."
Marina stared back at the hard woman's eyes, and she felt the shell of hardened apathy she'd taken shelter in begin to crumble around her. She had to make the call now, before she lost it all together. Was it worth it to destroy this whole station just to save herself? To save a Jedi, maybe, but . . . I am not a Jedi. "Get us clear of the field and make the jump to hyperspace."
Atton, hands still full with the controls, nodded without looking up. "Hang on, this is gonna get a little rocky."
The display spun wildly as Atton sent them into another wild evasive spin, fluttering the engine to keep their trajectory unpredictable. Most pilots could pull of that maneuver, even Marina could have done it, but she knew of very few who could do it while following a plotted course, and even fewer while in the middle of an asteroid field. Damn he's good.
Something ship rocked violently to the side and Atton swore. Marina tightened the straps on her chair. "What was that? Were we hit?"
"No, that was one of the asteroids going up." He grimaced over at the master plot as another explosion rocked the ship. "We're out of time, the chain reaction's starting. A hell, screw it." They dropped out of their wild evasive maneuvers and Atton jammed the throttle wide open. They rocketed forward through a narrow channel in the field and the Harbinger opened up with everything she had.
The darkness of space lit up around them as the whole field became a massive series of explosions. The ship shuddered violently as shockwaves jostled her, but she held firm, held firm, and Atton punched it and the hyperdrive spun up with that bizarre stomach-shifting surge of acceleration and the stars stretched to lines as they shifted into hyperspace.
Atton sagged into the pilot's seat, face covered in sweat, and spun it around to face them. "Well," bit off, voice heavy with sarcasm, "now that we just killed a planet, maybe one of you can tell me what's going on? Because between assassin droids, a Sith Lord that looks like he sleeps with vibroblades, and being target practice for a Republic warship, I was better off in my cell."
Kreia picked herself up off the floor and spoke with a tired voice. "The Republic warship was the Harbinger. It was seized on its way to Telos by the Sith. They sought you, Jedi."
Marina ignored the last bit. She had to, or she'd lose the last her slippery grip on the shell within her. "Why are the Sith looking for me? I'm nobody."
"Because you are the last of the Jedi. Once you are dead, they have won."
No, that was impossible. Didn't they know anything!? "I'm-I'm not a Jedi." She struggled to hold back tears.
Kreia shrugged. "The Sith believe you to be a Jedi Knight, and that is all that matters."
"That, that can't be. There has to be somebody else, someone to clear up this mistake. What happened to the real Jedi? Where are they? Can't they fix this?"
Kreia spoke again, her voice with just a hint of coldness in it now. "The Jedi Civil War destroyed the Jedi. By the war's end barely a hundred Jedi remained. Many fell in battle, and many more were seduced by Revan's teachings."
"But, but, Dantooine! Coruscant! They can't all be—"
"The Jedi Academy on Dantooine is nothing more than a crater that echoes with the ghosts of dead Jedi, and the Jedi Temple on Coruscant lies empty. The waters in the room of a thousand fountains have fallen still in reverence to the fallen Jedi and those now lost. Many Jedi blamed the teachings of the Jedi Masters for Revan's fall and the civil war that followed."
Marina couldn't hide the desperation in her voice now. "But there must be some survivors."
Kreia relented. "Perhaps. But they are Jedi no longer. If the Sith have not already slain them then they cannot help you, nor can you help them."
"But then, how can we stop them?"
Kreia nodded thoughtfully, reading more into it than Marina had intended. She just wanted to get the Sith to stop following her. "That is not an easy question to answer. This threat is greater than you know, and I do not believe it is a battle that can be fought."
Marina looked up at Kreia hopelessly, her shell of control crushed into oblivion. "Is there anything we can do?"
Atton broke back in. "Look, enough with the 'we' already."
Kreia talked over him. "We cannot hope to triumph against them alone. To stop them you will need weapons, allies, and a teacher. In the end I fear it will not be enough."
Marina sniffed, trying to hold back tears. "What do you mean?"
Kreia's eyes hardened and she stared into Marina's eyes, holding her gaze. "You fought in the Mandalorian Wars and it cost you everything. Are you willing to sacrifice as much again?"
Marina was drowning, smothered in a flow of times, places, and people she'd spent ten years avoiding. It was too much.
"I . . . I . . . is there anywhere we could run to? Can we hide?"
...
Atton sat back with his arms crossed, watching the old woman beat Marina down with a casualness that spoke of volumes about her. He didn't care about either of them, they were Jedi, but . . . yes, but. He wasn't sure yet what it was yet, but he felt . . . something. It just didn't sit right with him, which was strange. He'd seen, hell, he'd done far worse without a second thought. What was happening to him? Whatever it was, it bothered him. He jumped back into the conversation, making whose side he was on clear. "That's the first smart thing I've heard since you two started talking."
The old woman shot him a glare while Marina stared at the floor, obviously crushed, before turning back to her. Her voice was laced with mockery, but it was subtle, a quiet thing. Atton doubted Marina heard it.
"For a time, yes. Telos may be such a place. All our paths seem to lead us there. Perhaps there, if you are willing, I can train you, help you to survive a while longer."
Marina seemed to recover a little. "Yes, maybe—maybe there we can find a way to stop them coming after us."
Kreia showed no mercy. "You are not listening to me. This is not like any field of battle you have ever fought in. Think carefully on your choice. If you choose to run, then you will truly be a Jedi no longer. If you choose to fight, if you choose war, it is a path few turn from once the first steps are taken. It carries with it a terrible price. And in the end, you may find that you have nothing left to sacrifice."
Marina trembled slightly and changed the topic abruptly, avoiding the decision. "You said something about the Harbinger going to Telos?
The old woman nodded, at last relenting. Atton wasn't sure why he felt relieved as well.
"Yes, to aid in the recovery effort there. Many roads lead to Telos, including ours."
Atton snorted a laugh. Stupid Jedi and their superiority complex. "Not like we have much of a choice, the Peragus astrogation charts being what they are." He ignored Kreia's glare.
"It is where we must go, and where the Harbinger was bound before our unfortunate encounter on Peragus."
"How did you know I was on the Harbinger? How did you find me?"
Finally, finally Marina started to rally and go on the offensive again. He felt strangely proud of her, mostly because he knew it would piss of Kreia. Or, it should have. Atton stared at her, drawing on all his experience judging people. She ignored him completely, her attention as absolutely on Marina as his was on her. Nothing she said, nothing she did here was idle, he knew that immediately. She was deeply invested and measuring every word. Whatever was going on between them, Kreia was all in on it.
I can use that.
He stomped on the thought. Those days were gone. He wanted nothing to do with either of them.
Kreia nodded thoughtfully. "You were . . . difficult to find, but coincidence was on our side. When I learend that you were on the vessel I knew that the Sith would not be far behind. When I intercepted the Harbinger it was crippled, drifting in space. It was a simple matter to board the vessel and rescue you. Unknown to me, however, the Sith were already on board. Just as we made the jump to hyperspace they fired on us, nearly destroying the Ebon Hawk.
Atton grimaced. This was no random set of circumstances. There were plans here, webs to trap him up. He could practically feel them closing in around him. The Sith had plans, this damned Jedi had a plan, the Republic had a plan, they all had plans. He had to get out.
"Why don't I remember any of this?" Marina probed.
"Whatever had occurred on board the harbinger had rendered you unconscious. Though your thoughts were faint, I was still able to find you, sealed in one of the cargo holds."
"That's quite the coincidence."
Kreia nodded again, approvingly. "True, but as one trained in the Force you know that true coincidences are rare."
"Then how did we get to Peragus?"
For once Kreia looked uncertain. "I do not know how the Ebon Hawk was able to make it to Pe—
T3 trumpeted loudly.
"Be silent, we are having a conversation here."
T3 ignored the command and warbled on in his machine language. Damn droids, they never did what you told them to.
Marina seemed to understand it though, as always. "He says he repaired the ship and got us to Peragus."
Atton laughed out loud at that. "Repaired the ship my eye, next thing you know it's going to claim credit for saving our skins. If that little noise-maker claims it repaired the ship once, then it can prove it by doing it again. Go on, git!"
The droid let out a long "dwoooooooo" and finally rolled away.
Kreia seemed to have had finally had enough of his interruptions. Took her long enough to get the hint. "We have spoken long enough, and my wound pains me. If you have other questions, find me in the crew quarters. There we will speak more. Alone." She shot another glare at Atton.
Oh she wanted to play, did she? "Hey, don't stop your long boring rants on my account! I was just getting sleepy-eyed."
She sniffed and turned to leave, speaking over her shoulder. "Also, in private we will be mercifully free from the opinions of imbeciles and fools."
And then she was gone and he was alone with Marina. He felt . . . strange. The silence was awkward, tense. He wasn't sure what to think, what to feel. She was a Jedi. He needed to get rid of her, get away from her. But she wasn't a Jedi, and she was being hounded by one. She needed help. But she was a Jedi.
His thoughts spun in circles, laced with a physical attraction he couldn't ignore. He needed to be alone, needed to sort this all out. He looked for an excuse, for anything to get her out of there.
"Look, uh, not like I care or anything, but you might want to go check on our passenger, especially with that hand of hers."
…
Marina turned to Atton, startled out of her thoughts. Atton hated Kreia. What was going on? Besides, the last thing she wanted was to spend more time with her. "I'm sure she can take care of herself."
Atton shrugged. "I think she was barely keeping it together. I'm surprised she's able to stand with all that pain rolling off of her."
"What are you talking about?"
Atton looked puzzled. "Are you blind? If I were her, I'd be screaming like a stuck mynock. I mean, like a very manly, strong stuck mynock. I think she's just too proud to show any weakness, especially I front of you."
"That's odd. . ." She wasn't talking about Kreia. Where was this coming from?
Atton snorted. "In case you hadn't noticed, she won't say two words to me, but she'll talk your ear off every chance she gets. What you think matters to her—a lot. She wants you to respect her. Besides, we haven't got much else to do before Telos."
Marina paused for a moment and Atton suddenly looked startled, his eyes going wide before narrowing in a suspicious stare. Had he said more than he'd intended to?
"When did you get all sensitive?" He'd certainly never been that way with her. The man was a mystery. Half the time he was a perfect holo of a backwards outer-rim yokel, yet he had clear military experience, he wasn't an expert pilot, and he studied people. Who was he? There was something there under the surface.
The man in question put on a look of mild bemusement. "Oh don't give me that. All it takes is being around people enough to read them. You should try it sometime."
Marina sighed. Whatever else he was, he was right. The woman had saved her life, after all, and lost a hand doing it. "Alright, you win. I'll go check on her."
…
The ex-Jedi left the cockpit leaving Atton to himself aboard the cockpit. He leaned back in the pilot's couch, watching the stars slip past, his thoughts buzzing, muddled, confused. He didn't know what was happening, didn't know what he was supposed to do, how to play this, how to get out of it. Yet for all that, there was one thing he was absolutely sure of—with two Jedi involved, it was going to be one hell of a ride, and not everybody was going to make it.
That's how it was with Jedi. At the end of the day, they made it through, and everyone else got the distinct pleasure of sacrificing themselves for the cause.
But not this time. No, the Jedi wouldn't get him this time. He'd get out, or he'd die trying.