"I can't believe this," Atton snarled at the door. "And they wouldn't even leave us a blaster."

Trista stripped off her bloody tunic, scowled at the undershirt, removed it too, and dropped face-first into a bed. Footsteps indicated that Atton was pacing again. Kreia had taken an interest in a plant that sat, alone, in a random corner.

"This isn't good," Atton finally said. "We've got to get off this station."

Trista moved her face out of the pillow. "Do we have to do this now?"

He frowned at her. "What's the TSF is going to find out there? That could bring the Sith—" Atton groaned and leaned his forehead against the window. "You know what? Fine. Forget it. As long as we're trapped here, it doesn't matter."

"No," Kreia said. "We cannot stay in one place too long. But our path has brought us here for a reason. I must meditate on this. In the meantime, we should rest."

Atton made a face behind Kreia's back and Trista glared at him. He rolled his eyes. "Does this 'resting' involve food?" he asked as he beelined for the console.

"Get me a sandwich or something," Trista said, planting her face back in the pillow. "And I'd appreciate a new shirt."

"Anything you want, your majesty?"

Trista frowned and rolled onto her side, facing away from him. Kreia was silent. Atton shrugged and opened the comm.

"Anyway, can I get that sandwich now?"

"We can have some food vetted and brought to you," came the response. "Do you have any requests? The Lieutenant might be open to them."

"Anything edible. We haven't had anything but stale ration bars for three days. Oh, and Tris needs a new shirt. Hers has blood all over it."

"I'll see what I can do, sir."

The comm went silent, and Trista listened as Atton spent a few minutes exploring the room, looking under beds, and collecting a small pile of eavesdropping devices from a variety of undusted corners.

"Bad news," he said as he came out of the 'fresher. "It's sonic."

"Ugh." Trista rolled onto her back. "I'm going to miss the Hawk."

"Yeah, I don't know why a freighter that small has a water shower, but I'll take it." Atton dropped another couple listening devices into his pile. "I cannot believe they hid one of these in the switches, though."

"Gross."

"Yeah." He leaned down. "Kind of nasty, guys."

Atton glanced at Kreia, meditating at the end of a cot, and dropped onto the one next to hers. "So," he said.

"I'm not talking about next steps. Especially not with those in here." Trista motioned to the devices.

"I wasn't going to," he said. "I was going to ask how you're feeling."

Oh. "Um, I'm... I'm all right. My nose doesn't hurt anymore."

He studied her, then looked up at the ceiling. "Something else is going on, isn't it?"

Trista studied him right back, then stood and grabbed a spare blanket, throwing it over the listening devices. Atton sat up, and she sat on the edge of his cot.

"I can talk to you, right?" she asked. Atton nodded.

"About most things. Not philosophy, though, can't stand it."

She half-chuckled. "Me either. Getting raised in the Jedi, I got enough of it. Atton..." Trista lowered her voice. "I need to ask you about the last war."

The paling of his skin was made ever-more clear by his dark hair and eyes. "Uh... what about it?"

"What happened? Like... I don't need details. You told me a little, but I'm fact checking..." Trista motioned toward Kreia.

"You know she can hear you."

"Yeah, but... I doubt we've got the Holonet on that thing." She motioned back to the console. "And I avoided all of it. I stopped on Tatooine once, heard about a big war, and then got the hell out to some abandoned world for two years. Homesteaded and everything."

"Then what?"

"Cartel showed up, so I cleared out."

"Yeah, I get that." He turned toward her. "So you don't know anything, right?"

"Nothing."

Atton pursed his lips and looked away. She let him. He was probably just thinking – she doubted he thought about the wars often.

"Well, uh, Revan rolled back in from the Unknown Regions 'bout three months after Malachor."

"That soon?" It couldn't be. She'd only been exiled a month before that.

"Yeah. It was a brutal attack, too. I heard a rumor her declaration of war included a video feed of the attack as it was happening."

Trista winced. "That does kind of sound like her."

"Really?"

"She was the definition of 'grandiose.' Sorry, keep going."

"Anyway, about a year later, Malak got this place destroyed." He motioned around them. "As I understand it, he got his jaw cut off for it."

"His what?"

Atton covered the bottom of his face. "They say Revan did it herself. Apparently they drew lightsabers on his bridge."

Revan? Attacking Alek? That wasn't possible. She'd loved him. Like, loved him.

"Anyway, everything was real bad for a while. For the Republic, that is. Then, the Jedi ambushed Revan's flagship and sent in a strike team. Apparently, she killed 'em all, except for Bastila Shan."

"Right."

"Well, we get the story a couple years later – after Revan left the Republic – that Malak opened fire on her bridge halfway through the fight, and only she and Shan survived. Shan apparently took her back to the Jedi, and..." He scratched the back of his neck. "They did, whatever. Convinced her to go back to the 'light,' or whatever it is they do. 'Convinced' her, maybe." He arched air quotes around the word.

"They don't do that."

He shrugged. "I wouldn't know. Anyway, they dropped off the face of the galaxy for a few months. Then, in 1044, they popped up on this uncharted world out in the Unknown Regions, getting Crosses of Glory and an article in every major news outlet in the galaxy for killing Malak."

"She was using the name Anna Kyjjl, right?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"And then she disappeared?"

"Yeah, about two years later. That's when it got leaked that she was Revan. A lot of people got hit in the blowout from that. The Jedi went underground for a year."

"Then what happened to them?"

He shrugged. "No one knows. They just scattered. Disappeared from the Temple and everything." He paused. "Well, three of 'em stayed behind, but they turned up dead a few weeks later. Some bounty hunters brought in two of 'em to Nar Shaddaa, dead, over the last couple months."

"Any idea who?"

"Nah. And the bounty hunters got set up to live like kings, so no one's seen them since either."

"How much is the bounty?"

Atton thought for a moment. "It was up to a solid million, last I knew."

"Wait." Trista blinked. "A million credits?"

"Might be higher. The estimate is there's about twenty Jedi left, and one of them is Revan. No one's gonna collect that bounty, though."

Yeah. No bounty hunter she could imagine would get the drop on Revan.

Someone knocked on the door, and the two stood. Atton headed over as it opened, only to have a blaster swung toward him.

"Stars! Fine!" He took several steps back with his hands raised. The lieutenant set down several takeout containers with an apologetic look.

"And your shirt." She handed it to Atton. "We guessed at your size, Master Jedi."

"I'm not a Jedi," Trista said.

"Right, sorry." The lieutenant turned away with a nervous flush, and they started to leave.

"Oh, hey, wait." They did, and Atton scooped up the various listening devices. "You forgot something."

"Oh!" Judging by the look on her face, she didn't know what to do with them as he dumped them into her hands. "Thanks?"

"Don't mention it."

The door closed and Atton tossed the shirt to Trista, who pulled it on. It wasn't anything special, just a basic longsleeved TSF uniform top. Trista sighed.

"I don't like it," Atton said as he handed her one of the takeout boxes.

"Me either. We'll stop somewhere on our way out."

Atton slid the last box across the floor toward Kreia's cot and settled down at one end of his. Trista joined him. "How long do you think we'll be stuck here?" he asked, opening his takeout box.

"Let's just say I have little confidence in the TSF's investigation."

"Mm, me either." He pulled out a deck of cards. "Pazaak?"

"You'll have to teach me how to play."

Atton shuffled the cards and pulled out another deck. "You have a side-deck?"

"I found one on the Hawk." Trista fished around in her pocket for it.

"Great. And don't worry, we'll play Republic rules. Our clothes stay on."

#

They sent T3 back to the ship without fuss. The TSF hadn't been able to access most of his systems, and the little droid suspected they'd ask the Jedi to unlock them. The joke was on them. His Master had locked those up tighter than a Sith base.

So he kept himself busy maintaining the ship. The TSF guards that dropped by mentioned an admiral that was coming, and he figured it was likely his Master's compatriot. The more he worked, the less his circuits could run optimal scenarios for informing her companion of her disappearance, once he arrived in a rush to inspect the vessel. They shared similar pheromone-driven reactions to one another, and that often led to them being irrational where the other was concerned.

They'd been on Telos about a day and a half, and he was most of the way through fixing a strut Atton broke by flying into an asteroid. He chirped to himself while hanging upside down off the ship, welding torch sending cascades of sparks to the hangar floor.

His sensors registered a presence at the ship's ramp, and he swung his optic around. There stood a woman in simple white clothes, consulting a datapad in her hand. He ran a scan. Not TSF.

So when she nodded and set her foot on the ramp, T3 whistled a sharp alarm and released his magnetic clamps. He righted himself just before hitting the ground and zipped up the ramp, chirping as he blocked her from the ship. Instead of retreating, she stooped down to one knee.

"You are the little droid my mistress Atris mentioned," she said. "She had wondered if you would be present."

A panel on his strut activated, and T3 thrust out his shock arm. He recognized the name – his Master had often complained about 'Atris' – and T3 would have none of this. "T3 = armed + ship = armed. /Atris, ship = stays with TSF."

She patted him and then dodged the shock arm. "She only wishes to investigate it. Your master would want it, would she not?"

"/=Atris?/=no!/"

"That is not for either of us to decide."

T3 chirped again, then jolted and rolled back several feet as she jammed an ion blaster into his chassis and fired. He routed the blast through his redundant systems, but it locked him up. And it left him helpless as she clucked and rolled him back into the ship. By the time T3 was back to normal, he'd been locked in the main hold's storage room with the defunct HK-47.

In the cockpit, the woman settled into the seat and backed the Hawk into Telos' airspace, hanging up the comms when the TSF began asking where the ship thought it was going. She pulled out and zipped under the station, heading for one of Telos' polar caps and a concealed hangar. As she stepped out, several other woman – nearly identical to her – met her.

"Inform our mistress we have the Ebon Hawk, and both of Revan's droids."

#

That night, Trista fell into a rough, tossing sleep in her cot. Atton sat on his, back to the wall, sharpening the knife the TSF hadn't found. One eye stared out the window at the passing traffic, contemplating how they could escape once released by the TSF; the other stayed on Kreia, who sat with her legs crossed, meditating, at the end of her bed.

His eyes turned back to Trista. She turned onto her back, one arm flung over her eyes and a leg dangling over the edge of the mattress. He mumbled something under his breath and turned back to his knife.

"You did not see what before, fool?"

It took every ounce of self-preservation he had to not roll his eyes. "I don't see how it's any of your business."

"If it is about her, it is my business. Speak, or I shall make you."

Fraking Jedi. He didn't doubt that, if she used her Jedi Mindfucking to get at that, she'd use it for anything else she wanted, too. And Kreia knowing anything about him? That was a recipe for disaster. For him, specifically.

"I just didn't realize how much pain she carried," he said.

"And how would you know?"

"It doesn't take a Jedi to tell that." He glanced up, watching as Kreia's lips drew to a fine line. "Explain something for me."

"I have neither the years required, nor the desire to indulge you."

This time, he couldn't resist the eye roll. "She was Revan's third in command once, right? Yeah, the idiot figured that out. But Jedi are supposed to be tough, capable – and she was in the thick of the Mandalorian Wars. But she—"

"And what is a Jedi without the Force?" Against his better instincts, he let her interrupt. "Take the greatest Knight, strip away the Force, and nothing remains. They rely on it, depend on it, more than even they know. Watch when one holds a blaster as they held a lightsaber, and you will see nothing more than a woman, or man, a child."

He was quiet for a moment. When he'd seen it – his hand tightened on his knife and he set it down before it shook. No, it made sense that they had to see more of it than that. That it had more influence than that. "I guess I didn't realize how much they relied on it."

"Do not be surprised." She turned her head and, for a moment, he felt assessed. Studied. Analyzed. Atton scowled in reply. "I suspect even you are more capable than a Jedi in many ways."

He huffed. "Don't force yourself to compliment me."

"You can survive where they could not, because you do not know the Force as they do. It is only this reason I tolerate your presence." Atton glanced seriously at his knife. "I would not consider it, were I you."

Atton picked it up and began sharpening it again. "But such a loss of ability seems extreme."

"She has been removed from it for some time. Without conflict to strengthen us, our abilities atrophy. Isolation weakens us, erodes our powers. Add to it that she turned away from war, did everything she could to forget it, and the last piece is revealed. But we do her a disservice by speaking of this when she is not present."

Atton opened his mouth to argue and the terminal on the wall chirped insistently. Trista startled awake, flailing out of bed and to the ground. He stood and waved back at her.

"Get yourself situated, I'll take it." He hit the commlink. "Yeah?"

"Oh." The TSF agent seemed taken aback. "There is an Ithorian here from the Enclave."

"What's he want?" Trista asked as she forced the sheet back onto the bed. Atton relayed the question.

"Um." There was another moment of quiet as they conferred. "He says he wishes to speak with you on behalf of Chodo Habat. That's all he'll say."

Trista straightened her hair. "Fine."

"Send him in," Atton responded. The door opened, admitting the tall, gray, hammerheaded-alien before it closed behind them. Their wide-set eyes assessed all three of them, before falling on Trista.

"Thank you for seeing me," he said. "I am Moza, here on behalf of Chodo Habat, our leader on Telos."

"And what does Chodo Habat want with me?" Trista asked, crossing her arms. Atton fingered his knife.

"Are you familiar with the restoration project?" She shook her head. "The surface of Telos was destroyed during the Jedi Civil War, a few years ago."

"Seven," Atton interjected.

"Yes. Seven. Citadel Station is part of the Republic's planetary restoration initiative. It uses energy fields to seal off portions of the planet's surface, then generates and controls individual weather patterns in each sector. Once that is stabilized, new flora and fauna are introduced to stabilize the ecosystem. Recently, we have become opposed by a corporation known as 'Czerka.' Perhaps you know of our troubles?"

"I've heard of Czerka in passing, but I've only recently come to Telos."

"My herd was generously funded by the Telosian government and the admiralty, as we are known as ecologists and agricultural engineers. The restoration here would be a model for other war-damaged worlds. But troubles on Onderon have limited our supplies, and the TSF can not police this station effectively.

"Czerka approached the Republic, offering supplies and security contracts. They 'police' two-thirds of Citadel Station, and their efforts damage our cause. They have taken control of many restoration zones, and they deteriorate within weeks. If this continues, they will bring the project to a halt, and the Republic will not continue it. Telos, and many other words, will remain destroyed."

"And where are we supposed to come in?" Atton asked. Both Trista and Moza glanced at him, before the Ithorian continued.

"Chodo Habat is a powerful priest, our spiritual leader. He sensed something upon your arrival - a disturbance, an... echo in your Force. Chodo felt you might aid us, and bid me to tell you that, were you willing, he may heal you."

"I'm not damaged," Trista said, with an unfamiliar vitriol.

"I-I am sorry. I do not understand what he meant, and I may have misspoken."

"Perhaps Habat should look to his own people, if they suffer so," Kreia interjected. Moza's eyes traveled to her, then back to Trista.

"He will explain his meaning where I can not. If this offer pleases you, please visit the Ithorian compound in this module when your troubles with the TSF have ended. Chodo Habat will be most pleased to see you."

"Tell him I will consider it."

"Thank you." To his credit, Moza seemed relieved to exit the apartment. Trista stood for a moment, balling and unballing her hands for a moment before flopping bonelessly back onto her bed.

"You all right?" Atton asked, watching as she flung her arm back over her eyes.

"I'm fine." She sighed. "What time is it?"

"About 0500."

"Tell the TSF to get us some food. Judging from last time, it'll take them two hours anyway."