"Can we go somewhere and not end up in a cage?"

Kreia was, unsurprisingly, sitting on the floor of her cage. Bao-Dur was still curled up, unconscious, though it hadn't been quite long enough for Atton to be too concerned. He was pacing the boundary of his force cage, hands clenched behind him.

"What the hell is this, anyway? Why is anyone in this frozen wasteland? Why bother locking us up?"

"This is a training ground. For Jedi."

Atton whirled toward her. That was the last thing he wanted to hear. Immediately, the cards flipping in his head intensified. "This bloody ice hole?"

"You are a fool, not deaf." His hands clenched, nails digging into his palms. With some effort — and a reminder that punching her through the field would hurt — he relaxed. "Yes, it bears the semblance of an academy... and yet, it lacks students. Curious."

"Yeah. No lightsabers." He made a show of sniffing the air. "Same stick-up-the-ass, though."

Kreia continued to muse, almost as if she hadn't heard him. "Hidden from the galaxy, like the Academy on Dantooine. But this place... oh, Atris, you have been clever."

"Atris?" The name seemed familiar, somewhere, like he'd heard it once or twice but could no longer place it. "Who's that? Is that where they took Trista?"

"It is not your concern."

He bristled. "All right, you listen here," he snapped. "I'm getting tired of your condescending bullshit." He drew a deep breath, flipped some pazaak cards in his head, and continued. "The sooner we're out, the better. Two crazy Jedi are more than enough. No one told me I was walking into a nest of 'em."

Kreia got to her feet, and her curious, scrutinizing gaze settled on him. He huffed and crossed his arms, turning away. "And what about this place causes you such fear?"

"Nothing." Flip the face of the +/-1, total is 17. "We're in the middle of a bunch of Jedi. You know how they are."

"I do not — not in the way you seem to."

"Forget about it. It's not important—"

Even after this many years, he recognized the touch when he felt it. He recoiled, retreating to the far boundary of his cage. Instinctively, more than actively, he threw up every defense he'd ever developed. Emotions. Pazaak. Engine sequences. "Get out of my head."

The presence grew stronger, less gentle, and pain blossomed to life behind his eyes. "Stop struggling," Kreia chided. "Let me follow the current to its source."

"I'm not going to — unnng." He found himself crashing to his knees, palms and nails digging into his eyes and forehead. The pain was unbearable — first the soreness from shuttle crashes and fighting, now this.

Finally, his defenses snapped under her onslaught, and the pain settled in his head. Atton slumped, catching himself on the steel floor.

"Ahh." Kreia's long, drawn-out voice showed far more than she could say. "With your fear is mingled guilt — it squirms in you like a worm. And the why... ah, there is its heart."

Atton drew his hand across his mouth, staring down at the blood on the back of his glove.

"You surprise me. I could not see it before — your feelings, your thoughts are a powerful shield indeed."

The fear was new now, though. If Kreia knew, if she said anything to Trista...

"Do not worry, 'Atton.'" He sensed the quotes around the name he'd chosen and dug his nails into his thigh, unable — or unwilling — to look up. He wasn't sure. "If she is a Jedi, she will forgive. And if she is not, she will not care."

"You can't tell her," he breathed. "Please. I don't want her to—"

"Think less of you? I hardly think that possible." And that cut harder than anything Kreia had said yet. Trista had been warming up to him, if that was even possible. Was it just an act? Was she like that? "Still, there is no shame in what you ask. We all wage war with our past, and it leaves its scars. I will not speak of yours to her, Atton... but my silence comes with a price."

"Of course it does," he muttered.

"You are a crude thing, murderer, but you have your uses." Kreia settled back down, resuming her earlier position. "You know the importance of who we travel with — even one such as you can feel it. You will serve her until I release you."

He raised his head. "And if I refuse?"

"You will not. Because, if you do, my silence will be broken. And then, Jaq, you will be broken.

"You fear the Jedi, and rightfully so. If Atris were to learn of your... choices, then you would never leave this place. But whatever fear you have of them know that, if you disobey me, my punishment will make you beg for the death that has long hounded you." Atton glared at her, but didn't doubt it. "Wipe the fear from your mind. You will not find blind obedience a difficult master. You chose it once, and you will learn to embrace it again."

"I don't know how you became such a manipulative witch, but why a vicious scow like you would bother with me is a bigger mystery."

"No game of dejarik is won without pawns, and this may prove to be a long game. And you are a slippery one, your thoughts difficult for even I to read. The self-loathing squirming inside you lends a curious strength. Your spirit, diseased as it is, refuses to allow you to give up, no matter what you face — or what wreckage you leave behind you."

"Do you even realize how irritating you are?"

"I feel you crossed our path for a reason — and perhaps you may still turn aside disaster. If so, your potential is not yet spent."

"I still think you're barking mad."

"Perhaps. But someone must fly the ship, preferably without destroying it."

He scowled. "Hilarious, your worship."

It felt like her interest had passed, and her voice took a more thoughtful turn. "The Force has brought us here for a reason — and now, I know why. The past is here, and it must be met before the future can be set in motion."

"Feel like filling in your unwilling servant?"

"No."

Atton groaned and settled into a more comfortable spot on the floor, wiping more blood from the broken skin on his lip. As they sat in silence, it struck him.

He'd come across several Force-users in his day, of varying stripes, allegiances, and moral codes. Most tried to get into his head more than once, with variable success. Mostly failures. Kreia had used far more force than any Jedi he'd run afoul of, most of whom hadn't pushed past the surface emotions and thoughts — a feeling that was more aligned with something else, something darker. Something Trista wouldn't support.

"You're not a Jedi, are you?"

Kreia's robe twitched as her head turned toward him. "I have wasted enough time with you."

He felt her brush his mind again, this time steaming through with the exact amount of force she needed to overwhelm him. He started to slump, fighting an overwhelming urge to sleep just as she confirmed all his suspicions.

"That's a bit low," he gasped, before the last vestiges of his energy left him.

"I need no distractions." Kreia looked ahead, a small smile on her lips. "A critical moment approaches."

#

Two of the white-haired women deposited Trista in another round room, across a bridge that spanned a chasm falling deep into the mesa. Then they retreated across the bridge, leaving her alone. The room looked so much like the old Council chambers, from the central pillar to the chairs that sat, evenly spaced, along its perimeter. She scowled and paced to one of the large windows that overlooked the workings of Telos' polar irrigation system. Once, she would have given a hand to sit in one of those seats; now, she'd give it to be as far from them as possible.

It already didn't bode well for this "Mistress" to have an exact setup of this room. She'd already decided this was an old Jedi holding during her walk into this room. So, someone had to be here. Vash? No, Vash wouldn't be so strange. Halla? No, she was like Vash. Vima? No, not Vima. That left—

"I did not expect to see you again, after the day of your sentencing."

Damn it.

Trista spun to face another pale, white-haired woman framed by the door opposite the one she'd entered through. Even her robes looked identical to those she remembered, just one more chink in her ever-eroding sanity.

"I thought you had taken the exile's path, wandering the galaxy. And yet I find you here. Why?"

"...sightseeing?" Trista offered, raising a brow. "Though it wasn't to see you again, Atris. Where are my companions? Are they being treated fairly?"

Atris folded her hands behind her back, the motion accenting the lightsaber swinging at her hip. Trista watched as she paced to the central stone and ran her hand over it.

"Your concern is noted. They are safe, pending your cooperation. I have detained them for their own safety."

"I'm sure." Trista took a step behind the nearest chair, keeping it between her and Atris.

"Though I find it unusual that you travel with others again. I thought you had forsaken the company of others after the war."

"I didn't seek them out." Trista echoed Atris' posture, folding her hands behind her back and studying the ceiling pointedly. "Your choice of locale is impeccable. An excellent location for a would-be academy, especially when led by the ice witch you are."

Atris' shoulders settled as her glare sharpened. "Your presence here requires answers, Trista."

"You need to earn the right to use my name."

"Very well. I demand to know why you sought me out. Have you come to face the Council, as you did so many years ago? To admit we were right to cast you out?"

"The Council?" Trista motioned to the room. "What, are you hiding Vrook under a panel somewhere?" Atris didn't answer. "No, I didn't. I'm here for different reasons, but if you lured me here for that, sure."

"I remember you weren't as willing before."

"Yeah, losing the Force takes it out of a person." Atris' response was only to lift a delicately manicured eyebrow. "You still hold such a grudge against me? For deciding that innocents suffering on the Rim went against everything the Code stood for?"

"So you said. But you only sought adventure and hungered for battle, as Revan did. You could not wait to follow her to war."

"Just because she asked me right after Alek doesn't mean I wanted—"

"The Council asked for time to examine the threat — time you refused to give them."

"Yes, because while they sat and waited Serocco was bombed into glass!" Trista's voice raised and, to her horror, she found herself unable to lower it. "Because the Cathar were massacred and millions were dying! I — and any of us that went — could barely sleep without feeling the war in our very bodies! Tell me, Atris, how did the Council fare? Could you sleep at night while the screams of the innocent rang in your ears?"

"Enough!" Atris' voice echoed in the chamber, and they both composed themselves.

"Time I refused to give them?" Trista continued. "Or the time it took them to overcome their cowardice and see what was happening?"

"The Council has to handle thousands of other threats. Threats you-"

"What, the Taris academy? The Covenant? You sure did a good job of keeping them off the Council before they destroyed themselves."

"And part of Coruscant."

"Which hardly helped opinions of the Jedi. Not only were you not helping, you wrecked half a district."

"Silence," Atris ordered.

"That was the thing with you." Trista held up her finger. "You believed the Council was the ultimate power — that they were the sole source of knowledge, of evidence, of correctness. But when was the last time a Council member left the Temple, or a training academy? When was the last time a Council member walked the streets of Coruscant, and saw the injustice under our noses? When was the last time a Council member thought about anything other than consolidating the Council's power?"

"We always had the Jedi's best interests—"

"And what about the Republic? The Republic we agreed to protect? When did you have their best interests in mind?"

"You do not understand what you are talking about. That is why you were brought to us, and that is why you were cast out."

"And you wanted me imprisoned, or worse."

"There was... much that day that was unforgettable. Your words, your defiance — the way you surrendered your lightsaber. I've kept it, you know, so I would never forget."

Atris snapped the tube off her belt and ignited it, letting the brilliant cyan, almost white, beam flash in the room. Trista stared at it, an odd feeling in her chest. She remembered every inch of the hilt she'd crafted, after her first was destroyed in one of their earliest battles. The way her fingers had worn into the metal after months of heavy use, the crack on the bottom where she'd slammed it into a helmet on Dxun. The crystal that Revan had found on one of her scouting trips. She tore her eyes away, back to the ceiling, before Atris could accuse her of looking longingly at it.

The crystal meant more to her than the weapon, anyway.

"Keep it, for all I care."

"I suspected as much." The corner of Atris' mouth twitched as she deactivated the weapon and returned it to her hip. "I will, then — as a reminder of what happens when your passions dictate your actions, so I will never forget your arrogance or insult to the Order.

"You know you gave us no other choice. You gave me no other choice."

"There are always other choices," Trista growled. "If you had bothered to ask, I could have told you. I didn't care for the battles, or the fighting. I went to war for the innocent — what I was taught was a Jedi's first concern."

"And you met the Mandalorians with more aggression, which is not the Jedi way."

"Neither is sitting aside while the galaxy burns."

"Every choice we make echoes through the Force — you knew that. By serving as an opponent against which the Mandalorians could test themselves, you furthered their lust for war. And that sent a terrible echo through both you, and the Force. And because of it, you and the other Revanchists lost your way, and turned against us."

"Revan and Malak turned on you, not me. I surrendered to the Jedi. I—"

"Without you and the other fallen Jedi, their flame would have extinguished before lit. The Mandalorian crusade would have never been met by Revan. She—"

"Then you know nothing of what drove her, or me." She'd been a tempering influence on the headstrong Jedi — if anything, it was her absence that made Revan fall. The thought had been tugging inside her chest for some time now.

"You both betrayed your teachings. All we had taught you, you threw at your feet and crushed with your passions. The Jedi teachings require we examine our actions. Acting without reflection is not our way."

"So... letting the Rim die would have been educational? Is that the slope you've slid down?"

"There was no guarantee marching to war would have saved the Rim. In fact, it did quite the opposite."

"You aren't a strategist, Atris. Routing the Mandalorians once they'd embedded into the Core would have been impossible."

"There are victories that exceed the physical. The real victory is—"

"Surrender? Pacifism? Enslavement?"

"Do not twist my words. A physical victory is not the only one, or is it the only loss. I—"

"Yeah. And hearing those words in Mando'a would make them better."

"You do not—"

"Please, Atris, anyone who stepped outside the Archives would have known."

Finally, anger flared in Atris' eyes, and Trista let herself feel satisfied. Her shoulders stiffened under her white robes. "How dare you," she spat. "The Mandalorian Wars should have been your grave, and Malachor is where you should have died."

Trista smiled, feeling it for the first time in years. "Careful, Atris, anger leads to the dark side."

Atris straightened and drew a deep breath. "You see shadows where there are none. You are blind, as always. I tired of fighting with you – both you and your cousin have always been too stubborn for your own good. So answer me. If you did not come to admit the Council was correct, then why are you here?"

"Some pretentious schutta stole my ship, and I'd like it back."

"Your ship — ah." The pieces almost visibly cascaded into place as Atris rested a finger on her upper lip and studied her. "The Ebon Hawk." Trista nodded sharply. "I doubt you realize half the value of the ship you say you possess. And it is not yours, unless you are admitting to the destruction of the Peragus Mining Facility."

She held up her hands defensively. "Sithspit, will someone not blame me for that? Yes, we were there, but it wasn't our fault. It was an accident. And the TSF already cleared me of culpability." As if Atris would believe that.

"An 'accident.' Beyond your control. You haven't changed, acting rather than thinking, putting yourself before the galaxy. Do you know what you've done?"

Trista waved her hand. "Yes, yes, I blew up Citadel Station's fuel source, which will send the station crashing into the planet, destroying the reconstruction effort and condemning several Rim worlds relying on the Telos experiment for salvation. Can I get my ship and leave yet?"

Atris blinked.

"Or, I'm sorry, should I continue to exchange barbs with you? Or ask why allowing Telos to die again is any different from the Jedi letting the worlds that would benefit from its reconstruction die in the first place?"

"You will not anger me. How are you not content to confine your ruin to yourself, but must spread it to others?"

"So now you'll blame me for the actions of the Sith?"

Whatever Atris had expected, that wasn't it. When she found her voice again, it bore shock. "The Sith? What do you mean?"

"The Sith came after me on Peragus. When we fled, they hit an asteroid and blew the field."

Atris paused, thoughtfully, staring past Trista for a moment. "You speak truly. I can feel the encounter on you. But what would they want on Peragus?"

"They think I'm the last of the Jedi." Trista held up her hand as Atris opened her mouth. "I haven't had time to correct them."

"Well, they will soon realize their mistake. And if you escaped, they most likely allowed you — to see if you would lead them here."

"As charming as your paranoia is, all that followed me were a few bounty hunting droids."

"We shall see. For now, my perspective has changed." She straightened, and Trista's stomach sinked. What had her original plan been? To kill her? To imprison her among her strange apprentices? "I have 'your' ship and 'your' droids, all three of which bore less information than I had hoped. Take them and your companions and do not return. Your presence here threatens us all."

"Oh, don't worry." Trista edged around the room's edge, back to the door she'd came through. "I won't be back." As she stepped out the room and stalked back down the ramp, two of Atris' apprentices came to meet her. "Take me to my companions. I believe I've worn out my welcome."

One of the women nodded. "Follow me. They are in the main irrigation channel room, in the northern part of this complex. The particle emitters there can double as force cages."

"Oh, I bet Atton was thrilled. Are they prisoners, then?"

"We caged them for their safety until we could determine your intent, Exile. Atris cautioned us against your tactics, fearing your allies would cause a distraction."

"Did they give you any trouble?"

"They did not. The male could have presented some challenge if he had resisted, but he chose not to."

Trista glanced over with a raised brow. "Atton?"

The woman nodded. "He has had Echani training. He masks it but, when you were in danger, he fell into a stance we know well."

"Huh." Trista frowned. Yet another mystery about Atton, then. "Any idea where he could have picked it up?"

"I do not know. They teach the Echani forms to military special forces throughout the galaxy. If the source is a mystery to you, perhaps you should ask."

"Perhaps I should." They stopped outside the door. "Thank you. And my ship?"

"Continue your path through this chamber and you will reach the hangar."

"Thank you." The woman nodded and headed back for the central chamber, and Trista stepped through the door. Kreia rose to her feet as she did, and Bao-Dur was stirring out of his unconsciousness. Atton, though, looked out completely.

"Did you find what you came for?" Kreia asked. Trista flipped the field controls and lowered the cages.

"Depends on what I came for." She crossed to Atton's cell. She might stop being tense when they left, but speaking with Atris had left the worst of bad tastes in her mouth.

"There was something unresolved of your past here. I feel we did not find this place by chance." Trista knelt and shook Atton, hoping he was just asleep. "The woman who resides here — she did something to you once, something that hangs upon you?"

"She was a member of the Council that exiled me, and wanted to do more." She shook Atton again.

"Ah, I see it now. The act has left its mark."

"It's also something we shouldn't discuss here. What's wrong with Atton?"

"He found himself tired, and in need of rest. Apparently, the journey fatigued him."

"It has been a rough two days." She shook him again, more violently this time, and he groaned. "Atton, we've got the ship back."

"Unghnnn, really?" He pushed himself onto his hands. "Feels like a rancor bit my head."

"You can rest on the ship." Trista pulled him to his feet and moved to hold her hand out for Bao-Dur. He took it and let her pull him up.

"I'm sorry, General, I must have lost consciousness in the crash."

"Are you all right? You were unconscious for a while."

"Apart from the headache, I'm fine." He moved his arm, and the field holding it together hummed. "Even this is undamaged."

"Good. All right, I know where the droid and the ship are. We should leave before Atris changes her mind."

"What? Atris? Changing her mind about what?"

"No time." Trista turned and started through the other door, past more identical women and chirping panels of indeterminate necessity and use. Waiting for them outside a door was the woman who had disarmed them before, their weapons in her hands.

"I have your weapons," she said as they approached, perhaps needlessly, and held out Trista's sword. Trista took it.

"Thanks."

"You are the Exile, then?" Her voice lost much of the command it had possessed before. "The one Atris warned us about?"

"You're the second person who's said that." Trista sheathed her blade. "Just what did Atris say about me?"

"She said you betrayed the Jedi by going to a forbidden war. That you turned on your masters, your teachings, and yourself."

"She's... exaggerating."

"That is far from all. She says you know nothing of loyalty to any cause but your own animal instincts, and she told us why you fell to the dark side."

Atton whistled as he holstered his various weaponry. "She really doesn't like you."

"No, she doesn't. I wasn't aware I'd fallen to any side, to be honest."

The woman seemed confused. "She says you fell in the Mandalorian Wars, when you gave into your lust for battle. That once you tasted war, you could not give it up."

"If that were the case, I would have joined Revan."

She held up her hand. "And that when the Dark Lord Revan returned, you did not join her because you had fallen too far to feel the Force."

Kreia huffed. "As if that were possible."

"Any other interesting, no doubt wrong tidbits?"

"I believe that's the extent of her expressed feelings. There are variations, but all rise from the same foundations."

"Uh-huh." Trista nodded. "Well, I am indeed the, um, 'Exile,' but it seems Atris is — as usual — mistaken about everything else. Best of luck. I'd like to find my ship and leave."

Trista reached for the door, but the woman stopped her. "I am sorry but, before you go. I have a question, if I may ask it."

"Go ahead."

"You have touched the Force — what does it feel like?"

Trista froze, catching herself just before she could seem surprised. She cleared her throat. "Uh... it's... difficult to describe."

"Please, I wish to know." She was desperate. Trista looked away, remembering how, a long time ago, she'd tried to remember with the same longing. She cleared her throat.

"It's like... imagine the heartbeat of the galaxy, the warmth of the sun without its glare – a current that spreads between life. An interconnectedness, bound to the life around you, just as it is bound to you. All of life, connected, sounding the same song in one chorus. It's many things, but it is unmistakable. If you have, you know."

"I... thank you, Exile." She inclined her head. "I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with me."

"My pleasure?" That was a slight lie. "But I must be leaving. The hangar is through here?"

"Oh, yes, it is. Straight through these doors."

"Thank you." Trista opened the door and headed through. Before she looked around, she was greeted with a rapid series of chirps from ahead. In the center of a circle of consoles, and a forcefield, sat T3-M4, plugged into a port and shackled to the floor. "T3!"

"/T3-M4=pleased to see Jedi/!/"

"Heeeey," Atton interjected. "If it isn't the little bastard that stole the ship. Not so smug now, are you?" T3 responded with a rude whistle.

"It is unlikely the droid stole the ship," Bao-Dur said. T3 chirped again.

"Says you."

The Iridonian frowned at him as he stepped forward and crouched outside the forcefield. "He looks damaged — nearly dissected." Bao-Dur looked back at Trista. "He yours?"

Trista nodded. "T3, what happened? They didn't wipe your memory, did they?"

He whistled. "/Atris=stole ship/T3=very sorry/!/T3=couldn't stop/"

"Hey, it's all right." Trista found the release for the forcefield. "I'm just glad you're okay."

"/Atris=downloaded data/Atris=very persistent./"

"She downloaded what?"

"/Atris=downloaded part of memory core/Memory=divided/Atris=disappointed/"

Trista smiled. "That's good at least. We'll talk more once we're gone, all right? Let's go."

T3 whistled and zoomed out of the computers, and Trista looked up at the window. Through it sat the red top of the Ebon Hawk, and she felt relief for the first time in over a week.

"The ship's in the next room. Come on, let's get out of here."