EIGHT

Dustil gave the punching bag a final hit and stepped back to catch his breath. His hands already ached from the workout, which didn't bode well for how they would feel tomorrow. The Hawk had been in hyperspace for three days, and his usual workout with his lightsaber wasn't doing enough to ease the anxiety that made his palms sweat and his head hurt. Bastila's absence, too, was grating on him. He hadn't realized how much her presence in the Force had helped keep him focused. Now all he had was Pellek, whose suspicious glances did nothing to help ease the buzzing in his head.

Physically but still not mentally exhausted after a shower, Dustil wandered into the galley in the hope of finding something to soothe his nerves. Carth looked up from a datapad when he walked in and nodded in greeting. Dustil dug through the small storage area and came up with a bottle of Corellian whiskey. "Want a glass?" he asked his father.

Carth checked his chrono. "Better not. My watch starts in an hour. But don't let me stop you."

Dustil dropped into the seat across from Carth and managed to pour himself a glass without his hands shaking. He knocked back a mouthful and grimaced as it burned to his stomach. "I've never developed a taste for this stuff," he said ruefully.

Carth smiled a little. "It was your mother's drink of choice—I was strictly a beer man until I met her." The pause hanging between them became awkward, as it always did when they discussed Dustil's mother. Carth cleared his throat. "So, what are you still doing up? You should sleep when you have the chance on a ship—you never know when we're going to crash on an unfriendly moon."

Dustil snorted. "Like you should talk. I mean, if I've seen you sleep for six hours straight since we left Citadel Station, I'd be surprised."

Carth shrugged. "I don't, much." There was something in his quick look away that told Dustil his lack of sleep wasn't voluntary. Carth fiddled with the datapad for a minute before changing the subject again. "On Vintar, you said that you'd spoken to Case. What did you mean by that?"

Dustil took another swig of the whiskey. He should have known that his father wouldn't have missed that slip, but he really wished it could have waited until after they found Case. He had decided five years ago not to tell his father that he'd created a Force Bond with Case, but he didn't see how he could avoid revealing it now. He tried evasion first. "You know, through the Force."

Evasion didn't work. "I've never heard of two Jedi doing that before," Carth said mildly, but Dustil could feel the hard look his father was giving him. He hated that it made him feel like he was eight years old again and trying not to tell his father that he'd broken their neighbor's window.

Dustil sighed. "She and I have a Force Bond," he admitted. But I didn't mean to, Father, honest! The baird ball just went over my head.

There was a long silence. "I see," Carth replied finally. "You know, I think I'll have a drink, after all." Dustil handed his father a glass and watched as Carth poured a stiff measure of whiskey. He drained it in two quick pulls. "I suppose the two of you decided it would be better for me not to know about it."

"Well, it wasn't that, it was just—"

Carth leaned forward, hands clasped hard in front of him. "What exactly were you doing out there for five years?" His voice was low.

Dustil could feel the suspicion in his father's voice, and his first instinct was to snap back at him, reject his questions. Who the hell was he, anyway, to suggest that Dustil hadn't been acting in the best interest of the Republic? Carth wasn't a Jedi; he hadn't been there to keep off the kinrath spiders and suspicious officials while Case found one more obscure clue in a cave or forgotten archive. He hadn't heard Case's nightmares in his head if they stayed in one place too long. He hadn't spent three months on a Force-forsaken gray planet, fighting his way to the True Sith, only to realize that they had badly underestimated their enemy's strength. His father had no right to question him.

Dustil took a breath and forced down the anger that always seemed about to overcome him. The question wasn't unreasonable—they had been gone for five years without any word. He wondered if his father had thought he and Case were dead. But he doesn't even know me, his mind protested, even as he delivered the proper answer. "We were always looking for the True Sith, Father, like I've told you. Case didn't know where they were—she just remembered pieces and hints from after the Mandalorian Wars. We found hints of them all over the Unknown Regions, but we never saw them until Espol. I don't think either of us expected that there would be so many of them, or that they would be so strong."

Carth seemed to consider his answer for a long time before he finally nodded. Dustil knew he wasn't satisfied, but it was enough, for now. Carth smiled a little. "Did she keep that ridiculous targeting visor on the whole time?"

Dustil laughed, glad to let the conversation move back to lighter territory. "Yeah, she said you hated that thing. She claimed it helped her focus on her targets, and she kicked my ass enough in practice that I didn't disagree with her."

Instead of the laugh Dustil was hoping for, Carth seemed to draw into himself. He stared at the plasynth table for long enough that Dustil contemplated leaving the room. Finally Carth looked up. "What color are her eyes?" he asked quietly.

Dustil was caught off guard. "What?"

Carth's expression was utterly neutral. "I can't remember what color they are. You can't tell in the victory tour holos. I mean, she's blond, so you'd think they'd be blue or green, but I have this idea that they're brown, but maybe I'm thinking of your mother." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I just—just don't remember."

Dustil didn't know how to react to this suddenly vulnerable version of his father. "Brown," he said finally. "Her eyes are brown."

Carth nodded, like Dustil had confirmed a hyperspace route or the time of day. He got up without another word and walked toward the cockpit.

Dustil stared after him for a long moment, then poured himself another glass of whiskey.

Pellek saw the Admiral come into the cockpit through his reflection on the viewscreen. She scooped her pazaak cards into one hand. "You're early," she remarked.

"Yeah," he replied. "I'll take the rest of your shift."

"And what if I want to spend another hour staring at hyperspace lines? Just because you're the military man doesn't mean you get to keep all the monotonous fun to yourself." Carth didn't respond. She spun the pilot's chair around. She couldn't read him very well, but his closed expression told her she could either retreat or have a heartfelt discussion with him about Revan. She stood. "Right. Comm me if you need anything," she said.

Carth nodded, and Pellek slid past him and back out to the main hold. She took a right and entered the galley. Dustil was leaning forward on his elbows, hand wrapped around a glass of her Corellian. His expression was a mirror of his father's, and Pellek was about to keep moving when he glanced up and raised his glass. "Want a drink?" he asked.

A drink, she could use. She slid into the chair opposite him and reached for a glass. "I don't know much about Telos," she remarked, "but in most places, it's polite to ask before you start drinking someone else's stash."

"It's yours, then? I thought it was Father's." He raised the half-empty bottle and smiled ironically. "Mind if I have some?"

Pellek took the bottle and poured herself three fingers. "It's all right. There's four more where that came from. The good thing about Atton being dead is that he can't run down my stock anymore." She shook her head. "The man could put away liquor like you've never seen and still rob you blind in pazaak."

"I thought you had to be a really powerful Jedi to have Force ghosts attached to you. And you're—" Dustil stopped.

Pellek grinned. "Not? A 'mediocre Jedi' is how my Master put it on the day I left to join Revan."

"Case," Dustil corrected.

Pellek rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I heard that's what she's calling herself these days. I guess it's only reasonable—it'd be hard to attract followers if people knew you were the greatest Genocide in the history of the galaxy." She couldn't quite keep the venom out of her voice.

The air in the galley seemed suddenly colder. Dustil appraised her through half-closed eyes, an unsettling smile playing on his lips. "You know that's not true."

Pellek raised her eyebrows. "Her minions destroyed your home planet, Dustil. She killed millions before Bastila captured her."

Dustil tipped his chair back on two legs and stared at the ceiling. "Let me see if I can remember exactly how you put it to your technician. 'We have to end this war, however it can be done,' right? You gave the order on Malachor. You stood there and watched the Mandalorians die."

"Yes," Pellek protested, "but it was—I had to—"

Dustil continued like she hadn't spoken. "You decided not to evacuate the seven hundred thousand Republic ground troops before you killed them all. The Mandalorians were already on their way to defeat—there was no need to destroy Malachor. And now the Mandalorians are all but wiped out. You're the Genocide, Pellek, not Case."

Pellek could barely breathe. How could he know what she saw? Pellek could feel the cold walls of her warship around her, see Malachor crumbling on the viewscreen, feel the extinction of her Force connections, one after another, faster and faster until there was nothing, only emptiness rushing up toward her—

The square edges of the glass bit deeply into the sides of her palm and Pellek forced herself to take a breath. She leaned across the table. "Believe me," she growled, "I don't need you to tell me that my crimes are inexcusable. I know that they are. But I would very much like for you to tell me what you think you're trying to do here. Are you trying to push me to the Dark Side, Dustil? Do you think you're strong enough to succeed when Revan failed?"

Dustil stood. "I don't think you want to find out how strong I am."

Pellek looked up at him. His muscles were as taut as if he were in Stasis. He was daring her, begging her, to challenge him. All she had to do was rise to her feet, and a fight would be inevitable. She kept her seat. "Have you fallen, Dustil?" she whispered.

Dustil raised a hand, his aura flashing red like a solar flare, but then he blinked and seemed to come back to himself. His aura collapsed to gray-blue. He dropped slowly to his chair and drained his glass with a shaking hand. "I—I don't know," he whispered. Dustil cradled his head in his hands. "Gods, I think I'm losing my mind."

Pellek touched his arm with her hand. "What happened out there, Dustil? What happened to Case? What happened to you?"

Dustil lurched to his feet and backed away from her. "I don't know. I told you I don't know. I can't remember—" He closed his eyes for a moment, then blurted disjointedly, "I'm just tired. We're close and I'm having trouble keeping focused. But I'm fine. I'll be fine once we find her. I just need—I'll be in the port quarters." He stumbled out of the galley.

Pellek took a slow sip of whiskey and watched him go. She thought his distress was genuine, but there was a strong feeling of wrongness in the air. I can't remember, he'd said for the first time. That was different than I don't know.

"He is a very troubled young man," Bao-Dur said. She looked to her right to see him near the storage compartment.

"Yeah, troubled like someone leading us into a trap," she muttered. "Why am I doing this again, Bao? As far as I'm concerned, Revan, or Case, or whatever she's calling herself, can just stay lost."

Bao-Dur smiled, his spikes less menacing with the grin. "I can't see the future, General. But I can see your aura, and it's less shadowed than it was on Dxun. I don't know why we're on this mission, but I know that the Force has something for us to do."

His words were so "Jedi" that she couldn't help but smile and shake her head. "You sound like Bastila, my friend. All this Force mysticism makes my head hurt." She drained her glass and considered pouring another, but Bao-Dur's pointed glance dissuaded her.

She stood up and put the bottle away. "All right! You don't have to nag," she said. Bao-Dur gave a mock-salute and faded away. Pellek shook her head and headed for her quarters. They were only about three days from where Carth had calculated Espol to be, but they couldn't get there fast enough to suit her.

If the Force had something for her to do, she wished it would get on with it already and let her get back to real life, whatever that was.

"Seriously, Caele, if you don't stop whining, I am going to actually die." Mission rubbed her forehead and pondered the unreasonableness of reasoning with a two-year-old. She pushed back from her computer terminal and looked at the unhappy child. "Could you please give me thirty minutes to finish this report? Then I will be happy to take you to the playground for as long as you want."

Caele shook her head. "Now, now." Tar sat nearby, one eye on the drama unfolding in Mission's office, the other on the blocks he was carefully stacking.

"Would you like for me to take the herdlings to the playground?" Kaxtrax's large form shadowed Mission's doorway.

"Kax!" Tar called cheerfully to the Ithorian, waving a block at her.

"Gods, Kax, would you?" Mission asked. "The daycare was closed today for that flu going around, and I have to get this report done before the committee meets." She grinned at her friend. "I totally owe you—I'll dogsit next time you're off-station."

Kaxtrax grimaced in what passed for an Ithorian smile. "You may wish otherwise when you see how large Domo has become. The new breed of kath hound has done well on the surface, but they are much larger than the last generation." She held out her arms to the children. "Come, herdlings, let us go." The twins followed her out, Caele practically bouncing as she walked.

Mission sighed into the blessed silence. She loved the kids more than she could express, but she was grateful for her friends' help when Jan was on away missions. She didn't expect him back for another six weeks, and this was an important period for the Telos Reconstruction Project. The Senate Committee for the Project was meeting on the surface in a week to approve the next phase of the reconstruction. If they didn't approve the funds, the Project would grind to a halt, leaving vast areas of the planet to run wild.

Mission worked steadily for the next hour on the report. As usual, she was trying to mediate the sometimes expansive requests of the Ithorian restorers with the more pragmatic concerns of the Senate monitors. She was putting the final touches on the executive summary when an alarm went off on her monitor.

She frowned, looking for a long time at the blinking red light. That particular alarm was for unauthorized activity in the Polar Regions. Since the evacuation after the flu outbreak five years ago, no one was permitted to be on the surface without authorization and protection. She knew a few holdouts were still hiding on the planet, but no one had been in the Polar Regions since the Exile cleaned out that Echani woman's stronghold last year.

The alarm light flashed for several more seconds before abruptly going out. "Well, that's weird," she said to herself. Maybe a kath hound had wandered into the region before being caught by the defense systems. But she thought that was unlikely.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at her door. "Yeah?" she asked distractedly.

"That kind of greeting makes a man happy to be home early," a familiar voice said wryly.

Mission spun around. "Jan! What are you doing back?"

Her husband smiled warmly at her, arms crossed nonchalantly across his chest. He was still in his uniform. "Somebody at the Fleet got our orders crossed with another squadron's and we both showed up to make our hyperspace jumps at the same time. They sent our squadron home for resupply before we ship back out tomorrow." He grinned. "The Captain was pretty irritated, but I don't mind the delay."

She returned his grin. "Well, Kaxtrax has the kids at the playground, and I bet we have a good hour before they wear her out."

He raised his eyebrows. "Then, Mrs. Valenta, I think we should take advantage of an empty apartment."

"Yeah, let me shut this down." Mission closed out of her report. The red alarm light was still out. On a whim, she set a couple of satellite cameras to monitor the borders of the Polar Regions. She couldn't shake the feeling that something odd was going on down there. "Okay, Lieutenant Valenta, let's remind ourselves that we're still young." He slung his arm across her shoulders and they left her office together.

As she left, Mission saw out of the corner of her eye the red light on her monitor reactivate and begin blinking slowly.