THIRTEEN
Pellek had never been able to understand why she wasn't arrested for war crimes after she destroyed Malachor and ended the Mandalorian War. The liberal newsvids were outraged at the destruction of the Mandalorian people, of course, but the rest of the populous simply celebrated the Republic's victory. There was an official day of mourning for the Republic soldiers who died on Malachor, but no one seemed to blame Pellek for their deaths except Pellek. Never mind that evacuating them would have alerted the Mandalorians, never mind that the soldiers had sworn an oath to her and to the Republic, never mind that it happened too fast for them to even feel pain. They were all dead, and the void where Pellek's soul used to be wasn't punishment enough. She had presented herself to the Republic Senate by holo for arrest, but they gave her a medal instead.
Pellek was alone in her quarters, watching the space traffic through her wide window, when Revan and Malak came. Pellek had ordered the guard at her door not to let anyone inside, but of course that wouldn't have stopped Revan. The woman swept into the room like a windstorm and waved her hand to turn on the overhead lights.
The view from the window changed from external to reflective, and Pellek could see Revan in the center of the room, hands on her hips. Malak's tall form shadowed the doorway. "Are you still sulking, Pel?" Revan asked. "That's not very gracious of you. Did you know the Corellian senator has moved to put your face on the two-credit piece?"
Pellek's slim hope that Revan would be equally affected by their actions burnt up like a prayer stick. "Why are you here?" Pellek asked without turning around.
"To congratulate you, of course," Revan replied. "And to invite you to come with us."
"To Coruscant?" Pellek asked, surprised. The Jedi Council had ordered all of the Jedi who followed Revan to the war to return for judgment. She had not thought Revan would go.
Malak began laughing, a low, mocking sound, but Revan threw him a dark look and he stopped. "You don't believe that we should return to the Council, do you?" Revan asked. She pushed back her dark hood, and Pellek could see honest puzzlement and worry reflected in the glass. "We didn't do anything wrong, you know that. We did what the Council was afraid to do, and what do you think would have happened if we didn't? We saved the Republic, Pel!"
Pellek still watched only the reflection of Revan's movements. "I know," she said.
Revan narrowed her eyes and said nothing for a long moment. Then she crossed the room in two wide steps and spun Pellek around to face her. Pellek looked into Revan's eyes, surprised to see that they had paled from dark brown to tan. "What happened to you, Pellek?" Revan asked. Her eyes lost a little focus and Pellek imagined Revan was searching her with the Force. The woman gasped and stepped away. "What have you done?" she whispered.
Pellek smiled tightly. "The Council promised that we would be punished if we left. Apparently, they were right. I haven't been able to touch the Force since Malachor."
Malak crossed his arms impatiently. "No Force? We're wasting our time, then."
"Quiet," Revan snapped over her shoulder. She looked back to Pellek, and Pellek could hardly stand the pity in her face. "Listen. I've told you that there is something bigger than the Mandalorians out there, something we have to stop before it reaches us. Well, I think I've found something that can stop it, some kind of ancient weapon. I've found four maps that point to way to it, somewhere beyond the Rim in the Unknown Regions. We're leaving, now, before the Council tries to stop us."
She had known Revan was lying to her on Malachor. Revan must have had most of the maps by then, and she hadn't said anything. But Pellek couldn't help but be intrigued by Revan's infectious enthusiasm. "What does the weapon do?" Pellek asked.
Revan grinned. "That's what we're going to find out. Come with us, Pel. I'll help you get the Force back, and we'll save the Republic again." She reached out for Pellek's arm. Without her armor, Pellek could feel the heat of Revan's hand against her skin.
Pellek's heart jumped. Even without the Force, she could see that Revan was practically glowing with power. She didn't doubt that Revan could help her touch the Force again. And in spite of her grief, Pellek didn't regret joining her, joining the war. It had been the right thing to do. She would do it again. She opened her mouth to accept when she saw Revan's sly glance to Malak, the tiny nod of his head that they thought Pellek didn't see. Pellek looked more closely and saw Revan's unusual pallor, the shadows around her eyes.
It was like a kick in the gut. Revan was using her again, and like an idiot, Pellek had almost fallen for it again. Her face burned with humiliation. "No. I'm returning to the Council for punishment." The words were out almost before she had decided.
Revan snatched her hand back. "What?" she exclaimed. "You know what they'll do to you! They'll break your lightsaber, and they'll keep you from touching the Force ever again. If you come with us, I can teach you things, powers the Council won't let us learn."
Pellek clenched her jaw. "No." She braced herself for anger.
Fury flashed over Revan's face, but it was replaced quickly with sorrow. Her voice was soft. "If that's your decision, Pel, I won't change your mind. But I'm sorry. Force be with you," she said, and turned away. Malak opened the door for her and held it while Revan swept outside.
As she watched them go, half of Pellek was relieved, but the other half hoped Revan would turn around and ask again. That was the half of her that she hated, because she knew if Revan had asked one more time, she would have said yes.
Pellek woke on the Ebon Hawk, eyes burning and muscles stiff with sleep. She rolled off her bunk with effort and staggered out of the dormitory toward the fresher. As usual, the water was tepid, and she was shivering by the time she finished. Of course, if she were being honest with herself, she would admit that she had been shivering before she had even left her bunk. She was so tired of the past, tired of reliving her failures over and over again. Her ghosts were overtaking her.
Pellek tugged her robes into place around her and found Carth and Dustil looking at a holomap in the common area. She could see hyperspace lines through the viewport. Dustil glanced up at her entry. "You look like hell," he said brightly. "I think your ghosts look more alive than you do."
She winced at the sound of his voice and almost snapped at him before she saw the smile around his eyes. He was teasing her. "Stim hangover is never worth it," she muttered.
Carth was staring at her with enough emotion in his eyes to make her uncomfortable. "I—I don't know how to thank you, Jedi," he began.
The weight of his gratitude was too much for her aching head. She didn't want to think about what would have happened if Dustil hadn't figured out what had happened on Espol. Saving lives was almost as much a burden as taking them. "You can thank me by pouring me a cup of that caffa," she grumbled.
Carth seemed to understand her discomfort because he handed her a cup and changed the subject. "Dustil and I were looking at the information from that datapad we found on Espol. It's some kind of map." He pointed to the starmap projected into the air above them.
Pellek frowned at the map. It was at a wide zoom, showing planets around the Outer Rim. A red line marked the boundary between Republic space and the Unknown Regions. "What do the blinking dots represent?" she asked. She counted five pulsing red lights scattered across the map and one white circle, larger than the others.
Carth zoomed in one portion of the map. The dot indicated a planet around a dim red star. "This is Espol, where we were. These other dots are Rakata, Korriban, and where Malachor used to be."
"Case and I found Sith holocrons on all of these planets," Dustil explained. "For whatever reason, the Force in those areas skews Dark. We found the remains of ancient places of power—the True Sith probably created them, but the modern Sith are drawn to them. It's easy to lose yourself there, even with the best intentions."
Pellek thought of Revan and her shadowed eyes. "And the last red location?" she asked.
Carth looked grim. "It's Telos," he said.
"Atris and her holocrons," she murmured, nodding. She explained for Dustil, "Last year, my crew and I found the secret base of a powerful fallen Jedi Master. I think she truly believed that she was just studying them, but Sith holocrons have a way of seducing you to listen harder than you intended. By the time I found her, she was Dark to the core."
"Not to mention batty as hell," Atton contributed, popping into existence next to Dustil. "Her handmaidens were pretty hot, though."
Pellek ignored Atton, though she was terribly relieved to see him looking well again. "One of my companions killed her, but it makes sense that there's something of a taint still there." She looked back at the map, zoomed out again to show all of the glowing dots. "You and Revan were tracking the True Sith by looking for these Dark places—did you find the source on Espol?"
Dustil shook his head. "I thought we had, but when I was fighting the Sith there a few days ago, before I was, er—"
"Shot," Carth interjected, eyes hard. "By me."
Atton choked. "The Admiral shot the kid and I wasn't there to see it? I've got to get a new agent."
"Shut up, Atton," Pellek and Dustil said at the same time. Dustil continued, "It's fine, Father, really. Anyway, the Sith told me that Case was with its master, so there must be something more powerful than it. Case must have figured that out on Espol, and that's why she went with the Sith."
Pellek shuddered. She didn't like where this was going at all. There was something they were missing about this, she was sure, something that connected all of these Dark locations to each other. "What about that circle?" she asked, pointed back to the map.
Atton leaned in to examine the map. "That's Vintar," he said in surprise.
"Vintar?" Pellek repeated. "But that means we left Bastila—"
"In a very bad place," Carth finished. "We're on our way back there now. I just hope we're not too late."
Bastila was trying very hard not to panic. They had been in the northern forest for a couple of hours now, but there was no trace of the Resistance Camp that Case and Follani claimed existed. In spite of her bold words in the city, Case had fallen almost immediately into a restless sleep, her hands tucked tightly under her arms. Gellan hadn't moved for hours, his chest barely rising with breath. Though the child was overtired and fretful, Bastila had asked Follani to check on both Gellan and Case periodically to make sure they were still alive, but Follani eventually curled up next to Gellan and fell asleep herself.
That left Bastila to try to navigate the speeder through the dark forest. The tall trees crowded in toward the speeder, and their feathery branches seemed to be reaching for her, tugging at her hair and brushing her hands. Reflected light from the planet Vintar circled turned everything around them a yellowish green and threw odd shadows across the trees. After not hearing it for weeks, the Force was loud in Bastila's ears, almost drowning out the hum of the speeder. The forest was full of life, not all of it friendly, and Bastila was extremely conscious of both her lack of a weapon and her minimal Force reserves. She was terrified that she would never find the Resistance Camp, or worse, would reach it only to find all of her companions dead.
Bastila reached for the Force and tried to calm herself. She knew from looking at the aerial maps on the Ebon Hawk that the forest was only a few kilometers deep, and Case had said the camp was just on the other side. She tried to suppress her fear that she had misjudged their direction and they were actually traveling along the forest line instead of through it. They had no supplies and would not survive a long sojourn in the woods. And she was so tired—
Suddenly the trees lit up and a blaster bolt flared across the speeder's bow. Five Vintari dropped out of the trees around them, blaster rifles aimed directly at her head. One of them shouted something in Vintari, words that Bastila clumsily translated into "State your business here!"
Bastila brought the speeder to a stop and raised her hands. "Please, we are refugees from the city. We have escaped the Force-user prison," she said in Basic. The only words she could translate into Vintari were "Please" and "Force-user." At the words, she felt a thread of fear ripple around the group.
Case stirred next to her and came fully awake when she saw the commotion around them. She rattled off a string of something in Vintari to them. Bastila caught "help" and "looking" from her words. Whatever Case said, it did not appear to satisfy the Vintari. One of them shouted and fired another shot over their heads. Bastila gathered what Force reserves she had and prepared for a fight she knew they would lose.
Follani popped up before Bastila could stop her. "Limae!" she shouted happily.
The Vintari who had been shouting lowered its weapon. "Follani?" it replied. The child leapt out of the speeder and threw herself into her sister's arms. Limae gestured to the other Vintari to lower their weapons and walked rapidly toward the speeder. "Who are you?" Limae asked in Vintari, slowly enough that Bastila could understand with the help of the Force.
"I am Bastila Shan, and this is Case Lanatal and Gellan Mar. Follani helped us escape from the Force-user prison."
Limae spoke too rapidly for Bastila to understand into a wrist comm. "Come," she ordered.
The rest of the trip went by in a blur. Bastila followed Limae's speeder through the last hundred meters to the edge of the woods. There, she saw that the "camp" was actually no more than tents scattered among the trees and up toward the low hills of the northern mountains. Perhaps fifty Vintari crowded around their speeder as they entered the camp.
Just as Bastila was beginning to panic again, a wrinkled Vintari with gray headfur approached. The others parted for the Vintari, and Bastila got the sense it was very old. "Greetings, travelers," it said in accented Basic. "I am Royei, Elder of this camp. We offer you refuge."
"Thank you, Elder," Case said in Vintari. She folded her hands and bowed respectfully.
Royei snatched Case's broken hands into her own and examined them closely. "This was done to you before, by a Dark one?" the Elder asked. There was a compassion in the Vintari's voice that reminded Bastila of Jolee, though she thought this healer was female.
Case nodded and tucked her hands awkwardly away. "I haven't been able to heal them," she said.
Bastila tried to pay attention to the Elder's response, but she had to keep jerking her eyes open. Her head was so heavy. She felt Royei's hand on her arm.
"They have taken the Force from you, child," Royei said, eyes full of pity. "You and your friends must rest and heal. Come."
Bastila allowed herself to be led like a youngling to a low tent. Inside were piles of sleeping pallets around a central fire. It was warm and smelled like tree sap and grass. Bastila nearly burst into tears in relief. Two Vintari walked a semiconscious Gellan into the tent and settled him onto a pallet. Bastila held Royei's hand, the Elder's skin rough against her palms. "Thank you, Elder," she whispered. Then Bastila sank gratefully into a pile of bedding, surrendering herself to the first warmth and security she had felt in a month. She was asleep before her head touched the pallet.
Carth eased the Hawk out of hyperspace, eyes on the radar for sentry ships. He breathed a sigh of relief to see nothing but empty space around them. Dustil and Pellek had decided that actively using the Force triggered something that alerted the Vintari to their presence, so they were both focused on shielding themselves and not reaching outward with the Force. The trouble with that plan was that they couldn't look for Bastila on the surface. They would have to hope that Bastila's transponder was still working.
Carth shook his head in irritation. He knew he never should have let Bastila take Follani to the Force user's camp by herself. He'd had the sneaking suspicion before they left that Bastila didn't know where the camp was, but he'd been so eager to get to Espol, so consumed with finding Case as soon as possible, that he'd let himself be persuaded that she would be fine.
Carth pushed away the crushing disappointment he felt at not finding Case on Espol. Thinking about it, about how they really had no idea where she might be now, did no good. He would not let himself hope that Case was on Vintar. First they would find Bastila, and then they would regroup.
He absentmindedly ran the nav checks while the computer updated itself. They were close enough to Republic space now that the computer should be able to get a signal from the Republic comm beacons. And, sure enough, the message light flashed on his comm overlay. Carth scrolled through the far too many messages, most of them work inquiries, and stopped on a familiar name. He pulled up Mission's message and leaned forward at the urgency in her voice.
"Carth, I hope you get this message, because you're not gonna believe what's going on here." There was no visual, just the audio. Carth listened to Mission describe the strange silo with the Sith holocrons inside. "I don't know where that stuff came from, but the holo transmission came from these coordinates," she said, and Carth saw that she had attached the coordinates to the message. He pulled them up while he listened to the rest of her message and was unsurprised to find that they pointed to Vintar.
He had a bad feeling about this. Mission's message seemed to confirm their suspicion that all of the Dark planets were connected to Vintar, but he didn't know how. Carth sent a quick reply back to let her know that he had received her message and would contact her later. Carth locked the nav controls and left the cockpit.
Pellek and Dustil were standing over the holoboard in the central room. They had a map of the planet projected in 2-D across the board. Dustil looked up when he entered. "The scanner's not picking up Bastila's transmitter," he said.
Carth frowned. "Are you sure there's no way to look for her with the Force?" he asked.
Pellek shook her head. "We're not safe, even from orbit. It was Dustil's contact with Case through their Bond that let them find us in hyperspace, remember? We were just lucky to escape then."
Dustil turned back to the map. "Bastila said she was going to a camp in the north, but I can't see anything like that on this map. It might be under the forest canopy where we can't see it, or it might not exist at all. Maybe we should go back to that city and see if they know anything."
"No way," Pellek said. "You didn't see that hospital, or whatever it was. Those people were Force-users, and they were wearing collars that stopped the Force. We won't escape from there a second time."
Carth made a quick decision. "We'll go down to the city in three days if we don't find the camp by then. Set the computer to listen for comm pings—maybe the camp will send us a signal."
If they were there, Carth thought. He headed toward the workbench to clean his blasters. He had the feeling he would need them.
Bastila woke to sunlight on her face. She opened her eyes slowly, reveling in the softness of the blanket around her body and the sound of the Force singing around her. The terror of her escape from the city had faded, and she felt rested for the first time since she had been with the cube.
She stretched oddly sore muscles and saw that the fire in the center of the tent had gone out. A haze of smoke sparkled in the sunlight. Bastila was alone in the tent. A small pile of clothes were laid out next to her and she gratefully changed into the worn tunic and pants. The tunic was far too large—she suspected it had once belonged to a human male—but she cinched it with a tie. Anything was better than the white prison garb she had been wearing for a month.
She emerged from the tent into the central clearing of the camp. It was clear that the Vintari here had adapted to camp life without the conveniences of the city. A group of Vintari females were hulling some kind of nut near the center of camp, laughing and talking as they worked. A group of males near the camp's perimeter were repairing what looked like fishing tools. Throughout the camp, Bastila could feel the hum of the Force. She had not been around so many active Force users since leaving the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, and it was a comforting feeling. Idly, she began calculating how many there were and whether they were too old for significant training.
"Bastila Shan!" a Vintari called. Bastila turned to see Limae walking her way. Gellan was with her, looking far more healthy than he had in weeks.
Bastila bowed to the Vintari, who she sensed held some kind of authority around camp. "Limae, thank you for your generous hospitality," she said.
Limae grasped Bastila's hands in hers. Her headfur was a brilliant blue. "Thank you, Bastila. My sister you bring. The gods smile," she said in halting Basic.
"Limae was showing me the camp garden," Gellan said. "Somehow they're using the Force to help the crops. I'm still not sure how they're doing it, but there's no other way they could get such a yield from this climate."
One of the Vintari males noticed Limae and waved. "My mate," she explained. "I go now. Talk more later." She ran lightly across the camp and touched her headfur to her mate's in greeting.
Bastila suddenly found herself alone with Gellan, and she was strangely anxious. "How are you feeling?" she asked to fill the silence.
"Better," Gellan replied with a smile. "I can't quite remember how we got here, but I know you saved my life. My thanks, Master Jedi." The intensity of his gaze was almost physical.
Bastila could feel the heat rising in her cheeks and she scolded herself for acting like a silly child. She was a Jedi Master, a representative of the Order for everyone on this moon to judge, and she ought to act accordingly. "I trust you are as relieved as I am to feel the Force again," she said, crossing her hands stiffly behind her back. She was relieved to hear her customary reserve in her voice.
Gellan's smile faltered for just a second before reappearing. It no longer reached his eyes. "I'd almost forgotten what it was like," he replied. He tapped his head. "I never realized how loud the Force is in here. It's a wonder you Jedi can function at all."
Bastila could see from his sea-blue aura that Gellan was fairly strong in the Force. Had he been taken for training as a child, Bastila was sure he would have been a powerful Jedi, but he was far too old now to ever reach his potential.
"There you are," a voice behind them said as a hand clapped Bastila's shoulder. Without thinking, Bastila Boosted herself ten meters away and spun around, ready to fight. Her heart was thundering in her chest. She caught her breath when she realized it was only Case, now looking bemusedly at both she and Gellan. Though he hadn't Boosted, Gellan also had his hands up to defend himself.
Bastila forced herself to breathe evenly as she walked back to Case. "My apologies," she began. She was ashamed at how easily she had frightened. Perhaps the prison had affected her more than she realized. "I do not—"
Case waved her hand dismissively. "No, it's my fault. I should have realized the two of you would still be jumpy for a while." She smiled reassuringly, but Bastila could see the concern in her eyes. "I'm sorry I wasn't there when you woke up—I've been talking with Royei, trying to find a way to get a signal off of this moon."
"Were you able to reach anyone on the comm?" Bastila asked.
Case shook her head. "The unit has a range of less than a hundred kilometers. I wouldn't have been able to reach anyone friendly even if they were in orbit. Then again, I'm next to useless when it comes to machines. Listen, I came to show you around the camp. And I'm dying to find out how you discovered this moon in a few months when I've been looking for it for five years." She looked at Bastila meaningfully, a bit of a smile on her face.
Gellan spoke up before Bastila could respond. "I may be able to do something with the comm to increase its range. Perhaps we can at least get a signal to orbit." He bowed courteously to them and left.
Case watched him as he walked into the Elder's tent. "He doesn't intrude on other people's business, does he?" she asked. "You wouldn't be able to keep me out of a conversation that started as ominously as mine did."
"It is not his way," Bastila replied, trying and failing not to smile.
Case grinned. "He's a little young for a near-middle aged woman like me, but he's easy on the eyes. And obviously taken with you, Master Jedi," she said, mimicking Gellan's polite tones.
Bastila focused on the Force and kept herself from blushing. "He is a good man," she said simply.
"Your mother would consider it a good match, I think."
There was too much in that sentence for Bastila to process at once. She blurted out the first protest that came to mind. "My mother? Case, I am quite certain that a Deralian farmer is not on her list of 'good matches,' were I even considering it, which I am not."
Case ignored her protest, gaping at her. "A farmer? Is that what he told you?"
"Well, yes. The oldest son. Force-sensitive, obviously, and relatively powerful, but it is too late for him to be trained, so he will never reach his full potential—" she trailed off.
Case started laughing. "Bastila, dear, the Mar family owns half of Deralia! Gellan will be head of the Trade Council in another few years. Deralia might be mostly farms and hlessi ranches, but even your mother wouldn't scoff at that!" She dissolved into laughter again, tears running down her cheeks.
Bastila knew her cheeks were flaming. She covered her embarrassment by falling back on an old argument. "I had hoped you might have learned some proper decorum in your years away, but I see that nothing has changed," she said coldly.
Case crossed her arms and returned Bastila's stare. All the amusement was gone from her expression. "When are you going to grow up, Bastila?" she asked.
"Grow up?" Bastila spat. "When are you going to realize that the only thing standing between us and the Darkness is the Jedi Code? Or have you forgotten what it feels like to let the Darkness pour through you? It feels good, Case, remember? And if we fall, who will protect the people from us? We are the only Jedi left!"
Case looked shaken. "What do you mean, the only Jedi left? What happened to the Order?"
She hadn't heard. Bastila's anger evaporated as she looked into Case's dark eyes. "Katarr," she said quietly. "A Sith Lord rose to power a few years after you disappeared. The Jedi, all but a few, met on Katarr to face the threat before it reached the Core Worlds. They—they were taken. Their life force was—was consumed by the Sith. It was a new kind of enemy, one they were not prepared to face. It was a void, and it destroyed the Order."
"The Sith that Dustil and I were tracking were like that. Terrifying. They don't want power, just to consume. They seek to destroy the Jedi because we channel the Force." Case looked down at her hands. Her fingers were curled in toward her palms, useless. "But these new Sith didn't break my hands. Their masters did that."
"Tepai?" Bastila asked. She remembered the smile on the Vintari's face as she watched Gellan fight the cube.
"And her mate," Case replied, eyes still on her hands. "She had him do it after I destroyed their Force collector. They snowed me under three collars until I couldn't feel the Force at all, and then he broke my fingers one at a time. To show me that they could do it." She looked up at Bastila, the concern back in her eyes. "But that was better than what they did to you, wasn't it? Violating you with the cube day after day—I don't know if I could have survived like you did, let alone escape."
"We must destroy that place," Bastila said.
Case nodded seriously. "I've seen this moon in my dreams, my memories. I was here, you know, after I fell. There was power here, and I knew it, but I didn't know how to use it yet. So I conquered the moon and left it occupied until I could find the source of the power. I thought then that it was on the Sith planet, Espol. I thought this moon only reflected Espol's darkness, but I was wrong. Something is here, something I triggered when I used the Dark side to take the moon, and I have to destroy it."
Bastila took Case's ruined hands in hers. "We will destroy it together," she vowed.
Case smiled. "Just like old times, right? Come on, let me show you around." She started through the camp, introducing Bastila to the Vintari they passed.
"How have you met everyone in just a day?" Bastila asked. Case was charismatic, certainly, but she was greeting these Vintari like she knew them.
Case looked chagrined. "I thought you knew. You were asleep for four days," she said.
"Four days?" Bastila exclaimed. "How could that be?"
"You and Gellan were both severely depleted of your life forces. Royei did what she could for you, but without a Force bond, you had to do most of the work yourselves. We actually thought Gellan might die on the second day, but he pulled through and woke up a few hours before you did." Case reached into a basket as they passed and scooped out a handful of hulled nuts. She handed them to Bastila. "Here, eat these," she ordered. "You must be ravenous."
Bastila ate the first nut and then had to stop herself from packing them all in her cheeks at once like a tinka mouse. She hadn't realized how hungry she was. Case handed over her canteen and Bastila drank deeply.
It took about an hour for Case to show Bastila the camp. It contained a meager armory, living tents, a healer's tent, and food stores. Bastila wondered how they would survive the winter with so few supplies. Royei greeted them briefly near the small garden. She seemed pleased with Bastila's recovery but clucked over Case's hands. She shooed them on their way, but not before insisting that Case see her later that day for another healing attempt.
They approached the group working on the fishing spears. "Bastila, you've already met Limae. This is her mate, Tykhol." Tykhol bowed respectfully and spoke to her in Vintari. Listening hard through the Force, Bastila could make out "Greetings, Bastila Shan. You honor us by returning my mate's sibling."
"Limae and Tykhol are responsible for defense of the camp," Case explained. "There aren't many weapons here, but they maintain them and assign Vintari to patrols." She quickly translated her words for the Vintari.
Limae nodded. "When we escape, we bring what we have, so few weapons here," she said in choppy Basic. "Hard to keep safe. Much fear."
"Since Tepai and Startol started their campaign to collect Force users, the Force Sensitive Vintari who could escape have come here," Case said. She waved her hand around to the thinly populated camp. "You can see that most don't make it here. The whole camp lives in fear that Tepai and her people will attack one day and wipe them out."
Tykhol's hands clenched tightly around the hook he was affixing to the spear. Case translated for Bastila. "We defeated the Dark Jedi, but we are still slaves to the Darkness. Tepai and her mate shame us all when they mistreat their own. And now we find that they are enslaving foreigners—it cannot go on." He turned to Case and resumed what must have been an earlier conversation. "We cannot leave the camp defenseless, but we can mount a force of twenty to attack the city."
Limae gestured with the fishing spear. "Not attack until ready. Must train first." She looked hopefully at Bastila. "Case say you train in Force."
Bastila looked sharply at Case, who looked positively mischievous. "I might have exaggerated your teaching abilities," she admitted with a smile. "Come on, let's get a proper meal in you, and you can tell me the best way to train twenty Force adepts to fight a city full of hostiles in two weeks' time." She bowed politely to Limae and Tykhol and started back toward the center of camp without seeing if Bastila was following.
Bastila lengthened her stride to catch up to her. She caught Case by the arm. "Case!" she protested. "How can you expect such a thing? It will take years to train these people properly, not weeks!"
Gellan's reappearance from the Elder's tent stopped Case from responding. He jogged over to them. "Good news," he said. "I've gotten the comm signal to reach orbit, and—"
"Already?" Case interrupted. "Since when did Nahonan Mar start letting his heirs learn electronics instead of ag management and diplomacy?"
Gellan grinned. "Don't worry, I learned plenty of both of those, too. Electronics is just a hobby. Anyway, I got a signal to orbit, and I got a response ping."
"A ship?" Bastila asked in surprise. Perhaps her friends weren't dead, after all. Or perhaps, she thought with a shiver of fear, the Vintari had sent a ship to find them.
"Just a directional response," Gellan replied. "Our comm is too weak to pick up a voice recording. All I know is that there's something in orbit and it's setting down ten klicks from here near the river."
"Well, let's see who it is," Case said. "There's a couple vibroblades and a blaster rifle in that speeder. We'll just get close enough to see if they're friendly."
Bastila maneuvered the speeder through the edge of the forest and started toward the river. She didn't have the heart to tell Case that it might be the Ebon Hawk in case it turned out to be another false hope. But as they crested the hill, Bastila saw the familiar wedge of the Hawk on the leeward plains. Two figures were approaching on foot.
"Dustil!" Case called. She swung out of the speeder while it was still moving and ran up to the young man. He was gaping at her, disbelief all over his face. Pellek, her red hair brilliant in the midday sun, stood stiffly next to him. Bastila brought the speeder to a halt and she and Gellan joined the group.
Dustil embraced Case joyfully. "My gods, we weren't expecting to find you here! Are you all right?" he asked.
"Of course," she replied. Bastila noticed that she kept her hands balled into fists to hide them.
"Good," Dustil replied, then suddenly swung and punched Case across the jaw. Case staggered away. Bastila was too shocked to move. Dustil shook out his hand and grinned hard. "That's for the Force Persuade on Espol. You try that again, woman, and I'll use a blaster rifle next time."
The silence drew out for a long moment, and then Case burst into laughter. She rubbed her jaw with her shoulder. "I guess I deserved that. Thank you for coming, Dustil. I'm so glad to see you well." Case turned to Pellek and smiled. "Pellek Tran, it's been too long," she said.
Pellek didn't move a millimeter closer. "Revan," she said shortly.
Case's eyes widened. She opened her mouth to speak, but Dustil interrupted with a hand on her arm. "Case. It's Father. He's here."
The color fell away from Case's face so fast that Bastila thought she might pass out. "Here?" she whispered.
"On the ship," Dustil replied, concern in his eyes.
Case looked around as though searching for an escape route, but then she took a deep breath. She started walking toward the Hawk, then broke into a run.
"What's on the ship?" Gellan asked.
Dustil's eyes followed Case across the riverbank. "Everything, to her."