Ch. 3: Atton

"Someone yet lives beyond this door. Be careful, his thoughts are…difficult to read. Yet, you have nothing to fear from this one. He may yet prove useful," said Kreia in my head.

I continued to the door, wondering what Kreia meant. As the door to the holding cells opened I remembered what I was wearing, or wasn't, depending on how you look at it. I had the urge to jump aside, but it was too late, the door was already open. And, there I was, scantily clad in all the glory of my god-awful underwear.

I walked into the room and the man in the holding cell looked up, surprised. I wasn't sure if it was due to the fact that there was someone there or what that person was wearing, I figured the latter. "Nice outfit, you miners change regulation uniform while I've been in here," he said, looking me over.

"I'd keep the eyes up and tell me who you are," I said, my rudeness masking my embarrassment.

"Atton," he replied, standing up and avoiding stepping on the Pazaak cards in front of him. "Atton Rand. Excuse me if I don't shake hands, the security field only causes mild electrical burns," he continued sarcastically.

"I guess you should've thought of that before you got yourself locked up."

"Hey! It's not my fault," he said defensively. "Security claimed I violated some trumped-up regulation or another. Go ahead and take it up with them if you want, but they stopped listening to me shortly before they stopped feeding me. Now that's criminal."

"Well, I don't know who you're expecting to come listen to your sad little story since aside from you, me, and some old woman, this place is deserted. What happened here?"

"You mean before or after that Jedi showed up? Either way it's a real short story," he shrugged and continued, "You see, this Jedi shows up and you know what that means, where there's one, the entire Republic will soon be crawling up your ion engine in no time. But the story gets better, you see the miners get into their ferrocrete skulls that since the Jedi's unconscious they can collect the bounty the Exchange has posted on live Jedi. Well, what passes for the law here didn't like that idea so the two groups started fighting. Then, I heard some big explosion, I was sitting here for a long time, then you showed up in your underwear and things got a lot better."

"Very funny," I couldn't help but laugh, I knew how ridiculous I looked running around like that. "But you said there's a bounty on Jedi, why?"

"Honestly, I don't know that much about it, my guess is the Exchange wants one as a trophy, or, someone has something against them and is looking to collect. I bet it's pretty high too, since there aren't many left."

"What happened to them?"

"Well, the ones who weren't killed in the Jedi Civil Was ended up switching off the lightsabers a long time ago. Word is there's not even a Jedi Council any more, but who knows?"

"A war between Jedi?"

"Yeah, Revan and Malak and the Jedi who followed them turned on the others and had a scrap that nearly laid wasted to the galaxy. Where have you been?"

I hesitated, "I've been…away. Since the Mandalorian Wars but," I said changing the subject, "that really doesn't matter right now. I need to know what happened here."

"I already told you what I know, which isn't much. And, I mean it's not like your half-naked interrogation isn't a personal fantasy of mine but—" he stopped for a second and looked at me. "Wait a minute, you're that Jedi they were talking about! Where is everyone?"

"You don't know?" I asked, unpleasantly surprised.

"Yeah, I saw the whole thing from my wonderful view in this security cage. Look, I heard some explosions, some alarms going off, and some toxic gas pouring from the vents, maybe none of them survived. And…if they're all gone," his expression changed, "hey, let me out. I can help, really. I've gotten out of trouble countless times."

"That means you've gotten into it 'countless times.' And how do I know I can trust you? Cause you sure seemed to know a lot about what the miners were planning to do and I still think you were locked up for a reason."

"I told you it was a misunderstanding. I could clear it up, if I could speak to someone in charge, but there seems to me that there's no chance of that happening unless you let me out. And as for how you can trust me, I need you to let me out and you'll probably need me to get past the security here."

"Ok, so how can you help?" still unsure if I could trust him.

"Just in case you don't understand the trouble we're in, let me lay it out for you. This facility is a series of mining tunnels dropping miles into the asteroid's core. Every worker and droid here has been cleared, and then triple cleared for hazardous operations. This facility has an operational threat level so high that they don't allow un-cleared starships in system out of fear that an accidental engine discharge will create a very brief, very hot new sun in this sector.

"You know why? Because every asteroid in this orbiting minefield has deposits of Peragian fuel within it—that means when one decides to pop, its brothers and sisters are coming along for the ride. One explosion, you might survive, but 100? 1000? You'll be riding out of here on a comet trail, Jedi. So, if something's gone wrong here, you can cling to the Force all you want but nothing will stop this place from going critical."

"Alright, alright I get it. And after hearing all that I'm assuming you've got some sort of plan to get out of here."

"This facility isn't a military installation, which means we may have a chance. If you shut down the cell's security field, I can reroute the emergency systems and we can get to the hangars. We grab a ship and fly out of here."

"Sounds good. But, one thing first, the patients in the medbay were killed with a lethal dose of sedatives. You know anything about that?"

" No, should I?" he said angrily. "Maybe you should ask one of those miners thinking of selling you to the Exchange. Maybe they wanted to drug you up for transport, ever think of that?"

"Calm down. I was only asking you, not accusing you."

"So are you done interrogating me or are we going to work together?"

"You're right, I'm going to need your help. I'll shut the field down." I walked over to the controls and shut it off. Atton picked up the Pazaak cards still lying at his feet and walked over.

"Great—now let's get to the command console," he said, gesturing for me to go first.

"I don't think so, you first," I told him, not liking the idea of him staring at me the whole way over there.

As we got to the command console Atton began to work on shutting the emergency systems down, talking as he didso. "Alright," he said, "this console's set on automatic hail, you probably heard it when you came in. The drift charts are constantly being updated so it sends out a transmission to incoming vessels so they don't get crushed into space dust." He stopped as the computer flashed some data across the screen. He read it and continued, still looking at the computer, "The hail warns them to keep their distance until orbital drift charts are transmitted, and then provides docking instructions to incoming ships, usually freighters. Thing is," he said looking up, "you can bounce that same transmission back to the command console and suddenly you've got access to the communication system from the inside." He turned back to the console and continued working. "Pure Pazaak, the console's ours. Now all we have to do is reactivate the turbo lifts, cancel the emergency lockdown—hey!"

"Hey, what?" I said worried, looking over his shoulder at the console.

"The system's been severed from the main hub—after it was locked down. I can't even reroute it, it's been cut clean."

"Why would that happen? That's not standard procedure."

He looked up from the console, "You're right. Someone tried to lockdown this whole level. Leaving us here. Trapped."

"Isn't there some way to end the lockdown from here?"

"I doubt it, all we've got is communications back. For all the good shouting in a vacuum will do us."

"Could we reach someone on the comm.?"

"We could try, but if those miners were trying to trap and probably kill you, why not call them and chat?"

"Well, we can't do much else. There's no other way to the hangar."

"Be my guest, comm.'s all yours."

Atton stepped back as I went up to the console. I switched to the comm. system. I knew Atton was right about the miners but I needed to find out what was going on, and they were the only ones who were going to know.

I tried the dormitories first but no one answered. The only other place I could get a signal from was the hangar bay.

"Is anyone there?" I asked.

There was some low beeping on the other side, a utility droid.

"Can you read me?" The droid answered. I asked if it was operational, it was. "We're trapped on the administration level. Is there any way you could unlock the turbolifts to the mining tunnels?"

The droid answered no, that terminal was locked as well as missing parts.

"Well, there's got to be an emergency hatch around there, try and find one."

The droid reminded me that due to the explosions the mines were probably unstable.

"I know, but I'd rather risk it than to stay trapped up here, besides—"

"Wait a minute," Atton broke in, "You can't go into the tunnels. Were you listening to anything I said earlier?"

"What other choice do I have? I don't particularly enjoy being trapped here and that's the only way left to get to the hangar."

"Alright, but you're either really brave or really crazy…or both," he muttered.

I turned back to the console. "When you find the hatch open it and contact us," I said to the droid.

"Well, what now?" asked Atton from behind me.

"There's not really much we can do until that droid gets the hatch open."

"Great, I was wondering when I was going to get to sit around some more," he said. "I still think you're crazy."

"Well, you're not the first," I said as I sat down and leaned against the console.

"So tell me, what's a Jedi doing here anyway?" he asked sitting down next to me.

"First of all, I'm not a Jedi, anymore," I said flatly. "And, honestly, I have no idea what I'm doing here."

"You mean you didn't come here on purpose? I'm shocked, I really am," he said sarcastically. "I heard you came in on some freighter, a smuggling ship or something."

"You know, for someone who's been locked up you sure know a lot about what's going on," I said somewhat suspiciously, he didn't look at me. I continued, "I was on the Harbinger on my way to Onderon. Kreia told me it was attacked. But I don't remember that, a freighter, or getting to this station. Hell, for all I know I could've teleported here."

"Who's Kreia?"

"Some crazy old woman who's haunting the morgue. I don't know really. She wouldn't say much but I think she knows more than she's telling me."

"Haunting the morgue? You sure you weren't in the kolto tank too long?"

"Trust me, I've asked myself that at least ten times today, but I'm not making it up."

"So, what's with not being a 'Jedi anymore'? Obviously it's not because of the Jedi Civil War since you were so clueless about it."

"It's a long story," I said, hoping to deter any more questions about it.

"Well, like you said, we're not going anywhere."

I sighed, knowing he wasn't going to drop it. "I was exiled, after the Mandalorian Wars."

"Exiled?"

"Yeah, they saw my following Revan to war as betrayal. So they exiled me."

"Why did you go back to them after the war. Most of the Jedi continued to follow Revan. That's what I heard anyway."

"There were certain…circumstances. I just couldn't anymore."

He didn't say anything for a minute. Then he looked at me, "Do you regret it? Going to war?"

"I've thought about that a lot and no, I don't. Not even once. We went to stop the Mandalorians, the Council was going to let more people die while they sat and watched," I heard the bitterness in my voice as I said it. "We stopped them, Revan did. Then, I went back because I had nothing else left, and they exiled me," I turned my head away, thinking. He didn't ask anymore about it. "So what happened to all the Jedi," I asked.

"Well, a lot of them died in the Jedi Civil War. Or they abandoned it and followed Revan."

"Because of the Mandalorian Wars?"

"I guess so. I wasn't there, but Revan and Malak turned on each other, after turning on the other Jedi of course. As to what happened next, there's rumors all over space about it. What I heard is that Revan came back to take care of Malak for betraying her."

"I heard she came back to save the Jedi, and the Republic."

"Maybe. All I heard was that she came back to finish Malak. You know women. I mean I wasn't there, but I heard what she was like during the Mandalorian Wars: quick to take care of anybody who crossed her. Dark Jedi are bad enough, but when a woman falls to the Dark Side you better space yourself before they catch you. No offense or anything."

"None taken. So what happened to Revan then?"

"No idea. Nobody knows really. She just kind of disappeared after the War."

I sat thinking about Revan; I hadn't for a long time. I knew her during the Mandalorian Wars. Not personally, but I got to know what she was like. She was always different, one of the best Jedi there was. But she changed during the War. You could see it when you looked at her. There was something else on her mind. I was a General under her at Malachor. I knew a lot of the plans that she had but I was never in her close circle, she didn't trust me completely. Our goals became somewhat incompatible. I wanted to stop the Mandalorians, to stop the death. She wanted something else, she never told me what.

Atton interrupted my thoughts, "It must've been hard being a Jedi. No family, no husband…"

"No more difficult than listening to your false sympathy while you stare at my chest."

"Hey I wasn't—" he stammered.

I laughed. Just then there was a beeping from the console. We got up and checked it. The screen showed that the emergency hatch had been opened from remote.

"Hey," said Atton, "What do you know, that cargo cylinder came through."

"Yeah, but why didn't he contact us?"

Atton scratched his head, "I don't know. But you aren't really going into the tunnels are you? The explosion I heard came from down there. There's probably nothing there but superheated rock and collapsed tunnels."

"There's not really much choice."

"Alright, I'll monitor things from up here. Be careful—the only thing moving down there is likely going to be mining droids—so don't be playing hero too hard."

"Why? Are you worried about me?" I asked laughing.

"It's not like I care what happens to you or anything," he said backtracking. "I just don't want to be trying to get off this rock alone."

"I see. Alright, see you soon."

"I'll keep the comlink open, I may be able to guide through the tunnels from up here. I don't know if the signal will hold if you go too deep though."

With that I left to get to the emergency hatch and headed into the tunnels.