Author's Notes

Hi, everyone. I know it's been a long time, but a lot of stuff happened these past few months. Some of it good, most of it hard on my time and health. Sorry for making you wait.

Originally, I wanted to cover Coruscant in one sweeping chapter, but then I got to it, and ended up with seven thousand words, and I'm not even halfway done, so I'll be splitting the capital world into two (three?) chapters.

Let's dive in.

EDIT NOTE: there was a scene at the end of the previous chapter with Tabook and Revan meeting Yoda. Yeah, I jumped the gun with that one as it belongs in the later chapters. If you read it before, please forget it for now—Revan and Tab will have a proper conversation with the High Council later.

Chapter 4

"Here she is," said Dooku. "Coruscant."

The cockpit screens dimmed the yellow sun, and the pinprick of light orbiting it stood out against the backdrop of space like an impossibly bright distant star. The point of white got brighter and brighter, and Tab began to see that it wasn't white at all: just an amalgam of purples and reds and blues all melding into one color from afar. It was a small discus now: they were coming from the dark side. The cruiser slowed down to a halt.

"This is Deva's Fall, requesting permission to land," said the captain.

Static crackled for several seconds before someone replied, "Welcome back, Deva's Fall. Routing you to the landing platform."

The ship began to accelerate, and the planet expanded. Flares of colors became shapes unfolding across its surface. What little darkness there was between the lights was short-lived. A crescent of light shone across the face of the planet where the day was beginning to overtake the night. It dispersed in the haze of the atmosphere and gave that entire side of Coruscant an eerie glow.

"It's beautiful," said Tab.

"It's vulnerable," said Revan. "All the people and government in one place."

Now that they were close enough, Tab could see the lattice of space stations and fleets parked in orbit all around the planet. For every one that left to land, another came in. It was impossible to tell their shapes or models from this distance without taking control of the sensors, so they looked like fireflies, swirling around a campfire. Tab closed his eyes, and reached out through the Force. Coruscant was louder than Nar Shaddaa. A trillion voices cried out in passion, feeling, and despair. He frowned. The deeper below the surface he delved, the more frantic the thoughts of the citizens got. Tab could still sense a pang of love or caring or compassion here and there, but almost everything was primal: starvation, bone-deep tiredness, sexual need, and enough screaming anger to burn a world to the ground. He tried to go even deeper when he felt Revan grab him by his left shoulder and shake him out of the trance.

He saw he had fallen to his knees at some point.

"I'm sorry," Tab said, rising. He looked to Dooku. "Coruscant is overpowering. This is where all the Padawans get trained?"

"Yes, it is," said the Count, slightly smiling.

"A place like this . . ." Tab shook his head. "I wouldn't let anyone unexperienced into the system."

As they were coming into the city, Tab was again reminded of the first time he had landed on Nar Shaddaa. Coruscant looked different enough: towers of glass and steel jutted from its pristine white surface, thousands of feet high—any landing diplomat would no doubt be impressed by this. But to one who knew the Force, this place's underbelly was far more prominent than that layer of veneer. Then again, he had introduced Mira to the Force on Nar Shaddaa, and she turned out fine, if a bit obsessed with tracking her targets down and with a bit of an exhibitionism streak. Then again, maybe she had been that way from the beginning, and the Force just help her become free.

Deva's Fall touched down with a soft thud half a minute after Windu's cruiser. Ships of this size were borderline unsafe for a landing pad crammed between skyscrapers.

"I wonder where all the waste goes," said Revan as they were walking toward the exit. "I looked it up as we were approaching: Coruscant has more than a trillion people." Revan shook his head and turned to Dooku. "I have no idea what your leaders are thinking, putting all your eggs into one basket that can't sustain itself even for a week. You import most of the food and then haul all the trash off the planet, don't you?"

Dooku looked at them askance. "That's the way the Republic has been run for a thousand years."

Tab said, "A lot of stuff has been done for a thousand years: domestic violence, child soldiers, slavery . . . doesn't mean it's right."

"Haven't you been to Coruscant before?" asked Dooku.

"I could never have forgotten setting foot on this world," said Tab.

The airlock hissed open, and city lights poured in from the outside. Tab and Revan started walking down after Dooku, the crew of the cruiser behind them. They hadn't been able to repair their robes yet, so they must have looked strange in Dooku's refitted brown Jedi Master robes, with double-bladed lightsabers on their belts.

Tab hadn't lied: he didn't know this Coruscant.

The planet was the homeworld of the human race, so it had been the most populated world in the Old Republic, but in this reality it was so much worse. Immaculate towers stretched impossibly far upward as if trying to get as much distance from Coruscant's underworld as possible. There was no trace of dust or dirt on the platform they were stepping on, and he suspected that an army of cleaning droids would descend upon it as soon as their party left for the Temple. Mace Windu, Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan were waiting for them, looking perfectly calm. Tab wondered if they could teach him to be deaf to the screams he was hearing from below the ground.

He heard Revan's voice in his head. "This Dark Side shroud technique . . . it's impossible to tell, but it could be tied to here or Nar Shaddaa or any world bursting from overpopulation."

Dooku cocked his head to the right as if listening for a distant voice, and Tab didn't risk answering his friend. They had sparred and debated philosophy with Dooku often enough: the man was already developing a bond with both of them whether he knew it or not.

They walked across the platform and toward the receiving party. The artificial lights of the landing pad made the three Jedi look like Force Ghosts.

"I sense unease from you, Revan," said Qui-Gon. "Relax, you are under the protection of the Jedi."

Tab said, "It's not that. Can't you hear it?"

"Hear what?" asked Obi-Wan.

Revan said, "The heart of the planet, yelling its suffering into the void. Billions of souls crammed together, so that people up here can enjoy their open sky and gardens. It's sickening."

"Coruscant can get loud, but it's not nearly as bad as you describe." said Windu. "Now follow us."

Tab followed after Revan. He could see his friend unconsciously shift into a prowl Revan normally used when sneaking into enemy strongholds, and Tab barely kept himself from fingering his lightsaber. He got closer to Revan to make sure the sounds of the city would drain out what he was about to say.

Tab said, "Something is wrong here. A force-sensitive boulder could sense that Coruscant is built on misery and desire and power. Let me try something."

The Temple wasn't far. It was a white monstrosity that towered half a mile into the air and didn't at all resemble the Coruscant Temple they remembered. Tab closed his eyes and let the Force replace his sight like Visas had taught him when she had first opened up to him. He pushed away the wave or poignant caring and focused on the sounds of their steps. One-two, one-two, went the Jedi. Revan was slightly out of step, but the others were perfectly synchronized. He frowned and went deeper, looking at Obi-Wan as the youngest one and least likely to notice a probe.

The Padawan was strong in the Force—too powerful for that rank. He shone bright to Tab's senses, pure in his convictions and fierce in his desire to defend Qui-Gon from any attack. It was interesting but beside the point, so Tab went a bit farther.

There was a net of impossibly-thin crimson strands, woven into the very fabric of Obi-Wan's being. He saw that the Padawan's core tried to resist the net, but it was almost encased in it.

"Master, I feel strange," said Obi-Wan.

Panicking, Tab pulled back—he had no desire to explain this technique or how he knew it to the Jedi—and his consciousness tore at the net on the way out.

Obi-Wan howled and the Force responded with a cry of anguish of its own.

The Padawan gripped the sides of his head, and Tab saw crimson pour from under the fingers before Obi-Wan fell to the floor, writhing. Qui-Gon and Windu just stood there. Hadn't they felt the boy's pain?

This was his fault.

Tab rushed to the body and barely registered Revan stepping between him and the two Jedi. There was the snap-hiss of lightsabers. Tab placed his right palm on the boy's forehead and felt Obi-Wan's consciousness beat in agony. He realized his mistake then: Obi-Wan was perhaps even more sensitive to the tides of the Force than even Tab, but the boy lacked Tab's training. Kreia and Visas had taught Tab to hear only what he needed and discard everything else, but apparently Obi-Wan had never had to learn to silence the cacophony of the strings of fate and emotions of others. He heard Windu yell something and sensed Qui-Gon fall to his knees. He could see it now—the bond between Master and Padawan, especially strong in their case.

Tab cursed himself for his confidence that the Jedi in this world were inferior to him and Revan in every way.

He didn't have the time to be subtle, so he pulled at the Force in the space around him: both at the waves of tranquility coming from the Temple and the thrumming of passion beating in the levels of the city below him, and he used it to flood his nerves and muscles with energy. There was a flash of white pain as his diminished capacity protested, and he felt Revan shoulder some of the burden.

Revan's lightsaber clattered onto the ground. The world slowed down, and he dived into Obi-Wan's mind. It was a wreck: there were holes in the barrier that Jedi kept to protect himself, and the Force poured into them in a torrent of visions. It was as if they were deep underwater, and somebody had breached the walls of the submarine. Tab could see fragments: a queen, proud on her throne but so young; a boy naïve but intuitively knowing too much; a squad of Jedi on a battlefield, fighting against an army of droids . . . Tab pushed the images away. Even with the speed he had gained by pushing himself to the limit, he didn't have much time to fix Obi-Wan before the entire Temple woke up and got in the way.

He breathed willed Obi-Wan's inner world around him to obey.

"What are you doing?"

He could see the figure of the Padawan standing on a vortex of light across from him. That Obi-Wan was able to maintain enough of a presence of mind during this mess was in itself amazing.

"I broke your mental defenses, and the Force is pouring in," said Tab. "Let me help fix this."

"No, I mean, what are you doing here, Tabook Nashdar? What do you and Revan the Redeemed hope to accomplish?"

Tab focused on the boy, and he saw that only one of Obi-Wan's eyes was normal. The other was a swirl of azure and crimson, like Revan at his worst.

The world shook, and two more holes opened in the walls around them.

He said, "Look, you need to live, Obi-Wan. I have foreseen it. Help me open a channel, and I will fix this."

Tab had foreseen nothing, but it was the only way to talk to someone high on the Force. Obi-Wan stood still as the storm encroached upon his mind, before the Padawan finally nodded and raised both of his hands.

Tab sat on the glowing ground, and pulled at all the power he had available. A tentacle of energy twisted its way out of his stomach.

###

Shaak Ti was painting when she heard the song. She frowned and refocused on the rectangle of white, green, red, white, and blue that she was working on. The wind from the cranked-up ventilation caressed her skin as she carefully put the brush to the canvas and made on stroke of brilliant green. The movement of air reminded her of her homeworld, and she could almost smell the odor of a thousand grasses of all colors and heights, and of the animals roaming the endless expanse. As always, a deep feeling of loss came—not like the loss of a limb but like being the limb left behind. Shaak Ti breathed out and released the tangle of emotions into the Force. It felt a bit easier than the day before. She reached for a brush dipped in white.

A cord struck in the Force reverberated through her, discordant and loud, and it shattered her trance.

Shaak Ti blinked and looked at the painting. It wasn't even half done, and she had planned to paint for at least another hour before going to sleep. The alarm didn't sound, but she would be remiss in her duties as a Jedi Knight if she didn't check out what was wrong. With a sigh, she headed to the chrome locker in the corner, brushing her fingers against the row of potted plants occupying an entire wall of her private forty-five-square-foot rectangle.

There were layers to Jedi Knights robes—they weren't savages to wear them over bare skin, which was why she kept as little of herself covered as possible when in her quarters. For a Togruta, the feral side was never too far. She put on the white tunic and dark trousers, put her brown robe over it and tied it with a belt. She picked up her lightsaber and clipped it to her belt.

Carelessness got Jedi killed.

With a sigh, she rinsed the paint off her brushes and left her quarters.

Hooded lamps and many-colored crystals illuminated the hallways of the Temple at night, making it look like a magical castle out of some fairytale. In the shifting lights, the statues of Masters of Old seemed to move looking after her as she passed. You can relax, Masters, she thought. The Temple is as always.

It took her a minute to pinpoint the source of whatever had disturbed her. The call was coming from the Halls of Healing, and Shaak Ti quickened her pace when she realized that. Someone was hurt, and she knew she needed to be here.

She finally made it to one of the infirmaries. The door wasn't locked, and muffled voices were coming from the other side. She hesitated on the threshold for a moment, but she could hear the call stronger now. A clear note, broken by disharmonious riffs, like a band from a Coruscant underworld cantina having broken into an opera.

The Force had led her here. She would be fine.

Shaak Ti pushed the button to the right of the door, walked inside, and nearly jumped back out. Grandmaster Yoda was here and Master Windu and Master Qui-Gon—perhaps the three most famous Jedi of the Order, although for different reasons. Four beds with patients were in the middle of the room and Head Healer Vokara Che, a legendary Master in her own right, was busy with the scanning equipment.

"Knight Ti," said Grandmater Yoda. He didn't sound at all surprised.

"Master Che is trying to help them, Knight Ti," said Master Windu. "Now isn't the best time to come here." He narrowed his eyes. "In fact, this place is supposed to be empty at this time, so what are you doing here?"

Master Qui-Gon stayed silent, his gaze riveted to one of the prone figures on the beds. Shaak Ti recognized his apprentice, pale and sweating. The other figures looked a little better: Master Dooku and two men she couldn't place.

"I sensed something during my painting meditation, Masters. Like a harmony broken by screams. It led me here."

Master Windu looked like he wanted to question her further, but Grandmaster Yoda tapped his walking stick against the floor. "Time for this we have not. If the Force led Knight Ti here has, of some aid she might be. Coincidence this is not." He turned his gaze to the healer. "Master Che, troubled you look. What your assessment is?"

Master Che looked like she had been in deep sleep when she got woken up. The blue of her Twi'lek face was tinged with grey, and her lekku twitched in agitation, which she didn't seem to pay any mind. She shook her head.

"The patients aren't responsive, so Knight Ti may stay as long as she doesn't get in the way. I will remind you, Masters, that the Halls of Healing are my domain, not the High Council's. No offence, Grandmaster."

Yoda nodded. "This way it be should. Lives on you depend."

"Thank you, Grandmaster. Anyway, the patients don't seem to be hurt physically apart from an alarming degree of tension in the muscles that is probably a side-effect of whatever is wrong with the nervous system." She shook her head. "But I can't get through. I would expect this from Master Dooku—his mental defenses are formidable indeed—but even your Padawan, Master Jinn . . . it's like there is an ice wall around Padawan Kenobi's mind, and when I push, it seems to sprout blades. You have taught him well."

The frown on Qui-Gon's face grew deeper. He said, "I can sense my Padawan still, but much has changed. It doesn't feel dangerous, but it is alarming. He didn't have these defenses in the morning."

"Bloody hell, that hurt." Cam a deep voice, and one of the figures on the table stirred and sat up.

The man had been covered with a sheet, but now that he was up, his torso was open for display, and Shaak Ti averted her eyes. How this much muscle managed to stay on his bones and not look grotesque was beyond her.

The doors slid open and a familiar person burst in.

"Where is he?" asked Padawan Siri Tachi. "Is he alright?"

Tachi started to move toward Obi-Wan, but Shaak Ti held her back with an arm. "Calm yourself, Padawan," she said. "Master Che herself is treating your friend."

Meanwhile, Master Che had pushed the patient who had woken up back down. "You are in the Halls of Healing," she said. "Please don't move until I determine that it's safe for you to do so. Do you remember your name?"

"Revan," he said. "And I don't have a concussion, a tumor or brain damage." He looked around the room. "What the hell is this, a zoo?"

Master Che said, "These are Grandmaster Yoda, Knight Ti, and Padawan Tachi. I believe you have met Master Jinn and Master Windu."

"And you are?" asked Revan and smiled with a raised eyebrow.

It took Shaak Ti a moment to place that kind of smile as it almost never happened in the Temple. He was flirting! The man had the audacity to flirt with his healer and with Vokara Che at that. There is definitely something wrong with his head, she thought.

"Enough," said Master Windu. "A Padawan and a Master of our Order are hurt because of you. You will explain what happened, and you will do so now."

"Master Windu," said Master Che. "Do not threaten my patients."

Her voice was completely calm, and yet Master Windu backed down. Outside of a couple High Council meetings she had attended, Shaak Ti had never seen the senior Jedi of her Order together, and it was fascinating.

Revan sighed and stared at the ceiling. "Boy, did Tab manage to screw up . . ."

And he told them. Of how wrong Coruscant felt to the senses of him and his friend when they landed, of how they noticed the other Jedi didn't seem to notice a trillion people around them, most living in poor conditions and full of emotion.

He was saying, ". . . we have been taught far away from here, and shared a Master—her name is none of your business—who could see with the Force so well that her eyes had atrophied. So we are sensitive to this sort of thing, and Tab is much better than me. Looks like something affects everyone here, so he couldn't outright talk to you about it. Must have tried to examine Obi-Wan. The kid probably sensed it and panicked, and Tab broke his barriers by accident." Revan looked at Master Jinn. "You Padawan, does he have visions from the Force?"

Master Jinn nodded, "Several times now. Obi-Wan is very talented."

Revan continued, "Visions must have flooded poor chap's skull, and Tab pulled on everything he had to seal the breaches. Knocked himself out in the process, and it echoed to me, and, to a lesser degree, Master Dooku."

Shaak Ti frowned. "Why not to the others?"

Revan shrugged. "Tab doesn't know the others. I know he pulled on my presence for support, and I just gave him what he needed, and my lights went out before I hit the ground. Perhaps he reached to Master Dooku too, or the man might have looked at the process at a bad time. Mind-healing is a tricky business, so you'll need to ask the two of them when they wake up. Anyway, everyone will be alright after eight hours of sleep or so. Now, where is my stuff?" Revan shook his arms and legs and stretched experimentally. Smiling, he said, "And that's how much you are going to get. Leave a room for me, will you? I'm going out."

The healer bristled. "You can't leave yet! There are still examinations to be done."

Master Windu moved forward, right hand on his lightsaber. "You aren't going anywhere."

Revan got up and just stood there, silent, smiling at Grandmaster Yoda. Yoda nodded and said, "No grounds him to keep have we. For his friend come back he will. A day matters not, and deliberate we must before to the High Council we this bring."

Revan's smile grew wider. "I like you so much more than Vandar," he said. "Can I have my stuff now?"

As Master Che went to the lockers in the corner, Qui-Gon walked up to his Padawan and moved Obi-Wan's braid over his right shoulder. Revan deflated somewhat at the sight. "Hey," he said. "He'll be alright. Tab knows what he is doing. You can have your healer check his work as long as she is careful."

Qui-Gon nodded without looking away from Obi-Wan.

Padawan Tachi got conscripted to make sure Revan didn't get lost in the building, accidentally or on purpose. Shaak Ti stayed, seemingly forgotten in the mess, but she knew better. She had never seen Grandmaster Yoga forget anything.

All of them stood in the dim light, looking apprehensive, but all she could do was stare at the unmoving man on the hospital bed. There was something familiar about how he felt, although she was sure she had never met him before. There is no emotion, there is peace, she thought.

"We should track him," said Master Windu. "Who knows what this Revan person will get up to, if that even is his real name. A rogue Force User on Coruscant could be devastating to our reputation. I will take a team."

He moved to walk out of the room, but Grandmaster Yoda slammed his stick onto the floor. "No. Attention attract the other Jedi and you will. Give him a day, we shall. Meanwhile, find someone who discretely watch him can."

Master WIndu huffed and marched out without saying anything. Grandmaster Yoda turned to her, "Knight Ti." She rarely dealt with the Grandmaster, and definitely not this close. She could feel serenity roll off him in waves. "First watch will you and Padawan Tachi take. In eight hours replace you others will."

"Of course, Grandmaster."

Yoda chuckled and walked out of the room, his stick tapping lightly on the floor.

Master Che yawned and said, "I'm going back to bed. Call me if anything goes wrong."

###

Yoda and Windu left, and Qui-Gon was left with his Padawan and Shaak Ti—a Jedi Knight he had met once or twice before. He bent to Obi-Wan and said, "I'm sorry."

Despite Revan's words, he knew there was something wrong with his pupil. Obi-Wan might have been brash, but Qui-Gon had always been able to lean upon the intuitive grasp of the Light Side that Obi-Wan had possessed even as a boy. It had always sounded like a song echoing through the bond they shared as Master and Padawan: sometimes impatient but always hopeful. He could still hear it now, but it was accompanied by vibrations like multiple contained earthquakes trying to break into Obi-Wan's mind.

He needed to talk to Tab. Or, as Tab was unconscious, Revan.

"Knight Ti, could you look after my Padawan for a while?"

"Of course, Master Jinn."

"When Padawan Tachi gets here, you could play some sabacc."

"Master!"

Qui-Gon chuckled as he left the room. The young ones were always so easy to rile up. Somehow they got it into their heads that life in the Light should be devoid of fun. Of course, the older Jedi weren't much better, and some of the more stuck-up Masters could actually try to lecture him, which was why Qui-Gon stuck to trying to teach young Knights and Padawans about using their hands instead of quoting the Code before they became Masters and all hope was lost.

He had given Revan a about a two-minute start, but he had spent enough time near the man in the Halls of Healing that he could still sense him at the edge of his perception, slowly becoming camouflaged by the backdrop of Coruscant and everyone who lived here.

As he hurried after Revan he realized just how different he felt from the other Jedi, including his more sensible friend. There hadn't been that many of them on the mission where they had met, so it had been easier to ignore, but here in the Temple all manner of Jedi lived, and each one understood the Code and their path a little differently, but they all had in common that core of Temple teachings. Well, Grandmaster Yoda was different, but even he was more like a pure embodiment of what they all aspired to be and not something altogether alien. Revan wasn't like that.

Coruscant's many-layered ecumenopolis was built around support towers, each a thousand feet in diameter and made of durasteel and the most durable plastics that humanity had been able to produce. Water, air, and electricity flowed up and down these pillars, sustaining blocks that surrounded them on each of the levels. It was toward one of such supports that Revan was heading to.

Qui-Gon breathed in and out and did it again and again. With each breath, his presence in the Force grew smaller, until he became less of a speck than a normal human, than a dog, than a fly. The world grew dimmer, but the figure of Revan remained in focus. Few in the order had the precision and control that he had when it came to sensing other living beings and masking himself, and Qui-Gon intended to take full advantage of that to learn what Revan was up to before he confronted the man.

The column went some way above this topmost level of the city to where it could get whatever extra non-recycled air it needed without sucking some poor soul into it. A human technician was arguing with a Mon Calamari near a technician's booth at the foot of the structure. Both were wearing the city maintenance personnel uniforms. Revan walked up to them, and Qui-Gon creeped nearer, hiding crouching behind a railing on a catwalk. He focused his hearing.

"Power-line . . . defunct . . . crew . . . only tomorrow . . ." the technicians were saying.

". . . Jedi . . . can help . . . reward . . ." said Revan.

The wind carried only fragments of a conversation to him, but Qui-Gon could hear enough. Eventually, the technicians passed Revan a tool belt and something hefty and glowing, and Revan headed for a service elevator. Qui-Gon hurried to the other side of the column and unlocked the second elevator with his pass. Thankfully, these were for maintenance, and he could see the position of Revan's elevator on a display. Level 5127—the very top.

All he needed was not to fall too far behind, so as soon as the other elevator began moving, Qui-Gon tapped the number 3000 on the datapad and pushed the start button. Even with inertia cancellation, He found himself weighing about half as much as usual as the machine hurtled him into the depths of the planet, far away from light and fresh air. His elevator began to slow down near level 3100, but Revan's didn't. Cursing, Qui-Gon flicked the list of levels on the datapad and tapped the lowest one. He could always come up. The elevator sped back up.

Down they went, he about two hundred levels behind Revan, without ever slowing down. He frowned. Maintenance elevators went lower than usual commuter trains and elevators, just in case something still necessary would malfunction and threaten the upper levels. Normally anything that broke here affected only the citizens of the underworld, so nobody bothered with repairs—the criminals and outcasts living down here handled their survival themselves. There was no way the technicians sent Revan this deep.

He arrived some seconds after Revan and decided it was far enough. Qui-Gon ran moved around the tower. Around him was rusted steel and the floor of this level itself was warped and ridden with holes big enough for the entire Jedi Temple to fall through. Something skittered in the darkness, and one failing lamp flickered in the dark, half obscured by a viscous dark-green liquid dripping on it form the ceiling. Qui-Gon shivered: he had never been this far under the Temple.

Revan was standing at the top of the platform, staring down into the darkness.

"Revan!" he called out.

The other Jedi turned toward him, and Qui-Gon could swear that his eyes were glowing. "Isn't this great?" Revan asked. "It's been so long since Tab wasn't near to stop me."

His grin would be disturbing on the face of an overeager teenager, not to mention a Jedi. Qui-Gon raised his hands. "Listen," he said. "I just want to know what happened to my Padawan."

Revan's grin grew even wider. "Sure," he said. "Catch me then."

And Revan switched on a flashlight on his belt and somersaulted backward and off the edge. Qui-Gon ran to it, and looked down turning his own light on. Pitch-black greeted him: the drop was at least ten more levels. The idiot is going to get himself killed, he thought. Cursing the day he was having, he jumped down.

###

Tabook dreamed of being suspended in a kolto tank—that gap of darkness that came before his rebirth. Any moment now, Kreia would call him, he would wake up on Endar's Spire, and they would start their journey against the Sith Lords.

"Hey, he's twitching. Can you hear me?"

That didn't sound like Kreia. Tab pulled his mind from where it flowed along the current of the Force, and tried to open his eyes. It didn't go well.

The headache could have come from a lightsaber being pushed into his skull, and his body was so tense that he thought for a moment he was under the effects of a Stasis Power.

"Should we call the healer?" Came another voice. "We should probably call the healer."

He made an effort and waved his right hand in dismissal or tried to. He didn't need a healer, he needed . . . where the hell was Revan? Tab reached out with his senses and sensed a rush of glee and heard the whoosh of air from his friend. He pulled back. Where there swoop bikes on this Coruscant? He hoped not.

By now, the white above him shifted to pale-blue. The morning sun shone its orange rays through a window that took up one of the walls, and there was a radiant Torguta girl looking down at him from so close that he could kiss her if he leaned up. She was lucky he wasn't Revan—outside of crises, his friend had the impulse control of a thirteen-year-old.

"Is there something on my face?" he tried to say.

"Irkh sherr—" Was as far as he got before he went for a quitter voice. "Water." He managed.

"Yes, yes, of course."

She disappeared for a second and came back with a glass that he tried to pick up but his arms barely moved.

"Erm," she said looking flummoxed, and then moved to help him drink the water.

He thought they had broken the Jedi out of all this awkwardness crap. Then he remembered that this wasn't his world, and he was probably in the Jedi Temple, and he had nearly fried a kid's brain today, and had it been even today, and, most importantly, he was going to kill Revan when he found him. Tab nodded his thanks and groaned as he focused whatever little of his reserves were available after his latest stunt and began untightening his muscles and clearing toxins out of his system.

The Force came easily to him here with this many Jedi around him.

"We are supposed to tell Master Che if something changes," said someone.

Tabook rose his head a little, and saw a human Padawan girl a perky nose, a stubborn jaw, and hair barely reaching below her ears. She stifled a yawn, and he smiled.

"Looks to me like everyone could use a bit of rest, Padawan," he said. "I am a bit of a healer myself, so trust me when I say I'm in no danger. Why don't you let whoever is treating me sleep?"

The Padawan looked at the Knight and Shaak Ti nodded. Tab let himself relax a little more. He raised his now recovered right arm and wiggled his fingers. It seemed like his muscles were slow to react, and his fingers also were slightly numb. He turned his head to the right and looked at the unconscious forms of Obi-Wan and Dooku. He sighed.

Shaak Ti was still standing by his side, so he said, "Get a chair, will you? I feel like I need to stand too when I look at you."

She did, and this lowered her eyes almost to his level. She said, "This is Padawan Tachi. Padawan Kenobi is her friend."

Tab grimaced. "Figures. Obi-Wan will be fine. It was just a series of mishaps and one stupid decision on my part, but he should wake up . . ." He focused on the bond he had crafted with the boy. ". . . in one or two hours. Master Dooku is in similar condition." Tab found a button on the side of his bed and used it to raise himself into a half-sitting position. "It must have scared you, Padawan Tachi."

"There is no fear," replied Tachi.

He just shook his head. Oh, the naiveté of the Jedi order. "What about you?" he asked Shaak Ti. "Are you here as a guard?"

"It would be foolish to leave an unknown Force Sensitive unattended, so Master Windu arranged a watch. I'm sorry, but until the High Council determines you are safe, you need to stay with us."

Tab chuckled to himself and looked around. His clothes were folded some ten feet away. The healer hadn't taken his pants off, so he threw off the blanket, walked to the robes, and began putting the whole ensemble on. There was something ritualistic and calming about tall he buttons and belts that needed to be fastened. The room had gotten silent, so he looked up and found Tachi looking away while Ti watched him, the contrast between red and white on her skin sharper than before.

Oh, he was going to love this. In their world, there had been barely any Jedi by the time he and Revan kicked the Sith Lords' butts. Some were able to hide from the Sith, and some G0-T0 saved by kidnapping and imprisoning them—something they had a talk with the droid about after finding out—but mostly Tab and Revan had to help the Jedi rebuild while melding their own group with both the Jedi and the Sith to create something less hypocritical and stupid than the original two philosophies. And back when he had been a Jedi Knight before the Mandalorian Wars, Tabook Nashdar had been all Code and no fun.

Tab tied the sash and laughed when he heard Ti breathe out in what he assumed was relief.

"It's safe to look, Padawan Tachi," he said, still smiling.

The Padawan turned to him. Her cheeks were red. "What kind of a Jedi are you?" she asked.

"The fun one. Then again, you have met my friend Revan, so maybe I'm the sensible one. Anyway, you girls know how to play pazaak? No? Well, don't be shy, I'll teach you."

###

There was a tingle of fear at the back of Qui-Gon's neck, and normally he would have released the emotion into the Force, but he was too busy ignoring the smell of rot on the wind blowing into his face. The cone of his light plucked out something rectangular with sharp edges, and he barely had the time to twist in the air and get away from it with a Force push. On some level, he realized that this wasn't the Jedi way, yet adrenaline flooding his system seemed to slow down time and every obstacle he avoided brought a rush of joy he hadn't felt since he had first begun exploring the possibilities that the Force opened.

The debris became denser, and he ignited his lightsaber, switched off the light, and closed his eyes. He felt the path that Revan was paving before him, parkouring between gaps and making them where needed with his double-bladed lightsaber. The man was insane, Qui-Gon realized. Even the worst of the gangs had no business being this close to the surface.

If he felt alive in controlled freefall, then Revan was ecstatic. Qui-Gon could feel waves of glee rolling off the man, and once in a couple seconds heard a "Woo-hoo!" somewhere below him. Yet he sensed no anger or pride.

He dodged a piece of a lamppost that Revan had cut through on the way down and then found there was barely any open space under him. Without thinking or opening his eyes, Qui-Gon blasted his way toward the nearest wall, and thrust the blade of his lightsaber into it, holding on with both of his hands. It cut through the ancient metal without too much trouble, but the deceleration nearly tore his arms out of their sockets. Pulling at all of the energy his descent had generated, he pulled the lightsaber out, wrapped the Force around him and landed, blasting pieces of broken plastic and glass all around him.

Now he could open his eyes and switch the light back on.

Revan was standing nearby, and he had thrown two glow sticks he must have got from Dooku's ship on the floor. He was looking at Qui-Gon with an expression the Master couldn't place.

"Man," Revan said. "I was joking. You could have just waited at the Temple. This is dangerous."

Qui-Gon brushed dust off his robes in slow, deliberate motions. He said, "Please. I've been through worse falls as a Padawan."

Revan bent over and laughed, and the sound echoed off the durasteel arches that were all around them. "Oh," he said, "this is precious. I didn't mean falling, I meant getting back up. You do realize that we are five hundred levels down from the maintenance elevator's lowest stop? I came down here to train and maybe blow off some steam after the crapTab pulled, but whatever the hell possessed you to follow? Your Padawan will wake up long before we make it out of here."

Qui-Gon took a look around. Unlike most other abandoned levels, this one didn't have any remains of buildings. The ground was solid metal, and enormous beams stretched up beyond the light the glowsticks provided. Remains of power cables were all over the ground.

"We have made it to the bottom," Qui-Gon said. "I never thought . . ."

"Yeah. Cool, right?" Revan kicked something brown and warped, and it exploded into a cloud of brown dust. "Damn, I was hoping for some ground. But this place at least sounds promising."

He had expected silence this deep—maybe the buzzing of a distant power line. But the bottom of Coruscant was far from silent. There was skittering, and squaking, and something that sounded like steel claws dragging over glass in the distance.

"Looks like we disturbed the nest," said Revan, looking inappropriately happy.

End of Chapter Notes

Hello, everyone, it's been a while. At least this is coming out only two weeks after the update to The Broken Creed, and I feel like writing more fanfiction these days.

Some good did come from this break. For me, every story hits a point where it gets hard to write more without fleshing out the characters and the setting a bit in the background, and I felt that way about Tab and Revan before writing this chapter, so I explored them a bit in my notes, and hopefully this keeps them from turning into cardboard. Coruscant also got some love. I mean, how does a world like that even function? Can you imagine a trillion sentient beings holed up on one tiny globe? How much trade it must take to get the food there and what kind of waste treatment facilities are needed? Are there levels and levels of hydroponics with artificial light? You can literally hide a thousand crime syndicates in the bowels of the lower levels and no one will notice.

By the way, if you know any of this stuff from canon and remember the sources, you writing it in a review or a PM would really help me, because I don't remember any technology in the movies or the KoTOR games that would magically solve the problems of hunger and waste. I am basing a lot of Tab and Revan's experiences on Coruscant on it having major problems with dilapidated infrastructure and food and goods distribution, so knowledge beyond what's written on the wiki is welcome. Just know that I focus on characters and story here and not on fully canon worldbuilding, so I will twist canon it can make a better story without breaking atmosphere.

In other news, I watched a video this week that explores just how much was cut from KoTOR 2 by the publisher because of time constraints. It is ridiculous. There was a droid planet we never got to see, you could redeem Kreia and fight Atris instead, and your team actually assaulted the Sith Academy on Malachor along with you giving you moral choices and stuff (push on or try to save your friends). You can search Youtube for something like "KoTOR 2 cut content" if you are interested—it's fascinating stuff.

Stay shiny and until next time.