It seemed that the Selkath were very fond of red tape. Immigration procedures at most starports across the galaxy were fairly straightforward affairs: dock at starport, endure routine inspection of cargo and personnel, declare dutiable goods and weaponry, produce personal identification documents, pay requisite docking or registration fee (usually both): sorted. The Ahto port officials had required all of the above, in addition to mandating the completion of numerous forms pertaining to one's recent travel and medical history, criminal record, employment history, purpose of visit...
"Going to bloody ask about my sex life next," Canderous had grumbled whilst tackling one of the numerous forms each member of the crew had been obliged to fill out.
"You haven't got one," was Carth's ascerbic reply.
"Speak for yourself, nerf-brain." Done with one form, the Mandalorian picked up another and started reading it through. "Oi...! What's this about 'political affiliation'?"
Jolee didn't even bother looking up from his form. "I'd imagine it meant exactly what it said, young man." He entered a few more lines of text and gave his form the once-over.
The Mandalorian's eyebrows drew together. "Bloody form makes no karking sense. It's either 'Republic' or 'Sith'. There isn't even an 'Others' option."
Bastila rolled her eyes impatiently. "Oh for crying out loud - were you actually expecting a third option? What, 'Mandalore'? In the current political climate? After the war your people started?" She stomped off to stand near the exit ramp.
"Think it's brain damage, your High - sorry - Bastila. I mean, bleedin' metal helmets...! Poor ventilation, lack of oxygen... Causes cell death, doesn't it?"
"Get off him, Carth," said the Jedi as he completed the last of his forms and went to join Bastila, who had whizzed through the form-filling like a pro. She barely acknowledged his presence. The Jedi snatched a quick glance over his shoulder and noted that their companions were still preoccupied. Now is the time to talk to Bastila - might not get another opportunity like this. He tapped her on the shoulder.
"Bastila. We need to talk."
She refused to look at him. "We have nothing to speak about."
He tried again. "I know you're upset about something. If I've... offended you, won't you give me a chance to put things right?" Finally - a reaction, thought the Jedi as Bastila frowned, then pinched her forehead and rubbed it. "Please?"
Damn. Damn and botheration! Bastila covered her forehead and eyes with her hand and rubbed frustratedly. Why did Revan have to be so damnably decent? Why did he have to be so bloody polite? She'd spent the last thirty-six hours trying to get him out of her system, but he had to wreck it all by meekly taking the blame for something that wasn't even his fault! She took a deep breath to collect herself.
"Fine. I suppose I owe you at least an explanation. But not here. Somewhere more private."
Without waiting for a reply, Bastila marched towards the men's cabin and let herself in. Once inside, she waited for Revan to enter before locking the door. Closing her eyes, Bastila bit her lip and counted slowly to five. There was sure to be an expression of genuine unhappiness on Revan's face, and it would be utterly justified. She would ignore it - there is no emotion, there is peace - she would not allow her stupid sentiment to get in the way of finally putting this nascent... thing to rest - there is no passion, there is serenity - she would say her piece and make it very plain that this... whatever it was, would go no further - there is no chaos, there is harmony. Yes. She could do this. She turned to face him.
The Jedi stood quietly in the middle of the cabin, hands by his side, questions in his eyes. Bastila gritted her teeth and spoke.
"Please understand how difficult this is for me to say. I... do not express myself well. At any rate I have no time for... sentimentality. That is the way it has always been, and the way it should be."
She paused, hoping that he would say something - anything! - to give her a reason to put him in his place, but he did not. Instead, he continued to look at her with the same meek, questioning expression, which was most unnerving. Continue talking. Say it all, and be done with it forever. "I... confess. That I... have an... I am... attracted to you." There. I've said it. Bastila blushed crimson, and it took all her self-control to keep from punching the wall switch and running out of the cabin altogether.
The Jedi's eyes widened. Are my ears going in addition to my brain? Did I just hear Bastila Shan confess to liking - actually liking - me? Oh. My. The sheer shock and surprise at this unanticipated admission caused his brain to malfunction momentarily. "You're attracted... to me? As in... you find me... attractive, to - to you?"
The crimson spots on Bastila's cheeks deepened, and spread to the rest of her face. "Yes," she said testily. "I did. And I don't know why, because you're egotistic and vain, and you will let this go to your head entirely, which is so conceited, you're 'full of beans', as the Masters call it, and you're so damnably self-absorbed that you will certainly never let me live this down, and so I am warning you" - she shook her finger at him - "under no circumstances whatsoever are you to ever mention this conversation to any of our companions. If you do, I shall simply deny it."
Conceited! 'Full of beans'? Self-absorbed! My goodness - she's certainly spent time thinking up new ones for you, said the Jedi to himself. He was still floating from the shock of the happy discovery that Bastila liked him back.
"Bastila, why - I - I thought you hated me...!" he told her excitedly.
"Jedi don't 'hate', that's a Dark Side thing, and anyway it's forbidden," Bastila shot back. "Love, I mean." Oops - she covered her mouth in horror. What did she just say?
Dear Force, don't take me now - this is the best thing since sliced Corellian Spiceloaf...! "By whom?"
"Love is a path to the Dark Side! It is a passion, and therefore inherently tainted. That is why Jedi must not love!"
"Tainted! Bastila, that makes no sense at all - compassion! Sympathy, mercy, justice... generosity, aid to all who need it - these are the virtues the Jedi Order advocates, aren't they?"
"Yes, and obviously 'love' isn't one of them!"
"That's because it's all of them, Bastila! All of those things, and more! Don't you see we're called to love unconditionally? Are universal compassion, mercy and justice Dark? So how can love be 'tainted'?"
"Because love is an attachment, and attachments make people make wrong decisions!"
The Jedi shook his head vehemently. "No, Bastila. Love doesn't make people make wrong decisions. People make wrong decisions all the time, with or without love. The Sith certainly aren't a loving bunch of people. Love is an attachment, yes - but there are attachments and then there are attachments. Can you honestly say that a being can live without any attachment whatsoever? Our actions affect the world around us - even the future of others. That's the whole basis of the 'social contract', don't you see? How then can one live without 'attachments'?"
"You know very well what I mean," snapped Bastila. "And yes, I know what you think unhealthy attachment is, but this - this! - is definitely unhealthy!"
"Why? Why is it unhealthy for us to love each other?"
Her internal defenses were steadily weakening, and Bastila knew it. She tried stalling. "Because it is. It just is!" Bastila stood rooted to the spot, unable - unwilling - to move away.
"Why, Princess? Why is it wrong for me to wish to protect you - to watch over your steps? How is it 'Dark' if I wish to be with you, to give you everything I can, to warn you if I think you're starting to veer off the straight and narrow?"
She could not meet his searching gaze. "I... I... no. I - I don't know. I... what if - like Jolee! and... his wife - I could become a snare, how - no, it's too great a risk..." Bastila trailed off mutely as the Jedi gently raised her chin, and called softly to her to look at him.
"Princess... you ask questions for which there are no easy answers. At least none that can be honestly given," he told her. "I do not know if I could find it in myself to... destroy you... if you fell. But I know that I would do all I could to prevent you from falling to start with... and that I would sacrifice myself to bring you back. I've said as much to you... before. All I ask... is that... you let me love you. It would be wonderful if you... reciprocated, but if you don't want to, or you're... afraid to, well, I can't say that I'd like that as much... but I would never force - or expect you to - love me back." He concluded in a whisper.
Bastila felt the walls she had painstakingly erected over the past day and a half come crashing down. She breathed a hoarse reply. "That would cause you much pain."
"Yes, it would. But it is a price I am willing to pay for your sake, my dear Princess."
"I could never hurt you," confessed Bastila. She blinked back the tears that had formed. "I don't want to."
"That is the beauty of love, Princess. It is patient... does not envy or boast, it is not prideful or self-seeking...love in its purest cannot delight in the Dark. Love will protect and trust, always hoping, always perservering..." Bastila had given up on holding her emotions in check, and was now pulling his face towards hers, a feral glint in her eyes.
"Shut up and kiss me now, you blithering fool," she growled. Before the Jedi could react, her lips were on his, and she was threatening to suck all the air out of his lungs.
He capitulated.
Admiral Saul Karath watched the last of the Sith bombers returned to the Leviathan's immense hangar with devilish satisfaction. Lord Malak would be pleased. The Jedi Enclave on Dantooine had been reduced to rubble by their relentless strikes. Doubtless the Jedi would have been caught unawares. Dozens would have perished: younglings, Padawans, Knights... perhaps even a few Masters!
His lips twitched upwards into a cruel smile as he stabbed a glowing button on the communications interface with a white, bony finger. "My Lord Malak?"
A raspy, unnatural voice replied. "Speak."
"It has been done as you commanded, my Lord."
No response. Admiral Karath assessed the situation calculatively and decided that this might be an opportune time to elevate his standing with a view to advancing his career. "My Lord, there is a possibility that some Jedi scum may have escaped the destruction of the enclave. I shall send in assassins at once to hunt down and destroy any survivors."
"Unnecessary. You will travel to Manaan and await communications from my apprentice, Admiral. I will return to the Star Forge."
More from force of habit than anything else, Admiral Karath snapped to attention and saluted. "At once, my Lord!" Then he began barking orders to various personnel, spittle flying in all directions.
Far above Dantooine's atmosphere, the Leviathan's hyperdrive engines flared to life in a blinding blue halo, and the massive destroyer winked out of sight.
Juhani tried to ignore the vast amounts of water that she could hear lapping at the foundations of Ahto City. Jolee was talking to the distraught Human woman who had appeared out of nowhere soon after they had cleared immigration. She was not certain what the Human woman wanted, but guessed that some deeply personal grievance or trouble was involved. Perhaps a missing whelp or mate? Either would account for the desperate manner in which the woman clutched at Jolee's sleeves and shook him, imploring his aid. Certainly it had to be a... sensitive topic, or Jolee would not have requested that she and... Bastila's special friend keep a discreet distance.
Bastila's Special Friend. Juhani twitched her right ear and looked around to see where he had gone to. She spotted him standing by the guard-rails, gazing into the distance. How is Bastila getting along with him now? Juhani thought this might be a good time to find out.
"I see you are much in thought," she remarked casually as she approached the guard rails and tentatively peered over the side at the fathomless deep below. Freaky...! She quickly diverted her gaze elsewhere.
The Jedi exhaled softly. "Yes, I am." He looked down at the guard rail and thumped it absentmindedly.
"Bastila?"
The Jedi nodded. "...you were right, Juhani."
"Oh?" Another nod. Looks to be serious, this, thought Juhani. She tilted her head and looked at the Jedi searchingly. "Would it help for me to listen?"
"I suppose it would." The Jedi gazed out over the vastness of Manaan's surface for a while before continuing. "We... had a talk. Bastila... and I." Juhani nodded encouragingly. "She told me that..." - the Jedi broke off and smiled ruefully - "...that I, I mean something... to her. In that way. You know?"
"Mmm hmm."
"...made me very... very glad to hear it. And we, ah - well... we talked, and she was... worried. About... having these feelings? That they might be dangerous, Dark, even - which I don't agree with... she knows. Then we... we, um, and I thought, well, looks like we've... sorted ourselves out at last - and next thing I know, she's saying it was all a mistake, it was all wrong... and she ran off." He pursed his lips into a grimace. "Bugger."
Juhani listened to her colleague's narration with great interest. Humans, she decided, were a very strange species. They lived comparatively short lives, and yet filled their brief existences with one needless complication after another. This now, for example. Mating. With a Cathar couple it would be so simple and efficient: you like me, I like you, we go on hunt together to decide on compatibility, mutual expressions of intent... mate for life.
Humans, on the other hand? Not enough that boy likes girl and girl likes boy. Boy has to butter up the girl, spend many credits... try to please her in every way. Girl? She paints her face, wears silly clothes, all to excite his interest. Waste much time dancing around each other, to see holovids, eat terrible food... on and on and on. The worst was that Humans did not seem to think a mate was for life. Some of the Humans she had seen on Taris changed mates with impunity. For one terrible moment, she wondered if Bastila and her Special Friend were of that last persuasion. Eww! Juhani turfed the disquieting thought out of her head.
"Did Bastila say why?"
The Jedi shook his head. "No. Just that she'd made a mistake, that we should never have... 'given in to our passion'."
Juhani gasped in alarm, and the Jedi realised that he'd been misunderstood. "I didn't - I mean, we - didn't...! You know. Sleep! Together. If... that's what... you're... thinking. Which I... can see you... are." Juhani peered at him, unconvinced.
Just bloody great, he told himself. Got to pick your words real carefully when talking about matters of the heart to a Cathar. Otherwise they tend to get all sorts of ideas you don't want them to... "Honest, Juhani...! I swear I didn't touch her. Honest. We only kissed."
"Only kissed?" They were all right, then. Juhani relaxed a little. "Is not that a good thing?"
"She said it was a mistake! What am I supposed to think?"
The Cathar Jedi let out a little bark of amusement. "A very old Master once told me that possible it is too much to think. Sometimes, not to think, but to feel, is better. What do you feel?"
"...confusion, I guess. Yeah. And conflict. Lots of it."
"You do not feel she dislikes you?"
"Much the opposite, actually."
"Well, then!" Juhani exclaimed. "She will come round bit by bit. Just to be patient and not to scare her, yes?"
The Jedi looked at his feet and turned the Cathar's words over in his mind. Good advice, that. He looked at her through the fringe of hair falling over his eyes. "You're right again, Juhani. Force...! How do you know these things?"
Juhani raised an eyebrow. "Because I am a woman, you stupid man."
Later that evening, the crew assembled to hear Jolee relate the day's events.
"Let me get this straight - this man, this... Sunry - he... he had an affair? With a Sith?" Bastila asked incredulously. "But he - the man's a Republic war hero!"
Jolee stroked his beard and nodded. "Elora - that's his missus - didn't elaborate. I'd hardly expect her to, what with... but anyway. Moment of weakness, bored with life... bored with his wife - who knows?"
"Bored with his wife?" spat Juhani. "Then deserves he to rot! Any being who would desert their mate - pfft!" Snarling in disgust, Juhani turned aside and hissed emphatically.
The Jedi raised a hand to catch Jolee's attention. "Saw her talking to you for quite a while - did she ask for help?"
"That she did, my boy, that she did." The wrinkles on Jolee's wizened forehead deepened. "Wants us to 'get the truth'. And 'get justice' for Sunry." He puffed out his cheeks and picked at an old scab on the back of his left hand. "And that's a problem."
A girlish voice piped up. "Hey! Justice? The truth? That's like, okay, right? As in, justice and truth and, like, bein' real - that's the deal, ain't it? And Jedi are all about, like truth and justice and keepin' the peace, right? So what's the big problem, huh?"
Bastila stopped fiddling with the edge of her tabbard and frowned. "Sunry. He - you said he had a spot of bother... in a hotel. And, someone - well, the Sith - she was shot. I take it he's being investigated for murder?"
Jolee sighed. "Yes. He is. Now, I don't know the next thing about what actually happened - but I have a bad feeling about it. The truth... may not be what Elora wants to hear. And I don't think she'd be particularly thrilled if it came to that, and actual justice got done, is all I'm sayin'."
"Ask no questions, get told no lies," muttered Carth as he polished his boots. "Do what you think is right, Jolee. But don't let Elora - or anyone! - use you." He paused with his mouth open, as though he might say more, then shook his head and returned to polishing his boots with renewed vigour.
"So Sunry's being investigated for murder, and his wife has effectively asked us to get him off the hook - no, Mission that's precisely what she's asking for - which, depending on what investigations reveal, may or may not be possible. Or appropriate. Hmm." The Jedi sat on the floor and leaned against the wall, thinking.
"My two credits' worth - we lose nothing by helping to investigate. Look at the odds - if Sunry's truly innocent, you can bet your bottom credit that the Sith won't stand for it. They'll... rig proceedings, destroy evidence... intimidate witnesses - the usual. A conviction will be inevitable. And then they'll milk the verdict for all it's worth. We can't let that happen. On the other hand... " - his eyebrows knit themselves together as he ran a hand through his hair - "...say Sunry's really guilty. What then? Republic war hero, decorated soldier... the Sith will have a field day! It'll be embarrassing, to say the least. All that we can do then is conduct an exercise in damage limitation. I'm sure the Sith have dirty little secrets of their own that could use an airing. But we can only do that if we get involved."
The minutes ticked by slowly as the crew of the Ebon Hawk pondered Jolee's report and the Jedi's analysis of the situation. Finally, Bastila broke the silence. "There is no denying the logic of your reasoning. I think... I think it is our duty... as Jedi, to assist. I... will come with you." Her fingers worried the edge of her tabbards unconsciously.
"Fine. You have persuaded me. We involve ourselves," Juhani conceded at length. "Still I think he is a scum. But perhaps I have too high standards."
"Count me out of this shit," blurted Canderous. "Investigations, court proceedings - bloody lawyers running all over the shop. Bloody lawyers. Can't stand the sight of 'em."
Carth sat up at the mention of 'lawyers'. "Hey - buddy - Mandalorian's right. Lawyers. You... planning on instructing one? No offence, buddy - but they don't come cheap..."
["I have heard that beings may act for themselves in Manaan,"] said Zaalbar. ["The Selkath have been rumoured to provide lawyers for free. But I do not know if it is wise to trust someone you are not even paying."]
Canderous snorted derisively. "You can't always trust the people you do pay. Or those who pay you. First thing you learn as a merc."
"Ahem." Jolee cleared his throat and spoke authoritatively. "Bad feelings aside, the boy's right. We have to get involved." He winked at Carth, who nodded almost imperceptibly. Juhani noticed the exchange and gave Zaalbar a knowing look.
"We need someone with an eye for the detail," said Juhani. She nudged Bastila slyly. Bastila's eyes widened and her mouth formed a silent 'oh'.
"A convincing speaker, with charisma," added Carth.
"Erm, yes. Yes, of course. Ah... someone... very intelligent. And logical. Law is about... logic... mostly. I think." Juhani stifled a snort of amusement as Bastila stumbled over her words.
Ever quick on the uptake, Mission volunteered her input next. "Yeah! Smart and, uh... remembers lots of stuff, and yeah! It's gotta be someone all of us can trust, I mean, there's like a zillion Sith here or something and -"
["A good listener,"] interrupted Zaalbar.
"Offer: I can be of assistance. Meatbags answer so much better when one points a gun at them..."
"No, HK!" chorused everyone. HK-47's processor lights dimmed in disappointment.
Jolee rubbed his hands together gleefully. "Right - okay, I think that settles it. Eye for detail, charismatic, good speaker, lots of brains, trustworthy, a listener... oh! I think we have a candidate right... here." He ruffled the Jedi's hair affectionately.
Many years later, Bastila would quip that the only people who could validly claim to have "done Revan one over" were a bunch of geriatric Jedi Masters and the crew of the Ebon Hawk.