Beta Read by: LMSharp
Man, I need a Coke or at least something sugary with caffeine in it. I never realized how dependent I was on those cans of corn syrup, but I have been craving nothing but ever since I wound up here. Especially as I close up the clinic by myself, I can think of nothing better to nurse my homesickness with right now than sipping on a cold, fizzing drink. Probably would bubble up my nose at first, with that familiar tickle, since it's been so long.
I wish I had gone to sleep with my MP3 that night like I usually do, then at least I could crank my favorites like: TSFH, Linkin Park, Sia; heck, even Reignite, that song by Maluka. Then at least I would have something to distract myself with as I clean up, keeping my mind from wandering back home, where games stayed on the screen and where four sisters, my parents, and a dog were always being loud and invading my privacy, making it feel like I never had a moment to myself... God I miss them.
The clinic's doorbell goes off just as I set the kolto tanks to cycle, refreshing the healing kolto within. Shaking myself from those unhelpful thoughts, I jog out of the back room, passing my cot I just pulled out. I rush to check the security peep-hole display. No one has ever bothered the clinic after closing hour, so my first assumption is there's a seriously injured person at the other side of the entrance. But this is Taris, you don't ever open the door without checking the peep-hole.
The holo screen lights up at my touch, illuminating Fane under my fingertips, dressed in his brown hooded cloak with a small stack of data pads and a thin wooden box tucked in his arm. What is he doing here, is he here for me? Can I pretend I'm not here? "Kylie, open up please, it's Fane." Well, there goes that hope.
Reluctantly I swipe my hand over the console authorizing it to open the entrance, "Is something wrong Fane? How did you know I'd be here?" A poor greeting I know, but I can't squash my apprehension over him being here. There's no point in pretending, when he can see clearly see otherwise.
"I apologize for showing up unexpectedly, but I figured it'd be best to do this in the evenings. When you're not busy helping Dr. Forn and I'm free from my research." He tells me, letting himself in, as I try to figure out how that's an explanation as to why he's here, it's not.
"Do what? You still haven't answered my questions." I remind him as the entrance closes behind us. I know I should probably relax, especially considering if Fane planned to arrest me or something, he would have done it already.
"To begin your studies." He informs me simply, as he lays out the data pads and removes the lid of small box of sand on Gurney's receptionist desk. I just stare at him, somewhat dumbfounded, my brows reaching for my hairline. "We'll start with learning the Aurebesh script of Basic and filling in the gaps of Republic currency. From there, you can decide what else you'd like to learn, if you want."
"Um, I appreciate the thought Fane, but I couldn't ask you to do that..." I try to tell him, regretting my earlier rudeness, when he interrupts my protests.
"You didn't ask, and if you refuse my offer, it would be very rude. So as my Master would say: 'Sit down and pay attention, youngling'." He smiles at me, causing my stomach to stupidly flip-flop. He pulls Gurney's chair back for me, which I sit in hesitantly. Feeling off center and unsure what I should be feeling or how I should react to his generous offer.
"Okay, there are 34 characters in the Galactic Basic Alphabet, not including exclamation points, question marks, et cetera." He starts, pulling a waiting room chair up to the desk to sit opposite me.
...
Before long he has me using the flat box of sand, copying his artfully drawn symbols in it with my chicken scratch. Just the alphabet and my name for now, but there's a certain satisfaction in learning to spell your name in another language. "How'd you know I live here, Fane?" I ask again as I try to pull off the tricky hook in the V like symbol, that apparently is the letter 'Y' in 'Kylie'.
"Dr. Forn told me, after I came to his house asking about you." He answers, after a long moment of silence. The check like symbol, that is the 'L' in my name stretches across the sand as my hand jerks. "He was concerned at first that I was asking after you and wouldn't say much, until I told him that I already knew of your Sith ties."
I freeze, cold panic gripping me as I slowly remove my hands from the sand on the desk, nervously wiping them on my pants. "What made you say I'm connected to the Sith?" I ask distantly, knowing my reaction screwed any chance of denying his claim. My brain flips into overdrive trying to predict the outcomes of this conversation. What I can do or say for this to end peacefully? What will he do now that he knows, that I don't deny my connection with his enemy? "I'm not a Sith, Zelka would tell you as much."
"He did. It was a guess. I gathered by the powerful Dark Side energy I see beneath the surface of your aura. Like with Dark Jedi I've encountered, but somehow different..." He explains thoughtfully, looking straight at me or rather at my aura. I bet it's sparking with numerous conflicting emotions. "He told me he suspected you were a slave on Korriban or forced to be an Acolyte at the Sith Academy before escaping." Does he? Why didn't Zelka ever tell me that? I guess I did make it pretty obvious I didn't want to speak about my past the times he tried to broach the subject while we worked together. But that was only because I didn't want to lie to him. I knew I would be too tempted to confess everything to him, even though I know it would mean telling him he was a NPC in a video game to me before I woke up in his clinic.
"At first when I saw the Dark Side within you that day in the Undercity, I suspected you were a Dark Jedi. So I started asking around about you, trying to confirm it before I informing Master Senob and trying to apprehend you. Then I got to talking to you in the cantina and saw that not only is the darkness within you different from Dark Jedi I have fought, but so are you. It's as if that power isn't a part of who you are but is contained within you..." Blaring Klaxons sound off around the city, making our conversation impossible to continue, giving me a scary sense of déjà vu of when my family used to live in Tornado Alley. Raising the hairs on the back of my neck and quickens my pulse.
"What's happening?" I demand, a sick feeling settling in my gut and rising up my throat. No, not now, shit not now!
"I have to get back to Base, stay indoors!" Fane orders, racing out of the clinic. When the doors part for him, I get a glimpse of the night sky above Taris lit up like the 4th of July. Barely visible silhouettes of massive ships all firing on one, above our atmosphere. The Endar Spire...
"Fane wait!" My yell is drowned out by the sirens and massive artillery fire as the door closes. Everyone gets wiped out in the Republic Base, I have to stop him! Dashing for my carbine in the footlocker near my cot, I toss half its contents to find the damn cartridge! Once my trembling hands lock and load the weapon, I skid to a halt in front of the medical droid's charging port, reactivating it, "Initiate emergency level Red, you have authorization to treat any patients who arrive. Inform Dr. Forn, once he gets here, that I'm headed for the Republic Base!" I call out as I run out the exit, yanking the emergency kit I at least had the foresight to pack and store near the exit.
Knowing I've already lost too much time, I race down the walkway towards the Republic Base. The emergency kit bangs against the back of my thighs. I keep the space battle above in the corner of my eye. Streaking fireballs rain down from the crumbling ship. The escape pods! Crap, I had planned to have the Undercity Villagers prepared to take Bastila in before the Vulkars could get her. One month, one fricking month since I wound up on Taris, nowhere near enough time! I need to catch up with Fane before it's too late; don't look, just run!
I'm making good time until huge fiery red missiles whistle through the atmosphere above my head faster than the speed of sound. Their shockwaves trip me before they collide into a large complex in the distance ahead of me (I remember Zelka telling me it was the Upper City Power Distribution Center). Suddenly all the sound is sucked out of the world as the Center crumbles in on itself in a fiery explosion from the impact. The subsequent shockwave is massive, I can literally see the wave as it rolls through the city. It throws me off my feet backwards. My head connects with the walkway's rail, the only thing stopping me from going over the edge.
Regaining my senses after what feels like a few seconds of blacking out, I stagger back to my feet. A deafening ringing in my ears as I blink away black spots in my vision. Holy hell, my head feels like it's been dented in! The Upper City is pitch dark now, the defense cannons deadly silent. I yell out Fane's name as loud as I can, but the cry sounds faint and muffled in my own ears. I gingerly reach for the back of my head, my hand returns red. Unable to shake my stunned stupor, I stumble forward, knowing I have to keep moving but not really able to get my body to respond to the message in the time I need it to.
Oh no, where's my blaster! Quickly, I dig into my bag, pulling out the equivalent of a flashlight and slipping it over my wrist. I fumble for the 'on' button, blinding myself in the process, panicking idiot that I am. Using its beam, I find the carbine sprawled a few feet from where I landed. Bending over to retrieve it, someone roughly grabs my elbow from behind, yanking me around. Leveling the blaster into his gut, my heart lodging itself in my throat.
"I told you to stay indoors!" Fane reprimands me. His voice sounds muffled to my damaged hearing. His cloak is gone, his Padawan robes are ripped and covered in permacrete dust. What can I possibly tell him so he won't run to the base and his death? I scramble for the answer as I remove my blaster from his gut, yanking my arm free to hold it steady with both hands.
"They'll be wounded on those escape pods, I need your help to get to them!" There, a way to save Fane, Carth and Revan!
He shakes his head, "They're headed for the Undercity; we can't help them if we lose the Republic Base guarding the lift down to them. I think one crashed near the North Housing Sector. Help them. The others will be safer down there than up here, while we're trying to repel this invasion." He starts to turn, stopping mid-step, as troop transports swoop in low overhead, passing us for the base ahead.
He takes off at a run for the base, yelling at me to return to the clinic. I hesitate, fear and panic freezing my veins. I'm no soldier. Zelka will need me at the clinic. Taris's survival depends on me getting Bastila and Revan off planet ASAP and I can start that by helping Carth get Revan to the clinic. Beside that, what can I hope to accomplish against highly trained soldiers, other than getting myself killed in the first five minutes? That's when the sounds of a lightsaber igniting and an unearthly barrage of blaster fire reach my ears.
Revan and Carth will be fine hiding out in the abandoned apartment; Fane will die if I don't do something! Turning off my flashlight, I race towards the sounds of battle, navigating the short distance of damaged walkway in the dark. I skid to a halt once I reach the alleyway that includes the Lower City lift. The alley walls bathed in a bright green glow from Fane's humming lightsaber, mixed with bright flashes of red from the loud barrage of unrelenting blaster fire, making it impossible for Fane to move forward out of the pinched corridor. "You can't take them alone!" I shout out to him, so I won't startle his concentration from deflecting the angry storm of bolts by rushing up to him from behind. I throw myself at the solid cover of the wall of the threshold he stands his ground in.
"I'm not, once I am able to reach Master Senob and the others returning fire in the base, we'll defeat them." He shouts back over the blaster fire in a strained voice. "You're going to get yourself killed!"
"Without a doubt!" I shout back, pointing my blaster around the corner blind firing at full auto, tilting the angle of the gun back and forth to strafe the landing pad outside. "But so are you!" He grunts to that, before gritting his teeth as he presses forward at an angle; so he's standing almost in front of my corner. The blaster bolts that had been pinging off the back wall near me, are now being deflected, so I can actually peek my head out and aim, with less chance of getting it blown off.
Doing so, I return fire, gritting my teeth so hard my molars ache. I forcibly shut down the part of my brain that realizes I'm shooting at Human Beings with the intent to kill or that if Fane's reflexes slip for a quarter of a second, it's game over for me in the worst way imaginable. But amazingly, we actually give the bad guys something to think about. I fire on the invaders while Fane covers me, returning about as many bolts as are shot at him. We're at it for probably a few minutes but to me it feels more like an hour. They are weakening though, even I can tell. Out in the open with absolutely no cover on the walkway, their numbers are divided between us and our Republic allies hunkered in the entrance of their HQ. Fane's Master, the short Sullustan, duels two Dark Jedi single-handedly out in the center of the walkway. Soon the enemies line of defense will weaken enough for Fane to go to his Master's aid, though the little guy looks more than capable of handling them himself. His blue saber is just a blur of light as he parries and slashes at his opponents. We might actually win this!
At that moment my blaster decides to overheat the cartridge smoking as the trigger clicks uselessly, because I stupidly forgot to conserve my shots. "Do you have another cartridge?" Fane calls to me, not looking away from the still oncoming bolts.
"No!" I had debated whether or not to use my duelist prize money to purchase more, but figured I wouldn't burn out that much ammunition in the ring and it'd be smarter to save up for rakghoul resistant armor. What am I gonna do? The only other weapons I have are the stun baton and a stun detonator Canderous had me practicing with for the ring! Hold the phone, "I have a stun grenade!" I cry out, tearing open the bag to retrieve it. "Will it work on them?" Nobody in the ring is this heavily armored. Wouldn't their helmets protect them from the flash? Will the electric shock be enough?
"It could at least disorient them enough for me to close the distance, though hold off. I sense a group heading for us from behind. Are they reinforcements?"
Oh please, let them be, I pray. Pushing off the wall to peek around the corner, only to glimpse more of Malak's troopers thundering their way down the walkway towards us, too many to have a hope of holding out with. "Shit," I swear, thumbing on the detonator and lobbing it at the feet of the Dark Jedi leading the troops in front of the entrance of the alley. "Not our reinforcements!" I shout at Fane, as I throw myself at the lift doors swiping the console. Fortunately it's on our level and the doors part immediately as the reinforcements blindly return fire into our extremely close quarters. Fane throws himself on me causing us both to fall forward into the relative safety of the lift just as a rocket propelled grenade collides with the wall behind us in an explosion of fire that flashes over our heads as the lift doors seal.
Only when we feel the lift moving beneath us and the pinging of blaster bolts denting the durasteel doors ceases does Fane lift himself off me. He's about to roll away when he freezes, "You're bleeding." Quickly tucking his legs beneath him, he crouches beside me, helping me sit up so he can better inspect the back of my head. "You're going to need to get this cleaned soon." He hisses sympathetically, his fingers gently parting my hair near the base of my skull, careful not to touch the broken flesh. "Does your bag contain anything I can work with?"
"Yeah, I've got as many medpacs as I could shove in it." I admit to him shakily, now that adrenaline rush is fading, every bruise and cut is now throbbing for attention. As Fane fishes a medpac out, popping it open on the elevator floor, I reach back starting to undo my tight french braid.
"Here let me." He beckons, after I hiss out in pain, when my fingers accidentally brush against the wound trying to untangle my hair. Taking my hands in his and gently placing them at my sides, he starts freeing my hair with surprisingly brisk and nimble fingers. Once he has my shoulder length raven hair parted over each shoulder, he injects a kolto syringe in the place where my shoulder and neck meet. It feels me with a strange numbing and cooling sensation I felt once before after being treated for a blaster wound. The effects relax my frayed nerves even more than letting my hair down had. The combination of both helping me gather my nerve and finally start to breath easy, at least for the moment.
"I'm sorry that we had to leave the base behind, Fane." I tell him quietly over my shoulder, as he silently works to disentangle the hair matted to the wound with blood. I can barely feel it now that my senses are dulled with the temporary effects of my kolto injection. We just left his Master back there. I instinctively want to reassure Fane that his Master and the others still fighting up there will hold out until we can get back to them, but I know better.
"Master Senob can handle himself; he's a Master with the lightsaber" Fane states, his voice heavy and low as he cleans my wound of the permacrete dust and dried blood with a prepackaged wipe.
"I hope he makes it out okay," I tell him, trying not to give him any false hope but really hoping I'm wrong.
"Same here," Fane answers, before applying the small kolto patch over my wound, speeding the healing process with it's kolto infused synthetic cloth. His breath tickling my ear.
The sound of something massive powering down is followed by the lift violently shuddering. It stops dead mid-floor, jolting us from any more discussion, as the small box we're trapped in becomes pitch black. In the silence my sudden and rapid breathing is the only sound as I flip on my wrist light, my pulse quickening with unwelcome fear.
"Now what?" I ask Fane, the beam illuminating him as he looks around, seeing despite the dark shadows cast everywhere. He doesn't need my light.
"They must have already taken Republic HQ, and initiated a manual lock down on the lift system." He informs me solemnly. Oh, then that means, crap, all those men we were fighting with...
"Do you think Master Senob made it out?" I ask hesitantly, needing to know what he's thinking. "Can you sense his presence?"
"Only when a Force Bond is established can a Padawan sense the death of his Master. Master Senob and I have known each other since I was a boy but a Bonding is rare among the Order." He answers quietly, withdrawing into himself. His brow is drawn beneath his blind fold, his lips are drawn in a thin line, the corners tilting downwards. It's the most emotion (beyond a smile) I've ever seen in his expression, I realize.
"Maybe, he managed to retreat with some soldiers." I offer, hating myself for doing it, when I know better. Though I don't know for sure if he's killed immediately. Maybe he was hiding out when the bombs fell?
"I'm going to boost you to that hatch and then we are going to climb down the rest of the way to the Hidden Bek Base. Convince Gadon to have his men help us get as many cannons operational as we can. Then I can find out what happened to Master Senob." He states firmly coming to a decision. He uses the Force to punch the hatch off above my head. Throwing my bag over his shoulders, he bends at the knees interlocking his fingers together like a stirrup.
"Climb down?" I ask hesitantly. How many levels are there from here to the Lower Districts?
"Yes, is that a problem?" He asks as an afterthought, still waiting for me to step on his hands.
"No," I lie. When I was younger I used to be terrified of heights. Not that I'm not anymore, especially when it comes to free climbing a vertical surface like an elevator shaft.
"We don't have any other choice, Kylie." He nudges me gently, getting what I'm not saying. And I thought I could save Taris. What a joke! I'm faltering at the first obstacle. I am not going to give up now. Taking a deep breath, I nod to him, throwing the strap of my blaster over my shoulders and using Fane's hands as a step stool. He launches me through the open hatch. Catching the hatch's edge in my gut I wiggle my top half forward, and using my elbows as leverage I pull my bottom half out. I turn in time to see Fane leap out and land expertly perched on the edge of the hatch, his arms held out for balance.
Show off, I grumble to myself, feeling ornery for no good reason. Rising to my feet, I walk towards the edge of the box we're standing on. I force myself to take deep breaths, trying to control my racing heart and halt my vertigo before it takes off full gear. Stop my mind from vividly imagining how I could tumble down the seemingly endless shaft, the depths of which my light can't even penetrate. "Shit," I swear. My voice sounding weak and breathless, and I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands until they start to draw blood.
"Kylie," Fane calls to me somehow he sounds very far away, but concern is clear in his voice as he slowly grabs my shoulder, nudging me away from the edge so I can finally look away. "I'll catch you with the Force if you slip, okay?" He assures me, clearly worrying that I'll give into a full panic at any minute. I hate myself for making him think that, but as pathetic as it is I need that reassurance, white lie or not, to gather my strength and jump for the crisscross steel girders across the way.
...
After the first two levels, after Fane calmly and patiently talks me through why we can't just exit the shaft on any of the levels we pass until we reach the first level of the official Lower Districts, I finally start to calm down. My mouth is dry, my are palms sweating profusely and my limbs are still trembling, but the girders are stacked so close to one another it almost makes the task as simple as descending a gigantic ladder if I just don't look down.
"You're doing great, Kylie." Fane calls to me encouragingly, always a step beneath me. That's when it occurs to me it's only taking us this long to descend because of me, and I don't just mean because of my stupid vertigo. He's a Jedi, he could've easily Yoda hopped his way down in ten seconds flat.
"How much further?" I call back, exhausted. I feel as if I've reached my limit four levels ago.
"Only a few more levels, considering what you managed to read from the level accesses we already passed. We should be reaching the end of the Upper City."
"Oh, thank goodness!" I cry out, resting my sweaty forehead against the cold permacrete beam for a second. awash with relief. Hearing Fane chuckle below me.
Stopping a few levels later I aim my light at the faded lettering beside the doors. From what little I remember of what I learned of the alphabet earlier this evening all I can read is: L***e* *i***i**. I guess that's good since before now all I could read on the other levels was: Upp** *i*y and some numbers. Informing Fane of this he suddenly leaps to the other side of the shaft easily ten yards away, making my heart in leap in my throat. Sticking the landing with catlike grace, he turns around spreading his legs to stand on either cross beam in the opposite corner of me the doors between us. "Once I part the doors, climb through, I'll be right behind you."
Climbing down the last few rungs, getting into position by skirting the edge of the beam running beneath the doors, my back pressing against them, willing myself not to look down as my toes hang over the edge. I nod the go ahead to Fane. The thick durasteel bulkhead parts through the Force being manipulated by Fane, buckling and protesting every inch. "Go I can't keep them open, much longer." Fane orders when I hesitate. Quickly I scoot towards the crack turning around on the thin beam about to lift my upper half onto the floor of the level outside to safety. Safe turning out to be a relative term since when I look up, my hair falling out of my eyes I look straight up the business end of several blasters all trained on me.
"Hey Cineer," I nervously greet the only person I recognize in the armed blockade, as she stares back at me, clearly expecting Sith troopers to charge out of the shaft attacking their first line of defense, not a teenaged girl covered in permacrete dust with blood in her wild looking hair. "Mind telling your friends to lower their blasters?"
"Kylie? Is Dr. Forn with you?" She asks, hopeful but still confused, either ignoring the suggestion or not registering it. At the mention of Zelka I hop up the raised platform that is their ground level. Every barrel follows my movement as I try to get clear for Fane. I shouldn't have abandoned the clinic to Zelka without an explanation. He wouldn't try coming after me, would he? Or come looking for me at the base?
"No, I believe he made it to the clinic safely, but Malak's fleet is already dropping troops on the surface. We barely escaped the Republic Base with our lives." At that moment Fane drops in beside me the doors slam together a split second after his boots hit the permacrete and make everyone flinch. Considering their fingers are already too close to the trigger as it is, I flinch as well.
"Lower your weapons," someone commands, parting the group in front of us, "I think these younglings have had their fill of being shot at." remarks Gadon Thek, emerging in front of us.
"Gadon Thek, I am Padawan Fane Benik. The Hidden Beks helped defend Taris from the Mandalorians. Will your people join us in returning to the surface so we can get the defense cannons reinitialized and link up with any Upper city resistance?" Wow, that was some speech. Not really inspiring but direct, I guess? Not that I could do better, if I was in his place.
"That's a nice plan, boy, but we're past that point." Gadon informs Fane, crossing his arms, "My scouts inform me Malak's entire Command Fleet is in orbit over Taris. So unless you can somehow convince the Republic to try to retake a planet with no tactical significance to them, Taris is lost."
"Not exactly," I speak up, not sure what I can tell these people that will make them believe me without questioning why I know so much, but they're all staring at me now, even Fane, so there's no taking it back. "I saw everything that happened up there. Fane, did the Republic have any ships in orbit of Taris?" He shakes his head, confused.
"That's what I thought, how come I saw in the night sky a Republic Cruiser being fired upon by the fleet even before they launched an attack on Taris? Those were Republic escape pods we witnessed raining from the sky. I think the Sith are after those escape pods. Why else would they commit so much of their fleet to Taris, when everyone admits this planet has little to no tactical value?"
"So, you propose that if we get whatever was on this Republic ship, we use it as a bargaining chip to convince the Republic to commit their forces here?" The mob boss Gadon extrapolates, stroking his chin in thought.
No, that's the worst thing you could do! "I was thinking more along the lines of getting it off Taris and making sure Malak knows. So he'll at least move the bulk of his fleet from Taris and he won't feel inclined to bomb the city, or start mass executions when we prevent him from finding what he wants."
That thought startles Fane and most of Gadon's men. It obviously never occured to them that Malak would go that far. Oh man, are they in for a nasty surprise. I agree adding mass executions is melodramatic, but I have to drive my point home. "If it's worth invading a planet for, I doubt Malak is going to patiently wait until it's found, espcially if the Republic joins the fight."
"They won't leave when they have us over a barrel, I say we find out what he wants and give it to him. What has the Republic done for us?" Gadon's Twi'lek bodyguard speaks up, who's name escapes me but I remember she was very protective of Gadon and paranoid for his safety.
"And you really think a Sith would just leave, regardless of getting what he wants, when he has this planet in the palm of his hand? We get it off Taris, this planet at least has a fighting chance." I rebuke her harshly, interrupting whatever Gadon had to say in my haste to derail that line of thought.
"And what if Malak decides to exact retribution on this planet for us helping whatever or whoever get off this planet?" she bites back at me, "I've heard about you: a farm brat from Ord Mantel who thinks she's big stuff now that's she's beat Deadeye. You have no idea what you're talking about, youngling."
"Considering we don't know for sure if there is anything of value crashed in the Undercity, this argument is pointless." Gadon interupts raising his hands. "We need to focus our efforts on linking up with Upper City Security and repelling the invasion above. Two small teams will head for the Republic ship crash site and the escape pods in the Undercity, bringing any wounded or anything of value to our HQ. Padawan Benik will join the bulk of our people on the surface. Zaerdra, you'll continue to hold the line here," he informed the Twi'lek. She didn't like it. "Cineer you'll lead the group down to the Undercity, and Dragor you'll lead the group to the crash site."
As our make shift war council starts to disperse I trot over to Cineer, leaving Fane to deliberate with Gadon. "Cineer, I've been training as a medic and I know the people in the Undercity. You'll need me."
"Oh, 'I'll need', will I?" She remarks, as she turns from some people she was giving orders to. "Becoming a duelist, being among the first to fight the Sith on Taris and talking back to Zaerdra? You've come a long way from that that scared kid who managed to yank a blaster from that Vulkar." She chuckles, "Come on, let's get you in some armor."
This is definitely not what I planned to happen, but if I can get Bastila, Revan and Carth together sooner and steal the Ebon Hawk with Canderous' help... We might actually save Taris.