Chapter Three: Taking Back Telos
Disclaimer: I still do not own KOTOR.
Once the Exile managed to sort that out, she made sure to lock Atris in the Cargo Hold. Not because she was feeling particularly malicious towards her erstwhile friend, but rather for the safety of herself and the rest of the crew. Since Atris and Atton were no longer intent on killing each other, it stood to reason they might team up and try to claim the Ebon Hawk for the Sith Empire. Even though Atris wasn't actually a Sith, if a harmless and maligned old woman like Kreia could somehow convince Atris she was a Sith, who knew what an actual ex-Sith like Atton could do?
Or so the Disciple insisted as he cheerfully locked Atton in the cockpit. Either way, it was very effective, as neither had attempted to kill anyone during the journey (save the three times Atton nearly flew them into a sun, but the Exile wasn't entirely convinced that was a result of anything but his poor piloting skills), but it did cause both would-be Sith to bolt for the Exit ramp the minute the ship touched down.
Lieutenant Grenn was waiting for them. "I knew you'd be back."
The Exile blinked. "How? We didn't know we'd be back."
Grenn actually snorted. "Please. Death, destruction, chaos galore, who else could be behind this?"
"But-but this isn't my fault!" she protested.
Grenn sighed. "It never is."
"But this time it really-" the Exile began.
"Just leave it, Exile," Atton advised. He turned to Grenn. "So what exactly did the Exile do this time?"
"Hey!"
Ignoring her, Grenn answered, "She lured the Sith to Telos."
"That was me, actually," Atris admitted.
"What?" Grenn turned to her.
"Um, I mean, I'll just be going now," Atris said, quickly leaving.
"Bye Atris," the Exile waved. "Keep in touch. Now," she said, turning her attention to Grenn. "How do you expect me to single-handedly fix your mess this time?"
"Well, we need you to kill all the Sith on Citadel Station. Now, granted there are a lot of them and they've taken over the turrets and are wreaking havoc and are being met with virtually no resistance, but seeing as how that's all your fault, I'm sure you won't mind."
"Um, come again? How is the lack of resistance my fault?" The Exile's eyes widened in horror. "Oh, don't tell me: I accidentally caused Bastila to fall again, didn't I?"
Grenn stared at her. "Uh, no. But I am curious as to why that's your first thought."
The Exile coughed awkwardly. "So, if that's not it, then what did I do?"
"You're joking right?" Grenn asked.
"No," Atton assured him. "She really has no idea.
"But-but that's not-" Grenn began.
"I know," Atton cut him off. "I didn't think it was possible to be that oblivious either. But then I met her."
"So are you guys gonna fill me in or what?" the Exile asked, annoyed that everyone always acted as though she weren't in the room.
"Zherron and Queen Talia sent reinforcements." Grenn paused. "I'm…not actually sure how they got here so quickly or how they even knew to come in the first place, but I suppose it doesn't do to look a gift Bantha in the mouth."
"Yeah, Bantha breath sucks," the Exile agreed.
"That's an expression, Exile," Atton informed her.
"I know," the Exile nodded. "An expression of disgust at Bantha breath."
Shaking his head, Grenn continued. "Anyway, if you hadn't done a number on Khoonda's militia and sparked a Civil War in Iziz…But anyway, if you could go that one ship that's attacking and kill everyone on board, that'd be great."
The Exile stared at him incredulously. "By myself?"
"Well, I figured I could offer you moral support from here, where I'm in less danger of getting accidentally killed by you. And maybe my men and I can try and uncover some latent Battle Meditation abilities."
"Wasn't that supposed to be really rare or something and everyone was going on and on about how great it was that Bastila had mastered it? Now even I can do it. Tell me: What is wrong with this picture?"
"Well, after Revan saw the massive therapy bill for the Ebon Hawk's crew, she immediately decided to leave the Republic and go somewhere no debt collector could find her. As Republic officers and Jedi salaries are deplorable, Mandalorians spend all their money on weapons, and Wookies on food, Bastila was left to foot the bill, so she taught classes on Battle Meditation," Green explained helpfully.
Atton stared at him. "If you could learn it from a class, why didn't anyone ever do it before?"
The time, the Exile had an answer. "Jedi don't tell anyone anything if they can help it." She frowned. "But I still don't see how she'd need to teach that many classes. How many issues did these people need to work out?"
Grenn sighed. "I was hoping you wouldn't ask that…Well, Carth Onasi had to work through his paranoid belief that every time anyone survived anything it meant that they were out to get him, that his son hadn't really reformed and was just waiting for a chance to kill him in his sleep, that he was responsible for the fate of the galaxy, some abandonment issues, and, just as he was making some real progress, Revan left and the process began again. That Cathar Jedi, Juhani, had to come to terms with the fact that she was the only Cathar left alive in the Republic and so her species would probably die with her, her lesbianism, which, in retrospect, wave very fortunate as she wouldn't ever be able to have children anyway, and the fact that she was thoroughly convinced that all Mandalorians were out to kill her family members and enslave her, despite the fact that all her family members are dead and I've heard that the guy she was thinking of wasn't even a Mandalorian anyway.
"That Twi'lek kid, Mission, had to accept the fact that she was, in fact, still a kid and that anyone more than twenty years older than her would probably always refer to her as such. She also had to learn to lover her brother without enabling him and that it's not fair to blame fellow victims, like his ex, Lena, for Griff's lack of forward-thinking. The Wookie, Zaalbar, needed extensive work to help him develop a personality and then some work getting past his reservations at beating the heads in of anyone who tried to enslave him.
"Canderous Ordo was perhaps the most successful in therapy as he stopped going on and on about the 'glory days' and immediately set out to reunite the clans, which I'm still not sure is a good thing. Then Jolee Bindo was supposed to overcome his lack of morals, but actually managed to convince four fully-trained therapists that morals were overrated anyway, which upped the price of succeeding therapists. Then Bastila herself had to contend with her unresolved issues with her mother, her brief foray into the dark side, and how nobody else but her seemed to take the Fate of the Galaxy seriously."
"I see…" The Exile said, immediately starting to calculate exactly how much her crew's therapy bill would cost and how in the name of the Force could she afford that on top of paying for G0-T0's yacht and whether the owner of the Ebon Hawk was cursed, and whether she should take Kreia's incredibly thoughtful advice and go chasing after Revan and leave someone else to foot the bills.
The Exile left Grenn and turned a corner, intending to get to the action. Instead, she ran into Mandalore. "Hey, what are you doing here?" she asked, surprised. "Are you going to help attack Telos for old time's sake?"
"No," Mandalore said irritably. "That was the Sith who destroyed Telos, not my men."
"Oh. Hey, have you ever noticed there never seems to be any Mandalorian Sith despite the fact that their Codes of Honor are eerily similar?" Silence. "Okay, so maybe that's just me. But what are you doing here then?"
"I've come to inform you that I must leave you for a time," declared Mandalore grandly.
"Okay," the Exile shrugged.
"You…don't care?" Mandalore asked, confused and a bit hurt.
"No, not really. I have enough Revan-worshippers on my ship already, between Kreia, Atton, T3, HK, and G0-T0 and so I really won't miss one. Besides, it's all starting to give me an inferiority complex. Not to mention that I probably wouldn't notice you were gone. You don't talk much, you see," the Exile quickly elaborated. "And where are you going anyway?"
"To gather the clans!" Mandalore said dramatically.
"Didn't you already do that?" the Exile asked him.
"Well, yes, but now I'm going to go gather them and we can go off and fight together!" Mandalore amended.
"…Uh, now?" the Exile asked. "Couldn't you wait until we finish saving Telos?"
"NO, I can't. I'm gathering them to help destroy the Ravager," Mandalore told her.
"Not for nothing, but aren't the Mandalorians located on Dxun?" Atton asked. Mandalore nodded. "How do you intend to get them here in time, even if you don't have to personally go there and get them yourself?"
Mandalore pretended not to hear him and hurried away.
They kept walking and soon happened upon a defeated-looking Zherron attempting to inspire his severely battle-scarred and, in some cases, arm/leg-less troops. Unsurprisingly, he wasn't making much progress.
"I can give it a go if you'd life," the Exile offered.
Zherron's eyes widened in panic. "NO!" He cleared his throat. "I mean, that's quite alright. My troops were just leaving."
The troops, no doubt remembering the last time the Exile had tried to be inspirational, nodded enthusiastically and quickly limped off. There was blaster fire for perhaps half a minute and then it stopped. Zherron glared at her.
"Do you think he's still sore I won that liability lawsuit and didn't have to pay their medical bills?" the Exile wondered.
"Most probably," Atton agreed. "Why couldn't you have just saved everybody the time and effort and just paid them?"
"Hiring that lawyer was cheaper," the Exile said simply.
"Because she was a Sith!" Atton pointed out.
"I'll admit, Sasha might not have had any morals, but neither do any of us. Besides she seemed to know T3, HK, and Mandalore already and so we got a discount."
"But she was a Sith!"
"Well, it's not like we have any room to talk," the Exile remarked idly.
Atton looked affronted before realizing that the Exile wasn't talking about him, for once. "Hey, when did you get here?" he asked Visas. "And for that matter, how did you find us?"
"I am going with you," Visas said.
"That doesn't exactly answer my question," Atton told her, annoyed. When Visas continued to be silent, he turned to the Exile. "Ever get the feeling we're being stalked?"
"Oh, you have no idea," the Exile laughed.
They continued walking and soon the Exile tripped. Atton and Visas responded by immediately throwing themselves at the closest wall.
The Exile stared at them. "What's the matter with you two?"
"Well, you can hardly blame us. Usually when you trip something dies, if not outright explodes." The Exile still looked skeptical so Atton quickly continued, "Oh, come on! Every time I trip you accuse me of being drunk!'
"Oh, right. Speaking of: Did you spike Visas's drink?" the Exile asked.
"You ask not whether he had anything to drink?" Visas questioned.
"Oh, no I know he's always drunk," the Exile said dismissively.
"Hey!" protested Atton.
"What did you trip on?" Visas forestalled yet another argument between the pair.
It was an Onderon solider. "I think he's dead," the Exile said, poking him with her toe.
"No I'm not," he said.
"Well then, you will be," the Exile corrected.
"Do you have any sort of training in this sort of thing?" the solider asked.
"Well, not but I am a Jedi," the Exile informed him.
"What does that have to do with anything?" the Soldier asked.
"Nothing, really, but that usually impresses people," the Exile explained.
"Well, seeing as how you clearly have no idea what you're talking about, I think I'll be fine," the soldier struggled to his feet. "In fact, I think I'll come with you."
"Why?" Atton asked. "People in close proximity to the Exile do seem to die very sudden and painful deaths."
"Not to mention you'd just slow us down," the Exile chimed in.
"I'll take my chances," the soldier decided. "Besides, I daresay that those you travel with have a slightly better chance of surviving than your enemies, right?" Silence. "Right?"
"Yeah, of course," the Exile said, a little too quickly.
They continued going at a much slower pace, due to the heavily bleeding solider trailing after them.
"That can't be sanitary," the Exile commented airily.
They walked into a store and were immediately attacked by about twenty Sith who had just been standing around, browsing through the merchandise. Dendis, the Duros salesman, looked half-terrified, but thrilled to be relieving vast amounts of credits from the Sith. The Exile electrocuted fifteen Sith and Atton and Visas took out the remaining five with their lightsabers.
The Exile quickly perused the store's inventory an purchased a few medpacs. She already had 300, but she had an intense aversion to pain and so made a habit of buying at least five every time she passed a store.
As she turned to leave, Visas grabbed her arm. "Exile, I was fighting the Sith and all of a sudden, I felt myself overcome with an intense desire to fight your battles and kill your enemies. It was almost as if I could not help it, that I had no choice in the matter."
The Exile groaned loudly. "Who have you been talking to, the Disciple?"
"I…don't follow," Visas confessed, confused.
"Well, this is some sort of reference to the whole 'you're-accidentally-controlling-everything-in-sight' thing the Jedi Masters were going on about, right?"
The soldier looked alarmed. "Um, what?"
Ignoring him, the Exile continued, "I mean, is it really so hard to believe that maybe you were killing my enemies because they were trying to kill you?"
"No, that couldn't possibly be it," Visas said decisively.
"Do you have any training in such matters?" the Exile asked.
"No, but I'm a Sith," Visas said.
"And that qualifies you to make such declarations?" the Exile asked, looking at the Onderon soldier.
"Yes," came the prompt reply. "But then, I've heard that being a Sith will qualify you for nearly anything. Something about not taking no for an answer.
"Cheer up, Exile," Atton told her. "These are the same people who thought assassin droids make good diplomats."
The Exile sighed in frustration and continued on towards the TSF station. Another soldier from Onderon eyed them disdainfully.
"We've got this all under control," he sniffed.
And at first glance it appeared that they did. That was the first room they'd encountered that was totally Sith-Free. Upon opening the door that lead to the Force Cages, however, the Exile saw fifteen Sith who had previously been standing idly by turn and attack.
"Clearly," the Exile said dryly. The soldier in question flushed but did not reply.
After quickly dispatching them, Atton remarked, "I'm not sure releasing criminals in an emergency situation is the best plan, but man would it have come in handy at Peragus."
The Exile then decided to loot the armory, only to discover that it was completely empty. "What in the world is the point of locking the module door then? Surely Citadel Station isn't so cheap it won't replace a few lockers?"
A TSF soldier who was standing nearby snorted and said, "You wouldn't think so, would you?"
"Alright, this is depressing, let's just go find the Ravager," the Exile said.
As they turned to go, however, they were delayed a bit by the Onderon soldier who had been following them. Or, more specifically, by the fact that he'd finally managed to bleed to death.
"After all the trouble we took getting him here, now he just ups and DIES on us? Un-freaking-believable. This is the single biggest waste of my time since trying to turn Bao-Dur into a Jedi," the Exile complained. "Hey, has anyone ever noticed that it's never the ones with the intense anger issues that fall? Perhaps therapy is counterproductive…Wait a minute…Are Sith qualified to be therapists?"
Atton shrugged. "Probably. I mean, everyone we run across seems to think you're qualified to be one, after all."
To Be Continued…
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