trigger warning for suicide and suicidal thoughts
3951 BBY, Citadel Station, Residential Module 082
Eden
"They're where?" Eden asked over her shoulder, surprised. Ithira almost shrugged, or at least what would have passed for a shrug considering the girl was still wrapped around Eden for dear life as they cruised through the streets aboard a stolen swoop bike. "Out in the open like that?"
"It's not really obvious," Ithira said, "They have a front, of course."
Of fucking course, Eden thought bitterly.
"Now what am I looking for exactly? Is it a storefront? Some shady bar?" she thought back to Luxa's places of business and wondered if there was even a single honest establishment on the entire station. "It's not some-"
But Eden trailed off. The crowd had finally begun to thin, citizens either having left the station or hunkered down in their homes, and anyone left on the street itching for the credits she was worth lay dead, injured, or now feared both and headed home. But smoke rose at the end of the avenue, the neon signs obscured by the thick grey fog that emitted from the front of what Eden knew to be the Ithorian Compound…
"Where are you going?!" Ithira complained at her back though all she did was hold onto Eden tighter as she made a hard right turn. "You're going the wrong way!"
"Quick detour," Eden muttered as she urged the swoop bike to go faster than it was likely capable, the Force taking over where the engine eventually failed. But Eden was in a daze, her senses clouded just as the module was, thick with smoke and memory.
We were attacked, Eden remembered her mother telling them via holo once she and Aiden had finally settled into their bunk on Dantooine. The village is gone, and our house -
Her mother always had a way of remaining composed, even later when Eden joined her in the battles that still ensued on Serroco's surface. But in that moment, she broke, and Eden swore she could see it - the farmstead burning, the village ablaze. But not only did she see it. She felt it, too. She sensed her mother's despair at seeing her home, her entire town, up in flames. But most of all, Eden felt the ache her mother felt at knowing that her grandparents had been at home when it happened, tending the garden…
Whatever Eden had felt then, she felt it now too, both tenfold and in miniature, as if both moments were happening at once, simultaneously within and without herself. She pulled the bike up alongside the avenue and hastily jumped off, leaving Ithira to find a way to steady herself and the still slightly propelling vehicle on her own, datapad in hand.
"Hey!" she complained, but Eden barely heard her. Instead, she ran towards the doors, finding them unacceptably closed, barring her entry.
"Damn it," Eden cursed under her breath. Her eyes darted about the facade, her first thought being to force the door opening by simply blasting the outside panel. But that only worked in holovids, right?
"Ugh, are you for real right now?" Ithira complained as she gained on Eden again. "The Ithorians? This is your big detour? Just like the backup you promised back at the cantina-"
Eden snapped, fully turning around and grabbing Ithira by the jaw within the clenches of her hand. A vein tensed in her wrist as she held her there, Ithira's eyes wide as she registered just what was happening.
"Shut. Up." Eden seethed. "You saw what I did to Benok, right?"
Ithira only blinked at first, looking as if she might faint, before she eventually nodded fervently.
"I trust you'll believe me when I say I could have done a lot worse."
Ithira swallowed.
"Now," Eden began, finally letting go of Ithira and turning back towards the door. "About this detour…"
Her eyes scanned the building again, this time spotting a side window that stood ajar, letting out a decent amount of smoke.
"Alright, if I hoist you up, will you-?"
"You're not hoisting me, anywhere," Ithira said, before Eden shot her another death glare. The girl tensed in an instant and scurried over to the window. "Ugh, fine, just tell me when."
Eden groaned and shook her head, approaching the wall and getting into position, making sure her legs were stable enough to support Ithira's (relatively scant) weight before the girl reluctantly climbed Eden's shoulders and shimmied herself into the just-open window. Within a moment or two, the front doors clanged open, Ithira coughing rapturously as she greeted Eden into what was once a haven for growing things.
"Shit," was the only thing to escape Eden's mouth as she rushed into the compound. "Shit, shit, shit!"
Eden ran but soon came to a sputtering halt. The halls once covered floor to ceiling with plantlife were now up in flames, the bright orange fire licking away all that was green in the small space. She coughed and squinted, trying to get a better look at the damage but instead found herself cursing under her breath before calling on the Force again, very much like an old lover she hadn't quite reconciled with yet but found herself needing to contact. Eden closed her eyes, sensing Ithira beside her even if of all places this is the one location she didn't need the girl to be standing in her shadow in, and reached out.
Like in the cantina, the Force obliged but failed to completely cooperate - instead of granting her a complete sense of the space beyond the roaring flames, the Force instead told her that no threats lay beyond the barrier. So long as Eden didn't count fire as a threat.
"Thanks," Eden muttered, slumping her shoulders before realizing that she had an audience. Thankfully, Ithira was too busy trying not to die from carbon monoxide poisoning to notice.
But then like an inkling, a prickle tensed at the base of her neck. A thought - no, an idea - took hold of her and Eden held out her hands, poised and at the ready.
"Hold your breath," she instructed Ithira. The girl flashed what was quickly becoming her usual expression of displeased bewilderment and did as she was told.
Eden tensed and closed her eyes, willing her body to remain still and poised as she simply willed all oxygen to leave this quadrant of the room. Simply, she said, Eden groaned internally at herself as the space around her surprisingly obeyed. At least somewhat. The space around her sputtered, as if deciding between two forms of being before finally settling on existing as a place with slightly less oxygen than before. Just as the smoke cleared the flames extinguished, the air returned as well, and both Eden and Ithira gasped as their lungs recovered.
Still rusty, Eden thought, falling to a knee, still coughing, before clearing her throat and looking around. The compound beyond was empty, but still teeming with life - if not slightly singed for it.
"Took you long enough," a voice uttered from just beyond the barrier. Of all people, Kreia emerged from the fabricated underbrush to greet Eden, stalling only slightly at the sight of Ithira before deciding to completely ignore her presence if not forgetting her entirely on the spot. "I suspect the Exchange hit this place first, expecting to smoke them out and ruin them by flame rather than blasterfire, though I have a feeling they sent all other firepower your way."
Eden raised her eyebrows in an understated response.
"Something like that," Eden huffed, still slightly out of breath. "Where is-?"
Reading her mind, Kreia glanced behind her towards Habat's inner chambers.
"They're holed up in there. I rushed over as soon as we received your message. I wasn't stupid enough to leave this station, as you can now surmise, thinking I would most likely find you here. Thankfully there wasn't much to guard these-" Kreia paused, no doubt about to utter an offensive word before she found a more neutral one to take its place, "-idealists, from."
She turned and flashed Eden a pained smile.
"Though I fear that isn't the end of it," Kreia finished. She pointed towards the far wall, plastered with red paint.
In aurebesh, the graffiti read: COUNT YOUR DAYS.
"Tacky," Eden sighed as she shook her head.
They'll never stop coming, Benok had said after one of Eden's more spectacular punches back in the cantina. In the recollection, Eden wondered if the man enjoyed part of the beating, given how much he smiled smugly throughout… You won't stop it. Unless Slusk is dead.
"Wait," Kreia uttered, raising a hand to Eden's. Eden's hand was poised over her blaster and at Kreia's insistence she raised it. "Someone approaches."
Ithira, who Eden had almost entirely forgotten about within the past ten seconds, cowered behind Eden and Kreia as if they were a barrier, as good a wall if there was one.
Eden closed one eye and cocked her blaster, holding her aim steady at the small window of entry before her at the compound's entrance, her mind already focused on her staff should she need it. But before any presence was formally announced, she felt them - three forms approached, presumably stealthily from their perspective, from the side window Eden had allowed Ithira to shoulder through earlier. Eden and Kreia took several measured steps back, Ithira behind them, until they were completely camouflaged by the still-surviving foliage at their back.
"We should-" Kreia whispered, but before the woman could utter another thought, Eden's trigger finger had already done the dirty work.
Without blinking, Eden honed in on her feeling - on the Force - and just as her mind registered the three approaching figures now already inside the building, already anticipating their next steps, she fired. Her pistol shot three times before either of them could take another step, and none of her shots missed. Eden heard the bodies hit the floor, one by one, as she saw the smoke rise from the end of her barrel.
"Cartridge is almost empty," she said absently as she left Kreia and Ithira to stand baffled behind her.
"Those were all headshots…" Ithira whispered as she peeked through the remaining trees.
A shiver ran down Eden's spine at the realization, already knowing it to be true but displeased to hear the corroborating evidence, nonetheless. Eden stepped through the detritus until she reached the adjoining room, finding three unexpected bodies at her feet.
"They're not Exchange," Kreia said as she fell into step beside her, surprised.
Eden blinked. She took another step forward and examined the first body at her feet, the woman's corpse already uncomfortably close to the tip of her boot.
Unlike any Exchange members Eden had already come across, the woman she knelt before and the two men beyond her were more polished. Toned. Clean. Professional.
"Soldiers?" she offered, turning to Kreia. The woman only shook her head, though she offered no other answer.
Eden looked back at the body on the floor and examined her armor. It was of a much higher grade than Eden was used to encountering nearly anywhere in the galaxy, let alone the Outer Rim, and she wasn't sure what to make of it. The woman's lifeless face rolled away from her, her head loose on her neck in a way that both unnerved Eden as well as comforted her only in the sense that her unseeing eyes were no longer gazing in Eden's direction. The woman was clad in high-tech body armor, something only the Republic might have employed, and would have been useful had Eden not managed to score three perfect headshots…
She shuddered and looked back at the armor, spotting a sleeve for a combat knife but finding something glittering in its stead.
At the woman's shoulder was a holster, decidedly void of a weapon. Eden unlatched the safety flap and reached her hand in, retrieving - of all things - a sizable gold coin. It was heavy and oblong and entirely not what Eden anticipated to find within.
"No way," Ithira breathed as she arrived at Eden's back, looking down with mingled horror and confusion. "They're here too?"
Eden's head snapped around to meet the girl's face, her expression paling as soon as Eden's hard gaze met her startled eyes.
"Who's here?" Eden demanded, standing now, reeling on Ithira. The girl stood there, unblinking, until Kreia chimed in.
"You know who these people are," Kreia ventured gently. "If you tell us what else to expect, we stand a better chance of keeping you alive."
Ithira's gaze darted from Eden to Kreia, her eyes squinting slightly at the sight of the old woman as if only now just noticing her just as Kreia refused to do in return earlier. Whatever cogs were at work, Eden wasn't sure, but she had a guess as to what Ithira was thinking. Finally, the girl relented, and with a sigh she said, "Mercenaries. They're known as the Golden Company. High end mercs, too, but what they would be doing here, I-"
Ithira looked at Eden again, her face betraying some inner revelation before she sighed and played off a laugh as if all of this were funny.
"Oh."
The bounty on Jedi. It was only a matter of time before Slusk's announcement made it galaxy-wide and all hell broke loose. More than it already had…
"I sense nothing else," Kreia confirmed after a beat. "I believe we are safe for the moment."
"For the moment isn't very long," Ithira groaned, running a hand through her hair. "Can we leave now? Please?!"
Both Kreia and Ithira looked at Eden pleadingly, awaiting an answer. Eden only wanted to vomit. Or suffocate. Or some twisted version of the two.
"I am sure the Ithorians would be pleased to see you," Kreia said, almost too sweetly. "They were thankful for my help, but-"
"Ithira's right," Eden cut in. "This unfortunately isn't over. The sooner we get to Lopak Slusk, the better."
Eden felt Ithira's wide-eyed gaze on her, clearly forgetting that she'd promised Eden to divulge the location of the Exchange's headquarters until she spoke it back into being. Ithira hung her head and reluctantly clung to her datapad, slumping towards the compound's entrance and towards their hastily parked swoop bike.
"I see," Kreia said in response, the ghost of a smile on her face though Eden could not be sure exactly how to classify the woman's expression. She was likely happy that Eden didn't care so deeply about the Ithorians that she needed to check on them, right? "Well, I shall be here when you return. And then we can commence our exodus from there."
"Will do," Eden said, nodding unsurely and turning around. She walked towards the swoop bike, and a part of her wanted to laugh at the sorry image of Ithira sorrowfully awaiting Eden's return when the girl just wanted to go home and forget that any of this had ever happened. But before she reached the bike, Eden heard it - a voice that was decidedly not her own.
Together, it echoed.
Kreia?
Eden hadn't heard Kreia's voice in her mind like this since Peragus, and since then she'd hoped it had been a one-time deal, something that started off strong but fizzled away with time. But no. Kreia's voice rang clearly in Eden's mind as if the woman were speaking directly into her ear - no, directly into her mind.
We shall leave together this time, Kreia said. Lest anything else go awry.
Eden spun around to find the Ithorian Compound's facade void of life.
Kreia was already gone.
3951 BBY, Malachor V, Trayus Academy
Erebus
"Having second thoughts?" Erebus asked, watching as Vash paced his room, biting her thumb as she did so. Her eyes were glassy, her gaze faraway. "If it helps any, so am I."
He kept his voice low, not sure what else Uruba or Mellric could hear. Either or both of them would come barging into his quarters again at any moment and he was trying to lighten the mood. As if that were possible. Vash kept pacing as if she hadn't heard him, but he knew she was too wrought with worry, with guilt, to put any of her thoughts to words. He felt it all radiating off of her.
Part of him simply liked talking, but another part of him was frightened, too. Though for a reason he was not yet ready to discuss aloud. So, in the meantime idle chit chat and bad jokes would have to do.
"If you wear yourself out enough, you might be able to sleep through our meeting with Nihilus," he quipped, wondering if such a thing were even possible as he said it out loud. It probably would be. If Nihilus was satiated enough, he could trickle his consumption slowly, leeching off his victims as unsuspectingly as an undiagnosed illness, the fatigue only becoming noticeable once a significant portion of energy was sapped and it would already be too late…
"My visions should have prepared me for this," Vash said curtly, still biting the back of her nail. "If this ruse is to work, then-"
"Sion suspected nothing," Erebus sighed. "Trust me. That man is an open book if there ever was one. He was seething with anger, yes, but of a frustrated variety. You saw what he brought me. It was likely enough to weaken him and that scared the man."
"It scares me," Vash said, turning on her heel and finally facing Erebus, her face white. "What else did Revan hide? What did she know?"
Erebus bit his lip. Both Uruba and Mellric had paled at the sight of the artifact once he brought it to them, Uruba acting slightly more poised than her counterpart who managed to remain entirely silent for once in his life as he side-eyed the pyramid with a wide glower, as if it might attack should he dare to blink in its presence.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but there are too many artifacts in this galaxy for my liking," Erebus huffed after a moment's deliberation. "It might be my life's work but now that everyone's in the business of uncovering things they shouldn't, I suddenly find the entire business a bit obscene."
At that, Vash truly laughed, though her face didn't look any better for it. When their gazes met again, her eyes were dark.
"That's rich," she said, "And I know that's not true. All of this just makes you want to know more than anything."
"You're right," Erebus said, shaking his head. "I just don't like competition."
He smiled a sour, sardonic smile and Vash tsked as she shook her head and resumed her pacing.
"But still, I saw so much of this before. I should be prepared."
"Visions are like that," Erebus said blankly, his mind retreating to some inner part of himself that was not entirely his own. He closed his eyes - smelling blood and old metal, the scent of burnt food as well as singed flesh, all overcast with the feeling of a city rife with fighting and a jungle in the midst of a raging storm surrounding him as if the two things were simultaneous somehow. As if two places could coexist despite being on opposite ends of the galaxy. But Erebus had been in two places, before, in fact he often had. As himself, and as Eden. He imagined this was much of the same. "There's only so much you can do."
Erebus opened his eyes again, his dimly lit chambers suddenly too dark for his still-recovering vision. He'd felt it before, but now he saw it too - a restaurant in the back end of nowhere upended, bodies littering the destroyed booths, and amid the chaos thunder rolled through the valley, rain pelting his face as the scent of fresh blood and wet earth met his senses as if he were back in the thick jungles Dxun - as if Eden were back on Dxun.
Part of him shuddered, not missing the disassociation, the moments he felt wrenched from him as he was unwittingly pulled somewhere else - some time else. But another part of him relished in the discomfort, unnervingly pleased with the idea of being linked to his sister again. The sister he so long thought, and almost hoped, was dead. Now he knew that a huge part of her had been. And maybe part of him, too.
"Master?"
A rap came at the door followed by Uruba's insistent voice. Before Erebus could even respond, his door was already opening and his two assistants stepped unceremoniously inside, eyeing each other as if harboring bad news.
"Just lay it on me," Erebus groaned as he finally got up from his seat and motioned for Vash to take his place, her face pallid and frozen, unsure of what to do with herself in light of the intrusion. "I've waited long enough."
Uruba looked at Mellric, who glanced at Vash and then back at Uruba, before both of them looked pointedly at Erebus.
"Who should go first?" Uruba ventured.
"Maker, anyone," Erebus almost barked, exasperated. "How about you, Uruba? Since you're already talking."
Erebus's hands found his hips as he cast his eyes about the space, incensed, hoping all of this came off as somewhat erratic but authoritative instead of anything less flattering.
"Well, I tracked the sale of Darth Malak's armor," Uruba continued as if she wasn't just threatened into doing so. Another day in the office. "And it brought me to a cantina on Nar Shaddaa."
"What?"
"Nar Shaddaa, you know, the Smuggler's Moon-" Uruba started before Erebus interrupted.
"I know of Nar Shaddaa, but why is it there?"
"It's not the only bit of intrigue I found there, all traced to the same bar, the Jekk'Jekk Tarr-" Uruba pulled up the location on her handheld device and placed it on Erebus' center table for them all to examine. "I also traced two other sales to this location. I can't say for certain that this is where the items ended up, but it's at least where the hand-offs took place."
Erebus paused, examining Uruba's handiwork. Judging by her wide-eyes and Mellric's shifty ones, Erebus was at least playing the part of intimidating taskmaster that he needed to get through the moment successfully, Vash cowering in the corner of the room both convincingly and unfortunately truly. Before the last few weeks, this would have just been business as usual, but now Erebus felt as if he were role-playing his own life, unsure of where he truly fit in and unsure of where this was going.
"Any idea who purchased or sold these items?" he asked.
"Not yet, though I suspect the buyer has to be someone who works for the establishment's mob boss and not just a regular," Uruba reported proudly. "It would be strange and likely unwelcome to conduct business within the bar otherwise, this one in particular."
"Mob boss?" Erebus asked, to which Uruba nodded fervently, her pride radiating off her as Mellric rolled his eyes.
"The head of the Exchange outfit there, most likely," Uruba said. "A Quarren named Visquis."
Interesting. Erebus couldn't help but think of the vision he'd gleaned from the Rakatan ruins on Dantooine, of the mechanical atrium existing somewhere in a metropolis' orbit - only it hadn't been his vision, but Mical's. Could it have truly been on Nar Shaddaa?
"Anything else on Revan?" he asked, swallowing the thought of Mical but finding the memory of the man difficult to will away. Uruba shook her head.
"Yes, and no," she said, typing furiously until the shared readout revealed something other than the transactions she'd shared previously. "I found more items locked under her username but not much else, and nothing we can look into for the moment."
Erebus eyed Uruba's finds and wondered what the Jedi archive might have to shed on such things.
"Send the list to me," he said, turning to Mellric now. "And what about this Jaq?"
Erebus leaned on the edge of his center console in a way that he hoped invoked a sense of imposing authority, both for his underlings as well as for Vash's benefit. If he could convince his old Master that he was grown now, assertive, and above all able to act himself into and out of a lie, then perhaps they stood a chance of pulling the wool over Nihilus' unseeing eyes…
"Jaq, as we already discussed, was a Republic bomber pilot," Mellric began, not so humbly replacing Uruba's device on display with his handheld holo. "He was the only surviving member of a squadron sent to Malachor and he was subsequently scouted by Revan herself before he was formally inducted by Malak a year later."
Malachor. The memory of its destruction hung over Erebus' memory like a distant dream, glimpsing the destruction of the moon and everyone on it second-hand from Eden's stolen perspective. And though he stood there now, he still felt as if he were so far removed from it that the event may as well have happened in the ancient past. The echoes of what happened here resounded still, but even nine years later the destruction felt eons old as opposed to only a decade's worth of hurt. But perhaps that was more a testament to the depth of what happened here as opposed to the mere passage of time.
"And his connection to Azkul?" Erebus asked. Mellric only shook his head.
"Circumstantial," Mellric answered. "Pure happenstance as it seems from the record, though of course there could be a history we are not yet aware of…"
"No other relations?" Erebus asked. Mellric shook his head.
"From what I can tell, the two men only met once they were assigned to this Sith squadron. Azkul was recruited by Karath, but Jaq was personally vetted by Malak as I already stated."
Malak, again.
Erebus had never met the man named Captain Malak nor had he met him as Darth Malak, but he still felt as if he'd known him once. He caught glimpses of the famed Jedi Knight through the eyes of his sister yet never once in the flesh. First as Alek, then Malak, and then Darth. The shift had felt sudden, as if he was missing something from Eden's perspective, but now Erebus realized that a descent into the Dark Side was not quite immediate but slow and methodical, a shadow looming ever closer on the periphery, unnoticeable if you weren't looking for it but then suddenly all light would disappear, like diving deep into the ocean and crossing the indiscriminate threshold when all sunlight vanished though its gradual absence was only noted once completely eclipsed.
"I can look into it more if you'd like," Mellric added once he noted Erebus' sudden far-off expression. Erebus shook his head as he tuned back into Mellric's low voice. "The only other bit of useful information I discovered was that Jaq disappeared around six years ago, maybe five. That might give us more information."
More information.
Erebus shook his head, the memory of the man looming in his mind's eye just as a newer, unfamiliar version loomed opposite. Is that all you got? The stranger had laughed years ago, mouth full of blood despite the sickening smirk lacing his face. Erebus, as Aiden, had tried to reach out through the Force and anticipate the man's next move - only to come up with something nonsensical. Strange, even. Switch the face of the +1/-1 card, the totals are nine-ten. At the time, Aiden's eyes had grown wide with confusion as he was sucker-punched again, the Force embarrassingly silent in response as he tried once more to reach out and get a hold on the situation. Only he didn't. And somehow, thinking of it now - Switch the face of the +1/-1 card, the totals are nine-ten - Erebus saw the man again, as if in a memory, now sporting average spacer's travel clothes instead of the shadow-grey suit he'd worn back in that alley on Coruscant, and he was smiling. A charming, lilting half-smile, bashful if Erebus could call it that. And somehow Erebus knew that this flash of an image, and the glimpse into the man's mind, was something he'd gleaned from his sister.
"No need," Erebus said curtly. "Just as I instructed Uruba, send me everything you've got and I'll look into this myself. I appreciate your work, but I fear the rest of this I must do alone."
Mellric and Uruba exchanged glances before nodding curtly and finally exiting the room. As soon as they were gone, Erebus slumped against the back of his table and slid down to the floor.
"What have I done?" he sighed, echoing Vash's words from earlier. But he didn't just mean this, he didn't just mean now. He meant everything - from birth and every moment after. Everything leading up to this. He raked a hand through his hair and looked out at the stormy expanse of Malachor from his open window, wondering if Eden ever thought this place to be as wondrous as it was terrifying. Or if she only saw it as the tomb that it would be before she made it so, wondering why it was not meant to be her grave as well. Because Erebus felt every inch that, knowing, somehow, that he would die here. And that he had no way out. Maybe this is why they were born together - counterparts meant to follow in the other's echo until the ache consumed one of them whole.
Eden, the ache.
Aiden, the echo.
"What have I done?"
3951 BBY, Citadel Station, Residential Module 082
Eden
"So this is it, huh?" Eden said as she brought the bike to a slow halt. The streets were empty, a phantom wind blowing through the avenue as if they were planetside. Debris drifted down the residential street, lined mostly with apartments but sprinkled with businesses along the lower floors. Most of them were empty, save for the restaurant at the end of the block.
"That's it," Ithira confirmed. The girl slid off the bike first, dusting herself off with one hand as her other remained what seemed permanently glued to her datapad. "Looks like business as usual, too."
"But why?" Eden asked, though a dawning realization took hold of her as she spoke the words. They knew I'd be coming.
"Beats me," Ithira sighed, oblivious. "Now can we please get this over with? I'm already dreading whatever excuse I'll come up with about that lost ship-"
Eden balked, tuning out whatever it was Ithira was still going on about as she rounded on the girl, dumbfounded. Ithira blathered on, appearing not to notice - even tsking as she nonchalantly examined her fingernails and brushed them, annoyed, on the breast of her tailored suit - before her errant gaze met Eden's. Ithira's eyes went wide.
"You're free to go back to her if you want to so badly," Eden said, her voice far lower than she intended, betraying her inner annoyance. "Nothing's stopping you."
The streets were empty, but forebodingly so. Ithira glanced around, wide-eyed, before her gaze finally settled on Eden again.
"I'm not sure I like my chances," Ithira said, looking between Eden and the still bustling restaurant, no doubt already wondering if it was too late to change her mind. "Onward?"
Ithira flashed Eden a charming, if not pathetic, smile. Eden huffed and turned on her heel.
Not even three steps towards the oddly busy eatery, the sounds of raucous laughter and too-loud holoscreens blaring the results of the swoop race Eden so unceremoniously disrupted filling the air, she sensed it. Someone else is on the street.
Before she could plan it, Eden dodged right, bringing a surprised Ithira along with her as blaster fire rang through the avenue. Her senses were on fire - all five plus the Force, as if it had never left. Without thinking she closed her eyes and sensed their interloper, limping quickly from behind with no mind of slowing down.
"Not you again," Eden hissed. With Ithira pressed against the base of a large holo-tree display in the center of the street under one hand, Eden fired her blaster with the other, shooting blindly over her shoulder. Unlike earlier, Eden unfortunately missed.
"Thought I'd go down that easily?" Benok laughed. Eden threw a glance his way, his eyes bright with a feral menace Eden hadn't seen since the war. His face was mangled, but his canines still shone white over the caked blood that wreathed his ruined mouth. He smiled.
"You won't be able to just talk to Slusk," Benok said with a bloody cough. "You'll have to kill him."
Eden didn't move. Ithira looked at her bewildered beneath her arm, mouthing 'Do something!' But Eden remained still.
Eden hadn't been responsible for taking another life since the war. Not since Malachor. Yet she'd killed at the docks, and she'd killed aboard the Harbinger. She was under attack - there wasn't any other choice. Or was there?
Atris had said something to her once when they were children one night as they lay in her bed in their shared dormitory, fighting off sleep and waxing philosophical as preteens often did, believing themselves to have just unlocked the secrets of the universe, privy to some forbidden knowledge the remainder of the world carried on oblivious to. We have the means to end all violence, you know, Atris had said, hopeful. We have the power. We just need someone willing to prove that power and use it as a warning, but not a weapon. Eden wanted to believe her then, and she wanted to believe it especially when Atris was promoted to a seat on the Council, hoping that peace could finally be won without Revan's war. But then Serroco was attacked and Atris had done nothing to stop it. But Revan had… Revan's retaliation gave Eden a sense of purpose, a purpose she felt course through her now as she imagined the state of Telos if she left here, now, without any more bloodshed but inexplicably leaving the Ithorians defenseless…
She'd have to kill her way through the Exchange, and Benok knew that.
"So, what will it be, Jedi?"
And in that moment, Eden knew Benok had a death wish. But he also had a point.
"You never truly believed I was a Jedi, did you?" Eden asked as Ithira flashed her another perplexed sense of wide-eyed worry.
"Oh, you were a Jedi alright," Benok huffed a laugh, taking another step closer. "Sworn protectors of the galaxy, my ass. The Jedi left us to die. But you especially."
Eden froze. The street stood silent in the wake of the still-bustling restaurant, but amidst the rabble Eden could still make out the sound of a detonator being activating behind her. Benok laughed a dark laugh and took another step closer.
"You left us to die. You knew we wouldn't win."
Dagary Minor.
"But you didn't let us know that."
It was the first calculated loss Eden was forced to gamble on. It was the first time she'd ever argued with Alek, yelling via comm well into the night and early morning that there must be another way. Sometimes you have to enter the darkness in order to save the light, he'd paraphrased before finally hanging up on her, hearkening back to the seminal moment they'd both witnessed on Cathar. And when Revan's orders and Alek's advice proved to be in her favor, Eden had done it again. And again. And again.
"You were ground troops," Eden said, breathless. "You were one of my men."
"One of your men," Benok echoed, spitting in her direction. "The galaxy would be better off without the likes of you, Jedi or no. Revan's Sith Empire didn't prove to be any better. And now look where we are."
Eden felt the ache of Telos far beneath them as if in response to Benok's words, the echoes of Revan's orders still strong even all these years later.
"The galaxy would be better off without any of us in it," Benok said, quieter now, almost regretful. Eden hazarded another glance over her shoulder - and the sight of him struck her. She sensed it then - the pull of the Force, the memory of an old tether tugging at some inner part of her, begging that she remember the deeper thread but finding the spool too sprawling to follow. She tried to remember him, to place Benok's face among the many soldiers that once put their lives in her hands. She knew him, but her mind put up a wall, preventing her from truly remembering. She had managed to remember Orex aboard the Harbinger, the ghost of his former self returning to her in a flash as if a reminder of why their mission now was so important, but her mind drew a blank with Benok. A chill coursed through her bones. She remembered each of the dead as if she carried their graves within herself, knowing there was possibly no one else to remember their sacrifice. But what about those still living? Those like her? She'd forgotten them, just as she'd abandoned them.
"You'll have to kill Slusk if you want this to end," Benok uttered, taking a measured step back. "But that shouldn't be a problem for you, right?"
"Benok, wait-" Eden rushed, darting out from her cover to lunge for him, to stop him. But Benok only smiled as he hit the destruct button, engulfing himself instantly in a flash of blue-white flame.
Eden spun around and dove back beside Ithira, who looked more shell-shocked than ever. The blast from the detonator was far enough to leave her unscathed, but not far enough for the heat of the flames not to lick the bottom of Eden's boots. She winced.
Eden had always felt as if she should have died at Malachor, but now she wished it more than anything.
This will never end, she thought.
The ache would never be satisfied.
And Eden would never be free.
3951 BBY, Citadel Station, Residential Module 082
Atton
"We aren't far," Luxa announced once they arrived upon the first set of apartments as they exited the main thoroughfare. One Gamorrean, who Atton had since learned was named Kuna, scouted the area ahead before beckoning the others to follow.
The main causeway was quiet. Too quiet for Atton's liking. He stalked behind the others with his blaster poised and at the ready, looking for any movement and twitching anything he thought he saw something move. Luxa did the same, though she was far less jittery and much more poised. The other Gamorrean, Nej, trailed behind, armed with both a blaster and a mace as they started towards the far end of the promenade.
"I don't like this," Luxa muttered, toeing some errant trash with her boot. "From what we heard, the residential modules were only full of fleeing residents."
"Aren't you leading me to the Exchange?" Atton asked, bewildered. "What about them?"
Nej bleated behind him, detracting Atton's keen attention for a second too long as the man looked at the guffawing Gamorrean while Luxa laughed in concert beside him.
"They're not stupid," Luxa admitted, her blaster still patrolling the area as her gaze scanned the space. "Anyone stationed here would have stayed put. If they were ordered to do otherwise, they wouldn't have used the main fucking walkway."
Now it was Kuna's turn to laugh, and Atton felt the fool. He looked from Kuna to Nej, and then Luxa again, all three of them equally serious as well as tickled at Atton's naivety. As per fucking usual.
"Well," Luxa sighed, ushering them all towards a small artificial grove of holo-trees towards the east-edge of Residential Module 082's promenade. "Here we are."
Here we are?!
Atton glanced around, not at all in the loop - far from it, in fact. This place looked as boring as any of the other designated living areas on the station, if not more discreetly so were it not for the unusual detritus left in the wake of a storm as Luxa so graciously pointed out moments ago.
"Your HQ is here?" he whispered, baffled as he continued to examine the length of the corridor. Most of it resembled the 083 module, as well as the one in 084 despite the areas under current construction. Bland apartments lined the avenue, just as they did the majority of the station, sprinkled with the occasional establishment every apartment block or so - there was a bakery, a sad looking intergalactic embassy, and a seedy takeout spot…
"That restaurant," Atton began, taking an errant step towards it. "I saw the sorry backside of that dump from my Peragus-issued apartment just the other week."
Luxa laughed, Nej laughing along with her while Kuna still scoped out the remainder of the street.
"What a clever little cretin," Luxa chuckled. "Feeling smart now, are ya?"
Luxa bared her canines, her red lipstick fading from her lower lip as she smiled wickedly at him, Nej laughing harder beside her as he cocked his weapon.
Atton felt his face turn red but he pursed his lips, angry but not willing to die just yet for his ignorance. What would Eden think of him, then?
"Alright," Luxa said once most, but not all, amusement left her face. "There will be six guards at the front posing as patrons, and a girl behind the hostess stand. There may be actual customers there as well, I mean, the food is half-way decent. Anyway, we need to disable the security system first. There's a set of cameras in the back behind the hostess and the checkout counter adjacent to her, and once we do that, we take out the lights, and-"
Kuna grunted a series of follow-ups, things Atton assumed elaborated on Luxa's proposed plan but in a tongue Atton knew little of. All he took away was quick and dead.
"Got that?" Luxa asked.
Was this a test?
Atton glanced from Kuna to Nej, and back to Luxa again. His mind reached out, gathering other errant words from the nether: distraction, flash grenade, and southern door. Or was it western? Atton nodded, not wanting to appear stupid but knowing he was anyway.
"Okay," Luxa whispered, readying her gun as she nodded at both her bodyguards. "Ready?"
They both nodded and turned to Atton. It took a second or three for Atton to realize they were awaiting his affirmation before he nodded fervently and pointed his own gun at the restaurant's innocent looking Open sign still flashing out front.
"On one, two…-"
Luxa mouthed the word three wordlessly as she watched Kuna kick in the door and shoot his gun towards what Atton assumed was the security camera. His blaster bolt hit something and the man stepped inside, Luxa alongside him, but when Atton and Nej made to follow, they found the other two already stopped in their tracks.
"What…" Luxa began, her eyes searching about the room. "The actual. Fuck."
Atton pushed past her just as Nej did. At first, all Atton could see was darkness. His view over Luxa's shoulder was already darker than it should have been, but once Atton stepped inside, he saw it - the mess, and the bloodshed.
Tables once piled high with food and drink now lay askew across the dining room. Shattered plates and plasteel dishware littered the floor, as well as ashtrays and all manner of detritus.
And then there were the bodies.
Several figures sprawled in a heap right near the front, a bloody hand uncomfortably close to Atton's encroaching boot. He shuddered, pulling away at the sight as the rest of the room fell into focus. Pools of blood collected amidst the mess, creating rivers in miniature. A screen occasionally flashed in the corner of the room, emitting only static over the restaurant's overturned booths and upended tables before plunging the room into darkness again, providing the only light in the space as the overhead fluorescents were already shattered, the duraglass from their rupture crunching beneath Atton's boots.
The room was near silent, save for the occasional static and the sound of sobbing from the corner. Luxa rushed towards what appeared to be the hostess stand, kneeling just to the side of the podium as she cradled an unseen person in the dark, comforting the stranger before unsurely standing up again and facing the remainder of the room.
"They went this way," Luxa said quietly, her face almost white, a paler shade of pink than Atton thought possible. The woman still held her blaster at the ready, and Atton watched as Nej and Kuna exchanged glances before following, urging that Atton walk between them. He didn't understand their guttural muttering, but he got the gist.
"What happened here?" Atton asked in a whisper as he followed, edging over Nej's shoulder to direct his question at Luxa.
The woman only shrugged.
Luxa led them through the restaurant's kitchen, food abandoned in various states of preparation as they went. Kuna turned off a stove top burner left on as they passed and elbowed Atton in the ribs - urging him to follow Luxa faster.
Atton did as he was told and kept pace with Luxa's careful steps until they met a series of lush rooms, likely meant for VIPs. The velvet stared back at them, empty and recently splayed - the contents of their cushions left to spill out into the open. Some were coated with blood. Atton didn't have time to examine the bodies that littered the floor.
"Upstairs," Luxa whispered as she led them down a side hallway labeled Employees Only. They passed what appeared to be a rudimentary break room and a series of interspecies restrooms before happening upon a staircase that led to Maker knew where. Atton glanced back at Kuna, the Gamorrean's deep brown eyes glistening menacingly in his direction, urging him upward.
Once at the top of the landing, there were more of them - bodies. Atton heard Luxa react to them first. She let out a disgusted ugh once she reached the top of the stairs, disappearing to the left before Atton or Nej could follow her properly, finding only once that he, too, had reached the top of the stairs that there was a pile of three casualties barring their way forward.
"What happened here?" he asked. Luxa looked behind him to Kuna and to Nej before returning her gaze to Atton with a sorry but surprised look on her face as if to say - Oh, you don't already know?
Atton swallowed hard.
I ended it, Eden had said while they were on Peragus when Atton asked what she'd done during the war. At first, he simply assumed she was one of the Jedi assigned to the cursed Mandalorian moon, as many were, including the only Jedi he'd ever let himself get close to before being betrayed by the man, Corr Desyk. Atton had grown friendly with the young Knight before he perished on the satellite's surface, the rest of Atton's bomb squad along with him. As the bastard should have.
But now Atton realized who Eden truly was. She wasn't just a Jedi assigned to Malachor. She was the Jedi. She was the Jedi assigned to make that last call. To destroy Malachor and everyone on it. No matter the cost.
"C'mon," Luxa urged as she shoved the body pile as best she could into the closest thing the hallway had to a corner. "We likely don't have much time."
Atton never thought Luxa could be this serious. Isn't this exactly what she wanted? Infighting? Even the mood wafting off Nej and Kuna was sour, and Atton knew that whatever went down was more than any of them bargained for. Luxa led them wordlessly through a series of miniaturized apartments and hallways, all empty but in various states of disarray and death. Atton tried to keep his eyes forward, his blaster at the ready.
Switch the face of the +2/-2 card, the total is eight-eleven…
After another flight of stairs and what felt like a jaunt down a hallway longer than the restaurant was wide, likely leading them to an adjoining building, Luxa stopped. They stood at a small landing, vaguely opulent but still decidedly seedy, the marbled floors slick with something it took longer than Atton wanted to admit was likely blood.
"Alright fellas," Luxa said with a nervous intake of breath. "Looks like we're here."
Luxa looked back to Nej again and beckoned that he join her at the edge of the hall, nodding her head in the direction of the door beside her. Atton stilled, almost scared, before he heard it. Screaming.
It was muffled at first, and not because it was sound-proofed or faraway. But because whoever was screaming was gurgling. Either because they were being waterboarded, which Atton doubted, or because they were choking on their own blood.
"Help me with this, will you?" Luxa requested and Nej obliged. The two looked at one another once square with the door and both of them leaned into the thing with a running lean into the solidity of the frame.
An errant scream erupted from the other side of the door - louder this time, desperate - blaster bolts firing from beyond. Atton's eyes went wide as he held his own blaster steady on the still-closed door, Kuna at this side doing the same with his rifle balanced in one hand and a spear in the other.
Luxa and Nej rammed the door again, only it barely budged, and the action on the other side only elevated. The screams grew louder, more panicked, words finally making their way to Atton's ears with a murmurous, clamoring soddeness that made the hair on the back of Atton's neck stand on end.
"Please," the voice said in gargled Quarrenese and Basic. "I promise to do it, I swear."
I swear was uttered in clear Basic, just as the station-wide message had been relayed. Lopak Slusk.
Luxa sighed and stopped Nej from ramming the door again with an impatient hand as she reached into her cleavage and produced a small thermal detonator. Atton wanted to do a double take, but hardly had the time. Luxa activated it the moment she brought it out into the flickering light and urged them all to run back towards the end of the hallway, hurrying them with her hands as if she were shooing schoolkids back into the classroom after recess. Atton balked, as did Kuna at his side, who managed to scoop Atton up just in time for the door to blow. Atton and the Gamorrean were sent sideways, flashes of Peragus' rec hallway flittering before Atton's open eyes as the room spun back into focus.
Like before, everything was muted, though not nearly as much as the last time. Atton's heart began racing, his eyes manic and wide as he missed a breath and his lungs almost failed to catch up. Kuna slapped him hard on the back and nodded at him with a quiet You good? before helping Atton to his feet.
Still out of breath, Atton nodded in thanks, only for his gaze to quest sideways to the now-open room at his back and the scene unfolding within it. The bomb might as well as not have gone off.
Just within the now-blasted door was a room lush with velvet and gunmetal. A series of couches lined the sides of the room where a gleaming black desk outfitted in gold limned geometric inlays sat front and center, flanked by two, now smoldering, canons. And between them, just at the head of the desk, lay Lopak Slusk. And kneeling with her knee on his throat was Eden.
"I don't believe you," Eden uttered with grave disbelief as she held Slusk up by the collar, his tentacles a mangled mess and one of his sluggish eyes pouring blood and ooze. "I know you're lying. Says so right here."
Eden held up a datapad and slapped Slusk in the face with it before flashing him a sinister stare.
"Mark my words, I will destroy this empire you've built. And Czerka along with it. The galaxy would be better off without the likes of you."
Slusk laughed, if you could call it that. Luxa stood frozen, staring out at the scene as Atton slowly approached, his eyes wide. Atton still felt as if he were dreaming, still coming down from the explosion and living in its feverish aftermath. The woman before him was familiar, but also anything but. Eden stood with her back to them, and Slusk finally eyed his audience over her hunched shoulder.
"Luxa," Slusk breathed, coughing up blood. "Help me and I'll give you whatever you want."
The man looked so utterly pathetic. Beside him lay his entire guard, some dead and others still dying, their death rattles filling the air in the pregnant pause following Slusk's plea.
Snapping out of her reverie, Luxa tsked and pointed her blaster again.
"No, you won't," she groaned impatiently as she took a few steps closer, clocking her gun and shooting Slusk point blank. "Stupid son of a bitch."
Eden huffed a laugh and finally stood. She cracked her neck and turned, the lower half of her face covered with blood.
"Took you long enough," she muttered, wiping her bloody nose with the back of her hand. "And you're welcome."
Eden looked only at Luxa, sizing her up.
"This is what you wanted all along, right?" Eden asked, her eyes blank but somehow hungry, hollow and vicious as she awaited an answer.
"Y-yeah," Luxa stammered, eventually holding out her hand as if congratulations were in order. Eden ignored her. "Not quite the way I planned it, but we make a good team, right?"
Eden huffed another hollow laugh and brushed passed Luxa entirely. Her eyes only vaguely met Atton's as she left the room, her limbs heavy and her breath ragged. "I'll meet you back at the apartment. We're getting out of here."
Atton said nothing. He only blinked. The hungry ache Atton sensed from Eden back at the TSF station resurfaced again and seemed to swallow the room whole. He looked at Kuna as if the man might have some reaction for him to work off of, but he had nothing. And neither did Nej. Is it really just me?
"What - and I don't say this lightly -" Luxa began, toeing Slusk's body with the tip of her shoe. "The actual fuck?"
Luxa sighed, laughing as if this was just another weekend. Atton groaned.
"Everything you've ever wanted, apparently," Atton sighed as he watched Eden's retreating back until she disappeared entirely - unsure, as usual, if he was feeling more afraid or aroused by whatever the hell did just happen.
Though, unfortunately for Atton, he knew it was a deadly combination of both.
Eden exited the room, but Atton still felt her everywhere. The ache, the stench of death, and everything that made him wish he'd died at Malachor along with the rest of his squadron.