Brinna felt like hell the next morning. She'd barely slept due to both her fight with Carth and her continued agonizing over Revan. She had spent so much time alternating between tears of rage and tears of sorrow that she felt thoroughly dehydrated and her eyes were so swollen and irritated that they felt worse than they had when the winds of Tatooine had filled them with grains of sand.
"Are you okay?" Mission asked her gently, as she seated herself at the foot of Brinna's bunk.
Pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes in an attempt to soothe the burning ache, Brinna shook her head. "Not really," she said, her voice muffled due to nasal congestion caused by her tears.
"You can't keep doing this to yourself," Mission told her, reaching out and prying Brinna's right hand from her eye. Mission held it gently between her own hands.
"I feel like my brain and my body are two separate entities. I feel like I deserve unimaginable punishment for being Revan but yet I don't remember anything about Revan, other than some pieces of memory tied to Revan's finding each Star Map. It's like there's still a small part of me protesting against all of this, still insisting that she can't possibly be Revan."
"You aren't Revan," Mission said firmly. "None of the things you've done have been anything like what Revan did. You have hardly any of Revan's memories. I'm as much Revan as you are."
"That's not true, Mission. That's not true at all. I can't just refuse to acknowledge my part in all this," Brinna said wearily, letting her left hand fall from her eye to her side.
"But you aren't refusing to acknowledge anything," Mission argued. "You want to atone for what Revan did, even though you aren't Revan. You're risking everything to save the Republic and defeat the Sith. Brinna, what more can you expect of yourself?"
"I just…" she began, her voice faltering. "I just wish it wasn't true." Her voice was so small that it was barely audible and she felt like a silly child for even expressing such a fruitless wish.
"I know," Mission said, squeezing her hand. "I wish it wasn't true too, for your sake. For my part, though, it's meaningless. You are Brinna and Brinna was never Revan."
"Thank you," Brinna said. Mission's kindness had brought a lump to her throat and she swallowed convulsively as she held onto the Twi'lek's hand for dear life. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
"The feeling is mutual."
Brinna reached across the bed and gave Mission a fierce hug. She pushed her covers aside, got out of her bunk, and began dressing.
"This thing with Carth…it's really not your fault," Mission told her, her voice hesitant.
"It's really not his either," Brinna said, tiredly.
There was a momentary silence while Brinna continued to get dressed and then Mission said, "Maybe it's not really my place to say this but he's not taking any of this well. He was really a mess last night."
Her spine stiffening, Brinna turned to look at Mission. "He's not…"
Correctly interpreting the look on Brinna's face, Mission rushed to add, "He's okay. It's just that he was really upset about what happened last night. I don't want you to think that any of us were eavesdropping or anything but, well…the loading bay was open and we could hear you shouting at each other but we couldn't hear what you were saying."
"It was awful," Brinna acknowledged.
"You'll get through this okay, I know you will," Mission told her. "From the minute I met you two I knew there was something there. You just seem so right together."
"I wish Carth felt that way," Brinna said, feeling tears rise once more.
Mission looked as though she were at a loss for words as Brinna left the bunkroom. As she made her way toward the common area, she ran into Jolee.
"You look a mess," he told her. "Damn foolish youth. You two remind me of a couple I knew once. Just like you and Carth, the two of them combined had less sense than a tach."
"Please, Jolee, not a story, not right now," she responded wearily.
The old Jedi's face softened. "Love is never easy," he told her.
And to her amazement, he proceeded to tell her about his wife. It was such a sad story and yet he still spoke of love in such a way that told her that he believed it was worth it.
"I've never stopped…I still want…" Brinna said, fumbling with her own words.
"You two are harder on each other than you should be. And you're harder on yourselves."
"I was just so angry with him. I didn't want to fight with him but, in a way, I'm glad I did. I just want to try to make him understand what this is like for me."
"Just as long as you understand what it's like for him. He doesn't have it easy either, you know."
"I know. Maybe that's part of it. Maybe I'm so afraid of how hard he has it that…that I'm afraid he'll slip away forever," she said, her voice quavering.
"Who knows what the future holds," Jolee told her. "I can only say that I wish for the best for you, my dear."
"Thank you, Jolee," she said, taking his hand and pressing it. "I wish Carth and I both had more time to process all of this but we still have so much to do and less and less time in which to do it. Will you come with me again today?"
"Of course," he said, patting her hand consolingly.
Her stomach churning, Brinna went in search of Carth. She found him staring vacantly at the controls in the cockpit.
"Do you want to come with me and Jolee?" she asked him, finding it hard to speak around the painful lump in her throat.
As he looked at her, she could see that he was experiencing every bit as much turmoil as she was. "Yes," he said, simply.
"I…I want you to know that I'm aware this isn't easy for you. I'm sorry I upset you last night but I'm not sorry for trying to make you understand me."
"I just…I just need some time," he said.
She nodded, trying hard to control her trembling lower lip. "Let's go."
As she turned away from him, she hastily dashed away the tears that were threatening to spill over. Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, she continued on to the loading bay, where she found Jolee waiting for the two of them. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the old Jedi exchange a look with Carth but she couldn't say exactly what was going on between the two of them. Really, it was none of her business anyway. If Carth had found someone with whom he felt comfortable in confiding, she was happy for him. Force knew he needed it every bit as much as she did.
They went directly from their own hangar to that of the Sith. As they passed through the first set of doors, a recording of a Selkath voice informed them that they were leaving Ahto city and the surveillance zone.
"Well thank goodness for that," Brinna said. "I really don't want any trouble with the Selkath authorities and, somehow, I'm thinking they probably wouldn't approve of what we're about to do."
"We're doing them a favor," Carth said bluntly. "Just because they don't want to take care of the problem doesn't mean everyone feels that way."
"Good thing I'm in the mood for a Sith sandwich," Jolee said, causing Brinna to smile in spit of herself. She looked at him and shook her head and then tripped the switch for the door.
Predictably, the Sith were less than pleased to see them in the hangar and they were attacked immediately. They had a dark Jedi with them but Brinna was pleased to find that he must have been an apprentice for he wasn't very strong in the Force and, therefore, not very difficult to subdue. It only took them a few minutes to take care of their opposition.
All this killing… Brinna thought, eyeing the bodies of the Sith. I'm so tired of it, so tired of it all. After this is all over, I just want…
But she wasn't really sure what it was she wanted. She had some idea but wanting didn't mean having. Despondently, she wondered if she was becoming like Carth had been, pre-Saul. Was she now at the point where it didn't matter to her if she made it? Had she become incapable of imagining a future beyond rescuing Bastila and defeating Malak?
The speeder ride across the ocean to the Sith base was quickly over. To everyone's relief, their entry seemed to go unnoticed and they had the element of surprise in their favor as they began to move through the rooms in the base. As soon as they found a computer, Brinna sliced into it and used the security cameras to locate the room in which the droid was being held.
"There it is," she told her companions and they moved over to the monitor to see. Fortunately, the room was rather lightly guarded and it appeared that recovery wouldn't be too much of a problem.
They made their way swiftly through the base, dispatching any Sith who got in their way. Despite her struggle with the dark side, Brinna was finding that she was quickly becoming more and more in tune with the Force. Her ability to channel the light side seemed to be increasing by leaps and bounds and she found that she was able to use her abilities to destroy droids and freeze her opponents in stasis with greater and greater ease.
"Swirling Force, remember?" Jolee murmured to her at one point, as Carth searched a footlocker on the other side of the room.
Brinna shook her head. "I don't understand this," she told him. "I've never felt so conflicted and yet I can feel myself becoming one with the light side of the Force. It doesn't make the darkness any easier to bear but still there's this peace…"
"Remember what I told you? I don't buy the Jedi claims that passion is a bad thing. What matters is what you're passionate about and how you channel that passion," Jolee told her.
His words made sense and she found herself nodding thoughtfully. "More than anything else right now, I want to find Bastila and stop Malak."
"Sounds to me like your heart is in the right place."
She was thoughtful as they continued on their way. Perhaps Jolee was right, perhaps passion didn't have to be a bad thing after all. She was finally coming to understand that the struggle against the dark side would be a lifelong one. Carth had told her that he used to think the dark side was just a fancy term for normal greed and cruelty and avarice but that he was beginning to feel that it was different for the Jedi. In some ways he was right but, in others, the Jedi were just like anyone else. Now that she knew what she had always been, she couldn't say what it was like for someone who was not Force sensitive but she knew that, as a Jedi, there was a dark force that was always lurking there, waiting for her to slip up. Yet as Jolee had said, passion didn't always lead down the path to the dark side and so she was beginning to think that in some ways the Jedi weren't any different from anyone else. What mattered, in the end, were one's choices, one's actions. When she used her passion in her quest to follow the light side of the Force, she found a strength and serenity she had never come close to feeling when she had tried to deny her emotions altogether. The Jedi Masters were wise, she couldn't deny that, but she was beginning to wonder if it was their simple fear of emotion that drove them to try to be so dispassionate.
I know now that I will always have to be diligent, that I will always have to be on my guard against the dark side. But I'm beginning to think that it doesn't mean that I can't feel, that I must go through my life without friendship or love…
That last thought made her feel wistful, for she fervently hoped it would come true. She had her friends, of that she was now assured, but without her love where would she be? Almost against her will, her gaze turned to Carth and her heart hurt. If she survived her encounter with Malak, if she was able to stop him, she didn't want to think of a life without Carth. It would be desperately lonely, terribly empty.
The droid recovery wasn't much of a problem, fortunately. As soon as they had it in hand, Carth wanted to leave the base.
"No," Brinna said to him. "There are still more rooms we haven't investigated and I promised Shaelas I would try to find out what the Sith are doing with the Selkath youth. There has to be something here."
Carth didn't look entirely happy and she knew he was longing to just hurry up and find the Star Map so that they could finally find the Star Forge. "You're right," he said at last. "We can't just forget about our promise. And maybe if we can prove that the Sith are corrupting the Selkath youth, we might be able to give the Republic better standing."
He had hardly finished speaking before Brinna was racing through the base once more. In some ways, Shaelas's situation reminded Brinna of Carth's; one more family torn apart by the Sith, one more impressionable youth turning to their lies and empty promises.
It wasn't long before they found the proof for which they'd been searching. As they made their way into a medical bay, they found a trio of Selkath lying on the floor, dying. The stench in the room was overpowering and the evidence of torture that the youth bore was difficult to witness. Brinna turned her head aside with a gasp of horror and found that Jolee and Carth also looked horrified. That a hardened old Jedi and a veteran war hero could find the scene as terrible as she did was quite telling.
Her hands trembling, Brinna knelt next to one of the victims and as soon as he saw her, he offered Brinna a token and pled, "Tell…tell Shasa…the Sith…"
As the Selkath breathed his last, Brinna gently took the token and clasped it in her palm, feeling the hard edge of it bite into her skin. Wordlessly, she led her companions from the room and headed down the corridor to the next room she could find.
Within it were a dark Jedi and his Selkath apprentices. The apprentices begged to be able to attack Brinna and her companions. The fight was short but vicious. Though the Selkath youth were no real match for them and quickly succumbed to Brinna's Force Stasis, the dark Jedi was considerably stronger and offered a stronger opposition. When it was over, Brinna stood panting heavily while Jolee healed their wounds.
The room adjoining that in which they had battled proved to be the room of the master and a quick search of his things turned up a datapad that detailed the Sith's plans for Manaan.
"They wanted to use the young to help them overthrow the government. They would train and corrupt their apprentices and then install them in the government and create a puppet regime," Brinna told her companions, as she skimmed the datapad's contents.
"If this doesn't prove to the Selkath what the Sith are up to, I don't know what will," Carth said grimly.
Their search for Shasa ended as they entered the next room. They found the young Selkath with a few other companions and the youth expressed confusion over the entrance of Brinna and her companions. They thought it might be a test designed by their Sith masters and they decided that they should handle the intruders on their own. Unwilling to hurt them, Brinna quickly began to talk in order to prevent an attack. The Selkath seemed to believe that the Sith were teaching them about the Force out of pure generosity. When Brinna told them they were being brainwashed, they insisted that the Sith would respect their independence after the war and they refused to listen to her when she told them that the Sith only wanted their kolto.
"I found a young Selkath dying from torture. He gave me this…" Brinna told them, holding out the token.
"Shasa—this is the pin I gave the Galas when we were children. There is blood on it," one of the Selkath said.
"You could have found this anywhere!" Shasa insisted. "For all we know, you killed Galas!"
"The Sith tortured him to death, Shasa. You know it's true," Brinna said, as gently as she could.
"Shasa—I believe them," her companion said. "How else would they have found this pin?"
"I…I didn't want to believe it, but I can no longer deny what I know to be true. Galas is dead and the Sith are responsible. I must apologize for doubting you. The Sith are truly evil as you have claimed," Shasa told them.
"We must report this to the Ahto city authorities!" her companion said.
"Yes, we must report this at once. We thank you, human, for showing us the truth. You have saved us from a terrible mistake," Shasa replied.
"Just be careful with those gifts you've already learned," Jolee cautioned. "Beware the dark side…or you may end up betraying your world regardless."
"Quickly, my friends—we can stay here no longer," Shasa said urgently. "We must flee this foul embassy and warn our people against the plot to corrupt the Manaan youth."
It didn't take long to finish clearing the base after this and Brinna wasn't interested in lingering. She led the way swiftly to the elevator that would carry them back up to the city. When the doors opened, she wasn't too surprised to see that the Selkath were waiting to arrest her and she went with them peacefully, though Carth and Jolee protested.
"It will be okay," she promised them. She thanked her lucky stars that they had found the datapad with the evidence of the Sith's perfidy. Surely even a people as deluded as the Selkath could not dispute with her when faced with such evidence.
Suppressing a shudder as they led her into the jail, Brinna went quietly to a cage and was glad to find that it wasn't the same in which Sunry had been held. Much to her relief, it wasn't long before her arbiter entered the room. She had spent the time eyeing Sunry's cage uneasily. After asking her a few perfunctory questions, he announced that he was ready to begin the trial. Brinna stared at him incredulously. He had made a few offhand remarks that led her to believe he wouldn't exactly look out for her best interests and she insisted on representing herself, though her would-be arbiter more or less scoffed at her.
Carth and Jolee were standing in the court when she arrived and she felt a rush of relief at seeing them. She had worried that they too might have been arrested and she was glad this was not the case. Standing patiently as the judges carried out the formalities, she quickly handed over the datapad the moment they began the trial. They retired to deliberate but it wasn't long before they returned and declared her free. She was released and made her way out of the courtroom as quickly as possible.
"I didn't appreciate that delay," she told Carth and Jolee. The shadows were beginning to lengthen and quick check of her chrono confirmed that there weren't many daylight hours left. "Let's get over to the Republic base. I want to get to that Star Map today."
She noticed Carth fumbling with his collar but he stopped as soon as he saw her looking at him. "We were worried the Selkath would hold you indefinitely," he told her.
"The best way to get off this planet is to cooperate with them," she said. "If it means going through the formality of a trial, so be it. I won't argue with them. I think we've seen ample proof of just how seriously they take all their laws and regulations."
"I'm glad you were able to show them some proof of the Sith's lies to them, my dear," Jolee told her.
"So am I, though if they'd only opened their eyes and looked closely, they likely could have found proof enough themselves."
Their trip to the Republic embassy provided them with an answer to the question of why so many mercs were being hired. It seemed the Republic had violated the treaty by building a base under the ocean, with some help from their sympathetic Selkath friends. The base was highly secret, of course, and only some of the members of the government knew about it. The droid had contained information about the secret base and, needless to say, if the Sith had had the time to review this information, the results would have been disastrous for the Republic. Contact with the base had been lost and the embassy was afraid something terrible had occurred down there. They had sent some soldiers to investigate but none had returned and, rather than risk more soldiers, they had begun hiring mercenaries to investigate. The problem was that none of the mercs had returned either.
Brinna was incensed that the Republic would run such a risk. Had the Sith successfully uncovered it, the Republic would have been banned from the planet and their supply of kolto would have ceased entirely. Their desperation had led them to nearly pave the way for a Sith invasion of Manaan and she was relieved that she and her companions had arrived in time to prevent this from happening. She would have liked to really give Roland Wann a piece of her mind but there wasn't much time. He informed her that some ruins had been found near the base and though going under the sea was about the last thing she wanted to do, Brinna knew it was necessary. Her dream had shown her that the Star Map was underwater and she had little doubt that the ruins that had been uncovered were, in fact, Star Map remains. She agreed to go down to the station to investigate why they had lost contact.
The trip down to the base was like something out of a nightmare. Giant sharks swam around in large numbers and Brinna found her teeth chattering, the sight made her shudder with such force. Jolee and Carth didn't seem too pleased either and they maintained a grim silence as the submersible brought them closer and closer to the unknown.
As they emerged from the submersible, they found a chaotic scene before them. The inside of the bay had been damaged structurally and there were bodies strewn here and there. Tightening her grip on her lightsabres, Brinna opened the first door and they were immediately accosted by a mercenary.
"How…how did you get in? Did they send another submersible? Quick, we have to get out of here, we have to get away!" he said, seizing her shoulder and nearly dragging her back to the bay.
"Why? What happened?" Brinna asked, breaking free of him.
"No! No! We have no time, we have to leave now! I managed to close the door after they killed everyone else but I don't know how long it will hold."
"What happened here?"
"The Selkath went crazy! They started killing anything that moved. Someone must have triggered the defense systems too, 'cause all the droids activated as well. I was one of the mercs the Republic sent down here to find out what happened. We came down and secured the first couple rooms…there were bodies everywhere…And the Selkath came out…screaming and croaking their fishy little war-cries," he explained, hysteria mounting in his voice.
"What happened to the scientist?" Brinna asked, holding his shoulder to prevent him from running away. He was so agitated and so intent on getting away that it was almost impossible to hold him back.
"They're dead! All dead! They swarmed all over us. There was no way we could stop them. So we ran…But hardly any of us made it. I locked the door behinds us, but…but the others had already left in the submersible! The sharks…the firaxa out there and…worse…I heard an explosion shortly after the submersible left. They didn't make it. Just food for the sharks and the Selkath, like us."
Brinna couldn't suppress a shudder but she did her best to maintain her resolve. "I have to get into the station," she stated flatly.
Though the mercenary argued, Brinna remained firm and he finally relented and said that he would wait for them. She wouldn't have minded an extra pair of hands but the mercenary was so terrified that she knew he wouldn't do them any good anyway.
"What are we getting ourselves into?" Carth asked, an edge to his voice.
"I don't like the sound of this," Jolee added.
"We have no choice," Brinna told them. "I know the Star Map is down here; it was underwater in my dream…memory. We have to get to it. Let's just get this over with as quickly as possible. I don't like being under all this water. It makes my skin crawl."
She could feel the anxiety of her companions as they set out and they soon found that the situation was every bit as bad as the mercenary had warned. They were constantly beset by crazed Selkath who seemed bent on killing everything. At times, they even came upon groups of Selkath fighting one another. The bodies of Republic soldiers and scientists were strewn about and all of the droids in the base attacked Brinna and her companions but not the Selkath. In one of the rooms, they found a man hiding in a locker but he was so petrified that he refused to exit, no matter how Brinna coaxed and wheedled. Though she hated to do it, she was forced to leave the man behind.
During their search through the base, they had uncovered a couple of sonic emitters and a datapad explaining that they were to be used against the firaxa. Though they had uncovered two emitters, they had only found one envirosuit, despite a thorough scouring of the base.
"What do you think you're doing?" Jolee demanded as she stood in front of an airlock door and began to dress herself in the suit.
"I have to get to the underwater section," she said, working as quickly as she could with shaking fingers. The thought of being out in the water, unprotected, with the firaxa swarming about her was enough to make her feel so faint that the edges of her vision went black. Still, there was no other way to get to the Star Map. She would simply have to put aside her terror and go out for it.
"You can't go out there alone!" Carth said.
The fear in his voice stilled her fingers and she felt her whole body go cold as she looked at him. He looked every bit as afraid as she felt. "I have to," she told him, her voice shaking. She thrust the suit's helmet on her head before they could protest any further and rushed into the airlock.
Once out in the water, she was shaking so badly that it cost her a great deal of physical effort to even make her feet move. She was powerless to stop the chattering of her teeth and she had to will her hands to remain steady. They constantly strayed to the emitters attached to the outside of her suit, as if she was afraid that they would simply vanish. The sight of the firaxa from inside the station had been scary but it was nothing to the sight of them swimming toward her as she was exposed and vulnerable. Fortunately, the emitters worked well enough that the sharks didn't have to get too close to her before she could use them, but that didn't make the terror any less.
She ran into another mercenary when she made it to the underwater section of the station. He, too, was nearly frantic—not that she could blame him. Still, though the insane Selkath had been frightening, she was not certain she would have traded them for the sharks. Moving as quickly as she could, she followed the merc. As soon as he stepped back out into the open ocean, he stupidly turned and urged her to hurry and, at that moment, a firaxa swooped down and carried him off in its huge jaws. His screams echoed hers as he was carried off and Brinna found herself nearly weeping with terror. She took deep breath after deep breath in an effort to steady herself but to little avail. After a few moments, she forced herself to move and the forced slowness of the travel due to the pressure of the water and the bulkiness of the suit was nearly enough to drive her insane as well. She almost sobbed with relief when she finally saw an airlock door before her.
Once through and inside the station, she flung the suit from her and did her best not to think about how she would need to put it back on so that she could go after the Star Map and then return to her companions. Still, she was flooded with relief when the suit was gone, though the relief was to be short lived. As soon as she stepped into the hallway, she saw a force field before her, behind which were two scientists. The moment they caught sight of her, they began screaming and started depressurizing the chamber in which she stood. A crushing weight seemed to be descending upon her chest and it was all she could do to draw breath.
Clawing at her collar, Brinna managed to gasp out to them that she was with the Republic. The terrified scientists were reluctant to believe her but she finally convinced them to stop depressurizing the chamber. As soon as the pressure returned to normal levels, she bent double at the waist and drew in great breaths of air. The scientists apologized profusely and though Brinna understood that they were terrified, she still had to reign in her temper at their having nearly killed her.
"Why did the Selkath all go crazy?" she asked them, when she was able to get a word in edgewise.
"We don't know! Not for sure…" the scientist named Sami told her.
"The work teams were outside in the Rift near the vent," Kono Nolan told her. "Then there was this rumbling and my head felt like it was splitting open…"
"This…this monster rose up from the Rift…" Sami continued.
"It was a firaxa shark I think…bigger than any I'd ever seen before. Bigger than our submersibles," Nolan added.
"It was like it was screaming inside my head…" Sami said.
"Then the Selkath started screaming too…and they turned on us," Nolan told her.
The scientists continued to speak rapidly and Brinna found it rather hard to follow their conversation. From what she could gather, the scientists conjectured that the giant firaxa may have been protecting some ruins near the vent. Her sense of horror increasing, Brinna realized this meant that she would have to encounter the creature in order to get to the Star Map. Oblivious to her distress, the scientists continued on to speculate that the shark may have been feeding off the kolto and that the other, smaller sharks may be its offspring and that they may have become so vicious in order to defend their mother.
When she finally managed to break into the conversation, Brinna asked them what she could do to get past the shark. Nolan wanted her to vent a compound through the harvester but Sami argued that they didn't know what it would do and posited that it might pollute the entire ocean and destroy the kolto supply. However, Nolan was insistent that this was the only way and it was only by asking repeatedly that Brinna was finally able to get Sami to tell her that she could destroy the harvester. Much to Nolan's displeasure, Sami told Brinna how this could be done. Nolan was angry at this and said that the destruction would set their plans back years. Brinna fought back the urge to tell him how little she cared about setting them back and simply told them that she intended to destroy the harvester. Sami was relieved by this but it only made Kono Nolan even angrier—not that Brinna cared. She had a sneaking suspicion of what awaited her on her return to the surface and she didn't think the Selkath would take too kindly to her poisoning their oceans and, regardless, she certainly wasn't in the mood to single-handedly destroy the planet.
Donning the suit once more, Brinna made her way to the harvester as rapidly as she could. She was nearly panicking as she worked frantically to destroy the harvester. With every second that passed, she grew more afraid that the giant firaxa would make a meal out of her and so she felt like collapsing when the machine finally exploded. Knees shaking, she moved out across the bridge that spanned the rift but the giant firaxa was content to float along without causing her any trouble. The sight of it was like something out of her worst nightmare and Brinna forced herself to look straight ahead. She was nearly hyperventilating as she reached the Star Map and she looked at the thing as quickly as possible, committing the new information it provided to memory.
Her slow progress was maddening as she did her best to race back to the section of the base in which Jolee and Carth waited. As soon as she made it through the airlock door, she tore the suit from her body and then sank to the floor, her trembling knees unable to hold her up any longer.
"What happened out there?" Carth demanded, but she shook her head fiercely and pulled her datapad from her pack, her hands trembling violently. She refused to speak to either of them until she had entered the new information into the datapad.
"It's done. We have them all now," she said, holding the datapad out to Jolee. Her voice shook violently and as soon as he took it, she wrapped her arms around her knees and buried her head in them.
"Brinna, what…" Carth began but Jolee must have shushed him for the next thing Brinna knew, he was kneeling next to her.
"Steady, my dear, steady," he said. He put his hands on her shoulders and reached out to her via the Force. She held onto the connection as one might cling to a lifeline and slowly, gradually, she calmed once again.
"Let's go and I'll tell you about it in the submersible," she told them, as she rose unsteadily to her feet. "I just want to get out of here. I just want to get off this planet!"
Jolee and Carth listened intently to her tale as they made their way back to Ahto city. Her face must have been as white as a sheet for they didn't even bother to try to hide the concern from their own faces. They looked incredulous as she told them what had happened.
Brinna burst from the submersible the minute they surfaced. The whole time she had been in the submersible, she had suffered from an unshakable sense of pressure, as if the weight of the ocean continued to press down upon her and it was only once she was able to breathe the surface air once more that the feeling subsided. Roland Wann was waiting for them and he was not pleased by her news. In fact, he was more concerned about the destruction of the machine than he was about what had become of the scientists and Brinna knew she had to get away from him as soon as possible lest she lash out at him in anger and frustration.
As expected, the Selkath authorities were waiting for her outside of the embassy. Once again, she went peacefully and, once again, she opted to defend herself in their court. She immediately told them about the base and what had happened and they demanded to know if she had killed the giant firaxa. She assured them that she had destroyed the machine rather than kill the shark and they began to murmur about legends of the Progenitor before one of the other judges silenced his colleagues. He hissed to them that this was not for outsiders to hear. At this point, Brinna frankly didn't care for their legends; she simply wanted them to let her go. After a short adjournment, the judges released her and she rushed over to her relieved companions. They immediately set off to see Nilko and Shaelas.
Nilko was amazed by her story but glad that she had spared the shark. He promised her that he would do his best to help maintain the reputation of the Republic and then he hurried off to report to his superiors.
Moving over to Shaelas, Brinna told him about the Sith plot to corrupt his planet's youth. He was nearly frantic with worry.
"My daughter, Shasa—she too has been indoctrinated into the Sith camp?" he asked her.
"I've convinced your daughter to turn her back on the Sith ways," Brinna reassured him.
"Human, if you speak the truth I am forever in your debt! And yet my joy is tempered by the knowledge that the Sith still walk freely about Manaan. Hopefully the testimony of my daughter will be enough proof of their actions, to make the Ahto city authorities take action."
"I hope so," Brinna said sincerely.
Shaelas wanted to reward her but Brinna refused and the Selkath soon hurried off to look for his daughter.
"Hey, kid, that was a good thing you did there. Almost brought a tear to this old man's eye," Jolee told her as they set off for the Ebon Hawk. Carth had pulled ahead of them, constantly looking this way and that. Brinna wondered if he was afraid the Selkath authorities would haul them off.
"You're getting sentimental in your old age," she told him, but the shakiness in her voice belied her continued anxiety.
"Must have been terrible for you," Jolee told her.
She closed her eyes briefly. "I hate the sea," she declared passionately. "But I doubt it was a picnic sitting there and waiting for me."
"Especially with your pilot there wearing a hole in the floor. I thought he was going to tear the pressure door from the airlock and charge out into the ocean after you, envirosuit or no."
"Really?" Brinna asked, stopping in her tracks and turning to face him with bald incredulity.
"Really," he said, stopping as well and looking seriously at her. "I've never seen a man so consumed with worry."
Gazing after Carth's back, Brinna felt the tiniest sliver of hope. Jolee made a noise of disgust.
"Are you going to go after him or what?" he asked her.
"Thanks, Jolee," she said, giving the old man a quick kiss on the cheek and hurrying off after Carth. She couldn't help but smile as she heard him muttering about the folly of youth, mainly because she knew that he was pleased with her show of affection.
"Carth," she called, as she caught up with him.
"Yes? What's on your mind?" he asked, stopping and turning to look at her.
"I think it's time we talked about me being Revan, don't you?"
"If you're ready to talk, then yes…so am I," he told her, his voice giving away nothing.
"And?" she asked nervously.
"I can't hate you. I tried…I wanted to hold you responsible for all the things you've done. For me…for my wife, for Telos…for Dustil. But I can't."
"Why can't you?"
"I got the revenge I always wanted when Saul died, but it hasn't brought me the peace that I thought it would. All I can think of now is the promise I made to protect you from what's going to come. It's given me a reason to look past simple revenge. Despite whatever part of Revan is inside you, the…the darkness that must surely be there, it isn't who you are. That's why I can't hate you, why I don't want any more revenge. You don't have to be Revan, you can be so much more. Whatever the Jedi did to you, they gave you that chance. You have this huge destiny waiting for you and I just fear that if you're alone it could swallow you whole. I mean, is there room in there for me? Will you let me help you?" he pleaded.
Her barely restrained emotions caused her voice to waver as she spoke. "I don't want you hurt protecting me, Carth."
"I think I would be hurt worse if I didn't try."
"What do you mean?"
"Whatever's happened up until this point, there's going to come a time very soon when you're going to have to make a choice. And there won't be any turning back. I want you to make the right choice. I want to give you a reason to."
Brinna felt an ache in her chest. "What sort of reason?"
"You gave me a future," he told her, his voice growing softer. He looked at her with an expression that she had feared she would never again see. "I want to give you a future, too…with me. I think I could love you, if you give me the chance."
"I think I could love you too," Brinna said, feeling almost as if she would burst for joy. Her words paled in comparison to her feelings but the last thing she wanted was to frighten Carth away, now that she and he seemed to be coming together once more.
"Well then I'm…I'm glad. Let's…let's face the future together, then…there's still a lot to do," he said, looking rather overcome.
Tentatively, she took a step toward him and felt a dizzying wave of relief as he opened his arms to her. She practically fell into him and she clung to him as if she would fly off into space if she let go.
"I was so afraid…" she whispered, her tears starting up once again.
"I'm sorry, Brinna," he murmured, his lips brushing against her hair. "I feel like I broke my promise to you but I…it's been so confusing and…I just didn't know what to think, what to feel anymore. Everything I thought I knew was suddenly exactly the opposite of what I thought it to be."
"I know the feeling," she said. Her voice was muffled because she had her head buried in his chest. She breathed in the scent of him and wrapped her arms even more tightly around him.
"I've been so angry with you and with the Jedi…and with myself. I didn't know what to do. My feelings have been so mixed up ever since I lost my wife and Dustil and so much has happened on this mission. I've known for some time that I was attracted to you but I felt like…like maybe I was betraying my wife in some way. And then when I found out that you had once been…that you were Revan, I just…"
"I don't really know what to say to that," she admitted. "To think that you were betraying your wife…"
"I don't think that now," he told her, stroking her hair gently. "But after Morgana was gone and I thought I'd lost Dustil, I didn't think I'd ever care for anyone again. Then I started thinking about what you said to me once, about how you told me that you doubted my wife would have wanted me to do to myself what I was doing and I knew you were right. She wouldn't have wanted that. She would have wanted me to be happy."
They were silent for a moment, each holding onto the other. There were so many thoughts whirling through Brinna's head that it was hard to grasp a single one. Yet, underlying it all was a sense of homecoming. From the moment she had learned that she had once been Revan, she had felt profoundly lost. In fact, she admitted to herself, she had felt that way since the very beginning of the mission, when she had thought herself a scout with a dead family. Now, at last, she felt that this man, this wonderful, frustrating, generous, flawed man had brought her home. And yet she couldn't just let him off the hook, just like that. She had to be honest with him, had to let him know how she had felt when he had turned his back on her.
"I have to tell you that I've been angry with you too," she said, pulling away from him slightly so that she could look up at him. "This is all so unimaginably hard and I know it hasn't been easy for you. I just…I just want to make you understand that I'm not Revan. She is really and truly dead and when you turned your back on me, it was like someone stabbed me straight through the heart. I've needed you so desperately."
"I don't know what to say about that," he said, his pain evident on his face. "I don't know how I could have acted any differently. What would you think, if you were in my place? Revan and Malak were responsible for so many terrible things and then I learn that the woman I've been attracted to, the woman I've started to fall for, is actually Revan? What was I supposed to do?"
"I don't know," Brinna admitted, resting her cheek against his chest once more. "I didn't know what I was supposed to do either. In fact, I still don't know what any of us is supposed to do. I don't know who to blame. The Jedi put us all in a terrible bind but I can't blame it all on them, either. What they did…I still need to time to process it. I know they acted out of desperation, but still…"
"I think we at least agree about that," he said softly. "Reprogramming someone? You were right when you said it was as if they had played creator."
They fell silent again. As the moment ticked by, Brinna began to feel some peace and some calm again. Though she was still hurt by Carth's giving her the cold shoulder, she could understand it. Perhaps these feelings would never be entirely resolved but surely they could and should forgive one another. Why should they take what they had found and throw it away? What good was her transformation from Revan to Brinna Warrim if she could not find it in her heart to forgive; as he had found it in his to trust that she was no longer Revan.
"Whatever happens, whatever may come, I'm just so glad to know that you're by my side," she told him sincerely.
He took her face in his hands and tilted it back so that she was looking up at him. "I won't leave ever again, I promise."
She closed her eyes as he lowered his head to hers and she felt herself tremble, this time with joy, as his lips brushed softly against hers. It was a brief, gentle kiss but one that still left her weak in the knees. She felt such a dizzying rush of joy and love that she found herself clinging to him and he responded by wrapping her securely in his arms. Closing her eyes tightly, Brinna did her best to hold on to this moment of sweetness, to burn it in her mind.
"I've been wanting to do that for longer than you can imagine," he told her, his lips brushing her ear as he spoke, sending a delicious tingle through her body.
"How long, exactly?" she asked, her voice breathy.
"Ever since you called me a Gamorrean pig-man," he told her and she could feel the rumble of laughter in his chest.
"You so deserved it," she retorted but she was unable to hold back her own laughter.
He hugged her tightly as he gave into his own laughter and they laughed long and hard and didn't even hear Jolee approaching.
"Are you two quite through?" he asked in a sour voice.
Startled, Brinna turned to look at him and could see that he was trying to hide a smile of his own. "For now," she said, grinning widely at him.
"Go on, then. Get your lazy selves on this ship. We have work to do," he scolded.
Hand-in-hand, Brinna and Carth followed him up the ramp and into the Ebon Hawk.