"Control space and you control any battlefield you can imagine. Unfortunately, you cannot control space."
—Republic Navy proverb
"The whole station—destroyed by a raid?" blurted Atton.
Transmitted halfway across the Gordian Reach by hastily-assembled military hyperwave relays, Admiral Opelle's image possessed a blurry tinge that veiled the deep lines in his face. However, the long scar that necessitated his artificial left eye remained prominent, and there was nothing in the galaxy that could diminish his somberness.
"Six standard hours ago. Commodore Orden's people are still piecing it together, but it seems the station was infiltrated by a team of Sith Adepts and commandos, who temporarily brought down a portion of its shields. At the same time four Interdictors jumped in—where from, we don't know, but they fired before shields could be restored. The station was lost, and along with a number of bulk freighters and other ships caught in the blast."
With a sinking heart, Kaevee shook her head dully as the awful news set in. Six standard hours ago. That meant they hadn't even gotten Sulen Tusser out of his cell yet when Obeth Station's crew was being slaughtered. The Intelligence agent was now safe with the vanguard fleet at Arkuda—they had just dropped him off—and Salvage Team Four had been looking forward to some downtime. Kaevee had even dared to hope they might return to Ord Vaxal. They'd been about to make their report to the admiral when he broke precedent by calling them first. Now...
They had saved Sulen's life, and he had mentioned there were other targets besides Landor, but that was no comfort. They'd still lost. The tortured sounds of that demented Sith Adept's voice, taunting and jeering even in the last moment of his life, stalked Kaevee's thoughts.
Beside her, Atris showed little sign of disquietude, outward or otherwise. "Did these Sith manage to escape the station?"
"We don't have confirmation, but I think they must have. I've never known them to be the self-sacrificing kind." A glare passed over the admiral's face like a lone storm cloud and was gone. "Reports have come in of other, smaller raids across the Thesme sector. Rear guard fleets are scrambling to respond, and they'll likely need reinforcements to secure those hyperroutes again. If that doesn't happen soon, we may lose our momentum out here on the Denarii Loop. And even then, it will take time to replace Obeth Station."
Everyone nodded grimly at that assessment. Thanks in part to the data acquired in the Torque mission, the Republic's invasion of the Gordian Reach was well underway. After quickly pacifying Remnant border worlds in the Thesme sector, Opelle's First Rimward Expeditionary Fleet had blasted through a Sith bulwark at Presbalin, below the western end of the Denarii Nebula. Mineral-rich Indosa had fallen just as quickly and been appropriated as a staging ground, from which Republic forces were steadily flowing around the Denarii, winding up to lay siege first to the agriworld of Jovan, then to the sector capital at Torque. The sudden loss of a major refuel station would throw the entire campaign into jeopardy, especially if it was followed up by raids of similar scope.
"So where do we come in?" said Atton. Even cast in the hologram's blue glow, there was no mistaking his ashen countenance. "Are we going back there to help mop things up? Find those saboteurs?"
Opelle shook his head. "We have other forces assigned to that. Right now I have something else in mind for you. Commodore Orden reports that fourteen bulk freighters were damaged as Obeth Station was destroyed, but made emergency jumps to hyperspace before the blast could consume them. Based on sensor data taken before they jumped, we've plotted a region near the Thesme-Gordian border where they may have emerged. In all likelihood they're isolated from each other and badly damaged. Some may not have even survived the jump—but however many have, they must be found. They're loaded with kolto, which is desperately needed at the front lines."
Kaevee understood at once. Long years of isolation on Dantooine had left her ignorant of recent history, but her efforts to catch up had disclosed the fate of Manaan. Its native Selkath had been a fiercely independent people, insisting on neutrality even at the height of the war with Darth Malak—a neutrality made possible only by leveraging their position as the sole custodians of the galaxy's most potent healing agent. They learned the error of their ways too late when agents of the Sith poisoned their world and ruined the source of kolto production.
What exactly that source had been was never made public. In any case, Darth Revan reappeared soon after, and her forces invaded to steal however much kolto remained. By the time the Republic finally drove them off, none was left and Manaan's significance to the wider galaxy was only a memory.
Some years later, a team of Republic scientists devised a reliable means of synthesizing kolto. The miraculous substance flooded the galactic market again and, naturally, the where and how of its production were carefully guarded secrets. Nowadays, kolto was practically unavailable outside the Republic and certainly in the Sith Remnant, apart from the odd stolen shipment.
Admiral Opelle continued, "The cruiser Dauntless and her task force have been reassigned to search for these freighters, conduct necessary repairs, and escort them the rest of the way to Indosa. However, they'll take a standard day to reach the target region. You have the fastest ship in the fleet at your disposal, and from Arkuda you can be there in hours."
"So we're scouting for them, getting a head start?" said Atton.
The admiral nodded. "You are, Captain Rand. Locate as many of those freighters as you can, ascertain their status, and report their positions to the Dauntless. Be advised, Remnant forces are likely to be nearby; should any of the freighters come under attack, do whatever you can to save the kolto or prevent its capture.
"We're now sending coordinates for the target region, as well as hailing codes for Task Force Dauntless. Proceed with all haste. Our conquest of the Denarii Loop may depend on this mission." He swept the crew with a gaze which was at once sober and heartfelt. "I have the utmost confidence in every one of you."
Atton's reply sounded hurried. "Thank you, sir. We'll leave immediately."
"May the Force be with you."
The holotable powered down. Tension leaked into the Force, and Kaevee found her eyes drawn to Cole. From the look on his face, she half-expected him to spit on the deck.
"Was anyone else ready for some downtime, R&R?" he asked, looking around. "Cantinas, drinks, dancers? So much for all that. Fracking hell, I need some caf."
He stalked over to the synthesizer, fuming. Kaevee hung her head, too discouraged herself to be annoyed at his outburst.
For a long moment Atton just stared blankly at the holotable. "Well," he said finally, "I'd better get us moving."
Kaevee started to follow him to the cockpit. "Do you need any—"
"No, I've got it. Go meditate or something." Atton's tone was so rigid with restraint that he barely sounded like himself, and it was far more unsettling than Cole's raw anger. Stopped in her tracks, Kaevee watched as he stormed to the cockpit.
Without looking back, the pilot added, "We'll be there soon, and then it's gonna be a long couple of weeks."
Whether Atton had meant it or not, Kaevee supposed that if even he was suggesting she meditate, things were dire enough that she'd better take his advice. Fortunately, she'd already gotten in the habit anyway.
For as much as her life had sped up in the months after Malachor and again since Torque, Kaevee had been making time for meditation and discussion with Atris—regularly rather than sporadically, as it had been at first. It had quickly become a lifeline for her, and for more reasons than that she'd once done these things with her Jedi master, Emon Corsio. Serving the Republic was just as tedious as it was dangerous, and it was not always easy to put up with the Ebon Hawk's capricious and often abrasive male population. Despite Atris's vehement refusal to identify herself as a Jedi, or to pass on the Order's Code and philosophy—a refusal which had given their relationship a rocky start—she was the only person in Kaevee's life who came anywhere close to understanding her.
And so, as the Ebon Hawk plunged through hyperspace toward yet another crisis, the former Jedi Padawan spent most of the journey on the floor of the former Jedi Master's quarters. Legs crossed, eyes closed, she willed a barrier of concentration around herself, taking leave of her physical surroundings. Rather than reaching out beyond them, however, she withdrew deeper into herself—deeper than the flow of her blood and the coaction of neurons within her brain, into the energy which vivified them and everything that was alive. Atris sat before Kaevee, mirroring her pose; when their exercise had begun some hours before, the old woman's voice was a muted whisper, as though coming through a crack in a door.
Only breathe—but not as though you are breathing the Force in, for it is with you and in you already. Life creates the Force, and the Force nourishes life. No need to reach out to it; feel it in this way, already one with you.
The words were strange, but familiar. Calming. From them Kaevee received some flicker of what she had felt so long ago when Emon had told her, Trust the Force. Somehow in hearing those words, she felt she understood enough to carry them out—in that moment, at least.
She knew that the technique was a basic one taught to Jedi Initiates on Dantooine, though she'd forgotten its name. Something in High Galactic. Curato salva, Atris had supplied. Recognizing the union between the Force and one's own body is the foundation of many more advanced abilities.
Like healing yourself when injured? Kaevee had asked.
Or healing another. Both are lessons for much later. To permanently mend an injury requires great skill and a strong connection to the Force, one many Jedi never fully achieved. That is why some dedicated themselves to the healing arts entirely.
Phrases like much later did not sit well with Kaevee. She had still been a child when her path down the way of the Force was so brutally interrupted; then came eleven long years with no training, no direction at all. The hour was late, and patience did not come easily. Still, she wasn't fool enough to think that her mentor failed to grasp the danger posed by the Sith, and the urgent need to be prepared for it.
Kaevee opened her eyes, not sure quite how many hours had passed, and the dormitory returned to focus. Former Padawan and former Master rose and seated themselves—the former on the nearby cot, the latter on her chair. Their silence was comfortable; everything that had happened at Vaal and since remained large in Kaevee's mind, but seemed a little less daunting than before.
"There's something else you need to teach me as soon as I'm ready." She related the confrontation with the Sith Adept in the loading room, how he had easily used telekinesis to throw Kaevee on her face. "Atton saved me, again, but I need to know how to keep that from happening. To see it coming, then shield myself with the Force."
"That is also fundamental," Atris agreed. "You must not rely too much on me in such battles. There is much a Dark Jedi can do that I could not help against, especially at a distance."
Kaevee nodded and suppressed a shudder. Though half a year had passed since Malachor, it was impossible to forget her encounters with the Sith in that horrible place. Atris's transference ability was only one of the factors to which she owed her survival; the others included Atton's grumbling tenacity, the sacrifice of Kaevee's companion laigrek, and a series of favorable coincidences. In her thoughtless naivete, she had once believed that the will of the Force would protect her against any danger; experience had shown the folly of presuming on such things, especially against the Sith.
"Are dark-siders able to heal themselves with the Force the way Jedi can?" Kaevee purposefully said can, not could; she had not abandoned her conviction that there were other survivors, elsewhere in the galaxy.
The other woman disagreed, but did not bother to contradict her. "They are, but most often it is by means which I will never teach you. Sith can generate power to heal by focusing their hatred, or tormenting themselves in order to harness their own pain. We spoke rightly in calling their path a dark one. And some... Some use means which are viler still and... unnatural."
"...What do you mean?"
This time the chill Kaevee felt was not so transient. She did not miss the tremor in her mentor's voice, nor the way that Atris's hand grasped the cane which she had propped nearby and drew it to herself.
"Across the galaxy, those who feel the Force recognize its omnipresence. From every soul comes forth energy that binds life to life: sister to sister, teacher to student, leader to follower, and friend to friend. The more two beings share in feeling, purpose, devotion, understanding, so does the Force flow more powerfully between them."
"They're bonded in the Force," murmured Kaevee.
"And when things change—when the path through life splits, when shadows fall on the other person or on yourself, when they are lost to you... What happens when that bond is broken?"
The former Padawan lowered her eyes, and again her thoughts returned to Emon. She could remember nothing before him and the other Masters such as Zhar Lestin, Vandar Tokare, and Vrook Lamar, whose broken lightsaber she still kept. Emon had been like the Enclave and Dantooine itself, with the same harvest-colored moons glowing each clear night (which was most of them) and the same seasons which were barely noticed as one passed into the next on that temperate world. It was peaceful and unchanging—until it changed.
Until turbolasers fell and the fields burned, and Dark Jedi and soldiers scoured the land for weeks that had never left Kaevee's nightmares. Then, after that, having no one to turn to, being hated and shunned by the settlers, and stealing to survive. And finally, the years of hiding in the sublevel with her laigreks, guarding what was left of the Enclave—kept there by a terrible, agonized longing for the people and the world she had lost. If it hadn't been for Atton, that longing would have kept her on Dantooine for the rest of her days.
"It's... terrible." It wasn't enough, but then no words ever would be. "It doesn't go away..."
"No, it doesn't. The bond remains, but only as emptiness, a wound. The loss becomes a part of you."
Kaevee at last looked up, seeking Atris's remaining eye. As ever, it was veiled by the darkness about her cloaked face, yet somehow Kaevee felt the warmth of an embrace in meeting the former Master's gaze. She wondered, and trembled to imagine, the full weight of Atris's many years—the burden of a once-great Jedi who had seen the entire Order fall, and who had played a large part in that catastrophe, as Atris insisted she had.
"All of us are connected through the Force," Atris continued, "and we naturally seek to live in harmony—as symbionts, if you will. But those connections can be used against nature, as some of the Sith do. It is possible to draw upon Force bonds, to parasitically drain the life from others to heal oneself or increase one's power. Pain, despair, emptiness, these are what result when the bonds of life are shorn. The holocrons I once gathered spoke of this power, but I learned much more in experiencing it firsthand." Here the old woman lifted the stump of flesh where her right hand had been. "The same day I suffered these wounds—but I promise you a lightsaber is nothing, compared to feeling the very Force bled from you."
Sheer bafflement dispelled the starless night that had gathered over Kaevee's mind. Her thoughts seemed to race ahead of her own will. Whether guided by the Force or a mere flutter of curiosity, she couldn't say, but their conclusion—really a guess—left her mouth before she could mull it over: "Was it Meetra Surik? She did that to you?"
Kaevee didn't know the full story, only a few pieces that she'd managed to pry out of Atton early in their misadventures together. Surik was a fallen Jedi, apparently the Ebon Hawk's previous owner. At some point she had employed Atton as a pilot and trained him in the use of the Force, before murdering the last of the Jedi Council on Dantooine. All except Atris, he'd said. Meetra gave her those wounds, but she got away by a fluke.
The corner of Atris's mouth twitched as her solemnity was thinned by something approaching embarrassment. She hesitated, then in a low, almost timid voice answered, "It was Surik. The Exile. Even as a young Jedi she was... uncannily adept at understanding others... and bonding with them in the Force. She stands with the Sith now and has turned that talent toward evil."
"But how did you survive if she used that power on you?"
Again a pause, a conflicted frown, then: "Atton saved me."
"Atton?"
"Unwittingly. He happened upon us before the deed could be finished. And the Exile, I believe she—" The words came out rushed, almost stuttering, then came to a halt. When Atris began again, her gaze was pointedly averted. "I don't wish to speak of that day. Remembering is... difficult. And I shouldn't be discussing this behind Atton's back."
Now it was Kaevee's turn to frown. "But you were there too. Why can't—"
Atton's voice came from the intercom as if he'd been summoned into the room. "Realspace in one minute. Kaevee, come on up. I need a co-pilot."
Kaevee rose from the cot, but stayed put. "Why can't you tell me about this?"
For the first time in a while, Atris gave her a look best described as piercing, and her tone matched it. "I've already told you it would be wise to let Atton keep his privacy, and I believe you agreed with me. You agreed to trust him. Has anything happened to change this?"
Kaevee's mouth opened—and stayed that way. Had anything? First Vaal with Atton's slip of the tongue in the detention area, then the Sith Adept in the loading room, and now Atris's inadvertent reflections—
"Go, Kaevee. You are needed."
She left wishing she had another hour to meditate.
A small chronometer in the corner of the Ebon Hawk's main console measured time to the thousandth of a standard second as it ran down toward zero. Atton's attention was fixed on a different screen, but the plummeting digits, frantic yellow-on-black, held stubbornly to the edge of his vision. When it passed one minute and chimed, he switched on the ship's intercom.
"Realspace in one minute. Kaevee, come on up. I need a co-pilot." Like a blaster bolt in the head, he added silently.
The kid came traipsing up the hall from the main hold and took her seat, oozing resignation. When the chronometer reached zero, Atton grasped the throttle, and the Ebon Hawk shuddered as hyperspace spat it back into the dark.
Waypoint number one.
Sweeping a region of space, even one as relatively "small" as this mission zone, was going to be just as monotonous and grueling as it was daunting. With its Class One hyperdrive, the Ebon Hawk could travel from one designated waypoint to the next in around half a standard hour. After emerging to realspace, they'd turn the Hawk's extensive package of sensors against the starless void as far as they could peer. A thorough and complete scan would take around an hour, and then it would be on to the next waypoint.
And so on.
"Keep it cycling through all the comm channels," Atton said as they worked the controls. "And make sure you watch the scrambler. Having all the sensors on at once might suck the power."
"Got it."
They brought the systems online and waited.
And waited and waited and waited and waited. Atton went back to the screen on his left, trying to convince himself he was reading it, while Kaevee—still no model of Jedi peace and serenity—stared broodingly into the dawnless black. There was some decoration at these coordinates; across the arbitrary border between the Thesme and Gordian sectors, the Denarii Nebula was visible as a whorl of golden strands no larger than a man's thumb. Kaevee probably was the type to goggle at the natural beauty of the universe or some crap, but she obviously wasn't in the mood.
"What are you reading?" she asked at some point.
"Latest batch of reports," said Atton, barely moving his mouth. "They came over when the admiral called us."
"Oh."
And that was it. Not What do they say? or I've been going over them too, and Atton's dead-feeling face twitched toward a grimace. It was important stuff, ostensibly, and he found it annoying that she wasn't concerned with it. Not only that, he was annoyed with himself for caring what she did on her own time, like she was some student blowing off homework.
She annoyed him by sitting in the co-pilot chair where Meetra used to be; they used to play pazaak on the middle console. And the chair had annoyed him when it was empty—because once in a while he'd be on that end of the cockpit, and when he least expected it, that chair would smell like Meetra.
To Kaevee, of course, it was only a chair. Which was fair enough.
Twenty-one and five, play a minus-six card, fifteen and five. Next turn I draw a one, he draws four, totals are sixteen, nine...
He went on like that, flipping through the diagrams and blurbs on the screen, switching between that and sensor readouts as needed. He mostly forgot Kaevee was there. Other things, not so much.
But then, you never were much of a Sith, were you? Only a thug who was lucky enough to be our master's plaything.
In themselves, Nuruz Lar's words didn't sting any more now that he was dead than they had in Gallamby Outpost. It had just been a standard Sith technique which Atton could respect: get into the other guy's head and mess him up there. But the two had only been acquainted for... what, a few weeks? Maybe a month or two? They sure as hell hadn't been friends. All Nuruz had known about Atton was the same gossip that everyone else in Trayus Academy had. If you wanted to really twist the knife, you had either had to know the target's type really well, or know him personally, and neither had been true for the Cathar. He hadn't known half of what Atton had seen and done—here in the Remnant, or out there in the dark where the true Sith had been hiding for a millennium.
The problem was, Atton knew, and that was more than enough.
You're with them now, traitor. All you fight for will be for—
"How're those lessons going," Atton said, "with you and Atris?"
Kaevee waited so long to answer that he almost repeated himself. "Fine. It's still slow, but... Well, she says it takes time to grow stronger in the Force."
Atton grunted. The silence returned and the sensors didn't so much as beep. So much for distracting himself with small talk.
"Listen," said Kaevee after a few minutes, in her own, painfully unconvincing type of nonchalance. "Atris, um... She told me you saved her life once. From the Exile."
The Exile. That clunky epithet still followed Meetra's name wherever it went.
Atton's eyes left the screen, but he otherwise didn't move. "What'd she tell you about that?"
A few heartbeats passed. "Nothing, she— She didn't mean to, she just mentioned it by accident."
"So why are you mentioning it?"
He thought about giving Kaevee a look to drive the point home, but her stumbling told him not to overdo it. "I don't know, I just didn't... Look, forget I said anything."
So Atris had let something slip, not meaning to? Plausible; maybe Kaevee had come hoping to hear some dirt and caught the old woman off guard. From the kid's reaction to Nuruz Lar, particularly to Atton's remembering his name, Atton might have guessed that damned innocent curiosity of hers was thinking about making a comeback.
He shifted in his chair and checked the chronometer; they'd been scanning for less than five minutes. Stifling a growl, he flicked a few switches, calling up the readings from different sensor systems—all blank, of course.
He felt Kaevee's eyes on him. "Are you all right?"
"What do your Jedi senses tell you?"
She pushed out a breath. "Honestly, nothing. Usually I can't sense much of anything from from you. And when I do, I'm not sure whether to believe it."
"That's the idea."
"Really, Atton, what's wrong? Is it anything I can help with?"
He wanted to laugh, snarl, or just glare at her until she melted right into that chair. Instead he said, "You know how many people were on Obeth Station?"
Kaevee only shook her head, but her stillness in the Force—not to mention the look on her face—told that she didn't particularly want to know.
Well, neither had Atton. And he wasn't about to be stuck as the only bastard on this ship who knew. "Twenty-one thousand, one hundred and thirty-five. Guards, mechanics, workers, managers. Floor-scrubbers. Everyone's still sifting through the wreckage, but so far no escape pods have turned up."
"By the Force...," Kaevee breathed.
"Yeah, and all it took was a couple of Dark Jedi—twelve of 'em, tops. They had ships and lackeys and intel people helping them, sure, but it all hinged on them. One stunt by a squad of Dark Jedi, and now twenty-one thousand people are dead and the Republic fleet's running in circles." Atton glared out at the stars, adding, "You know the admiral's right—those Sith bastards got out alive for sure. Doesn't matter how big the explosion is, they always find a way."
And since Torque, since the incursion into Remnant space had really kicked off, they had been finding lots of ways. The raid on Landor was a disaster—making up for the loss of the refuel station would take weeks or months—but it was only the latest and worst incident of its kind. Even as the Republic steadily captured territory, the enemy had been chewing on its heels at every step with sabotage, hit-and-fades, and assassinations. Nine times out of ten it was Sith Adepts doing the heavy hitting, and most of the time they won, though occasionally whatever Republic troopers or pilots they contended with managed to drive them off by the skin of their teeth.
Occasionally Salvage Team Four was on hand to take care of the problem, but they could only be in one place at a time. And so in the past standard week and a half, a munitions factory on Hijado had exploded. A hyperwave relay over Phindar had gone offline. The commander of a task force sent to scout out the eastern Gordian had been found dead in his quarters. And Republic Intelligence agents across the Gordian Reach and beyond had been disappearing fast. Lannik Mai and Rittu Zarander were more the rule than the exception.
All of this information and more was available to the team; whether it was the Navy, Army, or Intelligence, there seemed to be no part of the Republic that the Strategic Information Service couldn't tap for information. Kaevee may not have kept up with all the briefs and reports, but the dismay creeping over her face told Atton that she'd read enough to understand what he was getting at.
"There's not enough of them to stop the Republic, though, not with just sabotage," she said. "And we killed a lot of them at Malachor, didn't we?"
Atton cracked a short-lived smile. Reminiscing on that, and on putting a hole through Nuruz Lar's head, helped Atton to distantly remember what satisfaction felt like. "We sure did, and it felt great. What you've got to realize, though, is we had inside information, not to mention a superweapon we could hijack, and they weren't expecting us. Revan wasn't there, and neither was Meetra. Malachor's the hardest we're going to hit the Sith, ever."
Revan is coming—with all the Sith, sneered the dead man in the elevator shaft on Vaal.
Kaevee brought a hand up to rake at her hair, retreating into herself as she so often did.
Atton knew he was winding her up, recalled that throwing her curiosity a bone was supposed to do the opposite, and found that he didn't care. He could go on for hours, and now that he'd started, maybe he would. "Remember the last war? There were thousands of Jedi on both sides. All the most important battles and missions... What decided the outcomes was them: who was the strongest and where they were, what side they were on. That's why Bastila Shan was so important, and others like Vima Sunrider and Kavar—and why Revan and Malak made a point to target those Jedi, to convert them or kill them.
"The big problem, though, is that there aren't any Jedi now. There's just us, and we can only be in one place at a time. Meanwhile, the war? This war hasn't even started yet. When Revan arrives with the true Sith, the Sith from out there?" He waved a hand at the viewport. "That's the beginning. How we win, how we turn the tide, how the Republic survives, I can't figure that out. And I've been so busy since I got back that I never really thought about that until now. Until that station blew up and reminded me."
He left it at that, hoping it was enough to take some of the weight off. His eyes drifted out of the viewport and lost themselves in the deeper void, the out there where he had been for nearly six years.
Where the Sith were, who'd be coming for him.
Not to mention everyone else.
"Okay... That's a lot," Kaevee murmured. She leaned toward him. "Atton... Listen, you can't take responsibility for all of this. When you... got back, what did you think? Did you think you were going to win the war, defeat the whole Sith Empire just by yourself?"
"I didn't think much of anything, once I had the plan for Malachor V. I guess I figured that if I could pull that off, everything else would just work out somehow." Smiling bleakly, he added, "Or else I didn't think I'd live to have to worry about it."
The girl stared back at him, solemn as a crumbling wall. As the moment passed she looked a bit less like herself, more like some other people Atton used to know. All Jedi, of course, and now he actually felt that invisible touch, mind to mind, that they so often used when they were trying to understand another being, or fix them, or whatever they thought they wanted with someone.
Atton's bleak smile faded. The contact was slight, barely even there, and he doubted Kaevee was doing it on purpose, but it took work to keep from scowling. He didn't hate her; he came close enough to caring about her to want her to stay alive, and he had to give her credit for trying to move past the Jedi indoctrination she'd gone through.
But Atton was still counting cards in his head, because he had never stopped. Where he was, Jedi and Sith couldn't reach him—and Kaevee had no idea who she thought she felt sorry for.
After a long moment she said, "These true Sith... How much do you know about them?"
Atton was very still. He could tell her stories about the Sith. About Darth Revan and the late Emperor from whom she had taken the throne. About her favorite lapdog, Bastila Shan, once a Jedi that Kaevee by her own admission had worshiped as a hero.
Atton could tell stories about himself and Meetra, and everything he'd done for her. All the strange faces people had made as they died, the smell and the stick of them that never quite washed off. Everything he'd seen and chosen to ignore, every lie he'd told himself because it was what she wanted, and like someone had once told him, Atton was her fool, so he'd actually believed she deserved it from him, and so now here he was, trying to puzzle out how to stop two worlds from colliding.
All he told Kaevee in the end was, "Not enough to make a difference."
For most of her life, Atris had been a solitary creature. In rare moments she recalled where it had all begun, recalled first having youthful dreams of a life filled with danger and adventure, battling evildoers across the galaxy. She had still been a young woman when those dreams were crushed to powder by the war with Exar Kun. The long decades since then could be described as a series of flights from one remote sanctuary to another: the Temple Archives on Coruscant, the High Council Chamber, the empty academy on Telos IV, the monastery on Belsavis...
The latest retreat, of course, was the Ebon Hawk. In her earlier months aboard, Atris had been utterly content to remain in the port dormitory, still licking the wounds that the Exile had inflicted six years prior, feverishly sheltering the little candle-flame of the Force inside her, for fear that a stray breath from another being might snuff it out. But then she had been sent to Torque Highport, where she survived a confrontation with a Lord of the Sith, and began to suspect that there was more life in her than she had allowed herself to believe.
Gone was the Jedi Master and the unnamed craving for others' deference and esteem. Notwithstanding, Atris remained Atris; most of her time was still given to meditation and immersion in the Force, seeking to heal and restore some of what had been ripped away. Many hours, too, were given to expanding her perceptions into the Force, watching and listening for what her companions and the Ebon Hawk's sensors could not detect. Though somewhat less powerful and laborious than the art of Jedi farsight, it was just as often fruitless. Yet the key was persistence; the veils of space and time could enigmatically part at any moment, affording a clear glimpse into the deeper workings of the Force. And so it was incumbent upon Atris to persist in her efforts, for their rare successes were enough to alter destinies. One had altered Kaevee's.
These two pursuits, healing and clairvoyance, were enough in themselves to occupy Atris for what remained of her life. And yet, since the danger and triumph of Torque Highport, she had more and more frequently felt drawn away from these things. One such feeling drew Atris from her chamber a standard week into the Ebon Hawk's search. It was birthed from a cascade of sensations, none of them her own and most of them painful: flesh torn by shrapnel, bones broken, shouting and moaning. The overpowering, unnaturally sweet smell of kolto, the numbness of sedation.
Guided more by the Force than by her remaining eye or her cane, Atris went to the cockpit. She did not announce herself, but Cole Terrick gave her a wary look from the comms station as she passed him. Atton and Kaevee were both focused on the Ebon Hawk's controls. The ship was in realspace, and from the crew's exchanges Atris deduced that they had, at last, found one of the missing kolto freighters.
"It's broadcasting ID—the Kanton IX," said Kaevee, minding the sensor readout. "They're in pretty bad shape."
"You can say that again," Cole muttered.
Atris peered out the viewport, calling on the Force to strengthen her weakened eyesight. Even unscathed, the Kanton IX wouldn't have been much to look at: belonging to the Republic's standard military bulk freighter class, it closely resembled the Navy's famous Hammerhead class, except rougher, more patchwork, and a shorter, less prominent command tower at the front. Its metal skin was pocked with scorches and half-melted segments of durasteel. Jagged black stems were all that remained of communication dishes and sensor studs.
The ship itself looked dead. A corpse in space.
Cole opened a channel, and Atris half-listened as Atton spoke with the Kanton IX's captain and heard his dire report. As he made clear, jumping to hyperspace while riding the shock wave of an exploding space station amounted to trading certain death for a crippled ship. The damaged hyperdrive had all but ripped itself apart after returning to realspace, setting off a cascade of internal explosions.
"There's no significant damage to the cargo," said the captain. Though his manner was clipped and to the point, he sounded like a man who hadn't slept in days, which was likely the case. "But engines, defensive systems, and long-range comms are down. Nearly half my crew is dead, and the medbay's full of wounded. The only good news is that life support is stable, and we're not lacking in medical supplies."
Atris let out a slow breath, understanding what she had sensed moments ago.
"Acknowledged, Kanton IX," Atton said, signaling to Cole. "We're sending your coordinates to the Dauntless task force now. Help will be on the way soon."
"How soon, Ebon Hawk?"
Atton's jaw clenched, unclenched. "I wish I could tell you. We heard from the Dauntless two standard days ago. The task force got interdicted by Sith forces near Moseum—maybe the same force that blew Obeth Station. They could still be fighting there, for all we know."
"So it's just you out here looking for all these freighters?"
"Us and a couple fighter squadrons that went ahead of the task force. We've been comparing notes... Just sit tight. If you come under attack, send a distress signal, and anyone who can respond will."
The Kanton IX's captain signed off, and Atton began to set the navicomputer for the next waypoint. Stars swirled in the viewport as the Ebon Hawk banked, and the maimed bulk freighter disappeared from view.
"I wish we didn't have to leave them like this," Kaevee remarked glumly.
Atton's reply was instant. "Nothing else we can do."
The truth was cruel. The men and women aboard that ship—toiling at their stations, languishing in medibeds, or floating in kolto tanks—were over there across a gulf of vacuum, and Atris was over here. Circumstances had brought them near, but not close enough for their paths to intersect. In another life Atris would have called it destiny, or the subtle currents of the Force, or the will of the Force, believing that there was such a thing and that she was in harmony with it.
Whatever it was, it had brought them this close, and it stirred to life within Atris an ache that she did not fully understand.
"I could feel them," she murmured. "The wounded."
As she had told Kaevee, she knew much of the arts of Jedi healing.
How long had it been? How many years?
At Atris's words, Kaevee started and half-turned in her seat, but Atton didn't bother to look. "Everything okay?" he asked with palpable disinterest.
But the old woman was already leaving. "For the moment."