Gauntlet
As we approached the entryway to the Academy, I saw three students standing guard. One of them, a woman saw us coming. "You! You went into the tomb of Naga Sadow with Master Uthar. Where is he?"
"He is dead. I killed him."
"We felt his death, but no one stepped forward to claim his title!" She tore at her hair. "What manner of monster would slay our leader and not take his place? Yuthura cannot be found, the others are fighting over who shall be master in their place." She saw Yuthura. "You caused this! What kind of Sith are you?"
"I am not a Sith." She snapped. "I am a Jedi!"
"Traitor! Spy! Kill them!" The woman screamed.
"But if she defeated Master Uthar, what chance do we have?" One of the others whined.
"Spineless coward! There are only two of them! kill them!" She lit her lightsaber, charging at me. I dodged aside, my second blade cutting across her spine, and dropping her.
"Don't make me kill you." I said to the others. They lit their lightsabers, and charged. I caught the first one with the Force, throwing him against his friend. The lightsaber in the second man's hand punched into the first man's back, and he screamed, collapsing. The other dropped his lightsaber in horror, falling to kneel beside the body.
"Stay here, and you might live." I told him, running on into the Academy. It was a madhouse.
Students, apprentices, Sith teachers stood around the dueling area. In the center, a large man was standing over a kneeling woman who had lost both arms at the forearm to a lightsaber. He spun, her head flying aside, then faced the small crowd. "Does anyone else challenge me?" He screamed. He saw us. "Yuthura at last!"
"Who is he?" I asked.
"The Sword master, Adrenas. I must face him."
I caught her arm, then walked past her. "Watch my back." I ordered. I stalked forward.
"Ah, the newest hopeful. Haven't even gone through my class, yet you can best me, eh?" There was a polite giggle from someone in the crowd. "Do we have a name for the new 'master' that faces me?"
I stopped a few meters from him. "I am Danika Wordweaver. But once you knew me by another name."
"And what would that name be?"
"Revan Chandar Bai Echana, Daughter of Coroli, prefect of Echana." I replied.
"Revan!" someone gasped. The name filtered through the crowd, and everyone was watching me.
Adrenas stared at me, then laughed. "A bold jest, fool. But can your bluff match my skill?"
We struck at each other, sabers igniting and impacting in almost the same instant. I blocked as he cut at me furiously. In those seconds, I knew him to be an efficient warrior with a lightsaber. He was good, I would grant, but his style was almost all attack. I was pushed back by his attacks, the crowd giving way to avoid us.
But good on the attack means you are weak on defense, as I had learned twice from Master Zhar. Once as Revan, and again as Danika. I felt the wall behind me five meters, and struck at him, then spun, running toward the wall with every erg of my own strength plus the Force. If you would try this, and you were a small man or a woman, you would go for height, to attack from above. He knew that as well as I.
I hit it at chest level with my foot, but instead, I flew straight back at chest level. The way to picture this is to watch a swimmer in a race with laps. At the last second they spin, their legs absorbing their momentum, then thrusting them back toward the other end. I kicked away from the wall with the force, adding a spin, so I came back at him even faster than I had run, whirling like a child's toy made from just a propellor and shaft.
He had less than a second to react, his blade already aimed upward to impale me if I had dived upon him. His eyes widened, and it dipped, but my spinning saber-staff blocked his last minute thrust. I passed him, landing on the floor with my hands, and springing to my feet as I spun to face him again.
The body had been cut many times, his forearms still holding the active saber hit the ground, followed by his torso below his shoulders, then the forward leg and remainder of the torso, and finally his hips and legs. To the viewers, it was as if a madman had run him through a food processor, and piled the meat for later cooking. I was still gasping as the hands finally relaxed their grip, and the blade died, the beam no longer impaling his upper body.
"Revan." someone whispered. Then shouted. "Lead us!"
"Revan is dead!" I shouted. "I am Danika Wordweaver, Jedi!"
If I had distilled madness and released it as a gas I could have done no more damage. With the true master a Jedi rather than Sith, nothing held them back anymore. With one voice they screamed, and attacked. There were maybe thirty students at the moment, half as many apprentices and teachers, and everybody was fighting everybody else, making up for whatever grudges they held while they had the chance. We waded into the fray, killing only when someone stood between the entrance or attacked us directly. Lashowe came running down from the central chamber screaming, and I cut her legs from under her, then turned to give her the coup de grace. I soun, snatching a thrown lightsaber from the air, glaring up at Mekel.
"If you want to fight, I will kill you." I growled. He turned, running away. I tossed the lightsaber contemptuously aside, and entered the central chamber. I went to the museum, and inside found the sword of Ajunta Pall. I had promised to remove it, and I felt that he would want it as far from this planet as possible.
"Revan!" I spun, running to help Yuthura. Seven masters and teachers had engaged her. Someone was starting to think and organize instead of just reacting, and if we didn't flee, they would overwhelm us. She killed three, then a fourth even as she was speared through the chest. I was a dervish of destruction in retaliation. I stopped, looking at the ones I had killed, then dropped to my knee. She caught my hand.
"Come, I have to save you."
"No. She reached out, touching my arm. "You did save me, Rev-" She shuddered, and died.
I left the Academy, dealing with the guards that tried to stop me, and ran on into the colony. It was chaos there as well. Every hopeful had felt the death of the Master, and had gone just as mad as the Academy.
A hand waved, and I dived out of the maelstrom into the Cantina.
"You're doing, no doubt." Mika Dorin commented, hooking a thumb at the madhouse the colony had become.
"Things happen." I agreed.
"I heard a rumor, tell me it isn't true."
"What was it?"
"That you faced off against a Krayt Dragon and instead of killing it, you fed Calo Nord the bounty hunter to it?"
"That I did." I agreed.
"Try to be more careful in the future." He admonished. He went to the bar, and began dumping items into a bag. "If you die, who will defeat Malak?"
"Even if I die today eventually, someone will." I told him.
"Yeah, but eventually could really mess up our profit margin." He closed the bag, mounting it on his belt. "Right now I think it is time to get out of the business of a Publican and get into what I do better. Sales from a ship on the Star-road."
We fought our way through the crowds of madmen toward the docking bays. Dorin broke away, tossing me a jaunty wave to head toward his own ship. I laughed like a maniac as I pushed my way through toward the Ebon Hawk. I had never felt so alive in my life!
I came up the ramp past the blast door, and suddenly stopped. The intruder lights of Ebon Hawk were activated, the ramp up.
I gulped. So this is what they had done. Rigged whatever they planned into the intruder system itself. I paced slowly around the disc. Even though I didn't intend to try, my mind was racing. I could easily dive below the disc of the ship or leap on her dorsal side; there I would only have the turret to deal with. The interrupter plate protecting the scanner dish would give me a clear field of entry, and my lightsaber would make short work of the hull metal. But then...
Canderous would know I could do that. He would be in that turret ready to kill me, and he'd know what I could do whichever way I went. All it would take is one person standing at a button somewhere aboard; hell, even a dead man circuit, or simple heart monitors so that even one person aboard dying in my attempt would blow the ship up.
I stopped before the bow, seeing Jolee, Juhani and Carth inside the cockpit, looking back. Then I bowed my head, and knelt, setting down my lightsaber and the precious data pad. Whatever happened to me in the next seconds, the data pad had to survive. As for the lightsaber, I had been trained to deflect blaster bolts, but the turret guns and intruder guns of the Ebon Hawk would make mincemeat of me if I even tried.
I stood, then moved to the side to place myself directly before the paired main guns on the port flank. Not only to make sure my death was quick, but to avoid having my blood splatter over the data pad. I looked at the ship, knowing that I was about to die, then bowed my head again and waited for the end. I felt...
At peace. If I had to die, it was a good time. I lifted my comlink. "Carth?"
"I hear you."
"Please, make it quick."
"Danika, listen very carefully." Carth's voice suddenly bellowed over the external loudspeaker.
"We..." Juhani
"Trust..." Jolee
"You..." Canderous
"Danika..." Mission.
"Welcome home." Carth said.
I bgean to laugh in relief, and it took me three tries to pick up my lightsaber and the data pad with the Force. I walked to the ramp. It came down, and HK47 stood there.
"Query: You know, Master, I really hate being ordered to kill you." He said.
That made me laugh harder. "How many times has this happened?" I asked manically.
"Irritated complaint: Don't get me started." HK replied. I passed him, and the little homing missile named Sasha hit me. I hugged her, carrying her into the mess hall.
Carth stood there, looking a little less haunted. I tossed the data pad to him. "Get us out of here. Take us to Yavin. We need a breather before the final hurdle."
"Yes, Danika." He said running toward the cockpit. I sat at the table, feeling my crew- No my friends around me, Sasha was hugging me as if she had been afraid I would never come back. I had never felt so content in my life.
Enroute to Yavin
Jolee
She didn't have that haunted look any more. The Danika that returned to our ship was calmer, more alive than she had been when she left. Carth had taken us out in a spiral that kept any ground fire from hitting us. It was a good thing too. One of the Czerka ships in orbit had fired on us, but then blew up when guns on the surface ripped it apart. Everyone on the planet seemed to have gone mad. Danika explained. The Master of the Academy was dead, the one who had been poised to take his place had walked away without doing so, and the upper echelons were in the midst of adverse negotiation.
We made the jump to hyperspace without a problem, barreling through space toward Yavin. Danika was again operating on that hunch the Force makes so strong; someone was in danger.
Once Sasha was settled into bed, Danika came to the mess hall for a quiet cup of tea. She smiled at me.
"You never really told me why you came with us, Jolee." She said.
"Good food, warm beds, a 'fresher when I start to get ripe, what else does a man really need?" I asked.
"No, really. You spent a long time on Kashyyyk-"
"How many 'oh my gods' sized trees do you have to see to know you've seen enough?" I snapped. "Have you ever stayed in one place a really long time? I bet fifteen minutes is your record. With nothing but trees and homicidal wildlife to keep you company, you finally get to the point where it's more fun to get back into space and on with your life. See something new for once. Is that too much to ask?"
"No I guess not."
"There, was that so hard to figure out? An old man is allowed his foibles. Nice to see you can agree with me for once. Fact is that while Kashyyyk felt like home, once I saw you, and knew your destiny was at hand, I felt a hankering to follow along and witness it."
"Like Andor Vex." She replied with a smile.
"Well not everyone I knew got thrown into a matter converter."
"You know my destiny? She asked intently.
I harrumphed. "Of course not. I can see that you have a destiny before you, but the way is dark. Everything I see is in a haze of darkness that might be building." I squinted at her, then stood up, turning on another light. "Okay, that's better."
She chuckled.
"Besides, you've had Jedi telling you to be wary of your future since you were a kid. You don't need another old fart telling you which way to go."
"Tell me of what you see."
"Nope. Your future is there, and will come of it's own accord soon enough. Looking into the furute is a good way to ruin your eyes. I wouldn't worry too much. You remind me of Nomi and that can't be all bad."
"Nomi?"
"Nomi Sunrider. She came late to the force and became one of the greatest Jedi that ever lived. A fine lass, with a figure-" I shuddered. "Don't let me think too much of her. My old heart can't stand it.
"Whether you follow the same path remains to be seen. What I can tell you is that you're not going to get very far along it if you spend your time jawing with antiques like me."
"So you're only along as an observer? To watch me soar to the heights, or crash and burn?"
"Balderdash. Have I ever denied you any assistance I could give? How confused can one human being be?"
"The only time you deny me assistance is when I want a straight answer." She replied.
"Well being here brings back all sorts of memories. Not all of them good. This little escapade reminds me of my adventures before the Exar Kun War. Now those were exciting times."
"Adventures?"
"Did I say anything about adventures? I don't know what's worse, my hearing or your memory."
. "So you're going to stonewall me again?"
"Didn't I say that my past is my own business? Shoo!"
"Stop being an old coot."
"A coot I might be, but most youngsters are nice enough not to rub my face in it. Besides, you really don't want to hear about it. It's ancient history from before your parents were even conceived. History bores kids. Proven fact. Just ask any educator."
"But some of us adore history." She grinned. "And the best way to learn history is to get an old coot talking about when he was young." She shrugged. "Proven fact. Just ask any kid."
"Fine, just don't whine to me about it later. I was an adventurer, all right? I had barely been accepted for training as a Jedi. I had a full head of hair, lots of testosterone, and an eagerness to see everything that could be seen." I grinned at her. "Sound like someone you know?"
"Except for the testosterone, yes."
"Well women have their equivalent. Especially when it comes to bull headedness. The Council never was happy with Jolee Bindo, let me tell you. Even less so when I began my smuggling career."
She looked at me, and I could hear the laughter in her voice. "You were a smuggler?"
"Hey, wipe that smirk off your face. I wasn't always a wrinkled old man! Well at the time the Ukatis system was being blockaded. Might have made more sense if it had been an enemy, but their own king was doing it. Every time his people started talking about unimportant stuff like rights, he'd slap on a blockade, and starve them a while.
"The Senate was trying to negotiate, and doing about as well as you'd expect; not a damn bit of good, so I decided to do something about it. I found a guy who had a ship, and we began smuggling food to them."
"That must have cost a lot."
"Might have if we'd actually paid for anything we were shipping. Some were happy to donate some stuff, but there are always those types that look at their pocketbook first. So we had to liberate some of it."
"You stole it?"
"Stole is such an ugly word. That's why I called it liberating." I replied piously. "After all, if they had been even a little bit merciful or even fiscally intelligent, they would have donated the stuff for the tax write off. I just considered it a tax on the greedy. They wrote it off on their taxes under theft, the prople got fed, so everyone benefited. We did pretty well for a while. Only got caught once. A Ukatis frigate tried to chase us down on the way out, shot us up pretty bad too. We crashed on a small planet. I thought the Force had abandoned me, but out of every bad comes something good. That was the day..."
"The day?" She prompted.
"The day I met my wife."
"You mentioned her before."
"And I am not going to mention her again. End of subject."
"I don't mean to pry-"
"Bull. You do mean to pry. You may even mean well, but my private life is just that, private." She looked hurt at that. I sighed. "Danika, once you've lived as long as I have, you find that your past life is only a series of memories. Some are good, some very good, some bad, some really bad. If you're lucky most of them will be the good kind, but not everyone is lucky. Some of those memories will be so bad that you don't want to remember them, but you can't help it. If they're bad enough, you'll find some place where nothing reminds you of those memories, and if you're lucky, you will stay there forever."
"Kashyyyk?" She asked hesitantly.
"No... yeah... well... maybe. I doubt I could ever explain it to you even if I tried. It's something being old gives you in compensation for dealing with the young. Let me just ask this. Have you ever been in love? I mean really in love. Not just a crush or an infatuation?"
She looked down blushing.
"Exactly my point. You're at the beginning of your life, and I am near my end. I can guarantee that love will find you, maybe a lot of loves. Sorta like the common cold. But if you're lucky, you'll find love with a capital L at least once in your life. That makes everything worth living for.
"The Jedi masters tend to denigrate love. They are the most over-cautious bunch I have ever met in all my time. They want you to avoid love because of the emotional entanglements. Not that it will drag you to the dark side, but that it might. Thankfully anyone capable of pouring water out of a boot without instructions printed on the heel figures that out eventually."
"I always thought that love can carry you beyond what you imagine, not drag you down."
"Could be. But what a lot of people call love isn't really. Passion, lust, that can cause anger jealousy and fear. But passion and lust aren't love. If they wanted to make sure you kids wouldn't fall, they teach you to control your passions, not your emotions. You're right. Love can save you from your own damnation."
I snorted, shaking my head. "Listen to me talk! I'm not even a Jedi, yet I think I can give advice like one!"
"Not a Jedi?" Her head cocked. "You mean not any more."
"Nope. I mean never really was. Oh I trained, even made it as far as Bastila has, but I was never really sure about what they taught. Does that surprise you?"
"But you have all the abilities of a Jedi-"
I sighed. "Sure, making me a 'Knight' would have been a foregone conclusion in the end. But I doubt the order would have gotten along with me any better by promoting me. Love isn't the only thing we disagree about. But love would have been the main sticking point.
"You see, Love does cause pain. Eventually love can lead to as much sorrow and regret as it does joy. I suppose there are eternal loves out there, but in all my life I have yet to see one. How you deal with love, and worse not getting love tells how much control the dark side has in your life." I looked away. "My wife Nayama learned to be a Jedi, with me teaching her. They had never accepted that we were married, or that I was even worthy to be teacher.
"They turned out to be right. She fell to the Dark side, and I fought and beat her. But she knew I still loved her. She taunted me, daring me to strike her down and finish my 'work', since I was such a lackluster teacher. But I did love her. I couldn't kill her. I returned to the order. Eventually someone else had to kill her when we fought Exar Kun, but a lot of Jedi died before she did."
I fell silent. "The council decided to reinstate me, and promote me to Padawan Teacher after I defeated her but refused to kill her. They assigned me to teach a very special class; how to coerce those who would not assist willingly. One thing I knew very well. But I was so angry at not being punished for my failure that I walked away from the order not long after you arrived." I looked at her face. "In fact I was one of those blamed after I had left for you going off to war. After all, someone had to be blamed."
She grinned, then grew pensive. "So even love doesn't work?"
"Oh it might. Depending on what kind of person it is. It takes a person with a great sense of self, and willing to work to make it happen, and more important, keep it happening. But I'll tell you one thing. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you and the one you love aren't meant to be together. The trick is to know when that is the case. Know when it's a time to fight for the one you love, or let them go."
I finished my drink. "There I go, waxing philosophical again. Somebody shoot me and put me out of everyone's misery!"
I stood, then stopped as she whispered. "I had an awful thought." She looked up. "Would the woman I had once been pretend to be good so they'd take me where I wanted to go?"
I looked at that worried face. "The Revan I knew might have done that. But she would have beaten all of us to a pulp the instant she was aboard just to prove she could do it. That's why Canderous had the entire ship wired to blow if you had even touched your lightsaber, and both Juhani and I were watching for you to try." I went to bed.
Ebon Hawk
Enroute to Yavin
Danika
My mind floated down a massive stone walk, through the side of the great stone pyramid before me, and into a dark place. Guards stood at alert, ignoring me as I floated past them down the massive hall. I heard a scream, and made myself move faster.
Bastila was bound to a stone altar. Standing over her, Malak reached out, and force lightning leaped from his hand again. It stopped, and she sagged.
"I will never talk, Malak, why must this torture continue?" She gasped.
"Torture?" He sounded amused. "It isn't torture you face here, Bastila. It is just a taste of the dark side to whet your appetite." He reached out again, and she shuddered in agony. "All it takes for me to stop is for you to ask me. But this will continue my dear girl. When the time comes, you will swear yourself to the dark side willingly."
"Never!"
"Ah but I can feel you weakening even now." He purred. "The dark side is already within you, and soon you will embrace it like a lover."
"Danika-" She pleaded.
"Don't speak her name!" Malak reached out and the lightning ripped her again. "She is the enemy of everything we stand for!" He struck her again and again-
I clutched my chest, feeling the pain running through her. Bastila had felt me there at the last, and was now blocking me. I whimpered in sympathy. The technique is as old as the people who practice it. You torment someone, but always give them an opening to escape the torment. You deny them food and rest, torture them, until finally they accept what you want them to accept, step by hideous step. In the end they actively help you complete it.
Could she resist? No one really can. Even the strongest. Only death can free you and Malak would assure that she did not die.
I got up, dressed, poured two cups of tea, and headed for the cockpit. Carth was on watch, and he nodded to me as I handed him a drink, and sat in the copilot's seat. Before us were the swirling lights of hyperspace, one of the most beautiful sights someone can ever see.
"We'll be dropping out in a few minutes." Carth reported. "What's on your mind?"
"Bastila." I whispered. "Malak is tormenting her even now. But she has blocked me out of her mind. The bond is still there, I can almost point in the right direction. But she is not allowing anything to come down it."
He handed me a data pad with the star chart from our Nav computer on it. A new speck rested there, a blue water world. "That is our destination?"
"Yeah."
"I only want to stop long enough to assure that Suvam Tam is safe. Then the final leg of the voyage is before us."
He grunted. He reached out, adjusted the throttles, and suddenly we were in the Yavin system a few hours from the station. A ship hung nearby, a docking tube run to an airlock. "Who is that?"
"Wait a minute. Trandoshan design, one of their pocket frigates. About our size, better armed."
"Tam did mention that the Trandoshan visited occasionally."
"But why now?"
I shrugged. "I'll put together a team and find out."
When we landed Canderous and Zaalbar were with me. We went down the passage, each door opening on cue. In the viewing room Suvam had made his own, a confrontation was underway.
There were four Trandoshan, and they had backed him against a table. "...That's not good enough, Tam!" One was hissing. The face was out of a prehistoric nightmare for humans. A reptile, man height, with all of the teeth of a velociraptor and an attitude to match.
"You no just rewrite our agreement when you want to!' Tam protested. "Exchange not like it!"
"The Exchange is not in a position to dictate to us any more." The Trandoshan hissed. "Too busy fighting among themselves-" He saw us, and stiffened. "Who is that?" He looked at Suvam, and his claws clenched. "A stranger. You haven't been telling us everything, Tam."
"What you mean, tell everything? I no clear visitors through you!"
"It appears to me that you have overstayed your welcome." I purred. "I think it is time for you to leave."
"Or what?" The leader asked. "You will force us?"
"Or maybe I will ask you again; just less politely."
"You seek to mock us, human?"
"Seek? I have succeeded. You will leave. While alive or dumped into space after we kill you, but you will leave."
"No! Fighting in here damage valuable stuff!" Suvam raised his hands in horror.
"We will deal with you later, Tam. As for you, human, a time will come."
"Eventually, it comes for us all." I said. "You were just going I believe."
The Trandoshan walked to one of the other hatches, and left. I breathed a sigh of relief. "Are you all right?"
"That not end well. They impulsive violent race. They be back soon. In force." He shrugged. "Still I am in one piece. That is to the good."
"Yes it is." I cocked my head. "Assessment, Canderous?"
"As soon as we're gone, they'll be back."
"That's what I thought. Let's go back to the ship."
"We're leaving?"
"A little unfinished business, then we are."
A few minutes later, Ebon Hawk jumped into hyperspace. The Trandoshan ship slid away from the planet's magnetic pole, where it had been hiding from our sensors, and slid alongside the station. The boarding tube came across, and the crew of the ship boarded. The leader charged down the boarding ramp, and stopped as I turned in my seat. He motioned, and his crew spread to surround me.
"Where is Tam?" He demanded.
"Safe." I replied. "So there is no reason for you to be here."
"I said there would come a day, Human."
"As I said, for us all." I lifted the controller in my hand. If his eyes could have bugged out, they would have. Then the directional mines Canderous had assembled and installed fired. The only safe place in that hell was where I was sitting, and even there it was like being thrown into a wall. There was screaming, and I leaped into the middle of the carnage. There had been almost a dozen of them, but only three still stood, staggering from the shock wave. I dispatched them, then charged down the ramp onto their vessel. One guard stood at the door, but he went down before he even knew he was under attack. There was no one else aboard.
I lifted my com. "Carth?"
"Just coming back. Suvam is wailing about the damage you might have done."
"Couldn't be helped. Does he have a ship on the station?"
"Yeah, a little one man asteroid miner. He says he needs some parts..."
"Have Mission supply them if we can. I don't think he'll be wanting to stay."
"On it."
The repairs to Suvam's ship would have taken two days. We modified the controls of the Trandoshan ship so he could operate it alone and we loaded everything of value. He knew a port known for stripping ships for their parts, but where the Trandoshan were unwelcome. He had already communicated with them, and would have a sizable nest egg when he arrived. Before he left, he handed me a bundle of what felt like sticks. "Not need these. You Jedi; maybe you can use." He waved, and ran aboard the ship. I watched it boost away, then opened the bundle.
Lightsabers. An even half dozen. Two were doubles, and I looked at one critically. It looked like the descriptions of Exar Kun's lightsaber.
I went aboard the ship, and we went over our bounty. Among them was the Heart of the Force. I handed it off to Sasha to use. Using the additional focusing crystals, each of us was armed with the most powerful lightsabers we could have with our resources.
Canderous planted explosives, and we raced away from the station. Behind us, I watched it explode, gone in an instant.
"Carth, take us to the Star Forge." I ordered.
Ebon Hawk
Enroute to the Star Forge System
Danika
The next few days were tense. Everyone dealt with the tension in their own ways. Juhani, Jolee and I spent hours honing Sasha' growing skills, and spent others sparring. Canderous made small adjustments in his blaster rifle, Carth worked on piloting, Mission on figuring what we would need to get when we reached a new port. Zaalbar kept us fed and tinkered with the engine. I was constantly nagged by the fact that there had been nothing more from Bastila after she had shut me out days earlier. The bond still existed, so she was alive. But what had happened to her?
It was a relief when we came out at ten planetary diameters from a small planet.
"Not much to see." Carth said. "Are we sure this is the right place?"
I pointed wordlessly at the fleet that orbited the star, or rather, the structure above the star's North Pole. He stared at it, then used the passive sensors to bring up a larger picture. As I have said before, it was shaped not unlike a lightsaber pommel, only fatter. Over a hundred kilometers through, it was more than a five hundred in length.
"The Star Forge." Carth whispered. "I've never seen anything like it!"
"We're here, now we need to tell someone." I told him.
"Yeah, all right. I'm sending this directly to the fifth fleet. Admiral Dodonna will know what to do. Maybe a quick strike can cripple it."
"I don't know." I pointed at the dots of yet more ships coming around from the sensor shadow of the massive structure. "How many ships do they have here?"
Carth stared. "It looks like all of them." He added that to the message. "All right, the message is away. All we have to do is sit here outside their sensor range-" there was a bleep, and he snarled. "Fighters coming in fast. Get on the guns!"
I leaped up, running back to the centerline. Canderous passed me taking the ladder down as I climbed up. I was in my seat, weapons activated as the fighters came snarling in. Ebon Hawk was running toward the planet, trying to put it between the fleet and us. I blasted a fighter, spinning to find another as the ship started rocking as if it was going mad.
"Carth-"
"Some kind of disruptor field! Flight controls are burning out!"
The fighters lofted away from us, and I could understand why. The ship was tumbling out of control toward the planet.
"All hands brace for impact!" Carth screamed. "This might be a rough landing."
Watching a crash-landing is so much more fun if there is some distance between you and it. From where I sat the sky the sea and land were interchangeable, spinning past my view in a whirling vortex. Suddenly we leveled out, how I didn't know. Thrusters blasted, then we bounced on our landing gear. We came down again, oleo joints screaming in protest. Then there was silence.
"Well, we're down." Carth said. I unstrapped, and climbed down the ladder. The others were already gathering in the mess hall, and I collapsed into a seat.
"Hey, when you said rough, you were understating it! What happened, Carth? You been on a drinking binge while we weren't watching?" Mission asked.
"That disruptor field fried our stabilizers. We're lucky we made it down in one piece at all." He rubbed his scalp. "Unless we can fix them, we're stuck here. I can't guarantee what would happen if we took off without them."
"While we were descending, I think I saw ships that had crashed before us." I mused. "Perhaps they might have the parts we need?"
"So did I." Canderous said. "Some of them aren't that far away." He shook his head. "This place is a graveyard of ships from ten thousand years of history. Maybe more. There must be something we can use."
"Yeah. But even if we can repair the stabilizers, that disruptor field is still there. We'd just run into it again when we lift." Carth commented.
"I'm more worried about the fleet." I said. "The field seems to extend out from the planet, and is adjustable. If they turn it up while our fleet is in system, who knows what will happen!"
"But there has to be a way to shield from it." Carth mused. "The Sith fighters didn't seem to be affected. But we won't have time to find that way, so destroying or shutting it down is our best option."
I think T3 might have found it." Mission said. We crowded around the monitor she was using. A field emanated from the planet, running outward almost to the limit of the system itself. A staggering amount of energy.
"The field is coming from a structure not far from here."
"What about Bastila?" I asked.
"We haven't forgotten about her." Carth soothed. "But there isn't anything we can do until the field is down and the ship is repaired."
"I only hope we are not to late." Juhani whispered. "Bastila has been Malak's prisoner for more than a week. If he can turn her to the dark side, the fleet we have called is doomed!"
"Bastila won't turn to the dark side." I said, even as my heart told me otherwise.
"Like you once did, I fear that Bastila will feel the lure of the dark side." Jolee opined. "Can't you feel it? Like a smell in the air. Whoever these people were, they've lived and breathed the dark side their entire lives. She may be strong in the Force, but she is impulsive and prideful. Like you were once, Revan."
"Don't call me that!" I shook my head vehemently. "Revan is dead and buried. I am Danika now and forever."
"Hold on to that thought, girl. But remember that Bastila hasn't been through the same hell yet. If she still feels as you do, than all she needs is rescue."
"If Bastila is on the Star Forge, as you both seem to think, we can't rescue her until we're repaired and the field is down, Jolee." Carth shook his head, making a copy of the data from the sensors. "There are half a dozen wrecks close enough to check out. I've downloaded their positions and a list of what we need. Maybe one of them has what we need."
"I hope it's really that easy, Carth." Mission murmured.
"You and me both, Mission. All right, Zaalbar and I will start ripping out fried circuits. Mission and the droids will go through what we have, and see what still needs to be replaced. Danika, who will you take?"
"Jolee and Canderous." I said. "Juhani, can you help with the scanning?"
"Yes."
We gathered our equipment, and gathered at the ramp. I trotted down it, then stopped. I had seen this beach before...
I could feel the blade slicing through Mission, watched her fall, heard Zaalbar's scream.
"Danika?" Jolee was watching me, worried.
"I had a vision back at the Academy. Me, killing Mission and Zaalbar here. On this very spot." I whispered.
"Then you are close to the point where your choice will kill her or save her." Jolee replied. "I'm here, I hope I can stop you when that time comes."
"If anyone can." I whispered. I turned. Someone was running in the rock and stone above us.
Four figures came into sight. They were the same race as the builders. Their weapons were wood with sharp teeth or stone shards imbedded in them. They saw us, and seemed surprised for a moment, then they charged with an ululating cry.
Canderous smoothly aimed as if he were on a target range and three of them were dead before they reached us. The last died as I cut him down.
"What are they?" Canderous asked. "I've never seen such things.
"Murderous animals!" Someone said, and we spun. Two Duros staggered from the rocks near the side of our private beach, hands raised in supplication. "Thank you humans for saving us!"
"No problem." I said.
"If your arrival had not been so fortuitous, we would have been caught! They treat all that are not of their kind as food!"
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Our mining survey ship crashed here months ago. Our ship sank out there, at sea. Of our crew, only ten survived. We have been hunted and attacked by them ever since our arrival. Some said they would swim to that small island there." He waved at the horizon. Unless they could swam better than any Duros I have ever seen, they were dead.
"They have been attacking you?"
"Yes. They are vicious, hunting us using the Rancor they have tamed. If we are caught, we end up in their stew pots."
"Are there other survivors? from other ships?"
"Many, a hundred, maybe more. Most live by running from these monsters. Only the Mandalorians are safe from them."
"Mandalorians?" Canderous asked. "Where are they? How many?"
"A dozen warriors all told, we think." One of the Duros said. "They have a lot of their technology remaining. Camouflage uniforms, and mines. They are camped in a valley on the other side of the Temple mount."
"Danika?" Canderous asked.
"Yes, I think we might be able to use some allies. Shall we go?"
"No, I will go alone." He demurred. "That will stop the foolish among them from shooting first."
"We cannot stay." The Duros said. "The longer we stay in one place, the more likely they will find us."
"Wait." I lifted my com and gave an order. A few moments later, Carth pushed a lifter down the ramp. On it was an inflatable raft, and about four days worth of E rations. The Duros were stunned by our generosity, but once they had the raft, they couldn't get into it and away from shore fast enough. I had Juhani join us to replace Canderous, and started up the slope into the depths of the island.
There was a path cutting to the left, and I ignored it. I knew somehow that the enemy the Duros were worried about lived that way. Instead I took the switchback climbing up the scree, and soon we could look down on the beach. The intruder lights were on, and the turrets were hot. I found another cut in the rock, and we followed it. Ahead of us, I could hear something roaring.