Author's Note: Yes, the title was originally The Death You Know. I changed it. See the edited note at the beginning of Chapter 1. (2/24/2024)
[SIS Personnel File 8591: Atris, Salvage Team Four. Excerpted from Transcript, Interview #2, supplemental to recruitment. Timestamped one standard week after the destruction of Malachor V.]
ATRIS: There are lost Jedi—ones that turned away from the Order or who, like Kaevee, were left behind in its absence. But by "Jedi" you mean Knights and Masters, those who would bring light back to the Temple on Coruscant. Of these, I cannot imagine that any still live.
INTERVIEWER: What about you? Couldn't you train more Jedi?
[Atris laughs.]
ATRIS: In all my years, I never trained a single Padawan, and I don't plan to start now. You may think of Kaevee as a sort of apprentice, but she will not be the first of many... It took centuries for the Jedi to grow numerous enough to shepherd the Republic, and it would take centuries to do so again. To train even a handful to the skill and discipline required for Knighthood would take decades.
INTERVIEWER: But there are others besides the Jedi and Sith who understand the Force, aren't there—who know how to use it?
ATRIS: Of course there are. Such organizations are scattered over the galaxy, some on worlds known to the Republic and many more beyond.
INTERVIEWER: Could you offer some examples?
ATRIS: I believe you could offer the first. The Baran Do still operate on your homeworld, do they not?
INTERVIEWER: I— Well, they do, ma'am, but Baran Do sages hardly ever leave their temples, let alone Dorin itself. And to be frank, the Republic has no interest in mystics and fortune-tellers. What we need to know—the only thing, really—is if there are any Force-users who could counter the Sith on the battlefield.
ATRIS: Of course... Well, certainly there are ones who could. The real question you should ask is, are there any who would?
INTERVIEWER: What do you mean by that?
ATRIS: You asked for examples of Force-using sects; I could tell you of dozens, both martial and contemplative, and there are hundreds more whose names escape me. Many have existed for as long as the Jedi. Longer, even. Yet our order was the only one to pledge allegiance to the Republic, to serve it for twenty thousand years. Certainly our numbers set us apart from all the rest. But so did our sense of duty to the wider galaxy.
INTERVIEWER: And other Force-users don't share that sense, is what you're saying? They wouldn't be interested in fighting for the Republic?
ATRIS: The only way to be sure is to ask them yourself, but even that would not be easy. For example, a Matukai Adept is a ferocious warrior—easily a match for a Jedi Knight, or a Sith. But their order is disorganized and nomadic; they roam the far Outer Rim in small bands, never staying in one place for very long. They answer to no central authority and have little interest in governments. Tracking down and convincing one group of Matukai to aid you would lay no obligation on any others.
Other sects have their hierarchies and their enclaves, of course. If the hyperroutes to Jedha were still known, you could perhaps find the Guardians of the Whills in their desert sanctuaries there. I imagine the Luka Sene remain on Alpheridies, and the Adepts of the White Current on Far Thanium. Should you make the journey to these places, however, you'll have a hard time interesting their inhabitants in anything outside of their star system.
[The interviewer sighs.]
ATRIS: Our Republic is a marvel. For so many thousands of years its flag has flown over millions of worlds... It is easy for us to forget that the galaxy is much, much larger, and still more ancient. And that entire civilizations have been born and passed away without ever even hearing that there is a Galactic Republic.
INTERVIEWER: I'm afraid that's all the time we have today. Thank you, madam Atris.
ATRIS: I sense you are displeased.
INTERVIEWER: I think what you're really sensing is our superiors' displeasure. Some of them were very excited to hear that a Jedi Master is alive. And the—
ATRIS: And the Supreme Chancellor is one of them?
INTERVIEWER: He will be very disappointed.
ATRIS: He will not be the first. Or the last.
This blast was stronger than the last one, knocking Kaevee clear off her feet. Flailing, she hit the ground and rolled several times before coming to rest in a breathless heap.
At least there was a mat to land on.
"Well, I didn't mean to hit you that hard, kid," said her teacher. "You could put on some weight, you know. Wouldn't kill you."
Kaevee gave her stomach a moment to settle down, then disentangled herself and got up, favoring her bruises. "You... could be more careful too," she pointed out.
Atton shrugged and idly brushed his hair with his fingers. He wore a smirk that he probably believed was charming. "Never was much good at controlling myself."
Kaevee eyed him as she returned to her original spot, waited, and at last shook her head. For all the things she had seen Atton Rand was capable of in their brief time together—whether with blade, blaster, tools, gadgets, cunning, or wit—apologizing seemed next to impossible for him.
"Want to go again? I won't be too rough..."
"No," Kaevee said firmly. "Let's try something else."
Atton flexed his fingers. "Fine, I'll try picking you up. Get ready."
Breathing deeply, Kaevee centered herself in the Force again and willed it to form a barrier around herself. As Atton raised a hand, she could feel his power around her, grasping, pressing against the shield she had built.
Protecting oneself from direct Force attacks was the most fundamental form of Jedi defense. Even younglings were trained to resist telekinesis, if only to stave off pranks from unruly older students—but Kaevee, of course, had left this skill unpracticed and half-forgotten during her years of solitude on Dantooine.
No more of that skrag, Atton had told her. Vaal wasn't the first time this happened to you. Go up against a Sith without Force defense, and you're practically fighting naked. From now on, as soon as there's danger, you put the shield up. You'll be doing this by reflex before you know it.
He continued his efforts; the invisible barrier held, rippling slightly. Then he struck harder and the shield broke; Kaevee yelped as she was snatched into the air. Gasping frantically, she waved her limbs about, futilely seeking a hand- or foothold. Her legs kicked against nothing.
"Okay, I've caught you," Atton said casually. "It's always possible for the other guy to break your defenses, if he's stronger in the Force or you lose focus. So now what?"
She didn't answer him. On Malachor V, the Nautolan Sith Lord had effortlessly thrown her around like a rag doll, and then caught her the same way, suspending her in midair. Except then she'd been encased, not even able to thrash about. She dreamed of it sometimes, and she always woke from those dreams shivering and cowering. Reliving her torment by that black-eyed, wiry-framed monster was nearly as awful as having to watch Shen Matale as he burned alive in his father's garage—
Kaevee let out a wordless cry that hissed through her teeth. She was at the spaceport on Indosa, she reminded herself, in a room they had borrowed for training. Malachor was nothing now, and Dantooine was the past.
"Easy, kid! Keep breathing! We're not practicing choking today," Atton was saying—then in a lower tone he added, "You don't seem like you'd be into that anyway."
This remark was so puzzling that Kaevee's dark memories were immediately dispelled; she even left off struggling. Deciding she didn't want to know, she sent a sharp blow at Atton through the Force, then fell hard to the mat as he staggered back.
"Nice job," he told her. "Somebody picks you up, you can break his grip by rebuilding the shield, or striking back. Force push, shoot at him, throw something—all you need to do is break his concentration."
"Right," said Kaevee. "Concentration."
They resumed, Atton coming up with various ways to test Kaevee's defenses against being pushed, pulled, levitated, or thrown around. In her right mind she knew that the pilot was only teaching her to survive, the way she had asked him to. But the fact that he never broke a sweat, or let up with his wisecracking, tainted Kaevee with the thought that she wasn't training so much as being a Force punching bag. Besides that, after two hours she felt no stronger at defending herself than before. The urge to retaliate grew progressively harder to stifle; she was picking up new bruises all the while, and she hadn't entirely forgiven him for his reckless piloting at Ferrous Aurora.
But she knew that would be childish, and so would complaining; verbal sparring with Atton was a losing game in any case. And no matter how useless the training seemed, she refused to quit; Atton and Atris were not Jedi, but they were all Kaevee had. So she kept getting up, kept saying, Let's try again until she was barely steady on her feet and Atton finally told her, "Enough, already. I could sneeze and knock you over."
"Okay, fine," said Kaevee, peeling sweaty knots of hair from her forehead. "Same time tomorrow?"
"If you and Cole can get those starboard power conduits done by then, sure."
"What about you?"
The pilot's eyes tightened just a little. "I'm still sorting the hyperdrive, and I've got to find who's in charge of this place, so he can get us the new hull plates we need. You've got Cole and Ecksee. You can handle the conduits."
Fair enough, Kaevee thought as she followed him toward the exit. She had only asked out of curiosity, and if Atton was intent on keeping her and Cole at arm's length for a while, that was no surprise. Considering that the two men had nearly come to blows in the hyperdrive room, that had to be a good thing.
And now that the team had nothing to do except fix the ship, the apprehensions Atton had shared after Obeth Station's destruction loomed large in Kaevee's mind. More than likely, he still needed to wrestle with them.
So did she. "We'll do our best... I'll see you around, then."
"Sure thing," said Atton.
They'd been here for two local days.
Though rich enough in precious metals to be classed as a mining planet, Indosa was far from reaching the level of despoilment achieved by Gulvitch, Krylon, or other worlds Kaevee had seen in the Gordian Reach. Doscaras spaceport stood at the crossroads of several mining and factory complexes, denoted by slate-gray patches where greenery had been rudely scooped away. Still, quiet plains and the occasional forest came right up to the edges of the mining sites and roads, bleeding toward amber as this region entered its autumnal period.
Doscaras itself resembled the Senate Rotunda on Coruscant—an elevated mushroom-dome of glinting durasteel—except where the former's elegance complemented its otherwise bare appearance, the latter was hard-edged, angular, and overgrown with support struts, scaffolding, docking claws, and other appendages. Bays honeycombed the entire superstructure, ranging from the tiny repair port which barely accommodated the Ebon Hawk to huge ones able to service capital ships.
Kaevee took a sonic shower and a nap after her session with Atton. When she awoke, it was well into evening; spurning the Hawk's food synthesizer, she shuffled her way to the mess hall in the bowels of the spaceport. Quite unlike the rest of the facility, it had a dim, ramshackle look. A slight artificial haze tinged the light as it pooled around battered tables and mismatched chairs, and the air was warm and vaguely damp, almost greasy. It reminded Kaevee of the seedy tapcafs and cantinas that she and her teammates had been forced to visit in their missions across the Gordian Reach. She had no idea why anyone decent would purposefully replicate such an environment.
The crowd was almost entirely off-duty Republic personnel—guards, technicians, crewmen—as the spaceport was being used to repair and resupply the Navy's ships that were passing through. Civilian spaceport workers native to Indosa made up a minority. Empty chairs were few and far between, and holovid feeds hovered over many of the tables, adding to the bustle of conversation.
The food, some kind of local casserole, was not inspiring. All that mattered, though, was that it was not what the Ebon Hawk's synthesizer produced, and once Kaevee had a tray of it she was left adrift in search of an appealing place to sit. There was none—only a table in the far corner with Atton and Cole facing each other near one end, and a lone Republic soldier eating near the other. Atris's absence was no surprise; though she'd been traveling with them for months, the old woman had hardly been seen taking anything more substantial than water.
The two men were not conversing. Atton was engrossed in their table's news holo; and he grunted a hello when Kaevee drew near. As she took a seat beside Cole, the spacer raised a glass as if in toast and said, "Hey, they've got Gizer pale blue ale. Not the best stuff, but better than nothing."
Kaevee studied the drink, noticing the loathsome foam skimming its surface—and that the pilot had a second one by his elbow. "Maybe I'll try some later," she lied.
"Oh, you've got to start living sometime, Jedi," he said and took a gulp.
He hadn't been loud enough for anyone else to hear, but Kaevee still gave him a chastising look (which, naturally, he ignored) before starting in on dinner.
The holovid showed grainy footage of plazas thronging with people, beneath swaying banners. A stilted voice was saying, "On nearly a thousand worlds, memorial services are taking place to honor those lost in the Sith attack on Obeth Station. In a statement today, Defense Minister Bendix Sotokoski—"
Kaevee watched for a while, part of her expecting or hoping that it would mention the kolto freighters at some point, until she saw from the data bar that this broadcast was a standard week old. In any case, Admiral Opelle had pronounced the mission a success. Between the Ebon Hawk and Task Force Dauntless, twelve out of the fourteen missing bulk freighters had been found intact. Some could be repaired in short order after being towed to Indosa, while others would need to have their precious cargo finish the journey aboard other ships. Either way, though, the kolto would soon reach Arkuda and other worlds where Republic troops desperately needed it.
Many good men will owe their lives to you for this, Admiral Opelle had said in the debriefing. Kaevee tried to be proud.
"Excuse us!" said a booming voice that easily overpowered the room's background noise.
Atton looked up, and Kaevee and Cole turned in their chairs, to find nearly a dozen beings of varying species clustered before their table. The owner of the voice was a Human, approaching middle age, with limbs thick as a construction droid's and a torso like a blba tree. His hair was a thin, reddish cloud that seemed barely perched atop his head.
"Something we can do for you?" said Atton.
"You're the crew of the little freighter that's docked here, right? The Ebon Hawk?"
"What if we were?"
"I'm Zan Skidder, captain of the Errant VI," the big man said. "This is some of my crew. Not too long ago we were in a pretty bad spot near Ferrous Aurora, until we got our hides saved by some Republic pilots—as well as a mysterious freighter that did some of the craziest flying I've ever seen in my life. We heard that ship's crew was here, hoped we could show some appreciation."
Atton gazed up at him, neither smiling nor frowning, as unreadable as ever. Studying the group, Kaevee was puzzled that none were in uniform; instead they wore battered flight jackets, vests, and other typical spacer's attire.
The moment dragged on, and Zan Skidder's jovial look flickered with doubt. "It was you, wasn't it? Can we join you, buy you some drinks?"
"Now I know you guys are all right," said Cole, beaming, and slapped the imagecaster to shut off the news holo.
Atton smiled also (as though he had just been given permission to) and briefly rose to reach over the table and shake Zan's hand. "Fenn Moru," he said.
Zan's relieved laughter practically left Kaevee's ear ringing. "I'll be damned, you had me there! Too modest, didn't want the fame? Well, too bad—you're stuck with us now!"
There was scraping and clattering as chairs were pulled out, trays of food set down, and Kaevee and her companions were hemmed in on all sides. The whole thing was dreadfully unexpected; making new acquaintances was not something she'd had in mind on Indosa, and she did not appreciate Cole's enthusiasm. With no little envy, she caught sight of the lone Republic soldier beating a hasty, wordless retreat.
Nearing the head of the table, Zan paused to hand a fistful of credit chips to one of his crew, a green-skinned Twi'lek. "Torm, go talk to the staff. Tell 'em I want an ale for every man, woman, and child in this room, and two for our saviors here!"
"You've got it, Captain," the Twi'lek said, with the severity of a man being ordered into battle.
Realizing she was still plenty hungry, Kaevee abandoned all hope of escape and dutifully traded half-shouted introductions with their new dinner-mates. Among others, there was a snout-faced, goggle-wearing Kubaz named Ukla Stiles, the captain's first mate; Zan's brother Jethro, a more normally-proportioned man who served as the ship's navigator; and a Phindian security chief whose name Kaevee instantly forgot. When the Twi'lek returned, he sat across from her and introduced himself as Torm Heshusa, the ship's engineer.
"I'm Kira Minn," she told him. Atton's use of "Fenn Moru" had been his signal to use their fake names, though Cole still refused to do so.
Momentarily, a platoon of servers bearing enormous trays came marching through the hall, distributing Gizer pale blue ales amid shouts of appreciation. Far sooner than Kaevee wanted, a glass was placed before her, and she mechanically grasped it as as Zan Skidder's voice—abruptly quite solemn—blitzed half of the room again.
"To the boys in red!" he shouted. "Long live the Republic! All stars burn as one!"
"All stars burn as one!"
The first line of the Republic's anthem came back to him in an echoing staccato, and more than a few voices kept it going as ales were downed. Dreading to drink hers but dreading even more to seem ungrateful, Kaevee took a sizable draft. The taste was horrific; she couldn't begin to describe it, except that in some vague way it reminded her of kinrath.
Belatedly she observed that Torm's glass, alone out of his crewmates', had only water. Catching the look on her face, he offered a sympathetic smile. While that made her feel slightly better, she still resumed her dinner with haste, hoping to cleanse her palate as much as to fill her belly.
Meanwhile, Atton was giving Zan a sanitized explanation for their presence at Ferrous Aurora. "I've flown the star lanes on this end of the Rim a lot. So the Republic hired us to be an extra pair of eyes for them—report on Remnant shipping, fleet movements, that sort of thing. We're basically just scouts. And we've got a fast ship, so that's why they had us looking for you and those other kolto freighters."
"I've got to believe you have more under your belt than scouting, based on that piloting we saw," cried Zan. "You make me think you've been dusting Sith fighters since you could walk. You people fight in the wars?"
"Not really, no," said Atton quickly. "We've just been in a lot of scrapes over the years."
Several people offered incredulous comments or compliments, but Atton shrugged them off, and there was a lull as everyone ate. When the unpleasantness of the ale was well and truly forgotten, Kaevee spoke up. "Captain, can I ask you something?"
"You don't have to call me Captain," Zan said over his ale, "but sure."
"You and your crew—you're not part of the Navy, are you?" She felt certain of it, based on their lack of uniforms and their general demeanor. When the captain shook his head, Kaevee asked, "Then why are you out here, transporting kolto for the Republic? It's not like they don't have their own bulk freighters."
"Yeah, true. They've got plenty. But Errant VI's got the specs and the cargo capacity, so we offered our services. Republic took us seriously—they're paying three times as much as we'd ever make for a regular job."
Cole gave a mirthless laugh. "They'd better, for sending you into a war zone."
"The truth, though," said Jethro Skidder, "is that we want to be here, same as yourselves, because it's the right thing to do."
Kaevee set her fork down, remembering how she'd felt when Atton told her how many people were killed on Obeth Station. Like the crews of the Kanton IX and the other freighters they'd found, these people had ridden out of that inferno and barely survived. More than likely, a damaged ship was the least of their sufferings.
Kaevee was not adept at sensing other beings' thoughts with any depth, especially in a crowded room. Still, she felt she had guessed right as the Errant VI's crew shifted in their seats, let their eyes wander, or stared broodingly into their ales.
Zan cleared his throat. "It's like this, Kira. Jethro and me, we're from Dalcretti. The ship's a family inheritance. Ukla there—" He nodded toward the Kubaz. "—is from Lantillies. A lot of my crew's Twi'leks from Shulstine V—they've got a colony there. I could go on, but the point is, most of us have family or a home on some planet along the Perlemian, or just off it."
Originally known as the Axis, the Perlemian Trade Route began in the Core Worlds and ended at the Tion Cluster in the far Outer Rim, linking many major star systems along the way; besides the Arrow of Brentaal, it was the most important hyperroute in the northeastern quadrant of the galaxy.
"Now, I'm not some kinda military strategist, but I'm no fool either. The Perlemian's a straight line to Coruscant. The Sith tried to come marching down this way in the last war. If they're gonna invade again, they'll try the same thing." Zan drained his current glass of ale, then reached for one of the several full ones at his side. "We're not fighters, we're not soldiers. But we've got to do our part, that's what I believe. So I talked to the Republic, agreed to do a kolto run... and we lost thirty people. A lot of debris hit us when that station exploded."
Heads around the table bowed under the weight of that, Kaevee's among them. Beside her the Kubaz, Ukla Stiles, gave a low wheezing sound from her snout. As for the captain himself, he seemed to have aged a decade in the course of giving his explanation. His entire manner, soft and jovial at his first appearance, was now brittle and cracked, flaking away.
"We're sorry to hear that," Atton said quietly.
"But they knew the risks. All of us did," Jethro added, eyeing his brother as though only the two of them were present. "We didn't go into danger unaware, or against our will."
As subtly as possible, Kaevee glanced about the table, trying to gauge the reactions of the other crewmembers. Some had averted their eyes. Others, like the Kubaz, were impossible to read on account of their alien features. At the far end of the table, out of range of the conversation, some were eating steadily.
Torm spoke up. "The captain had the crew vote on whether or not to take this job. It was unanimous."
Atton and Cole made murmurs of respect. Privately, Kaevee's admiration was restrained. All of these people seemed like good beings and citizens of the Republic. But a ship the size of the Errant VI had to have hundreds of crewmen, and as their captain had admitted, none of them had been acquainted with danger until the disaster at Landor. No doubt patriotism and love for their homes had motivated them significantly... but Zan had also mentioned the Republic was paying them handsomely. More than likely, the promise of credits had blinded them to the risks.
Notwithstanding, Kaevee had nothing but sympathy for Zan and his shipmates. Sitting with these people and listening to them, knowing that they had been changed forever—as Kaevee herself had been changed when Dantooine was attacked—brought the misery of war home in a way that the casualty report of Obeth Station hadn't been able to.
People like this shouldn't have to make these sacrifices, she thought. It's supposed to be us. It's supposed to be Jedi.
"To the fallen," said Torm, breaking in on Kaevee's thoughts. "They'll live on—in us, and hereafter."
Glasses were raised and brought together. Kaevee clinked hers with the Twi'lek's, then wrestled the vile ale down as if it was her sworn duty. After all, it was the only thing she could do for these people.
The spacers' rite eased up the tension a little; more people resumed eating, and for some minutes the conversation was reduced to occasional spurts of small talk. Duly relieved, Kaevee worked away at her dinner awhile. When she let up, she noticed that a third of the mess hall had cleared out, and that the Skidders (Zan more closely resembling his earlier self now) were talking with her two shipmates about their respective backgrounds and careers.
Kaevee kept her head down and listened as "Fenn Moru" shared his story. Apparently he came from Alsakan—Coruscant's ancient arch-rival in the Core—and his parents had taught him to fly the family hauler when he was eleven. As an adult, he found himself chafing under the Republic's regulations as well as the "boring" safety of coreward hyperroutes. His true home was the rough-and-tumble Outer Rim, and before the Republic hired him, he'd been making a living stealing from old outposts and supply caches along the Sith Remnant's border.
Kaevee didn't know what planet Atton was from, but out of principle she now had to assume that it wasn't Alsakan. His story was entertaining, sprinkled with tantalizing little details and anecdotes, and Zan, Jethro, and the other listeners swallowed it unquestioningly. Kaevee was dismayed at them for being so credulous... until she remembered how easily Atton had fooled her into taking him for a Jedi Knight when they first met on Dantooine.
Still, she thought, He keeps going and going. How does he do it? How does he make lying look so easy?
When the myth of Fenn Moru had exhausted itself, Zan—who was at least six ales in and looked happier than ever—turned to Cole. "How about you, friend? Where're you from?"
"What, me? Don't got a home, don't need one. The galaxy's enough."
"Oh, come on."
The spacer waved a hand, then flicked his eyes toward Atton and Kaevee. "There's nothing to tell, no story. Not until I met these two. See, I was operating my own freighter. A Sadon Heraklon-class called the Sharp Turn..."
Cole went on, pinned with warning looks by his two teammates all the while, as he told a truncated and extremely sarcastic version of the events that led to his time aboard the Ebon Hawk. He had been set upon by raiders over Ord Lonesome, he said; Fenn and his co-pilot Kira had answered his distress call and saved his life, though it had been too late for the Sharp Turn. Upon discovering that Cole had lost his entire livelihood and had no family to support him, Fenn had generously offered him a place on the Ebon Hawk until he earned enough credits to get back on his feet.
"I can only say thank the stars for this guy, always looking out for me," Cole said in conclusion, smiling venomously at Atton. "I dunno where I'd be if not for him."
"Where did you say this happened—that your ship was attacked?" That was Ukla Stiles; her voice was high and sounded impossibly nasal to a Human.
"I said Ord Lonesome."
"Ord Lonesome," she repeated. "Isn't that a Republic outpost? Must have been one barvy lot of raiders to be operating right near one."
"Believe me, they were," insisted Cole. "These people who blew up my ship? Craziest bunch of vac-brained bastards I ever seen in my life."
"Murglaks!" Zan cried passionately. "Scum of the star lanes—may the cold swallow every last one of 'em, and the Sith too!" After sealing this malediction with yet another swig of ale, he turned his glassy eyes to Atton. "I gotta tell you, Fenn, that's... truly admirable. I swear to Toldreyn, if every spacer was as good a man as you, had even half the decency, this whole galaxy would be a better place."
Keeping a straight face at this juncture was such a formidable challenge that Kaevee missed whatever Atton said in response; the irony, at last, was almost too much to bear. All she could do was smile nervously and focus on inhaling what remained of her casserole. Meanwhile, too-vivid memories of that encounter at Ord Lonesome and its aftermath pressed on her mind: shrieking alarms, smoke and orange-white flame spreading as the Sharp Turn was ripped to molten fragments, deck by deck. Cole screaming at her in the air lock, and later brawling with Atton in the Ebon Hawk's main hold, blaming them both for his livelihood being destroyed—an accusation which, as Kaevee had known even then, was entirely true.
Before she knew it her bowl was empty. Now she could leave any time she wanted to, but dinner left her sluggish as well as sated, and she did not feel very much like getting up immediately. Then she noticed the Skidders and Torm looking at her with some interest, and realized that it was her turn.
"But you're the co-pilot, so you were on the Ebon Hawk before Cole, right?" Jethro prompted.
Atton watched Kaevee blandly as she stuttered and hesitated. Why had he let these people sit with them, anyway? Was he simply bored? Was this supposed to be a test, an opportunity to practice staying under cover?
"Yes. I, uh..." Much as Kaevee tried, she could not hold onto anyone's gaze. Too late, it occurred to her that the ale may have gotten to her mind; she had no idea how strong it might have been. "I'm from a planet in the Outer Rim. My family, they were... farmers, but I lost them when the Sith attacked. I stayed there for a long time, but I guess, well, eventually I knew I had to leave, and I ended up meeting At—" Atton's name was halfway out of her mouth before she caught it. "—Fenn. He, uh... He knew I was in a bad place, but he gave me a chance at a new life and so... Well, here I am."
She left it there. It was more something that had come spilling out of her than something she had thought up; it was clumsy and dry and vague, but she could think of no way to embellish it. Mostly because she was too distracted by the feeling of something inside her chest trying to pound its way out through her rib cage. Her eyes fell to the table and bolted themselves there.
"So you're both survivors, you two," Zan said into the silence. Even drunk, he had instantly recovered his solemnity.
Stiff as a sculpture carved from blba wood, Kaevee dragged her eyes up, glanced about as Zan's shipmates offered sympathetic murmurs. Half-listening as her heart settled down, she realized that they believed her. They'd taken "Kira Minn's" stammering reluctance to mean that her story was too painful to relate in detail; at no point did the possibility of Kira Minn's nonexistence enter their minds. Their uncritical kindness was touching, but in all the wrong ways. She had lied to them. They couldn't be sorry for her at all.
In that moment a tableau came to her mind's eye, fully formed like a picture she had found in a drawer somewhere. She saw herself returned to the ruins of Dantooine, the cratered and crumbling courtyards of the Enclave, and all of the Jedi who had lived there were being drawn past her as if in a funeral procession. The most prominent were teachers and guardians like her master, Emon Corsio; Vrook Lamar, Vandar Tokare, and the rest. But there were others she remembered more hazily, Knights and fellow Padawans—poor Juhani, for instance, though she had actually died before the attack; and Bastila Shan, though Kaevee now knew she was still alive and, horribly, had been lost to the dark side.
Kaevee sat absorbing the blind sympathy of the Errant VI's crew, but it did not bring her peace or relief, as they no doubt intended. In that strange, unwelcome fancy she saw the Jedi who had fallen, whom she had loved, and felt—absurdly, irrationally—that she had betrayed them. Denied them.
She swept that notion and the entire macabre daydream aside, in time to realize that a headache was beginning to spread over her eyes. Soon enough the conversation moved on from Kira Minn, in the process leaving behind Kaevee as well, who felt plump, leaden, and (to her relief) quite alone. More than half of the mess hall was empty now. On checking her chrono, she found that she normally would have gone to bed two hours ago.
She was just opening her mouth to excuse herself when Torm Heshusa pushed his chair back and stood, gathering his empty tray. "It's been nice to meet you all, but I have to go. Captain, I'll have that diagnostic on the alluvial dampers for you in the morning."
"I told you you didn't have to get that done today," Zan remarked.
"Well, I'm going to anyway. Have a good night."
"You're too good for us, Torm," said Jethro, chuckling.
The Twi'lek smiled, dipped his head, and left. Kaevee waited a few more minutes, then rose to say good night. Zan and Jethro told her it had been a pleasure, Cole asked how she had liked the ale (a question Kaevee ignored), and Atton nodded at her mutely. Leaving the four men to some discussion or other, she trudged her way back to the Ebon Hawk, fell onto her cot, and slept like a dead woman.
The furlough on Indosa proved deceptive, as routines often did. Nothing seemed to happen in Doscaras, but the galaxy continued to change.
As before, Kaevee's life essentially revolved around the Ebon Hawk; she woke there, slept there, and spent long hours helping to fix it. For all the progress they made, though, it often felt like they may as well have been trying to build a new ship from scratch. Broken parts kept needing replacements that weren't on hand, forcing one of them (usually Atton) to go harangue a dock officer or droid or someone else into helping them find one elsewhere in the spaceport. They had already requested a new starboard turbolaser from the fleet inventory, and it had been approved, but nobody could truthfully tell when it would arrive. In the meantime they worked on what they could, Kaevee usually paired with Cole, Atton keeping to himself, and the two droids oscillating between them.
Despite all the work, there was free time in abundance, and the team, being SIS, had free run of most of the spaceport. Kaevee continued to meditate with Atris and to practice Force defense with Atton. She spent much time reading; there was still a lot of galactic history for her to catch up on, and batches of reports from the SIS were still coming in regularly. When sitting still became too much, she wandered some of the empty docking bays or the catwalks that ran along the exterior of the spaceport's giant dome. The wind was cool, sometimes a kind breeze, other times strong gusts, but both felt good. She loved being able to stop somewhere and take in the view (so rarely possible while out on a mission), and at night the sky glimmered with faint streaks of gold and blue, the outer glow of the Denarii Nebula.
Even so, the consolations offered by Indosa were destined to unravel, and it began with that same expression of natural celestial beauty. At some point Kaevee's studies meandered to a databank about the Gordian Reach itself. It turned out that the Denarii Nebula was the remnant of a supernova left behind by the simultaneous explosions of twin stars a millennium ago. In fact, that event had played a role in the Republic's war with the original Sith Empire, obliterating not only a star system but also a fleet of Koros warships in pursuit of the fleeing Dark Lord, Naga Sadow. What drew Kaevee's attention was a footnote which mentioned, offhandedly, that "embellished legends connected with the Jedi" claimed Sadow himself had somehow used the dark side of the Force to cause the Denarii supernova, so as to cover his escape.
Later that same day, Kaevee was reading about the end of the Great Sith War, and was similarly disturbed by references to the loss of the Jedi Praxeum on Ossus. Public records on the war spoke vaguely of the planet being devastated by Exar Kun as if in some cataclysmic battle, yet astronomical data on the Auril sector made it clear that it was the supernova of the nearby Cron Cluster which had scorched the life from Ossus's surface that very year. Like the Denarii nova, this event was totally unforeseen by contemporary astronomers and it, too, was "attributed to the Sith by superstitious devotees of the Jedi Order."
The idea that any one Sith Lord—or any million of them—could actually be powerful enough to accomplish such a thing was as ludicrous as it was nightmarish, but Kaevee was unable to put it out of her mind. Yet when she sought an explanation from Atris that evening, the only answer she received was, "That is what the legends say. I'm afraid I can tell you little more."
Kaevee was incredulous. "But weren't you there during the Great Sith War? You must have been a Padawan, at least. Did Exar Kun really destroy a whole star cluster? Is that even possible?"
She couldn't see Atris's eye—barely even her face in the shadow of her hood—but underneath the old woman's next words Kaevee sensed something heavy, foreboding, and sorrowful. "I was a Padawan, yes. But I was not at the Cron Cluster, nor at Ossus at the time it was destroyed... and I would have you bear in mind that, whatever Sadow and Kun were capable of, both are dead now." After that she calmly but firmly deflected from the topic.
As Kaevee left the dormitory, she reminded herself that she had better things to be frustrated about. For instance, Atris still refused to substantively answer any questions about the teachings of the Jedi Order. Since Malachor, Kaevee had remembered a single line from the Code—There is no passion; there is serenity—but Atris would neither explicate it nor supply the rest. Kaevee had always insisted, admittedly with some indignation, that she was only asking out of curiosity; it was not some circuitous attempt to trick Atris into making her a Padawan again.
The old woman, however, had had none of it: Why should you be curious about the Order's doctrines and beliefs? One does not need them to use the Force, or to grow stronger with it. Otherwise our offspring the Sith would never have come to be.
To Kaevee this reticence could only be rooted in paranoia, as if simply knowing what the Jedi teachings were could possibly do her any harm. Even from Atris's perspective it ought to have been counterproductive as well; after all, how could she guard Kaevee against the errors of the Jedi without ever talking about them? But such arguments had left Atris unmoved, and Kaevee, realizing that they were at an impasse, was resolved to let the matter lie for now—just as she had to pass by the question of whether Sith Lords had ever been able to destroy the stars.
After all, if she wasn't "ready" now, maybe a day would come when she was... and if not, then she would just have to find someone else to learn from.
The next day, Atris asked Kaevee to escort her to Doscaras's medbay for what she called "A new sort of exercise."
To explain their presence to the staff and guards, Atris adopted the guise of Sister Edris, a mystic from the planet Elamposnia on the far side of the Gordian, who had been rescued by the Ebon Hawk from a derelict. Kaevee (or Kira Minn, rather), was her handler during their stay on Indosa, and presently the Republic would find a way to get her back home. In the meantime she was obliged by her faith to visit the ailing and invoke the aeons of the universe for their healing... or something like that. Kaevee delivered this explanation prosaically enough to the med command officer; the man's eyes started to glaze over when "Sister Edris" started to ramble about the theology behind her obligations.
"It's fine with me," the officer said at last. "Visit whoever you want. Just make sure you don't get underfoot."
"Don't worry, we won't," Kaevee assured him. She wondered if her mentor was feigning an actual religion, or had invented it on the spot.
The main wards were long rooms lined with kolto tanks, cool and bright, the air softened by humming medical instruments and the bubbling of the tanks. Kaevee's eyes drifted from one to the next as she followed her mentor. Nearly all the tanks were occupied; Republic ships were constantly passing through the Indosa system, some transferring their wounded for treatment here as they went.
There were many species, Near-Human variants and otherwise. Each one wore only light garments, a breath mask, and a few other devices wired to the base of his or her tank. Some floated heavy and motionless, like corpses. Others twitched and stirred, making aimless or uncertain gestures. Occasionally a head would turn, seemingly tracking the passersby through the murky healing substance.
Kaevee had never been inside of a kolto tank. While she knew the substance itself was a blessing, being submerged in it didn't look especially pleasant. More troublingly, the sight of all these men and women floating there, sealed, perhaps only obscurely aware of what was happening to them—it reminded her of a nightmare she'd had a few times over the years, in which she saw Master Emon surrounded by darkness, held in a strange, pained slumber.
She nearly walked into Atris when the old woman stopped before one of the tanks. With nurses and medical droids passing briskly through the ward behind them, they stood close enough for Kaevee to watch her breath turn to fog on the glass. The figure inside was a male Human, twitching and shifting at random. The burns and tears that marred his flesh had to be left unbandaged so the kolto could reach them. There was no telling who he was, but Kaevee idly wondered if he, or any of these people, came from the crews of the freighters they had helped save.
Atris showed no interest in his identity, however. She planted her cane, rested the stump of her right hand atop her withered left one, and sighed. "Merely stretch out," she told Kaevee, "and watch."
Though not told to close her eyes as well, Kaevee did so; she couldn't look at the wounds up close for so long. Bright as the ward appeared to be, it became thick with gloom when Kaevee opened herself to the Force. It was the combined aura of the patients, the overlapping of their stifled pain. Their muted relief, muted hope, muted everything. Taking a breath, Kaevee withdrew until she felt only Atris and the anonymous man before her. His thoughts formed a pained knot, a twisted ball of blind anxieties. Kaevee suspected he was having a nightmare, trapped reliving or remembering whatever had put him in this tank.
The Force was swirling so subtly around him that Kaevee was unsure when exactly Atris's work began. Words were inadequate; the process was like watching a sunrise, or a flower opening to the morning's light. The cords of thought that rippled with the wounded man's tension loosened, finally relaxed as Atris's Force-touch, like the hand of an angel, gently drew him into a state of deep rest. His cells charged with a vitality that had not been there before; yet without knowing how, Kaevee gradually intuited that Atris was somehow enhancing his body's response to the kolto, rather than healing the damage directly.
The metaphor of a sunrise was apt; when Atris silently indicated that her work was done, Kaevee guessed a half-hour had passed. She opened her eyes. The man's restless movements had ceased, sure enough, but otherwise he looked the same as before.
"Is there nothing else you can do for him?" asked Kaevee at length.
"...I don't know. Healing was not my greatest strength."
Kaevee looked at the old woman, unable to miss her hesitation—or her doubtful tone.
Atris went on, "Yes, probably. But if he were found to be cured faster than could be explained by the kolto... That would be imprudent."
Kaevee nodded heavily. As an SIS unit, they were bound to keep a low profile, which would be more difficult if word were to spread that a Force-using healer was with the Republic fleet. It could prove dangerous if such word reached agents of the Sith. It was sad to consider that the Knights of the Republic had not hidden themselves during the war; they had known that their mere presence inspired hope for the men and women they protected. Now the lost Jedi—fallen, forgotten, or both—had to hide behind aliases and anonymity.
"I am not spent yet," Atris said, more firmly than before. "Come. There are many more."
Indeed there were; many more than they could help. They remained for hours, speaking little, ignoring the occasional stares of passing nurses. More and more Kaevee found herself shifting on aching feet, but she would not think of complaining while surrounded by brave soldiers who were suffering.
This is only a beginning for you, her mentor had explained. As you feel the Force already one with you, learn to feel it this way: already one with the other.
Finally the old woman grew weary. Shortly before leaving, Kaevee experimentally reached out to a patient herself. She thought the inner glow of the other person was clearer now, more distinct than it would have been in the past, but she could not imitate Atris's healing power, whether the physical or mental kind.
"It will come to you in time," Atris assured her as they stepped away from the kolto tank.
"I can be patient," Kaevee said, as much to herself as to Atris.
In spite of itself, the mess hall that looked like a cantina remained the preferred place for dinner for Kaevee, Atton, and Cole. Zan Skidder still joined them there along with the same pack from his crew, always including his brother Jethro and Ukla Stiles but otherwise varying. The only other one whose name Keavee consistently remembered was Torm Heshusa, but usually he was either absent or ate quickly and left.
"I was just reading a study," said the Errant VI's Phindian security chief over his glass of ale. "It turns out that if you're a Republic citizen—no matter what your species or what sector you're from—there's an eighty-five percent chance that someone in your family was killed or displaced by Mandalorians."
Beside him, Cole scoffed. "That is bantha skrag. Eighty-five? Where the hell did you read that?"
"The Ministry of Public Information, man. They spent five standard years doing a survey. You can look it up yourself if you want."
"Ah, doesn't matter. Either way the point is, Mandos—frack those guys."
Kaevee nodded off as she went on eating, letting the conversation melt back into the background noise. She'd been hoping to overhear more about these people's lives and careers, something innocuous to distract her, but everyone's favorite topic seemed to be war. Strange, considering how it had scarred them so recently.
News reached the base, and the usual batches of SIS reports were still coming in to the team. Supreme Chancellor Barris had ordered that offensive campaigns continue—Admiral Opelle encircling the Denarii Loop, Cede pushing east toward the Arda system. He was taking a risk, as delivering reinforcements to the Gordian Reach would take more time without Obeth Station, but so far it was paying off. Despite the Remnant having bought itself some breathing room, they remained on the back foot when it came to direct engagements.
The SIS reports also mentioned Sith raids and acts of sabotage that had been anticipated and foiled on worlds such as Maridun, Dronseen, and Zona Miki—thanks to intelligence recovered from Vaal. Reading that, Kaevee's mind had echoed with Admiral Opelle's words: Many good men will owe their lives to you for this. But she'd also caught herself wondering where Sulen Tusser was, and how he had felt after learning they had been too late to prevent the attack in the Landor system.
To Kaevee's displeasure, the table's imagecaster was on, tuned to a HoloNet News program. It showed a slice of the Galactic Senate in a jubilant uproar—senators in their booths applauding, clamoring, turning this way and that to exchange words with their aides.
"Hey, did the Senate just agree to get something done? Never thought I'd see the day!" Zan Skidder raised his glass overhead, and most of the table laughed and followed suit.
"Nothing like a war to bring people together," said Atton, to a few nods and murmurs.
Kaevee looked up from her meal. It seemed the Senate had approved a new budget which would massively increase spending for the Republic Navy and Army. A voice was rattling off some mind-bogglingly large numbers, credits allocated for starships, ground vehicles, military research, and so on. "The military has not seen a budget of this magnitude since the Mandalorian Wars, nearly twenty standard years ago," he concluded. "Analysts are calling this an historic win for Avis Fess of Eshan, whose Victory Bloc now seems poised to dominate the Galactic Senate."
The panning holocam came to rest on a fair-skinned man with long white hair and eyes that shone silver even through the tint of the hologram. While the whole Senate seemed to be roiling about him, he was unmoving as a tower, holding his chiseled chin high. His face was aglow with triumph and, Kaevee thought, smugness.
The so-called Victory Bloc was an informal coalition of senators headed by Avis Fess, who led them not by appointment or election but sheer force of personality. When the Jedi Civil War unofficially ended with the disappearance of Darth Revan, the Echani senator had vociferously argued that the Republic's top priority should be reconstructing its military. If accomplished quickly enough, he said, they could destroy the disorganized Sith Empire and finally win the war, liberating all the worlds Revan and Malak had subjugated.
Despite all their passion, Fess and his allies had long lacked the support to move their agenda forward. War had left the Republic's economy in shambles, and Revan's empire, by all accounts, was doing a fine enough job of destroying itself in isolation, so there wasn't much stomach for waging an offensive war. The Bloc's early opposition to "unrealistic" relief initiatives like the Telos Restoration Project was a self-inflicted wound.
Times changed, however. Chancellor Barris had unveiled the threat of the "true" Sith and convinced the Senate to declare war, and the Victory Bloc's popularity surged overnight.
"Look at Fess," said Ukla Stiles. "He's so happy, you'd think they elected him Chancellor, now that his friends in KDY and Sienar are going to be swimming in contracts for the next decade."
"Considering we're at war with the Sith, I think that's a good thing," said Jethro Skidder from the other side of Kaevee.
Kaevee nodded without looking at either of them. Ukla's goggled eyes peered over her head.
"I didn't say it's bad, but we'll see how it pans out. People like Fess thinks that the more credits you throw at those shipyards, the faster they'll work."
"We better hope he's right," called Zan from the head of the table, drunk and happy once again. "Meantime, a whole new generation's going to crew those fleets and, well, everything's gonna ride on them—the boys in red."
Naturally, that called for another toast for the fighting men and women of the Republic. Kaevee gravely raised her glass of water with the rest of them. The table, and around them the mess hall, seemed to be in good spirits. Grateful. Confident. Zan Skidder and his people would be on their way back down the Perlemian once their ship was repaired. They would be paid even more for the attack they had suffered, and there were relief programs for the families of the thirty crewmembers that had been lost. The dead would be honored.
Meanwhile the war was going well. The Sith were falling back. New fleets were being built to smash them, new armies recruited to overrun them, new weapons designed to fight them.
Viewed through the Force, the room was bright, electric with enthusiasm, notwithstanding its dingy appearance. Kaevee cast a long look down the table toward Atton: eating, drinking, chatting, sitting in thought. There and not there, his thoughts as obscure as the vapor which hung in the air around them.
As the days passed on Indosa, it became harder and harder for Kaevee to forget her conversation with Atton, when they were beginning their hunt for the kolto freighters. The battle at Ferrous Aurora had distracted her—needing to avoid exploding in space typically demanded one's full attention—but now the crew was out of danger and had few responsibilities beyond repairing the Ebon Hawk. No matter how much Kaevee threw herself into work, training, or meditation, there was no hiding from Atton's words.
...the war? This war hasn't even started yet. When Revan arrives with the true Sith, the Sith from out there? That's the beginning.
For Kaevee, simply knowing that the coming war would be terrible was only part of it. Atton was easily the most dangerous and capable person she knew, and she had not been ready to find him in a state of, for lack of a better word, despondency. Her clumsy attempts to encourage him had certainly not hit the mark. Though Atton had always been cryptic about his connection to the Sith, he was not a man who exaggerated when it came to danger.
It was bad. Very bad.
Telling Atris, only to find that she had no answers either, was even worse.
What made it worse was that the old woman hardly seemed to care. With the pilot, Kaevee at least got the impression that he had withdrawn into himself to obsess over the problem, to try and cobble together some kind of solution. Atris, by contrast, projected only calm resignation when they discussed the matter in the port dormitory.
"We're doing good out here," Kaevee told her. "We're helping win some battles. We're saving a lot of people, but it's not enough. We can't save the galaxy like this."
"Save the galaxy," Atris echoed bitterly. "The last time I tried to do that, I helped cripple it. Far too late did I recognize the darkness I had become."
Kaevee stopped short. No doubt Atris was referring to the slaughter of Katarr, with its population of Miraluka and the last Jedi conclave there. Atris blamed herself for it, saying she had fallen under the dark side's sway and used the conclave as bait for the Sith. Reflexively Kaevee had been skeptical, had not wanted to believe that the once-great Jedi Master could truly be guilty of such a thing. Since Belsavis, though, she had been afraid to ask about it.
The old woman went on, "Our purpose is not saving the galaxy but saving what we can, no matter how little or how much that turns out to be."
Kaevee clamped her hands together in her lap. "Is that what Admiral Opelle thinks our mission is? Or what Atton thinks?"
Atris shrugged. "I cannot speak for them."
Or for me, Kaevee wanted to say as the silence lengthened between them. She thought back to the medbay, crowded with wounded and mutilated soldiers, and the handful that Atris had been able to aid. The surviving crew of the Errant VI, scarred by the losses of their fellows but thankful to be alive. Sulen Tusser taking up a blaster rifle from the ruins of the detention block on Vaal, ready to complete his mission now that he'd been given a second chance to. Admiral Opelle's holographic visage in the debriefing after Ferrous Aurora, congratulating the team on their successes in his own reserved, gentlemanly way.
Cole: manning the Ebon Hawk's turbolaser turret, cursing and whooping as he blasted Sith fighters out of the stars. Fumbling as he tried to slice open a door in the shadowport on Gulvitch. Telling Kaevee, Glad you're still alive after the crucible of Malachor.
Atton: charging into roomfuls of Remnant troopers, squaring off with Sith Adepts. Always ready to face down odds so daunting that if he wasn't a fool, he surely would have been a hero.
They were all doing their best, even Cole with his endless complaints—and so was Kaevee. From Dantooine to Malachor, she had learned some hard lessons. She had learned that she was not a Jedi and agreed to put her dreams of becoming one aside for the time being. She would listen to Atris and try to see her side of things, for whatever truth was there. But there was a universe of difference between Kaevee's personal issues and the fate of the Republic with its quadrillions of citizens. Simply throwing her hands up and saying There's only so much we can do was not an option.
"Kaevee... There are burdens which no one can carry. I beg you, do not take up this one."
Kaevee tried to relax, tried to smile. Tried to be grateful. More than hearing Atris's words, she felt them like a caress on her shoulder. Unaccountably, unquestioningly, she sensed that it was what Emon would tell her if he was still alive; Atris was able to do that sometimes.
The truth, though—bitter as Gizer pale blue ale—was that it wasn't good enough. How could it be? That day in the cockpit with Atton, Kaevee had tried to help him, to tell him that he couldn't hold himself responsible for the galaxy. Only now, hearing the same thing echoed back to her, did she truly understand how hollow it was. No words could stop an armada or raise the dead.
No words could free Kaevee from her belief, her need to do something.
"When the ship's fixed," she said at length, "we have to talk to the admiral—tell him we need a new mission. We have to find the rest of the Jedi, whoever's left."
Atris's half-gaze was piercing, her next words as sharp as blba tree thorns. "I had thought you were content to wait. To trust that if any Jedi remain, we would cross paths with them soon enough."
"That was before all this happened. Before Obeth Station and everything else. I don't think... I don't think we can trust the Force to just find them for us."
"Nor do I."
Kaevee could not seem to take her eyes from the floor. In the drawer beneath her cot in the other dormitory, Master Vrook Lamar's broken lightsaber lay wrapped in darkness with her other possessions. And in the deepest part of her where she kept and treasured all of her most indescribable agonies and loves, Emon Corsio still whispered to her, Trust the Force.
What she had just said aloud, she believed. It still seared her tongue like a blasphemy.
"We can't wait for them to show themselves. We have to go looking for them," she said.
"What would you have us do, Kaevee? The Jedi were already sought for years by the Republic, the Sith, even the Exchange. The Temple on Coruscant, the enclaves and outposts, all stand empty—or lie in ruins."
"There are other places where Jedi could hide. And gather."
"There are fifty million inhabited star systems in the Republic alone."
There must be a way to find them... Hopelessly, Kaevee clawed a hand through the tangles of her hair. They had visited this topic before, and there was nothing Atris could not refute. She believed, chose to believe that there was an answer to the riddle, something they had overlooked, but it eluded her.
But even if it did come to her, even if her wildest hopes materialized—if a hundred Jedi Knights were found on some far-flung world, could it possibly be enough? Revan had nearly conquered the galaxy once before, with thousands of Jedi opposing her. And before her, Exar Kun and Naga Sadow, the stories said they'd had the power to destroy stars. What if those weren't stories, and the true Sith had such power too?
Kaevee had lived to see Malachor V and the Mass Shadow Generator. Would she live to see even worse horrors return to the galaxy?
She was so lost in herself that Atris's touch gave her a start. All of the tension that had covertly knotted itself in Kaevee's chest flowed to her shoulder, flowed to the heat beneath Atris's bony, fragile hand, and turned to nothing. She found the strength to look up, and the meeting of Atris's gaze told her, promised her that—far from not caring, far from being resigned to the defeat of the Republic, in spite of all appearances the once-Jedi Master cared far more than Kaevee could understand.
Kaevee laid a hand over Atris's. Her questions and her fears hadn't gone anywhere, but that moment she felt strong enough to carry them a while longer.
If only she could open her throat enough to say thank you.
Smiling, understanding, Atris said, "Come, let us meditate. Words will do no more good."