Chapter Twenty-One
CANDEROUS
They probably should've guessed the girl would react to a hot shower like she was being tortured. She didn't have enough Basic to understand when the Cathar begged her to stop screaming and crying, when she promised it'd be fine, that it'd feel nice, and she'd be a lot happier when she was clean. More than half a lie—getting the lice and the collected osik on Sasha off her wouldn't have ever been a lot of fun. Despite Juhani's protests, Canderous ended up just outside the shower stall in the fresher, yelling at Sasha like a camp chief to sit still and take her cleansing like a warrior, that she was a filthy disgrace, and they didn't let parasite- and disease-ridden slobs like her stay on Ebon Hawk. The Cathar thought it was harsh, but Sasha calmed right down, and by that time, Juhani had been pummeled and screamed at enough Juhani didn't make more than a token protest.
Sasha muttered five or six choice curse words at him when Juhani bustled her out of the stall in a towel—she had those down, if she didn't know jack shit else. He just followed them both to the med bay, and when Juhani had Sasha sat down on the cot for a delousing, he shoved one of Vao's combat suits and a sewing kit at the kid. He'd already hacked off a good bit of the arms and legs and cut bits of fabric out of the sides to enable her to take it in better.
/Now, you can wear one of Vao's lounge tanks once Juhani's done with you, and Onasi's getting some things more in your size at the trading post, but you should have something to protect you too. Now show me how a warrior takes care of her gear./
He had to repeat the speech a few times, with some gestures, before she understood. She frowned at him. /Sasha no warrior. Sasha . . ./ hound," she said in Basic. "Sasha little scut."
Juhani muttered something under her breath. Canderous saw her claws flex, but she took a breath and controlled herself, and she was gentle with the louse gel and the comb in the kid's hair.
/You're a warrior now,/ Canderous told her. /And a warrior looks after her gear. Do you sew?/
He grabbed the needle and mimed for her, and she made another face, this time doubtful, but nodded. She took the needle from him. She threaded it with cord after a few tries. He watched her look down at the combat suit, uncertain, then pinch the bottom of one reduced leg to form a fold and start to stitch. In two seconds, he knew she'd only ever played at proper sewing.
/No,/ he told her.
She froze and looked up at him. /Sorry,/ she muttered. /Sasha . . . try again? Do better? You no hit?/
/'I'll try again. I'll do better,'/ he prompted her. /And I already said I won't hurt you. Here. Let me show you./
As the Cathar worked with her hair, Canderous showed Sasha how to thread her needle and sew a hem. He worked with her on the evenness of her stitching, and when she had it down, he started telling her what she was doing in full sentences, first in Mando'a, then in Basic, and making her repeat after him. She was concentrating so hard, she didn't notice when the Cathar had to pull her hair.
"Finished," Juhani said, putting away the louse gel and putting the comb in the med bay sink. "You did very well, Sasha," she said, slowly, enunciating clearly through her accent. "You are a good girl."
Sasha made another face, shook her head and her hair, in putrid spikes with the louse gel, and complained in her mixed-tongue gibberish.
"I know it is not the most pleasant experience," Juhani told her. "In an hour, we will return to the fresher and wash all that remains of the vermin away. The smell will go as well."
Sasha cocked her head, and irritated, Canderous explained, using the simplest words in Mando'a he could think of, as well as a few gestures he'd be embarrassed for anyone off Ebon Hawk to see. The girl wasn't an idiot, but she was so damned ignorant he wanted to kill the Dar'manda on Dantooine all over again.
He tossed her the tank of Vao's they had ready for her. The only real advantage it had over her old get-up was that it was clean and only about eight sizes too big for her instead of umpteen. "When will Onasi and Shan get back with clothes for the brat?" Canderous grumbled. He looked at Juhani. "Introduce her to the droid. See if it'll show her one of Vao's holos or something. I'm going to call and see where the others are and see if I can't string the kid up a hammock in the hold so at least she's not curled up in the walls like a rat."
"As you say," Juhani agreed. She stopped then, though. "I did not believe you would be any good at this," she said. "I was wrong." Then she beckoned to Sasha, showing the girl with gestures that she should go with her again.
The kid didn't head out immediately, though. She looked at Canderous, waiting for her orders. /Go with Juhani,/ he told her, repeating the message in Basic. /We aren't going to shove you back in the shower for a while, and after that, we'll all have lunch. You were asking about the droid earlier? She'll introduce you./
Sasha brightened and bobbed on her feet. She went after the Cathar easy enough then. She seemed fondest of the most annoying members of the crew.
Canderous stalked up to the comm in the cockpit and punched in Onasi's frequency. "Where the hell are you, Carth? We managed to get the kid cleaned up, but it'll be a while before she can wear anything of Vao's. She's still running all over the deck half naked."
He heard his voice echoing through the ship and realized Carth had actually just got back onboard. The comm crackled anyway. "Keep your armor on, Ordo, we've got the shopping."
But then a red light blinked, indicating another incoming signal. Canderous switched the comm over. "Aithne Moran to Ebon Hawk. Come in, Ebon Hawk."
"This is Canderous. Go ahead."
"Our Wookiee has an inordinate fondness for playing the damsel in distress," Aithne reported. "He's been taken hostage by Chuundar, the chieftain of the closest village to the spaceport—a Wookiee who happens to be a slaver and the big brother of our friend, something Zaalbar failed to tell us about before he stepped off the ship with us. Chuundar's holding Big Z until I agree to do some of his dirty work in the Shadowlands. Mission's overwrought, and it's been about all I can do to keep her from trying to go commando on the whole village here. She needs an evac, and I need a new backup team."
"Are the two of you alright?"
That was Onasi, come up behind him. Canderous looked over his shoulder and saw the warrior and commander in the man, in the way he held himself, the way he took the lead. A man used to authority, Carth Onasi.
"They haven't hurt us," Aithne answered. "Had to do some fast talking to keep them from confiscating Mission's weapons, though—to both parties involved."
"What about y—" Canderous started, but Onasi cut him off with a look.
"What kind of team do you want?"
"Juhani to escort Mission back to the ship—the walkway is too dangerous for anyone alone, and I'd rather have her protecting Mission than anyone else. You and Bastila for my backup. Canderous, I'd take you, but—"
"No. You put me in charge of the foundling," Canderous said. It wasn't that he wouldn't rather be gunning down giant monsters in the Shadowlands—or, hell, the Wookiees holding Zaalbar, if things went badly enough—but sometimes, duty was more important. If those Dar'manda on Dantooine had actually done their jobs, Sasha would be ready to start training in the field next to her guardian by now, but even then, no guardian with sense would start her out in the Kashyyyk Shadowlands. As it was, he was going to have to start training Sasha from scratch, and probably not for a few days until she was settled and had had a few good meals she hadn't had to scrounge for in the emergency ration barrel. For now, he was going to have to make do with hygiene lessons—pertaining to personal appearance as well as the maintenance of her area and belongings—and to language tutorials.
Afterward—well, they'd start with basic unarmed combat. Cover weapon assembly and maintenance before they ever touched using the weapons . . .
Damn. Was he actually looking forward to training the brat?
"Understood, Aithne," Carth said. "We'll leave right away."
"Great. Aithne out."
The comm went dead. Onasi handed him a sack with the Czerka supplier insignia on it. Canderous looked in it and saw a couple shirts, a couple of pairs of trousers, and a package of children's underwear. "I could guess on the sizing for the clothes, but I had no idea about the shoes. Figure it doesn't matter for the time being."
"I'll get her measurements," Canderous said.
"You can hold down the fort here?" Onasi asked.
"Don't insult me, Republic," Canderous growled. "Even if Czerka took it upon themselves to attack someone paying them money or the Wookiees made a raid, with the guns on this ship, I could hold 'em off without the rest of you for an hour. Go get Moran. Figure out what that chieftain wants for Zaalbar. Get him back, but screw over the chieftain if you can. I'll comm if the Cathar's not back with Vao in a couple hours."
Carth nodded and left.
CARTH
Carth and the Jedi made the trek to the Wookiee village without too much sidetalk. All of them were too worried about Aithne's report to feel like talking. The Wookiee village chieftained by a slaver—Zaalbar's brother—who was holding Zaalbar until they did something for him? It sounded bad. And Mission had been there to see the whole thing. Carth remembered how she'd been when the Gamorreans had taken Zaalbar. After Taris, she'd want to cling even closer to her friend. To be in a situation where she couldn't save him again—where Aithne and the rest of them couldn't either—Carth didn't want to think about what that might do to her.
Damn it, if Zaalbar had a brother who was capable of doing something like this, in a position to do something like this, he should've told them before they landed on Kashyyyk. Definitely before he agreed to go anywhere near his old village with Aithne. Carth didn't think Zaalbar had intended to screw them over, but it just went to show you couldn't really trust anyone. Even people with the best of intentions could make horrific mistakes, out of fear or awkwardness or downright stupidity. Carth himself was living proof of that.
The path to the village was pretty straightforward. A couple kinrath attacked once, but Carth, Juhani, and Bastila were with the Wookiees within about forty-five minutes of leaving the ship. The village hadn't been built on the walkway originally. You could still see the vine bridges that had been the first connections between the wooden and woven-vine buildings, built onto and out of the wroshyr trees. But Czerka had built walkways around and up to the houses, steps surrounding them. Carth didn't like the look of them. He didn't like Czerka having this kind of access to the Wookiee villages, or the gold chains some of the Wookiees around the village wore and the way the others tended to flinch away from them.
They found Aithne and Mission sitting on barrels under guard outside the biggest building in the village. Mission was pale. Her eyes were bloodshot, her headtails were twitching wildly, and there were dried tear tracks on her face. But she wasn't crying anymore.
She stood and came to them when she saw them. "Get him back," she told Carth, then went to stand beside Juhani.
"I . . . we will," Carth told her.
"We'll get Zaalbar back, Mission," Aithne seconded, rising.
Mission scoffed, folded her arms, and glared at the walkway. "Let them take him, though," she muttered under her breath, just loud enough to be heard.
"Watch h—take care of yourselves on the walkway," Aithne said, starting to speak only to Juhani, but expanding her sentence to include Mission at the last moment.
"Sending me back to the ship with the karking kid . . ." from Mission again.
Carth waited for Aithne to correct Mission's language. When she didn't, he cleared his throat. "Language, Mission."
"Whatcha gonna do? Ground me even more?" Mission exploded. "That's my best friend those hairballs are holding hostage! I've known Zaalbar longer than any of you! I have a right to help save him, but no, it's 'Back to the ship, Mission, it's too dangerous.' How do I know you won't hit those monsters in the Shadowlands and just give up like you did up here? How do I know . . . how do I know you'll even make it back alive?!"
"Hey," Aithne said, stepping up to Mission. "It's me, remember? The only reason I haven't torn this village apart is it's Zaalbar's home, however they're treating him right now. Those monsters in the Shadowlands aren't Zaalbar's old friends and neighbors. There'll be nothing to stop me ripping them limb from limb to get Zaalbar back. And I will."
"But you can't—" Mission started, then broke off, looking over her shoulder at the guard.
"I know," Aithne answered, without making it clear what she was talking about. Probably she felt the same way about Chief Chuundar's extortion that Canderous did, only she didn't want to say where they could be overheard. "I'll remember."
Mission glared at Aithne for a moment, then dashed forward and hugged her hard. Before Aithne could react, Mission had shoved her away and given Carth and even Bastila hugs too. "I'm ready, Juhani," she said then. "Let's go."
The two of them headed for the gate that led back toward the spaceport.
"So. Juhani gets a lovely walk back to the spaceport with Mission, and the task of facing monsters with you in the Shadowlands falls to me," Bastila said. "You realize Jedi Sentinels are not generally combat specialists? It may be I could have aided you better with my Battle Meditation from the ship."
Aithne rolled her eyes. "This morning you were complaining about being left behind, now you're mad I'm taking you. You know exactly why I sent Juhani with Mission instead of you. I think you just like to complain."
Bastila pursed her lips. "You invite folly with your insistence on defying the Jedi traditions regarding attachments. Besides, I would have been a perfectly adequate escort for Mission on the walkway."
"Juhani's better," Aithne answered. "And anyway, I was talking to Mission this morning. I think she needs to get to know Juhani better too. We all do."
"Only not right now," Bastila said.
"Only not right now."
"Which way to the Shadowlands?" Carth asked.
Aithne gestured toward another exit.
"What does Chuundar want you to do for him?"
"Assassination," Aithne answered shortly. "He's got this whole village wrapped up tight, or so he claims, but as soon as we showed up with Zaalbar, he gets nervous about a Wookiee that's been down in the Shadowlands for a few years?" She shook her head. "Politics. The exile Chuundar wants us to kill was influential once upon a time. Moreover, holding Zaalbar is more than a way to get us to kill the guy. Chuundar doesn't want the two of them interacting. When Zaalbar left, twenty years ago, his father was chieftain, not his brother. I think the exile Chuundar wants us to kill is his father—though he said their father, Freyyr, died years ago. At least, the exile was probably one of Freyyr's strongest supporters, or Zaalbar's, back when all the nastiness first broke out."
She gave them the rundown: Zaalbar had discovered his brother slaving twenty years ago. He had confronted Chuundar, but the berserk way he'd done it had made him lose all credibility with the village, even made them hate him as a lunatic and attempted kinslayer. No one had believed Zaalbar's accusations about his brother, and Zaalbar had been exiled from Kashyyyk. To this day, the official line was that Chuundar had nothing to do with the slaving, despite the favors Czerka heaped on him and the way his enemies tended to disappear. The second they'd shown up to the village, Rwookrrorro, Chuundar's guards and allies had seized Zaalbar and Chuundar had demanded an audience with Aithne. Because Zaalbar had returned, Chuundar claimed, Zaalbar's life was forfeit, but since Zaalbar had sworn a lifedebt to Aithne, Chuundar would generously release him into her custody—if she killed the nuisance Wookiee in the Shadowlands.
"We cannot ransom Zaalbar with murder," Bastila said.
Aithne shot her a look, then made a gesture with her hand, though she kept it subtle, down by her leg so you had to be looking to see her waving at the Wookiees all around them in the village.
With Aithne, there was never even a question of her screwing up due to incompetence or stupidity. Not even because she let her emotions run away with her. She was always with it, always in command of the situation, and usually three steps ahead of anyone else. And that was what made her so difficult to trust, Carth thought. Aithne Moran didn't do things without having a damn good reason. She'd gone for a bloodless approach to obtaining Sith armor to avoid attracting attention. Attacked the Sith base later when it didn't matter, but gone with the members of their squad who were lowest risk for capture and interrogation. She'd helped the citizens of Taris to improve squad morale. Accepted Jedi training so she'd have a way to provide for Zaalbar and Mission.
In all that, there were just two things that didn't fit the pattern: she hadn't pressed Bastila and the Jedi Council to learn the things she knew they were hiding from her, and she'd propositioned him—even after saying again and again she didn't think the attraction between them was real and wanted to avoid acting on it if it was. So, why? There were only so many explanations. The generous one was that even a woman like Aithne Moran couldn't be smart and reasonable every minute of every day. That was probably what Aithne wanted him to think, but Carth wasn't sure they could afford to be generous, no matter how much he liked Aithne and wanted to.
She was too weird. Canderous saw it too. She didn't act like a scout—some loner, rough-around-the-edges freelancer who'd received her first command a week and a half ago. She just didn't. Nobody was smart and capable enough to adapt that fast. She'd fought like a Jedi before she'd ever trained as one. She didn't understand Mandalorians like someone who'd spent a few weeks negotiating with them; she understood them like someone who'd immersed herself in their culture and thought about countering their strategies of war for years—or been one, maybe. That was a possibility he hadn't considered a whole lot, because she also definitely approached Mandalorians like an analyst, like someone looking at them from the outside, the aruetii Canderous called her.
The thing was, if she was a Dark Jedi spy, she was bad at it. She was terrible. A good spy wanted to be invisible, forgettable. Low- to mid-rank; without close friends, family, or dependants, and someone who avoided picking them up. Someone who never got herself noticed, in good or bad ways. And even when Aithne was lying to the enemy, she relied on being noticed, probably because she knew she couldn't help it. Carth was pretty sure if she'd been a spy, she'd have adopted a completely different approach. More likely, she simply wasn't capable of it.
But if she was lying about her past, about her training, and wasn't a spy, Carth was stumped on what the actual explanation could be. Shame, maybe. She could be a Dark Jedi deserter—someone who'd defected with Revan, Malak, and the others but then regretted it and organized intelligence work with the Jedi to atone. Maybe she didn't trust him, how he might react to something like that. It was even possible she'd been a Jedi deserter, someone who'd broken off from Revan and Malak at Malachor or before. Maybe she'd been a coward or an addict or had lost a major battle. Maybe she hadn't told the Jedi anything, but they'd seen how she used the Force and wanted her back because of their failing numbers, but also seen how she was trying to lie to everyone and didn't trust her any more than Carth did. Either of those explanations could account for an awful lot. Carth just wished she'd tell him; tell him instead of trying to manipulate or distract him.
They left Rwookrrorro. Once they were a few minutes out, down a different walkway, Aithne looked at him and Bastila. "No. I'm not about assassinating someone for Chuundar, particularly because he's trying to extort me into doing it by holding Big Z. I don't think we should do anything at all to help Chuundar; he's a rot at the heart of that village. He's betraying and enslaving his neighbors and subjects for credits, power, and influence. He's scum. If I do any assassinating at all, I'm likely to start with Chuundar himself.
"But he's got Big Z, Czerka on call, and way more loyal guards and supporters than we can take on without triggering a bloodbath of epic proportions in Big Z's home village, and to do that, we'd need all of us and would put all of us at unconscionable risk with our mission only just begun. No. We need to topple Chuundar and ruin his support. We can't attack him outright. So—why does he suddenly need this exile Wookiee dead? Maybe we see what this exile has to say and see about connecting him with Zaalbar somehow—the thing that Chuundar least wants to happen—instead of killing him outright."
"I see. An intriguing concept in theory," Bastila said. "Somewhat problematic in execution."
"Since we don't know where Chuundar's rival is or what the nature of his rivalry with Chuundar is, what his connection to Zaalbar is or how we're going to connect them with Zaalbar held hostage, or even if our unknown Wookiee in the Shadowlands is still alive or will be willing to act at all? Yes. I'd say the plan's problematic," Aithne said. "We'll think of something. Meanwhile, we have other problems."
She swung her pack down off her shoulder, groped around in it for a second, and pulled out what looked like a bounty chit. She tossed it to Bastila. "I was attacked by a group of Dark Jedi on the way to Rwookrrorro. They knew who I was. They knew you two are with me. And they knew to look for us here."
Bastila went so white then, Carth's every nerve lit up, and he glanced at Aithne on instinct. She caught his eye and tilted her head, raising her eyebrows. She'd seen it—Bastila freaking out when they'd known the Sith would probably show up at some point. Something about her reaction was off.
They'd all stopped for Bastila to look at the bounty chit. She activated the tech, and a holo of Carth himself came up first.
"You're doing well for yourself, flyboy," Aithne remarked in a by-the-by manner. "There are some quarters in the galaxy where they'll laugh you out of town unless you've ticked off someone enough to get a decent-sized bounty on your head. That—" she nodded at the chit— "is more than decent. Someone wants you caught or dead. Just you. There's no bounty on Mish, Zaalbar, or Canderous, even though we were seen with them back on Taris too."
Saul. Carth's gut blazed. His fists clenched. For a second, he could almost see his old mentor's face staring at him over Aithne's shoulder. He tried to play off how he felt. "Well. I guess one of the Sith knows a quality nuisance when he sees it."
"Or a personal threat," Aithne murmured. She looked at him, and he knew she saw right through the levity to exactly how much he wanted Saul Karath dead—more than the price of the bounty Saul had on him, but he wasn't about to pay someone else to do his dirty work. "I don't know whether to say 'congratulations' or 'I'm sorry,' but I know this one's not from Malak."
Carth just managed to nod back at her. Bastila hit the button to cycle the chit. Carth didn't think any of them were surprised to see her there too, or that the bounty to bring her in alive was enough for a bounty hunter to go on a yearlong luxury Core vacation and buy his mother a new vehicle. Bastila hit the cycle button again at once, and they all stopped.
It was Aithne—a sketch image of her as she'd looked a lot of the time on Taris, but where his and Bastila's name had been on their bounties, on Aithne's, the line read: "Alias: Aithne Moran."
Alias.
There was no real name, no explanation. But the bounty on her—Carth breathed in sharply. The bounty to kill Aithne was more than three times what the Sith were offering bounty hunters to bring in Bastila alive. Carth thought hard. Why would the Sith be willing to pay so much for Aithne's death? Because of Taris? It didn't make sense. How would they . . . how would they even know how she'd taken charge down there? This couldn't be a reaction to the destruction of one backwater Sith base and getting Bastila offworld before the slaughter. It would be annoying, assuming Malak knew, but hardly worth the kind of sum he was offering for revenge. No. They were offering the kind of sum they were to bring in Bastila alive because they knew that, turned to the Dark Side, she could cement a victory over the Republic. If they were offering more to make sure Aithne died, the Sith had to think she could utterly destroy them—and that for some reason, there was no way she could possibly be converted to their side.
Viewed in that light, it was immensely comforting. Whoever Aithne Moran was behind the alias, or whoever the Sith thought she was, she was undoubtedly an ally. But how she was and who she was—that was still one big mystery. Probably, Carth thought, the mystery Bastila had been freaking out about. They knew who I was, Aithne had said. The Jedi knew something about Aithne—her past, her qualifications, her destiny. Carth had no idea what, but something. Something that made her—her, not Bastila—the linchpin of this war. Now Bastila was worried the Sith knew it too.
Bastila switched off the holo. "Clearly, one of our enemies on Taris escaped to bring the Sith news of us."
"And Malak dispatched his bounty hunters here straightaway because?" Aithne asked.
It was a decent question: how had Malak known they would come here? Why would his mind immediately have gone to the Star Maps upon receiving a report from Taris?
Bastila shook her head. "If what we believe is true, and the Star Forge is central to the success of the Sith war effort, Darth Malak may be paranoid about anything that could lead to its discovery. We know Revan and Malak likely visited these worlds on their own journey to find the Star Forge's location. It's likely Malak dispatched hunters to every world listed on the Dantooine Star Map once he learned of our escape from Taris. He may have dispatched them elsewhere as well; he could have no way of knowing that the Star Maps were our true target. Now that you have slain some of his hunters, however, we should not count on his remaining ignorant for much longer. Resistance to our progress will increase."
"Because a team of three Dark Jedi isn't enough to worry about," Aithne sighed.
"Clearly not, if you took them out without a scratch," Carth said.
She shot him a glare. "I would rather not have had to."
She turned, and the three of them started back toward the place Aithne said the Wookiees had told her they kept an elevator that went down to the Shadowlands. "Yeah, and I don't like that you faced them with just Mission and Zaalbar," Carth admitted. "With that bounty on your head—Bastila's right. There's gonna be more. They'll keep coming until you're dead. I don't understand why the Sith are offering so much. I mean, I know Malak is a monster, but is one defeat on Taris worth the kind of credits he's offering? And what's with the alias?"
Aithne breathed out through her nose. "I lied about my name a lot on Taris. If the person who gave the Sith their intel knows that, they probably wonder if Aithne Moran is my real name either. Look. Carth. Do I need to put in a request the Republic reassign you?"
Carth stared. "What? I—I don't understand—"
"You heard me," Aithne told him. "Can you work with me, or not? Because explaining myself to you is getting tedious. You don't want to be here. You'd rather be on the front lines of the war. Fine. I'm getting to the place where I'd rather have you there. There's only so much distrust, suspicion, and stress I can take. There's only so many times I can stand explaining I'm not evil and I'm not a liar before I break. I'm good, but I won't work under these conditions. No one should have to. So, suck it up that I am who I say I am, doing what I said I was going to; shut it up about not believing me; or I'll cite irreconcilable differences or somesuch and ask the Republic for a different pilot."
"Aithne—" Bastila began.
Aithne cut her off with a gesture. "No. This is between me and him, and it's been coming on longer than you've been around. I may have to take 'Beware the Dark Side' from the Jedi. I don't have to take 'You are the Dark Side' from him, especially since he doesn't even actually believe it."
Carth shook his head. "You're overstating things," he said. "If I can't bring up simple questions without your blowing it all way out of proportion—besides, 'irreconcilable differences' is a reason you give for requesting a divorce, not a reassignment."
"Whatever," Aithne retorted. She breathed out again. "Look. I realize I probably just made everything worse last week with the—"
"Aithne!" Carth protested, glancing at Bastila. He didn't want to talk about this in front of her!
But Aithne rolled her eyes. "She knows. I was so royally mortified after the event it bled over our bond, and she came running. She's probably been hanging around you ever since to make sure I don't try anything like that ever again."
Bastila went pink. "I—"
Aithne shook her head again. "Since you did hear about the incident that night, you might as well hear this too. Carth: I was unprofessional; incredibly inconsiderate of you and your feelings, wants, and needs; and I apologize—for making the offer, for the way and the time that I made it, and for not getting up the guts to apologize until now, when I'm so annoyed with you I could spit."
She sounded genuine, Carth thought, with some surprise. There was a shipload of annoyance, sure, but also a lot of frankness, guilt, and self-recrimination in what she was saying. And it made sense—for her to have been avoiding him lately because she was embarrassed and awkward, not because some scheme of seduction hadn't worked. For her not to have had the guts to own up to it, especially with Bastila hanging around, until she was so annoyed it didn't matter anymore. Just like in the Vulkar base. She was serious about the reassignment, he realized. He knew what it was like when a soldier'd been pushed too far. He didn't like thinking he'd been the one to do that to Aithne, in any sense.
She was so capable, it was easy to ignore all the pressure she was under and just focus on all the weirdnesses about how everything had been arranged, but now he could see she'd been trying to tell him for a few weeks that she was just about at the end of her rope. Hell, she'd been there at the glassing of Taris just like the rest of them. She was the one who had all the responsibility of honoring Zaalbar's lifedebt, she was the one who'd taken on the guardianship of Mission—and Mission was fighting her on it about as much as she obviously needed and wanted Aithne around. All this with the informational overload of becoming a Jedi in the span of six weeks. Now, the Council had put the salvation of the galaxy on her shoulders. They were walking through a slaver-controlled jungle full of monsters, one of their companions had been captured, their best warriors were occupied watching the minors back on Ebon Hawk, and now there was an impossible bounty on all their heads. And he was just piling on. Continuing to question her place in the war and her intentions when she'd been nothing but helpful to the war effort and unbelievably strong throughout. And lately, all the more because she'd committed the unforgivable crime of liking him, wanting just a little relief from the insanity, and speaking up about it. Then getting embarrassed when he rejected her.
All his building anger at Aithne drained out, replaced with a heaping helping of his own embarrassment and a nice side portion of guilt. "No. I told you—you don't need to apologize," he said.
Aithne disagreed. "Maybe you didn't think I needed to then, though I already did. But then I left, and I didn't come back, or try to work things out. So."
That was even more embarrassing, Carth thought. Aithne thought she had to cater to him—to the issues that drove him to spin these stories about her and try to find problems where there were none. The worst part was, so far, she was right. He had to do better. Get that paranoia out of the pilot's seat. He wished Bastila wasn't here, watching their exchange like a holodrama. Probably compiling notes on attachment to send back to the Jedi Council. Aithne might not care, but he didn't want to get her into trouble. "Alright," he admitted, rubbing his neck. "Maybe I got a little anxious after what you said. Maybe I started wondering. Good reminder that explanations for things don't always have to be deep, dark conspiracies. But I don't think we have to—"
"Look out!" Aithne said. She jerked her head ahead, at three Wookiees on the path being attacked by a kinrath swarm. In the same movement, Aithne had pulled her lightsaber out of her sleeve and sprung into action. Except—not lightsaber. Lightsabers. She'd picked up another one, probably from the Jedi who had attacked her. And this one was red.
"What in the—" Bastila started. Then she, too, activated her lightsaber and ran toward the fight.
Carth stayed back, keeping away from the fray, moving back and forth across the walkway to find his shots. The Czerka walkway tended to funnel enemies into a natural bottleneck, but it also made getting a clear blaster shot a whole lot harder. He did get one of the kinrath coming down from the trees to drop down on them, and another coming up from below to flank the others.
Aithne really was at her best with two weapons though, he thought, watching her from behind. Rather than treating her lightsabers like separate weapons, they became extensions of each other, simply widening her reach, her area of effect, as well as the zones she could guard and the damage she could inflict. The red and green lightsabers clashed horribly, and he didn't like the way the red lightsaber seemed to fit her, as much as the Consular green one did. But he admired the way her attacks flowed together, the way she was aggressive without being brutal, and incredibly efficient. He hadn't had a lot of opportunity to observe her fighting side by side with Bastila, but he was satisfied now that he'd been right: Aithne was the better swordswoman. Bastila was good, but Aithne—she was something else—and back at the enclave, Aithne had been trying to spare Bastila's feelings when he'd asked the question.
The fight ended, and Carth walked up to join the Jedi women and the Wookiees. He was just in time to see one of the Wookiees shoulder past Aithne, growling something that sounded angry, and lead the others back toward the village.
"What was that all about?" Carth asked.
Aithne shrugged. "They've never been off-world. To a lot of these Wookiees, 'human' translates to 'Czerka.' I don't think a lot of them have even heard of the Jedi. They thought we must be slavers."
"Be that as it may, I believe we need to talk about your new weapon," Bastila said, turning to Aithne with a severe expression.
Aithne made a face. "Bas. Using a red laser sword doesn't turn you into a Sith. I like dual wielding better is all, but the Council never gave me a second crystal to build a second lightsaber. I picked this up two hours ago and haven't had time to purify the crystal through meditation."
"You are a representative of the Jedi Order," Bastila said. "How confusing do you imagine it will be for denizens of the galaxy to know which side of this war has your allegiance, if you go around with blades signifying two separate factions?"
"I imagine we already have issues with people who see my battles but get away to tell the tale, and I don't intend to give them many more opportunities," Aithne returned. Her voice was cool. "I'll take care of it tonight, Bastila."
"See that you do."
They walked in silence for a little while longer. Carth wanted to get back to the topic of whether Aithne really thought he should transfer, but the kinrath attack had reminded him they were vulnerable out here and right now, it was probably better to focus on getting to the Shadowlands and finding what they needed without getting hurt. He saw something that looked like the elevator ahead through the dimness of the forest; things would probably be a lot worse down there, he thought.
Aithne herself seemed to have been distracted by the Wookiee's reaction to her after the fight. "You know, the Republic really should do something about Czerka," she mused eventually.
Carth sighed. "Czerka Corp is one of the galactic companies and foundations too big to be policed by the Republic. They have diplomats that speak in front of the Senate. What do you want the Republic to do, start another war?"
Aithne looked thoughtful. "In a way, I don't really blame Revan and Malak for trying to take over the Republic. It has some definite problems. And there's nothing like a threatening dictator to incite social reform."
"Oh, never mind the war profiteering and the economic shortages that sweep the galaxy in the aftermath of wars," Carth said.
"Generally plays out in a couple years. The reforms can last for decades," Aithne replied.
"The Republic is a fundamentally good institution," Carth argued.
"You don't deny it has problems, though," Aithne shot back.
"I can't honestly," Carth admitted. "I can and do deny that it needs to be taken over, especially by the Sith."
"Did I say I wanted them to win?" Aithne said. "I'm just saying, I understand the impulse to take over from incompetents and do the whole thing yourself. It's seductive: it usually leads to a whole lot more trouble than you bargained for, and you usually end up in charge of a system just as flawed as the old one, only different. But I get the impulse. I also think the Sith trying to take over the galaxy might end up doing us all some good."
"How do you mean?" Bastila asked.
Aithne shrugged. "The successes of an enemy in war highlight the weaknesses of a given regime. After this is all over, the Republic and the Jedi are going to sit back and review how it was that so many of their people joined Revan and Malak, and why. Driven by a terrible fear lest any of this should ever happen again, they will necessarily make certain changes. Some of them will probably be horrible overreactions, but some of the others will be for the better. For one thing, they might implement better humanitarian and crisis response systems, so backwater and Rim populations aren't ever tempted to join radicals in response to the atrocities that can happen out there."
Carth looked at her and didn't say anything. It was an interesting train of thought, but there it was—talk like a general or a Senator. Or a Jedi Master historian. Why was Malak willing to pay so much to kill Aithne Moran? How had the Jedi trained her and dispatched her to save the galaxy in six weeks? He didn't want to distrust her. If the bounty did nothing else, it proved she was unquestionably on their side. She had to be. She didn't deserve his suspicion, and she was right—it probably made working conditions that much harder for her. But still.
They were at the elevator. Aithne moved forward to greet the Wookiee there on guard, and they were on course to the Shadowlands.