Chapter Thirty-Five
BASTILA
Hours into their journey, Aithne appeared to realize Bastila was not going to seek her out. She came up to the cockpit. "Bastila. You wanted to see me?"
Bastila turned in her chair to examine the woman before her. Aithne's expression was polite, but her shields were solid stone. Her posture was guarded. Carth Onasi spoke of trust. It was abundantly clear that over the weeks and months they had been working together, Bastila had somehow contrived to lose Aithne's, if she had ever had it.
The closeness they had developed over Aithne's six weeks on Dantooine was all but gone, destroyed, Bastila realized, by very little on Aithne's part. It was nearly solely Bastila's responsibility, the result of months of imposed secrecy and dire admonitions that had so far proved completely unnecessary. This estrangement had come about through the pile of half-truths and lies Bastila had been forced to tell and the prying she had done in her anxiety. She had not made herself a safe place for Aithne's confidences. Furthermore, she had driven away her companion with all her nagging and hovering. And Bastila found that she regretted the change, regretted the distance and suspicion that had grown between them.
"No," she said. "I think you know what I would say. I believe you feel what you need to within your own heart, and any other worries I may have may merely be my own fears. I apologize. I'm afraid I may have been a bit overzealous in your protection. I've overstepped. I did not mean to."
Aithne frowned. Her eyes darted from Bastila to Carth, beside her. "Carth, have you two been talking?"
"I may have suggested Bastila should mind her own business a little more. Put some faith in you, especially if she wants you to trust the Jedi." He didn't turn around to face them but kept his eyes firmly on the controls.
"Wait. You told Bastila that she should trust me."
"Yes. I did."
Aithne's mouth opened. She gaped at Carth. "I—I genuinely don't have anything to say," she stammered. "I—thank you." Even as she said it, however, Bastila could see Aithne disagreed with the pilot now. "You don't have to," she said to Bastila, referring to putting any trust in her. "You shouldn't."
Bastila felt her mouth twist in irony. As comforting as it was for Aithne to tell her that she was justified in her fear, she felt that Carth had a point. "I should," she said. "You may have wavered at times, but even notwithstanding a few bad moments down on Korriban, you have done nothing so far to warrant the suspicion you have been met with. From me or from the Jedi." At least, she had done nothing in this lifetime.
But this seemed to anger Aithne. "I haven't, have I?" All at once, the barrier between their minds dissolved. A series of images and impressions assaulted Bastila's memories. "I tortured men to death—twice! Once I felt remorse immediately. The second time, I justified it, said he had it coming anyway. I lured not one but two children to their deaths, kids no older than you and just a few years older than Mission or Dustil. I tricked and manipulated them into trusting me, and then I killed them—one by proxy, and one by my own hand. I lied and backstabbed my way through that academy as well as any Sith Lord could do it. I drew one of the masters into trusting me, made her so vulnerable she believed I was the first friend she had had in years, and then I turned right around and put poison in her bathtub. Bas, if I learned anything on Korriban, it's how right you and the Jedi have been. There is something seriously wrong with me."
"You didn't make Yuthura trust you," Carth corrected, flipping the switch for Hawk to go on autopilot, continuing on her preset course. He turned his chair around to face them. "She'd decided she wanted to use you before we ever walked into that academy. And as for the rest of it—to some extent, you had to beat out the other Sith. You had to do it to get access to Naga Sadow."
"I could've done that just by finding the droid in the tomb of Marka Ragnos, memorizing the Sith Code, and claiming I killed those bodies we found in the shyrack caves," Aithne told him, ruthless. "Could've beaten Kel and Shaardan in the dueling ring; don't think I would have even had to kill them. I didn't have to do any of the messed-up things I did down there. I chose them. I did that. And I can't ever take it back."
Bastila felt she might tremble if she didn't exert control. The forces that had drawn Aithne down into the Darkness in another lifetime were still very much a part of her. It was true. She did well to acknowledge her failures now. Yet, Carth had spoken wisely too. In the end, Aithne had turned away from that path. She was resisting. "You cannot," she told the older woman. "But there are close to a dozen you met on the surface of Korriban by my count who would not be alive if not for you, and sometimes you saved them only with great risk, trouble, and personal suffering. There are at least two and maybe several more who are returned to the Light through your guidance. When push came to shove, you chose the Light, even facing every temptation. Accept responsibility for your failures, but take credit for your victory as well."
Bastila's troubled mind, her jealousy, colored her words, and Aithne felt the shadow, the halting in her spirit. At once, her expression of stubborn self-recrimination shifted to one of concern. "Bas," she said. "Are you—are you okay?"
Bastila tried to smile. "Not really, no."
Aithne peered at her. "Come with me," she said, walking away. Bastila glanced at Carth. He nodded and waved, dismissing her to follow Aithne. Aithne led her to the conference room, and when the two of them had entered, Aithne turned around and shut the door, usually left ajar. "Sit," she told Bastila.
Bastila sat, and Aithne sat diagonally across from her, neither directly beside her nor with the entire dining table between them. "Talk to me. Without any of the games or mental push-and-pull, what's on your mind?"
Bastila hesitated. She twisted her chair and her hands. Trust her, Carth had said. Carth Onasi. He didn't know what he was talking about . . . and yet . . .
"You were in considerable danger of falling down on Korriban," she said finally.
"I agree," Aithne said calmly.
"You have been slipshod in your discipline and in your adherence to the tenets of the Jedi Order—some of this is excusable given the protracted nature of your training—yet some of it I must believe has been intentional neglect."
"You're right," Aithne agreed again.
"Your stance on attachment . . .?" Bastila asked, hesitant.
Aithne sat back in her seat, her hands folded in her lap. She looked thoughtful. "I'm still working it out," she admitted. "I think there's merit in the Jedi position. Politically speaking, avoiding procreation in the Jedi Order helps avoid the rise of Force-wielding dynasties and Force-slinging blood feuds, naturally. On the other hand, we seem to have an enormous civil war every few decades anyway. The Sith keep on coming back. Avoiding emotional entanglements does assist in emotional discipline, but it also doesn't really challenge it, does it?"
Bastila saw what she meant. The Jedi sought to remove themselves from temptation. So isolated, they might be in less danger from the Dark Side, but the discipline they prized lost its value when all the situations which might test and develop it most were shunned.
"Who's stronger?" Aithne asked. "The Jedi who masters their fear, their anger, and their passion while avoiding all the things that tempt them most to fear, anger, and passion, or the Jedi who lives a full life and still maintains their control? But then there's the time commitment—Jedi with families naturally pay the time cost of those relationships. They will never attain the mastery of the Force, of lore, or of lightsaber combat that a Jedi who has nothing else to do may gain."
Aithne was matter of fact about this. She acknowledged that there was merit in a Jedi's singular focus upon the Force—in knowledge gained, skills mastered. She spread her hands. "I can see all sides of it, you see. Observationally, on the one side, I find the Jedi lifestyle often overly rigid, sterile, and stagnant; while Force Sensitives who abandon the Jedi precepts on attachment in particular are far more volatile and likelier to go off-the-rails crazy, and often homicidal. But if they don't, those Force Sensitives who manage to find some kind of balance are often the wisest, most compassionate, and most effective Jedi.
"Do I think I can strike that kind of balance?" Aithne paused. Bastila waited. This was the question, she knew—was this woman strong enough to live outside the traditions of the Jedi that she found so rigid, so sterile, without falling to the Dark Side? Or was her temptation to do so only symptomatic of an arrogance and vanity the Jedi had seen all too often?
Aithne sighed after a moment's consideration. "I think everyone hopes at some point that she can have it all, do it all. I—things have usually come easily to me, and I may—I apparently do have a tendency to overestimate my own strength. I don't know what you and Carth have talked about. I don't know what you may have sensed between us. But—" Aithne went red, and her voice dropped lower. "I still want him, even more than I did before, and in ways I didn't before. But it's the good in me that wants him. I know it. And he makes me want to do the right thing. More than I ever want to do it on my own."
Bastila felt a sad wistfulness. "We used to talk like this on Dantooine," she murmured. "You used to talk with me about what they were teaching you. Back before the mission, back when it was all theoretical. I quite enjoyed that time."
It seemed so long ago now. Those six precious weeks—after the nightmare of Taris but before Bastila took up her charge in earnest—they had been an oasis of peace amid the storm. Bastila had had six weeks to get to know Aithne Moran, to get to like her, to accustom herself to the idea of her mission before all its danger resumed. Six weeks of training. Six weeks wholesome physical exercise with their lightsabers, where neither of them fought to kill but for the sheer practice and enjoyment of the art. Six weeks of spirited intellectual debate, where they might disagree but could do so maintaining respect for one another. Six weeks where Aithne had permitted Bastila to help her, and Bastila could help her honestly. Looking back, those six weeks had been a treasure.
Aithne met her eyes, and there was a rueful acknowledgment and sorrow there. "So did I."
"It's different here in the field," Bastila observed. "Talking about your actual relationship—or potential relationship—when we consider the benefits and drawbacks of the Jedi position on attachment. Considering your actual ability to resist the Dark Side or pursue the Light instead of your mere potential for either. Or mine."
Aithne searched her face. "Yours?" she repeated. Bastila could feel the intensity of her regard.
"I cannot help but compare us," she admitted. "I wonder, if it had been me on Korriban, if the bounty were not an issue, would I have done as well? If I had been forced to play the game to advance among the Sith, seen everything you saw, and felt everything you felt—for myself and not just secondhand—could I have stayed strong? And if I wavered, as you did, could I have come back again? I have thought about it a great deal since you finally perfected your personal shields—congratulations, by the way."
"Just needed the incentive," Aithne murmured. "I don't advise that particular motivational method among the Jedi."
"Yes, I was quite distressed for you when I sensed what was happening in the tombs," Bastila said. "Only the knowledge that I would surely be captured and helpless to aid you kept me from coming."
But apparently, it had not been Bastila's distress over their bond that had moved Aithne to need to protect her mind so badly she mastered what she had found so difficult before, for her face creased in confusion before her expression cleared. "No, I—it was Carth," she explained. "He's just on the untrainable side of Force Sensitive? He saw it, and—"
Bastila nodded. It was something of a relief to discover her concern for Aithne had not breached her own shields in that moment, and it made sense that Carth's emotions might have been particularly volatile at the time. Perhaps it shed some light on his current emotional state as well.
"You were saying?" Aithne prompted her.
"Yes," Bastila agreed. "I am not satisfied that had I been in your shoes, I would have done any better, and it troubles me. If I may—what made you come back to the Light? How do you remain strong against the Dark Side? For me, it has always been a constant battle!"
Saying the words at last made her shame and frustration well up inside. She had suppressed them both for so long. For the first time, however, rather than try to maintain the ideal Jedi image, Bastila let Aithne see what lay beneath the surface. She shared her own struggle. She was so confounded and frustrated by, so jealous of Aithne's seeming strength. Bastila had been meant to guide and be an example for Aithne. Yet when she imagined standing across from a heartless murderer and withstanding torture to spare his life—she could not. She could not imagine feeling the desperation for the endangered child of her lover that Aithne had felt on Korriban without feelings of selfishness, jealousy, and anger corrupting everything. Her feelings for her own parents were still so complex and painful, and she had not seen them in nearly twenty years. How much more so must Aithne's feelings be for Carth! And the anger, the impatience Aithne had tasted in her time on Korriban, the anger and impatience that had so nearly damned her—how had she turned away? How had she held back from exacting vengeance on all the Sith?
Aithne reached out and took her hand. In Bastila's mind, there was a similar sensation, Aithne expressing both her presence and support, a willingness to listen, without fear or judgment. "Tell me," she said.
"I've never found the Jedi path an easy one to walk," Bastila admitted. "I have always struggled for control over my passions. I've always been too quick to anger, too quick to get involved. My instructors constantly berated me for it. I've often dreamed that I might be able to confront Darth Malak myself. I dream I can use all the power I have to kill him and stop all the death and destruction. I just think about all the evil that the Sith have caused and I . . . I get so furious. Yet we are told these feelings are the path to the Dark Side—" She broke off, too overcome to go on.
Aithne was still for a long time, absorbing what Bastila had shared with her, and Bastila saw how her emotions were at war in her face, without even reaching out with her feelings to gauge Aithne's response to her confession. Aithne felt sympathy for her, but she had no words of comfort. "Well, they can be," she said instead. "One of the Sith I turned—and can someone please find me a more condescending term, please—" Bastila laughed, a little wetly, and Aithne continued, "She had originally left the Jedi because she came from slavery. She saw so much evil and injustice when she was a child, and she wanted that evil gone. It was her sense of justice that wanted it, her sense of fellowship, and her compassion. None of those things were evil in her, in and of themselves. They were good. But they made her angry, and they made her impatient. She couldn't find a balance. She couldn't find her peace. She thought among the Sith, her anger might eventually lead her to justice. Break her chains and all that. That's what they tell them in all the propaganda. But the more she dwelled on her anger and the power she needed to defeat her enemies, the less she remembered the people she had originally wanted to save."
Bastila tried to understand, tried to get there. She knew Aithne was speaking wisdom. She had felt the truth of Aithne's words in the woman's own experience upon Korriban—it had been Aithne's rage against the violence she had witnessed, against the system she was forced to participate in, that had first moved her to violence. Yet as she acted upon her anger, she felt the wrongness of her actions less and less. The Dark Side was narcotic, yet Bastila could not grasp how good, noble people so quickly became corrupted! "Would I become the very evil I want to destroy if I used my power to eradicate Malak?" Bastila mused. "The very idea that I could become that evil; I just can't fathom it! It just doesn't seem possible. How could I?"
"It's easy." Aithne's voice was flat and harsh. "That's the terrifying part. Your mind can justify anything, and once you've done something once, it's just that much easier to do it the next time. And you don't realize you've gone too far until you wake up with the corpse of some kid you never had to kill at your feet, or till you're staring right at two slaves when you swore to wipe slavers off the face of the galaxy, and you realize you didn't even see them. Even scarier to me is the idea that a lot of people don't ever wake up."
She was right. Bastila knew she was right. "You've learned wisdom the hard way," Bastila told Aithne. "Forgive me. And—I know it is not a comfort to you for the times you failed on Korriban—but somehow, it comforts me. It's a relief to hear, somehow, that not everything is easy for you."
Bastila felt petty and perverse even as she said it. It was humbling, yes, to always feel so out of her depth beside Aithne, to always know her power and her destiny could not compare. Yet, the last thing she should be doing was taking comfort in Aithne's weakness. People had been killed, and the galaxy needed Aithne to be strong. Everything depended on it. If Bastila herself was weak, she should look all the more to the Jedi teachings for her strength.
But Aithne did not blame her. "No. I think I should have probably been practicing more discipline. Been a little less arrogant," Aithne smiled, though the expression had little mirth. "Bas—in the field? People help. Jolee told me: It's always easier to resist the Dark Side with the influence of others. Folks to hold you accountable, give you perspective. Remind you how much you stand to lose by giving in. It helped me, toward the end. I know you have this thing about helping me stay in the Light. Maybe it could work both ways? You can talk to me, you know. Like we used to. Even if you don't want to talk to me yet."
Aithne's humility shamed her. Bastila looked up into the kind eyes of her companion and felt herself to be so small. To Bastila, Aithne had only ever been patient and forbearing. She knew, had known nearly from the beginning that Bastila was lying to her. Spying on her and attempting to leverage their relationship. Yet, aside from the odd acerbic comment, Aithne had continued to wait, had continued to show compassion.
Bastila was rapidly coming to the end of her tolerance for her orders from the Council. If Aithne struggled with the Dark Side, what of it? Bastila did as well. Bastila wanted to trust in Aithne. Aithne deserved the chance to be trusted. Bastila wanted to tell Aithne everything. Tired of pretending to be Aithne's friend, Bastila wanted to actually be one.
"I do want to talk to you," Bastila whispered. She felt a traitor even as she said it. "To some extent, I have always wished to do so. I wish I could be more open. I wish there need not be any secrets or walls between us. I—you have earned my respect. My admiration. And I'm tired. Yet—my orders come directly from the Council. I cannot—I cannot say that I know better."
Aithne's eyes became even more intent, and then, deliberately, she withdrew from Bastila's mind. She did not raise her shields. Her mind and emotions remained open to Bastila, but her presence had pulled back. She was making it clear that Bastila had her privacy, that she would not take any confidence or clue by force.
Suddenly, Bastila was terrified. Dashing tears away, she stood. "This is too dangerous," she said. "Please, forgive me. If you can, forget I ever mentioned this." She strode from the room, fleeing toward the cargo hold. She needed to meditate.
AITHNE
Aithne stood in the conference room alone for a while, thinking. Until today, she'd been so absorbed in herself that she hadn't considered the strain that their mission might be for Bastila. Bastila did what she was supposed to do and said what she was supposed to say so well, it had never occurred to Aithne that she maybe didn't always feel like it. It hadn't occurred to her that the Great Secret the Jedi Council had her keeping from Aithne might be taking the same kind of toll on Bastila that all the deception on Korriban had taken on Aithne.
She walked back next door to the cockpit, knocking on the doorframe to announce herself as usual. "What in the stars did you guys talk about up here?" She swung herself into the copilot's seat. "I think you've gone and upset the delicate balance that is Bastila Shan."
"Good." Carth sounded both angry and satisfied. "What Bastila and the Jedi are doing here? Manipulating you, keeping you in the dark about their plans, all the while doing their best to convince you that you're on a one-way space highway to the Sith? None of it is okay. Bastila was working on me earlier, trying to convince me to leave you alone—for Dustil's sake, or like your soul depended on it—as if what you and I do together were any of her business."
Aithne raised her eyebrows. So far, there had been very little of what Carth and she did together. It was interesting to hear Carth so protective of it. "I agree it's not, and I appreciate what you said to her, but she's not—I think you were right about her. Before. In the Sith laundromat."
"Yeah?" Carth turned his chair to face her.
"Yeah," Aithne agreed, frowning. What she'd sensed from Bastila had worried her. She'd been working at Bas intermittently since Kashyyyk, trying to loosen her up. She'd've thought she would've been happy to know Bas was so close to cracking. But when Bastila had opened up back in the conference room—about herself if not the Jedi Council's plans—Aithne had felt such depths of doubt, self-loathing, and . . . helplessness from the girl. She hadn't liked that at all. "I knew she was scared, of course. It's been all over her since the very start of this thing. But I didn't know how scared she was. Angry too."
"Angry?"
Aithne nodded. "About Taris. And with herself, every time control doesn't come as easily to her as she thinks it should. She's been thinking she might screw it up worse than I've done, if it were her—ridiculous, but she doesn't have the experience, so it's how she feels. And it's only made her feel more inadequate to do whatever job she's supposed to be doing controlling me." Aithne paused, but she'd chosen to be open with Carth about most things, so she went on. "She as good as admitted just now that she does have secret orders from the Council, by the way. Wouldn't tell me what they were, but she said she wants to, and I believe her. And I—I don't know what to do."
Once, she had thought she didn't want to know why the Jedi wanted her. Then, she'd decided that she needed to know. Only now was she beginning to think about Bastila's side of the equation—the orders her companion was under not to talk. Whether the Jedi Council's orders were justified or not was something Aithne couldn't know from this side—though she was inclined to believe not, not if they infringed on her rights to understand the risks she was taking and to privacy within her own mind and soul, and she had a feeling that they did. But there was an ethical consideration of whether Aithne was justified in expecting or trying to get Bas to break the Council's confidence or interfere with her loyalty to them.
Carth leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers. "She told you." He sighed. "Yeah. I got something similar from her in our talk. Just like you, she wouldn't tell me what she knows. Just—just insisted that everything she's doing is to protect you as much as it is to save the galaxy. I think she believes it too. I think the Council's put her in a pretty tough position."
Aithne was thinking hard. "Or it had to be her," she murmured, half to herself.
"You have an idea?"
Aithne hesitated. "No—just—remembering our bond. That I was dreaming about Bastila before we ever even met. I don't . . ." she trailed off, frowning. Revan's dreams. "Something funny on Korriban," she said.
"Yeah?"
Aithne looked at Carth. She almost told him. She almost told him how, researching the names of people she thought the Sith might be mistaking her for, people that Malak might want to find, she had stumbled across Revan's former name in the files benign enough the Jedi hadn't thought to seal them and mistook her for a ghost, some obscure little nobody, a deserter or a corpse that she could safely inhabit to pass under the radar among the Sith. She almost told him how, when choosing her second alias for Korriban, she had unwittingly adopted the birthname of the woman who haunted her very dreams. But then she shuddered and stuffed the happenstance deep down inside herself.
It wasn't funny. It was frightening. She didn't want to think about it, and she didn't want Carth thinking about it either.
"It's stupid. Don't worry about it," she told him. "But we should talk about that bit on the run from the academy."
At this change of subject, Carth sat up again. His hand came up and raked through his hair. He'd showered and shaved since they'd left Korriban, and the gel was back, so all his fingers did was knock his cowlick right back in front of his face. "Yeah. I . . . uh . . . it's been . . . it's been a weird two days," he said. "There were a couple of times I thought that I might lose you."
"You never had me," Aithne pointed out. "I thought we had decided you weren't going to, in any sense. Thought we decided it'd be better that way." She tried to keep calm, but her heart had begun to race.
To some extent, they could blame the circumstances. In the moment, just returned from the brink of death by blood poisoning in an alley on Korriban, when Carth had kissed her, she had just responded.
"I know," Carth said. "I uh . . . I can't stop thinking about it, though. About you. And I know the timing's bad, and there's next to no privacy on this ship, and we've got Dustil and Mission and Jedi senses and all—I just—I can't stop thinking about it." His eyes cut to her and away, and his mouth quirked up self-consciously.
In a way, it wasn't a surprise, Aithne thought. She'd guessed from the start that Onasi was in the middle of a monster dry spell, probably even worse than her. But he was a human being, a man, and he had his urges, even if he'd been neglecting them for years. He'd been attracted to her from the start, and then she'd gone and put herself on offer. He'd been smarter than she'd been at the time, but here they were, a month and change later, still living and working together about as closely as two people could. It was a tough ask for anyone's powers of self-denial and restraint. It certainly had been for hers. But from what he had said in the past on the subject, and from the way her own feelings had shifted over time, she felt that the conversation that they were having now was very different than the one they had had a month and change ago.
Something had changed. Carth was arguing with Bastila—Bastila had felt the need to switch from riding herd on Aithne and had instead begun to pressure him to maintain his distance from her—and he was angry about it. He'd refused to make that promise. Aithne was admitting to Bastila that she was considering the Jedi constraints against attachment in very personal and specific ways these days. With Carth.
Still, best to get it out into the open, she thought. "Sex," she clarified.
Carth met her eyes again, and this time, he didn't look away. "All of it," he corrected her. "Like I said, if we . . . if we ever did this, I—I would want it all, beautiful. All the stuff the Jedi aren't crazy about their people giving out included."
Aithne nodded slowly, processing, not accepting it. She'd expected that. The objections she had had in the past seemed petty and selfish to her now, and besides, Carth's attitude toward her these days, which had formed a major part of those objections, was now very different. "A relationship."
Carth hesitated at that—though not, she felt, on his own behalf. He did want a relationship. He knew she hadn't, and more, he knew the Jedi didn't like it. "Or something," he said. "Look, if you still don't want that with me, it's fine. I won't move again without your say-so. I just—I wanted to put it out there. I care about you. I know you care about me. I—I think this could be something. If you want. If we let it."
Aithne's eyes traced over the fine lines of his face, the broad shoulders. Since the shower, the Force-cursed Jacket of Doom was back. She could smell the treatment he used on the orange-dyed leather. Her fingers itched to fix that stupid cowlick, to touch his face like she'd done in that alley on Korriban. She wanted to get right out of her chair and sit with him in his; she didn't like this much distance between them.
He was still talking, trying to fill the silence. "I mean, there's a hundred reasons that it might not work, a hundred reasons why it might not be the best idea. But there always are. Do you—Do you want to try it with me?"
His brown eyes could have this irresistibly earnest quality. Whenever he looked at her like that, Aithne had always had an urge to smack him, because it wasn't fair. She felt a mix of nearly irrepressible desire and iron-handed conscience she didn't think she could describe to him if she tried, except she was almost certain it had been how he'd felt the last time. Irony. It'll come and kick you in the tail every single time. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Mostly cry. But there was nothing for it.
"Not yet," she whispered.
Carth's face creased, and before he could misunderstand, Aithne did get out of her chair. She didn't join him in his—Not yet—but she knelt beside the arm so she came up to his shoulder and extended her hand, placing her finger across his lips. "It's not a 'no,'" she told him. "It's not a 'never.' Not anymore. You're right. I do care about you. I think—I think I was fooling myself a little to begin with, when I said, 'no strings.' I just—give it a little time. We need that, I think."
She drew her hand back, but she stayed right there beside him, in his personal space, looking up into his face with all the honesty she had inside her. "It's been a weird two days," she repeated. "You're feeling grateful right now—to me for Dustil, and for me, that I'm still alive. I'm feeling grateful that I'm still alive. Let it lie for a while, and then we'll see. Especially with your son only just with us."
"I—you're right," Carth said. "I told Bastila I wasn't going to baby him, and I still don't think we should, but—Dustil deserves some of my time right now."
"He does," Aithne confirmed. "And I think you'll find we're not going to catch him completely off guard. He thought we had something going on when we first met. We talked about it when I set up his rendezvous with Mission. I told him nothing's happened so far, but I didn't deny there's . . . something. There's always been something. Much as I have sometimes wished that weren't the case." She said the words lightly, and she smiled.
Carth smiled back, acknowledging it. "Hah. Well. Can't say I'm too sorry."
Aithne sighed. "Dustil needs to know you're here for him. He needs to know he still has a place in your life, that you didn't just . . . move on without him. But he also can't just be your son here, and I think you're right—you shouldn't drop everything to be everything to him right now."
"No, Dustil's gonna need a purpose," Carth agreed, thoughtful now. "He's gonna need something to focus his attention, something to work toward, eventually. I want him to work with you—the Jedi on Ebon Hawk, I mean. Who knows what nonsense the Sith have put in his head—though . . . maybe I should try to know. To learn."
Aithne had wondered if Carth would realize that a big part of his journey with his son was going to consist in understanding what Dustil had been through, the extent of the damage that had been done, and the person Dustil was now as opposed to the boy he had been four years ago. "I talked to him about the Jedi—" she started.
Carth explained he didn't want Dustil joining the Jedi, not until he chose it, and Aithne smiled. Then she thought about it. "Ask him if he'll work with Jolee," she suggested. "Ask Jolee if he'll work with Dustil."
"Jolee?" Carth asked, surprised. Then he thought about it. "He was pretty impressive in the academy today, and afterward."
"He's left the Order," Aithne reasoned. "And I don't think he respected it much when he was in it. He's experimented with some Dark Side techniques—Force Lightning is something they don't teach you in the Jedi. But Jolee's not Dark Side. Pretty adamantly anti-Dark Side, actually. I think I still have burns from some of the judgy glances he gave me sometimes back on Korriban."
"No, you're right," Carth said. "It's a good idea. Jolee, he might be able to teach Dustil more about how to keep his powers under control without—without forcing him to pick a side just yet. If he'll agree to it." Carth looked worried about that part, and on reflection, Aithne agreed that taking on Dustil's education in some healthier ways to use the Force might be a bit more responsibility than Jolee might want.
"He might if we ask him together," she said.
Carth gave her his hand, and she stood up with him. "Let's go now."
Jolee didn't like it. He said he was a tired, foolish old man who didn't have the first clue about training apprentices, particularly angry, young, ex-Sith apprentices. "I don't have words of wisdom to share with anyone."
"Oh, no, just a catalog of parables thick enough to make a Master Archivist jealous," Aithne said.
"And every time I tell one, you're a half minute away from gutting me on the spot," Bindo retorted. "You think Dustil will be any better? Young people don't listen! They may as well have blocks of wood between their ears!"
"What's this about Dustil?" said the same, stepping into the infirmary hall from the main hold.
"Dustil," Carth said. "We were—"
"These two think I ought to train you. I was telling them that's absurd." Jolee interjected calmly.
Dustil folded his arms. "Chore list not enough?" he asked. "Have to saddle me with a Jedi Master too, old man?"
"I'm no Jedi, Dustil." Bindo objected. "At least, not in the Jedi Order sense. I'm just plain old Jolee Bindo."
Aithne saw Dustil was taken aback. He hadn't expected that. Carth stepped forward. "I'm not going to make you learn to be a Jedi, son. I'm not going to make you do anything. I would like you to keep studying how to use the Force, if you want, and in some different ways than the Sith taught you. I want you to practice with your lightsaber and use your abilities, but I don't want them to have to come from hate and anger. Jolee left the Jedi a long time ago. You've left the Sith. We just—we figured the two of you might match up well."
"I'd like you to learn a few other skills," Aithne added. "So you can help us in ways completely unrelated to the Force, leave everything behind you if you want. Certainly, the skills you learned among the Sith will make you an asset to the team as you are, but if you decide you'd rather not use them—" she shrugged. "We've picked up some coursework from the Jedi archives and off the holonet. Mission's a smooth talker, a good stealth operative, and demolitions and security tech already, but we've all been teaching her some new things. She does history, languages, and politics with me; chemistry and cooking with Canderous; accounting with Bas; and higher math, navigation, piloting, and marksmanship with Carth. I'd like her to be able to get into any academy she wants someday or take on any paid work she decides might be better than hanging around with the rest of us, when she's old enough. We could arrange something similar for you. There's not just the Sith or the Jedi, even if you happen to be Force Sensitive."
"I'm not a kid," Dustil said.
Carth smiled. "That's what Mission says. She's still too young to work in most decent sectors of the galaxy. You aren't, but you're still at the age when most humans are still learning valuable skills for their futures. You're two years out from the age of acceptance at any Republic military academy."
Dustil wasn't happy. "The Sith were about to ship me out to war."
"Well, I think we did introduce a distinction in this conversation between decent sectors of space and other places," Aithne said.
"You think you know everything there is to know?" Carth asked.
Dustil's face was a study. Aithne guessed what he was feeling. On the one hand, he felt like he had suddenly been shoved back into childhood. On the other, Carth was making plans for him, and inviting him to plan his own future, an option he hadn't had among the Sith. Here was both tangible evidence of Carth's caring about him and more opportunity than he'd had for himself in years, even if it came with more restrictions than he'd probably experienced for at least the last eighteen months or so.
"No," he said finally. "I don't."
"Hold on there, sonny," Jolee said suddenly. "Your father and Aithne are right. You should choose what happens to you next, what you do with your own life. The skills you study, the path you take. But you're going to have to do something with what the Sith have taught you. The techniques they showed you won't just go away if you ignore them: They stay. And they will shape not only the way you fight but the entire way you see the universe. The way you understand the Force, the way you interact with it impacts everything."
"Hang on, I thought you said you weren't going to teach me," Dustil said, facing Jolee. "I thought you said the entire idea was absurd."
"It is absurd!" Jolee retorted. "You're a hotheaded young man who just did the single most frightening thing you've done in all your life—turned your back on a life of certainty, servitude, and lies for the terrifying uncertainties of truth and freedom and a chance to salvage what remains of your family, a family you have never been able to count on and you still feel abandoned you, no matter what you know in your head. I'm a grumpy old man who's been alone for the past forty years. We'll probably kill each other. But I will help you if you desire me to."
The two men regarded one another for a moment. At last, Dustil stuck his hand out. "Fine. I'll learn from you, Jolee."
Aithne didn't know if Dustil's usage of Jolee's first name was a sign of disrespect—a refusal to call him master, like a Sith or a Jedi might call their teacher, or exactly the opposite—Dustil using the name Jolee had given him, adopting the terms Bindo had set. At any rate, Jolee shook with him. "We'll see if I can teach you anything," he joked.
Hours afterward, when most of the crew had gone to bed, Aithne found Jolee in the med bay. "Why'd you do it?"
"Come in, why don't you?" Jolee said sarcastically. "I was just wanting to have another long, involved discussion about my intentions tonight."
Aithne grinned and pushed herself up on the lip of the empty med bay counter, kicking her legs back and forth. She did not retract the question.
"Stars, you're annoying," Jolee muttered. "Maybe I just needed a minute to think about it. Maybe the boy impressed me, doing what he did after four years among the Sith. Maybe hearing you and Carth talk, I had a sudden urge to save him from all the exciting lessons you've got going for Mission Vao. She'll know five times more than any Jedi Knight by the time you're done with her, let me tell you, and probably hate you all. Maybe I'm just contrary. What does it matter?"
"Maybe I wanted to thank you," Aithne mimicked him. "Maybe I was curious to know just what happened inside your head to get you from 'No way,' to 'You need to train. I'll help you,' in two minutes flat. Maybe I wanted to have a follow-up conversation about Dustil, tell you I actually think you two could be really good for one another, tell you I hope you don't let him down, but I don't think you're gonna. Maybe you're right, and it doesn't matter, and I just like to annoy you."
Jolee grinned for a second too, but then his mood seemed to change in a moment. "I had a pupil before once," he said. "An apprentice. It didn't end well." He turned away before Aithne could ask about it, making it clear further conversation on the subject was off limits. "I don't—I don't want the pilot's son to go the same way. But—I feel he needs me. Is that arrogant of me? Someone who isn't Jedi or Sith, someone who's seen a bit more of life than the rest of you. And someone not so closely connected with his father as you are, hmph. You would be the next best choice without taking him to the Jedi, but Dustil will need some distance from whatever's happening there."
Aithne wasn't troubled by the implication. She'd seen right away that Dustil, while reasonable and basically a person of integrity, was gonna have some issues adjusting to four years away from his father. When you were around people you knew from the past, it was hard not to revert to the mindset you had had in the past. Dustil would need some time to adjust to the way he was supposed to relate to his father four years later, with Morgana dead and gone. He'd shown he was aware that time had passed, that it was fair that Carth was beginning to move on. But when he looked at his father, a large part of him would still feel like a boy of twelve. And when he looked at Aithne with Carth, a large part of Dustil would still feel like Aithne was moving in on a place that should be sacred to his mother for eternity. Complicating things was the fact that Aithne was only about thirteen years older than Dustil; nearly equidistant in age between him and Carth. It would be hard for Dustil to see her as an appropriate match for his father.
"I think you're right," she told Jolee. "It's why Carth and I came to you. Dustil and Carth need to spend some time together. They need to rebuild whatever relationship they can. But Dustil can't be here for Carth. He has to feel he has a broader purpose, that he's a part of the team, and that he can find his own future, away from his father."
"Yes," Jolee said. "He's at the age where he must become a man very soon, and in the Sith, he was a man already. That will not be undone. You and Carth will not be able to treat him like a boy. It will be hard enough for him returning to be a student, an apprentice."
"Have any idea how you're going to handle it?"
Jolee regarded her a moment. "Hah. Probably badly. But I won't discuss it with you too much, if you don't mind. You'll be the captain. You and Carth can work out between you who's responsible for teaching any other skills Dustil wants to learn. But when it comes to the Force, to his training—he's going to need a place within the crew where he's not subject to you or his father, lass."
Aithne regarded the old man with growing respect. He had sized up the situation quickly. She realized that, in a way, perhaps in multiple ways, Jolee had agreed to take on Dustil to protect him. "Thank you," she murmured. "Then I'll leave you and Dustil to it. And I'll make sure Carth does the same."
"Mm. We'll get back to you as to what his schedule's going to look like, how many hours he'll have free for other pursuits, when either one of us might be free to join you in your journeys."
Aithne smiled. "Dustil'll like that." Except for those Sith specifically chosen to serve a master, who tended to maintain a subservient position for far too long, the majority of Malak's Sith became independent far too early from what she'd seen on Korriban. Dustil might feel the position of authority which Jolee seemed to be assuming was sending him backward. In reality, he would get far more individualized attention and instruction in the Force than he had probably ever had in the academy.
"If I'm going to be miserable dredging up what I remember of the Jedi and lightsaber techniques and hammering them into his thick head, the boy gets to be miserable right along with me, dammit!" But Jolee grinned, and Aithne knew he was warming up to the idea of teaching more and more every minute.
They lapsed into a companionable silence. "So," Jolee said eventually. "You and Carth."
But Aithne wasn't in the mood to discuss that. "I've just about gossiped that to death for the day, old man," Aithne said, rising.
"Mm. Already got an earful from Bastila, I'll bet."
"Surprisingly, no," Aithne said, "but I think that Carth did."
Jolee raised his eyebrows. "And I'll bet he gave her what for. He didn't seem in a state to hear any of that today. No, the Jedi, with their damnable sense of overcaution, will always tell you that love is something to avoid. Thankfully, anyone who's even partially alive knows that's not true."
Aithne made a face at him. "You saw us kiss, Bindo. That's a far cry from a declaration of love."
"Yes, that's true," Jolee agreed. "You're young. You're still at the beginning of your life, and even Carth has more than a couple decades before he's where I'm at now. You may both of you find other people, perhaps many other people. But if you're fortunate, you'll find love once."
"Did you, with your wife? Didn't the Jedi warn you about the Dark Side?" Aithne asked. She was half-teasing, but the question was an earnest one.
"Of course they did," Jolee said, "but love doesn't lead to the Dark Side. Passion can lead to rage and fear, and can be controlled, but passion is not the same thing as love. Controlling your passions while being in love, that's what they should teach you. But love itself will save you, not condemn you." His eyes met Aithne's, sharp and searching, and Aithne knew he was thinking not of the alleyway in Dreshdae but of the tomb in the Valley of the Dark Lords, where she'd looked at Carth Onasi and decided not even torture mattered as much as being the kind of person who could look him in the face.
Jolee blinked, and the moment was over. "Ah, but listen to me go on as if I had all the answers. What do I know of love anymore? I'm just a lonely old man who's not even a Jedi."
Aithne smiled. "Jolee, you gave me the best advice I've gotten on handling the Dark Side since I began training with the Jedi." She was beginning to feel he might have been through a lot, and blamed himself for most of it, but she'd heard more solid sense from Jolee than she had from any of the Council. "I want to hear what you have to say."
"You do, do you?" Jolee cried mockingly. He chuckled. "I wouldn't listen too closely. I'm no authority on anything. I just think that the greatest things in life shouldn't be avoided because they come with a few complications. Love causes pain, certainly. Inevitably, love is going to lead to as much sorrow and regret as it does joy. I suppose there are perfect, eternal loves out there, but I haven't seen one. How you deal with the bad part of love is what determines your character, what determines the Dark Side's hold over you."
Aithne wondered what had happened with Jolee's wife, what had led to him spending forty years all alone. "Do you think love can ever work?"
Jolee considered. "I suppose it could. It would take a strong person to make that kind of commitment, I think. Someone with a great sense of self. I'll tell you one thing, though: Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you and the one you love simply aren't meant to be together. The trick is to know when that is—to know when it's time to fight, and when it's time to part ways." He stared off at the wall, lost in memories.
Then he snorted. "Hmph. There I go waxing philosophical again. Go to bed, Aithne. Next thing you know, I'll start talking in riddles. I'll see you tomorrow."
Aithne shook her head. "See you tomorrow, Jolee."
The journey to Tatooine in many ways was one of adjustment for all of them. Dustil's introduction to the crew seemed to impact everything. All at once, the crew seemed to divide into several different specialty groups in a way it hadn't done before, with membership in the different groups overlapping as certain crew members had multiple specialties. The leadership team—Aithne, Bastila, and Carth. The Force Adepts—Aithne, Bastila, Jolee, Juhani, and Dustil. The warriors—Carth, Canderous, Juhani, and Zaalbar. Yet Zaalbar, through years of partnership with Mission, was nearly as comfortable with technical work with her or T3-M4 as he was in battle. Mission and Dustil now formed a subset of junior crew on Ebon Hawk—students as well as team members. Jolee and Dustil, in a loose, informal version of the master-padawan relationship among the Jedi, formed their own small group as well, and Mission and Zaalbar continued to spend much of their free time together.
Carth and Dustil were trying. They usually showed up at mealtimes within a few minutes of one another, in a way that seemed more planned than the simple result of sharing a good portion of DNA and trained habit. And interestingly, it was difficult to tell whether it was Carth or Dustil doing the planning, or both of them, at different times. They engaged in some awkward, stilted small talk at the table—how Carth did the rationing for Ebon Hawk, why he was so stingy with the real food supplies, and whether it was like that on every starship he'd served on. Dustil turned out to have studied ship design and repair at the Sith academy, to have a real interest in the makes of different ships and what went into their operation and functioning, though he had never studied navigation or piloting himself. He carefully didn't say that he hadn't been trusted to operate ships until very late into his time on Korriban, but it was an underpinning theme Aithne picked up on by Dustil's third or fourth day on the ship. He and Carth and T3-M4 would discuss the maintenance of Ebon Hawk, and Carth would share some theoretical knowledge of piloting and navigation. Dustil was interested, though he was careful not to say so yet and hadn't yet elected to have Carth show him more about the practicalities with Mission. He was sensitive to being seen as too like Carth; he got angry when anyone on the team dwelled too long on their physical resemblance and stressed their differences to the others.
Still, every other day or so, Dustil and Carth would attempt a longer, more in-depth conversation. Reminiscence about Telos, talk about Carth's service with the Republic while Dustil had been growing up—what his motives had been, as well as his responsibilities in the Fleet. Dustil wouldn't talk about his time on Korriban in the same depth—what his position had been in the beginning of his captivity, how he had been treated, his friendship with Selene or with the other Sith, or the way he had gone from war captive to a Sith in the academy. He shared littler things. Sith varieties upon the Jedi lightsaber forms. Particular anecdotes from particular days—funny or stupid things that had happened, foibles of certain Sith instructors.
These conversations often ended angrily. Though Carth had more memories of Dustil as a child, and of his mother, than Aithne thought Dustil would have originally given him credit for, Carth was inclined to overgeneralize, to make statements about how things had been with more certainty than he should. Dustil had missed his father badly growing up. Carth had been away for months at a time on tours of duty, returning for vacations and assignment back to Telos for periods that had sometimes been as long as half a year but more often had been far, far shorter. Dustil had dealt with not only his own feelings of neglect but also, as he grew older, increasingly with his mother's. He had also been aware from a very early age that Carth had volunteered for many of his postings to active duty. His parents had fought about it.
The truth was, Dustil had more memories of his mother's loneliness than he did of his parents happily together. He had more memories of Morgana trying to be enough for him on her own, of missing Carth at school events and holidays, than he did of Carth being present. The times their family had been together had been good ones; Carth had been a good partner and a good father when he was there. Dustil and Morgana had taken pride in Carth's achievements and his sense of duty. But inevitably, they had wished sometimes Carth could give the Republic a little less and the two of them a little more. And for four years now, Dustil had thought that Carth had been entirely absent when Telos fell and that his mother had died alone. He knew better now. He understood that Carth had thought he had died too, had looked for him for years before giving up and come for him the moment he realized that Dustil was still alive. But Carth still sometimes assumed Dustil had been a far happier child than he had been before his abduction, that their family had been happier than it had been. And Dustil wasn't having it.
On the other side, Dustil had been four years among the Sith. Four years on Korriban. The years showed, in ways that often upset and disturbed Carth. Dustil could often say things that seemed astonishingly callous and cruel to his father. More often than not, Dustil didn't even seem to realize it; he was confused and angry when Carth reacted badly to things Dustil said casually, without any real intention to hurt. Carth could shut down Dustil with unnecessary harshness sometimes, Aithne felt, particularly when he felt Dustil was being cruel or disrespectful. Sometimes Dustil was, but not always.
They would yell and bluster at one another and storm off to separate corners of Ebon Hawk in a huff. They would meet later, exchange muttered apologies, and try again. Overall, the dynamic actually boded well for their long-term relationship, Aithne thought, but it gave the entire ship the air of a family drama. It was hardest for Jolee and Mission. As Dustil's primary teacher in the ways of the Force, Bindo spent the most time with him and got the brunt of his bad moods, and Dustil seemed to have taken personal offense to Mission. But the tension between Dustil and Carth—and the tension in Dustil in general—was exhausting for all of them.
"How you holding up, old man?" Aithne asked Canderous the day before they were due to arrive on Tatooine. Dustil had been doing some maintenance on T3-M4 as part of the repair skill he had elected to continue to develop. He'd asked Aithne for permission but—Aithne thought deliberately, though she hadn't known it at the time—hadn't done the same with Mission, though he knew she was half-owner of the droid. The two of them had just had a nasty little spat, where Dustil had questioned Mission's legal ability to actually own a droid; Mission had hoped Dustil got himself electrocuted; and Dustil had said he actually had been, while Mission had still been in diapers back on Taris.
"I'm remembering camp training sessions with the young warriors of Mandalore," Canderous said. "They started to fight like this, and usually, the camp chief would threaten to toss somebody to a pride of maalraas. That'd usually shut 'em up."
"Note to self: get some maalras," Aithne mused. She slouched against the workbench and looked at Canderous sideways. Things had been strange between them since Korriban, and Aithne still wasn't sure if it was the way she'd used his skills to advance her objectives there or the Liat Ser'rida backstory that had done it. Well. There was only one way to find out.
/Ordo. Are we okay?/ she asked in Mando'a.
Canderous paused. /I've been trying to decide if you're a coward,/ he answered. /A deserter worse than these Sith wastes, until the Jedi caught you. You don't act like a coward. You don't fight like a coward. But . . . I don't know. Something's off. I don't like it./
"Liat Ser'rida?" Aithne asked.
Canderous grunted. /It made sense. It felt right, in a way that this whole Aithne Moran scout thing doesn't. Your past is your business. But I don't want to work for a coward. I've done enough of that since the war ended./
Aithne pushed herself up on top of the workbench. /You have,/ she agreed. /And I'm sorry. I asked you to do a worthy thing on Kashyyyk. It was different back on Korriban. I know it must've felt—/
"I didn't care about killing the Sith for you. It's what I'm here for," Canderous said, reverting to Basic abruptly. "I care if you actually turn out to be a runaway from the war. Like those Dar'manda dogs on Dantooine."
Aithne drew her knees up to her chest and looked over the tops of them at the Mandalorian. /I could try to force you to believe me,/ she said. /The same way I was doing my best to make Yuthura believe me back on Korriban and worse. I'll leave it up to you instead. The actions prove the warrior. If I don't run from battle now, do you really think that I did then?/
"Why didn't you fight?" Canderous asked her then, taking a different tack. "You're old enough. You're good enough. You're a match for any Jedi I knew in the war, better than most. Why didn't the Jedi find you? Why didn't you seek them out?"
"There are places in the galaxy the war didn't matter," Aithne answered, switching to Basic herself. "There are places the Jedi are mostly just a story. That may not be good enough for a Mandalorian. You think since I can fight, I should've gone looking for a battle. But some people just want to live and let live, Ordo. Until the war crashes down their world. Taris—it was the first time I ever saw more than the aftermath. First time I felt it. That's just the way it was."
/That's shit. You don't fight like someone who saw her first battle a couple months ago, Jedi. You fight like someone who's been at war for a decade. You don't speak my language like someone who just picked it up from a couple odd jobs. You speak with the understanding of someone who's known us half her life. Talent only goes so far. Your knowledge is in your blood—blood you've shed and spilled over the years. I've watched you, Jedi. You fight like a Revanchist./
Aithne let her knees drop over the edge of the workbench. She leaned forward, bracing her upper body weight on her arms. "Okay," she said.
"Okay?" Canderous repeated.
"Okay," Aithne agreed. "I fight like a Revanchist. I talk like one. If it looks like a brith and flies like a brith—" she shrugged. Gave a little smile. "Sometimes it's still a baspoor glider. That doesn't make your observations inaccurate. In fact, I used them—yours and Carth's—things you've said before are the reason I became Liat Ser'rida on Korriban. If I've sold Revanchist to you and Carth and sometimes the Jedi—" when Canderous looked sharply at her, she smiled again. "You were out of the enclave a lot on Dantooine. I heard it pretty regularly from the other apprentices and padawans when I started picking up things quickly. I figured the Sith might buy it too. You convinced me I could be convincing."
She wanted to laugh, to act like it didn't matter. She couldn't.
"Turned out, the Sith don't buy it," she said instead. "The higher-ups separately decided I'm much too stupid to have been a Revanchist, to have been there when the Jedi split and have been one of the ones who decided to go to war, to have known Malak back when he was called something else. They knew I was using someone else's name to sound impressive and judged me on my actions when I got there. A breath of fresh air in a way, if there is such a thing on Korriban, if it was mildly insulting."
Canderous absorbed that. "And you killed them all. All the ones near Dreshdae port, anyway."
Aithne acknowledged the point and said nothing. The Sith had underestimated her on Korriban, even against overwhelming proof that she was dangerous. That they had done so was not a convincing argument to Canderous that she wasn't a Revanchist.
"Tell me what they were like to you," she said instead. "Revan's people. Tell me what it was like to fight them."
Canderous smiled. "Revan was a genius on the field," he reflected. "She abandoned worlds of their defenders so that others would be fortified to strike. She was willing to make sacrifices in order to advance goals."
Aithne thought of the holo-interface's questions in the Shadowlands of Kashyyyk. She shuddered but kept her silence.
"In the end, Revan proved too much for us," Canderous said. "The Sith had gone—retreated into their empire."
Aithne nodded. "I met two of them on Korriban," she said.
"We thought it'd be centuries before they'd come back. They had sealed themselves off from the rest of the galaxy." Canderous looked thoughtful. "It's amazing that they've rebuilt their fleet so fast. But at the time, it looked like the galaxy was ours for the taking. But Revan began pushing us back—world by world, month by month. I still remember that final battle in the skies above Malachor V. The two fleets filling the space around it, outshining the stars!" His eyes glowed as he spoke of it.
"What happened in the battle?" Aithne asked.
Canderous was quiet for a moment. "It was not your ships or your men or your vaunted 'fight for freedom' that won this, the final battle of the war. Revan's strategies and tactics defeated the best of us. Even Mandalore himself was taken aback by the ferocity, the tenacity, and the subtlety of her plans. Revan fought us to a standstill and then began pushing back. Then—the blow that no one believed anyone would strike. The Republic forces drew us in, and even as we moved in to finish them, your Jedi general, Darden Leona, detonated the Mass Shadow Generator. An unthinkable sacrifice—by far the greater portion of both fleets died, just to finish us. As the survivors watched hundreds of thousands die in agony below us, crushed in the gravity of Malachor, we were left in awe at the scale of the destruction Revan had ordered. And in that moment, Revan boarded Mandalore's ship and defeated him in single combat above the wreckage of my people. With the paltry few of us remaining, I laid down my arms and armor on the ravaged remains of Malachor. And it was my honor."
Aithne could see the shadow of the carnage Canderous had witnessed upon his face. She sensed the awe and grief and horror and respect he had felt that day still within him now. "Canderous-" she murmured.
"It was what we had wanted all along, in a way," Canderous said quietly. "We wanted to fight the best in a battle that would be remembered for centuries. And we did. Revan won. I don't hold a grudge against Revan, and neither do any of my people. It was the greatest moment of my life to be in that battle. /If she'd been a Mandalorian, nothing in the galaxy would've stopped us—her or Darden Leona,/ he added, switching back to Mando'a. /And when I say you fight like one of Revan's Jedi, it is the highest honor I can pay to an outsider. I will do as the Sith of Korriban. I will judge only the actions I have seen. But if one day there is proof that you fled the war, we will have to speak again./
Aithne slid off the workbench. "I understand," she said, bowing to him. She slipped away, feeling the rage and frustration mount within her, the grief. It was getting so that each time she told her own name and story, she believed it less and less, like from the grave, Revan and Liat Ser'rida were reaching out to consume her. Aithne Moran was disappearing. It felt like she could scream it out across the void until her vocal cords snapped and bled, and all that would come back was a mocking echo: Aithne Moran? And a stamp across her forehead like the word forever before hers in the Taris bounty posting: Alias.