Chapter Thirty-Six
AITHNE
The Force sang on Tatooine like a hymn: strange, wild, and lonely. It echoed in the cries of the krayt out across the dunes and quarries. There was a sense of destiny about the place—of some great event that had happened or would happen or was already in progress. Possibly the remnants of the Builder's civilization. Possibly something else.
If it were not for the Force sense upon the planet, I might have thought the planet could make a good prison colony one day, or else have decided to dismiss it completely. Tatooine was unpleasant enough, certainly. Of little apparent strategic or military value. Limited resources unless you wanted a center for glass production. Controlled by the Hutts, but neglected even by those slugs, Tatooine was a miserable backwater—with very little water to be found. The radiation from the suns killed humans and near-humans early, and the incessant winds blew the sands so insistently into each and every bodily crevice that it was near impossible to get clean, even if there had been water.
The cave the Builders had placed the Star Map inside provided some protection from the winds and sand. If not for that shelter, the grit would have destroyed their technology long ago. Foresight, or the Force. The Dark Side emanating from the map had spread through the cave, little more than an outcropping in the dunes from the outside, and it hung thick in the air inside. I could taste it—and the Star Forge—ever nearer.
DUSTIL
When Dustil really, really thought about it, he wasn't sorry he'd hopped on Ebon Hawk. He knew the chances of his friends killing him had gone down by . . . a lot. Conversely, his chances of doing something worthwhile in the war had probably gone up. His orders before he'd left had been boring: a low-rank duty posting to a cruiser. Unless he'd made some kind of move, he knew he would've waited the war out like that, sitting in a barracks on some random warship, patrolling corridors and sitting on his ass. With Shan, Moran, and his father, the odds were a lot better things would get interesting at some point.
On Ebon Hawk, you didn't hear people getting tortured in the hallways. That was a plus. Nobody was out to torture you. And nobody expected you to start slapping somebody around just to prove you belonged.
But Ebon Hawk was annoying. Food was always eventually crap, something that was apparently Father's fault. Worse, there was no privacy on a freighter her size. Zip. In the Sith Academy, Dustil had had his own room. Now he had to share with his dad, Jolee, the Mandalorian, and a Wookiee. Jolee snored, and the Wookiee usually stank. Sometimes, Dustil could find a corner somewhere for half an hour, but it wasn't a common thing, and it never lasted.
But worse than the lack of space or the food was the crew. He'd traded in the sadists and rabid murderers, sure, and got in exchange a half dozen other types of crazy.
Aside from the smell, the Wookiee was probably his favorite. Kept to himself. Didn't bother anyone. Pulled his weight on the ship, and in workouts, he was pretty good with a sword. The Cathar was another one like him, but with her, Dustil wasn't over how stupid she'd been on the security detail when he'd joined up. Any of his masters would've punished her for ignoring Vesser at that cantina, called negligence that bad a crime. That Vesser and his loser buddies around Dreshdae had been a joke didn't matter; they could have been an actual threat. Or, Vesser could have chosen to run to the academy with what he knew and ruin everything. On Korriban, you didn't just trust that because you used to know someone, they wouldn't turn on you. Juhani should have stabbed Vesser in the back in the cantina.
The Mando had a habit of waxing eloquent on the glory days of the past. He liked tweaking Shan and Father's ears and the Cathar's whiskers, but otherwise, he was all right too. He was the only person in the place who could make syntho-slop taste like something, and the best melee fighter on the ship besides. Also, while he didn't have a problem showing Dustil what he knew, he wasn't out to force Dustil to learn anything he didn't want to either. He figured Dustil was already a man and could decide for himself if he wanted to be lazy or keep working to get stronger. Fairer treatment than most everyone else on Hawk gave him. To everyone else, he was just another kid.
Dustil thought he'd been done with masters when he graduated in the tomb of Naga Sadow—done unless he had the bad luck to come to some Sith Lord's personal attention, anyway. Now, suddenly, he was back to being an apprentice, with the most cryptic, irritating old man for a teacher he'd ever met. Bindo didn't think whipping his pupils or burning them with training sabers or Force Lightning was an effective teaching strategy: Dustil would give him that. But it was all the old man got.
Bindo liked to kick him out of bed at 0400, ship time. He insisted on an hour a day of normal workouts as well as lightsaber practice, and in lightsaber practice, he was making Dustil relearn every single form he'd ever been taught from the ground up. Apparently, everything he'd ever learned was wrong. Only, Bindo never came right out and said that. Instead, he'd make this little face and say something like, "You sure you want to grip like that?" or "Mm. Fine way to get hamstrung, there." And if Dustil ever argued, he got knocked down on his ass, and Bindo just smiled and smiled.
He went on long, rambling rants about this guy he'd known and that guy he'd known, and this stupid old Jedi master long ago. About species of shelled amphibians from Corellia and flightless birds in the Alderaanian mountain ranges. There was always some kind of point, but Bindo left it up to Dustil to work out what it was and thought that was teaching. And if Dustil tried to guess what Bindo meant and got it wrong? Well, it was that little face again, and "That's certainly one way to look at it."
Bindo was a smug, unhelpful pain in the ass. Shan was even worse. Bindo at least thought he might be something one day—probably fifty years in the future when Dustil was as old as he was, but he wouldn't be spending all the time with Dustil if he really thought he was hopeless. Shan, though? She thought Dustil was a waste of time. She winced and pursed her lips up every time she saw him. To her, Dustil was a distraction from the mission, for Father, for Moran, for all of them. To Shan, he was a walking liability.
That might be a little easier to take from an actual Republic hero, but just a couple days into his ride on Ebon Hawk, Dustil had found out Shan wasn't one. Oh, sure, she had the super rare Battle Meditation Darth Malak was ready to pay a planet's ransom for. That was true enough. But killing Darth Revan, like everyone said? Malak had done that. Shan had just been on the ship when Revan died. Moran had told him Shan had told her. When Shan and the Jedi had boarded Revan's ship, Malak had seen an opportunity. He'd fired on his master's ship, and Revan had died from injuries sustained in the fire. It was the kind of pathetic, ironic death most of the best Sith got in the stories. They never went out in epic battles; it was always somebody cutting their throats in their sleep, stabbing them in the back, or tricking them into the nest of some giant monsters. Anticlimactic and more than a little funny.
And Shan? She was a prim little princess maybe five years older than Dustil who, now that he'd done the research, hadn't even become a Jedi knight yet. As far as he could tell, she was almost always half a system away from the action. The last time she'd run into any real trouble, she'd only managed to get herself taken prisoner by a bunch of back-alley thugs. She had a tendency to go poking around in everyone's brains and intentions and then get self-righteous about what she found there, and worse, she actually seemed to believe her own legend.
Dustil didn't like Shan much more than she seemed to like him.
There was Mission and Moran, Father's replacement family, no matter what any of them said. Dustil knew he'd like Moran if she wasn't his dad's new girlfriend. She was smart, witty, with the most guts of anyone on board her ship. She was pretty hot, too, hotter than he'd've figured the old man could pull at his age. She wasn't bad to talk to, and after everything he'd seen and heard in the academy, he was glad she was the one the Jedi had sent for Darth Malak. Right now, things were just a little weird.
But Vao? Her, Dustil wanted gone. She was a chipper little smartass, way too impressed with herself from what he'd seen, and she couldn't keep her damned mouth shut. A little girl like Mission had zero business in the middle of all of this, and what's more, everyone on Ebon Hawk knew it.
She'd come clinging onto the Wookiee like a barnacle. They'd palled around on Taris and still did, and because Moran and his father were saps, when Zaalbar had sworn a life debt to Moran and Vao had refused to leave, they'd taken her on board too. It had wound up saving her life, but no matter what Mission wanted, no one here thought of her in the same terms as her buddy. She had a handful of skills the team did actually find useful, it seemed like, and not just when they needed to pick up a Sith kid off Korriban, but the whole crew had Mission on training wheels. She didn't go anywhere without Zaalbar, one of the other warriors on the crew, and from what he could tell, almost always both. The Jedi Order was paying for her education, health care, and maintenance on Ebon Hawk, and that'd been one of the conditions of Aithne joining them.
But aside from Mission's hideous naivete, especially considering all the places she'd been; aside from her tendency to shoot off her opinion no matter what anyone thought and come out with things she really should keep to herself; aside from her smug self-satisfaction and stupid little quips; aside from all of that, the thing that really ground Dustil's gears about Mission Vao was his father was domestic for that little Twi'lek from Back Alley Nowhere like he'd never been for Dustil.
Vao thought Carth was the best thing since the hyperdrive engine. If Moran was supposed to be her mom, her primary guardian, she was a working mom, always out in the field. And Carth was Vao's favorite teacher and most frequent babysitter. He was teaching her how to shoot, how to fly, everything.
Vao liked to get in Dustil's face whenever she thought he was being too harsh on the old man. Said he didn't know anything about Carth and needed to give him a break. "He's your father!" she would yell.
"Yeah, so I know what he's like, Vao. You don't. What, you think a couple months on a ship with him makes you some kind of expert?" he'd yelled back the other day.
"More than you! You haven't even seen Carth in four whole years! People change, dumbass, or didn't they teach you that one in your fancy Sith academy?"
"Oh, I could show you what they taught me—" Dustil started.
"Enough!" Father had roared. "Mission, I appreciate the defense, but Dustil and I don't need your help. Dustil, cool off. Do a couple rounds in the gym or something."
Dustil had glared at Mission. Her lekku thrashed, and she had glared right back, fists clenched. "Fine," he growled, turning on his heel.
"Asshole," Mission had muttered. "Why the hell we picked you up from that scum den, I don't know."
"Mission—" Carth had sighed, and Dustil had moved faster. He'd heard Vao's muffled yells from the hold, but he didn't hear whatever excuse Father had been going to make. But he'd sure as hell noticed Carth had stayed back with Mission instead of going after him, his actual son. Well. Not like Carth had ever been around much growing up. Why should he start trying now?
Damn, Dustil hated that Twi'lek.
So he wasn't thrilled when he got up early the morning they were finally supposed to land on Tatooine, trying to get his breakfast before the hordes descended, and found Mission had had the same idea. She tensed when she saw him come in. Her little lekku twitched.
"Don't s'pose you could maybe get your caff and syntho-slop and take it somewhere else, could you?" she demanded.
Dustil curled his lip. "You know somewhere else that won't be swarming in about half an hour too?"
Mission shrugged. Dustil scoffed and shouldered into the room. He grabbed a mug and a dish and walked out the door to the caff and synthesizer machines to get his breakfast. But when he'd gotten the awful substitutes that passed for food this late in a trip, he went right back into the conference room. He stopped in the doorway, regarding Vao.
She was quieter than he was used to. Made for a nice change, Vao minding her own business instead of trying to buddy up to him or tell him off, but there was something off in the way she was shut down right now, just staring down at her plate.
He crossed the floor and swung into a chair on the opposite side of the table from her. "You looked like that back on Korriban, you were asking for a duel," he observed idly, pointing his spoon at her for a second before digging it into the unappetizing pile on his tray. "Everyone and their friends would know you were feeling weak."
Mission sighed and stabbed her own eating utensil particularly viciously at her breakfast. "Dustil, can you not today?"
"You know, a big girl on a quest to save the galaxy can't drop out of the fight every time that time of the month turns around, Mish," Dustil sneered.
Mission went violet. "You parasite on a Hutt's backside! I been nothing but nice to you since we met, and it's like—forget it! If you won't go, I will." She shoved up from the table, eyes bright, fingers clenched around her bowl and spoon.
"There it is," Dustil muttered. Mission bit her lip but didn't yell this time. Like she'd said, she turned to go. Dustil forced down another bite, but it tasted even worse than usual. "What's happening?" he called out after her.
"Challenge me to a duel," Mission snarled sarcastically. "Otherwise, it's none of your kriffing business!"
"You nervous about your brother?" Dustil asked.
Mission stopped. Turned, so she was half facing him again. "You know about Griff?"
Dustil leveled his best you're-so-stupid stare at her. He'd been listening since he'd got onboard. That was the way a Sith survived. "What, like it's some big secret? It's the reason we're here and not Manaan right now, isn't it? Never mind Manaan was the shorter trip. Some girl you used to know told you she saw your brother who knows when ago on Tatooine, and you've been after Moran to see if you can find him." Dustil paused. Tapped his fingers on the tabletop, considering. "So, what? Now we're almost there, you're worried you won't find him? Or maybe you think we'll find out something worse: that he doesn't want to see you and there's a reason he wanted to ditch you in the first place."
The kid's eyes welled up then, furious. "I wish we'd ditched you on Korriban, Dustil Onasi! For your information, I wasn't worried about Griff. There's no point until we start asking around. And I'm not—it's my birthday, all right?" Her lip trembled. Dustil wished she would leave now. Needling Vao wasn't worth it when she caved like an archaeologist's nightmare back on Korriban. And while he had always been happy to be left alone in the Sith academy, he'd never got the hang of relishing the suffering of his enemies like his teachers had urged him.
"Aren't people usually happy on their birthdays?" he managed.
"No one but Z on Ebon Hawk knows, okay?" Mission spat. "And he's had enough of 'em, he probably doesn't think it's a big deal. He's my age in Wookiee years, or maybe closer to Bastila and Juhani, but in human or Twi'lek, that still means he was probably actually born closer to Jolee. He doesn't really do the whole birthday thing. And that's fine! Only last year, the Beks made this—never mind. I don't know why I'm telling you this."
"I've got one of those faces," Dustil drawled. "Or Father does, anyway, and I got the miserable luck to inherit." Inside, he was squirming. "Look. I don't care whether you have a happy birthday or not, but they will. If birthdays don't matter to Zaalbar, tell Moran and Father it's yours, and you'll probably have all the cake and presents you can take today."
Mission glared. "I don't want them to do something because they feel sorry for me, okay? I don't need it. And I don't feel much like celebrating, anyway. Why'm I still here to stress out about my birthday when everyone I ever knew is—forget it. Forget it! You don't care. You actually thought you wanted to be one of the schutta who destroyed your whole planet!"
Dustil was standing before he knew it, yelling right back at her. "I didn't think I had a choice. When I joined the academy, it was either that or die a slave. Which would you have picked?"
"They couldn't have held onto me long enough to give me the choice!" Mission bragged. "The second the Sith took me in, I'd've pickpocketed a key or something and been out of there. There's always a choice, Dustil. I don't work for bad guys!"
Heat rose to Dustil's face. A dozen faces flickered through his head. Selene. Ryii—the kid he'd killed to earn his saber. So many others he'd seen murdered and hadn't spoken for, just to save his own damn hide. "Yeah, well some of us actually went to school as kids instead of taking crash courses in petty theft. I had to learn everything from scratch on Korriban. Sorry if the things I learned don't meet with your interesting moral standard."
Mission stared at him for a long moment. He thought she was going to yell some more. Instead, her face gradually returned to its normal shade of blue. Dustil's stomach dropped. She wasn't angry anymore. He always liked her better angry at him. When she calmed down and looked at him the way she was right now, she was about five times worse.
"You had it pretty rough when the Sith took you off your planet, huh?" she said finally. "For a while. If I hadn't been with Big Z and Aithne and Carth after Taris—I don't know."
Dustil backed up and sat down. "I don't want anybody feeling sorry for me either." He examined the remainder of his breakfast. He couldn't believe he'd kriffed up like this. She had been leaving!
Instead, Vao kicked a chair back and sat down again, closer to him than before. "It ain't like that," she said finally. "It's just—it's like something Aithne told me once. It ain't sorry, it's just—it shouldn't have been like that for you, is all. With you a slave unless you did what they said? Not knowing what to do to get out, so you were there so long you forgot what's right?"
Damn it, she kept doing this, and Dustil didn't want it! He didn't want Mission Vao to be his friend. He didn't want anything to do with her. "I didn't forget!"
Mission just kept looking at him, gray eyes steady now, all traces of tears gone. Instead, a kind of sad smile played around her lips. "Not all the way," she agreed. "But you sure forgot your manners! I know you can't be like this with everybody—Z, Canderous, and Aithne all like you well enough—but to me and Carth? You're just—you know how you are. And you and Carth, that's your business, I guess. But you and I are shipmates. We don't have to be friends. You don't like me. Fine! I don't like you much either. But you don't gotta be just . . . horrible, you know?"
Dustil scowled. Shoved his food away. Z would eat the rest of it, or Moran, Shan, or Juhani would clean it up. Bad manners to leave it, he knew. But he had to be out of here. Now. Anyway, Vao thought he was an ungrateful bastard anyway. Might as well live down to expectations.
He stormed off hungry through the rest of his waking shipmates, moving in their own turn toward the main hold and the communications room they all used more like a family room.
Why did it have to be her kriffing birthday?
He remembered his first birthday after Telos. Waking up in a pen on the floor with half a dozen other slaves, having to fight the others for his lunch that day. Seeing them carry one of his neighbors out that evening on a board while the overseer turned in his research to the headmaster, and remembering his last birthday with Mother and all his friends from school and how everything had come apart since. Vao had it about a million times better than he'd had it that year already. But he was still way more sympathetic than he liked with what was probably going through her head just now.
He was as weak as she was.
He should go to the cargo hold, he knew. Do fifty reps or more of those Form I and IV exercises Jolee had shown him and about three sets of push-ups besides. Try and lift a couple of the empty cargo crates and throw them into the padded wall with the Force. He'd be ready for whatever they needed him for on Tatooine; ready when crazy Bindo tried to catch him slacking later. Vao could drown, if she was too pathetic to suck it up and too stupid to ask for help from people actually willing to hold her hand today.
And with any luck, they'd find Vao the elder on Tatooine after all, he'd realize he'd made some huge mistake, Ebon Hawk could witness its second happy family reunion in six weeks, and they could unload Vao the younger for good.
Dustil swore, viciously, even as his feet took him toward the cockpit instead.
AITHNE
They were doing the usual post-vision rundown of where the Star Map might be in the cockpit when Dustil came up to them in a black fury.
Bastila had just observed to Aithne and Carth that she had thought from the vision that the Star Map was located in some sort of cave. Aithne noticed that, as with the other visions, Bastila wasn't certain. She had seen the vision through Revan's eyes, but she had not lived Revan's memory the way that Aithne had.
Without giving too much away, Aithne shrugged. "It would've had to be in a cave to keep it safe from the sandstorms."
"Would there have been sandstorms when the Star Map was installed?" Carth wondered. "I mean, the map on Kashyyyk might have been there before the trees and Wookiees. These things are old."
"None of us can anticipate the workings of the Force," Bastila told him. "The Force is guiding our every step. Perhaps we should consider it providential that the map was installed in a location where we would someday be able to retrieve it."
Aithne wasn't sure about that. "Maybe the Builders just wanted it to last," she suggested instead. "Cave protects from more than just sandstorms. But we aren't alone anymore." She jerked her head toward the hallway. Dustil had done a couple laps of the ship before coming to see them, as though he was conflicted, but now he'd clearly made up his mind.
She sensed Bastila stretch out with her feelings and recoil from Dustil's obvious anger and self-loathing. It was practically radiating from him like some kind of malevolent star. To a Jedi raised in the Order, he would probably feel murderous, Aithne reflected, but fresh from Korriban, when she examined Dustil's intent more closely, she didn't sense Darkness underneath his roiling emotions. He had come to them on a mission of compassion. He just hated himself for it.
"Dustil," Carth said, greeting his son. "What's wrong?"
Dustil's face twisted. He backed up a step, like he wanted to walk right back up the corridor and away from them. But then he jerked his head at Aithne and grunted. "Your kid," he said. "It's her birthday."
Aithne understood immediately. Dustil had been jealous of Mission from the second he'd heard her name—both of her place on the crew and the closeness she had developed with Carth over their journey. Before he'd met her, he'd decided to dislike her. After they'd met, things had just gotten worse. Mission had a well-intentioned but ill-advised tendency to appoint herself Carth's protector when Dustil grew angrier with his father and insert herself into their arguments. But when Mission made attempts to connect with Dustil instead, that often proved more problematic. Dustil shut down and belittled her every effort. He was likely correct in his assessment that his struggles as a captive of the Sith were beyond Mission's comprehension. But in his envy of the companionship and protection Mission had enjoyed in her last few years, and particularly since connection with Ebon Hawk, Dustil often completely dismissed any suffering Mission had endured. And he was cruel about it. While many of Dustil's arguments with Carth were either unintentional or necessary steps on their journey back to a relationship, Dustil would go out of his way to pick fights with Mission.
Dustil didn't want to empathize with Mission. He didn't want to help her. Aside from his personal enmity toward her, the Sith had trained him to smother his every compassionate instinct, and most especially never to show mercy to his enemies. But Dustil had been only two years younger than Mission was now when he, too, had witnessed the destruction of his home world. He, too, had had to suffer through that first birth anniversary after everything had changed: a day when all the grief—perhaps numbed over weeks or from the urgency of other matters—suddenly spiked and became fresh and terrible, overpowering once more. And today, being cruel to Mission, or even withholding his help from her, would feel too much to Dustil like striking at himself.
"We should do something," Aithne said. "How long before we land?"
Carth looked at his instruments. "We're still a couple hours out. You think we can put something together today?"
"You think she'll want some big party?" Dustil demanded. "Sometimes, remembering how your whole world blew up since last year can kinda ruin your fun on anniversaries."
Carth met his son's eyes, and Aithne sensed something in Dustil ease, as he remembered his father had shared his pain with him that day, even if Dustil hadn't known it until recently. "We know, Dustil," Carth said. "And I'm sorry I hadn't found you the first year after Telos. For both of us. But if we can be there for Mission today, remind her that she still has friends to . . . to celebrate with, or just to have around, we should do that for her."
"I guess," Dustil muttered.
Carth peered at his son. "Hey," he said. "It was your birthday just a . . . just a few weeks ago. Just a little before we got to Korriban. You want . . . uh . . . we could celebrate you too, you know. Since we missed it."
But Dustil's expression twisted, and he stepped back one more step. "Yeah. Well. I've got used to that," he said. He started to turn to go.
Aithne called after him. "Dustil." Dustil stopped, his back toward them. His every muscle was taut and tense with anger and with conflict. "Thank you," Aithne told him. "I know this was hard for you, and it means a lot to me that you told me. I would have hated to miss Mission's birthday."
"I walked across a floor," Dustil sneered. "Besides, Vao was practically dripping in her breakfast cereal. Put me right off my synth slop. Or would've done, if the way it looked and smelled hadn't done that already."
"Next year, for your birthday," Carth added. "We'll do something special. Just the two of us."
Dustil scoffed. "Don't make promises you can't keep." Then he paused, and halfway turned back to them. "From what I can see, we'll probably all be dead next year."
It was a dark but genuine attempt to soften, and Carth actually laughed at the joke. "Yeah. Well. If we're not."
"If we're not," Dustil echoed. Just the corner of his mouth twitched. "Look, I have to go. I'm probably missing some early midmorning lecture from Bindo over all the ways the Sith have screwed me up. See you later." He walked away, and Carth watched him go.
"Well, how about that," he murmured. "How about that? Dustil's been at Mission's throat since he first got here. I'm glad he finally found some empathy."
Aithne opened her mouth, then decided to let Carth have the moment. Dustil had done well. It had been hard for him, and his own psychological backlash to it would likely have him making nasty insinuations about Mission's parents or her likely future this afternoon. But a win was a win, and worth celebrating.
At any rate, Dustil was right about Mission this morning. "You stay here with the kids this morning," Aithne told Carth. "Juhani and Jolee can stay with you. When we land, Z, Bas, and I will head out and scout around Anchorhead to pick up some supplies. We'll see if we can't reserve a room for the crew for tonight. Whether Mish feels like it or not this morning, we can remind her we care about her. It's not every day a girl turns fifteen."
A light flickered, and a soft chime sounded. Carth swung around into his seat and began the sequence to take them out of hyperspace. Bas also sat down and started to calibrate their approach vector and incoming velocity to assist him. Carth could do it on his own, but she did make him faster. Aithne strapped into the seat by the navicomputer for the transition. Out the front viewport, the whiteness of hyperspace blinked away, replaced by Tatooine's double solar system. The two suns locked in their gravitational dance blazed balefully even through Hawk's radiation filters. Tatooine gleamed beneath, sparkling through its incredibly sparse cloud cover. There was hardly any water on Tatooine to evaporate into a cloud.
Aithne surveyed the planet as they approached nearer and nearer. She didn't relish the time ahead. She had been to Tatooine on occasion to make a report to a sidelined Hutt or two. She hadn't enjoyed the experience. Revan had just about got it right. A blistering hot dustball that left everyone on it tired, dirty, and gritty. There were people who tried to mine the planet for its resources, but the business wasn't cost effective when you considered equipment upkeep in the sands and employee turnover. Smart people left Tatooine if they had the choice.
She didn't really think Tatooine was the right kind of backdrop for a teenage birthday party, either, but unfortunately, the kind of venues they would be able to find in Anchorhead probably would feel like home to Mission.
They waited until Carth brought Ebon Hawk safely into orbit at the right vector for a landing in Anchorhead. When gravity had shifted sufficiently to make walking around the ship a viable option, Aithne unbuckled. "Hey," Carth called. He brought out a credit chit from one of the Jacket of Doom's many pockets. "When you're picking up the supplies, get Mission something from me," he said.
Aithne pocketed the money. "We will," she promised. "And it's sweet of you to think of it."
"No, I care about her," Onasi said. "And she deserves it. I don't . . . I don't figure Mission's had a lot of birthday celebrations in her life. Make it a good one, hey?"
"Carth, I assume you can handle the landing from here?" Bastila asked. Without waiting for an answer, she rose from her seat and fell into step with Aithne, leaving the cockpit. Aithne guessed Bas wasn't heading back to the dorms to kit out for recon on the planet. It'd be another two hours and more before they were on the ground and had completed the necessary landing checks and hails to port control. So she wasn't surprised when Bas led her to the cargo hold instead of the dorm.
"What's up?" Aithne asked her.
Bastila hesitated. Through their bond, Aithne felt she didn't want to broach the topic she felt she must. "I wanted to return to the Star Map. I sensed . . . I sensed you were not wholly forthcoming with us about your experience of the vision."
Aithne hadn't felt Bastila prying in her head—Aithne realized this would be more routine Jedi awareness of deception than intentional eavesdropping on Bastila's part. She also sensed Bastila was opening a door, more inviting a confidence than demanding one. She peered down at the younger woman, considering. "I never tell you my whole experience of our visions of Revan," she answered. "Could you tell me why that is?"
Bastila shivered. Aithne saw it. She didn't answer, but Aithne nodded. Bastila knew.
"There's something you've wanted to tell me," Aithne said slowly. "Maybe ever since the first time we touched down on Dantooine, but I think it more likely that you changed your mind much more recently. But the Council's told you to keep it secret, and maybe that the only way to save me is to keep it secret. Otherwise, you could answer every unanswered question I have ever had about our recent adventures, as well as explain the dreams I had months before we even met.
"You could tell me why our so-called visions really seem to me much more like someone else's memories. I could tell you that these visions come very differently to me than they do to you, but I think you know that too, as well as the real reason we share them to begin with."
Bastila had gone very, very pale. Her face seemed frozen. But all at once, Aithne felt a flare of courage and faith from her, and she nodded, too. "I do know," she confirmed. "I am under orders not to speak of this to you. You are right: the Council believes that if you knew the truth, it would only lead to your downfall, and to the downfall of the entire galaxy as we know it. I once believed this as well, but lately, I have not been so convinced. Certainly, I have long been aware that continuing this charade between us has only ever strained our bond within the Force, whatever the Council has insisted. Indeed, I fear our lies and half-truths have posed a risk to your standing within the Light that we never intended. I will insult you no further. I will tell you all. Soon. And I hope that upon that day, you will justify my faith in you. Until then, I can only beg you to trust me, Aithne. Please. Just a little further."
Aithne looked into Bastila's face. She wished she could say she was unsurprised. But it was like she had known it all for months. Bastila's confirmation was just one of the final pieces of the puzzle. The visions of Revan were Aithne's—Aithne's and not hers and Bastila's. There was something funny about them, something significant about why Bastila received their echo and why Aithne had dreamed of Bastila for weeks before they had met. It was the reason why the Jedi had recruited Aithne, the reason why the Sith wanted to kill her. There was a reason why the Jedi needed her so badly but were terrified of her very shadow, a reason why her fate seemed bound to Revan. And Bastila knew all of it.
It was as though she could feel the last vestiges of Aithne Moran burning away. Aithne swallowed. Her eyes stung. "It is in a cave on Tatooine," she whispered. "Protected from the elements but far out in the dunes. There was a krayt dragon close nearby when Revan was there."
Bastila watched her. "Do you . . . do you remember anything else?" she asked. Aithne could tell she was nervous, but she was keeping calm.
Aithne looked down. "I remember how she felt about the planet—all of it, from her strategic assessment to her Force sense. I remember how she felt and what she knew about the places surrounding every Star Map in every 'vision' we've ever seen. And I remember other things—things she was thinking about while she visited them. For instance, I know she didn't order the destruction of Telos. She wanted to take it instead. Use it as an agricultural producer, use the hyperlane, the Force Sensitives. She fought Malak over it. It's how he lost his jaw—and I think what destroyed any remnants of the friendship between them."
Aithne didn't explain who she was. She didn't need to. "I remember who she was. I remember how she thought. And I remember that by the end—she was just tired. She slew your master as a matter of course, but when she looked at you, she wanted to spare your life. She almost admired you, almost pitied you, so she wanted to take you, just like Telos. And I remember that when Malak fired on the ship and she was hurt, you looked down and didn't know what to do. Because she saw you, and I remember. I've seen that over and over and over, far more often than I've ever shared a dream with you."
Her stomach churned, and her mouth felt dry. Saying it aloud made it real in a way nothing had done so far. She had dreams of Revan's life. And as she watched Bastila's face and the emotions pulsed between them, she knew: the memories were real, too. With every step they took upon their journey, Aithne felt again what Revan had felt, once upon a time.
Bastila studied her, wary. "And what do you think about that?" she asked, very carefully.
Aithne didn't answer for a moment. "I don't know what to think of it," she said finally, "and everything that does occur to me is bad. Look, if you don't think it's safe to tell me what happened on that bridge or how I ended up with some of Revan's memories—brain patterns that can occasionally fool a computer into recognizing as hers—"
"Excuse me?" Bastila interjected. Her eyes widened.
Aithne waved her hand, impatient. "She installed security on the map down in the Shadowlands. It recognized me at first, then rejected me, but then decided I was Revan again—or enough like her to let me access the map then recalibrate to my patterns."
"It rejected you?" Bastila looked both surprised and relieved.
Aithne didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She spread her hands, helpless. "I'm not Revan," she said. Her voice broke. The reason for Bastila's surprise was all too obvious. "Am I supposed to be? Is that why the Jedi were surprised when I wanted to become a Consular? When I was most qualified to be a Jedi Consular? Because Liat Ser'rida was a Guardian?"
Bastila sank to sit on an empty storage crate. "Liat," she repeated. Her voice was faint. "Where did you hear that name?"
Aithne sighed. She seemed to be telling Bastila everything this morning. "I went looking for who the Sith might be thinking I was. Your answer to my exorbitant bounty didn't work for me. I found Liat Ser'rida in my research. She didn't seem like she fit the bill. I thought she was a ghost; died unable to be identified early on or deserted. But she was big enough in the planning stages of the Revanchism that I figured she might make a decent alias for a rogue Force user back on Korriban when I needed to get into the academy. Turned out no, Liat Ser'rida went missing during the war because she gave up her name to be Revan. I adopted the name of the woman who seems to be psychically stalking me across the galaxy on a whim. Is there a reason I did that, too?"
Bastila was silent. Aithne closed her eyes. Two tears did escape then, burning tracks down her face to her throat. "Just . . . tell me," Aithne choked, "I'm not going to disappear, am I? Revan's not going to take me over somehow?" Her voice broke apart as she voiced it: the fear that had been lurking in the back of her mind since Kashyyyk.
A torrent of emotion suddenly flooded over her bond from Bastila: Pity, compassion, and ferocity, all blended together. Bastila gripped her shoulders, and Aithne opened her eyes to find Bas standing before her. "No," she said, and the single word was a declaration. "In the end, who you become will be your choice, Aithne. Vrook said to the Council when they were debating training you that he feared your training could lead to the Dark Lord's return. It may."
Aithne flinched, but Bastila held her all the tighter.
"If you choose to embrace Revan's heritage," she continued, slowly and clearly, "the Revan who arises will not be the Revan that was past. It will be you. You will determine whether you follow in Revan's footsteps or not; you will determine whether you fall to the Dark Side or continue to walk in the Light. You will decide what your identity will come to mean. Revan's shadow is upon you. That is true, and so it will always be. When you learn the truth, you will understand. But I do not think it need be a doom, and the Council never intended it to be so. We—I—all of us want this journey to be your chance to find freedom in the Force, and to free us all."
Aithne gazed at her partner. Bastila wasn't lying. She wasn't trying to be tricky, to misdirect or confuse Aithne at all. She wasn't telling the whole truth, but everything she was saying was truth. Aithne could sense it. Aithne gestured to her head, wanting to make sure. "It's just me in here?"
"Just you," Bastila promised, and even hugged her. "I can—I will explain the dreams, the memories. For now, understand them as . . . echoes. Merely echoes, that you are uniquely gifted to receive for us, and able to share in a muted form with me. Revan has no place in your mind that you do not give her. You can . . . don her, if you wish, like the mask of the Mandalorian. You will always have that ability. But you, you are like Liat Ser'rida, before Cathar. Before she made the choice to become the banner for the Revanchists or turn to the Dark Side. Revan . . . doesn't exist. She is a choice."
Aithne breathed in, and felt like some constricting vise had been removed from her chest. The relief was actually physical. Better still, Bastila's explanationmade sense according to what Aithne had been experiencing. She hadn't beenexperiencing Revan's thoughts in her head, the intrusion of anyone's wishes but her had been disturbed in the Shadowlands to learn she had thoughts so similar to Revan's, but they had been her thoughts. On Korriban, she had learned she could lead the weak excuses for Sith that Uthar's academy had been turning out very easily. She had found out that she could fall to the Dark Side as easily as she fell into a sleep. But each action she had taken had also been her own. It remained to be seen why she could access these echoes of Revan, but Bastila's assertion that Aithne wasn't actually in any danger of some kind of necromantic possession by the dead Sith Lord felt true in a way that none of her old sidesteps and reasoning had used to. And it was comforting, too, to feel she could believe Bastila when she spoke, to for once feel a beautiful absence of any horrible catch or hidden truth beneath her fellow Jedi's words.
Revan is a choice.
Aithne had known as long as she could remember that Revan was essentially a constructed persona, built for a purpose. People named their babies "Justice" or "Faith"; the fifteen-year-old on Aithne's boat was actually named "Mission," and didn't that get confusing sometimes! But no one, no one actually went out and called a kid "Reconquer." Zhar had reminded her once again during her training that there had been a person beneath the mask of the Mandalorian dissenter; on Korriban, Aithne had accidentally stumbled right over her. But Liat Ser'rida was well on her way to irrelevancy, while Revan was a household name. People talked about Revan's deeds, who Revan was. The pseudonym wasn't the person, though. It was a mask in its own right.
Aithne didn't know why she somehow seemed uniquely situated to take up that mask if she so chose. Why it was that she stood in Revan's shadow and could access these echoes Bastila referred to. She didn't know how Bastila was connected. But just knowing that in the end it would be her choice, that she wasn't doomed to disappear or be taken over—it was immensely freeing. A dark dread that had been hanging over her for weeks seemed to dissolve.
Oh, she understood what the Jedi dreaded, too. Whatever her connection to Revan's shade was, she understood now that she could take up Revan's mantle, that this was the terrible end themost pessimistic members of the Council had seen to training her. She could become the Sith Lord Reborn, if she wanted. But just knowing that she could do it herself, in and of herself, was a tremendous gift.
She laid her own hands over Bastila's on her shoulders, accepting the embrace. "Thank you," she said, fervently. "Thank you."
"Of course," Bastila said. "You should have come to me with this much sooner. I could have helped you."
"I—"
Bastila squeezed her hands. "I know why you did not," she promised. "But believe me when I say:It has only ever been my wish to help you."
Again, Aithne sensed no lie in Bastila, and looking down into the younger woman's face, she got a flash of that other Bastila, the Bastila from her dreams, looking down at the mortally wounded Sith who had just slain her master and feeling compassion for that Sith—compassion, mixed with doubt.
"Manaan," Bastila decided then, squeezing her once more and releasing her at last. "Regardless of the Council's orders, when we touch down on Manaan, I will tell you what you must know."
Aithne realized Bastila was anticipating a final Star Map vision before the landing on Manaan, that she was timing her great revelation not by Aithne's needs but by the galaxy's. But she also understood it was a grace, a concession, and she nodded, accepting it.
"What will you take to Tatooine?" she asked.
Bastila smiled. "It will be wonderful to leave the ship for a while," she said. "Aside from our stays on Dantooine, since Taris I have only spent a few short hours off Ebon Hawk back on Kashyyyk. Tatooine is a misery of a world, yet to me, it will feel almost like a holiday. Still. I would recommend a long-sleeved garment in a color that will reflect instead of absorb the heat of the suns, as well as keep out as much sand as possible. We should not need to hide our lightsabers or identities here—the Sith presence is negligible. There is a Czerka outpost in Anchorhead, however. I would prefer you not wipe them off the face of the map."
Aithne grinned. "You're no fun," she teased, and went to get ready.