The trip to Kashyyyk was short, just a day's trip across expansion space to the edge of the mid-rim from Manaan's location just on the fringes of inner-rim space. Seth spent much of the time recounting the events of Ahto City and the Hrakrt Rift to Carth, sitting cross-legged in the co-pilot's seat as the Republic Captain kept his eyes on the autopilot console navigating the Ebon Hawk through hyperspace.

"Glad to see the Jedi didn't break your soldier's spirit," Carth mused, chuckling. "I wasn't sure what to expect on your first mission as a member of the Order, but perhaps you're still a member of the fleet at heart."

Seth nodded. "When I was down there with the poison canister in my hand… I don't know. All I could think about was the effect it would have on the war effort. If I hadn't spent years in the military, I don't think I'd have felt so strongly about it."

Carth reached out to clap him on the shoulder, giving an almost paternal squeeze. "That was the right decision, Seth. The Republic is in sore need of people willing to take the harder path in order to serve the greater needs of the fleet itself. I'm proud of you."

Seth's words caught in his throat at that last part, warmth spreading from his chest to his toes as he smiled. "Thanks…sir."

"Seth." Carth's tone was laced with a blunt reminder of the dropped formalities between captain and soldier.

"Thanks, Carth," the younger man amended, and he glanced down at his boots. "It really means a lot to hear you say that."

"Ah, well. Don't let it go to your head, kid. But you deserve a little praise every once in a while. Though it seems like your friend from the Academy used to give that to you quite a bit, back in the day." Carth's tone carried a note of amusement, and Seth felt a blush burning at his cheeks.

The younger man gave a short, nervous laugh. "Yeah. She was pretty… uh… pretty encouraging back at the Academy."

"Must've been nice to see her."

Seth nodded. "Oh, yeah. I mean, the circumstances were a little odd. The last time I saw her was on the Endar Spire's loading ramp when we were… well, when we had something. And now, I'm a Jedi, and she's got something going on with an ex-Sith, and I…" he trailed off sheepishly, unsure how to really evaluate the state of his relationship now that he and Mission were approaching their friendship differently.

"Seth, just because you and Mission are taking things slowly doesn't mean your feelings for her are invalidated."

He shrugged. "I know. I just keep thinking about what Drea said when she told me about Trevin – that she'd fallen in love with him. And I don't think I'm there yet. There hasn't been any universe-shattering sensation with Mission, and I think that might come down the road, but right now? If you fall in love, then I think I'm still in the falling process. Getting to know her, seeing if she's the one, learning all of her quirks. It hasn't hit me yet. But I also don't want to miss that moment. What if we're so busy chasing down Malak and trying to right everything that's wrong in this galaxy that I miss it?"

Carth chuckled. "You won't. When I fell for Morgana, it all happened in an instant – like everything was clear and vibrant for the first time. It wasn't an extraordinary moment. She was planting flowers in her parents' garden back on Telos the first time she took me to meet them, and I was watching her mold the soil around the base of the stem of a bright red one, and it just… hit me."

Seth leaned forward a bit. "Why'd it happen then, do you think?"

Carth had a distant look in his eye as he answered. "I don't know exactly. I think seeing her take care of this living thing so gently and kindly… I really could see a future with her. I could see how much more gently and kindly she'd be with our kids – and with Dustil, she was."

"Dustil?"

Carth sighed, a pained expression crossing his face. When he glanced back up at Seth, the younger man noticed deep hurt in his Captain's eyes. "My son."

The Jedi's mind flashed back to the bar on Taris, where Carth had briefly mentioned losing his family to the war, and Seth's breath caught in his throat as he connected the dots. "I…" Seth swallowed hard. "I'm sorry, sir."

Carth held up a hand to cut the boy off, his jaw taut. "It's fine. I just… why don't you check on Mission out in the hold? I'll call you up when we reach the Kashyyyk system."

Seth didn't need to be told to get lost twice, and he nodded curtly before standing up and retreating from the cockpit. Once in the hold, he was met, oddly enough, by the sight of Bastila and Mission leaning over Pazaak cards splayed out across the holotable. He strolled up next to Juhani, who was watching closely. "Who's winning?"

"It's tied at two," Juhani replied, her tones laced with humor. "So, as you can imagine, it's very tense."

"Are they betting anything?"

"They aren't," Juhani replied slowly. "But Canderous has credits down on Mission."

"Against who?" Seth asked incredulously. "Who'd bet against Mission in Pazaak?"

"Me," the Cathar admitted.

"I still feel a bit betrayed by you, Juhani," Mission muttered as she drew a card from her side deck. "We Tarisians need to stick together."

"We Jedi need to stick together," Bastila retorted, laying down a plus-four card to bring her total to nineteen and electing to stand. Seth's eyebrows shot up at her strategy. Surprisingly, the older Jedi was pretty good, and Mission did not look confident. Stealing a peek over the Twi'lek's shoulder, he noticed that her remaining hand cards didn't offer much solace either.

"Damn, Mish-" She cut him off with a rough grab of his forearm.

"Don't. Say. Anything," she hissed through gritted teeth.

"I can't believe I'm about to lose my credits on the Jedi Princess's moves," Canderous groaned, and Seth could have sworn he saw a smirk cross Bastila's face before she returned to a classic blank Pazaak stare.

"Your faith in me is astounding as always, Canderous," Mission grumbled, her fingers straying toward the card sitting at the top of her side deck that held the fate of her match. She needed a three to match Bastila's total or a four to win.

"Hey, now. Who took you out to target practice to get you out of the funk our resident clown of a leader put you in?" Canderous defended. He glanced back up at Seth. "No offense. You're a deadly clown and that's honorable enough."

Seth frowned, glancing back at the Twi'lek. "Target practice?"

"Forget about it," Mission replied, irritated. She flipped the card over, the tiny seven printed on its face taking her card totals beyond twenty and giving the final set to Bastila. She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration as Canderous harrumphed and fished his wallet from his pocket to exchange credits with a triumphant Juhani.

"You alright?" Seth asked, moving to stand behind her sitting form and grasping her shoulders, moving his thumbs in a massaging motion.

"Mhmm," she responded, wriggling away from his touch. "And you're crossing boundaries again."

"Sorry," he said sheepishly. "This whole pretending I'm not into you thing is much easier said than done."

Mission rolled her eyes as she stood and turned about to face him. "You don't have to pretend anything. I'll be the first to admit I like you. We just have to… I don't know… learn how to be friends. We're still working on that, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," he said with a shrug. "Speaking of friends, I have a question for you."

She leaned back against the holotable, crossing her arms casually over her chest. "Shoot."

"Is Zaalbar alright? He's been quiet… quieter than usual. And earlier I asked if he wanted my leftovers from breakfast and he actually turned me down. I've never seen the guy turn down free food."

Mission shrugged. "If you haven't noticed, Big Z's not one to really talk about his problems. That's part of the reason you and I got along so well and so quickly when we met – I felt like I wasn't burdening you with my issues because you'd talk about your own. Anyway, I'm not sure exactly what the issue is, but he's really on edge about returning to Kashyyyk."

Seth frowned. "You'd think he'd be more excited to come back to his homeworld."

"From what little of his past he's told me, his homeworld hasn't been too good to him. I mean… when I think of Taris, yeah, it was a mess but it was my mess, you know? But every time Kashyyyk gets brought up, you can see the pain in Big Z's eyes. Something awful happened to him here and he probably isn't too excited to come back to it."

"D'you think he'd rather stay on the Hawk?" Seth asked. "It would be nice to have him guiding us while we're here but I don't want to cause him any more trouble."

Mission shook her head with a smile. "You're sweet to think of him, but no, he'll be fine. He's gonna want to face whatever demons await him on Kashyyyk. Just… maybe be prepared for whatever comes with it. I don't know if Big Z's gonna end up really sad, or really angry, or what, but Wookiees can be a bit of a handful when dealing with raw emotion."

Seth smiled at her. "Well, that's why you're coming along."

"Shore party again?" Mission asked, jokingly irritated. "I was looking forward to getting some down time. You know… sitting around on the Hawk, fixing up the hyperdrive in the small chance T3 made a mistake, shuffling my Pazaak deck, maybe even painting my nails!"

He laughed, shaking his head. "I mean, we always could have Canderous calm Big Z down when he gets upset."

She rolled her eyes. "Please, I don't care how tough the Mandalorians are, Zaalbar would snap his neck. Canderous isn't exactly attuned to the emotional state of the people around him."

"Except when they need target practice, right?" Seth noticed he'd hit a nerve as soon as she stiffened at his words.

"We're not talking about that right now."

"Why not? We're trying to be friends right?" he countered. "Friends talk about stuff."

The crackling of the Ebon Hawk's on-board intercom cut off any retort Mission may have had to offer, and Carth's voice filtered through the speaker. "Brace yourselves for system entry."

"Saved by the bell," Mission said, smirking up at him. The ship lurched in that moment as it dropped out of hyperspace, and Seth and Mission struggled to keep their footing, grasping onto one another in the process. The young Jedi glanced down at the Twi'lek girl in his arms for a moment before she sheepishly gathered herself and pulled away. "Come on," she said, refusing to make eye contact. "It's time for the city kids to see what a real forest looks like."

Seth smiled after her as she motioned for him to follow her to the cockpit. There still was no gravity-defying moment like Carth had explained, but the idea of learning to love Mission Vao while tackling the challenges Kashyyyk had to throw at them was becoming more and more appealing to him by the minute.

Darth Bandon took a breath before opening the doors that led onto the bridge of the Leviathan. For his Master to cut short his daily, grueling training regimen without any further instructions other than to meet him at the helm of the flagship meant that the Dark Lord had an assignment for him – something he didn't think Malak would hand over to him so quickly after his failure to capture the Jedi aboard the Endar Spire.

Saul Karath's broad-shouldered frame was distinguishable even from Bandon's distance, standing a head shorter than Malak at the very end of the bridge, head bowed before the Dark Lord as the taller man stared out into the vast expanse of space. Malak waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal, and Karath nodded once before turning on heel in military fashion and marching back in Bandon's direction. He eyed the Sith apprentice warily as the two passed one another at the bridge's midpoint, and Bandon simply scoffed. Malak's fleet admiral may have had authority over every soldier within the Sith armada, but that didn't mean Bandon owed him any sort of respect.

The apprentice's boots clicked against the black durasteel flooring as he approached Malak, and as soon as he was within a few meters of the Dark Lord, the apprentice dropped to one knee, head bowed before his Master. Bandon took a deep breath, swallowing hard at the waves of pure darkness he felt rolling off Malak through the Force.

"Rise, Darth Bandon." His voice was modulated and mechanical through the prosthetic plate covering his lower jaw, and the gruff, electronic edge only served to increase his intimidating presence. Bandon obeyed, standing tall and proud before Malak.

"What do you ask of me, my Master?" Bandon fought to hide the excitement trembling in his voice at the prospect of being sent out for a task to further prove his trustworthiness to the Dark Lord.

"As expected, Admiral Karath's bounty hunter failed to apprehend Bastila and her allies. While allowing him to hire Calo Nord further cemented in Karath's mind the illusion that he maintains any sort of control in this power structure, it did cost us valuable time in stopping the Jedi. I'd like you to clean up Nord's mess. Try to take Bastila and the young boy alive, if possible. What you do with the rest is of no consequence to me."

"Yes, my Master. I shall leave at once."

"No." Malak's words cut through the silence like a lightsaber through plasteel, and Bandon was caught off-balance for a moment.

"I-I'm sorry, my lord?" he stuttered.

"You're going to be facing two of the most powerful Force-users in the galaxy. They may still be learning how to control such power, but nonetheless, they are dangerous."

"They're children, my lord," Bandon reasoned, the thought of his fate lying in the hands of a sixteen and a twenty-three-year-old utterly absurd to him.

"They're savants," Malak retorted. "And I trust that you don't hesitate to accept my judgment, Bandon?"

The apprentice paused for a moment, then sighed heavily. "No, my Master."

"Increase your training regimen. I want you primed and dangerous when you face them. For what they may have on you in terms of power, you will have on them in terms of discipline."

"Yes, my lord."

Malak turned away, and Bandon recognized it as his cue to leave. He spun on heel, boots clicking against the floor once again as he headed back toward the door at the end of the bridge.

"Bandon."

The apprentice stopped. "Yes, my lord?"

"Don't question my judgment again. You are no less replaceable than your predecessor was."

Bandon held back a sigh and calmed his raging emotions so that Malak couldn't read his anger. "Yes, my lord."

Seth pulled his spacer's jacket tighter around himself as he followed Bastila and Carth down the loading ramp of the Ebon Hawk. He hadn't expected the chill in the air, though he supposed it only made sense that the Wookiees had adapted to a cooler environment and as a result had earned the nickname "walking carpets." He cast a sweeping look of his surroundings as he set foot on the landing pad, awestruck at the thick wroshyr tree trunks and branches that jutted up from the ground miles below and extended above him beyond his line of sight.

He glanced over at Mission, who was eyeing the native fauna with just about as much wonder as he had been. "Pretty different, huh?" he noted.

She nodded. "I don't think I ever once saw a living plant on Taris, but this more than makes up for it."

Seth's green eyes moved from his Twi'lek companion and back to the trees towering around him in every direction. "Reminds me of Coruscant, if all the lights were off. These trees are like skyscrapers."

"Probably a lot taller and older than any skyscraper you've seen, kid," Canderous replied with a chuckle.

The boy inhaled deeply, closing his eyes as he took in the woodsy scent of the forest. "Smells nicer, too. It smells… clean." He turned back to Zaalbar, who was trailing behind at the back of the group, a few steps behind. "Probably a lot better than that Tarisian pollution, eh Big Z?"

"[Don't be fooled,]" Zaalbar growled bitterly. "[This place is just as polluted by outsiders as I'd left it.]"

"You consider outsiders pollution?" Seth asked with raised eyebrows. "Does that include us?"

"[I don't wish to offend you, Seth, but our ways, our world, is not for you to know. If your map were not on my planet's surface, I'd have asked you not to walk among our trees. Let's just get what we came for, and go.]"

"Seth," Mission cautioned with a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Leave him be."

"Your Wookiee doesn't sound happy," a passing Czerka dock worker noted. "I'd keep him on a tighter leash if I were you."

"[My people are not to be leashed like animals!]" Zaalbar roared in response. Seth's eyes widened in alarm at the uncharacteristic outburst of anger from the typically stoic Wookiee.

"Z-Zaalbar's not a slave, sir," Seth recovered quickly, moving a hand to pat the Wookiee on the shoulder before withdrawing it according to his better judgment.

The Czerka worker's eyes narrowed. "First time I've seen a free Wookiee outside his village. He travels with you of his own free will?"

"He's a friend," Carth put forward. "Not that you Czerka folk would understand. Hard to befriend a species you enslave for profit."

The Czerka worker put his hands up defensively. "I just manage the docks, sir. But befriending the Wookiees is what has gotten us our regular supply. The local chieftain, Chuundar, trades his people in exchange for weapons. It's quite the friendship for Czerka corp."

"[I didn't want to hear that name again,]" Zaalbar growled, and the dock worker took a step back.

"Look, as much as I enjoy standing around and talking with offworlders who've befriended an agitated Wookiee, I really have some work to do. Good day." He scurried off, perhaps a bit too rushed in his attempt to put as much distance between himself and Zaalbar as possible, as Mission turned toward her friend.

"Big Z, you know this 'Chuundar' guy?" she asked gently.

"[He is… my brother,]" the Wookiee growled resignedly. "[And he's as devious as ever, it seems. Though… if he's taken over as chieftain, then something's happened to my father. I must return to my village.]"

"Zaalbar, as much as we'd love to help you with your family, don't forget the reason we came here," Bastila reasoned. "If we don't find the Star Map, and by extension the Star Forge, Kashyyyk's going to have bigger trouble on its hands than Czerka."

Zaalbar emitted the Wookiee equivalent of a sigh and shook his head. "[You don't understand. This problem isn't new. I discovered Chuundar's deals with the slave traders years ago, attacked him with my claws and had my honor stripped from me. I should have reported the issue, and instead I attacked like an animal. If things have gotten worse in my exile… they're my fault. I need to do what I must to fix it.]"

Mission placed a comforting hand on her friend's forearm. "We'll get you in there, Big Z."

"Mission, that's… that's not your call, kid," Canderous said uneasily.

"Damn right, it's not!" Bastila agreed. "We aren't trying to antagonize either of you, but time is of the essence and right now, the Star Map is simply a higher priority."

Mission's fist clenched and Seth reached to take hold of her wrist as the young woman gritted her teeth. She snapped her head to look at him and anger flashed in chestnut-brown eyes. "Easy," he breathed, his thumb tracing gentle circles across her hand as she relaxed her fist. He turned to the others. "According to Bastila and I's shared visions, the Star Map's on the forest floor. We're gonna need the help of the Wookiees in Zaalbar's village to get down there."

Bastila pursed her lips, thinking over the proposed course of action. With a sigh, she nodded. "We're not stopping any longer than necessary," she cautioned. "Zaalbar, you know these forests. Lead the way."

Mission laced her fingers with Seth's and squeezed gently as the Wookiee brushed past both of them to take point. "Thank you," she whispered.

Seth smiled. "You don't need to thank me. Zaalbar's a member of our crew. We help one another out."

"Oh, Seth." She stood up on her tiptoes to brush her lips gently across his jawline before pulling her hand from his grasp and moving to follow the rest of the party, tossing a coy glance over her shoulder at the young man still rooted in place. "We both know you didn't do that for just Zaalbar."

As much as he wanted to argue against that point and claim that it had been fully driven by the goodness of his heart, the dryness in his mouth and the speed of his heart thudding against the inside of his chest affirmed what Mission had already claimed. He was instantly brought back to his earlier conversation with Carth.

He was falling, and falling hard, for Mission Vao. And while he still hadn't had that all-knowing moment yet, Seth realized in that moment that he didn't want to sit and wait for it to happen. For now, as he raced across the wooden platforms to catch up with the group, he resolved to enjoy the process that led up to the moment when he could claim that he'd fallen completely for her.

If only he knew how soon, sudden, and jarring that moment was about to be.