Chapter Twenty-Five
"I can't believe you let him run off like that."
Bastila's eyes were rolling before Carth even finished his sentence, and she gripped the hilt of her lightsaber tightly to avoid a very un-Jedi-like outburst. The tenets of the Jedi Code that she'd been repeating to herself dissolved to gibberish in her mind, and she reached deep into her memory in an attempt to retrieve the single phrase that she'd struggled to implement her whole life: "There's no emotion," she whispered to herself, "there is peace."
"No emotion? None at all?" Jolee responded, dry humor evident in his tone of voice. "I don't need the Force to identify the whirlwind of emotion you've been in since we met."
Bastila bit back an angry retort for the sole purpose of refusing to prove Jolee right. "I retain my power to command that whirlwind and act reasonably," she responded slowly.
"Reasonably?" Carth snapped. "How reasonable is it to let a… a boy go off to start a rebellion alone?"
"He's not a child, Carth. And he's not alone."
"He sure as hell is a child, Bastila!" the Republic captain growled. "He's sixteen!"
"So when he took up a rifle to defend the Republic as a soldier of your Republic Navy, was he just a child then, too? What about that situation made his age irrelevant?"
"Sixteen is the navy-wide accepted age for activation as a soldier for active duty," Carth muttered quietly, trying to ignore the fact that he wasn't exactly winning the argument. "But we don't send them off on their own to lead their own missions and get themselves killed."
"No, they're just used as cannon fodder for the front lines," Bastila snapped back, her tone of voice venomous. "And regardless of what you may believe, Carth, Seth is a leader on this quest. He's young, and he isn't perfect, but he's capable. The masters of the council, in all their wisdom, could see that in him. I find it odd that his mentor can't."
Carth opened and closed his mouth, unsure of how to respond but feeling very much like he'd lost all ground in the argument. Bastila's demeanor changed, then, as she relaxed her shoulders and placed a gentle hand on Carth's forearm.
"That boy looks up to you more than anyone," she told Carth quietly. "And what he needs from you most right now is not for you to protect him. What he needs is for you to believe in him."
"But if something happens to him while he's up there… if he makes some mistake and gets himself killed…"
"We put our lives on the line every day for this mission. But we do it because we need to. And we need to because the council saw something in us, saw something in him, that led them to believe that this quest had its best chance for success with us. Believe in that, Carth."
He finally looked up at her, whiskey colored eyes locking with grey and holding the gaze for a silent moment. "Okay," he said.
"Okay?" she repeated, gently, as if asking if there was more he wanted to say. There was, but nothing he really felt like unpacking now, with the trees towering around them and the never-ending din of forest noise and Jolee's nonchalant observance of the entire conversation.
"Okay," he confirmed.
Bastila nodded, withdrawing her hand from his arm and making a motion to Jolee to lead the way forward. She glanced back at Carth as they began to trek onward, her brows knotting a bit before she spoke, "And Carth, don't think for a moment that Seth is simply a pawn in this plan to save the galaxy. I'd like to protect him from anything that may happen to him just as much, if not more than you do. But unfortunately, beyond me, beyond the fighting forces of the Republic and the Jedi… he is our only hope."
The deafening crack of a low-hanging wroshyr branch being snapped from its trunk echoed through the clearing as the terentatek swung from the tree to the space just in front of the two feuding Mandalorians, its weight heavy enough to break the tree's thick limb right off. The terentatek hurled said branch at its prey, and Canderous and Tal dove in opposite directions, just narrowly evading the projectile.
Tal growled as he scrambled behind cover, directing a glare at Canderous as he gripped his pistols tighter. "Did you lure this thing here to kill us all?!"
Canderous couldn't have rolled his eyes harder if he'd tried. "I'm clever on the battlefield, not crazy!" he defended. "Besides, your man is the one that led me here!" He popped out from cover to squeeze off a few rounds at the beast, snarling as he realized that the blaster bolts merely bounced off the terentatek's thick hide.
Tal prepared to lean out from cover to do the same, but Canderous motioned for him to stay back. Clan Vizsla's representative turned a furious gaze on the Ordo. "Do not assume that the honor of this kill is yours to be claimed, besom."
Canderous bristled at the Mandalorian insult. "Ori'buyce, kih'kovid," he muttered in his native tongue under his breath before addressing Tal. "It's no use straight-shooting at it," he explained. "It's got armored hide. We're gonna have to take this thing down another way."
"So we find a weak spot, blast the hell out of it," Tal replied with a shrug, peeking out from cover to send a few shots toward the beast. Much like Canderous expected, they ricocheted off in different directions.
"Damn it, or'dinii, we have to work together!" he shouted.
It seemed that Tal was about to respond with a snide retort, but in that moment Canderous watched his rival's eyes widen as the terentatek reached across to the chaos of the Mandalorian ranks and pick up Bolen with one hand. Canderous and Tal could only watch in horror as the beast shook the Vizsla guide about for a moment before hurling his body across the clearing, where he hit the massive trunk of a wroshyr tree with a sickening thud and crumpled lifelessly to the ground.
It was as if Canderous could literally see Tal's heart sinking as he dropped to the ground and turned about, pressing his back into the cover of the rock he'd been hiding behind and heaving a breath so shaky that Canderous could see his shoulders shaking even from several meters away. "I hope you have a plan," the Vizsla clansman said unevenly.
Clan Ordo's warrior glanced around the corner of his cover to see the terentatek's massive jaw hanging open as it let loose a furious roar and turned toward the rest of Clan Vizsla's fighting force, and oddly enough he remembered swapping stories in the cargo hold with Mission of the various adventures they'd had on Taris before joining up together. And suddenly, he saw himself not in the Shadowlands, but in the sewer passage leading up to the Black Vulkar base. And he saw not a raging terentatek, but a guardian rancor. And he grinned devilishly.
"Yeah. I've got a plan."
Seth could tell they were getting closer to the top of the forest simply by the viscosity of the air he was breathing. Down in the Shadowlands, the air had been thick with humidity, but lost density with each passing minute Freyyr climbed. He marveled for a moment at the Wookiee's strength. They'd been climbing for the past hour or so, and although Zaalbar's father had slowed down since the beginning, he was still climbing consistently, hauling Seth along at nearly two hundred pounds of extra weight.
He knew the Wookiee race had longer-than-average life spans, but part of him wondered just how relatively old Freyyr was in comparison with most of his people. Whatever his age, with the level of ease he was exerting physically, it didn't show. Aside from the grey of his fur and the slight rasp to his roar, Freyyr could have easily have been mistaken for one of the young Wookiee hunters that often roamed the Shadowlands.
The first thought that crossed Seth's mind as he considered Freyyr's athleticism for his age was that he wanted to be that physically capable when he was a father. And then he nearly laughed at how ludicrous the thought was. Most sixteen year-olds in the galaxy hardly deigned to think about when they'd become parents, unless they'd already happened to do so, often by accident. And here he was, a soldier-Jedi with a dangerous lifestyle and bound by oath and code, thinking about the impossible future of starting a family he'd never have. It saddened him, just a little. He'd grown up without a family, and it looked like he was destined to never have one.
Then again, with no father in the picture to have set an example, Seth was sure he'd make a pretty terrible father, anyway.
It was only when Freyyr climbed over the railing and onto one of the wooden walkways leading back to Rwookrrorro that Seth was shaken from his trance. He hopped down from the Wookiee's back, cracking knuckles that had gone stiff from gripping onto Freyyr's shoulders for so long. "Thanks for that," Seth told him, nodding downward at the expanse of forest below them and realizing that in comparison to the feat the elder Wookiee had just pulled on his behalf, his gratitude was rather poorly expressed.
It seemed to have translated well enough, however, and Freyyr simply waved the sentiment off, his focus entirely on retaking his village. "[Are you ready?]" he asked.
Seth's hand went to his utility belt to unclip the lightsaber hilt that hung at his hip. The familiar weight in his palm felt comforting as he gripped it with purpose. "I'm ready."
"It was… well, it was somewhere around here," Jolee mumbled, ducking under a gnarled wroshyr root that had grown up and out of the ground only to curl about five feet above the forest floor and grow back down into the earth.
Bastila and Carth exchanged a worried glance. "Jolee," Carth started, "when was the last time you saw the Star Map, exactly?"
"Hmm?" he called from ahead. "Oh it was some years ago."
"Years?" Bastila repeated. "Are you sure we're close?"
He glanced back at the lady Jedi for a moment, fixing her with an incredulous stare before harrumphing and turning back to continue his search, beckoning for them to follow him under the root. "Are you questioning my memory, girl? 'Oh, the old man's half senile, he likely doesn't even remember what he ate for breakfast this morning!'"
"That's not–" she was cut off.
"The number of Wookiee hunters I've encountered who have made contact with the Star Map is more than I can count. I remember where I meet them, and where they're going, and yes, I remember where the Star Map is from the last time I visited the damn thing. And I had wasaka berry pudding this morning, by the way."
Bastila again threw a desperate glance at Carth for any other possible option other than to follow the old man, who shrugged and whispered, "We don't have much of a choice."
She moved forward, ducking underneath the root with Carth at her heels, and glanced past Jolee, who had stopped dead in his tracks. "What are we stopping for?" she asked. "There's nothing here."
"Shh!" Jolee demanded, and Bastila's hand was on her hip quicker than Carth could blink.
"Don't you –"
"Shh!" Jolee hushed again. "Do you feel that?"
She was about to retort that she didn't feel anything other than burning irritation, before she realized which sense the old man was referring to. Closing her eyes, Bastila reached out in the Force, and felt it – something gently vibrating against the wild current of life in the Shadowlands, so subtle she'd have missed it entirely had she not been so focused on it.
"Machinery," she realized aloud, and Jolee hummed in agreement. Her eyes snapped open and observed the overgrown moss ahead of them. With a snap-hiss, her lightsaber cut a golden swath through the stuff, and the tiny leaves of the plant fell to the ground to reveal the metallic durasteel of an ancient alien structure. Carth stepped forward to assist, gripping excess moss with gloved hands and tearing it from the pyramid-like construction.
By the time they'd cleared off the overgrown remnants of the forest from the Star Map, the system had begun to hum rhythmically, the durasteel warm beneath their hands. "So," Carth began conversationally. "Does this thing open up by itself, or do you need me to answer more questions about gardening?"
Bastila smiled at the quip momentarily, before her brows knotted. "I'm not sure, actually. When Seth retrieved the Star Map from Manaan, he didn't mention any security measures like the ones we encountered on Dantooine, but that doesn't mean that this one doesn't have some form of test to access the map."
"It does," Jolee warned, just as a holographic interface sprang to life next to them, casting a blue glow across the clearing around them. "But good luck getting it to work."
"Primary neural and biological scan complete," the hologram stated monotonously. "Match found."
"What? Match found?!" Jolee sputtered. "It always mentioned something about rejected patterns for me."
Bastila bit her lip, almost uneasy. "I'm not entirely sure why that would be, Jolee; however, we should consider ourselves fortunate that it seems to respond to me."
Jolee's response was faraway and absentminded as if he were already lost deep in his own thoughts: "Very interesting," he muttered.
Carth glanced between the two Force-users. If there was some unspoken matter they both were struggling to comprehend, he wasn't able to pick up on it. He coughed loudly to jolt them both out of their daze, cracking his knuckles. "Well, this Star Map isn't gonna open itself, so let's get to it!"
"He's giving up hope," Mission said quietly, eying Zaalbar from across the great hall and sighing to herself. She'd been watching for the past hour as Chuundar's words broke down her best friend's resolve, and at this point Zaalbar seemed resigned to accept whatever fate his brother had bestowed upon the Wookiees, no matter how awful that fate may have been.
T3 gave a rueful dwoooo in response, moving just slightly closer to their Wookiee companion standing at the far end of the room in what Mission could only describe as droid sympathy. She reached over to pat the astromech on its cylindrical head.
"I do not know if my attempts to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of Chuundar's followers worked, Mission," Juhani told her with a regretful sigh. "If it did, it wasn't enough to cause any sort of open rebellion."
At that very moment, the door to the throne room swung open, and Mission peered around her Czerka guards, who'd turned to face the disturbance with blasters raised. She allowed a triumphant smile to cross her features as several angry-looking Wookiees stormed in. "I think it…" her breath caught in her throat as her brown eyes caught a very familiar pair of green ones, "…worked," she finished, not breaking the gaze she held with the young man accompanying the Wookiee mob.
In that moment, she wondered if there'd ever be a day that Seth Avery stopped surprising her.
Today, of course, wasn't that day.
There were dozens of questions on the tip of Mission's tongue that she ached to know the answers to, but as the graying leader of the group of Wookiees approached the chieftain at the head of the hall, she realized that it would be some time before she got to ask them. As if he could tell just how bewildered she was in the moment, Seth gave her a subtle wink and knowing smile before stepping up next to the Wookiee leader to face Chuundar.
She was prepared for Seth and this new Wookiee to put Chuundar in his place and wipe out his Czerka goons, but when Zaalbar's eyes widened and he breathed "[Father?]", Mission resigned to quit having expectations of any sort as to how this was going to play out.
"[Now, human, I help you make your way down to the Shadowlands to retrieve the artifact you came here for and ask for one simple task to be completed in return… and yet the Wookiee I sent you to kill stands before me, in my throne room, very much alive,]" Chuundar sighed, his high-and-mighty tone enough to make Mission want to walk over and slap the superiority right out of him.
"Sorry," Seth drawled, his tone dripping with malice. "I figured any respectable leader wouldn't send someone to kill his own father, and assumed this must have been some sort of mistake. I simply brought Freyyr here so you could work things out. Ideally with the end result of the clan returning to its rightful and proper chain of command."
"[What is the meaning of this?]" Zaalbar roared. "[Chuundar, is what he says true? Did you send my friends to murder our father?]"
"[Father went mad long ago,]" Chuundar defended, his demeanor calm, as far as Mission could tell from Wookiee expressions. "[This is but a shell of who he was.]"
"[Hush, Chuundar!]" Freyyr roared. "[I think my son knows madness when he sees it, and the true madness is in your alliance with these slavers!]"
"[Why would Zaalbar accept your word as truth, Father? After all, it was you who wrongly judged him mad and exiled him years ago!]"
"[Quiet!]" Zaalbar roared, more enraged than Mission had ever seen him. She shrunk back at the ferocity of his growl and his aggressive demeanor. Now more than ever before in the years she'd known him, Zaalbar intended to be heard. "[I can speak for myself!]"
The silence hung thick in the air, and Mission watched Seth's fingers ever-so-slightly twitch toward the lightsaber hanging at his hip. T3, observant and loyal as always, seemed to have picked up on the movement as well; she could hear the faint whir of his hidden blasters being primed.
"[You both had a hand in my exile,]" Zaalbar accused, his father and brother both bristling at the steady anger emanating from the brown-furred Wookiee. "[Father, you abandoned your faith in me when I needed it most.]" Freyyr's head dipped in shame at his son's stinging comment. "[And Chuundar, it was your lies and deception that led to my exile in the first place.]" He turned to face Seth. "[And it seems as if the only one I trust here is an outsider… what do you make of this, Seth?]"
Seth shrugged. "I think you've already made up your mind, Big Z. Chuundar's the same brother you left behind years ago after your exile. He told you that your father was dead. That was a lie. He told you that he wasn't personally benefiting from these slave trade deals with Czerka. That's a lie, too. Sure, your father and brother have both hurt you in the past. The difference is that one regrets what happened, and the other thrives off of it." He paused for a moment, watching as his words sunk in with the conflicted Wookiee. "Zaalbar, the issue isn't about who you side with. You already know the right answer to that. The issue is whether or not you can forgive your father for what happened in the past."
Mission watched the turmoil in Zaalbar's eyes as he looked from Seth, to Freyyr, to Chuundar, then back to Freyyr. "[I do,]" he confirmed. "[I forgive you, Father.]"
Freyyr reached forward to embrace his son, and Mission's heart swelled as she watched her best friend reconcile with his father. Seth glanced back at her, his lips quirking into a gentle smile when their eyes met, and she felt familiar butterflies return to her stomach as he held her gaze. For a fleeting moment, everything seemed right.
That moment came crashing down almost immediately, of course, with Chuundar's angry roar at the display. "[Enough!]" he growled. "[My orders were clear - kill the Wookiee, or Zaalbar doesn't return with you!]" He brandished a double-bladed sword threateningly. "[And the only way this mad-claw leaves Kashyyyk will be in a body bag.]"
With that, Chuundar lunged at his unarmed brother.