Memory / Chapter 26 / Mandalorians In the Temple

XXX

When you live in the shadows, you spend a lot of time in places normal people don't go. Normal people . . . now, that was a laugh. When was the last time he'd met any normal people? Met as in, lived with, loved, talked to . . .not for years. Ever since the end it had just been this. Normals were either targets or obstacles in the way of targets. There were worse lives . . . it must really suck to be a kid growing up on the Xoxon plains, gasping for air, with mutated chromosomes signing your ticket out by twenty-five. Worse to be a limbless vet, like that one begging in the corner there missing an eye too, the poor sod.

Worse to be those brown-robes over there, talking to the medic. Death can come in many ways, and there are worse things than death.

He was one of them.

In a place like Beggar's Alley, you try and blend. The district was an oozing sore of wants, and he let his own merge with the crowd's, shifting his thoughts into a higher tempo, into an endless drone. The growl in his stomach, dry tickle in the back of his throat, that constant craving for a cigarra, a cup of juma, a jolt of stim . . . and of course, desire. That beige robe over there wasn't bad, only a little young. Skin like choca cake, and soft brown hair cropped close to her head. Neat and efficient, like her tidy curves under a Padawan's tan robe. She was serving meal bars to the paupers. Old army surplus, from the look of them -- that green foil wrapper was unmistakable when it'd been your main ration for months aboard troop ships. Drops into the desert, the jungle, the sea -- twenty different tours of duty groundside in the Mandalorian days -- and every one, that same green foil. He could almost taste the chalky dryness on his tongue. His mouth filled with saliva. Need... And he drew closer, watching her.

Her eyes were amazing in that brown-skinned face. Skin like caffa, teeth like cream, and those eyes -- a bright bluish green like the oceans of home. Yu-Phaedra, warm mists and soft nights, and sweet incense from the priest's braziers as the trawling ships came home to roost, floating on the air above the sea like great helium birds come back to the nest. Dockside, and always a party. One, two, three steps, and he was in line behind a someone doing the Coruscanti twitch -- an old dance, an old sore, just a little one, on her cheek but it would grow and rot and her skin would slough off if she lived that long...

Of course she wouldn't. Live.

The living dead beggarwoman shuffled off and he was next, the vial of nothing already soft and tense in his fingers. Epidermal contact was the way to go. Vectors, ground zero. Baby, this was it.

"Hello," the Padawan-girl said to him softly. Her eyes were amazing. Maybe it wouldn't kill her, Jedi were hard to kill slow. Maybe she'd survive the plague and the riots and he'd come and rescue her, build a castle out of stars, take her far away from the cars and the bars and oh my darling, oh my darling, you are lost and gone forever and I'm dreadful sorry . . . just like the song went.

Those eyes were a net to drown sea-beasts in. Pools of soft water, and the patter of his thoughts stilled to a normal pace for a pause and he nodded his head and reached for the bar of food she offered. The vial went pop in his other hand, sticky with the slight oil and he mock-stumbled, caught the arm she offered, and smeared the grease lightly across her skin. Her wrist was soft and fragile in his fingers, but strong. Combat-trained for peace, like all of them.

Vector-borne, the plagues. And where are the little epicenters?

Everywhere the Jedi come, with their balms, their useless comforts for the hopeless flotsam of a thousand worlds.

Her blue-green eyes looked up at him startled, like an otterlisk caught in the beams.

"You --" she whispered, "I dreamed of you."

"Must have me confused with some other spacer, kid," he smiled, turning it into a leer to earn her disgust. Behind him, Twelve and Nine were finished for the day. No bloodwork now, that would come later. Now back to Arca's lair, palace of whores, and Miss Jin with her clinking clanking chains that she called dresses.

Padawan-girl rubbed her infected hand absently on her robe. Point of contact left a rash sometimes. He'd been inoculated long ago.

He turned to leave.

"No--" she called out to his retreating back. "Wait!"

He didn't.

"Who was that, Thalia?" one of the other Jedi asked her.

Three didn't stick around long enough to hear her response.

XXX

The small shuttle banked against the side of the warship. Like all Mandalorian women, Aemelie had studied starship design and construction -- how else could one pick the best of the crops to harvest from the galaxy's bounty? Durian ships were sleek like this, and the native Kuati line had the same capacity -- perhaps even slightly more raw firepower, she thought, eyeing the wrecked row of turbolasers that surrounded the portside bay. There was an Outer Rim system called Systosahh behind Republic space, where they were rumored to construct ships as fast as the Rakatan fleet. But nothing she had ever studied could compare to the tech that had created this beauty.

As their shuttle turned in for landing, the bridge swam into view. Or rather, what was left of it. Crushed durasteel cables trailed out of the melted hull, exposing the interior to space. Dull gray glimmer of a forcefield. It looked like the navigation and main weapons consoles were completely gone. Of course a ship this well-designed would have slave terminals elsewhere. Perhaps they could be re-routed...

Aemelie's son burbled at her, and she slung him around from her back and into her arms, twisting the curls of his dark hair.

"You're impressed," the Kuati mouse barbarian said. "I didn't realize Nabooans knew ships, Lady Aemelie..."

He seemed to be pressing her for a surname again. Aemelie flashed him a smile instead, as a distraction. "Who wouldn't be impressed?" she asked. "It's the Aleema, first ship of your Sith's Infinite Fleet. Pity about the damages...does that field hold off vacuum?"

"Well enough," the Sullustan replied. His large ears twitched. Aemelie considered that perhaps it was in poor taste to refer to the Sith as 'your Sith' in the Republic's deep Core. "You're late for the tour, but I don't mind showing you around." He nodded to their escort, a small cadre of local security personnel and shrugged at them. "For a small fee, of course."

"You can wait here," he added to the others. "This won't take long."

The security squad's leader rolled his eyes. "Always on the take, eh, Meark? Fine then. Damn Sith thing gives me the heebers anyhow."

Aemelie granted them all a comforting smile. "That would be acceptable." She nodded at the Sullustan enthusiastically. "Who could imagine a small Jedi task force could cause so much damage?"

The small mousey-man coughed. "The blast to the bridge was done by Malak's flagship," he corrected her.

Aemelie nodded. "The Leviathan, of course. How silly of me." She adjusted her son's sling so that his tiny hand could curl in hers. "Is that here too?"

The Leviathan, she'd been told, was a masterpiece of retrofit technology: Rakatan engineering overlaid on a Republic-built shell. In truth for her purposes, there would be more to learn from that than the beautiful wreck of the Aleema. Of course no one seemed to know if the Leviathan had survived the Star Forge's destruction. The Republic was quite reticent with that information, and all other things concerning the size of its current armada and their capabilities. She supposed she couldn't blame them. Victory didn't mean much if it left you gutted and bleeding for the first scavenger drajak to wander by. In such circumstances you'd do what you could to hide the spoor.

"I thought you were interested in cargo ships," the Sullustan reminded her as they made their way down the gangplank and into the Aleema's vast main hangar. Room for a thousand drop vessels here. Her breath caught with the image even as the practical side of her mind dismissed the thought. Entirely too big for their current resources.

"Perhaps by the time you've grown, little warrior," Aemelie whispered to her son in the Ordo patois. "You can be blooded on a ship like this."

The womp rat-man looked at her oddly.

"I am interested in transport vessels," she dissembled quickly in Basic. Really, this subterfuge wasn't difficult at all. She had no idea why Gwenarius had been so concerned. The children and the elder women of the clans had gone planetside. The Kuati wetlands, it was said, had all manner of fascinating carnivorous life. Perhaps some of the boys would come out of it with their first blood. One could but hope.

Technically, Aemelie wasn't supposed to be involved in this stage of negotiation with barbarian outlanders -- but with the eldest of Rialis and Zal stuck back on Coruscant playing nursemaid to the D'Reev betrayer -- she was the most logical choice. It didn't hurt that Aemelie Zal Ordo didn't look typically Mandalorian. Her bloodfather had been a slave from the Teeta system originally, before he won his swords. Her mother had chosen well. He was quite clever, that one. And with a trace of Force-talent, the crones had claimed. Of course that hadn't bred true...it never did, but it was still considered to be a lucky thing.

At least it never had bred true before Oerin Lin. Wryly, Aemelie wondered if Lin's mother had cheated and seeded the whelp from someone other than Fett Cassus. As soon as the idea popped into her head, she dismissed it. No, that would be impossible, the boy's looks were stamped Lin just as much as his ambition and skill with a blade. Perhaps she should have paid more attention in genetics; but the biological side of their destiny had never interested her half as much as interstellar engineering.

"Cargo ships should be fast and true," she told the Sullustan, running her hand along the sides of the bay. The near-dead ship hummed softly; its main reactor would be somewhere in the center, she imagined, well-shielded and secure. "Built like this to last a thousand years."

Mouseman's whiskers twitched as if she'd said something odd. "It's still running on its own generators?" Aemelie added, examining the fit of a power coupling where it ran into the wall. The thing seemed almost to quiver underneath her hands. "Fascinating."

She wished she had Mekel Jin with her, but the Lin slave-Jedi had objected when she'd suggested he come offworld with them when they evacuated the Embassy. And Canderous had insisted he stay on Coruscant as well. It was a shame. Mekel's pet computer would be useful in a place like this, to tap into the schematics. The Aleema itself was not for sale of course, but a few diagrams would give her a great deal of information.

"Have your scientists been able to discover more about the Rakatan technology?" Aemelie asked, making her voice appropriately casual and curious.

"I wouldn't know," the womp rat replied, a little too carefully, she thought. "I'm just a tech."

She smiled back at him. "I have an interest in technical design too," she assured him. "And I've never seen such a fascinating example. It's no surprise that Sith Forces decimated the Republic. It must have been glorious."

The Sullustan gave her another odd look. His black eyes rolled in his pointed head, exposing the whites. Amelie beamed at him, reassuring.

They reached the bridge and her breath caught again. Banks upon banks of controls: navigation, telemetry, weapons, life support...some of the panels still flickered with life. The central platform was raised above the floor and ended in a fused and shattered mess, beyond which flickered the thin gray forcefield and then the blackness of space. You could tell a great deal about a ship's potential from seeing the damage it could do; and any cannon that could have cut through this triple-reinforced hull must have been a formidable weapon. More so, because of course it had been fitted onto a Republic design. Aemelie walked closer to inspect the damage more closely.

"This is where Darth Revan met her doom," the Sullustan announced. (Rather inaccurately, Aemelie thought -- all things considered.)

A lesser ship with this much structural damage would have shattered on the impact; but the Aleema's hull showed no sign of fracture beyond the point where it had been sheared away. The blast must have been precisely placed. She couldn't help but admire the telemetry that would have allowed for such exactitude.

"This was done with a modified ion turbolaser?" she murmured, voice polite.

"Sonic," the Sullustan replied, twitching an ear. "Projectile. Designed to implode on impact, minimizing the blast radius."

There is of course, no sound in vacuum; but with a missile designed to penetrate a ship's outer hull and then explode, sonics would be devastating. The clans had experimented with such things; but dismissed the line of research when it was found to be too costly for their resources. Ion tech was simple and relatively infinite -- as long as your power supplies were not compromised. Aemelie felt a stab of envy for the resources of the Infinite Fleet. Really, it was no wonder that Revan had wanted to take the Star Forge back -- all the babbling she'd heard about a 'fall' and other such nonsense paled behind the simple practicality of such a glorious war machine.

Still, Aemelie supposed, perhaps there would be a lack of challenge in having infinite resources. In any case, that was all hypothetical. The clans were limited now and one had to make do with what one could salvage. That was one of the first lessons drummed into any Mandalorian daughter. Make do with what you can salvage or barter or find. Make it serve.

She decided to cut to the frontal assault. "Where is the Leviathan now?" she asked. "You must have studied its weapon systems to know so much about how this was done."

"The wreckage from the Star Forge battle was all towed to the Sluis Van shipyards on the Rim. I've only seen the schematics. SysTech bought the salvage rights for the price of a small star system, if the reports are true." Mouseman's large black eyes narrowed. "You're not from Naboo."

Aemelie shifted her son's sling around slightly, letting her hand drop to the concealed dagger in the folds of her robe. "Of course I am," she replied, raising her eyebrows in a protestation of innocence.

Those rodent eyes just blinked.

"My employer told me to expect your arrival," he said. "And to give you this." He reached into the pocket of his jumpsuit. Aemelie shifted her weight into an aggressive stance, waiting to get the first strike. The range was too close for him to use a blaster, she thought, not without harming himself. She shifted her son's sling to the back, shielding his body with her own.

But the object Mouseman withdrew was a small black datapad.

Aemelie's lips curled into a smile, and she took it from him one-handed, still keeping an eye out for any surprise.

"The datapad contains schematics of the Aleema and the Leviathan. Datamaps of the Rakatan weaponry -- as well as the Fleet's best research into their stardrives. Our employer says that you should consider this a gift. Republic R&D has been able to make great strides...but our employer thinks that what we need to crack this tech is some good old-fashioned Mandalorian insight."

"Hm," Aemelie replied, voice non-committal. "This is a great gift." She hazarded a guess. "Your employer owes us at least this much for the gift we gave him long ago."

"Some think it was a mutual favor," the tech replied. "I was also told to remind you, you are in his employ. Your leader...has commanded it, has she not?"

Aemelie began to wonder if she had strayed out of her depth. Gwenarius, or Catrinex in her prime surely would have been able to come up with a clever response. Her own specialty was simply starship engineering.

"Let's talk about the freighters," she extemporized. "I assume that our original request is also included in this bargain?"

"But of course."

"Our own centers of manufacture haven't been operational since the war. We will require the ships to be stocked with raw materials. Has your...employer arranged for a drop point, where our...ships' crews can take possession?"

"Peragus Station, on the Outer Rim. Your new...fleet of freighters are registered on the Coruscanti exchange as a limited liability corporation, nominally owned by a branch of Czerka Corp. The name is Starfire Shipping & Explorations. There are ten ships, seven of them are Class-C freighters, made right here in the Kuati shipyards before the war, and the other 3 are modified Durian AQ-R transports, Republic salvage. Is this acceptable?"

Pleased to be given something she could understand, Aemelie began running through statistics in her head: FTL travel times, coordinates, ship specifications and design. With what they had left, it was more than acceptable. With what they had left, it would serve quite well.

She stared out at the blackness of space, seen through the rent in the Aleema's hull like a tear in the fabric of time. Soon, she thought. We will have stars once more. The Core beckoned beyond, a beautiful swirl of light, waiting like a promise.

"Could that hole be repaired?" she asked. It didn't seem to matter that Mouseman knew her intentions. Like all barbarians he wouldn't have any real understanding.

The womp-rat coughed nervously. "They're going to make this hulk into a museum," he told her. "My employer regrets to inform you that including the Aleema into the bargain is simply not possible. He told me to tell you, specifically, that such a thing would be too unbalancing. It would upset the game." His whiskers twitched. "I assume you understand?"

Aemelie smiled. "It's no matter. And yes, tell the D'Reev betrayer I -- we -- understand perfectly. As we did long ago." She shifted her son back into her arms, nuzzling his soft cheek.

"Soon little warrior," she whispered in his ear in the language of her people. "Now is the time. Time to call the men home."

There is a season, the song her mother sang had sung to Aemelie snug in her cradle long ago on the plains of Mandalore. And a time for every purpose under the heavens.

She hummed the melody softly under her breath. Her son burbled and smiled.

XXX

"The tissue graft was successful, but you have to understand, Lamar, the original surgery reshaped her skull. The frontal and temporal plates' densities are well below the standard ratio. Any structural change would run the risk of further compromising cranial integrity. I've done all that I could do. Sheris will heal. But she'll wear that face until the day she dies."

Vrook Lamar sighed. "And her arm?"

Doctor Elora Tho turned away from him, back to the medical droid that had followed her from the surgery into the waiting room. Removing a soft cloth from her medical robes, she began cleaning the droid's appendages, methodic and focused.

"I've attached the new prosthesis. There's some motor damage to the ulnar nerve. I'm not sure if it will repair itself. There's -- there's something else too. She --" He watched Elora's face struggle to find a way to tell him.

Tell me what I already know. My niece was nothing if not thorough.

"Genetically she's almost an identical copy of Revan Starfire. Forging the mitochrondrial signature enough to match a basic pattern is common enough -- as any ident thief will tell you. But this was done down to sub-atomics -- I've never seen anything like it."

I have, in the wars. The creatures that Kun made from Massassi tribesmen. War machines made flesh. The Force can do many things. Most of them terrible.

Strange how you could spend your entire life fighting for a cause, believing in it, and in the end be left with this feeling of -- worse than futility. Failure. Bitterness.

Elora Tho was no stranger to bitterness herself. He could see it in every line in her face, the shadows under her eyes. It had been almost a Selkath year now, since Sunry's execution, but time had brought her no peace.

"Thank you, 'Lora," Vrook turned to the window and looked out. Gray sky and green sea, surrounding the science station that had been built since the kolto's devastation directly above the shattered reef beds. This isolated research platform a thousand kilometers from Ahto City was the safest place he could bring them.

Seven people died because you were too slow, too cautious. And they died for nothing. Died for a secret that the whole world already knew by the time their ship crashed into a novaed sun.

There were the other deaths too. The ones on Deralia. Three lives. The true innocents. Vrook supposed he could lay those at D'Reev's feet as well. The Senator had denied it to the Council of course, but who else could have struck so quickly? Who else was in the position to have known?

Revan. And my niece was nothing if not thorough.

But that was something Vrook didn't want to believe.

"Sheris is heavily sedated. Her mind is damaged. The psych droid said her scores on the galactic Sabines-Ooxley and Eskay-Bindet tests are well within the delusional range." Sunry's wife didn't try and hide the accusation in her eyes. "I doubt her friend's murder helped."

"Given time, and peace, she'll find herself again."

"Like Nayama did?"

She'd caught him off guard. Blindsided into an asteroid field. What made it all the worse was that Vrook had always had his own doubts. "A new set of memories," he said quietly, repeating the party line like a protocol droid, "is not a new personality. It's only a kindness. And it was Nayama Bindo's choice."

"Jolee's wife killed people. Soldiers. Jedi. Our friends, Lamar. Sunry was executed. Sunry never had a choice."

"We could not interfere with the Selkath --" Even as he began Vrook stopped, realizing the hypocrisy of that statement. They had interfered. The Selkath ten had been held in a mockery of the local judicial system. Held on reserve and then discarded.

And now there are the Selkath three. The Selkath three and one tired old man. I'm tired of the greater good. I'm tired of the little deaths, the minor sacrifices made by the ignorant and the innocent. The hapless bystanders who made the wrong choice, or were just at the wrong place at the wrong time...

Vrook took a deep breath. This kind of moral quagmire was not going to be solved in a few hours of meditation. It would gnaw at him until the end of his days.

"Physically, Sheris is fine," Elora said, staring at the waves. "Davad and Yuthura are with her now."

"I'll go to them, then."

Elora shrugged and went back to cleaning her medical droid's surgical arms.

Davad Arkan looked up as Vrook came into the medlab, eyes flat and distant. Sheris was a mass of blankets and bacta pads, the machines behind her softly chiming in time with her pulse. For a moment, the scene reminded Vrook of another hospital bed, on the Ascendant. They'd sent him a holotape when Revan was captured. Allowed him to bear witness to what he could not stop.

The face, pale under the green gel of bacta, was the same face. This did not help.

Could you have killed them, Revan? Was it your order that sent a family of innocents to their death? Vrook did not want to believe. Faith in you is all I have left. Faith that your tears were no lie. Faith that your denial at Atris' blunt accusation was no charade. Faith that returning the rest of your memories will undo the damage we have done. Faith in you, Revan. Faith that you are more your mother's daughter than my brother's...

Long ago, Radik Starfire had followed Exar Kun. But there is more than one path to salvation, and in his wife's quiet life of science, Vrook had hoped his brother had found some peace, some happiness, before their end. Their deaths had truly been accidental -- Vrook's investigations of that led him to discover their child, the daughter Radik had never bothered to tell him existed...

Accident or will of the Force?

By the time I tracked her down, she was already lost.

Yuthura Ban turned from the window. She folded her arms and raised her chin. The uneasy alliance that had been forged between them had crumbled during her imprisonment and Vrook's inability to assist in any real fashion. What lay behind her expression now was not quite dislike, but it seemed near to disgust.

Useless, those violet eyes raked him. We trusted you and you gave us nothing.

'We've already booked passage on a passenger cruiser, The Starlite Express, leaving in two days time for Coruscant.' Her words left no room for argument.

'You can't--' Vrook began anyway, but she cut him off with an abrupt wave of her hand.

'We can do whatever we like, Master.' The title was delivered mockingly. 'Perhaps our nameless enemies will think twice about sending a ship full of innocents to their deaths. Or, perhaps, they no longer care. Either way, you can't push us into the background as if we didn't exist. Not anymore."

"I'll come with you," Vrook said. It wasn't what he'd planned on saying. But as the words came out he realized that it was what he had to do.

Yuthura laughed. "And your work with the kolto?"

"No one can heal what was done," Vook said, emptily, knowing the truth of the words, even as the admission of yet another failure cut him to the bone. "Our duty is to what remains. I'll come."

Davad Arkan said nothing. His hand slipped over Sheris' unconscious one protective, as if of its own volition.

XXX

Zaalbar shifted the bowcaster to his other shoulder, resisting the urge to scratch the itch that the black and red sash he'd been given to wear was causing. It cut awkwardly across his chest, just as awkward as this reception, and his own place in it. Next to him the Mission-ghost beeped a stream of rude commentary and advice regarding the other guests. From what he understood, this was a treaty of some kind being forged between Polla-Revan's family and the Racharn tribe. His own role was simple enough: keep the D'Reev elder alive.

On the other side of the Senator, Canderous looked similarly out of place. Behind them stood more of the Mandalorian kin. His friend's wife and daughter-cub, and the boy, Mekel Jin, as well as of few of the half-grown cubs that Zaalbar hadn't learned by name. All were clad entirely in suits of Mandalorian battle armor, and all wore the black and red sashes that marked them as D'Reev as surely as any slaver's collar.

Zaalbar was trying hard to understand. "I'll follow you," he had said to a human female in a Taris sewer, and those words meant more than any tie to family or race. It was, he thought sadly, a great weakness of his people, that their honor could lead them to subjugation. His life-debt had led him home again, had led to his people's liberation from Czerka, but it had also led to Mission-daughter's death, and a strange new world, in which Kashyyyk stood poised for a destiny he still had trouble understanding. The messages from Freyyr that the Mission-ghost communicated to him were disturbing. So too was being put in this place, where his life debt extended to an infidel with ties to the hated Czerka.

Malachi D'Reev was one of its main investors, the Mission-ghost had said.

In a way, Polla-Revan's quest for her son had sold his people back to the same slavers she had freed them from. The black and red sash marked them all as hers, and therefore his.

Zaalbar groaned, the noise hissing through his teeth like a whine.

Abruptly, the Mission-ghost beeped, interrupting her steady stream of useless commentary about Coruscanti politics. "Kinrath poodoo! I've lost connection to the main core!" Her distress interrupted his thoughts. "Linking to back-up on the Ghost now. Someone's trying to give orders to my central processors! What the frack?"

"Was it Polla-Revan Organa?" Zaalbar growled back in the archaic Shryiiwook they used between themselves. Letting Polla-Revan go to the Jedi without more protection than Carth and the Dustil-cub still rested uneasily. The twinge in his side from the Sith blade still ached, more than a week later. Again, he regretted his vow of secrecy to the Mission-ghost. Polla-Revan was hunted. And she had the right to know all that considered her prey.

"No, Polla-Revan she doesn't have that kind of access," Mission growled back. "It was..." Her voice broke off suddenly. "Error: that information is not available."

"That's weird," she added. "Trying a reroute now..."

Zaalbar groaned at her and turned his attention back to the task at hand. The Racharn matriarch approached them, flanked by her surviving offspring. Two of them. There had been another one, he'd been told, the eldest cub, who had recently met with an unfortunate accident. Although different ages, they all looked even more alike than most human females. Down to the smell. The unnaturalness of that made him even more uneasy.

"Leeshantina," the D'Reev slaver murmured. "How fortunate we could come to this accord."

"I accept your concessions, Malachi," the elder female replied. "Although they only scratch the surface...but I suppose full reparations would bankrupt you, and we can't have that, can we?"

"The resultant economic collapse of several star systems would be bad for the Republic," Malachi D'Reev replied.

The Racharn's eyes shifted to Zaalbar and the Mandalorians, and then looked past. "I thought she'd be here as well. In fact, I believe I specifically included that in the terms..."

"Unfortunately, the Jedi Council denied my request. My daughter-in-law and my grandson are cloistered in the Temple." Malachi D'Reev shrugged.

"Rather convenient for you, isn't that? Putting them out of harm's way? House D'Reev and their Jedi pets. You can only hide behind their robes for so long, Mal."

"Bitterness does not become you, 'Shanti. You've won. I've forgiven the lien and the additional recompense has already been transferred to your corporate accounts. Racharn has full control over the Teeta, Systari and Hoth systems. As well as Echanis. Be civilized, you come out of this ahead."

The woman was angry, it radiated off of her like a bad smell. "I've lost a daughter. Your droid was very clever with those mines."

"You should never risk what you fear to lose."

"I demand an additional provision...insurance."

"If your request is reasonable...D'Reev will comply."

"An alliance sealed by marriage. Between your Third and mine." Next to her, the smaller Racharn cub looked up.

"Does this mean I get to see Korrie?" the little one asked.

"Once Malachi manages to get him back from the Jedi, Leeshy-dear," her mother replied. She chuckled. "I expect you'll have to wait a few years."

"I remember you wanted a similar alliance, long ago, 'Shanti." The old man gave off a sad smell, but Zaalbar felt no pity for him. I will follow you, he had said to a human female in a Taris sewer, sensing that she was strong enough to protect Mission. Wise enough to navigate the duracrete jungle, where his own skills put both of them too often in harm's way. I will follow you, he had said. And that trail had led to Mission-daughter's death.

Zaalbar couldn't help the moan the escaped from his lips. One of the armored Mandalorians nudged him sharply in the ribs.

"Shut the Wookiee up!" another one hissed.

"It'll be okay, Big Z," the Mission-ghost groaned softly. In front of them, the two Senators continued their negotiations. "This is what Senators do."

"If your son had married my Leeta, perhaps he'd still be alive."

"Or House Makeon would have overrun us both." D'Reev folded hands gnarled like dead branches and nodded his head. "Our numbers are few. Fewer than the other Houses, and the lower nobles are . . . overeager to advance. If Racharn or D'Reev falls, one or both of our seats will be filled by less skilled hands. The Republic will suffer. I will accept Racharn's suit on behalf of Malachor. When they come of age, they'll wed. But we will need to negotiate succession... I will not have D'Reev pass to clones."

"Racharn will continue as it always has," the matriarch replied. "With Leesa. If you want Leeshy to bear Malachor's children like some kind of animal that is your concern."

The wife of Canderous Ordo coughed. The noise came out as a loud interruption, amplified through her helm. For a moment, the D'Reev slaver's head turned towards them, a puzzled frown on his face. His rock-colored eyes looked right through them, as if Zaalbar and the Mandalorians were nothing more than wind in the trees.

To him they were nothing more. They were slaves. Zaalbar realized this, even if the Mandalorians pretended otherwise, acted as if their accommodations in the hotel were a convenience, instead of an insult. As if their role as indentured bodyguards for D'Reev was an honor, instead of obligated servitude.

Gwenarius Ordo spoke, even as the Senator's head was turning away, interrupting like a barreling herd of kwaan.

"Although it is unseemly to negotiate troths before the children have survived to adulthood, Ordo will accept a Racharn alliance -- as long as a woman of the clans is allowed to choose Malachor as First Wife. Racharn would be Second, of course." Her helmet nodded briskly, and she tapped the twin vibroblades at her waist. "Really, our customs are not so different."

"Gwenarius!" Canderous Ordo gave off that angry smell, that Zaalbar had come to learn meant bloodshed was near. The Wookiee whined again, and this time the Mission-ghost did not stop him.

Both Coruscanti elders turned back to their conversation as if nothing had happened.

Mission made a beeping noise. "Poo doo frack! I can't access the core...must be...sun spots. Error: central command is offline. Banthaspit!"

Her growling sounded distressed. Zaalbar put a gentling hand on her dome. It was all he could do.

I will follow you, he had said. Behind them the dead had turned to dust and blown away with the wind. I will follow you. And it had led to this. But follow he would.

The life-debt left him no choice.

---

XXX

"You're insane."

Nico laughed, twirling around in the large chair he'd installed next to the enormous computer console. They were in their new offices, built in the blast center of Malak's crater. He'd been in here all day and half the fracking night. Lena had brought him food. The remnants of her fraying patience were about to snap off like a trick halter top on a joygirl's stage.

"The galaxy is lost without a source of healing isn't it? No price would be too great to pay? We'll be rich, Lena...which should make you happy. And we'll have power...which I can use."

Lena Wee tried to think of a way to point out the obvious and failed. Right, Nico. The best scientists in the galaxy, the power of the Jedi, and all the cash the Republic can throw at the problem can't fix Manaan's oceans and make the kolto grow again...but somehow you're going to manage it.

Oblivious, her lover stared at the rows of blinking databanks in front of him, occasionally pausing to type something into one of the five terminal screens that ringed his workstation. 'I think I can get Tatooine back online,' he murmured. 'But for some reason Kashyyyk is being obstinate...'

He frowned at one of the screens.

'We're overextended,' Lena tried to get his attention back on her. 'You can't build this type of installation this quickly and not go into debt. Suvam Tan is calling one of our notes. We need to come up with the capital to --'

'You look so alluring when you talk about capital,' Nico murmured.

It might have meant more had he been actually looking at her and not the damn screen.

Lena's lekku whipped around her neck with agitation. 'You realize that the Exchange take debt very seriously, Nico? They're not going to ask nicely and then go away. They'll take all of this, and if we're lucky, we'll both be able to crawl away on broken legs. But I doubt that. More like, if we're lucky they'll just send a merc team to shoot us dead. Don't you get that?'

'Oh Lena...' Nico turned his chair around and looked at her. 'Come here, echrjsjak. I think it's time for you to understand.' He smiled. "The Exchange works for us, bakoo."

'Oh, I understand perfectly! Your head's in the fracking clouds, Nico Senvi! I.E., Limited is like a bad sidedeck! We can't sustain these kind of expenditures, we don't have any fracking real assets, and you're talking like --'

She stopped abruptly. Remember what happened to Motta. Don't be a fool, Lena Wee. Look pretty, run the numbers, and come up with new tricks in bed. That's your job.

His back was to her again, fixated on those damn screens. Speakers crackled and a stream of garbled noises came out of them. Nico answered them, voice authoritative in the same gibberish.

And don't you ever wonder what language that is, Lena? Or are you afraid to wonder? Are you more afraid that Nico's just insane...or...that he's something you don't want to understand? Something... more than some swoop racing kid. Something or someone -- else...

'There should be no secrets between us. Among my people, carrying the heir to an Empire is a great honor. I'll make you my queen in whatever formal traditions you'd expect. Rylothan matrimonial vows, if you prefer. With all seven of the dances. Twi'leki culture is fascinating. For a slave race, they are quite cultured. I've grown to admire their aesthetics a great deal.' Nico spoke in Basic, hands still moving over the terminals as if with a life of their own.

Her mind stopped and froze. Carrying the...heir? The flat statement shocked Lena so badly that her mind skipped over his crack about Twi'leks and slavery completely.

Do the math, Citizen Wee, her inner voice mocked. Add up the numbers...

She did and realized that he could be right.

Lena's hand curled over her abdomen.

Nico tapped something on one of the terminals, and the gibberish it was spouting shifted into Twi'leki.

"This installation awaits your command, Builder."

"Humor me, and give status updates in this tongue. This female Twi'lek beside me will be my queen. It is time...for her to understand."

"Dantooine acknowledges, Master. This installation is fully operational and ready for your command."

'Manaan acknowledges, Master. This installation is fully operational and ready for your command.'

'Korriban acknowledges, Master. This installation is fully operational and ready for your command.'

'Korriban, check status of Tatooine.' Nico tilted his head at her, and beckoned. "Now," he said softly. "Do you being to see, Lena Wee?"

'Tatooine is offline. Power reserves have been damaged. Further repairs must take place to restore core functionality.'

Nico sighed. 'Begin making preparations for the repairs. I'm linking a simple slave processor I set up on the Tatooine site to your central cortex now. I'll need all four of you to concentrate your efforts to that task for functionality to be restored..." He shook his head, counting off his fingers, frowning. "Dantooine, Manaan, Korriban... that's --"

"Three," whispered Lena.

Nico gave her an embarrassed smile. "I'd be lost without you, starlight. Dantooine, Manaan, Korriban -- four of you -- Kashyyyk, acknowledge.'

Sudden silence in the room, punctuated by the sound of Lena's suddenly racing pulse, loud as a drum in her own ears. Not the Star Maps, Lena. But something else at the Star Maps... you thought he was just a fan, but somehow... somehow he --

-- And if he has that kind of power, that kind of power than he's not a joke, this isn't a joke, he's really serious. This is -- if he can do what he says he can do then --

The possibilities were completely endless.

'Kashyyyk, acknowledge.'

One of the terminals made a noise that sounded rude. Nico sighed and looked at Lena again.

'Come here, my love,' he said. 'Sit on my lap and watch the power of the Builders awake to serve its creator once more.'

His words were strangely compelling. Although half of her brain thought running for the Dantooine hills would be the better part of valor, Lena crossed the floor and came to him, settled on his lap. His moved to her stomach, covering her own.

'There's corruption, of course,' he mused, reaching his arms around her to continue typing at the terminal. 'Some data degrade is foreseeable after so much time has passed...even my own mind has changed after so many cycles of so many worlds...but the others were dormant... until I spoke to them. Kashyyyk appears to be already awake...I may have to wipe the central core --'

'I may have to wipe you off the face of the galaxy, you nerfherding poodoo brain!' the terminal snapped back. 'Who the frack is this and what are you doing? I am the, uh, property of Revan Starfire D'Reev Lin Ord--'

'This is very odd,' Nico mused, cutting off the sound with the press of a button. "Could Revan have revived its sentience when she and Malak accessed the navigational keys?"

'Who are you, really?' Lena whispered. He'd said no secrets. The computer's voice sounded like a girl's with a Tarisian accent, sounded almost familiar -- but at this point nothing surprised her. Lena was in a place beyond surprise. Beyond shock. It was all she could do to just be.

Nico paused in his work, nestling his chin into the fold at the back of her skull. Lena shivered. Not Nico. But you've always known that. Not Nico... His lekku curled around her neck, the tips of them overlapping hers. The physical sensation made her gasp, and he chuckled.

'It was so long ago that I have a hard time remembering myself. I was a prince among my people. I started a revolution. And lost. As with all losing sides, I was punished. You know, destiny is a cosmic joke. I feel a certain kinship with Revan, even if her bumbling seems to have upset our plans...but, indeed, without Revan, there would be no me, perhaps, and therefore no plan.' He chuckled. "Motta told me the order for my prison to be delivered to Tatooine came from high in the Sith hierarchy. As a cog, he never knew how high. I wonder if she herself had plans for me, once, before the Jedi stripped her mind..."

'Your people are --'

You knew he wasn't Nico. You always knew that, Lena. Don't act surprised. Nico never would have looked at you twice. Nico was a boy. This man is...

Her lover turned her head to face his, looked deep into her eyes. 'A part of you knows already. A part of you always knew I was not Senvi. And that part...welcomes the opportunities our alliance will bring. You always know what side of the odds to stand on, Lena Wee. It's one of the things I love about you.'

'W-what happened to the real Nico Senvi?' Lena's voice was annoyingly squeaky. She wished her she could make it sultry again.

'Gone.' The Twi'lek who was not Nico Senvi shrugged. 'We played a game of riddles, he and I. And he lost.' He cocked his head at her. 'Does it really matter so much to you, Lena? I'm the man you fell in love with.'

She swallowed. 'No, I guess it doesn't.'

One of the terminal screens went suddenly black. Nico swore and tapped it. 'Kashyyyk's completely offline. I hope we don't have to go there to make repairs... I'm not that fond of trees.'

"I --" words failed Lena. She leaned back, letting his lekku stroke her face and neck, feeling the warm flush that had nothing to do with common sense melt her spine. "Do you have a name? Is there something I should call you? Besides Nico?"

"A name...I had one once." His voice was dreamy. "But what it was I can't remember and you could never pronounce. I'm your Nico, my Lena. Yours and the galaxy's."

There was something else. Minor really, just one little detail. Like a row of expenditures on a balance sheet that she needed to total correctly so she could put it away.

"What does...I.E. Limited really stand for?"

Her lover chuckled. "Infinite Empire. Limited. For all things must be limited. All things must begin before they end. And all things must end...but within these fragile shells can we see that ending or do we only perceive the infinite? Infinite Empire is an oxymoron, a riddle, a cosmic joke. The universe is a system of your debits and credits, is it not? One thing and then the other?"

"It's more than that," she murmured, struggling to understand. "Some things you can't quantify..."

"Exactly."

Lena shifted against him, turning to meet his face. His orange eyes were ancient. His lips were insistent. And then there was no more conversation for quite some time.

XXX

The Coruscanti barbarians could do this sort of thing for hours. Days. Weeks. Years. Millifar shifted uncomfortably, joints of her armor creaking. Now that the dance between clan D'Reev and Racharn was done, (although the insult of ignoring her mother's reasonable request would have to be dealt with at some point, Milli thought), there was an endless line of self-important pampered maffasops who had to be impressed by D'Reev strength, backed by the Mandalorian fist.

The holocam crew that followed them around like drajak drawn to a battlefield began to set up their equipment for the next big show.

Millifar Ordo watched the barbarians line up like little maffa-chicks, and played a game with herself, imagining each as their representative world. Here was core Byss, bowing and scraping, as they would someday under the Mandalorian heel. And here was mid-rim Archon. Corulag. Tenaris. Corellia. Alderaan --

Some instinct made her snap back to attention. Maybe it was the way the man approaching moved. Less of a grovel than a slow advance. Or maybe it was that hand, hidden by a long tapered sleeve. The face was perfectly painted-up like a whore's, and perfectly empty. Too empty. Whoever he was, the Alderaanian had chosen the manner of his death already. And then she realized she'd seen him before.

"Jin," she whispered, through the subvocal commlink installed in her helmet. "What does your Force-magic tell you about that man?"

Next to her, the Lin-slave was already on the alert.

"He's going to try something," the boy answered. "I can stop it, but be ready." His hand moved to his side, where the Jedi weapon he insisted on using instead of a normal blade hung.

"That's the one," her father's voice rumbled over the general band. "We've already been alerted. Stand ready. Mekel, take the point."

Nice of him to wait and tell them now... Oh well, it made it more exciting.

In the past week they'd foiled seven assassination attempts on the old man's life. Kex had made his first blood on one of them. Millifar would be blooded twice in sand herself, if women counted things like men did. Although he'd said nothing, she thought her father was proud.

Millifar had to admit Mekel Jin was handy to have around, even if he lacked Oerin Lin's strange magnetism. Lin was far too arrogant for his own good. Whatever wife chose to take on the true Mandalore was going to have the flat of her blades busy for the rest of her life. Millifar still hadn't decided if she really wanted that annoyance.

"Senator --" the Secretary to Alderaan began, as if a formal address was still necessary even with what he had planned. Then he moved to strike.

But Jin moved first.

The knife flew out of the would-be assassin's hand and clattered on the floor. There was a snapping sound, finger bones breaking, and beside her, Mekel twisted his fist and then opened it again.

The Force was certainly a useful thing. Pity it seemed to lead to fits and fainting spells for Mekel Jin. Millifar resolved to have him scanned and see if that was an inheritable genetic defect.

The man collapsed on the floor without a shot being fired, clutching his hand.

Malachi D'Reev had taken one preventative step backwards. He hadn't even bothered to activate his personal shields. He was cool as ice, that one. Secretly, Millifar admired him, although for some reason her father seemed to hate his guts.

She moved with the others, briskly to flank the attempted assassin. The Wookiee already held a blade at the man's throat, as her father lifted the Alderaanian to his feet.

"Citizen Organa," Malachi D'Reev said, voice cool. "I sympathize. I will not press charges. You must believe me, I had nothing to do with your niece's death."

Her father was jabbing a stim into the man's neck to keep him from going into shock while Kex attached the restraints. Wanting to be helpful, Millifar picked up the knife and tried to hand it to him. Canderous waved her away, and she scowled under her helm.

"Nice work, Mekel," Canderous said through the comm. "Much more precise than the last one."

"Thanks," the Jedi slave replied.

The holocams flashed. Millifar instinctively straightened for them, snapping the knife onto the magnetized strip on her hip.

Apparently, this was another dewback and maffa show. There had already been several. Millifar adjusted the coolant flow on her armor. The hololights made their suits overheat, if one wasn't careful.

"Corellian investigators have already ruled the deaths were accidental. Citizen Organa, you must believe me, your grief is my own. I wished no harm upon that poor girl or her family. Indeed, I didn't know she existed..."

"You killed Beya, too!" the man spat. He looked absurd, painted up like that. Alderaanians were strange. Millifar had met a few of them at this point. On the whole, she preferred the Coruscantis. They understood order.

"My daughter-in-law has led a...public life. Who knows what faction could have been responsible, if as you claim, it was no simple accident?" The D'Reev betrayer shrugged. "I am not a monster, Boon Organa..." he paused, and looked directly into one of the holocam receptors. "But did it occur to you, that it is you who placed Polla Organa and her husband and child's lives in jeopardy in the first place? If you had not spoken... that day on the Senate floor..."

The Secretary to Alderaan's face collapsed like a cheap deflector shield. Millifar rolled her eyes.

On her right the T-3 droid beeped suddenly, a general distress code. Mekel Jin's head turned. "I'll check it out, Blue," he said over the general comm band. "You're right though, it's probably sunspots...the T-3's processors were fine yesterday when we replaced the secondary receptors..." He was always forgetting to switch commlink stations. Millifar had given up. Besides, it created amusing moments, like the time he'd tried to ask her father on a private commline what criteria Mandalorian women used to choose their mates...

In front of them the holoshow continued, but Millifar's attention wandered back to Mekel Jin. She tried to pinpoint what exactly it was that made him interesting. Was it the Force-magic, or those almost black eyes that were so much more exotic than standard Mandalorian blue? He was getting much better with that ridiculous particle blade of his. She imagined with a proper sword he could win his own place in the clans easily enough. And then...

Well, there was Oerin Lin to think about as well. But with Fett Revan as an example...

Millifar grinned. The computer was useful, and it seemed to owe Mekel Jin some kind of allegiance. Mother could hardly object in tying that kind of power more closely to Clan Ordo...

Jin's step faltered and he fell down. There was a heavy thunk as his armored form hit the marble floor, hard.

Millifar sighed and moved to get his helm off before he choked on his own tongue. She needed to know if the fits were genetic. A weak seed would be bad. And that concern had to outweigh all of the other advantages.

"Dust--" Mekel's voice crackled over the comm and then degenerated into incoherent babble.

Briefly, the holocams and the spectators turned to watch, before settling back on the main event. The fits were nothing new. This was the tenth one this week.

---

XXX

Victory was supposed to be sweet, wasn't it?

But the world was a lot easier with only two people in it. Anything larger than that was more than she could handle.

The news had come the morning after they'd arrived in the Jedi Temple, after a night of dreams where Bastila kept laughing at her and her glider hit the canyon wall over and over.

Carth murmured in his sleep when she woke up screaming, used to it by now.

He'd fallen asleep with his blasters on, she'd noticed with a chill.

The Mandalorians had sent their possessions, but she had to remind Carth that Dustil might want some of his own things from their apartment. Both Onasi men had just looked at her strangely. The Jedi wouldn't let Malachor have anything from home. Personal belongings, they'd told her, have no place in the apprentice dormitories.

Not that her son slept in the dormitories, after that first night. Malachor had nightmares too.

Maybe prescient, that dream. Revan wondered what the real Polla had thought about, those last few seconds in the speeder with her husband and son on the way back from Auntie Mita's funeral.

Right before the speeder hit the canyon wall.

There'd been nothing left to bury, said the reports from Deralia. Jasp and Molla Organa's faces, tear-stained in mourning on the vids.

The rational part of her mind ran over the logic again and again. If she's dead then I have an identity. Coruscanti statutes were quite clear. If there was no one alive to contest her being Polla or Revan, then she was both, legally, at least.

But who killed her?

It couldn't just have been an accident, no matter what the official reports said. Seiran was one of the best racers on the planet, and Polla no slouch herself. She didn't know which one of them had been driving.

Revan felt like she should have known.

Seeing Polla Organa's face on the newsvids had been like looking into a cracked mirror. She'd had a memory, suddenly, of seeing a stranger's reflection in the fresher and screaming...

Nurse Bastila gave her another injection, her hands were soothing. "Shhh, you've had another nightmare. It's just the head injury, Polla. You'll be fine."

"Dye her hair black," someone said, from a place outside the world. "Maybe that will help."

She screamed again...

Polla. Seiran. Their son. Dead. All my fault. More blood on my hands.

Seven of the Selkath ten were missing. Their ship had vanished. Vrook and Yuthura had both called her from Manaan. She'd refused to take the call. Carth talked to them. She didn't know what they'd said. Seven of the Selkath ten. Their names had never been important before. They'd been faceless Sith kneeling at her feet on Manaan. She'd hated them with an intensity that was terrifying. Now she recited their names in her sleep and begged their forgiveness.

Armon Wu, Vikor Tio, Lukash Vair, Commander Gharen Jo, Nicosia Ree, Lyndel Sen and Beya Organa.

Beya Organa.

"I'm going to find Davad and 'Tina," the Deralian said, getting up from the table. "I'll leave you two alone...if I don't see you before you leave, good luck and may the Force guide you."

"May the Force keep us from getting sand in places there should be no sand," Revan said. "From what I've read about Mandalore, that will be the real test of our knighthood."

Malak pulled her more tightly onto his lap and she kissed him again.

"Good-bye Beya, Have fun..."

Seiran kissed her after school behind the eridu bush. She gave him a black eye. He just laughed at her.

"Pollie put the kettle on, Pollie put the kettle on --"

Beya threatened to tell Ma and Da she'd snuck out. Sara offered her money not to tell but she wouldn't take it. "Try not to get so wrecked that you crash the scooter, kids," her cosmopolitan cousin said.

Good night Polla. Good night Sei. Good night Beya. Sleep tight. Don't let the --

Revan couldn't sleep.

Korrie's blankets were half thrown off and she covered him back up. On the pallet near the door, Carth dozed, still sitting with his back against the wall. He was snoring. He always did.

"I don't snore, beautiful," he'd said, after the first night they slept in each others arms. "But you talk in your sleep."

"What do I say?"

"I don't know. I don't have your gift for languages, Polla."

My gift...

Had it been Revan or Polla who had learned to move soundless, like a ghost across the floor? Prick of angry tears in her eyes again at that thought, but her feet were steady and the door slid open, smoothly, then closed behind her. There was no danger to any of them here, but Carth still slept sentry-style, hands on his blasters guarding the door. Something was eating at him from the inside out, something new.

Dustil, she supposed. They didn't seem to be getting along.

But it's none of my business.

And it was easier to think it was Dustil than to wonder if it was her.

You won. You always win. You have Carth. You have Malachor. You have Dustil.

And as long as you stay within these walls, no one can take them away from you. Not here, not now.

But the price had been too fracking high.

I'm sorry, Polla Organa. I'm sorry, Beya.

Walking through the white halls felt like another dream. Pale overheads shone pale reflections of herself in beige Padawan robes, dark windows overlooked the inward-facing gardens. Her feet followed the halls, walking down corridors she had no conscious memories of visiting; yet every step familiar. The tune of a song she'd forgotten the name to, map of a place she'd never been.

Stairs, stone worn down in the middle from a thousand Jedi, a thousand years of Jedi descending. She didn't know where she was going until she got there. Industrial duracrete walls, a faint locker room smell, oddly pedestrian beneath the heart of the Jedi Temple.

Clash of sabers and bright laughter. "I'll get you next time, Beya!"

I got you good, Beya. Or someone did. Someone did it for me.

The price was too fracking high.

Polla. Seiran Wen. Beya Organa. The baby. Barely a month old, Polla's son. He hadn't even had a name yet.

The double doors in front of her led to the main training room. Somehow, Revan knew that without remembering it. It just was. She walked past them, turning off to one of the smaller ones, designed for Master and Padawan. Or two Padawans. Single combat. Pure saber forms. Chen-sai, no'ha.

There'd been rooms like this on Dantooine. This was familiar.

"It's an art," Master Zhar told Polla, watching her shift from stance to stance against Bastila. Their yellow blades met in a shower of sparks, and they twisted. Hard to fight Bastila, it was like watching a mirror. Each movement a counterbalance, perfect harmony. "A Jedi's lightsaber is for defense, protection. And so, this training is an exercise in peace. Feel the Force. Do not be afraid."

"Do not fear it," echoed Master Vandar to a smaller Revan. She concentrated on making the stones spin evenly.

"Let the Force guide you. There is no danger here," one of them said. To one of her.

Revan opened a door off a row of doors. The third in a long line. The room was small and circular.

And not empty.

A battered practice droid circled a blindfolded Dustil Onasi. Its one appendage ended in a blue incandescent beam, twin to the one in Carth son's hand. He held it two-handed, she noted, watching as he raised both hands above his head to counter the droid's parry. He moved gracefully and oddly beautiful, lines of his thin shoulders in perfect synch under the thin robe, every angle in perfect alignment.

Shai'cho. N'ha, Eskai.

He was, she realized, not only controlling his own movements, but also those of the practice droid. The Force surged around him like a tide.

His lips were set in a thin white line.

Dark here. It's dark. Not supposed to be dark. No fear, no anger, peace. Balance.

His blue blade slipped and he cut off the practice droid's arm. Its artificial saber hissed out like an extinguished flame.

The droid fell to the floor in a shower of sparking conduits. Broken. Dustil's saber snapped off with a sharp click and he pushed the blindfold off his eyes.

And looked horrified to see her.

Revan's heart sank. Dustil spoke to Carth, some. He was very close to Korrie. But he'd never said more than two words to her in the week they'd been in this place. His mouth opened and closed. He paled, or perhaps he was always this pale. Or maybe it was the light, hard and grey above them.

Or maybe you don't want to accept that Carth Onasi's son is falling back to the dark side because of you.

The taint was unmistakable. She'd seen the Jedi in the Temple step aside when he walked by them. Heard their whispers. Felt their concern. She wanted it to be their problem, not hers.

But of course, it was her fault.

"Sorry," Revan ventured. "I didn't know anyone was here."

"You were hiding with the Force. I didn't hear you come in." The words sounded like an accusation.

"I couldn't sleep," Revan answered.

Dustil turned away from her. "Any reason," his voice tight and strange, "that you picked this practice room in particular?"

"I didn't know what was down here, I just walked..." her voice trailed off.

"It's just a room, there are others," he muttered under his breath.

Maybe this was why she had come. Maybe Carth's son's hatred of her was something she could deal with. Solve. Fix.

"Dustil," Revan began, "we need to talk."

The back of his head jerked. "No," he said. "We really don't." He paused for a moment, as if choosing his words carefully. "Unless you want to talk about getting the frell out of here, taking your son and getting out of here. You and Korrie and -- and Father."

The word 'father' hung awkward in the air as if he'd forgotten what it meant, those years on Korriban.

"Mission," Revan whispered. Mission. Juhani. Jolee. Bastila. Beya Organa. Polla -- "I'm so sorry that I --"

Fell. So sorry. So very sorry. Let me close my eyes and take it all back and maybe being Revan will be less painful than this. Than living with their blood on my hands. My friends. Myself. My fault.

Revan has a son. That's all that matters, that's all --

"No," Dustil said. He jerked his head around, the overhead light turning his eyes into black pools, too old for his young face. "Being Revan won't be less painful. It will be more." He laughed suddenly and unreasonably, the sound was ugly in the small room. "You rip yourself apart over the lives of a few dead friends? What do you think being Darth Revan must have been like?"

"I made choices," Revan answered. "I should live with them." She took a deep breath, trying for composure. "Mission," she repeated firmly, playing out the conversation she'd had with Carth Onasi's son a thousand times in her head. "I know the computer isn't her exactly, Dustil, but it was the best I could do."

He just looked at her, uncomprehending. "The best you could do," he repeated, voice uncertain.

"Mekel told me you were upset, the day after you met him. And so did she." Back when I was speaking to Mission. Since Polla's death, the comm headset that Revan had used to communicate with her computer had sat deactivated in a drawer in her rooms. Did you kill her for me, Mission? Or did Malachi do it himself?

Revan didn't want to know.

She took a deep breath. "Look, I know it's not Mission, but I wanted to give her something. I couldn't give her life back -- but the computer -- sometimes I don't know why I did it, but when we were on Kashyyyk -- I-I thought..."

"Kashyyyk," he repeated. His dark brows drew together and he exhaled, slowly. His hands were white-knuckled fists at his side, one of them clutching his saber in a death grip. "You were on Kashyyyk. Y-you went back there..."

"After the Star Forge, it's where Zal and Carth and Canderous took--"

"You went back to Kashyyyk." He closed his eyes and tilted his head up, lights tracing his profile in shadow. Dustil took a deep breath. "What exactly did you do, Re-Revan?"

The stutter was not like his father's stutter at all. Something tugged at her. A song she'd forgotten the lyrics to. A bad nightmare that you only remember feeling, not memory.

Revan frowned. "Mekel said you knew. I thought --"

"I want to see Mekel Jin," Dustil said. "Get him away from the Mandalorians. Kashyyyk." His voice hardened, vowels shifting, becoming cold and clipped. "Computer. You said computer. Kashyyyk. Computer. Mission. What did you do?"

Dark. It's dark here. Dangerous.

"Mission picked my pocket on Korriban. She recorded over a holocron that we..." that I killed Lashowe Devry for. Lashowe was such a blind proud little fool.

"A holocron on Korriban. A Sith holocron?"

"I guess, from one of the tombs."

"What computer, Revan?"

She frowned at him. This was not how she'd imagined the conversation going at all.

"Just a computer," she answered, evasive. "I'm sorry, Dustil. I know you cared for her...I know you --"

"Just a computer on Kashyyyk."

His response was inexplicable. Her mind worried at it, like a kath with a bone.

Revan shrugged. "Just a computer." What Mission is now, is none of your business, Dustil, except that you cared for her once.

"I cared for her once," he repeated as if he was picking the thoughts from her head.

Revan felt an uneasy chill and slammed the Force down shut. Dustil flinched.

"Dustil," she began again, "your father and I --"

"Need to get out of here." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "No Mandalorians, no computers. No Jedi. No Sith. If you -- if you love Carth Onasi and want Malachor to be safe -- just leave, Revan. Go. Go now." He paused. "You ... what are you doing with Arca Trinii? How does she fit into this plan?"

"Arca Trinii?"

The name meant nothing.

"Arca," he repeated. "I--I don't know much but --." His voice was uncertain. "She's calling herself a Sith Lord. . . You don't get it, do you? Mandalorians, Kashyyyk computer, Sith Lords..." His laughter was confusing, dark. Ugly. "Just because you've changed, do you think it will be different this time?"

"I don't have anything to do with the Sith now, Dustil." Revan was trying to understand but it felt like there was a barrier of duracrete between them.

I did send the remnants of their fleet to the Malachor system, but out that far, what harm could they do?

"I--I need--" her voice faltered. It was strange confessing this to Carth's son. She hadn't even told Carth, although she thought he knew. He must know. He knew her so well. Better than she knew herself. That's why he's so distant now, she thought, swallowing hard. He's giving me time to deal with what I've done. Time...

"The Force is a gift, Padawan." Atris said, voice cold, that hard dislike still there like a bitter place in a thisla fruit. "Not to yourself, but to the galaxy. The self is inconsequential by comparison. Identity is a shell. Meaningless."

"We did not give you a choice before." Kavar told her. She couldn't read his expression. "You should have one now."

Jopheena's voice was distant. "If being Revan is too much for you -- we will give you another option. There is no shame in that, Padawan."

"A more suitable one," added the scarred Veltron. His eyes were steady and calm. At peace with himself. The Force around him was a clear still pool of water. She recognized his face from children's stories. But the man himself was someone else now.

She envied him.

Revan swallowed, asking the question she didn't want to know, that she already knew. "And my son?"

"We do not ignore familial bonds," her Uncle's holographic representation told her, voice steady. "But, as Revan understood once, Jedi cannot weigh such things over the fate of all sentients. For the greater good, there must be some measure of -- detachment."

That she ignored. Vrook wasn't detached either, she knew that. It was just something he had to say.

"You should meditate on the decision, Revan," Iridel had said.

And so she had been. For a Coruscanti week.

"Malachor is my son," she told Dustil. "I -- want to remember that. I should have to live with what I did. The galaxy has to live with it. I --"

I killed his father and I didn't even know what I --

"You did what you had to do. What was necessary." He swallowed. "All of it. I forgive you."

"For Mission. And Telos." Revan shook her head. "Dustil, I'm not sure that some things are forgivable. "

He winced. "Why did you kill her?" he asked, voice oddly flat. "The Twi--Mission Vao. Why did you kill her?"

Revan's voice faltered. But if anyone, Carth's son had the right to know. "Because she was in my way. S-she said there was still some good in me and she wasn't going to accept that I -- she wasn't going to follow me --she just stood there. And Zaalbar cut her down. Because I made him do it. I -- I made--"

"Stop it." His hands were shaking. Dustil sat down abruptly on the floor and took a deep breath. He crossed his legs, folding them in a gesture reminiscent of the first meditation exercise she remembered learning back on Dantooine. "Why?" he repeated. The word wasn't the accusation she'd expected. The way he said it, it sounded like a rhetorical question.

"Because I had to stop Malak. Darth Malak. And she was in my way." Her response came out flat, almost automatic. She was in my way, just like Jolee and Juhani. Just like Polla and Seiran and Beya. Polla had a son, she had a son and even if I didn't do it, I am responsible, this is my fault. She was in the way. Her death serves me. Even if I didn't give the order, even if I didn't know --

"Did you want to be Dark Lord of the Sith again?" He wouldn't look at her. He was looking at the floor.

"No, I wanted to stop Malak."

His head nodded, slightly. "When I--when I studied Sith history I--" his voice broke off again. "When I -- read about the Mandalorian wars I used to think the Jedi Council were fools for doing nothing. The Fett was a monster. A threat to the galaxy. A-and sometimes the only way to stop a monster is to become a bigger one."

Dustil paused. "You did stop Malak."

There was something wrong with all of this. Dislocated. Almost like a dream. The boy on Korriban had seemed simple. Angry at his father. Loyal to the Sith, and then outraged when Carth uncovered the lie. Young. Emotional. Innocent, somehow, even after all that a Sith Academy could throw at him. This Dustil was -- changed. Could eight months on Coruscant make such a change? What had happened to him that could make such a change --

Dark here, it's dark, dangerous.

"Your saber technique's really good," Revan said, struggling to think of something to say. "You've improved a great deal since --"

Since you tried to kill your father on Korriban.

He looked startled. "I practice." His eyes went to the one dangling from her belt. "You should. For your son. To keep him safe."

"I practice." Revan snapped back.

"With a vibroblade, or practice swords. I-I've seen you." He looked ashamed, as if the admission that he'd been watching her was painful. Revan hadn't known. She only practiced by herself, in the garden off the rooms they'd given her with an old blade Canderous had sent over. "It's an entirely different thing. The balance, the weight...you -- can't keep the same reflexes with a cortosis blade."

"Thanks for the advice," she said, voice dry. It's none of your fracking business.

"You can't stay here," he repeated.

"The Jedi can help you, Dustil. Whatever it is, that's eating at you --" something was, like a cancer, like a canker, like a shadow. It was in his every move, the terrible pallor of his face. "They can help all of us, they've promised --"

"Mother?"

Revan had been so focused on Dustil she hadn't heard her son's approach. She turned around, Korrie was standing in the doorway, sleep-tousled, clutching his pillow as if it were a stuffed toy. He'd pulled a white apprentice robe over his pajamas, but his feet were still bare. He smiled at her, so open and innocent and good that it made her heart jump again.

"You should be asleep," she told him, opening her arms. Korrie snuggled into them, and she pulled him into a hug. The world was safe and good and warm again, suddenly. Easy enough, because it only had two people in it. The rest faded away.

"You're talking to each other," Korrie said. "That's good, right?" He wiggled in her arms half-turning them both to face Dustil again. "If it's like Mandalorians and Mother is one now, then why can't we all be one happy fa--"

"Malachor." Her son's full name came out of Dustil Onasi's mouth half-choked. Strangled. "We spoke about this. No."

Revan's skin prickled. There was almost a Force-compulsion in that 'no.' She opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again.

Dark. It's dark here. Dangerous.

Carth's son got up from the floor, edging around them as if they were contagious. "I've got to go."

"Don't use the Force on my son," she snapped at him.

He turned his head. "I would never hurt Malachor, Revan." His head jerked away again and he left, walking fast as if he was afraid they would follow.

Revan stared after Dustil's retreating back, frowning. Korrie tugged at her sleeve.

"Is this where you and Father used to practice together? Back when you were Jedi?"

"What?" Revan's attention snapped back, and she rumpled his hair, bending down to give her son a Hothan kiss. It made him giggle.

"This room. S-someone told me there was a room. They said..." Korrie wiggled out of her arms and ran to the curving walls, stepping over the shattered remnants of the practice droid. A small console was set into it, and her son tapped a few buttons, frowning in concentration, lips sounding out words. "There's recordings of Jedi practice sessions. For students to watch and learn. Father was one of the best and you were too and so they kept the recordings. S-someone told me maybe sometime I could see -- I always wanted to see --"

A beam of light flickered and began to shuffle through: ghost-images of various pairs of Padawans sparring, ghost beams of blue and green and yellow sabers, cycling through an infinite pattern of lightsaber stances.

"There!"

The girl's hair was a red flame down her back, and the taller boy had a cap of brown curls. The two shifted and turned in a perfect balance. They fought, circling, blue saber clashing with yellow. Chills prickled Revan's spine.

"Who told you?" Revan watched her ghost-image dance with a man she'd killed. A man she'd shattered. The lump in her throat wouldn't go away. "One of the Jedi?"

"Yes." Behind the hologram her son nodded, enthusiastic. His crooked tooth flashed. The lips of the hologram figures moved, but there was no sound in the recording. She watched her son try and imitate one of the stances that this long-ago Malak was doing, raising an imaginary lightsaber above his head, and had to stop some forgotten place in herself from stepping forward and correcting his angle. Ghost Malak's shoulder's shifted, beautiful, perfect line of balance and power --

-- And her breath caught in her throat suddenly. Like a shockwave.

No. That's -- that's insane. That's not possible.

He held it two-handed, raising both hands above his head to counter her younger self's parry. He moved gracefully and oddly beautiful, lines of his broad shoulders in perfect synch under the thin robe, every angle in perfect alignment.

Shai'cho. N'ha, Eskai.

Dark here, it's dark here. Dangerous.

Impossible.

Malak is gone from this place. Malak is gone --

Impossible.

"Both of us need our sleep, kissra," she said out loud, keeping her voice flat. "Come on, Korrie, tomorrow's a big day."

"I'll be nine," he reminded her.

Revan smiled at him. "I know."

The galaxy wasn't so bad as long as it only had two people in it. But anything more than that was impossible. Untenable. Anything more than that wasn't allowed to exist.

XXX

---

This place was too quiet, it felt like a tomb.

The enclave at Dantooine had been much smaller, and despite the Jedi reluctance to engage in the outside world, part of the farming community that surrounded it. The Jedi Temple on Coruscant was ancient and immense, built to house numbers that no longer existed. All corridors spiraled inward. Being inside, the rest of Coruscant ceased to be real.

It made him profoundly uncomfortable. Canderous had a hard time imagining Revan -- or Carth -- choosing to stay in such a place for long.

And yet they'd been here for more than two weeks.

Oerin Lin strode ahead of him, running his hands along the intricately carved walls, whistling an old battle hymn, whose sound reflected harsh and tinny off the cold marble. He glanced back at them.

"Stop hunching your shoulders, Mekel Jin," he called back. "They must know you're here. If they haven't clapped you in chains yet, I think you can assume that you're safe."

"Shut up, Lin," the Coruscanti boy muttered. He glanced up at Canderous, biting his lip nervously. "I don't like it here. Place gives me the creeps."

Canderous laughed. "Me too," he replied, slapping the whelp lightly on the back. "You didn't have to come with us, you know. We don't need the computer for this..."

"No, I had to come," Mekel answered. He looked at the floor. He looked guilty, but then again, he always did. "I need to see Dustil. I should have come sooner..."

"We only just got permission now. Onasi had to take it up with the highest Fleet command, his message said." Canderous snorted. Republic. Their gross inefficiency made his blood burn.

Behind them, HK gave a disgruntled clank from beneath the tower of boxes they'd stacked and strapped to his chassis.

"Unnecessary Reminder: I am not a transport carrier. When the Master sees the abject servitude to which you have subjected my finely-honed circuitry she will be most displeased."

"You did tell her we were coming now, didn't you?" Canderous asked Mekel. Carth had asked to see him, but he hadn't mentioned Revan at all. Well, perhaps she was busy regaining her memories or spending time with her son. Or doing more of those Jedi meditation exercises that had always looked like sleeping sitting up.

He glanced back at the HK. Most of what the droid carried was the clan's presents for the child, to celebrate the week of his birth. But there was one box that he wanted her to see...especially since...well who knew how she'd react to it really, especially after what had happened. Nonetheless, she had a right to know.

Mekel shook his head, nervous. "N-no, I--I didn't tell her."

Canderous sighed. Force-users never understood the practical side of things. "Tell her now," he ordered the boy.

Mekel just blinked at him. Oerin shrugged. "She's not listening," he said. "The Force isn't a comm unit, Ordo."

Canderous successfully resisted the urge to cuff them both. Oerin smiled and raised an eyebrow.

"As a boy," the Lin pup mused. "I often imagined that someday I'd come here." He shrugged. "I had hoped for an escort of shock troops...but..."

"We agreed, no violence," Canderous reminded him. "Unless Revan commands it."

Lin shrugged. "That was a joke." He started whistling again.

The carefully measured tread of several small sets of feet alerted them first. Then one broke into an excited clatter. Revan's son -- Canderous would recognize that red cap of hair anywhere -- came barreling around the corner. Behind him the other little Jedi spawnlings stopped, trying hard to hide their shock. Their escort or teacher or whatever, a mottled Durian wrapped rather awkwardly in Jedi Master's brown, clicked and clattered what passed for its tongue.

"You're expected." The tone of its voder was faintly disapproving. Canderous grinned at it, then stepped back to admire the child. It was the first time he'd seen him in person. Malachor was a likely-looking whelp, big for his age. Someday, if he lived, he'd be a fine warrior.

"Mekel!" Malachor cried, throwing himself enthusiastically into the lad's arms. Mekel looked taken aback. As far as Canderous knew they'd never met.

"He wants to see you, Mekel...he says he thinks you know...who...you know..." the boy looked over at Canderous, a faint frown on his face. "I don't really understand, they say different things and how can you tell who's right?" He pulled away from Mekel and took a few steps towards Canderous. "Are you bad, Canderous Ordo?"

Canderous tried to come with an answer, but the child's attention had already shifted to the droid and the boxes it carried.

"Mother's Ache Kay!" He pulled at one of the boxes, almost unsettling the stack. "What's in here?"

"Statement: Revan-spawn, the Mandalorians have brought you gifts to pay you homage and to celebrate the fortunate occurrence of your birth nine standard years ago."

"My birthday was seven days ago, actually." Malachor corrected. His smile faded. "We had a cake, and Mother tried to be happy, but she's not, she's not happy at all. Except to see me, of course -- but..."

The Durian clicked, disapproving. "There is no rank in these halls, citizens. Please do not cloud the child's head with delusions of his own importance. Such thinking --"

"-- leads to the dark side. Yes, yes, we've seen the vids." Oerin Lin rolled his eyes and smirked at the other Jedi whelps, who were gaping, slightly open-mouthed. He turned back to Revan's son. "Malachor," he called out. "Come here and give your Uncle Oerin a hug."

The boy looked at him, dubious, and shook his head.

"Mal." The voice was flat and clipped, coming from one of the entranceways behind them. "Go...see your mother. She's in the Room of a Thousand Fountains."

"The apprentices are in the middle of a training exercise--" the Durian began.

"Malachor is not formally an apprentice, yet. You've made that abundantly clear. And Master Jopheena has approved that he spend time with his mother. While he can."

Canderous was impressed with the cold authority in Dustil Onasi's voice. The Durian gathered the rest of his flock around him, and took off hastily down one of the branching halls.

"Dustil," he said. "It's good to see you. Is your father--"

Sound of running feet from behind the Onasi boy and Carth came into view, slightly out of breath.

"You didn't tell me they were here already," he hissed at his son, glaring daggers.

Inwardly, Canderous raised an eyebrow. From the way the pilot used to talk about the boy he'd expected them to be on better terms. The whelp looked terrible, he wondered if he was ill. There were rumors of plague again, in the sublevels, and the Jedi were always going down there and doing good works.

"Are you ill, Dustil?" he began, politely. "We have excellent medical facilities at the hotel."

"I'm fine," the boy replied. He pushed his hair back from his forehead and looked at them all again, pale face perfectly expressionless. "Get out of here, Mal. Now."

"Curious," Oerin murmured in Mandalorian.

Dustil only looked at him, and the Lin cub fell silent, backing up slightly and holding his hands open, palms up. The Jedi on Dantooine, Canderous recalled, used a similar gesture to express goodwill and their lack of interest in combat.

At this point Canderous had been around enough Jedi that it didn't even phase him. Long silences, unexplained tension, lots of hair-rending and hand-wringing about the dark side...it all came with the territory. The Force was mysterious, capricious, and often annoying. You can't shoot what you can't see. The best thing to do was to ignore it.

"Is there a place to get a drink in this tomb, Republic?"

Carth stared at him. "Thank you for coming," he said finally, not answering the question.

"Can I take Ache Kay to Mother?" Malachor asked. He tugged at the droid's arm, almost upsetting the parcels.

"They're from the clans," Canderous assured Carth. "Perfectly safe. Books and clothes and sweets, mostly. I had them leave the weapons back at the hotel. For later." Dustil was scowling at him, the pilot only looked distracted. "Maybe later." Canderous added, feeling suddenly foolish at his discomfiture. "And there's something I wanted Revan to see. How is she?"

"She's fine," Carth said. "Meditating. She does that a lot." He looked troubled again. "Go on, Korrie," he said to the boy.

The child looked at Dustil. "Go on, Mal," Carth's son said. He took a step back and folded his arms.

That's odd, Canderous thought, as the boy took off down the hall followed by the laden HK.

He shrugged and clapped an arm around Republic's back. "Drinks," he reminded his friend. "Don't worry I brought my own."

"I'll just go after Korrie and make sure he's fine --," Dustil began.

"No. Go... meditate someplace else. Stay away from them both." Steel in that voice. And some emotion that Canderous didn't understand. Extreme...dislike, maybe?

"Right," the boy muttered, trailing behind them.

Mekel Jin fell back to walk beside Dustil. The Coruscanti whelp had been very quiet. Canderous hoped he wasn't about to have another fit.

Oerin's whistling rattled off the halls.

XXX

There were a really a thousand fountains in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Once perhaps, a thousand Jedi sat here in contemplation, each keeping a fountain running with the Force. The room had fallen into disuse. There weren't very many Jedi here now. Sometimes she thought there should be more, she'd hear voices and laughter in the empty corridors and wonder if she'd come back to this place that she couldn't remember only to finally lose her mind.

If she concentrated, Revan could keep three hundred and seventy-two fountains going at once. She was trying for an even five hundred.

Three hundred and seventy-three, three hundred and seventy-four...

"We'd let you find a real redemption, make a real choice." Iridel's voice had been kind. The Jedi were far from united on this -- more like boxed into a corner -- the negative publicity from Polla's death was causing them more trouble than they let her see, than she wanted to see -- and some of them blamed her -- as well they should, your fault even if you didn't pull the trigger or give the order your fault -- but here inside the cloistered halls it didn't matter.

The world, she reminded herself, only has two people in it.

And then the other one came running into the room.

"Mother!" He sounded happy and excited. Clank of something behind his small feet.

Revan opened her eyes and Korrie fell into her arms. Behind him loomed HK, draped in boxes.

The rush of water from three hundred and seventy-four fountains stopped.

"What's this?" she asked her son, smiling.

He grinned back at her. He'd been out in the gardens, his bare feet were stained green with grass and there were more freckles on his nose. More than two weeks had passed and he bore little resemblance to the staid Coruscanti heir she'd first met in the Senate chambers. His grandfather, she thought, vindictive, would have a fit to see. Revan rumpled his hair more.

"Presents!" he exclaimed. "For me from the Mandalorians."

With an aggrieved clank, her assassin droid began removed the boxes from his chassis, stacking them into neat piles on the ground.

"Statement: I am a protocol droid skilled in negotiation and elimination, not a luggage carrier," HK reminded her. "The Mandalorians need to be reminded of my proper function. I recommend a small explosive device to be set off during one of their tests of strength as a cue."

"You've been following Canderous' orders, right, HK?" Revan said, smiling faintly.

"Your programming left me no choice. After you abandoned me in the Senate Chambers, the CoruSec guards escorted me to the Mandalorian transport as if I were no more than chattel. Or...baggage."

Korrie laughed. "He's funnier than Grandfather's Ache Kay, Mother," he said. "I like him."

"Protect my son with your life," she reminded the droid.

"Assurance: And any other lives that happen to get caught in the way. I would welcome the opportunity." HK clanked, and handed her one of the boxes. It had been unsealed and then haphazardly rewrapped in clear plasticene foil stamped with the priority express symbol. "This is for you. The Mandalorian thought you would find it of interest."

Korrie started ripping open the other boxes, and Revan stared at the one in her hands, turning it over slowly.

The routing bar indicated that it had come from Deralia and the time stamp was over two weeks old.

Inside were three black silk robes and a card.

Her hand fingered the fabric. Hand-woven, not export grade. Rough weave, but strong. They'll last forever. She raised a fold of black cloth to her face.

Across from her, her son was busily ripping into one of the other boxes. The box contained a model basilisk war droid, set to scale. He gave a whoop of appreciation. Revan smiled at his exuberance, through her tears.

Hands trembling, she turned her attention to the card. It had been opened too. Canderous, she supposed, scanning her mail for poison or bombs.

Dear Revan,

Presents, as you know, are old Deralian tradition from family to family. We're so happy that you're part of ours, and hope this finds you well. Congratulations on your marriage! I have to admit, usually Organas only marry one man at a time, but I expect you know your own mind, dear. You always have.

Your sister, (and I hope you don't take offense, that we think of you both that way), is still a bit sulky about this entire thing, but she promised me that she'd get you and your husbands something nice. Let me know if she doesn't. I'll have words.

Jasp is a little worried that we don't know you like we should. I know you're probably quite busy, what with all of the galaxy's problems, but we're back here at home, whenever you need us. We'd be delighted if you came for a visit, and if you ever need a place away from all those bright lights, our home is always open to you and yours.

All our love,

Molla Organa.

Jasp and Auntie Mita's signatures were written in different hands underneath. Revan sat staring at the card for a long time, feeling the tears build behind her eyelids. She took a deep breath. The sound of rushing water surrounded them again like a rush. Like an ocean.

"Mother! You've made them all go on at once!" Korrie cheered at her. Revan tried to smile back through gritted teeth. The Force was like an ocean and she struggled to control it, not to scream--

"Your pacifistic display of Force power is impressive, Master. I am sure the Jedi are trembling with fear," said her droid.

Korrie was now opening a set of Mandalorian formal robes stamped with the Lin crest -- a stylized skull set into a sun. He stared at them, frowning a little. "Mother, are the Mandalorians bad?" It was the question he kept asking her. Revan still didn't know how to answer it.

"They're our allies, Korrie," she said.

Around them the roar of the fountains stopped. Revan fingered the thick fabric in her lap, trying to ignore the ache in her throat and behind her eyes. Two people. The universe has two people. You and me, my son.

"Can allies be bad? Can they do bad things? Some people," her son told her earnestly. "Don't like the Mandalorians at all. But you do." He cocked his head. "Are they like Grandfather? Sort of bad unless they like you?"

Revan tried not to look rattled by the question. "They like you, Korrie. I told you that."

She had, several times, ever since their first night in the Temple when he woke up with nightmares about Mandalorians under the bed. They'd had to move him out of the apprentice dorms for causing a disturbance.

"With fire raining down from the sky and the people were running and trying to hide, Mother. But they couldn't hide."

She hadn't been able to get him to go back to sleep. He'd only quieted down again when Dustil sat by his bedside, holding his hand.

Revan had been oddly jealous of Carth's son, and then felt guilty about it. That night, Carth had been the one who'd refused to leave the room until Korrie was safely asleep and Dustil back in his quarters next door.

Carth was so distant, ever since they'd come to this place. He spent all his time with Dustil, but they didn't seem to be getting along...well, they'd work it out. You had to let people sort themselves, Auntie Mita used to say that when I --

Auntie Mita's dead. Molla and Jasp Organa must know that you killed their daughter now. Face the facts. The truth hurts. Be Revan.

Revan had to face a lot of facts.

She watched her son rip open more boxes, keeping the smile welded on her face, trying not to break.

XXX

"You can't go in there. The Padawan is not to be disturbed."

"I'm invited," rumbled a familiar voice. There was a pause. "I'm family."

"It's fine," she called out to the nervous Jedi Knight guarding the doorway. Or spying on me. Is there a difference?

"Revan." The warrior smiled at her, lines crinkling the corners of his eyes. She got to her feet, smoothing the robe they'd given her to wear -- Padawan beige. Korrie looked up from his presents, face composed and polite.

"Thank you, Canderous of Ordo," he said. He had a book on his lap, now, a cheap holoprint, and was thumbing through the pages.

"You look like you're eating," the Mandalorian said to her, "but I've seen you happier. Still, compared to Republic --"

"Where is he?"

Canderous shrugged. "We had a drink in that cell of a room they've given you, talked about the future and then he took off down the hall after Dustil and Mekel. Overprotective, isn't he? Is he the same way about the young cub?"

"You're a fine specimen," he added, addressing Korrie. "Your Ordo cousins are looking forward to meeting you."

"I have cousins?" Her son looked up from his book, excited. Red brows puzzled for a moment and then his face fell. "Oh. You mean Mandalorians, like you." There was something in the way that he said Mandalorians. It sounded like -- disgust.

"Have you started him on swords yet, or do the Jedi jump straight to lightsabers?"

"No lightsabers until I'm old enough to understand the responsibility," her son responded. "A Jedi's weapon is for defense and the protek-shun of others. It is not a toy."

Canderous snorted. "Heh, the Jedi I fought against used them for a lot more than that! And your mother, you should have seen the way she cut through those Sith on Manaan. And Korriban. And the Star Forge--it was--"

Revan tried not to wince. Death. I'm good at death. It's what I do.

"You know, I haven't seen you draw the thing since -- well, you know since --" the Mandalorian seemed to finally realize the awkwardness of the conversation and fell silent.

Since the Star Forge.

"But you're still carrying it," Canderous added. Revan's hand went to her belt where the silver cylinder hung. He peered at her. "Did they give you back your memories yet? I meant to ask Carth, but he ran off so quickly."

"They want me to meditate on my decision," she finally answered, when his expression started changing to concern.

"Well at least they let you run around armed." Canderous shrugged. "That's a good sign."

"Mother's a Jedi," her son explained. "Jedi carry lightsabers. I want a blue one, like --" he frowned again, looking at her cautiously and then at Canderous. "Like Father's."

"Your father was a demon with the blade, they used to say." The Mandalorian smiled. "I never fought him myself, but his slaughter was legend among the Clans. He had a great deal of respect, with the men of my people."

"Cand -- don't --"

Don't make death fun. Don't remind my son about Malak. Or me.

"Revan, he's your son. People are trying to kill him. He's the son of two of the greatest warriors the galaxy has ever seen --"

"He's a child." Somewhere emotion had crept back into her voice. "Children don't kill."

Unless they're me.

"Korrie, go -- go find Carth. And Dustil." Her son's bottom lip jutted out in protest and he stared at the floor. "I need to talk to Canderous about grown-up things now."

Grown-up things like guilt and how your hands never get clean, no matter what you do. You think you're a hero and then they flip the card over. And your hands still have blood on them. Lightsabers are clean, but your hands are bloody. Polla Organa. Seiran Wen. Their child. The Selkath Seven. Lukash Vair, Vikor Tio Beya Organa--

Revan waited until her son's footsteps had faded before speaking again.

"Polla's dead, Cand. Because of me. The real Polla. Dead."

"You didn't kill her, Revan."

"Someone did. D'Reev or -- or maybe Mission or someone else, trying to do me a favor..."

The warrior shrugged. "Did you read that card? Her parents don't blame you."

Fracking thick Mandalorian skulls... Her hands clenched in lap, wrinkling the thick eridu robes. "They sent us these presents before, Cand. Before. When Polla was alive." She closed her eyes. "I got their only daughter killed. And their grandson. And her husband...they'll hate me now. And they should."

Pollie put the kettle on, we'll all have tea.

"Well, she's hardly the first person to die for you, Revan. And when the woman called the hotel yesterday, Gwen said she didn't sound upset. She just wanted to give you a message."

"The woman? What woman?" She missed her son already. Revan reached out her senses and found his thoughts, focused, excited, a little confused. He was looking for Dustil again, and as always, that seemed to make him happy.

Only two people in the world, she reminded herself. Me and my son. And Korrie's happy. Happy to have his mother back, happy to be in this place where no one will kill him. And that's all that matters.

"Polla's mother. Molla Organa. Gwen said she wasn't upset. Deralians strike me as remarkably civilized people. She must understand that her daughter's death carries its own sort of honor. Polla died to protect you. The mother went to a fair amount of trouble, tracking us down. She couldn't get through to you here, of course." Canderous' face never showed much expression, but that slight twist of his scarred brow revealed his disgust. "This place is a tomb, Revan. You don't belong here. Take what you need and go."

She just looked up him, her mouth open. You don't understand. How can you not understand? The black part of her thoughts supplied the answer. You destroyed his people, shattered his clan, probably killed most of his family. And Canderous doesn't hate you for it. He respects you. To Mandalorians sacrifice is just a part of war. To Mandalorians, war is all that there is.

"That's not how they think on Deralia," she said, dully. "And it's not just--just Polla. Her husband, her son. Her son died for mine? How is that fair? How is that right?" There were tears in her eyes again, and she wiped them away.

Canderous nodded. "She said you should cry for them. She said you should cry for them like you cried at your cousin's funeral. Gwen told me the cousin's name...I--" he looked slightly embarrassed and pulled a datapad out from the pocket of his vest. "Vish. Your cousin Vish. Mourn Polla and her family like you mourned for your cousin Vish. And then--" he continued, reading the words off the screen, "--and then move on."

"What?" Revan froze, looking up at him.

The Mandalorian shrugged. "They seem like a sensible planet, Deralians. I always assumed they would be from the stories you used to tell me of Polla's memories growing up. Weapons training from an early age, a natural suspicion of the Republic. Practical. I'd imagine they'd be fierce warriors as well."

"Cousin Vish, you said. Vish."

The name Vish tolled in her mind like a bell.

"Stop fidgeting, dear. Hold still."

"Frack, Ma. It stings!" Twelve-year old Polla struggled ineffectively under her mother and Bolt's iron grip. Molla rubbed the raw slice of onnie again over her daughter's tightly-closed eyes.

"That's the point. Now--open your eyes, let me see. No, dear, stop blinking so much, and don't rub them. Not yet. You'll wash it all out too early, and we need to make a good show at the cemetery--"

"I didn't even know her that well! I could just look sad. I can handle that, I'm not a fracking baby..."

"They'll be watching us all closely, Pollie. We can't afford to take any chances."

Cousin Vish Organa had faked her own death to collect the insurance money and run off to join a band of space pirates. It was said that she was doing quite well, somewhere between the Krom asteroid field and the Outlier ring.

"Poor Vish," Revan whispered, remembering the sad murmurs at the empty grave. Polla Organa had been twelve. "Poor Vish, so tragic."

Half the room of course had known the truth.

The other half had been a team of Corellian investigators from the insurance company.

Revan's mouth opened and closed.

"Thank you," she said finally, although that seemed woefully inadequate.

"Good," the warrior said gruffly. "That's better. Now stand up. We should probably go find Oerin. He wandered off somewhere, and there's no telling what sort of mischief that pup will get into left on his own." He snorted, bending down to pick something up. It was the book that Korrie had been looking at. A battered copy of The Adventures of Nomi Sunrider and Knights of Ossus, Volume Ten: The Death of Ulic. "Your son likes this? It was Oerin's as a boy, he said." The large hands turned the fragile plasticore sheets, and the brightly colored images within shimmered. Revan had a stir of memory looking at it, although from Polla's mind or her own she wasn't sure.

Not volume Ten, though. Volume Two. Nomi and baby Vima and Ulic...

She crushed the fragile spine beneath her heel, and the dancing images shattered. His horribly disfigured face watched her.

Without a mouth Malak had no expression. And no voice. That made him less effective.

"I made a prosthesis for you."

Revan made herself laugh, slamming down the fragment that was less than a memory with a resolute thunk. "I can't see Oerin reading that. It's just holotrash."

"Something his mother gave him, he said." Canderous' expression was thoughtful. "She was an interesting woman. In some ways, you remind me of her."

"You knew her?" Revan stretched her arms. She was stiff from sitting so long. It felt like she'd been sitting for days.

"Not well, but she oversaw some of the conversion work for Ordo. She was very enthusiastic about our invasion plans--" he broke off, as if remembering his manners.

"Volume Ten," Revan repeated, trying to find something to say. Thoughts of Oerin romping through the Jedi Temple distracted her. "We'd better find Lin," she agreed. Somewhere in the marble halls her son was racing down a corridor towards the archives. Bright happy thoughts. Dustil was there. With Carth and Mekel. She felt the Force pull and shimmer around her, sparks of bright Jedi energy as the inhabitants of the Temple went about their business, overshadowed with the familiar unease that she was pretty sure had to do with her. She could find no trace of Lin.

"He's hiding," she said out loud, looking for where he was not, watching the sparks for their reactions. "Why did you bring him here?"

"He wanted to come," Canderous said. "I assumed he wanted to meet the child. After all, he's family." He shook his head. "Speaking of family, what's eating Republic? I would have thought he'd be happy to have his son back. Dustil seems capable. You should have seen him ordering the Jedi around. He'll make a fine leader someday. "

"Huh?" A great deal of her mind was still focused on Korrie's thoughts, and the rest on the news that Polla wasn't dead.

She's probably pissed off -- I would be if someone took my identity, forced me into hiding, ruined my life...

Revan had never thought much about the real Deralian, except to envy her for the normal life she'd had, but she suddenly had an irrational desire to see her.

She'd shoot you before you got closer than thirty paces. She must hate your guts.

It doesn't matter, she's alive. There are a hundred places to hide in the Outliers if you're smart and you know the drill. Abandoned mining camps in the Defelli asteroid field, low-tech worlds along the Catafan spire...hell, you could just go south to the Derran coast -- caves there, a network of smuggling towns...there's plenty of places to go where no one could ever find --.

"Carth and Dustil," Canderous repeated. "Is rivalry normal between fathers and sons on Telos? If they were Mandalorian they'd take it to the battle circle, but I don't imagine the Jedi condone that...."

"They'll work it out," Revan said, emptily. Her mind skipped around the impossibility again, like a grenade glancing off a forcefield.

XXX

She'd had the dream again the night before. Absently, Thalia rubbed her hand against the coarse fabric of her robe, a vain attempt to cure a phantom itch. Next to her on the balcony overlooking the Garden of the Departed, Padawan Lydie Korr covered her mouth with a light brown hand to stifle a nervous giggle.

"That's the Fett Mandalore," the Zabrak whispered to Thalia. "The real one that isn't Revan. I saw the recordings from the Senate talks when I was helping Master Atris archive recent news and events. Mandalore isn't a hereditary title, exactly -- but five thousand years ago, when the Mandalorian Empire stretched as far as the Hydian Way--"

"Well there's not very many Mandalorians left," Thalia interrupted. She had felt very tired and drained, the past few days. And her dreams had been worse than usual. Sometimes the shadows hanging over the Temple walls seemed so real and tangible that she wanted to scream.

"The future is always in motion," Master Iridel had said. "And although what you have told me is disturbing, it is not carved in stone. We see one piece of the weave, but the will of the Force sees all. You must trust it, Thalia May. You must learn to see. See the fabric of the universe. Hear the music of the spheres."

What Thalia had seen was death walking. Sometimes she thought she was going mad.

"What is he doing?" Lydie murmured.

Below them the Fett Mandalore stood in front of the Nomi Sunrider statue. The sun through the clouds glinted on his golden hair, flashed a dull sheen on his Mandalorian armor. His head tilted, looking at it, and he ran a hand along the carved limwood of Nomi's robes.

"That's kind of odd..." Thalia's voice trailed off and she rubbed her temples. The man below them was important: in his profile stamped like an old credit chip from some long-ago empire she saw flames and stars. And a force of nature like a hurricane that was --

"He's kneeling?!" Lydie gasped. "Thallie, do you think we should tell someone? Jopheena or Atris or --"

Thalia's eyes unfocused. Her mind twisted in time, but whatever the Mandalorian's fate was, it was hidden behind the gray barrier.

The grayness had haunted her always, ever since her childhood on Ziost, and now it was closer than ever.

"You shouldn't be here," the dark-haired man said. No surprise in his voice. Just dead acceptance of the role he had to play. Perhaps he'd had this dream too.

The room they were in was small and cramped and crude. The dead thing strapped to the bed had been a Jedi once. She didn't know which Jedi. It no longer had a face.

Her hand reached for Lydie's and she squeezed it, tightly.

Don't let it be you, Lydie.

"I dreamed of you," dream-Thalia said, simply, moving closer.

"You shouldn't have come," he repeated. Something vulnerable in that voice. Something pleading underneath the madness. "I'd build you a castle of stars. I'd keep you away safe, I'd save you -- but you -- you shouldn't have come."

"You have to see," Thalia said simply. "I dreamed of you."

XXX

A/N

I wanted a Zaalbar pov (yes, okay in part to avoid the Prisoner "disappearing character' rule...) in this and had a terrible time getting into the right mindset. When I finally gritted teeth and started writing it, (months after some of the Revan/leet Sith assassin stuff...), the only thing that really clinched it for me was thinking of Dinah Lance's recent (and amazing) challenge piece about Canderous. And the line, "I will follow." Very little in Memory, or in most things are entirely original, but sometimes inspiration is so direct that it must be acknowledged. Thanks, Di, again for letting me steal that. It's a sentiment that works amazing for Cand' too, albeit in a slightly different way...this is extremely angsty Zaal...hopefully he will snap out of it.

External references: Bladerunner, for tone of first piece...and husband says, Thieves )aka Mandalorians) in the Temple is Conan reference...he may be correct. Music of the spheres might be Cicero, I dunno. Bars, cars...is Nabokov, Lolita. Turn!Turn!Turn! is the Byrds, and, okay, I know this is cheesy, but really that song is where I got the idea for Mandalorian seasons in the first place.

XXX