Call of the Dead

Author's notes: Co-authored by JediQB and Jiara

The Pazaak in his head did nothing to calm his agitated fidgeting. Neither did the cards in his hands. He sighed deeply as he looked up from the game and out the cockpit windows. The barren ruin of Korriban wavered slightly in the heat. She was out there, somewhere.

Alone.

Go back to the ship, Atton. Her voice echoed in his mind as he recalled the exchange from the morning. He of course protested immediately.

"Don't you need back up?'

'I'd prefer you were guarding the ship. And keep her on standby just in case we need to get out of here quick.'

'What's going on? You sense something with those Jedi feelings of yours?'

'As a matter of fact, yes,' she snapped back as she stopped and turned to him. 'You. You've been acting strangely since we landed here. The Dark Side is strong in this place, but why would it affect you, Atton?'

'I...' He looked past her, focusing on something far away in the darkness of the shyrack cave. 'No reason I can think of.'

'Right. We'll discuss this later.'

'There's nothing to talk about...'

'Then take your nothing-to-talk-about self back to the ship, and stay out of trouble this time! I mean it!'

'Fine!'

'Fine!' she yelled at his retreating form. Their angered shouts bounced off the cave walls.

He flipped the top card roughly; it fell from his fumbling fingers and floated under the console. 'Great,' he grumbled as he slammed the rest of the deck down. He slid from the pilot's seat and began to worm his way under the controls searching for the card. He found the corner of it poking from under the front panel; he couldn't get a decent enough grip on it to pull it free. 'Oh, come on!'

'Talking to yourself now?'

The voice came from nowhere and startled him into the predictable movement of slamming his head into the console. He quickly gained his feet, blaster in hand, to see Mira leaning lazily against the doorframe. 'What are you doing here, Red? Aren't you supposed to be searching for salvage?'

'Yeah, I just dropped off some junk. What are you doing here?'

'Watching the ship,' he said flatly as he holstered his weapon and slunk back into the seat.

'Oh really? What'd ya do this time?' she snickered.

'Nothing,' he answered quickly. 'Just being my usual charming self, that's all.'

'Well, that'd do it then. You've been weird lately, even for you...'

'Listen, I am guarding the ship, end of story.'

'Oh, sure, from what? Tuk'atas and Sith ghosts? There's nothing left here. But I have to admit, you pulled the best duty. I got stuck tomb raiding with that creepy old woman, and the temp out there is murder. At least the ship's enviro controls keep it bearable in here.'

'Yeah, lucky me. I always win, right?' He kept his back towards her as he resumed his game.

'Maybe you should use this opportunity to take a shower. That's probably the real reason she sent you back.'

'No wonder you need stun-cuffs to get a man...'

'Whatever, I'm outta here. I have someplace to be.'

He listened as her footsteps faded down the hall. After waiting for a moment, he slipped back down to the floor to retrieve his wayward card. After repeated grabs at it, the card still refused to budge. The corner was now torn and bent, rendering it useless for anything but friendly games. 'Way to go, Atton,' he chided himself.

'Is that what you call yourself?'

'What?' Atton pulled himself from the controls and looked around the cockpit. 'Red?' The hum of the ship buzzed in the air. He craned his neck to look through the doorway: nothing. Slowly, calmly, he sat back down and stared straight ahead.

'Do you know what day it is?'

He bolted from the seat, both blasters drawn. The skin began to prick at the back of his neck: the room was empty and still. The silence was replaced by a slight clank from the back of the ship and the air stopped circulating from the vents. He turned quickly to the security cam display: it flickered and winked out to nothing. Instinctive caution took command as he began to move down the corridor. The rising temperature in the ship did nothing to soothe his mood. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead as his heartbeat thundered in his ears.

Slowly, carefully and weapons first, he wandered through the ship, finding nothing and no one. With one last scan of the garage, he holstered one blaster, kept the other charged and at the ready, and then approached a maintenance panel. 'That stupid droid was supposed to fix this,' he grumbled as he looked at the jumble of wires and switches with complete confusion. 'I fly these, I don't fix them,' he mumbled as he randomly flipped switches and jiggled wires. 'Where's that damn tech from Telos? Oh, right, slicing the computers at the academy with the droids. Good for him we cleaned it out already...'

Atton shuddered recalling their last encounter in the ruins. The half-rotted Sith Lord they barely dodged chilled him to the bone. The comment Sion rasped at them was meant for her, but he still couldn't shake the way those words froze his soul: The call of Korriban is strong. But it is a call of the dead. He shook his head, as if it would remove the echo of the words in his mind. They had fled, realizing that he was too strong on this Dark Side vortex. A shuttle had launched soon afterwards; the Zabrak was sent for a final sweep of the academy. 'Well, even that is better than sitting here on a sweltering, broken-down ship alone.'

'You're never alone.'

'Alright, dammit, who's there? Kreia, you old Force witch, is that you again?' he yelled into the room. 'Get the hell outta my head!'

'Do you know what day it is?'

'That's it!' he growled as he marched towards the sleeping quarters. 'Listen you...' The room was empty and quiet. 'What the hell is going on here?'

'Do you know what day it is?'

A rush of cool air caused the hair on his neck to stand on end. He backed from the room and turned quickly, heading for the cockpit. He didn't see the man standing there until he had nearly bumped into him. On reflex, his blaster fired. At the point blank range he couldn't miss, but the stranger stood there, unscathed and smiling, as a panel at the end of the corridor exploded from the energy bolt. Atton just stared in amazement.

'I'm not surprised you don't remember me, but you really don't know what today is, do you?' he responded. 'Such a proud moment in your life, Jaq, I am amazed you do not celebrate it each cycle.'

'What did you call me?' Atton now looked closely at the form before him. The man was dressed in Jedi robes and he had a faint aura of blue radiating from him...no, through him. He seemed to be a holo-projection floating in the hall.

'Oh, I'm quite real, I assure you,' he smiled maliciously. 'Here, maybe this will jolt your memory,' he said raising his hand. A sharp pain shot through Atton's neck, a searing bolt shivered down his spine. Atton dropped his blaster and both hands became numb, his arms hung uselessly at his sides. 'Ringing any bells, slayer? Corellia, exactly ten standard years ago, to the day.'

'Isn't this a bit extreme for a lost hand of Pazaak?' he quipped through his teeth. He didn't know how he remained upright; he could no longer feel his legs. 'What exactly is the point of this happy little reunion?'

'Oh, I lost more than a few creds on a fixed game. I lost my life to you, assassin. I was your first kill. Remember now?'

Atton's eyes rolled back into his head from pain and shock. The memory of that day flooded his mind. His training was complete and he was sent out as a test of his skill. He wasn't given a specific target: simply told to find and kill a Jedi. His first stop, Corellia, didn't look promising, until he saw a robed figure step from a transport. The man never made it out of the spaceport; he never sensed the approach, did not realize the danger until there were hands on his neck, twisting... Atton winced as he recalled his actions, but mixed with his remorse was pride. He was good, damn good, at what he did. He was the first to return with evidence of a kill: he had graduated with top honors.

'You regret it now, do you? You were all too pleased to take my lightsaber and robes, trophies of your conquest. Earned you command of a full squad of killers, didn't it?'

'Uh, so 'sorry' isn't gonna cut it, I take it?'

'Still playing the glib fool? Why not, you've perfected that role, that mask. To the point that you think it is the real you. But we both know the real you, don't we? We all do.'

'All?' he choked out, worry thick in his voice.

'Oh yes, Rand. All of us,' he smiled.

The pain subsided and a tingling sensation returned to Atton's fingers and toes. He instantly reached to his neck and began to rub the sore spot. Suddenly a burning shot exploded in his chest. He looked down expecting a scorch mark, but saw nothing. The pain caused him to fall back, sliding down the bulkhead to the deck plating. Looking back up he now saw a woman where the man had been. 'Hello, Jaq. I suppose you don't remember me, either. Alderaan, blaster to the heart,' she said pointing to a smoking hole in her robes. Did you ever know my name? Did you ever wonder who I was, why I was a Jedi? I will tell you now, and you will listen!'

A sharp stab to his kidney drowned out her next words. Atton barely made out a Twi'lek as he appeared next to the woman while she ranted on. 'Taris, poison blade,' he snarled through gritted teeth. 'I was there to help normalize human/alien relations,' he began, but his voice was mixing with the constant yelling from the woman beside him. The hall reverberated with their shouted diatribes. A concussion to the base of his skull caught his attention; he turned to the right to find himself nose to nose with a dark-skinned woman. Her eyes were wild, filled with a horrible mixture of rage and madness.

'Onderon, blow to the back of the head, coward!' Her voice added to the rising din. A slice across his neck turned him to the left, but before he could register a face or hear the words, a stab in the arm took his attention elsewhere, followed by another blast to the chest, then a pierce to his abdomen. A sea of faces floated around him, a discordant orchestra of voices shouted and bellowed at him. Atton sat there, staring ahead, unable and unwilling to focus on any one of them. He closed his eyes against the pain and the noise as both continued to build around him. Hands pressed hard against his ears, but he could not cut off the cacophony of his victims. His heart beat faster with each new sensation, each new wound, each new voice he thought he heard through the chaos.

How many Jedi had he killed? He lost count. He really only ever remembered one. That one, damn her. He feared her the most. As each voice rippled across his mind, he jumped, then inwardly relaxed: it wasn't her. But she wouldn't be here, torturing me like this. Maybe I earned this punishment, and I'll just take it. She already punished me...and gave me my reward.

As quickly as it all began, it all stopped. Atton slowly opened his eyes, relieved the ordeal was over. And then he saw her. She was kneeling in front of him, a soft smile gracing her lips. He flinched and quickly closed his eyes.

'Hey there, scoundrel, how are you feeling?' Her words were soft and spoken lightly. They tore at him more than any of the wounds all the others had inflicted.

'You have to ask?' he groaned as he tried to sit up. 'I did what you wanted. Why is this happening?'

'You have to ask?' she answered back. 'You only did half of what I wanted, Rand. You stopped killing...but you didn't start living. I showed you the Force. How could you ignore that?'

'Don't,' he said, fear trembling in his voice for the first time. He looked at her now. She was as he remembered, frozen forever in time...in the Force. 'I don't want to...'

'You can't ignore it, you cannot turn from it. Your destiny is here, you know what you need to do.'

'I don't want to know what I did, what I killed.'

'Don't you think it is too late for that now?'

'Knowing who I killed isn't the same as knowing what I killed.'

'If you can make that distinction, you know already. You always knew, didn't you, before I showed you.' She paused, then locked him in a stare. 'I only showed you the Force. She will train you.'

'When you gave me that glimpse of the Force...it was amazing, incredible, beautiful. If that is what all Jedi see and feel all the time...I don't want to know what it is like.'

'You know already,' she repeated. 'You haunt yourself worse than they just did. You know what you need to do. Stop this running, this hiding.'

'I can't.' His voice was small, a child's whisper. He released a small sob, a wracking, painful noise. He bit his lip, willing the vision to vanish. A tear gathered and traced a jagged path down the side of his face. She was so close, so very close. Impulsively he reached to her--and his hand passed through her translucent form. His shoulders trembled slightly. He closed his eyes and turned away.

'You can, and you must. If you ever truly loved me, you will do this. If you love her the way you say you loved me, you know what you need to do.'

His head snapped back to her, his mouth hung open slightly, but no words came. Understanding flashed in his eyes. He nodded briefly, and she smiled. With that, she leaned in to him and kissed him gently on the cheek. A small gasp of shock escaped his throat as her cold lips brushed his skin. Her tender touch caused an ache, as if his heart were being held and squeezed to a standstill . He closed his eyes as they began to fill. Instinctively, Atton touched his fingers to the spot her lips had caressed, the clinging chill that numbed his skin.

'You know what you need to do,' she whispered again. He managed a small grin and moved his hand towards her. This time his fingers made contact.

He opened his eyes; the blue shimmer that framed her was gone, in its place a more recent face, etched with concern and worry, hovered near him. His hand lingered at her cheek a moment longer, then cupped her chin before his fingers began to trace a delicate path towards her neck. His grin widened as his eyes followed his fingers; his voice was even, distant and detached. 'I guess I do have something to tell you after all.'