Trust Issues

Carth watched helplessly as his last dejarik piece, the monnok he'd been saving for last, was overwhelmed and destroyed by Emerin's K'lor'slug, supported by a horde of other pieces behind it. Monnok howled, the K'lor'slug latching on to Carth's piece with its claws, then proceeding to bite the monnok to death as it flailed in vain and then crumpled, to the board, dead. A second later it faded out and the game was over.

Carth looked at the dejarik board in dismay and shock. He held his head and shook it, his eyes closed. He refused to believe he had been beaten - again! He'd worked out the perfect strategy, he'd made all the right moves, everything had gone to plan. At least, until Emerin had pulled that move out of nowhere, decimating his entire army.

'I don't - I can't believe it!' he exclaimed, tugging at his hair in frustration. 'I had it all right! It was... it was perfect!'

'No it wasn't,' Emerin interjected, leaning back in his chair, smirking with the satisfaction of victory. 'It wasn't bad but choosing to remain on the defensive gave me an advantage in movement. All I had to do was provoke you into breaking the line and then I was in a position to strike without fail.'

'But I took your savrip!' Carth protested.

Emerin shrugged.

'When you play dejarik you have to sacrifice a few pieces here and there. The savrip was an effective lure.' He said smirking, obviously enjoying Carth's dismay.

'Besides, even the best pawns are hardly necessary for victory. Might doesn't always make right in dejarik.' Carth gritted his teeth at the self-assured confidence and pride of his opponent.

He tried to remember the details of the battle. At the beginning he'd kept his pieces on the defensive, learning early on in his games against Emerin that deploying his forces early on made them easy targets for Emerin's lightning strikes. Instead he'd decided to play the role of a sarlacc, waiting for Emerin's forces to get too close to him before he struck.

Yet somehow Emerin had turned that around, making Carth's seemingly inevitable victory a crushing defeat. Again, Carth had been beaten by this outsider, this... scoundrel who had come out of nowhere and suddenly taken over their entire lives. It was infuriating. At home Carth had been proud to call himself a veteran player of dejarik and he regularly had played against...

Saul, he thought. Back when he'd been foolish enough to call the admiral a friend they'd often challenged one another to dejarik matches. Saul had often been considered the best dejarik player in the fleet and regularly beat the other beaten him as often as he lost. When Saul challenged Carth however the latter won almost as many times as he lost, something Carth had held with pride. Yet now...

I wonder if he was playing with me, Carth contemplated. After all, he played us all.

Regardless of Carth's feelings on the subject though, Saul had been a brilliant dejarik player and Carth had been given reason to believe that he was a pretty damn good player too, at least good enough to beat all the other pilots in his squadron on a regular basis. Yet here came Emerin Lined, the Jedi Council's favorite new toy, and he suddenly was beating Cath's clock without fail.

Oh, sure, Carth had won a few matches against Emerin - emphasis on the few. But those matches had been around the time they first met, before they knew each other well, and Carth had a sneaking suspicion that the only reason he'd won was so that Emerin could examine Carth's tactics, analyzing them to a point that on the drop of a dime he could instantly counter Carth's every move.

It was one of many reasons that Carth often wondered if he really knew anything about his friend and their current situation. One of the reasons he had to doubt Emerin's identity and, indeed, his very loyalties.

'You play like a dejarik grandmaster,' Carth commented, waiting to gauge Emerin's response and see if he could pry anymore information out of his opponent on his past. 'But I've never heard of you before? Surely if you are this good you must have played some high-profile matches in the past. Maybe under a pseudonym?'

Emerin laughed.

'Just because I'm better than you doesn't mean I'm a master of the game, Carth.'

Carth gritted his teeth at the dig but continued.

'It's not just that you're better than me. You're better than anyone I've ever seen play. You're better than masters I've seen on the holovids.'

He sighed.

'Why don't you tell me the truth, Emerin?'

At that Emerin's face suddenly turned from a cocky smile to a grimace and he leaned forward, glaring at Carth.

'We're not getting back into that old argument of 'who are you really?' are we?' Emerin challenged. 'Because I thought we'd beaten that dead bantha.'

'Emerin!'

Before Carth had a chance to answer a large, muscular man burst into the room shouting curses in languages Carth had never heard. Emerin's attention turned to behind Carth, his expression going from one of anger to one of absolute surprise.

'Canderous, what the--?' he exclaimed, stunned. He stumbled over his words for a minute. 'Son of a murglak, Canderous, what are you doing? Go back to bed or get some clothes on. You're going to frighten the women.'

'Emerin, I can't fracking sleep when those vermin chirping away in my ear. Somebody's got to do something about them and it had better be now!'

Carth turned around to face Canderous. He was dressed in little more than his boxer shorts and a t-shirt. His face was curled up in an expression of pure fury. His arms were wrapped around an oversized rifle that looked like it belonged on a tank, not in the hands of a man.

'Canderous, it's one in the morning. Can't you wait until tomorrow? Besides, we should be in Manaan soon. We can probably unload them there.'

'I wasn't talking to you,' Canderous snarled. 'Besides, you think I'm a bantha brain? Ain't no way that anyone's stupid enough to buy those devils. We'd better kill them, right here and now, before it's too late!' He cocked the large blaster in his hands and gestured his head in the direction of the cargo bay.

Carth sighed. Just like the Mandalorian to think everything was solved by killing someone or something. He couldn't understand why Emerin tolerated Canderous, let alone Bastila. The mercenary was impossible. Sure, he was probably the most skilled fighter among them and could even take on a Dark Jedi in battle but Carth questioned his loyalties. As far as Carth was concerned the Mandalorians should have been wiped out by Revan and Malak at Malachor V.

He shook his head. If he thought like that he was no better than the Sith. Besides, he agreed with Canderous right now, even if he thought Ordo's could have presented his case in a more civilized fashion. The gizka were a problem and one that wasn't going to be solved by selling them to some luckless merchant on Manaan or any other world.

I mean - how stupid would you have to be to buy the vermin?

But now was not the best time to go exterminating them.

'What's going on, guys? What's with all the - whoa! Uhhh, might want to get some clothes on there, Candy.'

Everyone's attention turned to the doorway behind Canderous. A young, blue-skinned Twi'lek girl stood there, looking the Mandalorian up and down, smiling and blushing a little. She was dressed in her day clothes, having taken care not to end up in Canderous' embarrassing position. Her lekku curled a little suggestively, an inbuilt reflexive reaction to what was apparently an attractive sight. Carth rolled his eyes. Kids.

'You got a problem with it?' Canderous said, turning to face Mission.

She broke into a series of giggles, unable to restrain herself. She shook her head, laughing all the while.

'No... no... not at all,' she managed between breaths. She took a deep breath and then giggled a little more before continuing. 'You want to go walking around like that, don't stop on my account!'

Canderous grunted.

'This isn't some new uniform,' he growled. 'It's just that this is urgent!'

'Sure...' Mission said before erupting into a series of giggles again. Canderous ignored her and turned back to Emerin and Carth.

'Emerin! Those vermin aren't waiting for us to arrive at Manaan. They're eating up the food supplies now. If we don't do something they'll eat up everything but the osik that comes out of that food dispenser. Then it won't be me on the warpath it will be that walking carpet.'

Mission had stopped laughing and walked into the room, jabbing Canderous in the ribs.

'Why you, little--'

'What vermin?' Mission asked. 'You don't mean the gizka do you? They aren't doing anybody no harm. Why'd you want to kill 'em?'

'Are you blind, girl?' Canderous shouted, bursting. 'They're eating every damn thing on this ship and they spend the time they're not eating fracking. If we don't do something now they'll overwhelm the ship. What do you mean we can't kill them?'

'Oh, they won't eat our food,' Mission replied, smiling. 'I've been feeding them from my own share of the rations.'

As she said that a gizka came hopping along through the door and by Mission's feet. She leaned over and picked it up, petting it softly and cooing. Canderous' face went blank at the sight of the girl treating the creature like a beloved pet. Emerin's jaw dropped, apparently stunned as well.

Carth merely shook his head. He didn't expect much else from Mission. Try as she might to seem like an adult she did have a soft spot for cute things, like any other teenage girl he'd ever met. Hell, even his son Dustil probably would have done the same back when he was younger. The gizka were cute. That didn't mean they weren't pests though, unfortunate as that may have been.

'Mission - have you gone crazy?' Emerin demanded, unable to believe someone could, let alone would, love gizka. 'Those things are vermin! You should be helping us find a way to get rid of them, not cuddling them like they were dwarf banthas!'

'Nothing wrong with cuddling them! So long as they harm no one I don't see why you've got to be so mean to them.' She frowned angrily in Emerin's direction. Then the gizka in her arms cooed gently as she petted it and she smiled again, looking down at it.

'Don't worry I won't let that mean Jedi hurt you - or his Mandie kath hound...'

'Mean?' Emerin protested.

'Kath hound?!?' Canderous growled.

Carth chuckled and then looked at the girl, shaking his head.

'Mission, you know the gizka have got to go. Sooner or later you won't be able to feed all of them without starving yourself. You've got to--'

'Hey, stop treating me like you're my father. I told you I ain't no kid!'

Carth gritted his teeth.

Not this again...

'Listen, sister! I'm only trying to help you. If you'd sit quiet for one second maybe I'd--'

The sound of blaster shots erupted from the cargo bay. Mission jumped and dropped the gizka in her hands, which proceeded to hop away. Within seconds she was behind the table, squatting so as not to be seen. Emerin leapt out of his chair, reaching reflexively for his lightsaber. Carth did the same, but his hands went for his twin pistols rather than a Jedi's weapon. Canderous spun around and slammed into the wall, poking his head around the corner, gun in his hands.

'What was that?' Mission whispered.

'An intruder?' Carth wondered aloud.

Canderous nodded in agreement.

'Maybe the gizka weren't the only unwanted visitors we picked up in Anchorhead,' he suggested.

'Assassins?' Mission asked.

'That would be my guess,' Emerin said, maneuvering forward slowly. 'Wouldn't blame Malak if they were. After we fried Nord it's only reasonable to assume he's been a bit more edgy about us and his precious Bastila.'

'Yeah, but I swore I checked every crate at least twice,' Carth insisted. 'Only thing out of place were those frelling gizka.'

'Maybe you missed something?' Emerin suggested.

Before Carth had a chance to answer the sound was there again.

'There it is again!' Canderous whispered.

'Wait, listen,' Mission said. 'It sounds like somebody's laughing.'

They did and gradually, Carth heard it, what sounded like some sort of strange, twisted laughter. It sounded almost machine-like, a synthetic sound that didn't sound at all human. And it sounded very familiar as well. Then it hit him, along with everyone else who was in the room what was going on.

'Aychkay...' Emerin growled.

'Derision: You cannot escape me, little meatbags. No matter where you go, I will follow! But do not surrender on my account, your vain attempts to flee will make this all the more entertaining.'

Another blaster shot and a high-pitched squeal as the pyschotic droid closed in on one of its targets and hit his (Or its, Carth supposed) mark.

'Overjoyed statement: You do me too much pleasure, little vermin. You see now - resistance is futile!'

'Aychkay!' Emerin shouted angrily. 'What the frack are you doing?'

The shooting stopped. There was the sound of metallic footsteps coming down the corridor from the cargo hold. A moment later a bronze, metallic figure appeared in the doorway brandishing a long rifle, his red eyes gleaming in the dim light.

'Answer: Ah, master, I did not realize you were awake. You see, I had just reactivated upon the detection of several unarmed targets within my vicinity. If I had known however that you were not in a state of vulnerability I may have refrained from my hunt, painful as that would have been. I do know how much you despise the mess that bloodshed entails.'

'Suggestion: On the other hand, perhaps I could still dispose of these small meatbags for you? They are, if I am correct, a substantial irritation on many of your followers and perhaps yourself? I would be more than happy to carry out this duty should it be your wish. I believe the appropriate word is 'please?'' His robotic finger twitched on the trigger of his rifle.

'No!' Mission shouted at the suggestion, her face twisted with horror.

'Afraid we haven't reached a decision on that yet, Aychkay,' Emerin replied. 'Until then though could you refrain from killing them?'

The droid nodded, a short metallic, dip of what counted as a head.

'Statement: Affirmative. Unfortunate as it may be I am bound to your orders and will not assassinate the little amphibians.'

'I'm with the droid,' Canderous said.

'We know you're frelling opinion, Ordo,' Carth growled.

'I'm just saying...'

'We can't kill them!' Mission interrupted again.

Soon the room was a shouting match. Mission, Canderous, and Carth all competing to make their voice heard above the others, all the while HK-47 gently asking Emerin if he could kill all three of them. The young Jedi sat there, fingers on his temples, taking it all, gritting his teeth. Then, after a minute he finally snapped.

'Enough!' he shouted, slamming his fist into the table. Everyone quieted down, except HK who was still in the midst of an eloquent speech as to why killing the crew really was a good idea.

'...if you must you can keep the 'kinrath pup.' I understand that she may have some functions useful to your meatbag nature, though distasteful I may find them. But I must insist that--'

'Aychkay, shut up. You can't kill the crew, that's final. Don't ask me again or I swear I will cut you into scrap metal and sell your remains to the Jawas.'

That sent HK into a vow of silence and he didn't speak again, not even going so far as to say 'yes, master,' which he normally did after receiving an order from Emerin. Emerin turned to the rest of the crew.

'Canderous, no one takes you seriously in your underwear. If you have anything useful to say go get some pants on. Otherwise go to bed and leave me and the gizka alone.

'Mission, I don't care how cute you think these gizka are. They're a pest. One way or another, they're going - permanently. Now if you have a suggestion of how to do that without killing them, be my guest. I have no overwhelming desire to see their remains scraped across the floor, unlike Aychkay here. But until then, be quiet.

'Carth, stop provoking Canderous. I know you two have some differences of opinion but that doesn't mean you have to scream at one another whenever you're given the chance. We're all in this together and I want there to be no reasons for me to have to choose sides between you. So keep your opinions to yourselves when I'm around.'

He sighed and shook his head.

'As for the gizka it's obvious we have a problem on our hands. But it's not one I'm up to dealing with right now. I'm tired, damn it, and haven't got the time to be solving your problems every damn minute of the day. Shoot them, sell them, I really don't care, not when I haven't had a decent night's sleep since Taris. So until I get some sleep why don't you all scuttle off to bed and leave me be.'

Mission nodded somberly. Canderous stood attentively. Carth found himself even listening respectfully. Emerin had that kind of effect on people, Carth had noticed. He simply made people listen when he wanted them to and do what he asked of them. Emerin was a natural leader. Coupled with his innate tactical genius Carth often suspected that if the man had been in the military as long as Carth had been he'd be in command of the fleet by now.

We really do need men like him in command. If we did we'd have had no problem beating Revan and wouldn't be in the predicament we are now with Malak.

'Is something wrong?'

A posh, Core-world accent filled the air and Carth saw Emerin's eyes shift to the back of the room and widen. Carth spun around and saw Bastila Shan, standing in the doorway. She looked tired, her normally elegant hair disheveled, her eyes squinting.

Yet all the same she still looked dignified. She was dressed in what looked to be the Jedi equivalent of a nightgown, a long, brown robe that wrapped around her body, while not too tightly hugging her figure. She was attentive, looking straight at Emerin with an expression of concern.

'I heard shooting earlier, followed by shouting,' she continued. 'Was there an intruder? I would have thought I would have sensed someone had they snuck onboard.'

Emerin shook his head, his expression somewhat blank.

'No,' he replied. 'There's no problem. Just some argument over what to do with the gizka.'

Bastila nodded, understanding.

'I did suggest that we might be able to find someone to buy them when we reach Manaan,' she reminded them. 'You might not think so but there's always a buyer, even for something as useless as gizka. If we look in the right places we should be able to get rid of them.'

'It's not as though I didn't already know that,' Emerin retorted, somewhat irritated. 'The argument isn't over whether or not we can sell them, it's whether we can wait long enough to try. So unless you have some suggestion more useful why don't you go back to bed?'

Carth wasn't altogether surprised at Emerin's reaction, although he didn't agree with it in the least. He seemed touchy of late and he'd always been sensitive to Bastila's lectures. While Bastila had really only been making a concerned suggestion Carth suspected it might come off as patronizing to Emerin.

Still, he had noticed the two had been growing closer as of late. By close, Carth meant really close. So it was a little surprising that he would snap at Bastila like this. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he was under stress right now, what with the gizka situation and being, along with Bastila, the subject of a lot of assassination attempts by Malak. Plus he'd only been a simple scoundrel a few months ago. Now he was on a mission to save the galaxy, something that Carth suspected would be stressful on anybody. Carth also felt there was something Emerin wasn't telling him, something that was wearing down on Emerin's spirit.

'Well, I might as well if you're going to snap at me for making a simple comment,' Bastila replied, turning away and walking back to her room.

'Some people can't tell the difference between a suggestion and a lecture apparently,' she said lowly as she walked away.

After a short moment Emerin gritted his teeth.

'Your suggestion is noted!' he called out. Then he turned his attention back to the crew.

'So, back where we were,' he said. 'I don't care what you all think right now. I need some sleep and until I get some I'm in no mood to put up with your complaints. Understood?'

Mission and Carth both nodded. Canderous grunted.

'Good. Then get on off to bed.'

Mission and Canderous turned away and started walking out to their respective bunks. HK, after a short look at his master, also walked out, following Canderous. Carth walked towards Emerin and put his arm on the other man's shoulder.

'Emerin, there something you want to talk about? You seem under a great deal of stress.'

'Carth, I told you, I'm tired and I don't want to talk right now.'

'Listen, Emerin, you can trust me--'

'Really?' Emerin snapped. 'Then why is it you never trust me? It can't go one way, Carth. If you want me to trust you than you'll have to do the same for me.'

'Emerin, I--'

'I'm not saying it again, Carth. I don't want to talk.'

Carth sighed and turned away from Emerin, walking out towards the cockpit. He wasn't in a mood to argue either. He'd had his share of fights with the man who had, in the space of a few short weeks, displaced both him and Bastila as the commanding officer of the Ebon Hawk.

Still, he wanted to know. What was he hiding?

Everyone told him that he worried too much or that he was paranoid. Carth wasn't so sure. Some things didn't make sense. Out of all the people on the Endar Spire Carth, Bastila, and Emerin were the only survivors. Bastila's escaped made sense. She was a Jedi after all and a gifted one at that. Carth knew exactly how he'd escaped and, as far as he was concerned, it wasn't too surprising. He was a decorated veteran of the Mandalorian Wars after all and knew his way around a battle.

But Emerin... Emerin's profile said he was basically a raw recruit who'd been, until recently, a smuggler on the run from the Republic. I suppose that made him a survivor but it still didn't explain a lot of things. Like how, for example, he seemed to be an experienced fighter on par with Carth himself, maybe even better. Or how he knew practically every language they came across.

Better yet, how had Emerin gone through Jedi training so quickly, training that the Jedi Council claimed took years to master and yet Emerin had gone through in weeks? Why was he so important anyway? He was being sent on a mission to discover these Star Maps with Bastila and yet he did so without even taking a master along and while he was still green from training. Even Juhani, the conflicted padawan they had tagging along with them had more experience than Emerin.

Carth didn't buy this 'Force Bond' nonsense either. Maybe there was some special bond between Bastila and Emerin, but he'd come to believe, even without the Force, that this was just basic chemistry between the two of them. But even if some Force thing bonded the two together in a way Carth couldn't hope to understand that didn't explain why they'd sent Bastila either.

They could have just as easily sent any two Jedi now that they knew where the Star Maps were. As far as Carth was concerned Bastila was more needed on the front than on some wild goose chase. That convinced him that part of the reason why the Jedi Council had made their decision was Emerin, not her. The Force Bond was a convenient excuse.

But what exactly it was that had prompted the Jedi Council to send them around the galaxy looking for millennia-old relics was a mystery to Carth. No one would tell him anything.

He sat down in the pilot's chair, taking a short moment to gaze at the sea of blue moving around him before staring up at the ceiling and closing his eyes.

To tell the truth, something told Carth that all this was a mystery even to Emerin. Emerin seemed too honest, too genuinely angry when Carth accused him of lying. Emerin was really good at deception, Carth had noticed that during their travels together. But when Emerin denied that he had done anything to merit Carth's suspicion he did so in the manner of someone who really was telling the truth. Carth was a good judge of character and while he was wary of Emerin he didn't think the man was lying to him.

Bastila on the other hand he was sure was deceiving him. Nobody else seemed to think so of course, maybe because they thought the Jedi were above common sins like lying. She didn't do a bad job at covering herself up either. If Carth wasn't already suspicious of everything and everyone as a survival tactic after Telos he might not have thought anything of it.

But there were times where she slipped up, said something she didn't mean to. She did it especially often when Emerin himself was around, talking to her. Carth had noticed she was nervous around him, in more than one way. She was definitely attracted to him, although she'd never mention it being a Jedi and all so maybe she was simply afraid of making him think ill of her.

But there was more than that. She seemed to feel directly responsible for anything wrong that he did. She certainly was more concerned with setting him on the right path than she was with Juhani who, in Carth's mind, was definitely more likely to slip into the dark side than Emerin. She practically walked him through everything and whenever she was around she gave her opinion, whether he wanted it or not. That was why Emerin had stopped bringing her some places, places where he didn't want her to tell him what not to do.

She was hiding something, and Carth thought that even Emerin was beginning to suspect it was so. Maybe that was why he'd snapped at her tonight. Maybe he was beginning to wonder, as Carth long had, who was his friend and who was his foe.

'Thinking hard?'

Carth opened his eyes and turned his head around to see an old, bald dark-skinned human standing in the doorway to the cockpit. He was dressed in his Jedi robes, which were a little dirty and stained, not surprising considering how he'd spent at least a decade in the Shadowlands, scraping a living for himself.

'I guess so,' Carth answered.

'Don't,' Jolee said, walking forward and standing next to Carth. He stared off into the blue glow of hyperspace. 'In my experience thinking too hard ends with hurting someone, most often yourself. Might jam something important up there and then you can't think at all. Particularly dangerous at night, you know, when trying to get too sleep. A tired brain can't take all that thinking.'

'What are you doing up?' Carth asked.

'I might as well ask you the same thing,' the old Jedi answered. 'It is, after all, past your bedtime.'

He chuckled and then went quiet.

'No, I heard you kids fighting and thought I might be able to talk with one of you about it. But what do you know no one wants to listen to their elders. Girl thinks I'm some kind of pervert and Emerin won't say a damn thing to me and is gone all quiet on me. Not surprised, really. He's not the chatty type.'

He sighed.

'So, since they wouldn't talk to me, I thought maybe you would. Course, maybe I'm just wasting my time and I'm just some senile kook who thinks kids these days actually want to talk to their elders. Wouldn't put it past myself. The senile part that is.' He paused for a second. 'Where was I again?'

Despite himself Carth managed a small but subdued laugh.

'You know, Bindo, I'm almost forty. I'm not exactly a 'kid.''

Jolee shook his head.

'You're twenty years my junior, Onasi. To me you'll always be a kid. So, what was the problem? You want to talk about it?'

Carth sighed.

'Not really, but I suppose I'll have to,' he replied. 'It's just that... Damn it, Jolee, I don't know who to trust anymore.'

'Do any of us?' Jolee asked. 'In times like these, where Jedi become Sith and Sith become Jedi and the galaxy seems to be playing an interstellar game of musical chairs, does anyone really trust anyone else?'

'I suppose not,' Carth admitted.

'Ah, but that's where you're wrong,' Jolee said, surprising Carth. He smiled and then looked at Carth, a glint in his eye. 'Did I ever tell you the story of the snake and the boy?'

Carth grimaced.

'Listen, Jolee, Emerin might put up with your wacky stories but I really haven't got the time for them.'

Jolee chuckled and nodded.

'Alright,' he conceded. 'To be honest I'm actually kind of glad you didn't ask. Just listening to the story can sometimes muddle the picture anyhow. It can illuminate it too, but only if you want it to.'

He pulled a cigarra out from his robes and looked at Carth.

'You got a light?'

'Sorry, old man. I don't smoke.'

'Figures.'

With that he pulled his lightsaber off from his belt and ignited it. A short, crackling soon erupted, followed by a monotonous hum. The green blade sparkled in the dark light, filling the room with dim, emerald light. He held the lightsaber up to the cigarra and ignited it. Then he turned off the blade and put it back on his belt, putting the cigarra in his mouth and biting down.

'Funny thing is, that doesn't work quite as well as you might think,' Jolee commented as he puffed away. 'Lightsaber makes too clean of a cut. Doesn't leave much left to burn so you don't really get any smoke. Only brash, inexperienced kids with a talent for showing off really do that sort of thing if they have a choice.'

He smiled.

'Course, I used to be one of those kids.'

There was a moment of silence between the two. They stared off into the emptiness that was hyperspace, watching the blue haze tunnel its way around the Hawk as it moved its way towards Manaan. After a while Jolee sighed.

'Truth is, Onasi, you've got to trust people. Even if you don't want to. Even if you know you shouldn't. You've still got to because, deep down, people are social animals. Doesn't matter what species you're talking about there's no person who really, deep down, wants to be alone. They might say they do but that's a lie to cover up the fact that they're a coward. Someone who's too afraid to face their fears of failure, of rejection.'

He looked directly at Carth, their eyes meeting. Carth was astounded by how vibrant and alive Jolee's dark brown eyes were, full of energy despite his age. He seemed to be looking right into the Republic pilot.

'I don't know what your story is, Onasi, except that it has something to do with that upstart Karath. You've obviously got some history and I'm not asking you to tell me about it. But I do want you to know something. No matter what somebody you cared about has done to you in the past that doesn't mean you should go about hating the universe for it. If you do you're only going to hurt yourself. You'll lose your heart, you'll lose your will to live, and one day, you won't care anymore.

'I know, because, that...'

He stopped for a second and turned away, apparently pained.

'Because I've been through that. There was a time where I didn't care if I lived or died. But now I realize if I'd died, if I'd thrown my life away, it would have been a mistake. Since that time I've experienced so much and I realize that life is worth living. Besides, somebody's got to look after you kids.'

He chuckled then turned to Carth, serious again.

'Point being that isolating yourself does no one any good. It only hurts you more and it certainly hurts those around you. Regardless of your suspicions you sometimes have to make a leap and trust people. I know you don't trust the intentions of some of those onboard this ship and you know what - neither do I. But you have to make concessions. Keep your eye open, listen for changes in the wind, don't let your guard down, but don't cut yourself off, even if in the end it leaves you a little exposed. Better that you live a shot life for what it is and be happy than you live long but afraid.'

He laughed.

'Bah! I've gone on too long. Don't want to bore you. Know how you young people these days always have short attention spans. I won't bother you no more.'

With that Jolee took the cigarra out of his mouth and smudged it into the terminal, then pocketing it. After that he turned and walked out of the cockpit, humming the tune of what Carth would have sworn was the Ballad of Koonda the Hutt.

The old man never fails to surprises me, he thought to himself

'Wait,' Carth said.

Jolee turned around.

'Yes? Any last words of wisdom about how to solve this back pain I've been meaning to ask you about?'

'Thanks for the advice.'

Jolee shrugged.

'Hey, don't sweat it, kid.'

With that Jolee went into the medical bay and shut the door, going to sleep. Carth rolled his eyes.

I'm not a kid, he thought. After a moment he chuckled and shook his head.

Great, now I sound like Mission.