Make No Assumptions - Epilogue

[thanks to Charamei and iisemily for being my betas]

The Codru-Ji spotted me, squealed my name and charged at me, arms pumping as if to bear me to the deck or knock me into a bulkhead, then stopped abruptly to look up at me in definite accusation.

"Why'd you just run off like that?" she demanded, frowning. "You didn't even tell us where you were going!"

"And I'm sorry about that, Cimo," I told her in my best contrite voice, resisting the urge to ruffle her fine flyaway hair. Or exclaim that she'd become taller since I last saw her. "It was something that I had to do. And I did say where I was going. Told the Archivist, didn't I?"

"That's not good enough." Cimo crossed her upper set of arms across her chest and put the lower set on her hips. "The Archivist is a tight-"

"Aht. Watch your language," I said warningly. "Nobody who isn't headblind respects profanity. Come to think of it, most of the headblinds aren't impressed either."

She glared. "I didn't say anything! The Archivist only worries about old stuff, and what happened to Exar Kun's favorite shoes, that kind of thing. If you're not on a Council assignment you're supposed to at least leave a message with Janelle so she can put it on the current record! I had to have help to look for you!"

"When there is something that you absolutely have to do, and the rules stand between you and it, sometimes you have to bend the rules a bit. They can take a lot worse, believe me." It's a bit sadistic of me to keep baiting her, but I just can't resist. We all wondered what she'd say when she was able to talk, but who guessed that she'd be so rule-bound?

I knew immediately that that I'd gone a bit over the line. Cimo sort of spluttered with outrage, then burst out with "You can't just pick which rules to follow, and ignore the rest as you please! It doesn't work that way!" She didn't say it, but I knew full well that she was thinking "It's not fair!"

Fix this. I allowed both my voice and my expression to soften. "Cimo, I am sorry that I didn't tell anyone but the Archivist where I was going, and I didn't take anyone except Malak, but I didn't really plan this. My window of opportunity was a small one, and after I took it I really couldn't send any direct messages. The mission that the Republic navy sent us on was sort of an open secret. They would have allowed us to talk eventually, but stuff happened, and Mandalorians don't let their prisoners send messages." She responded well to facts, I knew from experience.

The Codru-Ji wavered, slackening her arms and looking up at me almost pleadingly. I smiled at her. "I'm back now, aren't I? No harm done. Well, almost none," and I looked at the stump of my left arm as if puzzled. "Hmm. Probably the worst I've ever hurt myself since the thrown-from-a-moving-speeder disaster. Anyway, Cimo, I expect that Malak is wrapping up. He has to dock soon; he'll run out of fuel. You should wait for him." In case that wasn't enough, I added, "And he's gone and got himself another tattoo. Go scold him."

Clearly fired up by the idea, Cimo resumed charging at me, but instead of wrapping her arms around my body and squeezing, she contented herself to pulling herself up by my shoulders and planting a wet, sloppy kiss across my forehead. Bemused, I watched her drop back to the floor and run full-tilt out of the briefing room.

The aides in the room kept their eyes averted as I turned back to Nemo, who was visibly amused. I raised an eyebrow at him. "You and her Master are training her well. A year ago she'd have tackle-hugged me on sight. I'd have had to catch her if I didn't want to topple."

My old Weapons Master shrugged. "We cannot claim all the credit, Revan. A higher power than ours has made it quite clear; public displays of affection are frowned upon. She is also of an age equivalent to our early puberty, where physical intimacy is more awkward than it was before. New talents are developing. Habit has not entirely been overcome yet, but it is eroding."

I sighed. "That fast, huh? She ages at a different rate than we humans. Still, I'm starting to feel old, Nemo... If I'd known the impulse would carry over, I wouldn't have hugged and kissed her so much when she was a pup. But I was what, ten? Eleven?" And physical contact is important in the development of Younglings. Coruscant and its damned 'no-attachment' experiments have proven that.

Nemo smiled faintly. "You were eleven, and a bored Padawan who happened to take a fancy to a young wyrwulf. Vice-versa, as well; she never quite took to any of her appointed surrogates, so we allowed it. I believe it was your way of showing adolescent rebellion."

"Mmm," I said, wrinkling my nose at the memory. "Surrogates. Personally, I preferred our parent-figures. They were a lot less... clingy." Never have I met anyone who combed hair quite that roughly... Change the subject. "So why did you call me down to the conference room? It couldn't just be to see Cimo again."

"Mostly, it is to deliver messages. You have many friends." Crossing over the distance that separated us, Nemo handed me a datapad. I looked it over and felt my eyebrows rise.

I did, indeed, have many friends. And old Masters, and my friend's Masters, and my Master's friends. Many of whom had apparently written or otherwise recorded one or more messages for me. I skimmed them. Messages of support in every flavor from 'You know you can count on me for anything you need' to 'I'll come by and pick up the pieces', as well as several angry-looking 'Where are you? Why didn't you tell anyone where you were going?'. Nareaux had even woke up out of his haze to tell me that he'd dreamt about me - which, for dazy dream-visioning Nareaux, was a feat in and of itself.

And then of course, after we ran into the Mandalorians, the messages had really started to pour in. Most of the people that I called friends, and even a number of the people that I considered acquaintances, had known, through the Force, that I was in trouble, although very few were able to determine just what it was about. After a few minutes, I shook my head and closed the datapad with a snap.

"They're practically all addressed to Revan-and-Malak. A few are Malak-and-Revan, but that's a clear minority. As if we were some kind of a composite entity. Nemo, tell me. Why is that?"

My old instructor clasped one wrist with his other hand. "I cannot be certain. But you two almost always have your heads together. Where one of you is, the other is never very far away. There was a saying when I was young... 'cut one, the other bleeds; tickle one, the other laughs'. I have found very few who fit that saying better than you two. And most were either mated or merged."

I saw where this might be going and snorted. "Please. I know my Temple doctrine." Briefly, I let my voice fall into a sort of sing-song recital tone. "All male Jedi are my brothers, and all female Jedi are my sisters." I continued, sobering, "It's even more so with Malak. There wasn't even any attraction as teens; I never felt awkward around him, and vice versa. I think it took a bit longer for Malak, but I only started feeling awkward when I first realized what people thought. And we're both individuals, too. We're not such idiots that we merged ourselves, one mind in two bodies. That's just creepy."

Honesty compelled me to continue the thought. "We're probably as close as we can get to merged while still being individuals, though. He's my best friend, my truest friend. We've fought, we've disagreed, we've been upset with each other, we definitely aren't as close as we were as kids, when we were practically joined at the hip, but at the end of the day I can count on Malak to back me up. To be there when I need him. And he can count on me. I like my other friends, sure, but we just aren't as close. I start getting annoyed with them if they're too close for too long; I can't ever completely confide in them." Not even you, Nemo... you others all think you know me so well, because that is how well I know you.

Remembering a holocomedy I'd watched as a kid, I grinned. "We're partners-for-life in the platonic sense, Nemo. Romantic friends, really. But I have no secret longings to copulate with him." That turned into a speech. How does this happen?

Nemo smiled faintly again. "I know this, Revan, you do not need to convince me. I remember... I remember..." The smile withered and my instructor's face sort of stilled, the way it always did when he remembered Exar Kun's Sith war.

For a moment, I felt an irrational resentment towards Kun. Few Masters were willing to say that he was truly dead, but Kun was definitely out of the galactic hologram, and was likely to remain so for a very long time. However, his imprint, the effect the man had made on the galaxy, remained. So many Masters, and Knights, and even Padawans, either dead or so scarred that they could no longer contribute to the galaxy, just wandered aimlessly from system to system, or settled on some remote world that had never heard of the Order. Others who stayed, worked, taught, but without the kind of attentiveness and fire and pleasure that they had displayed before students and Masters and friends had turned against them. Masters establishing a Temple on the Capital Sector of Coruscant of all places, deciding that it was the replacement for Ossus as the Order's center of learning and wisdom, all but declaring the Jedi to be just another branch of the Republic. New, conservative Masters set on the Council and passing new, conservative laws in an attempt to prevent the Sith from rising again.

Restrictions on Knights and Masters looking for Padawans. Denial of teachings to Force - Sensitives above a certain age. The exile of students with "dangerous temperaments" to the Jedi Service Corps, which was formerly composed only of those with minimal talent and those who really, truly did not want to be Jedi. A sudden lack of tolerance for members of the Order who had married or were otherwise 'attached'. Some of those admittedly seemed fairly sensible; a Jedi can't be neutral if his or her family or lover is affected. And not permitting one Master to raise a half-dozen Padawans is definitely a good thing. Even so, these changes should have come about less abruptly. Some offshoot Temples, with slightly different doctrines, do not follow all of the new rules as closely as they might. That could cause trouble, some day.

I shook off my resentment as unworthy of a Jedi and irrelevant besides, then coughed politely. Nemo jerked a little, his posture shifting towards a defensive stance, then relaxing again as he remembered where he was, and finally recalled another thing he had meant to say.

My instructor twitched his chin at me - presumably, at my injury. "You should be pleased to know that your friend Laurethhil has chosen to accompany us. She is on our medical cruiser, the Open Gate, but I expect that she will take a shuttle and meet you at the earliest opportunity."

"Laury?" I heaved a too-deep sigh and put an exaggerated note of resignation into my voice. "She's going to come up with a new nickname, I suppose. I think I'll try and avoid her until Malak finishes playing hero. If I have to get branded with another stupid alias I might as well have him there. Maybe I should dig Margoli out of her shower, too. They'll either become friends or decide that they hate each other; either way I'll be spared some of the general disrespect."

Before I could exit, Nemo caught my eye. "You may relax for the moment, Revan. We are still engaged with the enemy." He glanced at one of the quiet aides, who hurried forwards with a datapad. "The Mandalorians are very tenacious, despite our greater numbers and the element of surprise. I believe that we would suffer heavy losses if we attempted to take this world, so we will soon recall all of our fighters, withdraw, obtain reinforcements, and return later. For the moment, there will be no nonessential shuttles. This system is important, tactically."

I frowned. "What about the prisoners on the planet? We can't leave them there. They could get killed!" I remembered my last glimpse of Tralus and winced guiltily.

Nemo's eyes closed, and the lines of his face deepened in pain. "The commander has sent several troop transports, with escorts, attempting a retrieval. We will not know if it is working until later. I am sorry. But there are times-"

An aide with another datapad darted up and whispered urgently at the old man, who suddenly straightened, some of the pain leaving his face and his voice. Not resolving, quite, but being pushed aside. "Ah. Please, excuse me. There are matters that will soon require my attention." I stared after him, after the aides that tailed him, as he strode out, presumably towards the bridge. And despite seeing him pull himself together, I was reminded that Nemo was old. Fragile, even. He had suffered too much already. I could not rely on him and the other veterans, on my other teachers, forever. There will come a day when I can't do some small part and relax, not when there's a battle going on.

I was distracted when the last of the aides paused and thrust yet another datapad at me. I took it automatically before it could fall to the deck. The aide, a Sullustan, sort of nodded at me and whispered "New orders from Coruscant. He's busy, and you can't expect him to remember everything." The aide spun on his heel and trotted - scurried, almost - out of the room.

I looked at the new datapad. Yep. Orders from the Council. Well, this promises to be interesting...

---

Request your presence within twenty standard days at Uluse Station, in the Adalusin system, to aid security in safeguarding a merchant conference that has had repeated assassination threats... more details upon arrival... I scanned the datapad with my orders again and again, but somehow they never resolved into a form appropriate to the situation.

It was as if the Council had decided to completely ignore what had just happened. As if the Mandalorians had been less than one of those minor personal projects that most Jedi take on. If I'd thwarted a pirate attack or something, there would at least have been a hint of acknowledgment.

When he'd had a moment, I'd asked Nemo about it, and he'd sort of half-smiled and told me that the Council had done that sort of thing before. Several times. Then the moment was over; the Mandalorians had changed tactics, and my old teacher was needed to help alter ours.

Eventually, we had retreated and called in the reinforcements that had been persuaded to lurk nearby, then came back in and hammered the Mandalorians until they retreated. It took a lot more than anyone had expected - the military personnel blamed equipment, but it was all too clear that the Mandalorians were much fiercer fighters than the Republics had expected. Eventually, though, there were no more of their ships still active in the system. The death toll on both sides was ... staggering. I didn't see it, but after the way several officers flicked their way down the list of casualties or looked at the dead hulks that had been starships floating outside of the viewports, I didn't really want to know.

I wondered if Ve'vuut had been killed, or ejected in a larger ship's escape pod, or was drifting in only her armor and whatever ejection gear Mandalorians gave their pilots. The Force gave me little insight on the matter, but I knew that she wasn't. The Clan leader who claimed to be my mother was still out there.

At any rate, my old Weapons Master didn't have a role in the mop-up. He didn't have to coordinate the rescue shuttles that jetted about recovering ejected pilots who had been missed earlier, or the somewhat-armed prisoner shuttles that did the same for stranded Mandalorians, nor did he have to coordinate the somewhat slower, larger shuttles that scooped up intact fighters that had lost all of their maneuvering abilities, escape pods, and the occasional troops-filled Mandalorian evac pod. Shuttles set to retrieve escape pods could afford to be slower; an ejected pilot had some life-support machinery but could die of cold or any number of things within an hour. All of this, and the later operations that involved salvaging wrecks, could be done easily enough using the ship's personnel. An old Jedi was more likely to hinder than to help with this process.

So I'd interrupted Nemo as he stared blankly out into space. He'd seemed glad of it, actually. The old instructor told me instances of all kinds of budding wars that had been stopped or shortened by Jedi stepping in without the Council's direction. Meddling Jedi, as a rule, caused less damage than they prevented, he told me. There were always wanderers, drifters, who traveled as the Force directed them to do, working with or against the Council's wishes. Sometimes they disagreed with various principles of the Order, others simply found the Force's call to be stronger, clearer, than the Council's summons. The Temple on Corusucant called them "Gray Jedi" and disapproved.

Nemo had warmed to his subject, telling me about a somewhat younger man, something of a pilot, who had been apprenticed to Nemo's own old Master. Still a Padawan, this younger Jedi, allowed a great deal of freedom in those days before the Great Sith War, had sought out conflicts on the Outer Rim. Despite the Ossus Council's official, neutral stance on the matter, he had helped set up a rather shady organization that collected supplies through a combination of purchase, donations, blackmail, and outright theft, and then ran them through blockades on Ukatis and other worlds, with the help of friends and several wandering Jedi who had been drawn in. This Jedi pilot had also headed off the threat of a warlike race called the Dimeans.

"Although I do believe that the Dimeans were never truly strong enough to threaten the Republic," he'd said, eyes gazing back in time, "They were certainly numerous enough to worry smaller alliances and individual worlds. Perhaps this threat would have prompted these systems to unite against them, or to join the Republic for their own protection." Perhaps joining the Republic would have meant protection against the Mandalorians, later, I had speculated to myself. Nemo had continued, echoing my next thought. "We will never know."

And then Nemo had saddened, telling me that this younger man had been shot down over Ukatis and imprisoned. I could tell that there was a great deal more to the story than that, but somehow I couldn't bring myself to ask. The lines of pain and guilt and worry were back in my old instructor's wrinkled face; he was thinking about Exar Kun's war again.

"Do not worry too much about what the Council thinks and does not think, Revan," he had told me. "They will not stop you from doing what you think is right. Sometimes, after it is all over, if things have ended well, they will even pretend that they always sanctioned your actions. I cannot be certain about this one, but I have known one Council, once, to even admit that it was wrong."

Then Nemo had sighed and slumped, just a little bit, just barely coming out of the perfect posture that I had always seen him in. For Nemo, it was the equivalent of collapsing against a bulkhead and allowing his head to roll listlessly. I had stared. "Well," he had said, "I cannot possibly put it off very much longer."

"Put what off?" I had asked, stupidly. I had felt Malak on a different floor of the ship, knew that he was arguing with someone and wanted to get into one of the rescue shuttles, believing that he could do that job better than any of the headblind. Which might well have been true, but even if he didn't know it, my best friend was tired out, and tired people, even Jedi, make mistakes. My attention was divided between listening to the old teacher and trying to wordlessly convince my idiot friend to rest.

Nemo's eyes had been as sad as I had ever seen them. "Oh, Revan," he had said. "Sometimes, I forget how young you are... Today, more good men and women died. Some of them were friends. All had my respect. I must- I must write the letters and make the calls. Their families have the right to know."

Somehow, I could not imagine anything more quietly terrible than writing to old friends and kin of friends to tell them that their mothers or fathers or siblings or wives or husbands had died following him.

The zap of electricity jerked me back into the present with the loud "tik!" it made and the small, stinging barb of pain it caused in my reattached right arm, which jerked. "Ow! Laury! Pay attention when you're doing that!" I twisted around to the left to glare at her, sharing my bench, straddling it.

My friend was rubbing the same spot on her own right arm. "I know, I know! So I got distracted. Sidle up to a Jedi attorney and sue me, Stumpy." She resumed palpating my arm and stimulating it with minuscule applications of her electrical-manipulations talent, causing specific muscles to contract abruptly. By pressing her fingers into the skin and using as fine a control as she could manage, she could stimulate muscles and nerves, and help prepare them and the bones for building.

Of our age-group back on Dantooine, only Laurethhil, "Please! Just call me 'Laury'!" and Malak had had any real ability to manipulate electricity. Even with practice, Malak had to either meditate for hours or be really worked up to create any, though, and even then the best he could do was create a visible charge to hit a target three meters away, so it wasn't a very practical talent. It tended to char his palms, too. Laury could produce lightnings, decide if they would be visible or invisible to the human eye, arc them between her hands or fingers without being stung, and control them like a scalpel. She wasn't quite able to hit targets reliably, but she could use her electrical-manipulations talent for all manner of tiny things.

One of the first things to happen during the salvage operations had been the discovery of the little cruiser that Malak and I had flown in on, the one where both of my severed limbs were floating in a tank. It seemed that the Mandalorians had destroyed most of its weapons when they boarded, but I did not know exactly what they had planned to do with the ship. Itabor's prosthetics had all been taken, as had stores of medical supplies, but the limbs had been left.

Of course, the better part of a standard month in the same fluid, with only automated treatments to maintain them, had not been kind to my arm or my foot. Surviving the various fungicides and antibiotics, strands of some pale substance had started growing out of the pores, looking not unlike soaked fur, although they were more akin to algae. Some of the Open Gate's younger medics, seeing visions of doctoral theses dancing before them, had become very excited, wanting to take the limbs to Big Zoo on Alderaan for study.

Naturally, they were overruled and had to content themselves with skin samples, the scrapings, and canisters of the treatments. The limbs had been deemed usable and reattached after about a day of tinkering, to my silent relief. I hate being treated like a cripple. It's so demeaning.

Unfortunately, there were further problems. The skin of the reattached limbs, as pale as Malak, felt raw and scraped, also furiously itchy at times. Several joints had swollen painfully and were now stiff. My nails had all yellowed, coarsened, and threatened to tear off, wriggling in their beds like loose baby teeth. Some muscles had gone unresponsive, others had atrophied, I had lost a great deal of dexterity, the arm looked ridiculously scrawny besides my strong right arm. Veins and muscles and nerves did not match up ideally to the ones in my stumps. To put a topper on it, several toes had been utterly ruined and were removed before they could give me gangrene. In short, it felt very much as if I had been cut up by a Mandalorian, severed my arm and my foot using my lightsaber, left them out on a damp forest floor for several hours, and then let them sit in a tank to endure some of the right treatments, but not all. Only the miracle of modern technology allowed me to use them at all instead of getting more prosthetics.

Laury, as a trained, doctorate-wielding Healer in the Jedi Service Corps, could help me with it. Actually, there were machines and treatments that could do many of the same things without use of the Force, but Laury was quicker and more likely to catch problems. Besides, allowing her to treat me made her feel trusted, and that was important to her. It's always a bad idea to upset someone who knows how to put you back together. Particularly if she has the ability to transmute Force energy into directable electrical current.

And Laury, unfortunately, was always quick to take offense. She, never having practiced a Jedi's detachment, has always expressed far more emotion of both the positive and the negative kinds than I ever allow myself to feel. When I studied under Master Riii, I had seen my friend losing her temper often and quite spectacularly, mostly because of stupid patients or the stupid families of patients. She could not bear those people who kept a mind-dead being technically alive, taking up space and material that other patients needed, or those parents who would not allow certain treatments on dying children due to religious reasons, or people who slowly killed themselves with spice and cigarras. In those days, Laury frequently became angry enough that sparks nestled in her hair and arced between her fingertips, yet she had been very tender and caring with her patients, particularly children and the aged, despairing and bursting into tears when she could not help them. Perhaps it was in part due to her powerful physical empathy; she felt the pain of the creatures around her as if it was hers.

For whatever reason, these days she liked to pretend that nothing and no one really mattered to her anymore, using mildly-insulting nicknames and a disrespectful air in an attempt to keep everyone at arm's length. How could the delicate woman know that she might be fooling strangers, but never those she called friends?

"And I say that I do not have this Larfan's syndrome! My heart is fine. My eyes are fine. My veins, my spine, and my palate are all fine!" Malak, standing just behind her, resumed the argument that he must have been in the middle of while I'd been reviewing the datapad. Despite never having heard of 'Larfan's syndrome' before, I wasn't surprised at the topic. Laury was a bit fond of speculating that everyone around her had any of a variety of strange disorders. Sometimes she was even right. Whether she was or she wasn't, the girl loved to argue about it.

"So you say." Laury's fingers dug into a point in the back of my left forearm. Responding to the electricity she was putting out, my fingers all flexed, curling and extending like insect legs. I watched with interest as she went on. "You, who has only dealt with inflicted injuries, not genetic disorders. And I, who has interned for twelve years and studied for seven before that, say that you fit the ward perfectly. Big body, long limbs, long fingers and toes, all contributing to freakish height-"

"I am not freakish," Malak protested, the tone of his voice suggesting a deep stab wound. "Merely abnormal."

Laury dug some more, and my hand at the wrist jerked towards my face as if attempting to claw at me. "Junior, you poor idiot thing. It's a disorder of the connective tissues. You may not have the curved spine or the round shoulders or any of those other indicators, but that doesn't mean you don't have it. Your ligaments and the valves of your heart could be weakening as we speak." Of all the nicknames she'd used on Malak, 'junior' was by far her favorite. It was actually apt; she was two years older than either of us.

"My heart is fine. Great, really. Strong enough to make young cardiologists gasp and check twice. It's bigger and more efficient than yours, remember?" I untwisted to face front again, but not before I saw him cross his arms over his chest.

"Through no fault of mine! Heart size and efficiency is a matter of species, genetics, height, and activity levels. You're some kind of Rattataki crossbreed, tall enough to scrape your forehead on a doorsill and your career is leaping into the air, hitting things, and running around like a maniac. I am some kind of human-Firrerro hybrid, of normal proportions for both, and my career is sitting or standing, trying to fix you and the things you hit."

"Oh, so you're a hybrid and I'm a crossbreed? Besides, that's not proven fact. You aren't gold-skinned enough and your hair is brown, not striped in two different colors." I wasn't facing him, but I knew that Malak had just reached forwards and swatted at Laury's curls. "Not to mention the fact that Firrerro are all too insular to breed with humans. I am simply not as chalky-skinned as a Rattataki, even a crossbreed, and I do have hair. Some."

"Vellus fuzz, Junior, vellus fuzz. Shave Revan's head, and mine, with that razor you wish you needed and she'll still have twice as much hair on her body as you and me combined." Deciding that I really didn't want to be a part of that conversation- Laury would either diagnose me with hypoplastioxia or something equally incomprehensible, or else she would take "A Mandalorian claims to be related to me" and turn it into "I'm a Mandalorian" - I tuned them out, ignoring Laury's continued ministrations.

Instead, I looked to my right at Margoli, who was sprawled on her side on the deck, propped up by one elbow. She was talking to Cimo who, unable to copy that position comfortably, was cross-legged, all four hands folded in her lap.

"No, I don't have a lightsaber," Margoli was saying, her voice somewhat melancholy and ever-so-slightly bitter, as always. "I had one half-built, but when no Masters chose me they took those all away. They always leave one step out of the instructions before you get picked; your Master is supposed to tell it to you, so if you don't get chosen you can't make another one. Not and have it work. Believe me, I tried. But enough about that. Tell me about yours." She ended wryly and pricked her large Bothan ears forwards to listen to Cimo's softer reply. I had to lean forwards to catch it.

"I... I haven't finished it yet," the Padawan was saying shyly. "Master Turiht says I should wait, maybe go with him to Illium before I do. There are more crystals there, and that's where he built his. Besides, he can't take me anywhere dangerous until I have my own lightsaber, and the rules say I'm not strong enough yet for real fighting."

"Cimo, you should finish it." Margoli was suddenly, unusually solemn, her voice and expression for once free of any mockery or bitterness. Instead, something about her seemed... fierce. Intense. "If you make a lightsaber, it's yours. Someone can break it or steal it, but you will remember how it was made. It will always have been there, even if only briefly. Part of you, and they can never take that away." The odd intensity diminished, somehow, hiding beneath the cynical Margoli I knew, who returned to her usual rough sense. "It can always be changed later. But yeah, you need to do a lot of practicing to build up your body. Pride and possession does you no good without ability."

Struck by the impression that I had just seen what Margoli might have become if she'd had the right Master, I just looked at her. She could have been very good. Maybe not one for the history texts, but certainly a fine Jedi. Does Corusucant know what they discarded? On the heels of that thought came another, which I filed away for the future. I wonder if it's really too late?

Before Cimo could protest that that wasn't what she was supposed to do, as I knew she would, I found my voice and interjected. "What are you doing, Margoli?"

The Bothan half-closed her eyes, looking up at me innocently. "Why, Jedi Revan, can't you tell? I'm corrupting the young."

I tried, but could not entirely suppress a snort of laughter. "I meant, what do you do now? Was your survey team among the people we recovered?" Nemo's recovery transports had done a decent job, but, more importantly, the Mandalorians hadn't had the time to pack all their prisoners up in the retreat. Among the few that they had taken, the most prominent was Itabor, the attenuated prosthetics expert who turned out to be a member of some species that I didn't think I knew about. Whoever "Kaminoans" were, and wherever they came from, they just didn't venture out into the wider galaxy very often.

The recovered prisoners were currently all on the Open Gate, having their various hurts tended to. "Scuttlebutt", the rumors that circulated about any ship and tended to be true more often than not, had it that Republic Intelligence was about to swoop them all up and milk the poor soldiers for any and all information that they'd picked up. This probably ruins their careers, I'd thought when I first heard the possibility. It's better than being dead or still with the Mandalorians. Hopefully this makes some decide to abandon the military life and makes the rest stronger for it.

As Jedi and thus not technically part of the Republic's military, Malak and I didn't have to endure that. Republic Intelligence, or the "spooks" as some called them, had to content themselves with a few bouts of questioning. No brain-scanning or hypnosis or any of the other tricks they were said to use. Not that such things would work well on Jedi, anyway.

"They were." Margoli's snout fur flattened as if she had smelled something unpleasant. "They are also being held indefinitely by the damned spooks. As usual 'Intelligence' is not a name they live up to, because the spooks seem to think that I'm a Jedi. They're letting me go." I saw one corner of her long mouth jerk upwards. "For once I'm not setting them straight. I'll just have to fix the ship and fly solo for a while." The half-smile faded and her voice dropped to a mutter. "Though how I'm supposed to finish reconning Bilius Prime without my team, I have no idea."

I blinked, remembering a briefing that I'd listened in on. Bilius Prime was a world that had already been surveyed and mapped, years ago. It was already occupied with a species that really wasn't much good at the interstellar diplomacy game, the Achiites. Recently they'd been keeping their heads down, which was fairly suspicious considering their previous behavior... Maybe Margoli was right, and the Exploratory branch of the Jedi Service Corps did a lot more than I'd thought. Or maybe I had just heard wrong.

Cimo looked at me by the simple expident of tilting her head far enough back that she could see me. I envied her neck, slightly longer and more flexible than a human's. "Master Turiht probably will want to take me on an assignment next. He's been talking about possibilities, but I won't know anything until he's picked one out." I nodded at that; Turiht was pretty predictable as Masters went, quite responsible, if a bit slow.

"I get to fly to this one asteroid belt that's being mined. A big band of pirates has taken up residence, and the handful of local Republic fighters just aren't up to the task." I swiveled around again to look at Malak, his teeth bared in an unfriendly smile as he contemplated the issue. "Hopefully I can keep that G-Wing fighter. I like it; it's got a really good balance of speed and durability and firepower - oh." He'd noticed my expression. "Fine. I'll stop."

"You've already seen where I'm going," I said after a few seconds. "I don't anticipate any major problems." Turning my head, I looked at Laury's busy fingers. I couldn't be sure if it was a trick of the eyes or something, but it seemed like my arm was a bit thicker already. "Laury?"

"Hold on a second." My biceps flexed once more, slowly bringing my balled-up fist to my shoulder, before she relaxed and I regained control of the limb. "Even with my program, I don't know how long it will take to completely restore this. Could be eight to ten weeks, could be a few years. But they will help. You'll want to go with the treatments and medications I give you, understand? Don't forget the injections. If I see you again in two weeks and this is rotting, you'll wish you stayed with the Mandalorians."

"I don't think you have to worry," I said, keeping my voice perfectly level. "It's 'Lak who forgets to dose himself, not me. You've looked at him, right? I don't want him to keel over all of a sudden." We're adults now. But put any of my friends together and we turn into little brats again.

Over Malak's exasperated "Will you give it a rest!" Laury matched my tone. "Yes, yes I have. No worries. Don't let him do that to himself again, though. I might have to do something rash." She inspected her fingernails, then met my gaze, mischief in her eyes. That's Laury, I thought, contentedly morose. Sides with you one minute, turns on you the next.

"I think I'll see if I can't get myself assigned to a plague relief effort. I've been staying close to Jedi centers, mostly to patch you up, Stumpy, but while you always need my help, you really suffer from a lack of imagination." She started to tick points off on her fingers. "Broken bones. Pulled muscles. Cuts and lacerations of every magnitude. Occasional sprains and burns and all kinds of contusions, oh yes. Crush wounds, no, can't forget those. General exhaustion. Recently you've tried something new, and I applaud the attempt, but I've seen bad amputations before, you know."

"So you'll leave us for a nice, interesting plague?" Malak wasn't the only one who could sound wounded.

"Don't worry," Laury said, reaching up to pat at my cheek. "I'm sure you'll let another gang of backwater hooligans maul you in the near future." She sobered a bit. "I'll be back, but there are a lot of other efforts that could use my help. You can take care of yourself, to a certain extent. Not everyone can."

I started to compose an answer, but she wasn't done quite yet, the wickedness leaking back into her face. "I also need a bit of distance so I can come up with another name. 'Stumpy' isn't appropriate anymore, or it won't when you get those toes replaced. But they will need replacing, and you've got all these implants, and you might want to put in blanks when your nails fall out..." I heard Margoli behind me stifle amusement as she climbed to her feet. After a thoughtful pause, Laury lit up, grinning like a Devaronian who's just won the biggest bet of his life.

"I have it! It's perfect!" she said. Evil. That was the best word that fit her expression. "Bad Cyborg."

I was on my feet before I registered the name, not actually outraged, but afflicted with the kind of righteous indignation that comes when a woman gives you a terribly silly nickname and everyone in the room has to try very hard not to laugh out loud, with mixed success. Rather than come up with some intelligent retort- "Minions of Xendor! That's horrible!" just didn't sound clever enough- I just lunged at her, the kind of lunge that everyone who encounters Laury thinks about doing at one point or another.

But while I was off balance, time almost seemed to slow. A foot clad in a thin-walled shoe inserted itself before my weakened left leg and swept backwards, taking both of my feet with it. A lightly-clawed hand, fingers splayed, touched my back and gave the lightest of shoves, in just the right place.

The end result was that instead of stopping short and getting the chance to chase Laury around, I plowed into her and we hit the deck hard. Somehow Malak and the damned bench ended up on top of us, the former exclaiming "Aahh!", the latter merely clattering. I could not tell which was heavier, but I suspected that it was Malak.

Somewhere above me, the Bothan first snickered, then managed "Get a room!" and began to laugh heartily. I also heard Cimo's distinct, vaguely melodious stifled giggle, and thought, rather wryly, At least they're pleased. Maybe they'll remember this instead of the nickname. Margoli got herself under control enough to gasp, "I didn't think it would work so well! You're, heh, such horribly unwary Jedi! Oh!" before being overcome again. Presumably, the two of them staggered out of the room at that point, because their voices faded.

"I think my ribs are about to collapse. Could you get off?" I asked rather waspishly, my voice stifled, at the same moment that Malak said, "I think we'll have to hit her. Do you want to do it, or should I?" Another moment passed. "Oh. Sorry."

Several more moments later, and we were on our respective feet, the bench shoved off to the side. "I could hold her for you. Really. It would be my pleasure. We could take turns, and Laury could fix her between bouts. You could even talk that Ithorian priest-friend of yours into cloning her, just so we could bring the clone up as an anti-Margoli. Maybe make them fight when she got old enough." Malak really sounded as if he was trying to be helpful.

"Not a complicated enough revenge scheme, 'Lak," I decided. "We need a desolate planetoid, a tub of nerfsmilk cream, and some half-naked Twi'leks, for starters."

The immediate effect of proving that the Mandalorians were not and would not be satisfied with lesser conquests was a bit less drastic than I could have hoped, but far more than I had feared. Responding to fearful demands from numerous systems near the Republic's edge, as well as the military's recommendations, the Supreme Chancellor authorized a number of defense-related programs and projects. Construction in major Republic shipyards such as Kuat moved from primarily producing civilian ships and transports to producing warships. Military recruitment stepped up, and all manner of propaganda was designed to encourage more civilians to enlist. Veterans from Exar Kun's war became valuable assets in training and strategy projections; the Neo-Crusaders weren't the same Mandalorians that they had fought over a quarter of a century ago, but they were still Mandalorians, with Mandalorian mindsets.

The Council continued to pretend that I hadn't pushed for war, sending me on all manner of difficult assignments. In between those, I continued my own search for teachers, returning several times to Nemo and the other veterans who could show me something of what went into military command. I prepared for the inevitable, and encouraged all of my friends to do the same.

Of course, nearly a year later, in the aftermath of the truly vicious three-pronged attack made by the Mandalorians who had been studying us, it became quite obvious that I and everyone else had really not prepared enough. It became hideously apparent that while the Chancellor had made provisions, many of them had been half-completed at best. Vast sums of credits that, according to previous reports, had gone into defense had, in reality, been funneled into the Chancellor's pockets and those of some of his political supporters. Clearly, he was corrupt and had only authorized those efforts to make a profit and soothe nervous Senators.

Politicians. Always stepping in where leaders are needed.