In the Presence of Enemies: Act Three

"In the Presence of Enemies" is the first in a series of short stories featuring the KoTOR II crew, re-exploring their story with a slightly different take.

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Night crept across the skyline over Iziz as Jayna and the Mandalore entered the Cantina nearest the Ebon Hawk's landing pad. Its low roofs, soft, beige colours and dim lighting made for an inviting atmosphere that avoided the trap of being dank, which led to a mix of average Iziz citizens, upperclass folk and travelers milling about. The travelers seemed the most irritable.

'Ambino zesquid mahkla,' a Rodian snapped at Mandalore as they passed.

'What was that about my neck, snout face?' Mandalore snarled at the alien, who was terribly surprised to find a human that understood him so accurately.

'Oh, seesu ninsa voca timeh more duuyeac,' it blabbered apologetically. The bug eyed little creature took a quick look at Jayna than back at the hulking Mandalorian, both of which towered over him. 'Mandalorian no seesus meah quista?'

The large man ditched his best veil for threatening: 'Then leave now and we might not have to throw you down a flight of my massive fists. Understand?' The creature nodded politely and skittered off, leaving Jayna to eye her companion incredulously. 'I've traveled a lot,' he responded to her look. 'The last job I did before returning to my people was with someone very worldly himself. Picked up a few things. Rodian language has nothing rooted in anything to do with Basic like a lot of other core languages, so the closest to an exact translation I could offer you is 'bulbous shriek-eagle.''

'Bulbous?'

'Rodians have a big inferiority complex about their height. They despise the tall.'

'I see,' Jayna said in the way one does when they don't wish to upset a crazy person. They began moving again before finding a table towards a back corner furthest from the door they'd entered in, both of them proceeding to sit across from a man in a red and yellow mercenary flight uniform.

'Ghent,' Mandalore addressed him.

'Mandalore,' he directly addressed back. Ghent, nervous about facing Jayna, simply glanced longways to his right, and then motioned for Mandalore to stand. As the Exile moved to do so as well, he stopped her.

'You sit,' he told her, motioning slightly to someone she had not noticed; a hooded man sitting at the next table. Knowingly she returned to her place as the two men wandered off into the hazy, inebriated depths of one of the crowded back rooms. The hooded man moved over to Jayna's table, taking Ghent's place.

'Aeryn Vulnasa Jayna,' he called her, sublime and pleasant, 'now that's a name I never thought I'd have cause to speak again. And to see you in the robes of our order once more...'

'Master Kavar. It's good to see you.'

'Forgive me for not taking my hood down; with Vaklu's men running amok, a Jedi is not the best thing to be in Iziz at this moment. We should make this brief.'

'Yes,' Jayna agreed, brimming but controlled, 'I have much to discuss with you.'

'No doubt. Please, go ahead.'

'How did you know I was looking for you?'

Kavar propped himself up, leaning forward on the table so he could speak clearer. 'I was present at the throne room today. I heard your every word.'

Jayna let out a little laugh, remembering what Kreia had said. 'You did?'

'Yes. And you weren't wrong. The Sith are hunting us.'

'To extinction, yes. Katarr has been the worst blow I understand.'

'You know of the massacre on Katarr?' Kavar asked carefully.

'One of my companions is...' Jayna looked around her quickly and then leaned in herself. '...a Miraluka. The last survivor of a Sith Lord's attack on that world.'

'A Sith Lord. That is how they -- one Sith Lord?' Kavar's voice wavered in nervousness at the thought

'I believe so. I have reason to believe that he, who is called Darth Nihilus, and another named Sion, are the ones responsible for hunting the Order to its present state. From what I've learned they've been active since just after the end of the Civil War.'

'You seem to know much of these happenings.'

'It's sensitive information all, Master,' she assured him, 'And I've guarded it close. I've been traveling for nearly two months now, investigating these matters. In my...haste..this morning, I lost composure. I'm sorry you had to see that.'

He closely listened to her words, as though breaking them down in his mind. 'Yes. This is all true...'

Jayna focused in on herself, and decided it was time for a few more things to be true as well. 'My ultimate goal, my purpose here, is to unite the last of the Jedi. I don't know what that can do for certain, but if we have any hope of surviving, the only way to do it is by working together.'

'The massacre on Katarr occurred because the power of so many Jedi in one place drew the Sith together,' the Master related to her with some scrutiny. 'How can we know that this will not have the same effect?'

'We don't,' she replied directly, 'but if we drift and allow our teachings to fade then we're just the same as if the Sith found us all this moment. We have to try, Master. We have to do something.'

Kavar sat back to think with deep intention. From where Jayna sat he seemed to be struggling with something; his square, handsome jaw grinding ever so slightly. 'Once again you're right.' With his forefingers he gently lifted the edge of his hood up so his eyes could meet hers. 'But something unnerves me that I can't overlook. I feel every word you say, my former pupil, and I can sense as I always do truth from fiction and comfort from unease. But when the words are not presently coming out of your mouth, when I look at you, I can feel only a void. The world is siphoned into your presence, rather than you seeming a part of it.'

The Exile sighed deeply as she recalled that she'd told Kreia much the same. 'I don't know what to say to that.'

'Neither do I. That is what frightens me.'

---

All dressed in red, the thin, pale man entered the hotel suite, generally content as he strolled over the threshold and sealed the door behind him. It was cloudy this day over Taris' Capital sector, and with the evening fallen, the yellow lamp and ceiling lights of the lusciously large suite seemed to bleed against the black view of the outdoors.

'Room service,' the man announced, fiddling with the tray he was balancing in the other hand.

'In here,' came a woman's gentle invitation from the next room. The man fixed his uniform up a bit and went through into the common room area. She sat there relaxed, curled up in a chair with a holopad from which she was reading.

'What took you so long?' The softness of her words -- impassionate requests rather than demands -- flowed into the room, where they met the air and lovingly mingled.

'Kitchen mishap. Apologies, ma'am. As a courtesy, your beverage is on us.'

'I imagine our lovely Sith overlords would expect nothing better from their so-called citizens,' she joked, eliciting a polite smile from the hotel worker. Her smooth skin and radiant smile absorbed the tender golden light of the room. At great ease in the presence of such a person, the man bent down and placed the tray on the end table next to her, taking the cylindrical crystal pitcher off of it and pouring the amber, alcoholic drink into a glass.

'Thank you,' she said with a smile, placing down her holopad. A middle-aged woman who seemed untouched by age in spite of the fact, she brushed back her luscious brown hair, cordially cut short. Its polite reservation matched her modest, elegant style of dress: a white blouse and black dress pants. 'Everything's taken care of.' The man took a glance around the room, mentally noting a ruffled bed and a messy, open luggage case sitting on it. 'You know, sometimes I hate everything about being here,' she murmured with a long glance out the window, 'but there are some moments. Days when the sky is so clear you can almost see the stars. We're that high up in this building. You get the sense that life goes on beyond you, no matter what.'

At this Atton ditched his cover: "No it doesn't."

'No it doesn't,' she repeated, tilting her head up to the red-dressed assassin, calm as ever. 'How did you find me, dear boy?'

'Your memoirs there,' he happily revealed, pointing his finger at her holopad, 'well, you've been on this planet for a couple of months now and with checkpoint signatures that pick up devices, it didn't take long to match them up with our records.'

'Your records? My the Sith Empire has grown to have records.'

'You have no idea,' Atton confirmed proudly. 'Where's the girl, Kae? Supposed to be what..17 by now? We're very interested in her.'

'She's away just as always. Your masters have made that necessary, even when I called them friends.'

He wandered over to the bed and inquisitively rifled through the articles of clothing and toiletries with one hand, while keeping the other firmly resting behind his back. 'That's right. Arren Kae. You were one of Revan's heavy hitters in the Mandalorian Wars I hear. What happened? Crisis of conscience?'

'A realization that I still possessed one.'

'That old chestnut.' Atton reached down and thumbed through passports, ident cards, and a set of brown robes. 'You know, you Jedi are so predictable sometimes I - ' BLAST went Atton's weapon in a rapid flash, splintering the end table next to her into a thousand pieces of wood shrapnel.

'Damn!' Atton pried the blaster free from his shooting hand, shaking it around. 'Never had to twist my wrist that way before. Not bad.'

'I was reaching for my drink,' Arren explained with a less polite subtext.

'Yeah? Then where's...' Atton spotted her lightsaber hilt amongst the host of her things on the bed. 'Doesn't matter. Could've been anything you were reaching for.'

'But you didn't see me reach. You felt it didn't you?'

'These eyes are made for reading.'

A genuine pity edged her words. 'You don't see anything.'

'Wrong.' He pointed his blaster where she sat.

'I see you. Your past, your pain. Born to a family that didn't want you and a world that only knows to terrify you. So you learned to go on but nothing else. Other people are tools to your ends because you can't let them be anything more. Yet you hang to the edge of this world because you still need to see them from a distance; you need to believe they can still love each other, because it means that it's your family who's to blame, not the world. It means there's a chance - for everyone.'

Atton stood cool and calm; he'd long learned not to shake, but inside he began to stir. 'What do you...'

'You've almost caught me on several occasions; I could feel your heart screaming that elaborate song. You've been sleeping for a long time.'

The man's words emboldened in defensiveness. 'You don't know anything about me.' Arren rose from the chair to face him directly.

'I see that you're in pain, Ja...'

'That name's long dead. He doesn't exist anymore.'

She moved slowly towards him. 'Atton, then. Atton Rand? Does that change what's happened?'

'I got here because every person in this hotel saw this uniform and knew exactly where to send me and what to say to me. It doesn't matter what I think.'

She got closer. 'What the Sith told you was right Atton, you only took the wrong message from them. All that matters is to care or not, and you do. You love life so much that you're willing to destroy anything to save yours. But until you realize the truth you'll never be able to let go.'

Jaw grating, he fought a nervous shiver as best he could. At last she reached him, placing a hand gently on his cheek, caressing it with empathy that he could feel warming him throughout. 'What are you doing? What the hell..'

'There's nothing left for me here. I've remained to help.'

'Who are you?'

Arren took her other hand and clasped one of his temples. 'I'm ready for the next step. It's time to wake up, Atton.'

---

Atton Rand shot up in his bunk, the sheet covering him damp with cold sweat. It was another dream. Through the foggy black of his waking stage and his quick draws of breath, he fumbled to throw on the light on over where he lay. The walls vibrated again, a symptom of crossing over from his dream to wherever he was now. This was the fourth time he'd dreamt this dream, and every single time he'd awoken when she'd told him to. It seemed he could never get past that point to fully remember the events that followed, and from there the specifics of what he'd dreamt up to that point faded, only ever leaving him with what he knew had come of it, and a feeling on the matter.

'Where...' Even with the light on, he couldn't get a good enough look at his surroundings. His mind let the Force cast out around him until he could sense where and what he was. 'Okay, reality. Good. Good...' Barely cogent he proceeded to get up and reach for his flight fatigues that hung on the med bay wall above him, before stopping and choosing his Jedi robe instead. 'Cold. 's cold...' he mumbled. The corridor outside his room greeted him with a shivery blast of air, like someone had left the ship's main exit open. Still he turned that way and wandered towards it.

The state of the corridor appeared unreal to Atton as he shuffled, and he himself would've looked drug induced to any who may have been watching; the walls ran and rippled without making a sound from what he could see, and moments after that they sparkled and flickered intermittently; their edges glowing on and off. He started to feel sick at the sight of it all, barely managing to mumble 'This is all wrong.' Nothing appeared as it should, and when he reached the doorway of the supply room after what felt like five minutes just to walk a few feet, he found that the woman he usually met there every morning was absent. Jayna had left the ship, he now remembered.

'It's not morning yet.' The accurate observation managed to bring him back somewhat, and the walls dimmed as he did. 'This isn't what I'd do right now. It's not morning.' Something in that gave him the cause to turn and continue walking down the hall, now intensely focused on his path instead of the walls. 'Gotta be somewhere. Here. Here!' Victorious, he'd reached the very middle of the ship; the central chamber to his left, and the engine room to his right. Atton chose the engine room. As soon as he was in a bright flicker flashed before him, and the world seemed straight.

'Wow.' Atton's thin tone echoed blandly against the small room. 'Heh. Hehe...okay. Wow. Yeah. That was enlightening. Time to make a call to Dxun about their water treatment.' He breathed in deep, controlling himself; trying to collect what he could still recall. 'Her name. What was - '

'Atton.' Brianna stepped into the engine room's doorway behind him. He turned around.

'Yeah, what's up?'

She examined him studiously, noting the robes he was wearing. Jedi, like hers, though brown where hers were white. He had his lightsaber on his belt. 'Atton,' she said his name again, not addressing nor questioning him, but saying it in a manner akin to testing a body of water with one's toe.

'Uh, is there something wrong?'

Everything about him seemed normal now; his wandering had made her wonder, but it led her to an accurate guess. 'Have you been dreaming again?' Brianna asked plainly.

'Yeah. Fourth time now...wait, how do you..'

'Know? I didn't. Not until now. But even awake I could've sworn I sensed something.' Brianna stepped fully into the room, and her tone ramped right up to one of terse accusation. 'What were you dreaming about, Atton?'

Atton's face tensed up with the realization of what stood before him. 'No,' he answered to his mind's first guess. 'No way.'

'Search my thoughts deeper. You'll find it to be true.' Fully intent on giving him the chance to do that, Brianna reached behind her and sealed the door shut.

---

As it had gotten a little later since they began talking, the Cantina was starting to really pick up as more people came and went. Kavar tried on his best air of sympathy. 'I understand your position, my former pupil, I do. When we exiled you, it was not simply because of your decision to join Revan. We believed that, as has been confirmed now, something had become different about you.'

Jayna nodded. 'War took its toll.' At last a waitress managed to come around to the table, and set a pair of drinks on it, one in front of each of them.

'What it's done to you could give this Galaxy's greatest philosophers pause, even those who keep the history of our Order, my former student.'

'I realize that.' The truth of this cut the Exile deep, for she realized what was coming next, as Kavar got to the heart of his purpose at this meeting.

'Talking to you was necessary. You may not believe it, but I was concerned. And yet, while I do not believe you to be in league with these Sith, your abilities are a beacon for them. So I feel that any such agreement between us would be most ill-fated.'

She hung her head and looked down into her drink. A solemn empathy about him, Kavar rose to leave the Exile to her fate. 'Don't get up yet,' she instructed without moving her head. 'There's something in these.'

He looked down at the drink glasses on the table. Hushed to a whisper by this, he hunched down. 'By the force, you're right.'

'I don't sense anything else yet. You should sit.'

Not interested in taking the chance, he did as instructed, somewhat surprised at the sudden focus in her action. 'Do you believe you were followed?' Together they were both alerted to the danger approaching.

'I wasn't followed..' In the corner of her eye she spotted a small group making its way towards her from behind. '...but I did bump into someone.' She jumped to her feet and overturned the table as she leapt to face her hunters, the speed of it startling Kavar. He too leapt to his feet, and backed towards the wall. Jayna found herself staring down the Rodian she and Mandalore had bumped into earlier, who was now flanked by a trio of Weequays and a human; bounty hunters all from the looks of them. The entire Cantina fell silent as a graveyard no sooner than she'd taken her place.

'You're coming with us Jedi,' the human of the bunch ordered.

'Go,' she directed Kavar, 'I know what to do here.' The Master made no argument and slipped through to a back room while the whole of the place stood nervously in wait. They knew the power of a Jedi; their very presence, and the worlds they'd walked in, still gave much of the Galaxy pause. The Exile reached for her lightsaber.

---

'How is this even possible?' Horrifed, Atton Rand stared Brianna down in the small engine room, his back to the wall and hers to the door. As it was sealed off, no sound would audible outside of it. And with most of the crew sleeping or off-ship, things didn't look good. But that wasn't the most terrifying part.

'I don't fully understand it,' Brianna explained coolly. 'But this event is important. The Force is clear on reminding us of its existence. And I've dreamt it every night for...'

'..three nights.' He could hardly believe what he was hearing, his disbelief slathered over every word. 'Tonight was the fourth. For me.'

'I wasn't sure at first,' her voice started to crack. 'But then I heard you talking about them and I could tell. It was you. All these years of never knowing what had...and it was you. You killed her.'

'No, this can't be happening - '

Hearing it sent a chill throughout the room. 'You killed my mother, Atton.' Brianna fought her tears.

'No!' Atton had ripped himself away from Arren, dropping his weapon like it'd never mattered. Doubt overran him. 'This is a trick. Did -- my Masters. They have to be testing me. Any power like this can't come from just a Jedi. What did you do to me?!'

'The only power I showed you was your own.' Arren clasped her hands together, watching his panic with empathy. 'You have the Force in you.'

'That's a lie.'

'Believe that or not, it's why you're here.'

Atton's head SLAMMED into the engine room wall. Brianna didn't move a muscle; her mind did the moving for her. Her telekinetic abilities in the Force had developed, she knew, and now she would see to what level.

'Ah!' Atton groaned.

'Does it hurt?' Not responding to her taunt he leapt to his feet and made a dive for her only to have his whole body thrown against the other wall. 'I remember how that felt. My half-sisters threw me in such a way. They said it made me strong.' She made no attempt to conceal the fire of her hurt now. 'I've always had to be strong. I was never given reason to be anything else. You saw to that.'

He stood, reeling from the pain. 'I didn't!' She threw him again.

'And what if I don't?' he demanded of the woman. 'I'm just a guy. I don't have some destiny or a mission like you Jedi.'

'Then you'll have done a terrible thing if you don't.' Reading the depth of his confusion she tried to step forward again only for him to back up.

'You stay the hell away from me,' Atton hissed at Arren.

'You know what you have to do here. What they'll do to you if they fail. And that's nothing compared to what they'll do if they find out about what you are.'

He stood tight lipped

'You've always wondered why you only saw the trained, accomplished Force users at the Academy,' she continued. 'Where do you think the ones in training go?' Arren's voice deepened. 'There are places...things they'll do to break people like you.'

'And how would a Jedi know that?' he asked with the utmost suspicion. Almost instantly thereafter he understood.

With his own telekinesis Atton managed to throw Brianna off her footing, giving him time to reach for his hilt. The green blade thundered out of it, and just as quickly Brianna drew hers; blue.

'I don't know what you've come here to do Sith, but I won't let you succeed.'

'Sith? I'm not Sith,' he let out through a grunt of pain. 'You said you dreamed the same thing!'

'I have. You killed her.'

'You need to know - '

'I know all I need to.'

Stunned, Atton now approached her. 'You didn't leave Revan's army because they went Sith, you left...'

'Only months ago.'

He stopped dead in front of her. 'You're not a Jedi?'

'It's not so simple. I made a choice so I could protect what I cared for the way the Jedi wouldn't. And so I became something else.'

'Sith?'

'No." She took a pause briefly. " And nothing else mattered after, because I had to do the greatest I could for my daughter.' She took another. 'And then I learned what they were doing.'

'You left,' Atton finished her thought as he put the pieces together. 'And they already knew about her. They knew.'

'They didn't send you here for me.'

Brianna rushed forward and their blades clashed. She kicked him in the stomach and let him reel back before charging again. Still largely untrained, their movements were dirty and rough. Atton flung his saber around his back and then the side of his body, sparks flying from the walls as he brushed it across them to deflect another attack. But it wasn't enough. Brianna hammered down on him until he couldn't maneuver, and let her mind burst forth to drop him to the floor. His lightsaber rolled from his hand and switched off as its automatic sensor detected its proximity to the floor.

'I won't let you hurt them,' she told Atton with clear purpose.

On his back he could only sputter. 'I'd never hurt her.'

'So you see, you have to.'

Like a man in a feverish panic Atton shook his head. 'You tried to do something here. I can look the other way, I can -- I can go, and so can you and they won't have to know about this. Alright?'

'It's different to kill from up close isn't it? I can't be just prey to your hunt when I have thoughts and feelings.'

'Shut up.'

'You know why this life is, and that makes it different...'

'I said..'

'..and your first course of action is to protect your own a...'

'SHUT UP!' Atton swung his arm at Arren's head like a metal beam, driving her to the floor. Yet it only dazed her mind for a moment; nothing unexpected came to a woman of her ability.

'I told you I'd remained here to help,' came her voice, unaffected. She turned her head right back up to him. 'And I have nothing.'

'A kid. Huh. A kid is nothing?'

'I've not seen her since she was a child and she'll think me dead; better than her knowing the truth.'

'That's wrong.'

Still physically aware of Atton's blow to her head, she slowly peeled herself off of the floor. 'So says my assassin.'

Half a scoff and a whimper, the sounds from his lips fought to form words. He just stared at her. 'You can't make me do anything.'

'No, I can't,' she admitted pitifully. Somewhere underneath lurked desperation. 'Please.'

Atton bit his lip. There had to be something else. 'You said I could make -- that this was my choice.'

'But you already know what you want. You love life; there's no shame in that.'

Brianna stepped over the beaten man and reached down to retrieve his lightsaber hilt. 'This doesn't belong to you.' She headed to the door and opened it up. As soon as she stepped outside she turned to the external control panel for the engine room and started pressing a sequence of buttons.

'I'm sorry,' Atton managed to spit.

She didn't look at him. 'You're not.'

'I am.' As much as he could he sat up. 'I don't care anymore. But you need to know I am..' Indifferent, Brianna initiated the sequence; an air pipe began hissing violently in the engine room. Staying on the outside she sealed the door shut again. Quickly another began as well, and then another and another. He knew what this was: a complete venting of the room, done to snuff out fires. It wouldn't take two minutes.

Brianna stood at the door's small window. 'The decision isn't yours to make.'