Long Road to Taris

An explosion. The sudden burning sensation of crippling pain and the merciless stabbing of shrapnel in her back. The world begin to spin and grow dim as she reeled and tumbled to the cold metal floor of the bridge. The last thing the great Revan saw before she was reduced to a crumpled heap on the floor, before her head slipped sideways, and before she fell into unconsciousness, was that alabaster-skinned young Jedi peering through the smoke at her. The next second, everything went black, and the reddish mask she wore was peeled away . . .

Semi-consciousness was an odd state to be in, with the knowledge that opening her eyes would result in being blinded by the bright, white fuzziness of light. Hearing the low, indecipherable murmurings at her bedside only made things worse, and that was discounting the lingering stickiness and chlorine-like scent of kolto. Her mind was racing as she tried to remember how she had gotten where she was, and it was almost blank, yet she forced herself through a mental checklist.

"Name? Oh . . . uh . . . oh, sweet Force, I've forgotten my own name! Wait, no. It's Lire. Lire Dakaar. Age? Twenty-eight standard years last birthday."

Her eyes fluttered open, and everything gradually refocused. Someone nearby whispered "She's awake." Someone else--a young man in a white lab coat who was obviously a medic--leaned over her.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Like I've been split in two by a space cruiser," she chuckled softly.

There were a few odd glances exchanged by the group of brown-robed individuals standing at the foot of her white-sheeted bed, and she stared at them for a few minutes before turning toward the medic.

"What happened?" she asked.

"You were in a bad speeder crash," the medic replied after a short pause that she found somewhat suspicious. "A young Jedi found you and brought you back here, to the Enclave, with her. You're lucky to have survived."

Lire blinked, studying the Jedi at the other end of the room. One of them, an older man who appeared incredibly disgruntled, shot her a rather malicious glare. She found herself taken aback and even confused because she simply could not figure out what she had done to deserve that. The older Jedi just averted her gaze, and he and the others left the room. She leaned back on her pillows before leaping out of bed, suddenly overwhelmed with a strange sensation of being hated by everybody in the Enclave. As she jumped up, the medic shoved her back.

"Where do you think you're going?!" he cried. "You're not well enough to go anywhere!"

"I don't care!" she replied, desperation thick in her voice as she groped in the bedside chair for her clothes. "Just let me out of here!"

Before the medic could protest again, she pulled on her clothes and grabbed her knapsack. She was out the door of the Enclave and racing flat-out down the Dantooine plains toward the nearest town, longing for nothing more than to get away from that horrible feeling of being despised. She was on the first shuttle for Coruscant, running from the glares of that Jedi.

Two years later.

Lire was sitting in a cantina in the heart of Coruscant, alone at the end of the bar with a shot glass of Corellian whiskey in her hand. The way her eyes darted nervously around the colorful cantina betrayed her desire to be anywhere but there. She'd been stuck on Coruscant for years, doing odd scouting jobs around the planet. Most of them normally involved some job for a local gang, and though it wasn't the most respectable job, it did keep food in her mouth. Besides, as she kept reminding herself, there were less pleasant jobs in the galaxy.

She pushed a loose strand of her jet-black hair back from her face and took a swig from her glass. The whiskey left a bit of a burning feeling in her mouth, but she figured that was why most folks drank it. She glanced at it, swirled the pale brown liquid around, and took another sip. It was at that moment that a man dressed in a red and yellow uniform, sidled up to her.

"Good afternoon," he said pleasantly.

Lire looked him over, and she stiffened.

"You're Republic."

"Yes, ma'am," the man replied.

"Did you want something specific, or were you just looking to make small talk?"

"Actually, I was hoping to get to specifics. You see, I've heard a lot about you, and--"

"--And you're putting me under arrest. Yeah, okay. Kind of figured the work I do would get me locked up. Okay, soldier, arrest away."

"Oh, no, you misunderstand. I'm a recruiter. I'm here to offer you a job."

"A job?" Lire's eyebrow arched.

"Certainly. There's great promise for someone with your skills in the Republic scout corps. You'd be able to travel to many places across the galaxy while getting paid more than these gangs could ever afford!"

"How much are you offering?"

The recruiter handed her a small datapad, which Lire hastily read. When she came to the amount of the paycheck she'd be getting, her eyes widened into dark blue saucers. She pointed at it, her arched eyebrows questioning if that number was the truth. The recruiter nodded, and she gave a long, low whistle.

"Where do I sign up?" she asked, handing the datapad back.

"Go down to the Republic Embassy, and you'll volunteer at the main desk. Wait . . . do you know where the Embassy is?" Lire nodded, and the recruiter continued. "All right. They'll put you on assignment there, and you'll be on your way to a bright future!"

The recruiter smiled, shook her hand, and turned to leave the cantina. Lire mulled over the idea before shrugging with a devil-may-care attitude. She flipped the bartender a credit chip for her drink and headed for the Republic Embassy.

Coruscant, Republic Embassy, 1600 hours.

Lire spent the next two hours filling out various forms until her brain was fried and her writing utensil ran out of ink. She was shocked at the number of background checks and rechecks the Republic required, but she told them everything they wanted to know about her, if only to shut them up from asking more questions. By the time she was finished, it was almost time for the Embassy to close up for the night, and they told her to stay the night in the barracks and come back in the morning for her first assignment. Lire was grateful for the use of a free bed and 'fresher, but as she shouldered her knapsack and headed for the barracks, the secretary she'd been talking to called her back to the desk. Lire shuffled back over, seeming quite irritated. The secretary typed at her keypad for a few moments before looking up.

"I'm sorry to keep you from your sleep, Private Dakaar," the secretary said, rather genuinely apologetically, "but we do have a mission for you. There's a capital ship leaving this evening for Taris on a Jedi-headed mission. It'd be a good start to your career."

"Do I get my own quarters?" Lire asked.

"Actually, you'll be sharing a room with other scouts, but I believe you'll be working in shifts, so you'll probably have the room to yourself most of the time."

"I'll do it."

"Excellent!" The secretary handed her a datapad and a map. "Here's a map to the docking bays and the Endar Spire. That's the cruiser. They'll be expecting you."

She bid Lire a cheery good night as Lire headed out the door toward the docking bays a few hundred meters to the south.

Early the next morning when Lire forced her eyes open, she found herself lying in an unfamiliar bunk in an unfamiliar barracks. She gave a start but soon remembered where she was. She was in the scout quarters of the Endar Spire, and half of her counterparts were still asleep in their bunks. Glancing out the window and expecting to still be docked at Coruscant, she was surprised to see the blueish swirls of hyperspace passing by at several thousand kilometers an hour. Tying her hair back into a low ponytail, she crept silently from the barracks until she was home free in the Spire's corridors. Exploring sounded like a good idea, even at that hour of the morning. Besides, she figured she'd have the whole ship to herself if everyone was asleep, and there wasn't much to do during a multi-day flight to the Outer Rim.

She figured wrong.

The entire ship was wide awake, it seemed. Apparently, the sleeping scouts had been the night shift. Lire swore lightly under her breath only to realize that a busy ship was the easiest thing to explore. If somebody went into a room for authorized personnel, she could just slip in behind them. It was the sort of thing she'd learned on Coruscant playing the role of errand girl for the local slime. Before she could begin her explorations, an odd roar erupted from her middle, and she glanced around to make sure no one had heard it. The next second, she made a beeline for the mess hall, where she jumped in line for breakfast, got a tray of something that didn't look edible pressed into her hands, and set off across the hall for a seat. She found an empty table in a corner not ten feet from a group of rather rowdy soldiers and scouts. She only glanced at them once before turning to her breakfast, but they didn't let their eyes leave her.

"It's the newbie!" said one of them with a laugh. "Enjoying your first day, newbie?"

Lire tried to ignore them, but they kept talking about her.

"I hear she's from Ord Mantell," another one interrupted. "Ord Mantellians aren't known for their patience."

"Yeah, about as much as the Mandos," replied the first. "That so with you, newbie?"

Lire stiffened, trying harder to pay them no mind. She kept eating, but after a minute, the first soldier slid into the chair across the table from her.

"What's the matter, newbie?" he taunted. "Not one for conversation?"

Lire looked up, fixing him with a steady glare of disgust.

"Not with scum like you," she muttered. "Here I was thinking that Republic troops were of higher caliber."

The soldier straightened, evidently extremely offended. He rose from his seat and grabbed her by the collar, but she promptly brought her knee up into his abdomen. As he tumbled backward into an empty table, several of his friends charged at Lire. They were about to start the biggest fight any mess hall had ever seen when a strong, somewhat husky male voice echoed across the hall.

"All right, you all, pack it in. This is the last time I'm warning you about making trouble in the mess hall. And quit harassing her. Don't want the new recruits to get discouraged on their first day. You're giving the rest of us a bad name."

The soldiers stepped back and snapped to attention as a dark-haired man in a flight jacket with a captain's insignia pinned to the collar strode up. Lire jumped into perfect posture as he walked nearer, though she stole a curious glance at him. Dark, attractively squinting eyes, neatly trimmed beard, dashing in every sense of the word . . . He chuckled warmly when he noticed Lire watching him, and she blushed and looked the other way.

"Ease up, private," he said to her. "You're Lire Dakaar, right?"

She nodded, and he smiled with approval. Yet she noticed that even though he was smiling, his eyes were filled with a sadness she'd not ever seen before. She was about to ask him what was wrong when he extended his hand to her, and she accepted the handshake.

"I'm Captain Onasi. Welcome aboard the Spire. She's not much to look at, but it's not such a bad place to call temporary home. I heard you got here last night, but I was on duty on the other end of the ship. Otherwise, I would've come to say hello sooner."

He glanced over at the lingering soldiers and waved his hand.

"Go on, you all! You've got better stuff to do. Get!"

The soldiers raced off, nearly tripping over themselves to get away. Lire grinned as she watched them go before turning back to her visitor. Her smile quickly fell into a subtly playful smirk.

"Don't mean to be disrespectful, Captain," she said, "but are you this friendly to all the new recruits?"

There was a pause such as the one she had detected on Dantooine when the medic explained the situation to her. Her eyebrow itched to arch, but she forced it to remain motionless.

"Certainly," Onasi replied after a mere second. "Most of them are away from home for a long time. We like to try to make them feel more at home."

"I see." Lire's tone was calm and cool, but there was just a twinge of disbelief in it. She still wasn't trusting the pause she'd heard. After a moment, however, she smiled graciously and nodded once. "Well, I do appreciate the concern, but I'll be fine. I've just never served on a cruiser of this size before, so it'll take a little getting used to. But thank you."

"Of course." He snapped her a quick salute before turning and ambling back out of the mess hall. Lire couldn't help but watch him.

Endar Spire, Taris system. Several days later.

She thought the first jarring lurch was a figment of her imagination--perhaps one of those involuntary muscle spasms she sometimes had while dreaming. But when the second one nearly threw her out of bed, she knew she wasn't dreaming. Hastily, she ran through the list of who could be attacking the ship. Smugglers? Unlikely. Pirates? They didn't normally attack Republic cruisers. Sith? She glanced quickly out the window. Yes. It all went by in such a blur. One second, she was tugging on her clothes and grabbing her blaster, and the next, she was racing down the halls with an ensign called Trask. The comlink buzzed, and she grabbed it. She recognized the voice before the image patched through. It was Captain Onasi.

". . . this is Carth Onasi. We're under attack; all hands to the bridge!"

So, he had a first name now, too. It looked as though he were going to say more, but a sudden burst of static cut him short. Lire just kept running. Trask kept muttering something about getting up there and rescuing Bastila, the Jedi in charge of the entire mission, but Lire never really heard him. All she heard was her heart pounding in her ears as she dove behind a wall and hurled a grenade toward a group of Sith troopers. Adrenaline surged through her slender body, fueling her muscles and hindering her from noticing the few flesh wounds she received from the blasterfire that whistled past her head. She thought they'd never make it to the bridge, but by the time they did, it was devoid of all Republic life, and only Sith troopers were there. Lire blew through them at top speed, wondering if "that Carth fellow," how she mentally referred to him, had managed to escape. On they went.

They came to a door; Trask went through to check things out. A Dark Jedi assaulted him, one double-bladed lightsaber against a simple vibroblade. Trask told Lire to run, to get to the escape pods, and she did. She felt guilty about leaving him, but he was buying her enough time to get to safety. The last she heard of him as she lunged through the door to the escape pods was the hiss-snap of a lightsaber blade and a strangled cry of agony that left her ears burning and her legs shaking. She nearly tumbled into the pod bay, and there was a strong hand on her shoulder, helping her to her feet. She looked up to lock gazes with a rather familiar pair of brown eyes.

"Captain!" she gasped.

"I wasn't gonna wait for you forever," Carth said hurriedly, motioning to the single remaining escape pod. "It's the last one. Bastila's gone already . . . You're the only one left."

"But how can I be--?!"

"Later!" Carth cried, ushering her into the pod. "Do you want to stay here and get slaughtered by the Sith or have a chance? That's what I thought. In you go."

He crawled in after her, and the pod hatch slammed shut as the pod jettisoned from the Spire. Lire turned and peered out the tiny view port just in time to see the capital ship explode from heavy Sith fire. She tried to scream, but her voice came out as a hoarse choke. Glancing to Carth for his reaction, she found his eyes locked on one part of the sky: the Sith flagship looming dangerously overhead. The explosion of the Spire violently rattled the escape pod, leaving Lire wondering how the safety harnesses were considered safe when she was still being buffeted.

Taris closed in all too quickly, and only a few short seconds later, the escape pod careened into the urban surface. The impact of the crash was so great that Lire's harness snapped, and her head went slamming into the bulkhead. Pain surged through her head as blood trickled from the gash on her forehead, and even more shot through her upper arm as she heard the bone crack. The world begin to spin and grow dim as she reeled and tumbled to the cold metal bottom of the pod. The last thing she saw before she was reduced to a crumpled heap on the floor, before her head slipped sideways, and before she fell into unconsciousness, was Carth peering through the smoke and the debris at her. The next second, everything went black.