Chapter III
Dramatis Personae
Rahne (Gina Gershon): The Jedi Exile. Nisse female.
Kreia (Kate Mulgrew): Her mysterious benefactor. Human female.
Atton Rand (John Barrowman): A rogue of uncertain loyalty. Human male.
T3-M4: A faithful helper. Utility droid.
[]Chapter III
She's forgotten what it felt like to spacewalk, about how the vastness of the void makes her feel special, a speck of life amongst so much... nothing.
::...you are indeed special...::
Rahne glances at Kreia, but the polarised faceplate makes it hard to make out the other woman's expression.
The three of them progress silently from the airlock out onto the gangway attached to the face of the asteroid, prevented from floating off by the magnetic charge running through the soles of their boots. It leads to the right, away from the fuel depot and the hangars beyond, heading instead back towards the Harbinger.
"Looks like they're refuelling," Atton remarks, pointing to the gantry arm to their left.
"Must be an automatic thing: the false leak HK-50 set up in order to raise those containment fields would prevent the system from transferring... any... fuel..." she trails off. "Atton, you're a genius. We get onto the Harbinger like we originally planed, then we take a short cut through that fuel pipe to the hangar decks."
"We had a plan?"
"Be silent, fool!" Kreia snaps. "Your constant twittering avails us not."
"Far be it for me to cast another shadow on this, but even if your latest suicide attempt works, it wouldn't matter. We still need a copy of the orbital drift charts in order to clear the debris field."
"Let us worry about that when we're aboard the ship," Kreia sighs.
"Seconded," Rahne nods. "Alright, do you both see the secondary airlock amid-ships? It's the closest to us and leads to the passenger section. We head aft, void their fuel so they can't follow us, then open the inspection hatch on the pipe and from there make it into the fuel depot. Let's go."
Without waiting to see whether there's any disagreement, Rahne powers down her magboots, crouches down and launches herself towards the Republic ship. Carefully turning around, she notices that the others have indeed followed her example. She also has the opportunity to glance back into the administration centre - the only thing she can make out in the gloom is what appears to be the smouldering wreckage of a couple of the mining droids. Hopefully that means their pursuers are spread out on the station.
It takes five or six minutes to cover the distance from the station to the airlock, aided by the integral manoeuvring jets built into the space suits. Grabbing hold of the handrail next to the access panel, Rahne keys in what she hopes is still a valid override code, grinning when it proves to be the case. Wherever you are now, Bao, thank you. The three of them crowd inside and cycle the lock closed. Once more she hits the emergency override, the sudden inrush of atmosphere knocking her a step backwards.
"A most... intriguing... experience," Kreia observes, removing her helmet.
"Speak for yourself," Atton moans, head hanging between his knees for a moment. "I hate microgravity."
"We're alive, and for the moment off that rock," Rahne points out, dropping her helmet into the door way to prevent the airlock door from being sealed if someone noticed their arrival.
"Something is wrong," Kreia announces. "I sense no one on board."
"Of course not," Atton mocks. "They're all on the station looking for us."
"Atton, these ships have a crew compliment of a hundred and fifty, not counting droids and mission specialists," Rahne shakes her head as she yanks on her boots. "Even if that droid's sabotage managed to kill most of them, it's standard Republic procedure to never leave a docked vessel unmanned, precisely so people like us can't steal them."
"I noticed no indication of ship-to-ship combat on the exterior of this vessel," Kreia comments. "This vessel has been attacked by the same assassins that attacked the Ebon Hawk looking for you."
" If there's no one on board, then we head forward and seal the airlock to stop them taking us from behind."
"Isn't that tempting fate?" Atton asks. "Who are these assassins you're talking about, anyway?"
"Sith," Kreia answers simply.
"What else is new," Rahne snarls wearily, passing both lasers to Atton. She offers the disruptor to Kreia, but the old woman shakes her head. "Fine." Slinging the bag over her shoulder, Rahne takes a vibroblade in each hand, taking a moment to move through kata she hasn't attempted in almost a decade. It feels good, disturbingly wonderfully good, to find herself doing so. To find herself remembering the patterns and graces of her chosen fighting style.
"Right, let's go."
They move rapidly down the deserted corridors, past the occasional body showing the trauma of encountering bladed weapons mostly from behind. The Sith had obviously hit them hard and fast. Reaching the airlock Rahne cycles it open, primes one of the charges and tosses it down the gangway while Atton uses one of the plasma torches to destroy the external controls. Slipping back through the closing hatch, they vandalise the internal controls in a similar manner.
"How soon until those mining charges blow?"
"We'll be clear," she answers. "It's Rahne, by the why."
"Rain? What's rain got to with anything?" he looks confused.
"Rahne. It's my name."
As they do this, Kreia makes her way onto the bridge, picking her way through the score of corpses littering the deck, their life taken by particularly telling wounds. She emerges just as the other two finish carrying a data-stick bearing the Harbinger's copy of the drift charts. They move aft again; just as they reach the bulkhead leading to the crew quarters, the ship is rocked by the detonation of the mining charge.
"They will know where we are now," Kreia notes darkly.
"Unless they can spacewalk without a suit and burn through the outer hull of a battle cruiser before they suffocate or freeze, it's not going to do them much good," Rahne shrugs, then pauses. "This was my room."
"When?" Atton asks.
"Before I was knocked unconscious and ended up on the mining colony," she answers, triggering the door. Her heart pounds faster, a mix of hope and dread.
"I would advise against tarrying here," Kreia counsels.
"I know. I'll be quick." She ducks inside and makes for the personal safe, a feeling of tremendous relief flowing through her when the access code works. Grabbing the small palm-sized pyramid sitting within, she drops it into one of her belt pouches and rejoins the others. "Let's get going."
"What's that?" Atton asks.
"Nothing of any importance to anyone but me," she evades, striding ahead. The rest of the journey to the turbolift down to the engineering deck is completed in silence until Atton speaks up.
"You know, I have a bad feeling about this?"
"Coward's intuition?" Kreia asks snidely.
"What's wrong?"
"Don't you Jedi feel it?" he answers her, ignoring Kreia with a scowl. "Something's gonna get real wrong, real quick.
"How--?"
"You don't survive on the Rim as long as I have without knowing when trouble's coming."
"We'll be careful then. But we have to keep moving."
"Don't say I didn't warn you. Trust me, when it comes to staying alive, I'm rarely wrong about these things."
They get about twenty metres down the corridor before he's proven right. They would never have spotted them in time if the survey gear hadn't registered a thermal anomaly, drawing Rahne's attention to the oddly... distorted... curve of the wall. A rather humanoid distortion.
"Sith!" she yells, even as she powers-up and hurls one of her blades forward with all her strength. The whispering weapon cuts through the molecules of the air, the assassin's skull, and the metal of the wall. Sacrificing it, she draws the third and takes a step forward as the Sith's dead weight pulls downward, letting the blade cut upwards until the body slumps to the ground, blood gushing from its bisected head.
Behind her, Atton opens up with both lasers, sweeping pulses back and forth across the corridor at head and waist height. There's a guttural snarl of pain and a grunt of triumph.
A second distortion grabs her attention, swinging a shockstaff at her head. She brings up one of her blades to block it and stabs the second one forwards, forcing her attacker to side step at which point she just jerks the weapon horizontally in the same direction, carving open the assassin's belly before spinning around to decapitate him.
Atton lets out a pained squeal and the sound of his weapons falls silent, having taken a shockstaff to the arm. The assassin responsible reverses her weapon, revealing the whispering of a vibroblade. Even before she starts moving to intercept the blow Rahne knows it will be too late.
The snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber surprises all of them. A crimson streak arcs effortlessly through the gloom, bisecting Atton's attacker and her weapon before reversing direction and burning through the final assassin's heart.
"Th-Thanks," the rogue stutters, wincing as he clutches his paralysed arm.
"Get up!" Kreia orders, scanning the corridor, lightsaber held at high guard. "Rahne, help him if you wish him to continue with us."
Back the way they've just come, the turbolift doors open. What they disgorge is a nightmare of scar tissue and hate that doesn't look like it should be in one piece let alone capable of movement. Part of the creature's face is missing, leaving its left eye a glazed white orb above a permanent scowl. And creature is the only way to describe the thing they see, for though seemingly human, there is nothing humane left.
"Oh we are so frakked," Atton exclaims under his breath.
"This battle is mine alone," Kreia says quietly.
"I'm not goin--"
"I am not defenceless," she cuts off Rahne's protest. "He cannot kill what he cannot see, and power has long ago blinded him. Now run, and I shall be along shortly."
"Bu--!"
With a wave of her hand, the Force shoves Rahne and Atton further down the corridor beyond a bulkhead which slams closed.
::Run!::
"What do we do?" Atton asks, looking panicked.
"Exactly what she says," passing one of her blades to him and pulling him to his feet. Draping his injured arm over her shoulder, they turn and make for the maintenance door leading to the fuel subassembly. Once more they find themselves forced to cut through the lock, forcing their way into a echoing red-illuminated space between the bulbous reaction cores of the Harbinger's ion engines.
"How do we get into the fuel line?"
"We cut our way in, up ahead. It'll take too long to start up the maintenance cycle."
"Isn't this dangerous?"
"Stupidly," she agrees, ducking away and driving her blade into the inspection hatch controls. It opens in a flurry of sparks and poisonous fumes.
"We'll never make it!"
"Grab one of those masks and come-- Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
A pain like being dipped in molten carbonite grips her left hand, runs screaming up her nervous system into her brain and blinds her. She isn't sure what happens next, only that Atton is holding her.
"What's wrong? What's happening?"
"It's Kreia..." she gasps. "She's been hurt!"
"How--?"
:...go...::
"We're connected," she grunts, feeling the pain ebb. "But we need to go." Jamming her blade into the bag, she snags a rebreather mask and squirms into the fuel line. The sound of their footfalls are loud and obvious, but it can't be helped. Then there's a new sound as a blue photoreceptor blinks on.
"Dee... reet. Dee... eet?"
"Is that?"
"Yes," she nods, bending down. "He says HK-50 got him with an ion blast on the way back to the Hawk and must have dumped him here. Can you travel, T3?"
"Dee - dreet."
"Come on then, we have to hurry."
They continue a little further until they discover the access hatch T3 has presumably been deposited through. It takes short work with the vibroblade to open.
"Wooot!"
"T3 is picking up footfalls behind us."
"Kreia?"
"I don't think so," Rahne shakes her head, pulling out the second of the sonic charges. Priming it for ten seconds, she hurls it back down the fuel line once the others are clear.
T3-M4 charges up a gangway as fast as his motive units can carry him, the humans hot on his rear.
"Cover your ears!"
The resonance of the explosion is exceptionally painful, magnified and distorted by the countless conduits it passes through. New sirens begin sounding.
They emerge on the other side of the containment fields Rahne had seen upon leaving the maintenance bay. A short distance beyond is a turbolift the markings of which indicate it links to the hangar decks. They pile in and punch in Hangar 25. Once there, they use the final charge to blow open the door from the control booth to the hangar floor itself, the linkage mechanisms having been destroyed by HK-50.
"What a hunk--
"What a piece--
"Of junk!" they finish together, sharing a worried smile.
"Doo-bleet. Woooo."
"He says that it's been repaired since he last saw it. Probably more of HK-50's handiwork in case it needed an escape route."
They slink cautiously aboard, nerves taut waiting for an ambush that doesn't come. Once they're sure they can't find any obvious surprises, they raise the entry ramp and head to the cockpit.
"Can you fly this thing?" she asks.
"Sure thing. It'll take a few minutes to boot up, then we're home free."
"Not yet we aren't - we have to dock with the Harbinger and rescue Kreia."
"Are you frakking insane, Rahne?"
Am I?
::...::
"More than likely. Apart from which, she's the one with the drift charts."
"You know, I'm beginning to think I was better off in my cell."
"Just do it, Atton. I'd do the same if it was you there, and Kreia was here telling me to leave you behind. T3, give him a hand getting this bucket ready. I'm going to see if there's anything useful."
"Reet... dwo-eeet."
"Thanks, I'll check it out."
Leaving the cockpit, Rahne heads through the main passenger lounge, dominated by a large tactical table projecting an astrogation sphere of local space, past the small medical bay and finds her way to the cargo hold, largely empty apart from some plasteel crates held to the wall with webbing. Going to the far end, she feels her way down a stanchion until she comes across the panel T3 had described. A push inwards and it retracts, revealing a smuggling space.
Nestled in there is the hilt of a lightsaber.
She carefully withdraws it. A little under a foot long, the metal is cool to the touch, a design like a tridactyl claw enclosing the emitter assembly, the pommel weighted by a spiked ball from which the belt hook emerges. Holding the weapon at arm's length, she ignites it and stares at the violet blade.
Hers had both been cyan, she remembers a little sadly.
She makes a few practice strokes, getting used to the weight of such a weapon again after almost a decade. Though an ordinary person probably couldn't tell the difference, her movements are hesitant and stilted. So much so that she feels a wave of embarrassment. Shutting it off, she starts to replace it but ends up hanging it from her belt. Just in case.
"Rahne, time to strap in!" Atton's voice echoes through the ship over the intercom.
Sighing quietly, she jogs into the passenger lounge and grabs a place on an acceleration couch. "I'm good to go!" she yells. Her fingers dig into the arm rests as the artificial gravity kicks in and the Ebon Hawk rises off its landing skids. She watches the astrogation tank rotate 180 degrees along with the freighter as it leaves the dock, then move again as Atton follows the curve of the asteroid's surface. The Harbinger blinks into view as she gets to her feet, the display twisting to match his manoeuvring to mate their docking collar with the cruiser's airlock.
Something flickers on the edge of the debris field then vanishes. A few moments later it reappears.
Drawing the lightsaber, she ignites it before cycling open the airlock and once the Harbinger's inner and outer airlock doors open she destroys the mechanisms that will enable them to close again.
::...you were foolish... to return for me...:: Kreia's mind touches hers. What comes with the contact forces her to pause momentarily in sympathy.
Reaching out, she searches for the pain she can feel seeping through the link and finds it inside a storage compartment. Beneath her feet, the deck starts to tremble as the engines power-up.
If anyone's going to kill you, it's going to be me, she thinks with a mix of fond sarcasm and genuine irritation. Besides, I owe you.
She cuts out the lock and slams the door open to find Kreia waiting for her, clutching the end of her left arm tightly where there used to be a hand. Rahne tries to say something, but Kreia pushes past her. "There will be time later," she precludes any inquiry or statement of regret.
They hustle back the Ebon Hawk where they spot T3 standing guard by the airlock until they hear a shout behind them; turning she spots one of the black-clad Sith assassins running towards them, drawing a kukri from a belt sheath. Judging the distance, Rahne hurls the lightsaber into the wall metres away from the pursuer. The woman laughs - and the power conduit Rahne had aimed for explodes . Following Kreia through the airlock, she cycles it closed and slaps the intercom. "Atton, punch it! We've got an incoming Sith cruiser."
"Why is it never good news with you?" he snarks, firing the docking thrusters on full reverse to break clear. The freighter bucks slightly as the Harbinger's atmosphere blasts out of the compromised airlock, followed by a thunk that sounds something like a body, and then the main engines kick in.
The three of them make their way to the cockpit in time to see the Ebon Hawk plunge into the heart of the debris field.
"How long til we can make the jump to hyperspace?" Rahne asks, dropping into the co-pilot seat.
"Not until we get clear of this," Atton shakes his head, spiralling them around a large chunk of space rock. People trying to jump in the middle of asteroid fields tend no to be heard from again. Of course the moment we clear the field they get a nice clear shot up our exhaust ports."
"At least they haven't opened fire on us yet."
"They probably don--" The ship bucks savagely, the view ports momentarily darkening in response to the turbolaser blast from the Sith cruiser that rakes their port side.
"Don't want to be blown to bits..." he finishes lamely. "Frakking idiots! If one of the big asteroids go up, it'll take out this entire field, the colony, us, them, probably the whole frakking planet!"
"Sith aren't generally known for their rational behaviour."
"Now isn't the time for a religious debate," Atton grunts, reefing the ship sideways to avoid the rapidly expanding cloud of vapour and energy that had moments before been a deliberately targeted asteroid. "What the hell did you two do to make them so mad? Either they hit us and we're dead or they miss us and we're dead. Great frakking odds."
"They are not the only ones who can destroy these asteroids," Kreia points out from the navigator's chair. "Firing on one may well provide us with the cover we need to escape."
"Weren't you listening to me you crazy old wit--?"
"Don't worry," Rahne steps in before anything else is said. "I have no intention of killing another planet."
"Ano--?"
"You're meant to be the hot shot pilot. Just do your best."
"Dwoot!
"I see it! Atton, 125 point 30, now!"
The rapid course correction shifts them out of the path of a salvo from the now mobile but limping Harbinger's main battery. But in saving themselves, they allow the green fingers of destructive energy to strike one of the larger asteroids more or less dead centre.
"Oh my..." Atton's jaw drops. "Everybody, hold on: this is going to get a little... rocky."
The rapidly expanding cascade engulfs the Sith cruiser, smashing it into another asteroid, the resultant explosion ripping it apart. The Harbinger vanishes behind a wall of flame that the sensors show reaching out in the Ebon Hawk's wake to embrace the silent cemetery that had once been the Peragus mining colony. The overlapping shockwaves begin to buffet the freighter with growing force, repeatedly fouling the etheric rudders
Finally the debris field starts thinning out.
"That little trash compactor had better have gotten those jump co-ordinates right..." Atton mutters, activating the hyperdrive. The star field stretches to infinity and beyond, and is then replaced by the swirling blue miasma of hyperspace. "Right! Now, anyone care to tell me exactly what's going on here?
"The Republic was the Harbinger," Kreia answers after an evaluative pause. "It was captured by the Sith on the way to Telos; they sought you, Exile."
"Why are they after me," Rahne asks as she gets out of her seat and moves to Kreia's side.
"Because you... are the last of the Jedi. Once you are dead, then they have won."
"I'm not a Jedi. Not any more."
"Exile or not, the Sith believe you to be a Jedi Knight, and that is all that matters."
"Looks like we're having that debate now," she shakes her head wearily, offering her hand. "Atton told me that the Order had gone, but I still can't believe it."
"I don't need to tell you how many fell in battle during the Mandalorian Wars," Kreia answers. For a moment it looks like she's going to ignore Rahne's outstretched arm, her face all but unreadable beneath her cowl, but ultimately she accepts the offer; her grip is painfully hard, fingers digging like talons into Rahne's forearm. "Many more were seduced by Revan's teachings. The... Civil War... destroyed the Jedi; by its end barely a hundred Jedi remained. The Academy on Dantooine is nothing more than a crater now, echoing with the ghosts of dead Jedi, and the Temple on Coruscant lies empty. The waters in the Room of a Thousand Fountains have fallen still, in reverence to the slain... and those now lost."
"And what of those hundred?"
"Most blamed the Jedi Masters for what had happened," Kreia says dispassionately as they leave the cockpit. "They saw their teachings as being responsible for Revan's fall... and the war against the Sith that followed. After that, they scattered upon the stellar winds into obscurity. If the Sith have not already slain them, then they will not help you. Nor can you help them."
"Naturally."
"What were you doing on the Harbinger anyway? Atton asks.
"I was meant to be meeting a... friend... on Telos. I'd been invited to see their attempts to rebuild an entire world."
"Many roads lead to Telos," Kreia remarks. "Including ours."
"How did you know where to find me?"
"You were difficult to find, but... coincidence... was on our side. When I learned of your presence, I knew that the Sith would not be far behind. When we intercepted the Harbinger, it was already crippled and adrift in space. It was simple to board the vessel and rescue you, but leaving was harder. The Sith arrived and fired on us just as the Ebon Hawk was making the jump to hyperspace."
Rahne and Kreia enter the freighter's small medical bay while Atton and T3 loiter outside. Thankfully whoever had outfitted the ship had seen fit to label everything. Gently she takes Kreia's arm and eases back the hem of her sleeve to reveal a stump, the all too familiar work of a lightsaber, cleanly cauterised a little before the wrist joint. Applying the analgesic has an immediate effect as Kreia's entire frame visibly relaxes and makes Rahne feel a little better about the contact required to sterilise the wound then fit the dermplast capping and bond it in place.
"That's the best I can do for now," she announces as she finishes up by applying an impregnated dressing. "We can get you some proper medical attention once we hit Telos, and if we're lucky maybe even a prosthesis."
"I will not bind myself to a device," Kreia shakes her head. "I will learn to cope without it."
"How'd you manage to survive anyway?" Atton asks. "Sith Lords generally aren't known for their compassion."
"He was more interested in her," she answers him after a long pause, the corners of her mouth pulling back in a grimace. "I underestimated him. It will not happen again."
"Of course it won't," he dismisses the comment. "There's no way he survived that inferno we left behind us."
::Fool!::
The emotion slices sharply into Rahne's awareness, bringing with it a stab of pain that isn't her own.
"...o was he anyway?" Atton's voice penetrates her thoughts. "He looked like he was in the habit of sleeping with vibroblades just for the fun of it."
"He is known as Darth Sion. Who or what he was before immersing himself in the power of the Dark Side I cannot say. Even if he did perish, that will not prevent the remaining Sith from coming after us."
"About this 'us' thing--" Atton begins, but both women ignore him.
"How do we stop them?"
"That... is not an easy question to answer. The threat is greater than you know... and I do not believe it is a battle that can be fought."
"So what do you suggest we do?"
"We cannot hope to triumph against them alone," Kreia states emphatically. "To begin with you will need weapons, allies, and a... teacher. Even then it may not be enough - you fought in the Mandalorian Wars, you know the sacrifices it took to win. Are you willing to sacrifice once again everything you've managed to claw back for yourself?"
"Then is there somewhere we can go to ground?"
"Finally! One of you says something sens--"
"Telos may be such a place," Kreia cuts him off this time. "Perhaps there, if you are willing, I can train you. I fear you have much to learn and likely too little time to do so. But we have spoken long enough, and my wound pains me. I shall retire to the crew quarters; we can talk there later once I have rested."
::...and in private we shall be mercifully free of the opinions of idiots...::
She shoulders past Atton and disappears towards the port dormitory.
"I think she was barely holding it together," Atton remarks once the coast is clear. I'd be screaming like a stuck mynock. Well, a very strong, manly mynock, I mean..."
"She's very proud," Rahne nods.
"I think she's trying to impress you."
"Me?"
"I think it's fairly clear she can't abide me--"
"I can't think why."
"--but she'll talk your ear off. What you think and do obviously matters to her a great deal."
"When did you get so sensitive?"
"Oh, don't give me that. I've just been around people long enough to read them, even a cagey old krayt dragon like her."
"Hmmm. How long until we reach Telos?"
"A couple of days, maybe less. This bucket's pretty fast all things considered. We're on autopilot until then."
"Good. I noticed a workshop when we came aboard; now we have some spare time I want to interrogate that HK droid."
"Dweet. Roo... deet."
"Are you serious?"
"Doo-eeet."
"Oh this just keeps getting better!" she exclaims sarcastically.
"What?"
"He says there's another assassin droid crated up in the cargo hold."