Saber Forum

After some debate whether or not to do so, I've decided to post Part III of my FanFiction series "Only Light Can Cast Shadow." Since Parts I and II are technically prequels to Part III, the reading of the first two is net necessary for the third. HOWEVER, this being said, if you are not familiar already with the plotline of the Knights of the Old Republic game, this section will contain some spoilers as to events in the first two (first spoilers come in the prologue, but the rest should be mostly safe until close to the end of this part; none of the spoilers should affect those who already know the main KOTOR plotline, as the personalized aspects of the first two do not hold much sway over the third portion). Please be advised to read at your own risk if you are not familiar with the plot of the games. You have been warned.

Just a reminder as to the format, each section begins with a prologue in first person from a character who will be one of the main focuses of the section. The consequential chapters will all be in third person. Thir prologue is shorter than part 1 (or 2 for that matter) but it does contain spoilers relating to characters that exist in Part 1 if you've not played KOTOR.

I have the first couple chapters written (2 and 3, currently working on 1) but I'll space them out a bit before posting. Chapter 17 of part 1 is proving quite the doozy and I want to feel like I've accomplished something. lol

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PART THREE PROLOGUE

   My name is Gwen Dakaal. I was born on Deralia—a small planet on the Outer Rim, not far from Hutt Space. There’s not much to see there in terms of tourism. The capital is a beautiful place, but most of the planet is simply farmland. Personally, I couldn’t stand it. I've always fancied myself more of a city girl and spacer than the country type. I left some time ago and worked as a smuggler for several years. I never did any serious hauls… usually just minor spice or blaster shipments. It wasn’t great work, but it paid the bills.

After all, I was alone. My parents both died during the attacks leading up to the Mandalorian War. I didn’t join the effort then—after all, I didn’t want trouble, just to make a living for myself. But when our heroes from the Mandalorian War turned on the very Republic which they had previously saved, I couldn’t bring myself to continue turning a blind eye. I joined the Republic forces in hope to prevent other families from being torn apart by the plague of war. Unfortunately, it is a plague which seems to have no clear end in sight.

   When the Mandalorians surrendered, Revan, Malak, and the Jedi who had served under them were considered heroes. But after the war, they disappeared. No one heard from them until their return two years later. But this time, they were different. The Dark Side had taken a hold over them and they had joined the Sith Empire. They started a new war—a war of Jedi against Jedi, and a war against the Republic. It was the start of the Jedi Civil War.

Battle after battle was fought, with many casualties on both sides… Though while the Republic forces seem to diminish and to dwindle, the Sith seem to continue growing stronger and more numerous. When Revan and Malak had returned, they brought with them a new fleet, unlike that the Republic has ever seen before.

Things were desperate when a small strike team of Jedi led by Bastila Shan boarded Revan’s flagship and challenged the Dark Lord. It is said that during this time, Malak betrayed his Master, and Revan finally met an end at the hands of the Jedi strike team.

After the death of Revan, Darth Malak, Revan’s apprentice, claimed the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith for himself. However, his tactics were quite different than his Master’s. Revan was a tactical genius, employing stealth, subtlety, and manipulation, turning his enemies to support his cause… whereas Malak commands in terror and fights with brute strength, destroying all obstacles in his path, as was the case in his order for the destruction of Telos IV even during his Master's lifetime.

Currently, I am assigned aboard the Endar Spire, accompanying this Jedi, Bastila Shan, on a mission from the Jedi Council. None of us onboard are entirely certain as to what this mission is, other than that we are supposed to protect her with our lives. She is said to have a unique ability among the Jedi known as the “Battle Meditation” that has helped the Republic greatly in the war against the Sith.

There are a few other Jedi that were also a part of the strike force that killed Revan who are accompanying Bastila. I must say that I’m not so fond of not having any details on the nature of our mission other than to protect Bastila, but those are the orders. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I hate the idea. When I signed up to help the Republic, blind missions babysitting Jedi weren’t exactly what I had in mind. After all, if they are Jedi, shouldn’t they be able to take care of themselves?

I can only hope that it’s all worth it and that, by carrying out our mission, we will be able to bring an end to this seemingly never-ending war with the Sith…

That's an interesting way of arranging your stories...skip the middle!  But yeah can definitely see potential if you have strong threads between all three parts...that could be a very very interesting and dynamic way to tell a very large story in multiple sections in parallel could really play the interconnections very strongly. Looking forward to seeing how you work this!

Part II actually relates most strongly to Part V (there are approximately 9-10 parts in total according to my original plans), So I'm strongly considering it to post those two simultaneously. Keeps the suspense instead of having all of the answers right away ;) Part I is still in the works, but as much as I love everything that happens in Part II, I think this will be for the best, both in terms of progression and in terms of my own sanity.

CHAPTER ONE: A NEW MISSION OF THE JEDI  (Part 1 of 2 to 3)


   Bastila Shan paced nervously outside of the medical bay of the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine. Much rode on the outcome of the patient within its walls. The situation had been discussed with Coruscant and the High Council there. All parties had determined that the procedure must be done in the strictest of secrecy. The Republic could not discover what they were doing, nor could any within the Order outside of the Council Members and those who had been involved directly in the event. Bastila had been one of the latter.

   The success of the operation depended largely upon its secrecy. It was for this reason that the patient had been brought to Dantooine rather than Coruscant. On Coruscant, there were too many eyes. People would begin to question. Somebody would be bound to find out. Even here the risk existed, but it was far less great.

   The procedure was a risky one even when removing the factor of everything that was at stake if it should fail. The process would take at least a month total, possibly longer before completion, and it was important for Bastila to remain there while it happened. After all, her relationship to the patient was one of the things they needed to be mindful of while operating. For the moment, the patient was still unconscious. She could sense that much.

   The moral grounds regarding the procedure itself were questionable. The potential existed to completely destroy the patient should it go wrong. While this may have been a preferable outcome to those who were not allowed to know of its occurrence, it was not the one that they hoped for. It was why they needed to ensure the patient lived, even if it meant the extended length of time it would take. The fate of the Republic and of the galaxy depended upon it.

   Every so often, they would call Bastila into the room to allow her to visit and to test the results so far. They needed her to ensure that the most important information regarding the patient in question remained intact.

   Suddenly Bastila felt a sharp disturbance in the Force. The patient was stirring. Bastila could sense a whirlwind of emotions flow from them. Fear, confusion, pain, betrayal… but mostly fear. Bastila found this somewhat difficult to comprehend. Fear was the last thing she would have expected given the patient’s reputation. And yet, such a primal, almost animalistic instinct had taken over. They were afraid.

   A sharp scream of agony came from within the medical bay, and Bastila was forced to brace herself against the wall, clutching the side of her head as she braced herself against the patient’s suffering. It was so much that it was overwhelming. She’d never felt anything so strongly in the Force before in her entire life… and yet this was only a taste of what was surely yet to come were the operation successful.

   As suddenly as it had started, the disturbance stopped. The patient had been sedated again and was once more unconscious. Bastila panted, catching her breath. She wasn’t certain that she was ready to take on this mission, but she didn’t have any choice in the matter. After all, she was the only one who could accept it under the given circumstances. While it was unintentional at the time, she’d bound herself to the fate of the human who laid on the operation table now. It was because of this that the Council was willing to even attempt the operation at all. Otherwise, the more likely situation would have been stasis.

   It was unclear to Bastila, however, whether the procedure they now attempted was any more merciful than letting the patient live out the rest of their days and die within a stasis pod. The longer the procedure lasted, the more questions she found herself asking… questions which she regretted having. The Council was far wiser and more experienced than her. What authority did she have to even consider questioning their judgement? Even so, it troubled her, so much so that she felt she needed to address them regarding the patient. After all, it was her own future which was in question here as well…




   The Council Chamber in the Dantooine Enclave was far different than the High Council Chamber located in the Temple on Coruscant. It was far smaller and less grandiose. Where Coruscant’s Council Chamber stood gleaming in white, Dantooine’s was more earthen. Grays and browns made up the floor and the walls, and a great Blba tree grew inside, stretching its branches over the Chamber Seats. A circular skylight was in the center of the ceiling allowing the natural light of Dantooine’s sun to shine inside. Directly adjacent to the Council Chamber was the Padawan training room, so the Council could easily watch over the developing Jedi’s progress.

   Padawan Bastila Shan entered the Chamber approaching the four Jedi Masters within who comprised the Dantooine Council: Master Vrook Lamar (who also sat on the High Council and served as Dantooine’s liaison on Coruscant), Master Vandar Tokare, Master Zhar Lestin, and Master Dorak (the chronicler of the Enclave). Two months of the procedure had already passed and Bastila had begun to worry about the patient. The thoughts she could sense from the patient had grown more vague, distant… and it was this she wished to speak to them about.

   “Troubled you are, Padawan Bastila,” Master Vandar commented as she approached. “A question you have for the Council?”

   “Yes, Masters,” Bastila said, kneeling before them. “I am concerned about the operations regarding the prisoner. I can sense that their consciousness is… failing.”

   “We must ensure any possible threat from the prisoner is dead, Padawan Bastila,” Master Vrook replied to her. “You know better than anyone the risks we all face if too much remains of what once was…”

   “Yes, but how much longer must this go on? I can feel the patient’s suffering…”

   “You are not the only one with reservations,” spoke the Twi’lek, Master Zhar, “however, we all agree that there is no alternative in this. This is our only hope of being able to stop the war… You’ve done a great thing, Padawan Bastila Shan. Without you, there would only be death… But you have given them a second chance. If the Republic knew that they lived, do you think they would have offered so much?”

   “Consider this, Padawan Bastila,” Master Dorak began, “You have not only saved their life, but also countless others if this operation should succeed. You need not pity their fate. This is for the better.”

   “Besides,” Master Vrook interjected, “This one was always quite stubborn and resilient. I don’t think you need to worry as to whether their physical body will survive or not. It is because of this resilience that the procedure has taken so long. We’ve asked that extra… precautions be made.”

   “What sort of precautions?” Bastila asked. “Is the procedure itself not enough?”

   “A severance to the Force may be necessary,” Master Dorak explained. “It’s a severe punishment that hasn’t been used since Ulic Qel-Droma, but… the Council has agreed that it is for the better. The patient’s command of the Force is not necessity in order for the rest of the mission to work. That is why we need you, Miss Shan. You are to be the vessel of the Force necessary to filter the information we need to save the Republic.”

   “As it was stated before,” said Master Vrook, “we cannot risk any part of what the patient once was to remain alive other than the information we need. They are too much of a risk not only to the Jedi Order but to the entire galaxy.”

   “Go, Padawan Bastila,” Master Vandar said to her. “Unnecessary your worry is. Vital it is now that you focus on preparing for your mission. The time is almost at hand.”




   After three months, the process had been completed. Bastila was asked to enter the medical bay where the patient was being held one last time. As she entered, several of the Jedi specialists involved were clearing the room of any evidence of the procedure having taken place. The head specialist, a Mirialan by the name of Tiva Koq, greeted her.

   “Padawan Bastila,” Tiva said, greeting the other female in a polite bowing gesture. “I trust you are here to see the final results of the patient?”

   “I am, Bastila said, nodding and stepping forward toward the operation table. The patient was unconscious. It seemed as though they had been given heavy sedatives to avoid coming to too soon. If that happened, then they would need to begin a portion of the process over again. Bastila looked down at the woman laying on the operation table. She seemed so normal. So peaceful. There wasn’t a trace left of the one she had faced aboard the Vindicator.

   “Here,” the Mirialan said, handing Bastila a datapad. “We’ve programmed the patient with a new identity. We’ve chosen to keep parallels to the patient’s original background wherever safely possible. The mind is better able to grasp and to retain the new memories when there is less conflict with the ones that were extracted. We’ve gone ahead and put together service records for the patient also, so they might accompany you in your mission without question from the Republic fleet.”

   Bastila Shan scrolled through the information regarding the records of the patient’s new identity.


NAME: GWENEVERE DAKAAL
SPECIES IDENTIFIER: HUMAN FEMALE
AGE: 34 YEARS, CORUSCANTI STANDARD
PLANET OF ORIGIN: DERALIA, DERALIA SYSTEM, TAMMUZ SECTOR, GRID T-15
LANGUAGES: GALACTIC BASIC, DERALIAN, BINARY, BOCCE, DOSH, SELKATH, CATHARESE, BOTHESE, DURESE, GAMORRESE, HUTTESE, JAWAESE, KALEESH, MANDO’A, CORELLISI, RODESE, SNIVVIAN, TOGRUTI, TWI’LEKI, ABYSSIN, AQUALISH, FALLEEN, GALACTIC SIGN LANGUAGE, KEL DOR, CORUSCANTI, QUARRENESE, SAVRIP, SOCORRAN, MIRALUKESE, SMUGGLER CANT, STEREB, SHYRIIWOOK, HIGH SITH…


“So many?” Bastila said frowning and looking up from the datapad.

   “Yes,” the Mirialan. “The patient appears to have had quite a love for languages and was rather adept at them, no doubt partially due to her command of the Force. We were able to keep nearly all of the language-dominant areas of the cerebral cortex intact. There were some languages the patient understands that we were unable to identify even within our database, so they have been left off of the records accordingly. No doubt it will come in handy convincing the fleet of her recruitment and transfer, yes?”

   “I suppose,” Bastila said. The list went on with at least a hundred different alien languages, but she’d stopped reading when she had reached ‘High Sith.’ “I think it would be better to leave this one off of the record.”

   The Mirialan glanced at the datapad to see where Bastila had been indicating. “Ah yes,” Tiva Koq said. “I could see where that might prove problematic… It must have been overlooked when the file was created. We’ll delete it at once.”

   “Good,” Bastila said, continuing past the languages as reading through the rest of the patient’s created service records.


BLOOD RELATIONS:
-   HERCARL DAKAAL, FATHER, DECEASED
-   VIVISHEA LUKLEE-DAKAAL, MOTHER, DECEASED
BLOOD TYPE: HUMAN, O POSITIVE
DESIGNATION: SPECIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CODE BREAKING
RELATED BACKGROUND: RECRUIT HAS PAST EXPERIENCE AS SMUGGLER WORKING THE CORRELLIAN RUN. BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF STEALTH, COMPUTERS, SECURITY AND DEMOLITIONS. BASIC PILOTING SKILLS. RECRUIT UNDERSTANDS A LARGE NUMBER OF ALIEN LANGUAGES. SUGGESTED DESIGNATION CODE BREAKING AND DEVELOPMENT BASED ON EXISTING SKILLS.


Bastila handed the datapad back to the Mirialan and looked at the patient again. The time and severance from the Force had lifted all traces of the minor Dark Side degradation she had shown previously. The color had returned to her previously death-pale flesh and Bastila could not help but to notice a series of scars running down the side of her body. Bastila frowned and turned back to the specialist.

   “Old injuries,” the Mirialan assured her. “Not caused by our operations, but they do not match those described on her records from the previous war either. We’re not certain where they came from. But rest assured, we have inserted appropriate memories to explain them. Gwenevere Dakaal is a fully fleshed Republic citizen. I’ll admit, the primary behavioral core was quite difficult to reprogram, and so we were forced to leave many fundamental personality traits… but without the corresponding memories and without command of the Force, it should be of little to no threat.”

   “And what if something should go wrong and the one from before should try to break through? I was informed that certain information from the previous mind would be retained for the sake of my own mission. Would these latent memories be enough to elicit such a response?”

   “We have ensured that the latent memory can only be accessed while the patient is in a state of REM sleep. The memories will appear as no more than dreams to the patient, but the link between the two of you should allow you to view them simultaneously to the patient experiencing them. You can go ahead and test if you would like…”

   The Mirialan then showed Bastila a small brassy cube with an intricate design, radiating a faint blueish light from within. It was a holocron. “We’ve recorded the full entirety of what we were able to recover here in case something should go wrong. The designation we’ve assigned the patient should keep them away from combat, but this is a war, Miss Shan. Accidents happen. We needed to be certain there could be a backup of the information should the patient be lost for whatever reason. The holocron of the patient’s full memories and personality is being sent to the Coruscanti archives for safe-keeping.”

   “If there is holocron recording, then why do we not simply access it directly rather than using the subject?”

   “We did consider the possibility. However, the personality within the holocron has proven to be quite rebellious and uncooperative. Beyond that, within the memories it is technically possible that there are certain portions which may only be accessed by the subject herself. All things considered, using the patient directly was decided to be the more ideal means of access.”

   Bastila Shan looked back down at the patient and gently pressed her fingers to the woman’s temples before closing her eyes. Hazy images appeared. Herself, the Vindicator, a battle… Bastila opened her eyes and looked at the woman’s face. Some memories certainly remained. She only hoped that the ones that would bring an end to the Sith reign of terror were among them.

   “We should leave as soon as possible,” Bastila said to the specialist. “We’ll need to be certain she remains sedated until we’re able to meet with the Republic fleet around Alderaan and introduce her into the crew. From there we’ll start along the Hydian Way Hyperspace Route and begin passing through the planets Revan and Malak visited starting from the Mandalorian Wars. There has to be something there that can give us a clue to what happened and how to stop it…”

   “I’ll ensure that personnel remain with the patient until the integration had been made in case additional sedatives need to be administered. May the Force be with you, Padawan Bastila Shan. With any luck, this experiment will mean an end to the war.”

Twisted morality indeed....good to see your take on the thought process behind...creating Gwen...i can imagine they didn't choose his lightly...yet...well the Jedi are full of contradictions between competing priorities of standing for justice and mercy in a very unjust and merciless galaxy...Its actually good timing as i'm exploring exactly the same thing in FotA at the moment (not to plug my own stuff too much but check out the Fallen Order Chapters if interested). 

But yeah I think this is battle as old as the Jedi order itself, and there is never a final resolution on which path is best - in my parlance through Jedi Master Soryu in FotA it is the battle between the 'Jedi' and the 'Order'.  In this case it seems the 'Order' as represented by the Council focused on 'saving the galaxy' is winning out, but Bastilla still feels very...uncertain - her Jedi side wishing to 'save just one person or spare them from pain' grinding against the actions the order takes. And of course you see the same tension in the Clone Wars in a different form again. 

But yeah glad your delving into this space it is something I am personally very interested in.       

Hello Lord_S_Gray! I'm so glad to hear that it is a topic of interest to you. Personally, I think it's one that's not explored enough (too often we are encouraged to accept an inherit "good" and "evil" in the way characters are presented). It's something that I feel the source material (particularly the second game) did very well, making you question which side was actually "right" very often. I'm looking forward to working through the relationship of the Council with "Gwen," particularly when.... developments happen that they hadn't anticipated.

I'll admit, Bastila has been a big challenge for me. She's always been my least favorite companion in the canon, but I think that this section has made me appreciate her more as a character though, trying to imagine her own feelings given her unique position in the middle of this rather complicated situation.

I'll certainly check out FotA! Right now I'm still reading through CotA. Is it safe to read the mentioned sections without too many spoilers for the parts before? I just got to Yoda in CotA. Haven't had reading time much lately :(

Yeah i think...in some ways the conflict was dealt with in Clone Wars...but not enough - the Movies didn't have enough time and the series was too black and white about some things, though Ashoka at the end was good turning from the Jedi.  But yeah for your narrative it is an important aspect...they are basically 'enslaving' Gwen in a sense, or at the very least using her.  I would love to see how Atris felt about it all...she never really mentions Revan in KOTOR2 but presumably she knew and approved it...

Yeah Chapter 36 is fairly spoiler free- after all we all know Yoda survives and while Soryu doesn't appear in CotA till later the character is still on the same path overall - and I think it can be enjoyed without worrying too much about the why of the situation. 

Atris would have had to have been a part of the decision, given the fact that she was on the High Council at the time.... You're giving me ideas for an interlude later ;) The Council's actual meeting deliberating the matter would be an interesting thing to explore... Certainly there were likely to have been split decisions on the matter. It would be interesting to explore who had what opinions and who was a contributing factor to each portion of the final decision... As Master Dorak points out, the only similar situation the Council has been forced to make a decision in in "recent" history was Qel-Droma (I don't count the Exile because I'm more inclined to believe Kavar's account of the situation personally, plus we get to see that trial in the canon :P )

I'll take a look into Chapter 36 then.... In what year is it set in comparison to CotA, so I can have context of timeline?

It was a very...un Jedi thing to do to Gwen....to use someone like a tool is almost completely contradictory to what they are about - Qel Droma is different that was more outright punishment like a prison sentence...I wonder who proposed it in the first place, it seems so un-Jedi like to even suggest it...but desperate times...

About 21 years and a lot of blood later...as you can imagine while in CotA the Aethan tribe is ignorant and scared of the galaxy...they don't stay that way for long....in common time frame about 579BBY so Yoda is about 300 years old.

Yeah, I think that decision was possibly one of the darkest and most screwed up in documented Jedi history in terms of moral compass :( Arguably even more twisted is trying to argue it as an act of 'redemption.' More like reprogramming a droid... Desperate times call for desperate measures and all... but it's still very un-Jedi-like...

I'll take a look then! Thanks for the suggestion! :D I've really been enjoying CotA so far!

CHRISTMAS UPDATE!

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CHAPTER ONE: A NEW MISSION OF THE JEDI  (Part 2 of 2)


   Gwen Dakaal took a sip of Caffa as she went through the proposed cipher against the intercepted message on-screen. She’d wished it would’ve been something stronger, but alcoholic beverages weren’t permitted onboard. Just one more of those stupid fleet laws she cursed under her breath at least twice a week. She leaned back in her seat as far as she could stretching before cracking her knuckles and checking the cipher again.

   The code was in a combination of languages: binary with Mando’a and Old Coruscanti… They knew there was a fourth language as well, and traces of a fifth. The more used seemed to Gwen like Old Deralian. It seemed odd for it to appear in the context of Sith Code—after all, hardly anyone even on Deralia spoke the thing! The only reason she recognized it herself was because her parents had made her study it while she was a kid. Her father had been quite the history buff and thought planetary history and culture was an important subject for his daughter to learn. Whoever created the code must have had some sort of Deralian ties…

   The other unknown language did seem familiar, but she couldn’t place it… She’s picked up fragments of so many during her smuggling days that sometimes they got mixed up in her head. Was that Togruti, or was it Savrip? After a while they all started to sound the same…

   She groaned and rubbed her temples. As much as she wanted to see an end to the Sith attacks, she had to admit that signing up to join the Republic fleet hadn’t cracked up to be all that she had imagined… no pun intended. She’d hoped there would have been a bit more action and excitement… Technically speaking, it was a good thing that the Endar Spire hadn’t been caught in any battles since she’d come aboard, but is was damn sure boring.

She’d thought being in fleet would be more like those action flicks on the holovids, but so far it had turned out to be mostly paperwork. When they had checked into her background experience, the person recruiting had some bright idea she’d fit best in the cipher department…. Which seemed interesting at first until she realized that it was mostly hours upon hours of staring at screens of intercepted Sith messages searching for fragments of anything that might prove useful counterintelligence…

Her shift never seemed to end soon enough. When it was over, she grabbed her cup and made her way to the mess hall, disposing of it in a receptacle along the way. She wondered what she should attempt this time. Fleet food hadn’t sat well with her stomach, but she was also getting sick of ration bars. She’d not had any stomach problems in the past, but ever since coming aboard, she’d had the same issue. She wasn’t sure if it was the foot itself, or some sort of motion sickness. She was more inclined, however, to think it was the food.

She took a tray of something that looked like a stew with meat and vegetables in it, hoping she would fare better than she had with the bantha burger last time, which had made her violently ill. In a worst-case scenario, she had more ration bars stored in the footlocker by her bunk.

Gwen toked around for an empty seat in the mess hall and found one among a few of the fighter pilots. “Mind if I sit here?” she asked.

“Not at all,” the pilot said. “Haven’t seen you around before… you new?”

“Transferred onboard at Alderaan last week,” she said as she took a seat. “Name’s Gwen. Gwen Dakaal”

“Sergio Padawe. Good to meet you, Gwen. I didn’t think we were expecting any new transfers… What department are you in?”

“Cipher,” she said. “Picked up a lot of languages in my previous line of work. Guess the higher-ups thought it would put me in a good position for code-breaking. I assume you’re all pilots from the uniforms?”

“You’d assume correctly,” Sergio said. He began working his way around the table, indicating each of the pilots there. “This is Tony, Ben, Jane, Ricky, Thom, Jim, Terra, Bonnie, Tim, and Oliver.” A few of them muttered a hello or gestured before returning to their meals.

“Carth is the other fleet pilot, but he never hangs out with the rest of us lately. Caught up in business with those Jedi since they came onboard…So how are you liking the Spire so far?” he asked her.

“Well, to be completely honest, it’s a lot less exciting than I’d imagined it to be… especially in Cipher. I know it’s important work and all… but I was kind of hoping for a bit more action.”

“Hey, don’t go cursing the times between combat. Front lines are a dangerous place. This is a war, not a picnic. Oftentimes less action is a good thing…”

“Yeah, maybe…” she said, blowing on a spoonful of stew before popping it into her mouth. “What do you guys do around here for fun?”

“Well, some of us meet up with some of the ground soldiers for Paazak on Taungsdays. You’re welcome to come join if you play.”

“Can’t say I do, but I might come watch. Maybe one of you would be willing to teach me.”

“The more the merrier. We’ll expect to see you next time then. On that note, we should probably head out. It’s about time for inspections. We’ll see you around then. It was nice meeting you, Gwen.”

“Nice meeting you guys too!”


Carth Onasi followed along with the small company of Jedi onboard the Endar Spire. At their lead was Jedi Bastila Shan. Shan had become a rather recognized figure since the recent months of the war. She had a rare gift among the Jedi known as ‘Battle Meditation,’ which, from what he understood, worked as a way to inspire allies and cause fear and doubt in one’s enemies. The ability had come in very useful for the Republic in battle, but what Jedi Bastila Shan was most famous for was the recent incident involving Revan and Malak, the two Jedi who had turned on the Republic and initiated this new war.

It was due to her Battle Meditation that, three months prior, she had led a strike team of Jedi aboard the Vindicator, the flagship of Darth Revan, the leader of the Sith. During the strike, Darth Malak, Revan’s apprentice, had turned on his Master and Revan met his end in the duel with Bastila. Thus, Miss Shan was best known as the Jedi who killed Darth Revan.

Recently, the crew of the Endar Spire had been assigned to escort Miss Shan on a special mission from the Jedi Council. Little detail was given to the Republic military personnel about the mission’s details. Carth knew that they would be roughly plotting a course along some of the battles during the Mandalorian Wars, though he wasn’t completely certain why. The Jedi refused any specifics on the matter. He had been requested to act as a sort of ‘guide’ to the mission since he’d fought in many of the battles they wished to retrace along the Outer Rim. Even so, he was just as much in the dark about most of the goings on as the rest of the crew was.

They had requested many things when they came aboard… a quiet chamber for meditation, specifics about the route to be taken between the points of interest, the transfer into the crew of a new Cipher in the intelligence department… While Carth respected authority and knew how to take orders, working with the Jedi was beginning to be a bit of a pain. He only hoped it was worth the trouble for the Republic fleet.

“I want a full report on the battle history at each planet,” Bastila Shan said as they walked. “I’ve been told you served much in the earlier parts of the Mandalorian Wars and that consequentially you would be the best option in serving as guide on our mission.”

“I served in a lot of the early battles, yeah, but the planets on your list don’t match up with all of them. Fleet never had an opportunity to react to Flashpoint…” He glanced down at list of places in the datapad. Flashpoint, Suurja, Serocco… What was this, some kind of a tour? The Republic was at war, and it wasn’t his job to be playing tour guide to a bunch of Jedi on some sort of hush hush mission from the Jedi Council. He looked back up at the Jedi. “Cathar?”

“Yes,” Bastila said plainly. “Mister Onasi, you were not recommended to me for the purpose of questioning my authority. Rest assured, the Jedi Council believes that this mission could bring the end to the war that we have all been looking for. You need only to trust in their wisdom and their judgement on the matter.”

The Jedi had been a key factor in the Republic’s victory in the Mandalorian Wars, but the Jedi then had acted very differently than the Jedi now. While he never saw much of them personally, once those Jedi had officially entered alongside the Republic, they had been very directly involved, participating on the battle field and employing knowledge of tactics in positioning troops. They didn’t involve soldiers in secret Jedi Missions that seemed to have no direct connection to the effort. While the Jedi Bastila who was leading this group had an ability that might help them win a few battles, she was young, and her lack of experience made him question her ability to command troops. “There are good men and women onboard risking their lives for this mission. I hope that the Council’s wisdom takes that into consideration too,” Carth muttered to himself.

I just started to get around to the fan fiction (finally). Your writing is really impressive! I'll have to catch up on your other stories soon. -1

Hello DS! Thank you so much! ^_^ Part I is on pause while I do my research for the upcoming chapter, but I already have a good start on the next couple for "Twisted Morality." Since "Only Light Can Cast Shadow" is technically a prequel, you shoudl have no issues following the plot if you start here instead.

“There are good men and women onboard risking their lives for this mission. I hope that the Council’s wisdom takes that into consideration too,” Carth muttered to himself."
Twisted Morality once again...I uspect the answer is no the Council does not take that into consideration, they have more important things to consider...the Jedi are using the Republic just as much as they are using Gwen...like tools to serve their end game of defeating Malak...effectively cleaning up their own mess in a way - how are they any better than the Sith now...or maybe they aren't, its just the Sith don't pretend to a higher calling....

I like this guy. :)

I suspect they didn't either, or at least not as much as they should have... I don't think they anticipated for things to play out as they do... The Jedi Order, particularly the Council, in this era is notorious for leaving those not on a "need-to-know" (and even many who should) in the dark.


This is one of the things that I think made the games great. They made you question both sides of the problem with no clear "right" or "wrong" when you look deeper than the surface layer of "good" and "evil." It makes the choice between the paths of the light and dark more difficult and convoluted (even more so in the second game).

CHAPTER TWO: ATTACK ON THE ENDAR SPIRE (Part 1 of 3)

   Gwen Dakaal had been asleep when the attack had first begun. She was still recovering from the stew she’d risked the day before. It seemed her stomach just wasn’t going to take the food from the mess hall. She’d vomited three times in the crew quarter fresher before returning to her own bunk area. As much as she probably should have gone to medical to check on what could be causing it, she really didn’t feel like giving up her off shift to go sit in a waiting room. So long as she stuck to ration bars she was fine. The things were stale, and tasteless, but it seemed that they were all she could keep down on this godforsaken ship. She didn’t want to wait around to be told not to eat the food at the mess hall—she had been able to figure out that much on her own. After she was finished vomiting, she had returned to the quarters to her bunk, removing the dirtied uniform she had been wearing and collapsing on the bunk in her unedergarments. She had fallen asleep like that before the alarm sounding had woken her up.

   Gwen shot up, the sounds of alarms and crashes. He sat up, looking around frantically. The whole ship seemed to be shaking. ‘What the hell is going on here,’ she thought. As far as she knew, they were still supposed to be in hyperspace, headed into the Outer Rim territories. Something was clearly going wrong, and this didn’t seem like a drill. However, before she had much time at all to react, the door of the chamber opened and a blonde man in soldier’s uniform entered. Frantically, she pulled the blanket from the bunk around her and drew the blaster she kept under her pillow—an old habit she’d picked up from her smuggling days—and pointed it at him. Republic soldier or not, there was clearly something going on here, and she didn’t appreciate being barged in on while indecent.

   “We’ve been ambushed by a Sith battle fleet!” the man said. “The ship is under attack! Hurry up—we don’t have much time!”

   “First things first,” Gwen said, cocking the blaster, “Who are you and what are you doing in here?” She hadn’t seen the man before. Granted, she also hadn’t been on board for very long, so she was still getting to know the crewmates.

   “I’m Trask Ulgo, ensign with the Republic Fleet,” the man said, putting his hands up to indicate that he wasn’t a threat. “I’m your bunk mate here on the Endar Spire. We work opposite shifts; I guess that’s why you haven’t seen me before. I figured since you’re new and haven’t been through evacuation drills aboard yet, I should come make sure you knew how to get out. Now hurry up, we have to find Bastila! We have to make sure she makes it off of this ship alive!”

   ‘Bastila!?’ Gwen thought. Bastila was a Jedi—and the one famous for defeating Darth Revan at that! A cipherer babysitting a Jedi in an attack? She almost laughed out loud at the thought. “Forget it,” she said, stading but keeping her blaster pistol pointed at him. “I’m looking after my own skin!”

   “You swore an oath to protect Bastila when you signed up for this mission, just like everyone else in this crew,” the soldier said. “Now it’s time to make good on that oath.”

   It was at this point that Gwen couldn’t contain her laugter any longer “Bastila’s a Jedi. She’ll be fine.”

   “Look, I know she may not have an official rank in the fleet, but she’s the one in charge of this mission and it’s our duty to protect her!”

   “No,” Gwen said. “That’s your job to protect her. You’re the soldier, I’m the cipherer. Combat is your thing.” Being in the middle of an attack now made her realize what Sergio had been mentioning before. The times between battles suddenly didn’t seem so dull after all…

   Trask, however, didn’t seem convinced by her reasoning. “I know all about your reputation… how you used to smuggle spice and blasters along the Corellian Run. I guess the Republic must’ve figured since they couldn’t catch you, they might as well hire you. I’ll admit, the Republic is in desperate need of someone with your kind of skills rightnow. Desperate enough to overlook your shady past”

   Gwen let off a warning shot, narrowly missing Trask’s head. The bolt made a scorch mark on the wall behind him and the blast caused him to flinch a moment. “That was uncalled for,” Gwen said, her blue eyes narrowing into a leer. “I’ll have you know I signed up for this myself. That being said, I also didn’t sign up for babysitting Jedi!”

   “Whether you like it or not, when you signed on for this mission you became a part of the Republic fleet and Bastila needs all troops, regardless of position, at her side during this attack!”

   “Oath or no oath, I’m heading to the escape pods,” Gwen said. She moved toward her locker, keeping the pistol aimed at Trask. “Now turn around.”

   “What? Why do I need to turn around?”

   “Because I need to get dressed and I’m not exactly thrilled with the idea of an audience. Now turn, or next time I’ll make sure to put the next shot between your eyes instead.”

   “All right, no need to get trigger happy about it, geesh,” Trask said as he turned around. “Just hurry up so we can get out of here.”

   Gwen waited to make sure he was completely around before discarding the blanket and opening her locker, still glancing over every so often to make sure her bunk mate wasn’t stealing glances. She threw on a pair of grey pants, a white shirt, and her old red smuggler’s jacket along with some gloves and boots. It wasn’t regulation attire, but her uniform still had traces of vomit on it and she really didn’t feel like dealing with it at the moment. This was more comfortable anyway. She strapped on a simple gear pack around her waist and added some security and computer spikes, a few ration bars, and the few credits she had on her, and attached a vibroblade to her belt. She had a stealth generator there too. She’d not used the thing much before, but figured it would be good, at least, to have just in case, and so she clipped it around her waist, under the jacket. Lastly, she pinned her comm link to her lapel. At least she was prepared for whatever was out there on the ship. If they were under attack, the possibility existed that they had been boarded, which meant there could be Sith soldiers about… or worse.

   “Alrighty then, let’s move out,” Gwen said, pulling her blaster pistol back out from the holster strap on her thigh. “I’d rather not die chit-chatting here if it can be helped.”

   “We should stick together,” Trask said as he spun around to face her again. “We’ll have a better chance of success than if we split up. Because of the attack, the dormitories are in lockdown, but I have the override codes. Give me a moment and I’ll override the command… Bet you’re glad you didn’t shoot me now, huh?”

   “Don’t push your luck,” Gwen said, rolling her eyes. “Just get us out of here before the ship explodes…”




The boarding vessel of the Sith fleet had attatched itself to the Endar Spire and several Sith Soldiers in trooper armor and a handful of dark Jedi had boarded the ship. At the head of the boarding crew was Darth Bandon, Lord Malak’s apprentice. Bandon had only recently gained the position of the Dark Lord’s right hand. After all, Malak’s own rise to power was still rather recent. It had only been a few brief months… This attack on the Endar Spire was a part of his proving himself to his new Master.

They had intercepted transmissions regarding the course of the vessel which was said to be carrying the Jedi Padawan Bastila Shan. The ship was set along a course from Alderaan using the Hydian Way hyperspace route. They had set an ambush accordingly over the planet of Taris, which was under Sith occupation. The ambush was headed by the Leviathan, an Interdictor-Class star cruiser, and its fleet of fourty eight Sith Interceptor Fighters. Using the Leviathan’s Interduction Field, they were able to pull the Endar Spire from hyperspace and begin their assault.

Malak wanted Bastila, either dead, or captured alive. The Republic and the Jedi Order were scrambling for advantage as it was, but Bastila Shan provided them with a small glimmer of hope which he wished to either turn against them or to crush beneath his might. After all, Bastila’s Battle Meditation was the key component to the few victories the Republic had gained thus far.

It was Bandon’s task to lead the team aboard the Endar Spire to find Bastila. And if he could not turn or capture her, then he was to eliminate her. With her death would die the hopes of the Republic war effort and thusly their resistance. The Sith would rule the galaxy once more!

There is something very familiar about all of this...but not quite the same...just a bit different in focus and detail...look froward to seeing some of this from inside the mind of Gwen as it were.

haha, yes, something familiar... there are likely to be a few of those in this story, given its context. Much of it you will find familiar but not.

CHAPTER TWO: ATTACK ON THE ENDAR SPIRE (Part 2 of 3)


Carth Onasi was on the bridge when the Sith attack had first begun. He had seen enough in his time in the fleet to know that under the given circumstances this was a losing battle for the Endar Spire. His goal was to make sure as much of the crew could get to safety as possible. Already the Sith were boarding. It was obvious that they must have known Bastila was on board, otherwise there was no reason they would lay such a trap for a ship passing through the sector in hyperspace.

Carth patched his comm link through to the ship’s crew. “This is Carth Onasi,” he said, “The Sith are threatening to overrun our position! We can’t hold out long against their firepower! All hands to the bridge or nearest escape pods! Repeat, all hands to the bridge or nearest escape pods! Evacuate ship!” He flipped his comm to close the outgoing signal and then turned his attention to the escape pods there. There weren’t nearly enough pods for the full crew of three hundred, especially if everybody was panicking and trying to take individual pods. The rest of the fleet pilots were making their way to the hanger to the Aurek-class tactical strike-fighters in an attempt to hold off the Sith bombardment for as long as they could, knowing full well that it wasn’t a flight they would be returning from given their current circumstance. Carth saluted them, and as much as he wished otherwise, he realized he would probably never see them again. Right now, his mission differed from theirs. Right now his mission was to ensure the safety of the Jedi Bastila Shan and of as much of the crew as he could.

Carth rushed to the emergency control center just beyond the bridge, and began checking the status of the crew and of the Endar Spire. They had been boarded since the time the attack had started. It looked like there were two separate boarding vessels with mostly Sith Soldiers, but there were a few dark Jedi among their ranks also, their red sabers gleaming in the feed. There was no longer any doubt in Carth’s mind that it was Bastila the Sith were after.

It was not long before crew members began arriving at the bridge. The Endar Spire was a rather large ship, and its crew was accordingly large. That being said, the number of crew members whom Carth witnessed arrive on the bridge and the number of escape pods he could see from the computer had jettisoned from other levels were alarmingly low, and given the fact that Taris, the nearest planet, was under Sith occupation, it was unlikely many of those who were even lucky enough to make it to the escape pods would survive. Carth did what he could, helping to organize crew members into escape pods, and waiting for his Jedi charge to arrive on the bridge. The Jedi had requested, amongst many other things, that Bastila Shan have her own escape pod reserved in the event of an emergency. The request was justified, given her importance in the Republic war effort, but it meant someone had to be there to make sure the request would be able to be filled.

When Bastila arrived, however, she was not accompanied by the other Jedi who had been with her, as Carth had initially anticipated would have been the case. It had seemed they were busy holding off the Dark Jedi whom had boarded so that the Padawan might make it to the bridge without interference.

“Is the pod ready?” Bastila asked upon entering the bridge, deactivating the yellow blades of her saber as she did so.

“Ready,” Carth said, gesturing her toward the pod. “Strap in tight. It’s likely to be a rough landing.”

“I am a Jedi,” she replied plainly. “I can handle myself just fine.”

“Just trying to do my job,” he said as she entered. While she had no official rank among the fleet, Bastila Shan was technically his commanding officer in the situation, since she had been placed as the Jedi in charge of leading the mission. Even if she was acting a bit like a Jedi princess, it was still his duty to follow commands.

The escape pod jettisoned soon after Bastila entered and the door was secured. Carth hoped that she was able to make it to the planet’s surface safely. For the sake of the Republic war effort, they would all need to hope that was the case. Malak’s armies were growing stronger with every passing day, and their chances of defeating him seemed to be rapidly diminishing.

Carth returned to the consul to check up on the crew status. There weren’t many left, but escape pods were becoming more and more scarce. He was determined that anyone left alive who could make it to the bridge would be able to get to an escape pod.




Gwen and Trask had received the message from Veteran Commander Onasi to head to the bridge. It had already been the plan, but given Onasi’s experience in the wars, the situation was understood to be more dire now that his assessment of it had been made known to them. If he thought things were bad, then it was all the more important that they get out of there fast.

Blaster fire and explosions from battle damage could be heard ringing throughout the corridors of the ship. The two stopped short at the first turn upon seeing one of their own fire off a few shots before being hit in the chest and collapsing dead to the ground, the scent of burnt fabric and flesh lingering in the air.

“There must be Sith advance boarding crew members just ahead,” Trask murmured.

“Really? I wonder what gave that away?” Gwen said, rolling her eyes sarcastically. “Sith or no Sith, we’re going to need to head to the bridge.”

“Right,” the man said before swallowing hard and drawing his blaster rifle. “Bastila is counting on us.”

“Again with the Jedi stuff!? Look, I told you—”

She didn’t have time, however, to complete her sentence before her crewmate leapt out behind from the security of the wall and began firing. “For the Republic!” he shouted.

Gwen sighed frustratedly before peering around the side of the wall just enough to get sight of one of the soldiers before she aimed and fired on him, pulling back behind the wall for cover between shots. She wasn’t particularly in the mood for dying like this Trask fellow seemed to be.

After a couple minutes of fire exchange, the confrontation ended. Trask groaned, clutching his left shoulder. “I’m hit, but not bad,” he said before pulling open a medpack from his own supplies and applying a kolto patch to the burn wound. “We should press on. I have a feeling though that this won’t be our last battle with the Sith.”

“Yeah, I doubt it will be,” Gwen said, coming out from her cover location and looking over the corpses of the Republic and Sith soldiers.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking for valuables or anything that might be of use later,” she said, pocketing a few credits off of the remains of one of their own.

“I should have guessed your type would—” He didn’t get to finish his sentence before she threw one soldier’s helmet at him, hitting his shin. “Ouch! What the hell was that for!?”

“I’ve about had it with your comments. You don’t spend your life on the run without learning to take what you can get when you can get it. Besides, somehow I doubt he’ll be needing to spend that any time soon… And if you keep burning through medpacks at the current rate, we’re going to need all of the extra supplies we can get.”

“We need to get going.”

“It won’t take long,” she replied, quickly checking the bodies of two Sith corpses further down the hall, her eyes lighting up a little at the finding of some sort of grenade on one of them, which she quickly stashed in her supplies pack before standing. “See? I told you so! All finished.’ And with that, she turned on her heel before continuing down the next corridor.

They pressed onward. It was becoming more and more apparent the further that they moved as to just how bad array the ship was currently in. Astromech droids were attempting to make repairs, but short circuiting in minor explosions as power conduits they were working on would overload. Sparks sizzled as they flew from jammed doors throughout the ship. Corpses from both sides littered the halls, but there was still no shortage of live soldiers from the Sith boarding crew, and they were forced into several more fire fights as they moved.

Despite Trasks urging otherwise, Gwen continued her collecting. There wasn’t much of use from the state in which they found most of the corpses, but they were able to salvage a few spare med packs, grenades, an entra blaster pistol… even a spare combat suit vest from an open locker, which Gwen quickly slipped on over her jacket, despite the ill fit.

The rumbling of the hits from the ongoing space battle were growing more frequent by the second as it became less and less certain just how much longer the Endar Spire would hold up to the attack. One particularly loud and close seeming explosion caused both of them to stop and duck for cover.

“That one didn’t sound like it came from outside,” Gwen said, pressing her back to the wall.

“Grenadiers,” Trask replied in a low voice. “It sounds like they’re further down the next passage… If we try to move forward and they spot us, then we’re dead.”

“Well if we don’t find a way to get off of this ship before it’s blown to pieces, then we’ll both be dead anyway, and then how are you going to protect that Jedi chick?...” Gwen bit her lip thinking, her hand moving toward the supplies pack on her belt before the idea hit her. “Hang on,” she said, taking one of the grenades she picked up and breathing deeply. “I think I have an idea….”

She pressed a finger to her lips, signaling for him to remain quiet as she took a grenade from her pack and flipped the switch of her stealth generator before creeping around the corner. She could see the grenadier, along with three additional Sith soldiers further down the passageway. It looked as if they had hit one of their own in that last blast that they had felt. It seemed the Sith weren’t worried about losing their own soldiers for the sake of finding this Bastila Jedi…

She inhaled deeply, calculating her throw and her escape route. After she tossed the grenade, she would need to run for cover immediately, since it would give away her position. There was only one shot at this… She kissed the cold metal of the grenade shell for luck before pulling the pin and tossing it toward the small Sith cluster.

It took mere moments before she was spotted. The three soldiers began to fire and the grenadier threw his own grenade in her direction, returning the gesture. She quickly turned and started running back down the hall she had come from, grabbing Trask’s arm on the way and bolting a bit further before diving down and covering her head with her hands. Blasts were heard… and then the blasterfire stopped.

Slowly, Gwen got up from the ground and switched her stealth generator back before peering around the corner where the Sith had been. Finding nothing there but some blown limbs and scored marked, she breathed a sigh of relief and switched her generator back to off. “All clear,” she said. “Good thing I picked up those grenades… Unfortunately I don’t think that there’s much of these three left to scrap though…. How much further do we have?”

She hadn’t been aboard very long, after all, and it was a big ship. Sharp as her memory generally was, she had still been getting used to the layout before the attack had happened.

“We’re getting close,” Trask replied. “The Bridge is just up ahead.”

“Right. Let’s get moving then. After all, the ship had begun creaking eerily. It would be mere minutes more before they were all blown to spacedust. They worked their way through a few more turns before they stopped after one of the doors and Trask pulled Gwen back a little. Red and blue rods of light dazzled in rapid clashes before them, orchestrated by a pair of robed combatants.

“It’s a Dark Jedi,” he said. “We had better stay back. All we would do is get in the way if we tried to help in this battle.”

It was an impressive display. Both were clearly very skilled fighters. The Jedi with the blue saber seemed aware of their presence, as she appeared to be attempting to guide the fight further away from them to give them a safe opening to run. She dodged under one of the Dark Jedi’s kicks before delivering an uppercut which caused him to collapse motionless to the ground.

The Jedi then deactivated her own saber and turned to Gwen and Trask, locking eyes for a moment with Gwen before she opened her mouth to speak to them, only in time for a lighting panel next to her to erupt into a burst of sparks. The Jedi woman let out a shrill cry in pain as the blue sparks coursed over her body and before she too fell motionless to the ground.

“Damn,” Trask said through gritted teeth. “We could have used her help… That was one of the Jedi Masters accompanying Bastila…”

Gwen meant to comment on this. The Jedi seemed to want to say something to them… But there was no time. The Jedi’s screams had attracted a couple more Sith Soldiers, who began firing on Gwen and Trask upon finding the pair. They had no time to dodge for cover in this fight and began firing off bolts as fast as they could, ducking every so often in an attempt to dodge enemy fire. After all, it was far more difficulty to hit a moving target.

Gwen winced, stumbling a little upon feeling a sharp pain in her right thigh after being grazed by a blaster bolt. Gritting her teeth in an attempt to ignore the pain, she returned fire, hitting the soldier squarely in the chest and killing him. She opened a medpack now that the fire had ceased and applied a kolto patch to her injury. She was going to head to the Jedi and Dark Jedi to snag their lightsabers off of them when Trask stopped her.

“We really don’t have time for this. We need to get of the ship now!”

“Of course now you’re interested in escape pods!”

“We won’t do anyone any good if we’re dead.”

“Yeah, well you don’t have to tell me twice,” Gwen retorted, doing her best not to limp and they continued onward. Sure enough, it wasn’t long at all before they reached another sealed door.

“The bridge is just beyond that door,” Trask said. “It’s pretty tight quarters in there though. Using a blaster would be suicide…” He pulled his vibroblade from his belt.

Gwen hesitantly holstered her blaster and took up her own vibroblade from its sheath on her utility belt.  “What if they have lightsabers?” she said, the nervousness evident in her voice. Dealing with Jedi on their side was enough already without Dark Jedi after them now too.

“Republic military grade vibroblades come in a standard cortosis weave,” he said, seemingly trying to reassure her. “They can withstand even a lightsaber for a fair amount of time.”

Gwen laughed nervously. “Sure they can. And I’m the Queen of Onderon.”

“Just trust me on this,” he said, choosing to ignore her sarcasm. “It’s not like we have another option. If you want to get to those escape pods so badly, then we’re going to have to pass through the bridge. There’s no time to get to the pods on any of the other levels… Now let’s go!”

Trask opened the door. Sure enough, the bridge had been completely overrun with Sith Soldiers. There were at least eight of them there.

“I’ll take right,” Trask said. “You take left.”

The two worked through the tight space between control panels, blade to blade with the Sith soldiers. They were lucky. With the ship as close to a finish as it was, several of the control panels on the far side exploded, killing the surrounding soldiers before they even had a chance to work their way that far onto the bridge.

“Bastila’s not here on the bridge,” Trask commented, glancing around once they had cleared the enemies present. “She must have retreated to the escape pods already… I guess it’s time we do that too.”

“You think?”

“The Sith want Bastila alive,” he continued. “Once she’s off this ship, there’s nothing left preventing them from simply blowing the Endar Spire into galactic dust!”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Gwen said, sheathing her vibroblade again and drawing her blaster pistol, refamiliarizing her hand with its familiar grip.




The pair continued onward toward to escape pods, but just as they were leaving the bridge, they were met by an ominous tall bald figure dressed in a combination of dark robes and fibremesh armor, wielding a double-bladed red lightsaber.

“Damn! Another Dark Jedi,” Task commented, brandishing his vibroblade. “I’ll try to hold him off. You get to the escape pods! Go!”

“You’re suicidal!” she protested.

He laughed ironically. “You said it yourself—I’m the soldier. You’re just a cipher. No sense in both of us dying here… Now go!” And with that, he pushed her through the doorway to their left, sealing it behind her before turning to face the dark figure.

“You’re brave,” the Dark Jedi commented. “And some would say stupid… but either way, your friend was right. You’re clearly suicidal.” And with this, the Dark Jedi charged him, spinning his saber staff into a strike to the Republic soldier’s right, which he quickly blocked with his vibroblade into a lock. The energy of the lightsaber’s blade sizzled against the metal of the vibroblade’s cortosis weave.

   “You Sith will never defeat all that the Republic stands for,” Trask said. “Not while there are people willing to fight to protect the galaxy from evil like you!”

   The Dark Jedi laughed, clearly toying with the soldier as he allowed the blade of his lightsaber to continue pushing against that of the vibroblade. “You see, that is where you are wrong. Once my Master has located the Jedi Bastila and either destroyed her or converted her to our cause, your puny Republic doesn’t stand a chance. Now tell me where she is and I’ll make certain your death is quick and painless.”

   “I’ll never betray the Republic!”

   “Is that so?” the Dark Jedi said, deactivating his saber.

   The sudden shift in balance from having nothing resisting his own blade threw Trask off for a moment. He thought perhaps this was his own opportunity to strike and charged forward ready to slash when the Dark Jedi raised his hand toward him. Suddenly, Trask felt as though his throat were being grasped and found himself being lifted up off of the ground. He dropped his vibroblade and his hands struggled trying to tear away whatever invisible force had him within its grasp.

   “Don’t say that I never warned you,” the Dark Jedi chortled. “Now you’ll die, just like the others who resist the Dark Lord Malak’s rule. And the last thing you will know is that your miserable mind wasn’t strong enough to hide your information on the Jedi Bastila from Darth Bandon…”

   There was a loud crack as Trask Ulgo’s neck snapped and, with a flick of Darth Bandon’s wrist, the Republic Ensign was tossed to the side, hitting the wall before collapsing motionless to the ground.

LOL i love how Gwen is like the complete opposite of Carth, wanting to b anywhere and do anything but nobly sacrifice herself to protect the Jedi!

Of Carth, of Trask, or of both? :P In the words of Han Solo "Better her than me" XD

Lady Revan,

One thing I am enjoying is that your characters pay a price for their choices.  One of the great traps of fan fiction is to sail our favorites through the various situations essentially unscathed.  I have done this once or twice myself.  :-)   Fortunately, I have the folks here (big not to LSG and Dutchman) to keep me honest and provide my folks with a more ... vigorous ... experience should I falter in that regard.  ;-)   My first reaction when Trask died was "NOOOOOOO!!!!!!"   LOL   But its real.  Good people die at the hands of bad people.  And while the sacrifice is usually not in vain even that cannot be guaranteed, at least not in the short run. 

So thank you for keeping it real!  :-)

Hello Karm!

Thank you so much for the feedback! Trying to keep things real is actually the exact reason why "Only Light Can Cast Shadow" is on pause at the moment since I'm trying to find a way to make the canon-referenced battle in the upcoming chapter make sense XD

And no need to worry about Trask. I'm sure his death won't be in vain :)

CHAPTER TWO: ATTACK ON THE ENDAR SPIRE (Part 3 of 3)

Gwen was half in shock as she sat on the opposite side of the sealed door. The party of two had become a party of one. She would have to continue alone from here out, and her chances of survival seemed slim. Time was running out, and it was possible that no escape pods were left at this point anyway. It was just after this thought occurred to her that she heard a voice on her commlink.

“This is Carth Onasi on your personal communicator. I'm tracking your position through the Endar Spire's life support systems. Bastila's escape pod is away – you're the last surviving crew member. I can't wait for you much longer; you have to get to the escape pods!”

Carth’s words had confirmed what she had already been able to guess—Trask was dead. But still, a renewed hope was kindled within her. She could still escape. There was still hope! But there wasn’t much time… “What’s the fastest route for me to get to the escape pods from here?” Gwen asked in a low voice so as not to be overheard by any Sith troopers who might be nearby. To be completely honest, she wasn’t even sure how long she should remain by the door she had come through. After all, she doubted a blast door would do much to hold a Dark Jedi if he really wanted to get through…

“Follow the corridor and make your first right,” Carth said. “I’ll try to guide you from there. But be careful. There's a Sith patrol just after the bend up ahead. You might be able to sneak past with your stealth generator.”

She gathered that he must have been watching for some time if he knew she had a stealth generator on her. “On it,” Gwen replied, and she switched her stealth generator to ‘on’ before she began creeping down the hall.

Sure enough, just as Carth had warned her, there was a patrol there comprised of three troopers. She moved onward closer to them, doing all she could to remain as close to the center of the hall as possible. After all, with the number of explosions she had already witnessed from damage that the Endar Spire had incurred during the battle, she wasn’t about to risk getting hit by an explosion from the ship breaking apart like that Jedi she and Trask had seen earlier had been. No, not when she was so close to escaping alive…

In this particular instance, however, the explosions were seeming to work to her advantage. There was one further down the hall, beyond the Sith patrol, and it distracted them long enough for her to slip by without having to worry about the possibility of them detecting her while stealthed. She rounded the first right as she had been instructed, then went down a little further until she was certain she was in the clear before speaking into her commlink.

“Alright, I’m through,” she said. “Where should I head from here?”

“Keep following the hall toward the next room,” Carth said, from what I can see on this end there’s only about two soldiers there, so it’s not too bad. You think you can take them alone?”

“Do I have a choice? Look, unless you’re planning on leaving where you are and coming through this ship to find me, I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to either way.”

Gwen didn’t wait for an answer. She moved to proceed forward down the hallway before she got to the blast door where she paused a moment to prep her blaster before opening, ready to shoot. Just as Carth had said, there were two Sith soldiers. They seemed to be looking through one of the computer terminals, and so her appearance there had caught them off guard. Luckily, this meant she was able to take the first shots, and was able to hit and kill them before they were able to get more than one shot fired at her.

She quickly moved to check the corpses for supplies. Amo, rations, credits… anything that she might be able to use upon landing. Taris, the planet below, was under Sith occupation at the moment, and so she would need whatever she could take if she wanted to have the best chance of survival. She had no plans of dying—not yet, at least. She’d joined the war to survive, to see the end of it, so that, afterward, she could live….

When she’d taken what she could find from the corpses and from the couple of lockers in the room, she went to what appeared to be the only exit. The door was locked, but it seemed easy enough to pick. She had just taken out her supplies in order to do so when she heard Carth’s voice again over the comlink.

“Stop! Be careful!” he said “There's a whole squad of Sith Troopers on the other side of that door! You need to find some way to thin their numbers or you’re walking straight into a death trap.”

Gwen paused a moment with her tools still at the ready. “Well, I do have a couple of grenades left. I suppose I could always toss one in and hope for the best.” She moved as if to set to work at the lock.

“And what are you going to to do about the crossfire before, when you open the door, before your grenade detonates.”

Gwen gave a frustrated sigh and again brought her tools to rest. “Look, do you have any better suggestions? Are you gonna…. Oh, I don’t know! Come in the back way and help he flank them? Because unless I do something I’m going to die here either way!”

“Try to remain calm. I’m trying my best to talk you through this…”

“Well, if you want to help, then try harder, because if you don’t come up with a better plan in the next thirty seconds, I’m going with the grenade.”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking….  Oh! See that terminal to your left?”

Gwen looked at what seemed like some sort of Comms terminal. “Yeah,” she replied.

“You should be able to access the power supply for the conduit on the next room. If you can override it then you should be able to overload it. The room is small enough that it should take care of the troopers.”

She moved to the terminal and used her credentials to sign in. “Just guide me through what I need to do, flyboy…” She paused for a moment waiting for a reply, but the com went silent. She began to grow concerned again. “Hey, you still with me?”

“Yeah, hang on…”

Gwen breathed a sigh of relief that she had not been left alone, and listened to his instructions for how to overload the conduit in the next room. With any luck, she just might be able to make it off of this ship alive after all…




Darth Bandon had reboarded the Leviathan from his strike mission aboard the Endar Spire. He had entered the bridge of the ship where Commander Saul Karath stood overseeing the attack through the viewport. The Commander turned to him briefly.

“I take it your coming here empty-handed means that your mission was unsuccessful,” Commander Karath commented as Bandon approached.

“The Jedi Bastila Shan is no longer aboard the Endar Spire,” Bandon reported. “Her escape pod must have been one of the ones which jettisoned during out attack, which would mean she’s somewhere on the planet’s surface.”

“It’s possible her pod was one of the ones destroyed in the attack,” Karath stated.

“No… I sense that she is still alive,” Badon replied, “My Master is on his way and he will expect us to have retrieved her by then. The planet is under our control. Have every Sith patrol looking for her, My Master wants her alive. No ship enters or leaves the planet until we’ve located her.”

“As you wish, My Lord… Gentlemen, the last out our boarding party has returned from the Endar Spire. You may fire at will.”

With the command having been given, the Sith fleet opened fire on the crippled Republic Hammerhead-class cruiser.




   Carth had pulled up and been looking over the service records of the remaining survivor while she was on her way to the escape pods. Gwenevere Dakaal… He didn’t get beyond the list of languages before he had to stop her from opening the locked door that led to the Sith squadron and guide her through the computer process to overload the power conduit in the room with the troopers. Everything about her already struck him as odd, the fact that the Jedi had requested her transfer most so… but flyboy? The name she had called him baffled him the most of all, and he wasn’t sure at this point what to think of her.

   His thoughts were cut short before he’d had a chance to make up his mind when Gwenevere Dakaal entered the room. “You made it just in time! There's only one active escape pod left. Come on, we can hide out on the planet below!” He looked up from the security terminal he had been monitoring her from only to find the barrel of her plaster pistol pointed at his face. He quickly put his hands up confused and startled by the situation.

   “How do I know I can trust you,” the woman said.

   Did she mean to take the pod for herself and leave him there to die? Carth had seen more people’s reactions in the heat of battle than he cared to admit. Some people broke. Some people deserted, only caring for themselves. Some people defected to the other side if they thought the side they were on was losing. But the root behind it all was fear. Fear for survival…

   Carth could see the woman’s fear. It was clear in her eyes and in the way she held her weapon. Fear could make a person dangerous, especially if it led to desperation. He was to try to keep her calm and appeal to reason…

   “I'm a soldier with the Republic, like you,” he said keeping his hands where she could see them and trying his best to keep his voice as calm as possible. “We’re the last two crew members left on the Endar Spire. Bastila's escape pod's already gone, so there's no reason for us to stick around here and get shot by the Sith. Now come on – there'll be time for questions later!”

   He slowly risked stretching a hand forward to her. Her first reaction was a flinch, but before she could do any more there was another explosion nearby sending sparks flying. It seemed the Sith had realized Bastila was no longer onboard and were making their final attacks on the Endar Spire. The explosion seemed to have startled the woman, because she darted forward unexpectedly for the solder’s arms.

   Startled himself by this reaction, Carth barely managed to catch her as she ran toward him. There wasn’t much time though… “Come on,” he said. “We have to get out of here.” He led her into the pod and got in himself before jettisoning them both away from the space battle and toward the blueish hue of the planet below.

LOL Gwen really doesn't want to be there in any way shape or form, will be interesting to see how you play this reluctance going forward...

In all fairness, who does want to be on a ship when it's about to explode?  haha

UPDATE: so my laptop is unusable and I can’t access my files, so update is gonna be a bit. Hoping there’s no additional damage I don’t know about. :(

Wow!  Right there with you!   There's nothing quite so annoying as writing something BRILLIANT and then losing it!   It never comes out right the second time.  :-)   I certainly hope you can recover everything intact.

For the future I recommend a pair of quality, high-capacity thumb drives.   Working and back-up.  :)

It’s more of the document has my outline for the first 6 out of 10 stories in the series. Chapter I was working on only had the very opening written, but it’s my outline that I’m worried about

Oh wow LR, I'm sorry to hear about that  :(  I hope that you're able to rectify what you need to without too much trouble^^

But no worries: your stories are compelling and awesome!  I feel confident in speaking for my other fellow fanfic readers but we're all hooked and will continue to look forward to your next installment  :)

Besides: we still have forthcoming scenes that set up your Revan within the Forumverse continuity that I'd like to take advantage of  :D

Thanks, Dutch!  I was actually looking for something else on my google docs and found the part of already written of Chapter 3 today :O apparently I uploaded just that section at one point. It doesn’t have my notes or outline, but I might be able to write more from my phone. I apologize in advance for autocorrect sabotages if I do.

I just figured out how to access my Microsoft sticky notes made on my laptop from my phone so maybe there’s hope yet....

CHAPTER THREE: SEEKING SHELTER FROM THE STORM (Part 1 of ?)

 
           The escape pod went burning through the atmosphere of Taris before crashing, crashing to a grinding halt near an older apartment complex in the planet’s Upper City. Carth Onasi braced himself upon impact. It certainly wasn’t the smoothest of landings, but what could be expected from a crash landing escape pod out of a surprise space battle against the Sith fleet? All things considered, he was just happy to be alive and relatively uninjured. He couldn’t say the same about his companion though.

           “Soldier? Soldier, are you all right?”

           He gently shook the shoulder of Gwen Dakaal—the only other survivor from the Endar Spire. The two had managed to get aboard and to jettison the last escape pod before the entire ship exploded. There was no response. Carth checked her vitals. She was still alive, but she had been knocked unconscious from the crash. It seemed she had hit her head pretty hard on impact, and she was bleeding from a resulting cut near her hairline. He didn’t know yet if she had a concussion, but it was quite likely under the circumstances.

           Taris was under Sith occupation. It wasn’t safe for the two of them to remain there, in the escape pod, for very long. After all, pretty soon a team of Sith Scouts would surely come searching the area for survivors from the crash. They had to find shelter somewhere…

           Carefully, Carth took up his injured companion in his arms and opened the hatch to the escape pod. There was an apartment complex nearby, and it seemed to be their best bet for refuge for the time being. She was lighter than Carth had expected—certainly smaller than the average soldier—but the fact that she had managed to survive the attack and make it to the escape pods at all told him that there was certainly strength in her despite her petite size. If anything, it would make the situation a bit easier carrying her to safety. Carth hadn’t abandoned another soldier yet, and he certainly wasn’t about to start now…

           He made his way cautiously toward the apartments, being careful to avoid the eyes of any Sith patrols. It was late, and so the cover of night served to aid in their escape. They needed to find Bastila if there was going to be any hope for The Republic, but Carth knew he couldn’t do so alone. Taris was an immense city-planet built layer upon layer and he lacked the skills on his own that might be required to locate her. What he’d been able to read of his companion’s service records while he had been waiting for her to make her way to the escape pods had convinced him of two things: that he would need her help if he was going to locate Bastila, and that there were some things he needed clarification of as to why she had been selected for their mission aboard the Endar Spire.

           This particular apartment complex seemed old, but well enough kept. It was clearly habited, which could have been a good thing or bad thing. Either it could help them to blend in with the locals, or some local could report them for trespassing and they would be done for. Under the circumstances, Carth just had to hope for the best. There wasn’t anywhere else he could get to without being spotted, particularly while carrying another body.

           The halls were fairly empty other than a few utility droids. Carth observed the door of each apartment unit as they passed. He was looking for anything that might indicate a vacant space. While he didn’t like the idea of remaining as squatters, they needed shelter fast.

Finally, he stopped. One of the doors seemed a bit different than the others. It was subtle, but there was a light coating of dust on the keypad that opened it. Whoever was responsible for cleaning had neglected this area, probably knowing that the unit had been vacant for some time. Carth bit his lip. He hoped that he was right. If he ended up breaking into some local’s apartment, there would certainly be even more trouble for them than they were in now…

Carth set his companion down and pulled a security tunneler from his supplies, quickly going to work until he heard a soft unlatching sound and pressed the trigger for the door. It slid open to reveal a dark and simply furnished apartment. It looked as though the place hadn’t been lived in for several months, which made it perfect to set up base until they could get off of this planet with Bastila.

He took his companion over to a bunk and set her down. “Must’ve hit her head pretty hard in the crash,” he muttered to himself. He gently lifted her head enough to slide a pillow underneath and the walked over to a chair to sit and pulled out his pack to see what little supplies they had—a few credits, some medpacks, a couple days’ worth of rations… They each had their blasters still on them. Luckily those hadn’t been destroyed in the crash. After all, they might end up needing them if any Sith happened to recognize that they were survivors of the space battle which had taken place overhead.

He pulled out one of the Medpacs and went back to his companion to begin tending to her injuries with a kolto patch. They didn’t seem too serious now that he could look them over more closely. He could only hope that she would heal quickly so they could begin searching for the Jedi Bastila. There was a sleep anesthetic in the pack also, which he chose to administer, thinking that the rest would help her body recover.

He brushed a stray lock of blood-dampened raven hair out of her face to put a cold compress to her forehead. Carth couldn’t help but to wonder what her assignment on the Endar Spire had been. After all, she didn’t strike him as the soldier type and her records were… odd at best. She had used some degree of stealth during the time that he had observed her making her way to the escape pods, so perhaps she was a scout of some sort…

He couldn’t say that he knew her very well. After all, she had only been recently assigned to the Republic crew that had been aboard. In fact, it was a last-minute assignment, which made him wonder even more. Bastila Shan, the Jedi in charge of the mission, had specifically requested that this woman be transferred into the crew. It seemed more than just a bit strange to him that somebody who was a last-minute transfer requested by the Jedi was the only surviving crew member other than him. In his time dealing with the Jedi, Carth had come to figure out that things like this were seldom just a coincidence…

No sooner had he placed the cold compress to her head than the woman began to stir. She seemed to be trying to get up. Almost as if she were waking from a bad dream. While it was encouraging to see her attempting to move, it probably wasn’t the best idea given her current state.

“Woah, hold on,” he said, gently pushing her back down as she attempted to sit up. “I admire your spirit, but don’t try to get up just yet. You were smashed up pretty badly when we crash landed here on Taris. Don’t worry, we should be safe here in this apartment. I gave you something to help you sleep. Just get some rest and let the kolto packs to their job.”

He wasn’t sure if she had heard him at all and was actually taking his advice, or if the sleep aid had simply finished kicking in, but she relaxed back into the bunk and dozed off. Carth gave a sigh of relief. He needed rest himself after all that had transpired. The soldier kicked off his boots, hung his flight jacket over the back of the old couch and laid down, closing his eyes. In the morning, he would need to scout the area some to see what he could learn of their situation. With any luck, the other survivor would be awake by then… Dakaal if he recalled correctly from her records.

He stretched as much as he could within the couch’s space and began to doze off. There was a lot of work to be done still. After all, the Republic was counting on them to find Bastila Shan and return her to the Jedi Order.

 


 
 Carth stretched, nearly falling from the couch he had been sleeping on through the night. It was daylight now, he suspected, though the apartment did not have any windows, so it was difficult to know for certain. He sat up and gave a yawn before glancing over toward his companion. She’d moved quite a bit since he’d fallen asleep, and seemed to be muttering something he couldn’t make out. ‘Is she awake?’ he wondered to himself.

He got up and approached where she was sleeping. He would probably need to change out the kolto patches on her head injury. He had a few more medpacks left in their supplies. He only hoped they wouldn’t find themselves in another situation where they would need them any time soon. He reached to take the old kolto patch, what had fallen off and was laying next to her, and tried to observe her face. Her eyes were still closed. Up close though, he was able to make out some of what she was saying.

“No… No, stop… You… don’t under...stand… I have to… No…..”

He frowned, watching her shift uneasily as she slept. She seemed to be having a nightmare of sorts, though he couldn’t begin to guess what about given the little snippets of her speech. He tossed the used patch and opened a new one, but as he was kneeling down and bent over her to apply the new patch, she rolled over suddenly, her hand coming round and smacking him square in the nose in the process.

“Ow!” he cried out, bringing his free hand to his nose to check for blood. The sound must have disturbed his sleeping companion though, because her eyes fluttered open for a moment before the heaviness of her eyelids pulled them back to shut again and she drifted back into sleep. Carth checked his hand. When he found that his nose wasn’t bleeding, he sighed and shook his head before continuing his application of the new kolto pack.

He stood as he finished and then went back into their supplies and took out a ration bar, which he unwrapped and began to eat. He wanted to do a bit of scouting to assess their surroundings. He’d had to move so quickly after their crash landing that he’d not had a chance to get a feel for the area yet. Once he’d finished the ration share, he found the fresher and cleaned himself up a bit before putting on his flight coat and heading out to observe the apartment complex.

Upon his early observations (now that they weren’t simply running for cover as fast as they could), he found the complex to be rather odd for being Tarisian. The only human that he observed in his exploration was a janitor, mopping the hallways apart from a couple of cleaning droids. Even so, the place was still in relatively poor condition, and it was quite obvious that the sentients who lived here were lower class. From what he knew of Taris, Tarisians didn’t generally take kindly to non-humans, and so he had to assume that this was some sort of an upper-city alien slum of sorts. He noticed more than a few eyes staring at him as he walked the halls. It was quite obvious that he didn’t fit in there. This being said, perhaps it was a poor option for a place to blend in, but they didn’t really have much choice as to otherwise. After all, they were fugitives on a Sith-controlled planet. They had to take whatever they could get.

“Pardon me,” came a hiss of a voice speaking Twilekese. Carth turned to see a Twi’lek male addressing him. “I have not seen you around these parts before… Are you here because of the quarantine?”

Carth faltered. So the Sith had quarantined the planet, probably looking for Bastila. He should have suspected as much, but that would make their situation even more difficult. After all, once they found Bastila, it wouldn’t just mean finding a way off the planet, but finding a way off the planet despite the quarantine. He had to think of a story to tell the Twi’lek fast, lest he should arouse suspicions from the locals. After all, there was probably a handsome reward being offered for Republic fugitives from the Endar Spire, particularly if they believed they could lead them to the Jedi Bastila Shan.

“Yeah, my crewmate and I, we uh… we got stuck here because of the quarantine after making a supplies stop on the planet. Didn’t feel like staying on the ship the whole time so we wanted to find a cheap place to rent out while we were stuck here.” He did his best to keep as straight a face as he told his lie. It was the best he could come up with on the fly.

“Ah, your crewmate?”

“Yeah, uh…. She’s still asleep. I think she had a little too much Tarisian ale last night at the cantina,” he said, laughing in an attempt to cover his nervousness. “I uh…. I’ll be going now. Just wanted to stretch my legs a little. It was nice meeting you, neighbor!” And he quickly walked away, back to the apartment.

He was just outside the door when he heard the clank of armored footsteps in the distance and a partially synthesized voice, as if through a helmet’s sound filter. “Freeze, alien scum! This is a raid. Anyone who resists will be taken into custody. We’re looking for suspicious activity in the area after the crash last night.”

Carth quickened his pace and returned inside the apartment, locking the door behind him to avoid being spotted by what sounded like a squad of Sith Troopers checking the complex. He sighed in relief. He was almost certain they had not seen him, but didn’t think it would be safe to go out scouting again for a while. He supposed the best bet would be to wait it out until he and his companion could move together as a small unit. They would have a far better chance of finding Bastila and getting off the planet if they worked together than if they were alone.

 

 
           Gwen’s vision was hazy. It took some time before her eyes could make any sense of what her ears could already hear. There were sounds of whirring and crashing, like something smashing up against an energy force field at a relatively high speed. Except this sound happened over and over again.

           Finally, Gwen could make out two forms slowly taking shape in the light. There were two humans there, each carrying an elegant melee weapon with brilliant blades of colored light—lightsabers. It was two Jedi in a dual for life and death.

           One form was clearly a woman. She had short chestnut hair pulled into low pigtails on either side of her head, and wore a bronze colored body suit robe. The golden yellow color of the double blades on her saber illuminated the area with a sort of golden aura.

           The one she was fighting was dressed in hooded robes and wore a full face mask. Gwen could not tell if the person were a man or a woman. The movements were so quick and the robes were so ambiguous that Gwen couldn’t help but to think that the choice must have been on purpose, with the specific intent to cause confusion to the onlooker. The blade of the other was a deep crimson and its light reflected off of the red color of the Mandalorian mask.

           There was a strange sense of familiarity and of terror as Gwen watched the scene unfold. She felt as though she could sense every impact from their blades against one another. The ground began to shake and the surroundings rattle. They must have been in some sort of a space battle. Gwen could feel the sweat pouring from her brow. She was breathing hard. She didn’t know what was going on, but she felt as though she needed to escape—and fast!

 

I like  it, filling in the gaps of Carths events while Gwen was under!

It's not a lot (I'm still getting used to writing Carth). Considering that quite a bit is going to likely end up from his perspective, I'm trying to ease my way in

So I was planning on waiting to post this section with a couple more sections, but it turned out longer than I had anticipated, and so I'm just below the character limit for a post XDDDD More soon to come. I have an outline for a few chapters again

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CHAPTER THREE: SEEKING SHELTER FROM THE STORM (Part 2 of ?) [probably of 7]


           Three days had passed since the destruction of the Endar Spire. Carth Onasi sat polishing his blaster in that little run-down apartment on Taris. He was beginning to grow impatient with the situation. The Sith forces would surely be searching for Bastila Shan, and he needed to make sure that the Republic got to her first. After the space battle, the Sith blockade had ordered a planetary quarantine that prevented any ships from entering or leaving the planet without special access codes. The situation just seemed to be getting worse and worse. Without Bastila’s battle meditation, there was little help left for the Republic, and without his crewmate regaining consciousness, he had no one to help him look for the Jedi.

   That day, however, would prove different than the previous three had. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and holstered his blaster pistol before moving over to check on her. She was panting, and thrashing about again. He’d learned by now from the previous experiences of being whacked in the face not to get too close when she was in this state. He only hoped though that this time, she would finally be waking up for good.

   His hopes were fulfilled when this time he saw her sit fully up in the bunk. She continued her panting a few moments longer as she braced herself back against the mattress with her hands before her breathing finally slowed to a normal pace and she looked slowly about the room. The woman’s eyes stopped and gew wide when they landed on him, and she frantically seemed to start feeling about for something. When she was seemingly unable to find whatever it was she was looking for, she stood, facing him.

   Carth managed a rather sheepish smile in return to her rather startled gaze. “Good to see you up instead of thrashing about in your sleep,” he said, placing his hands where they were clearly visible in front of him so she understood he meant no harm. He had seen her react in fear onboard the Endar Spire, and thought it best to make it very clear he posed no threat to her. He could only imagine how startled she must have felt waking up in a completely strange place like this after having been in the state she was for several days. “You must have been having one hell of a nightmare. I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to wake up…”


   He watched her, waiting for some sort of a response, but the woman seemed to be at least partly in shock still. He sighed and ventured stepping toward her. The woman flinched at first, but looked to Carth’s hand as he held it out to her. “I’m Carth,” he said, introducing himself, “one of the Republic soldiers from the Endar Spire. I was with you in the escape pod… Do you remember?”

   He watched her, still holding his hand out to her and hoping she would accept his gesture. There were no signs that he had seen so far of any other survivors from the attack, and he needed her help and cooperation if they were ever going to find a way to get off of this planet and back to the Republic.

   “I had a… strange dream,” she murmured, her blue eyes growing more distant now. “Like a… a vision, or something…”

   She didn’t seem to be looking at him any more. Carth cleared his throat a little in an attempt to recapture her attention. It seemed successful because her eyes shot upward and alert to meet his own. “I'm not surprised. You took a serious blow to the head. You're probably having all kinds of strange dreams. I wouldn't worry too much about it,” he assured her.

   Carth felt himself take a breath in relief when she finally took his hand and shook it. “Carth… the one on the communicator. I remember…. I’m Gwen, by the way. Gwen Dakaal….” she looked around, letting his hand go. “How did we get here?”

   Carth’s smile softened. He was glad to know it seemed as though Gwen was going to be okay after all…. “Well, you've been slipping in and out of consciousness for a couple of days now, so I imagine you're pretty confused about things,” he said. “Try not to worry. We're safe… at least for the moment. We're in an abandoned apartment on the planet of Taris. We were overhead when the Sith fleet attacked the Endar Spire. You were banged up pretty badly when our escape pod crashed, but luckily I wasn't seriously hurt. I was able to drag you away from our crash site in all the confusion, and I stumbled onto this abandoned apartment. By the time the Sith arrived on the scene we were long gone.”

   “I guess I owe you my life then,” Gwen said. “Thanks…”

   Carth shook his head a little. “You don’t need to thank me. I’ve never abandoned anyone on a mission yet and I’m certainly not about to start now… Besides, I’m gonna need your help.”

   Gwen raised an eyebrow and folded her arms as she sat back down on the bunk, crossing her legs. “What sort of help?”

   “Well,” Carth said, scratching his head, “Taris is under Sith control. Their fleet is orbiting the planet, they've declared martial law and they've imposed a planet-wide quarantine. But I've been in worse spots. I saw on your service records that you understand a remarkable number of alien languages. That's pretty rare in a raw recruit, but it should come in handy while we're stranded on a foreign world.”

   “Yeah, well I work in cipher,” said the woman. “Being familiar with a variety of languages is kind of a requirement. Truth be told, once you know a few of them, you start to notice that everything’s related one way or another… Well, almost everything…. Anyway, is it just a translator you need until a rescue party comes?”

   Carth shook his head. “There's no way the Republic will be able to get anyone through the Sith blockade to help us. If we're going to find Bastila and get off this planet, we can't rely on anybody but ourselves.”

   “Wait! Wait… Backup a moment? Bastila? You mean that Jedi from the Endar Spire?” Gwen had unfolded her arms, making frantic motions with her hands in emphasis of her words. “Why is it so important to find Bastila?”

   Carth looked at her rather confused. “That smack to your head did more damage than I thought,” he remarked, quickly regretting his words when he saw Gwen’s eyes narrow into a leer. He chuckled nervously, hoping to ease the situation. She was rather… odd. Carth couldn’t help but to recount the moment on the Endar Spire when she’d pointed her blaster at him upon reaching the escape pods. “Bastila was with the strike team that killed Darth Revan, Malak's Sith master,” he said in an attempt to defend his comments about wanting to find the Jedi. “Bastila is the key to the whole Republic war effort. The Sith must have found out she was on the Endar Spire and set an ambush for us in this system. I believe Bastila was on one of the escape pods that crashed down here on Taris. For the sake of the Republic war effort, we have to try and find her.”

   “Forget it!” the woman said, standing firmly and folding her arms. “I’m not risking my life to try to save her.” With this, she made a move as if to walk away. Where to, Carth was unsure. Afterall, she’d not seen any of the surrounding area and there could very well be Sith patrols around, like earlier. Not to mention the fact that she’d been unconscious for days and had just gotten up. She was likely to end up fainting from fatigue before she got very far.

   He reached out, catching her by the arm. “I don't think you understand the situation,” he said. “We can't hide on this planet forever. Eventually, the Sith will find us… and you don't want that, believe me! Getting off this world isn't going to be easy… we'll probably need Bastila's help. Not to mention that without her, the whole Republic war effort is doomed.” He added the last part on for good measure, hoping to appeal to some sort of patriotism. After all, Gwen must have joined the republic military for a reason. If he could manage to touch on that, then perhaps he could convince her of his side of things. It was, after all, in both of their best interests.

   Gwen sighed, causing Carth to relax his grip on her arm. It seemed, at least, like she wasn’t going to straight up walk out on him. “Look,” she said, “how do you even know that this ‘Bastila’ is still alive?”

   “I don’t,” Carth admitted. “But Bastila has a strong command of the Force. If we survived the crash, it doesn’t seem too farfetched to  think that maybe she did too. Besides, what’s the alternative? If she’s dead, then there’s no one who can stop Malak and the Sith from wiping out the Republic. All things considered, I’d rather operate on the assumption that she survived.”

   Carth watched Gwen’s face. She seemed to be giving thought to his words. Maybe…. Maybe she changed her mind? “You make a fair point,” she said, her eyes lifting to meet his. “What do you suggest we do next then?”

   Her answer gave Carth some degree of relief. It seemed as though Gwen Dakaal was willing to cooperate with his plans to find Bastila and get off Taris and back to the Republic. “Well, I doubt any of the Sith are looking for us specifically. We’re not that important, at least not in comparison to Bastila. That being said, if we’re careful, we should be able to move around the planet without attracting any unwanted notice--a luxury that Bastila isn’t likely to have.”

   Gwen shook her head a little. “You know, if Bastila is as great as they say she is with her Battle Meditation, then how come the Sith managed to completely obliterate the Endar Spire?”

   “Well,” Carth shrugged, “the attack on the Endar Spire happened so fast she probably never even had a chance to use her power. I'm guessing she barely got out alive, and now she's trapped here just as we are. The whole planet is under quarantine. No ships can land or take-off. So if Bastila's going to escape Taris, she's going to need our help. And we'll probably need hers.”

   “I guess you have a point... Any idea where we should start looking for Bastila?”

   “While you were out I did some scouting around,” Carth said. Since his first little expedition out, he’d managed to gather slightly more information. It still wasn’t a lot to go by, but it was all they had, really. “There are reports of a couple escape pods crashing down into the Undercity. That's probably a good place to start, but the Undercity is a dangerous place. We don't want to go in there unprepared. It won't do us or Bastila any good if we go and get ourselves killed.” 

   Carth winced internally at his choice of words in the last part. He’d meant it to come out as a joke, but it hadn’t quite played the way he intended… Dammit… The sound of Gwen’s voice, however, interrupted his internal berating or himself.

   “I’d like to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind,” she said.

   “I'll tell you whatever I can,” Carth said, “though I don't know how much help it'll be.” It was natural for her to have questions about the whole situation, given how long she had been out for. As the senior officer in this situation, it was his duty to answer any questions regarding their new mission. Even so, he was still very much playing the situation by ear himself.

   “I’d like to know some more about you, Carth, seeing as you’ve read my service records.” Her question caught him off guard for a moment. He chuckled, wondering for a moment if he could avoid the question. After all, they had a lot to do if they were going to find Bastila and get through the quarantine. Beyond that, Carth didn’t really enjoy much talking about himself, and now really didn’t seem like the time for long, drawn-out introductions. Her expression, however, made him realize that he wasn’t about to get out of the situation so easily. He’d not seen a look like that from someone since…

   Carth swallowed, pushing the thought aside. Now wasn’t the time. Instead, he forced a smile at Gwen before he risked a reply. “I understand why you want to know more about me. I, uh…I kinda get the feeling we'll be spending a lot of time together over the next while. But this isn't really the best time for long introductions; we should stay focused on the task at hand. There'll be time for that later, promise.” He knew it wouldn’t allow him to avoid her questions forever, but he hoped it would at least buy him time.

   His companion let out a slightly frustrated sigh and placed her hands on her hips. “Fine,” she said. “Later then. Let’s get a move on. After all, the sooner we find Bastila, the sooner we can get off of this planet. Maybe while we scout things out a bit, we can find something to eat. I’m starving…”

   Carth couldn’t quite tell if she was joking or if she was being serious. Gwen was an odd creature, that much was certain. “Right. Uh… We can use this abandoned apartment as a base, and we can probably get some equipment and supplies here in the Upper City. Just... remember to keep a low profile. I've heard some grim stories about the Dark Jedi interrogation techniques,” They’d warned him especially when he’d been assigned to act as a guide for Bastila’s special mission, but even before then, he’d heard rumors. “They say the Force can do terrible things to a mind. It can wipe away your memories and destroy your very identity! But I figure if we don't do anything stupid we should be okay. I mean, after all, they're looking for Bastila, not a couple of grunts like us,” he grinned a little to show he was trying to stay positive.

Gwen’s face showed that she didn’t seem convinced. And maybe she was right. The Sith would be looking for any survivors at all, and the ship that had attacked the Endar Spire…. It had been the Leviathan. And if her crew were the same, they might very well start searching for him too if they knew he had been aboard...

The woman shook her head and walked passed him to the little table where he’d set their supplies, taking her pistol and holstering it and the couple of grenades she’d had on her previously and clipping them to her belt elsewhere.
“Ready when you are,” she said, turning back to him over her shoulder.

Carth cleared his throat. “Alright, soldier, let's move out!” he said, trying to sound authoritative as possible. Lieutenant or not, barking orders like that in this situation felt odd, especially since he was pretty sure it wasn’t a ground soldier he was with…

Once he’d gathered his own weapons and supplies, the two ventured forth from the apartment. He had hoped that it would be a relatively quiet. After all, with the Sith Patrols out and searching the Uppercity for survivors, they had to be extra-cautious. However, today was not so very quiet as the pilot had hoped for.

“Okay you alien scum, everybody get up against the wall! This is a raid!”

Carth instinctively put an arm out, stopping Gwen when he heard the voice from a bit further down the hall.

“There was a patrol here just yesterday, and they found nothing!” came a Duros voice. “Why do you Sith keep bothering us?”

“Let’s head back and wait for them to pass,” the pilot whispered to his companion.

No sooner had he spoken to her than blaster fire sounded, echoing through the corridor.

“That's how we Sith deal with smart-mouth aliens! Now the rest of you get up against the wall before I lose my temper again!” The voice belonged to a Sith Soldier who was accompanied by two battle droids. One of the droids seemed to have picked up the two humans on its sensors, because it made a sound, causing the soldier to shift his attention toward them.

“What's this?” the Sith Soldier said. “Humans hiding out with aliens… on Taris? Republic fugitives, perhaps?”

‘Dammit,’ Carth thought. There was certainly no chance now of them slipping away from the situation without a confrontation. Things were likely to get messy….

Before Carth knew what was happening, a blaster fired from beside him. Gwen had drawn her weapon and opened fire on the Sith soldier and droids. “Dammit!” he exclaimed, aloud this time. He made a mental note to berate her choice of acting without waiting for word from her senior officer when they ever got out of this. In the meantime, he drew his own blaster pistol and also opened fire.

The whirr and flurry of fire from both ends was relatively short. Luckily for them, the Sith soldier had been alone other than his droids, and it seemed that the alien locals weren’t particularly fond of him. Carth could have sworn there had been some extra shots fired at their common enemy from a few of the perhaps bolder among the alien refugees there. He sighed and holstered his pistol before turning to Gwen.

“Next time,” he said, “you should wait for my order before firing.”

Gwen’s brow raised and her eyes widened and she let out a single laugh. “Excuse me?! He would have shot us dead if he had the chance to fire first. Doesn’t take a genius to figure that much out.”

Carth raised a finger, opening his mouth as if he wanted to say something in protest, but was unable to find the words initially to do so. She did make a fair point. It wasn’t so much that he disagreed with her assessment of the situation so much as it was his duty to try to make such assessments. He gave another sigh, more frustrated this time and then shook his head a little as he brought his finger down. “Look, I know you mean well, but just… try not to act too much on your own. We’re a team here. Neither one of us can get out of this situation alone…”

   “Poor Ixgil,” came the voice of a Duros. Carth and Gwen both turned to look to find a Duros male approaching them. “He should never have talked back to that Sith. Thankfully you were here to step in and help us humans. This isn't the first time the Sith have come in here to cause trouble for us, but hopefully it will be the last.”

“Just happy we could help,” Carth said to the alien creature.

“Won't someone come searching for this patrol?” Gwen interrupted.

“Don't worry about the bodies,” the Duros said. “I will move them so it looks like they were killed elsewhere. That should throw the Sith off the track. With any luck, they won't be bothering us again for a while.”

“Thanks,” Carth told him before turning to Gwen. “We should head out before any more Sith see us. Humans hanging around aliens is a strange sight on Taris. We’ll be safer to avoid sticking around here unless we’re back inside the apartment.”

“Right,” Gwen agreed with a nod. “Besides, we won’t find what we’re looking for here.”

The two were in agreement, and with their goal in mind, left the apartment complex to begin their search for the lost Jedi.

So, some sections ended up longer than I anticipated, and now I have to divide them further in posts because of character limit :/ These two were supposed to be one with one additional part also, but... too long -_-

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CHAPTER THREE: SEEKING SHELTER FROM THE STORM (Part 3 of ?) [probably of 10]



The impact from the escape pod crash landing on Taris’ surface had been quite rough. Perhaps if it weren’t for her Jedi training, she would never have survived it at all. The pod itself was smashed up rather badly. Parts of it were still singed and smoking from the travel through the planet’s atmosphere. Bastila Shan tried to breathe deeply, remaining mindful of herself and her vitals. She had survived the crash, but this was only the beginning. Now, she was stranded on an enemy occupied world with no way off and an entire army likely searching for her specifically.

She had to remain alert. The fate of the Republic was hanging by a thread. The Sith must have discovered that she was aboard the Endar Spire and set a trap for it along the hyperspace route as it traveled into the Outer Rim. All was not lost though. She could sense that much. While there were many losses as a result of the battle, she could sense that there were survivors… soldiers of the Republic, yes, but more importantly the one she was connected to. While faint, she could feel that connection in the Force was still present…

That much, at least, was a relief. If they had both survived this crash, then there was still hope, however slim it might be. She had to find ‘Gwenevere Dakaal’ and return to the Republic. She could not afford to fail this mission…
Bastila’s thoughts were cut short, however. She sensed presences coming--about a dozen of them! She fumbled with the safety belt from the escape pod so that she could get out of her seat. The blasted thing was stuck, and they were closing in quickly… She couldn’t tell yet whether they were Sith soldiers or natives, but either way, it was dangerous to let them find her so soon after the battle.

Finally, there was a click as the latch came undone. It was not, however, soon enough…

“Freeze!” She heard from the other side of the escape pod door. “Don’t move. This is Black Vulcar territory and we’re claiming the salvage from this wreck—you included!”

Bastila considered how to proceed. She did not have time to waste on dealing with local gangs. She would need to make this quick before things got out of hand. “I would advise against such a course of action,” the Jedi stated. With this, she leapt from her seat, reaching for her lightsaber to ignite it. There was only one problem. Her lightsaber was missing!

A stun shot came from behind, causing her to fall limp to the ground. She could still faintly hear them as she struggled to hold onto consciousness.

“She doesn’t look like a soldier,” one of them said. “She’s not wearing the standard Republic uniform. Must be some sort of an officer. I reckon a pretty young thing like her will fetch a hefty price on the slave market. We should sell her to the Crucible…”

“With the quarantine, we can’t sell her anywhere,” said another. “Bring her to Brejik. He’ll decide what to do with her. The rest of you, salvage what you can from the crash site—anything that seems like it could have value….”

She heard their voices grow fainter and fainter as she felt herself slowly lose consciousness and succumb fully to the stun.

CHAPTER THREE: SEEKING SHELTER FROM THE STORM (Part 4 of ?) [probably of 10]


As hungry as Gwen was, Carth had insisted they seek medical care prior to seeking food. With how long she had been unconscious combined with what little medical supplies they had, he wanted to be certain there weren’t further undetected injuries in addition to the head injury that he’d been treating since the crash. Gwen had taken part of a ration bar in the meantime to hold her over. She had a lingering headache that she could not tell if it was from her injury or the fact that she had not eaten in the three days she had been unconscious. Either way, it hadn’t put her in the most pleasant of moods.

“Look, I’m fine,” she insisted as they walked. “While I appreciate your concern, I don’t need you mothering me.”

“Don’t you think we’re better off at least checking?” He said.

“I think I’d feel a lot better if I had something other than ration bars,” she snapped. “I couldn’t eat a single thing on that damned ship it seemed without getting sick afterward!”

“Well sorry fleet cafeteria isn’t good enough for you,” Carth said sarcastically, rolling his eyes in the process.

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me!”

“Calm down, geesh! It was only a joke. There’s a cantina close to the apartments, we’ll head back that way as soon as we finish here.” Carth added the last part as they stepped inside of  a Tarisian Clinic. It was very plain, steryl… as a clinic ought to be. There were two men there who seemed to run the place: a younger one who was polishing a medical droid, and an older one who seemed to be working with chemicals at a lab station of sorts.

Carth approached the one working on the droid. “Excuse me,” the pilot said, “but can you help us--”

“Can't you see I'm busy with my duties?” the younger man snapped as he turned around sharply to face them. “Go talk to Zelka if you need something.”

“Well, nothing quite beats good old Tarisian hospitality,” Gwen muttered sarcastically. It was no sooner that she had than she felt Carth’s elbow nudge her ribs as he gave her a sideways glance. The woman groaned, rolling her eyes at her male companion’s disapproval.

“Sorry for disturbing you,” Carth said, frantically trying to cover up Gwen’s commentary. “We’ll uh… we’ll go talk to him now.”

She felt his hand on her back a moment, presumably to encourage her to walk away, and tensed. She quickly shrugged him away in an attempt to quickly end her discomfort. The physical contact felt strange. It had ever since… Well, there was no sense in thinking about that at the moment. Her head hurt enough as it was without additionally lingering on bad memories.

Carth must have understood her discomfort because he retracted his hand just as quickly as she had begun to shrug him away, and Gwen let out a silent sigh in relief. He left her and approached the older man at the other end of the clinic.

Gwen folded her arms and meandered throughout the little steryl space. There wasn’t much to look at, but it gave her something to do while she waited to head to the cantina. She could hear Carth talking in the background to whom she could only assume was the ‘Zelka’ the first man had referred to. Her eyes skimmed over the walls and shelves… until they fell upon something that caused her to pause.

There was a large locked door on the West wall that read ‘Lab Personnel Only.’ While it was normal for such establishments to have areas off-limits to all but employees, something felt… different. She didn’t know quite how to best describe it. She felt… familiarity? Was that it? Whatever it was, it compelled curiosity from her. Gwen’s haze drifted from the Aurebesh lettering of the door sign to a simple electronic lock pad on the wall next to the door. It was such an easy lock….

“Gwen? Could you come here?”

She spun around at the sound of Carth’s voice to look at him and Zelka “Yeah?” she said. Her hand had quickly drawn away from the lock, she hoped faster than anyone else there could have seen. ‘Dammit, Gwen, you’re supposed to be respectable now!’ she thought to herself. ‘Just let it go….’

“I'll not have it said that Zelka Forn refused to help somebody just because they weren't a citizen of Taris,” the clinician said to Carth, seemingly in response to a part of their previous conversation. He continued, this time addressing her directly and introducing himself. “Miss Dakaal, isn’t it? I’m Zelka Forn. Your friend here tells me you’re in need of healing? I can treat almost any injury or ailment right here at the medical facility, except the rakghoul disease, of course.”

“I’m sorry… rakghoul disease?” Gwen asked, raising an eyebrow. She folded her arms as she approached them, choosing to remove herself from the bizarre urge to pick open the lab personnel door. “What’s that?”

 “A terrible affliction that has plagued Taris for many generations,” Zelka said, shaking his head. “I was just telling Mr. Polla here about it. It is spread by the rakghouls, horrible monsters that live in the Undercity below Taris' great skyscrapers. Prolonged exposure to the Undercity breeds the disease and those infected will eventually mutate into rakghouls themselves, becoming mindless beasts that feed on the flesh of others. Granted, from what Mr. Polla tells me, that would be impossible since you’ve not been down to the lower levels…”

Gwen had to restrain herself from snorting at the name by which Zelka Forn had referred to Carth. “Oh?” she said, a somewhat amused grin spreading across her face as her gaze shifted from the physician to the Republic pilot. “Now I’m curious. What else were you discussing with Mr. Polla?”

She caught Carth’s expression cracking just a bit at her dig, though it seemed that Zelka hadn’t noticed. That much was probably for the better. She could understand Carth’s choice for giving a false name, given the fact that he was a decorated Republic Lieutenant. After all, someone might recognize the name ‘Carth Onasi’... but Polla!? Surely in the days she was unconscious he should have been able to come up with a name better than that...

“Well, I heard the Republic scientists at the military base here on Taris were close to perfecting a cure for it. But the Sith have since overrun the base and are keeping the serum for the patrols they send into the Undercity.” Zelka sighed. “If I could just get my hands on a sample of that serum the rakghoul disease could be wiped from the face of Taris forever…. But nevermind. I don't see how that's going to happen now, and it’s irrelevant anyway to the situation.” He gestured for her to sit in a chair nearby.

She opened her mouth a moment to voice a protest, but caught sight of a look from Carth that made her stop. She leered back at him as she moved to the seat that Zelka had indicated.

“Well then, Miss Dakaal, I hear you’ve suffered some head trauma?” He took out a small light and shone it in her eyes, causing Gwen to instinctually squint and raise a hand to block out the excess light. “Eyes open, please,” the physician added. “What exactly happened?”

The woman struggled to keep her eyes open for him, choosing to focus her gaze passed him in order to aid her efforts. “My associate could tell you better than I,” Gwen said flatly. “I was unconscious, after all…”

“You know,” she Carth say. He seemed to be ignoring her, but she could not see him at the moment to tell for certain. He seemed to be circling back around to the previous conversation with Zelka. “There’s gotta be some way to get ahold of that cure the Republic military were working on…”

Zelka turned away from Gwen, back to Carth for a moment, and the woman used the opportunity to relax her eyes from the light, blinking slowly as strange colored phantom shapes floated across her vision.

“ I don't see how anyone could get their hands on the serum,” Zelka said. “The military base is crawling with Sith guards. Breaking in there would be a suicide mission. I suppose the Sith patrols in the Undercity might have a sample of the serum on them, if they hadn't already used it because of a rakghoul infection. But I doubt a patrol would just hand the serum over. And nobody's stupid enough to attack one of the Sith patrols, even in the Undercity.”

“Well, as soon as we’re off, I’m sure we’ll find some way,” Gwen said, wanting very much to end the conversation so they could get out of there and head to the cantina. Most of the reports were of the escape pods crashing in the Undercity anyway, so who knew! Maybe that actually would happen across a sample of the serum… There might even be some sort of reward, and they could always use access to medical services while stranded on an enemy-controlled planet…

“Please don't say that!” Zelka exclaimed as he turned to her, frantically gesturing with his hands to say no more on the matter. “If the Sith hear you they might think I'm suggesting you start sacking their patrols. They could shut me down! I only mentioned the serum because you asked. I don't actually expect anyone to get me the serum.” The man sighed, letting his arms relax. “Tell me what symptoms you’ve had since you regained consciousness.”

“Well,” Gwen said, “I’ve had a lingering headache, but I also haven’t eaten in a couple days--at least not since before the injury.”

“I don’t see any signs of lingering damage from your injury,” he continued. “The headache you described is likely from hunger, not lingering effects of concussion. Now, is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Nope!” she said, standing promptly. “I think that about wraps things up here….”

“Not so fast,” Carth interjected, catching her arm as she attempted to walk passed him toward the exit. He then spoke again to Zelka. “We heard some rumors about Republic escape pods having crashed in the Undercity from the recent space battle overhead. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Republic escape pods? Uh... no… That’s a strange question,” Zelka laughed. “Why would you ask me that? I don't know. Those pods crashed in the Undercity, I'm not involved in any way!”

Gwen turned back, raising an eyebrow at the man’s reaction to the question. “You seem awfully defensive about this,” she muttered. She’d seen more than enough bad liars in her time to spot it when someone was so obviously hiding something.

“I'm not defensive! I just don't like being accused of knowing something about those Republic pods.” And then Zelka scoffed. “This is as bad as an interrogation by the Sith!”

Carth winced. It would seem he hadn’t anticipated Gwen commentary, and was disturbed by how Zelka had been suddenly put off. “Don't worry, we’re not with the Sith. We won't betray your secret if you tell us…. Uh… not that you’re hiding anything, that is.” Carth rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. Whether or not Zelka would trust them with any further information remained to be seen.

“The Sith were already here,” the clinician huffed, “asking these same questions you are now. I'll tell you what I told them. I don't know anything about those pods. Now, is there something else you need?”

“We need a better answer than that,” Gwen said. If Zelka Forn actually knew anything about the crashed escape pods, then it could prove most useful in their quest to find Bastila and get off of this rock. “If you know something, you should tell us. Like my associate said, we don’t work for the Sith. But if you are hiding something, the Sith will find out eventually, and they will come here again. It’s in your best interest to help us. I think you want to…”

“I…. I want to….” Zelka said slowly. He seemed to be much calmer as he did so. “Well... you don't look like you're with the Sith. I guess… I guess I can tell you my secret. Or rather, I can show you…”
Zelka Forn walked over to the door that Gwen had seen previously and punched a code into the access pad. The large door slid open, revealing a series of kolto tanks, a few of them with familiar-looking men and women floating inside of them.

“Hey... I recognize these men,” Gwen murmured, approaching one of the tanks. “They're Republic soldiers!...”

“You... you recognize these soldiers?” Zelka asked. “But how? Unless... unless you're friends of the Republic!”

Carth raised his hands. As if to try to prevent Zelka from doing anything rash. “Looks, I have a feeling we’re on the same side here,” Carth said. “We’re friends of the Republic.” He conveniently left out the part about them also having been on the same ship the soldiers in the tanks were from. After all, they were already putting themselves at risk here. There was no point in sharing more information than necessary… “We’re friends of the Republic. You can trust us.”

“Since the space battle overhead,” Zelka explained, “people have been secretly bringing in these Republic soldiers who crash-landed on the planet. I had to take them in. What choice did I have? Their injuries are terrible, most won't survive. But at least I can make their last days more comfortable. And at least here they are hidden away from the Sith.”

Carth let out a sigh of relief. “Well, for that you have my thanks,” he said, clasping the other man’s shoulder briefly. “It's good to know that at least some of these men ended up in compassionate hands.”

“I hate to imagine what the Sith would do if they discovered these soldiers here,” Zelka continued. “But since their initial questioning the Sith have not returned, so it may be my fears are unfounded.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Gwen asked, turning back toward Carth and Zelka. While they were in a hurry to find Bastila and get off, and while it would be easier for them to remain unnoticed if they were in a smaller group, she couldn’t help but to feel a sense of pity wash over her at the sight of her former comrades in such a state.

“I'm afraid there is nothing more anyone can do for these soldiers,” Zelka said. “Now, if you'll excuse me I should return to the front in case anyone comes in needing medical attention.”

The clinician stepped away, closing the door but leaving it unlocked for Gwen and Carth to exit of their own accord.

“Well,” Gwen said, shrugging with a bit of unease, “at least we know we’re not the only survivors.”

“It’s a good thing,” Carth said somewhat somberly. “It means there’s even more chance that Bastila survived as well.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right…” There was a twisting in Gwen’s stomach that reminded her current hunger and she winced. “Standing here’s not going to do us any good though. I think we should gather more info--at the cantina! I’m starving.” And she let out an exasperated sigh.

A smile tugged at the corner of one of Carth’s lips as he let out a single laugh. “I guess we can head over now… Wouldn’t want you passing out on me after all!”

Gwen rolled her eyes and moved to the door, beating the switch with the side of her first, causing it to open as she walked out toward the exit of the clinic, the pilot scurrying briskly after her once he say she was leaving. They were stopped, however, by a voice when they reached the door leading out of the clinic.

“Psst. You there! Wait a minute. I need to talk to you about the rakghoul serum. I've got an offer for you you might want to hear.” it was the assistant they had seen working on the droid previously.

“Not interested,” Gwen said dismissively, and she continued to move toward the exit.

“Oh, don't be an idiot,” the man said, moving to block them from exiting. “Just listen to me for one minute and you won't be sorry. Davik Kang wants the cure, and you'd be smart to give it to him.”

Gwen placed her hands on her hips, regarding the man with a rather unamused expression on her face. “Davik Kang? Who's that?”

“Oh, come on – everybody knows who Davik Kang is! He's the big boss around here. Gambling, smuggling, extortion – he's got a piece of all the action on Taris.”

“You mean Davik's a crime lord?” Carth said, now seemingly rather unamused by the conversation also.

“I prefer to think of him as a role model,” the man continued in a rather grating voice. “He started with nothing, and now he's got it all: credits, power, women. It's the Tarisian dream, right?”

“Why does Davik want the cure so badly?” Gwen asked, rolling her eyes as she did so.

“Davik's interested in anything that can turn a profit. He could make a fortune selling the serum to anyone infected with the disease – not like Zelka, who'll practically give it away.”

“I think we'd rather give the serum to Zelka,” Carth said. “He'll use it to help people.”

“Helping people is all well and good,” the assistant harrumphed, “but you have to help yourself first, right? I'm telling you Davik will pay big credits for the cure. More than Zelka could ever afford.”

Gwen considered a moment. Credits would be a big help if they were going to get off of Taris. After all, they would need a ship… “Where can we find Davik if we want to give him the cure?” she asked, folding her arms.

Carth looked at her a moment in seeming disbelief. She tried as best she could to ignore his gaze of disapproval.

The assistant smirked. “Davik isn't the kind of guy you can just walk up to, you know? He likes to keep his business at arm's length. The best thing to do is take the rakghoul serum to Zax. He runs the Lower City bounty office, but everybody knows he also works for Davik. He'll make it worth your while.”

“And why do you care who gets the cure?” Gwen asked, narrowing her eyes at him. The man seemed parasitic as a mynock…

“Look, Zelka can't afford to pay me much,” the assistant explained. “If you sell the serum to Davik, I can probably get a nice finder's fee for directing you to him.”

“What if I tell Zelka you're helping Davik get the cure?” Carth interjected. It seemed he was having none of the idea, despite how lucrative it could prove.

“Hmph! I'll just deny it,” the assistant said with a shrug. “Who's Zelka going to believe – me, or some off-world stranger? Now, be smart about this. You'll get a better deal selling to Davik.”

“And then only the rich could afford the cure. Just let the poor suffer, right?” Carth said.

The assistant frowned, glaring at the pilot. “Look, if you find the rakghoul serum, just take it to Zax in the Lower City bounty office. He works for Davik. He'll pay you what that cure is really worth!” And with that, the man stepped aside, allowing them to pass.

Once Gwen and Carth were a bit a ways from the clinic, Gwen spoke first. “That guy gave me the creeps,” she commented.

“Why would you even consider something like selling a cure to a crime lord?” Carth asked her. He still seemed to be in disbelief at what he had heard. “You saw what Zelka was doing in there. He’s a good man…”

“Yeah, but we need the credits, Carth. Last I checked, even if we do find Bastila, we can’t get off Taris without a ship…”

“Look, I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just… I think we should consider this carefully before we make any decisions of the sort. I mean, who knows if we’ll even find it while we’re looking…”

“Yeah, well unless you have a better idea for how to get enough funds to get out of here, I think we should consider his offer… but enough of this. Let’s get to the cantina or I really am going to pass out on you.”

That takes me back to happier days wasting away hours between university lectures playing Kotor....and the level of detail you've got in here...wow...already can see stirrings of a sort between Gwen and Carth 'don't roll your yes at me' LOL and her evasive nature, not quite the full dark path, but not pure light either, more a world weary middle ground.

Hello LSG! Those have really been my goals for early Gwen, so I'm glad they came across clearly in the writing. Gwen and Carth are going to be a primary focus of Part III (and IV and V, because I am a a sucker for Revanasi >.>), so I'd really like to avoid the reader getting to know too much about either one of them until they're getting to know one other. Gwen's middle ground is something I'm finding a bit difficult to maintain, so I'm also very glad that came across in this section. Thank you so much for your feedback! The next section is almost finished, because I'd intended to have it and the last two I just posted all in one post, but character limits put a stop to that. Anyway, I know for a fact that the section following will most likely be too close to the limit to include anything else with it, so expect the much smaller in between section sometime very soon :) Again, thank you so much for your regular reviews. They always broughten my day to read.

I know it's short. This was supposed to be included with the last two, but the middle one of those 3 was too long to post other than by itself :/

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CHAPTER THREE: SEEKING SHELTER FROM THE STORM (Part 5 of ?) [probably of 10]




Commander Saul Karath was on the observation deck of the Leviathan gazing at the blueish white planet below that was Taris. Three days had already passed since the battle against the Endar Spire, and the debris of what little remained from the Republic Hammerhead-Class Cruiser had dispersed. Lord Malak would be arriving soon. He hoped that they would have the Jedi Bastila in custody by that time. It was not wise, after all, to displease the Dark Lord.

So far, all of their search efforts had yielded very little in terms of results. There were finally reports of the Endar Spire’s escape pods being found mostly in the Undercity, but little other than that. It had seemed that they were stripped clean by scavengers and swoop gangs in that level very soon after the crash had happened. A pity, since any personal items or items of value might have been able to be used to track their wanted Jedi.

There were a couple of survivors they had managed to find and tried to bring in for interrogation, but they had been in such bad shape that they were not able to survive the process or not willing to give up anything of use to them. It was for this purpose that a Dark Jedi follower had since been sent to act as planetary governor during the occupation. In addition to leading the search efforts, he might be able to use some sort of dark side interrogation method in order to Force the information from a prisoner’s mind if they truly knew anything relevant to their search.

“Reporting,” came a voice from behind. Saul turned away from the viewport to witness the lead intelligence officer, Director Roland, hailing salute. The Director had been placed in charge of monitoring the search efforts on Taris.

“Go on,” Admiral Karath said to the officer, clasping his hands behind him as he waited for the report.

“Intelligence from our Undercity scouts have reported findings of additional escape pods in the lower levels,” Roland said. “While they’ve all been stripped like the others, a couple of them show signs of skirmish outside, most likely due to an encounter between the Republic fugitive onboard and the local swoop gangs. Our men are attempting infiltration of the swoop gangs’ bases, but it’s proving somewhat difficult due to the lower city Rakghoul problem. We have the antidote from the former Republic military base for the disease the Rakghouls carry, but quantities are scarce, so we can only send a few troopers at a time. We’ve adjusted our search patterns to focus on areas surrounding where this particular crash site was found.”

“Excellent,” the admiral replied. “Alert me the moment there is any further discoveries. You are dismissed, director.”

Director Roland Saluted again before turning on his heels and leaving the observation deck of the Leviathan. Once the director was gone, Admiral Karath returned his focus to the bluish hue of the planet below. While it was certainly good news, it wasn’t nearly enough. Lord Malak would be there soon, and if he didn’t have news satisfactory to the Dark Lord’s expectations upon his arrival, the consequences could be severe. After all, Lord Malak was not one to tolerate failure. Saul Karath needed to ensure that any ‘failures’ were not on his part. The Jedi Bastila Shan would be found, he had determined that, even if it meant stripping Taris level by level while searching for her.

CHAPTER THREE: SEEKING SHELTER FROM THE STORM (Part 6 of ?) [probably of 10]



CARTH ONASI

   The Taris Upper City Cantina was a rather large and bustling place, yet with a certain amount of sophistication to it when compared to your average, every-day cantina. There were members clearly of the Tarisian noble class hanging about, and a private lounge just for patrons of this status. There was a high stakes pazaak table near the entrance that Carth and Gwen passed on their way to the central bar. The two took a seat and ordered.

   It had been a bit unnerving coming there. After all, they’d passed several Sith Troopers patrolling the streets, and one had even been standing guard posted at the front entrance of the cantina. It would be impossible for them to avoid the Sith entirely on this planet. They would just have to try to do what they could to keep their low profile until they could find Bastila and secure passage off of this Sith-controlled planet.

   Carth took a sip of the Tarisian ale he’d ordered when the bartender brought it to him. A wave of expressions streamed over his face upon the initial entry on the palate, and he finished his first sip gritting his teeth. It was far stronger than he’d expected. He’d not had time to try the stuff last time he was on Taris. After all, it was during the previous war, and the Republic forces had only just recaptured the planet from Mandalorian control. As he was fleet, he wasn’t ever groundside for very long. Most of that work had been led by the Jedi.

   He shook his head and took another sip at that thought. It was ironic, really. Once upon a time, the Jedi Revan’s forces had taken back Taris from the Mandalorians and saved the planet. And now, the very Jedi who had aided them before had conquered the planet once more. Only this time, it was in the name of the Sith. And they hadn’t really ‘conquered,’ no…. The Tarisian upper class had never forgotten Revan’s aid in the Mandalorian Wars, and when Revan and Malak had returned to conquer the Republic, the nobles of Taris had submitted willingly. Now, it was quite clear from what he’d seen so far that the majority of Taris’ citizens didn’t agree with the decision, but the class system of Taris had created a society in which the few voices of the rich outweigh the voices of the masses.

   He glanced over at Gwen, who was seated on the stool beside him at the bar with her head propped on her up by her hand with an elbow on the counter, while the fingers of her opposite hand tapped impatiently in sequence as she waited on her food. There was a glass of some sort of nectar in front of her. Carth had discouraged his companion from stronger beverages, given the fact that she was still recovering, and had eventually succeeded in having her agree despite her initial reluctance.

   He was enjoying his ale and trying to block out the tapping when he suddenly heard Gwen’s voice. “So is now a better time to get to know a little more about you, Carth?”

   He set his drink down and turned more directly toward her this time. Her finger tapping had stopped and her brows raised as she looked him dead in the eye with some degree of expectancy which told Carth she wasn’t going to let him ignore her request. He sighed a little before responding to her.

   “Well, I've been a star-pilot for the Republic for years. I've seen more than my share of wars… I fought in the Mandalorian Wars before all this started. But with all that, I've never experienced anything like the slaughter these Sith animals can unleash. Not even the Mandalorians were that senseless.” Carth swallowed. He’d seen far too many images that haunted his mind still from his experiences in the war. Avoiding discussion let him push them back but that wasn’t really an option in the current situation. He couldn’t fault Gwen for wanting to know a little about him. After all, it was just the two of them stuck there until they could locate Bastila. This meant, however, that he’d need to tread his own memories with a degree of caution. He continued. “My homeworld was one of the first planets to fall to Malak's fleet. The Sith bombed it into submission, and there wasn't a damned thing our Republic forces could do to stop them!”

   “Calm down. I was just asking. Geesh…”

   He blinked a moment, then realized his hand was clenched into a fist so tightly that his knuckles had begun to go white. He relaxed his hand, flexing his fingers a little in retraction. “You're the one who wanted to know more about me,” he said, attempting to keep a cool air about him. “Well this is it, this is what I am. I'm just a soldier; I go where the fleet Admirals tell me to. I follow my orders and I do my duty.”

   “Yeah, well you're talking like it's your fault about the war and your planet. Like you failed somehow….”

   “It shouldn't be my fault. I did everything I could… I followed my orders and did my duty. That shouldn't mean I failed them! I didn't!” His voice was betraying him. It had grown more seeped with emotions. He could still see the glow of embers that charred the surface of Telos after the Sith attack. The dead and dying were all around, friends and loved ones among them. Innocents dying there in the streets. He could still hear their voices, their screams, their cries for help…

   ‘Someone get a medic over here now! Please! She’s still alive! A medic! It’s not too late to save her. It’s not too late…’

   “Hey, why are you getting so mad at me? It's not like this was my fault!”

   Gwen’s voice brought him back away from Telos’ surface and to that posh little Tarisian cantina where they were seated. Her good seemed to have arrived while he had been talking, but she’d not started eating yet. Instead, she was looking at him with what appeared to be concern.

   “I know that,” I know that he said, hoping to dissuade any impressions he might have given of blaming her for what was, but shouldn’t have been, his own failure. “I'm not angry at you… don't think that. I…. I just…” He let out a frustrated sigh. “ I'm sorry. I'm not making much sense, am I?” He shook his head. “ Look, you probably mean well with your questions. I'm just not accustomed to talking about my past very much. At all, actually. I'm more used to taking action… keeping my mind focused on the business at hand. So let's just do that. If you have more questions, ask them later.”

   “Right,” Gwen said, turning her attention instead to her meal. Carth picked up his mug again and took another sip of ale, desperately trying to push aside the memories that threatened to spring forth through his own emotional blocks. Now wasn’t the time to think of Telos. He had to focus on their mission to find Bastila so that the Sith could be stopped and an end could be brought to this war. Failure wasn’t an option this time. He had to go through with this, if it was the last thing he did….

   “I'm sorry, Carth…”

   He paused, but he did not look at his companion as she spoke. He was in no mood for such.

   “....It must have been a very painful experience for you,” Gwen finished saying.

   “Yeah, well, I’ve just made it a point to not let that sort of thing happen again,” Carth said. He debated, for a brief moment, chugging the rest of his ale, but decided against such. After all, if he finished too soon, he’d have nothing to do while his companion ate, and might get lassoed back into another conversation. Additionally, with how strong Tarisian ale was, he wasn’t certain it would be the smartest move for him to be able to remain at optimum functionality during their first outing on Taris. They needed information on those crashed escape pods still, and the cantina, even with the number of patrons it had seemed blissfully free of Sith presence inside of its doors. Here, it would likely be relatively safe for them to conduct their questioning of the locals on the matter.

   Carth paced himself with the ale until he saw Gwen was close to finishing her meal, and then signaled the waiter to bring them their checks. Once they had paid, Carth rose from the barstool where he had been seated and stretched a little. “Well, I guess it’s back to business,” he said. “Feeling better now?” he asked.

   Gwen nodded, rising also. “Much,” she replied. “Sorry if I came off a bit… ungrateful.”

   Carth had to hold back a snort, but apparently his thoughts had still manifested themselves at least partially in his facial expressions, because his companion shot him a leer all the same. He coughed in an attempt to excuse himself, which only caused her to roll her eyes. “N-no,” Carth insisted with a chuckle, putting his hands up to indicate he meant no offense. “Not ungrateful… I suppose I’d be a bit grumpy first waking up out of a three-day near coma too…”

   He looked at her, plastering on an uneasy smile, but her expression remained hard and relatively unchanging. She held his eyes, staring at him for a moment before her lips twisted into a suppressed smile and she snorted back a laugh of her own. While it did male Carth feel much more at ease, he couldn’t help but to wonder what was going on in that head of hers. He still wasn’t fully convinced of the physician Zelka’s assessment of her.

   He contemplated commenting on her odd behavior before a commotion caught both of their attentions as a large number of patrons began flocking toward the viewscreens lining the walls of the cantina.

   “Hurry!” they heard someone say. “The match is about to start.”

   “What’s the point?” came another patron’s voice. “It’s only Gerlon and Duncan again.

   Curiosity about the commotion for the upcoming ‘match’ drew both Carth and Gwen to join the other patrons watching the viewscreen in the cantina.

   “Ladies and gentlemen,” came an announcer’s voice. “I draw your attention to the dueling ring. Here, two combatants will battle for your viewing and gambling enjoyment. Now, I hope all your bets are down, because we're ready to roll! In this corner, I give you... Gerlon Two-Fingers! And over here, looking to climb the ranks yet again is the ever-persistent Deadeye Duncan!”

   On the viewscreen, there were two men standing on opposite ends of a large circular arena. When the camera zoomed in on the combatants, the younger of the two appeared to be missing fingers on his right hand (Carth could only assume that this was ‘Gerlon Two-Fingers’) and the other a bit older, as his hair was greying. Reason would venture to assume that the older man was the one whom the announcer had referred to as ‘Deadeye Duncan.’ Both men were armed with blasters, hands at rest, waiting for the signal for the dual to begin.

   A sound flared, signaling for the duel to begin. However, it came so suddenly that it seemed to startle ‘Deadeye’ enough that he dropped his blaster. As he reached down to pick it up, ‘Two-Fingers’ was already firing and hit him, causing Deadeye to fall. And just like that, as suddenly as the match had started, it was all over.

   The announcer’s voice sounded again. “And, to nobody's great surprise, Deadeye is down again. Don't worry, folks – he's just unconscious. As usual. Our medics will have him up and about in a bit. Well, that was quick, wasn't it? So I give you the winner... Gerlon Two-Fingers!”

   People had already begun clearing from the viewscreen area before the announcer had even begun his concluding statements. It seemed from the crowd’s reactions that the outcome was already expected to turn out the way it had.

   Carth reached to touch Gwen’s arm to indicate they should start their rounds of questioning, but stopped short. He recalled her reaction to when he’d done similar during their visit to the clinic, and thought perhaps he’d better not. Instead, he called her name. “Gwen? Gwen, we should get going. We have a lot to do still.”

   Gwen, who had seemed to be wrapped up in watching the medics as they removed Deadeye Duncan from the arena, turned to look at him. “Hmm? Oh…. I guess you’re right. Where do you think we should start? Won’t it sound suspicious if we just go around asking anyone about the escape pods?”

   She did make an excellent point. Sith presence or not, they would need to be cautious. After all, it would be foolish to assume that all Tarisian’s loyalties lied with the Republic. He’s learned that the hard way….

   “We keep it casual,” Carth said decisively. “If anyone asks, we’re spacers who got stuck by the planetary quarantine after we stopped for supplies.”

   Gwen nodded in affirmation and stepped away from the viewscreen, headed toward the music lounge. There were several people sitting and standing, listening to the Bith band play and watching the Twi’lek dancers. They were some of the few positions in the upper city where alien species were readily accepted. In this particular case, it was because of their species’ reputations in the performing arts. While they were acceptable as entertainers to the upper city citizens, it was understood by all parties that the respect for them ended there, sad as it was.

   "Well, hello there!” the pair heard upon stepping through the entry to the music room. “I see from your exotic appearance that you are not from Taris originally. Allow me to introduce myself – my name is Jergan.” The man--Jergan--was seemingly directing his introduction toward Gwen.
The woman flashed a smile, moving forward, which admittedly confused Carth. He’d not known her for very long, but it seemed a bit out of character compared to what he had come to know of her. “Pleased to meet you. My name's Gwen.” Was she flirting with him? It hardly seemed like the time… though they did need information. Perhaps this was just the woman’s way of being ‘subtle’ with her questioning.

“What do you think of our local music?” Jergen asked. “The band is quite good, wouldn't you agree? They're on the verge of intergalactic stardom, you know.”

“It's different, but I like it,” Gwen said.

“Obviously you have an ear for music,” he continued in an approving tone. “Mark my words, they'll be famous soon enough. They were about to go on tour before this Sith quarantine stranded them here. Would you like to meet the band after the show? Maybe have a brief brush with fame before they become intergalactic superstars? I can arrange it, you know.”

Gwen raised her eyebrows as her expression shifted to one of mild surprise. “Oh really? And just how will you arrange that?”

“I have a sort of standing arrangement with one of the Rodian bodyguards backstage. For the small sum of twenty credits, he'll let me set up a meeting with you and the band.”

Gwen snorted, trying to hold back a laugh. “I think I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Are you certain? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity – meet the legends before they were famous. All it will cost you is a small handful of credits.”

The woman folded her arms. “Sounds like you're running a scam to me.”

“You sting me with your words!” Jergen said, feigning hurt. “I merely thought I could offer you the rare opportunity to meet a celebrity before they were famous. But I see you're not interested. That's too bad. They really are charming fellows. Very well, then – I hope you enjoy the music. If you change your mind come speak with me again.”

Gwen rolled her eyes and began to walk away, at which point, Carth thought it might be better to try to continue the conversation himself. After all, they’d not really gotten any useful information from him as of yet, and this man might still know something useful to them.

“Excuse me,” Carth said attempting to address Jergen himself, but he didn’t get very far before the other man waved in a dismissive gesture.

“Look, no hard feelings, my good man, but I can't really talk with you right now,” Jergen said, lowering his voice, presumably so no one else in the music room would overhear. “It's difficult enough to draw the interest of the ladies in this establishment as it is. Surely you understand what I'm talking about. I'd guess you've experienced many lonely evenings... something I'm hoping to avoid tonight.” He gestured a bit with his head toward Gwen. “Good luck.”

Before Carth had the chance to protest the insinuation, Jergen had started moving. It seemed he had spotted his next prospect across the room. The pilot shook his head at the comments and went to go find Gwen again, who was already mid-conversation with another male patron.

“Someone sure makes fast friends,” he muttered under his breath as he moved to stand behind her.

“It's good to talk about this stuff – It gets pretty lonely up at the military base,” Carth overheard the man she was talking to say. “I have to get going soon – I've got a shift at the base... but some of us junior Sith officers are having a party tonight to blow off some steam. I'd really like to see you again. Why don't you drop by the party? It’s at the apartment complex next door to the base, apartment A-06.”

“Oh, I dunno,” Gwen said coyly. “Not sure I have anything suited to wear back on the ship. I wasn’t exactly planning on going to any parties during our supplies stop…”

“You know, just because I'm with the Sith doesn't mean I don't know how to have a good time. You'll enjoy yourself. I promise. Don't be late. We're starting right after our shifts end. And don’t worry. Most of us won't even be going back to the base to lock up our uniforms, so I’m sure you’ll look fine. I look forward to seeing you there.”

Carth cleared his throat once the man had left. “An off-duty Sith, Gwen? Really?”

“What? He seemed nice enough…” she replied dismissively.

“You can’t be serious. We’re trying to keep a low profile here. You start asking the Sith about the crashed escape pods and somebody is gonna start getting suspicious.”

“Well, I didn’t ask him about the escape pods once I knew he was Sith. I’m stupid, Carth…”

“Well, then what’s this with a party now? We’re not on vacation…”

“I may have just found us a way into the Under City… or did you forget that the planet is under quarantine and the only people allowed to travel to the lower levels are the Sith? Just trust me on this.”

Carth scoffed at the notion. Trust coercing with an enemy junior officer on an enemy-controlled planet? ‘Brilliant,’ he thought sarcastically. “Well forgive me if I’m skeptical at believing that you partying with the enemy is going to help our situation any.”

“Then you’re welcome to stay back at the apartment,” she said flatly as she rolled her eyes. “Me? I’ve got plans for tonight…”

Cool, like the switch up to mainly Carth's POV, and the promise of seeing more of the events from other character POV's in the future, a great way to make your narrative of a well known tale (well to people who played it) more unique and shed new lights on events. 

Hello LSG! I think that the first game has a lot of sections better told by some of the other characters' POVs. :) Carth's is likely going to end up a fairly frequent POV. In Parts III through V.

On an unrelated note, I hope you and your loved ones are okay. Please stay safe in these fires. :(

Now THIS is the way that an author SHOULD expand upon an established SW story and make it their own!  LR, I am really enjoying on your expansion of Carth's story (not to mention "Gwen"  ;)).  As with all things in life, rarely are actions and decisions entirely black and white.  But the real treat is just how organic the rapport between the two come across.  Yes, it may be a story that many of us are familiar with but your characterizations give expanded details that do more than just supplement the story, it becomes a key element  :)

Looking forward to more!

Hello Dutch!

I'm so glad you're enjoying it. I wanted to try to keep the story as faithful as possible while also weaving it as my own. KOTOR has so many interesting characters with a lot of untapped potential I wanted to expand on, particularly the ones that are there in a longer-term capacity than some of the others. Like I told LSG, expect to see a lot of Carth throughout this, but the other companions too :) Carth is just.... very important to future plans for this story.

I'm hoping to have more up soon. I was unexpectedly delayed for a bit, but I think the issue is resolved/resolving.