You Must (Not) Let Go

Part 6

“Hey, you’re gonna have to get out of there. You don’t have much time.”

Bastila copied the last folder and hit ‘send’, wiping the sweat from her eyes with her sleeve. “Almost there.” She could hear the first sharp pop as the fire reached the complex’s emergency battery banks.

The sound of blasterfire and harsh, angry voices rang out over her earpiece. “‘Almost’ is not quick enough. You gotta hurry!”

She leaned over the server rack intently, hand around her data cable as she watched the final packet of the entirety of GTE Services Consolidated’s internal files upload to the HoloNet. It would only take a few moments more.

“There!”

She yanked the cable out of the connection hub, tossing her datapad into the open air vent before running up the insulated walls, grabbing the edge of the vent and vaulting in after. The metal sheeting of the vent was hot to the touch, protective gloves the only things keeping Bastila’s hands from being scorched as she crawled with practiced ease down the length of the vent. Flicking her hand out, she sent the vent cover in front of her flying into the wall opposite. She dropped down into the empty corridor at a run, the need for subterfuge gone.

“Alright, I’m on my way out,” she said a touch breathlessly, raising her voice to be heard over the deafening klaxons blaring throughout the complex. “Get yourselves to safety. I shouldn’t be long.”

“Okay, we’re making our way to the rear parking lot. You better meet us there soon or we’re coming in after you!”

Bastila smiled at the protectiveness from the young woman she’d met scant hours ago. “I promise. Thank you for all of your help.”

She signed off and ran down the long corridor, slowing as she heard the sound of blasterfire getting closer from around the next corner. Making a sharp turn, she ducked into the fire escape. Empty. Good. The last thing she wanted was to get caught in the conflict between Harrin security forces and the mercenaries in GTE’s employ. Leaping down several steps at a time, she raced towards the ground floor exit, the sound of each jarring footfall echoing harshly off the duracrete walls. More of the escape doors gaped open as she descended the complex, affording Bastila brief glimpses of employees frantically shredding documents and hard drives, corridors thick with acrid smoke flashing violently in time to the sharp crack of blasterfire, and the heat from the ever encroaching blaze consuming more of the complex. She stumbled as she hit one of the landings, slapping into the wall opposite. Old instincts whispered in her ear and she dropped to the floor seconds before the wall above her exploded. Duracrete fragments rained down on her arms clutched protectively over her head as blaster bolts thudded into the wall where she’d been standing. Bastila huddled in on herself tightly, making herself as small as possible in the corner of the stairwell. The gunfire stopped. Bastila stayed frozen on the floor, shivering, waiting for large, cruel hands to grab her and tear her away from everything she loved. When nothing came, she turned her head with glacial slowness towards the direction of the shooting. The fire escape door hung uselessly off its hinges, massive holes blasted through the center of it at chest height. Beyond, the corridor was empty, only the mangled door and a dark smear along one wall indicating that anything had been amiss. She unclenched her jaw and took a shuddering breath, reminding herself that she would have been able to push any assailant away from her.

Her comm crackled in her ear as she ran over in her mind what she would do if she was attacked, visualizing the motions her body would make.

“--the last time you saw her? You sure she didn’t run on ahead?”

Bastila pressed a finger against her earpiece to secure it more tightly in her ear canal. “Marikit? Is everything alright? Did you all reach the parking plot safely?”

“Shit, didn’t realize this thing was on.” The audio came crisp and clear through the speaker now. “Yes. No. We got out all fine but Dalisay’s kid isn’t with us.” The young woman sounded tense and Bastila could hear the distressed bickering of the other women in the background. “I’m gonna go back in to look for her.”

“Wait a moment. I am still inside the complex. Tell me where you last saw her and I will find her for you.”

The other woman was quiet for a moment. “Alright, if you think that’s for the best. Her name’s Diwa. We know that she was with us at the canteen. After that we’re not sure. Thanks, by the way, for doing this.”

Bastila stood, glancing at what floor she was on. “It is truly no trouble at all. I’ll let you know when I find her.”

“She likes the fishes in Accounting,” Marikit said suddenly. “Try there first.”

That was only a few floors above her. “I will. I will keep you posted with what I find.”

Bastila started back the way she came, taking the steps two at a time. Her thighs burned and sweat poured from her forehead from the exertion. Or was it that the fire raging through the complex was swallowing it whole? She increased her pace.

The door to the sixth floor appeared to be undamaged and undisturbed. Bastila slowed as she approached it, pressing her ear against the reinforced plasteel. Everything seemed to be quiet. She pushed the door open slowly. There were sheets of flimsi everywhere lying scrunched and trampled into the carpet tiles and scorch marks on the walls. She slipped through the door. Whatever trouble had come to this place had already left. Walking quickly and quietly through the corridors, she looked around at her surroundings, searching for any hint of the right way to go. The main department shouldn’t be too far from the fire escape, according to galactic fire safety regulations, and the path should be fairly simple and unobstructed. Not that GTE hadn’t shown a rather lax attitude towards rules and regulations in the past.

She followed the fire escape signage in reverse, coming to a dead end in the office kitchen where someone had made off with the caf machine if the expensive pods strewn over the floor were anything to go by. Backtracking the short distance to the last junction, she continued down the corridor, slowing as she noticed a dark stain on the carpet leading to an unassuming door. A briny smell hit her as soon as she opened the door. The room beyond was dim, lit only by a few flickering light fittings swinging loose from the ceiling. The rest had been shot to pieces, an arched scorch of blasterfire traced above a field of shattered glass on the carpet. One wall was black and buckled, the wreckage of desks and computers spreading out in an arc around it. A grenade, most likely. Bastila looked around for the source of the smell until she found it: a large, curved transparisteel tank stretching floor to ceiling, lights ringing the top and the base in a way that would have given the water an ethereal glow. It had been smashed. Water had flooded the room, turning the carpet tiles into a sodden sponge. Brightly coloured fish with shimmering scales lay dead on the floor, choked to death on the air around them. Bastila walked forward, peering around for any sign of a lost little girl.

“Diwa?” The combination of broken glass and wet carpet squished unpleasantly beneath her shoes. “Your mother sent me to find you. Are you in here?”

The room was still, save for the distant crackling of a fire and the slow, sad dripping of the remains of the fish tank. Had she missed her? Was the girl somewhere else? A tiny whimper, hurriedly muffled, caught her ear. Bastila moved quickly towards the sound, altering her course as the sound scurried away from her, unwilling to be found. Ducking her head to get a better look, Bastila spotted the flash of a floral print dress disappearing under a desk butting up against a duracrete column. Bastila wound her way through the desks between them and knelt on the water-logged floor. A little girl with soft brown skin and dark hair held loosely together by a pale pink scrunchie cowered under the far corner of the desk. One of her shoes was missing and she was shivering as she stared at Bastila with wide, frightened eyes.

Bastila reached her hand out for the girl to take. “My name is Bastila Shan. I am here to take you to safety.”

The child shrank back, staring at Bastila’s hand as though it were a snake.

Bastila touched a finger to her earpiece. “Marikit, would you put Diwa’s mother on the comm please.” Taking the piece from her ear, she stretched her hand out as far as she could. “Your mother wants to talk to you, sweetheart. Go on. It’s okay.”

The little girl took the earpiece with a trembling hand, keeping her eyes fixed on Bastila all the while. She whispered something very quietly into the comm, face turning into a blubbery mess as she heard her mother shouting her relief from the other end. Bastila turned her head away, giving them some privacy. She smiled a little listening to the back and forth between mother and daughter, the child recovering enough from her fright to insist that she ‘knew how to be careful, mommy’. Bastila scanned the room, more out of habit than from any genuine belief that they were in danger. She lifted her head, sniffing the air. Was that smoke?

A small hand tugged shyly on her sleeve. Diwa was next to her holding out the earpiece for her to take when Bastila turned around.

“Thank you,” Bastila said. She stuck the earpiece snuggly back in place and held out her hand once more for the girl to take. “I won’t let anything happen to you but we have to move quickly. Is that alright?”

Diwa took her hand and nodded, not meeting her eye now. Bastila led her back the way she had come, walking a little ahead and brushing away shards of glass in their path with her foot, mindful of her small companion’s solitary shoe. When they reached the open doorway to the corridor, Bastila stopped. Thin tendrils of smoke hugged the suspended ceiling, trickling down from the corridor to their right.

Bastila released Diwa’s hand. “Wait here just one moment please.”

The little girl nodded her understanding and Bastila strode quickly to the junction in the corridor. Her breath caught. The far end of the corridor, which had been empty and blandly corporate only minutes earlier, now glowed bright cherry red. That’s moving faster than I like. Bastila stared dumbly at the burning corridor for a moment, then turned sharply on her heel and walked back to the girl.

“Small change of plans,” she said, smiling as soothingly as she could manage. “There’s just something we need to do before we can go.”

Leading the girl back to the shattered fish tanks, Bastila eyed the little water still pooled in the base. Hope it’s enough. She sank her hands into it, gathering it up and grasping it with her mind as though it were snow. Sweat rolled down Bastila’s forehead. It hadn’t gotten any easier since the first time she had attempted this. It was, well, it was like trying to hold a ball of water in your hands. Moving it with great care, she positioned the ball of water over Diwa’s head. The little girl stared at it apprehensively.

“I’m sorry,” Bastila said with some difficulty. “I doubt this will be very pleasant. Just hold your breath until I tell you and it will be over quickly. Oh, and you might want to remove your scrunchie.”

The little girl did as she was told, steeling herself as Bastila lowered the ball over her head and down to her toes, soaking her through. Then Bastila brought the ball up and dunked it over her own head. It was salty and stung her eyes and for a moment she recalled being tossed into the sea on Rakata Prime by Mission and Juhani, the sun shining brightly over her head through the water. A sharp stab of pain shot through her. She pushed it hurriedly away.

Diwa hadn’t particularly enjoyed the experience if the exaggerated frown on her face was anything to go by. Her fists were balled up tight by her sides and her cheeks were puffed out like a balloon. Bastila let out a soft laugh.

“It’s alright for you to breathe now.”

She let her breath out in one explosive blast, sucking in fresh air and wrinkling her nose at the smell of dead fish around her. Bastila smiled.

“Would you like me to help you with that?” She pointed at the scrunchie around the girl’s wrist.

“’Kay,” Diwa said quietly. She handed Bastila the scrunchie and stood patiently while Bastila gathered and pulled her hair carefully together and secured it with the elasticated ring of pink fabric.

“There.” Bastila patted the scrunchie lightly. “All better now.”

The girl reached up to touch her hair. “Thanks,” she said shyly.

Bastila smiled in response, then looked at the water pooling at their feet. They were both beginning to dry out already. She took the child’s hand.

“Come. We don’t have much time.”

They walked quickly out the door and down the corridor towards the fire escape. Smoke poured thickly over their heads now and Bastila could hear the crackling of the fire steadily approaching at their backs. She pushed Diwa in front of her into the fire escape and shut the door firmly behind them. They ran down the stairs as fast as Diwa’s short legs could manage and still the acrid taste of burning synthetics grew ever stronger. Too many doors had been damaged in the ongoing firefight between the Harrin authorities and GTE’s mercenaries to properly slow the blaze’s progress. They were almost to the ground floor when Bastila pulled them up short. The staircase below them was on fire, flames clawing their way through a door kept open by the burning body of one slain while trying to flee, the corridor beyond an inferno.

“Okay, we’re going through the door just above us. Stay close to me.”

They backtracked to the door they had just passed, Bastila resting her hand on the metal door handle before opening it. Still cool. She pushed the door open and led Diwa into the office area beyond. The room echoed with the sound of nearby blasterfire and the air was thick with the familiar ozone smell of recently fired weapons. The fighting was close and it was between them and their way out. Diwa’s hand tightened in hers in fright. Bastila squeezed it back comfortingly. Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward. She could do this. They could do this. They’d be fine.

The lights overhead flicked off with a buzzing snap. The authorities had cut power to the complex. A bit bloody late in the operation, Bastila thought as she fumbled one-handed for her flashlight. Diwa whimpered pitifully at her side.

“It’s okay,” she said as she flipped the flashlight out of her pack and switched it on. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

She led them steadily across the dark room to the far door where all the gunfire seemed to be coming from. The door had automatically slid to the open position when the power had been cut and Bastila could see the rapid flashes of people firing on each other only a few metres away. And her little flashlight illuminating their position as brightly as a floodlight. Briefly, she longed to feel the comforting weight of a lightsaber in her hands but, no. Such things were beyond her and she had no wish to return to them, no matter the cost. Sweeping the floor in front of them with the beam of light quickly to check for any obstacles, she switched her flashlight off once more and walked towards the blasterfire in darkness.

Using the tips of her fingers against the wall to track where they were, Bastila stopped at the corner of the corridor and knelt, a trembling Diwa huddling close at her back. She peeked around the corner. A short flight of stairs lay just beyond. At the bottom, heavily armed men crouched behind a large potted fern for cover while they returned fire on the enemies attacking them, lit by the discharge from their weapons. They were close enough that Bastila could make out the patches on their armour. How the hell were they supposed to get past? Bastila felt nervous sweat rolling down her body as she scanned the area for a way out. There! Right at the base of the stairs, right next to the increasingly angry gunmen, an empty doorway offered a way around the fighting. A grenade exploded against the heavy clay pot and she took her chance, holding onto Diwa’s hand for dear life as she ran for the door under the cover of the confusion. They were just through when a voice shouted out to them. Bastila ignored it, stumbling haphazardly through the unknown objects littering the dark room to put off any pursuit. A single blaster bolt whizzed by her head but they were out the room before anymore could follow. Diwa whimpered as they ran down a second set of stairs but Bastila did not want to slow their pace and risk their pursuer catching up.

“Almost there!” she shouted in encouragement to the little girl. She only had to hold on for a little while longer.

The stairway emptied onto a small landing. To the front, an open doorway led into the ground floor reception area. Blasterfire flashed by the door and the floor was cratered and scorched, the large, finely cut tiles of natural rock that had greeted clients were shattered and pulverised to rock dust. Bodies lay scattered around an automated turret set up next to a fountain. To the right, a corridor lit by a soft glow led in the direction of the back of the complex. Bastila turned right, pivoting as soon as her foot hit the landing. The source of the soft glow became apparent immediately. The fire that had swallowed up the fire escape was making its way through the admin block behind the reception area. But the flames eating through the drywall also revealed another thing: an exit sign dead ahead. Bastila scooped Diwa into her arms and ran. Walls popped and cracked as she ran past, belching out black smoke into the narrow confines of the corridor. Bastila felt as though she were in a steadily heating oven. Sweat made her hands slick and for a moment she feared that she would lose her grip on the little girl. Clutching Diwa even more tightly, she ran through the door ahead and into a furnace. For the briefest instant she felt her heart stop. They were going to die. The smoke wouldn’t even have a chance to get them. The fat was going to be rendered out of their bodies and their flesh was going to char to a crisp on their bones. Then her eye caught the door, not directly in front but slightly to the side, on the other end of the room, the kitchen she’d run into. Her legs moved before she had a chance to consult her brain and they were out, out into the clear night air.

Her foot thumped onto the tarmac, a little lower than she was expecting. She stumbled, taking a few extra steps to regain her balance. Cool air rushed into her lungs, its freshness telling her just how smokey the interior of the complex had become. She glanced back at the fiery maw they’d emerged from in mild disbelief, her and Diwa jumping when the small kitchen window next to the door shattered, spitting burning material into the plasteel garbage bins lining the outside wall. Bastila pulled her head back and placed a hand on Diwa’s cheek, looking into her eyes.

“Are you okay?” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the roar of the flames.

The girl sniffled and nodded. Her face was covered in soot, tears and snot and she was hiccuping from fright but appeared otherwise unharmed. A female voice screamed Diwa’s name across the parking lot. Bastila turned. A distraught woman in a tea lady’s uniform wrestled against a police officer’s restraint as she strained towards the little girl. Next to her, a young woman argued with another police officer but seemed to be getting nowhere. A man in the uniform of the Republic Navy separated himself from the cluster of ladies behind her and laid a hand on the officer’s shoulder. Bastila couldn’t tell what he had said but the officer holding the distraught woman back stepped away with a sullen flap of his arms. The woman rushed forward and Diwa pushed against Bastila to be let down. The little girl ran into her mother’s arms with newfound energy, her tiredness and fright forgotten. Bastila walked forward at a slower pace, averting her eyes from Carth Onasi’s face. She pressed her knuckles into the small of her back, cracking her spine. Children were heavier than they looked.

The woman, Dalisay, grabbed Bastila’s hand as she approached.

“Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She was almost incoherent with relief. “I don’t know if I could have… I don’t know what I would have done…”

Bastila clasped the woman’s hand and squeezed gently. “I am very glad I was able to help you and that both of you got out of there safe and sound.”

She left the small family to their happiness and walked over to Marikit, who was still having issues with the second police officer, despite Carth’s best efforts.

“I’m going to keep my eye on you.” He stabbed a finger into her chest to emphasize his words. “Any more trouble and you’ll be hearing from me, do you understand?”

Marikit didn’t answer, jaw clenched tight as though to hold back all the things she really wanted to say to the officer.

He caught sight of Bastila. “And as for you! Just what were you doing…”

She could feel Carth’s gaze boring into her. “I was merely passing by officer,” Bastila said genially, the weight of the Force behind her words. “There’s nothing more you need to worry about here.” It didn’t matter that the complex’s security cameras belied her own words. By the time they thought to check them or to question the rather large data transfer from within the complex right as the authorities were making their assault, she would be long gone.

Carth sighed. The officer simply nodded and trundled off.

“Yeah, you piss off and bother someone else,” Marikit muttered. “Couldn’t recognise trouble if it was right in fucking front of you,” she said with an angry nod to the burning complex. She spat on the ground. Several of the ladies with her joined in, making rude gestures and throwing insults at the retreating officers back, including a truly shocking string of expletives from a woman who must have been in her eighties. Marikit threw her head back, letting out a yell of pent up tension at the night sky. “I’m glad that’s over with! Fuck!”

Bastila let out a sigh. Locals had gathered in the street to gawk at the complex, which was still decidedly on fire. But she could no longer hear quite as many gunshots and the barking of orders over the local police force’s announcement system had stopped. A cheer went up from the authorities clustered around the complex’s main entrance. It seemed as though they, at least, had achieved what they had set out to do. “I’m glad it’s over too.”

“Is it?” Carth muttered.

She ignored him. “What are you going to do now?”

The young woman slumped forward, staring at the burning building. “I’m gonna to have to find another job, aren’t I?”

“Well, you might want to call your father first,” Bastila said. “He approached me when I started asking questions about GTE. I didn’t have time to tell you before with… everything but he was really worried when he stopped hearing from you. He said you were very brave.”

Marikit blushed and covered her eyes in embarrassment. “Geeze, he didn’t have to say all that. I can take care of myself.” She didn’t look unhappy, however.

“Be that as it may, I am very grateful for all your help. I couldn’t have done all that I came to do if it hadn’t been for you and your coworkers.”

“Did you find her?” Marikit said suddenly. “The woman you were looking for. Were you able to find her on their books?”

“No.” Bastila swallowed. “I searched through their system for any sign, for our ship, our droids… But no, I couldn’t find any hint of her anywhere.”

“Shit, that sucks. I’m sorry.” She looked Bastila squarely in the eye and poked her firmly in the shoulder as if she were trying to imbue her with energy and confidence. “Don’t you give up. You will find her, you just gotta keep looking.”

Bastila smiled weakly. “Thank you.” Her insides felt like glass. GTE had been the last place left on her list.

They said their goodbyes, Bastila needing to bite the inside of her cheek to stop from bursting into tears when each of the women hugged and wished her well in turn. She wandered away from the group, gazing up at the stars dimmed by smoke and the light radiating from the blaze on the other side of the parking lot. Her heart ached deep with her chest, pulling her towards the night sky.

She heard Carth approach. “So that’s it?” He sounded hopeful. “No more running around the galaxy chasing leads?”

“Mmm.” She hunched her shoulders and changed the direction of her wandering, not wanting to face him yet. “Hmm?”

“I know you miss her. And I know how much that grief tears you up inside. But you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

She turned again, trying to slow her stupid, hopeful heart. Was it simply her imagination playing tricks on her?

“Are you even listening to me?”

She completed her slow arc, coming to a stop in front of Carth. She stared up at his tired face, her heart beating in a way that it hadn’t in ages, simply ages.

“I know where Sera is.”

~~~

“You think she’s where?”

Bastila slumped wearily against the counter of the old food cart. It creaked a little but held. She had followed her nose straight to it, insatiable hunger drawing her to the closest source of sustenance.

“I don’t think, Carth. I know.” Leaning back, she looked at the laminated menu stuck to the side of the cart, her stomach rumbling from the smells coming from the simmering pots. “Two of everything and a cup of tea, please,” she said to the seller.

Carth held up his hand as the seller retrieved two bowls with two of his tentacles while another two reached for a cup and a pot of steaming water. “I can’t stay long. I have to get back to the Ascendency.”

“Both of them are for me.”

Carth sighed. The seller laughed and made a comment that Bastila didn’t pay attention to. She sat watching her hands shake on the worn timber surface. “Maybe you should make that a decaf.”

“Got a good white lightning that I keep for special customers,” the seller offered. “Steadies the nerves like nothing else.”

“That would be perfect, thank you.” Carth cleared his throat forcefully next to her. “Oh, as if you’ve never had a drink before!”

“Brother, you’ve got nothing to worry about!” the seller assured him. “A friend of mine distills it himself in his basement. You won’t find a cleaner alcohol this side of the Hydian Way.”

“I was more worried about being in uniform but, geeze…” muttered Carth.

Bastila let her head fall into her hands, her whole body trembling from adrenaline.

“I nearly dropped that little girl, Carth. When we were running out, I nearly dropped her in the middle of an inferno. Thank you.” She gratefully accepted the tiny glass filled to the brim with clear liquid that the seller offered her and knocked it back in one go. It burned going down, numbing her tongue and searing her sinuses. She coughed, eyes watering.

Carth didn’t look at her, flicking the small sauce bottle in front of him back and forth between his fingers. “That little girl was very lucky that you happened to be passing by at the time.”

“Don’t even start on that.” She attacked her first bowl of broth and stewed fish cakes, not registered much besides that it was hot and that it filled her stomach.

“You can’t keep doing this, Bastila! Do you have any idea how many planetary authorities want to bring you in for questioning? How many watchlists you’ve been put on? Why do you think I’m here?”

“That isn’t going to be a problem now, Carth. I only need to find Sera. All of it will have been worth it when I have her with me again.”

“Bastila, it’s been two years!”

Her bite of food suddenly seemed to stick in her throat. She swallowed with difficulty and glared at him balefully. “I am very aware of that, Carth. All the more reason for me to leave immediately!”

He threw his hands in the air, seeming to struggle to find the words he wanted to say. “You don’t think that, that with everything that’s been happening lately, with, with what happened to Juhani and to Jolee” he said, his voice trembling, “and all the rest that maybe, just maybe, you’re grasping at slimmest chance of hope, no matter how far-fetched it is? Come on! At what point do you decide that enough is enough and move on with your life?”

“You don’t understand,” she said with fraying patience. “I can feel her heart beating inside me as if it were my own, it’s…” She stopped. It would be easier to demonstrate than to try to explain. Relaxing, she let her arm align itself along the pull she felt within herself, twisting around until she was pointing behind herself at a spot several metres above the horizon. “She’s over there.”

Carth turned to look at where she was pointing. “Okay.”

“I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before! It’s like knowing where my own hand is! I could have gone by now!” She clutched at her head, elation turning to bitter frustration. “I could have flown straight to her the instant I found out she was missing. I could have avoided all of this.”

He looked at her disbelievingly. “But the Unknown Regions? Really?”

“Well, what else is in that direction?” she demanded with a shake of her hand towards where she’d pointed.

“Uh, lots of things?” he said. “There’s the entire Rimma Trade Route, the Fondor Shipyards, several planets that used to be under Sith control…”

“Carth, I have looked! I have spent the past two years looking! I have scoured the galaxy for any sign of Sera, anything at all that could lead me to her, and I have never found anything.” She punctuated her words with a slap to the counter, making her cooling meal jump around. “She must not be in a known system!”

The food seller made a noise deep in his throat and gave her a look. She held up her hands in apology and made a mental note to leave a good tip.

Carth, on the other hand, looked like he wanted to scream.

“Nobody knows what’s there! It’s, it’s like diving head first into a field of thorn bushes and hoping to find a way out! You could be two parsecs away from her and end up flying straight into a black hole!”

“I have ways of getting around such things,” she said defensively. Bollocks! I’ll need to find a way of detecting objects in space. Buy some new maps, maybe some books on astrogation. Plan how I’m going to get enough food… Hmm, no, I think I know how to solve that problem. Dammit, I’ll have to obtain a new ship as well. That little transport just won’t survive the journey.

Carth’s face was in his hands now. “Bastila, I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“Carth…” How was she going to explain this to him? The past two years seemed to have eroded any reputation she had as a maker of good decisions and Bastila couldn’t blame him for assuming that she’d gone off the deep end, if she were being honest with herself. Not with the smell of smoke and aquarium water still hanging about her. Nor with the debt collectors I’ve been avoiding but he doesn’t need to know about those. “I will not leave right away,” she said as a compromise. “But I am going to follow this thread back to Sera and if that leads me into the Unknown Regions, well, then so be it!”

All of the fight seemed to go out of Carth. He stared blankly ahead, an air of quiet despair about him. Bastila’s heart ached as she noticed all the grey hair and deep lines of worry on his face that hadn’t been there two years ago. She squeezed his shoulder.

“I will see you again,” she promised. “And I’ll have Sera with me when I do.”

“Yeah,” he said softly after a long moment. “I guess there’s nothing else that can be done, is there?”

~~~

Bastila slid the hood off her head as she walked out of the afternoon downpour into the Blessed Brothers Columbarium in the Lower Borough of New Theia on Talravin. She nodded gratefully to the attendant who showed her where she could hang her coat and walked the path to the tiny nook where Lestus and Helena Shan abided. She stood awkwardly in front of the wall honeycombed with niches, not quite knowing what to do with her hands.

“Hello Father, Mother.”

The urns of several unknown relatives stared reprovingly down from their place above her parents’ remains. Bastila knotted her fingers together in front of her, feeling vaguely guilty.

“Uh, I know I haven’t come to see you in quite a while and I am very, very sorry about that. You know how it gets with work and with, with Sera gone and part of me wishes that we’d been able to settle closer to home and maybe things would have been different and… No, no, that wasn’t what I came here to say.” She rubbed a hand across her forehead. “I’m going after her. I know I said that before but this time I actually know where she is, well, I... It’s complicated. And besides the point at the moment.”

She took a deep breath. “The fact of the matter is, I might… I might never see you again. I mean, I’m certainly going to try…” She dashed away a tear threatening to spill down her cheek. “I have a plan,” she reassured them. “Or, some of a plan, anyway. It’s actually similar to something you did once, Father,” she said, addressing the antique stone urn that she and her mother had picked out for him. “When you were looking for the wreck of the First Light research ship lost somewhere between Bothawui and Krant and the scout you hired wasn’t as reliable as you had hoped and you had to scout out a route on your own using careful visual scanning. I think I should be able to do it. After I get the right equipment and… I’m still going to need to find a ship that can travel that far…” She trailed off, staring at the patterns in the rich red carpet beneath her feet.

“I just, I don’t know if I’ll even be able to reach her. I don’t know if any of this will work or if I’ll end up floating forever in the depths of space without even ever… Anyway… Oh, for goodness sake!” Bastila pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and tried in vain to mop up the tears running down her face.

“I know this isn’t the life you wanted for me,” she said through her tears. “I know that both of you gave up so much to see that I had a stable and fulfilling life and I’m sorry that things didn’t work out the way you had hoped. I know that it doesn’t look like it,” she held out her hands to indicate the state she was in, letting her tears flow freely down her face, “but I am happier this way.” She shrugged helplessly. “Even with the way everything has turned out, I wouldn’t wish for any other life than the one I have chosen with Sera.”

She opened her mouth and shut it again as a Duros man came up the stairs behind her holding his child’s hand. He sidled past her with a soft apology and stopped not far from her in front of a matched pair of delicate ceramic urns, one larger, one smaller. Bastila watched them for a moment, the father with his arm comfortingly around the child’s shoulder, then turned back to her own dead relatives.

“Well.” She took a shaky breath. “I suppose that’s all I had to say.” She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the cool stone of each of the pots holding all that was left of her parents. “I love you both. And… I hope you can be proud of me.”

She turned and walked back to the entrance to retrieve her coat. Shrugging her shoulders against the elements, she left the safety of the columbarium for the deluge.

~~~

“Freelancer Aurek 1-1, you’re cleared to land.”

The crackling voice jolted Bastila out of her reverie. She lurched forward and fumbled for the comm switch.

“Thank you, Control.”

Jacking her chair back up to its proper seating position, she engaged the ship’s thrusters and pulled away from the queue of ships waiting for clearance. Her neck and shoulders were sore from the way she’d had her head hanging off the back of her chair, bum going slowly numb as she turned all her attention inward to the invisible thing calling her out into unknown space. But she could deal with that later. For now, her heart beat a little faster at being one step closer to getting underway as she descended through the distinctive pink clouds of Ord Mantell.

~~~

The streets of Wolport smelled like dust and engine oil. Bastila had become quite well-acquainted with the odour in the few days since she had landed on the planet. Her feet ached from walking from supplier to supplier all day, noting down prices of what she needed for her trip, wincing as the list of items grew longer and longer as she realized just how much stuff a person needed to sustain themselves in space. Everything was more expensive than she’d thought they would be. Not just on Ord Mantell. In the few weeks since she’d left Harrin, she’d watched the price of everything bounce up in a way she had never seen before. She heard others mutter that things hadn’t been this bad since the bleakest parts of the last war. Not that she’d been paying attention at the time. Jedi didn’t concern themselves with such matters. Her first stop, the shipyards, hadn’t been so bad. Against all odds, ship prices seemed to have been largely unaffected by the turmoil plaguing the economy of late; they were still all horrifically expensive. Sera would have walked straight back out in shock. Bastila had merely sighed and accepted the business card of a dealer as well as several brochures to look over. She wondered, not for the first time, if she wouldn’t be better off finding a wealthy investor to finance her endeavour. Ignore her appointment at the end of the week with the artefact dealer and go straight to the big bucks, as Sera or Mission would say. Although, how she would be able to promise a return on the investment, especially since…

“Oh, bother!”

Bastila ducked hurriedly into a nearby tackle shop and stood nonchalantly in front of an almost empty cabinet of fishing rods, watching the street in the reflective surface of the cabinet doors. A Snivvian ambled past munching on a waffle in a cone, the distinctive cybernetic visor of a Gronthe-Tobba debt collector wrapped around his head. He didn’t seem to be looking for her or for anyone else in particular for that matter, more concerned with the whipped cream dribbling out the fold of his waffle than anything else. Bastila knew better. A pinprick of green light swept out from his visor, scanning the unsuspecting populace around him for any faces matching those in his employer’s database. Bastila felt a bead of sweat rolling down her forehead. He couldn’t scan a face through a shopfront, could he? The green light flashed past the window. Bastila dropped her head instinctively as though she were simply fascinated by the scuffed vinyl tiles beneath her feet. Movement in the reflection caught her eye. There was a man on the other side of the shop, plainly dressed but with several fleshy loops cut into his ear lobes. He was standing in the shadow of a flickering ‘Closing Down Sale!’ sign and had ducked his head at the same time Bastila had. Now he was staring furtively around the edge of the sign at the street, presumably for the same reason Bastila had been. Something about him tickled at the depths of Bastila’s brain but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what.

Before she could pull the information niggling at her into focus, the man’s shoulders relaxed and he walked out of the shop whistling. Bastila blinked and turned her attention back to the reflected image of the street outside. The collector was nowhere in sight and now neither was the mysterious man. Bastila shrugged. Perhaps he simply had one of those faces.

The rest of her shopping went… It went. In truth, she hadn’t purchased much beyond several smaller items yet; astronomical charts, tools for starship repair, personal sanitary items, a few special food items, some medpacs. It was this thing that made Bastila stop. An extra medpac or two were perfectly adequate for most trips in space. Most of the time she and Sera merely used them to treat the occasional cut or burn, minor injuries suffered during the course of work or in the kitchen. But what happened when they ran out? What if she caught some strange disease or sliced her hand open on a rusty metal spike and she was without a conveniently available kolto patch? And a partner to apply it, tell idiotic stories to distract me from the pain, seal the bandage with a kiss… She had other abilities she could call on, moreso than the average person, to be sure. But they only worked to a point. Good for keeping someone’s heart beating when bits of their skull have been blown off by a turbolaser, less good for closing up those self same holes and growing new brain matter.

So, the question was, how many medicines did she actually need to take with her? And of what variety? She wasn’t particularly planning on making any day trips to the surface of wild and unknown planets. In fact, nothing would make her happier than to never have any need to leave the cockpit of her still to be acquired ship, contending with nothing greater than the tedium of space before finding Sera safely ensconced as the honoured guest of some primitive society and making it back to Republic space in time for afternoon tea. But hyperdrives needed something to fuel them, even the most efficient kind. Which meant excursions down to rocky planets to find materials. Which meant increased likelihood of dying of a silly infection.

“Oh, dammit all to hell,” she muttered as she turned and headed back down the aisle to enquire about bulk purchases. “This keeps getting more and more complicated every bloody second!” She pulled up short. It was the man from before. He was standing at the counter chatting up the pharmacist on duty. With reflexes born from two years of being where she shouldn’t be, Bastila stepped behind a nearby sunvisor display stand to watch him unobserved. Is he an actor? Did he serve on the Endar Spire? Where do I know him from?

The pharmacist handed the man a package. He took it with a flirtatious wink and made to leave. Without quite knowing why, Bastila followed after him, depositing the unpaid for medpacs on a shelf as she passed. The man didn’t appear to notice anything amiss, striding jauntily along through the crowded streets, drumming his fingers against the package held loosely under one arm. Bastila slung her own purchases over her shoulder and increased her pace to compensate for her somewhat shorter legs wondering what in the world she was doing. What is it about him that is so familiar?

He led her on a meandering route through the city, past boarded up shop fronts and nondescript residences. Bastila barely had time to glance at where they were going, so focused was she on not losing her quarry. It started to niggle at her that she had absolutely no way of knowing where the hell she was when the man rounded the corner of an old warehouse and the surroundings opened up to reveal a private dock. The man raised his hand and called out a greeting to the guard sitting at the entrance gate. The guard responded with a wave and a jovial quip before turning his attention back to his datapad. Bastila surreptitiously looked around for cover as she drew closer to the gate and the guard. The man passed through the gate and headed off to the right of the dock. Bastila kept her pace steady, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw that there was a well-trafficked footpath running the length of the perimeter of the dock. She ambled along it, turning her head casually to watch where the man was going. He walked past beat up light freighters, glossy sports ships with prominent engines jutting out the back to an elegant yacht, glittering in the sun. Bastila frowned as he hopped up a service ramp and disappeared inside, vaguely disappointed. She stopped dead, no longer caring how noticeable she was. I suppose he was just a delivery boy after all… She felt empty. Hours wasted on a pointless chase when Sera was almost within her grasp. Letting her eyes roam unthinkingly, she took in the graceful curves of the yacht, the shimmering hull of ivory and champagne that must have cost someone a fortune…

Bastila froze, inhaling sharply as the pieces fell into place. Making note of the old warehouse’s address, she hurried back in the direction she thought her ship was. It took an hour or two and multiple dead ends until she gathered her wits enough to consult an information terminal but soon she was throwing the day’s meagre purchases onto her cot and grabbing her datapad. She woke the device from hibernation and navigated to the folder she’d pilfered from the Republic Tax offices. Scrolling past the familiar list of corporations implicated in sentient trafficking that Ken Freshwater had compiled, she searched through the names of individuals until she found the one she was looking for. Lipiers Marte. Heir to the massive Marte family fortune. Had not paid a credit in taxes for the entirety of his adult life. Fled the Republic two decades prior when Judge Ixlithh had ordered him to appear before court to account for his financial irregularities and was currently utilizing the capabilities of the Lu-Kata hyperdrive aboard his ship, The Galactic Star, to avoid coming into port for years on end, hiding in interstellar space. Known to travel with his manservant, Nevyn Andrers. Bastila double-checked the attached image of a man with prominent holes in his ears where piercings used to be. She had found her ship.

~~~

She returned the following day with a pair of bolt cutters. Walking the perimeter of the chain link fence until she found a secluded spot, she entered the dock and went in search of The Galactic Star.

The expensive paint job helped her find it. It had occurred to her that Marte might see fit to flee the planet in the dead of night leaving her with no plan and an entire day wasted and she was more than relieved to see that there was no need for her to have a meltdown in the middle of a private dock in full daylight. The rear service hatch was open and the man from yesterday, Nevyn Andrers, was leaning against it, staring blearily out at the morning while drinking a cup of caf. Bastila adjusted the bag of tools on her shoulder and walked towards him with a confidence she didn’t quite feel.

He frowned at her as she approached, looking confused but not hostile.

“Good morning,” she said, lacing her words with the weight of the Force. “I’m here to check on the septic tank.”

His eyes narrowed infinitesimally and Bastila worried that he wasn’t going to go for it, that she’d tried to push him too far in a direction he didn’t want to go. Then he nodded tiredly to himself and Bastila felt as though she could breathe again.

“Right, the septic tank. I was wondering when that was going to get fixed. You go on through,” he said, gesturing with his mug. “You’ll find it in the back near the spare coil. Mind the crates.”

Bastila smiled and walked past him. “Oh, just one other thing,” she said, turning back to him as though the thought had just occurred to her. “I might need to switch the water off while I’m working. I hope this won’t inconvenience your employer.”

“Don’t worry about it. He’s staying at a friend’s villa and won’t be back for a few days. You switch off whatever you need. Just make sure everything’s like you were never here when you’re done and you’ll be golden.”

She thanked him, heart pounding with excitement. With any luck, she would be meticulously measuring engine speeds and marking down the positions of unknown stars by the time Lipiers Marte even considered returning to his ship. Slow down. I still need to acquire sufficient provisions to last Sera and I the return trip. This ship is merely a single part of the equation. Even so, she couldn’t help the smile spreading across her face as she moved to the rear of the service hold.

The access to the septic tank was where he had said it was. She ignored it, checking once over her shoulder to ensure that Nevyn Andrers still engrossed with his cup of caf before slipping into the crew hallway. She walked quickly down the narrow hallway and up a cramped staircase, making note of the empty crew quarters save for a kitchen with neatly stacked crockery drying on a rack and a laundry overflowing with what must have been Lipiers Marte’s soiled finery. At the landing, she glanced through an open doorway into the resplendent luxury of the main ship. Satisfied that its owner was nowhere in sight, she mounted the short flight of stairs towards what logic dictated was the bridge. Bastila took a deep breath. This was it. After days of frustrated planning, two years of false starts and dead ends, she was finally merely the width of a door away from setting a course and not stopping until she was in Sera’s arms.

The door wouldn’t budge.

“Oh, for goodness sake!” Bastila muttered, getting down on one knee and pulling a well-worn pazaak card from her pocket. “Why do you have to be so difficult?”

Sliding the card around the edges of the door achieved nothing. The door was fitted too neatly against the jamb to allow the card to slip between them. And there were no weak points to be seen, no panels, no exposed track or door motor, nothing for Bastila to bypass or jimmy. Moving to the surrounding walls, she inspected them and then the railing up the stairs in turn for any hidden pressure pads or sensors, any obviously worn spots indicated repeated contact from a legitimately employed staff member. How the hell do they get in? She ran her hands over the smooth, unbroken surface, knowing from experience that forcefully pushing the door in could cause significant damage to the ship but sorely tempted to do so anyway.

“Bollocks. Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks!”

She turned and strode back the way she had come, digging in her bag for her datapad. That was alright. She had a Plan B. She just needed to find a way to access the comms.

Nevyn Andrers was leaning over a gurgling washing machine in the laundry humming to himself when she returned. Bastila froze, then stole past quickly like a teenager sneaking past a strict parent to go meet her girlfriend. Once she was out of earshot, she hurried back into the service hold, searching through the engine room and then the crew quarters for a terminal. Marte must have some way of bothering his staff. It turned out to be in the kitchen behind a stand mixer, covered in flour and butter. After a brief internal debate over the benefits of leaving no sign of her presence, Bastila grabbed a tea towel, wiped the terminal down, and connected her datapad after closing the open recipe for crumpets. Tucking herself down behind the counter opposite the door, she waited for her datapad to finish interfacing with the ship’s main communication array before keying in the information for her call. Bastila hoped one of them would be in the vicinity of their ship’s comm and not…

“Hey there, Bastila.” Mission Vao’s voice rang clear and strong through the tiny speakers on her datapad. “Haven’t heard from you in a while. How’s things going?”

“Oh, you know. About the same as always,” she said softly, furiously tapping the volume down button, twinges of guilt nipping at her soul. “Um, how have you and Zaalbar? Business doing well?”

“Yeah, it’s been pretty good. Dealing with the Vicomte was a bit meh but actually filling in all the gaps in his figurine collection has been neat. Oh, oh!” The girl leaned forward excitedly, blue head filling the tiny holographic screen. “You should see! We got new lighting with our bonus, totally revamped the interior of our ship! See? See?” She slapped something just out of frame and bent down. The inside of the ship behind her pulsed and flashed with what on Bastila’s end looked like various shades of low resolution blue. Mission popped back up, grinning ear to ear. “Pretty cool, huh? Kinda makes all the boring stuff worth it, doesn’t it, Big Z?”

Zaalbar wuffled something indistinct in the background and waved a hairy arm at Bastila before going back to what he was doing.

“Speaking of,” Mission continued with a dramatic sigh, “we’ve been invited to a big do at Sae Kon-Desyk’s place. Apparently, there’s going to be a whole bunch of prospective clients and contacts there and stuff. You know, important bigwigs and… Bastila, what are you doing?”

She stopped twisting herself around in an awkward attempt to jam as much of herself into the gap between the counter and the floor. “Uh, nothing. Nothing at all. It’s just…” Bastila froze. Was that Andrers she heard coming closer? She held her breath. After a moment or two, the steps faded and she let herself relax. Mission was staring wide-eyed at her through the datapad’s screen. “Um, there is the distinct possibility that the owner of this ship is not in fact, uh, fully cognizant of my presence here.”

Mission gasped. “You’re stealing a guy’s ship? I’m so proud of you!”

Bastila felt herself redden. “The intent is more to ‘borrow’ than anything else.” Indefinitely. And without his permission. “Which is why I called you as a matter of fact. There is a door that I need to get through but it’s locked and I can’t see how the pilot accesses it. All there is is a smooth, featureless door surrounded by about a metre and a half, I would say, of unbroken wall on either side, no paintings or hangings, and a short flight of stairs leading up to the door with a simple balustrade of what appears to be varnished timber. Do you have any idea what kind of lock it could be using?”

“Huh. You don’t see that kind of thing a whole heck of a lot. They’re really expensive to install and you don’t get all that much more security for something that you have to tear the whole wall out to fix. Most people prefer the convenience of a simple keycard slot or thumbprint reader unless they’re some kinda rich ass… Wait… Wait, Bastila, are you?” Mission leaned forward, staring hard at something behind Bastila’s head. “You’re on The Galactic Star? Are you shitting me?”

The girl’s voice bounced around the hard, shiny surfaces of the kitchen. “Shh!”

Mission clapped her hands over her mouth, eyes as round as saucers. They both stayed stock still, staring at each other in alarm until it became apparent that Nevyn Andrers wasn’t going to come storming in looking for the intruder.

“Sorry,” she said in a tiny voice.

“No harm done. How did you know…?”

“Are you kidding? You think a guy as loaded as Lipiers Marte wouldn’t have a few buddies in the Upper City? Not that he would ever dream of associating with such peasants if the Mighty Vurga hadn’t put a price on his head for insulting her favourite slave, oh no.” Mission pointed above Bastila’s head. “You see those light fittings? They cost two thousand credits each. Griff saw them in this rich people magazine that he used to gush over all the time and tried to hook up a guy down by the docks to manufacturer a whole stack of copycats for him. They, uh, didn’t sell all that well. Not bad light from them though, so long as you remembered to keep a fire extinguisher handy.”

“That’s lovely, Mission. But I’m not trying to sell this ship. I’m trying to st-- borrow it.”

“You can’t.” Mission leaned back, looking contemplative. “You don’t have the right kind of emitter to find the locking mechanism. If you did, you wouldn’t have called us in the first place.”

Bastila felt like she’d been punched in the gut. “But…” After all this time, when she was finally so close to seeing Sera again doors just kept getting slammed shut in her face.

“Where are you? What planet, I mean.”

“Ord Mantell. But I don’t see how that…”

“That’s just close by!” Mission was practically bouncing up and down in her seat. “Sae Kon-Desyk’s place is on Walin’or. We’re less than a day away from you! Forget the tuxedo, Zaalbar! We’re going to Ord Mantell!”

“But my canapes!”

“Aw, relax, big guy. I’m sure Sae will keep some for you by the time we get back. Don’t worry, Bastila,” Mission said, turning back to her. “By this time tomorrow, we’ll have stolen your ship fair and square!”

~~~

Bastila threw herself onto her cot, scattering flimsi everywhere. She felt completely wrung out. The constant up and down cycle of elation and disappointment was more than she could bear. She could not believe that she had honestly thought that after so long of less than zero progress that her stop on Ord Mantell would entail anything other than a few simple preparations before a long and arduous journey. Instead…

She forced herself to sit up. There was no time for her to wallow, no time to indulge in fruitless self-pity. She had work to do. And it wasn’t going to get itself done just because things weren’t going her way. There was nothing else but get on with it. Even if, were Sera here with her, she would insist that Bastila slow down, have something to eat first and not make herself into a grumpy bitch by running herself into the grou--

“Alright! Alright! I’ll make myself something to drink first. Are you happy now?”

She stomped the few shorts steps over to the tiny shelf that was her ship’s answer to the concept of a kitchen and made herself a hot chocolate, grumbling about interfering partners while she waited for the microwave to boil the water. Sipping at the sweet drink, Bastila glanced over the star charts and scribbled calculations strewn across her narrow cot, abandoned this morning when she had set out for The Galactic Star. There was no point in going over them again. She had memorized just about every known star and anomaly between Ord Mantell and the Unknown Regions. None of which was any good to her until she actually got out there beyond the reaches of the galactic navigational beacons and began forging her on path. She even had her setting off point all planned out and ready to plot into a waiting nav computer; straight through the lower leg of a constellation the locals called The Rancor. Viewed from Garqi, the stars had made up the folds of a constellation better known as The Money Pouch.

Bastila shifted her shoulders uncomfortably. She knew there was one thing she could prepare for, one thing that she’d been avoiding thinking about. Her meeting with Oran Nath-Rhotha tomorrow. She sighed into her mug, breath sending soothing steam flowing over her face. Given half the chance, she would really rather not come face to face with someone whom she had only found out about after the dealer at the shipyard had taken a particular interest in her disappointment at the price he had offered her for her boxy little ship and had oh so kindly dropped the name of a guy he knew, a friend of a friend, who could give her a good deal on any pieces of artwork she might have lying around, you know, any family heirlooms, bits of old jewelry that her grandma had left her. You know, her grandma wouldn’t like it if she held onto grandma’s trinkets instead of pursuing her life goals like grandma always wanted, et cetera, et cetera. The whole thing stank worse than the men’s quarters on the Ebon Hawk had before she and Sera had given it a thorough deep clean but Bastila had made the appointment anyway. She needed the money. The sale of her little ship wouldn’t even begin to cover the equipment and supplies she needed. While she was more than prepared to sail into the Unknown Regions with nothing but her ship and her store of emergency rations, not even that was going to keep her from Sera for one instant longer than strictly necessary, it wasn’t ideal and sounded not unlike a short trip to insanity.

Draining her mug, Bastila knelt on the narrow strip of floor between her cot and the storage closets and pulled a box out from behind the few clothes she hadn’t packed yet. She sat down and opened it, looking at the precious store of treasures passed down to her from her parents. There wasn’t much. Her father had never particularly been one to keep a hold of the items he hunted. Even though she had believed otherwise as a child, any items of true monetary value either went directly to private collectors or were immediately sold off to repay investors or, later, costly medical bills. The jewelry and figurines, pieces of pottery and old coins that had seemed like such rich finery to young eyes had with age been revealed to have been worth little more than sentiment. Mementoes from a man to his beloved family that he missed so much, so that they might share in the wonder and joy of his adventures.

Bastila retrieved her father’s holocron from its place on the small shelf above her cot, a fleeting tingle of dread coiling in the pit of her stomach as she considered the item, coveted even in its broken state, before pushing the thought aside and activating the record function.

“Going over a few old things before tomorrow’s meeting.” She held up a small item for the video sensor to pick up. “I hope Nath-Rhotha has a particular fondness for seventh century Undarian ceramics.”

She wrapped the small cup back in its protective covering and picked up a silvery necklace. Her father had brought it home from one of his trips and had proudly presented it to her mother. Bastila had been so angry with her at the time for what she had perceived as pushing her father out of the house to satisfy her mother’s greed. It had been around her mother’s neck the day she died.

“I should have worn this more often,” she murmured, tracing her finger over the delicate metalwork.

Returning the necklace to its container with care, Bastila reached back into the box and was surprised to feel cardboard rattling around loose beneath her fingers. She emptied the contents of the box onto her cot and removed the false bottom. The edges were curled up and there was a subtle curve across its diagonal. The added humidity from the ship’s open plan bathroom must have warped the material over the years. Bastila set aside the useless piece of board and picked up what it had been hiding, heart beating a little faster within her chest. The mask glinted dully in the low light of the ship, looking all the more incongruous in its mundane surroundings. Suddenly recalling that the holocron was still recording, Bastila instinctively dropped her hands back into the box out of the sensor’s range. Then she lifted them back out into the open. She had never kept the truth from what she had recorded in the holocron, except when she was conscious that Sera might overhear her. Besides, she was not ashamed of Sera’s past nor of being associated with her. Quite the opposite, in fact.

She turned the mask over in her hands, tracing the lines of red across the eyes and down the cheeks. The metal was cool to the touch, the design simpler and more claustrophobic than one would imagine for the leader of a galaxy-spanning army. From the front it appeared surprisingly undamaged. Barely more than a scuffed finish to bear the evidence of years spent in near-constant battle. The inside of the mask told an altogether different tale. One that had only grown more personally affecting as time had passed. The polished surface had been scorched a sooty black with an upsetting deep red stain fused into the metal where the mask would have protected one’s skull from overhead blows. Bastila remembered how hot the mask had been when she had snatched it up off the floor and shoved it into her robes. She didn’t know why she had done it. She hadn’t particularly been thinking straight at the time. It wasn’t as though the Council had asked it of her. Jedi didn’t take trophies. As far as they were concerned, Revan’s mask had been vaporised with the remains of the rest of their strike team on the bridge of Revan's flagship. Whether or not Sera had known… Bastila frowned. Had that been a part of it? Had Sera known all along and believed that Bastila had wanted something from her other than just herself? Did she think Bastila hadn't cared for her?

“Why did you leave me, love? Why couldn’t you tell me what I had to do to make it all right?”

Bastila trailed her fingers over the face of the mask, picturing Sera’s high cheek bones, the curve of her brow, her soft lips, so often curved up in a smile. The way her dark eyes sparkled with mischief. How she’d bite her lip to stop herself from yawning when she was tired. The way she could smoulder and turn Basitla’s legs to jelly in an instant. And how bloody pleased was with herself about that fact. Even the tense set of her jaw when she thought Bastila was being difficult. A single teardrop spilled down Bastila's cheek and splashed against the mask below. She brushed it away, then bent and pressed a tender kiss to the cold metal.

~~~

“Now, how do I know this is the real deal, Ms…?”

“Horne.” Bastila shifted on the uncomfortably hard seat. “It’s Cerria Horne.”

Oran Nath-Rhotha fixed her with a look, his eyes orbs of impenetrable black. “Right.”

“Uh, my father used to trawl debris fields,” she said when he showed no sign of continuing. “I inherited that when he died.”

“Uh-huh.”

Bastila waited, then slumped back in her chair when no more was forthcoming, her stomach churning. Apparently, Mr Nath-Rhotha enjoyed making people wait on him. She crossed her legs, then uncrossed them, forcing herself to look away from the sight of the precious mask in the Khoan’s uncaring hands. Her gaze wandered restlessly around the small prefab office, passing over an unassuming filing cabinet and several framed prints of abstract office art dotting the walls. Bastila wondered if they had come pre-installed on the medium density fibre boards. Maybe some of our clients would have taken us more seriously if we’d hung a few sterile, mass-produced paintings around the Hawk…

The harsh scrape of a nail against metal snapped her attention back to Nath-Rhotha and the mask.

“What is this stuff anyway?” he said, worrying at the blackened residue on the inside of the mask.

Bastila flinched with every flick of his webbed thumb. “Brain matter.” Her voice wavered as she spoke. She bit her lip, not wanting Nath-Rhotha to realize what the mask meant to her.

“Is that so.” He continued to scratch away at the metal, twisting and flexing as he did so. Bastila squeezed her eyes shut, jamming her hands under her armpits and clenching them tightly into fists. “You know, you get a lotta people coming in here with bits of tin they found in a garbage pile saying that it’s the blood-soaked remains of Darth Revan’s armour. There is absolutely no better thing for the value of a piece of worthless crap than saying it belonged to a bloodthirsty monster responsible for the deaths of billions.” Nath-Rhotha gave her a sly look. “Nothing people love more than a complete and utter bastard.”

Bastila winced. “Y-yes. Well. This one is genuine.”

“Is it?”

“Yes,” she said, the heat in her voice intermingling with the weight of persuasion she was adding in the Force.

An unpleasant smile spread across Nath-Rhotha’s face. Bastila’s heart thudded in her chest, although she couldn’t quite tell why.

“I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it,” he said in the same flat tone as before. “You don’t have Revan’s sword to go with? Make it a matched pair?”

Bastila blinked, unsettled. She couldn’t tell where she stood with this man and she didn’t like it. “Um, uh, no. It wasn’t…” She stopped. She had been about to say that it hadn’t been in Sera’s hand when she grabbed it. “It, um, it must have been burnt up when the bridge caught fire.”

He held her gaze, that same unreadable smile on his face. Then he glanced down at the mask, releasing her. Bastila sucked in a lungful of air, not realizing that she’d been holding her breath.

“Shame.” He shrugged and set the mask down on the table between them. “Well, then, Ms Horne,” he said with a smile. “Let’s talk price.”

~~~

There was a spring in Bastila’s step as she walked through the city, turning her face to the sky to bathe in the warm sunlight. She had just received a message from Mission that the bridge door had been cracked wide open, piece of cake, and that she and Zaalbar were going to go jump on Lipiers Marte’s bed. All of the payments had cleared without so much as a hiccup and her ordered supplies were currently being loaded into The Galactic Star’s hold and the forklift droid that she’d purchased from the second-hand lot with Nath-Rhotha’s money was rattling alongside her, ready to transport the few things that couldn’t be delivered. On a whim, she had popped into a local bakery, called by the heavenly smells wafting out into the street. A box full of still-hot muffins swung at her side. Fruity and sweet, just how she and Sera liked to enjoy over a cup of caf.

Her final stop was not far from The Galactic Star’s private dock. Bastila slowed as she approached the doors emblazoned with the symbol of a winged sword, shining in the light of the sun. The polished electrum was scuffed and scored along the seam where the doors would part and there was obscene graffiti collecting on the walls now that it had sunk in that the inhabitants were not coming back. Bastila stared up at the building sitting large and regal like a mythical beast amongst the factories and warehouses of downtown Wolport and felt her feet sticking to the ground. She forced herself forward. This was silly. The Jedi weren’t here and they had no use of their building and its contents. Bastila’s need was literally greater.

The door was locked but that was not a problem. Bastila held up her hand and manipulated the intricate mechanism, accessible only to those trained in the Jedi arts. It suddenly struck her as odd that the Jedi had put so much effort into setting themselves apart from those that they purported to protect. All that bother to maintain their own mystique and all it seemed to achieve was alienating those around them. Particularly since the majority of threats to the Order had all come from within.

The base was eerily quiet. All of the equipment and training droids were tidied away, waiting for owners that would never return from their trip to Katarr. Bastila walked quickly and quietly, wincing as the low rumble of the forklift droid echoed obnoxiously off of the walls.

“Alright,” she said to the droid as they entered the large storage room in the basement. “Load up with those barrels and take them to The Galactic Star. Hold on a moment.” She held up her hand to forestall the droid as doubt struck her. Walking to a barrel standing next to the racks with a small scoop resting on top, she popped the lid off and peeked inside. As she had thought, it was about halfway full with energy capsules, ready to be issued to Jedi heading out on missions all across the galaxy. “Yes, this is it. Take, um, as many as you can carry, I suppose. There should be a loading area towards the back.”

The droid warbled something in a low tone at her. Bastila nodded awkwardly, hoping that she’d understood that correctly as an affirmative. The soft ‘plink’ of a message notification drew her attention to the datapad stowed in the bag slung across her shoulder. After a quick glance at the droid to ensure that her assistance was not needed, Bastila moved to a small table set by the door out of the droid’s way, folding the robe draped over the back of the chair neatly and placing it on the table before sitting down. There was a new message from an unknown sender sitting grey and dour above the glittering, colour-shifting rainbow of Mission’s message. Bastila frowned at the garbled string of characters in the subject line but opened it anyway. It contained only a single sentence:

Since you insist on using that malware dressed up as a messaging service

Followed by a fully typed out link for her to reassemble.

Bastila sighed and opened up a secure browser. “Canderous, honestly…”

Her brows knit together as she scanned the resulting text file. Something about a bounty? What is he…

The Force began moving her head moments before she recognized its warning of violence ringing in her mind. She ducked, the chair beneath her toppling as she shifted her weight. Her assailant’s blow flew past her head and smacked into the table, the force of the impact making it bounce on the hard floor. Bastila’s shoulder crunched into the duracrete as she hit the ground. She flung out her other hand, pushing blindly at her attacker with the Force. She was rewarded with a grunt and a scuffling of feet as her attack connected. Blood pumping in her ears, she kicked to disentangle her legs from the fallen chair. She surged off the ground, limbs shaking with adrenaline, and met the eyes of a ghost.

“You!”

Bastila stared into the shocked and angry face of Aleran Staulkie. Then she expelled the breath in her lungs in an irate huff.

“What the hell do you think you were doing!” Bastila dragged a hand roughly down her face, wiping away the sweat that had sprung from her brow. Her insides were still trembling.

Her former roommate did not lower her fists. Nor did she stand down from her guard position.

“When I heard that someone was profiting off Jedi artefacts,” she said, her teeth bared in a snarl, “I expected to find some low life scum. Not you.”

Bastila snatched her datapad off the table. “I don’t have time for this, Ran.” Rolling her aching shoulder, she stalked off to see how her droid was getting along.

“What do the Sith want with stolen Jedi artefacts, Bastila?” Ran demanded, marching forward into Bastila’s personal space. “What does this have to do with what happened on Katarr?”

Bastila felt herself shrinking back under the taller woman’s looming bulk. She stepped back, her heart jumping in her chest when her shoulders hit the barrel racks behind her. “I don’t know. Don’t box me in!” She pushed Ran away and moved quickly out of her threatening shadow, taking a deep breath to throw off the fear clutching at her.

Ran grabbed for Bastila’s wrist. Bastila shook her off, walking faster. “You expect me to believe that when you’re in here robbing the graves of women and men better than you, traitor?”

Bastila whirled around to face her. “Nobody’s using it, Ran! Nothing here is doing anybody any good rotting to dust locked away from the rest of the world! I need it, not them!”

“I honestly don’t know why I’m surprised,” Ran sneered. “I should have known that you were lacking in honour and decency when you turned your back on the Order and took up with that, that common trash!”

Bastila felt her face growing hot. She opened her mouth, ready to defend the best woman she’d ever met. A wall of pressure hit her, knocking her off balance, followed quickly by a heavy thump. Stumbling to catch her footing, Bastila scrambled towards the safety of a nearby rack as another series of thumps shook the air, Ran close behind her. She coughed, the taste of explosives and pulverized duracrete coating her tongue.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t know who you were, Bastila Shan?” Nath-Rhotha’s voice reverberated around the large storage room. “You are far more valuable than anything you could hope to sell me.”

The stomping of booted feet drew closer. Bastila’s heart pounded in her chest. She tried to separate out the sounds, count how many enemies were coming for them but couldn’t. It sounded like a lot.

Ran grabbed her arm. “What do the Sith want with you?”

Bastila yanked her arm back. “Not everything is about the Sith, you idiot!” Her eyes darted around the room for a way out. “There!” She pointed towards the loading area where her droid had exited. “Head for the back before more of them arrive!”

“I will not have them sully this place any further! It belongs to the Jedi!” Ran stepped out from behind cover and ignited her saber. “Face me, you cowards!”

She was met with a barrage of blasterfire. Bastila fell to her knees, clutching trembling hands over her ears. Ran batted the blasterfire away, sending bolts smashing into walls and racks. A stray blaster bolt exploded a barrel above Bastila’s head, raining energy capsules down on her. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of ozone.

This is madness! “We have to get out of here!” A shot whizzed past her face, smacking into the back wall. Bastila could feel her breath coming shorter and her body wanting to freeze up. “Ran, I have no weapon!”

Ran ignored her, teeth gritted as she flicked each bolt away as they came faster and faster. There was a shouted command from the other side of the room and Bastila heard the whine of a repeating blaster cannon revving up to firing speed. Then the air in front of Ran turned to plasma. There was a flash and she was knocked down, the stream of blasterfire punching into the fire suppression unit on the opposite wall. Bastila grabbed Ran and pulled her to safety as fire retardant material spewed into the room, enveloping them in a white cloud. Against all odds, Ran sat up, shaking out her saber hand as though stung but looking no worse for wear.

“We are leaving this instant!” Bastila hissed, grabbing the larger woman by the shoulders and dragging her with all of her might towards the loading bay door.

They stumbled up the loading ramp into the bright sunlight, shouts of confusion behind them. In the distance, Bastila saw the forklift droid trundling towards the private dock with its full load, unaware of the danger rapidly approaching. Bastila pulled Ran into a nearby alleyway, leading her to a sheltered spot behind an overflowing refuse container.

“Head further into the city. Lose that thing,” she said, pointing to Ran’s singed lightsaber, “and find something more normal to wear. They shouldn’t be looking for you.”

Ran’s lip curled up in a sneer. “I am no spineless coward eager to drop my training and pride at the first hint of trouble.”

Bastila rolled her eyes and turned to go. “As you wish.” Same old Ran, I see.

Ran seized her arm in a vice like grip. “Don’t think I’m going to let you get away that easily, Bastila.”

Bastila twisted but couldn’t get out of the painful grasp.

“What are you waiting for?” Nath-Rhotha’s voice rang out from the storage door. “It’s not like a little of this stuff is going to kill you. Hurry up and find them before I shoot you!”

Bollocks. “Fine. But we have to be quick.”

She peeked around the refuse container. Nath-Rhotha’s goons were pouring out the base, fanning out into the side streets to look for them. Nath-Rhotha himself followed behind, standing on the back of a hovercart, harassing his underlings with a loudhailer. It wasn’t going to be easy to avoid them. Gesturing for Ran to follow her, Bastila jogged to the end of the alleyway and glanced into the small road running behind the block of warehouses and factories. There was a clear path all the way down to the chainlink fence of the dock. Bastila ran towards it, making it past about a third of the way before there was a shout of alarm behind them.

“Quickly! Follow me!” She darted down another sidestreet, zigzagging their path towards the safety of the docks.

“Halt!”

“Get out of my way, idiot!” Nath-Rhotha roared. “You’re supposed to catch them, not invite them to tea! Who hired you?”

“My employer sent me to apprehend the thieves who broke into his ship, cretin! Who the hell are you?”

Shit! “Run for the ship! Don’t worry about anything else!”

Ran overtook her, her longer legs carrying her easily over the ground. “What ship? What did you do?”

“Nevermind that! Just follow the droid!”

They sprinted down the road, Bastila’s lungs burning from the exertion. She took a deep breath and pulled the Force into her legs, pushing her body to keep up with Ran. The forklift droid came into view, passing through the security gate at a leisurely pace.

“Hey!” the security guard yelled after them as they raced after it, having finally looked up from his datapad.

“We’re going to have to push it!” Bastila said as a shot rang over their heads.

The droid warbled a complaint as they got behind it and added their own strength to the droid’s motion, increasing its speed. Another shot rang out, closer this time.

“There’s the ship!” The Galactic Star’s service ramp stood open, ready for them to roll right in. At the top of the ramp, Mission peered out, drawn by the commotion.

“Hey, what are you guys…”

The droid’s treads touched the base of the ramp. “Mission, get us airborne! We have to leave now!”

Mission gaped at the horde rushing up behind them. “Holy shit!” Her mouth snapped shut and she disappeared into the ship. Zaalbar appeared a moment later, helping them haul the protesting droid aboard as the ship lifted off the ground. Bastila slapped the button to close the ramp, Nath-Rhotha’s thugs bare inches away from forcing an entry. Leaving the others to see to the droid, she ran up to the bridge where Mission sat in the pilot’s seat.

“Take us off-planet.” They would have to circle back in a few days to drop Mission, Zaalbar and Ran off once things had cooled down.

“Got it.” Mission stared intently out the bridge’s viewport as blue sky gave way to black and they pulled themselves out of Ord Mantell’s gravity well. Something tickled at Bastila’s senses and her hand shot out, pushing the ship’s control column forward. The ship’s nose dipped and a blast from a turbolaser flashed across the space they’d been occupying moments earlier.

The comm crackled to life. “Bastila Shan? You have a price on your head. Surrender now before things get ugly.”

“Buzz off, loser!” Nath-Rhotha growled over the comm. “Get your own claim!”

The bounty! “Shit!” She flicked the comms off.

Mission held her hands up. “You better take over. I’m no clairvoyant pilot.”

Bastila slipped into the seat Mission had vacated, muttering expletives under her breath. She turned the controls sharply to the right and the ship made a wide, graceful, unhelpful arc through space.

“Shit! Shit cocking bollocks!” She spun the controls, a great wheel of polished timber atop a gleaming metal column, furiously trying to get an iota of responsiveness out of the useless thing.

“Get your shields up! Why haven’t you fired back yet?”

Ran’s voice right in Bastila’s ear made her jump. “This isn’t a star fighter, Ran.” She pulled the control column back and to the side with one hand, throttling power to the engines with the other. “It doesn’t have any of those things.”

“Well, why in the world do you own such a ship then?”

“It’s not mine.” Come on, turn, turn, turn! The ship tilted sideways through space like a tipped dewback, narrowly missing a shot to their engines. A communication satellite appeared off their port side, growing rapidly larger as the bow swung uncontrollably. Zaalbar screamed. Bastila slammed the throttle forward. The ship accelerated, missing the satellite at the very last second.

Bastila let out an explosive breath. “Alright, I believe we need to get out of here,” she said to no one in particular. She selected a nearby waystation from the navicomputer, pulling the ship level with trembling hands while she waited for it to complete its navigational calculation. Her heart pounded. Every second meant an extra second that their pursuers had to shoot at them.

“Everyone be quiet. I’m opening a channel.” She opened the comm, making it public. “Okay, I know when I’m outmatched. I surrender.” She watched the navicomputer’s completion bar slowly filling up, sweat rolling down her forehead.

“Place your hands palm down on the console where we can see them and what for us to board you,” the bounty hunter ordered. “Do not resist.”

Nath-Rhotha snorted and clicked his comm off.

“Now, see here!” an expensive voice whined. “If there’s any more damage to my shi--”

The navicomputer status flashed green. Bastila stabbed the activation switch, jumping away into hyperspace. Everyone on the bridge let out a collective sigh of relief.

“Thank Bacca!” Zaalbar cried, collapsing against the bridge wall.

The pilot’s chair jolted down as Mission slumped her weight down on the back of the headrest. “Whew, Bastila! You really kicked the rakghoul’s nest this time!”

Next to her, Ran huffed and muttered darkly under her breath.

“Yes, well, let’s just hope we’ll be well out of range of their scanner range,” Bastila said, shooting Ran an annoyed look.

“Nah, don’t worry. You can buy some gizka pops when we get to the waystation, then we’ll be square. Hey, if you have time you should drop by our ship before you leave. Zaalbar was making this roast that was just…”

“Warrgh! I left my roast in the oven!”

“Aw, don’t worry, Big Z. A couple extra hours won’t hurt it. Say!” Mission popped her head down to look at Bastila, a bright smile spreading across her face. “You wouldn’t mind us taking a small souvenir from here, would you? Just something to show off in the--”

They dropped out of hyperspace amidst a horde of ships. Bastila swore, darting her hands out to save them from imminent collision.

A cruel laugh roared over the comm. “You didn’t think I wouldn’t be able to figure out what you were doing, Bastila Sha--”

Bastila flicked the comms off once more and returned her shaking hands to the ship’s wheel. How did Nath-Rhotha get ahead of us so quickly? Is this hyperdrive that slow?

“What are you going to do now, little Bastila?” Ran said, her voice dripping with derision. “Is rushing in blindly without consulting your elders working out well for you?”

“Uh…” Bastila’s mind turned white, growing panic ringing in her ears. “Mission, I need you to go to the top of the ship. Lipiers Marte has an observation deck. I need you to get me a heading.” She fumbled for her datapad with one hand while she fought to extricate the cumbersome vessel from the mass of ships surrounding them. “Follow these instructions,” she said, navigating to the astrogation guide on her datapad. “All we need is a clear stretch of space to jump to.”

“That’s your plan?” Ran spat as Mission ran from the bridge. “You’re going to risk suicide by jumping recklessly into…”

“If you have a better idea, I would most certainly like to hear it!” Bastila snapped. “If not, stop bothering me and go make yourself useful!” She flicked her eyes over the flashing lights demanding her attention across the command console. “Go down to the engine room and make sure nothing catches fire.”

Ran stubbornly folded her arms. “Someone needs to be around--”

“Whatever.” Another light flared, urgent and red. “Zaalbar?”

“--to save the day when you inevitably--”

“Would you mind?”

“--cock everything up!”

Zaalbar looked between them as if he didn’t know what to do. Then he nodded and loped down to the lower decks. The internal comm light flashed. Bastila flicked it on, her eyes darting between the scanner, the viewport and the engine status as the ships around them turned hostile.

“Hey, guys? I reached the observation deck but I can’t see how…”

“Dammit,” Bastila muttered, searching for the right button. There was a gasp on the other end of the comm when she finally found it.

“Oh, wow! You guys should see this! The entire roof is… Right, right! I’ll get your thingy now! Just keep the ship steady so I know what I’m looking at, okay?”

“I’m trying,” Bastila said weakly. Nath-Rhotha’s ships were making it very difficult for her to maneuver The Galactic Star without crashing into anything or setting themselves up for a debilitating shot to their engines. The shoulder she’d fallen on was starting to ache as she struggled to get them into an unobstructed zone of space. “Zaalbar!” she yelled out the open bridge door. “Keep an eye on the engines! I’m about to push us a little faster than we should go!”

He roared an affirmative and she diverted as much power as she could find to the engines, giving them a much needed boost of speed. Bastila watched the engine temperature going up, wondering how long she had until the engines blew themselves out completely.

“I got your thingy!” Mission called over the comm. “It’s--”

“Bollocks. Hold on!” Bastila scrolled frantically through the navicomputer settings, looking for the manual override.

“Warning. Piloting a G-Tek Navigational System beyond the range of galactic navigational beacons may result in--”

Bastila stabbed the continue button impatiently. “Yes. I know.”

“Please be advised that G-Tek Incorporated accepts no responsibility for any injury or loss of life suffered--”

“Yes! I know, I know! Continue!” Bastila let out a frustrated growl. “Alright, Mission!”

“Uh… Okay! Um, point four? Then two eight seven.”

Bastila double- then triple-checked the numbers she’d plugged in, tension building in her stomach. Her hand hovered over the activation switch, Ran’s disapproval radiating heavily around her. Her eyes flicked down to the scanner. Nath-Rhotha’s ships were gaining on them. She took a deep breath and pressed the switch. The stars streaked to blue, pressing her back into the pilot’s seat. Her heart pounded in her ears, mind struggling against the tide of panic as she kept herself open for any approaching danger. She dropped them out of hyperspace, hands shaking. She glanced at the scanner. They had put a decent amount of distance between them and their pursuers but not as much as she had hoped.

“Mission, I'm sorry,” she said, as the ships on the scanner turned to head in their direction. “I’m going to need another heading from you.”

“Uh… Shit. Okay.”

Ran leaned forward. “Maybe instead of coming up with increasingly idiotic escape plans, you should just hand yourself in to the authorities like the adult you claim to be.”

“I can’t believe you honestly still think that that is an option!” Bastila jerked the ship’s wheel to the side, narrowly rolling them out of the way of a shot to their stern. There was a thud and a yelp from the lower decks. “Will you please go help Zaalbar and make sure nothing falls on him?”

“Um, okay, I’ve got you another one,” Mission said over Ran grumbling her way out of the bridge. “It’s four two,” she said slowly and carefully. “And then one zero point two five. Got it?”

“Perfect, Mission. We only need to make a few more jumps,” she said, hoping that were so. “We just need to shake them.”

The next jump gained them some extra distance on their pursuers. But not enough to take The Galactic Star out of their scanner range and certainly not enough to give Bastila and Mission enough time to prepare and execute a jump to hyperspace before Nath-Rhotha and his goons caught up to them.

“You need to give more time for the hyperdrive to cool down between jumps!” Ran yelled at her from below.

“Understood!” Bastila replied, her eyes fixed on the scanner and the navigational map. “Okay, here we go!”

Each successive jump increased the gap between them and their pursuers by the smallest portion of a fraction of a lead. Neither group gave up. Bastila’s eyeballs turned to grit, her body became stiff and uncomfortable the longer she sat in the pilot’s seat unable to do so much as get up and stretch. And then, imperceptibly, something changed. Nath-Rhotha began to lose ships.

“The next one is one three five… No! One eight five! That’s an eight, not a three!” Mission clarified. “And point zero one.”

“Thank you,” Bastila croaked. How long until she could risk getting a glass of water? “Not much longer. They seem to be falling back.” The small cluster of Nath-Rhotha’s ships glowed dimly on the edge of their scanner. “Can’t be more than another jump or two.”

“Yeah.” Mission sounded weary.

Five jumps later the ships were still clinging stubbornly to their rear. Bastila dropped them out of jump six, jumping and jerking at the controls when a planet appeared before them out of the featureless black. Then she relaxed as her racing heart pushed fresh blood up to her brain. The planet was miles from them.

“Sorry!” she yelled down at the yowls and groans coming from the engine room. She blinked her tired eyes. Then a thought occurred to her. “Mission? I want you to hold off on getting us a new heading for just a moment. I’m going to try something.”

Keeping an eye on the barely lit scanner, she steered the ship towards the planet. Gas giant. Perfect. She pulled the ship in a gentle arc around the planet’s circumference until they were out of visual range from the angle they had jumped in from. Angling The Galactic Star until it was in a stable low planetary orbit, she cut all power to the engines. And not a moment too soon. Light flared on the edge of their scanner as Nath-Rhotha jumped into the system behind them. Bastila sat frozen, not realizing that she was holding her breath until her lungs burned. She inhaled. Would it work? Would the gas giant’s bulk hide them from the other ships’ scanners? She watched the pale glimmer of each ship on the scanner as they searched the system, never getting too far from each other.

“Hey, Bastila?” Mission’s soft voice made Bastila flinch in the stillness. “You can switch the comms onto receive only. To listen in what’s up?”

Bastila blushed. “Right. Yes, of course.”

“I know that with the long day and the chase and everything you probably just didn’t think of it for a moment…”

Bastila chuckled. “Thank you. That’s a very charitable interpretation of events.” She clicked a few buttons and turned a nob to the off position.

“--further and it’s just not worth it anymore.” Nath-Rhotha sighed. “Follow the trail back and be sure to stick together. What a shit show…”

Bastila sat up straighter. One by one, the dim lights of the ship blinked out, fading until the scanner was pitch black. She let out a laugh, breathy with relief.

“Thank fuuuck!” Mission exploded over the comm. “I gotta pee.”

The comm clicked like she’d dropped the datapad and ran. Bastila smiled and stretched out her back, revelling in the tired burn of her muscles. At last. All there was to do was drop Mission and Zaalbar back off at their ship and Bastila could finally get back to business. Bastila returned the navicomputer to the galaxy map and selected Ord Mantell. Well, she would need to deal with Ran but that should be easier once they all had time to calm down. She tapped the screen again. The navicomputer was taking a long time to accept her destination and begin calculating their route back. A block of text faded from the bottom of the screen. Bastila leaned forward and tapped the screen once more, waiting for the text to appear again. It flashed along the bottom of the screen for a few seconds before fading out, almost too quick to read and digest. Tendrils of ice began worming their way through Bastila’s gut. She cancelled her system selection, requesting the navicomputer chart a course for the closest viable destination instead.

“Error. Invalid origin point.”

Bastila stared at the screen for a moment. Then she shook herself. Lipiers Marte had spent decades lurking in the space in between systems as a means to avoid the authorities. He must have set up favourite routes or haunts of his over the years. The navigational software probably wasn’t used to travelling to systems under Republic control. In fact, Marte had in all likelihood had the software altered to disallow such a selection, only allowing travel to select destinations from a custom list. That must be it.

“Unable to reach server. Please check network connections and try again.”

She snapped the selection menu shut and sat back, staring into nothingness. Her lungs felt like they’d turned to stone and her stomach was a ball of ice. Feeling a little lightheaded, she pulled up the main galaxy map once more. Sweeping her eyes across the display, she zoomed out slowly until every known star, every solar system charted by sentient society was spread out before her, each connected to another by an intricate web of lanes and trade routes, a masterpiece of civilization built over millennia. The Galactic Star was nowhere to be found.

*****

AAARRGGHH!!! ...I'm exhausted... Just that last paragraph took so long...

Part 7! ...When I get there!