Hello everyone! Once again time to continue the marvelous adventure of KOTOR here on Taris! I've been seeing the hit counts the Endar Spire one was getting and I'm very grateful for all the readings! Don't forget to leave your reviews as well so we can make this a great literary discussion!

So let us follow the great trials and tribulations of Nic/Revan on Taris without possessing any ownership of KOTOR. Huzzah!

Murky shadows flowed, dilated, and spiraled out into the blackness as if they possessed a mind and will of their own, energies of pure darkness each with their own dark spirit.

Slowly the strands of shadow swirled to form a vague and distant image. Nic saw flashes of yellow and red as the picture came more into focus, quickly becoming more and more vivid with each passing second.

A room on a starship crossed his vision, with high, wide windows staring out into the bleakness of space surrounding the ship. The ship was very large, clearly the flagship of a fleet of some kind. The only things he saw inside it were two combatants, smashing their lightsabers against each other with deadly force.

A man and a woman, that was all. The man was clad in dark Sith robes with much of his face covered in a hood. They were different clothes than any he saw on the Sith aboard the Endar Spire.

He was doing battle with a woman….a Jedi? She was…well…stunningly beautiful. Her face, however, was screwed in lethal determination against her opponent. It was as if she lived for one objective and one only, to rid the universe of whatever evil this man had caused.

The swipes of her lightsaber were vicious but smooth. Her eyes never strayed from the Sith, seemingly calculating each angle from which to defeat him. Her mahogany pigtails spun in the air as she did, her every movement like the graceful flight of a swan. Nic found himself captivated by the image, but it did not stay long.

With one swift stroke the woman dispelled the Sith, slashing diagonally across his chest, ending the Sith's life before he could even cry out in pain.

But something else was strange about the dream. After she had dispatched her opponent, the Jedi woman looked onward, in front of her, standing poised, flexed, and at the ready. It was as if the battle was not over there, and yet a greater enemy still stood before her.

Before Nic had a chance to discern the meaning of it all, the shadows crept across his vision once again until her face was lost to the darkness.

He opened his eyes. A cacophony of blurs exploded in front of him, which probably would have sent him reeling if it wasn't for the fact that he was on a bed, a murkiness that seemed impermeable until he blinked a few times and shook his head hard.

"Good to see you up instead of thrashing about in your sleep. You must have been having one hell of a nightmare."

At first the words were a dull roar, pounding at his brain like a sledgehammer a few times before becoming a more clear man's voice. It was a voice he recognized, and suddenly the blurs shifted completely, turning into a dark ceiling above his head.

Nic sat up in bed and looked around, seeing a tall dark-haired man leaning against the opposite wall in the room, looking at him.

"I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up."

Nic stared at the man in front of him for a moment, spacing out, his eyes focusing only on the two strands that fell over the man's forehead. He thought for a few seconds about how stupid that looked. Hadn't he ever heard of a comb?

He snapped out of it.

"Erm….yeah…" He said as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Not really a nightmare so much as a….ah, never mind."

Carth arched an eyebrow. Clearly the man had been hit harder on the head than he thought. They had had quite a journey since their escape pod collided with the surface of Taris and he was forced to drag his companion's limp body into the nearest empty space he could find, which just happened to be this hotel room.

Either way, he thought it best to extend a safe reminder to his new friend.

"I'm Carth, one of the Republic soldiers from the Endar Spire. I was with you on the escape pod. Do you remember?"

Nic pressed a hand to his temple and nodded slowly.

"Yeah, Carth, I remember you….the guy with no sense of humor."

Carth exhaled. Yes. This was definitely the man he had traveled in the escape pod with. In their brief exchange Carth had become painfully aware that travels with this man, whoever he was, were going to be interesting to say the least.

"I'm Nic…by the way. Not sure if I ever told you. I was assigned to protect Bastile aboard the 'Spire…"

Nic shifted off the bed and placed his head in his hands.

"I had a strange dream, like a vision or something."

Carth chuckled. "I'm not surprised. You took a serious blow to the head. You're probably having all kinds of strange dreams. I wouldn't worry too much about it."

"You were slipping in and out of consciousness for a couple of days now. Try not to worry. We're safe, for the moment."

Carth gestured around the room.

"We're in an abandoned apartment on the planet of Taris. You were banged up pretty bad when our escape pod crashed, but lucky I wasn't seriously hurt."

Nic stood up slowly, wavering a bit as he did. Carth stood away from the wall and took a step forward.

"You OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine.."

Nic stood up straight and stretched, feeling the tightness in his muscles. Clearly he had been on that bed for a few days. He turned to Carth and shook his head again.

"So, what exactly happened after we crashed?"

"I was able to drag you away from our crash site in all the confusion, and I stumbled onto this place. By the time the Sith got to our pod we were already long gone."

Nic smiled tiredly, finally getting his bearings back. He nodded over to Carth.

"I guess I owe you my life. Thanks."

Carth brushed the thanks off.

"You don't have to thank me. I've never abandoned anyone on a mission, and I'm not about to start now. Besides, I'm gonna need your help…"

Nic arched his own eyebrow.

"My help? How?"

Carth walked over to the window in their room and stood in front of it, folding his hands behind his back and sighing.

"The planet we're on, Taris, is under Sith control. Their fleet is orbiting the planet. They've declared martial law and imposed a planet-wide quarantine."

Nic hung his head.

"So basically we're boned."

Carth laughed softly. He had to admit, having this kid's demeanor around made things a little easier. He turned toward him.

"Don't worry, I've been in worse spots."

Nic's head snapped back up, hopeful.

"You mean the Republic is sending someone in to get us? You have a beacon on you?"

Carth pressed his lips together and shook his head.

"There's no way the Republic will be able to get anyone through the Sith blockade to help us. We're on our own."

He pointed at Nic and began crossing the room.

"I saw on your service records that you're able to speak and understand a remarkable number of alien languages. That will really come in handy on this mission."

Nic stood up straighter. He could? He didn't remember putting that on his record…actually he didn't remember filling out his record at all. Damn, did the crash really hit his head that hard?

"Wait, hold on. What mission? I thought our goal was to get off this world and get back to the Republic at this point."

Carth shook his head.

"No. Bastila's still here. Somewhere. If we're going to find her and get out of here, we can't rely on anybody but ourselves."

The memories of Trask's death and the destruction of the Endar Spire all because of this Bastila came flooding back to Nic, and a bit of anger began to swell up in his stomach again.

"Yeah, remind me, why is it so important to find Bastila?"

Carth fixed him with a look like he had just spit on the dead corpse of his mother.

"That smack to your head did more damage than I thought! Bastila's a Jedi! She was with the strike team that killed Darth Revan, Malak's Sith Master."

Carth spread his arms out.

"She's the….key to the whole Republic war effort! That's why the Sith set an ambush for us on the Endar Spire!"

Carth blew out a breath and tried to calm himself. He could tell by the look on his new companion's face that getting flustered wasn't going to get them anywhere.

"Look, I believe Bastila was on one of the escape pods that crashed down here on Taris. For the sake of the Republic war effort, we have to try and find her."

Nic let a few seconds of silence hang in the air before shrugging and trying to make his case.

"I just don't get it. How can one person, even a Jedi, be so important?"

Carth nodded toward him, acknowledging his point, but when he opened his mouth again, Nic knew he was in for another earful about this kriffing Jedi.

"Bastila's no ordinary Jedi. She has a rare gift the Jedi call Battle Meditation. Bastila's power can influence entire armies!"

Nic scoffed and took a few steps toward him.

"OK, Carth. Now you're pulling my leg. No one's strong enough to take down an entire army single-handedly! I don't care how strong she is."

Carth waved his hand, as if brushing the comment aside and continuing.

"You didn't let me finish. Through the Force Bastila can inspire her allies with confidence and make her enemies lose their will to fight. Often, that's all it takes to tip the balance in a battle."

Nic stared a Carth for a moment, then whistled low, placing both his hands behind his head. This was blowing his mind. He knew there was a reason why he was placed into the protection of the Jedi, but after everything he had been through and all the death he had seen on the Endar Spire, he had begun to doubt if one person was worth all of that.

But if what Carth was saying was true….Nic was beginning to understand the stakes after all.

"Wow…seriously?"

Carth nodded fervently.

"Bastila's going to need our help. Many of Darth Malak's followers can use the dark side of the Force, but nobody will be looking for a couple of common soldiers like us. We can move about the planet without attracting notice."

Nic thought for a moment as Carth looked at him expectantly. He knew that if it meant getting off this planet and helping the Republic, then finding and rescuing Bastila was the way to do it. He only hoped it would be worth all the lives that were lost to get to her.

"Alright, Carth. You're right. Any idea where we should start looking for her?"

Carth smiled at him, nodded and took a few steps toward the door.

"While you were out I did some scouting around. There's reports of a couple escape pods crashing down into the Undercity. That might be a good place to start. But it'll be dangerous down there. We have to be prepared."

Nic smiled crookedly.

"Well, the sooner we start looking for Bastila, the sooner we find her. Let's go."

Carth's smiled turned wider, getting caught up in the newfound enthusiasm of his new friend.

"Alright soldier, let's move out."

After the both of them went through the footlockers and any other containers they could find for supplies, Nic strapped the vibroblade right on his back again and stuffed his blaster into the holster on his hip.

Then the two of them exited out the door of the apartment, and Nic jumped slightly at the sound of a blaster being fired over to his right. He looked over to see a man in a gray uniform flanked by two assault droids staring down two defenseless aliens.

"OK you alien scum, everybody get up against the wall! This is a raid!"

Nic had seen that uniform before. This man was a Sith, and already Nic could feel the blood within him begin to boil.

One of the aliens defiantly spoke up against his attacker.

[There was a patrol here just yesterday, and they found nothing! Why do you Sith keep bothering us?]

The Sith whipped out a blaster rifle and expertly shot the alien down at close range, and white hot rage exploded inside Nic.

But before he could yell anything, the Sith already turned and spotted him and Carth.

"What's this? Humans hiding out with aliens? They're Republic fugitives! Attack!"

Nic turned to Carth, who had already drawn his blasters and looked at him, ready to go.

"I can tell working with you is gonna be FUN!"

Nic drew his vibroblade.