Back in the saddle again…Enjoy!

Coruscant

"You cheating son of a schutta…" the Duros trailed off in his own language, angrily throwing his side deck against the wall of the cantina and storming off.

Atton Rand slid the credits off the side of the table and shuffled them neatly between his rough leather gloves, smirking.

It had been satisfying. Far too easy, but nonetheless satisfying to make a big win at a Coruscanti Pazaak table. He leaned back in his chair, surveying the rest of the room and wishing more of them had been around to see his win.

Wishing she had been around to see his win. Atton frowned.

Wouldn't have mattered anyways. She doesn't like Pazaak. And she doesn't like you. She likes him…well, no, she doesn't like him either. That's some consolation, at least-

He sighed. Needless to say, he had been playing a lot of Pazaak in his head the past few years.

It kept him from thinking too far beyond punching in hyperspace coordinates or taking out a hissing shyrack with his blaster. It made him remember his place; a decent pilot with no other prospects beyond flying a half-demolished ship.

And to hell with whatever reasons he might have for staying with it year after year. They could stay buried, along with the rest of everything else that had been unearthed before Malachor.

He tossed two or three credits in his hand, getting ready to return to the ship.

The credit didn't come back down from where he had tossed it.

"That's an easy way to lose money. You're lucky I'm not a pickpocket."

Atton glanced up at the figure standing over him, with one hand on her hip and the other holding his credit in the palm of her hand.

"If so, I'm lucky to be getting robbed, aren't I?"

The Twi'lek smiled, a strange kind of innocence to it that made him slightly uneasy. 'Innocent' was definitely not a word used to describe a Twi'lek female. "I saw how you cleaned out that Duros. Nice job."

Atton shrugged, leaning one arm over the back of his seat and smirking up at the Twi'lek.

"It was nothing. There are a lot more exciting things I can do. I'm multi-talented like that."

He watched the Twi'lek blush, a slight twinge of purple coming into her cheeks.

"Want to play a hand?" she asked.

Atton hesitated.

They needed the credits for continual repairs to the Ebon Hawk. If he lost them, he was reasonably certain that there was no one else in the Pazaak den with the credits and the lack of talent to replace them.

But the Twi'lek in front of him was the brightest, most vibrant shade of blue he'd ever seen. That and her ready smile were enough to convince him that he could stay for one more game. Atton gestured to the seat across from him.

"You got a name, little girl?" he murmured as the Twi'lek seated herself.

"Little girl?" the Twi'lek replied, frowning.

Uh oh, Atton thought, quickly trying to backtrack.

"Hey, it wasn't an insult or anything-"

"Just seems a little inappropriate with the way you're staring at my headtails," the Twi'lek added, running her hand slowly over the end of one.

He watched the seductive action, smirking.

"Hey, no problem. Keep doing that and I'll be glad to call you whatever you like."

He watched the Twi'lek pull out her side deck, expertly shuffling it and laying the cards out on the table.

She's not half bad, Atton mused as they played. Her moves were unpredictable and she had a horrible Pazaak face, but in a few more years she could probably make a decent amount of credits.

He wondered idly where she'd learned to play so well at all. She looked at least ten years younger than Atton himself. He could make out the faint cyan lines of vibroblade scars running over her forearms.

Probably clawed her way out of slavery to some Hutt, or a bounty hunter just starting out, he concluded.

"Hey, you're the pilot for that smuggling ship that was all over the HoloNet a couple years ago, aren't you? The…Hawk something, right?"

"Guilty as charged," Atton murmured. "Though I can't say I'm proud my claim to fame is flying that collection of scrap metal."

"I heard she was a fast ship," the Twi'lek added.

"Yeah, maybe back in the wars against Exar Kun," Atton replied, smirking. "Why so interested? Looking to take the floating death-trap off my hands?"

The Twi'lek looked tempted for a moment.

"Nah," she finally replied, turning a card over and smiling at him. "Just happened to notice you and your crew walking around. You guys are kind of conspicuous, with an assault droid and all."

Atton rolled his eyes, looking around nervously even though the HK droid was back on the ship and nowhere near him.

"What's the matter?" the Twi'lek said, leaning forward and grinning. "You afraid of it or something?"

"Let's just say I'm not too fond of droids altogether."

Statement: And that particular hunter-killer model makes me really fracking uncomfortable.

"You could always sell it."

Atton drew a card, snorting.

"If it were up to me, I'd put that thing and his trash compactor buddy out on some street corner and leave 'em both for salvagers to take, but they aren't my droids to sell."

He lay down his card with a triumphant smirk. "Twenty. Hope you've got some credits, little girl."

The Twi'lek twisted her mouth up wryly, tossing a couple his way.

"The name's Mission."

"Go ahead T3. We haven't got much else on this ship to lose anyways."

The droid beeped in response, and the engines on either side of her groaned and shuddered violently for a minute or two.

Then a pipe above her head burst open, raining black soot over the exposed hyperdrive and filling the room with a thin gray film.

Mira choked and hacked her way through the cloud, waving her hands and cursing loudly.

Maybe this piece of hovering trash doesn't have much else to lose, but my lungs and sanity definitely do, the bounty hunter thought moodily, sitting up and struggling to wipe the dirt and grime off of her face and arms.

Since clawing its way off Malachor Five, floating adrift for a few parsecs before being hauled in by a passing Republic freighter, the Ebon Hawk had been plagued with a steadily increasing list of mechanical problems.

Mira ran a hand through her red hair, greasy and unkempt from a day of repairs, and wondered again why the hell she was still on this ship.

Or at least why I seem to be the only one doing any manual labor, she thought, frowning. Atton had left the ship early, claiming that he was going to look for some cheap parts for the malfunctioning gangplank, but she knew the only parts the pilot had found were parts of a word: "can" and "tina".

And the Jedi…well, they were off doing Jedi things. Masters and Padawans and bureaucracy that Mira was glad she didn't have to deal with. So that left her alone on the Ebon Hawk, with only that creepy assault droid and T3, who rolled around the ship somewhat listlessly.

Where's that Zabrak when you need him, Mira thought, a sad smile on her face as she got ready to take another stab at the hyperdrive.

She heard the muffled beeping of the utility droid echo down the hall, too muffled to make out.

"You say something, T3?" Mira called. There was no answer.

Sighing exasperatedly, the bounty hunter pushed herself up from the ground, wiping her hands on her pant leg and peering down the hallway outside of the engine room.

There was no sign of either droid. The ship was eerily silent, except for the soft creak of the gangplank.

She didn't have the Force, but Mira had been in enough cesspools to know when something didn't smell right. She pulled out her blaster, tiptoeing around the corner and keeping close to the wall as she moved towards the ship's exit.

She was so focused on the careful steps she was taking, on holding her breath and trying to spot any slight difference in the ship's numerous bulkheads and panels that she completely missed the towering figure blocking her path.

Mira bumped into it, stumbling a few steps back and immediately raising her wrist, tensed to fire a dart at whatever it was. The figure sniffed, growling softly.

She looked up at the Wookiee, almost too tall to fit in the ship and certainly too tall for the doorway.

"Oh great. Is Hanharr getting more of you fur-balls to do his dirty work for him?" Mira snapped nervously.

The Wookiee was definitely not the bounty hunter who had been on her trail the past few years. This one was of a darker, slightly reddish hue, and he regarded her curiously, like she was a child he didn't quite know what to do with.

He growled again. She was no expert in the Wookiee language- she had just been threatened by Hanharr enough that she had come to recognize what certain phrases sounded like. This one was definitely speaking a more provincial kind of dialect.

Mira pointed her blaster towards the Wookiee, slowly stepping backwards as he moved towards her.

Where the hell are those droids? The HK model usually jumped at the chance for a violent situation. And T3 was always ready with an ion charge for whatever happened to be threatening them.

"I don't know what you want, but you've got to the count of one to get your hairy carcass off this ship."

The Wookiee roared sharply, reaching towards her.

Mira immediately reacted, firing once from her blaster, which deflected off the ceiling of the Ebon Hawk, leaving a scorch mark.

The Wookiee didn't slow at all. He lunged at her.

Uncharacteristically (though understandable considering her past with Wookiees) Mira let out a short yelp as the Wookiee's huge fist slammed down on her head and everything went dark.

Dxun

At first, he reacted as a proper Mandalore should.

Thinking only of which warriors would be chastised for their error in judgment, for their weaknesses, for their failure in allowing someone to infiltrate the camp and to get as far as a duel against Mandalore himself.

He had not even turned around at first, only finishing his work at the computer console and listening carefully to try and discern which weapon would be needed- his assault rifle or his vibroblade.

The steady hum gave it away instantly, low and even. A lightsaber. He would have to use the vibroblade.

Mandalore slowly gripped the hilt, thankful that he had recently upgraded the vibration cell and sharpened the edge.

"Impressive of you to get this far," he murmured lazily, unsheathing his weapon and holding it at his side, still with his back to the Force-using intruder.

"I see you've allowed your warriors to become quite the docile little weaklings. I wonder if they follow their leader in that respect."

For a moment, Canderous was caught off guard.

The moment passed, and he smirked against his helmet, turning to face the Jedi who stood behind him with a yellow double blade extended in front of her.

"I've killed grown men for lesser words."

She was smug. A small smile twitched at the edges of her lips.

"Such as those that are now lying unconscious along the path to this complex?"

He chuckled.

"You've grown some spine. Is there enough in that scrawny little body of yours to do what you've come here to do?"

Bastila glared at him, and he liked her best like that- when her eyebrows were narrowed over her indignant blue eyes, and she looked angry and wild enough to tear the entire enclave apart.

"Just what do you suppose I've come here to do, Mandalore?" the Jedi spat towards him. She twirled her blade between her hands, stepping towards him. "Kill you? I am a Jedi. We don't follow your Mandalorian rituals of death and destruction."

He shrugged, smirking again to himself and watching the way her Jedi robes followed her as she moved.

"Perhaps you're here to avail yourself of other Mandalorian rituals, although I had thought those were against your vaunted Jedi ideals too."

Bastila lunged towards him and he slammed his vibroblade up against her glowing yellow blade, laughing.

"Touched a nerve, have I? Forgotten your sacred principles already?"

"I was under the impression that Mandalorians did their own hunting, not hire incompetent bounty hunters. Were you able to spare the credits?"

He frowned, parrying another of her blows.

"I recently met another Jedi like you. She also wielded a double blade and never knew when to shut up."

Bastila whirled around to sideswipe him with her lightsaber, her dark brown hair flopping about with the motion of her body and threatening to come loose from where it was tied back.

"Touched a nerve, have I?" she mocked.

"You claim to be above the recklessness and quick judgment of the Republic and Jedi like Malak and Revan, but you're just as quick to condemn. Look around you, Bastila. Your Order has barely survived. Your blessed Republic is hanging on by its fingernails. I expected better from you."

"I also expected better, Canderous," she said softly. "From a man who claimed he had been altered by his life since the wars, who watched a comrade blast himself in the skull over a matter of honor."

For a moment he remembered the sands of Tatooine; not light tan and blistering and going on forever, but dark and sticky, spotted with Jagi's blood and pieces of his brain.

He pushed against her lightsaber with his weapon, grasping her hand where it was wrapped around the lower part of the hilt.

With a quick twist of his wrist, he had turned her around, her back up against him and her own lightsaber at her throat.

If the Jedi was alarmed, she didn't show it. Her body was in no way stiff or uncomfortable, even with his hand tight around her gripped weapon and his mouth near her ear.

"I'm pleased you had the sense to return, if your reasons a bit misguided," he added.

The doors to the complex opened, half a dozen of his warriors charging in. One knelt in front of him, a recently promoted sentry by the name of Lador.

"We have failed you in allowing the Jedi to infiltrate the camps, Mandalore."

"Your failure will be dealt with in time, Lador," Mandalore replied icily.

He yanked the lightsaber out of Bastila's hands, shoving her towards the waiting guard.

"Put the Jedi in the holding cells. I want twenty-four hour surveillance and at least four men at all times."

The Jedi stared him down, and he returned her gaze, sheathing his vibroblade back at his side.

He wasn't surprised the next morning when the lightsaber he had taken and kept next to him as he slept had disappeared, nor was he surprised when all four of his men were found unconscious; three on the ground outside the Force cell and one inside. He also wasn't surprised when he found that his secure files had been accessed, all the information he had collected on the Republic during his time with the Exile copied and tampered with.

Mandalore was only heard to remark somewhat amusedly under his breath:

"Stubborn Jedi Princess."

Jedi Temple, Coruscant

"Can I give you a hand?"

Mical glanced up from the three piles of datapads and holocrons surrounding him, forming a sort of wall. He could only see the upper half of his inquirer's face- a raised eyebrow and dark brown hair.

He stood, shaking his head and trying to get rid of the crossed eyes that came from spending the entirety of the day bent over damaged archives.

"You look a little overwhelmed," the Jedi before him added, gesturing towards the piles.

Mical smiled.

"No more than the Order is with the monumental task before us."

The Temple had been ransacked during the past few years; graffiti lined its once pristine halls, vandals had broken windows and doors and rewired computer systems. The Jedi libraries and archives themselves were currently in the process of being reclassified, organized, and shelved- as well as taking inventory of what might have been stolen or destroyed.

Mical had jumped at the task, and his master had been quick to encourage him to help.

Perhaps a little too encouraging, he thought, his smile falling a bit. She was quick to encourage him at any task that left him by himself and her to go…well, wherever it was she went.

The pilot may know something of it, he thought, trying to keep his face impassive. There was no reason to suspect her of that. She showed Atton no more attention than she did the rest of their crew.

Mical suddenly realized the Jedi was still standing in front of him.

"I apologize. I don't believe we've met. Padawan Mical."

The Jedi nodded, extending his hand.

"Good to meet you, Mical. Name's Dustil." The name sounded vaguely familiar, and he felt very strongly as though he should recognize it.

Dustil moved past him, inspecting Mical's carefully categorized piles, picking up one datapad after another and replacing a few in the wrong pile.

Mical followed him, putting each back in its proper place.

"The Sith really did a number on this place," the Jedi murmured, glancing around the tattered remains of the library.

"Indeed. I sometimes wonder if the Order will ever recover from the blow."

Dustil smiled patronizingly. "The Order's been through this before. They'll bounce back eventually." He rubbed his hands together. "How can I help?"

Mical gestured to a nearby pile of unsorted archives. The Jedi seated himself next to Mical at the table.

He watched as Dustil glanced at one or two, not even reading them all the way through and just tossing them in front of him one after the other.

He must be a newly chosen Padawan or apprentice, Mical thought. Only the brand new ones exhibited that level of…'confidence'.

"I've heard stories about you, Padawan," the Jedi murmured conversationally. "About you and your master, how you defeated a whole slew of rising Sith Lords…Nihilus, Sion, Traya-"

"By no means single-handedly," Mical replied. "It was a long and difficult mission."

"Is it true what people are saying?" Dustil added.

"Is what true?"

"Is it true that you discovered evidence of a larger threat somewhere in the Unknown Regions? That the Sith Lords you battled were influenced by teachings from ancient Sith?"

"I'm sorry; I'm afraid I'm not able to discuss it."

The Council had decreed that his research and their findings were to stay private knowledge for the time being; that it was unwise to panic a rebuilding Order with notions of another impending attack. Mical whole-heartedly agreed.

And besides, his master had also requested that he refrain from mentioning the gist of what had happened during their mission to anyone else. He gladly complied with her request.

Dustil nodded, ignoring his own pile of datapads and reaching for one that had fallen on the floor.

"This doesn't look like anything out of the Temple's archives."

Mical glanced down. It was one of his own datapads; containing all his findings from their mission. He had brought them with him in hopes of finding more clues amid the archives, which Padawans were usually not permitted to browse.

He felt guilty for technically going against the tenets of the Order, but he had been given permission to handle the archives. Surely it wouldn't be completely wrong to try and shed some light on several things that remained unresolved from their battles against the Sith Lords.

It would give her some peace of mind at least, he thought, sighing.

"Oh, forgive me. Those are a few of my own. They must have gotten mixed up within the other materials."

Dustil nodded, putting it back on the floor and turning back to his own pile.

"Mical! Padawan!"

Mical glanced up. The voice seemed to be coming from deeper in the library. It sounded female.

He hurriedly pushed his chair back.

"Please excuse me," he murmured to Dustil, who barely looked up from the table.

Mical continued in the direction of the voice, past a few empty or broken shelves.

"Padawan!" the voice called again. It didn't sound quite like his master. Something was slightly off with it, but it had called his name nonetheless. Mical turned down the next aisle, sure that he had heard the voice clearly from there.

The aisle dead-ended into a large pillar. There was no one there.

Funny. I was so sure I heard my name, Mical thought, frowning and heading back towards his table of archives.

The Jedi called Dustil had disappeared. Mical wasn't surprised. The majority of new Padawan or apprentices were unready for their promotions; cocky and arrogant.

He probably considered himself above organizing the Jedi archives, Mical thought, rolling his eyes.

He sat back down at the table, reaching for one of his datapads.

His hand brushed the cold marble floor of the Jedi Temple. He dug through the pile, finding one or two of his datapads, but no more.

Mical furrowed his brow. He had had at least six. He glanced off in the direction of the exit.

No. How could you think that of a fellow Jedi? Mical scolded himself. Dustil had shown no particular interest in his records or his mission beyond one or two questions, which he hadn't pressed after Mical's refusal to answer.

I must have just misplaced them…He thought, shaking his head and returning to the archives.

Citadel Station, Telos

"I know you."

She was startled out of her half-nap; the rhythmic motion of the Citadel shuttle and the warmth of her robe around her enough to lull her head into drooping, her back to settle into the worn seat behind her.

They hadn't reached their destination yet; Education Unit 316 was a ways off from Residential Unit 029, at least a twenty minute ride.

Katrina blinked, glancing up at the figure standing over her. A young boy, maybe eight or nine.

She wondered for a moment why he looked so smug.

"Excuse me?"

"You're that lady everyone talks about," the boy said triumphantly.

Don't look around, she reminded herself. Don't act like there's a reason for people to talk about you.

All the same, she couldn't help turning her head slightly to the left, wondering if there was anyone else on the relatively crowded shuttle watching her.

"Am I?" she replied, trying to give the boy a patronizing smile.

No one else seemed to notice, though it didn't help to alleviate the involuntary urge she had to fidget or run her fingers comfortingly over the lines of her lightsaber.

"I've heard stories about you," the boy continued loudly. "People say you're a Jedi."

Where the hell is your mother, she thought, frowning.

"You've got quite an imagination, don't you? I'm just on my way to pick up my daughter from school. Where are you going?" she murmured, trying to distract him.

The boy looked her over, tilting his head from side to side.

"I heard you're that evil Sith we learned about in school. That you're Revan."

For a moment all she could think of was how if she was this kid's mother, she would give him a good smack across the face. I'm never going to let Celyn be this rude.

She was suddenly aware of how a few of the passengers in the immediate vicinity of where she sat before the boy had turned to look at the mention of her name.

"Are you?" the boy demanded.

Katrina sighed.

"Yes."

She waited patiently for the uproar from the shuttle's passengers, for them to surround her, shouting and spitting.

But none came. Only the boy's mother, charging over and putting her hands protectively on the boy's shoulders.

"You shouldn't run off like that," she scolded. "Scared me half to death." Her glare went from the top of her son's head to Katrina.

"And you…filling his head with ridiculous stories like that. Revan's dead. Don't tease my son." She ushered the boy back to the other corner of the shuttle.

Katrina settled back and wrapped her robes around her, pulling one leg up onto the seat next to her and glancing out the windows at the rush of modules and passing shuttles.

I hate Telos.

Well, maybe not hate. There were worse places in the galaxy to live, certainly places where rumors about her would fly much easier and nastier than they did on the Citadel.

She definitely didn't like Citadel Station. It was confusing and alien, with its innumerable modules and mechanical surroundings, despite the Ithorians' efforts to beautify the station with examples of the plant life they were reintroducing to Telos's ecosystem.

None of it had really mattered until now- before Celyn was born she hadn't ventured anywhere on the station besides their quarters and the docks.

But now that she was back in the public eye, making routine journeys to take Celyn to and from school, the rumors that had plagued her since her very first landing on this planet had returned.

At first, they were nothing but "Dark Lord" this and "Revan" that and "danger to society" thrown in for good measure.

She wondered briefly what kinds of questions Carth had had to face when he had finally woken up from his injuries years ago on the surface of the dying Telos, surrounded by his panicked countrymen. She thought of asking him when she got back-

No. Better to leave answers like that buried. Back then he had probably just vehemently denied that she was anything other than Katrina, a Jedi with a green lightsaber.

Katrina smirked. The lie hadn't changed much. Now he just vehemently denied that she was anything other than Katrina Onasi, a Jedi with a green lightsaber.

Once she and Dustil had returned from Anelli, the rumors had changed to more unsavory ones. The minute one enterprising newsvid had happened to catch a holo of her exiting Admiral Carth Onasi's quarters, every headline had some variant of "War Hero's Jedi Lover!" for a few weeks.

Luckily for both her and her Padawan (as well as Carth's reputation), they were Jedi in high demand as far as top priority Jedi Council missions went. She took every opportunity to leave the Citadel, to get away from a rebuilding society that was still hostile towards Force-users.

Then came the purges, the assassins, Chael, and the secret Malak helped her to unearth. Rumors hadn't seemed very important then. When she and Dustil had returned again and she had had Celyn, they had dropped considerably in number anyways.

Jedi or not, a woman with a daughter who was respectably married to a decorated Admiral and cultural hero didn't conjure half as many rumors as a single woman who came and went from the Admiral's quarters as she pleased. Now if there were rumors they rose up in sporadic amounts, usually whenever something happened to go wrong with a restoration zone or some kind of trouble arose on the station. They confined themselves to the whispers of women and the suspicious stares from men, and occasionally found their voices in the inquiries of HoloNet reporters and the gossip of children; like the boy who had just talked to her.

She wondered for a moment if Celyn had again forgotten the rule about Mommy's name- that even though Father and Dustil called her 'Revan', Celyn was never to tell anyone that was Mommy's name.

I'm complicating her life, Katrina thought with a sigh. And she's only four.

The shuttle finally reached its destination, slowing to a halt with an abrupt shudder. Katrina rose from her seat, following the herd of people towards the exit, beginning the familiar path to Celyn's school.

A nearby information terminal shouted out the hourly newsfeed:

"Ithorian officials announced today new predictions concerning the percentage of Telos's surface that is considered salvageable. Preliminary numbers show an increase from thirty-five percent to thirty-nine-point-seven, bolstering the Telosian Council's hopes that percentages will soon climb to fifty…"

Telos itself wasn't too bad.

Not nearly as bad at it was eight years ago, anyways, she thought.

The ruins still in the habitable regions had been razed and replaced with flora and fauna from different planets- some it previously native to Telos and others exotic variations designed to improve the planet. The energy shields had been completely redesigned and strengthened, blocking off the black skies and crumbling earth of the unsalvageable parts of the planet.

She and Dustil had been down there many times, trying to protect restoration crews when the assassinations had begun. Just recently, the Telosian Council had announced that one or two restoration zones had been deemed habitable and safe for residential use- at an incredibly hefty price, of course. The general populace of Citadel Station, while being unable to afford it, was elated.

Carth and Dustil had been no exception. Hell, they were already devising plans to use Carth's status to get a claim on one of the units being constructed.

And it didn't matter if she was on the Citadel or within a nest of rotten, exploding kinrath eggs. Anywhere that Carth was felt like home.

Living on the planet itself might be better than the Citadel, at least. There the air wouldn't be synthesized, and she wouldn't feel like she was stuck in a tin can-

You're not going to be here to move in, she thought absently.

By the time the units were finished being constructed, she would be gone.

She spotted Celyn's teacher- a woman somewhere around her age by the name of Dima, with a face that looked like it was being held back by taut wires.

That tightness only extended itself when the woman noticed Katrina and half-heartedly waved.

"Mrs. Onasi," she said, curt and sharp as though she were saluting the Admiral rather than the missus.

For some reason, she hated the title. When Carth said 'my wife', it still meant Morgana Onasi. When Katrina heard it as a reference to herself, it only reminded her that she had unwittingly killed the real Mrs. Onasi and took her place.

"You don't sound very happy to see me."

Dima smiled apologetically, but even her smile looked pained.

"I'm afraid there was an accident-"

"An accident?" Katrina repeated, staring the woman down.

Dima lifted her arm, beckoning behind the wall that separated the entrance from the rest of the school.

Katrina burst out laughing, unable to control it despite the disapproving gaze of the teacher and her aide, who emerged from behind the wall with her daughter.

Celyn Onasi was smeared with dark oil stains over her cheeks and clothing. Her arms were folded in front of her, her head burrowed into her neck.

"What happened?"

Dima seemed to be fighting a smirk too despite her reaction to Katrina's laughter. "One of the teaching droids suffered a burned out vocabulator. Rather than alerting one of the staff, your daughter took it upon herself to try and 'repair' E2."

The little girl scowled at the floor, kicking at some imaginary offender.

"My daughter? All I see here is a scrubby little Jawa."

A giggle escaped from her daughter's lips at the nickname, and Celyn threw her arms around Katrina. She returned the hug, lifting her arm and noticing that she too was now smeared with oil.

"Sorry…I'll talk to her. I'll pay for the droid too, if you want."

Dima shook her head, gesturing vaguely towards the shuttle bay elevators. "As long as there are no more…accidents, Celyn is welcome to return."

Katrina nodded, grasping Celyn's hand and turning to walk back towards the elevators.

"I guess fixing him didn't go so well, huh?" she teased, glancing down at her daughter.

"I could have," Celyn insisted. "But he blew up."

She sat down on a nearby bench to wait for the next shuttle and tried to wipe the oil from Celyn's clothing, only succeeding in smearing it more.

"You can't keep taking things apart, Celyn," Katrina murmured. "You're going to get hurt or damage something important."

"But he was broken," Celyn said pointedly, as though that should have been justification enough.

She ran her fingers through her daughter's slightly curly brown hair, working through the tangles the grease and oil had made.

The Admiral really knows how to pick nicknames, she thought, shaking her head.

'Jawa' had been coined only a few months ago, when Celyn had accidentally broken one of her toys apart and hoarded the parts instead of throwing them away. When the toy had resurfaced a few months later, crudely reassembled, Carth had been quick to classify what their daughter reminded him of.

"I don't like it when things are broken," her daughter added, standing patiently in front of her while Katrina inspected the state of her clothing.

You also don't like it when you don't know things, or when you don't understand something.

Celyn nodded.

And of course she had the Force- how could she not?

So far it hadn't manifested itself beyond passing messages between her and Celyn. Katrina suspected she could do it with Dustil too, but she had no proof beyond the way he only had to wink at the little girl and she would burst out in giggles. It probably also played a hand in helping a four-year-old know how to take somewhat complex things apart and put them back together again.

The shuttle arrived and she boarded, sitting back down in the corner and letting Celyn crawl up onto her lap.

People stared at her now, but they were only chuckling or making "aww" noises towards her daughter, who leaned happily against Katrina despite being sticky with droid oil.

She rested her head on top of Celyn's, grasping her daughter's hand firmly from where it lingered near the hilt of her lightsaber. "What did I tell you about that?"

Her daughter stiffened for a moment in her arms, upset at being disciplined.

"That it's only for stopping bad people," Celyn replied.

"And?"

"And it's dangerous," her daughter finished, sounding out the last word syllable by syllable.

Katrina suspected Celyn didn't completely understand what 'dangerous' meant, only that it kept her from doing what she wanted to do.

You're only a little girl, Celyn, she added. Someday, when you're bigger, I'll show you everything you want to see or know about.

"Can I see where you and Dustil and Father go?"

I hope you never have to see the places we've been, she thought to herself, even though she knew that wasn't what her daughter meant.

She meant the many times Carth was gone for weeks on end, why she was sometimes left in the care of one parent while the other was off on Jedi business, why Dustil wasn't around all the time.

As of right now, her former Padawan was on another one of his frequent trips to Coruscant. He would cite meetings with the rebuilding Jedi Council, but Katrina suspected his visits had more to do with a certain up-and-coming HoloNet reporter known for her distinctive blonde curls.

She smirked against Celyn's hair. She was as much a Jedi as ever, but she and the remnants of the Council were somewhat on the outs. They had been willing to look the other way on a Jedi having a lover. Being married and having a child, however, directly violated the teachings of the Order.

Dustil better consider that on one of his next "meetings with the Council", she thought wryly.

He spent the majority of his time on Telos, however. Especially since they had discovered the abandoned enclave up on the planet's polar ice caps.

"Whoever was here, they cleared out pretty recently," her former Padawan had noted on their first excursion into the complex, inspecting computer consoles with his foot and poking things with his lightsaber.

"I can see why," Katrina had replied, her teeth chattering as her breath made pale white clouds in the air.

She hadn't been surprised that the abandoned complex had escaped their notice. She felt only the sad, lingering presence of a wounded animal. If there had been Jedi here, there hadn't been many.

"Maybe the weather's not the greatest," Dustil admitted, burrowing into the hood of his robes. "But this place would still work pretty well."

It had sparked Dustil's pet project- starting a Jedi Academy on Telos. The suggestion had surprised her, as he had shown no inclination to take on a Padawan of his own let alone start an entire Academy.

"Sounds fine to me," Katrina had answered nonetheless. "As long as you don't ask me to do any seminars or become headmaster."

He had only rolled his eyes, and she doubted it would ever actually happen. It was probably just the 'Reconstruction Bug', as she had deemed it. Everyone on Citadel Station was infected in one way or another.

"When is Father coming home?" Celyn said, her legs dangling over Katrina's, idly kicking the base of their seat.

"Today."

If that tanker stops living up to its name and gets back here in a timely fashion.

The Sojourn was notoriously slow, despite being outfitted with the latest in defensive technology and being one of the flagships of the Republic Fleet.

They didn't fight about him being away. She was gone often enough herself to make it a moot point. But thankfully no major military campaign had arisen in the past four years, and Carth mostly served as the figurehead of Republic presence in this region of the galaxy, conveniently operating out of the Citadel.

It's only the calm before the storm, she thought, glancing out the window again. They're out there. I can feel them.

And I have to stop them.

"Will he be mad?" Celyn suddenly asked, glancing back at her.

Katrina snorted.

No. He'll probably congratulate you on getting far enough to get oil all over yourself.

"Father will be glad to be home, and he'll be glad to see you."

Her daughter nodded, poking the scars around Katrina's hands with her own small ones.

"I'm going to leave soon," she added, wrapping her arms more securely around Celyn. She could feel the little girl frowning. "On the big, long trip I told you about."

"Don't talk about that, Mommy," her daughter muttered, holding Katrina's hand possessively.

But it would have to be soon.

The attack on Telos four years ago had been proof enough that there was something else at work, something the Republic was choosing to ignore in favor of stabilizing themselves and rebuilding from the war. The information she was slowly piecing together through Dustil and Bastila was only more proof.

The boy who had accosted her this morning was a final reminder that she couldn't put it off any longer than she already had.

Because you won't always be four years old, she thought, gently lifting Celyn off of her lap as the shuttle reached the residential unit. Four-year-olds don't cover galactic history in school, but older kids do.

And what's going to happen to you when you get to that page in the history books that has my name on it?

She couldn't rewrite them. And as much as she wanted to tell everyone as easily as she had the boy on the shuttle that, yes, she was Revan; she understood that that was impossible.

Celyn slipped from her hand as they entered the apartment, scampering off to her room to play or more likely take another toy apart. There was a message waiting for her on the communications console- the droids had been found and retrieved. She wrote a quick note of thanks to Mission and Zaalbar.

She couldn't rewrite them, but she could make as many new pages as she wanted. And she would start by this trip to the Unknown Regions.

By ending what Lord Revan had started. By ending what she had started.