AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know, I KNOW! I haven't updated in YEARS! I don't even know any of my old readers are around anymore. But here it is, I'm hellbent on finishing this story now.

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Dantooine

Angst was brewing among the Ebon Hawk's crew mates on this little farm planet. They had received some rather unsettling news. Here they were running away from the Sith, only to find out they would all be joining Bastila on her mission to track their leader down. No one really had any idea why they were assigned to this, except maybe the Jedi Knight herself.

It's been a very long 2 weeks, full of training, random quests, and knowledge. But for Kalima in particular, they were were full of confusion.

"I don't get it..." she muttered under her breath as she walked up their ship's ramp.

"Talking to yourself?" She heard the Mandalorian's voice echo from the garage's door as she neared the top.

"Canderous, I forgot you were still here," she replied quickly, trying to cover the fact she was indeed talking to herself. The ex-merc had refused accommodations in the Jedi dorms, he apparently too much pride to accept hospitality from his former enemy. Plus there was no way in hell he'd share a room with Carth (she bunked with Bastila while Mission and Zaalbar shared a room, though the Wookie sometimes preferred sleeping outside the dorms). However she hadn't expected him to stay inside the Hawk, there were a few hostels nearby with much warmer, softer beds. Also she was hoping she'd find some solitude here, she needed some time alone and away from Jedi to think.

"Any other place I should be?" He asked sounding mildly offended.

"Oh I dunno, an actual livable room maybe?" she mocked, making it clear she was talking about his living conditions, not his presence.

"Argh! Waste of credits! I'm a warrior, not some prissy man-child who needs linen bedsheets and pylat feather pillows like your Mr Republic!"

"Ouch," she laughed as she walked in the garage and dropped a sac of supplies on the work bench. The warrior took his masculinity so seriously.

"Did you ever find out why there are Mandalorians here on Dantooine?" she had told him about the farmers' complaints from the enclave's courtyard. She had too much training to complete to commit to every single request people asked of her. It was only appropriate to delegate this task to another Mandalorian.

"I did find four of 'em not far from the estates, but they were the shoot-first-ask-questions-later type. Good thing I had the Wookie and Republic boy with me, they were armed to the teeth! As they should be. But something is really weird about their presence here."

"That's not the only thing weird about this place..." she groaned as she lifted herself to sit on the workbench.

"...Yea?" He feigned nonchalance but his ears perked with interest. She looked distracted, and while he wasn't the listening type or one to pry in people's business, he really wanted to know what was next in store for him. Everyone questioned why she was training as a Jedi in the first place, it is completely unheard of for the Order to take in adults. Kalima looked...about 30? The whole ordeal is a huge secret that no one wanted to talk about, so he knew better than to force her to speak. However if this boring, pious life is the path she chooses for herself, he's better off catching the next off-world freighter to Nar Shadaa. The Jedi life just isn't for him.

"It's this whole...Jedi thing!" she finally complained.

Canderous said nothing, picked up his blaster and started cleaning it. Either she was going to spill it or give him the usual evasive replied she and Bastila have been giving everyone else these past 2 weeks. Hell even Carth lost his temper the other day and accused the two women of "maliciously keeping him in the dark." Talk about trust issues. The Mandalorian wasn't one for such displays of desperation.

"It's like they're...they're putting me in charge of this mission. Bastila is my superior, so why would they do that?"

He was surprised she actually continued, but he noticed from the corner of his eye that she wasn't looking at him at all, her eyes were fixed on some invisible puzzle in front of her. She was thinking out loud without worrying about his presence.

"It's like?" He repeated, a bit perplexed.

"Well they didn't officially say it," she rushed, "but all their briefs have been directed at me, and Bastila's role is to 'accompany' me. I had to go inspect the temple near the ruins, I have to go seek out these...these 'Star maps'" she said throwing quotations marks with her fingers, "and I have to go retrace Revan and Malak's footsteps or something because apparently that's the only solution they could come up with to stop Malak!"

She threw her hands up and shook her head. Canderous could see the pressure was getting to her, she rarely ever complains like this.

Seconds of silence...

He figured the less he talked, the more she'll speak.

"There's something they're not telling me...something...huge."

"Where have you been the last thousand years? 'Cryptic' is the Jedi's second language!" he mocked.

"No it's not just cryptic," she briskly shook her head, still staring in the distance and completely missing the humor. "It's...concealment, lies, and distrust!"

Now she's the one being cryptic, he thought."Look, I need to use the bench for my blaster, now you can either watch and learn from a pro or go take your moping elsewhere."

As much as he'd like to hear the story and the first option, he just didn't have the patience for vagueness. Either she'll talk or stop wasting his time. He was planning on heading out again to search for the rest of the Mandalorians and needed to disassemble his rifle for a cleanup first.

"Oh...sorry..." she said absentmindedly, slowly coming out of her daydream."How do you take this one apart? I've never seen this kind before," she hopped off the bench and perched up by his shoulder with interest. An Arkanian weapon. A less modern model, but still had very complex little parts.

"Watch and learn rookie..." he teased as pulled a tiny level by the rifle's handle to get it open.

"Hey!" she nudged him playfully, but didn't make any other protests, her mind back to her conundrum. She watch his expert hands handle that blaster..

*CLACK!...click...click, click, click...CLACK!...click*

Suddenly she was very aware of how close they were, elbows almost touching. They haven't been this physically close since what, Taris? Her training had pretty much sucked up all of her time here in Dantooine, she barely even saw her other crew mates except Bastila.

At some point his elbow grazed her arm and she jerked back a little, a reflex that betrayed her and that she really hoped went unnoticed.

It didn't.

"Damn it woman, you've already gone Jedi on me?" He joked without lifting his eyes off his blaster.

Aaaaand now she was flustered. "Gosh, no!" She replied, embarrassed, "I'm just...trying to do the right thing."

That made him turn to her with a curious look on his face. He didn't realize how uneasy she looked, which was unusual because she never shied away from his touch. From any touch actually. Now it was time to mess with her.

"And this...isn't right?" He crawled one hand around her waist pulling her closer to him, closely watching her reactions.

"That's not what I meant," she chuckled nervously, her heart beating faster as he drew her in. She could taste his manly scent on her tongue. Heavens...she wanted this, but this was absolutely the worst time. "These Jedi masters can sense disturbances planets away, the last thing I want them to sense is their new Padawan getting her brains screwed next door."

That made him laugh out loud. She had humor...He slowly returned his attention back to his blaster, shaking his head at her response. He didn't have time for her excuses today, but he internally admitted she had a point. "As you wish mesh'la..." his tone indicated that he didn't take the rejection personal."So then...what are you gonna do about your little problem?" He asked as he finished up cleaning his first part.

She let out a heavy sigh...it somewhat relaxed her as her eyes went back to watching his hands. She knew what she had to do. In fact she knew the moment Master Dorak tried to avert her attention away from the archives at the enclave. But she had to do it tonight, it was their last day on this green planet.

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It had to be around 2:45am, everyone seemed asleep. Kalima had equipped her stealth field generator before Bastila went to bed so that she wouldn't wake her up when leaving their room. She tip-toed down the hall and sped up whenever she felt it was safe. She had to be quick. A few more turns in the dark and she was right by the entrance of the library.

The door was locked.

"What the frack?" How paranoid could these Jedi be? But if they thought this would stop her, they were wrong. She picked the door with zero hesitation and walked right in. Quickly, she turned in the direction of the computers. She had no time browse through holocrons and datapads right now.

But there's is one thing that's been nagging her the entire time on Dantooine, and that was the way her masters' faces blanked with...fear? When she asked to see the archives. Something about not wanting Padawans to be "overzealous." But their body language wasn't fooling anyone. She learned long ago that was far more important than verbal language. She didn't like being kept in dark about things that concerned her life. Her survival has always depended on her situational awareness, and she wasn't going to let some Jedi blindside her.

There it was. The main computer

She quickly entered the code she overheard Master Zhar give another Knight while she was studying one day. It was no big secret, just wasn't given to Padawans. A few more computer spikes and she was in.

"Dark side" was the first query she typed in. That yielded too many results, there was no way she was going to go through all this tonight or even find something relevant within 20 seconds. She scrolled down quickly to see if any words would stand out to her, but easily gave up.

"Malak", she typed frantically. This was better, only 8 folders came up, one of them being his military profile. She opened it with lightning speed but immediately stopped in her tracks when she saw the image in front of her.

Name: Alek 'Malak' Quelli

Age: 28

Status: Defected

She didn't pay attention to the other details because she was fixated on his picture, which appeared to be from his enlistment days.

It's him! The bald man from her visions. How in hell?

This raised 20 more questions in her head. How did she know him? Why in a thousand worlds would he have shared a bed with her? Was that even her memory or another one of Revan's like Bastila explained? He looked almost nothing like the Sith Lord they portray in the news. And he still had a jaw. The rest of the file mentioned things she already knew along with accolades and list of soldiers under him. None of the names seemed familiar.

She typed in her own name "Kalima Trask"...just to see if anything would come up during the Mandalorian Wars. Nothing but her current profile appeared. She noticed, like Carth had told her on Taris, that there were some time-stamped edits, however the back log wasn't accessible through this console. She'd have to go to the military headquarters on Coruscant.

She took a deep breath and sighed with relief.

"Revan" she finally typed. A message popped up "Attention: this query requires further authentication."

"Frack me" she moaned. She was certain this meant someone would be notified about this somewhere. But she was already here now. She pulled one last spike from her pocket and sliced through. About a dozen files on Revan.

She opted to check the military profile first, but this one was strange.

The picture was blurred out.

Confused, Kalima went back to the previous folders and opened each one.

Every. Single. Image of Revan's face was blurred out. Except of course, when it was already covered with a mask.

Kalima's irritation was beginning to match her confusion. It's like everywhere she went she was only met with another wall, and more questions. At this point she had to leave, if anyone was notified of this intrusion and was awake, they would be heading here. The stealth generator had been on the entire time, she didn't risk getting recorded by a secret camera.

Like a cool breeze, she swiftly moved through the library's isles and reached the exit. A protocol droid was clanking its way up the corridor, probably to check on the breach.

This is security? She laughed in her head as she glided past the droid and walked back to her dormitory.

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"I honestly can't think of anyone else who would do it" Vrook's voice dripped with disgust.

Four silhouettes huddled in the Council's hall. They had no evidence on Kalima to accuse her, but they all knew she was the only one with the gumption to do anything like this.

"It's a good thing we took precautions before she got here. Who knows what seeing that face would've triggered," said another Master's voice.

"It seems even with our efforts, Revan's will and thirst for knowledge still perseveres," said a calmer, pensive tone. "She's always been an eager one."

"Stop saying that with such pride!" returned the venomous voice. "Her arrogance and passion is what led her to this!"

"Still," the calm voice persisted, "her insatiable love for knowledge and independent thinking is commendable. I just hope...it hasn't risen too much suspicion in her."

"Very dangerous this mission is for Bastila," said the gravest voice of them all. "Very dangerous." The pint size Master looked up at his council members.

"Another Jedi, she will need."