Okay, several months and one stolen laptop later, we pick up where we left off. You guys still out there:) Heaps of thanks to Albur for whipping this thing into shape with her awesome beta skills!

---

Del paced the narrow walkways of the Ebon Hawk, mercilessly bruising her lower lip with her teeth. It was of paramount importance that she start running again, and soon. Her dealings with Slusk and the Czerka station had been significantly less than subtle, and one of her pursuers was bound to follow the trail of destruction she’d so kindly laid out for them.

Yes, she thought, I needed to be on my way. . . but to where? The Exchange has hands and eyes from one end of the galaxy to the other, and the Sith…

Del tasted blood and swore. She reached for a cigarra, remembered she’d smoked the last one hours ago, and hurled the empty package at a nearby trash receptacle.

It beeped at her.

She squinted at it, acutely conscious of her missing eye—with her permission, Bao-Dur had disconnected the tiny ball of machinery and removed it completely. At last she recognized the astromech droid and scowled. “What the hell do you want?”

It beeped again, somewhat indignantly. Del sighed and gestured for it to follow her.

Bao-Dur stood over a well-lit workbench, a nearly invisible probe in one hand and her disembodied eye in the other. Her stomach turned at the sight, and she quickly looked away.

“Yes, General?” He frowned, then handed her a clean rag. “Looks like you bit yourself.”

“Oh…Thanks,” Del mumbled. She swallowed, abruptly uneasy and unsure why. “Is there any chance of saving the eye?”

“I think so. I might even be able to improve on its design.” His smile, though warm, died swiftly. “General… could I ask you something?”

She nodded, dabbing at her lip with the rag.

“Why all the implants? The eye I can understand, but those enhancers…” The line between his brows deepened. “Did anyone warn you how dangerous they are?”

It was not a question she expected. “I was apprised of the risks before the surgery,” she said warily. “They aren’t fatal.”

“But those aren’t the only ones, are they?” His voice was soft. She found, to her surprise, that she did not want to lie to him.

“No.”

“Those implants are living off of you like parasites, General. They could shave whole years off of your life.” He regarded her soberly. “Are they really worth it?”

Del opened her mouth but found no words to explain the deathly emptiness that had seized her in the wake of Malachor, the repulsive frailty of her own Force-deaf body. Bao-Dur watched her struggle with a strange look in his eyes. At length, Del recognized it what it meant.

He felt sorry for her.

Del wadded up the blood-spotted rag and tossed it onto the workbench. “I didn’t come back here for a lecture,” she growled.

“All right,” the Zabrak said mildly. “Why are you here, General?”

With impeccable timing, the astromech droid rolled forward and trilled something to Bao-Dur. He nodded. It beeped again, then looked at her expectantly.

“Looks like someone rooted around in his archives after the ship was stolen,” Bao-Dur explained. “They didn’t realize he was returning the favor.”

“Atris’ archives? Really…” The beautiful face of the white-haired woman appeared in her mind and Del pressed her sore lips together, savoring the sting. She nodded to the droid. “Let’s have a look at what you’ve found.”

---

An echo. A wound. She walked Revan's path, but she was not strong enough.

Again and again the words from the holovid of the trial played through Del’s mind, and each time their thorns found new places to catch and draw blood.

She only vaguely remembered bringing the freighter from its mindless low orbit back to Citadel and sending Bao-Dur in search of supplies. She recalled his concerned questions, but not how she’d answered them. Had she shouted at him?

She will never know why we cast her out.

She had names and last known locations. She had years of experience in Slusk’s service unearthing people who did not wish to be found, even with a whole planet to hide them. Del would know soon enough—one way or another.

The redblack hollow of her eye socket throbbed, burning hot to the touch. She crushed a handful of pills to bitter dust on her tongue.

Not strong enough…

The anger still pulsed at her core, but its sharpest edges were blunted. Her heart rate gradually slowed.

Del leaned back and let herself sink into the medicinal fog.

---

The wound above Sion’s heart was bleeding.

He watched the dark fluid seep from it and run down the cracked skin of his chest with distant curiosity. The blood that coursed slowly through his veins was viscous and cold—even fresh wounds rarely bled.

He thought of the Exile, struggling to free herself from his grasp. Perhaps her desperate clawing had reopened the wound.

Even lightyears away he could feel her, a faint pulsing heat at the very edge of perception. He wondered how she would spend the handful of days she had left. Images flashed through his mind, one after the other:

The Exile kneeling, head bowed, at Kreia’s feet…

Skin flushed, back arched, in the arms of her dark-haired companion…

Lying in the dark, gray eyes wide, remembering the feeling of his hand at her throat…

“Soon,” Sion promised. He sank his fingers into the raw wound and twisted them, savoring the sweet rush of agony, the heavy spatter of blood on the stone floor.

---

Lying full length alongside Malak with her cheek against the warm, sweat-slicked plane of his chest, Katya’s curled toes barely reached past his knees. She felt small against him, delicate, even with Mandalorian blood caught beneath her fingernails and the screams of dying men fresh in her ears. The urge to simply close her eyes and drowse in Malak’s arms was strong, but she knew better than to keep Revan waiting.

She began to get up, but Malak’s arm tightened around her shoulders and pulled her back. He tugged the blanket away from her chest and ran his fingers down her skin with lazy possessiveness until they closed on the orchid pendant he had given her.

“Leaving already?”

His tone was not terribly warm, and she did not smile. Lately their lovemaking had acquired a desperate edge; their conversations, a sepulchral coldness. She waited silently until he loosened his hold, then rolled out of his reach.

Malak watched her dress, frowning. “You’ve made up your mind about Revan’s proposal.”

“I have.” She kept her tone carefully neutral. Some glimmer of her intentions must have shown through, however, for Malak sat up suddenly and took her hands, eyes aglow with an emotion she could not place.

“There are two kinds of soldiers in this war, Katya: those whose loyalty is absolute, and those who are expendable.” He squeezed her hands with a grip that was just short of painful. “Choose carefully.”

Katya pulled free, startled. “We’re all on the same side,” she insisted, and tried to ignore the chorus of doubts that whispered back.

He said nothing at all in reply. The light in his eyes darkened. She quickly finished dressing and escaped the room.

Malak’s telling silence stayed with her as she threaded her way through the corridors, finding her way to Revan more by instinct than conscious direction. She did not meet the eyes of the soldiers she passed.

A man was leaving Revan’s quarters as she arrived. He was older than Katya, dark-eyed, black hair shot through with gray at the temples. She recognized him at once and reflexively dropped her gaze to the place where, months ago, she’d pulled a fist-sized piece of shrapnel from his chest.

There was nothing to see, of course. The kolto would have erased all traces of the injury from his skin by now. Katya realized she was blatantly staring and felt her face grow hot. She had just started to mumble an apology when the man unzipped the top of his uniform and pulled aside the fabric above his heart, revealing the bandage there.

“It never healed,” he said, pressing two fingers against the bandage. Fresh pinpricks of blood bloomed beneath them.

She winced and reached toward it. “Let me—”

He gently deflected her hand, shaking his head. “I want to keep the scar.”

Beneath her own uniform, thin white scars from a hundred skirmishes spelled out their stories against her skin. “I… understand.”

He met her eyes steadily. “I suspected you would,” he said, and stepped aside to let her pass.

When she glanced back, just as the door slipped shut behind her, he was still watching her.

“Katya,” Revan called as she entered. “Sit. Have something to eat.”

He sat inside at a small table piled with food, using a thin spoon to dredge marrow from a cracked white bone. In the warm light his dark skin shone as if it had been polished. Eating was the last thing on her mind, but she took a piece of fruit and managed a few miniscule bites.

Revan stood and poured her a glass of amber liquor. “So, you’re beginning to doubt me,” he said, handing it to her. A bit of fruit caught in Katya’s throat, and she had to fight to swallow it without coughing. He hushed her protests with an elegant flourish of the decanter. “Don’t deny it, Katya. After what you went through at Dxun, it’s only natural that you would question my leadership.”

Katya flinched. Most of the soldiers under her command had never left Onderon’s jungle moon. “It had to be done,” she said stiffly.

“That’s what I told you, yes.” He leaned forward, long braids falling across his shoulders. “Do you believe it?”

Katya shut her eyes and took a heavy swallow from her glass. “You win battles, Revan. I can’t dispute that. But the lives of the soldiers you send to die by the thousands… do they mean anything to you?”

“Look at me,” Revan said. She opened her eyes obediently. “War is a game of numbers, not individuals. The Mandalorians know this. The Republic learned it the hard way, defeat by defeat.” He walked behind her and placed his hands on her tense shoulders.

“The moment we lose sight of the larger picture, the galaxy is lost,” he said. “I know that this is difficult for you to understand, Katya. You’ve always been too softhearted.”

She bowed her head, glad that he could not see the tears that stung her eyes. “Then you know I can’t keep doing this.”

Revan squeezed her shoulders. His voice was gentle. “You won’t have to. Malachor V will be the end of all of it, I promise you.”

“Revan…” She could not continue.

“You are the only one I can rely on to do this, Katya. I know you’re strong enough.” He lifted her chin with soft fingers, smoothed a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Do you trust me?”

Katya could only stare into his eyes—beautiful, green-gold animal eyes.

“Of course, Revan.”

---

Del stirred. Dazed, she thought she caught Revan’s sharp, peppery scent in the air. It made her want to throw up.

“Your dreams trouble you, Exile.”

Del lifted her head to find Kreia standing above her placidly, as though she had been there for some time. She climbed heavily to her feet. “You’d better have a damned good reason for being here.”

“I hoped anger might persuade you to listen where fear did not.”

Del hesitated. The Council might not have known the nature of her wound, but they had hinted it might be healed…And if she were going to challenge Jedi Masters, no number of implants or augments would guarantee success. “I’m listening.”

“Yet you do not truly hear. The throb of life and death all around you, the heartbeat of the galaxy—you are deaf to it.” She smiled cruelly. “Does my speaking the truth anger you, Exile? Good. There is strength and clarity in anger." The smile faded. Kreia tilted her head, obscuring her face in shadow. "But you can no longer allow such emotions to rule you utterly. There are many painful truths you must confront if you are to feel the Force again.”

“You’re serious.” Del laughed once, too loud in the quiet ship. “You actually think you can help me.”

“Perhaps,” Kreia said. “But you must be prepared to heed my teachings, and seek out your own. I can do nothing for one who holds no desire to change.”

“Teachings?” She chuckled derisively once more. “I've learned that nothing in this galaxy comes without a price. What's yours?”

“Your journey is important to me, Exile. In time, you may understand why. Until then, I ask only that you accept my counsel… and the assistance of any others who may prove useful.”

The old woman was so calm, so certain. “Fine,” Del said. “You can come along, for now.” Then something clicked, and she narrowed her eyes at Kreia suspiciously. “Exactly which others are you talking about?”

---

Atton lounged near the loading ramp of the Ebon Hawk, twirling his blaster on one finger. It was cold in the hangar, and he was bored out of his mind, but the old witch had told him to wait.

So he waited.

He aimed the blaster at the Hawk, pretending he had a bead on Kreia’s ugly face. How surprised would she be the millisecond before the shot found its mark?

It was due to this feeble act of rebellion that Atton missed Bao-Dur walking in with an armful of boxes. The Zabrak eased his burden to the floor, then quietly crept up behind him.

He wasn’t quiet enough. Atton whirled on him the moment he got close. Before he could take a shot the Zabrak knocked the pistol out of his hand and crushed him to the floor. Atton worked a hand free and threw a punch, only to nearly break a finger on one of the Zabrak’s horns.

He flung himself hard to one side, then the other. The alien was strong, but he couldn’t keep a grip on the man’s wiry frame. Atton rolled to his feet the moment he broke free and kicked the Zabrak twice in the gut.

The gun had landed nearby. Atton scooped it from the ground, smirking at the groaning alien, and raised it to fire.

At precisely that moment, the barrel of a ridiculously outsized rifle pressed against the back of his head.

“Don’t.” Del’s harsh whisper.

Atton blinked. “You’re pointing the gun at me?” His disbelief only mounted when Del stepped around him and, still training the rifle on Atton, offered the Zabrak her hand.

“Thanks, General.” The Zabrak winced and glanced over at Atton, who glared back. “You two know each other?”

“We’ve met,” she replied in a low voice. At last, the muzzle of the rifle dropped to the floor. “Bao-Dur, this is Atton. Atton, Bao-Dur.”

“Let me apologize, Atton.” The Zabrak offered him a hand—the one that was actually connected to his body. “I saw you with that gun in your hand and jumped to conclusions.”

Atton forced a smile and shook the outstretched hand. “Hey, no harm done. I just don’t react well to being snuck up on.”

The Zabrak smiled back. “I’ll remember that.”

You’d better, Atton thought.

When he was gone Del walked up to Atton, massaging one eye with the heel of her hand. “I hear you’ve decided to come with me.”

“That’s right,” he said. “You still owe me one, after all.”

“So I do.” She eyed him curiously. He stared boldly back, unsure of what he was going to say if she told him to take a hike. Something she saw evidently satisfied her, however, and he was spared the need for awkward explanations.

Not long after, the four of them stood in the center of the Ebon Hawk, stealing uncomfortable glances at one another.

“There are rules I expect you to follow if you’re traveling with me, both on and off this ship,” Del told them. Shoulders back, hands clasped, the scarred woman looked every bit an authoritarian general. “Rule one: do exactly as I say, when I say it. If you object to this, no one is forcing you to come along.”

Atton scowled at Kreia, who refused to acknowledge him.

“Rule two: no killing fellow crew members without my express permission.”

At this point, Del gave Atton a significant look. All at once, he realized that her eye—the one she couldn’t seem to stop touching and rubbing—was nothing more than an empty socket. He could not prevent the grimace that followed, anymore than he could resist the question he blurted out. “Where the hell is your other eye?”

“Rule three: no stupid questions.” Del scowled at each of them in turn and muttered darkly under her breath. “All right," she said. "Let’s get this cursed ship into the air.”