"Carth, I need to speak with you."

"Go ahead, Bastila. I'm all ears."

"I think perhaps it would be best if you altered course and headed for Dantooine."

"Would you care to tell me why? Oh, let me guess, Jedi stuff?"

"Well, yes. The truth is, I can no longer trust myself to be able to guide Kono in the teachings of the Jedi. The Force knows I have done my best, but trying to instill the mandates of the Jedi Code in him is like attempting to move a mountain with one's bare hands. Worse, it seems some of his own doctrines are beginning to affect me. I think it would be best if we both spent some more time with the Masters, apart from each other. I'm afraid the Council sent me off before I was ready and I had too much pride in my heart to see that."

"Alright, you're finally starting to make some sense. I was a little worried back on Kashyyyk I was going to have to blow the whistle on the whole mission, what with the way you and Kono... well, I guess you remember all that."

"Yes, Carth, I do. As much as I may not want to, I do. This mission is important, perhaps the most important of our lives, but as a representative of the Jedi Order I can't risk letting another Jedi fall to the Dark Side."

"I know what you mean. I have my own doubts about that guy. I mean, don't get me wrong, he was a great help on Taris, but I've never liked the way he tends to do things. It's like he's at war with anyone and everyone he thinks might be against him."

"It is that ruthless calculation and determination that makes him so incredibly dangerous. I fear without realizing it, he is already become a pawn to the Dark Side. If he were to discover this... Carth, we can't let--"

"Don't worry about, Bastila, I'll change course."

"While I think I will continue to worry, I thank you, Carth. Thank you for listening to me."

"No problem."

Kono's datapad beeped. He turned from his lightsabre practice, momentarily deactivating the three remote droids he was drilling with, and examined the small device lying on the workbench. It was Icon's signal; Carth was trying to make an unscheduled course change. He wanted to go to Dantooine for some reason.

Quickly, Kono instructed Icon to block the course change. He wouldn't have Carth taking matters into his own hands, not while they were so close to finding the last pieces that would reveal the answer to the puzzling enigma that was the Star Forge. Carth was going to have to explain his actions and come up with a good reason for them to take such a detour.

He heard footsteps nearing the garage, set the datapad down, putting it in a sleep state to hide Icon's presence. The crew didn't need to know about the ancient AI, at least not yet. Looking up, he saw it was Bastila. He definitely didn't want her knowing about Icon.

As she turned the corner and came into view, Kono deactivated his lightsabre, its black-pierced violet blade extinguishing itself. "Something up, Bastila?"

"You and I should talk, Kono." Her face was unreadable, a blank mask that showed nothing. Nothing except for the twitch in her right eyebrow that told him she upset and skillfully hiding it.

"I've been thinking things over, things concerning you and I," she began.

"Go on," he urged.
In an effort to still her fidgeting hands, she put them behind her back. "You and I are bonded, I recognize that. However, it has come to my attention in recent days that perhaps we've been explaining away too many things by using that excuse. Kashyyyk, even if it may have been a victory in name, was an unmitigated disaster.

"In all my years as a Jedi I have never so fully taken leave of my senses as I did in the Shadowlands. You executed prisoners of war without hearing or trial. We carried out a massacre together to overthrow a ceremonial Wookiee tradition. These actions are not befitting us as members of the Jedi Order. Meditation on these things has told me that you and I should perhaps not be on this mission together. I'm sure the wisdom of the Council will be able to make that determination as surely as I have done."

Inwardly, Kono sighed in frustration. Once again, Bastila had "seen the light" and undone whatever learning she might have done. Instead of opening her mind to a world of greater possibility, she instead chose to remain shackled to the misused, misinterpreted, "divine wisdom" of the Jedi Code, the whole Jedi Code, and nothing but the Jedi Code.

"Bastila, have you ever considered the possibility that what I do is for a reason? The Jedi Code can't give me all the answers because it denies reality. I live in reality and have to structure myself to deal with that fact. I had hoped you would see that. The galaxy is not a nice place, and it doesn't care about some impossible, utopian ideal such as the Jedi Code. Yes, it has its place within the sheltered walls of an Academy or a Temple, where you can shut out the world outside and deny the truth, but out in the real world you have to make your own decisions.

"I can't speak for you in the Shadowlands. That was your choice and your error. But do not ask me to have mercy for those who would rape the galaxy or betray their own people for their selfish pleasure. What we did was right."

"Kono, the Jedi Code is everything we must live by, or we fall."

"Have I fallen, then? Am I an agent of the Dark Side?" To this, Bastila had no ready response. Her facade cracked as she groped for words, showing for a brief moment how frightened she was inside.

"I don't know. I can only hope the Council will." She turned away from him. "I asked Carth to change our course to make for Dantooine. We need to set things straight."

"There's something else, isn't there?" Kono had sensed from the beginning that she was hiding something from him. It stood between them now like a third person.

Still not facing him, she crossed her arms and leaned against a doorway, resting the side of her head on the hard surface. "I had a vision."

"What kind of vision?" Kono asked nonchalantly, covering his alarm. "Another Star Map?"

"No," she said, turning to fix him with a very meaningful stare. "It was a quiet house, suddenly consumed by a fire. Also a suddenly shattered mirror, reflecting my likeness in a thousand tiny images."

On the surface, Kono could make no sense whatsoever of what she said, and was tempted to think it might simply be more random images of the mind. But he knew better than that, there was still more to it.

"These visions are somehow tied to you and this mission. And I fear you and I will both be destroyed if their meaning comes to pass."

An instant after Bastila had finished speaking, they were suddenly, violently thrown forward. Batila tumbled down the hallway and Kono crashed into the bulkhead in front of him, his head snapping back onto a bare, protruding rivet in the wall and blinding him with dizzying, crippling pain. It was like every headache he'd ever had in his life all lumped together into an indescribable hammer of agony pounding on the inside of his skull. His head felt like a block of granite.

Kono found himself on the floor, his head lying in a rapidly growing puddle of hot blood. Bastila was trying to help him up, every tiny little movement of his head sending both ice cold and white hot lances of pain stabbing behind his eyes. He couldn't see very well, and his ears felt like they were filled with cotton, muffling whatever Bastila was saying into unintelligible sounds.

She tried to get him to stand, but he couldn't hold his feet and fell back to the floor, his head ringing with thunderous agony.

Kono suddenly felt a warm, soothing trickle of power flowing from Bastila's hands to the back of his skull. With desperate urgency, he shoved her away, shutting off the healing touch. That was the last thing he wanted her doing.

"Don't... put the Force... near my head," he managed to get out, oblivious to Bastila's shocked expression, before the sudden exertion cause him to lose consciousness completely.

It was only a few moments later that his eyes opened again to find Jolee above him, rubbing raw kolto on Kono's bleeding head with his fingers. The relentless pain eased somewhat, allowing his mind to clear and his thoughts to reform.

He hauled himself into an upright sitting position, looked at Bastila and Jolee. Jolee had an egg-shaped lump on his forehead.

"What happened?"

"My boy, you've fractured your skull, given yourself a concussion," Jolee responded. He frowned. "And then you told Bastila not to heal it. Want to tell us why? Cracks in the skull are serious business."

Kono grunted. Of course they were. "Injuries like that need to heal naturally, on their own. I take them very seriously. But thank you both for your assistance." He got to his feet. "Now what is the situation?"

This time Bastila gave the answer. "We've run into trouble, Kono. A Sith Interdictor ship pulled us out of hyperspace."

That certainly explained a lot. Sudden, unassisted hyperspace exits were ugly and known to tear apart weaker ships.

"Then we have a lot of problems," he concluded. That was actually an understatement. They had a lot of very large problems. "What's Carth doing?"

Bastila wrung her heads. "He has the ship's engines in full reverse, but it won't hold their tractor beams forever. He's bought us some time, at least."

Kono knew from experience that operating on borrowed time was never fun. Operating injured on borrowed time was even less fun.

"Alright, group meeting," he ordered. "Now!"

He'd ordered everyone into the main hold, and everyone turned out. Before Kono were his entire crew; Juhani and Canderous stood immediately beside him, Bastila, Jolee, Carth, Mission, Zaalbar, and the droids to either side of the central table in the hold. Juhani had a nasty scrape on her arm and Mission a bleeding lip, but that was the extent of the crew's injuries.

Kono leaned heavily on the table's surface with his arms, hanging his head on his shoulder to reduce the unceasing pain still radiating from his own injury. Blood drops fell from his red-soaked neck onto the table as he leaned over it, about to give more orders.

"Status report, Carth."

"We were yanked from hyperspace transit by a Sith Interdictor. They caught us in a tractor beam." Kono noticed an uncharacteristic glower on Carth's face; his anger was boiling to the surface.

"It's the Leviathan," he said venomously.

"Significance?" Kono pressed.

"The Leviathan is Saul Karath's vessel." The man's name was spat from Carth's mouth like a vile oath. "The same Saul Karath who turned over an entire Republic fleet to Revan and Malak, bombed Telos, killed my wife and son. He's a murderer, a coward, and a traitor. But he's also a brilliant strategist. I ought to know; he taught me everything I know about being a soldier.

"Saul will probably want Bastila alive so he can turn her over to Malak, so I don't think we need to worry about him killing us; we're too important. But when we escape, I want to be the one to kill him."

Bastila clucked in exasperation. "Talk of an escape is somewhat premature, don't you think, Carth?"

Kono held up his hand. "That's what this is about. We need to formulate our plans now, while we're still free and have the luxury of planning. As soon as this ship touches down in a Sith hangar, we need to have a plan ready for our eventual escape. If Malak or the Sith discover our true mission then it's all over."

"I agree," Bastila said, "we mustn't let that happen."

"The way I see it," Kono posited, "the less of us they can get their hands on the better. Some of us need to avoid capture. That gives us a few options." Already, his mind was racing furiously to put pieces together. A simple escape wouldn't be enough, recapture too great of a risk. Once free, they would have to do the unthinkable and attack. An enemy scrambling to counter a move it didn't understand was always the most vulnerable.

"Canderous and Juhani can do this," he announced, turning to the two. "Canderous, your healing implants can keep you alive after cardiac arrest, correct? Low-level stasis, if I'm not mistaken?"

The burly Mandalorian nodded his head. "As long as you don't overdo it."

"Good, hopefully it doesn't go that far. But I will need to put a few shots in you, get the Sith to send you to the morgue instead of the cells."

Grasping his plan, Canderous grinned. "Less security in a morgue."

Kono returned the grin. "Exactly. It will then be up to you to get some explosives, as much as you can find."

"And what of me, Kono?" Juhani asked.

"I would trust no one else but you to remain hidden from the Sith while they search the ship. It is imperative that you not be caught, because you will need to follow and eventually free Carth, Bastila, and me. I expect they will keep us separate from the others, and under much heavier guard since we are the most important to the Sith. I know you can do this."

She answered him with firm conviction in her golden eyes. "I will not fail you."

Nodding gratefully to her, Kono picked out another face, another asset, another friend he had to use. "Mission, if there's anyone who can break out of a Sith confinement cell, it's you." The Twi'lek girl beamed with pride, putting a brave face on the trepidation and fear that undoubtedly gripped her. "You'll need to free the others, find supplies, and then link up with Canderous. Once we're all free, some of you will need to get to the Hawk, and Mission I need you to go with Canderous to plant explosive charges in the ship's reactor room."

Mission's eyes lit with comprehension. "We're going to blow it up!"

He smiled at her. "Yes, that's right. In the meantime, Carth, Bastila, Juhani, and I will head for the bridge to free the Hawk."

"And then I'll kill Saul," Carth growled.

"Be careful, Carth," Bastila admonished in a warning tone. "Giving in to revenge will not erase what he's done, nor will it bring back your family."

"Don't worry, Bastila. I'm not gonna let vengeance get in the way of our escape. But if I get the chance, I will make Saul pay for what he's done. It's the least I can do for all the millions he's killed."

Kono saw enough rage to take on the whole Sith Empire written on Carth's face, despite insistence of a higher morality. He ached for revenge, as he should. Sometimes revenge was the most justice that could ever be served.

He looked about at the faces of his allies. "If that's it then, we have captivity to prepare for." There were grim nods all around.

Wincing from the pain in his head, Kono picked up a blaster from the table before him and aimed at Canderous' chest. The Mandalorian gave him a nod and he fired. Blaster bolts ripped into his flesh.

Even despite the Hawk's mighty resistance, the Sith tractor beams pulled it inexorably towards the massive Interdictor, eventually depositing it inside a secure hangar and locking it behind magnetic clamps. Power dampeners cut power to the engines that still squealed in protest and the Ebon Hawk sat helpless, surrounded on all sides by Sith firepower.

It was only a matter of minutes before Sith technicians were on the scene, working to pry open the cargo ramp for the waiting scores of silver-armored soldiers gathered in the hangar to storm aboard.

Inside, Kono watched with anticipation the crack of the door widening. He held his lightsabre at the ready, a finger flick away from igniting its black and violet blade. The racing of his heart matched the pounding in his head. Sweat collected on his brow as the door ever-so-slowly inched open.

Suddenly there was movement. An object flew through the still-narrow opening.

With reflexes slower than usual but still adequate, Kono caught the flying sphere in a Force net. It took him a moment to realize what it was--a moment he could ill-afford to lose.

It was a gas grenade.

Before he could hurl it away, back out of the ship, it exploded in his face. Instantly he felt the effects of the powerful paralyzing agent. His flesh tingled with numbness and his limbs refused to move. Kono collapsed to his knees, still grasping his unlit lightsabre, and the cargo ramp crashed open.

His lightsabre finally ignited. A desperate forward lunge that was more of a fall than anything else, managed to slice through the knees of an advancing Sith soldier. As he went down, he felt a boot strike the side of his face, followed by a quick series of kicks to his ribs and stomach. Crowding around him with fists, rifle butts, and cudgels, the Sith soldiers rained his unmoving body with blow after blow.

Kono cursed himself for not anticipating poison gas.

A club hit him squarely in the back of the head, right on top of his existing skull fracture, and consciousness left him in a rush, inflicting one last stabbing icicle of pain that lingered in his mind long after he was lost to the world.