The Cantina Revelation/Story

The Cantina Revelation

The third night in this sticky, smokey, thug-filled building that was only marginally worth the title of "dive bar" was proving to be as mind-numbing as the first two. Indeed, thus far out of the eighty-three refreshment stations, restaurants, and cantinas in this miserable city on this backrocket outlaw colony world, this particular place was just as average, just as unremarkable as a thousand million other similar places scattered all across the galaxy. Nothing new, nothing old, with each one featuring a constantly-evolving cast of characters centered around their own small, exclusionary universes which figured that, after hour upon hour of dreary labor, they might as well soak themselves in escapism. Drinking, merriment, table games, and even a little bit of unsanctioned gambling were always on the offering, the highlight of their participants' days.

The numbness within this place and its many counterparts would have contaminated any casual visitor like a virus. They would have felt so invaded by the air of desperate thrill-seeking that they would have felt an incredible urge to physically lash out at anyone within striking distance. That was how most barroom brawls started, it seemed, for thousands of years in the past and for thousands more yet to come. It was one such brawl that fed the general air of average that clung to this place like a persistent rock mold.

But the middle-aged woman sitting in the far corner, shrouded in shadows, was far from average. Despite the lengths to which she had gone to make herself appear so.

Her movements measured and subtle, she nipped at her drink. It was a vile concoction that was the local favorite for those who wanted to appear sociable, yet who also wished to retain their senses. A pale, translucent green, it reminded her of the product of some illegal still that a tech had once constructed out of spare starfighter parts. It occurred to her, as she sipped again and hid the mild retching that was an involuntary reaction to the taste, that no matter how far she went, the memories continued to dog her. But such was the realities of her life, and she had long since gotten used to it.

She watched disinterestedly as the brawl continued. Several glass bottles were smashed over craniums, a few tabletops parting company with their pedestals soon after as other amateur duelists collided heavily with them. A couple of contenders grabbed cue sticks of some sort and began swinging them about like vibroswords, though the impromptu weapons lasted for only a few strokes apiece before they splintered and yielded to the laws of physics. At some point a patron produced a blaster, announcing its presence by virtue of the blue ring of stunning energy that felled a trio of particularly large toughs. As though that were an unspoken signal, the vast majority of unengaged patrons beat hasty retreats for the exits, the rest of the customers clearing out soon after as the distant wail of sirens approached.

The woman sighed, then got up. Setting her half-finished drink on the bar, she began helping the manager and his staff in cleaning up the mess. After heaving a tabletop back onto its plinth, she reached down to toggle the magnetic attachment point's reset function.

“You could have spared us a bit of this mess, you know,” the manager, a tall, broad man with a build like a labor droid said gruffly as he reattached another table. “But no, you just sit in the corner and watch.”

“The agreement was that I only intervene if someone is about to die,” the woman replied, utterly unperturbed. “And that I help clean the place up afterward.”

The manager grunted, then walked away to attend to other matters, muttering under his breath.

“Don't mind Feltro,” said the other bouncer from behind, a man named Roal. The woman turned to regard him with veiled eyes; she knew of his employment, but this was the first shift they had worked together since she had signed on two days prior. He was easily twenty years her junior, his lean frame hiding the fact that he could in all likelihood bench-press a Wookiee. His fiery hair was jauntily-cut, his blue eyes darted about the room with a mischievous air, and his grin was almost infectious. “Been grouchy for the last decade, ever since he inherited this little slice of paradise.”

“Inherited, you say?” the woman asked, raising a hidden brow. “I was under the impression that he'd bought the place.”

“Well, yeah he did,” Roal corrected himself as he helped the woman lift a hologame table back onto its feet. “He inherited a half-share, but he couldn't stand the other owner so much that he bought the poor Gotal out. Rumor says he even bribed a deputy to have the guy deported offworld.”

The woman shook her head ruefully as she turned away from Roal. To her eye this was the kind of boy who was always good for a tale or three, but she had long since lost her patience for such storytelling. For as long as the manager had owned this cantina, she had been making her way from place to place, bumping into odd jobs such as these in order to cover the basic necessities. For the past ten years she had been wandering the spacelanes, mostly working security gigs at cantinas, sporting events, or marketplaces while planetside, and aboard various tramp freighters when the opportunity to move on presented itself. It was a lonely life, one with few social contacts, with the identities of those she met in the course of each stint forgotten by the next one.

Sometimes, in the days between jobs, she caught herself wondering idly about why she continued this winding path. And then she would invariably bring her attention back to the wanted listings, just in time to watch the next opportunity for employment flicker onto the screen.

The itching at the back of her neck returned as she swept broken glass into the recycler. It was an intimately familiar sensation by now, this; it was the feeling she got whenever the time to move on had come. However, what got her more than a little perturbed was the fact that it had come so soon. Her previous record had been sixteen days, and that had only happened once, just before the freighter she had been crewing aboard had come under pirate attack. As she stacked newly-repaired and -washed glasses onto a shelf, she indulged herself in the memory of it, in how the pirates had underestimated their prey and had suffered the consequences. She hadn't been a hero, but she had played her part well enough that she somehow knew that the time to depart had been forced on her.

She had had no choice but to leave at the next opportunity, lest the grateful captain realize just who it was he had hired and spread the word.

“Hey lady, you planning to stay here all night?” Roal called from the door leading to the back exit, interrupting the woman's musings. “Feltro's about to lock up and, last I checked, the Dying Mynock didn't have any beds.”

Turning and nodding to the boy, she followed him out of the cantina as the glowrods were extinguished.

&mdash; &mdash; &mdash;

The next day's shift proceeded much as the previous one had. The woman arrived as the lunch crowd was filtering out, obscuring herself in their midst as she made her way to her usual perch. Roal was working again, and he seemed to notice her reticence as she passed. He looked as though he was about to join her, no doubt to try and draw something out of this mysterious beauty&mdash;which was a bit of a stretch for her, seeing as how she almost always wore a dark brown hooded cloak with the cowl up. She had in fact only locked eyes with one being since hiring on with the cantina staff, and that was to assure the manager that she was trustworthy.

But the boy was persistent. As he returned from showing a tipsy luncher to the door and whistling for a speeder-cab, he began to make his way toward her little haven. Despite her attempts to subtly dissuade him of this course of action, he sidled into the booth opposite her. “Afternoon, ma'am,” he quipped. “Find a place to sleep?”

“Of course,” the woman replied blandly. “This isn't my first week living on this world.”

“Pardon the observation, ma'am, but you do tend to give that impression.”

“It is a mistaken one, I can assure you,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “You don't need to know anything about me.”

Roal arched an eyebrow, then offered up a sympathetic-looking half-smile. “Is that so?” he asked.

“That is so,” the woman replied. “Now please, I'm sure there is work for you to do as well.”

“What work?” Roal chided mock-seriously, his attempts at laying on the charm not lost on his target. “You just sit here all day and watch the customers, while I get to shepherd the drunks and toss out the ruffians. I'd take your job any day.”

“It may yet come to that,” the woman offered cryptically, looking down at the table. The boy was earnest, that much was clear, but he was sorely lacking in experience and wisdom. But it wasn't her place to pass judgment upon others, nor was it for her to pass on pointers or dispense advice. It had been, though...once upon a time.

“You're a strange one,” Roal observed, canting his head to try and pierce the shadow of the woman's cowl. “It's as though you're actually comfortable here in this dark corner, overlooked and underestimated.”

Overlooked and underestimated... the woman repeated silently to herself, the boy's observation echoing uncomfortably loud within her mind. When she did not reply for several beats, the boy continued.

“I heard about what happened day before yesterday,” he said, leaning back and propping his arm on the booth's back. “A trio of swoopers were making trouble something fierce down the road. Trashed three cantinas and an outdoor tapcaf before they stumbled upon the Dying Mynock while running from the deputies. Busted in through the back way and looked like they here going to grab a couple customers and use'em for hostages. But of course you weren't about to let that happen, right?”

Silence descended upon the booth as the woman chose not to reply. That incident held nothing unique for her, not after such a long time, and it gave her no pride nor any pleasure in hearing it recounted. But Roal was determined to get an angle in.

“They were two strides from the door when fwoop! their bikes blow up. Before they could react proper, you're all over them and with three quick motions, you've put'em down for the count. That about right?”

Again, she said nothing.

Roal offered up an apologetic sort of nod as he brought his arm back down. “Well, I suppose if Ms. Newhire doesn't want to talk, she's flat out not going to,” he said, his voice tinged with hurt and a little indignation. “I'll be off to work now, if it pleases you.”

She was almost sorry to see him go with such a feeling on his shoulders. She knew that he wasn't interested in a romantic relationship, or even a long-term friendship; he was a socialite, it was what he did, and it seemed to help make him better at his job. Things did seem to be less violent when he was working, or at least when the violence did break out, it was measured and broken up more quickly. Somehow, though, it seemed as if this was the wrong line of work for him. Perhaps he was meant to be a deputy, maybe even sheriff. Or maybe something else entirely.

The thought echoed within her, a pang on her heart, but she blew it away and resumed her vigil.

As the day wore on, the woman began to realize that something was different about the evening crowd. The vast majority was made up of straight-backed men and women of various species, all wearing the same type of plain-looking clothes that military folks kept in their lockers for excursions into civilian territory. Apparently a warship had parked itself in orbit, but it was impossible to tell who it belonged to by looking at the members of its crew who had decided to drop by the Dying Mynock. Curious for perhaps the first time since arriving on this wayward world, she focused her hearing toward the nearest gaggle.

“...and now they're gone, almost as though they never even existed,” a Bothan female was saying in dulcet tones, a mournful undercurrent in her voice.

“When was the last time you saw one, anyway?” a Duros asked waspishly. “Their kind brought nothing but harm on the Republic, we're better off without them. If it weren't for Katarr&mdash;”

“Seal your word port, Getillu,” a Human male retorted angrily and it seemed that, if the emotion in his reply was any indication, he and the Bothan were friends as well as shipmates. “You wouldn't know one from the other if each danced naked before you!”

“I don't care no how,” the Duros shot back, ignoring the order. “As long as them kriffing Force-boys are keeping to themselves and away from us decent, hard-working folk, I'm happy.”

“Here's what I don't get,” another Human male, younger this time, chimed in after the Duros and the other Human had finished glaring at each other. “So there we were, getting our butts kicked by the Mandos, then in rides Revan and his counter-crusaders...what was it they called themselves?”

“Revanchists,” the Bothan supplied.

“Yeah, well, the Revanchists show up and start setting things straight. Then we're suddenly back on the offensive, pushing the murglaks out of our space and sending them packing after the big finale. If we won that war, why the kriff did we get dragged into another so soon after?”

The Duros shook his head angrily, as though to rid himself of an irksome insect. “If you'd been around back then, you wouldn't be askin' such a stupid question,” he snarled. “Them that joined up and fought the Mandos went bad, all of'em. Playing around in the Unknown Regions they were, and got their dark-side rocks off. You all know well enough: them that goes over don't give a stink for nothing 'cept themselves and gettin' more power.”

Something in the Duros' words cut at the woman's heart. The conversation as a whole was difficult enough to bear, but his assertions about the dark side resonated within her as only first-hand knowledge could. A relic of an even older conflict had provided that particular insight. Lost in thought, the woman also lost track of the knot of crewers as they wandered off, following their own pursuits and priorities. She caught a glimpse of the Human and Bothan couple as they quietly commiserated over drinks, but their silhouettes were soon obscured by another group of people.

The night seemed to drag on as the woman mulled over the conversation she had overheard. Fortunately, due mostly to the presence of so many military personnel, the noise level didn't reach much past a dull roar. Any tempers that did flare up were quickly snuffed by a gimlet-eyed stare or two from patrons who carried themselves as though they would have been in positions of authority while in uniform. This piqued the woman's interest; in her experience, a warship's company on leave would be considerably more rowdy, almost to the point where she would have to intervene if some drunk with an anti-military bias wanted to start some trouble. Whoever owned that ship must have given specific orders to its crew to be extra careful not to get into a ruckus.

With nothing really to do, she instead let her focus wander; it eventually came full circle and started to bore inward. She had heard similar snatches of conversation before, of course, but none had been that specific. Most of the time it was just a few whispered words, overheard when the speakers thought that they were alone, and most of them had only been tangentially-related. It had been years since she had heard the name “Revan” uttered aloud, though that did not mean she didn't know it. Far from it, in fact; she had met the man behind the name many times and had known him quite well.

She had, in fact, been one of his first followers, one of the first Revanchists.

He had recruited her personally.

But how much about the man had she truly known? As she attempted to wrap her mind around that enigma, her mind's eye was filled with recollections of that last, horrific battle. She had been able to keep these unwanted, unwelcome memories at bay for so long, she had almost forgotten just how painful they were to bear. Despite her resistance, however, they came on so strongly that it was like being dragged back through time itself...

&mdash; &mdash; &mdash;

“Second Wing is losing cohesion!” the starfighter coordinator shouted. “Mando fighters are flanking us!”

“Rodnaey and Naelson are under fire and taking heavy damage, they're falling back!” another officer shouted. “Three Mando frigates are in pursuit!”

“We've just lost the Tallbird!”

The bridge of the Corusca shuddered violently as fire from enemy laser cannons penetrated the ship's deflector shields and impacted the hull. Standing tall before the central array of viewports, the woman bobbed slightly to compensate for the rolling of the deck beneath her feet. She watched as the indicated cruiser exploded, shedding debris and auguring into the storm-racked excuse for a planet that stood fat in space before her; the view caused a wave of nausea to slash through her guts. But she could not let her inner turmoil interfere with her command responsibilities, even as the battle dragged into its second hour. “Move the third cruiser division in to cover Rodnaey and Naelson!” she ordered sharply. “Activate the reserve fighters and get them on vanguard formation! I want a status report on Corusca's condition, and someone get me Revan!”

A chorus of acknowledgments echoed across the Interdictor-class cruiser's bridge. “General, we're down to half power on the port and upper deflector shields,” the captain reported, his grim tone making it clear that they were really in it now. “Weapons are still holding strong, but we've lost two turbolaser batteries and our Aureks are getting hammered pretty good. Maneuvering is down by ten percent and sensors are becoming affected by all the battle debris.”

“Understood,” the woman replied, nodding to her subordinate. “Are we fit to cover Rodnaey and Naelson for their retreat?”

“We can certainly try,” he replied curtly. “But it'll be dicey.”

“Do it,” she said decisively to the captain, then shouted back toward the comm officer. “Where the hell is my channel?!”

“General, the Mandos just started flooding the major comm freqs with static; we're being jammed!” the officer yelled, having to compensate for the blaring of the alarm klaxons' blaring. “I was able to get a status feed from the flagship, though!”

“And?”

“They're still at the edge of the system, ma'am!” the officer said, doing her best to interpret the data. “Another force of Mandalorian warships is holding them up!”

The deck shuddered again, and the woman looked through the viewport in time to see a half-squad of Mando fighters swooping over the cruiser's dorsal hull to shoot low over its conning tower, firing all the way. “What kind of force?”

“Unknown, ma'am, the feed&mdash;”

“Reinforcements!” the sensor officer interrupted, his yell echoing slightly. “Mando reinforcements coming around the far side of the planet!”

“Type and numbers!” the woman hollered back. “Now!”

“Getting initial readings...” the officer began, but the power of speech failed him. The woman could sense that he didn't quite believe what he was seeing, and she knew that what he had to say next would dictate her next course of action. When he resumed speaking, his voice was hollow, broken. “Looks like...ma'am, it's over...”

“I didn't ask you for a battle assessment!” the woman shouted, the edge in her rebuke hard enough to etch transparisteel. “Numbers and type!”

The officer, obviously shaking in fear, started to stammer out a reply.

“You're relieved!” the woman barked, her tone becoming icy. “Boskal, get up there!”

An Elomin hurried to replace the disgraced sensor officer, and he began reeling off his readings with a cold, determined air. “Three battleships, twenty cruisers, at least forty frigates, and what looks like six wings of starfighters,” he said. “They should reach maximum firing range in twenty minutes.”

The woman returned her gaze to the row of bridge viewports. Off in the distance another warship exploded, possibly Mandalorian but just as likely a Republic vessel. Her guts continued to knot up, making her feel as though she had mistakenly swallowed freshly-mixed ferrocrete and it had begun to solidify within her intestines. She turned about, making her way aft up the command deck until she was near the rear hatchway. After facing the viewports once more, she caught the eye of a lone Zabrak technician manning a small, half-hidden console that looked to be newly-installed.

The Republic fleet she commanded, already reduced by a full quarter, was taking heavy damage from the hard-fighting Mandalorians. Given time, she knew, her forces could beat these defenders, though at risk of being ground down even further. This new wave of reinforcements, however, was a deal-breaker. Fresh from their ambush position, they were greater in number than her fleet had been at the beginning of the engagement, and consisted of stronger ships. Revan's personal command, she knew, was still too far away to lend aid. By the time he linked up with the Republic ships over Malachor V, even if he punched through the picket force at that moment and risked an in-system microjump, there would be nothing left to save.

It was all up to her.

“How near to the planet are they?” she asked the sensor officer in low tones as she leaned toward his console.

The man looked puzzled, but replied quickly. "They're staying close to the planet, setting a course that will get them a significant gravity assist from Malachor to accelerate them toward us"

Yes, this was in keeping with the multitude of possibilities that had been considered. It was, in fact, determined to be the most likely to occur, the incident that would play into her and Revan's hands were they to fail at obtaining a direct confrontation. This was the overall plan: to trap the remnants of the Mandalorian fleet over a world which they considered to be taboo.

And then blow it to smithereens, taking the Mandos with it.

Regrets and if-onlys whirled through the woman's mind as she paced the aft bridge. Her fleet was still too close to the planet for comfort, and they could not disengage without suffering horrific losses. If she tried to pull her ships back now, they would be massacred by the Mandalorians they were presently fighting. She had no choice, everything was relying on her. The Republic had nothing left to give. The Jedi Order had nothing left to give. Revan had nothing left to give&mdash;nothing that could reach them in time and relieve the woman of this awesome responsibility.

The seconds ticked by like years. When the enemy reinforcements came to within five minutes of firing range, she caught the Zabrak's eye once again.

And nodded.

&mdash; &mdash; &mdash;

The barrage of memories and sensations finally ran its course, leaving the woman slightly breathless. As she recalled the excruciating pain that had enveloped her as the mass shadow generator had been activated, snuffing out countless lives in the process, she realized that this time, something about how that battle had played itself out lingered within her. Her eyes snapped open as cold, hard comprehension blossomed like a geyser of liquid nitrogen within her soul.

...it had all been a setup!

The man wearing Revan's name had sent her and her force in ahead, to harry the Mandalorian fleet and keep their attention while his larger force came into the system on a flanking trajectory. But they had been “intercepted” en route by another enemy force, and thus were “delayed” in responding to the much more frantic battle above Malachor V...

Malachor...

All those personnel transfers in the weeks leading up to the kickoff of the war's endgame, in the wake of the victory at Althir. There had been something decidedly odd about them, but even after all this time she had had no success in finding the pattern. There had to have been some sort of motive; the man wearing Revan's name had always had some kind of plan, some timetable to fulfill, some secret place to be...

Malachor...

Her skin puckered underneath her clothes as the word echoed once again through her mind.

Malachor...

“...you alright?” a gentle voice asked into her thoughts.

The woman looked up with a start to regard her visitor. It was the female Bothan from the conversation she had overheard. She had the bearing of an officer, albeit a young one, her ruddy fur similar in hue to her own red locks, her dark emerald eyes so unlike her blue-gray orbs. For the first time since taking this job and so long before that, she voluntarily looked another being in the eye and was immediately grateful for having done so. The Bothan's aspect was friendly, calming in a way, a balm against the yawning hollowness that had attempted to latch onto her soul and leech it even more.

“I am...not unwell,” she said hesitantly, trying to maintain an air of polite indifference. “Who, may I ask, are you?”

“Lieutenant junior grade Asyr Gril'char, Republic Navy,” the Bothan replied, taking the seat that Roal had previously occupied. “I must say, you look a little out of sorts. Is it trouble at home?”

The woman offered the ghost of a smile in response. “You could say that, though my home is less tangible.”

“Now that's cryptic,” the lieutenant replied, her smile somewhat more pronounced. “You could give lessons to my uncle, and he liaised with Jedi Masters.”

The woman noticed the usage of the past tense, which piqued her curiosity. “You say that he used to liaise with the Jedi. What happened?”

Asyr seemed genuinely surprised at the question. Extending a hand, she placed it atop the woman's own where it sat on the tabletop. “You mean...you never heard about the war? I thought everyone on this planet would've known, what with the skirmish here about six years back.”

“I...only arrived here last month,” the woman admitted rather timidly. “Since then I've contented myself with keeping the peace from the shadows, doing what can be done to quell fights before anyone gets hurt. But tell me about this war...”

“There's not much to tell, really,” Asyr replied, her cheek fur rippling slightly. “It was about five years ago; see, I had only just graduated from the Naval Academy when the war ended. The intervening years have been...well, let's just say there have been some hard times. I don't want to bore you with the details...”

The woman felt an inexplicable urge to reveal herself to the young Bothan lieutenant, but waited to act upon it until she had picked more information from Gril'char. “Trust me, Lieutenant, details are what gives depth to an image.”

“Well, if you insist,” she replied. “It ended about five years ago now, as I said, at a place called Rakata Prime in the Lehon system...”

&mdash; &mdash; &mdash;

It hadn't taken long for Lieutenant Gril'char to finish projecting the holograph. It wasn't the most solid of presentations, but considering that she was an engineering officer and not a historian, it would do for now. She had described it with the same passion that she likely felt while working on capital ship-grade ion drive cores or whatever mechanical marvels she found attractive, and her audience had been very receptive. At one point she had called over for her Human companion, a Corellian senior lieutenant named Adan Vlasic who was the ship's navigator, to join in; he had in fact served at the war's last battle as a helmsman aboard one of the Republic warships. Though the two were unsure about what had happened at the climax, it seemed obvious to them that the one called Revan had somehow helped to secure victory, regaining his honor in the process.

Like Ulic had, yet differently... the woman thought to herself. It was an almost ironic reversal of her onetime mentor's redemption, turning on the master to save his soul and the lives of so many others. Revan, on the other hand, had come to his senses and defeated his onetime apprentice, the irascible Malak, which she had also known quite well.

“And what brings you out this way?” the woman asked the two Navy officers after having digested their tales of the Republic's triumph against the Sith.

“Well, we're not really supposed to go into that,” Lieutenant Vlasic said gruffly as he crossed his arms. “Least of all to a cloaked civilian we've never met before tonight.”

“Is there some general direction you're heading?” the woman asked after a beat, looking at Asyr.

“Well, we are...” Asyr began, but her voice trailed off as Adan shot her a warning look.

“Is there any chance that I could persuade your captain to take me along as a passenger?” the woman asked hopefully, recognizing that she would have to make a strong case. “I don't really care where you are going, but it has been a while since I lived within the Republic...”

“I thought I recognized your accent!” Asyr whispered, her eyes brightening. “You've got a touch of Coruscanti in your voice!”

“Asyr, I don't think the captain is really in the mood to&mdash;”

“Oh hush, Adan,” Asyr interrupted mildly. “This woman's been missing her home something terrible. I can always tell when someone's feeling homesick, remember dear?”

“How could I forget,” Adan replied, blushing slightly. “It was how we first met.”

“I can imagine,” the woman replied. “It is a gift indeed to be able to read others and to find out how best to provide aid and comfort.”

“That is most kind of you to say,” Asyr replied with a toothy smile.

“Ma'am, with all due respect, we just met you,” Adan put in, his tone almost stern. "We don't even know your name and you're trying to obtain passage on a Republic warship. How would I explain this...request...to the captain?”

“Yes, of course, my mistake,” the woman began, then slowly reached up for her hood, lowering it to reveal her features. “Tell him that Jedi Master Vima Sunrider humbly requests passage Coreward...”

Adan's jaw dropped visibly, and Asyr closed her eyes in an expression of extreme relief; both, it seemed, recognized her features. The looks on the two officers' faces was all the confirmation she needed to assure her that this was, in fact, the best course of action. Finally, after ten long years of being a lonely wanderer of the fringe worlds, she was returning to civilization.

Vima was coming home.

Fin

The Cantina Revelation