Revenge of the Jedi/Part 23

Narasi had thought the Jedi Temple had an intense training pace until she went aboard the Crescentia, where she saw Jedi cramming all their required training in amidst preparations for war. There, she thought, she had surely had her busiest training experience, but the strike team's preparations on Pelagon drove things to a fever pitch.

Tirien called them all together the day after Cesylee and Kaelora left—Narasi, Zaella, Raven, Gaebrean, Lord Brascel, Sir Amaani Wisté, Sir Kobold Baliss, Yan Razam, and Harshee Nefkin. Lord Wisté had returned to Procopia to control House Pelagia's other nobles; Narasi understood that he and Lord Brascel would trade off. Jirdo remained uncommitted, but lurked in the back of the Kaivalts' spacious sitting room beside Miklato, Raina, Renata, and the Kaivalts' droid, Bernius. Raven and Yan sat on either side of Tirien, but Narasi thought nobody questioned who was leading the briefing.

"Our objective is to assassinate the Sith Overlord Vedya Gasald," he began. He never believed in assuming anything in a mission briefing when he had the time, Narasi had learned; if every detail was included, no detail was overlooked. "Intelligence is very spotty on her; we don't even know what species she is. We presume she's aboard her flagship, the destroyer Kiss of Death, at Allanteen Six.  Her battle fleet is roughly a thousand capital ships strong, accounting for potential losses at Eriadu and potential rebuilding at Allanteen.  That makes direct assault impossible, but the sheer volume of space traffic may work in our favor."

"A fleet that size is a mobile logistical nightmare," Yan said. "And that's not counting everything Allanteen needs, plus the influx of raw materials to the shipyards to keep churning out new ships."

Tirien nodded. "One or two small freighter craft will be easy to miss among all those ships."

Kobold Baliss raised a hand. "I can see that logic getting us aboard the shipyards or downside on Allanteen, but how do we get aboard the Kiss of Death?"

"We're eleven…Force users." Narasi thought he had narrowly dodged the bolt that would have attended eleven Jedi. "If necessary, we'll mind trick or kill our way aboard an Imperial cargo shuttle that's bound for the Kiss of Death anyway. Yan, you have the most experience with fleet operations; how often will a destroyer like that need to take on supplies?"

"It probably carries enough consumables for a year," she mused, "but they won't want to eat into their stores while they're in a friendly port and have fresh food available."

"Is it?" Gaebrean asked.

"Is what?"

"Friendly? She shot up their home fleet and took the system by force, didn't she?"

"It's been half a year since then," Raven pointed out. "And until Eriadu, her battle fleet had been there the entire time. Given the system's importance to her war machine, we have to assume she's crushed any active resistance by now.  At best we're looking at another Milagro, and even all the Milagro Resistance factions together didn't seriously hamper Milagro's resource production."

Narasi saw Raina nodding from the corner of her eye. Yan said, "So she's got reliable access to food, water, coolant, parts…whatever she needs. She'll want to keep her Sith Lords happy too, and I'm sure a bunch of them are on her flagship.  All told…maybe not every day, but I'd be surprised if it's less than every other day."

Tirien nodded. "If we need to, as a last resort, we can steal a shuttle and take it aboard."

"What if she's funneling shuttles through other capital ships before the Kiss of Death?" Zaella asked. "Making sure everything's good first?"

"I don't think she'd take that kind of precaution at one of her own systems; it would make her look paranoid and weak to her subordinates. If anything, she'll have tightened security on the shipyards."

"And you probably can't fly from the planet or outsystem to the fleet," Yan mused. "The shipyards are there and secure anyway, she's probably using them to vet cargo coming to the flagship."

"You said that's the last resort, Tirien," Amaani Wisté noted. "What plan is preferable?"

"We land at the shipyards, bluff or mind trick our way through security, and take the Second Chance right aboard the Kiss of Death."

"Doesn't every Sith in the galaxy know your ship by now?" Kobold pointed out.

"We just need some falsified transponder codes," Gaebrean said. "I can take care of that."

Several nobles turned to stare at him, and he raised his hands. "Not personally, I can't do the work. But I…know a gentleman who knows a gentleman.  Leave it to me."

Some of the Jedi traded looks, but Zaella brightened. "Hey, what about the bomb?"

"Bomb?"

"Yeah, the world-ender. Why not use that?  Get it aboard, drop it off, fly like hell for the edge of the system, and boom.   No more ship, no more Gasald, no mess, everybody comes home."

"Because it's a war crime," Raina called.

Raven nodded, but Yan said, "It might be worth it to dispose of this situation quickly."

"Yan, we can't," Raven said.

"Who'd know? If the Kiss of Death ' s reactor went supercritical, it'd probably blow nearly as bad."

"We would know," Lord Brascel said.

Gaebrean leaned forward on his knees. "Still—"

"We can't," Tirien said firmly. "Eriadu and Pelagon both detected the bomb aboard the Second Chance when we were a hundred thousand kilometers out. Gasald's fleet will have sensors at least that attuned; we'd never make it even close before we were burned out of space."

No one seemed completely satisfied, but no one protested, either; Narasi had heard that was the sign of a good compromise, although never from Tirien. Personally, she thought he had handled the issue deftly—shutting the suggestion down while phrasing it in a way that even Yan would be forced to concede—and she didn't understand why Raina still looked uneasy.

"We'll need access codes to get aboard the Kiss of Death," Sir Amaani said. "Do you have a plan to acquire those?"

"Yan, Raven, and I can tap into Republic Intelligence's databases from here, but we can't task Intel's operatives to get the information without giving ourselves away," Tirien said. "So if Intelligence doesn't have it, we can't get it."

"Unless…" Raven stopped himself, but when everyone looked at him, he raised his head and asked, "Lord Brascel?"

"Raven?"

Rrrrrraven, Narasi thought.

"Do we—the Tapani—have any spies on the Allanteen shipyards?"

All eyes turned to Lord Brascel, who sat back in his chair, combing his thumb and first two fingers through his beard. "Better, I think, to ask whether House Pelagia has such spies. Even if the Great Council has such assets, moving them in secret, without the knowledge or consent of the other great houses, would be…maladroit.  Our house may have some few contacts on Allanteen, but tasking them to obtain information such as this would place them in grave peril."

"We have to risk it," Tirien said. "The entire sector is in grave peril if we fail to stop Gasald."

Lord Brascel's eyes tightened just a little—Narasi figured even a guy as polite as him didn't like being told that he had to do anything—but he looked across the room at Baron Kaivalt. Narasi followed his eyes in time to see the baron frown and shrug. Lord Brascel asked, "Amaani?"

"My lord?" Sir Amaani asked in a tone of surprise.

"What is your view of this matter?"

"I…"

"Come now, Amaani, I would know your candid thoughts," Lord Brascel chided. "You are your father's son and heir, and a Jedi besides. At present I am deprived of your father's counsel, so you must fill the gap he has left behind."

That didn't seem to put Sir Amaani any more at ease; he looked at Tirien and Raven, then Sir Kobold, who nodded. Eyebrows scrunched together, he said at last, "I think…we have to risk it, my lord. We have to risk them.  It's as Tirien said—if Lady Gasald isn't stopped, her fleet could subjugate the entire sector, and if it does, what difference will the spies' safety make then?"

Lord Brascel mused a moment more, then returned his eyes to Tirien. "I will arrange to have our assets moved into position to acquire this information. If it can be done, it will be."

Tirien bowed from the neck, and Yan said, "The more information, the better. Especially about the Kiss of Death."

"True," Harshee said. "It's a big ship, and I don't think there'll be a sign pointing to Gasald's throne room."

"Obtaining full schematics of the ship might be impossible for the ablest and subtlest of spies," Lord Brascel noted.

Narasi shrugged. "Anything's better than nothing."

"If only because it will allow us to rule things out," Raven agreed.

Tirien nodded. "The Pelagia spies will obtain what they can about Allanteen and the Kiss of Death. In the interim, we'll prepare here."

"Prepare how?" Sir Amaani asked. "If we don't know what we're doing…"

"We don't know how we're doing it, but we know the end result," Tirien countered. "We'll need to prepare for combat with one of the deadliest Force users in the Sith Empire, as well as a number of Sith Lords—possibly all at once. We have to be able to move quickly and discreetly, and above all, to improvise."

"The less we know about what's coming," Harshee said, "the more critical adaptation becomes."

Tirien nodded. "We might find ourselves facing any number of situations; the only way to be fully prepared is to train for any circumstance we might face."

Did they ever.

Each morning began with meditation, followed by at least an hour of lightsaber combat, everyone in the group facing everyone else. Every Tapani Jedi fought with Makashi—including Raina, Renata, and Miklato, who joined in to assist—and so Yan, Harshee, Narasi, and Zaella became sought-after opponents so the Tapani Knights might try their blades against styles foreign to their experience; Tirien, Raven, and Raina knew enough of the other forms to not disgrace themselves, and they pitched in for variety, but it didn't compare to specialization.

Narasi had sparred Tirien hundreds of times, and so she held up better against the Tapani than any of the others. Only Tirien and the Kaivalt twins had ever encountered Juyo before, and Zaella cut a swath through the Form II defenses until the Tapani adapted to it; even once they learned to beat her down with the Force or found ways through her guard by watching Tirien fight her, she remained head and lekku above Renata and demanded hard effort from Gaebrean, Sir Amaani, Lord Wisté, and Sir Kobold. Harshee frustrated them in her own way with Form III; despite her tiny stature, her muscular arms and powerful body allowed her to meet even a Human-sized being's blows with straight blocks, and only Sir Amaani and Narasi could knock her around reliably. Yan fared the worst against the Form II stylists, but Tirien and Raina worked with her to adapt to their style.

Narasi was unsurprised when her master proved one of the best duelists in the group; only Lord Brascel beat him more often than not, and only the Kaivalts—the twins and their father both—gave him real trouble. He mentioned to Narasi one day that, as the Tapani Jedi specialized in Form II almost to a being, they had developed and refined some aspects of the style, and so created new attacks and defenses he had never encountered. Raina fought in a style Narasi had never even heard of—fencing one-handed like Tirien and the other Tapani, but with a shoto in her off hand, solely for defense. It took Tirien several tries to answer that style—he seemed to consider it a point of professional pride to use only one blade—but he learned quickly, and incorporated Tapani techniques into his swordsmanship; within a week he had scored his first victory against Lord Brascel, and won a majority of his duels with the twins.

Once or twice, Narasi saw Gaebrean working with Zaella to improve her defenses against Form II; she didn't smile much, but she listened carefully, and as time went on she scowled less.

After lightsaber combat was stealth infiltration. Sometimes the Jedi would seek each other out through the forest, the manor, or the ships at the seaside, in what struck Narasi as a strange, all-adults version of hide-and-seek. Other times they set up scenarios, with some Jedi playing guards while others tried to get past them. Tirien and Harshee taught the others unarmed takedowns, and they worked to overpower even each other with the Force.

The last training before lunch was usually unarmed combat, and here Narasi was in her element; Tirien had taught her technique, and by now only Sir Amaani and Sir Kobold could hope to beat her with brute force alone. Harshee taught her new moves that employed her relatively smaller stature, and by the end of the first week she had put everyone else on the floor at least once, including Tirien; broken Sir Amaani's nose; and given Zaella a black eye. She expected Tirien to chide her for not reining in her strength, but he stopped only long enough to ensure her groaning opponents were not seriously injured, then moved on.

Jirdo occasionally chipped into practice, though his swordmanship was barely on par with Renata's and his hand fighting skills were laughable. Whenever he suffered a particularly brutal defeat—Zaella held nothing back when they dueled, and once Narasi punched him so hard she knocked him out standing and he spun in a circle before he fell down—he would sit out for a day or two, sulking, then join back in, seeking other opponents. He didn't seem to have a lightsaber style of his own—probably because he had learned most of what he knew from Maia and Bras, Narasi thought—and the result, something like a watered-down Form VI, crumbled in the face of any serious assault.

Afternoons were more varied, the individual Jedi pursuing their own training. Lord Brascel worked with Narasi, Zaella, and Renata on telekinesis; he had a calm, patient manner, but Narasi quickly learned that it was a veil over awesome power. The very first day they trained together, Narasi and Zaella competed to raise and control the Kaivalts' wavespeeders while Renata guided one through the sea. Zaella, who was struggling not to resort to anger when she didn't get results fast enough, had found her control suffering accordingly, which only made her angry again. When she got too frustrated, she usually resorted to bullying Renata, so Narasi stationed herself between them rather than let her friend draw Lord Brascel's ire. Narasi herself had levitated her wavespeeder with some concentration, and she was riding the high of success as she asked, "Do bigger things get easier the more you practice, my lord?"

"Yes and no," Lord Brascel answered. "Size is immaterial to the Force; it is we who limit it. You have within you, at this very moment, power enough to lift many times this weight.  What you lack is confidence in yourself, and in the Force—that it will obey you when you command it, or come to your aid when you call upon it.  As you practice more, that confidence will grow, and as you trust the Force, you will not find that trust unjustified."

"So if I believe it enough, I can just lift whatever I want?" Zaella asked.

"The Force flows from nature, and so it works best in harmony with nature's laws, not opposed to them. Levitation works opposed to gravity, and the more you wish to oppose that natural law, the greater effort you will require of the Force."

"So what about you?" Zaella pressed. "Narasi and I are lifting speeders, and Jawa's trying out to be an autopilot in case this Jedi thing falls through—what can you do?"

As Renata took a deep breath, Lord Brascel said simply, "More."

"How much more?"

He studied her a moment. He couldn't conjure up the intense look Tirien could, making everyone flinch when he met their eyes, but something about the solemn gravity on his lined face kept Zaella from pressing. Lord Brascel unfolded his hands, holding them before him, palms up as if in prayer. He continued to gaze at Zaella with that same expression of quiet gentility…and Narasi's jaw dropped as, behind him, the Second Chance rose off the docking platform. One splash followed another as Narasi and Zaella's wavespeeders dropped into the ocean, and Renata gasped aloud, but Lord Brascel just glanced at the speeders before turning his palms over and setting the Second Chance back on the ground.

He allowed the girls to stare for a moment, then said with the hint of a smile, "More."

Several Jedi tried out the shooting range Narasi set up in the woods—first Harshee and Narasi herself, along with Zaella, but eventually Sir Amaani, Sir Kobold, and Jirdo, too. Even Renata came for a few lessons, under Raina's watchful eye. Gaebrean surprised several of them by being a crack shot; he was an exceptional rifle marksman and far and away the best pistolier. Narasi knew her master had a professional disdain for blasters that exceeded even his distaste for a second blade; he dropped in just long enough to test out his skills and ensure he remained competent, then left them to it.

It took Raven, Harshee, and Tirien to wear him down, but in the end Baron Kaivalt grudgingly allowed them to break open some of the access panels on the doors in the manor's basement so Tirien and Harshee could teach them how to hotwire them. Narasi and Zaella worked to master the skill, and though Sir Amaani ignored it, Gaebrean found it fascinating and even Sir Kobold paid careful attention.

Tirien now practiced blaster bolt deflection by hand almost every day; he remarked to Narasi that he wasn't sure whether to be pleased or disturbed that he never lacked for partners willing to shoot at him. Raina observed that the skill was too inefficient to be useful, particularly when the Jedi would have their lightsabers, but Tirien answered that it was the closest he could get to deflecting Force lightning. Zaella offered to try summoning it again, but Tirien shot that down at once. A few of the other Jedi tried out deflection as well, but only Lord Brascel and Raina herself showed much aptitude.

Many nights the Jedi crawled into bed, too worn out for much more than forcing down dinner, but now and then they gathered as a group to share stories and experiences. One night, Harshee told them of the various perils, large-scale and small, she had faced as a Jedi Watchman; another night she played her panpipes for them. Though she had no inclination to tell anyone about her family, Narasi shared stories of her time at the Temple; aside from the Kaivalt twins, their father, and Lord Brascel, none of the Tapani had ever been there, and they listened with rapt attention and asked many questions. Though the twins, Gaebrean, and Sir Amaani had been trained by their fathers, Renata and Sir Kobold had studied at the Tapani Jedi Praxeum on Procopia, and Narasi was fascinated by the similarities and differences in their experiences.

Once, at his father's encouragement, Sir Amaani told the story of how he and Sir Kobold had participated in the Battle of Tallaan and the defeat of the Kard'ung Pirates.

"It wasn't battle on a scale like what you've seen," he told Narasi and the twins. "Far smaller than Taanab and Milagro."

"And yet the Freeworlds acclaimed you two as their foremost heroes," Lord Wisté said. "From a people with…questionable deference to Tapani nobility, that is high praise indeed."

"The Sword of the Freeworlds," Gaebrean added, gesturing to Sir Kobold with his wine glass, then to Sir Amaani. "And their Shield as well."

Pressed by Narasi, Zaella, and Renata for details, Sir Amaani relented. Though other Jedi had commanded the battle, Sir Amaani had led his flotilla of ships and intercepted a group of marauders who might otherwise have escaped into the Freeworlds through a hole in the Tapani fleet's cordon. Placing his command ship in the heart of the battle, at great personal risk, Sir Amaani had blunted three separate attempts to break through his line. Sir Kobold, meanwhile, had earned his title by boarding the Kard'ung command ship, the Shindra's Secret, and cutting through dozens of pirates, backed only by a pair of war droids, before dueling and killing the Kard'ung leader, Chak Gregan, Sir Kobold's lightsaber against Gregan's lightfoil.

Sir Amaani told most of the story, and went back to add more when the girls sensed him downplaying his achievements or when his father coaxed him. Sir Kobold contributed only that which no one else had been present to see; even more than his friend, he credited his achievements to Lord Wisté's training and Sir Amaani's overall command.

Tirien skipped more of the gatherings than he attended, and when he was there he rarely spoke, drinking a glass of wine and looking careworn.

Jedi came and went from Inimă Eserzennae; rare were the times when Lord Brascel and Lord Wisté were both on the island, and more than once they were gone together. Yan went into Pelagar once to speak to the Republic pilots who had escaped from Eriadu, and Gaebrean took day trips; more than once he brought back a parcel for Tirien, but Narasi did not fail to note that, each time he left, he returned with a gift for Zaella too. The first time he brought her a flower, she threw it into the sea an hour later; by the third time, she tied it around the tip of her shorter lek with a private little smile.

Narasi had not forgotten Aldayr and his probable captivity, and more than once she wondered if Tirien orchestrated their demanding training schedule at least in part so she would be so busy during the day—and so exhausted by the end of it—that she wouldn't have time to worry. She found time anyway, and even though she knew they had to take down Gasald before they could worry about Aresh, she couldn't help checking her beacon transceiver every day or two for messages that never came.

Narasi and Zaella went swimming now and then—not because they thought it likely to be a useful skill aboard the Kiss of Death, but just for a chance to relax. Once, they strapped a floatie to Gizmo and let him paddle through the ocean, laughing at his obvious happiness and taking turns levitating him back when he strayed too far from shore. For a creature with only two limbs, he swam well; even when they tried him without a floatie, ready to rescue him, he bobbed through the water like he had been born in it. A hungry seabird eyed him once, but Narasi and Zaella knocked it away with Force pushes, and Narasi drove it off with feelings of fear in the Force even as Zaella tried to get out of the ocean and grab her blaster.

Narasi spent a lot of her time with Zaella, who was far more her peer than Renata; Zaella was fluent in Huttese, so they spoke that language more often than not so Narasi wouldn't backslide. Zaella tried to teach her a little Sith too—at least enough that she could recognize words like kill on first hearing and respond accordingly. For all the time they spent together, though, Narasi did not fail to notice how Zaella was spending more time with Tirien than anyone else was, including her. Tirien ran himself ragged every day, rising before Narasi and going to sleep long after, but even then, every moment he wasn't training, he was alone in meditation or poring over the slim reports they had from Allanteen, trying to come up with the perfect plan that would destroy Gasald and get most of them out alive. The one consistent exception, every day, was the time he took to meditate with Zaella. Narasi understood he was trying to patch the holes in her mental defenses, and she definitely didn't want Zaella to fall to pieces if Gasald used a telepathic attack on her; it seemed the sort of thing a Sith Overlord would do, too. But as the days went on and Narasi snatched only brief conversations with her master, watching Tirien spend so much time almost nose-to-nose with Zaella started to grate on her.

One night, two weeks after their arrival on Pelagon, Tirien summoned her to the Second Chance for dinner. After a few false starts, Baron Kaivalt had given up hope of consistent meals together, and surrendered to all the manor's guests snatching food whenever they were hungry. When Narasi arrived, she found the boarding ramp raised. She took a moment to appreciate the sunset gleaming on the waves, then focused the Force until she found the ramp's internal trigger and lowered it.

Tirien was not waiting in the hold, but she heard his voice from the cockpit. She stalled in the access corridor, listening.

"Any help is better than none, Master," Tirien was saying.

"And if I had any to give, lad, I'd be happy to pitch in." Narasi recognized the booming voice of Argus Z'dar, the former Jedi Battlemaster who had taken over Karr Shadeez's crusade, fighting on in his late friend's memory. "It's criminal how the Council's sitting back and hoping to absorb the next blow. Karr had spies through the galaxy, no mistake, but Allanteen didn't fall under Gasald's shadow until after he was dead, and if he ever had people aboard the Kiss of Death, that was before my time."

Narasi had not been party to many of the subsequent discussions of Pelagia spies on the shipyards, but she gathered the effort was not going well. Tirien said, "Understood, Master."

Narasi winced, pained by how exhausted he sounded. Master Z'dar must've heard it too, because he said, "Buck up, boy. It's bad, but moping won't make it better."

Tirien's voice was more collected, but uncomfortably flat, when he asked, "What would you do, Master?"

"Same thing you are doing. If I could pull it off, I'd be there with you, but I need to be here.  You understand what I meant now about the need to act, even when the Council—"

"I understand."

Master Z'dar did not sound offended at being interrupted; he simply asked, "What will you do?"

"We can't wait forever, or Gasald may become untouchable. When we have actionable enough intelligence, we'll work with that.  If the Force delivers Gasald to us, so be it.  If not…we will do what we can regardless."

"You're a great Knight, Kal-Di, and a good man. I'll take another look at my resources; if I can find a way to help, I will."

"Thank you, Master."

"Give my best to Narasi."

"I'll do that. May the Force be with you, Master."

"And all the more with you, that it might bring you victory."

Narasi waited; Master Z'dar's voice said nothing else, but after a moment Tirien called, "Master Z'dar sends his best."

She found him sitting in the pilot's seat, his head in one hand as he rubbed his temples with thumb and middle finger. She took the co-pilot's seat and asked, "He can't help us?"

"His fleet—what used to be Master Shadeez's fleet—is really more of an aggressive battle group. It's fine for hunting slavers, and it was enough to keep Lakalt stymied, but they'd be no match for Gasald.  Even as a diversionary attack they wouldn't last long, and I don't want any more Jedi deaths on my conscience."

Narasi opened her mouth, but uncertainty stole the right reply off her tongue. Did he mean that, given all the Jedi deaths at Eriadu, he did not want any more, of which he was the cause? Or was he already counting some of their strike team as Jedi deaths he was responsible for? Did he even count some of the dead at Eriadu as his fault—Ayson, perhaps? Or Slejux?

"And he doesn't have spies in Gasald's fleet—did you catch that part?"

"Yeah." She did not want to leave his uneasy conscience unexamined. "Master—"

"There's nobody else," he said. "I've already drawn Harshee into this. Mali, Kenza, Master Z'dar…I've exhausted the Jedi I can rely on."

"Has…has Master Darakhan heard anything else about…?"

She struggled to stick the landing, but Tirien's eyes told her he understood. "No. They're searching, but there's nothing yet."

Narasi hadn't expected any, so why did she still feel so disappointed?

"Mali and I talk every few days—keeping each other posted on our respective crises. He's tried to think of other avenues of help too, and come up just as dry." Tirien snorted. "Maybe he was right, and I should've made more friends after all."

Narasi nudged his shoulder with two claws. "If you're saying that, I know things have gotten really bad."

He chuckled—just once, and it came out as much a weary sigh as a laugh, but under the circumstances, Narasi was willing to count it. "Was that why you called me? To talk to me about Master Z'dar?"

"What? Oh, no…"  He got up, yawned, and gestured back to the hold. Narasi sat on the deck, petting Gizmo's snout as he hopped into her lap while Tirien disappeared into the galley. He returned a moment later with two covered dishes and a bottle of wine tucked under one arm. Sitting opposite her, he poured for both of them. "I acquired a bottle of that spiced wine you enjoyed."

"Awesome." When he uncovered the dishes, Narasi saw her favorite Alderaanian dish from their time on the peaceful Core World. "Wow! Did you make this?"

"No, but I asked the serving droids to prepare it for us."

"What's the occasion?"

A wry half-smile touched his lips as he raised his glass. "Happy birthday."

Narasi chuckled ruefully as she clinked her glass with his. "I swear, one of these years I'm gonna remember that. Well, there's a happy thought, at least—we're better off than we were last year?"

"Isn't that a depressing sentiment," Tirien muttered as he drank.

They ate in companionable silence for a while, and as Gizmo dozed off against her leg, Narasi found herself relaxing tension in her shoulders she hadn't realized she was carrying. Last year—even now, it was hard to think about—Tirien had gotten her a pair of electrum bracelets, set with the fried crystals of her first lightsaber and now safely stored in one of the Second Chance ' s cabinets. He didn't seem to have gotten her a present this time around, but the chance to take a breath, one-on-one, was a great gift. As she sipped her wine, she ventured, "I miss this."

"Miss what?"

"When it was just you and me…and Gizmo," she added, as the gizka burrowed his face deeper into her thigh.

Tirien glanced at Gizmo, then said, "If we make it back…we won't have much cause to linger. The Tapani Jedi will remain here.  Yan will find another fleet; she's wasted away from a fighter.  Harshee will go back to her sectors."

"What about the others?"

Tirien shook his head. "Part of me is surprised Jirdo is still here. Every day I grow more confident he won't return to the Order.  Wherever he goes from here, I doubt it will be with us."

"And Zaella?"

He took longer to reply this time, turning his wine glass around in his hand. "I hope so."

Narasi frowned. "You do?"

He focused on her, seeming only then to notice her. "You don't?"

"It's just…" Narasi tried to find a way to put it that didn't sound petulant. "It's supposed to be just you and me, right? Master and Padawan?"

"There's more to it here." He frowned. "I hope you see that."

"What do you mean?"

"Zaella…inclines to the dark because it's what she's always known, and she's been brutalized into that reflex. But I don't think it's her true character; I think there's good in her."

"Well, yeah, me too."

"But from everything our…colleagues have said and done, I fear we're alone in that view." Narasi saw the hardness in his eyes. "If the Jedi don't believe it, and she sees their disbelief, she'll never believe it herself. It will do her a galaxy of good to get off this planet."

"Gaebrean likes her," Narasi ventured, but Tirien snorted.

"Gaebrean Kaivalt. He's a skillful enough swordsman, but I'm very much mistaken if his interest in Zaella is more than skin deep."

Narasi wasn't sure that jived with what she had seen, but she hadn't been part of any of Zaella's conversations with Gaebrean, and she knew better than to argue with Tirien without evidence. Instead, she said, "Well, even if…eventually we'll have to take her to the Council, right?"

Tirien finished his glass of wine and poured himself a second. "Even if we survive Allanteen, I'm not certain the High Council will be pleased to see us. This isn't a minor act of defiance; by the time we're done, vouching for Zaella may do her more harm than good."

Narasi gnawed her lower lip with one fang. "Do you still think it's the right thing to do?"

"It's the best of the limited options the Council's left us," he said. "I don't know what comes next, Narasi; I can't see it, and believe me, I've tried."

"That's the Living Force, though, right? Letting it guide us?"

"In the moment, certainly, but the Force won't give us the access codes to get aboard the Kiss of Death. I have to plan this mission carefully; one misstep, one wrong choice, and we're all dead before we even reach Gasald.  The opportunity for error is a galaxy wide, and the margin for it a hair thin."

"You mean we have to plan it, right?" She reached over their plates to touch his arm. "We're all in this together."

Tirien shook his head. "If I've learned anything from Mali—if there's any value to Raina's endless deference to the High Council—it's that some things can only function effectively with a single purpose driving them. The Tapani Jedi will help us, but more from self-interest than any higher calling of the Force.  Yan's not used to missions requiring this kind of subtlety; she's used to going in against an enemy, guns blazing.  And Harshee's only here as a favor to me."

Knowing nobody would trust mission command to a Padawan or a former Sith—and, seeing the havoc it was wreaking on Tirien, Narasi was happy not to bear that burden—she found there was only one being left. "What about Raven?"

"Between us? This mission is tearing him in two," Tirien said. "On the one hand, he knows we're right; on the other hand, he feels he's betraying his family and his oath to the Order to join us. I'm confident he'll do whatever's needed to stop Gasald, but putting the entire operation on his shoulders would invite calamity, for him and for us.  I won't do that to him—I won't set him up to fail."

Narasi squeezed his wrist, frowning. "We can help. I can help.  You don't have to do all this alone—Slejux and Ayson were important to me too, I want this as much as you do."

He sighed and set his wine glass down so he could take her hand. "I know. You're a good Padawan, Narasi, and I wouldn't trade you for an army of Jedi and the galaxy besides—not even for Zaella."

Had she given away the game after all? His yellow eyes were veiled, difficult to read, as he continued, "The best way you can help is to be ready. We have a lot to do in what may become a very short amount of time, and I need you to be ward of yourself for now—to seek out and ensure you develop the skills you'll need.  I don't have the time to train you in all of them, every day."

But you have time to train Zaella? Narasi wondered, but she kept the thought locked inside. Jealousy was beneath her, and when she looked past it, she saw the depth of his trust in her—his confidence that she would do the right things and train the right way even when he wasn't hovering over her. She had hoped for this development since Circumtore; now she needed to prove herself worthy of it.

"I won't let you down, Master."

"You never do."

They finished dinner in quiet, and Narasi sensed her master as lost in his thoughts as she was in hers. When they had cleared away the dishes and Narasi had deposited Gizmo back in his cupboard, though, Tirien surprised her with a hug; almost too stunned to hug him back, she realized it was a far better birthday gift than any object she might've asked for. Her claws dug into the back of his tunic when he loosened his grip; she didn't want to let go, a whisper of the Force giving her a nudge of caution. But she couldn't cling to him forever—she needed to be strong, to be a Jedi—so she stepped back and smiled. "Thanks for all of this, Master."

He nodded, squeezed her shoulder, and turned toward the cabinet where they kept the holocrons. As he dug out Master Fane's, she blurted out, "I could stay and help you?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Help me…?"

"I dunno, just…help. With whatever you're working on.  You and I don't always think the same way, maybe I'll see something you wouldn't."

For a second she thought Tirien was tempted; he studied the cube in his hand, and his face clouded. The awful weariness there unsettled Narasi, but before she could press him, he shook his head. "No. Thank you, but it's fine.  You should get some sleep; I know you're shorting yourself."

Narasi snorted. "This from you."

He half-smiled, but pointed, and the ramp lowered itself behind Narasi.

"Go." It was a gentle command, but a command nonetheless. Then, as if to blunt even that edge, he added more softly, "And happy birthday."

Narasi smiled and bowed, but as she headed back toward Inimă Eserzennae, she knew that leaving him to his researches was going to be the extent of her obedience. There would be no early sleep for her; she wasn't going to waste an opportunity to improve when any day might be the day.

She found Yan Razam a hundred meters into the forest, levitating rocks toward herself and cutting them out of the air. The Arcona barely had time to turn before Narasi flipped her lightsaber hilt from one hand to the other and said, "Help me work on that Falling Avalanche again?"

Yan nodded, and a moment later the forest rang with the snarls and snaps of their crashing blades.