Chapter I
Dramatis Personae
Rahne (Gina Gershon): The Jedi Exile. Nisse female.
Kreia (Kate Mulgrew): Her mysterious benefactor. Human female.
Atton Rand (John Barrowman): A rogue of uncertain loyalty. Human male.
T3-M4: A faithful helper. Utility droid.
[]Chapter I
::Awaken.::
The word, half-command and half-entreaty, crawls through the stygian abyss of unconsciousness towards the seemingly impossible goal of awareness. Who asks it and who it is asked of cannot be determined. Cannot be distinguished.
And in that, there is balance.
* *
She is barely aware of being held by something. No... of being in something. A heavy repetitive rhythm insinuates itself into that awareness, counter-pointed by something faster and more chaotic moving around her and against her.
Her eyes open only to immediately slam shut as something warm and heavy slides across them. She opens them again, slitted pupils widening in response to the dim light.
There is the perception of shapes defined by distortions and shades of light, of strange silent forms looming around her with indifferent menace. Something holds her by the head, covering her nose and mouth. Something else grasps her between the legs, insinuating itself inside her body.
And there is someone watching her.
She starts to struggle, fighting the all encompassing presence to bring her arms up and tear these things free.
All of a sudden, her world collapses. She struggles harder, tries to tear the thing from her face only to realise it's gripping her around the head. Something else impinges on her consciousness as she pitches forward. Weight. Her own weight. Gravity.
"-rgency void initiated. Emergency void initiated. Emergency void initiated."
The emotionless female voice vanishes, replaced by the equally unfeeling touch of glassteel against her shins and palms. She opens her eyes in time to hazily see a liquid surface disappear down past the tip of her nose, or at least the transparency of the mask covering it. Soon the liquid vanishes entirely, leaving her cold and shivering as the walls of the kolto tank recede into the mechanisms above, taking what she now realises was her reflection with it.
With fumbling hands she reaches behind her head and unclasps the mask, hurling it away only to have it swing back on its hose and hit her in the side of the head. Ignoring it, she crawls forward a few paces before remembering the other thing. She looks down, grimaces, and gingerly disengages the catheters before crawling further and collapsing.
"Drokk me." Her voice rasps over the simple curse, sounding like it hasn't been used in days. Weeks even. "I should not be feeling like this." It hurts, but even just hearing her own voice is better than the silence punctuated only by the discreet shrill of medical alarms and other mechanical distresses.
Alarms!
She twists around to look at the place of her confinement for the first time: the third of five kolto tanks in a semi-circle around the back of a circular chamber. The other four each hold an injured man, naked and sustained as she had been. Behind each tank a status monitor blinks red. Peering closer, she sees that though the men move, it was only because of the oxygen percolating through the liquid; their chests are still.
"This isn't the Harbinger," she mutters, climbing to her feet and swaying slightly, raking damp magenta hair out of her amber eyes and behind pointed ears. "Where the hells am I?"
The dead men don't answer.
She stumbles forward, breath fogging slightly, arms clasped around her chest attempting to rub some warmth and sensation into it, her extremities tingling as the movement kicks her circulation up a notch. Gravity feels slightly less than Republic standard, so maybe she's on a lunar colony. The corridor she enters is clean and spartan, but possesses a bulk to its construction suggestive of planetary industrial installations. The air is thin and slightly stale, a definite sign of life-support operating sub-optimally.
At the far end of the corridor a bulkhead door shudders and groans, its locking mechanisms giving off the whiff of burning lubricant and obviously damaged. She purses her lips in irritation; apart from the office to the left and the morgue bulkhead to the right, the door looks to be the only way out of the med lab. Choosing the path of least resistance, she investigates the office. Lacking either the proper pass-code - or the 'master-key' provided by a life she's tried too hard to forget - she opts for ripping the faceplate open and crossing wires until she manages to trip the lock release.
Within she finds a desk, a chair and a work station still logged on. Like the signage outside the interface is mercifully in standard Basic. Even more helpfully, its design prominently answers one of her questions, even though the answer means little: she's somewhere called Peragus, a facility under emergency lock-down. She's not sure she likes that scenario any better than the idea the people here are just shoddy mechanics. A few moment's poking around finds the medical officer's daily reports; their contents only serve to worsen her mood.
"Ebon Hawk?" she mutters, glancing at the report of her initial injuries and wincing at the images. "How the hells did I get on a freighter? Was I being kidnapped or rescued?" As she continues reading, the corollary to that question whispers itself darkly in the back of her mind: all these people are dead because of you, Jedi. She could deny it of course, but the timing and sheer magnitude of the disasters befalling these unfortunate miners who had simply tried to help her is undeniable. Whoever had done this had most likely put her aboard the Hawk-- No, she corrects herself. She hopes it was the same entity, because otherwise it means she's up against something far larger and insidious than a mere slicer and saboteur.
Unable to move outside the local network node due to her opponent's physical sabotage, she settles for triggering the locks on the med bay's storage room and the morgue and investigating each in turn. There turns out to be nothing of any immediate use in storage, its contents sorely depleted by the recent tide of injuries. The sole exception is a plasma torch that forms part of an emergency response kit; holding it stirs feelings she'd thought long behind her. The office's little en-suite fresher calls temptingly to her on the way out, but she decides to leave that distinct pleasure until after she's inspected the dead and doubtlessly decomposing bodies across the way.
The morgue is on the compact side with only seven benches, each broad enough to hold a full-grown yuzzem; two bodies, most of them human, occupy each one. Like the unfortunates euthanized in the kolto tanks, seven of the corpses are victims of hideous plasma burns that in some cases reach the bone. Another six, all of them wearing identical black body suits, show signs all to familiar to her of having been struck by directed energy fire, shrapnel and explosive trauma. None of them are intact; some of the dismemberment however is uncomfortably clean and cauterised. Apart from boots the smallest of which are a size too large there's nothing of any practical use to be recovered.
A final body - one the logs had said was recovered from the freighter along with her and the ones in black - couldn't be more different. Unlike the rough and practical physicality of the others, it is that of an old woman with long white hair in twin braids that spill over her shoulders and clad in an elegant yet uncomplicated brown robe, the cowl of which is pulled low over a face that had once been very beautiful but now even in death tells of adversity and pain. Like her own, the woman's hands are slender yet strong and sure; without quite knowing why, she reaches down and strokes them tenderly. An electric shiver runs through her and she jerks away.
"Static," she mutters, explaining the odd sensation away. She turns back to claim the smallest pair of boots - though she'll take the robe, she wants to preserve the old woman's dignity for as long as possible. Humming to herself, Rahne unlaces one and pulls it off, wrinkling her nose at the smell before starting on the second. Just as it comes free, she realises something's wrong.
"Find what you are looking for amongst the dead?"
It's pure reflex that sees her spin and hurl the boot with all her strength. Though only scant metres separate them and despite perching on the edge of her bench, the old woman ducks the projectile easily. Who are you? she wants to demand. I thought you were dead! she wants to exclaim. Instead, something else forces its way out of her mouth.
"Your voice - I heard it when I was in the kolto tank."
" I had hoped as much," the old woman smiles, the husky timbre of her voice remaining unchanged. "I had slept too long and was lost. It may be I reached out unconsciously and fortunately found in you a receptive mind. Or perhaps it was you who called to me?"
She takes a half step backwards, something unpleasant gnawing at her gut as she evaluates her new companion. "You can touch minds and feign death. Who are you?"
The woman pauses for a moment. "I am Kreia, and I am your rescuer - as you are mine. May I ask your name?"
"Rahne."
"Rahne," Kreia repeats the name, almost like she's tasting the way it sounds and feels. "Tell me, do you recall what happened?"
She starts to answer, then stops, eyes narrowing. "I'm the one asking questions here. How did I get here?"
"I confess I know little more than you do," Kreia shrugs, conceding the high ground for now. "I do not even know where here is. I do however recall rescuing you: the Republic ship you were on was attacked, and you were the only survivor." An evaluative pause. "A result of your Jedi training, no doubt."
The gnawing feeling in her gut just won't go away. "If you think I'm a Jedi, you're very much mistaken." Although she tries, she can't quite hide the bitterness in her voice.
"Your stance tells me you are a Jedi," the woman counters with a serene conviction in her position, though her tone becomes softer, ever so slightly intimate. "You carry something that weighs you down."
Rahne turns back to removing the boot. "That's no business of yours," she answers, perhaps more harshly than she intends.
"So it would seem. Let us focus on the now: a survey of our surroundings may provide the answers we seek. We were attacked once and I fear our attackers will not give up the hunt so easily. Without transport, weapons and information, they will find us easy prey indeed."
"Information I can do," she answers, walking past Kreia to recover the first boot. "We're on some sort of orbital or lunar mining colony called Peragus, which is on lockdown following a number of fatalities that started shortly after we arrived. Someone's already tried to kill me, or drug me, and we're trapped behind a malfunctioning bulkhead."
Kreia's voice takes on an ominous note. "Even as I slept, I felt much unrest here. I saw minds coloured with fear, but now everything feels terribly silent. The ship we arrived in must still be in this place; we should recover it and leave as soon as possible."
"Speaking of that, who are these people. They were aboard with us."
"Mercenaries," is the dispassionate reply. "Assassins. They would have taken you and killed me if they had been allowed. They weren't."
"Did you kill them?"
" I believe we were fired on by their ship, but all I recall was an explosion as I faced them."
"How did we escape then?" she presses. "Who flew us out of there? Who got us here?"
"There were droids aboard capable of that function," Kreia dismisses the topic. "I cannot say anything beyond that."
"Not that I don't agree with you about getting out of here, but there's got to be someone left alive here. At the very least evidence about who or what we're facing."
"You may wish to extend your search to some clothes..." Kreia observes wryly. "If only for purposes of proper first impressions."
"I'm sure they'll get over it," she shrugs, pretty certain the old woman is as unperturbed by the fact of her tattooed nudity as she herself is. "Are you well enough to travel?"
"I'm afraid I am not so young as to leap from death's door as quickly as you. I must leave such explorations as are required in your hands while I attempt to centre myself."
"Well, you can do that somewhere other than a refrigeration unit."
Kreia doesn't offer any protests as she's picked up, and Rahne has the briefest impression of a self- indulgent smile before the old woman loops her arms over her shoulders and permits herself to be carried into the office and placed on the cot bed next to the desk. Leaving her to settle into a lotus position, Rahne at last heads towards the en-suite, looking forward to ridding herself of the briny smell and uncomfortably tacky sensation of dried kolto beneath a cascade of hot water.
She meets with disappointment almost immediately - the shower is only a sonic one, but better that than none at all. Gritting her teeth, she cycles up the quickest setting and steps into the field, bracing herself against the walls and humming a counter harmonic to stop her brain being rattled inside her skull. When she steps out a minute later, every decimetre of her body is atingle but mercifully clean. Rummaging through the small personal locker produces an abbreviated khaki bodysuit, which judging from the smell probably served as physical training gear of some kind; it and the boots are tossed into the shower booth and the cycle rerun. It sags and pulls when she puts it on, obviously designed for a shorter woman with bigger breasts. It'll just have to do.
"You seem to know an awful lot about Jedi techniques," she remarks, sitting down next to Kreia and lacing the boots as tightly as she can.
"As do you," Kreia remarks placidly. "Perhaps we could discuss it at length later. Turn your energy to the matter at hand; if we cannot find a way out of here, any answers I provide will prove useless anyway."
"Fine." Picking up the plasma torch, she leaves the office and shorts the panel again to close the door - just in case someone should come looking. Hefting the tool, swinging it through the air as though there was a proper blade attached, she moves over to examine the damaged bulkhead door: opening it proves a simple manner of slicing through the damaged actuators.
On the other side are the beginnings of a charnel house. Two humanoid bodies sprawl on the ground, blackened and burnt, their faces little more than charcoal-dusted bone. Behind them, a semi arachnid form of a mining droid lies in a broken heap, a plasma torch protruding from its processor core. An emergency blast door on the right is sealed with its thoroughly slagged control panel leaving no means of opening it, while the rest of Peragus stretches away to the left. Grabbing the second torch and igniting it, she heads left.
It proves to be a mistake, for in short order she finds two more mutilated bodies, each of which has a mining droid standing over it. They scuttle around to face her, mining lasers whining to life
"Drokk me!" she curses, and runs.
But not away. By the time the nearest droid registers what's happening, she's already between its drill emitters, eviscerating its processor core. A pulse from its companion scythes through a knee joint, narrowly missing her head. Vaulting the mechanical corpse, she slides beneath a second pulse and stakes the second droid through its motivator.
Further up the half-lit corridor comes the sound of more droids homing in on her. Dropping the torches, Rahne heaves one of the second droid's mining lasers upwards, pries open an inspection plate and triggers it. Three crimson pulses scintillate towards her assailants; the second strikes a power core, setting off a detonation that leaves her ears ringing and two smoking piles of scrap. She stays where she is for several minutes, straining her senses but finds nothing else. Getting to her feat, she reclaims the torches and continues on, ignoring the all too familiar stench of death, past several more corpses obviously 'mined' by the droids until she reaches a blast door marked as an emergency exit - given the circumstances, the automated systems should reasonably have been expected to open it. Further ahead is an office and another bulkhead door.
::...this is the exit... but it is sealed... strange... in my visions, it was open...::
"Kreia?" she calls out, turning around. But there is only silence and the gloom of the corridor.
Sighing, she shorts the control panel to the office and checks inside. Lockers mostly, a couple of chairs and a computer desk; again the terminal is logged in, presumably part of the emergency procedure. She ignores most of what she finds and calls up the security records, recognising the man making them as the bisected corpse just outside the door. There's a reminder they're in an asteroid field that could explode at any moment... another reference to Coorta - a man mentioned in the medical logs as a trouble maker - wanting to sell her to the Exchange... an observation of how keeping her for the Republic had been immediately followed by the onset of the troubles afflicting the outpost...
You are as the footstep of doom, the voice in the back of her mind whispers.
"Shut up."
To know you is to die.
"Shut. Up."
Silence.
She flicks through more reports, disturbed at how easily these people had decided she was a Jedi with her incapable of saying or doing anything to give that impression. There seems little doubt though that this carnage is directly related to-- Ah, an emergency override. Not in the office of course, that would be too simple. Still, a start. When her attempt to access the security cameras fails in a burst of static, she gets up and breaks open the lockers. Nothing... Nothing... Nothing... Ah. A dark smile crosses Rahne's lips as she pulls out a bandolier holding three ion grenades and a stealth-field generator, both of which one of the logs had alluded to. Slinging the grenades across her shoulder and the field generator around her waist, she leaves the office and inspects the bulkhead.
::...be careful... there is much energy in the room beyond... yet it stems from nothing that lives...::
"Kreia? Wh--?"
::...can you not sense them... reach out... cast aside your sight, cast aside what you see, and instead reach out with your perceptions...::
Get out of my head! she wants to scream, but the old woman's voice is comforting, makes her feel like she hasn't in far too long. So Rahne instead calms her breathing, remembers what she never thought to again, and does as she suggests.
::...ah, you can feel them... the droids you cannot perceive, but the small oscillations of energy... that you can feel... echoing outwards...::
She thinks it's her imagination at first, something Kreia is putting in her head: three webs of the faintest gossamer shimmering behind the bulkhead. Moving with intent...
::Ah... you hear it. It is faint... but it is there. ::
I feel strange, she thinks. Like...
::It is the Force you feel... Surely it has not been so long as for you to forget...::
No... "No! I don't want this. Not again. Never again!"
::Do not turn away from it.:: There is steel in that thought, the inevitability of time itself. ::Listen... feel it echoing within you. I shall guide you down the familiar paths - you will need it if we are to survive and escape this place. ::
And with that the touch of Kreia's mind to hers recedes once more. She calls out silently but there is no reply.
"Fantastic," she snarls, reaching for the control panel only to stop mere millimetres away. Spinning around, she jogs back to the office.
"Kreia, what the Hell is going on," she demands before she's even finished opening the door.
"It would seem that our proximity during the long and near fatal slumber we shared has had... unforseen consequences." Though Kreia doesn't even twitch, Rahne is certain the old woman is studying her. "Perhaps the effect will pass with time. Until it does, it would seem to be an advantage we can and should make use of."
The frustrating thing of course is that she's right.
"Well, it's not looking good for the others; it's likely the mining droids have been sliced and turned on the crew of this place. You ready to move yet?"
"I will be when it is time."
She doesn't bother closing the entrance to the office before she jogs back to the bulkhead sealing off the droids. Flicking on the stealth-field generator and unhooking the first grenade, she shorts the door open just long enough to roll the little orb into the next chamber. A moment later there's a loud crump and a number of electronic death squeals. Tentatively reaching out again through the Force, she finds nothing of the gossamer left and once more opens the bulkhead to survey her handiwork. The three ruined corpses she finds revealed stand avenged against the sparking mechanical carcases sprawled over them.
She moves on, around the bend in the corridor and shorting open another door to enter colony's command and control centre. A number of droids scuttle about the comparatively vast chamber, their attention mostly focused on a heavily shielded door at the far end. Others patrol the entrance to twin docking arrays, one either side of the communications blister. Mentally crossing her fingers, she slinks onwards taking carefully measured steps, pausing once when one of the droids twitches as though almost but not quite aware of her, until she reaches the central comms console and flicks the hard-line switch hidden beneath it by the security chief whose logs she'd viewed.
Every droid in the room settles to the decking with a resounding clang. A moment later, the sound of the force field over the door vanishes.
Walking over to the nearest droid, she bangs it on the motivator with the but of one of the torches, but there's no response. Carefully tuning the blade to the thinnest possible emission, she opens the droid's casing and removes the unit and the processing core. It takes a while, but once found the evidence of tampering is clear: the internal diagnostic display lists organics as the primary mining resource, a command set by the maintenance engineer via voice-lock.
"Um, hello?" a voice echoes faintly across the chamber. More a heavily muffled shout, really. Getting up, she resets the torch then brandishing both of them makes her way to the door.
::...ah... beyond this door someone yet lives... be mindful... his thoughts are difficult to read, but you have nothing to fear from this one... and he might yet prove useful... however, mentioning my presence may be unwise...::
"I'll give you unwise," she mutters and burns through the lock.
The room revealed beyond is a holding cell with a couple of force cages. One of these is occupied by a lanky individual, good looking after a fashion and dressed in a style that might be called spacer chic if it also didn't look like it'd been slept in every night for the past week.
"Nice outfit," he drawls lasciviously, dark eyes taking their time evaluating her and picturing what lies beneath her outfit - not a difficult task. "You miners change regulation uniforms while I've been in here?"
So, not a miner then. "What are you doing here?" she asks.
"Eh. Security claimed I violated some trumped-up regulation or another. They stopped listening to me shortly before they stopped feeding me. Now that's criminal."
"Who are you?"
"Atton. Atton Rand," he smiles winningly. "Excuse me if I don't shake hands; the field only causes mild electrical burns."
Rahne smiles back despite herself. "This place is deserted. Care to try and fill me in?"
"Before or after that wretched Jedi showed up? Either way it's a real short story." Catching her rapidly darkening expression, Atton shrugs affably. "We can leave out the bit where people who don't know pazaak get upset when they lose, and cut to the bit where this Jedi shows up in a needlessly dramatic fashion. And of course where there's Jedi there's inevitably the Republic crawling up your ion engine in no time flat. So some people who should have were disinclined to stick around."
"They abandoned you."
"Ah, it gets better," he refuses to confirm the statement. "Turns out the Exchange is offering a bounty on Jedi, and some of the charming folk inhabiting this rock got it into the ferrocrete skulls that since this Jedi was out for the count they should try and collect. Naturally, what passes for the law here fired the retros on that idea. Then there was some big explosion, lots of screaming, something about toxic venting, I was sitting here for a long time, then you showed up in your underwear and... well, things started looking up."
"Why are this Exchange hunting Jedi?"
He shrugs again. He seems good at it. "Dunno. They're a big crime syndicate operating out of Nar Shaddaa doing all the usual things. Maybe they want one stuffed and mounted as a conversation piece, or maybe somebody's got something against Jedi and is looking to collect while they've got the chance. I mean, there were hardly any of them left after the Civil War as it is, and those that survived turned off their lightsabers years ago, so that bounty is probably plenty big to justify the effort in digging one up. Wouldn't surprise me at all."
"Civil War? I'd heard there was a Sith invasion--"
"The Sith are just Jedi who believe in different things. They all still use lightsabers and the Force and waffle on about light and dark. Besides, it was Revan leading them, the first name any good Republic drone would think of if you asked them about Jedi." The disgust in his voice makes her skin crawl. "Of course it was a civil war. Jedi against Jedi, and neither side had any qualms about doing what ever they had to in order to win. It was a scrap that almost laid waste to the galaxy."
She reaches out to steady herself against something and ends up leaning against the console controlling the force cages, confused and sickened by what she's hearing. "Revan wouldn't do that. She was ruthless sometimes, she had to be, but she went to war to save the Republic. Not to let it fall!"
Unbidden, a memory returns of sad and hurtful words that could never be taken back. A parting kiss and an entreaty that she hadn't understood until now.
"I wasn't there, but I can only imagine that having an army at her beck and call got to be addictive and she didn't want to give it back. But it didn't last: that creepy sidekick of hers... um, what's his name...?"
"Malak." She falls deeper into the memory, remembers him looming over Revan's shoulder. Handsome eyes full of contempt for anyone who could turn away from the woman her idolised.
"Yeah, that's right. Anyway, he turned on her and the boosters kicked in hard after that. They exterminated whole worlds like it was nothing. Where have you been that you could have missed this?"
"I've been... away," Rahne evades. "How did they stop them?"
"Revan came back and wiped the floor with him. To hear the stories she killed her way across half the galaxy to do it, too."
"She returned to the light?" Rahne can hear the desperate hope in her own voice as she asks, but she doesn't care.
"I guess... there's rumours all over space about it one way or the other. But I've heard what she was like during the Mandalorian Wars and how quick she was to take out anyone stupid enough to cross her, and this just sounds like more of the same. Seriously, dark Jedi are bad enough, but when a woman falls to the dark side, you'd be better of spacing yourself before they catch you." The half-smile fades as he recalls who he's talking to. "Uh, no offence or anything."
"None taken."
"Um, look. It's not like this half-naked interrogation of yours isn't a personal fantasy of mine, but I'd really appreciate it if you could let me out of here. It sounds like someone's gone to a lot of trouble... Oh. You're the Jedi they pulled off that freighter aren't you?"
"I'm the person they rescued, yes. Is that a problem?"
"No ma'am! I have a strict policy about collecting bounties. Look, let me out and I can help you. I can. I've gotten out of trouble countless times."
"And yet you're the one trapped in the cage."
"And yet here you are about to deactivate it?" he asks hopefully.
"Why don't you tell me what you're thinking of?" she cajoles.
"Well, we're lucky this isn't a military facility. If you let me out of here, it should be easy enough for me to reroute power to get us to the one of the hangers where we can grab a ship and get off this rock."
"Sounds reasonable. Just don't try anything cute." She powers down the field.
"Great!" he beams, taking the opportunity to have a proper stretch for the first time in days. "Let's get to that command console."
They return to the comms blister at a brisk trot, pausing only to reassure Atton that the droids are harmless.
"Pure pazaak," he grins after a momentary inspection. "The interface is locked off, but being the dashingly clever, and might I add, handsome individual that I am, we can use the navigation auto-broadcast as a back door. And yes, we're in. Now all we do is reactivate the turbo lifts, cancel the lock-- Damn."
"Sounds like you're about to tell me something I don't want to hear."
"Someone's physically severed this system from the rest of the network. Actually, it looks like they only hit the command lines; we're still capable of receiving remote sensor data. Doesn't look like anyone's sending any though."
"I ran into the same problem on the way up here. Anything else we can do here?"
"The logs for the last few days are available. I'll bring them up."
They scan through the holo recordings, Rahne scowling inwardly when the details - related by one of the droids taken from the Ebon Hawk - of events on the Harbinger don't match Kreia's account of what happened. Her mood grows fouler still as they read the now familiar litany of accidents and conflict. All of it obviously linked to the rescued protocol droid innocently and unthinkingly tasked to drudge work on the very systems that had subsequently betrayed their operators.
Tell me about the droids, she thinks towards Kreia, shaping and enunciation each word the way one would a new language.
::...they were merely utility droids... nothing more... they are not what you seek...::
"Hey!" Atton interrupts, nudging her. "You alright? You zoned out on me."
"I'm fine. Did you find something?"
"The receiver is picking up something in the Hanger 25 control room. I think there's somebody there: listen." As he plays with the volume, a series of low-pitched interrogative whistles and bleeps some distance from the pick-up can be heard.
"I think that's a utility droid." Without thinking, she taps the receiver relay. "Hello, is someone there?"
"What are you doing?" Atton snaps, slapping her hand away. "What makes you think any of the droids here are safe?"
"Because I don't think it's from here," she answers back and reopens the link. "Hello?"
"Dwoooooooo... deet? Beep."
"Are you operational?"
"Beee-weeeet. Bee-deet."
"Good. We're trapped up on the administration level. Do you think you can manually unlock the turbolifts?"
"Doooo-reep. Bee-wheep."
"I passed an emergency hatch on this level. Do you think you can find a way to open that?"
"Bee-deeeet? Dwoooop-Beep!"
"Well I'd rather risk it than be trapped up here."
"Dwooooooo."
"How do you even understand what that thing is saying?" Atton shakes his head in bewilderment.
"Bleeet-wop! Roooo-whep. Deeeeet."
"Well?" he presses.
"Apparently whoever did this rerouted a bunch of command access routines to the fuel depot; makes sense I guess to hole up in the on place people are least capable of using excessive force against you." I should never have accepted that invitation. "And you, my brave little friend, be careful: the mining droids have been programmed to attack any unauthorised presence."
"Blee-eep."
"Good luck," she signs off and cradles her head momentarily in her arms, trying to hide the world from her sight
"And now we wait?"
"And now we wait."
Maybe half a minute passes, marked by the electronic burble of the computers talking uselessly amongst themselves.
"So... How long have you been a Jedi?" he starts off, painfully transparent. "I guess it must be tough, not having a family... or a husband..."
"I told you, Atton, I'm not a Jedi."
"Your droid said you were. I can play back the log entry if you wa--?"
"Are you normally this obtuse," she snarls, "or are you making a special effort, just for me?
"Excuse me?"
"Don't you get it yet? It's the protocol droid that's responsible for this. All of this!" she flings her arms out to encompass the entirety of the station. "I don't know what it wants with me but it messed up by telling people I was a Jedi, and to cover its tracks it engineered the mass murder of every sentient here."
Atton makes a long, almost appreciative sounding whistle. " Why didn't it come after me?"
"Probably didn't realise you were here. Or maybe it thought it'd just let you starve to death since it couldn't get past the field sealing you off without deactivating the mining droids. I'll make sure to ask it wh--"
The sound of a blast door opening echoes through the emptiness to them.
"Trouble?" he asks nervously.
"Look at the schematic: our friend managed to open the emergency hatch."
"Hey, what do you know - the little cargo cylinder came through after all."
"We're not out of this yet."
"If he got the turbolifts going working, then we should have a clear run to the hangar.
"All that's open is the emergency hatch down to the mine workings."
"The mines? You are crazy - that's where the explosion I told you about came from. There's probably nothing but superheated rock and collapsed blast tunnels. Only an idiot would go that way."
"This idiot doesn't have time for you cowardice Atton."
"Look, take one of the comlinks," he gestures placatingly towards the bank of them against a near wall. "I can keep an eye on you and watch your back."
"Not that you'll come running to help."
"Well, if this is all about you, maybe they won't try to kill you as much if you're on your own."
"Whatever." She stalks away, snatching one of the links and slipping it over her ear.
"Um, be careful okay? Look, you never told me your name."
"No," Rahne agrees just before she storms angrily out. "I didn't."