Knights of the Old Republic: Darkness Falls II - Alliances

[The Doctor]

((It's 5 years after KotOR II, ten after KotOR I.))

[JasraLantill]

The Omwati fell hard to the ground, and Atton flew over him, rolling to a stop. He stood once the momentum had worn out, and proceeded closer to the floored Zedai, his pike raised.

 

"You see? You're not all-powerful. And I'm not some space-head. You're not better than me!"

Brax grinned. "Never said I was." Brax lifted his hand, and flexed the sharp claws on his gauntlets as if he was going to strike. Then he Force Pushed Atton instead, sending the distracted scoundrel flying across the room and smacking into the padded walls of the sparring room.

 

Jasra rolled her eyes. "Atton, just give it up. Brax is a Master. You're... well, you're not." As Atton shook his head to clear it, she added, "And what do you mean 'I shouldn't need to ask that'? And, don't tell me to shut up!"

[ForceFightWMe12]

"I mean that if he yold you, you shouldn't have to ask! D'you really think that he'd make something like that up?" Atton stood ready again, eying Brax with firey eyes. "And I wouldn't have to tell you to shut up if you actually did shut up!"

 

The Scoundrel sprung forward again. "And there's no way in hell I'm giving up!"

 

The pikes traded blows, and eventually, Atton found himself growing extremely frustrated as every one of his attacks were stopped by Brax's block. He growled and jumped back, unleashing a Force Push that the Zedai was easily able to dodge -- unfortunatly, the attack found another target.

[JasraLantill]

"Oomph!" Jasra felt the air rush out of her lungs as she landed on her back on the floor of the bridge. Winded, she gasped as she tried to get her breath back. She hadn't expected to be launched through to the next room by Atton's Force Push.

 

"Idiot," was all she could choke. She heard another loud thump and figured that it was Atton getting his due from Brax for his misaimed effort. She was just getting to her feet when she heard another thump, this time louder than the one before.

 

And then the Ssss suddenly lurched out of hyperspace.

 

Jasra rolled her eyes. "Now what?" Paying no attention to the 'sparring' that was going on next door, she slipped into the pilot's seat. She frowned. The cloaking device was malfunctioning. Still, that shouldn't have caused them to come out of hyperspace.

 

She did a double-take at one of the scanners, and noticed that a gravity well had pulled them out of the hyperspace tunnel. "That's odd," she said. "The ship should have warned us that...." She sighed. The small amber warning light wasn't working. "Great."

[ForceFightWMe12]

Atton coughed, wiping the small trickle of blood that leaked from a cut in his mouth. As Brax had tossed him against the wall a second time, the Scoundrel bit the nside of his mouth extremely hard.

 

"You really are a bastard, you know that, Blue Boy?" he growled. He was hardly on his feet again before he was jumping on the Zedai again, the adreniline and anger in his veins tearing down the barrier that usually kept him from unleashing the Force. His movements were faster than any regular human's sould be, every blast reinforced by the Force now streaming from his body like the energy of a blood rage.

[RobQel-Droma]

(((Don't do that Doc! Post edited...soon)))

 

Karda laughed again as Crystal blushed. "Actually, I think we're all a bit immature here. So, Eagle, what else do you think Crystal is feeling towards me?" He sat down next to the communications panel, leaning back and resting his hands behind his head.

[JasraLantill]

“What the…?” Jasra blinked as she looked at the scanners for a second time. There was another ship out there. A large ship. And it was on an intercept course. Jasra quickly changed course, readied their weapons, and was attempting to get the cloaking shield working again.

 

“Hey guys?” she called over her shoulder. “I could use some help here.” But all she could hear were their pikes clashing. “Great,” she muttered, and she rose to go back into the sparring room to get them.

 

Inside the training room, Brax grinned as he repelled Atton’s attacks with ever increasing force. “Good. Use your anger…,” he said to Atton between blows. “… your jealousy…. to fuel the Force… within you. Feel your strength…. grow with every blow. It is the way… of the Zedai. Emotions… are power.”

[ForceFightWMe12]

Brax's words blended into the sound of the clashing weapons, fading into the background of Atton's fogged mind. However, one word cut through the haze -- and made him stop.

 

Anger.

 

He looked at Brax, his expression and eyes unreadable, his mind blank. Slowly, he backed away, shaking his head.

 

"No." he said quietly, all the pent up rage suddenly leaving him, "I've been down this road before. Not again."

[Writer]

Crystal blushed an even brighter shade of pink as Eagle continued. In a singsong voice, he said, "I think she looooovesss youuuuuu!"

 

"But to be honest with you, Karda," Eagle went on, in a 'normal' voice. "I don't think you two are well matched."

 

"His reasoning on this should be interesting," Crystal muttered. Eagle went on, ignoring her.

 

"After all, she saved me from certain death," he said. "And by 'death', I mean complete and utter abandonment and the eventual crushing and battering expected within an asteroid field. And now, she practically lives in me. She doesn't have an apartment anywhere. We dock, she looks around, maybe buys a few things, and comes back to me."

 

"I think my ship's trying to tell me I should marry him," Crystal observed, her color fading to normal. She glanced at Karda. "Talk about a mismatched couple, huh?"

 

"You and mister Jedi here are more mismatched!" Eagle protested. "Crys, trust me on this. I know your... what you humans call... 'your type'. Karda doesn't fit!"

 

"I don't know..." Crystal answered, only half teasing. "I'm kinda likin' his strong jaw... betcha he's pretty muscular under all the deceptive bagginess of the Jedi robes. And the hair's not bad. Could use a little work, I admit, but overall, not bad. And the eyes..."

 

She trailed off, startled at the depth of his eyes. Even just looking into them, she felt lost, completely overwhelmed.

 

"Oh, the eyes..." she murmured.

 

"Uh..." Eagle stammered nervously. At his interruption, Crystal lurched, snapping out of her thoughts and immediately blushed again.

 

What are you doing? she scolded herself, tearing her pale blue eyes away from Karda. You're falling in love with a Jedi. It can't work... A puzzled frown came to her face and she looked over at him again. Can it?

 

"Wow..." she whispered, looking down at the console in front of her.

 

((Doc, if you'd like to see Crystal squirm a little more, let Rob respond to this post. If you want to 'rescue' her from an increasingly odd situation, now would be a great time to interrupt ))

[The Doctor]

Eagle lurched suddenly, his engines cutting out completely. The ship slowed to a halt.

 

The comm panel began beeping, and the Doctor's voice broke through the ship's speakers. "Karda? Crystal? Are you there?"

[Writer]

Before the Doctor spoke to them, Eagle let out an odd squawk.

 

"Eagle?" Crystal demanded, annoyed and glaring down at the controls.

 

"Wasn't me!" Eagle protested. Then, the Doctor's voice came through the speakers.

 

"Karda? Crystal? Are you there?"

 

"Doctor?" Crystal answered. Then, she understood. "Oh... nice trick there, Doc. Had me a little worried. We're here alright... which is where exactly?"

[The Doctor]

"I've materialised the TARDIS around Eagle," he said. "You're free to disembark - it may look like a spacial vaccum out there, but I assure you there's plenty of air."

[Writer]

Crystal blinked slowly for a moment. Then, she turned to Karda.

 

"Well, shall we go?" she suggested. Without waiting for an answer, she hurriedly tore her eyes from him and headed out of the cockpit.

[RobQel-Droma]

"Eh- what? Oh yeah, the TARDIS." Karda shook his head slightly, lowering his eyebrows. Now that wasn't all teasing, he was sure of it. Eagle's right, but... who knows. He almost ran into the wall as he made his way out of the cockpit.

 

"Careful, mister Jedi-in-love." Eagle snickered.

 

Karda ignored the ship and headed outside, grinning at the almost absurdity of what had just happened. Didn't know there was something so special about my eyes; but what am I thinking, he thought, It just would work like that, there's no way possible... Is there? Really, have I been attracted to Crystal?

 

He stopped just outside Eagle's Wing and shook his head. Brother, if you thought you were confused in the alternate timeline, think again. Maybe I should just go with what I feel and not worry about the problems, or anything.

 

"Say, Doc." He said as he approached him. "Any word from Jasra and Brax?" Do my Jedi robes really hide my muscles 'cause they're too baggy?

[Writer]

"Yeah, or any of the others?" Crystal added. She caught a flash of Karda's last thought and blushed slightly, turning to look at her ship to cover it. Still, her mind was fully occupied with Karda and she found herself... Oh, Force no! she reprimanded herself. You are not doing that!

 

Turning her attention back to the Doctor, she waited for his answer, trying to keep her thoughts off of Karda... and his muscles. And as always, she kept her thoughts close, refusing to let anyone else nearby know what they were.

[steven]

"What about the Ebon Hawk crew?" Asked Tylor "Which reminds me, I'm pretty sure that Revan menchioned that you came to the Dreadless on the Ebon Hawk or something."

[The Doctor]

"I've heard nothing from Jasra, Brax, nor Atton, norhave I heard from Kira and Revan. I assume-"

 

He stopped once Tylor's words registered. He wheeled on the soldier, his brow furrowed. "I'm not sure what he was talking about. I've only seen Revan once since the timeline was re-set..." he trailed off, turning to Rose. "Do you remember when we arrived here, I mentioned something about ripples in time? Something knocked us off course and brought us out of the Time Vortex."

She nodded slowly, not sure what he was talking about.

 

"Very few things in the universe can force the TARDIS out of the Vortex," he muttered.

 

"What could it have been?" she asked.

 

He shook his head, staring at the floor. "I'm not sure. Only a temporal displacement can alter a TARDIS' course, and it's rare to cause the amount of turbulence we experienced..." He looked up at her suddenly. "There are only two things I can think of that would bring us out so suddenly. Either the Black Guardian is using me as a pawn in some sort of twisted plan, or..."

 

"Or what?"

 

He seemed far off as he answered. "Or we came within close contact... with another TARDIS."

[steven]

"What's a Black Guardrian? And why do you seem so shock about another TARDIS?"

[The Doctor]

The Doctor didn't look at him as he responded. "Because the Time Lords were destroyed," he said simply. "If there's another TARDIS out there... it means I'm not alone..." he trailed off, staring at the floor for a moment. He suddenly brightened, smiling at Tylor. "But enough of that. To Myrkr!"

[RobQel-Droma]

"Yes, but..." Karda forgot momentarily about Crystal. "Before we go rushing off, what's this about another Time Lord? Why would someone else show up on the Hawk and have Revan mistake him for you?"

[steven]

"Perhabs it is him," Suggested Tylor "With this whole time travel business I'm sure it's not the first time something like that has happened."

[JasraLantill]

Jasra awoke laying face down on a cold hard floor. Confused and groggy, she blinked her eyes. The last thing she remembered was being on the Ssss, but that’s not where she was now. “Brax?”

 

“Master, I think she’s awake,” she heard a young male voice say in the dimness.

 

As Jasra started to sit up, she heard another voice, an older female voice, softly say, “Be careful, Padawan Lantill. You’re in a Force cage. Take care in your movements.”

 

Jasra slowly looked around. Indeed, she was in a Force cage. One of a line of Force cages in a dark, cavernous room. “Where am I?”

 

“I’m not sure,” replied the woman.

 

“And how do you know my….?” Jasra squinted in the dim light to try and see the woman in the cage beside her. She blinked with realisation. “You’re Master Shan, aren’t you. We’ve been looking for….” Suddenly, Jasra felt a wave of panic wash over her. “Where’s Brax? And Atton?”

 

“Your Chiss friend is in the end cage,” said Bastila. “Still unconscious, I believe.”

 

“Chiss?” Jasra rose to her feet. “He’s not a Chiss. He’s an Omwati. Brax!” She concentrated, trying to reach his mind through their bond to urge him to wake.

 

“You’ll find that the Force doesn’t work very well here,” said Bastila, looking upwards.

 

Jasra raised her eyes to see what Bastila was looking at. Three Ysalamiri, still on their tree branches were suspended on cables above their heads.

 

“Ysalamiri,” said Bastila. “They create a….”

 

“Force-void bubble,” Jasra interrupted. “I know. I read about them in the Zedai archives.”

 

Bastila raised a curious brow. “Zedai archives?”

 

Jasra looked down with embarrassment at her Jedi robes. “Erm…yeah. Zedai.”

 

“Zedai, not Jedi, Padawan?” Bastila eyed Jasra over with suspicion.

 

“Erm… yeah. Erm, I mean, yes, Master Shan,” she corrected herself feeling that she had been a bit disrespectful. “So, where’s my other friend? Atton?” she said, changing the subject.

 

“They took him away,” said the young male trainee in the cage on the other side of her.

 

“They? They who?”

 

“I’m afraid," said Bastila, "that in your attempt to rescue us, you’ve stumbled upon the lair of a ….”

 

“Madman?” a deep voice echoed through the darkness. Bright lights suddenly came one, and Jasra had to shield her eyes from the brightness.

 

“Vros,” Bastila hissed.

 

Vros just smiled as the men in black approached one of the Force cages, and deposited an unconscious Atton inside it.

 

“Atton!” Jasra called out to him, but he didn’t respond. “What have you done to him?” she asked Vros.

 

“I’ve improved him,” Vros said. He snapped his fingers and two more of Vros’ henchmen appeared—with Atton walking between them.

 

Jasra did a double-take, looking first at the Atton approaching her, and then at the Atton in the Force cage two down from hers.

 

“Hello, Jasra,” the second Atton said casually. “I tried to convince Lord Vros to give you better accommodation, but….” He shrugged.

 

“What’s going on here?” Jasra asked slowly, exchanging a puzzled look with Bastila.

 

“All in good time, my young padawan,” said Lord Vros. He turned to ‘his’ Atton. “Although I’m sure Master Shan has a good idea what is happening.”

 

“You bastard,” Bastila hissed. “You won’t fool a Jedi for long with a clone. Even if you’ve replicated his memories.”

 

Vros grinned. He turned to his Atton. “You know what to do.”

 

Clone Atton nodded. “Well, see ‘ya later, Jas. Don’t want to keep the others waiting for me on Myrkr forever. Oh, and tell Brax I'll take good care of the Ssss.”

 

“You're going to Myrkr?” Jasra raised an eyebrow. “Karda will be suspicious when Brax and I aren’t with you.”

 

Clone Atton considered for a moment. “Erm…no he won’t. Not after I explain to him that you decided to leave the Jedi Order and stay and play ‘happy family’ with Brax on Omwat because you were so in love.” He grinned mockingly. “I think he’ll buy that, don’t you?”

 

Jasra’s mouth dropped. She didn’t know what to say. From Karda’s observation of her previous behaviour, it was totally plausible that Karda would believe him.

 

Atton gave her a pilot’s salute. “But don’t worry, Jasra,” he said, grinning evilly. “I’m sure Lord Vros will keep you occupied until I bring back the others.”

[The Doctor]

Kira allowed the cloak to slip from her shoulders, tossing it onto the unused bunk above her own. A moment later, she had collapsed upon the latter, an arm over her eyes. She could sense Revan hovering in the doorway. "I'm not used to this anymore..." she muttered, smiling faintly.

 

He leaned against the doorframe, smiling slightly as he watched her. "You think I am? I'm supposed to be on vacation by now," he teased.

 

"Vacation?" she asked, pulling her arm away from her face. "Come now, that's not something that the Revan I knew would even think about..."

 

He laughed, standing straight and stepping into the room. "You try spending a few years in the Unknown Regions, and you'll want a vacation too."

 

"You forget, you're not the only drifter here." she pointed out, standing, her gaze coy. "Where did you think I was for the five years that you 'forgot your memory'?"

 

He frowned. "Alright, you win. So I'm getting soft. So what?"

 

"'So what'?" she asked, striding to him with her arms crossed. "You're supposed to be Revan the Great, Revan the Powerful, Revan the Prodigal Knight. You're not supposed to get soft."

 

He arched an eyebrow. "Is that what they're calling me these days?" he asked.

 

She cocked an eyebrow, standing in front of him. "You haven't heard?"

 

"I've been fairly busy, in case you hadn't noticed," he said, grinning.

 

"Doing what?" she asked, turning around. She dragged a finger along the edge of his chin as she walked back to put away her cloak. "Leaving any more girlfriends behind?"

 

He smiled. "Just the one," he said. The smile slid from his face as he looked at her. "And she means nothing to me anymore," he said, placing his hand on her cheek.

 

She looked up at him, only slightly surprised at the sincerity in his eyes. Smiling, she placed a hand on his chest and reached up, kissing him softly. "Nice save." she whispered.

 

He sighed, holding her close. "I thought so," he said, smiling slightly.

She rested her head against his chest, reveling in the warmth of his arms. "So now what?" she asked quietly, her finger tracing an invisible pattern on his chest, "On to Myrkr?"

 

He nodded. "I guess so. We're a little ahead of schedule, though - I think we can stay put for a while - once we put a fair distance between us and Nar Shaddaa, of course," he said. "We can set course for Mykyr in the morning. For now, we'll move to the edge of the system. Orbit around an asteroid or something for a while."

 

She smiled again, closing her eyes. "Whatever you say. The longer we can stay like this, the better, in my opinion."

 

He sighed again. "I really need to install a verbal interface on this thing..." he muttered, as he activated the comm panel through the Force. "Val, get to the cockpit and lay in a course for the edge of the system. Just put us in orbit around an asteroid or a moon of some kind for a while. We'll leave for Myrkr in the morning.

 

Kira chuckled softly. "You know, you had better sleep with one eye open. I think he gets closer and closer to killing you every time you call him 'Val'."

 

He laughed, fixing a piece of hair that had strayed from her ponytail. "He'll have to live with it. It's either Val or Doctor - and we've seen how he reacts to being called Doctor now..."

 

"He may kill you on the spot for that."

 

"Precisely my point," he said. He frowned thoughtfully. "I still can't get over how... different he is. I still can't believe that the man we met in the other timeline - and on the Dreadless - could turn into someone like him..."

 

"Neither can I..." she murmured, opening her eyes again and beginning to trace patterns on his chest again. "It's so strange... he's so... bitter."

 

"Something must have happened to him. We don't know how many years have passed for him since his - what was it, 5th regeneration? For all we know, this could be his 15th. A lot can happen to a man in 10 lifetimes..."

 

She laughed at this. "Only you could know that. You only restarted your life -- what, twice?"

 

He nodded, smiling. "I've been lucky," he said, shrugging.

 

"I suppose you could call it that." she said, shrugging slightly.

 

The Valeyard's voice broke over the comm. "We're on course for the edge of the system, Captain," he said, spitting out the last word. "Now, with all due respect, I believe your place is in the cockpit, Sir."

 

The laugh that sprang from her lips was far louder this time. "See what I mean, sir?" she asked, her hands catching at his shirt.

 

"Well, I guess if we don't get up there, he'll go back in time and kill our parents or something..." he said, shaking his head.

 

"Probably." she said softly, looking up at him. "So I suppose that we really have to move right now?"

 

"I think so," he said, nodding.

 

Sighing, the Exile leaned up and kissed him again. "Fine...let's go."

[steven]

"I think we've wasted enough time dealing with those pirates and I'm use the Promthesus can deal with the remaining ships. We should head to...Myrkr is it?"

[The Doctor]

The Doctor nodded. "We're on course for the Myrkr system now," he said. "We should arrive shortly."