I awoke from the same dream to find myself in a spacious one room apartment. I was laying in a hard bed facing a large window. To my left was a workbench where a man was working on something. “Carth?” I asked. Startled, he dropped whatever it was he had been working on. I sat up shaking my head, trying to remember the last few hours.
He turned to look at me. “You’re finally awake. Good to see you up instead of thrashing around in your sleep. You must have been having one hell of a nightmare. I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up. I’m Carth, in case you’ve forgotten, one of the Republic soldiers from the Endar Spire. I was with you on the escape pod, remember?”
“Carth Onasi. The one on the communicator, I remember. I’m Trik Starr, by the way. How did we get here, and where is here?”
“You’ve been slipping in and out of consciousness for a couple of days now, so it’s understandable that you're pretty confused about things. Try not to worry. We’re safe. For the moment, at least. We’re in an abandoned apartment in the upper city on Taris, in the Outer Rim. You were banged up pretty bad when our escape pod crashed, but luckily I was mostly unhurt. I was able to drag you away from the crash site, and in all the confusion I stumbled onto this abandoned apartment. By the time the Sith arrived to investigate the crash we were long gone.”
“I guess I owe you my life then,” I replied. “Thanks. But why are there Sith here?”
“Taris is under Sith control. Their fleet is orbiting the planet, they've declared martial law, and they’ve imposed a planet-wide quarantine. But I’ve been in worse spots.”
“Worse, huh? Remind me to ask you about that some time.”
“Sure, when we have a moment. Now, I saw on your service record that you understand a remarkable number of alien languages. That’s pretty rare for a raw recruit but it should come in handy while we’re stranded on a foreign world.”
“My service record? You’ve been reading up on me.”
“I may have done some reading while waiting for you to wake up. Not much but enough”
“Well, did you happen to do any reading on how to get off this planet? Or how to contact the Republic?”
“There’s no way the Republic will be able to get anyone through the Sith blockade to help us. And there’s another problem. We have to find Bastila. She should have landed on this planet when she took her escape pod off the Endar Spire. If we’re going to find her and get off this planet, we can’t rely on anyone but ourselves.
I stood up, shaking my head. “Bastila? Why do we need to find her? Why is she so important?”
“That smack to your head did more damage than I thought. Bastila is a Jedi. She was with the strike team that killed Darth Revan, Malak’s Sith Master.”
I shouldn’t have stood up because at the mention of Revan and Malak my head flashed with pain and I stumbled back onto the bed, putting my hand to my head.
“Careful now. Don’t stand up so fast.” Carth eyed me with concern.
"I'm fine.” I thought back. Malak. Sith Lord. He betrayed his master to become leader of the Sith armada. Bastila had lead a strike team a few years ago aboard Revan’s flagship. She killed him when Malak betrayed his master by firing upon the ship, though she almost died in the process. “Tell me something Carth; how can one person, even a Jedi, be so important? And how do you even know she’s alive?”
Carth pulled a chair over and sat down. He sighed. ““Listen, Bastila’s no ordinary Jedi. She’s the key to the Republic war effort. She has a rare gift the Jedi call Battle Meditation. Bastila’s power can influence entire armies. Through the force Bastila can inspire her allies with confidence and make her enemies lose their will to fight. Often, that’s all it takes to tip the balance in a battle. Of course, there are limits to this power, but from what I understand of her ability, it requires great concentration and focus to maintain. The attack on the Endar Spire happened so fast she never had a chance to use her ability. Like us, she barely got out alive. Look, Bastila’s going to need our help. Many of Darth Malak’s followers can use the dark side of the Force, and the Sith have already killed more than their share of Jedi in this war. Everyone will be looking for her but no one will be looking for a couple of common soldiers like us. And if we’re careful we can move about the planet without attracting notice; a luxury bastila won’t have. She’s gonna have half the Sith fleet looking for her. They know how important she is to the war effort.The Sith must have found out she was on the Endar Spire and set an ambush for us in this system. The whole planet is under quarantine. No ships are getting in or out. I believe Bastila was on one of the escape pods that crashed down here on Taris. If Bastila is going to escape from Taris, she’s going to need our help. And we probably are going to need hers.”
I sighed and rubbed my hand over my face. I had a splitting headache. All I wanted to do was rest but it sounded like that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. All right then, where do you suggest we start looking?”
“While you were out I did some scouting around. There are reports of a couple of escape pods crashing down into the Undercity. That’s our best lead. But the Undercity is a dangerous place. We can’t go in there unprepared. It won’t do Bastila, or us, any good if we go and get ourselves captured or killed.”
“Well, the sooner we start looking, the sooner we’ll find her. Where’s my blaster?”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Carth smiled as he stood from his chair he walked to a small table where a smaller bag was resting. He reached in and pulled out a holstered blaster pistol. He tossed the holster and the blaster to me. Then he went to the workbench he had been working at when I awoke and picked up another, slightly larger pistol, and placed it inside his own holster. “I suggest you change out of your uniform before we head anywhere.”
“Good thinking. Got a change of clothes for me?”
He went to a footlocker and tossed a bundle of clothes to me. I found a dark blue jacket and a tan tunic, changed quickly and attached the holster to my belt.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” I looked to Carth, feeling better now that I had on fresh clothes and a weapon by my side. “Let’s go save a Jedi.”
