Pleasure Before Business

Chapter 1: Fancy Meeting You Here!

Bastila ducked the blaster bolts that strafed across the wall where she had been standing. She threw herself to the ground and rolled behind a pile of plasteel containers, coughing from the burning permacrete. The acrid odor overwhelmed even the cavernous room's pungent scent of mildew and animal droppings.

She heard shouts in an unknown language, then the sound of footsteps clanging on the metal of the catwalk.

This group of bounty hunters was more organized than the previous ones, she thought as she tried to determine where her attackers were positioned. Weariness dragged down her limbs as if she were caught in a gravity well, but her survival instinct was still strong.

She had entered the abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of a small town on the planet of Bellassa, hoping to find shelter and a place to rest without risking the prying eyes of the natives. It seemed the captain of the freighter she had disembarked from had somehow recognized her despite her disguise as a tourist--and had then sold the information to someone.

Bastila did not know who--but there was ample reason for the unscrupulous to find one of the last surviving Jedi. There were plenty of buyers in the galaxy who wanted to possess one with her powers.

There was a harsh, guttural command, then she saw several grenades flying through the air towards her. There seemed little point in hiding her abilities now that her cover was blown, so she used the Force to slap them back to their senders.

A cold trickle of awareness flashed down Bastila's spine, and she lunged away from the net that almost tangled her up. She gritted her teeth against the pain when the edges of the net cut through the fabric of her jumpsuit and burned her skin. The Trandoshan backed away from her as she swept her lightsaber at him, but then she was wracked with pain.

Her body twitched and shook in the beams of the hunters' electrostunners. Through the haze of lights dancing in her vision, Bastila saw that their grenades had not detonated. Though her body was incapacitated, she realized she could still think--barely.

They must have used the grenades as decoys to distract her from the Trandoshan with the net. It seemed that they had caught her within their sights the moment she left her shelter. The Trandoshan was not meant to succeed--his only purpose had been to bait her into the open.

Oh, how the crew of the Ebon Hawk would laugh if they knew she had fallen for such a trick! The Mandalorian would especially enjoy her humiliation. The only excuse she possibly had was that of her fatigue dulling her senses.

Through the roaring in her ears, Bastila heard more shouts and cries from her captors. It seemed they were celebrating the capture of their trophy.

She wondered what was to happen to her... was she to be enslaved, since they had gone to such efforts to catch her alive? The Sith had littered the galaxy with such devices, cruel restraints that cut the Jedi off from the Force and forced them to comply.

Or... was she to be saved for torture?

Not all her shaking was due to the electroshocks.

Again Bastila heard Malak's taunting laughter, felt his Force lightning crawl all over her body, smelled the odor of her burning flesh.

She tried to struggle when she felt a pair of arms hold her and clasp her to a hard chest. Her vision was still full of stars, and her blood roared in her ears, but her nose still worked.

Her captor did not smell like a Trandoshan--there was a strong scent of leather, metal and... engine oil? Perhaps there were other species in the band. It no longer mattered... her life was soon to be forfeit.

At least now there was an end to the running. She had grown tired of fleeing assassins and bounty hunters, tired of feeling adrift in a galaxy that was strange to her. Weary of being always alone, with nothing but the Jedi Code to sustain her. There were no more Jedi Masters, no one who could guide her in a future that had grown dark and empty.

How strange... she could smell the leather her captor wore, but for some reason the scent seemed familiar. Bastila tried to recall what it was, but the pain in her temples made it difficult to remember anything.

Bastila could no longer sense the echoing space of the warehouse, but she could feel the sun on her face as she was brought out, bouncing in the arms of her captor as he ran. They were probably taking her straight to the spaceport to transport their captive immediately to her buyer. She could not muster the energy to escape them.

The distinctive sound of a repulsorlift vehicle penetrated the fog in her brain. She felt the engines revving, then the wind of its passage on her face. Time lost meaning for her as she dozed in her captor's arms, but then his rising motion jarred her back into full consciousness.

Some sort of rough cloth was thrown over her, covering her face, then she heard feet clanking on metal, and felt a sense of upward movement. Lights blinked on and off in her dazzled eyes, then she was placed with unexpected gentleness on something soft. Someone took away the fabric covering her. Bastila's scrambled mind tried to make sense of the noises in her ears.

A masculine voice called, "Bastila? Bastila, are you okay?" Instead of the hard shaking she expected, she felt a hand brush her hair out of her face with astonishing tenderness.

Shaking her head to clear her mind, Bastila blinked and stared at the worried face looking down at her. "Am I... am I hallucinating?"

Another face entered her field of vision. "Bastila?" she said. "How many fingers am I holding up?" A hand waved in front of Bastila's face.

"She was shocked, not concussed," the man snapped. "I think. But those are some nasty electrical burns on your arms... let me get the medical kit..."

"Am I dreaming?" Bastila remarked, some perverse impulse in her attempting a conversational tone with what must be her captors. She yelped when the woman pinched her arm.

"Does that feel like you're dreaming?" the woman asked.

"Revan," Bastila breathed, disbelief warring with shock. "Revan!"

Strong hands held Bastila down when she attempted to rise. "Now hold still, Bastila, and let Revan put some kolto on those burns."

"Carth?" Bastila stared at him. Despite the pinch Revan had administered, she still felt caught in some surreal episode. Now she knew why she recognized the smell of leather--it was from the old battered jacket that he wore.

"The one and only, the most handsome pilot in the galaxy," Carth tried to joke, but his concern for her shone in his brown eyes.

Bastila flinched when Revan dabbed the cold, gel-like kolto to the burns on her arms. Her jumpsuit was in shambles after what the tangling net had done to it.

"I'm gonna let go now, Bastila. Are you gonna behave?" Carth asked, his grip on her shoulders relaxing.

"Yes... I will be calm." Bastila screwed her eyes shut, then opened them. Her view did not change. "What are you doing here? Why are you here? How did you find me?" She looked around the room she found herself in. "And where am I?"

"I'll try to answer in the order you asked," Revan said as she applied more kolto to Bastila's cheek. "Hold still now. We're here because Carth and I have only been searching for you for weeks." Her touch was gentle despite the sharp worry in her voice.

"Why did you want to find me?" Bastila realized she was in the small common room of a ship when she felt the vibration of engines under the deckplates.

"The power of our Force bond may have faded--but I could still feel your despair," Revan answered, sitting back to examine her handiwork. "I used it to find you."

"From that, we deduced you were in some kind of trouble," Carth interjected. "I've been able to help Revan escape the assassins so far, and we figured we might as well find you and give you the same shelter."

"The last time I saw you, you were on Citadel Station, in our meeting with the Exile," Bastila said, obediently keeping still to let the kolto do its work. She was not about to miss her friends' explanations, not for all the spice on Nar Shaddaa.

Carth nodded. "I've been able to shuffle Revan into the station's organizations. You know how many transients we get there, and how many people are crowded into the modules--it's easy to get lost in the crowd. No one asks any questions because no one cares, or are too busy with their work. Even you had trouble finding her, and you have the Force bond."

"But you were too proud to ask us to protect you," Revan scolded. "You left the station months ago, without a word to any of us."

"There was no point in endangering both you and Carth--we should all be scattered through the galaxy." Bastila looked away. "That last assassination attempt was too close for comfort. I did not want to endure my pain or yours if... if one of you had died."

"Ooh," Revan growled, her breath hissing between her gritted teeth. "That oh-so-noble, self-sacrificing expression of yours really gets my gizka!"

Bastila stared at her, baffled by Revan's anger. "What are you talking about?"

"She's talking about all the worry we went through, wondering what had happened to you," Carth said, the harsh bite of his irritation in his voice. His jaw clenched. "If Revan hadn't still felt you through your bond, we'd still be wondering if your body was out there, just another piece of debris floating somewhere in space."

"You were getting tired of running, weren't you," Revan said quietly, her anger fading. "Don't bother to deny it--I can feel it in the bond when we're this close together."

Indeed, Bastila could feel the other woman's annoyance, concern and worry. She had felt nothing beyond Revan's presence for many months, and the familiarity gave her an odd sort of comfort.

Bastila hung her head, trying to hide the tears that welled in her eyes. "I was tired, yes. Tired of... tired of being alone," she said in a small voice. "You both have places on Citadel Station, work to do... there is no place for me."

To her shocked surprise, Bastila felt Carth sit down behind her and wrap his arms around her. "You're not alone, Bastila," he whispered, his voice vibrating from his chest into her back.

She knew she should immediately discourage this sudden familiarity, but she could not seem to muster the energy to throw his arms off. To deny the comfort he was offering.

"Stay with us, Bastila," Revan pleaded as she gripped Bastila's hands.

"But... but you must return to Citadel Station, do you not?" Bastila said, bewildered by the emotions she felt now through the bond. They flickered too quickly for her to decipher.

"I took an extended leave," Carth said, his warm breath puffing against her ear. "I go where Revan goes. Maybe this will explain better than words..."

Bastila stiffened when she felt his lips on her neck, pressing against her skin in a way that was not at all chaste. "C-Carth? What are you doing?" Her eyes widened when Revan kissed her just as fervently on the lips.

"Stay with us, Bastila," Revan whispered. "Stay with both of us."