I remember correctly."
Johun seized Farfalla's arm. "Rain was his cousin! The one he met down in the caves. She's here!"
"Do you know where they went, Master Qiina?" Farfalla asked. The old woman shook her head. "They were using that terminal over there to look something up. Then they left."
Farfalla turned to the droid. "Is there any way we can find out which records they were viewing?"
"I am sorry, Master Jedi," the droid replied. "To protect the privacy of our scholars and to avoid compromising their research, the terminals do not store any data on which records they were used to explore."
"Your friends seemed to be in quite a hurry" Qiina offered. "I doubt they even bothered to return the datadisk to the stacks. It might still be plugged into the terminal."
Johun rushed over to the screen. It was still logged on, under the name Nalia Adollu. As Qiina had guessed, there was a datacard loaded in. He pulled up the disk's index as Farfalla came and peered over his shoulder.
"Tython," the Jedi Master remarked, picking out the common theme among the thousands of articles and papers referenced by the index. "Birthplace of the Jedi."
"That must be where they're going" Johun insisted. "Bane must have gone into hiding in the Deep Core!"
He turned to Farfalla, clutching his Master's arm in his urgency. "You have to convince the Council to let us go after them."
Farfalla's eyes were cold and hard. "I doubt the Council will be in any great hurry to take action in this matter," he warned.
"But Master Valenthyne-" Johun pleaded, only to have the other man cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand.
"The Council will not help you, Johun. Therefore we must go to Tython ourselves."
Johun's eyes went wide in surprise.
"I swore a vow to General Hoth," Farfalla explained, his voice taking on the hard tone of military command he had not used since the disbanding of the Army of Light. "I promised I would not rest until the Sith had been cleansed from the galaxy. I still intend to honor that vow.
"Go find Masters Raskta and Worror," he added. "They also served with Hoth on Ruusan. They will join us in our cause. Tell them we leave within the hour."
The first thing Zannah did after the Loranda had escaped Coruscant's orbit and made the jump to hyperspace was wash the black dye out of her hair.
She'd engaged and locked the autopilot before heading off to the staterooms in the aft decks, leaving Tomcat to wander freely about the vessel. When she emerged, still drying her restored blond locks with a towel, he was calmly waiting for her.
He had settled in on one of the long, padded couches in the Lo-randas sitting lounge, reclining comfortably along its length. Judging by the drink in his hand, he had also located the collection of ales Hetton had kept on board. Still dressed in the ragtag robes of a hermit, he cut an image that was slightly comical.
"Even with the dye job gone, you still don't look anything like what I thought you'd grow up as," he told her.
It wasn't just her hair that Zannah had changed; she'd also replaced the drab Jedi robes with her more familiar and comfortable all-black garb. Being left-handed, she'd hung her lightsaber on that same hip, and the valuable datacard with the article on the orbalisks had been secured in a cargo pocket sewn into her trousers along the outside of her right thigh.
"This is the real me," she assured him.
She had often assumed character roles and disguises in her missions for Darth Bane, and she was usually comfortable in the act of deception. Yet for some reason she'd found the guise of Nalia repellent, and she'd been eager-almost desperate-to rid herself of all remnants of the Padawan facade.
"So am I your prisoner?" he asked as she sat down on the seat across from him.
"I don't think prisoners are allowed to drink tarul while they lounge on couches," she noted, tossing the towel onto the cushions beside her.
"Then why did you bring me along?" Tomcat asked, sitting up and leaning forward, suddenly serious and intent.
"I couldn't leave you behind. You were going to expose me and my Master to the Jedi Council. You were a threat to the Sith."
"Do you really believe you're a Sith, Rain?"
"Don't call me that," she said angrily. "Rain is dead. She died on Ruusan. My name's Zannah now."
"I guess Tomcat died on Ruusan, too " he agreed somberly, slowly swirling the glass in his hand. "You should probably call me Darovit now. But you never answered my question. Do you really believe you're a Sith?"
"I am Darth Zannah, apprentice of Darth Bane, Dark Lord of the
Sith," she said, making no effort to hide the fierce pride she felt in the titles. "And one day I will destroy my Master and choose an apprentice of my own, continuing the legacy of the dark side."
"I don't believe that" Darovit told her, obviously unimpressed with her declaration. "I know you, Zannah. You're not evil."
"Evil is a word used by the ignorant and the weak," she snapped. "The dark side is about survival. It's about unleashing your inner power. It glorifies the strength of the individual."
"That's not you, either," Darovit countered. "Followers of the dark side must be brutal and ruthless. You care about others, Zannah."
"You don't know me " she sneered at him. "I've killed more people than you can possibly imagine."
"I've killed people, too. Bug died because of me," Darovit said softly, referencing the third cousin who had come with them to Ruusan. "But killing people doesn't make someone into a Sith," he said in a louder voice.
"Don't lecture me on the ways of my order," Zannah warned, getting to her feet and snatching up the towel off the cushion beside him. "What could you possibly know that I have not already learned?"
"I may not know the dark side," Darovit admitted, looking up at her. "But I know you. I know what you're capable of."
Zannah angrily threw the towel across the room, flinging it through the open door into the stateroom. She stepped forward and grabbed Darovit's right forearm, spilling his drink. Then she twisted his arm up so his stump was right before his face.
"Maybe you forgot who gave you this" she reminded him.
Darovit made no move to break free of her grasp, though she clutched his arm so hard that her nails were digging into his flesh.
"I'm not a fool, Zannah" he said calmly. "Your Master would have killed me in that cave. I know you did this to save my life."
She released her grip, tossing Darovit's arm back down into his lap in disgust. She turned her back on him and marched up the corridor toward the cockpit. The young man tossed the empty glass onto the couch and scrambled to his feet to follow.
"You risked yourself to save me, Zannah," he called out after her as she neared the cockpit. "You did it because you cared about me."
Wheeling around, Zannah reached out with the Force and yanked Darovit to the floor. He landed with a grunt, facedown at her feet.
"Things have changed since then " she said, then spun away from him again and threw herself angrily into the pilot's seat.
Darovit got up slowly and moved to stand behind her chair, hovering over her right shoulder.
"If you don't care about me anymore, then why did you bring me with you?" he asked quietly.
"I already told you" she said stiffly, staring straight ahead. "You would have exposed us. I couldn't leave you behind."
"You could have killed me."
"Ha!" Zannah barked out a laugh, turning her head and craning her neck to glare at him contemptuously. "Just strike you down with the power of the dark side in the middle of the Jedi Temple? Do you think the Sith are fools?"
"We're not in the Jedi Temple anymore," Darovit said softly. "Why don't you kill me now?"
Zannah snapped her head forward again so she wouldn't have to look at him. "You're a healer. We can use you."
"There are plenty of healers in the galaxy," her cousin pressed. "Ones who can't expose you to the Jedi."