FicWad

The being standing alone in the middle of the ship's bridge has the shape of a human male, tall and slim but broad-shouldered and obviously fit. He stands silently and unmoving, observing without interfering, his hands tucked into the loose sleeves of his outermost garment in a pose of meditative contemplation and unending patience. Where his skin is not covered by either the concealing drape of a long robe (its deep cowl pushed back around his shoulders so as to not obscure his peripheral vision) so dark that it skates the line between black and brown or by a pair of equally dark boots, it is a darkly tanned color with a red tint to it, the overall hue near to that of the color of slightly aged copper or the deep shade that objects made of certain kinds of wood will, when varnished and finished, take on, with almost as much red to them as brown. In startling contrast to the darkness of his skin, the being's eyes are an icy pale sea-green, the color that ocean-foam and water will sometimes turn as it freezes, and there is a surprising depth to those eyes that hints at an age much greater than the twenty-five to thirty years that the being's powerful body would seem to suggest. His hair is also startlingly pale against his dark skin, so fair that it is barely blond instead of simply white in color. That hair is pulled back from the being's face - his features all finely chiseled planes and angles, the cheekbones high and sharp enough to give the illusion that they might part the skin of anyone daring enough to try to touch them, so that the angular cast of those features, in combination with a sharply defined chin, would have made his face seem triangular, but for an equally strongly defined and squared-off line of jaw that spoke eloquently of a powerfully stubborn nature - caught in a tail at the base of his neck, plaited so tightly that it is impossible to tell if it might have been straight or wavy or even naturally curly. The only thing that is apparent besides its color is the obvious length and thickness of that hair, for the braid is easily as thick around as a strong woman's wrist and it hangs down his back to a point near where his knees should be (though the concealing drape of the long robe makes it impossible to tell for sure).

All in all, the being is, by most human standards, both arresting and handsome in appearance, (not to mention well over the norm for human height, being easily within a finger's breadth of two meters) and yet none of the other many beings on the bridge of the ship with him pay the figure any mind. In fact, the glowing red eyes of the blue-skinned humanoids who fill the bridge all either universally slide away from the shape of the man or else they seem to stare blankly through the space that the figure of the being inhabits, looking through that specific area of the ship without ever noticing him. This apparent invisibility is not a fact that perturbs the apparently man-shaped being, though. In fact, he would be most alarmed if any of the other beings on the ship's bridge with him were to exhibit any sign of being able to perceive him in any manner. So far as he is aware, there are only four beings alive in the whole of the galaxy who possess enough raw power in the Force to possibly be able to sense him: two of those four have been kept from coming into contact with him by the third of that number, whose mastery over the fourth is so complete that, even were that fourth person to stare straight upon the being's form, it is entirely likely that he would be able to see and sense nothing past the interference of his Master's hold upon him. It is precisely for this reason that the figure is so patiently standing where he is, content in the knowledge that none of the blue-skinned beings around him can see or sense him, that no living beings with the ability to see or sense him will be crossing his pathway at any time in the immediate future, and that it is perfectly safe for him to observe the actions of the beings who are, all unknowingly, currently sharing their ship with him.

The barest hint of a smile crosses the Force spirit's face as he contemplates his contentedness, knowing, as he does, how short a time he has left to savor the relative quietude. Inevitably, his student will eventually arrive at the ship's bridge - against his specific orders, of course - and, once that happens, all semblance of peace and quiet will be irretrievably broken. But his apprentice is somewhat . . . fickle, and, if someone else catches his attention on the vessel he is currently aboard, it may be days still before he shows up here. And until that happens, Revan - once Revan Maloch, though he had not gone by that name for long even when he was still living, given that it might have caused confusion among beings who were unaware of the fact that Revan Maloch and Malak Dunn were not, in fact, one and the same being - is utterly determined to enjoy what little uninterrupted time he has left to continue his observation of this particular ship and its highly proficient, efficient, and wholly dedicated crew.

A pity the gentlebeings of the Republic could not be more like these Chiss. They would not be in the dire and swiftly worsening straits that they now find themselves, if only they were half so disciplined and honorable as Mitth'raw'nuruodo and his people are, /Revan muses, not quite sighing over the enormous differences in behavior and overall strength of character between far too many of the sentient beings of the Galactic Republic and the majority of the blue-skinned beings of the Chiss Ascendancy. /The Chiss have their own flaws, sure enough, but they are not the sort of flaws that would allow a Dark Lord of the Sith to corrupt and destroy both their government and their ideology from within. It is a true pity that nothing ever came of the move, some hundred and fifty standard years ago, to send a formal mapping and first-contact expedition from the Jedi Exploration Corps out past the bounds of the Outer Rim Territories, into the Unknown Regions and Wild Space. A galactic government uniting both the Chiss and their territories and the regions still held - however nominally, in some cases - by the Republic would be a sight to see, indeed. Such an alliance would have been able to shatter even the looming danger still posed by the threat of the return of the True Sith to the greater galaxy, not to mention that of the last of the pretenders claiming to be heir to that dark legacy. With Chiss warriors serving among the ranks of the Jedi, the Republic could have survived all that will yet and might still come against it and its peoples. It is a true pity that will likely never come to pass.

Despite his determination to enjoy what little time remains to him to continue observing Mitth'raw'nuruodo and the other Chiss aboard the /Springhawk /untroubled by the presence of his newest student, Revan finds himself shaking his head in true sorrow and regret. Every single Chiss he has ever observed over the course of his three thousand years plus as a Force spirit has burned like a small sun within the Force, and there are many who, like Mitth'raw'nuruodo, blaze like fusion torches with untapped potential. The strength of the Chiss in the Force is not at all surprising to Revan, though the continual lack of development of that potential has been a source of perpetual sorrow for him for millennia, almost ever since Revan first became aware of their existence. The meticulously kept histories of the Chiss definitively go back no more than about five thousand years (though they have managed to preserve partial historical records and some stories that cover an earlier period of time nearly thrice as long), so the true tale of their origins, in that time between the long ago fall of the Rakatan Infinite Empire and the birth of an alliance of worlds that would become the Galactic Republic, has been utterly lost. As one who has existed for millennia due to the fact that he willingly chose to become one with the Force without losing his personal identity and character or individual store of knowledge, though, Revan has access to information that the Chiss themselves are unaware of.

Thus, Revan knows that the Chiss are the most recent offspring of the survivors of a shipful of ten thousand carefully chosen and gathered highly Force-sensitive human and near-human slaves (the vast majority of whom had been wholly untrained teenagers and children, specially chosen for their untouched and therefore unspoiled potential within the Force) who had been in transit to the homeworld of the Rakata and the seat of their Infinite Empire as part of a last-ditch effort to stem the tide of plague and ruin that was swiftly destroying both the Rakata and their Empire by using the combined Force-energy that would be forcible drained from them to create a cure for the terrible disease decimating the Rakatan ranks when that virulent disease had abruptly mutated into its final form, stripping the Rakata of their species-wide affinity for and connection to the Force and, as it struck down those Rakata upon the slave-ship, flinging the ship out of hyperspace, stranding it and its passengers in the midst of uncharted space.

Utterly unschooled in the ways of the Force but strong enough in its energies to intuit much - including a way to not only survive but also to eventually thrive under what most beings would consider to be impossible odds - those survivors had found a way to use the ship's non-Force-powered back-up slower-than-light propulsion to make their way to the nearest inhabitable world. Thereafter, they had built empires for themselves thrice and nearly wiped themselves out utterly each time in the wars of greed and dominance that had followed the creation of those empires before they had finally resettled on icy Csilla and developed the ideology of honor and duty above all else and the peculiar restraint that has never quite managed to be pure pacificism that resides at the core of Chiss society and is the basis of the Chiss Ascendancy today. Though they adapted across the centuries to the different worlds they came to call home - eventually gaining the pure blue coloration that makes their skin gleam like polished lapis, the nearly always uniformly dark blue-black (occasionally, in extremely rare cases, red-black) hair, and the highly reflective glowing eyes that are red through and through, with no discernable differentiation between pupil and iris and what would have been the white of the eye in a more baseline normal human, that mark the Chiss out and make them so distinctive among all of their human and near-human cousins - for many centuries their isolation from the rest of the galaxy insured that their gene pool never expanded beyond the bounds of the original ten thousand Force-sensitive slaves and their immediate offspring, and so they have never lost their inborn talent for and sensitivity to the Force.

Thus, though they are entirely ignorant of the ways of the Force, the Chiss are still one of the three most powerful and universally Force-sensitive races of near-humans in the galaxy, more pervasively Force-sensitive than both the immensely talented Kiffar and the so-called Witches of Dathomir and more powerful, overall, even than the Korunnai of Haruun Kal. With a people like the Chiss numbered among the loyal members of the Jedi Order, the galaxy would have been a much safer place, indeed. It is an absolute tragedy that the potential of such a glorious match will likely never be known, much less realized, anywhere beyond the realm of possibility. And it will be far worse than any mere tragedy if the one who calls himself Darth Sidious actually manages to sink his poisoned claws into one who burns so brightly as Mitth'raw'nuruodo, as now seems so increasingly painfully probable. And again, in spite of himself, Revan finds himself shaking his head and sighing regretfully. While it is technically still possible that such a fate might yet be averted, the probability of any alternative outcome that does not involve the outright murder of Mitth'raw'nuruodo grows smaller by the day, as the too late envoy of the hollow and rapidly dying husk of the Galactic Republic draws closer to an inevitable collision with both the agents of Sidious (who have been sent to put a stop to the extragalactic mandate of the so-called Outbound Flight Project) and with Mitth'raw'nuruodo himself.

If only the expeditionary force were organized under the control of a Jedi with even a modicum of restraint, the situation would not be nearly so grim. But Jorus C'baoth is an unwitting tool of Sidious and is practically already insane, already all but numbered among the ranks of the fallen, whom the Jedi name Dark, and his control over the Jedi who accompany him is so close to being absolute that it is unlikely that anyone will be able to challenge him sufficiently to cause him to show his true colors in time for another to replace him as the nominal head of the mission. If only those two extraordinarily powerful beings who could have perceived and perhaps even seen Revan outright, just as plainly as though he were entirely manifest within the physical world, were either among the Chiss who populate this ship's bridge or still members of the Outbound Flight Project, then circumstances would not be so near to crossing the line into truly dire straits. But unfortunately, his latest student, while well-meaning and potentially an enormously powerful force for good, can also be just as stubbornly unmoving and unhearing as a duracrete wall. Desperate to see those two out of the path of danger, Revan's student has fought ceaselessly to get those two removed from the ships of the Outbound Flight Project, even though it meant that he was, by striving so, aiding and abetting the Dark Lord Sidious in his plans not only to destroy the project entirely but to also cultivate an eventual apprentice capable of crushing the remnants of the Republic under his bootheels.

And again, Revan finds himself both sighing and shaking his head. There are days when he regrets ever taking pity upon the poor, confused, floundering thing that had been the lingering spirit of a Jedi Master strong enough in the Force to intuit part of the pathway necessary for the preservation and transformation of a living, physical being into an entity of pure Force energy. If he had not seen the desperate but doomed struggles of that suffering soul and allowed himself to be moved (by nearly equal parts pity, surprise, and curiosity, at finding himself witness to such a wildly improbable occurrence), most likely enough of that individual's personality and mind and spirit would not have survived the shock of death and the incomplete transformation from matter into energy that had resulted in his precarious but potentially fully realizable preservation as a weak and wavering Force ghost. There had been several other inquisitive Force spirits drawn to the exertions of that unhappy soul as his body died, true enough, including quite a few of those incurably curious about everything in the universe Shamans of the Whills, but the others had all been shocked into inactive observance by the unforeseen and therefore entirely unexpected occurrence of a being who, despite his lack of training and knowledge of the possible path from existence as a mere mortal material being to an immortal entity of pure Force energy, had been proving himself capable of intuitively understanding that such a transformation is indeed possible and forcing himself to follow that route as his physical body rapidly perished. If not for Revan's instinctive move to give aid, acting as a steadying and calming influence to help the man overcome his blind panic long enough to gather himself together and therefore keep himself from simply fragmenting and dispersing into the Force at the instant of his death, he would not have survived death even as the pale shadow of a Force ghost, Jedi Master or not.

Likewise, if Revan had not thought that it would be a worthy challenge to help the Jedi Master learn how to complete the transformation from a material being of flesh into an entity formed wholly of spirit, composed of and sustained by pure Force energy and will alone, then not only would he not now be Revan's latest student, he also would not now be in the process of upsetting the still undecided balance of the fates by interfering with events that would otherwise have been left to naturally run their course. But then again, if it were not for the passionately well-meaning good intentions (and the mostly disastrous results) of that selfsame student, it is also entirely possible that Revan would not be standing where he currently is, contemplating the wisdom of putting aside the noninterference rules that have kept him and the other Force spirits from intervening outright in the increasingly downward spiral of both the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order and throwing the whole of his considerable strength and will into turning events aside from any possible probable future pathway that would end with Mitth'raw'nuruodo in the grasp of Sidious. And if Revan were not where he were at this precise moment in time, mulling over just that decision, then Mitth'raw'nuruodo and his people would be without even the hope of a protector against Sidious and his agents. And then where would circumstances and the galaxy likely both be, but on a direct jump towards hell itself in a luxury starliner?

At that, Reven finds himself losing a small, rueful sigh, his lips once again twitching into the barest sliver of a smile. With another slight shake of his head, he determinedly puts a stop to his increasingly circular thoughts. Qui-Gon Jinn is much more of a challenge and a handful than any other student Revan has ever taken on, either while still living or otherwise, but he is also the most interesting and at least potentially one of the few both truly great and good souls Revan has ever had the fortune to come across in his travels. Things will not be easy, with Qui-Gon, but then, what has he ever known of that was worth doing that was also easy? And in any case, when has he ever cared so much about the potential difficulty of any possible task that he's seriously allowed that potential difficulty to sway his intent away from something that he's wanted to do? If he were interested only in those things that are easy, Revan never would have become involved in the Mandalorian Wars against the will of the Jedi Council, nor would he have then become the progenitor of a new line of Dark Lords of the Sith, much less chosen to remain returned to the Jedi fold in order to defeat the powerful new Sith Empire he had spawned or to leave the reaches of known space afterwards to search out and neutralize the threat still posed to the galaxy by the remnants of the True Sith Empire, a task at which he mostly succeeded but for which reason he finally chose to give up his fallible material form in favor of existence as a Force spirit, so as to be better able to watch over that area of the Unknown Regions and Wild Space where the last few remnants of the most ancient incarnation of the Dark Empire ultimately responsible for every incarnation of Sith and Sith Empire within the galaxy still stubbornly clung to existence. And if not for his willingness to take on that thankless and all but impossible task of guardianship and protection for the rest of the galaxy from those remaining Dark artifacts and the few surviving entities with the right to truly claim the titles of Darth and Sith, then he certainly would not be where he now is, with a student - potentially hugely capable but currently mostly just fractious and unwilling to heed most of the advice that would have allowed him to help realize some, if not all, of that potential greatness - causing him to think himself in hopelessly frustrating circles.

At that realization, Revan finds himself grinning widely, in an openly eager and wildly joyous manner such as he hasn't smiled for centuries, and with the dawning of that smile he finds that his decision has just as suddenly been made for him. He will continue to watch the Chiss and wait for Qui-Gon to join him, but not just so that he can watch while what Qui-Gon has helped to bring about comes to cause Mitth'raw'nuruodo to end up as a tool of the last of Bane's line of Dark Lords of the Sith. He has at least mostly kept himself out of events that largely affect only the physical realm for millennia now, but no longer. It is time and far past time to remind the galaxy what Revan Maloch is capable of accomplishing, when he puts his mind to a task. And saving Mitth'raw'nuruodo from Sidious should make a good start to diverting both the Republic and the Jedi from their headlong rush into folly and destruction. If he is very lucky indeed, then perhaps it will also provide the necessary impetus to finally allow him to give Qui-Gon the push he needs to make him turn away from his own petty concerns long enough to focus on the larger picture well enough to realize that he must surrender some of his stubbornness if he truly desires to ever be able to do more than simply /mean well/. And perhaps then, if he is indeed blessed by good fortune, Qui-Gon will finally make the leap from Force ghost to Force spirit that will allow him to put all of those good intentions towards an even better work . . .

***

His new Master is not going to be very pleased with him when he sees him and tells him about what he's done. Well. If he doesn't already know all about it and isn't already thoroughly disappointed and displeased at how he's once again managed to both disobey his Master's direct orders and break at least one of the rules that are meant to govern interaction between all of the noncorporeal entities who exist solely within and because of the Force and those beings who still have physically material bodies of one kind or another (supposedly to help protect the rights - especially the free will - of those mortal beings of flesh, though frankly he rather suspects that these rules have more to do with the fear that some of the various Force-powered and Force-preserved entities would be tempted to play at being gods and demons, if they were allowed to interfere more in individual lives), that is.

Death has taught Qui-Gon Jinn many things, chief among them being an increased ability to be ruthlessly honest with himself, and so he knows that his own opinion on the matter is likely to count for very little indeed when it comes either to Revan Maloch or the other Force spirits whose displeasure and anger he's risked bringing down on himself with his recent actions, which they will all undoubtedly view as arrogant and selfish in the extreme. Not only has he willfully disobeyed the word of his mentor and guide upon the pathways of the Force as a noncorporeal being - breaking an actual promise he made to the being whose selfless aid and patient teaching is, in the main, largely responsible for Qui-Gon's continued (if still somewhat precarious, given the fact that he is still little more than a phantom of what he could be, his mind and heart and soul preserved only as a weak echo upon the face of the Force instead of simultaneously existing both as a true part of the widely pervasive energy field that is the Force and as a distinct quantity of energy within those awesome flows of overwhelming power) subsistence as a Force ghost, as a distinct entity within the Force with thoughts and memories and knowledge and a personality all of his own - he has, through that disobedience, helped to enact the will and therefore to further the evil plans of the Sith Lord Sidious within the galaxy. His new Master has a right to be disappointed with him. In truth, Revan has a right to be angry with him. Even among his old colleagues in the Jedi Order (those beings so well-acquainted with Qui-Gon's stubborn willfulness and his seeming inability to follow simple orders), the knowledge that Qui-Gon has purposefully done something to help further the plans of the last remaining true Dark Lord of the Sith would have engendered a flurry of shocked consternation and disappointed recriminations.

Still, despite all of that, Qui-Gon finds it impossible to truly regret what he has done. In fact, as he watches the shuttle of the man known throughout the galaxy as Palpatine of Naboo drop rapidly away from Outbound Flight (the massive hexagonal construct of six Dreadnaught/-class heavy warships arranged around a central equipment and supply storage core that both is and carries the Outbound Flight Project) towards the hazy atmosphere of the planet of Roxuli, a wide smile of relieved satisfaction creases his transparent semblance of a face. Obi-Wan Kenobi, the true son of his heart, and Anakin Skywalker, the young man who has so effortlessly captured the heart of Obi-Wan, are both on that shuttle, safely constrained to remain within the bounds of known space instead of continuing on aboard /Outbound Flight in its drive through the uncharted territories of the Unknown Regions towards the very bounds of the galaxy itself and the vastness of space that lie beyond, between this galaxy and the next. His boys are safe - safely removed from the corrosive presence of the Sith-touched and passion-darkened former Jedi Master (though none but Sidious himself yet realize that the man is no longer a Jedi Master in truth) Jorus C'baoth; safely diverted from the converging path and inevitable collision between the forces of the Outbound Flight Project, the remains of the Trade Federation force sent by Lord Sidious to wipe them from the face of the galaxy, and the as yet unknown intentions of the Chiss Ascendency's Expansionary Fleet's Picket Force Two, under the command of the far too clever for his own good Crahsystor Mitth'raw'nuruodo; safely extricated from whatever final destiny remains in store for Outbound Flight and her fifty thousand plus souls - or at least they are as safe as they can be, now, all things (including the true identity of one of their company, aboard that shuttle) considered.

Constrained as he is by his own relative powerlessness, as a mere Force ghost, and his complete inability to make himself heard by either Obi-Wan or Anakin, despite all of his efforts to communicate with them directly, they are as safe right now as Qui-Gon can make them. And while his new Master and the other Force spirits might call his relief over their relative safety both short-sighted and self-centered, Qui-Gon honestly cannot bring himself to regret the part he took in making that relief possible. He is sorry for the occupants of Outbound Flight - sorry to deprive them of the steadying influence and insightful intelligence of Obi-Wan, who doubtlessly would have amassed enough evidence to reveal Jorus C'baoth's hidden darkness and resultant unfitness for command if only given another few weeks both to observe the man and to continue (however inadvertently), via his quietly unassuming presence upon the ship, to drive C'baoth towards increasingly reckless and arrogant displays of unbridled power, simply by silently but firmly disapproving of such high-handed tactics; sorry to deprive them of the unrestrained and immense power that Anakin could and would have brought to bear in the ship's defense, at the first sign of danger; and sorry to disrupt the deepening rapport growing between Obi-Wan and Anakin and Jedi Knight Lorana Jinzler, Jorus C'baoth's potentially immensely talented former Padawan learner, a badly emotionally damaged (almost crippled, in matters of self-confidence and emotional depth, including the ability to feel empathy for other, non-Force-sensitive beings) young lady scarred by C'baoth's increasing lack of humanity and only just beginning to blossom into the bright, emotionally adept, and capable young Jedi that she could be, under Obi-Wan's careful but attentive prodding and even more carefully disguised tutelage and the influence of Anakin's easy and buoying confidence and uncomplicated, reassuring personal regard for her. But he is not nearly so sorry as to regret his part in getting Obi-Wan and Anakin off of the ship, and he will not lie to himself by pretending to regret something that he doesn't.

Still, it is hard for him to see Lorana Jinzler - a unassuming young woman of completely average height with long and completely unremarkable dark nutbrown hair so thick that it has a bit of a wave beneath its own weight, lightly tanned skin of a completely ordinary and healthy hue, and a pleasant enough face (broad of brow and cheekbone and jaw, lending a somewhat rounder, more heart-shaped cast to what is, more properly, an oval face, entirely nondescript if not for the sharp, strong lines of her chin, with its slight dimple) graced by a shockingly beautiful set of wide-spaced enormous gray eyes as changeful and mesmerizing as a sky full of swiftly moving storm-clouds - standing alone and silently bereft at one of Outbound Flight's transparisteel viewing panes, watching as Obi-Wan and Anakin are swiftly ferried away from her, one small, slender hand still raised in a gesture that is more evocative of pleading than of farewell, even though they are already too far away from the ship to be able to see her. Despite everything she's been put through by C'baoth over the course of her long apprenticeship (including being promoted to Jedi Knight essentially only so that C'baoth would be able to pressure her into agreeing to come on the Outbound Flight mission), Lorana has somehow managed to keep her warm and generous heart mostly intact. She has been flourishing like a seedling in the sun ever since Obi-Wan and Anakin first came into her life, on that fateful mission to Barlok that gave C'baoth the political cachet necessary to give his pet project of Outbound Flight enough impetus for the Supreme Chancellor to push it through Appropriations and get it the funding it needed to finally get off of the ground. Lorana, like so many of the others Jorus C'baoth has managed to drag along with him on this mad flight, deserves far better than the hand she has apparently been dealt by fate. It is a pity Qui-Gon couldn't figure out some way to get her off of the ship, along with Obi-Wan and Anakin. He would regret that, if not for the lingering (if foolhardy) hope that Lorana's continued presence on the ship might somehow prove to be enough of a mitigating force to keep her former Master from pulling the whole of Outbound Flight on headlong into disaster and destruction with him.

Though she cannot feel the comforting touch of his hand any more than she can see or sense his weak and wavering unbodied presence within the Force, Qui-Gon cannot quite keep himself from placing his transparent and weightless hands upon her stiffly upright shoulders. She will return to her quarters to meditate - and to cry, quietly and helplessly, over what feels like an abandonment, however reluctantly Obi-Wan and Anakin may have agreed to depart Outbound Flight with the Supreme Chancellor - as soon as she can no longer fool herself into believing that she can still pick out the glow of the shuttle's drive from the viewport. When she does, he will try, again, to reach her through the Force and lend her some of his stubborn will. Perhaps, if he can reach her on a deeper level her this time, Qui-Gon will finally be able to pass along enough of his knowledge of C'baoth's true nature to warn her of her former Master's growing obsession with his project and his subsequent loss of sanity. And if he can do that, then perhaps she will allow the growing discontent of the colonists and the disquiet of the other Jedi aboard the ship to crystalize behind her into a movement to curtail C'baoth enough to remove from him all vestige of power over the ship and the fate of its passengers and crew. And perhaps if that comes to pass before the Outbound Flight Project can move entirely beyond the bounds of known space, then maybe, just maybe/, it will be enough to save /Outbound Flight and all aboard her from the doom that seems to wait for them in the Unknown Regions, near the Crustai system - eventual site of a planned colony of the Chiss Ascendancy and current site for the scout team headquarters of the frontier patrol unit of Picket Force Two, under Crahsystor Mitth'raw'nuruodo. It is, he knows, a long chain of nothing more than ifs and maybes/, a flimsy structure of air and dreams upon which to pin the only real hope for survival that Lorana and /Outbound Flight have.

Unfortunately, though, it's the best that Qui-Gon can offer. Without the freedom afforded by the power and knowledge that comes of being a true Force spirit and existing in a true state of oneness with the Force, he simply doesn't have enough power or resources to do any more for her or the other occupants of the ship, working alone as he is. If he could convince Revan to help him break the rules, for once, instead of just lecturing him about how important it is for them to abide by them, Jorus C'baoth wouldn't stand a chance and Outbound Flight could be turned to a safer heading, one that would bypass both the Chiss and Sidious' tools entirely. But that's about as likely to happen as it is for Mace Windu to run to the top of the Council Spire and declare, at the top of his lungs, his everlasting love for his former Padawan learner, the gentle (and quietly fiercely and deeply in love in Mace) and beautiful Chalactan Adept, Jedi Master, and member of the High Council, Depa Billaba. Qui-Gon is more likely to be able to find a way past Obi-Wan's staggeringly formidable mental shields and make himself heard by his own former Padawan than he is to persuade Revan to follow such a course. Revan may have made a name for himself by being someone who refused to abide by the rules and expectations of others, while he was living, but apparently becoming a Force spirit has robbed him of all that fire and daring. No, if Qui-Gon wants to help Lorana and the other people of Outbound Flight help themselves, he will have to figure out a way to do it by himself. To hope for anything else would be folly, indeed.

Sighing silently, Qui-Gon trails after Lorana Jinzler as she stumbles back towards her quarters, sightless with pain and disappointment over having been left behind. Though he hates to look at it in such a way, Lorana's anguish makes her more vulnerable, more open to outside influence, and therefore more easily reached and (at least potentially) thoroughly affected by his suggestions and mental proddings. Obi-Wan had been able to reach her when no one else could. Qui-Gon will be more likely to succeed in his task if he uses Obi-Wan's face and voice to speak with her now, while she is most vulnerable to suggestion. It's an underhanded tactic, perhaps, but then, beggars can't be choosers. His means are limited and he simply can't afford to let any possibility go untried because the use of it would have left a sour taste in his mouth if he were still alive and had a mouth capable of tasting such bitter ashes. With another soundless sigh, Qui-Gon pushes aside his regret and continues to follow Lorana. He can feel bad for the way he's taken advantage of both her current openness to the Force and subsequent susceptibility to suggestion and her respect for and growing attachment to Obi-Wan later, after he's had a chance to discover whether or not relying on such a tactic has had any discernable effect on the ship's course and ultimate fate. At least then it'll be just one more fault to add to the long list of sins that he might still, one day, have a chance to see about making proper reparations for, instead of merely another one of his many irreparable failures.

Besides, the Force ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn unrepentantly thinks to himself as he gathers his ragged fragments of Force-talents and badly limited stores of Force-energy in closer around him, preparatory to reaching out to Lorana Jinzler's grieving and disordered mind, if Revan is going to be angry with me for something, he may as well have reason enough to be well and truly righteously furious instead of just quietly, bloodlessly disappointed and aggravated with my stubbornness. After all, if I make him sufficiently angry, this time I might succeed in keeping him from simply fixing the so-called harm I've done by undoing essentially all of my work . . .

***