"The pod is this way," Nova said, leading him off to the left, towards a path that led in between an enormous pile of garbage and metal refuse and a large, blocky metal structure that looked old and bombed out.

"Any reason you didn't set up in there?" Seth asked as he followed.

"I got here very late to the game, if you'll remember. But based on my own investigation of that building, it's got a very big hole in the other side and a lot of broken windows. Plus, I think, at this point, they've got some pride in their parent's work, and their own. You know how long it takes to build something like that settlement back there? Years. Decades, even. And, I mean, at this point, there's too much good stuff jacked into that camp to just move."

"Like what?"

"Piping, for one. The ability to have clean water down here is life or death, obviously. We managed to rig an old irrigation system to bring water from a filtration plant to that camp. Not a lot, obviously, and recently it's shut off. So that's number two on the list of things to do today: check out the filtration plant. Going to need your help with that. Another big thing: we've managed to tap into the power grid. They had a really jury-rigged connection set up that failed more often than not before Yex showed up. Now he's got a real, stable connection going. Of course, can't take too much or someone up top notices." She shook her head and sighed.

They hit the alleyway and moved down it. Both of them had their pistols out by now. Seth made sure it was charged and ready to go one more time. Never could be too sure. He'd seen people die in battle over pretty stupid mistakes. The alleyway opened up into a broader area, something like a natural courtyard edged by more mountains of garbage an old, derelict structures with broken windows and rusted out walls.

A few corpses lay scattered across the dirt, some of them very old, some of them fairly recent, all of them picked clean of anything even remotely useful.

Nova broke right and moved towards another alleyway.

"Why are you down here?" he asked as they moved on, his curiosity piquing. Everything about Nova spoke of intense training, devotion to survival, and a keen awareness of her surroundings. She didn't belong down here. "What's your story?"

"You first," she replied.

He couldn't help but laugh. "I mean, I thought it'd be obvious why I'm down here."

"Smartass," she muttered, but he thought he could hear at least a small smile in her voice. "I mean, what happened overhead? The war, how's it going?"

What little good cheer he'd managed to accumulate disappeared like oxygen blown out of a depressurized room. "Badly," he said quietly. "It's going badly." He looked around suddenly. "Should we be talking?"

"We keep our voices down, we should be fine. This place is relatively untouched by the Dreks, and rakghouls have crap hearing. Mostly they operate by sight."

"Fair enough..." he murmured, looking around one more time before they took another left and headed down a broader valley of garbage, lit by pale lamps somewhere high overhead. "The Sith are winning. They're kicking our ass left and right. They have numbers, but we have no idea where they're coming from. I lost the last six battles I was in," he said.

"Damn...that bad?"

"That bad. I'm not entirely sure we can win this one, not unless something big changes. I mean, I heard they finally put Revan down, but Malak is still leading the fight."

"Who are they? To be honest, my knowledge of the war is 'assholes in silver armor are killing people by the millions'."

"Fallen Jedi," Seth replied bitterly. He spat. "They were the ones who went rogue and led an army of like-minded Jedi against the Mandalorians."

Nova growled. "Mandalorians...I do remember them though, and at least I know of those Jedi. So...wait, they helped the Republic fight off the Mandalorians and then...what, they decided to pick up where the bloodthirsty bastards left off?"

"Basically."

"Why?" she snapped.

"No one knows. They 'fell to the dark side', whatever that means. Functionally speaking, it means we're getting our asses kicked after we already got our asses kicked and this time around there doesn't seem to be anyone else to bail us out." He sighed. "As for what happened to me...I'm a soldier, have been for twelve years. I was on a little planet called Thule, got called away from my base to investigate a disturbance out in the badlands beyond the camp's perimeter. Just me and a friend in a little all terrain vehicle. We got out there, found evidence of a camp. Someone had been camping out there where they weren't supposed to, probably panicked and bolted when they heard us coming. When we were coming back..."

He paused, not wanting to remember but being unable to stem the flow of memories, the litany of images that so vividly painted the death of over one hundred Republic military personnel, several of whom he'd been serving with for quite awhile at that point.

"The Sith firebombed the base. Everyone was killed. After the cleanup, I got rotated out, shoved onboard the Endar Spire last minute. I didn't even figure out where we were going or what our mission was before we got jumped by some Sith battleships in orbit around Taris. I don't even know if anyone else made it off the ship. They boarded, started killing everyone. They were blowing pods out of the sky, I think."

"I'm sorry," Nova said quietly after a few seconds.

"Yeah, me too. That's life, I guess," Seth replied. "Your turn."

She was silent for several seconds more, then began speaking. "I'm not sure I want to tell you," she said finally.

"You don't have to if you want to, I was just curious."

She sighed and shook her head angrily. "It's humiliating."

"Well...sometimes it helps to talk about humiliating things to strangers. Would it help if I told you something humiliating about myself?"

She laughed. "I suppose..."

"Okay. I once got wasted and woke up the next day naked, in someone's bed that I didn't recognize, with a tattoo that I hated and never would've gotten in a million years. I swear my friends must've asked me specifically what's the last tattoo in the galaxy I'd ever get, then went and got it for me. Oh, and I'd pissed myself in my sleep."

She burst out laughing, then stopped short, looking around, no doubt paranoid that she'd garnered someone or something's unwanted attention, but they were in a confined space, a narrow alleyway now, and he didn't think anything was nearby.

"You made that last part up," she said finally, then laughed again, more softly.

"Nope. Soldier's honor. I had straight up pissed myself. And that's not even the most humiliating part," he replied.

She stopped and looked back at him. "Oh come on. What's worse than that?"

"The woman I'd apparently hooked up with kicked me out pretty fast and told me I hadn't been able to get it up that night."

Nova's eyes bulged slightly. "Was she lying?"

"Probably not. I don't, ah, function too well when I'm really piss drunk."

"Either you're lying or that is way too honest," she said, trying to contain her laughter again.

"Hey, I just said I thought it was a good idea to tell humiliating stories to strangers," he replied. "Kind of a relief to get it out, you know?"

"Fair enough. You don't seem all that embarrassed."

"Well, it was a good nine years ago. I thankfully never saw that woman or even that space station again. I got the tattoo removed. And I've, uh...reconfirmed that I can operate with at least a decent efficiency in the bedroom."

She snorted. "A 'decent efficiency'? Don't think I've ever heard it put quite like that."

"Seemed like the most diplomatic way to put it."

"Uh-huh..." She muttered something to herself after a span of silence. "Okay, fine. I came here looking for my cousin. I lost everything to the Mandalorians during their war. Or so I had thought. Parents, sister, thought my whole family was wiped out. After dealing with that particular tragedy, I ended up drifting the galaxy for quite awhile. Then I hear that I've got a cousin who wound up on Taris. Asks me to come see him, help him with something. So I did. After losing everyone else...I didn't realize how much the notion of seeing someone from my family again enticed me. I got here and right away he starts in with the 'can you loan me some credits?' sap story. I mean, when we knew each other before I knew he was a bit of a deadbeat, but I figured he'd got his stuff together by now. But no, he needed money, bad.

"And so while I was trying to do the right thing and help him get his life sorted out, he was making it really, really difficult. Wouldn't really give me any details of just who, exactly, he owed money to. Right about the time I began to suspect something more was happening..." She paused, gave her head another angry shake, making her head-tails twist in the air. "He'd borrowed credits from the Exchange. A lot. And the real reason he'd tracked me down was so that he could trade me in as a slave and get his debt cleared.

"I killed the Exchange thugs that showed up looking for me and beat my cousin within an inch of his life. The only reason I didn't kill him was because I figured the Exchange would finish the job for me."

"That's not humiliating," Seth said quietly. "That's...sad. That's horrifically depressing."

"Yeah, it is. Anyway, I had to run, and with nowhere else to go, I ran down here. Ended up making it here to this camp and when I saw the people here, I just...I don't know, I couldn't leave them. I had to at least try to help them. Especially after I saw how much Yex and Seri were doing."

"Why are they here?"

"I'll let them tell you if they want," Nova replied. "We're almost to your pod."

Again, Seth found himself slipping into a bitter, angry despair as his escape pod came into view. That, and Nova's story, twisted his stomach. The pod's basic shape had held up pretty well. He hesitated as Nova marched forward.

"Good," she said, "no one's tampered with it. I closed the door after I grabbed you."

Seth made himself move forward. He had a job to do. They moved up to the pod and opened the door. It slid open, revealing a bloodied and ruined interior. He recognized two of the bodies in the pod. Those who must have helped him when the explosion had gone off behind him. Two more people who had saved his life. He saw a scattering of empty kolto containers and imagined Nova hastily covering his burns with the stuff, trying to keep him alive.

"Come on," she said, shrugging out of her pack, "let's grab whatever armor we can. Their weapons, too. And you know Republic pods, so if there's any hiding places I missed, then check them out."

"On it," he replied simply, getting out of his pack, too, and setting it on the plating beside her.

They moved about the wrecked interior of the pod in silence, working with the cold efficiency that came from those who had been around death too often. Seth did know a few places to check. A gun locker tucked away between two seats in the floor, an emergency medical cache behind a wall panel that she'd already raided, and where she got all the kolto from, and each of the six seats held a small compartment that came with a basic emergency package: spare blaster clips, a battery, some rations and water, some bare basic medical supplies, a few tools and spare parts.

"These," he muttered, yanking one out and studying the hefty, tightly-packed metal brick, "you are going to love these, Nova."

"What is it?" she asked.

"Emergency supply cache," he replied as he popped the chairs and grabbed the others, stacking them in his pack. He explained what they contained.

"These are going to be so useful," she murmured as she finished getting some armor off of one of the corpses.

He helped her recover enough armor for one more suit, a few more blaster pistols, and some spare energy clips scattered around. As soon as they were finished, they left the pod, coming back out into the clearing it had crashed into.

Nova held up one hand in a closed fist, making Seth freeze. He drew his blaster pistol and looked around.

"Do you hear that?" she whispered.

He listened carefully, at first hearing only the buzz of electricity. Then he heard it: a guttural growling cry somewhere not too distant.

"We need to go, now," Nova said, genuine fear creeping into her voice.

He didn't blame her.

They quickly began heading back the way they'd come, but another sound came from that direction, and suddenly something appeared in the narrow space.

Seth got his first good look at a rakghoul.

It was hideous.

He saw a hunched, grayish thing with a bulbous head sporting a small forest of individual thick black hairs. Large, dark claws sprouted from its feet and hands, shining in the light. Worst of all, he saw a big, hulking jaw. The thing opened its mouth and issued a sharp growl, revealing rows of jagged teeth that looked like they could do some serious damage.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Seth growled, then raised his pistol and fired off the overcharged shot he'd thumbed as soon as he'd heard the first growl.

The shot was good. The red bolt crossed the distance in no time at all and nailed the rakghoul directly in the face. Its head came apart like a ripe fruit and sprayed the area with dark gray, pulpy gore. A chorus of guttural screams sounded.

"We're stuck here," Nova growled. "Don't let them touch you. We'll have to kill them all."

"Perfect," Seth muttered.

He spotted movement to his left and took aim. Another rakghoul appeared over the top of a squat building, then it was joined by another two. He opened fire, managing to tag another one in its open, screaming mouth. But as it ragdolled down to the ground, the others leaped, dodging his blaster fire and hitting the ground running. Seth kept firing, hearing Nova doing the same beside him. He shot another in its eye and put it down.

Then the final one was too close. Seth dropped his blaster and ripped the sword out. He impaled the rakghoul through the chest, yanked it up, and then booted it hard away from him in one quick motion. The thing went flying a few feet and hit the ground hard. It wasn't dead. Seth hurried forward and planted the blade in its head, then ripped it back out in a spray of gore. He spun around, seeing no more of the rakghouls on his side, and saw Nova backing up, brandishing her own blade now. Three more were advancing on her.

He hurried beside her and fell into a defensive stance, waiting.

The rakghouls raced towards them.

They stepped apart from each other, to give themselves more room. Seth slashed viciously, bringing his blade around in a tight arc as the first beast reached him, and sliced its neck open. He heard another let out a death rattle as Nova killed it. Seth twisted, tracking the last one. It was coming for Nova.

She wasn't going to get it in time.

Without thinking, Seth dropped his blade and dove for it, tackling the inhuman thing to the ground, both of them rolling, the beast snarling. Pure luck: he ended up on its back, and the thing began to buck and heave, trying to get him off of it. He had one arm firmly around its neck. He saw a rock within reach and his hand shot out. Grasping it, he brought it up and then bashed the back of the thing's skull in. That made it stop thrashing.

He let out a long sigh.

"That was really stupid, Seth," Nova said as she walked over to him.

"I take it from your tone that we're alone again?" he replied, slowly getting to his feet.

"For now. We should go while we can," she said. "Are you cut?"

"No," he replied, checking himself over. "I'm good."

"Good, then...and, uh, thank you."

"Just returning the favor," Seth replied as he retrieved his pistol and sword.

Once everything was secure, the pair headed back the way they'd come.