Vision of the future

'Oh, my!' Threepio gasped. Shada spun around, dropping into a slight crouch, her hand diving beneath her tunic to the grip of her blaster—

'Forgive me,' Car'das said, coming into view around the inner circle of data cases. 'I didn't mean to startle you that way.'

'I certainly hope not,' Shada said, her grip still on her blaster, muscles and reflexes preparing for combat. If Car'das took exception to her being here... 'I didn't hear you come in.'

'I didn't mean for you to hear me,' he said, smiling. 'You're not planning to use that blaster, are you?'

So much for Mistryl subtlety. 'No, of course not,' she said, withdrawing her hand empty. 'I was just—'

She broke off, frowning, as the words he had spoken a moment earlier suddenly penetrated her conscious mind. 'What did you say when you came in?'

'I told Threepio you wanted to do a search for the planet Emberlene,' Car'das said, eyeing her steadily. 'That is what you were going to look up, wasn't it, my young Mistryl shadow guard?' Her first impulse was to deny it. But looking into that even gaze, she knew it would be a waste of effort. 'How long have you known?' she asked instead.

'Oh, not long at all,' he said, waving a hand in an oddly self-deprecating gesture. 'I suspected, of course, but I didn't actually know until you defeated those four swoopers outside Bombaasa's place.' Shada grimaced. 'So Karrde was right,' she said. 'He thought giving Bombaasa his name would eventually get it back to you.'

Car'das shook his head. 'You misunderstand. Bombaasa doesn't work for me, nor I for him. In fact, aside from Entoo Nee and the other few in my household, no one actually works for me at all.'

'Right—you're retired,' Shada growled. 'I forgot.'

'Or else you don't truly believe,' Car'das countered. 'Tell me, what is it you want for Emberlene?'

'What everyone else wants,' she shot back. 'At least what they want for big, important worlds like Caamas. I want justice for my people.'

Car'das shook his head. 'Your people don't want justice, Shada,' he said, an infinite sadness in his voice. 'They never did.'

'What are you talking about?' Shada demanded, feeling her face warming. 'How dare you judge us? How dare you judge anyone? Sitting out here all high and mighty, never deigning to get your own hands dirty, while everyone else fights and bleeds and dies—'

She broke off, her rising fury at his attitude battling against her deeply ingrained fear of losing control. 'You don't know what it's like on Emberlene,' she bit out. 'You've never seen the suffering and squalor. You have no business saying we've given up.'

Car'das's eyebrows lifted. 'I never said you'd given up,' he corrected her gently. 'What I said was that you didn't want justice.'

'Then what do we want?' Shada snarled. 'Charity? Pity?'

'No.' Car'das shook his head. 'Vengeance.'

Shada felt her eyes narrow. 'What are you talking about?'

'Do you know why Emberlene died, Shada?' Car'das asked. 'Not how it died—not the firestorming and massive air and space attack that finally crushed it—but why?' She stared at him, a dark uneasiness beginning to swirl into the flame of her anger and frustration. There was something behind his eyes that she didn't like the look of at all. 'Someone feared our growing power and prestige and decided to make an example of us,' she said carefully. 'Some think that person was Palpatine himself, which is why we've never worked for his Empire.' The eyebrows lifted again. 'Never?'

Shada had to look away from that gaze. 'We had millions of refugees to feed and clothe,' she said, her voice sounding hollowly defensive in her ears. 'Yes, sometimes we worked even for the Empire.'

For a moment the room was filled with an awkward silence. 'Principles are so often like that, aren't they?' Car'das said at last. 'So very slippery. So hard to hold on to.' Shada looked back at him again, trying to come up with a properly scathing retort. But nothing came to mind. In Emberlene's case—in the Mistryl's case—his quiet cynicism was all too true.

'At any rate, that particular principle was of no real value,' Car'das continued. 'As it happens, Palpatine had nothing to do with Emberlene's destruction.'

He stepped past her and around to the data case behind Threepio. 'I have the true history of your world right here,' he said, waving at the top row of datacards. 'I pulled all the information together once I knew you'd be coming here