Making a woman disappear was a classic piece of misdirection and stagecraft performed all over the galaxy. Conjuring one from thin air however was rather less common, especially when she truly had not been there a moment earlier.

“Who the hell is that?” Sali asked, on her feet and with a blaster in her hand faster than Nix could blink.

“Stowaway?” Zindiana asked. She’d also seemingly materialized a blaster in her hand.

Seeing the two of them so rapidly and menacingly on guard should have been frightening but, to Nix’s relief neither of them were pointing the weapons at her, which spoke to a level of trust in her she’d hoped they felt but hadn’t been entirely sure of.

“What is this?” Ravas asked, trying to pull her hands free from Nix’s.

Nix held on firmly enough to indicate she didn’t want to break contact yet, but not so tightly that Ravas couldn’t have pulled free if she chose to.

“Sali, Zindiana, may I introduce Ravas Durla,” Nix said, without taking her eyes off the increasingly more confused Zabrak woman.

“Ravas Durla has been dead for centuries,” Zindiana said.

“She still is,” Ayli said, rising out of the pilot’s chair to examine Ravas more closely.

“What am I seeing here Nix,” Sali asked. “Is this a ghost? Are we haunted now?”

“No,” Nix said.

“Yes,” Ayli said at the same instant.

“I am not a ghost,” Ravas said.

“You are looking rather solid for that,” Zindiana said. “You’re also looking rather too young to be a woman who lived over a thousand standard years ago.”

“Nix what are you doing?” Ayli asked.

“Helping Ravas project herself more than she usually does,” Nix said, feeling the Force flowing through her like an eager river, delighted to be reunited with a long dry stream bed. 

“Why?” Ravas asked, apparently too confused to try to retreat.

“Because we’re heading to the final trial,” Nix said. “Your tomb. That you know nothing about.”

“I feel like we missed something,” Sali said. “What did you discover in that Spire?”

“We got the coordinates for the last planet,” Ayli said.

“And we know what’s waiting for us there,” Nix said.

“You do not,” Ravas said.

“Of course we do. You’re there waiting for us,” Nix said.

“Two problems with that,” Zindiana said. “First, if this is Ravas Durla, she seems to be here now, not there, and second, Ravas Durla is long dead. This can’t be her.”

“She was working on an Immortality treatment,” Nix said.

“And your master killed me before we could complete it,” Ravas said.

“Did she?” Nix asked. “Tell us exactly what happened.”

“I was in one of the Chrysalis Pod,” Ravas said. “Before the transformation could commence though, she was there, your master. She saw what was happening, what we were doing and she demanded that we stop. When we didn’t, she destroyed the Immortality Engine and me along with it.”

“How,” Nix asked. “What did she do. Exactly.”

“I…I do not know,” Ravas said. “I was fully immersed in the Pod. But I could hear her clearly. I heard the curses she spat at us.”

“At ‘us’?” Nix asked. “Or at your master? You were in a Chrysalis Pod. If you couldn’t see her, are you sure she could see you?”

“She called my name,” Ravas said. “I was the first one she commanded to stop.”

“And was she cursing then?”

“Jedi do not curse. They run from such power.”

“I thought you just said you heard the curses she spat at you?” Sali asked, not hosltering her weapon but relaxing her posture and grip a bit.

“My master fought her,” Ravas said.

“She was alone?” Nix asked. “I thought Jedi usually worked together?”

“They did?” Ayli asked.

“Yeah, or at least in all the bootleg vids the Empire didn’t manage to get rid of,” Nix said. “There was usually an older foxy one and a young idiot.”

“They were all idiots,” Ravas said.

“But did they actually work together?” Nix asked.

“They…hmm, were the others silent?” Ravas asked herself, answering Nix’s question in the affirmative through her confusion.

“So Jedi work together. But could Kelda have come alone then, not as a Jedi, but as someone who cared about you?” Nix asked.

That drew a bitter laugh from Ravas.

“She never cared for me,” Ravas said. “For all their talk of the connection of all things, the Jedi were quite insistent that none of their numbers ever be allowed to form bonds with one another. And when they demanded that she leave me, your master was all too eager to comply.”

“So why did she come after you?” Zindiana asked. Unlike Sali she had not relaxed her guard or changed the point of her aim.

“Our work was an abomination in the eyes of the Jedi,” Ravas said. “Eternal Life is not the way of the Force they said. They have slain those who sought it before, and did so again in the centuries that followed.”

“Seems pretty harsh,” Sali said.

“They are as unyielding as they are unforgiving,” Ravas said.

“Maybe that’s what got them all wiped out,” Sali said.

“The Jedi are not gone,” Ravas said. “They stand here before you.”

“Nix?” Zindiana asked.

“Can’t be,” Sali said. “She’s a mechanic. She’s not a Jedi. No offense Nix.”

“None taken,” Nix said. “I like being a mechanic.”

“She pulled a woman here from no where,” Zindiana said. “And that’s far from the only thing she’s done that had to have been using the Force.”

“Yeah, but she’s just Nix,” Sali said. Her blaster wasn’t pointing at Ravas anymore. To Nix’s relief, it still wasn’t pointing at her either. 

“She’s a nuisance is what she is,” Ravas said.

“I was hoping for ‘an aggravation’ or ‘an annoyance’, but I’ll take what I can get,” Nix said.

“Jedi are all of those things,” Ravas said.

“Were you trained? As a child perhaps?” Zindiana asked.

“By who? The Jedi were all wiped out,” Sali said.

“Not all of them,” Ayli said. “There were a handful or more in the Rebellion. At least.”

“Yeah, but she wasn’t in the Rebellion. She was too young for that,” Sali said. 

“Age didn’t really matter. Not to the Imperials anyways,” Ayli said and Nix felt the ache of an old pain lingering in those words.

“She’s right though. I wasn’t in the Rebellion. And I haven’t been trained by anyone. All the stuff I can do now, I figured out on my own,” Nix said, knowing Ravas wouldn’t believe her anymore this time than last.

“Jedi also lie,” Ravas said. “Often with every breath they take.”

Nix heard a distant laughter at that statement and felt a wave of approval ripple over her heart.

So Kelda was happy with how Nix was handling things.

That was comforting to know, if not particularly helpful.

“You know when I’m lying,” Nix said, making sure to star directly into Ravas’ eyes. “You’re far more attuned to the Force than I am. I couldn’t lie to you if I needed to.”

“That should be true,” Ravas said. “But I don’t believe it is.”

“You took that Ancient Specter apart with ease,” Nix said. “The one who was spinning me around like a drive wheel.”

“Indeed. Because you refuse to embrace the destructive side of your nature,” Ravas said. “But perhaps…”

She looked away from Nix and Nix had to fight the urge to reach up and turn Ravas head back so that Ravas would be forced to confront the truth’s she’d spent centuries running.

But coercion wasn’t going to pull Ravas out of the pit she’d fallen into. Nix couldn’t compel Ravas to understand why Kelda was still waiting for her. That was something Ravas had to see for herself, had to accept in spite of all the misery her life had been filled with.

“If this is Ravas Durla, and you’ve been talking to her for a while now?” Zindiana phrased it like a question but didn’t need anymore than a nod of confirmation from Nix to continue. “In that case why did we need to go Lednon or Dedlos? Why couldn’t she just tell us where the final temple was?”

“We picked her up on Lednon,” Ayli said. “When I got this.” She waggled the unlit lightsaber blade.

“Okay, so why didn’t we skip Dedlos then?” Sali asked.

“They did not trust me,” Ravas said.

“Should they have?” Zindiana asked.

“Of course not,” Ravas said. “Trust is for fools.”

Nix bit back a rejoinder to that. They were all fools. She knew that and she suspected Ravas did too, but reminding her of that fact was not going to convince her to see the world more clearly. If anything each little pushback against her worldview would only drive Ravas deeper into her beliefs.

“She also, like everyone who relies on astrogation droids to get them where they need to go, doesn’t know astrogation coordinates,” Ayli said.

Everyone on the bridge shrugged at that. Nix included, since it wasn’t like she’d memorized the jump coordinates for more than a handful of systems.

Which, she supposed, was a handful more than most people bothered with.

“Speaking of trust,” Zindiana said and glanced over at Nix. “You said, she’s waiting for us on the final world. I think we could all use an explanation with a bit more detail.”

“I’m guessing, sort of,” Nix said.

“Well that’s comforting,” Sali said. “We’ve had such good luck on the first two planets. I’m sure going into the last one with a guess to back us up will turn out just great.”

“We can drop you off any time you like,” Ayli offered, her tone friendlier than it would have been a week earlier Nix thought.

“You’ve deprived me of one fortune,” Sali said. “I’m getting my share of this one, or I’ll sell you back to the Klex’s for real this time.”

Which was, of course, not at all the reason Sali had stayed with them, but Nix was fine with letting that bit of self-deception stand. Working on Sali’s issues was Sali’s problem. And maybe Zindiana’s. Nix was sure where the two of them were in relation to each other.

“What are you guessing?” Zindiana asked.

“Ravas is a ghost,” Nix said. “Sort of. She doesn’t feel like Kelda does though.”

“Could that be a Jedi vs. non-Jedi thing?” Zindiana asked.

“Partially,” Nix said. “But I don’t think I could do this with Kelda. I think there’s something special about Ravas, something that’s kept her bound to this world more strongly than a ghost should be.”

“So you too believe I am an abomination,” Ravas started to pull away, disappointment plain in her voice.

“Not in the slightest,” Nix said, locking her grip tighter. Ravas was free to break the connection between them if she wanted to, but Nix wasn’t going to let it be over a misunderstanding. “You’re not an abomination. You never were.”

“You have no idea the things I did in my life,” Ravas said.

“They might have been abominable. Actions can be. Not people though. If you did something bad, that doesn’t mean you are bad. It means you did something bad. And you have to accept that, and, ideally, choose differently next time.”

“Once the Dark Side claims you, your destiny is forever bound to it,” Ravas said.

“Bullshit.” Nix wasn’t entirely sure that she was the one who’d spoken that word. It felt like it had come from far, far away, but on consideration she felt she could stand behind it.

“You don’t know…” Ravas began.

“Neither do you,” again the words were coming out Nix’s mouth but they didn’t feel like hers. “You’ll see though. If you can believe in these people for the two seconds you couldn’t believe in me, you’ll finally see you daft old fool.”

“K-Kelda?” Ravas stammered.

“It’s not much longer now Ravy,” Kelda said through Nix. “Just a little further my beautiful, beloved idiot.”