Bastila
I felt her presence, along with Juhani and Jolee. I rose from my meditative state, and a flick of power leaped out, sealing the door behind her.
“So predictable.” I said, standing smoothly. “The grand leader with her hounds at her heels.”
“You knew I’d come, Bastila.” She said with a sad smile. “It’s starting to look like it might be a habit.”
“What?”
“Saving you.”
I barked a laugh. “As always you think more highly of your own actions than others would. “How can you rescue someone from something they do willingly?”
“I’ll never give up on you, Bastila. I know you can be saved.”
“Quit wasting your time. I see the Jedi for what they are. Weak fearful old fools that cling to a path no one in their right mind would follow. The Sith are the true masters of the Force, and have always been. You have forgotten that, Revan.
“Now you must pay the price. Here on the Star Forge, the Dark side is supreme. This time you will die.”
“Please, Bastila.” She said softly. “We don’t have to do this.”
“I do. As long as that bond exists I am linked to a whining cowardly being that doesn’t have the decency to die. I can take my rightful place at my master’s side without the anchor you have become. Without you I am superior to all but him. With you, I am nothing.”
“No. You have never been worthless.” She said sadly. “You are the one that put a shattered mind together. That redeemed me. I must try to do the same for you.”
“Don’t make me laugh!” I snarled. “When I found you all I had to work with was a mewling pile of flesh without the wit to stop drooling! I didn’t redeem you Revan. I put together a composite of one stupid woman with another and here you stand! All I did was reprogram your computer, and over-write it, as the Jedi would have wanted.”
“True.” She smiled sadly. “But did you actually read her files? There are memories here that are not hers.” She tapped her head. “Danika was from Deralia, true. But she worked in one of the resorts. She never saw what I was able to show you. She made sergeant because she was the senior person in her squad, not through any brilliance as a soldier. When it was her time to die she accepted it because there was nothing she could do.
“Revan however went to Deralia on a hunting trip with her father and older brother just before she went off to the Jedi Academy. She met a girl a few years older than herself named Kalendra. Kalendra introduced me to the Tirlat, and the idea of compassionate love.
“That memory, you lying on the ground asking me to bond, me above you. That was the same except it was me as a six-year-old girl on the bottom,” She touched her chest, “And a nine-year-old kneeling over me. Not the love you created for a much older girl. I didn’t bond then because I had sworn to bond with the Jedi. It was I that didn’t want to be separated, I that cried in her lap wishing I could change the world and stay.
“Don’t you see?” She stepped toward me, hand out. “You didn’t just create another program as you think. You took what I was, merged it with a person so selfless that she died assuring we would live, and made me. I cannot help being what and who I am. You made me in the image of what you wanted in a companion and life mate. How else can we feel as we do?”
I screamed and cut at her savagely. She blocked, and suddenly she smiled.
-It was evening, Danika faced me. We were dueling. Not with lightsabers, but with long springy vines. Our movements were fast and clean, but they were more two girls playing rather than a serious battle. “Dance with me.” She whispered.
-”Stop it!” I leaped back. She didn’t follow. I laughed, but even I could hear a thread of panic in it. “I see now why Malak followed you. A shell of what you once were but still a formidable opponent. I can’t even imagine the power you once had and wielded as the Dark Lord. You were a fool to give it all up and follow the light.”
“I am as strong in the light as I ever was in darkness, Bastila.” She replied.
“Lies! The dark side has made me stronger than I have ever been. Stronger than Master Vandar, stronger than Vrook! I will have control of more power than their strait minds would even imagine!
“As Malak teaches me the greatest secrets of the Sith I will unlock all of my potential. Eventually there will be will be no limit to what I can achieve. I will even learn to build another Star Forge!”
“As Ajunta Pall told me, all you will accomplish is death and destruction. Those around you, then yourself.”
I shook my head. “Ajunta Pall is dead for two millennia. He speaks no more. If any knew the true strength of the Sith it was he! All else is Jedi propaganda. The dark side is a tool, nothing more. A more efficient and cutting tool than the light. Eventually I will surpass my master. When I do, I will challenge him, and he will die.
“Then I shall take on my own apprentice and the cycle will begin again. This has always been the way of the Sith. It assures that only the strongest rule us.”
“ 'We fought among ourselves to see who would be the greatest among us, and we brought our own fortresses down upon our heads'.” She said.
“What?”
“As I said, I talked with the spirit of Ajunta Pall. Those were his words to me. The first true lord of the Sith, yet as he died he knew it was all a lie.” She said. “You doom yourself, you try to doom the Galaxy to an endless cycle of death and betrayal.”
“No, it is you that are doomed!” I cut at her knees, but she blocked me. Then she began a fluid attack that had me backing away desperately. I leaped backward ten meters, throwing my lightsaber. She flicked it off with the force, then caught it. She smiled, then flipped it back to me.
“You are growing tired! I can feel it! Your strength falters as the dark side saps the light!”
“Then strike me down, Bastila.” She sighed, setting her lightsaber on the deck. “I won’t fight you any more.”
“Then die!”
“Bond with me.” She knelt. “You only see the pallid shapes of the bond, Bastila. You didn’t know how to bond with an Echani, and all you get is glimpses. I know this because we would not be here like this if you had. I see it all and it is wondrous and magnificent. All that you are, all that you had, all that you feared. I see it!”
Bond with me. My mind repeated the phrase over and over. I remembered kneeling over her body. Frantically I had reached into her mind in a way I had never imagined, a dark place, yet in it was a single spark of life. It was a vision of a young girl, her heart racing, looking up at an older girl laughing at something. But even as I witnessed it the memory began to fade. She was older than I was so I substituted us for the girls. As the younger it was I that lay on that suddenly soft grass, touching the face that hovered above me.
Bond with me.
She had resisted, but I refused to let her go. She had kissed me, accepting the bond, and I felt myself kneeling again, holding her hand. She was alive, but if I moved away from her she spasmed as if being struck by seizures. I had to touch her every second.
The others had helped, carrying her on a stretcher as I ran along side. We had reached the escape pods, and the door had barely closed when the ship began to break up. Something shattered the pod’s engine, and we whirled away as the ship exploded.
Long hours had passed, and the others had fallen off to sleep. I was bound to Revan by that link I maintained so I did not get any sleep. Then I felt the wreckage shift. I looked up, just as a faceplate blackened. It was the real Danika. She was dying from anoxia even then. Somehow I reached out a second time, feeling her thoughts and memories flowing through her. Then starting to fade as she died. I touched her mind, and was suddenly inundated in those memories. While she had consciously known she must die, her spirit had railed against her fate. I found her memories trying to force themselves into my mind clinging to me, and I frantically pushed them away into the only receptacle free for them, the now empty mind of Revan. As the shuttle came alongside, I felt the last of them pass through me into Revan.
When I was done, two people had become one. She awoke in the sickbay, remembering Danika’s life vividly. Yet I could feel her questing outward for something, and when she felt my mind, we had bonded.
Now I could feel her questing again, pushing along the bond like an eel slipping through a crack in a wall. “Revan-”
“Bond with me or kill me.” She whispered. “I who was once Revan Chandar Bai Echani ask you Bastila to bond with me in full. To share the joy and the sorrow the pleasure and the pain, to share all that two people can share until death. To stand with me until the universe dies.” She closed her eyes, looking down. “Don’t make me go through life alone.”
She was defenseless! I could kill her! I raised my lightsaber, ready to cut down-
-The only person who had never asked for more than I might give at any time. Never berated, never screamed, never pressed too hard. The person that had held me in my pain at my father’s death. That had forgiven me for what I had done to save her life. The person-
-Whose hand I touched so delicately. Her fingers spread, and I felt my own interlace. My other hand came up unbidden, and those fingers locked as well. I found myself looking at her as her eyes opened, and in them I could see myself. Not the inner picture of yourself you create. Not the mirror that you preen before. The memories flooded into me. I saw myself dirty and bedraggled in a slaver’s cage, snarling at my rescuer. Pontificating to both her and Carth. Woebegone as she stood on the floor of the apartment on Taris. Deep in thought as I puzzled out the first star map. Stricken when I learned of my father’s death. Huddled in pain when we found his body. Bleary when she had taken off that collar on Manaan. Screaming in fury as I had charged Malak. Haughty when I faced her in the temple. Then the same sneering face when I fought her here.
Yet all had the same glowing quality, as if the person saw deep within, measured all my good, all my faults all my petty worries, then cast them aside and embraced all I was in a love that cannot be matched by any hate. I felt as if my father held me again, as if nothing would ever hurt me, and I knew she would protect me from anything as long as she lived.
At the same instant I understood why she was always so hesitant around me, I realized that she had been feeling and seeing all of this from the moment she had found and sealed the bond. My doubts about her ability, my lies when I spoke to her on Taris, on Dantooine, every lie I had spoken since my terror at being linked to someone else this tightly. All transparent to her except when I was consciously blocking it.
Yet she had continued to reach out rather than thrust me aside. She had felt that I was betraying her trust, no, known I was betraying her, but what she saw had convinced her to strive to maintain the link.
Only now I felt it, a soft whisper of thought. Mine being answered, hers touching me in ways no one had ever done before. It should have been terrifying, but I had been doing the same clumsily to her all this time.
I saw myself kneeling in meditation as I decimated the Republic fleet. While I had felt the glee of having her where I wanted her, she was feeling my worry, my fury, my determination to kill her, she counter-pointed those emotions with regret. She knew what I felt, what I wanted, even now. She felt regret that she might have to kill me. I suddenly saw her afterward, Malak dead, me dead, the Republic coming to kill the Star Forge, and not caring that she would die with it. For her there would be no life afterward.
I found myself kneeling with her, my head buried against her neck, hugging her tight enough to cause bones to creak, but she never wavered, her voice crooning softly to me. I couldn’t hate her. I could never fight her. It would be like slicing off my own hands.
“I always had faith in you.” She whispered, her lips brushing my cheek.
I opened my eyes, then suddenly spun, staring at the battle. The Republic fleet was being smashed before my eyes. “What have I done!” I wailed.
“You can help them.” She said. She reached out, touching my face. “I must deal with other business.”
“But I can help you!”
“Do you think you’re strong enough to face Malak again?” She whispered gently.
I shook my head. It had been too easy to turn me to the dark side before. She must know my own strength. “You are right. Go, I will help the Republic fleet as long as I can.”
“Only if you promise me one thing. If you feel as if the force has left you suddenly, run. Get to the ship. Get away.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Trust me.” She walked toward the door. She looked back, and gave a small wave. I knew she didn’t expect to see me again.
I reached out, feeling the struggling Republic soldiers stand a little straighter. “I will be here when you return.” I whispered.
Coruscant Glory
The Republic troops felt it almost as soon as Bastila had begun. On the ships, the crews were no longer scattered men doing their best against impossible odds. They were smoothly operating cogs in a mammoth machine directed by one woman with omniscient vision.
“There!” Admiral Dodonna pointed. “A weakness in their left flank. Have Green squadron punch through!”
“On it!” Trev Collo replied. The Aleph class fighter jumped in his hands as he aimed at the Star Cruiser Mammoth. “All right guys! Let’s rock!” Behind him, the seven remaining fighters of his squadron leaped into the fray. As they passed, the fighters blasted the huge ships. Trev detected the collapse of the gravity well generator aboard the cruiser and shrieked with joy as his fighters punched through. Ahead of him a bare minute away was the Star Forge. He climbed sharply to make another run.
“We’ve broken through!”
“Understood.” Dodonna’s voice was still calm. He’d never heard her any other way. The ‘Dark Lord of the Sixth’ they called her. “Bastila is now assisting us with her battle meditation. Let’s capitalize on it. Red Squadron, keep that hole open! All capital ships punch through and support the fighters!”
Like the behemoths they were the other capital ships of the fleet forged forward. There was only thirty odd left, and as they advanced, one fell out of formation, breaking up. Behind them the Sith fleet was pushing in, but if they could get through the gap and attack the Star Forge, the loss would be worth it.
Red squadron in the larger Crucis class fighters bored in. Their heavier guns ravened across [/i]Mammoth[/i], and her sister ship Gargantuan. Both fell out of formation, air forming clouds like blood around them as the capital ships raced past them. Hundreds of Sith fighters came in, facing less Republic fighters now, but the Republic knew they could win. Even if every ship died in this system, they would win if they destroyed that huge suddenly fragile target before them.
Excellent writing, very powerful. I found the additional detail you provide on how Revan became Danika through Bastila's intervention quite illuminating. How Danika's memories were altered as they became Revan's memories. Danika seems resigned to her death though. I guess I would be too if I had to face two of my former closest friends in mortal combat.
An observation: I notice you like to use the word "ravened" when describing the firing of cannons and firearms. I've noticed the word several times in this tale. It's a word that really stands out to me.
One question though, did you decide to add the story of how Malak lost his jaw or leave the whole thing as is?
Endgame
Danika
As I ran on, I considered everything that lay before and behind. In so doing, I was struck by a revelation.
I had discovered the secret of the dark side. Something so deep that even the others that had succumbed had never seen it. Something you could only find by first falling, then dragging yourself back out of the abyss.
The dark side is fear. Nothing else. The fear of being weak, so you fought to be strong. The fear of attachment to others, so you made few friends if any. The fear of being supplanted, so you trained only one apprentice. Even then, you watched for the day when that apprentice became strong enough to challenge you. If you timed it right, you remained the master. If not, you died. Even hate, anger and pride, all of which leads to the force comes down to fearing the unknown, or fear that you must fall, as the prideful always do.
Last the fear of death. You knew that when you returned to the Force, you would be added to the balance. It is what all who live and die know will happen. But those who can feel the Force know it on a deeper level. How can you be great in the Force in life without knowing this? When you died, your energy returned to that well spring. Would you life add to the balance or throw it off?
In knowing this, I also knew the secret of the Jedi, one that only those that had already died knew.
For I had died.
The Jedi are not here to rule. They are not here to control. Even the Sith as much as they hold to that power can never really control it.
They are here to maintain that balance. Too much of the light would be just as harmful as too much of the dark. There is and must always be a balance. Death must balance life, light must balance dark. Chaos must balance order, and freedom must balance oppression.
The entire Galaxy, probably the entire universe was a living entity, and we as people were not even large enough to be a virus in such a body. But we could infect it, weaken it, Force help us, kill it if we weren’t careful.
I looked at the Republic, and inwardly I smiled. So many worlds, so many views, so many struggles, for struggle is part of life, the Sith had that much right. But the struggle is not the reason for living. It is part of it, but never all. The struggle defines only what is won or lost. Every gambler knows that simple fact. You only went down or up. Tomorrow would be different. The universe was one massive game of Pazaak, and no one won or lost forever.
There was a deeper secret that I saw in the light. The Jedi that had originally joined The Sith had not been banished to destroy them, they had been banished because the Sith who had lived then were the balance. As they lost battle after battle, some of the Jedi must have seen what would occur. The light would be triumphant. But in that it would destroy itself from within. They would forget that the dark was always there and the seeds of their own destruction would be planted. Or perhaps the Force, as any living thing, itself had assured that the dark would survive as needed.
Even the Sith code was ours, merely perverted. Both should end the same, though the Sith had forgotten that simple line.
There is no death, only the Force. To which, if anyone would believe me, I could add a line;
There is no dark, there is no light. There is only the Force.
It was so simple.
I stepped into a smaller room. Large matter transmitters aimed at the six platforms around the room. I was curious, because it hadn’t been here before. Of course the Star Forge could change and grow on command. Whatever it was for, it had been built because Malak wanted it. I knew the last passage to the observation deck lay around the corner, and I ran that way.
The door opened, and my lightsaber lit off. Malak stood there, two struggling Jedi hanging in the air behind them.
“Excuse me a moment.” He walked toward me, then his lightsaber flashed in an arc at one of the Jedi. He reached out, and the other man’s neck snapped as he spun his head completely around. “I had some garbage to take care of.” He finished the sentence. He stopped five meters away, hands clasped behind his back.
“I tire of this farce, Revan. You have been a thorn in my side ever since I seized the mantle of dark Lord from your feeble grasp! But you made your last mistake when you came here. The Star Forge feeds my command of the dark side even as it weakens your grasp on the light! You are no match for me here, and this time you will not escape.”
“I have no intention of escaping.” I replied. “Surrender. The Jedi can heal you-”
“Heal me!” He laughed. “Is that what you call what they will do? You think stripping away your power and identity was merciful? I would rather die!”
“They saved me from the darkness, Malak. They can save you too, if you allow it.”
Spoken like a true slave of the Jedi.” He sneered. “Save your sermon, I have already had enough of it. You are an insignificant speck beneath my notice here. I have surpassed you in every way and found the last secret of the Star Forge, what you had not even imagined! You have no idea what you took over here, Revan. You saw a factory that could turn out ships and droids forever, but I understood it so much better. The Dark energy of the Force fills its very walls, the people below are it’s food, supplying more energy with every birth and death.”
“They can’t use the Force.” I murmured.
“They can’t because all of it comes here. They are sucked dry of the Force even as the Star Forge grows stronger.” He sighed. “But as I said, I will not deal with you. The Star Forge will do that for me. Enjoy it.” The door between us slammed shut, and I spun around. The matter transmitters hummed, and light flashed down. But as I watched, it flickered and died. Curious, I went to one of the workstations.
CONSTRUCTION ABORTED. ALL RESOURCES ASSIGNED TO OTHER PROJECT.
I grinned. COUNT ON SHELTERS CONSTRUCTED. I typed in.
4,975,792,210,442. the computer replied. INCREASING TO 5,000,000,000,000 IN FIVE SECONDS
I chuckled, and opened the door. The other door opened, and I saw Malak standing in the center of the Observation deck. Beyond the transparisteel I could see ships approaching, just pinheads from where we stood.
“I’m sorry, but the Star Forge is busy right now.” I commented.
He turned, glaring at me. “What do you mean?” He snarled.
“I put in a priority rush order for tents. Quite a few tents, actually.”
“What?”
“Right now there should be enough tents that every man woman and child in the Republic can live in them with enough to go camping if they‘re of a mind.” I shrugged. “You never can have too many.”
“Well done. I had thought I removed your access. It seems I should have checked more carefully. I see that you retained more control over the dark side than I might have imagined. You are strong. Stronger than you were when you were the Dark Lord. I didn’t think it was possible.”
“The Force is the Force. There is no difference between the Dark and the light in strength.” I replied.
“I am almost tempted to capture you instead of killing you, Revan. Breaking your will as I did with Bastila would be merely a matter of time. You would make a far better asset that she could be. By the by, what ever happened to Bastila?”
“She is using her battle meditation to help the Republic now.”
“No matter. They have less than thirty capital ships remaining. I still have over a hundred. They will die here, and my fleet will destroy the Republic they can no longer defend.
“I wonder. Would it be worth the effort to make you my apprentice? Perhaps not. You are already too powerful for me to guarantee that you would remain the apprentice for long.”
“I will never serve the Dark side again.”
“Foolish words. I have known you since you were a child old friend. The Dark and the Light has fought over you all your life. The balance is tipped toward the light for now. But you will tip the other way again eventually.
"Savior, conqueror, hero, villain. You are all things, Revan, and yet you are nothing. In the end you belong to neither the light nor the darkness. You will forever stand alone." He sighed. “There was only one thing you could never be.”
Think of the power an unrequited love could generate in your soul Bastila had said.
Looking at him, his eyes cold in hate, I realized how much of what was happening now was my fault. He had been the older brother I depended on when I first arrived, a frightened girl of six looking up to the ten year old who had started his Jedi training at my age. He had been the friend I admired when I was assigned to his class, when I had begun to outreach him in the Force all those years ago, I only fourteen, he eighteen and a man worth admiring. we had played together, trained together, gone swimming in the lake near the Academy as unashamed as only children could be. Hugged each other when I had a nightmare, slept in each others arms later as Padawan on our first missions.
He had felt more, wanted so much more, but had never said so. The Jedi teach that love is something that cannot be focused on just one thing, it must be given unsparingly to all. Love of all men if you will, rather than love of a man. I had been blind to it then.
Then the war had come. We had been friends, family in all but flesh, and I had grown to love him, not only for what he did in the name of the Republic, but as the man he was.
If only we had allowed what our bodies wanted then, we wouldn’t be enemies now. But it hadn’t happened.
When I had turned to the dark, he had followed, not out of need, but out of love for me. When he had lost his jaw at Trantor he must have thought it bothered me.
I had come to see him in the Bacta tank, and turned away. From repugnance, he probably thought. But I had turned away because I had never kissed those full lips and now never would. Never felt his arms around me in an embrace that wasn’t for support or warmth. Never felt his flesh against mine since we were children too young to understand the joys a few years could bring. It wasn’t until his injury that I suddenly realized that I had yearned for that pleasure, now torn away from me. I had hurt more at that moment than I had from every wound I had taken before, and I knew more than I had suffered since. I might have offered him my love then, but I had not. He would have seen it as pity, and hated me for it.
If I had been wholly in the dark I could have ended his life then, but I loved him still, and more desperately than before. Instead I made sure he was as well as he could be before assigning him again. I had given him his own ship, not to separate us as he might have thought but to give him space to grow beyond that injury. Part of me hoped that he would, that he would eventually accept what I had yearned to offer.
Instead he had festered, and when it was possible, had struck me down. That explained his rage at Taris, at Dantooine. He could not have me, and refused to let others have what he could not. If he could, he would have fed the entire galaxy into the Star Forge, including himself. As long as he assured that I went into the furnace before him.
I had known him for eighteen years then and I had known in all that time that he had an enormous capacity for love, but as large a capacity for hate.
Since he could not enjoy the one, he had indulged the other.
“I believe in redemption for all I care about, Malak.”
“Of course you do.” He spoke as if to a child. “It is all the Jedi masters left you. Fate and destiny have conspired to have you destroy the Galaxy, then to save it. You have been thrust into the role of savior again, and I must fight you because this is all I have left. Once again we face each other in mortal combat. This time only one of us leave here alive. But first, say hello to my guests.” He motioned, and a series of cylinders slid up into the room. I looked at one, and my blood ran cold. Belaya hung there, peaceful as if in death. But I could still feel her life force. Zhar, a few others I didn’t recognize.
“What have you done?” I asked in horror.
“Remember when we had the winnowing of the Jedi after we found the Star Forge? The Sith suggested killing them all, but you were merciful.” He laughed. “And who but your good right arm could be in charge of their detention?” He walked up to a tube, looking into it. “So I found a use for them. For all those that followed you into hell, but wouldn’t drag the rest of the Galaxy after you. Those that surrendered believing your promise of good treatment. That didn’t even know they could feel the force until the selection process.
“I told you the Star Forge was alive. In many ways it needs to be fed like any animal. Every Jedi that has been captured, every force sensitive from the captured Republic troops, every Sith Dark Jedi that disobeyed my orders has been encased in cylinders like these, scattered through the entire station. They have become parts of this machine, and it feeds off their energy. Disposable parts that are replaced as they wear out. You were too busy to even notice.
“Look around you! These are the Jedi that fell at Dantooine. Dead in every way save one. They cannot return to the force. I have stayed their decomposition, and they draw the Force from the Galaxy itself to feed themselves instinctively. And in so doing, they power the Star Forge.
“And I have discovered more. I can drain their Force into myself, making myself stronger with every life, making me immortal. Once I have beaten you, I will add you to my collection, and you will fuel my conquests! I shall rule forever!”
I felt a part of my mind reel, but in the same instant, I understood why Ajunta Pall had gifted me. I had instinctively used one of the many powers he had gifted me with when I had sent his spirit free. I reached out, and I felt the life forces of those trapped people. Not just the eight here, but hundreds even thousands trapped between death and life throughout the station. I felt the life force, and gathered it to me as I had with Ajunta Pall.
The bodies spasmed eyes open and screaming, then I felt them slacken throughout the station in true death.
“What have you done!” He screamed as he saw the bodies collapse. I smiled, and held out my hand. A glowing ball arced up, then sprayed the room with sparks. Every one of those ’disposable parts’. One of them floated before me, and I heard Zhar’s voice as they faded.
[i]Well done, my beloved daughter.
Malak screamed, and he caught me with an angry arm of the Force, slamming me into the wall storming toward me with his lightsaber lit. “I will win the day!”
“No.” I held out my other hand. In it was the grenade I had made. I triggered it. There was a blinding flash that flung us apart.
Picture having every cell of your body suddenly explode, but you’re alive to feel it. I screamed in agony, and knew even as it happened that every ship in the system, every being in every ship was feeling it. Perhaps everywhere in the Galaxy. For those used to the Force, it was bad. For the two of us, it was sheer agony that seemed to never end.
I found myself kneeling, shaking my head to clear it. Across the room Malak was trying to get back on his feet. “What madness is this?”
“I always wanted to defeat the Jedi, not destroy them.” I gasped. I could stand, but I was shaky. “Before I left, I had asked the main computer on the Rakata home world for a way to neutralize the Force. It didn’t want to tell me.“
The Star Forge staggered, and I could hear metal sheering somewhere. One of the transparisteel windows fractured in a crazy pattern, but didn’t burst.
“It designed a grenade that neutralizes all of the force within its blast area. That was what you just felt.”
“What is the blast area?” He staggered, and steadied himself.
“I don’t know.” I admitted. “ Farther than this room obviously. A few light seconds, maybe the entire system.“ I shrugged. “Possibly the entire galaxy.”
“You, you fool!”
“Perhaps. But think of this. On Tatooine we found the wreckage of Rakata ships, but the metal has proven worthless. It doesn’t have the strength and rusts away very rapidly. Even now 30,000 years of history is catching up with everything constructed here.” I pointed out the armorplast. A Sith fighter had been flying by, followed by an Aleph. It had made a sharp turn to evade, and collapsed as if the main supports had vanished. “How much of your fleet out there right now came from here?”
He screamed and charged me, lightsaber humming. I blocked, and I could see in his eyes the loss of all his dreams. He cut again and again, and I blocked him. He had never been my equal with a lightsaber before, and he hadn’t been fighting for his life every second of the last two months. All I needed to do was wait.
I struck, and knew he was dying. Yet instead of striking again, I dove forward frantically catching his body as he began to fall. His lightsaber fell, and his hands once so strong, so sure, weakly pawed at me as he tried to breathe. I lowered him to the deck, holding his head up, looking into his eyes. The Star Forge shuddered. The fleet was pounding it, shattering a structure older than time itself, and I didn’t care that I was inside that target. All I cared about was the fragile life slipping through my hands.
He looked up, and for the first time in years, I saw actual pleasure. “Revan.” He whispered.
“Forgive me old friend. No. Forgive me, my love.” I whispered back, tears falling onto his face.
“All these years.” He husked. “I yearned to hear those words. Too late, Revan. Too late.”
“No my love.” I held him against my bosom, caressing his head. “I wanted to do this for so long. But the war came between us, then the dark side did. When I wanted to give myself freely, you felt that I was repulsed by your condition.” I touched the metal facemask he had worn all this time. “I wanted to show you that I loved the boy you had been. The man you had become. That I had always loved you. But you would have thought I pitied you.”
His eyes looked confused. “Then..?”
I nodded, kissing his cheek.
“You know what I regretted most then?” I asked. He looked even more confused. “That I never kissed you while you still had lips. But now I regret that I never bore our children. Never held your arms around me as we watched our children play.”
His eyes understood my pain, then regret. “A waste.” He whispered. “My life, all I have done. A waste.”
“No my love, you were part of the balance as I was.”
"Still... spouting the wisdom of the Jedi, I see. Maybe there is more truth in their code than I ever believed. I... I cannot help but wonder, Revan. What would have happened had our positions been reversed? What if fate had decreed the Jedi would capture me instead? Could I have returned to the light, as you did? If you had not led me down the dark path in the first place, what destiny would I have found?
"I wanted to be Master of the Sith and ruler of the galaxy. But that destiny was not mine, Revan. It might have been yours, perhaps . . . but never mine. And in the end, as the darkness takes me, I am nothing."
“No my love. I know the secret of the Force. The Dark and the Light.” I bent down and whispered in his ear.
While he no longer had a mouth, I could see the idea made him want to smile. “How droll.” He reached up, and I caught his hand, holding it against my face long after the muscles had gone slack.
Coruscant Glory
“What the hell was that?” Admiral Dodonna shook her head. She felt as if someone had smacked her in the forehead with a four kilo hammer. She staggered to her feet, looking around. Master Vandar lay in a heap, shuddering.
“Master-”
“I will be well. Fight your battle, Admiral.” A soft weak voice ordered.
“Damage report!” She roared.
“None from that blast, Admiral.” A lieutenant reported. “We have half a dozen in sickbay complaining of severe headaches, but only the Jedi seem to have been really hit by it.”
“The damn thing keeps coming up with more things to hit us with!” Dodonna pointed. “Take us in!”
The ship turned, and her guns punched into a frigate. Everyone gasped as the ship came apart as if it were a badly assembled toy.
“What is going on here?” She screamed. No one answered. “Send to all capital ships, close on the Star Forge upper structure.”
Danika
I watched the approaching ships, knew that I was going to die, and was content. This battle, the war, all of the death had all been my fault. It was I that led the Jedi into the Darkness, taking my best friend with me. I had dragged him over into the darkness, never requited his passion for me, never born his children. Promised proper treatment to those we had captured, yet thousands had ended up here as disposable parts because I had failed to make sure of that treatment. Been beaten by the Jedi. In so doing betrayed the Sith I had led into the slaughter. Then in turn had failed Bastila. Failed the Republic. How many billions could point to me and say ‘she caused our deaths’?
I had failed in everything.
I pulled out the package I had taken from Korriban, the Ebon sword of Ajunta Pall, and laid it on his chest. I had promised to have it destroyed, and from the look of the ships approaching, that was guaranteed. I closed his hands over it. He getting a funeral pyre the galaxy would remember. With his love going with him as custom demanded
“Danika, Report.”
Carth. I’m sorry, Carth. I betrayed your trust by being who I am. I must atone.
“My Mandalore, answer.”
Your entire race I have failed. Pick someone who won’t fail.
“Danika?”
Mission the sister I never had. Be well, live long, have children.
“Danika.” I heard Bastila’s voice. “Please, Don’t make me go through life alone again.”
I sobbed. Of all of them this call I wanted to answer. I’m sorry, Bastila. The blood of billions of dead is on my hands, on both sides. I can’t live with that. Please, think well of me and let me atone.
“Amma yuru?” I spun. Sasha squirreled out of a vent, and ran to me. She caught my arm pulling frantically. “Come!” She said in Mando.
“You go my love.” I whispered turning back to my dead love. “I have something I have to do first.”
“No! You come with me!” She begged.
I looked down into that still face. So peaceful now. I couldn‘t bear to look away. “Go on. Go back to the ship. I’ll be with you in a little while.”
“I can’t.” She said. “The vents have collapsed. I don‘t know the way.” She cuddled against me. “I’m scared.”
I burst into tears, holding her as I stood. I failed one more time on that day.
I didn’t die.
As we fled the Star Forge, I saw it for what it was. The Rakata had been that first race reaching for the Force. They had used it, and like a child had abused it. Their abilities had not disappeared. They had been suppressed. The plague had been the Force striking back at them, balancing the Galaxy in the quickest manner possible. The Star Forge had merely added to their pain, drawing away all of the Force before they could even learn to use it. That they had survived at all was testament to the fact that they still had a place here in this galaxy among us.
Now that magnificent structure was falling to pieces before our very eyes. A section of ladder someone had installed broke away as the wall behind it fell into dust as we climbed down. Still I strived to save Sasha.
No one had ever dreamed of such a structure, powered both by machinery and the Force except for them. I knew the inner workings of that creation, and I vowed that nothing like it would ever be built again. I would place my records in the archives of what it was and how it had been destroyed. But what I knew, what I remembered, the surveys done by Malak and I before the Sith arrived, that I would take to my grave. Even the existence of the Star Forge must become a legend nothing more, I would assure that only those that were worthy would ever know of the truth.
I finally found an elevator shaft that hadn’t collapsed, and felt the car hurtle downward.
How would I choose who was worthy? I wouldn’t. The Force would.
Coruscant Glory
“All ships target the stabilizer at grid 411.” Admiral Dodonna ordered. There were only 20 capital ships left, but they had more than enough firepower to finish the job. Blasters ripped into the oddly fragile metal, tearing deep into the structure. An transparisteel panel on an upper deck shattered, and the air within belched out, carrying a man’s body. His hands had been locked around a sword of some kind. The body fell toward the star, flickered and was gone. Dodonna shook her head, smiling, but then looked around to make sure no one had seen it.
The stabilizer tower staggered, and as it did the Star Forge began sinking toward the star.
“All right, let’s get out of here!” Dodonna shouted. The capital ships clawed for separation. There were a dozen ships waiting for them. “Where’s the enemy fleet?” She demanded.
“A lot of them ran, Admiral.” The sensor officer reported. Those ones...”
As he stopped talking, fighters were pouring over the enemy frigates, all, she noticed of alien manufacture. One shattered like a crystal goblet under fire. Another signalled its surrender. The others ran. The fighters harried them.
“Admiral.” She turned. Vandar was sitting up, holding his head.
“Are you all right now, Master?”
“The battle?”
“Somehow we won. The enemy ships were starting to come apart. I don‘t know how to explain it.”
“I think I know who to ask. Where is the Ebon Hawk?”
“Sir?” She walked over to the sensor officer. Ebon Hawk wasn’t on her screen.
Ebon Hawk
Carth
Something happened. The Jedi all screamed, and collapsed, and we had one hell of a time getting them aboard the ship and holding off attacks at the same time. A short while after that Bastila and the other Jedi of our team staggered in. But of Sasha and Danika, we had no trace. I called her. Canderous called her Mission called her. Even Bastila called her. But there was no reply. Bastila seemed to be taking it the worst. She had collapsed, crying, shaking her head when we questioned her.
“She wants to die.” She finally got out. “She expects to die, and thinks, she thinks she deserves to die. That is why she won’t talk to us.”
I stormed out onto the deck, thumbing my com unit. “Danika, answer or so help me-”
“So help you what?” I spun. Danika was walking toward me, holding Sasha in her arms. I whooped, charging at her. She set the girl down just in time to avoid having her crushed as I picked her up in a bear hug.
Behind me I could hear shouting, and Bastila leaped past me. Danika turned as if she had known what would happen, and caught the smaller woman in a hug.
“You are never leaving me alone again, Danika.” Bastila looked up, and I was astonished by the joy in her eyes. “Never! Do you hear me?”
“All right already.” Danika replied brushing her cheek with her lips.
Mission was there, and Danika hugged her wordlessly. She nodded to Canderous, then motioned. “Can we all get out of here before we find out what the inside of a star feels like?”
We ran aboard, and Bastila and I took our stations. The ship shuddered, staggering into the air, and spun on her thrusters, punching through the force field and into space. We were closer to the star than I would ever want to be, and the glare almost blinded us. I climbed frantically, and watched the sensor behind us. The Star Forge sheared, the lower half suddenly buckling and falling away as the upper part spun madly. Then it was gone into the star as if it had never been.
“Where is everybody?” Mission asked. “All I am getting is a lot of small returns. Wreckage, a lot of wreckage.”
“Maybe they’re dead.” I turned to see Danika standing behind us. “It would be just my luck.”
“Now don’t-” I started.
“Ebon Hawk, this is Coruscant Glory. Come in please.“
I whooped. “Ebon Hawk here. Good to hear your voice!“
“Standby for Admiral Dodonna.”
“I expected her to survive.” I chuckled. “Never thought the Dark Lord of the Sixth would even get scratched.”
“Well a little scratched Carth.” The admiral’s voice replied dryly. “Finally I found out what you lower ranks called me all these years.” She chuckled in delight. “How are you down there?”
“Something big knocked out the Jedi. We had to drag them aboard. The Jedi from our team are all aboard. In fact, I don’t think we lost anybody.”
“Understood. Stand by for Master Vandar.”
“I will speak to Revan.” He said.
“Danika Wordweaver here, Master.” Danika replied. “We all know Revan is dead.”
“As you will.” He answered. “What happened to Bastila?”
“Other than having been suborned redeemed and getting bonded in truth to me, nothing, Master.”
There was a long silence. “And the affect of the weapon?”
“I don’t know, Master.” She admitted. “I don’t know the range, power or cumulative effect of it. Perhaps we will regain the use of the Force. Perhaps not.” She shrugged though he couldn’t see that. “But I submit that it crippled the enemy forces facing the fleet, and allowed them the victory.” She rubbed Bastila’s neck. “I think it would be a fair trade.”
“Such a weapon must never be made ever again.”
“Master, I destroyed all records as I went, and the only device that can make such a weapon is falling into the sun as we speak. I promise you that.”
“Not your decision to make. But done is done. Bastila must be retrained-”
“Master, unless you want me there as well, I suggest you rethink that.” Danika broke in. “I am protective of those I love.”
“You always were.” He grunted. “Meet us on the planet. Much there is to do yet.”
“On our way.” I called.
Recessional
Danika
The temple had not seen such a crowd in millennia. Hundreds had gathered. Humans, Twi-lek, Rodians. To one side stood a group of the Elders, and with them grim faced Mandalore.
Master Vandar stood with the Admiral as she prepared for the ceremony. I would have preferred to relax with a glass og Tihar among the Mando, but Bastila would have none of it. While preparing for the ceremony, we had discussed it at length. “We are being honored, my love. Better to be there than to appear to be sulking.”
I am not sulking.” I groused, brushing Sasha’s hair, then braiding it with economic movements. “I just would rather have a glass of tihaar and relax than have to stand around like a prize animal at a market.”
“Hush.” Bastila draped her arm over my neck, nuzzling against me. “We have to decide about Sasha. They will want to train her.”
“Why not?” I asked. I turned her around. My hairstyle on that small head should have looked silly. But she had her own presence. “Our girl can do anything. As long as she remembers to clean up after herself.”
“I couldn’t use a broom on the Leviathan.” She chirped back.
“Don’t get cheeky with me young lady.”
“I am no lady.” She retorted. “I was daughter of a farmer, slave of a Mando, and now I am daughter presumptive of a Jedi!” She retorted.
“Daughter presumptive?” Bastila asked confused.
“She’s been calling me Amma yuru for months now. Don’t you know what it means?”
“Mando is very difficult, and the Goodar dialect doubly so.” She closed her eyes. “Person I-” Her eyes opened. “Person I wish was my mother?”
“Close enough. She was calling me the equivalent of ‘stepmother’ all that time, and you didn’t know!” I caroled.
“Enough. What does that make me?” Bastila asked tartly.
“Amma tu che yuru?” Sasha answered grinning.
Bastila mentally ran through it. “The not-so-nice stepmother? Wait! The wicked stepmother! Oh, no, I am not going to- Danika will you stop laughing! Sasha there must be...”
All that was behind us now. The door of the temple stood open, and I gloried in the feeling of the Force again. The effect had not been permanent, but I stood by what I had told master Vandar. It would have been worth the loss for the victory.
The Admiral was all set to give a speech, but I stepped up to her. “Please, there is something more important to do first.” I whispered.
“There can’t be!” She waved toward the medals. “We’ve won a great battle, and you say there is something more important than that?”
“Yes, Admiral. This was only a battle. An entire race needs to regain their honor.” She looked confused, and I stepped past her, leaping up on the edging stones of the ramp. “Mando! Hala! Macht Che-na!” I shouted.
The Mando around the One stiffened, and their chief started forward.
“No, all of you!” I roared in Basic. The other Mando looked at each other confused. Then they marched forward in a block. The Republic troops muttered and backed away.
“ALL!” I roared. About thirty of the humans among the Republic Forces came forward. Not all of the Mando had become mercenaries after the war. They gathered before me at the edge of the ramp.
“As Mandalore, I took your honor for crimes committed by your people. For services to myself, to the Republic, and to the Rakata people, I give you back your honor.” I said. The crowd below me stiffened. “But one last thing must be done. A Mandalore must live with her people, share their triumph and tragedy. This I cannot do.
“Canderous Ordo of Clan Ordo, come forth!” He came forward, and I motioned toward the stones at me feet where he knelt. “You took cleansing the honor not only of your clan but others upon yourself. I say that no man deserves to be Mandalore more than you. Though that is for the clans to decide.” He stared at me in amazement. “That is once I am done.”
“No, My Mandalore.” He looked up at me. “As you said, A Mandalore must live with his people. I will not lead them unless it is also in your service!”
The Mando at my feet roared at that. “Makiel Suuchin of Clan Lembat!” He stepped forward. “You are now Makiel Suuchin of Clan Suuchin. All that remain of your people on this planet shall bear your clan name with honor. Do any deny me?”
“I only ask.” Konrad Morgo of clan Shoomart said. The other local Mando groaned.
I shook my head. He‘d probably question the Gods on the last day. “What do you ask this time, Konrad?’
“Since we fought the battle here with you as our leader, should we not be Clan Wordweaver or clan Revan?” The others looked at him then at me intently. “After all, a name should not be forgotten if it has honor. It is the Canon.”
“Konrad, you are the most irritating man I have ever had the misfortune to meet!” I motioned for them to go away. “Choose among yourselves. Your Mandalore will be there when we are done.” They retreated bickering. Sasha giggled. “Nothing from you, little girl!”
“If I may?” Admiral Dodonna asked sarcastically.
“I apologize, Admiral.” I bowed to her. She shook her head ruefully, then looked at Master Vandar as if to say ‘She’s your problem’. Then she turned.
“We come to honor the heroes of the battle fought over our heads. It shall be called the Battle of Rakata after those that have asked to join the Republic.” She motioned toward the Elders. One by one we stepped forward, each bowing to accept our medals. Republic Crosses, the second highest award. Mission and Zaalbar together first. She had threatened to dump a ton of unprocessed Kolto on the proceeding if they ignored Zaalbar, and I had worried more that she might actually carry out the threat than where she might have gotten it. Then Juhani, Canderous Sasha and Jolee.
Canderous took it as he did everything, stoically. But I could see the gleam in his eyes. When he died, he expected to be in the front rank of that heavenly army.
Finally Carth Bastila and I stepped forward together. The Admiral smirked, and reached. “For the leaders of this endeavor, we have Crosses of Honor.” She leaned down. The highest award that can be offered, she had to get the Senate’s permission to even consider issuing them. She motioned, and we knelt. The only medal for valor you had to accept on bended knee. A tradition I understood, because all but ten had been posthumous. With the award came a lifetime stipend, and the honor of having everyone whatever their rank right up to Chancellor bowing to you first. I felt the ribbon drop, the medal hitting between my breasts. As I stood, I saw Carth’s face begging to be anywhere else. Bastila merely bowed her head as if remembering as I did all those that had died to earn it.
“Our heroes!” The Admiral shouted. The crowd roared, and we gathered on the edge of the ramp, waving like idiots.
“And the redemption of the fallen.” Vandar said. I winked at him, and he solemnly returned it.
A number of the modern ships had escaped the battle, several hundred of the Rakata designed ships had also fled. We hadn’t won the war, just set our toes and shoved the darkness back a pace. Would anything we had done matter?
Then I felt the worry niggling in my mind. An enemy that would not even be here for over 15 more years. I had discovered it, and all of my efforts had been turned to defeating it. Whatever it was. What would happen then?
Who cared? We had won the breathing space.
There is no dark, there is no light. There is only the Force.
End
A fabulous ending, machievelli. A different take on the relationship between Malak and Revan; opportunity lost. A very clear perspective on Malak's motivations, first propelled by love and then by hate. I must have missed the ability Ajunta Pall gave Danika, to reach out with the Force and pull the life force of others from their bodies. And then the idea of a force grenade, making it possible to destroy the Star Forge. I thought that was a novel idea. Congratulations on a captivating, well constructed ending to your KotOR saga.
EDIT:
P.S. Thanks for adding in the story of how Malak lost his jaw. I was really hoping his missing jaw would have resulted from a lightsaber cut but I didn't want to influence your decision in the matter so I didn't say anything. I did like how you noted the medic used pen tubes to connect his severed arteries. That was cool and gross at the same time. :D
A fabulous ending, machievelli. A different take on the relationship between Malak and Revan; opportunity lost. A very clear perspective on Malak's motivations, first propelled by love and then by hate. I must have missed the ability Ajunta Pall gave Danika, to reach out with the Force and pull the life force of others from their bodies. And then the idea of a force grenade, making it possible to destroy the Star Forge. I thought that was a novel idea. Congratulations on a captivating, well constructed ending to your KotOR saga.
Posting 116, Ajunta was surprised that she could touch him, but he could not touch her. When she obtained his sword he was going to fade away, but she caught and directed his soul
Thank you. What do the other think about this?
290 hits in about ten days, and NOBODY has anything to say?
Come on y'all. Don't be afraid. Tell machievelli what you think of his KotOR story. He doesn't bite.
Well, most of the time anyway... :smirk2:
^^^
Hmmm, so the Interdictor ship class has been present in the SW timeline for 4,000+ years? Seems like quite a long time to have a class called by the same name...
EDIT: I looked up the starwars.com databank entry for the Leviathan and it does state that the Leviathan was "the vanguard of interdicting technology" but it doesn't say it was an Interdictor-class ship. Meh. I'm probably just splitting hairs on this one...
http://www.starwars.com/databank/starship/leviathan/index.html)
EDIT 2: I stand corrected. 3956 BBY it is. Calling it an Interdictor is it's function, not it's type. Like a Heavy or light cruiser.
According to the Canon (Outbound Flight) the technology to create a gravitational field (The primary force used by an Interdictor to stop a ship from going into hyperspace) didn't exist until right before the Clone Wars.