Title: Defying Gravity
Author: Amme Moto—in the middle of school!!
Date/Time Started: 12/20/07 2:39 P.M. Central Time
Summary: Connan remembers. She's met her crew before. And not as Connan.
Author's Notes: Just ten or so chapters I'm writing while at school. It goes through Connan Frai as Revan, and she eventually meets each and every crew member in turn. Each chapter ends with an epilogue with Connan being herself and not Revan. It's just to keep me occupied while at school.
--
Chapter One: The Jedi
She smoothed out her favorite robes—the one's she'd made herself, as a matter of fact—and glanced up at her friends. She could have laughed if the situation wasn't so serious. She took another deep breath and spoke again.
"I realize that what I'm saying goes against everything we've ever been taught." She continued. "And I know I'm asking something of you that most of you won't give."
She took a moment to glance beside her, at Malak, who was standing with his hands behind his back. His spine was completely straight and he had a set look on his face, his teeth grinding together.
"But the people I want will not be as closed-minded as the Jedi Council. The people who will stand up and protect our Republic in its time of need will come with us, and they'll come now." She once again took another pause, taking in the reactions of the people in front of her. They were all invariantly her friends; people she'd worked with and laughed with. Now she would see if they were really all that chalked up that they claimed to be.
"I don't want to defy the Jedi Council, anymore than you people do." Another lie, of course. She'd figured out long ago from her first Master that there were faulty teachings in the Jedi; teachings that would make them out to be hypocrites and cause their very word to become a paradox. It was true that she didn't want to hurt the Jedi, but it was also a lie that she didn't want to defy them. She had been itching for an excuse for years, really. "But they sit here and wait in their passionless serenity, thinking that all is calm with the galaxy, while our brave soldiers go out and die daily for the right for us to sit here and think!"
Apparently that had been the right thing to say. She'd always been a bit of a diplomat. It was something that Malak could never beat her in, aside from everything else in the world. Instantly another thought came to her mind.
"Who here has lost a loved one thanks to the war? Who here has a mother, a father, a sibling, an aunt or an uncle, a niece, a nephew?" That worked. A few hands rose. "Are you just going to sit here and wait for the Jedi Council to think about starting to meditate on what to do about the subject? Are you just going to lie down with your bellies up, waiting for nothing to happen? For I tell you, by the time the Jedi Council decides what to do, we'll be dead or speaking Mandalorian."
"She's right!" Called a voice. She recognized it instantly and smiled. Donella to the rescue, as usual. "I lost a sister just last week!"
Donella pushed her way to the front, brushing her long blonde hair out of her eyes.
"Well, there's one of my faithful." She joked. Donella smirked, turning to face the growing crowd of Jedi.
"Listen, friends! She's right. Revan's right." She glanced at Revan expectantly. "There's only one way the Republic is going to win. And this is it! We must join the battle."
Revan nodded. She glanced at Malak, mentally pushing him toward the door. It was time to leave.
"Those of us who are willing to defy the Council to save our Republic, to protect our homes, and to save our way of life, will meet with either Donella, Malak or I before we set out." She bowed deeply. "Those of you who are coming, set out with a mission bag and meet us at the Jedi Docks in three days' time." She glanced around one last time and summoned her most powerful, most awe-striking voice. "In three days, we leave for Dxun!"
A cry rose up, starting from the back of the now very large crowd, and rippled up to the front. As Revan, Donella and Malak left, Malak wrapped an arm around Revan's waist.
"That's for you, love." He whispered.
She nodded. She knew they loved her speaking abilities. She could force a rancor to kill its young with that kind of voice, and it would do it without a backwards glance.
"They'll come," Donella encouraged.
--
Revan stretched. She was tired.
After all, she'd spent the last few days packing for the trip. She had to plan to leave without the Jedi Council knowing, and to do that, she had to talk a few of the Jedi Dock managers onto their side, so they wouldn't inform the Council of what they were doing.
She'd also had to get a count of everyone planning to leave with her. The number was surprisingly high. Donella had apparently been able to talk to a few people unbeknownst to the Council—or Kavar, who seemed to be spending more and more time with the blonde—and had rallied more to their cause. Now more than half of the Jedi in the Coruscant Jedi Academy were planning on coming with them, and the Jedi Council had no clue.
Or if they had a clue, they didn't let on.
Maybe they simply thought it was an empty rumor; that there was no value behind it and no one would pursue it. Maybe they figured that Revan would come to her senses and cancel the trip before the left.
They were wrong.
Revan cinched up her bag before throwing it around her shoulder and turning to leave the small room. Her roommate would be home, soon, and then she'd have to—
"Revan!"
Yeah, that was her.
Revan shrugged helplessly, sitting back down and preparing for another argument. For someone so "in tune" with the Force, she sure could get her riled up.
"You'll never believe what Malak just tried to talk me into doing!" Her roommate raved, throwing her hands about and pacing the room, as she often did. Revan was half-amazed she hadn't pulled all of her brown hair out, or that she hadn't dug a hole in the floor with her pacing.
"I bet I will," Revan shrugged. "But I have no doubt you're going to tell me anyway,"
Her roommate went on as if she hadn't heard her.
"Malak just came up to a group of us while we were studying—" By now Revan had learned that it was a severe offense to bother her roommate while she was studying. Or meditating. Or eating. Or sleeping. "—And tries to talk us into coming with him to join the war!"
Revan held back a sputter. She'd warned dear Malak not to let her roommate in on the secret. The Council was sure to find out now.
"Bastila—"
"No, no," Bastila shook a finger. "I'm not finished yet. I'm worried about him, Revan. The way he's talking, defying the Jedi Council, and the lies he's told…."
"Lies?" Revan raised an eyebrow, pulling her hair up and pinioning it with a band. "What sort of lies?" She didn't recall allowing lovely Malak to lie to get people to come. The whole basis of their entrance into the war was for truth, after all, and if they lied to get the truth, they'd be no better than the Sith.
Somehow, that thought did not chill her as it used to.
"He said—" Bastila stopped to take a deep breath before continuing. "He said that you were leading the rebel Jedi to go and fight in the war. Tomorrow."
Revan knew Bastila. She knew that Bastila expected her to laugh in disbelief, slap her hands to her knees and deny it completely. She knew that's what she wanted.
She also knew not to look at Bastila's face when her best friend realized the truth of the matter was that Revan had in fact been the one to organize and put together the whole ordeal.
"I—you—" And now Bastila would have a look of innocent confusion on her face, and Revan hid her eyes behind the new gloves which laced her hands. "He wasn't—he wasn't telling the truth, was he?"
Revan finally looked back up, her hands now placed firmly on her mouth. She locked her eyes to Bastila's, opening herself up to her dearest and most treasured friend.
"Revan!" Bastila's tone was now one of a shocked whisper, as if she were aghast simply thinking of something horrible. "You can't be. You know what the rules are. You've been pushing them enough already; what are the Council Members going to think if you and a bunch of others rush off to the war and become ensnared in the death and the Dark Side?"
Revan shrugged again. As long as Bastila knew she was leaving, it really didn't matter if she tried to talk to her about it. Maybe she could even talk her into coming. That would be a great accomplishment.
"Bastila," Revan stood, making her way to the desk which occupied her side of the room and opening a drawer. "Do you remember the trip to Tralus that Kreia and I took a few months ago with that team of Jedi?"
"The one where you were to stop the war and slavery? Yes, I remember." Bastila snapped. "But what's that got to do with—"
"The Mandalorians attacked the world next to us, and we didn't hear a thing." Revan interrupted. "We were five hours away if we flew at high speed, and we never even got word that something was wrong."
"Is that why you're so upset about the war?" Bastila seemed to sigh of relief. "Revan, bad things happen in war. That doesn't mean the Jedi must—"
"—Kreia was the only one to feel the death until we flew into the region." Revan continued, still ignoring Bastila's interruptions. "When I asked her about it, she gave me the hard way to find out, as usual." Revan had to stop and smile at the memory of her old Master. "I sat and I meditated, if you can believe that. For a few hours we didn't move. A group of our team was sent in a shuttle to go check out the planet and see what the damage was. For a few hours, I couldn't see what masked the death so completely.
"Then I saw it. It was a small, red line in the galaxy, leading farther and farther into Mandalorian space." She crossed her legs and leaned onto the table. "I stole one of your many datapads concerning Sight colors, and as it turns out—big surprise and all—red means the Dark Side.
"So what was I to think? Things like that didn't come along every day. And Mandalorians—harsh though they may be—aren't really a Dark Sided people. So what could this mean?"
Revan stopped for a moment to ponder on Bastila's expression. It was a calculating one, a face that Revan could only assume had been acquired from Bastila's long hours spent with Revan.
"There's something behind the Mandalorians." Revan said bluntly. She could hear Bastila hold back a sharp squeak. "I don't know if it was the luck of the draw for them, or if they instigated the fight, but it's waiting for the Mandalorians to finish their fight with the Republic so it can come clean up."
She could see Bastila shaking a little bit.
"I'm simply going to stop it." Revan stated. "Whatever is behind the Mandalorians won't come out until the war is over, so I'm going to end the war. Then when I figure out what Sith faction is threatening my Republic, I'm going to take them out, any way I possibly can."
"There's Dark Side thinking behind that," Bastila said darkly. Revan shrugged, pulling the second strap of the bag over her shoulders.
"Maybe." She admitted. "One can never really say for sure, what's Dark Side and isn't, until one finds the right motives. And I assure you, my motives are strictly in line with those of the Republic."
"But not those of the Light Side," Bastila backed up, as if she was a bit repulsed to be in the same room. The action hurt Revan slightly, though she didn't show it.
"One can be Light Side to do evil," Revan pointed out. "Just as one can be Dark Side to do good." She glanced at Bastila and silently pleaded with her. "Please remember that."
She hugged a hesitant Bastila in her arms and turned to leave.
"Where are you going to go?" Bastila asked. "The Jedi will never accept you back if you leave."
Revan shrugged.
"If I'm going to be an outcast forever, I might as well go out in style." She said. "I'm going to Dxun, where the Mandalorian Wars started. I'm going to take back Onderon with a three day battle, and after that, we'll head for Cathar."
She left.
--
Revan growled, placing her mask back on, making sure it was fastened dutifully so it wouldn't come off and reveal her. To see through her mask at a time like this would be similar to throwing a gizka into a sea of firaxa sharks.
She was alone, now.
Not that it wasn't how she'd planned it, in the end. With the simple exception of Malak also falling to the Dark Side, Revan had foreseen all the reactions from the Jedi and her followers.
After the end of the war, Revan had stated that they were going into the Unknown Regions. She'd told them all of her findings of Sith remnants, and they were to check it out. They had followed her, all except a few. Revan made sure to tell her troops that they were free to leave right after the war; a promise she held to as she counted their new ranks.
Only a few had left; Donella Segora among them.
Revan had been sorry to see the woman go. True, she'd lost all affinity to the Force, but that didn't mean it wouldn't come back. Revan had been the one to save her, forming a protective field around the struck-blind woman to stop the wave of death from killing her.
But she held up the prerogatives and wishes of the others. She let them go. She also gave them food and supplies until they could reach an inhabited planet to try and find a new life. They all knew that the Jedi would no longer accept them back into their ranks, so they had to pick out new lives.
After finding the Sith threat that the Republic now faced, Malak and Revan decided that the only way to combat this threat was to strengthen the Republic. But how do you strengthen something that thinks it is safe?
By giving it something to worry about.
After much deliberation, they decided to fall. Or, at least fake falling. All they would need to do was kill a few Senators that would hinder the Republic and look like a menace to society, picking battles that would strengthen the Republic more than weaken.
But now Revan was alone.
It was an unexpected twist that Malak would actually fall, despite her constant presence and assurance. When the moment came that she realized she was a lone Jedi in a sea of Sith, she took on her menacing mask and cloak to hide her appearance.
A huge quake broke Revan from her thoughts, and she shook her head roughly.
"Malak," She called into her comm. link. "You have to get out of here. They're already in my ship and have taken everyone down. Johns and Fumin have either left their stations or been killed."
"I'm not leaving without you." Came the answer mechanically. Revan cringed. She still wasn't used to the monotone voice that resounded from Malak's new jaw.
"You have to. Take your ship, turn around, and while you're leaving, fire at the hangar. Make sure they can't escape from here."
"But—"
"Do it!!"
The comm. link clicked off suddenly, and Revan knew she was being obeyed.
Just at that moment, the door opened. Jedi after Jedi piled in, one after the other. Revan counted seven in all.
Bastila at the head.
Revan growled again, calling her lightsabers to her hands. Three Jedi advanced. She closed their windpipes, causing them to choke. She monitored their conditions carefully, and at the moment when life would be undetectable but not lost, she let them loose.
Killing was something she reserved for Sith.
"You cannot win, Revan." Bastila pointed. There was pain behind the voice. Revan could hear it. She cringed; glad she had a mask to hide behind.
"You obviously don't remember what I told you the day I left, Billa." Revan used the nickname on purpose. Bastila blinked, trying to recall a day so far gone it seemed like it never happened.
"What are you talking about?" Revan laughed sadly. She whirled her lightsabers through the air and held them out protectively.
"One can be Dark Side to do good." Revan stated.
The world exploded. A huge, searing pain pierced through her mind, her body, her soul. She fell to the ground, willing herself at all costs to keep consciousness.
The idiot, she thought. He missed.
She could feel someone turn her over. The same someone checked her pulse for a sign of life. She hoped there wouldn't be one. She was losing perception quickly. If someone were to keep her alive, her mind might not be able to handle it and she'd lose—
She'd lose her memories.
The universe around her closed in. It compressed onto her ribcage, seeping into her lungs, puncturing holes and causing her to lose air. Insuppressible terror lodged in her chest as she realized what this was going to cost. The fear trickled down her chest and settled into her stomach, and in her paralyzed outward state she threw up.
The fear engulfed her.
She fought. She mentally kicked and screamed and shouted very un-Jedi-like things and cursed and tried her hardest to break free. It took a few moments for her to realize that her chances were slim of getting loose. So she did the only thing left.
She mentally took a deep, calming breath. She could feel the panic that had swallowed her up previously ebbing from her consciousness. To do this she would need to be in a total state of stillness.
She bottled up the memories herself.
True, it wouldn't be very pleasant trying to open them again, and she was already apologizing to whomever she would turn into when the Jedi Council fixed her with another identity—for that was sure to be their choice of action; no one would let the chance to have the Dark Lord work for them pass by—and promising them that everything would be all right and not to mess anything up.
It would take a while, but she would win. Revan was going to return, whether as herself or as someone else, but she would find the Sith who were threatening her Republic, and she would bring them down. She knew that in her heart and soul.
Then she knew nothing.
--
Connan gasped, breathing sharply and rubbing her eyes vigorously. That was a long memory. Or cluster of memories, more like. Her eyes had been watering in her attempts to keep them open. She stamped her feet on the ground where she sat in her side of the ship, trying to keep them awake.
They answered many unanswered questions, though, so the price of her eyes was a small one to pay, really. Among other things, she found it slightly funny that she could see herself apologize to her future self for any grief or hard times caused. It made her smile, like she was looking at an old friend.
"Well, you're in a good mood," The voice startled her. Connan's head jerked up, watching Bastila stroll into the room with her head held high. Connan frowned for a moment. "What's wrong?"
"I had another memory," Connan blinked a few times, trying to find the means to water her eyes. "It started about twenty minutes ago."
Bastila was at her side in an instant, an eye solution taken from the cabinet and in her hands the same moment she touched the ground. She pulled Connan's head back and told her to keep her eyes open. Connan cringed.
"I don't like the eye drops," she whined. "They're evil."
"But they'll do you good." Bastila's eyes glazed for a moment. "You obviously have forgotten what you told me the day you left."
A strange light flashed through Connan's eyes; one not completely missed by Bastila. The latter cocked her head to one side, frowning.
"Of course I haven't, Billa." Connan hinted. She saw Bastila's eyes widen in shock. "One can be Dark Side to do good."
Bastila sat back on her haunches, her eyes closed and her arms hanging limp beside her. She took in a deep breath; much like the one Connan had seen herself taking moments before she locked away her own memories.
"When did you remember?" Bastila asked quietly.
"Just now." Connan answered. "The whole thing seemed to be about you, actually."
Bastila sighed, opening one eye.
"I don't suppose you'd tell me about them?"
Connan was on her feet in an instant, her hand thrown in the air.
"Not until you catch me." She taunted, yanking the cargo door open and bolting for the exit ramp.
Bastila followed immediately, laughing drolly.
"You cannot win, Revan." She droned, laughing at the irony loaded into the statement.
Connan laughed herself as she escaped into the calming realm of Manaan around her, but not so much at the irony as Bastila making a joke. She grasped onto a light pole, throwing her weight around it to sharply turn a corner unexpectedly and sprinted down yet another passage way.
Oh, but I will win.
--
Date/Time Finished: 1/9/08 2:28 P.M. Central Time
End Notes: HAPPY LATE NEW YEAR!! For the record, this did NOT take three weeks to finish. I finished it in three days. There was a two week holiday in between and I started it on a Friday.
Lol. So thanks for reading, guys. This will be my school project while I'm waiting for my B.C.I.S. class to catch up with me. Phth. Like that'll ever happen.
So please review!!
Amme Moto