Well, for once I'm giving you all a story that is not Marvel-based, nor does it share any continuity with the other fics I have written on this site. This is a novelization of sorts to my favorite video game, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. No, not the original KotOR game that everyone seems to love more, but the 2004 sequel.

I'm just gonna say right now that I will always prefer the sequel over the original. I know it has its issues and the incomplete content will always be a sore point (if you don't consider the Restored Content Mod), but KotOR2 will always be better to me in that it has a more original plot, more philosophical and ethical concepts/dilemmas, and the fact that it is literally the darkest Star Wars story ever told. Not even Revenge of the Sith was this gloomy, and that just makes this game all the more original. The first game seemed to borrow multiple plot elements from the movies; the second was a completely new story that introduced newer outlooks on the Star Wars lore.

For those who may not have read the whole summary, let me explain. The Exile of this story is not Meetra Surik, nor are they female. In fact, they aren't even human. See, I never liked the fact that humans were the only playable race in the original Old Republic games, and found ways to avert that peeve through Mods that I found on the (as of now, tragically defunct) website, FileFront. But the one I always liked most was the playable Quarren mod by Quanon.

So for this story, I've altered canon and turned the Exile into a Quarren male because 1) The Quarrens are probably my favorite alien species in all of Star Wars, and 2) I feel making the Exile a non-human would offer a more creative touch to this story.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. That honor goes to BioWare, and Disney in regards to the movies. The only thing I do own are this version of the Exile, and whatever OCs may crop up along the way.

SPEECH:

- "Regular speech."

- "Recorded speech."

- {Alien language}

- Thoughts

- (Telepathy)

Now, without further ado:

Echoes of Malachor

Chapter 1 - Awaken

Khavarog.

... Revan?

Khav. Please, help me. I need you.

Revan, what- how...

I can't do this alone, Khav. Something's happened...

Revan? Are you alright? Revan, answer me!

Our bond is still there, Khavarog. But I need to shut it out. I'm in so much pain. I can't let you feel what I feel. It's up to you to go on from here. I believe in you, Khav. I'll be waiting for you. Have faith, and may the Force be with you.

Revan? Revan!

Awaken.

With a start, Khavarog Saerix's turquoise colored eyes snapped open and he gave a sharp intake of kolto. The gill-like aural structures lining the two long protrusions that extended from either sides of his face flapped instinctively as he looked around at his surroundings. The breathing apparatus on his neck inhaled the mixture of water and healing materials, harmless to his system but... strange to inhale compared to water.

For a moment, Khavarog panicked, but soon recognized the kolto tank he was floating in. Lurching forward in the fluid, the Quarren pressed his three-fingered hands against the glass as he peared through, seeing no movement on the other side. Just a dimly lit room with contents he could not fully make out. Odd. Someone should have at least been monitoring the healing systems.

His four prehensile mouth-tentacles flexing, Khavarog looked up to the roof of the tank, spotting the internal release switch. He gave a lazy kick of his webbed, two-toed feet, noting the weak feeling in his limbs. That implied longterm stay in kolto. Fortunately, the movement was enough to get the Quarren to float to the top of the cylinder and reach the switch. Gripping it, he gave a weak tug that bared to results. Tentacles curling in agitation, Khavarog called upon more strength and after a few more pulls, wrenched the lever outwards.

Pumps began siphoning the fluids from the tank, and Khavarog descended towards the floor of the cylinder as the water poured down into the holding tank below. The kolto soon receded far enough that Khavarog's torso was no longer encompassed in it, and he gave a deep breath as his gills opened up and excess kolto fluids were disposed from them. It was at that moment that Khavarog became aware of an alarm of a ruptured tank, but oddly enough, no one came to deal with it.

Khavarog could only ponder in confusion as the cylindrical tank dropped, and he slid out, falling flat on his face in the middle of a small room that was also cylindrical in shape. As he took his first breath of air in who knows how long, Khavarog gave an involuntary shudder. While they were capable of breathing air, Quarrens always found it to be less comfortable than water, a result of evolving in an oceanic environment.

For a while, he simply lay still on the floor, waiting for someone to come and tend to him, customary of med labs, assuming that's where he was. But no one came, and Khavarog was far too drained to get up at the moment. Ten or so minutes passed, before Khavarog finally began to regain feeling in his arms and legs. With a grunt, he slowly got up on his hands and knees, taking deep breaths of air as he kept pushing any remaining kolto out of his pores and gills, shaking his head for emphasis.

The Quarren pulled himself to his feet, and looked around. There were four other tanks surrounding the one he had just been in. All humans, with multiple burn marks about them. They didn't move, just floated motionlessly in the tank. They didn't give any involuntary muscle spasms that came with kolto transfusion.

They were dead.

Khavarog's mouth tentacles twitched as he turned away from the floating corpses, his leathery, blood red skin, still wet from the kolto, glistening in the dim light of the room. A door stood in front of him and the tanks. Immediately, he went to it and activated the panel that made the door slide open with a whir. A hallway stood before him with three doors. The one at the end of the hall was scarred by carbon scoring and the gears twitched and creaked with damage and static. The door on the right was marked 'morgue'. Not interested in examining dead bodies, Khavarog went to the door on the right, and entered to find a small medical supply room with a single terminal.

Looking at the screen, he saw the words 'emergency lockdown' flashing over it. Frowning, he touched the control and the flashing mantra vanished and was replaced with an insignia.

It read 'PERAGUS MINING STATION'.

Peragus. Was that where he was? It seemed so. He had heard whispers of it in his travels in the Outer Rim. It had some significance as of late. But he did not know what it was, nor did he understand how he even got here.

Before, he was elsewhere. On a ship... a Republic ship. The Harbinger.

Khavarog returned his attention to the console and scrolled through the list of options. He activated the medical logs, hoping for some answers.

By his command, a blue hologram of a dark-skinned human female appeared, clad in a dark blue suit and baige vest with the symbol of the Republic on the left breast.

"... Still examining the survivor of the damaged freighter," she spoke. "It goes by the name of the Ebon Hawk. The survivor, a Quarren male, possibly in his late twenties or early thirties, has been placed in a kolto tank. Quarren physiology leaves inhalation of Manaan healing materials safe. The ship was damaged, and the carbon scoring suggests it was in a battle of some sort. I haven't heard from the security officer if he knew that had attacked them. There wasn't much in the navi-computer. I'm surprised they were able to get here at all with all the damage it was in. Especially without the asteroid drift charts needed to safely navigate the system."

As he listened to the log, Khavarog found himself frowning in confusion. The Ebon Hawk? He had never heard of such a ship. The woman paused for a moment as well and seemed to be looking over something before she continued.

"The only other person aboard was an old woman. Human, no life signs. The body is currently in the morgue, scheduled to be taken offstation when the next ship arrives in from Telos. There were also two droids aboard, an astromech and a protocol droid. Somehow, the astromech was able to get the ship running again, but the droid was deactivated when the ship docked. Both it and the protocol droid were sent down to maintanence while security goes through the ship's cargo..."

The recording suddenly ended there, and Khavarog gave a throaty grunt in frustration. That only left more questions unanswered! Quickly, he opened the next log and watched as the hologram appeared again.

"... could be a Jedi, but we won't know for sure until we get a transmission back from the Republic. The com between here and the core is pretty spotty at best because of those damn asteroids. If the Quarren is a Jedi, that would explain the rapid recovery rate," the woman said, bringing her hand up to her chin as she appeared to think over the information. "But I'm more concerned that a Jedi here may cause other problems. Some of the miners, especially Coorta, have been causing trouble since he arrived. He's alrea-"

The record suddenly faded into static, and seemed to skip repeatedly before the image re-materialized. "... another accident today. There was a detonation in the ventilation system's main access. If the lockdown hadn't worked, the base would have been flooded with fuel and one spark would have sent us home at lightspeed! Four wounded, one dead. I got them into the tanks, and they are recovering. One of them kept saying a mining droid caused it, but he was so incoherent that we barely had much time to..."

The image faded again, but Khavarog didn't react this time. His eyes had widened a quarter of hte way through, and his tentacles were stiff.

Jedi.

The doctor had referred to him as a Jedi. How could they have even known that? He was no Jedi, he hadn't been for so long. He didn't even bear any markings of the Order anymore. He couldn't even feel the Force, so he shouldn't heal like a Jedi. Part of him wnated to believe it was true. To think that the last ten years had been a nightmare he would wake up from.

He eventually opted to push those thoughts aside, and reached forward to watch the last log.

"... miners about the Jedi. A number of smaller injuries caused by droids. They tell me they're acting strange, and not even memory wipes seem to be helping. There was another detonation. This one was in a fuel vent they were servicing. The droids that were there were deactivated and sent straight to maintenance. I've been treating injuries all day. That cuts down to half shifts, and with the problems they were having with the droids, we may not be able to make the Telos shipment this month. Those people need it desperately, but what can we do? Still no word from the Republic. Telos hasn't replied to our requests for additional maintenance personnell. At least we're still up and running. The blast didn't cause a lock-"

Once more she was cut off, but not from static or the log ending. It still played, but the sound of a siren and feminine synthetic voice was heard in the background.

"Warning. Fuel detonation in the mining tunnels. Emergency lockdown is commencing. All personnel report to quarters and prepare for emergency venting procedures."

Khavarog saw the human doctor's eyes widen with fear, mouth gaping.

"No! If the ventilation system is malfunctioning..." she paused, her face etched with fear and she immediately ran offscreen. "Evacuate the medical bay, everyone evac-"

The log ended. Khavarog gave a deep breath. Carefully, he scrolled away from the logs and saw the medical stats of the patients. Looking them over, he found that the miners in the tanks had been admitted to the med-bay two days ago. A day earlier than he was placed there. That meant he had been unconscious in the tank for three days. In his stupor, accidents apparently plagued this facility and sent the miners into their dormitories.

From what he had seen, all of the incidents seemed almost... planned. He thought back to the miners in the tanks. If they had been put in there for treatment, why were they dead? For that matter, why was he alive?

Overcome by curiousity, the Quarren checked the patient status. All but one, his own, read deceased. The miners, as said in the log, were being treated for plasma burns, but as Khavarog scrolled down further, his eyes widened.

'Last treatment request resulted in termination of life functions. All tanks injected with 40MG sedative.'

That many sedatives would kill a person in seconds! Someone had deliberately murdered those men in their sleep. That only added to Khavarog's belief that those accidents were intentional.

There was a killer loose in this facility.

Quickly, Khavarog searched the nearby bins and cylinders, picking out medpacs. He then searched the computer frantically for any other means out.

All that's accessable from here is the morgue. The other door is too damaged to open by conventional means. He thought to himself.

Seeing no other alternate, Khavarog opened the morgue and entered. It was times like these that Khavarog was glad his people didn't have noses. There were three corpses in the morgue. Two of which were rotting profusely. The third however, was still whole. It was an elderly human female clad in brown robes. This had to be the old woman mentioned in the logs. Khavarog paused, noting that the woman's robes closely resembled Jedi garb.

He quickly moved from her and inspected the other two corpses. His eyes lightened up when he spotted a device laying on one of the tables. A plasma torch! This thing could get him through the door with ease. Internally smiling, Khavarog prepared to make his leave.

"Find what you're looking for amongst the dead?"

Khavarog spun around, instinctively hissing and pointing the plasma torch defensively. He stared into the milky white eyes of the old woman, who was standing upright, very much alive. Quickly, she pulled her hood down to cover her blinded eyes and smoothed out the wrinkles of her garments.

Tentacles wriggling in agitation, Khavarog spoke in Quarrenese, which came out as a series of grumbles and hics. {I thought you were dead.}

"Close to death, yes. Closer than I would have liked," the wrinkled human responded, her voice a chilling calm. "I am familiar with certain... techniques that allow one to remain in such a state for some time."

{Techniques?} Khavarog said, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. He looked her over. {Who are you?}

"I am Kreia, and I am your rescuer. As you are mine."

Khavarog stared for a few moments, processing her icy tone as his eyes slowly widened in realization. {You... you were the voice I heard in the kolto tank.}

"Yes, I had hoped as much," Kreia said, giving a small smirk. "I had slept too long and could not awaken. It could be I reached out unconciously. Or perhaps you are trained for such things."

Khavarog's eyes narrowed at the woman's words. {So you can touch minds. And feign death. What is going on? Why are we here?}

The smirk faded from Kreia's face as she glanced to the side a bit. "I do not know. I was removed from the events of the world as I slept. The last thing I recall, was your ship being attacked. You were the only survivor and I rescued you."

{The Harbinger,} Khavarog recalled. {What happened to it?}

"I'm not sure. I was rendered unconcious as we made our escape," Kreia said truthfully. "The ship we arrived in must still be in this place. We must recover it and leave."

{We?} the Quarren said, frowning at the woman. She seemed... nervous, all of a sudden. {Care to explain why you are assuming we are together in all this?}

"We were attaceked once. I fear our attackers may strike again, and if so, we must be on our guard," Kreia said.

{... you are afraid. Who are these attackers you speak of?} Khavarog asked.

"They are dangerous. And that is all that needs to be said," Kreia said stiffly. To Khavarog's confusion, she abruptly lowered herself into a meditative position on the floor. "I shall remain here and meditate. I am not so young as to emerge from death's door so quickly. I leave you to the investigation of this place."

Khavarog found himself irritated by the old human's authoritative tone. {Fine. Anything else you'd like to say?}

Beneath her hood, Kreia gave an amused smirk. "You may wish to extend your search for some clothes. If only for proper first impressions."

It was only then that Khavarog realized he wore nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. You couldn't tell form the blood red color of his skin that Khavarog was flushing. The Quarren just grunted and walked out of the morgue, the plasma torch still clenched in his hand.

{I'll keep that in mind.}

And that's the basic start of it. Any questions or concerns, put them in your reviews please.