Originally, I was going to have the fic be about Revan and Bastila, but Cala turned out to be to much fun to write about. Review...
Cala Shan lay in the medical bay of the imperial residence. Her eyes were her mother's, durasteel grey, and her throat-high hair was her father's, darkest dark brown. She had three blaster burns and five cuts by vibrosword. One had caused a minor puncture of her lung. She groaned. Dad's going to kill me when he finds out I let that happen. She didn't want to deal with her parent's demands right now. She wanted get her wounds taken care of so that she could go to her room, watch a holovid in bed, and eat some chocolate. But that was a remote possibility, her parents would probably want her to show them her new practical saber skills learned playing hide and seek with HK- 47 and his hirelings in the slums of Nar-Shaddaa.
She addressed the medical droid. "Can you just get with the dermal regenerator?" The droid was about to answer, but was interrupted by the opening door.
"Cala, my beautiful girl! How are you?" Cala pushed herself up to meet the embrace of her mother. As her mother squeezed, through the pain of her wound, she said, "I've been better."
"I'm proud of you Cala, you emerged from all of the trials so far with flying colors, but the last one will be hardest." Cala flopped her head back down on the pillow. "Do I really need to think about that right now?"
"I'm afraid so, a sith must be ever ready to face challenges." Hate welled up from deep inside her through her overwrought nerves. Cala knew that she was letting her mother manipulate her, make her hate more. That infuriated her further. Bastila smiled at the turmoil she sensed in her daughter.
"Embrace your hatred, it is what allows a sith to keep going where she would otherwise fail."
"Mom, you taught me that when I was six, I get it."
The door opened again, and Revan sauntered in. "Cala, my dear! Welcome home!" Cala sighted, "Hi Dad, how were the senators?"
"Base and fickle as ever. How was Nar-Shaadaa?"
"The same old dreary Hutt's nest."
"Oh, really? Well you've experienced something out of the ordinary." He poked the barely visible budge of band-aids on her rib cage. She released a small cry.
"What's that?"
"It's just a scratch," she growled.
"That's an awful lot of band-aids for just a scratch."
Cala knew that it was pointless to try and carry the avoidance any further. "It's a punctured lung."
"What?"
"It was a Gamorean with a vibroaxe. It got a lucky hit while I was fighting three others."
"I've taken on ten Gamoreans at once while hardly breaking a sweat," Revan scoffed.
"Look Dad, I won your little challenge, I got to the check point on the far side of the moon. You didn't say anything about how many cuts I should or shouldn't have when I got there. If you don't like the result, then too bad; it's too late."
Bastila spoke, "That isn't the point Cala, you are meant to be leader of the sith, you must as strong as possible."
"I get it, I get it. Now can you two just leave me alone for a while?"
"Meet us in the sparring room in an hour, after that, the you have the night off."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome," and they left.
Cala breathed a sigh of relief; that had gone better than she expected. But that holovid would have to wait a while longer, she had work of her own to do. She called for her agent, Koth Bwua'tu. Shortly afterward, a tall, elderly Bothan entered the room and spoke to her in a slow, deep voice. "My lady, it gives me gre-"
"I've heard enough of that tonight Koth, we have work to do."
"Of course, I live to serve."
"I need you to connect me to the senator from Hsskor and the Coruscant office of the Bounty Hunter's Guild."
"Would you like to speak to them in person?"
"Yes, in about two hours."
"I will make it so."
oOo
Cala felt the nagging of cold and huddled deeper into her warm blankets. She dimly though about the ship heating system as she tried to slip back into sleep. After two months of exhaustive training she was on her way to face Revan's final challenge to gain the right to succeed him. She didn't know where or what this trial would be, but she knew that it would drip with Revan's sick twisted sense of humor.
"Rise and shine!" Cala snapped up. Revan stood grinning at the foot of her bed. She screamed, "Why are in my roo-" She looked around. It wasn't in her room… She was in a cargo bay! "I had a tranquilizer mixed into your food so that you wouldn't notice your bed being carried down here." Cala scowled, "Just get to the point."
"We are currently flying over Felucia, as soon as you reach the surface the trial will begin. It's the same as last time, you try to get to a check point while being chased."
"I assume it won't be HK this time."
"I couldn't get him down to that mulch heap if I wanted to. I'll be the one doing the chasing."
"You?"
"Me."
With that he started walking away. "Wait! Why did you put me in this cargo hold?" Revan kept walking. He threw her a sack over his shoulder and she caught it. "That's your lightsabers and a homing device; the needle will point to the checkpoint." Cala was growing uneasy. "Dad…" Revan entered a code into a panel. "Good luck Cala."
There was a bellow of awakening machinery, and the floor beneath her split open, the wind screaming. Cala started falling through the upper atmosphere of Felucia, her bed, pillows, and blankets flying around her. She clutched the sack close, despite falling through the air, she was still clear headed enough to know that she was dead without those. The wind stung her through her transparent nightshirt. She slowed herself with the force. She'd never mastered force flight, but she could at least slow herself down to a soft landing. She settled herself into a glide, spiraling down to the dark fungus jungle.
She landed among the slime covered roots of the great colorful funguses. She took a deep breath, trying to quiet her racing heart. She picked up the sack and took out the homer and lightsabers. She ignited them, testing the beams. They didn't appear to be tampered with; Revan had his limits after all. She checked the homer. It seemed to be working too. She looked around. The forest was made up of great fungus trees of every shape and color under a gloomy sky. The acidic smell of spoors and decay filled the still, humid air. And the force… She had read that Felucia's Force alignment changed randomly over time, like the weather. At present it was light side, but it seemed to be tumbling down to the dark side, like a gathering storm. "He's trying to knock me off balance," she said aloud. The natives were adapted to this change, they were primitive and force sensitive, able to maintain a light side alignment despite their home world. They knew this place, they used their power blend into the forest and control its beasts, there were even reports of them riding rancors.
She would need to be fast and resourceful to win. So she cut some bark, or whatever it was, from one of the trees, tore some pieces of fabric from her sleepwear, combined them into some crude scandals, and set off.
oOo
Cala heard the rancors crashing through the fungi. They'd caught up to her again! She scrambled out of the bough she'd been sleeping in. The fear, the adrenalin, the hate, and the desperation mingled with the Felucia's own darkness in a renewed blaze. She'd used it before to set herself to flight, but now, she felt it pulling her towards fight. She reasoned against this, downplaying her hate and embracing fear. To run was the sound choice here, so close to the checkpoint. If nothing else, the muck accumulated in the days running from Revan and his Felucians would help her blend in. Cala ignored the protests of her cramped and recramped muscles and overwrought nerves and ran for all she was worth. But what really scared her was not her pursuers, but the thought that Koth might not come through.
She heard the roar of a rancor to her left, then to her right. She bolted forward, her muscles reinvigorated by the Force, now fueled by a new spike of fear. She then found that she had been herded into a clearing, and a trap. Before her stood at least a dozen black and blue Felucians armed with bone swords. She drew her sabers and charged them. She favored a mix of backhanded shien, the style invented by Revan, and jar'kai; two radically different forms that she combined seamlessly, even in her exhausted state. But this was not enough. These were skilled, Force sensitive warriors with blades made impervious to lightsabers by the Force. She downed one with a falling leaf but quickly found herself giving ground to the Felucians. The Felucians were strong, but Cala was fast and strong. She parried and attacked and counter-attacked with her violet swords (the left one held back-handed, the other forward) against three Felucians taking her from the front while the others circled around her.
Then she fell, pulled down by a massive Force push. All the Felucians were pushing down together; there was no getting up. She was held that way, pressed into the mud, until the rest of the hunting party arrived.
"You put up a good chase Cala. Perhaps I made the challenge too hard." Cala looked up. Revan was stepping down from a howdah on the back of a rancor. He wore a tough leather jacket and felt hat, he was barely touched by mud. Hate coursed through her. He enjoyed this, watching her suffer before failure. He would learn.
"I hope you enjoyed your little safari, father, because now it's over." Her voice was laced with cold hatred. Then she yelled, "Codeword: Traya31415!"
The clearing was suddenly haunted by the hollow moan of personal cloaking devices deactivating.
"Hissk sascchah gskah!"
Trandoshans!
They came out through the trees all around them, a hundred of them at least. There was a flash, roar, and a wave of hot air as a thermal detonator exploded at a rancor's feet. Cala's captors broke off and attacked. Felucians were falling left and right to blaster bolts and the Trandoshan's heavy vibroswords. The Rancor that had carried Revan flailed its arms, roaring at the ensuing battle. She saw Revan duck away. Freed from the Felucians, Cala stood up still burning with hate.
Revan hit the mud and flipped up, bringing his saber to bear against fire from the Trandoshans. Sharp despondence hit him. Cala would attack him at any moment, and without him the Feluscians would fail. Damned Trandoshans! They would settle for nothing but to kill him to elevate themselves in the eyes of their god, the Scorekeeper. Then with nothing to stop them, they would kill Cala to. Cala knew that, she knew the Trandoshans, she knew that if the two of them fought they would both be killed by so many of the lizards.
She just wanted him to die. He'd pushed her too hard, it pained him to be so cruel to her, but he feared that if he showed her that reluctance it would dilute her hatred, weakening her. She would never be able to resist her own hatred now, her urge to strike at he who had caused her so much pain, of this he was sure. Thus would ultimately end the Sith Empire he had worked to create, with Emperor and heiress killing each other.
Cala watched her father turn his back to her to block a blaster bolt. Now! Strike him now! She ignited her swords. No! Stick with the plan; leave him to rally the Felucians against the Trandoshans, run away to the checkpoint. But her hate pulled her toward him, unyielding to reason or words. It would be so good to kill him… To pay him back… No! That would serve no purpose! The Empire needed them both. Discipline! Discipline! In a singular moment of strength, she tore herself away.
Revan turned to meet Cala's attack, but it never came. He just saw her as she disappeared running into the wood. Revan's heart soared. A lone Trandoshan swung a sword at him and he cut the lizard in half. He laughed.
"See how my daughter masters her own passion! She is strong enough to master her own strength! What man could ask for a better daughter, a better pupil?"
oOo
Cala lay languished on the ground beside the checkpoint beacon. She was absolutely completely exhausted, but her veins still flowed with so much residual adrenalin and her head still swam with so many images of fight and flight that she couldn't sleep. So she just lay, with eyes open, feeling her aching muscles and her breathing. Then she sensed the arrival of Revan.
He had a few scratches and his left leg seemed to have taken a blaster bolt, but he was not seriously injured. Cala rose unsteadily to her feet, looked him in the eye, and punched him across the mouth, leaving a muddy splotch.
"I deserved that."
"I hate you."
"Cala…"
"Don't say anything! You enjoyed your victory, your false regret, your throwing me out of the ship! None of that was necessary! You just love watching me suffer!" As she demanded, Revan said nothing, but rather let down his emotional wall, the wall of dignity and smug composer, revealing his inner conflict. She felt the pain that it caused him to hurt her, the pride that he felt at her decision, the fear he'd felt that she wouldn't pass his challenge, and his eternal, fatherly love.
With this added to her own boiling passions, she gave in. She let out a pitiable, sobbing moan and fell into her father's arms, burying her head in his chest as she cried. He stroked her muddy hair gently.
"Ssshhh, ssshhh, I'm hear, I'm hear."
oOo
"… The weapon of the Sith is one that by its nature erratic and unpredictable. This leads to a strength and a weakness; it allows the Sith to experiment freely to understand and use the living Force, but drives Sith to actions that often contradict the path of logic, leading to…"
Cala sighed and pushed the sleep button on the holobook. Nothing was helping her make sense of her feelings. She rolled over in bed, staring into the blackness. Something had changed her on the surface of Felucia. Refusing to kill Revan, being driven on forever by Felucia's darkness, learning about Revan's love for her. Something had widened the world in which she lived; there was more than the one-dimensional relationship between passion and power. Discipline, the discipline to turn away from striking Revan, had also granted her strength. But why? How? It didn't fit in the context of sith thinking.
That scarred her. Was she slipping into a jedi mentality? No! Never. That was absurd. She was a sith, she was heiress to the Dark Lord of the Sith. She got up and sat at the end of her bed.
"I don't get it!" she yelled in the dark. This place… it made her nervous to think about deviance. Her responsibility to the empire and her family weighed heavily upon her here. She remembered something she'd once found in the depths the imperial archives, a shadow of a long deleted file on the topic of the imperial family. It was about Vaner, Vaner Shan, first born of Bastila and Revan.
The official story went that Vaner was born shortly after her parent's marriage on Lehon, and was killed before his first birthday by a Republic assassination. But in that file Cala found something else, a medical examination by a sith master that found Vaner not to be sensitive to the Force. Throughout his short life, Vaner's amazing aptitude for the Force, even as an infant, was celebrated by the Imperial Propaganda Ministry. No assassination attempt had ever gotten so close to the emperor before or since. Cala became certain of one thing. Rather than face the scandal of producing a child deaf to the Force, her parents chose to engineer an assassination to get rid of him.
She never confronted her parents over it, she would never dare. She was even more scarred now. Would her parents do away with a child who turned away from Revan's teachings, a confirmed heir? No, they wouldn't, not her. But…
"I'm not betraying Father, I'm a true sith down to the bone!" She hoped she was anyway.
oOo
The imperial family took breakfast together in one of the palace's elegant dining rooms. Elegant but small. The room had one round table set for three and a widow looking out over Coruscant's most affluent residential district. That morning, Revan was gone to Muunlist to work out a loan to help the empire finally buy out Czerka Corporation. Cala sipped her tea as Bastila read the morning memos. Cala took a deep breath, "Mom?"
"Yes sweetheart?"
"I'm eighteen years olds and… I think I should get away from here for a bit, see the Galaxy myself."
Bastila put down the datapad. "You what go on a tour?"
"No. I want to be turned loose, no entourage, no imperial ships, no retinue, just me finding my own way."
"What do you plan to do?"
"No idea."
"Is there a reason you chose to exclude your father from this conversation?"
"I just came up with this last night."
"Then maybe you need more time to think."
"So, no."
Bastila sighed, "You are eighteen, and I know that you can take care of yourself. I suppose you are also old enough to make your own decisions. You can do as you wish, but I would prefer if you waited at least until your father returns."
"No, I want to leave right away, no looking back."
"Then you may go."
That evening, Cala discreetly left the palace with five hundred credits, a vibroblade, her lightsabers, and a long hooded coat. She booked passage on a Perlemian Trade Route freighter to Lianna. From there she would search for a light side nexus, somewhere imbued by the jedi. It felt wrong to her, going there. But at once she felt a deep, almost carnal, need to go to a place strong in the light side and… feel it.
