Faded Flowers
Chapter 2 / Faded Flowers
"You know that you're dead, right?" Revan asked Jolee.
The old man had been raking his garden for what seemed like hours. Seemed was the operative word. Revan had learned that her dreams these days were liars. Time itself warped and shifted while she slept. She might have closed her eyes for five minutes—or an entire day. Within the dream, there was no way to tell.
"Yes, but you're the one who fell asleep in the grass again." Looking extremely alive, the old man bent over some plants in his garden, humming an old song under his breath. "If you have a rash when you wake up, don't say I didn't warn you."
In this dream, Revan was wearing padawan robes like the ones they'd given her on Dantooine. She raised her hand and felt that unfamiliar stiffness again: a mass of hair coiled in braids, pulled too tight against her scalp.
Revan tugged one braid free and began separating the strands. She'd done this before: unraveling her dream self's intricate nest of braids to pass the time until she woke up again.
"I'll be fine," she told him.
The old man chuckled. "You sure? Ordo set mines and a repulsor field to guard the camp perimeter, but those don't keep out stuff smaller than a tach. Plenty of kessla beetles and jrrysh snakes around these parts to sting all that speckled flesh of yours."
Hells. He was probably right. Revan tried to open her eyes and failed. This had happened before too. The dreams held her tighter than Carth's arms when she kept slipping on the wroshyr-carved stairs.
"Why am I dreaming about your gardening?" It had been six weeks Standard since they'd landed on the Wookiee homeworld. Revan had long since written these dreams off as Force-fueled nightmares. At least this one seemed relatively benign compared to—to some of the others. At least it's not the white room, or the Star Forge again—or Juhani in the grove on Dantooine—
"Beats me, kid." Jolee shrugged. "Guilty conscience? I have to get the kell-peas staked before the rains come." He pulled a stake from the ground and waggled it in her direction. "Could help, you know."
But it's not real. Nonetheless, Revan stood up and took the stick he'd offered. "I don't know anything about farming."
Jolee snorted. "That so?"
"Are you saying that I'm going to keep dreaming about you?" Revan pushed the stick into the ground again next to the others already laid in a line, and Jolee bent down, picking up one of the vines trailing across the forest floor, and began wrapping it between two of the stakes.
"Long as you're here, guess we're here together." Jolee got up from the ground, brushing off the dirt from his knees. "Garden's really gone to hell since I left. When you wake up, do some real weeding, why doncha? Think I left my gloves in the crate under the cot—if the tach didn't get them. Those damn things are worse than cannock."
"Okay." Despite herself, Revan laughed. "Am I really having a dream about weeding?"
Jolee shrugged. "If you don't like it, wake up. Come to think of it, maybe you should do that anyway. Considering how little you're wearing, I wouldn't be surprised if you get bit in some unmentionable places. Might be painful. Nasty rash might scare that pilot. And I'm not around to heal."
Even in the dream, her skin itched. Jolee—or her subconscious—wasn't wrong. Sleeping outside in the Shadowlands wasn't wise. As for the pilot—
Carth's already terrified. She'd seen it on his face. Fear of her—and for her. They shared a bed and a hut in the Shadowlands, but little else, these days.
"Are you real, Jolee?"
"Depends on what you mean." Jolee returned to his gardening. "Remember that test the old coot gave you in the tomb? What did he say at the end?"
"True Sith never die. I suppose the Order have some similar myth?"
"You saw Ajunta Pall for yourself, kid."
"He vanished in a glow of light." Revan tied off the vine she'd taken to plant and bent down to pick up another stake. In the dream, her bones didn't ache. "After thanking me for saving him. Remember?"
"I remember." Jolee pulled out a pair of clippers from a pocket in his coverall and started clipping the branches from his vine, stripping the leaves until only the heart of the stem remained. "Want me to go away? Thank you for saving me?"
"No," Revan muttered. Her attempt at levity faded. When he died, Jolee hadn't vanished in a pillar of light—he'd just fallen—like any other corpse. One of a hundred she'd killed that morning. "I miss you."
"Ach!" That noise he made in the back of his throat used to drive her nuts on the Hawk. Now it made Revan's eyes prickle with an entirely useless emotion. "Fine. Here." Jolee tossed something back to her—not peas at all—but a fibrous plant of some kind. Leaves, stem, and root.
Revan caught it automatically. Eri— "Eridu?" Strange. "This doesn't grow on Kashyyyk."
"Huh." Jolee's eyebrows waggled at her like they did when he was trying to make some incredibly obvious point. For once, Revan had no idea what he was trying to say. "Never had you pegged for much of a botanist. How about that?"
"How about… wait—what?" The stalks melted away in her hand, insubstantial as ghosts. Revan's neck hurt suddenly, a sharp ache underneath the collar's weight—real life intruding on their fragile peace. "I miss the Force."
"Don't say that to Carth again, he's finally starting to look happy. Young love! It's a wonderful thing."
Was he? To Revan, he only looked worried. She hadn't bounced back as they'd expected. She, once the strongest of all of them, could now barely climb one set of ladders to Rwookrrorro without being winded.
"You see Carth too? You see all of us? You—am I going crazy or are you really here, Jolee?"
The old man sighed, putting down his trowel and sifter, abandoning his garden. "You're not going to rest until we have a chat about the metaphysical poodoo, are you? The Force is in all things, and I am part of the Force. There is no death, there is the Force? Did they ever teach you anything at the Dantooine Enclave? You went there twice. Bacca spit, I'd think you would have learned the Code, at least."
"Through the Force, my chains are broken." She raised an eyebrow at him.
The old Jedi shrugged back. "Sure. Guess that's true too, as far as it goes."
"Why you? Not that I'm not happy to see you; but why you?"
"Is there someone you'd rather see?" Jolee's image flickered for a moment, changing into something—someone—else. Someone impossibly tall and broad-shouldered; with a corona of curly hair outlined against the sunlight slanting through the trees.
Revan closed her eyes, turned her head away. Her hands went to her face, rubbing her eyes so hard that the dreamworld dissolved into black and white stars.
"No," she said, squeezing her dream eyes tightly closed. "There's no one else."
There was a long silence. Her dream heartbeat thudded in her chest, all too real.
"Ahem! Then pay attention!" the voice was so clearly Jolee's again that Revan opened her eyes. "I think that I'm the only one who didn't mind dying. I was an old man, with an old man's aches, and an old man's life. The others… they had plans. Juhani wanted to settle down with her mate. Bastila wanted to help her mother—and the galaxy. And Mission…" he chuckled. "You know that kid. She wanted to take on at least two or three worlds before she karked. You put an end to all that."
"I know." Revan should have controlled Bastila on that Temple roof. Jolee and Juhani should have just kept quiet. And if Mission had only run when Carth did—
But you killed them. Six weeks of dreams and isolation had given her time to acknowledge that. Blaming the Dark won't bring them back. Blaming them is even worse.
Making an excuse to Jolee was pointless but Revan did it anyway. "I couldn't just let Bastila go. I needed her to defeat Malak. We were out of time. If you had just understood—all you had to do was follow."
"What I understood that day was that you had to be stopped," Jolee said flatly. "I knew you were too strong for me to kill, but that didn't matter. Sometimes the thing that's your big sacrifice is only a small step towards winning the war. Sometimes it's useless. But stopping the Star Forge was important. And we did."
"You mean I did," Revan said dully. "Just not the way it should have happened."
In her good dreams, it happened differently. In her good dreams, everyone lived.
Jolee snorted. "Fine. You did. You saved the galaxy! Congratulations! Do you want a medal? You haven't had the medal dream in nearly a week. I'm still trying to decide if that's a sign of your late-blooming maturity or just apathetic depression. Hey, I've got an idea. Continue on this path, and I'll let you know."
"I hate you, old man," Revan said, staring up at the trees above. Big blue butterflies flew through them, not indigenous to Kashyyyk. On Deralia there were butterflies like that, she thought. She remembered them. Blue butterflies like flowers. And—eridu. Stalks of it, ready for harvest. Maybe.
Revan frowned. Somewhere far off, a child's voice sang a scrap of doggerel, familiar, like a memory.
"Hear that?" Jolee made an exaggerated gesture, cocking his hand to his ear. "Nice song. Might as well hear it through before you go. No matter what, you're going to have one hell of a rash when you wake up."
XXX
"You're sure about this?" Carth didn't sound sure.
It was near dusk in the Shadowlands and the night-blooming flowers whispered on dangling vines, rustling as they passed through the branches. A few tach hopped by, but nothing bigger.
"I'm sure," Revan said, trying to sound like she meant it. She was freezing. At least the immune suppressors had kicked in and her rash was better.
Temperature dropped in the forests at night. Revan turned up the controls on her body armor for the third time since this hike had begun. She felt like hell. This path they had once covered in an hour's time was taking four times that now—and all because of her.
Zaalbar took a step towards her again, hands outstretched to help.
"No!" she growled. "I can walk fine!"
Around them, their Wookiee escort grumbled impatiently. They'd reached the former Czerka perimeter. The electro-mag field that had once blocked the path—the one Jolee could deactivate with a simple wave of his hand—had been blasted to pieces by well-placed bowcaster bolts months ago. Moss grew over the shattered remains, the forest taking back all that Czerka Industries had tried to destroy.
"You're doing great, beautiful." Carth was a lousy actor. She pretended not to need the arm he offered and stumbled on ahead.
Somewhere off in the distance, the underbrush rustled menacingly. Kinrath, probably. They'd brought plenty of anti-venom, but they were nearly out of med-packs. Revan hoped they wouldn't need the few they had left. She hadn't heard much about the outside world, but she'd heard enough to know that kolto shortages were reaching a real crisis point on the Rim—and the supplies Czerka had left on Kashyyyk when they fled weren't theirs to take.
"Remember. My people escort to the grove, Savior Polla Revan." Freyyrr growled at her, his lips curling up to show teeth. "But we will not enter. It is a dark place. A place of nightmares."
"I know," she barked back. "My nightmares are not yours."
The Wookiee chieftain nodded. "May you weave your lost ones into the dreams of your enemy."
"Thank you." It was polite to acknowledge his blessing, even if Revan wasn't sure which enemies she had left. In her dreams they were all faceless and voiceless—and the only sents who fought her were her friends.
Are the Jedi against me now? Does it matter?
The Wookiees loved her, former Dark Lord and all. Most of them didn't even know what the Sith were; although several had offered cures for Revan's strange skin affliction. Zaalbar hadn't mentioned Mission to them—and Revan she wasn't sure if they'd care, even if he had. A Twi'lek was no true child of the forest and there had been many Twi'lek slavers working with Czerka in the bad old days.
Now, Zaal blazed the trail ahead, hiding whatever thoughts he had under that thick mat of hair.
Canderous was deep in conversation with one of the hunters near the front of the pack, with HK at his side.
"Translation:" HK purred, in Shyriiwook, "The Mandalorian agrees that those of his kind who hunted in your forests deserve swift and untimely deaths. But he is atypical, and lately, has shown tendencies towards sentiment. Interjection: Since you both share an unreasonable fondness for all this fetid and disgusting organic material, you will not find his statements offensive. Suggestion: Find a common target to exterminate together as an expression of your new alliance."
"There are some Trandoshans," Eooowweeer suggested. "Three days walking, towards the third pole. Scavenger camp. Tell the Mandalorian to bring back three heads, and six choobs, to prove his sincerity."
"Translation: The Wookiee has a target—"
"HK!" Revan called out. "No targets. No assassinations. No death. That's an order."
"Reluctant Compliance," the droid sighed. "As programmed, Shadow of my former Master."
Carth nudged her elbow. "Sure you don't want a weapon?"
Revan laughed. "To protect me from HK?" The persona the Jedi had put in her mind still felt naked without a blaster—and even more naked without her saber, but still—
"I don't want to kill anything, Carth. Not even a tach."
"You've been training with Zaalbar," he pointed out.
Not so much lately. She was constantly exhausted. "Wooden sticks only, and he beats me every time. Want to see my bruises again?"
"You're pushing yourself too hard." Carth wasn't even trying to hide the worry in his voice.
Not so much lately. "You said I look better." Revan tried to ignore the chills that ran up and down her spine and the cold sweat pooling at the backs of her knees.
"You're not quite as pale," he agreed, a faint smile on his face. "And I like the orange and purple bruise on your thigh. Looks like a map of Telos, if you get the right angle."
She shoved him, hard as she could in the side. He barely flinched. "Oh yeah? What angle is that?"
"Maybe I'll show you later." His body armor clanked against hers, awkwardly. In better times, it might have been cute.
He didn't need to say it out loud for Revan to know: Carth hated this expedition deep into the wroshyr forest, and Revan hadn't even told him about their true purpose.
For the past few weeks, her pilot had been spending a lot of time in the Hawk's cockpit, plugged into the remnants of the old Czerka grid. Searching for Dustil, his son, Revan hoped. He'd said he was checking the feeds for rumors of the Star Forge crew, but she assumed there was more to it than that.
What was there to say about the dead heroes of the Star Forge? The Republic Senate had named holidays for all of them, even Tee and HK. When Carth told her that, they'd both started to laugh at the same time—trailing off awkwardly, as if they'd both realized how little the honor mattered now.
"They wouldn't name holidays after us if we were alive," she'd joked. And then watched Carth's easy smile fade, a ray of sun vanishing behind a cloud.
"We are alive," he'd said. "Keep believing in that."
"I know," she'd muttered. "This place is way too dull for an afterlife."
As her body failed, sometimes Revan wondered why her companions still fought so hard to keep her. Something was missing. Like that scrap of stupid song that kept ringing in her head, little more than a child's rhyme.
You're going on an expedition into the Shadowlands for the sake of a song you heard in a dream, her inner voice reminded her. And it wasn't even good.
That's not the only reason.
Say the other reason out loud. I dare you. Zaal already thinks you're madclaw. Canderous too. And Carth's delusional, but he's not blind. That poor sad fool thinks he's in love with a fracking nutjob—
"Shut up," she snapped out loud, garnering a concerned growl from the Wookiee and a shrug from the Mandalorian.
"Hey, Freckles?" Carth moved up to walk beside her again. His elbow nudged hers, his voice carefully kind. "We're close."
"Yeah." She smiled at the poor sad fool's face and caught his hand with her own. "Thanks for humoring me, Flyboy."
"We all needed the exercise." He slipped a hand around her waist—more supportive than affectionate. "You especially. You've been sleeping too much lately."
"I'm doing a lot of gardening—" but of course, that had been in dreams. Jolee had asked her to weed his garden in real-time; but in truth, she couldn't even find where it began. The jungle had overtaken everything. "I mean, I might take it up. When I'm feeling better."
Carth shot her a puzzled look. "Sure."
The path under their feet had changed from a muddy track to paved stone. The night sounds around them stilled. Even without the Force, Revan imagined she felt something. An ominous presence, lurking just ahead through the trees. Maybe it was the shadows—or just the memory of being here before.
When they'd come to this place before, after the failure on Tatooine, she'd known instantly that this artifact would not be closed and dead. Why? Had the Dark Lord of the Sith already known what the Jedi would do to her? Had she left the Kashyyyk avatar to greet her mindwiped self? To restore her memories?
Or was the Kashyyyk computer simply a reprogrammed Rakatan guard dog, meant to lock this piece of the Star Map away from all prying eyes except Revan's?
It doesn't matter. Revan fought back a yawn.
"Here," Freyyrr barked to his men. Something off to their left roared, breaking the silence. There was a long pause and then Freyyrr and several other Wookiees split away from their group, melting into the trees. A few heartbeats later, Revan heard the chuk-chuk of bowcasters and the sounds of a rousing fight. Whatever beast they'd found roared in pain.
She shivered, almost in sympathy.
"Tell me again," Canderous grunted. "We're not here to hunt, so why did we come here at night?" Formerly so up for adventure, the Mandalorian hadn't wanted to come on this expedition at all—had muttered something about dar'jett osik and told her some things were best left alone.
"The Wookiees were busy this morning when I asked," Revan said. "They chose the time—not me."
"You want to join the fun, Ordo?" Carth said. "Go ahead—I got this."
"We are all protecting Polla Revan," Zaalbar corrected him. "We all must stay with her."
"Translation: Oh, wise Mandalorian! You are welcome to take the most skilled and expert sniper in our party, your humble assassin droid, with you to dispatch whatever organics you—"
"Shut up, HK," Revan snapped. She motioned to Canderous, no need to voice further command. He shrugged off his cannon and took point—suddenly all business.
"I hope you know what you're doing, Revan," Carth muttered in her ear.
"Go niner," she murmured.
"Right." He moved to the right, hands falling to the holsters of his blasters.
Without asking, Zaal took the threes and HK circled back, guarding their retreat. It was a formation they'd used so many times before, with the Jedi in this center, ready to react to anything from any approach. Only now, it felt like they were guarding her, and not just part of her squad.
Together they approached the ancient computer console, its tangled cables braided and buried like roots. To their right, the petals of the Star Map were closed and black. HK shone a light from his sensor on the screen and Revan blinked at its sudden sharpness, piercing the gloom.
Zaalbar groaned. "They found a katarn," he said, nodding in the direction the hunters had gone. Almost simultaneously, the beast howled—the cry breaking off mid-screech as it died.
The Wookiees roared in triumph, and then began the songs of celebration for a good hunt.
"Their battle hymns sound like dewbacks in heat," Canderous muttered. "But maybe they'll attract more game."
Revan walked to the computer, staring at the platform where the hologram of the Rakata had once greeted her, a little less than a year ago. The first of the Star Maps to have opened for her. She'd come here with Bastila and Jolee—
Bastila hacked her way through the walls of kinrath willingly enough but screamed every time she saw a bug too small to kill with a saber. Revan smiled a little at the memory. That Bastila had her issues, but she'd been a friend.
A friend that lied to you, her inner voice mocked. Remember how pale she got when you mentioned Revan to that computer? How quickly she tried to change the subject?
You were blind not to notice.
Behind her, Canderous sniffed. "This hunk of metal is it? Doesn't look like much."
"Not so scary, huh, Ordo?" Carth's jibe sounded forced.
"I've seen worse," the warrior admitted.
Revan ignored them both. She put her hands flat on the console. "Computer. Acknowledge and verify my identity."
Nothing happened.
Behind her, Zaalbar growled. "Eoosssigrrrw told me the dark machine has been dead since you left."
"No," Revan said. "I had a dream about it. Revan was here before us. She... I... set a password—I think. I think it's a password."
"You remember a password now, but you didn't before?" Carth's armored hand leaned against her waist. Holding her upright? Or holding her back? "You remember more from when you were Revan?"
Yes, Carth, and now I'm going to take over the galaxy. But you may need to hold me up to do it. Not sure how much longer I can stand. "I think so. I think the password was supposed to be a joke."
"A joke?" Carth laughed, hesitantly as if he was trying to find this funny. "One of your jokes? Bet the one you told in Dreshdae to those Sith was only the beginning of your repertoire."
"That joke was funny," Canderous said. "Although, if the Mandalorian had just shot them both it would have been more realistic."
"It's a song," Revan snapped. "This joke's a song. I think I... made it up. I'm hoping I was very young when I did."
"Have we made this hunt only for your song?" Zaalbar whined. "Your voice lacks the strength to carry through the forest."
"It's for the computer," Revan told him. "Be quiet. All of you." This is a fool's errand. I've lost whatever part of my mind was left. I'm probably delirious.
"Go ahead, beautiful. Sing for us." Carth patted her arm reassuringly.
"Observation: Your voice cannot be more atonal than the Wookiee caterwauling half a kilometer to the north, Master."
Revan closed her eyes, trying to shut them all out.
"Computer," she said, pressing her hands harder on the console as she began to sing.
"The Jedi are good, but they wear ugly hoods."
"The Sith are mean, but their armor gleams."
"When I grow up, I want to be—"
"The Ruler of the Galaxy."
Carth coughed, his hand going from hers to her forehead. "That's… uh, is there another verse, beautiful?" He turned toward Canderous. "She's pretty warm again, I think the fever's back up."
The Mandalorian spat on the ground. "Told you this little nature hike was a bad idea—"
"This is a bad place," Zaalbar agreed, voice tapering to a whine.
"Be quiet," Revan snapped. "All of you!" There is another verse, but I thought it was only this one that would activate—
Suddenly, lights sparked against the base of the plinth and a holographic image flickered to life on the holo-stand. The familiar, bulbous Rakata hologram stared back at her, unblinking and expressionless.
And not real. Not real, but maybe close enough—
"Identity confirmed. Accessing files," the computer said. "How may I serve you, Revan, Lord of the Sith and Conqueror of the Republic?"
"By not calling her that," Carth muttered.
Revan ignored him, addressing the machine. "The Jedi wiped my mind. Did I anticipate this?"
"My circuits are not telepathic. However, there are several files relating to Revan Starfire's life history accessible only using this password. They appear to be personal in nature. They do not pertain to the Star Forge, the Force, or the histories that were shared with you from my vault of knowledge."
Revan frowned. Revan … Starfire? She'd heard the surname before, of course, but it had never seemed to belong to her. Nothing about these fracking Sith had—not until it all became so fracking obvious —not until Korriban, when robed assholes started calling her by name and trying to kill her.
Revan Starfire, Lord of the Sith.
The fracking ten-meter-high statue in the Dreshdae City Square on Korriban hadn't even looked like Revan.
"Are there other passwords? Other areas of your databanks restricted?"
"Would you know if there were, regardless of what I disclose?"
"I don't—" Maybe the woman she'd been once had enjoyed these kinds of mind games, but this Revan hated them. "Can you restore my memories?"
"No. I can show you recordings shared with me and encoded under this passcode."
This passcode. Machines were so specific. Revan frowned. "Are there are others… other passcodes that I set? About me?"
"Yes."
"W-why did I partition the data?" Her voice shook. It was so cold here. Carth moved up behind her again and Revan resisted the urge to push him away.
"I cannot say. There are several subdirectories."
"Can you list them?"
"Some of them." Was it her imagination, or did the computer sound amused?
"Such as…?"
"For example, you partitioned a portion of my files to be accessible by someone named 'Malak' using the password "Loverboy."
Carth's hand retreated again and she heard him mutter softly under his breath.
Loverboy. He's jealous of a dead man. The thought made Revan sad. The term had no relation at all to the madman who had tried to kill her. Those crazed red eyes, that maniacal laugh—
XXX
Her nemesis was broad-shouldered. Impossibly tall. The overlights gleamed on the bald pate of his skull, the blocks of corruption that made a mask of his skin. The cold metal of the plate where his mouth should have been glittered like it had been freshly polished.
"Red," the madman had murmured. "My Starfire. I knew you'd come."
Red. A red haze tinged Revan's vision. Rage at Malak's… impudence. Fury at his presumption of familiarity flared like a sun inside of her, eclipsing reason, overriding any vague ideas of strategy she'd had.
Her blade ignited, and she was already in the air, using the Force to propel herself toward him, spinning the double-hilt hard to drive him back—
The madman nearly knocked it out of her hand, and then—
XXX
Revan gritted her teeth, forcing her thoughts back to the present, to the Rakatan image blinking in front of her. "Download all the files that relate to her—to my—life" Maybe they could crack into them later.
As an academic exercise, perhaps. But you're not just here to access the computer. You're here for Zaalbar. Keep that in mind.
"They are yours to do with as you wish, but I would caution you against sharing too much with your companions. Knowledge can be dangerous."
"So I've learned," she muttered. "Is the information marked in any way?"
"It is tagged as 'hazardous to sentient life'."
She nodded. "At this time, I do not wish to access any of the data that is marked 'hazardous to sentient life.' Please download all information—all of the non-hazardous information—pertaining to my personal life into this HK droid's receptacle."
"Objection! Master!" It was impossible for a droid to really be offended, but HK did a good job of sounding like he was. "Declaration of Purpose: I am a highly-advanced assassination droid, fluent in seventeen-hundred sixty-two ways of ending sentience for most bipedal life forms. I have an additional two hundred forty options for the tri-and quad-legged species that are original—not just variations on the bipedal theme. In addition, I am fluent in several thou—"
"Comply, HK," she snapped. "Partition it away from his central memory core," she added. "Accessible only to my voice-print."
Carth coughed. "Revan, he can imitate your voice."
"He was doing it for weeks on the kriffing ship," Canderous added. His own voice shifted, into a terrible parody of HK's. "This is Lord Revan. Please release my faithful droid's restraining bolt, and give him that Aratech rifle you so cruelly plucked from his arms on Lehon—"
"Lehon?" Revan frowned.
Zaalbar shrugged.
"Master, Lehon is the world where you reclaimed your true—"
That blasted Rakatan planet has a fracking name? "Shut up!" she snapped.
Creaking, as if his joints suddenly needed an oil bath, HK glided forward, until he was standing next to her in front of the console.
A violet beam of light shot forth from the platform, playing over the HK's body.
"Observation: An unusual feeling," the droid commented. "Gratitude, Master: Although your attempts to partition were laughably easy to circumvent, your harmless meatbag data is encrypted. Happiness: I am spared the sordid details of your sloppy, viscera-filled life."
"It's fine," she muttered. "There's another verse to the song. I think it decrypts it. We'll deal with it later."
"Can't wait," Carth said behind her. "We done here?" Bitterness in his voice.
Damn him. "Not quite. Computer: you said before that you were tied to the Force. Can you use it to assess my physical condition?"
Whorls of light flickered around her. "Affirmative. A disruptor field emanates from that metal ring around your neck. I would advise removing it as soon as possible."
"Why?"
"If you do not remove the neural disruptor, your lifespan will be drastically shortened."
She'd known. Somehow, she'd known. Revan swallowed hard. "How—how long have I got?"
"My estimation, based on body mass and metabolism—another three of your standard months."
The men cursed softly behind her. Revan just nodded. I knew it, I just didn't know how long—
Longer than she'd expected.
"Computer, is there another way to remove the affinity to the Force from my body without shortening my lifespan?"
"Certainly, Lord Revan. Removal of all cognitive function would effectively curb your Force affinity. A respiration unit would be advised, however; and additional nutritive and evacuatory systems would be needed to sustain life. I am quite capable of performing the initial neural disengagement. A simple electrical shock, given enough voltage, will stop your cardiac function long enough for your higher brain function to cease. Would you like me to perform this operation at this time?"
"No!" Her voice rang across the clearing, with a vehemence that surprised her. "Can you… what happens if you just take the collar off?"
"Hypothetically, if I possessed appendages and the energies required for such a task, your natural lifespan would be restored." It paused. "More or less."
"More or less?" Carth snapped. "What does that mean?"
"I am only authorized to respond to questions from Lord Revan," the hologram said. "This message is a courtesy warning. Further communication with this terminal by unauthorized personnel will result in their disintegration."
"Hypothetically?" She put her arm back, warning Carth to stay quiet. "Can you do it or not?"
"Are you capable of installing appendages directly into my console, or transmitting my consciousness into a mobile core?"
"Not…" she'd wondered. "Maybe later?"
"Then maybe later, I will be capable of performing complex neuro-molecular surgery."
Carth looked like he wanted to say something again. Revan put a warning hand on his armored arm.
"Computer, can you analyze the Force patterns within me?"
"Clarify."
"Can you tell if they are… from the dark or the light?"
"You were always confusing in your distinctions, Lord Revan. There is no dark or light. The Force is power. Power has no coloration—only the capacity to enact change on a galactic scale. You were fashioned for this purpose."
"That's what I used to believe," she said softly. "But I killed people. People I loved when they stood in my way."
The computer purred, eerily like HK. "You achieved the ends required. Sacrifice is a part of leadership."
"But I… lost control," she said softly in Rakata. "Please continue our discussion in this tongue."
"As you wish," the ancient computer clicked, in the language of its builders.
"What are you doing?" hissed Carth behind her.
"The files I am accessing are untranslatable," she said in Basic. "Give me a few millis."
Carth was silent, but she felt his disapproval like a laser on the back of her neck.
I used to be such a good liar. Polla was a good liar. Revan must have been too. What's happened to me?
The Rakatan consonants felt uncomfortably familiar. "Computer, I have... concerns that I will enjoy the Force and I do not wish to have it rule me. Do you have any suggestions?"
"The Jedi order practice several levels of discipline to combat this effect. Their work in this field is far more advanced than anything my people ever achieved, even though it is based on rudimentary tenets, almost comical in their simplicity. There is no passion, there is peace—"
"I know the code, cease repeating it. Please."
"As you wish."
"Computer. When I first came here, why did you speak to me?"
"You were the first subject I had seen a thousand standard rotations that exhibited the proper characteristics."
"What were those characteristics?"
"Error. I am not able to access that file. It is possible that it was locked by a previous user or has been corrupted. However, I have holographic recordings of our first and some subsequent meetings. Would you like to access them?"
Revan took a deep breath. Not in front of Carth. Not now. "Download them into this droid. Locked by me?"
"I cannot say. Hypothesis. Since the information you sought was hazardous to sentient life and not part of my agricultural installation, I assume it was locked approximately one thousand of your standard years ago."
Revan frowned. "Why would you assume that?"
"Your old persona was most interested in those files."
"Show me."
"Error: the information may be corrupted or incomplete."
May be corrupted? Or, maybe you're just an evil sithspawned computer and I should stop asking nicely.
"A thousand years ago was the age of the Sith. Do you have information about the Sith Empire?"
"Clarify."
"No, anything—everything-you have on the Sith and the Jedi, please. Download it now into the droid."
"Your requests are imprecise. You are deviating from the pattern in memory. Additionally, some of this information falls under the category of hazardous—and you have already requested a denial of access to such files—"
Revan closed her eyes. Breathe deeply, Bastila had said, let your mind be an empty cup and feel the Force flow within and around. See it in all things. Like an echo, someone else's voice saying the same thing, years ago, to a much smaller Revan.
The child's voice haunted her again:
"When I grow up, I want to be,"
"The Ruler of the Galaxy."
I was for a few years, little girl, and it sucked like a space privy.
"I don't want to see any of the hazardous information. Computer: delete all files marked as hazardous... no—wait. Who marked them as hazardous?"
"That information is not available. Those files are not accessible to be deleted."
"Can you overwrite the files with something else?"
"Possible. There is a risk of corruption. Minor. The odds are three thousand and twenty-one against."
"Corruption would entail what?"
"It is difficult to predict. In the most probable circumstance, the data would be inaccessible to future users, but the overwriting information would remain intact."
Behind her, Carth shifted impatiently. "Fine," Revan said. In pazaak, I'd be a fool not to take those odds. "Download the information I requested into the droid, except what is marked hazardous. Keep the hazardous information—until you overwrite it with this."
She pulled the triangular device out from her pocket. It shimmered in the dim light.
She'd found it yesterday, in one of the boxes from the Hawk, a box filled with Mission's possessions.When she'd switched it on, she'd expected to see some long-dead Sith Lord—
Revan's eyes blinked, suddenly prickling with tears. Clever girl picked my pocket back on Korriban.
The thought made her less sad this time around.
"Ah," the Rakatan said. "Have I displeased you in some way?"
"No."
"But you wish to replace my consciousness? With… this… primitive object?" It sounded almost offended. But why would a computer even care?
"I do." Primitive? I hope not.
"Place the holocron on the console," the computer sighed, still speaking Rakatan.
"Speak Standard now," Revan told it.
"Place the holocron on the console," the computer repeated in Basic.
"What is that?" Carth's breath was warm on her neck.
"It's a holocron from the Sith tombs on Korriban. Holocrons are receptacles for recording information, as you know. But sometimes…."
"What are you doing?" He sounded suspicious, of course.
"Holocrons can record entire lives—even sentient personalities. I thought I'd given this one to Uthar for prestige—I had so much useless stuff to give him I never noticed it was missing until I found it in the storage room."
Blue light played over the holocron and the Rakatan's presence shifted and blurred, shrinking and growing lekku.
"Hello!" A familiar voice sang out. "This is Mission Vao and this is my life!"
"No." Even through the body armor, Revan felt Carth's hand lock around her forearm, pulling it back. "Revan. What have you done?"
"I'm helping." And trying to ignore the strength of his grip. Trying not to think of the six ways she could break free from him, even in her weakened state.
Mission's voice rattled on. "I hope Polla doesn't get mad when she finds out I swiped this magic Sith artifact; but I figured—maybe if Griff saw what things were like for me, then maybe he'd turn over a new leaf. I'm gonna send it to him—soon as we get done saving the entire galaxy. Hi, Griff! This holocron may have, like all the bad stuff that happened in my life? All the old stuff? But by the time you're seeing this, we'll all be famous!" She paused, spreading her hands open like a grass priest bestowing a blessing. "I wanted you to know that I forgive you, bantha-brain brother. Even if you are an asshole."
"Is it alive?" Canderous asked. "Or a clever recording?"
"I don't know," Revan said. "It's a holocron. It can… learn things. It… it recognized me before."
XXX
The halls of the Ebon Hawk echoed with memories, and few places more than the room at the end of the hall, little more than an afterthought of the ship's design—the small cube of a spacer's bunk that Mission Vao had claimed for her own. The door was open and the Twi'lek's possessions half-sorted, as if one of Revan's companions had already begun the task of sorting through the Twi'lek's things, before abandoning the job half-done.
Revan owed them all to see it through. She sat down on the bed and began lifting things out of the open storage crate next to it. The crate was filled with things that made her heart ache. The Baragwin vest (unscathed—for in reality, the Twi'lek hadn't been wearing it the day she died), a cache of choca-bars. What looked like a datapad diary. Clothes too practically standard for a quest like theirs—and a few dresses that would have given Carth apoplexy, if he'd seen them on the kid. A pair of high-heeled pink boots. An unopened bottle of firewhiskey. A stack of slicing spikes and a few datacards pinched from places they'd infiltrated, tied together with a lekku ribbon like souvenirs—
Near the bottom of the pile of treasures, Revan's fingers closed on something sharp and cold. She drew it out, wincing, as the edges cut her fingers. She recognized it instantly—although, in the madness that had been their time on Korriban, she hadn't even known it was gone.
An ancient Sith holocron, glittering and inscribed with silver runes.
The holocron from Tulak Hord's tomb. Clever girl must've picked my pocket back on Korriban. The thought made her eyes well with pointless tears, blurring her vision until she wiped them away.
Revan set the triangular prism on top of a stack of neatly-folded shirts. Its faceted edges glittered in the dim light. She stared at it for a long time before she picked it up and pressed the center at the base. The library on Korriban had been full of holocrons much like this one—all essentially delivering the same message. Sith Lords hissing promises of greatness. Mad apprentices announcing their manifestos. Power, vengeance, and renown. At the time, Revan had felt almost smug in her ability to scoff at them. At the time, she had thought she had already seen the worst the Force could bring—and then turned her back on it—secure in the Light.
She had been wrong. She would be wrong now too, in thinking this would be more of the same.
"Hello!" A familiar voice sang out. " This is Mission Vao and this is my life! I hope Polla doesn't get mad when she finds—uh, oh. Hey! Polla?" The transparent blue Twi'lek who had materialized above Revan's head blinked, her eyes widening as if she was taking in their surroundings. "You loser! Are you snooping in my room? Is that my stuff? I told you that crate was private!"
Revan froze, staring back at the translucent blue figure blinking back at her. "Mission?"
"Polla?" Mission's voice demanded again. "Hey! Are you crying? What are you doing in my room? Are you mad about me taking the holocron? Because if you are, I gotta remind you that you said I could take what I wanted as long as it didn't hurt anybody else…."
"Hello, Mission." Revan swallowed. "No, I'm not mad."
The holocron had a switch on its base. She turned it off and the ghost vanished.
XXX
In the now, the men were still staring at her. "I don't know," Revan repeated to Carth. "She can't be alive, exactly. But I found the holocron in her room. It… spoke to me."
"It can recognize things?" Carth's voice was dark with suspicion. "Is it sentient?"
Canderous shifted uneasily. "What is its purpose? A memorial for the dead? Have you made ones for the others?"
"No." She swallowed. "I didn't make this. Mission did it herself."
"... we must be totally rich now too, so I bet you'll hit me up for cash. Wow, sure feels funny having my mind probed like this. It's like an evil Jedi thing to do, huh?" The image of Mission giggled. "Tickles, you know?" Mission's voice trailed off—and then the figure got up from its cross-legged position on the platform.
"Hey! Where are we? I don't remember the ship landing. Is that Big Z over there?"
Zaalbar was muttering something to himself that sounded like a string of prayers.
I hope they're prayers.
"What have you done?" Carth asked. He still had hold of one of her hands—her right one. Even when Revan was disarmed, he wasn't taking any chances. "That can't be… it's not really her?"
"No," Revan whispered, staring at the hologram. "It's like a composite. It has… some of her memories. The basic outline of her personality, and her reactions. But—she can access the nets. It's not her, just the closest we can get. I did it for Zaalbar."
"I don't think you've thought this through." Carth frowned.
Zaalbar and Mission were jabbering so fast in Shyriiwook that Revan could hardly follow them. She watched as the ghostly image of the Twi'lek's face changed—from joy to disbelief—and then realized exactly what the Wookiee was telling the holocron.
Oh, come on, Zaal—would a lie have hurt?
"You killed me, Polla? You had Big Z kill me and then you went all Dark Sith Lord again?" The voice sounded exactly like Mission. "No way! It just doesn't sound like you."
"Mission," Revan's voice was strained, even in her own ears. "You're not… just you. You have information. Can you access it?"
The girl's face went blank for a moment. "Sure. Wow… there's a lot here."
"Is there anything that you would deem hazardous to sentient life?"
"There's a bunch of stuff that was overwritten by me, but I can still see some of the directories. Nope... nothing live. Although I don't know what the classification hazardous really means. Like does bio-seeding count? Genetic reshaping? Locations of more Rakatan replicators?"
None of that sounded great, but none of it sounded like an immediate threat either. "I guess that stuff is okay," Revan nodded. "We can go over it later."
"Aww, Polla!"
"What is it?"
"I always wondered about whether you and Malak… I mean there were all these jokes about you two back when you know… but… uh, there's some holos here and they're pretty gross."
"Delete them," Revan muttered. "Delete everything about Malak from your core."
"Everything?" The computer that now sounded like Mission paused. "You sure about that?"
Revan glanced back at Carth. "Yes. Absolutely."
"Okay! Done! Easy"
Just like that. Revan took a deep breath. "Mission, I—I'm so sorry."
"I don't remember you killing me, so it's okay, sis! You don't mind me calling you that, do you? I always thought of you that way... but you were always so, save-the-galaxy superwoman about things that I didn't want to make you mad or something."
"I thought of you that way too," Revan said. She wiped her eyes free of tears. "Your... predecessor had an open feed into the nets, but it was one-way. He could see everything but could send nothing out. Tee-Three is going to set up a remote link through the Hawk's circuits. As much as I can Mission, I want to give you the world. All of them."
"Again," Carth muttered. "I don't think you've thought this through."
"That would be great, Polla!" Mission turned back to Zaalbar. The Wookiee seemed torn between outrage and joy.
Revan glanced at the other two men and the droid. "We should leave them," she said softly. "It's getting late and I... I want to answer some questions about myself too."
Carth had that line between his brows that meant trouble. "Whatever answers you find, I want to be there when you find them. I want to know everything about you."
Flicker of anger that Revan bit back. "I don't know everything about you."
He smiled painfully at her. "Only because you never ask. You used to ask me lots of things."
I used to be a smuggler from Deralia too. She stared at him. "Wasn't sure you still wanted me to know."
His brown eyes softened, and that line on his brow lifted. "Always, Freckles. Told you before."
Freckles. There'd been a time when the name had confused her. When Revan had looked at the dots on her skin and wondered if she was losing her mind. Looking at Carth instead had helped. It did now, too.
Canderous coughed. "I don't need to know everything, Revan, just so we're clear. But we need to talk about what the computer said. About you dying."
"I know. But first, let's see if I deserve to live."
"You should already know we think you do," Carth muttered. "That's why we're here."
Revan twisted her mouth. "I'll let you decide, Carth. How's that?"
"Seriously, Polla Revan?" Mission's hologram interrupted. "Geez! Don't be so dramatic."
"She is still madclaw, Mission," Zaalbar groaned. "New roots take time to grow."
"I'm not," Revan muttered, eyeing the HK with some trepidation. She might have erased Malak from the main banks of the Rakatan computer, but she'd downloaded her personal files first.
I need to know, she reminded herself. Even if she was no longer sure why.
XXX
Winter nights in Dreshdae were cold, even more so now that the city was half-deserted, and its warming arrays switched off to conserve power. Very few of the city's survivors ventured out at night —indeed, fewer every day as weakness succumbed to strength.
Next to the ruins of the Korriban Academy, the age-old struggle of the Sith still played out, even when all other Sith lessons had stopped.
The woman stood in the deserted, dusty square, hooded and cloaked against the chill, staring up at the ten-meter-high statue of Lord Revan Starfire, the fallen Sith Lord.
By all rights Malak's statue should be here too, she thought.
A petty part of her was glad it was otherwise. They had not died together, Revan and Malak. The woman had felt his passing like a scream in her own soul when the Star Forge burned. Whereas Revan had flickered out of the Force weeks later, guttering like a dying ember—all of her strength reduced to a whisper of pain before its end.
Died of her injuries, no doubt. It gave the woman some satisfaction to imagine those injuries.
The statue's likeness was terrible—its face stylized beyond any possible resemblance to any woman, living or dead. The woman was glad of that too, although it scarcely mattered now.
"Have you packed your things already?" Husky voice behind her, accent flat as permafrost. "I found us a ship. Not much of one, but it'll get us off this rock."
"Good." The woman turned around, producing a smile for the heart-shaped face, the yellow-brown eyes that always softened like snow when they met her own. "Yes, I've packed my things." She reached out a hand, tracing the side around the ear where her friend's scalp had been clipped short.
A dark tail of hair was gathered at the top of her friend's skull, base wrapped with red cloth, the strands almost black in this light. Freshly dyed to cover the gray that had aged the fallen Jedi beyond her years before. Her friend looked younger now—and nearly beautiful.
"What have you done to your hair?" the woman asked her.
"Deralian top knot," her friend said. "I used to wear it like this—before. It's been years since I have. You might not remember."
Revan had worn her hair like that. The woman did not like the association, even if the style was quite flattering to her friend's heavy cheeks; her wide mouth and soft eyes. "Deralian," she echoed, telling the truth that would not offend. "It suits you. You look beautiful."
The compliment garnered a smile. "Some pathetic hopeful already asked me if I was imitating her." Beya Organa's voice hardened, even as the smile she gave back was soft and foolishly vulnerable. "We should probably leave before the port authorities discover the body."
"Why would it matter?" They were Sith.
"It was the hopeful's ship." The Deralian shrugged. "What little government remains on this planet still takes a dim view of theft..."
XXX
