Title A Rose By Any Other Name
Author Kian
Warnings MAJOR SPOILERS for KotOR, post-Leviathan, unhappy Carth, LSFR, Bindo crankiness, attempts at humor, unintentional sap
Pairings/Characters CarthxLSFR, Jolee Bindo, Dustil Onasi, etc.
Disclaimer The video games, Knights of the Old Republic and its characters are copyright to the appropriate creators and companies, specifically LucasArts and Bioware. Any businesses, logos or characters not belonging to the author are the intellectual property of the appropriate creators and owners. Any of the content (prose, plot, original characters, etc.) that does not fall in the above categories in the intellectual property of the author "Kian" and said intellectual property is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. The individual under the pen name of "Kian" is receiving no profit from the distribution of this story, nor does said author have any intention to receive compensation beyond hopefully some verbal praise.
Author's Note This story works as a standalone, but is written as part of a larger arc. The direct prequel to this story is "Resurrecting A Fallen Appellation."
Oh dear sweet baby Jesus on a pogo stick, did this chapter get out of control. A good majority of this (much longer than usual) part is walk-through, but since this particular story is about Carth coming to terms with Revan's identity and how he feels, the walking through does (hopefully!) serve a purpose. That said, the only other thing I really have to say about this chapter is to once again thank padawanmage71 on youtube for his/her walkthrough vids and the extremely over-the-top-epic music of Within Temptation for keeping me on task.
A Rose By Any Other Name
Part Three
Weeks passed in a grueling march. Revan played the part of the dutiful trainee, attending mandatory sessions of instruction in the use of weaponry, studying the teachings of the Sith, casing the other trainees and forging a tenuous alliance with their lodging neighbor, Yuthura Ban.
It shouldn't have amazed Carth that she had so little trouble integrating herself, but he often found himself startled by the ease with which she navigated the academy, the acceptance she received. The trust, even – though her cover story as the sometimes-reluctant former Jedi was well known.
Unfortunately, charm alone couldn't win her access to the Star Map, which they had quickly learned lay in the cave tomb of an ancient Sith named Naga Sadow. And it was not truly charm, if Carth was honest with himself, that she won people over with on the Sith world. Guile was perhaps a more accurate term, a carefully constructed mask of deceit. Or, what he hoped was a mask.
In those weeks, she hardly spoke to any of their group, save to give out orders. Canderous and HK seemed happy to trot after her every whim, but the sudden silence and the newly harsh quality of her presence grated on Carth. A perverse desire grew in him that she would chat with him like they had before, when hiking over the dunes of Tatooine or through the dense vegetation of Kasshyk. Something inside of him quavered at the thought that the comfortable partnership they had forged when stranded together on Taris was lost, but he sternly reminded himself that it was here she truly belonged, in the icy bowels of Korriban's sinister academy.
He could see how it might have been, could see how the sharp line of her shoulders and the powerful impression of her presence that now sent Sith guards skittering about her unconsciously would have commanded the obedience of the students and masters housed on Korriban. He could see the general in her, the one that had ofttimes run afoul of the Senate in her ruthless pursuit of Mandalore during the war. And despite himself, he could still see his friend.
And his friend was too quiet, too tightly strung. Still, when she did speak to him, he was terse and bitter, nursing a festering wound where his unspoken trust in her had once filled him with warmth and pleasure. Whether or not he succeeded in hurting her as well, Carth could not decipher. Her eyes were cold, flat and now only sparked with analytical interest. Only Jolee's unspoken disapproval kept Carth from lashing out in frustration against her stony expression, from trying to dig a response out of her. As the weeks dragged on, Carth would have welcomed any response, so maddening was her behavior.
It was an unexpected and curiously welcome relief when, upon returning from yet another training session where an errant "slips" of a sparring partner had forced Revan to defend herself more than once from potentially fatal strikes, they rounded a corner and Canderous inadvertently sent another apprentice sprawling, long awkward limbs flailing as he tipped over backwards to land inelegantly on his rear at the feet of the towering Mandalorian. After weeks of tension and paranoid rigidity, the utter bewilderment on the younger man's face as he looked up at Canderous – whose repeating blaster's muzzle was only inches from the apprentice's nose – seemed to break the anxious spell cast over their group.
Revan stepped around Canderous and extended a hand to help the young Sith to his feet, the barest hint of a kind smile on her face. The younger man – no more than a teenager, really – looked a little sheepish as he took her hand and pulled himself up. He studiously ignored Canderous as he nodded to Revan and cast a look about for any other witnesses, looking openly relieved when he saw no one else in the hall.
"Sorry, we didn't see you there…?" she smiled, her sentence hanging, waiting for the young man to answer the unspoken request for his name.
"Kel. Kel Algwinn," the boy said quickly, almost immediately looking chagrined for having blurted it out so quickly.
Kel turned, wordless and clearly embarrassed, and began to walk towards the dorm areas. Carth felt a little awkward himself when Revan began in the same direction, though they too had been on their way to their own small bunk. Revan's sharp gaze did not leave the slumped shoulders of the young apprentice and she wove through the hallways keeping a steady pace behind him. More than once, the sandy-haired kid turned his head and caught sight of them, but unlike all the other Sith Carth had yet experienced, the boy simply looked hunted and shuffled forward a little more quickly, instead of turning to confront them.
As Kel slipped into one of the bunk areas, they walked by, Revan nodding to him once more as he peeked out from the side hallway to mark their progress. From the corner of his eye, Carth watched the young apprentice scurry back into his bunk, the slightest tinge of a blush coloring Kel's cheeks.
Something about the whole exchange caused a waggish grin to tug at Carth's mouth. As they moved into their own bunk, Carth caught Revan's eye on him and his smile grew familiar, his breath warm with unsounded laughter. For an instant, it was just another intimate moment, just like any on Taris or Manaan. Another inside joke passing unspoken between them, amusement borne on the strength of their friendship and understanding.
But he remembered all too quickly, and as if the walls of their voluntary prison were suddenly closing in on him, his humor evaporated and he could feel his expression crumble into the sour distrust of unknowing. Just as quickly, her tentative smile was gone, her eyes shuttered and their connection entirely broken. A piece of him wailed at the loss and he could not find it in himself to silence that mournful voice.
Two days passed and the fresh reminder of Carth's lost friendship with Revan drove him near distraction, forced as he was to watch over her every moment of the day, his eyes locked to the back of her head through endless training sessions and hours of meditation.
He had tried, in the beginning, to distract himself from her with the goings on of the academy, but he soon found himself watching her again, drawn to her calm in the maddening swirl of the school. How anyone could live here, let alone believe the Sith philosophy, was beyond his powers of understanding. The education the Sith received weren't lessons in merely darkness of mind or deviance of behavior; it was an education in the continuous practice of deliberate malice and determined callousness.
When the hour for her test on the Sith code arrived, Carth found himself relieved that he no longer would be subjected second-hand to lessons in the art of slaughter for self-advancement or lectures on the philosophy of isolating one's self in the constant pursuit of the power to destroy.
They made their way up from the dorm area of the academy, Carth following several steps behind like the dutiful manservant his cover claimed him to be. As Revan strode into the main antechamber where Uthar waited, Carth, Jolee and Canderous took up a place along the wall underneath an unnerving statue of a man bent double under an impossible burden.
Ironically, a clean white light shone down on Revan as she crossed the great room, her step measured and strong. In his mind's eye, Carth could see a cape swirling in her wake like a wave of black, roiling like clouds of a great storm. Despite her relative short stature compared to Uthar Wynn, she towered over him, so settled in herself was she.
"Greetings, young one," the Sith Master called almost kindly as Revan approached. "You have much to do yet; you will have to work quickly to best the others."
The soft tone masked a barb meant to spur Revan's pride, Carth realized. How easy it must have been to turn the more hot-blooded of the students when the Master seemed rational, almost as concerned about progress as they themselves were. But perhaps Uthar's concern was only for Revan - if Yuthura had sensed Revan's abilities and desired to make use of them, could they expect less from the Twi'lek's Master?
"I have learned the Code of the Sith," Revan answered neutrally, ignoring the jab designed to stir her up and motivate her in the cruel competition Uthar had devised to cull the prospects. Carth was reminded of circling predators making swipes in the air at one another, goading their enemy into a mistake.
"Then finish the Code as I speak it," smiled the Master, displaying a mouth full of sharpened teeth.
"Peace is a lie, there is only..." began Uthar, dark eyes glinting in the cold light of the antechamber.
A moment's pause only and she completed the phrase, gaze unswerving from where they held Uthar's own.
"Passion."
It chilled Carth to stand aside and listen to her steady voice sound those words which were directly opposed to everything he himself believed – and that he had once thought she too believed in.
On another world, he had been witness to her acceptance of the Jedi Code. Then, he had been strangely proud and humbled by the experience, filled with a sense of calm when she had smoothly declared her conviction for the Light side of the Force. Now, hearing her intonation of the way of the Sith with nearly the same rises and falls, the determination of her words almost identical, he wanted to scream, to tear her away and shake her until she had come to her senses. But he stood silent between Jolee and Canderous, just waiting for it to finally end.
"Through victory, my chains are broken," she claimed, letting her strong voice carry across the hushed room.
With a twisted sneer, Uthar spoke the last with her, but Carth suspected that the Sith Master had not the slightest understanding of what the words would mean for his newest Sith apprentice.
"The Force shall set me free."
It was then that Carth knew – as Revan and Uthar's voices clashed in the still air; as hers was the stronger, carrying over the other man's with intent – that Revan would kill Master Wynn. It would only be a matter of time and opportunity.
Carth hoped that this did not mean Revan was planning to conspire with the Twi'lek instructor with whom they shared living space by planting the poison she had been given in the Sith Master's room. Yuthura Ban may have a soft spot for Revan now, but doing the bidding of any Sith – no matter how it worked towards their group's own ends – was a variable Carth did not want to have to contemplate.
"Yes, good. You have indeed learned the Code of the Sith," the Master acknowledged with a slight nod of his head. "Speaking the words and knowing the words are, however, two different things. Tell me then, true or false: victory by any means is desirable."
This had not been part of the test their Twi'lek dorm mate had mentioned, but judging by Uthar's skepticism, it was probable she still had not proven to him that she - the ex-padawan she pretended to be, anyway - had truly turned their backs on the Light side of the Force.
"False," Revan replied evenly.
Uthar's expression shifted slightly, as if he had not expected the answer he had received.
"Well done," the Sith responded after a moment. "I will test you no more...you know the Code. Very impressive. Go now...I have matters to attend to."
Revan inclined her head slightly and turned sharply on her heel, striding away from Uthar as calmly as she had approached, seemingly unbothered by having her back turned to the man. The Sith Master watched her go, a curious expression on his face that Carth was not altogether sure he liked.
As she came abreast of Carth and the others, Revan's eyes flicked in their direction, though her gait did not slow. As if expressly bidden, they fell into step behind her as she made her way back into the bowels of the academy.
When they passed out of eyesight of anyone in the antechamber, Carth saw Revan's shoulders droop slightly, and the hands she had held clasped behind her back finally swung free. He was surprised to see small curved indentations in the back of her left hand - almost purple in color - as though she had been digging her nails into the delicate flesh there.
As they wove through the passageway down to the dorm level, Carth wondered at it. Had Revan hurt herself to restrain her anger at Uthar? Had she been holding herself back from fighting him? Or had it been something else?
He had just opened his mouth to inquire about the marks when he spotted someone watching them at one end of the hall. The odd Sith apprentice, Kel Algwinn, was marking their return with undue interest, but when Carth met his eyes, the boy turned abruptly and headed into his bunk.
Revan stopped and looked back at Carth questioningly, before altering their course to follow the young man into his dorm area. She paused in the archway that sufficed for a threshold and peered in, noting the boy had taken up a place at his workstation.
When Kel noticed their entrance, he stammered a hello, but conversation died quickly, as though he were entirely unsure of what to do next. As if that were a cue that everyone else had missed, Revan moved into the room, stopping only a few step from the young man, responding in kind to his greetings with her own. When Kel did not respond, save to flush a little in nervousness, Revan placed a hand on his shoulder carefully.
"Is something wrong?" she asked, her head tilted to the side slightly as she examined the younger man with concern.
"Oh, uh…nothing," Kel mumbled, turning away abruptly to fidget with his workstation's read outs.
Revan came up beside him, peering up under his down turned face. "Are you sure?"
The young man started back a little until his legs make contact with a trunk placed at the foot of his bunk. Kel reddened slightly, one hand fidgeting in the folds of his robes. He met her eyes with a little show of defiance, but it was a shaky, unsure thing at best.
"Y-yes. My master always says I am too trusting, too willing to show weakness. You're a Sith, so I really shouldn't…you know…"
Revan's smile turned friendly and completely disarming.
"But I'm not a Sith yet."
"Oh, I know that," the boy assured quickly, breathlessly trying to salvage himself. "I mean…you aren't yet, but you intend to be. I mean you're just like everyone else here."
"And you're not?" Revan tendered carefully, stepping a hair closer to the young man, whose fingers were now hopelessly twisted in the hem of his robes.
"Well, I…I…I didn't mean it like that," Kel rushed, eyes flicking away anxiously before they returned to her when Revan made one more small step forward, arms spread open gently in a motion Carth had seen her make before to a wounded cath hound pup on Dantooine.
She pitched her voice low then, down to a deep, soothing tone that resonated like a bell through the small space. It was a voice that had honeyed many an ear before, smoothing their way through countless confrontations and opening up even the tightest-lipped informants.
"Well, how did you mean it then?"
Kel's uncertainty was plain for all to see now. He clearly had something on his mind, something he wanted to talk to a friendly ear about – and perhaps Revan's cover as a former-Jedi made her the exact kind of ear the kid was looking for. Surely the boy would have been in for a severe punishment had his Master seen him then, wavering between having said too much already and not being sure he could protect himself from being taking advantage of if he continued on.
"He should be in school somewhere," Carth thought with a pain. The boy couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen, just a few years older than Dustil would be. The teen was entirely out of his element here. Perhaps he had been lured in by the promise of freedom or empowerment, but the young man would have been better off – and surely happier – slaving over normal studies and finding a nice girl to moon over.
"I…I shouldn't trust you. I can't trust you," stuttered Kel, looking torn, lost and hopelessly young. "Can I?"
Casually, Revan sank to the floor, folding her legs under her as she sat on the cool durasteel flooring. It was a posture that was at a complete disadvantage to Kel's standing form - and it was a welcoming gesture that spoke of friendship and burgeoning trust. Sure, Carth knew she could kill him easily if the kid did try something, on the floor or not, but to Kel it was a cue that he had finally found his friendly ear.
"Sure you can," she smiled at the boy, and by slow degrees, Carth watched the tension ease out the Kel's stance. After a moment, he too dropped down to sit on the edge of the footlocker.
Out of the corner of his eye, Carth observed Jolee lean back against a wall, still keeping an eye out for the room mate, while Canderous stepped a little outside the bunk area to divert attention from Kel and his guest. When the boy looked towards Carth, the pilot realized he was still standing, braced for action, in the middle of the room, one hand on his blaster. Deliberately, Carth holstered his weapon and moved across the room to stand alongside Jolee, adopting the older man's calculated pose of nonchalance leaning against the rough-hewn wall of the dorm.
With the last imposing presence neutralized, Kel once again turned his attention to Revan's smiling face. Carth tried to suppress a bout of something sickly possessive in him that cried that those rare warm smiles had once been only for him. As his thoughts spiraled downward, a sudden nudge of Jolee's elbows brought Carth's attention to the aging Jedi.
"You alright there?" the older man smiled, a trace of knowing dancing in his eyes.
"Fine," Carth grunted, turning away again to watch the little interview taking place before him.
"I just...," Kel began, "don't feel I belong here. I thought maybe I did at first, but now... I don't know. I have so many doubts."
"A reluctant Sith," Carth mused. How the boy had managed to survive this long with such an obviously soft heart was beyond him, but while Carth could feel his expression twisting to one skepticism, Revan's features remained blithely friendly without a hint of censure.
"If it doesn't feel right," she mused, "perhaps you don't belong here."
As simply as that, Revan began to gently convince the boy that he should leave the academy and try to make his way to one of the Jedi enclaves.
For two hours, she counseled the young man, advising him how to find a ship off world and how to approach a Jedi for help. She helped him pull together his few belongings and dropped credits into his hand. When Kel finally slung a small pack over his shoulder and turned to face them all, Revan leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead. And though she said it softly, Carth could make out her murmuring voice blessing the young man.
"May the Force be with you."
As they watched Kel disappear towards the upper levels and his eventual freedom, Carth felt the tension from the antechamber uncoil from about his heart. It seemed she still thought of herself as a Jedi, no matter that she had convinced a Sith Master of her belief in the Code of the Sith. For now at least, she was still on the side of the Republic.
She said nothing to anyone for the rest of the evening, but Carth dreamed when he fell into a fitful sleep that he could hear her voice and Jolee's softly murmuring to one another, reciting the Jedi Code as though it were a lifeline on a choppy sea.
Carth awoke to the sound of muted whispering to his right. Sitting up, he was surprised to see Juhani at the foot of the bunk, murmuring urgently to a seated Revan. Whatever news it was that the Cathar was delivering, it found one of Revan's gloved hands settled over her eyes, fingers and thumb gently rubbing at her temples.
"You're sure?" Revan asked, exhaustion bleeding into her voice, making it rough and unsteady.
"I am certain. He will not jeopardize our cover here," replied the Cathar woman with firm conviction. Carefully, Juhani dropped a hand on Revan's bowed shoulder.
"I hope you are right, my friend."
"What's going on?" Carth demanded softly, righting himself from where he had lain on the unforgiving durasteel floor.
"I have encountered an old trainee from Dantooine in the Valley this morning," explained Juhani, retrieving her hand self-consciously. "He has decided to leave Korriban knowing that I am here."
"What I don't understand is what you were doing down there in the first place?" Canderous scowled from his place nearest the door.
"I asked her to go," said Revan, rocking to her feet to face the rest of the room's occupants. "I wanted to know if there was another way in to the tomb with the Star Map without drawing attention."
"Well, she drew attention," grunted the Mandalorian.
"That was different," Juhani hissed. "He and I...have history."
"It doesn't matter," concluded Revan, skirting the rising argument between the two. "We found out what we needed to know. Juhani says this man won't give us any trouble, and I trust her judgment."
Canderous subsided, albeit so reluctantly that it appeared he might have hurt something in doing so.
"Uthar has the map locked down tight and the Valley is teeming with Sith, so there's no viable way of breaking in, which means we have play this game of prestige," sighed Revan, running a gloved hand over her disheveled hair.
"Once HK returns from taking Jolee to the ship, we'll see what we can do about that. Until then, everyone sits tight, checks their weapons and double checks armor. If we're going to be Sith apprentices, we're going to be walking targets."
As promised, the assassin droid returned a short while later, muttering to himself about Wookie hair and senile meatbags.
Revan had recovered herself in the meantime, looking primed for action, lightsaber belted securely to her side and every piece of fabric and equipment in its proper place.
"Canderous, you stay behind," she ordered as she rechecked the fastenings on her grenades. "HK, you're with me today. Yuthura mentioned something about a renegade droid."
"Query: Master, does this mean I will be allowed to engage in assassination protocols?"
"Yes, HK. I'm almost certain you'll get a chance to kill something or other before we're done," Revan answered, looking up to smirk at her homicidal creation.
"If you're done...," Carth growled uncomfortably.
Revan met his gaze momentarily, then turned away.
"Let's go, then."
Carth was keenly aware of the eyes that followed them as he, Revan and HK-47 made their way to the exit down into the Valley of the Dark Lords. He wished then that he could learn Juhani's trick that currently kept her from sight while she accompanied them. They passed through the training halls, amongst the vicious swirls of blade and limb as the students sparred one another until they reached the door standing between them and daylight.
It had not occurred to Carth how long it had been since he had stood in natural light until he was trying to blink the spots from his aching eyes, which watered under the sudden barrage of bright light. When he finally did clear his vision, he was forced to jog under the heavy weight of his armor and weaponry to catch up to Revan and the now-visible Juhani.
Strong winds kicked up the rough sand from the planet's surface to dance in wispy threads along the walls of the canyon they wove through on the their way down to the Valley. More than once, they were forced to stop and fend off the shyracks that seemed to lurk in every dark shadow cast by the craggy rocks jutting from the canyon walls.
Finally, they emerged to look down upon the ruins of the ancient Sith: towering stone monuments stretching beyond the horizon and imposing structures carved into the very mountainsides, making specks of the Sith archaeologists dotted about the Valley.
Carth found himself short of breath, though he was not tired. When Revan turned back to look at him expectantly, he realized that he had come to a complete halt, frozen in place by an unseen force. When he finally willed his body forward towards the others, Revan looked away, but not before softly cautioning, "This is a place of immense power, but just put one foot in front of the other and you should be fine."
As they wandered further down into the Valley, Revan broke away from them a short distance, gingerly laying her hands on the imposing statues and gazing for long moments upon the looming temples and tombs. As Carth watched her roam, HK dutifully clinking along behind her, she looked almost like a child drifting through a garden, silent and ethereally graceful.
At last, she turned back to where Carth and Juhani lingered and an unsure smile of apology flitted across her lips. She gestured to an imposing edifice and said, "I believe that's where we'll find our errant droid."
Juhani started towards the tomb's entrance directly, but Carth was watching Revan watch him. Moments stretched as they stood there amongst the rubble of Sith Lords long dead, taking each other in.
At last, she spoke. "You can head back, if you want. Juhani and I should be alright."
"I'm not leaving you alone," he replied, echoing earlier declarations that he did not trust her to let her out of his sight. Now, though...he was not sure he could leave her alone in this place. He was not certain he wanted to be alone on Korriban.
Another moment passed, then she nodded and turned away, catching up to the waiting Juhani. He followed slowly, unsure of what had just transpired.
"Focus," he chided under his breath. They were almost upon the tomb now and he remembered Revan's promise to HK. If she thought they were going to run into a fight, they were almost guaranteed to find one. He didn't have time to be worrying over feelings or wounded friendships.
A young woman in a Sith uniform sat near a small collection of supplies at the door of the structure and she rose gracefully from her meditative pose at their approach, stepping forward to meet Revan, looking polished in her student uniform despite the dust kicked up in the high winds in the valley.
"If you're planning on going into the tomb, you should be careful…it's dangerous,"
cautioned the woman, gesturing towards the structure at her back.
Carth noticed Revan's hand fall away from resting on the lightsaber strapped to her belt, though it did not travel far. Likewise, Carth let his blaster hang at his side, though he remained alert for any undue interest from the other students in the valley.
"Why is that?" asked Revan as she came up to stand alongside the blonde woman.
"There's an assassin droid in here, so Master Uthar says. It went insane and has holed up in here with a whole army of droids protecting it."
"We haven't done anything about it?" Revan asked as the woman shook her head in the negative. "Why not?"
"I think," began the fellow student, "that Master Uthar has left it in there as a challenge for any student brave enough to destroy it. Supposedly, if a student actually succeeds in destroying the droid, they'll get a great reward. Lots have tried, but nobody's succeeded yet."
The blonde woman's mouth twisted into an expression of commiseration and a dim frustration with the subject matter.
"Where did it get all these droids?"
"No idea. I think it's building them in there," the Sith woman sighed.
"The droid went insane?" Revan wondered aloud, letting genuine curiosity leak into her voice.
"Seems that way. They say that its audio receptors became too sensitive and all the noise drove the droid nuts. If you're planning on going in, I'd suggest you use some sound suppressors or something…or you'll probably become a target right away, " the woman offered, causing Revan to grunt and nod in thanks as she turned to look past the blonde Sith at the structure beyond.
"Are you going inside?" asked Revan as she surveyed the massive doors of the tombs somewhat skeptically.
"I…I don't think so. I can manipulate minds and living matter, but that won't be much use against droids, will it? I've had a few friends go inside that haven't come out for a while, now. I doubt I could do any better than they could," the student replied with an indulgent sort of honesty.
Nodding with understanding, Revan thanked the woman and moved away towards the great doors, clearly studying the intricate markings carved into the rocky facade.
"Sure thing. Good luck," the blonde woman said, saluting Revan in a strangely sincere fashion. Perhaps, Carth thought, the loss of her "friends" had been more traumatic than even the Sith herself had been willing to acknowledge.
As the massive doors to the tomb opened, groaning and rumbling as they rolled aside, Revan calmly strode through, entering the crypt of an ancient Sith Lord as casually as someone might stroll about their home. Chilled, Carth wondered if this Marka Ragnos had felt as comfortable here on Korriban as Revan obviously did.
The smell of death filled his nose almost immediately, as well as the unmistakable smell of a recently discharged blaster. Underneath that was grease and metal, and overlaying it all was the deep, dank smell of the stony cavern itself. Carth instantaneously decided he didn't like it.
Juhani knelt by a body at the base of a ramping passageway that headed upwards, watching Revan shift through the belongings of the deceased. It was a ritual they had often repeated elsewhere, but knowing she was Revan turned what had been standard procedure into a display of her disregard for life. Watching her tuck another person's belongings into her own equipment or fasten another man's equipment to her own belt drove home his sudden revulsion for scavenging the dead.
He turned away just in time to see HK go tearing up the ramp, blaster firing towards something Carth could not hope to identify from this distance. When Revan leapt after her droid, Carth found himself following blindly.
Blaster fire greeted them, and over the din, Carth could hear a small droid army muttering to itself, one after another, "Intruders detected."
"Nothing like fighting droids," he laughed ruefully. "They always let you know where you stand."
"Statement: Do not lump me in with these defective rust-buckets, Republic meatbag."
At any other time, Carth might have had a rejoinder for the bloodthirsty droid, but he let the thread go as he concentrated instead on keeping his head attached to his neck.
They were at an extreme disadvantage, charging uphill toward what proved to be war droids scattered two or three in a group as far down the passageway as Carth could see. Their only help were occasional boulders that had fallen from the ceiling over time, which provided enough cover to regroup every so often.
When Carth spotted a mine directly blocking their path, his heart sank. They could hope to retreat now - showing their backs would get them all killed. Across the hallway, he caught Revan's eye where she crouched behind another boulder. His hands quickly fluttered, forming familiar code phrases to which she responded in kind. Simultaneously, they sprung from their respective cover, Revan diving for the mine while Carth lay down heavy cover fire.
Carth stood behind her, blaster firing over Revan's shoulder at another war droid higher up in the tunnel as her fingers flew, inputting the override sequence into the mine's control unit. He could feel beads of adrenaline-fueled sweat sliding down the back of his neck as he leaned to the right, throwing off the droids aim, taking fire in the next moment while the droid was recalculating trajectory and angle for his slightly adjusted position in the room.
After what seemed an interminable length of time, he heard Revan give a small noise of success and he bolted forward with Juhani, HK well ahead of them, laughing maniacally as he blasted every other droid in sight.
The light from the two Jedi's blades flashed through the dark tunnel as the four of them made their way up the steep incline of the tomb's inner passage. Without a distinct light source, there was no way of judging how long the hallway was or how many of the droids would be waiting ahead for them, making the climb and near-constant battle in the narrow space seemingly endless. Occasionally, a boulder blocked their way, giving Carth fresh worries about whether the cavern would collapse around them.
From ahead of him, Carth heard HK declare that he had come to a door. Slicing through one remaining war droid, Revan caught up with her red abomination and studied the heavy stone door in the glow of her dully buzzing lightsaber.
Reaching towards her waist, where she had slung whatever she had looted from the body fallen at the foot of the tunnel, Revan pressed a series of small buttons on a belt that she then fastened about her waist.
"Everyone stand close – hopefully, this will work," she muttered as she turned her attentions to the control panel for the door. Strangely, her movements sounded almost dull and faraway, a sensation that threw off Carth's sense of distance. Looking at Juhani, Carth could see she was likewise unnerved. More so, perhaps, given her species' renowned sense of hearing.
Under the low rumbling and scraping of the ancient stone locks grating against each other, the door gave way, splitting open like a great mouth to devour them.
Revan stepped through.
"I appreciate your efforts in lowering your sound output, sentient. I have been unable to tune the threshold of my audio receptors since my escape, unfortunately," came a distinctively mechanized voice from within the chamber.
Standing before a raised dais housing a stone-cut coffin was an unadorned droid – less human-featured than HK and without any of the decoration that would distinguish its make or model – with one blaster rifle slung across its back and another clutched adeptly in its hands.
"You are…the 'master' the droids kept referring to?" Revan asked cautiously.
"Their reference is a holdover from their old programming that I have been unable to correct. I think of myself more as an equal, if you must know," replied the droid,
"Why aren't you attacking me like the others?" Revan asked.
"Although it is what I was programmed for, I have no drive to kill. I would appreciate reciprocation on your part."
"You are programmed to kill, but don't want to?" Revan asked.
"A bit of introduction may be necessary. I am a Mark VII experimental prototype assassin droid built by the Sith, and specializing in the hunting and extermination of Jedi. Or I should say, I was. The Sith made my cognitive systems more independent than they desired. I have learned to appreciate the value of all life."
"Statement: That is very sad. Are you damaged? Is it repairable?" HK mused, his synthetic voice dripping with false concern.
"Negative. It is a result of my own conscious decision, and I would not change my new values if I could."
Carth looked between the two assassin droid and wondered at such a choice. Droids occasionally deviated from their instructions and programming, particularly when given strong artificially intelligent processing systems and left for long periods of time without memory wipes. Still, it was rare thing to hear of a droid so entirely independent of its creator's wishes.
Certainly, T3 and HK were occasionally deviant, but neither went against their programming or unilaterally determined on their own course of action – something Carth was extremely grateful for when it came to HK. Even the protocol droid they had encountered on Dantooine had requested its termination in keeping with programming that caused it to seek the best outcome for its half-crazed owner, though Carth suspected the thing had decided at some point that it wouldn't be such a bad thing to be destroyed for its own sake.
This droid, however, had gone against programming, experience and everything it had been given to know in order to change its existence's cause for functioning. Clearly, it retained the capacities that made it an assassin droid, but ticking somewhere in its metallic cranium was an intelligence that had examined itself and determined that its functionality was better served on some other, unmentioned task.
"You…appreciate the value of life?" Revan asked, as though she too were weighing the implications of the droid's words.
"You do not? All beings are constructs of fascinating complexity. An enlightened being rises above the need for destruction, no matter its nature."
"True," murmured the former Sith Lord as the droid continued.
"I escaped from the Sith and have hidden in this tomb, constructing droids here to aid in my protection. With your assistance, I may be able to leave for good."
"How is it that the Sith haven't found you here?" Revan asked.
"An occasional sentient had managed to by-pass my droids. They were unwilling to assist me…and possessed insufficient power to destroy me."
Carth could have sworn he heard HK-47 chuckle.
"Assist you?" asked a wary Revan.
"Although I have developed the desire to not kill, my programming is often at odds with my desires. I cannot leave with that programming intact. I am hoping that you will operate on my systems and remove those programmed instincts. I could assist you in this."
"And what's the catch?" said Carth, unnerved of an assassin droid attempting to be polite.
"The 'catch,' as you say, is that the operation may be difficult. If there are errors made, you could activate my combat matrix."
"What a nice way of saying 'you'll get a blaster to the face,'" thought Carth.
"And what do we get for helping you?" Revan asked.
"Once my programming has been altered, there will be several redundant systems that I could remove and give you. These could upgrade other droids, if you wish."
"Statement: I do not like the way this droid is looking at me, master," muttered HK, seemingly indignant at the thought of inheriting any of the pacifist droid's spare parts. No one bothered to comfort him.
"Very well, I'll do it." she said at length.
If a droid could appear giddy, the Mark IV achieved it, nearly leaping forward towards Revan, its blaster rifle finally lowering from its aim on their group.
"I can tell you which systems exist that need to be shut down. The difficulty comes if you make a mistake in the sequence," the Mark IV explained as the panel protecting its torso unlatched and swung open.
"What systems do you have installed?" Revan asked while shucking out of her outer robes and turning up her sleeves.
"One moment. I will list them for you," offered the droid. "'Cognitive Systems, 'Combat Matrix,' 'Core.' 'Creative Simulation Matrix,' 'Emotional Construct Matrix.' There is also, 'Memory Matrix,' 'Motor Function Matrix,' and 'Sensory Systems Matrix.' Eight systems in total."
"Let's get started," Revan said.
"Very good. What would you like to shut down first?"
Hours passed while Revan tinkered inside the assassin droid. More than once, Carth saw the blaster in the Mark IV's hand lift, take aim at Revan's head, then fall away again. All Carth could do was watch and hope Revan's skill with all things mechanical proved enough to get them out of there. HK-47 paced and Juhani meditated, but all Carth could seem to do was watch.
He could see sweat running along her temples and judged by the way she fidgeted that at least one of her legs had gone numb from leaning over the droid for so long. The silence was only punctuated by the occasional comment from the Mark IV and the quiet noises of Revan's activities.
"Cog-nitive systems…shutdown."
Revan rolled her head back and Carth heard her neck creak and pop from strain. She shook one hand that was clearly cramping, then leaned back into the machine to continue her work.
It was another half of an hour before the droid gave out one last stilted pronouncement before blinking out.
"Shut…down. Core – shutting down."
Briefly, Carth wondered if Revan had simply shut the droid down permanently, but almost as soon as he ventured the thought, the Mark IV began to whir as it powered on once more.
After a moment, the droid declared, "Assassination protocols deleted. All systems reset."
As Revan closed up the droid's body once more, the Mark IV continued on, "It…it worked! Thank you, sentient!"
When Revan stepped back, the droid began to shift through itself, removing hardware and collecting it into its metallic hand, which it then offered to Revan, "Allow me to give you several of my redundant systems…they may be used on other droids, if you desire. I wish I could reward you with more."
"Thank you," Revan smiled, accepting the gift, though HK let out a distinctive cough of disapproval from another corner of the room.
"I shall have little trouble in escaping from this planet now, I am certain. I wish you well."
Carth and Juhani parted to let the droid past and Revan watched with muted satisfaction as the Mark IV clanked his way down the passageway and to his freedom. HK-47 broke the silence.
"Statement: Master, there are supplies here that will better serve you than the faulty parts that pathetic clunker forced on you."
After a few minutes of rifling through what could be found in the tomb, Revan led them all back out into the significantly dimmer light of day. They were immediately greeted by the Sith student who had been waiting on her friends in the tomb. She did not comment on the fact that they had come out without those friends.
"You should have seen it! That droid came running out of the tomb like a bantha on a rampage! It fired some kind of jet pack and off it went. Whatever you did, it sure was effective…I don't think it's coming back anytime soon."
Revan nodded in reply and Carth could tell she was beyond mere fatigue now and was bordering on extreme exhaustion. But when the girl chattered on, Carth wondered whether he was the only one who could perceive the sagging posture or the crease between her eyes that seemed to so clearly tell him that her head was aching.
"You'd better go and tell Master Uthar about this, if he hasn't heard already. You may not have destroyed the droid, but you might still get the reward," the blonde continued helpfully.
"I will," Revan agreed before walking away stiffly, heading back towards the academy. Carth jogged to catch up with her.
"Are you alright?"
She tensed, then met his eyes. "Fine."
"We can skip on seeing Uthar about this now," Carth offered, trying to soothe whatever it was that weighed on her and prevented her from smiling up at him. "She was probably right about him having heard about it already. I have a feeling that nobody sneezes around here without that guy knowing about it."
Revan smiled at him wanly and Carth found himself missing her bright laugh with a powerful intensity. He walked beside her quietly, trying to understand his own conflicted emotions as well as the mood of the woman beside him. He hardly noticed they had made it back to the academy until Jolee and Canderous emerged from the shadows near the doorway leading inside.
Juhani stepped around Carth to briefly clasp Revan by the shoulder, "Until later, my friend. Take care of yourself."
"And you."
Juhani stepped away again and seemed to disappear before Carth's eyes, but he didn't have time to think about the trick as Jolee lead them all inside and up through the training areas to the main antechamber.
For once, the room was relatively empty, Uthar missing from his typical seat in the middle of the gallery. HK left them then, accompanied by Juhani, Carth supposed as he watched the droid make his way out the front doors to the path that lead back to Dreshdae.
"Jolee...," Revan began.
"Not now," chided the older Jedi, casting a wary eye around. "Too many ears out here."
"Yuthura...," cautioned Revan.
"Somewhere else then - just get us out of the way," grumbled Jolee.
They made their way down to the dorms and Revan's eyes darted about until they spotted an empty bunk. Ducking inside with the others on her heels, Revan glanced around then headed to peer around the corner at the neighbor's side.
She rounded the corner and came to a halt so abrupt, Carth almost collided with her. Before he could ask her what she was doing, another voice – familiar and yet somehow off – froze the words on his lips.
"You take a wrong turn somewhere?"
Carth stumbled around Revan's motionless form, taking in the sight of a young man, crisply dressed in the uniform of the Sith, glaring irritably at their group. It was like watching a holovid of himself from his flight academy days, except that the eyes weren't his – they were the eyes of his late wife. Carth knew even as he stammered out the question that he had found his son.
"Dustil? Is that you?"
Carth was expecting his son to be shocked at seeing him, but he had not expected the look of consternation that crossed Dustil's familiar features.
"Oh, lovely. It's Father."
Carth's mind spun in confusion at his child's unenthusiastic greeting, the word "Father" ringing hollowly in his mind, its acidic bite a rude departure from the sweet affection that Carth had been used to hearing in his son's voice and the formality of the word itself entirely perplexing. He barely heard Dustil's next words, so shocked was he.
"…figures that you'd show up after all this time. How did you manage to get inside the academy?"
Still groping for words, Carth looked blankly at this sudden stranger in the guise of his son. Revan filled the silence for him.
"The same way you did," she replied neutrally, only the slightest whip of sharpness coloring her words. "I am in training to become a Sith."
Dustil's attention turned to Revan for a moment, relieving Carth of the glare that had frozen him in place. The dry sound of a forced laugh filled the room briefly and from the corner of his eye, Carth could see the Mandalorian readjust his hold on his repeating blaster, half in and half out of the entrance to the small bunk area.
"I'm supposed to believe that my self-righteous father has fallen into the habit of accompanying Sith in their training? I doubt that," Dustil smirked, but Revan did not give him the pleasure of a reaction. A trace of annoyance flickered through the glinting brown eyes, and then Dustil turned his attention back to his father.
"Just why are you here, Father? Not for me, I hope. Couldn't you have gotten yourself blown up on some ship and spared us this reunion?"
The cruelty of Dustil's request shook Carth free of his stupor even as the statement rattled through him. What had they done to his baby boy?
"Dustil…what? What are you talking about? I…I thought you were dead!"
"Too bad you didn't still think that," Dustil scoffed. "Or did you really think I would be happy to see you?"
Raising his voice, Dustil jeered, "Look everyone! It's Father, come to rescue me at long last! Sure, he may have left Mother and I to die on Telos, but that doesn't matter!"
From the corner of his eye, Carth saw Canderous tense and raise his weapon, the noise setting the Mandalorian on high alert. A subtle wave of Revan's hand caused the larger man to stand down and sink back into the shadow of the entranceway, though his blaster was still trained unerringly on Dustil's head.
"I didn't abandon you, the task force just arrived too late," Carth tried to reason. "Telos was in ruins, and your mother...I held her while..."
The memory of his wife's broken body wheezing helplessly, racked with a pain in her final moments that he could not ease, sprung readily to mind, too fresh in this forsaken place. With some difficulty, he pushed the image away again - if he was going to save his son, he needed to be in the here and now.
"But I looked for you. I swear I looked everywhere..."
"Ah, save it," Dustil spat. "You abandoned us long before. We were alone all during the wars, and even once you came back, you still didn't stay."
"I didn't have a choice! I was needed—"
"Yeah? Well you were needed at home, too. You were needed when the bombing started and I got captured."
Guilt devoured him as his son turned petulant, the sting of an unspoken promise thoughtlessly broken coloring Dustil's accusations. Revan turned to look at Carth, but he refused to face her. There was nothing to deny in what Dustil had said.
"You know what? It doesn't matter," Dustil continued viciously. "Not anymore. I have a new family now, a family that cares about me. I don't need you."
Terror seized Carth, stabbing through his stomach like shards of ice.
"The Sith? You can't mean that!" he cried in desperation. "No, the Sith killed your mother! The Sith destroyed Telos!"
"So? You're the soldier, Father. How many mothers have you killed?"
Dustil was petty, but it was a thought Carth had entertained before. But he had been doing what was right and – as he had declared to Canderous only months before – he had been defending the people he loved, not seeking out war for the sake of some misplaced sense of glory.
"I don't know what's been done to you, but you're coming with me out of here. Now."
Carth took a step forward, arm outstretched to take hold of Dustil's wrist the way he always used to when his son was misbehaving, but his way was hit away instead.
"Touch me, old man, and I'll kill you. Get out! Get out of here before I tell the Sith that you're here!"
His eyes widened in shock at his son's outburst, at the vehemence in Dustil's voice. Canderous loomed behind him, ready to silence Dustil in order to protect their cover and Carth's panicked mind whirled with the possibility of being forced to kill his only child for the sake of the Republic.
Revan stepped forward quickly, putting herself between Dustil and the others in the room.
"Calm down, Dustil," she urged softly. "Carth is only trying to protect you."
"I don't need his protection!" spat Dustil. He calmed slightly afterwards, and made a visible effort to smooth his features to the perfectly chilling Sith façade of control. "Not anymore. The Sith give me everything I need."
"You can't mean that!" Carth cried, desperation seizing hold of him. "The Sith are…they're evil. They're the dark side. They…they took me away from you and your mother. They're…they're what took you from me!"
The reality of his own words closed in on him. Carth's entire life seemed to be in constant upheaval, riding on the whims of Force-users. Sith had stripped him of the security he had promised himself after the wars, Saul's attempts to turn Carth to a career in the Sith navy taking him away from his family for months at a time even after the fighting had left the Outer Rim. The skirmishes between the Sith and Jedi had waylaid his searches for Saul and Dustil countless times, until he had almost given up on finding the latter and nearly despaired of being able of reaching the former.
That had been why he'd agreed to chaperone Bastila Shan's mission to Dantooine, after all. He'd banked on the near-certainty of interception by the Sith fleet and had hoped to engage them long enough to get a bead on Saul's location. Instead, he had been shot out of the sky and stranded on Taris with a former Sith Lord, at the beginning of a quest that had led him all about the Outer Rim for just shy of a year.
What would his life had been like without Sith constantly trekking through, making a mess of his hopes and plans? Would he have been home with his wife and son when Telos was bombed? Would Saul have chosen Telos for his little demonstration at all? He couldn't allow Dustil to wander further into this pervading darkness; he could not fail his son so entirely.
"No, they're not evil!" Dustil argued, stubborn as the child Carth remembered him to be. "They're not! The dark side is superior, and you…you were at war long before they came along!"
"The Sith war to conquer, to rule the helpless," Carth reasoned, a strange calm coming over him. "I went to war for you, Dustil. For your freedom, your future."
"…I don't believe you."
"If I failed you, son, then it's…it's my failure," Carth conceded. "Please don't add to it by becoming part of something evil."
An odd silence fell over them all as Dustil's eyes searched his father's face.
"Prove it. Prove that the Sith are so evil and I'll…I'll think about it," Dustil replied at length.
"Come with us then, and we'll show you," said Revan gently, sounding drained for the first time since their arrival at the academy.
"I'm not going to follow you around," Dustil snarled, frustration feeding his returning anger. "I'll stay right here. I won't tell anyone you're here…for now. You find some 'proof' and you bring it to me."
The younger man let his words sink in, and like a child riding high on a newfound sense of power, he continued on, nearly gloating over the crushed spirit of his lone parent.
"You got that, Father? You prove what you're saying is true. I'm not going anywhere, otherwise."
Carth met his son's eyes, so full of triumph and stubborn contempt, and bowed his head again. He should have felt relieved that Dustil was listening at all, but all he felt was a new weight settling onto his shoulders in place of the long-fostered concern that Dustil was even alive. The opportunity was in front of him to save his son at long last, but he wasn't sure at all that he could. If his son hadn't allowed himself to see that the Sith were evil by now, what could possibly convince him? And in the meantime, there was the very real threat that Dustil would betray them to Uthar and blow their chances at finding the last Star Map.
"I…got it, Dustil," Carth agreed wearily, looking up to capture his son's gaze once more. "I'll be back. I swear it."
TBC in Part Four