Chapter Three

STAR DESTROYER LEVIATHAN

Three months earlier...

Darth Malak, newly-christened Dark Lord of the Sith, paced the perimeter of his personal quarters. Something was wrong. Something out of place. As if the Force itself were trying to communicate to him. One of the only Jedi techniques he had truly valued was that which allowed its user to tune in with his or her intuition; to become swept up and taken away - but to a point. It was best compared to a search and rescue attempt on choppy waters when explaining to non-Force users.

Malak sat cross-legged in his meditation chamber, his black cloak and red-orange body armour left loosely by the locked doorway, and stretched out into the Force. The war effort would last at least another year, that much he was certain of. He knew that the Republic would fall to its knees, begging for true leadership, true power; not the puppeteering of the current supreme chancellor, the rash fool Tarkin. He, Malak, would give that to the citizens of his Empire. That was what the Force had told him, and thus he had deceived and killed his old master, Darth Revan.

Revan had been everything to Malak once; confidant, friend… they'd spent almost every minute of every day together, searching for a reason to leave the Jedi and the Republic behind them. And then the war began.

The Mandalorian Wars had been the most destructive conflict the galaxy had known for thousands of years, often the bloodiest. As such, families were torn asunder, whole worlds annihilated, species eradicated. Millions of Republic troops were sent out to the Outer Rim worlds in order to fend off the approaching Mandalorian armada. It was no use, however; Mandalorian shields were far stronger than those of the Republic, and so entire fleets burnt in front of the eyes of every Republic admiral. Dantooine had threatened to secede, allowing hundreds of like-minded senators to follow suit. The Republic began to crumble.

And yet the Jedi were doing nothing.

Whole fleets were routed, whole worlds ripped apart, and yet the Jedi Order sat back in their halls debating the origins of the Mandalorian aggression. Many apprentices, even masters, had voiced their concerns, and still the council did nothing. Revan, however, could not be placated so easily, and so he, Malak, and several Jedi marched straight out of the enclave on Dantooine and straight on to the flagship of the Republic fleet, the Hammer. Needless to say, the Jedi Council, in particular Master Atris, was not happy. Vrook, ever blunt, had given Revan and Malak an ultimatum: return to Coruscant to face the council, or be renounced by the Order. The stakes were too high either way; in the end, they'd chosen their convictions and duty over their masters' needs. The Order cut all communications with them.

For a few days, they'd believed they were on their own. It wasn't until the First Battle of Omonoth that the Republic's Rear Admiral Saul Karath began to realise what a resource the Jedi could be; even though all sides were forced to evacuate the Arkanian Legacy at the last minute, Karath gradually brought the Jedi, in particular Revan, into his mission briefings. Before long, Jedi General Revan, Jedi Commander Malak, and Jedi Commander Min Xhosa were representing the Republic in many of the major campaigns of the war. Revan was given ultimate command of the Republic fleet, and Malak promoted to the rank of general, but a setback in the Charros system brought news that Xhosa was killed in action, so Revan chose another, a Jedi Knight named Meetra Surik, to promote to general, giving her almost as much leeway as Malak himself. There were certainly times when he had believed Surik was plotting against him, but victory after victory under her command raised the morale of the troops on the frontlines, and so Malak grew to grudgingly respect her skills. It wasn't until a few months later that everything would change.

The infamous Battle of Malachor V was the singlemost vicious and bloodthirsty campaign in the history of the Republic. Ordering virtually all of his Jedi to remain behind, Revan had lured the multitude of the Mandalorian fleet to an agricultural world in the Malachor system in the Outer Rim. The system itself was taboo among Mandalorian culture - as it was in the Jedi Order - though it appeared that this did not phase the Taung Mando'ade, Mandalore the Ultimate, who was struck down by Revan himself in single combat. Revan took the Mandalore's mask for himself, and the Republic fleet began to rout the Mandalorians. Unbeknownst to almost everyone though, Revan ordered his prized General Surik to activate a single weapon, the mass shadow generator.

What came next was horrifying - even for Malak.

The generator was set up in the planetary core of Malachor V, above which the two enemy armadas were fighting. After its activation, the generator artificially increased the mass (and therefore, the gravity well) of the planet and in return the great warships of both fleets were drawn into a descending arc of burning flames. What was once a pastoral world was now a rotting, roiling ball of metal, planetary debris, and blood. The remainder of the Mandalorian fleet transmitted an unconditional surrender. Revan, however, wasn't buying it. He and Malak took what was left of the Republic's fleet and pursued the Mandalorians into the heart of the Unknown Regions, giving the people of the Republic, and the Jedi Order, the idea that they were lost, forever missing in action. A year later, they were all proven wrong.

There was something connected to these events that the Force was now showing him, Malak was led to believe. He immediately discounted the possibility of Revan; Malak himself had felt his old master's Force presence diminish as he had fired and destroyed the Star Destroyer Iniquitous.

The Force may well have been guiding him toward the Jedi commander he had heard rumours of, the one in command of the strike team that had boarded and left the dying Iniquitous' hangar bay. Darth Malak immersed himself still further into the Force.

After a moment - or maybe an hour? - he found himself in what he recognised as one of the apartment complexes of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. He looked at the door to his left: Apartment 2-228-Kappa was written in standard Aurebesh. He walked forward, instinctively knowing that his presence would pass through the door, rather than it opening for him, as it would with a physical body. Inside, a 40-something woman was undressing after a rigorous bout of combat training - the bruising on her back, shoulders, and thighs gave it away. Her brunette hair, hanging only to the base of her neck, appeared sticky and gleaming with sweat. Then she looked round.

She couldn't see him of course, not physically - Malak was certain. But he was fairly sure that she, whoever she was, could see him through the Force. Her eyes widened in abject shock as she clearly realised who he was and, keeping her gaze at Malak's eye-level, she pressed her intercom.


Bastila had never known such surprise; in all her life as a disciple of the Force, no one - no one at all - had been able to freely enter her apartment through use of the Force. She knew instinctively who the intruder was just from his mere presence in the Force - Darth Malak, newly-crowned Dark Lord of the Sith. Thinking that he wouldn't be able to physically stop her, Bastila reached for the intercom to her left. She had barely activated the channel to Master Zez-Kai Ell before a massive surge of Force energy slammed her into the ceiling and pinned her there.

You're the commander of the Jedi strike team sent to kill my old master, aren't you?

"What?" she replied. Was that Malak asking her, or Master Ell? She couldn't tell, for her mind was racing faster than any swoop race on Tatooine.

"Bastila, this is Master Ell. Are you ok?" That came from the intercom, she was sure of it.

She inhaled to answer, but Malak's presence pushed against her throat, choking off her reply.

Bastila, is it? Well, Bastila, you and I are going to start seeing more of each other in the future. I sincerely hope that will accommodate my needs, for I have need of you. And your Force capabilities - in particular that famed battle meditation which you prize above all else. Running footsteps could be heard coming toward them from down the corridor. I will have you, Bastila. That much is certain.

Malak's Force presence vanished, dropping Bastila to the floor with a painful bump just as Jedi Master Zez-Kai Ell entered the apartment. The middle-aged man, a bushy moustache lining his upper lip, peered around the room, attempting to discern any residual Force presence.


Malak slumped onto he black tiled floor of his meditation chamber. This session had tired him more than any previously. This Jedi - this Bastila - was strong-willed and determined, that much he could sense. But below that, on a more intuitive plane of existence, Malak knew that the Force had led him to her. Bastila was the disturbance he had sensed. He had already found an apprentice… but where Darth Bandon had little if no experience with battle meditation, Bastila did not. And that was what could win the war in favour of the Sith.