A/N: The reason for the fast update is for me to apologize again for that wait for about a month. So here is chapter number six, which normally would be released about a week from now, being released right now.
Enjoy!
At that signal, every combat droid in every army on every planet marched back to its transport, resocketed itself, and turn itself off. The Clone Wars were over.
Almost.
There was a final detail.
A dark-cloaked figure swung down from the cockpit of the starfighter.
"I'm saying," Obi-Wan replied, "that we have to go back to Coruscant."
"It's too dangerous," the Senator said instantly. "The whole planet is a trap—"
"Yes. We have a—ah…"
The loss of Anakin stabbed him.
Then he let that go, too.
"I have," he corrected himself, "a policy on traps…"
Glancing back towards Alek, he stopped. Whirling around, he snarled. "Alek, what the bloody hell are you still doing here?" Revan started to advance on him, igniting his blue lightsaber furiously. "Get to your ship!" Revan hissed.
Alek wisely turned tail, and ran towards his own starfighter.
Sighing, rubbing his temples in irritation, Revan turned around again, and walked briskly down the halls of his flagship, yellow eyes squinting in irritation. "When will that boy learn not to anger me?" Revan hissed to himself.
Chapter Six:
The Face of the Sith
Bail Organa strode onto the Tantive's shuttle deck to find Obi-Wan and Yoda gazing dubiously at the tiny cockpit of Obi-Wan's starfighter. "I suppose," Obi-Wan was saying reluctantly, "if you don't mind riding on my lap…"
"That may not be necessary," Bail said. "I've just been summoned back to Coruscant by Mas Amedda; Palpatine has called the Senate into Extraordinary Session. Attendance is required."
"Ah." Obi-Wan's mouth turned downward. "It's clear what this will be about."
"I am," Bail said slowly, "concerned that this might be a trap."
"Unlikely this is." Yoda hobbled toward him. "Unknown, is the purpose of your sudden departure from the capital; dead, young Obi-Wan and I are both presumed to be."
"And Palpatine won't be moving against the Senate as a whole," Obi-Wan added. "At least, not yet; he'll need the illusion of democracy to keep the individual star systems in line. He won't risk a general uprising."
Bail nodded. "In that case—" He took a deep breath. "—perhaps I can offer Your Graces a lift?"
Inside the control center of the Separatist bunker on Mustafar…
Wat Tambor was adjusting the gas mix inside his armor—
Poggle the Lesser was massaging his fleshy lip-tendrils—
Shu Mai was fiddling with the brass binding that restrained her hair into the stylish curving horn that rose behind her head—
San Hill was stretching his bodystocking, which had begun to ride up in the crotch—
Rune Haako was shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot—
While Nute Gunray spoke to the holopresence of Darth Sidious.
"The plan has gone exactly as you promised, my lord," Gunray said. "This is a glorious day for the galaxy!"
"Yes, indeed. Thanks, in great part, to you, Viceroy, and to your associates of the Techno Union and the IBC. And, of course, Archduke Poggle. You have all performed magnificently well. Have your droid armies completed shutdown?"
"Yes, my lord. Nearly an hour ago."
"Excellent! You will be handsomely rewarded. Has my new apprentice, Darth Vader, arrived?"
"His ship touched down only a moment ago."
"Good, good," the holoscan of the cloaked man said pleasantly. "I have left your reward in his hands. He will take care of you."
The door cycled open.
A tall cloaked figure, slim but broad-shouldered, face shadowed by a heavy hood, stood in the doorway.
San Hill beat the others to the greeting. "Welcome, Lord Vader!" His elongated legs almost tangled with each other in his rush to shake the hand of the Sith Lord. "On behalf of the leadership of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, let me be the first to—"
"Very well. You will be the first."
The cloaked figure stepped inside and made a gesture with a black-gloved hand. Blast doors slammed across every exit. The control panel exploded in a shower of sparking wires.
The cloaked figure threw back its hood.
San Hill recoiled, hands flapping like panicked birds sewn to his wrists.
He had time to gasp, "You're—you're Anakin Skywalker!" before a fountain of blue-plasma burned into his chest, curving through a loop that charred all three of his hearts.
The Separatist leadership watched in frozen horror as the corpse of the head of the InterGalactic Banking Clan collapsed like a depowered protocol droid.
"The resemblance," Darth Vader said, "is deceptive."
Revan zigzagged through the other fighters, avoiding engagement with the enemy. However, it was mostly because the starfighter he was in was flying in an erratic, evasive manner that took it out of combat range every time it got too close for comfort. Fighters were exploding all around him, some so close he could see the pieces as they flew past his canopy.
"This is tense," Revan breathed as he tried to fix the controls on his control panel, the fighter dipping and yawing in response to his unwelcome interference with its operation.
The downside to all this was that the firing triggers to the laser guns had locked, and try as he might, he could not find a way to break them free.
Good thing he had an astromech droid.
The astromech droid overrode anything he was going to say with a series of frantic whistles.
"I've got control now?" Revan exclaimed. "Thanks, I'll make sure you're treated extremely well after we get out of this."
He seized the steering, flipped on the power feeds, and jammed the thruster bars left. To his everlasting gratitude, the fighter banked sharply in response, and they shot past the fighters and rode into a new swarm of combatants.
His enthusiasm overrode his good sense, and he whipped his fighter toward the center of the battle. All of his flying instincts kicked in, and he was back in the dogfights at the Battle of Coruscant, fighting along with Anakin and Obi-Wan. This was the real deal. All that mattered was that he had found his way into space, taken command of the malfunctioning starfighter, and been given a chance to live his dream of winning this war.
An enemy fighter drifted into his sights ahead. "Sit tight. This guy's gonna wish he'd never been born."
He brought his ship into firing position behind the Trade Federation craft, remembering belatedly that the triggers to his laser guns were locked. Frantically, he pressed the release, but nothing was happening.
He punched another button, but instead of releasing the firing mechanism, it accelerated the fighter right past the enemy ship.
Revan hissed in annoyance. The enemy flagship, the one that Mandalore the Ultimate was reportedly in, loomed ahead.
Another enemy fighter was on his tail, maneuvering into firing position against him. Revan yanked hard on the steering, shooting past the massive flagship, screaming out into the void in a series of evasive actions.
Revan swore loudly.
"That was not the release," Revan hissed to himself. "That was the bloody overdrive!"
The astromech whistled a sheepish reply, but Revan ignored it. The enemy fighter was behind them again and closing. Revan banked his ship hard to the right and brought it back toward the blockade and the swarming fighters. Wrenching the stabilizers in opposite directions, he began to spin his fighter like a top. The astromech shrieked in despair.
"Quit worrying!" Revan said loudly to the droid. "Just hang on! The way out of this mess is the way we got into it!"
He streaked toward the control station, taking the enemy fighter with him. Laser blasts ripped past him, barely missing. He waited a second longer, until he was so close to the flagship that the emblem of the Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders painted on the bridge work loomed like a wall, then engaged the reverse thrusters and banked right again.
His fighter nearly stalled, dropping away like a stone for a heart-wrenching moment before stabilizing. The enemy fighter, on the other hand, had no time to respond to the maneuver and rocketed past him into the side of the battleship, exploding in a shower of fire and metal parts.
Reengaging the forward thrusters, Revan wheeled the ship about, searching for new enemies. Through his canopy, he could see a handful of his own Jedi starfighters engaged in attacking the Mandalorian flagship.
The General's voice came over the intercom. "Bravo Three! Go for the central bridge!"
"Copy, Bravo Leader," came the response.
A squad of four fighters plummeted toward the battleship, lasers firing , but the big ship's deflector shields turn the attack aside effortlessly. Two of the fighters were hit by cannon fire and exploded into ash. The remaining two broke off the attack.
"Their shields are too strong!" one of the surviving pilots shouted angrily. "We'll never get through!"
Revan, in the meantime, was under attack once more. Another Mandalorian fighter had found him and was giving chase. The man jammed the thruster bars forward and sped down the hull of the flagship, twisting and turning through its channels and around its tangle of protrustions, laser fire ricocheting past in a constant stream.
"I know this isn't a game!" Revan snapped at the astromech, as the droid beeped reprovingly at him.
But in his heart, it felt as if it were. A fierce glee rushed through him as he whipped his starfighter along the length of the flagship. The speed and the quickness of the battle fed into him in a rush of adrenaline. He would not have been anywhere else for the world.
But this time his luck ran out. As he neared the ship's tail, a laser blast struck his fighter a solid blow, knocking it into a stomach-lurching spin. The astromech screamed anew, and Revan fought desperately to regain control.
Revan swore, hissing, fighting to stabilize his stricken craft.
He was hurtling directly toward the hull, and he pulled back on the thruster bars, cutting power and drifting into a long slide. He regained control too late to turn back, and pointed the fighter toward a giant opening at the flagships center. Cannon fire whipped all about him as the droids controlling the flagship's guns tried to bring him down, but he was past them in a microsecond, rocketing into the flagship's cavernous main hangar. Reverse thrusters on full power, dodging transports, tanks, fighters, and stacks of supplies, he struggled to keep his fighter airborne as he looked for a place to land.
The astromech was beeping wildly. "Calm down, I've got this under control!" Revan shouted in reply. "Calm down!"
The Jedi starfighter struck the decking and bounced, reverse thrusters powering up in an effort to brake the craft. A bulkhead loomed ahead, blocking the way. Revan brought the fighter down on the decking with a bone-jarring thud and held it there, skidding down the ramp-way in a screech of metal. The fighter slowed and did a half turn and came to an unsteady halt. The power drive stalled and then failed completely.
The astromech whistled in relief.
"I fully expect the engines to be running when I return." And with that, Revan opened the canopy, and jumped out of his fighter.
Dozens of battle droids were approaching across the hangar floor, weapons raised menacingly. Their only escape route was blocked.
Revan smiled darkly behind his wrought-metal mask. Good.
On the flagship's bridge, overheated Mandalorians were strapped into their battle stations in full crash webbing. The air reeked of burning metal and the funk of stress hormones, and the erratically shifting gravity threatened to add a sharper stench: the faces of several of the bridge officers had already paled from healthy pink to nauseated gray-green.
The sole being on the bridge who was not strapped into a chair stalked from one side to the other, floor-length cape draped over shoulders angular as exposed bone. He ignored the jolts of impact and was unaffected by the swirl of unpredictable gravity as he paced the deck with metal-on-metal clanks; he walked on taloned creations of magnetized duranium, jointed to grab and crush like the feet of a Vratixan blood eagle.
His expression could not be read—his face was covered by a mask he had liberated from its previous owner—but the pure venom in the voice that hissed through the mask's vocabulator made up for it.
"Either get the gravity generators calibrated or disable them altogether," he snarled at the blue-scanned image of a cringing Mandalorian engineer. "If this continues, you won't live long enough to be killed by the Republic."
"But, but, but sir—it's really up to the repair droids—"
"And because they are droids, it's useless to threaten them. So I am threatening you. Understand?"
He turned away before the stammering engineer could summon a reply. The hand he extended toward the forward viewscreen wore a jointed gauntlet of wrought-metal armor, over-layering a thick sheet of duranium alloy. "Concentrate fire on Revan's flagship," he told the senior gunnery officer. "All batteries at maximum. Fire for effect. Blast that hulk out of space, and we'll make a hyperspace jump through its wreckage."
"But—the forward towers are already overloading, sir." The officer's voice trembled on the edge of panic. "They'll be at critical failure in less than a minute—"
"Burn them out."
"But sir, once they're gone—"
The rest of the senior gunnery officer's objection was lost in the wet, smoking, final sound his face made under the impact of a high-powered energy blast. The blast that came from the same smoking gun, from the same fist that then seized the collar of the officer's uniform, and yanked his corpse out of the chair, ripping the crash webbing free along with it.
An expressionless masked face turned toward the junior gunnery office. "Congratulations on your promotion. Take your post."
"Y-y-yes, sir." The newly promoted senior gunnery officer's hands shook so badly he could barely unbuckle his crash web, and his face had gone deathly gray-green.
"Do you understand your orders?"
"Y-y-y—"
"Do you have any objections?"
"N-n-n—"
"Very well, then," Mandalore the Ultimate said, with a flat, impenetrable calm. "Carry on."
White-hot sparks zipped and crackled through the smoke that billowed across the turbolift lobby. Revan smiled to himself, clipping his blue lightsaber back onto his belt. The melted and twisted remains of every destroyer droid that had tried to attack him, were lying scattered, dismantled, and utterly destroyed. Walking calmly toward the turbolift, he opened the lift doors with the Force.
Sighing, he felt around in the Force for Mandalore's presence. Finding it on the flagship's bridge, Revan allowed his magic to flow around him. Closing his eyes, he allowed the Force to show him a picture of what was happening on the bridge. Mandalorians were busy and frightened, doing all they could to keep the ship steady. Destroyer droids were all around, and of course, Mandalore's blasted body guards. But where was Mandalore?
Finally, he spotted the fine, Platinum and Durasteel-plated throne that Mandalore himself was sitting upon. It was as if he were waiting for something.
Revan, smiling to himself beneath his own armor, opened his eyes, and disapparated with a small pop.
The Senate Guard blinked, then straightened and smoothed the drape of his robe. He risked a glance at his partner, who flanked the opposite side of the door.
Had they really just gotten as lucky as he thought they had?
Were this Senator and his aides really walking right out of the turbolift with a couple of as-yet-uncaptured Jedi?
Wow. Promotions all around.
The guard tried not to stare at the two Jedi, and did his best to sound professional. "Welcome back, Senator. May I see your clearance?""
An identichip was produced without hesitation: Bail Organa, senior Senator from Alderaan.
"Thank you. You may proceed." The guard handed back the identichip. He was rather pleased with how steady and business-like he sounded. "We will take custody of the Jedi."
Then the taller of the two Jedi murmured gently that it would be better if he and his counterpart were to stay with the Senator, and really, he seemed like such a reasonable fellow, and it was such a good idea—after all, the Grand Convocation Chamber of the Galactic Senate was so secure there was really no way for a Jedi to cause any trouble for anyone and they could just as easily be apprehended on their way out, and the guard didn't want to seem like an unreasonable fellow himself, and so he found himself nodding and agreeing that yes, indeed, it would be better if the Jedi stayed with the Senator.
And everyone was so reasonable and agreeable that it seemed perfectly reasonable and agreeable to the guard that the Jedi and the Senator, instead of staying together as they'd said, made low-voiced Force-be-with-you farewells; it never occurred to the guard to object even when the Senator entered the Convocation Chamber and the two Jedi headed off for… well, apparently, somewhere else.
All eight members of Decoy Squad Five were deployed at a downlevel loading dock, where supplies that Jedi could not grow in their own Temple gardens had been delivered daily.
Not anymore.
This deep in Coruscant's downlevels, the sun never shone; the only illumination came from antiquated glow globes, their faded light yellow as ancient parchment that only darkened the shadows around. In those shadows lived the dregs of the galaxy, squatters and scavengers, madmen and fugitives from the justice above. Parts of Coruscant's downlevels could be worse than Nar Shaddaa.
The men of Decoy Squad Five would have been alert on any post. They were bred to be. Here, though, there were in a combat zone, where their lives and their missions depended on their perceptions, and on how fast their blasters could come out from inside those Jedi-style robes.
So when a ragged, drooling hunchback lurched out of the gloom nearby, a bundle cradled in his arms, Decoy Squad Five took it for granted that he was a threat. Blasters appeared with miraculous speed. "Halt. Identify yourself."
"No, no, no, Yer Graces, on, no, I'm bein' here to help, y'see, I'm on yerr side!" The hunchback slurped droll back into his slack lips as he lurched toward them. "Lookit I got here, I mean, lookit—'sa Jedi babby, ennit?"
The sergeant of the squad squinted at the bundle in the hunchback's arms. "A Jedi baby?"
"Oooh, sher. Sher, Yer Grace. Jedi babby, sher azzel iddiz! Come from outcher Temple, dinnit? Lookit!"
The hunchback was now close enough that the sergeant could see what he carried in his filthy bundle. It was a baby. Sort of. It was the ugliest baby the sergeant had ever seen, alien or not, wizened and shriveled like a worn-out purse of moldly leather, with great pop eyes and a toothless idiot's grin.
The sergeant frowned skeptically. "Anyone could grab some deformed kid and claim it's anything they want. How do you know it's a Jedi?"
The baby said, "My lightsaber, the first clue would be, hmm?"
A burning blade of green slanted across the sergeant's face so close he could smell the ozone, and the hunchback wasn't a hunchback anymore: he now held a lightsaber the color of the summer sky, and he said in a clipped, educated Coruscanti accent, "Please don't try to resist. No one has to get hurt."
The men of Decoy Squad Five disagreed.
Six seconds later, all eight of them were dead.
Yoda looked up at Obi-Wan. "To hide the bodies, no point there is."
Obi-Wan nodded in agreement. "These are clones; an abandoned post is as much a giveaway as a pile of corpses. Let's get to that beacon.
Within the Separatist leadership bunker's control center were dozens of combat droids. There were armed and armored guards. There were automated defense systems.
There were screams, and tears, and pleas for mercy.
None of them mattered.
The Sith had come to Mustafar.
Poggle the Lesser, Archduke of Geonosis, scrambled like an animal through a litter of severed arms and legs and heads, both metal and flesh, whimpering, fluttering his ancient gauzy wings until a bar of lightning flash-burned his own head free of his neck.
Shu Mai, president and CEO of the Commerce Guild, looked up from her knees, hands clasped before her, tears streaming down her shriveled cheeks. "We were promised a reward," she gasped. "A h—h—handsome reward—"
"I am your reward," the Sith Lord said. "You don't find me handsome?"
"Please!" she screeched through her sobbing. "Pleee—"
The blue-white blade cut into and out from her skull, and her corpse swayed. A negligent flip of the wrist slashed through her column of neck rings. Her brain-burned head tumbled to the floor.
The only sound, then, was a panicky stutter of footfalls as Wat Tambor and the two Neimoidians scampered along a hallway toward a nearby conference room.
The Sith Lord was in no hurry to pursue. All the exits from the control center were blast-shielded, and they were sealed, and he had destroyed the controls.
The conference room was, as the expression goes, a dead end.
Thousands of clone troops swarmed the Jedi Temple.
Multiple battalions on each level were not just an occupying force, but engaged in the long, painstaking process of preparing dead bodies for positive identification. The Jedi dead were to be tallied against the rolls maintained in the Temple archives; the clone dead would be cross-checked with regimental rosters. All the dead had to be accounted for.
This was turning out to be somewhat more complicated than the clone officers had expected. Though the fighting had ended hours ago, troopers kept turning up missing. Usually small patrolling squads—five troopers or less—that still made random sweeps through the Temple hallways, checking every door and window, every desk and every closet.
Sometimes when those closets were opened, what was found inside were five dead bodies.
And there were disturbing reports as well; officers coordinating the sweeps recorded a string of sightings of movement—usually a flash of robe disappearing around a corner, caught in a trooper's peripheral vision—that on investigation seemed to have been only imagination, or hallucination. There were also multiple reports of inexplicable sounds coming from out-of-the-way areas that turned out to be deserted.
Though clone troopers were schooled from even before awakening in their Kaminoan crèche-schools to be ruthlessly pragmatic, materialistic, and completely impervious to superstition, some of them began to suspect that the Temple might be haunted.
In the vast misty gloom of the Room of a Thousand Fountains, one of the clones on the cleanup squad caught a glimpse of someone moving beyond a stand of Hylaian marsh bamboo. "Halt!" he shouted. "You there! Don't move!"
The shadowy figure darted off into the gloom, and the clone turned to his squad brothers. "Come on! Whatever that was, we can't let it get away!"
Clones pelted off into the mist. Behind them, at the spill of bodies they'd been working on, fog and gloom gave birth to a pair of Jedi Masters.
Obi-Wan stepped over white-armored bodies to kneel beside blaster-burned corpses of children. Tears flowed freely down tracks that hadn't had a chance to dry since he'd first entered the Temple. "Not even the younglings survived. It looks like they made a stand here."
Yoda's face creased with ancient sadness. "Or trying to flee they were, with some turning back to slow the pursuit."
Obi-Wan turned to another body, an older one, a Jedi fully mature and beyond. Grief punched a gasp from his chest. "Master Yoda—it's the Troll…"
Yoda looked over and nodded bleakly. "Abandon his young students, Cin Drallig would not."
Obi-Wan sank to his knees beside the fallen Jedi. "He was my lightsaber instructor…"
"And his, was I," Yoda said. "Cripple us, grief will, if let it we do."
"I know. But… it's one thing to know a friend is dead, Master Yoda. It's another to find his body…"
"Yes." Yoda moved closer. With his gimer stick, he pointed at a bloodless gash in Drallig's shoulder that had cloven deep into his chest. "Yes, it is. See this, do you? This wound, no blaster could make."
An icy void opened in Obi-Wan's heart. It swallowed his pain and his grief, leaving behind a precariously empty calm.
He whispered, "A lightsaber?"
"Business with the recall beacon, have we still." Yoda pointed with his stick at figures winding toward them among the trees and pools. "Returning the clones are."
Obi-Wan rose. "I will learn who did this."
"Learn?"
Yoda shook his head sadly.
"Know already, you do," he said, and hobbled off into the gloom.
Darth Vader left nothing living behind when he walked from the main room of the control center.
Casually, carelessly, he strolled along the hallway, scoring the durasteel wall with the tip of his blade, enjoying the sizzle of disintegrating metal as he had savored the smoke of charred alien flesh.
The conference room door was closed. A barrier so paltry would be an insult to the blade; a black-gloved hand made a fist. The door crumpled and fell.
The Sith Lord stepped over it.
The conference room was walled with transparisteel. Beyond, obsidian mountains rained fire upon the land. Rivers of lava embraced the settlement.
Rune Haako, aide and confidential secretary to the viceroy of the Trade Federation, tripped over a chair as he stumbled back. He fell to the floor, shaking like a grub in a frying pan, trying to scrabble beneath the table.
"Stop!" he cried. "Enough! We surrender, do you understand? You can't just kill us—"
The Sith Lord smiled. "Can't I?"
"We're unarmed! We surrender! Please—please, you're a Jedi!"
"You fought a war to destroy the Jedi." Vader stood above the shivering Neimoidian, smiling down upon him, then fed him half a meter of plasma. "Congratulations on your success."
The Sith Lord stepped over Haako's corpse to where Wat Tambor clawed uselessly at the trasparisteel wall with his armored gauntlets. The head of the Techno Union turned at his approach, cringing, arms lifted to shield his faceplate from the flames in the dragon's eyes. "Please, I'll give you anything. Anything you want!"
The blade flashed twice; Tambor's arms fell to the floor, followed by his head.
"Thank you."
Darth Vader turned to the last living leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
Nute Gunray, viceroy of the Trade Federation, stood trembling in an alcove, blood-tinged tears streaming down his green-mottled cheeks. "The war…," he whimpered. "The war is over—Lord Sidious promised—he promised we would be left in peace…"
"His transmission was garbled." The blade came up. "He promised you would be left in pieces."
"Sir?" The thin voice of the comm officer interrupted Mandalore's pacing. "We are being hailed by Revan's flagship, sir. They propose a cease-fire."
Dark yellow eyes squinted through the metal mask at the tactical displays. A pause in the combat would allow his own flagship's turbolaser batteries to cool, and give the engineers a chance to get the gravity generators under control. "Acknowledge receipt of transmission. Stand by to cease fire."
"Stand by, sir." The gunnery office was still shaking.
"Cease fire."
The lances of energy that had joined the Mandalorian's ship to the Revanchist Home Fleet Strike Force melted away.
"Further transmission, sir. It's the second-in-command on their side, sir."
Mandalore nodded. "Initiate."
A ghostly image built itself above the bridge's ship-to-ship hologenerator: a young human male of a distinctly above average height and build, wearing the customary Red uniform the Mandalorians had grown to love to hate so much. The blue tattoos on his head, and the cybernetic jaw, along with the calm confidence in his eyes, were the only distinctive features on the young man's face. Everything else was slightly hidden by shadow.
"Supreme Commander Mandalore the Ultimate," the young man said briskly, "I am General Alek Squinquargesimus, current commander of Lord Revan's fleet. At my order, we have temporarily ordered a cease-fire, to offer you the chance to surrender your ship, sir."
"Surrender?" Mandalore produced a very credible reproduction of a snort. "Preposterous."
"Please give this offer careful deliberation, Commander, as it will not be repeated. Consider the lives of your crew."
Mandalore cast an icy glance around his bridge full of craven Mandalorians. "Why should I?"
The man did not look surprised, though he did show a trace of sadness. "Is this your reply, then?"
"Not at all." Mandalore drew himself up; by straightening the angles of his armored joints, he could add half a meter to his already imposing height. "I have a counteroffer. Maintain your cease-fire, move that hulk out of my way, and withdraw to a minimum range of fifty kilometers until this ship achieves hyperspace jump."
"If I may use your word, sir: preposterous."
"If my demands are not met within ten minutes, I will personally disembowel your pathetic leader Revan, live on the HoloNet. Am I understood?"
The man took this without a blink. "Ah. Lord Revan made it aboard, then."
"He did. Your pathetic Jedi so-called leader has failed, and will soon die, unless you prefer to allow me on my way."
"Ah," the young officer repeated. "So you will, of course, allow me to speak with him. To, ah, reassure myself that you are not simply—well, to put it charitably—bluffing?"
"I would not lower myself to lie to the likes of you." Mandalore turned to the comm officer. "Patch into the lead Commander."
The comm officer stroked his screen, then shook his head. "He's not responding, sir."
Mandalore shook his head disgustedly. "Just show the swine then. Bring up my quarters on the security screen."
The security officer stroked his own screen, and made a choking sound. "Hrm, sir?"
"What are you waiting for? Bring it up!"
He'd gone as gray-green as the gunner. "Perhaps you should have a look first, sir?"
The plain urgency in his tone brought Mandalore to his side without another word. The Supreme Commander bent over the screen that showed the view inside his quarters and found himself looking at jumpled piles of energy-sheared wreckage surrounding the empty shape of the General's Chair.
And that—that there—that looked like it could have been a body…
Draped in a cape of armorweave. His commander…
Mandalore turned back toward the intership holocomm. "Revan is—indisposed."
"Ah. I see."
Mandalore suspected that the young officer saw entirely too well. "I assure you—"
"I do not require your assurance, Supreme Commander. You have the same amount of time you offered us. Ten minutes from now, I will have either your surrender, or confirmation that Lord Revan is alive, unharmed—and present—or your flagship will be destroyed."
"Wait—you can't simply—"
"Ten minutes, Commander. Malek out."
When Mandalore turned to the bridge security officer, his mask was blankly expressionless as ever, but he made up for it with the open murder in his voice.
"The Commander is dead and the Jedi is loose. Find him and bring him to me."
His armored fingers curled into a fist that crashed down on the security console so hard the entire thing collapsed into a sparking, smoking ruin.
"Find him!" Mandalore turned back and sat on his throne, rubbing his armor wearily.
"Hello, Mandy."
Mandalore whirled around his chair. "So we meet at last, General Revan. I hope my troops didn't give you too much trouble on the way to see me."
Revan smiled. "You seem slightly surprised at my presence here, Mandy. What's wrong? Think that I wouldn't have the guts to face you, man to man?"
Behind Mandalore, came two massive men who Revan had never seen before. At least, they looked like men. They walked side by side, their gait easy and straightforward, almost as smooth as a human's. In fact, they could have been human—humans who were two meters tall and made out of metal. They wore long swirling cloaks that had once been white, but now were stained with smoke and what Revan strongly suspected was blood. They walked with the cloaks thrown back over one shoulder, to clear their left arms, where they held some un-familiar staff-like weapon about two meters long—something like the force-pike of the Senate Guard, but shorter, and with an odd-looking discharge blade at each end.
They walked like they were made to fight, and they had clearly seen some battle. The chest plate of one bore a round shallow crater surrounded by a corona of scorch, a direct blaster hit that hadn't come close to penetrating; the other bore a scar from its cranial dome down through one dead photoreceptor—a scar that looked like it might have come from a lightsaber.
This droid looked like it had fought a Jedi, and survived.
The Jedi, he guessed, hadn't.
These two droids threaded between the battle droids and destroyers and casually shoved aside one battle droid hard enough that it slammed into the wall and collapsed into a sparking heap of metal.
The one with the damaged photoreceptor pointed its staff at him. "Hand over your weapon, Jedi!"
This definitely wasn't a preprogrammed security command.
Revan turned towards the droid, and offered his lightsaber to the bodyguard droid.
The droids walked back to Mandalore, and gave him the lightsaber.
Mandalore lifted up the lightsaber, on in his armored duranium hand, to admire it by the light of turbolaser blasts outside, and said, "Quite a rare trophy: the weapon of General Revan. I look forward to adding this to my other trophies."
"That will not happen. I am in control here."
The reply came through Revan's lips, but it was not truly Revan who spoke. Revan was not in control; he had no need for control. He had the Force.
It was the Force that spoke through him.
Mandalore stalked forward. Revan saw death in the cold yellow stare through the mask's eyeholes, and it meant nothing to him at all.
There was no death here. There was only the Force.
Mandalore towered over him. "So confident you are, Revan."
"Not confident, merely calm." From so close, Revan could see the hairline cracks and pitting in the golden mask, and feel the resonance of the Commander's voice humming through the air. He remembered the Question of Master Jrul: What is good, if not the teacher of bad? What is the bad, if not the task of the good?
He said, "We can resolve this situation without further violence. I am willing to accept your surrender."
"I'm sure you are." The Golden-mask tilted inquisitively. "Does this preposterous I-will-accept-your-surrender line of yours ever actually work?"
"Sometimes. When it doesn't, people get hurt. Sometimes, they die." Revan's own yellow eyes hardened considerably, meeting those of Mandalore's behind the mask. "By people, in this case, you should understand that I mean you."
"I understand enough. I understand that I will kill you." Mandalore threw back his cloak and ignited Revan's lightsaber. "Here. Now. With your own blade."
The Force replied through Revan's lips, "I don't think so."
In the Force, part of him was Mandalore's intent to slaughter, and the surge from intent to action translated to Revan's response without thought. He had no need for a plan, no use for tactics.
He had the Force.
The rush of the fight opened up the long sealed warrior within him. He felt the rush of fighting. The adrenaline started to kick in. Laughing coldly, behind his mask of wrought-metal, Revan pushed his cloak back, revealing another lightsaber.
Coldly, Revan summoned it from his belt with the Force, and ignited it. A bar of pure scarlet fire erupted from the blade. "You will not leave here alive, Mandy," Revan hissed. "Prepare to face the awesome power of the Sith!"
Mandalore's eyes widened behind his mask. If Revan was truly a Sith Lord, as he was claiming, then Mandalore was in a lot of trouble. He had no experience with using the Force, and he knew that if Revan wanted him dead long ago, it would have happened. It all came down to this one moment.
This time.
This place.
It was the moment Mandalore had been waiting for this entire war. To face an enemy who was worthy of being an adversary. He knew, that if he destroyed Revan, he would bring the entire Republic fleet down to its knees. Of course, there was that pesky problem with Alek Squinquargesimus, or Malak, as he had called himself. Remembering quickly, he lowered the blue lightsaber. "Before we begin, I promised your friend Malak that I would show him that you are alive." Snapping his fingers, he barked to the Mandalorians, "Get Commander Malak online!"
The trembling gray-green-faced Senior gunnery officer stroked his screen, and said, "Right away, sir."
Mandalore stalked over to the officer, and waited for Malak to appear on the security screen.
Finally, a blue-tinted holoscan appeared, with the same man as before. "Which is it, Commander? Surrender, or Revan?"
Mandalore scowled, before motioning towards Revan, who had since hidden his lightsaber. No need for Alek to turn on him. "Hello, Squint. Stop firing, but don't get any farther away than you have to. If they begin to fire on you, then start firing back. Understood? Do not allow this ship to escape, under any circumstances."
"Understood, sir. Good luck, sir. Malak out."
Revan pulled out his lightsaber again, and motioned towards Mandalore. "Shall we dance?"
"Open fire!" Mandalore shook his fists as though each held Revan's neck. "Kill him! Kill him now!"
For one more second there was only the scuttle of priming levers on dozens of blasters.
One second after that, the bridge exploded into a firestorm.
Mandalore hung back, crouching, watching for a moment as his two guards waded into the Jedi, electrostaffs whirling through the blinding hail of blasterfire that ricocheted around the bridge. Mandalore had fought Jedi before, sometimes even in open battle, and he had found that fighting any one Jedi was much like fighting any other.
Revan, though—
The ease with which Revan had taken command of the situation was frightening. More frightening was the fact that of the two, Malak was reportedly the greater warrior.
Mandalore was starting to think less about winning this particular encounter than about surviving it.
Let his guards fight the Jedi; that's what they were designed for—and they were doing their jobs well. The first one had pressed Revan back against a console, lightning blazing from his electrostaff's energy shield where it pushed on Revan's blade; the Jedi might have died then and there, except that one of the simple-minded Mandalorians turned both blasters on his back, giving Revan the chance to duck and allow the hammering blaster bolts to slam the droid stumbling backward.
He tapped his jaw sensor to the control frequency for the escape pods; one coded order ensured that his personal pod would be waiting for him with engines hot and system checks complete.
When he looked back to the fight, all he could see of his first droid was one arm, the saber-cut joint still white hot. Revan was in the process of doing the same to the other guard—the guard was hopping on its one remaining leg, whirling its electrostaffs with its one remaining arm, and screeching some improbably threat regarding its staff and Revan's body cavities—and after Revan cut off the arm, the guard went hopping after him, still screeching. The droid actually managed to land one glancing kick before the Jedi casually severed its other leg, after which the limbless torso continued to writhe on the deck, howling.
With both bodyguards down, all eight destroyers opened up, dual cannons erupting gouts of galvened particle beams. The Jedi sighed, and used Force Lightning to override their sensors, destroying them.
Mandalore snatched up one of the electrostaffs as it flew past him. Clicking the power setting to oeverload; it spat lightning around him as he lifted it to combat ready. "I am sorry I don't have time to fight you—it would have been an interesting match—but I have an appointment with an escape pod. And you…"
He pointed at the transparisteel view wall and triggered his own concealed cable-gun; the cable shot out and its grappling claw buried itself in one of the panel supports.
"You," he said, "have an appointment with death."
Revan leapt, and Mandalore hurled the overloading electrostaffs at him.
Revan caught it mid-air with his scarlet blade, and sliced it in half. Yellow eyes narrowing, he frowned behind his mask. "You seem to have a talent for making me angry."
Mandalore laughed. "It's what I do—" Mandalore started, but was interrupted by Revan's metal boot to his own gold masked face.
Revan used the Force to pick up Mandalore, and threw him into the service corridor, which lead to the ship's very own melting pit. Mandalore picked himself up, and pulled up his specialized gun, taking aim at Revan.
Revan, with open arms, scarlet blade held in his right hand, wooden wand in his left, floated towards him, feet not touching the ground, as if he were an Angel sent from the heavens. Or rather, a demon sent from Hell.
"Time to die, Mandy," Revan hissed. Abandoning the pretense of observing even the slightest caution, he barreled into Mandalore the Ultimate with such fury that he almost knocked both of them off the ledge and into the abyss. He struck at the Commander with his lightsaber as if his own safety meant nothing, lost in a red haze of rage and frustration.
The Commander was borne backward by the Sith Lord's initial rush, caught off guard by the other's wild assault, and pressed all the way back to the far wall of the melting pit. There he struggled to keep the Sith Lord at bay, trying to open enough space between them to defend himself. Lightsabers scraped and grated against each other, and the chamber echoed with their fury. Lunging and twisting, Mandalore regained the offensive and counterattacked. But Revan was quicker. Anticipating each blow, he was able to elude his antagonist's efforts to bring him down.
The struggle took them around the edge of the melting pit and into the nooks and alcoves beyond, into shadowed recesses and around smoky pillars and pipe housings. Once, Mandalore hammered at him with such determination that he scorched the Sith Lord's tunic, shoulder to waist, and it was only by countering with an up-thrust counter-strike to the other's midsection and by rolling quickly away and back to his feet that Revan was able to escape.
They fought their way back toward the service corridor, and into a tangle of vent tubes and circuit housings. Steam burst from ruptured pipes, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of scorched wiring. Mandalore began to use his larger stature to physically knock Revan away, trying to throw him off balance, to disable him, to disrupt the flow of his attack. Revan responded in kind, and began to use his command of the Force to fling heavy objects at Mandalore. Lightsabers flicked right and left to ward off the objects, and the clash of errant metal careening off metal walls formed an eerie shriek in the gloom.
The battle wore on, and for a time it was fought evenly. But Revan was the stronger of the two and was driven by a frenzy that surpassed even the frantic determination that fueled Mandalore. Eventually, the Sith Lord began to wear Mandalore down. Bit by bit, he pressed him back, carrying the attack to him, looking to catch him off guard. Revan could sense Mandalore's body weakening, and his fear of what it would mean if he, were to fall, began growing inside the Mandalorian's heavily armored chest.
Revan walked slowly to the edge of the melting pit, behind his heavily armored head, his face bathed in seat, eyes wild and bright with joy. The battle was finished. The leader of the Mandalorians was about to be dispatched. He smiled and shifted the scarlet blade from one hand to the other, savoring the moment. Banishing his anger and fear, Revan called upon the last of his reserves. With clarity of purpose and strength of heart, he launched himself away from the side of the pit and catapulted back toward its lip. Imbued with the power of the Force, he cleared the rim easily, somersaulting behind Mandalore in a single smooth, powerful motion.
Mandalore whirled to confront him, shock and rage twisting his hidden face. But before he could act to save himself, Revan's scarlet lightsaber slashed through his chest, burning him with killing scarlet fire. The stricken Mandalorian howled in pain and disbelief.
Then Revan smiled, thumbed his saber off, and watched his dying enemy tumble away into the pit.
The war is over. Now I can devote my attentions to my true purpose… to find the Star Forge, and create an army that will wipe out the corruption of the Republic!
Bending down, he picked up his blue lightsaber, and clipped it to his belt again.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his comm link that linked him directly to Squint. "Squint. Do you copy?"
There was silence for a moment, before a familiar voice replied. "Master?"
"Mandalore is dead. Order the General and Bao-Dur to go with you into my personal ship. Wait for me there."
"Yes, Master."
Revan smiled evilly to himself. Now to destroy the rest of Mandy's crew…
Stowing his lightsaber away, Revan pulled out his wand. Pointing it towards the ship, he uttered some of the Jedi's most hated and feared words, and some of the Sith's most revered. "Sententia Letum Navitas," Revan murmured, as he created the powerful weapon of the Sith, known as the Thought Bomb. Taking one last look at the enormous bubble, Revan smiled again. Concentrating with all his might, Revan pictured his personal quarters in his mind. Closing his eyes, he let out a deep breath, then apparated with a loud crack.
The sound waves caused the thought bomb to continue to follow down the service corridor, where it eventually came to a stop in the bridge. One of the curious Mandalorians fearfully unbuckled himself, and placed his hand upon the bubble.
It exploded, vaporizing all life aboard the ship within a matter of seconds.
The Dark side offers power for power's sake.
You must crave it.
Covet it.
You must seek power above all else, with no reservation or hesitation.
Revan opened his yellow eyes. He was back in his own ship, and he heard the faint explosions from Mandalore's flagship. Good.
Walking down to his personal ship, the Ebon Hawk, which he had already packed full of his private possessions, he walked up the ramp, and closed it behind him. Walking through the small hallways of the ship, he finally came up to the ship's bridge, where he found Squint, Bao-Dur, and the Jedi General waiting.
Taking off his helmet, Revan smiled at each of them. "It's time to go. Strap yourselves in, we're about to make a hyperspace jump."
The Ebon Hawk started to rise, and then, with thrusters put at full-throttle, they sped out of Revan's flagship. Revan turned in his seat, and faced the Jedi General.
"It's time."
The General nodded, and she pulled out the remote that would unleash the power of the Mass Shadow Generator. The General seemed to be having second thoughts, however.
"Sir, are you sure this is what you want to do?" the General asked in a soft, concerned voice.
Revan stared at her coolly. "Yes, I'm sure. Get bloody on with it so I can take us into hyperspace!"
The General sighed, and looked down at the seemingly harmless remote, handed it over to him. "I'm sorry sir, I can't do it."
Revan looked at her incredulously before nodding in resigned acceptance. "I can respect that, I suppose." Taking the remote into his armored hands, he pressed the button.
And kicked the Ebon Hawk into hyperdrive, taking them far away from Malachor V. Setting the ship into autopilot, Revan prepared himself for the inevitable soul-wrenching pain that would be delivered through the Force.
Surprisingly, it never came.
At least, not to him.
The Jedi General, however, was having something akin to a seizure in her seat. Suddenly, it stopped, and her eyes rolled into the back of her head.
"General?" Revan asked cautiously. Standing up, he pulled out his wand. Casting a few diagnostic charms, he felt better, knowing that she was only unconscious, and not seriously injured.
The flecks of green that had appeared during his concern, disappeared, as they turned back to the same vile yellow.
"Bao-Dur, I'll drop you and the General off where ever you wish. Alek and I, however, cannot return to Coruscant, not with Lucien Draay on the Jedi High Council. His views have poisoned the Jedi Order, and have set them against us. I can only offer you any protection you might need in the future, and a ride to where you need to be now."
Bao-Dur nodded. "Thank you, Lord Revan."
Revan nodded, and turned around, sitting down on his piloting chair. "Computer, set co-ordinates to…" Revan turned back to look at Bao-Dur.
Clearing his throat, Bao-Dur said, "Dantooine, sir."
Revan nodded, returning his attentions to the controls. "Computer, set co-ordinates for the sector of Dantooine."
In the main holocomm of the Jedi Temple, high atop the central spire, Obi-Wan used the Force to reach deep within the shell of the recall beacon's mechanism, subtly altering the pulse calibration to flip the signal from come home to run and hide. Done without any visible alteration, it would take the troopers quite a while to detect the recalibration, and longer still to reset it. This was all that could be done for any surviving Jedi: a warning, to give them a fighting chance.
Obi-Wan turned from the recall beacon to the internal security scans. He had to find out exactly what he was warning them against.
"Do this not," Yoda said. "Leave we must, before discovered we are."
"I have to see it," Obi-Wan said grimly. "Like I said downstairs: knowing is one thing. Seeing another."
"Seeing will only cause you pain."
"Then it is pain that I have earned. I won't hide from it." He keyed a code that brought up a holoscan of the Room of a Thousand Fountains. "I am not afraid."
Yoda's eyes narrowed to green-gold slits. "You should be."
Stone-faced, Obi-Wan watched younglings run into the room, fleeing a storm of blasterfire; he watched Cin Drallig and a pair of teenage Padawans—was that Whie, the boy Yoda had brought to Vjun?—backing into the scene, blades whirling, cutting down the advancing clone troopers with deflected bolts.
He watched a lightsaber blade flick into the shot, cutting down first one Padawan, then the other. He watched the brisk stride of a caped figure who hacked through Drallig's shoulder, then stood aside as the old Troll fell dying to let the rest of the clones blast the children to shreds.
Obi-Wan's expression never flickered.
He opened himself to what he was about to see; he was prepared, and centered, and trusting in the Force, and yet…
Then the caped man turned to meet a cloaked figure behind him, and he was—
He was—
Obi-Wan, staring, wished that he had the strength to rip his eyes out of his head.
But even blind, he would see this forever.
He would see his friend, his student, his brother, turn and kneel in front of a black-cloaked Lord of the Sith.
"The traitors have been destroyed, Lord Sidious. And the archives are secured. Our ancient holocrons are again in the hands of the Sith."
"Good…good… Together, we shall master every secret of the Force." The Sith Lord purred like a contented rancor. "You have done well, my new apprentice. Do you feel your power growing?"
"Yes, my Master."
"Lord Vader, your skills are unmatched by any Sith before you. Go forth, my boy. Go forth, and bring peace to our Empire."
Fumbling nervelessly, Obi-Wan somehow managed to shutdown the holoscan. He leaned on the console, but his arms would not support him; they buckled and he twisted to the floor.
He huddled against the console, blind with pain.
Yoda was as sympathetic as the root of a wroshyr tree. "Warned, you were."
Obi-Wan said, "I should have let them shoot me…"
"What?"
"No. That was already too late—it was already too late at Geonosis. The Zabrak, on Naboo-I should have died there… before I ever brought him here—"
"Stop this, you will!" Yoda gave him a stick-jab in the ribs sharp enough to straighten him up. "Make a Jedi fall, one cannot; beyond even Lord Sidious, this is. Chose this, Skywalker did."
Obi-Wan lowered his head. "And I'm afraid I might know why."
"Why? Why matters not. There is no why. There is only a Lord of the Sith, and his apprentice. Two Sith." Yoda leaned close. "And two Jedi."
Obi-Wan nodded, but he still couldn't meet the gaze of the ancient Master. "I'll take Palpatine."
"Strong enough to face Lord Sidious, you will never be. Die you will, and painfully."
"Don't make me kill Anakin," he said. "He's like my brother, Master."
"The boy you trained, gone he is—twisted by the dark side. Consumed by Darth Vader. Out of this misery, you must put him. To visit our new Emperor, my job will be."
Now Obi-Wan did face him. "Palpatine faced Mace and Agen and Kit and Saesee—four of the greatest swordsmen our Order has ever produced. By himself. Eve both of us together wouldn't have a chance."
"True," Yoda said. "But both of us apart, a chance we might create…"
A/N: Happy Harry Potter Day (Cause its July 31st haha)!Here's the second chapter of the week! Again, I apologize for that super long month wait, and hopefully this chapter makes up for some of it. Okay, Read and Review, but no flames please!
Beggs