Chapter 9

His hands were shaking, and his darkly glittering eyes lanced across the airspeeders racing at his sides. They were not soldiers, barely men, but they had weapons and would provide a distraction, and that was what they would need when they arrived. Carth had expressed his doubts that the races would turn to battle, but Asan wasn't fooled like Mission was. The Republic officer saw the writing on the wall. It was going to be a slaughter.

The Sith had caught wind of the Republic officers at the race. The Beks had observed them positioning men in the Lower City, close enough to storm the swoop platforms. And with his dream the night before, Asan had no doubt that Bastila was going to be present at the race. He only hoped that the Dark Lord of the Sith wasn't there, personally.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Mission said to him as the airspeeder beneath them rumbled with the turbulence of the cramped highways. Asan glanced at her and shrugged.

"Stay close to Zaalbar when we get there, I'll lead the charge," Asan ordered quietly. Carth navigated the vehicle down, a good distance away from the other parked airspeeders, in an alcove on the second floor of the attached garage. Asan turned to her when they were standing. "Let me see your armor."

Mission swung her legs out and stood up, raising her arms and turning slowly. Asan caught a loose buckle and wrenched it tight, drawing a gasp from the girl, who rubbed her chest when she came back around. "It's a bit constrictive now," she whined with a playful pout.

"It'll save your life," Asan replied with a shrug. "I'm sure your breasts will survive."

The girl huffed but there was light dancing in her eyes. She glanced at his hands and caught his fingers between her own. "You're shaking."

"We're going to be fighting," Asan offered as an explanation. Mission had seen him in the Bek base, remembered how he'd been before he had gotten into that elevator and taken the fight to their leadership on the second floor. She nodded and dropped his hand.

"Let's go. Weapons out," Asan ordered, walking ahead. Carth snorted, but drew his blaster. The quiet hum of its power cell joined the distant rumble of powerful engines.

The soldier glanced at her worriedly, lips pursed. "You'll do alright kid. Just do what he says," he offered.

"I thought you were in charge here," Mission sniped.

Carth laughed. "That was until I got myself shot," he replied dryly. "Besides, the man's a demon in a fight. I trust his instincts."

They arrived at the deck of the swoops, across the tracks from the extensive bleachers and spectator booths, and found a packed platform strewn with idling swoop bikes and milling engineers, technicians, and hired muscle. There were force cages as well, and his eyes were drawn immediately to the cage on the left, perhaps two hundred yards away, where a woman was bowed over her knees, rocking rhythmically with her head thrown back, tangled hair swinging over her shoulders.

"Bastila," Asan pointed her out to Carth, clenching his jaw. The man made as if to step forward, but Asan caught his arm. "Wait. We don't want to be the one to light this fuse. That will draw their attention to us."

"So what?"

"The Sith are coming," Asan replied softly. "It won't be long."

Carth didn't get a chance to ask him how he knew. He only got to narrow his eyes and part his lips. Just as he was about to speak a booming voice echoes across the tracks. "Welcome! Welcome!" The crowd roared its approval. "This is the eightieth annual Ignoble Classic of Taris! We've got a pack of stallions chomping at the bit for your entertainment. So let's get this show on the road!"

"There," Asan pointed across the platform where a subtle glint of metal caught his eye. Somethign knotted in his chest and he hunched his shoulders, felt a chill crawling down his back. "Let's go!"

An explosion rippled across the deck, shook the floor beneath their feet, reverberated through the stale Lower City air. For a moment there was no sound at all, a deafening silence, but then the Sith were advancing, weapons free and barking, and plasma fires burst into raging life at three impact sites around the platform. The crowd, at first assuming this was a festivity, cheered once, then screamed in horror as a blast rocked the stands and the carnage was made apparent to them. Two Sith Assault teams burst into the crowd on the opposite side of the tracks, setting up automatic weapons.

The gangs exploded into action at once, at each others throats like a pack of rabid dogs. Asan didn't duck, only activating his energy shield and striding into the chaos like he owned it, like he was untouchable. Zaalbar roared and brought his bowcaster up, the distinctive bark sounding over the cacophony of battle and knocking a man off his feet as he charged the Beks.

As opposed to the other fools, the Hidden Beks had some organization, some paltry discipline. At once they formed loose ranks, ducking into cover behind swoop bikes, crates, and the registrar's desk. Some of them overturned tables or shoved the hovering bikes into the path of the blaster fire. The other gangs, however, were nothing but disorganized mobs, pressing together like a cheese grinder, pouring blood and smoke onto the platform in a mindless, heated slaughter. The Beks carved out a corner of the platform and stood strong, content to let the others butcher each other, but Asan had to push beyond. The cages were in Vulkar hands, and when the Sith got their guns up on the other side they'd cut everyone to ribbons in a matter of minutes.

"Move!" Asan roared, picking up his pace. "They're too close to the cages!"

Carth saw what he was worried about at once. There were two Dark Jedi among the Sith battalion, with swords of crimson fire that arced through the gangs, carving a path swiftly towards the cages. Asan ran, shoulder down, shoving through the melee without stopping for anything. They burst beyond the Bek line, into the fray, but Asan barely slowed, cutting a bloody swath through the untrained masses.

When he caught attention, the bowcaster would cut the enemy down before they could open fire, and Zaalbar followed at a more sedate pace with Mission at his side, covering his blind spots. Carth was in the middle ground, inconspicuous, moving with a certainty that could only come with experience, avoiding unnecessary attention. This was a battlefield, unconventional as it was, and he was at home, keeping the mob off Asan's back.

Asan reached the cages as the Sith soldiers drove the last of the Vulkars out of their way, gunning them down as they scattered. He emerged from the throng and pierced the chest of a golden-armored man with his gleaming emerald blade, turning the dying soldier into the aim of his squad-mates, who checked their fire at once. Now this was a professional force, well-trained, and blooded in combat against the Republic. They reacted to the threat at once, falling back to safety, regrouping, pushing forward again, unstoppable.

Carth came next, while their attention was diverted, blowing red and white scraps of flesh from the skull of the nearest Sith soldier, a man unfortunate enough to be leading the push for the cages. Zaalbar caught a second man in the chest with his bowcaster, and Asan reached down to heft the limp body by the neck of his armor.

"Cover me!" he barked, hauling the man to the cage where Bastila was still rocking, insensate. He forced the corpse against the energy field with his boot and winced as the feedback of the discharge rippled over his foot. But the portable generator couldn't sustain that level of punishment for long, and the force cage opened, smoking from three places. Asan reached forward and hauled the woman up by her arm, but the chains pulled taut around her ankles.

With a snarl he ignited the red lightsaber and cut them. That was when her eyes opened and she looked into his face, unmasked terror in her expression. The glow of his blade curled around them and reflected in his eyes, but only for a moment. Then he turned away.

"Carth, get her out of here!" Asan pushed her behind him, and the soldier ducked behind a cage, Zaalbar stepping into his place. The Sith were rushing forward, seconds away from overrunning their position. Their numbers were insurmountable in this position.

Asan lobbed two grenades onto the platform to distract them, sure that the shrapnel would tear holes in their advance. There was very little cover that would stand up to a frag.

"There's Dark Jedi!" Carth barked, eyes focused on the red lightsaber in Asan's hand. He gestured to Bastila.

"I know!" Asan replied, shaking his head. "She's useless. Go! I'll be right behind you! And get that fucking collar off her!"

"I didn't peg you as a guy to throw his life away," Carth retorted as he drew up close, but he gathered the gasping, hysterical Jedi in his arms anyway.

Mission was at his side a second later. "What do we do?!"

"Go with Carth! Cover his ass!" Asan barked, resetting his energy shield and pushing up.

The Sith were here, firing in fully automatic bursts, cutting down the pressing gangs and facing them. Mission hesitated, but remembered his earlier warning and rushed after Carth, kicking a clawing, dying Vulkar away from the soldier and his precious cargo. Zaalbar offered a final significant glance and covered her retreat.

There were other Republic officers here in cages. One man and one woman. Asan recognized their uniforms, and they must have recognized his face. They didn't cry out for him, didn't beg him to save them. The man met his eyes and nodded slowly.

Asan breathed, feeling a rush rising up from somewhere deep down, and then the Sith were upon him, weapons screaming. He pushed right back, cutting through a man at the waist, piercing another through the chest, ducking beneath a spray of fire, coming up and bisecting a third from hip to shoulder. His lightsaber slid between himself and a line of fire from the right as if it had a mind of its own, and the bolts splattered around him, onto the deck or into the crowds. One of them singed his arm.

Then the Sith stopped and pulled back, called away by an unheard voice. The Dark Jedi was there, sliding out from the line of his men, letting his dark cloak slide from his arms and lay at his feet.

"Well, well, well," he declared over the din, deflecting a stray blaster shot into the deck. A wide smile was on his face, baring his teeth. "Look who it is! Lussus, get over here!"

The second materialized as if from nothing at the first Sith's shoulder. His eyes were wide, and the blaze of gold faded for just a moment, replaced with uncertainty. "It can't be…"

"Lord Malak will reward us handsomely for your demise, Revan!" the first crowed.

Asan staggered at the name, clenching his jaw as everything suddenly settled into place, became clear. His awakening on Dantooine...the flashes of someone else's life, the scars. Bastila's familiarity, and the dream that they had shared. Something crawled in the back of his mind in recognition of the name, but it died with a whimper as he raised his head to face the two men once again. There was no time to think, no time to remember.

Only battle.

"That is Revan you're challenging!" the second Sith barked, but the first brandished his lightsaber, cutting him off.

"Don't be a coward! Let's go!"

And with that the battle began. The Sith moved forward in sync, brothers in arms, highly experienced and in tune with the motions of their partner. Asan met them instinctively, dividing them with his inexorable charge. His own lightsaber moved in a blur of color, skating across their own, blocking and parrying effortlessly. It was too swift for him to think, and he fell into old forgotten instincts, first following through with his advance, forcing them to close ranks behind him as he turned, then pushing one attack into the line of the other, forcing them to stagger their movements.

His blood roared in his ears and Asan closed his eyes, falling away into the trance that had served him so well against the rakghouls and the gamorreans in the Undercity, but this was twice as intense, overpowering, all-consuming. It felt like the air was choking him, rushing into his lungs in bursts, forcing an ice-cold spike into his chest. There was a tremble in the air around him. A shimmer that hugged his arms and body.

One of the Sith blades cut too close, burned across the energy shield over his chest, and the electric shock of the shield overloading cracked along Asan's arm even as he batted the laser sword away and deflected a second strike from Lussus, baring his teeth in a grimace of pain. But the heat on his chest and the burn in his arm seemed to crawl along his spine and settle in his gut, and he moved faster, smoother. His mind might not have known that it could fight like this, with such speed and brutality, but his body remembered. And something else drove him, fueled a sudden inhuman speed and strength, clouded his thoughts and drove him to instinct.

His weapon blocked, bound, and manipulated his enemy's blade, driving it down into the deck or far to the side, snaking forward in a riposte less than a moment later, but his opponents were just as skilled as he, just as swift, just as strong. Then retaliated, driving him back, gaining momentum, pressing his defenses to their utmost. And when it all seemed lost, when their attacks were coming within inches of his skin, when the blazing heat of the blades singed the hairs of his face, that was when he'd speed up, tap into something that crawled deep within, screaming out a war-cry and forcing them back, driving them before him.

But this strange power was fleeting, fickle. He'd slow again and it would begin again, the intricate dance of three. They were forced to outmaneuver him, forced to think through their steps and work together. This was something that Asan observed was growing more difficult as their anger and fury grew.

As it dragged on great glowing scars were burned into the deck at their feet, sweat was poured from their faces, and finally Asan opened his eyes again and saw Lussus flinch upon meeting them, hesitating in the face of his opponent, stepping wrong as the tempo of the battle passed him by. Asan didn't know what the Sith saw in his face that had shocked him, and he didn't care. He capitalized before his mind had even caught up to the moment at hand, lightsaber shifting murderously, thirsty for blood.

That was how Lussus lost his arm and shoulder.

The chunk of flesh, still holding the ignited weapon, dropped and Asan laughed cruelly, kicking it away as he turned his full attention upon the first of the Sith.

"What's your name?" he ground out between breaths, a dark anticipation building.

"Gatix," the man sneered. "Or don't you remember me, my lord?"

Driven, backs against the wall, five men against the rising tide.

Looking to the left, meeting the determined eyes of a young man.

The scar over his jaw, a thin line.

Then back at the coming storm.

The words of encouragement on his lips died. He offered a mere nod.

But that was enough.

It was the scar on his jaw that brought the name back from the void. As always, the scars seemed to prompt his memory.

"Gatix," Asan sounded out that name, catching the man's lightsaber and pushing it into the deck, sliding his own weapon up faster than the blink of an eye. The other man responded, and an old memory twinged, recognizing the instinct for what it was. He remembered teaching him these moves, remembered sparring for countless hours as a distraction from the gnawing Dark.

Asan pulled his blow, let the block go wide, and then pierced Gatix at the neck with a deft lunge. "Yes, I think I remember you, now. Predictable."

Gatix fell away to nothing, clawing at the smoking hole in his throat. Asan turned back to Lussus. The man was kneeling, staring with terror. "My lord….please..." he breathed. "Don't do this..."

"What?" Asan stalked forward, raising his eyes to the Sith soldiers that had pulled the other slaves from their cages, dragged them away. The golden soldiers had created a circle, were still fighting with the gangs, but they watched the confrontation through featureless visors. Revan could feel their fear. "I don't recall loyalty from you when it mattered."

"Revan, we had no choice..."

Asan roared and pressed his lightsaber forward, knocking Lussus onto his back in a frantic attempt to keep his life. And then there were words surging up and out of his mouth, and Asan couldn't stop them. It felt like a whole other person was speaking through him, asserting control. "There is always a choice! I taught you everything that you know!"

"Mercy!" Lussus cried out, clawing at the deck. "My lord, have mercy!"

And Asan was in control again, feeling a dark satisfaction burning in his chest. He wondered at his previous words, but not long enough to hesitate in speaking. "You'll find no mercy from me."

Lussus screamed in final desperation, raised his remaining arm with fingers bent into claws. A blast of cackling purple lightning exploded from the fallen Sith, spreading around them both in great fingers of shocking white and burning red, coloring the air a hazy blue. The power scorched the deck, wrapped around Asan's weapon, pressed towards him, and for a moment he was sure that he would die there, burnt to a pillar of ash, but when it touched him it was only something cold and familiar, not painful. The explosion washed over him like water over a rock, and a smile split his face, bared his teeth.

Then he drove his weapon the final inches, watching the younger man convulse, reaching up to grasp at the plasma with one desperate hand, splitting his arm down to the elbow in an instinctive twitch. Lussus' eyes blazed gold and red, his mouth opened in a howl that silenced the battlefield. Then he arched up and laid still, flesh sizzling around the embedded lightsaber.

Asan swung his weapon free, the dull hum reverberating in his gut. His eyes felt hot as he glared across at the soldiers around him. But he turned his back and walked away and they let him go. They didn't dare fire at his turned back.

Driving through the subdued melee was easier going back, but the euphoric rush was bleeding away with every step, and by the time that he broke from the crowd and straightened his back, there was a fatigue unlike anything that he had felt before deep in his bones. And he was faced with an argument, held while cowering behind a stack of crates.

"We have to go back!" the girl cried, gesturing to the battle.

"He's dead!" Carth hissed. "My responsibility is to the Republic. We have to get Bastila out of here, get her some help. I don't have time to argue about this anymore."

"Then let's go," Revan cut across, deactivating the lightsaber and enjoying their jerks of surprise. Even when Zaalbar nearly blasted him with the bowcaster, he still laughed.

Carth's eyes narrowed. "How did you get away? Are you hurt? You look pale."

"We have no time," Revan replied, raising his eyebrow and glancing significantly at Bastila. "Time to move."

So they did. They left the chaos behind them, piled into the airspeeder, and Revan held Bastila in his arms as the vehicle rocked beneath them. Laying his head back, he closed his eyes, tightened his fist around the lightsaber in his hand.

"Asan..." her voice called, and he opened his eyes again, clenching his jaw. Looking down, she was lucid, staring at him, but he could tell that she knew who he was. What he'd managed to do even without his memories.

"Don't call me that," he hissed, sitting her up with her back pinched painfully against the panel at the front of the vehicle. She cried out, but he gripped her shoulder and held her still. "Don't move. Let me see the collar."

"Woah, easy," Carth urged, glancing to the side with slight unease. There was something different about Asan, something in the way that he was handling the woman that spoke of rage and a desire to inflict pain.

Revan inspected the collar and sneered. "It's locked. I'll cut if off her."

"Wait until we land," Carth replied, sensibly. Revan checked his motion towards his lightsaber, accepting the logic. It wouldn't help anyone to accidentally decapitate the woman before she could speak to him.

Bastila could only fight against the collar by relying on the bond between them. But she couldn't risk him discovering the reason for the Endar Spire's mission as well his name, couldn't trust him enough to open her mind in such a vulnerable fashion. If he knew about the bond...then he could protect himself against it, prevent her from learning what she needed to know. So Bastila let herself fall back under the influence of the slave collar, let her eyes glaze over, the pain of the panel digging into her back fading into the craze.

When they arrived, Revan hauled the Jedi out of the vehicle by her arm and ignited the lightsaber the moment their feet were on solid ground. Carth rushed around the front, uncertainty in his face, and even Mission flinched at how harsh he was being. But he didn't hurt the Jedi, only cutting the collar from her neck with a deft motion of his wrist, deactivating the lightsaber at once as she jerked and he pulled the hot metal away from the slight burn at the back of her neck.

Bastila gasped like a drowning woman and swayed on her feet, steadied by his arm and by her own hand gripping his shoulder. The Force asserted itself once more with a mind-shattering presence, tinged with the Dark of the man that held her, and when she finally breathed once, and opened her eyes, she met Revan's intense gaze, still colored bronze from the battle. Her skin crawled. She recognized Revan in that face, not like he had been before, on the Endar Spire.

"There," he said, releasing her. "Is your mind all yours again?"

"Yes," she breathed as she swayed on her feet, sudden weakness overcoming her.

"Well that's good. Mine isn't," he hissed at once as his shoulders hunched forward aggressively. "I don't think I'll ever have the luxury of having my collar cut free. But you know that already. You were the one that put it there."

"No!" Bastila protested, but he pressed forward, ignoring Carth's exclamation of surprise as Bastila bounced off the airspeeder at her back, leaning away from him and shaking. "I didn't...I swear. It was the Council."

"Are you afraid of me?" he whispered. "You must have known who I am all along."

"That's enough!" Carth barked, hauling Asan away by his arm. The mercenary laughed darkly and shoved Carth away with little effort.

"Don't touch me," he bit out. "I deserve some answers. I didn't even know my own goddamn name until a Sith told it to me at the point of my blade! But she knows."

Bastila swallowed. "You aren't that man anymore. That's not your name."

"No?" Asan hissed. "I guess I can't argue that. Not after what you Jedi have done to me." He laughed hollowly and turned his back to her, attempting to curb his rising fury. "I thought I had an idea of who I was. Thought I was settling in to this new life as a mercenary. You must have thought me a fool."

"We had no choice."

He sneered and spun back around. Mission, Carth, and Bastila flinched away from him at the sight of his face, at the blazing heat in his eyes, the golden light. "I'm sick of people justifying their sins to me. There is always a choice, Jedi. I thought you would understand that. It is one of your own teachings."

"This rage isn't your own," Bastila urged him desperately. "Breathe. Don't let the Dark Side control you. That is one of your teachings."

Revan narrowed his eyes. "I'm not in danger of losing control, Jedi. When I slaughtered those Sith, then I was out of control. And I knew them, somehow. Hell, I probably taught them everything that they knew. I bet you could tell me. But you expected this I'd imagine, and you won't not even if it might kill you. This is what you have always been afraid of. It is why you had seven Jedi on the Endar Spire. You thought, just in case I broke the shackles that you've put on me, that you might need some goddamn backup."

"What is he talking about?" Carth cut across the argument.

Revan waved him off. "Tell me why they did it. The Jedi do not execute their prisoners, is that not what I read from your vaunted code?" his voice was rising to a roar, a terrible crescendo that traveled down his neck in a pulse of black and glowed in his eyes like fire. "But I suppose raping a prisoner's mind, destroying their memories, tearing away their past, and leaving them empty as a burnt-out husk is alright!"

"That wasn't what we did..." Bastila's voice was swept away by the storm.

"That's exactly what you've done!" Revan bellowed, gesturing with the hilt of the lightsaber, dangerously close to pressing the power with his thumb. "Can't you see I'm clawing to keepmy sanity? Don't you see how..." he choked off at once, staggering back and covering his face with his hand.

Bastila was shaking, eyes on his weapon. "You have to control yourself. You can't let yourself fall back..."

"You mean I can't ever remember who I was," Asan clarified sharply. "You'd rather kill me, is that right? You'd rather die trying than let me ever remember more than my name."

"No!" Bastila objected uselessly. "It was never you that the Jedi feared, but the Dark Side that had corrupted you."

"You must have hated me so much to turn me into this, a half of a man," Asan whispered, all rage bleeding away and leaving such an ache that he smiled, baring teeth in a parody of joy. "And I can't even remember why."

"Didn't you hear what I said..."

"Be silent!" he bellowed again, and as swift as the rage had gone it was back. His thumb ran over the lightsaber's switch, muscles trembling. "I don't want to hear any more lies from you, Jedi. I have to think. Have to get this straight. Have to fight this." He gestured at his face.

He back-stepped once, feeling their eyes burning into him, feeling Carth's paranoid gaze and Mission's pity. But most of all, Bastila's terror. What was she so afraid of? What had he done to deserve that from her? She must have recognized this thing that was hidden within him, the demon rearing its head in his voice, still hot with bloodshed.

"Where will you go?" Mission asked, and her voice cooled him, drew his attention away from the focus of his rage.

"I need a drink," Asan breathed. And he turned away and ran.