Part I
Reemergence
Chapter 11
To the Sith
"What did the Sith ever do to you anyway?" - Dutch
From the rooftops of Kraxis, the lone Sith stalked his pray. He made no effort to crouch, for the boundaries of the walls hid most of his body but still allowed him to see over them. He silently strafed to the right and launched forward to the next roof. His hands caught the shingles of the roof further down the street and he allowed his legs to dangle so they wouldn't make a noise. A quick pull-up had him back to his point of stealth. Now he was directly over the target, he could get a good look.
There was something off about this target. He was in plain sight and he could easily be distinguished in the crowd but something was blocking his ability to feel his presence through the Force. A mind trick? No, it couldn't be.
His communicator began to buzz. He almost cursed out loud but silently thanked himself that he was smart enough to keep it on vibrate. He pressed the button in his earpiece.
"Yes?"
"Status update, now!" Cavix Sharkraw sounded like he had been waiting all day.
"Grand Apprentice, I was going to call in a few minutes. I have a positive ID on the bounty hunter. He has his gun out."
"And what about his target?"
"Unidentifiable at the moment, but it is not Dustil Onasi. Shall I take them out?"
He waited as Sharkraw thought for a moment. "Kill the bounty hunter and secure his target. Whoever he is, I want him alive and talking."
"Yes, Grand Apprentice."
"One other thing…" the assassin literally had his finger on the disconnect button. "I want my eyes on. Activate your HUD. There can be no mistakes."
This was the last thing the assassin wanted. He had traveled extremely light but he didn't want the apprentice to know. But if he was going to get paid and avoid his wrath, he'd comply regardless. He turned it on and Sharkraw signed out. Now the Grand Sire's apprentice would see everything he saw. With a deep breath, he pressed forward and kept his eyes on the target.
"How long are we supposed to keep this up?" Dutch whispered. "He's bound to strike at some point, and you don't know if he's going to try and kill us or capture us."
"It matters not…" Revan replied through the Force. "We're going to give him that opportunity. Keep the gun on me."
They kept moving for another five minutes and then upon Revan's signal turned into an alley and moved like rats in a maze until they found themselves in an open park.
"What is this place?"
"An open area with lots of witnesses but less margin for error. If I was a Sith, I'd pick this place to strike. I can tell he's already planning on it, but it seems that he's waiting on you."
"Waiting on me to do what?"
Revan didn't answer. They moved until they reached the center. It was quieter than the other places. A few trees around; the Sith was no longer scaling buildings. Dutch saw it duck down into the daises.
"Alright Dutch, now's the moment. When I stop, I want you to push me forward and shoot me right in the chest."
"What!" Dutch almost whistled as he spoke.
Revan stopped. "Do it!"
"Sorry kid," Dutch said out loud. "Get down on your knees." Revan complied. Dutch raised his gun and aimed for his chest.
"Fire!" Revan's voice was tearing through Dutch's head. "NOW!"
The blast echoed throughout the entire park and startled everyone, including the Sith. Revan fell straight backwards, his eyes remained shut and his mouth ceased its grimace.
Dutch did immediately what his instincts told him to do. He spun around and fired off another shot. The blast missed the Sith by a hair and the Sith rammed him into a tree. Dutch's gun was thrown aside and the Sith was using his fists. Dutch put his arms up in a protective guard and deflected a few shots. The Sith grabbed both his arms and threw him down over his shoulder. The spines on his back scraped against Dutch's chest as he was flung.
He reeled on the ground and looked up as at his menacing opponent who was staring at him upside down.
"Cavix Sharkraw sends his regards." His leg towered over Dutch's head.
But the leg was intercepted. Revan swooped in and buried a knife straight into the Sith's thigh. Before the Sith could react, Revan was on him. He blasted him with an endless stream of palm strikes to the face while using his other hand to bury the knife deeper into his thigh. Revan punched the Sith in the heart, yanked the dagger out, and slammed the gushing Sith straight into the same tree.
Dutch's weapon was summoned off the ground and into Revan's hand. Dutch was now on his feet and Revan could tell that he was trying to hide his disbelief. Revan put the heavily thick muzzle of the gun into the Sith's mouth and looked into his eyes.
The Sith was feeling pain and discomfort all over from his bleeding leg to his busted jaw and the HUD was scrambling. He desperately tried to get a close look at the face of the man who was about to end his life. With the muzzle in his mouth he tried to speak but nothing coherent escaped, and Revan pulled the trigger, burying a deep hole in the tree with the brains of the dead Sith assassin.
The few people who were in the area were now long gone. Dutch was up on his feet and Revan tossed him his gun back. Dutch caught it and holstered it. Revan smiled and reached out his hand.
"Welcome to the Kraxis Rebellion."
Dutch had to smile as he took Revan's hand. "You're a real bastard, you know that?"
Revan smiled back. "My badge of honor."
"Is there any evidence that this is going to work?" Miranda Kerrigan asked her unknown superior through her private comm. chamber.
"It is already working, Senator," her superior replied. "I was on Telos the other day and I remember overhearing a debate between a couple of ambassadors about Onderon. The relationship is shaky and the Republic is going to be doing everything it can to keep Onderon in the system."
"Yeah, but how does that relate to what I've been doing for you?"
"Because half of the people you've been attacking are now fighting each other. It seems you got under their skin. The Republic has never been more distracted under the umbrella of political hostility. We're moving smoothly."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"The same thing you've been doing the whole time. I want you to confront the honorable Onderonian in the chamber and rip him a new one."
"You know, my constituents are becoming increasingly aware of how vocal I've been. There's going to come a point where they're going to see it as counterproductive." This wasn't actually true, but Kerrigan knew that eventually it would be.
"No need to worry about that," the voice spoke quickly like he was on an agenda. "Your approval ratings have never been higher and your campaign has established a rainy-day fund for itself. You're taken care of, Senator. I will keep my word." And with that he disconnected.
Even Kerrigan was getting annoyed by the fact that she had no idea who this guy was. But he was helping her out and she was actively working to start a fire in the Republic politic. Liam Arcturus was not the only Senator she had been openly arguing with. She had gone after the Supreme Chancellor, Alek Neeson from Telos, Careb Knox from Yavin IV, Nilko Bwaas from Manaan, she had even gone after almost everyone in her Armed Forces Committee, including the Chairman. That didn't bode well with some of her supporters considering that most of her targets were in the same party. But Miranda had done her job. She was fiery and her tongue was sharper than some of the alien politicians who crossed her. Kerrigan had no problem doing it. She hated most of them anyway. Nilko Bwaas and Liam Arcturus were exceptions.
Liam Arcturus had been in the Senate for a very long time and he was really a friend to almost everyone. His skills and successful history of bipartisanship and commitment to keeping bureaucracy in check and corruption at a minimum was inspiring, especially to her. Arcturus had most likely gotten comfortable with his popularity among his constituents and it was likely that most of his personal ambitions had been satisfied. But that didn't stop him from letting his voice be heard in the chambers and having been labeled by the Supreme Chancellor as the single most important legislator in the minority. It was a stupid title purely for show that had all the merits. Arcturus may have been in the Conservative minority but he was respected and listened to by all. Kerrigan didn't like to take an axe to him in the chamber. But just as she expected, he remained cool under fire and aggressive on the rebound.
Manaan's new Senator on the other hand definitely had the kind of initiative and drive that most politicians comfortable in their fat chairs didn't. Where Arcturus had slowed down, Nilko Bwaas had picked up the torch. He had an economic background and he had made success in marketing and administration of the kolto trade industry. After the Republic kicked the Sith off the planet and permanently banned them from receiving any kolto, Bwaas was given a claim to fame. The Republic with the help of Bwaas had constructed an underwater harvester for the kolto to give them an edge in the war. Though results initially proved successful, the operation went horribly wrong when a giant firaxa shark was awakened. The Progenitor, the mother of the kolto made the other sharks more hostile and drove the Selkath down there insane. It was only until Revan had come along and calmed the fish down by destroying the harvester that the station was saved and a political disaster was avoided. Instead, Bwaas was a hero in the Republic and the benefits of prosperity on Manaan made the Republic all the more popular.
Kerrigan did have a suspicion that Bwaas was involved in the same plot she was. He was probably enough of a crazed patriot to do it, and he was also farsighted to see the long term effects. More importantly, the last major meeting they all had in which their superior made himself and everyone anonymous and then made it clear what precisely the objective was and how they were going to cohesively carry it out. The Republic would definitely reel from what they were doing. There was no doubt about it, but it was what must be done.
During that meeting, each member had been in their own private locations and they were communicating through the secret channel established and encrypted by the leader. He had covered his tracks extremely well and he had made sure that they would all be protected. But in particular, she remembered that one of the members had someone in place speaking for that person. The audio was very good but she remembered listening intently to it and she thought on multiple occasions she had heard a Selkath voice telling the other what to say in his place. She wasn't sure if she had heard it, but if she did, then Bwaas was definitely involved.
However, even if that were true, she had no reason to confront him about that. She'd just have to sit on that suspicion and hope that she'd never need to make use of it.
In the satellite headquarters of Lazoris…
"Reverse and play it again." The engineer hesitated and Sharkraw more forcefully repeated his command. He still wasn't sure if he could believe what his eyes were telling him.
The video feed began playing again and the whole environment began to shake. The unit to which the heads up display was taken the viewpoint looked down to see the large knife buried deep into the bloodstream of his thigh. For several seconds the screen wobbled some more and got fuzzy occasionally as a black gloved fist got closer and closer each time. The face of the enemy could barely be made out, especially when he dealt another punch to the heart and pulled the bloody blade out and sent the Sith into a tree.
They had been replaying this video ten times already and everyone but Sharkraw was dizzy from the breakneck motion of the recording. Sharkraw's unblinking eyes beamed at the screen, knowing what would happen next.
The screen was still wobbling all over the place until the unit regained focus in the wake of being deep-throated by a giant blaster barrel. Now the computerized view was clear and the face of the enemy could be made.
"Pause it now!" When the vision was frozen Sharkraw manually transferred the image onto a secondary screen and began refreshing and enhancing the image.
He had already recognized Dutch. It was the man Dutch had been walking closely behind and then had shot in the chest that he was interested in. A blast like that at nearly point blank range and the mean sprung upward like a frog on cue and forcefully destroyed one of the best Sith assassins in the business. Sharkraw had replayed the video so many times because he thought he might have recognized the face. It was not Dustil Onasi – he would have recognized him. No, the real suspect he had in mind was long dead. Perhaps this video was evidence to the contrary.
When the image processing was done he looked at it again. He could feel his heart start to bash against the rest of his chest. He knew that face. Just as significantly the others in the room knew Shark's face. They could tell when the Apprentice was torrid with emotion and he was sucking some of the pleasant heat from the room. A couple of the officers silently hinted for some others in the room to leave.
"That incompetent bloated pretentious self-absorbed mother fucker!" Sharkraw was referring to General Norbus Rexx, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the man who had engineered and executed the plan that put Revan, Trek, and the Kraxis Rebellion into the ground. At great expense to both lives as well as finance, the plan had supposedly worked and every ship in the rebel fleet was born to bits. The Sith had lost almost three full fleets and even more in castle damage on Mengskin itself. Not only that but Rexx had deliberately lured Revan away from the battle so his tactics wouldn't interfere and so he could use the shell of Lena Verado to kill him. Though that part didn't work, it didn't matter. Revan went back to the rebels at Mengskin and after a feeble attempt to kill Rexx by blowing up the bridge of his vessel he died with the rest of them.
But apparently he didn't. Sharkraw didn't have a problem with the plan. He was more than upset to not be included in the efforts. He would have relished the opportunity to lead the attack and with him at the helm they might not have all died the way they did. Instead he was sidelined and the general's "brilliant" plan succeeded and he got the glory.
However that wasn't the real problem. This was going to incur serious repercussions. The Sith would have to suspend a lot of their major operations and face this new problem head on in order to prevent it from becoming as grave as the Kraxis Rebellion really was. That meant the coming invasion of the Republic would have to wait. If there was anything he wanted more than Dustil Onasi's head on a plate, it was to be the tip of the spear – the frontline in the offensive that would bring about the true Golden Age of the Sith and the permanent preservation of the dark side of the Force. Everything the Sith had engineered in the past several centuries had been about that. The slow degeneration of the Republic with the inclusion of the illusion of prosperity, all of that was leading up to the invasion that was soon to come. As part of his duties, Sharkraw had been monitoring the Republic. While his knowledge of it was limited only to what he could see and hear, given the measures the Sith had taken to not exist, very few Sith knew more about the Republic than he did.
Sharkraw resumed the recording one last time and looked into the eyes of the enemy. Revan fired the weapon and the screen went red with the immediate life signs reading "TERMINATED."
The moment he so longed for with his master had finally come. It was time to pay a visit to the Sith Homeworld.
"So what now then?" Dutch and Revan were back in the hideout. "Whoever hired him knows I'm here now. That means this place might get a little more attention than it can handle."
"Indeed," said Revan, pouring himself a drink. Dutch already had one in his hand and was taking his time. "Relax, Dutch," said Revan. "You've been through a lot without so much as a breather."
"This is life," replied Dutch. "Besides, what will you do when your victory is ensured? Retire? Settle down? Raise kids? Live the quiet life? I've known you for less than a week and I already know that ain't possible."
"Experience and occupation often lead to different results," said Revan. "We have the same training and the same abilities. What we do for a living is abnormal, quite outside the rest of the galaxy. But you haven't seen war the way I have."
"I've seen action," Dutch protested rather defensively.
"But you haven't seen war. If you did, you'd understand the difference."
"It's all semantics to me," Dutch dismissed the remark. "What did the Sith ever do to you anyway? What are you even fighting for?"
"Peace, justice, and freedom."
"Bullshit…"
Revan eyed Dutch. "What makes you so sure?"
"You didn't decide to lay your life on the line and waste the best years of your existence putting together a war clan just because you felt guilty about the oppression of others. Don't pretend like you're a saint. The Sith did something to you personally. I'd like to know what, and I think it's only fair."
Revan's expression soured. "Have you ever heard of the Mandalorians?" Dutch shook his head. "They're a warlike people segregated by clan and united under the banner of Mandalore. They came out of virtually nowhere and brought fire, death, destruction and slavery to my region of space. Having lived through four decades of peace, the Republic wasn't equipped to handle it so they begged the Jedi for help.
"At first I was rather indifferent to the Council's decision not to help the Republic. I thought the basic separation of religion from politics implied that each would also deal with its own problems. But it's a rather naive take. I found out what the pigs did to Cathar. You think of everything your mother told you not to do in life and that's what they did." Revan took another sip. This wasn't something he liked to think about, but it didn't feel as bad as he thought. Maybe it was the mild effect of the alcohol.
"Bad stuff, fine." Dutch shrugged. "What does it have to do with you?"
"Well you think of it from the perspective of a mature student. If you've been educated throughout your whole coherent life that there is good and evil in the galaxy and the bad guys ought never to win, suddenly the idea of isolation makes less sense. Jedi are interventionists by their nature, and a lot of people in my neck of the galaxy hate them for it. It's okay to intervene to save a victim of mugging but it's forbidden to save an entire race of people from unprovoked onslaught? That's what the Jedi Council thought and I disagreed. I've been a rebel ever since."
"And I take it that the only reason you chose to tell this story in answering of my question was because the Sith were behind it?"
Revan nodded. "I lost a lot of good people in that war. The things I had to do in that war, anyone less objective and willful would be lost. By the time it was over, I thought the galaxy was saved…till I found out the truth. But even then…I might have ended my retribution against them a while ago if it weren't for their plot to take us over all the same."
"No offense, but you're too noble to be in power," Dutch remarked. It came with a rather snide tone but Dutch actually meant it. "You surprise me. I would have thought for sure there was a woman involved."
Revan's wince was barely noticeable but Dutch caught it. "Oh, you lying son of a bitch. There is a woman involved!"
"No," Revan said sternly, regaining his composure.
"Yes there is," insisted Dutch. "I won't inquire about it, but I know love when I see it. I was the best man at Trek's wedding."
"Hard to imagine you in a tux."
Dutch snickered. "Well I hate the Sith because they're rotten insidious bastards who think that because they can use the Force they are better and therefore entitled to things they never earned. I keep it simple."
"So they didn't do anything to you either?"
"Well…I've always been something of a freelancer but I couldn't forgive them for what they did to Trek. My rates for killing Sith lowered quite a bit after I found out about it. And now that they've betrayed me and showed no understanding for the simple things that make bounty hunters good at their jobs, I'm almost willing to kill them for free." Dutch paused for a moment. "But the key word here is almost."
"Well I'm a man of my word. You'll be shipping back out to the Lone Wolf tomorrow morning."
"You spoil all your friends like this?"
"Just the ones who can appreciate a drink." Revan was more right about that than he realized. Dutch was not a trusting person, especially when it came to someone who didn't take an occasional drink. Alcohol was perhaps the finest product of civilization. Its ability to blur judgment and distort appearances often brought out the truth and the real personality of the character in question. If your drunk self wasn't all that different than your sober self, the chances that you were hiding something were slim. Even more-so Dutch hated the people who thought themselves above alcohol.
Not that they had let themselves lose control from the drinks – this was still a professional job. But to Dutch, it meant something that Revan, even after a few drinks, was still wise beyond his years. He was beginning to see why he had a following. He inspired loyalty and confidence. Dutch prided himself on being able to see through the bullshit. Revan passed every test.
He raised his glass. "To the Sith. May they die before we do." Revan laughed as he touched the glass with his own and took another gulp.
We apologize for the crazy intermission. Rest assured, we are still committed to finishing this story and we will update more regularly from now on.
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- Gipper 40 & Sarge42
