Darth Void, Dark Lord of the Sith, stood, his last images of Revan slipping like water from his mind. He had waited long enough, Ressa had to learn her lesson. He exited his quarters and crossed to the other side of the ship. He knew Ressa could feel his approach, but he felt no fear from her. He was unsure what to think of that. He opened the door.

Darth Ressa sat cross-legged with her back to the door. She heard the door to her quarters hiss open, and slowly, deliberately, stood. She turned to her master, but did not bow; rather she crossed her arms over her chest.

"What is thy bidding, my master?"

She wasn't surprised by his answer: a turgid river of electricity.

The flood bit into her with terrible savagery, throwing her into the wall. She almost cried out right there and then, she almost forgot her plan. But she caught herself, turning pain into indignation, and indignation into recalcitrance. She imagined his satisfaction if she failed, the pleasure he would take in her failure. The image was false; contrived, but it did the trick. She refused to give in, she put everything into her resistance, and the more the pain grew, the more her resistance grew.

She expected to be tortured to within an inch of her life, to be full and completely wracked with new and interesting variations of pain. But he stopped, barely five seconds into his attack.

"You have impressed me Ressa. I did not expect you to take that lesson so quickly. But fail to bow to me again, and you will suffer."

Ressa wiped a bead of sweat from her brow. "Yes, my master," she said as she dropped to one knee. "If I may ask, where are we bound for?"

"Vjun."

"I have never heard of it."

"A planet on the outer rim, bathed in acid rain. And the dark side. It is not as good a place as Korriban, but it is good as a training ground."

"As you wish, master."

He then turned and left.

Ressa let out a long sigh. This road I have chosen to follow, it will be a long one… and a hard one…


Three months. Three months since the destruction of Dantooine, and still, no sign of Revan. Malak growled out his frustration, and the metallic rumble settled over the bridge like an icy mist. The officers huddled deeper into the respective tasks, desperate to avoid the Sith Lord's ire.

Darth Malak turned briskly and stomped off of the bridge, back to his quarters. Most assumed that by now, the war would be done with, but it was not so. Under Malak, the Sith onslaught had been reduced to a ponderous crawl. He was a pale shadow of the commander Revan had been, but failure for the Sith was still unthinkable. He had the Starforge, he had Saul Karath, he had the Sith order Revan had created, and he had a broken and exhausted enemy. Bar a continuous effort on his part to bring down the Sith war machine, and eventual triumph was inevitable.

Malak passed the threshold into his spacious quarters. He stopped. Why had he come here? To fume in private? To catch up on paper work? He didn't know, perhaps he just wanted to go somewhere, to do something. He walked into the next room. Malak froze. Before him, sitting and playing a game of dejarik, sat a heavily cloaked intruder.

"Wha- Who dares?"

"The Dark Lord of the Sith… Squint."

That nickname. How many years had it been? How long had it been since anyone had addressed him thus? How long had it been since that time of youth? There were no more than a dozen people in the galaxy who knew his old nickname.

"Revan… I knew you would not stay hidden forever. Tell me, what is it that you seek in this meeting?" Malak tried to keep the fear out of his voice.

"Do I sound like Revan to you? Does my presence feel like his?" he removed his hood, "Do I look like him?"

"You… You…" Malak stammered. He did… sort of. The voice could have been his, so could the bearded face, and the Force profile. But they weren't. There was something off about him… like Malak's eyes were trying to trick him. He scowled, or came as close as he could, and dropped the puzzle. He didn't like puzzles, he wasn't a man of puzzles, he was a man of action; raw, blunt, decisive action. The incumbent Dark Lord lit and brandished his saber.

"You're taking your time," Void said. Something in his voice stayed Malak's hand from striking.

"What do you mean?"

"Make haste," Void said, his voice was devoid of tone.

"Eager to die Revan?"

"He will notice you soon."

Malak furrowed his brows, turning the statement over in his slow brain.

A shaft of crimson light erupted from the Dark Lord's chest, a tiny moment later, Malak felt extreme heat and, distant pain deep within him. For an interminable second, Malak merely stood, clinging to life by shear tenacity. Then the blade withdrew, and Malak felt his knees buckle. As he fell, and the world receded into blackness, he finally figured it out. He wasn't talking to me at all. He was talking to his apprentice. At the same instant Malak's massive frame struck the ground, he became one with the Force, banished to the Chaos. The terrific thud of his fall was paralleled by a great echo in the Force, the disturbance of a powerful Force user being replaced with a void. And in that instant, every Force sensitive on the Leviathan knew: the Dark Lord of the Sith was dead.

Darth Ressa stood above her victim. She wore a cuirass of slick black metal, with gloves and gauntlets of the same material and similar knee high boots, leaving her thighs and upper arms bare. Her eyes were shot with splinters of red around the pupils. She looked, every inch of her, a seasoned Sith Lady, hardened and tautened by the firm hand of her master, and the hardships of Vjun.

"I am not a child, master. Puny taunts will not cause me to break my stealth field."

"So I expected," Her master said. He had been glad as her training had tempered her haughty edge, but not dulled it. It testified of her inner strength.

"Ressa, you must understand one thing: I am the Dark Lord of the Sith. Malak never killed Revan, his master, meaning that he was never the rightful Dark Lord. Revan's death came at my hands, I was the legitimate Dark Lord before I even took you as my apprentice. This was meant solely as a your final test."

"Yes… of cource," she said, contempt dripping from her voice. Darth Void took no notice.

"Let this be a lesson to you. Had you faced Malak in an open duel, he would have crushed you. You used his simple mindedness, his arrogance, and a skill unique to you, and you defeated him easily."

"I understand, master. Now…" she ignited her lightsaber, removed Malak's great head, and clutched it in her left hand, "… let us assert ourselves over Malak's rabble."

And so dawned a new chapter in the history of the Sith, and the Galaxy.