A/N: Heyo folks. Sorry that this guy was a few days late, I've been chipping away at too many works all at once, got sidetracked. Anyway, I don't usually leave notes, but I wanted to respond to a few concerns that had been repeated by reviewers about Mission, since I plan to have her play a more significant role in this story than she was in the games.

This is an Alternate Universe. Characters, places, and institutions will not be the same as they were in canon. As for Mission specifically, I wanted a character among Revan's company that was not necessarily biased toward the Republic or the Sith, but mature enough that I didn't feel awkward about Revan's darker inclinations towards her.

Anyway, I hope y'all are enjoying the story so far despite its AU qualities.

Chapter 11

Samuel heard the summons and knew that Lussus was dead. The fact that the Force was bucking and surging like a maddened animal around the planet far beneath his feet only reinforced his rising dread, and so it was with great reluctance that the weary Sith boarded his shuttle and crossed the distance to Darth Malak's flagship. Was he going to be next, he wondered? Would he become the next poor misguided soul to be swallowed up by this bloody, gods-forsaken war?

Whatever he had been expecting upon his arrival, it had not been the Dark Lord himself standing upon the ramparts of the docking bay with a lieutenant shaking at his side like a leaf in the wind, equal parts stunned and frightened. Samuel approached carefully, cautious of Malak's mercurial temper, but he found the Dark Lord speaking softly with the Lieutenant. The tail end of the conversation reached his ears in earnest tones. "You survived. You brought back Republic officers for interrogation. I don't blame you for refusing to engage a far superior foe, especially after more powerful men had been cut down in front of your eyes. Take your soldiers and get treatment for whatever injuries they might have acquired. You are dismissed."

"Yes…of course, my lord. Thank you," the lieutenant bowed stiffly, settled his full helm back over his shaved head and deserted from the hangar with haste.

Malak shook his head and turned to face his old friend, now a rival among the Sith. His expression, as always, was unreadable, due to the metal jaw that encased the bottom half of his face. "Samuel. Walk with me," came the command, and the younger man nodded acceptance.

They passed through the blast doors to the interior of the ship and walked nearly half the warship's length before Malak finally spoke. "I called you here just to talk," he declared, and a sinking pit of dread opened up in Samuel's gut. He couldn't imagine very many reasons for a discussion like this, save for suspicions. A part of him groaned in regret at his fear, remembering a time in the past when he had respected the great Jedi Knight Alek too much to doubt his intentions for simple conversations, but those days were long gone. Alek was no more.

"Of course, my Lord," Samuel agreed. "What did you wish to discuss?"

Malak stopped in his loping strides and turned abruptly. "So cold," he observed. "So formal. Are we not friends, Samuel?"

"We are," the younger man rushed to reassure. "I was only paying you the proper respect…"

"Friends are not afraid of their friends, Samuel," Malak interrupted. "Or do you have something in particular to fear? Have we truly become enemies?"

Samuel's jaw clicked shut, and he struggled to find words. But none came. The dread that had been so subtle was clawing up his spine with icy fingers, choking the air from his chest, and he clenched his jaw.

"You look like a startled womprat," Malak suddenly laughed. "That was real terror. Have I become such a beast, Samuel?"

How was he meant to respond to that?

"No, don't answer," Malak sighed, the mechanical sound like a rattle in his reconstructed throat. "I know the agonizing truth of the matter, Samuel. I only wonder, for how long you must have known as well. It only just occurred to me that you never changed your name, while all the rest of us claimed titles and thought the galaxy hinged upon our every action. Our arrogance was astounding, blinding, suffocating. But yours was different. It was quiet."

"Malak?" Samuel breathed. This was not the man that he had come to fear, the one that he was painfully familiar with. The eyes glaring out at him from the shadows of the Dark Lord's face were changed, just as harsh, just as hard, but now tempered with true regret, with a weight beyond words.

"I was such a fool, Samuel. I needed somebody to talk to, somebody that might understand," the Dark Lord continued softly. "I wondered if you were still the young man that I had once known you to be, even after Revan and I dragged you through the grime, through the blood. I wondered if you weren't just a rabid dog like the rest of us. Or perhaps you hadn't forgotten."

"Forgotten what?"

Malak hissed a low, rattling breath that sounded like a death rattle and his shoulders shook in a cold, cynical chuckle. "I would say that we've forgotten the reasons for our war, but that would be understating the horror. We've truly forgotten ourselves, Samuel. I wonder if you've seen it? Haven't you ever looked at somebody that you thought you knew and wondered who they had become? Haven't you ever seen that thing that crawls in the eyes of our fellow Sith and trembled?"

"Malak…I don't know what I'm meant to say…"

"Don't bloody well think about what I expect of you, Samuel!" Malak exploded. "Don't just stand there and quake in fear! I'm not going to choke you, or shock you, or throw you to the ground just for telling me the truth. I want to know who you are."

Samuel winced. "I fear that you will find me lacking," he answered slowly.

"Then so be it," Malak declared. "But I would rather know. I tire of living this…this mockery of the goals I had once held so dear. I didn't realize how tired I was of the endless hatred, of the rage, of the fear."

Samuel couldn't believe his ears, couldn't believe his eyes. Were those tears glittering in the eyes of a Sith? Was that pain that he heard in the voice of the Dark Lord? Was this regret that he read in the body language of the greatest warlord in recent memory, second only to the recently departed dread Lord Revan? "I…have had my doubts about the Sith, Malak. I always found Revan unapproachable after the war in the unknown regions. I have found our fellow Sith harsh and unfeeling, detached, and dangerously prone to extremes."

"I would have called that weakness, yesterday," Malak rumbled. "I would have accused you of treasonous thoughts. If I had not heard much the same doubts from Revan's own lips. If I had not felt the very same regrets, I would have killed you. You. One of my oldest and most loyal friends."

Samuel swallowed thickly. "That is what I mean. The Sith have rejected the Jedi so completely that we've swung too far in the opposite direction, we've succumbed to obsession and impulsiveness and paranoia."

Malak shook his head. "It isn't that simple, Samuel. The Jedi were right to fear the Dark; they are wiser than even they know, with that fear. They might have gotten everything else wrong, but at least they knew enough to be afraid."

"What do you mean?" Samuel breathed. "I thought the Force would set us free. Isn't that what we've been preaching to all the rest for two years?"

Malak almost choked on his laugh. "We never told anyone why we withdrew from the unknown regions, Revan and I. We never told you how far we had fallen. Nobody doubted us, because we were legends. Not even our closest friends ever confronted us in our folly. We couldn't even trust each other after that monster forced us to our knees in that dusty throne room and cast poisonous doubt across our every thought."

Samuel glanced down the corridor at an orderly and another Sith officer. He sighed and pinched his nose. "Shall we find someplace less…conspicuous? It would not be advantageous for the rumor mill to catch wind of any indecision on your part."

"I'm not allowed to be afraid?" Malak exclaimed, spreading his arms. "I am not allowed to doubt? Is that the burden of a Master?"

"The burden of a master is, and always has been, the blind trust of his students," Samuel emphasized.

Malak shrugged. "Then come, I have an interrogation to perform. Perhaps it will clear up some of your understandable confusions."

Samuel found himself in an interrogator's chamber, the very place that he had dreaded minutes prior, but rather than being strapped down to the table himself, he stood passively to the side as Malak scrutinized the Republic officer who was locked down on the harsh metal, thick bands of steel around his wrists and ankles. The man was groggily waking, tossing his head and straining against the restraints, but Malak did not appear too interested in the man himself, but rather the injuries that he had acquired.

"These bruises are older than a few hours," he observed, straightening and gesturing at the soldier. "He must have been beaten by the slavers."

Samuel nodded neutrally. Malak's eyes were sharp as they gazed upon him, and after a moment the Dark Lord chuckled softly. "What do you expect me to do to this man?"

"The Sith have not been known for their kindness," Samuel offered.

Malak nodded as well as he could with his mechanical jaw. "No…but rather for our cruelty. The Dark Side cherishes agony, Samuel. Have you ever wondered why?"

The younger Sith shook his head and spared a glance for the man on the table, who had fallen suspiciously silent and still upon laying eyes upon the Sith standing above him. The interrogation table was angled to give the impression that the subject was standing, even if his feet were not on the ground, but if it were to come to a true interrogation it would be lowered. The posture of the questioner was almost as important as the pain and the questions, for it reinforced the sense of powerlessness.

"The Dark Side is malevolent. It is alive," Malak breathed. "Its desires are sadistic, it is driven by its own hatred. I believe that it is the driving force behind every act of evil, every selfish thought, every ounce of cruelty, but it doesn't create evil. Evil is a choice, Samuel. But once chosen, once given a foothold, the Dark Side will work its utmost to make sure that there is no turning back. It dominates you, like an addiction or, perhaps ironically, like a master itself."

"Why are you telling me this?" Samuel wondered.

Malak tilted his head slightly in question. "It should have been Revan to teach you. He was always the master. I am a poor substitute, but not because I am less powerful, though I am, and not because I am more a fool. Until this moment, I was less than Revan because I never realized how just much of myself I had lost to the Dark Side. I never noticed its cruel manipulations, never saw its perversions gnawing at my mind and the things that I had created. I never felt the tragedy of the Sith Order that we founded on Korriban, never realized just how lost we've become."

"What do we do?" Samuel wondered. "What prompted you to change?"

"And now we come to this," Malak shifted his feet and looked firmly down at the soldier strapped to the table. "Officer, what is your name?"

The Republic soldier stiffened. "I will not tell you anything."

"I do know how the Republic trains its officers. That is not how you are told to respond to interrogation. Soldier! What is your name?"

"Lieutenant Lucas Garcia. Two-Four-Echo Five-Nine-Fox!" the officer snapped. Malak relaxed a bit, and Samuel got the impression that the man would have been grinning if he still had his jaw.

"You know they gave us training back before the Mandalorian Wars," the Dark Lord offered to both men. "Yes, they didn't think that Revan was qualified to lead soldiers, no matter the years of training that we had both received in the Jedi Temple. We suffered through what you call Basic, but for special forces. Revan was much better at resisting interrogation than I was, much better. That was why I was the one that broke, and not he."

No one said anything, feeling a subtle, rising tension in the Dark Lord's words. They were not disappointed.

Malak leaned closer to Lieutenant Garcia. "The Mandalorians could not break him. They tried, for two weeks, on Dxun when he was captured assisting in the withdrawal of the Republic's thirty-second infantry battalion. When we found him, he was nothing but scars and bones, incapable of walking, or even sitting up under his own power. But I know that he didn't tell them anything, not even his own name, although they knew that already. His reputation had preceded him.

Revan did not break when the Sith defeated us beyond the Outer Rim, when our fleet was shattered in orbit above Dromund Kaas, when he and I were forced to our knees before the throne of the Emperor. He did not falter when they burned him in the Force, tore his mind apart, and twisted the both of us into beasts. They wanted him to destroy the Republic when they were finished, and he had agreed. But the moment they were gone, he started making plans to save you.

So why did you think, fool, that the Republic would succeed where the Mandalorians and the Sith had failed? Why did you think that the Jedi, kindhearted fools, would be better at breaking and twisting his mind than the Sith?"

"What are you talking about?" the Republic soldier spat. "Revan is dead."

"No," Malak declared. "Tell me about the one that saved Bastila at the races, Lieutenant. He was assigned to the Endar Spire by the Jedi, wasn't he?"

The officer tightened his jaw. "That was a mercenary."

"Ah," Malak shrugged. "I see that your loyalty does not extend beyond your own men. Well, what was his name?"

"Asan Dumat," came the reply. "He's special forces. Absolutely lethal."

"That much he is," Malak agreed. "But you're wrong about the name. You see, my own soldiers recognized that man when they went down to take Bastila. Two of my oldest Sith were killed in a duel against that mercenary. You see, Lieutenant, the mercenary Asan Dumat is Revan."

Samuel stared at the Dark Lord in total shock, and the Republic officer didn't respond. His head fell back against the metal table and Malak crossed his arms over his chest, a heat growing in his eyes.

"Do you see it now?" he asked them both. "The Jedi captured Revan after I fired upon his flagship, they took him home, to Dantooine. Like complete fools, they thought that they could just turn back time, make him the Jedi that he had once been, and use him against his own army, his own Order, his own brother. But Revan would not give up as easily as that, even after I had betrayed him. I spoke to him, in a dream. The bond between a master and his apprentice is strong. It does not break, but merely weakens."

"He is alive?" Samuel breathed, a kind of heat in his chest and gut. It was joy, unbridled enthusiasm. And Hope. "Lord Revan lives."

"You're lying," the Republic officer declared, the opposite effect stirring in him. There was abject horror in his features. "It is not possible."

Malak ignored him and looked to Samuel. "You were his second disciple. You knew him better than anyone else among the Sith, second only to me. But I cannot leave, I have a role to play in the Order and the Empire. You must go. That was why I called you here. Revan needs you. He needs someone that remembers end to remind him of who he is."

"Of course, I will do it," Samuel agreed immediately. "How shall I find him?"

"When the battle begins in the Lower City, you must pretend to desert our forces. Swear your loyalty to Revan, and do whatever you must to prove it. Do not concern yourself for the lives of the Sith, twisted beasts that they are. But have mercy for our soldiers and officers, Samuel. They have been the backbone of this empire since the beginning, and they are the ones that deserve our respect," Malak intoned quietly. "Gain Revan's trust. Do what you can to help him. The Jedi will seek to poison him, they will sow seeds of doubt in him, but you can remind him of his own teachings. And, I am sure, Revan will have things to teach you in return. He was always a better Master than I was, even now when he is at his worst."

"When do I leave?"

"The next landing begins in twelve hours," Malak said, gesturing to the door. "I would go and prepare yourself. I have some more questions for our Lieutenant."