There were more dark Jedi on the bridge. I sensed them only as we neared the door, their power concealed by the twisted warping of the ship itself.

Whatever had forged Leviathan had done so with rigid control, pounding Force into shape and binding it there, just as it had forged the durasteel.

And the Force did not like being bound into the shape of steel. It still screamed to me, called out, pleaded, mocked and taunted, lived and died. The ship was anything and everything, all life's thoughts and desires and hopes and fears, dominated and enslaved somehow within the metal of its walls and floors and hull.

Leviathan was a living abomination, yet unless I concentrated the cacophony was so faint as to be almost indistinct. Only when trying to reach out, to sense through the walls to others beyond, did the chaos threaten to overwhelm me, draw my mind into its tortured endless depths and never release me.

I ignited my lightsabers, red and purple flaring to life. Juhani activated her own, the blue light harmonizing.

Bastila's yellow felt so sharply absent then. Red, blue, purple. . . and nothing else. No golden glow shining alongside us.

Juhani and me, with Canderous as backup. This was our grand assualt? We were doomed, but there was no way back and no other way forward.

Fight, once more.

"Be careful not to destroy the control console," I whispered. "We have to deactivate the tractor beam first."

Juhani nodded. Canderous gave a grunt of assent.

I took a step forward, activated the door control. It slid open smoothly, with hardly a sound.

Three dark Jedi waited for us, already interlinked with Force woven between them, crimson blades glowing in readiness. A master and his two apprentices, if I had to guess.

Kareth stood by the controls at the far end of the bridge, speaking into his com. He didn't seem bothered in the least by our intrusion, didn't even glance up at us.

Troopers stood about at their guard posts and they responded the fastest, opening fire on us almost as soon as we were visible through the opening.

Juhani and I wove between the bolts, deflecting them away from Canderous as he took aim from behind us. The deep rapid fire of his repeater joined the higher sounds of the troopers' weapons, and woven smoothly through it all was the thrum and sizzle of lightsabers in motion.

The dark Jedi moved to attack, hoping to distract us before their support soldiers were taken down, but Canderous was an exceptionally good shot.

Weakness and pain temporarily retreated as I drew deeply upon the Force. Weak and distant though it seemed - here in space so far from any planet's life, echoing trapped within this ship that screamed its own despair - it was enough.

Though I felt that I moved sluggishly and unsteadily, everything around me flowed slower as well as the Force sped my actions well beyond usual limits. I turned, blocked the lightsaber of one dark apprentice, pushed back with a kinetic blast, spun away to catch the crackle of incoming lightning against my offhand saber. Juhani moved well, but more slowly, and we were not in sync. She stayed on one side of the room, I on the other, so we didn't trip each other up.

I missed Bastila more than ever. Missed her standing beside me, missed her fighting style. We complemented each other so well.

I forced my sorrow to shift, twisted my thoughts of absence into instead imagining what Malak would do to her once he arrived, and the pain retreated behind a wall of undiluted fury. Every spark of Force I held instantly liquefied into pure lightning and burst out from me in an expanding sphere.

Every enemy in the room was thrown back, crushed against whatever walls or windows or support pillars lay behind them. The storm circled around me, around the bridge, crackling from one target to the next so quickly it almost seemed a solid beam of lightning that connected them all. The crackling hiss of electicity drowned out all other sounds, echoing to fill the bridge.

I didn't notice I was screaming until the fury abated, the troopers and dark Jedi falling to the floor. The dark master had survived, easily absorbing the worst of my electric attack and enduring the kinetic force that accompanied it. Kareth had survived, but only by virtue of being the farthest from me, shielded by distance. He had been blasted back, lay on the ground twitching, but was quite obviously alive.

The others had not boded so well, and I was impressed despite myself. This was the second time in recent hours I'd been able to do something unexpectedly powerful, but it gave me an uneasy feeling as well. Something about the ship seemed to amplify my aggressive powers even as it felt like a damper on the Force entirely.

It was unnatural, wrong. Not something to be relied upon.

But I didn't have to rely on something to use it. I reached with the Force and grabbed Kareth by the throat, lifted him into the air from where I stood near the door. I didn't choke his breath completely, left him able to struggle and gasp and convulse and get just enough air to survive. My power may be weakened, but the sight of him kept my fury hot and my rage unbounded.

"Check the console," Canderous ordered, and Juhani rushed toward it.

"It's still active," she said, tapping in orders on the holographic interface. "Shields are down. . . tractor beams offline. . . and weapons disabled."

She locked the console, then smashed it with her lightsaber.

"They'll rush to fix the backups," she reported. "We should hurry."

"The bridge corridor has an elevator straight to the hangar level," Canderous said.

Kareth gasped and struggled feebly, thrashing in panic and rage of his own. I held him, vindictive pleasure so strong I was sure it would never fade. I could do this for days, and know he deserved every second of it.

"Revan, come on!" Juhani called. She and Canderous stood right by the door, ready to leave.

I didn't care. This man was responsible for everything that had happened, every hurt I'd taken, every moment of my own suffering.

He was the one who took Bastila from me, who showed her his dark path of pain and possibility.

He would not die until I was satisfied!

"Revan, we don't have much time, Malak's shuttle could be docking any moment! He was transmitting docking coordinates when we arrived. There's no time for this!"

"Go," I said, unable to keep the sharpness from my tone. I was nothing but focused vengeance. Escape was the last thing on my mind.

COME WITH ME!

Juhani's voice sounded in my mind, so loudly and unexpectedly that it broke my single-minded focus. I turned, surprised and pleased at this evidence of our connection strengthening. Kareth crumpled to the floor behind me, gasping for air.

I smiled at Juhani, though fury still held my heart. "Thank you," I whispered, then turned and seized Kareth around the chest with the Force, dragging him after me like a tethered beast. "I'll finish this when we're safely away," I promised, smiling darkly at the man who personified everything I despised in the galaxy. "Or, at least, continue."

Then we ran, Juhani and Canderous and I, my captive bouncing and thumping behind us. It wasn't a gentle way to travel, but I considered it only a kindness that he wasn't being deliberately thrown about even more violently.

He deserved far worse. Deserved everything I could imagine and more. And he would not escape his just punishment. I would keep him as long as Malak held Bastila, and whatever my former apprentice did to her, I would mirror a hundred fold on Kareth until I was strong enough to reclaim what was mine and destroy any who stood in my way.

Every moment of every day, he would regret what he had done and who he had become in order to do it, for I would see to it that he understood exactly what it felt like to be the one on the receiving end of endless torment.

Alas that he had no one dear to him that I could tear away from him, no one he cared about that I could break in front of him. No one I could slowly make worship me, until they hated him as much as I did.

Lightning crackled around me, sure and strong. My powerfully focused intent was sufficient to fuel my customary power, even though I was physically exhausted beyond all endurance, my soul's strength lost, my heart broken.

This one thread kept me together, held my fragile pieces in one harsh unbending core.

Vengeance would be mine.

We fled, following instructions T3 relayed to Canderous, hurrying down halls and turning corners, breaking through rooms when the halls were too long, cutting through walls when the rooms wouldn't suffice.

We ran, and I knew with each step that it wouldn't be enough. We weren't fast enough, weren't strong enough, didn't have enough time. I'd lost too much time in fighting to reach Bastila, lost too much when I lost her.

Malak was coming, I knew it, could feel it in my heart even if I couldn't yet sense him through the Force; the strange warping effect of the ship around us made it impossible to detect anyone more than a few rooms away with any clarity. The force wasn't weakened or lost, but it was warped and changed —yet not truly changed.

I couldn't comprehend exactly what it was about Leviathan that was so unsettling, but it was hardly the prime concern at the moment. I kept unconsciously reaching out to check on Bastila, and to search for Malak, only to mentally snag on the ship itself. Its strange dampening abilities, its unsettling non-life within the Force even as it felt so alive, it was wrongness on a level I found simultaneously disturbing and mesmerizing.

I raced ahead, sometimes, fell behind at others. I kept Kareth close, pulled him after me; sometimes dragged along the floor, sometimes held aloft if I thought of him at all. He was a thing to be carried, mentally relegated to luggage —and in his now-unconscious state it wasn't far from the truth. But still, I subconsciously tracked his injuries, shielding him from the worst impacts with the Force. I wouldn't be able to satisfactorily exact revenge on a man already dead, after all.

Something burned within me every time I thought of that, a gold-bright fire that raged in eagerness and anticipation, urging me onward. And I was so lost in grief and loss that it provided the sole focus to my existence.

I didn't even notice myself slipping farther and farther into that fire, allowing it to consume even my loss. Reasons no longer mattered, principles no longer applied. I was a creature of freedom and vengeance.

I stopped even trying to follow corridors, burning through walls with my lightsabers and ignoring my allies' attempts to guide me. It surprised me when I emerged into the open area beside the elevator to find they'd already reached it and were waiting there for me.

Juhani watched me with concern, Canderous maintained his soldier's air of readiness.

We descended to the hangar level with unbroken silence wrapped around us. Canderous again took the lead, and this time I followed. My flame wasn't quenched, but it had subsided enough for me to understand that it took longer to melt through walls than to walk through corridors. Not quite enough for me to realize my loss of purpose.

Then we turned a corner, and I felt Malak's presence slam into my mind with the force of a blow.

I staggered, stumbled. Juhani turned to me, obviously worried.

"Malak," I gasped, the weight of his proximity muting my vengeful fire and leaving me unsteady and unfocused. I hated my weakness, hated that I had to deal with this now when I had so little strength, hated that I could be so pathetic that even in this state Malak would easily overwhelm me.

I should have been better than this.

I dropped Kareth in the hallway — he would only be a distraction — and unsteadily walked toward the door separating the hangars from the maintenance and storage areas through which we'd been traveling.

Malak's strength had always been the perfect complement to mine. He could resist Force powers and was an artisan with a lightsaber, while I was the one who could attack and manipulate with the Force. Not that he wasn't completely adept with Force powers, but my strength had always far surpassed his own. We were evenly matched; his superior defences against my superior attack, my adequate defences against his adequate attacks.

Which meant that with myself weak and exhausted, he would have a clear and unmistakable advantage.

I probably should have run, but I couldn't think of anywhere to go. The path behind us was empty, straight. If we could get far enough away, the natural resonance of the ship should let us evade notice even through the Force, but we had no time to think and plan. If we ran right then, without thought or preparation, we may have escaped. Or we may have been cornered, trapped, and imprisoned once more, this time without ending.

I had to face him.

"There are side doors," I whispered. "Other airlocks through this area. Go around us, get to the ship. If I'm not there in fifteen minutes, or if it looks like you've been discovered, go."

"I will not leave you," Juhani insisted. "We already lost Bastila, I won't lose you too."

I pulled the unconscious Kareth closer. "Canderous, can you lock him up securely? If I reach you, I'll want to interrogate him. If not, you can do as you please with him. But I suspect I won't have time to bring him myself."

Malak was drawing nearer still, passing through the layers of airlock one by one

Canderous hoisted the unconscious man over his shoulder, nodded, and we split up. Juhani to the left, Canderous to the right, and myself straight on toward Malak.