A quick note, this is a post-Star Forge fan fiction primarily concerning a male dark side Revan, Bastila, Belaya, and Master Dorak. Oh and all that this-belongs-to-George-Lucas-and-Bioware stuff.
Rated R for homosexual content and brief sexuality.
Frontiers in Distortion
by mynameisjulian
Part 1
Chapter 1: An Exercise in Wisdom
As the cluster of stars signifying the Core appeared to intertwine and knot into a brilliant orb of light, so did Dak's stomach. Yet the Returned Lord had no real feelings about what he was about to do. Instead, he had a justification.
"It's done then," Bastila murmured from somewhere behind him. He knew she was there, could Feel her presence, but didn't acknowledge her, couldn't acknowledge her, until he had made up his mind.
Anxiously hovering above Malak's body, he knew she was wrong; Malak was dead, but until he, Lord Revan, was completely alive with dark power, it wasn't over. The woman at his side was the only thing keeping him from his destiny.
"Bastila, it's time for you to leave," he said and smiled tightly.
"And go where, My Lord?" she asked in subservience, but her standoffish hand-on-hip stance told him that she wished to remain and bask in Malak's defeat.
Her now adulterated blue eyes followed his hand to a near black patch in the sky. As if by fate, Admiral Dadonna's flagship's implosion illuminated the memory of the planet he would send her to. "To Roon."
"What? The Outer Rim!" An offended hand rose to grab Revan's shoulder.
Stepping aside in time, he replied, "Don't ask, just go."
"I thought… I mean, my place is here by you. 'Together' you promised we'd crush the Republic."
"And you said that you'd be utterly mine. Your ship is waiting in the docking bay." That was the first moment he truly hated the bond, hated the words he'd spoke because of their love. "And as I promised, you will be fulfilling your part in my plan," he continued, finally turning to look at her, for the last time, he hoped. Yet simultaneously the ghost of Dak Gaillies, Republic soldier, tugged at something in him. Dak needed to convey to her that he had no intention of hurting her.
"But it's been months since we've been together," came her whisper. He felt her trying to control him through desire, and wanted to hate her for it. And there was nothing, not even the Force, that could stop her lips moving toward his, "so…before I leave."
Revan Returned reminded himself, she's beautiful, but she can't mean a thing to me, doesn't mean a thing to me. "You have my orders."
Revan force-pulled the cowardly Sith commander crouched behind the Command Center's main computer terminal toward him.
He stammered up and bowed before him, "My Lord."
"When the station is fully secured, find Canderous and bring him to me."
"Yes, My Lord," he said brashly.
Irritated, Revan gave his trachea a long squeeze before letting go of the force grip on his lungs. "You've not heard your full orders… Gather what Dark Jedi you find alive, and tomorrow morning, announce that they will fight for my apprenticeship."
He gave a humiliated bow and exited the now soothingly vacant room.
Revan walked back to the Command Deck and leaned down to touch Malak's horribly charred body. He saw that without the ability to re-join the Force Malak would forever feel the shock of his Force Lightning.
"Friend, you'll be the last one to disobey me."
Chapter 2: The Crossing
With a barely noticeable nod, Revan instructed Vykar, one of the many fledgling Sith Officers now gathering in his quarters to retrieve the plasteel cylinder marked for Canderous Ordo.
Seeing his name etched in Basic, Canderous the Mandalorian thought to himself, Canderous of Ordo. But he had already moved past incorrect cultural translations while living within hearing and shooting range of countless Tarisian degenerates. These people have long abandoned Tribal surnames. Their names no longer have meaning, and now neither does mine.
Revan handed him a communicator, saying, "Your personal link to me for your trip."
Canderous gave his friend a satisfied grin, the skin around his grey eyes collapsing into crow's feet. It was a smile full of the hope that Revan would send him to gather his clan under a new Sith banner.
Revan extended another item, a datapad, to the Mandalorian. "Your mission, the launch codes to your personal Light Pinnace, your flight plan." Revan turned to his young entourage announcing he would return. "Walk with me, Canderous."
Canderous thumbed through the mission itinerary. Although the contents left him nonplused, only his eagerness to follow Revan for an explanation showed it. "My main request is that Bastila, my former apprentice, is not harmed."
"You know Bastila and I have never been civil toward each other, so I can't say I'm disappointed. But why send her away? I was under the impression that she was your right hand."
He saw the question coming before his friend's lips unlocked. Asking it was necessary; answering it was imperious for both of them… Or perhaps all three of them: Canderous, the Dark Lord, and most importantly to subdue his alter-ego Dak Gaillies. Like an imaginary friend, the false memories and persona of Dak retreated into the labyrinth of his mind, never again to find its way out.
"I saw the flaw in keeping a lover as my apprentice. My first mistake was taking a friend as my apprentice. This Revan isn't an inquisitive or angry young man… or a passionless Jedi," he added. "This Revan rules with an iron fist and a velvet glove. The citizens of the conquered Republic will be won over with my charm, but the Dark Jedi close to me will fear my power. I aim for full control of everyone underneath me."
While he wasn't sure if his biting words were filled with new wisdom or flawed logic, Canderous didn't flinch, and kept up with the Dark Lord's sturdy gait. When they reached the Observation Deck, Revan removed the hood from his robes and turned his jaundiced eyes to meet his. In their six month journey, his friend's appearance hadn't altered. Until the Leviathan. After Bastila was taken, Revan's passionate fight to find her had drained him of the will to even shave the once neatly kept patch of hair underneath his lip. His eyes soon discolored from lack of sleep. Canderous assumed it was from the need to save Bastila. Yet all the anger that ballooned inside him during the struggle was gone now. He hadn't noticed until this moment that it was replaced with something more sinister, a subversive psychopathy. He understood the need to be rid of Bastila.
"To Roon then. And perhaps on my way back, I'll stop by my homeworld."
Revan received the latter statement with a questioning glare. He was too exhausted to use the Force to extract his answers.
"I was hoping to round up my clan, so that they can swear allegiance to you. It's never a bad thing to have Mandalorians on your side."
"I know. I fought you people. In two lifetimes. I have no wish to fight you Canderous. Make sure Bastila arrives safely on Roon. Bring a few of the best and most loyal officers, troopers, and Jedi to accompany you. Complete this successfully, and you may summon your clan." He paused for a few seconds before making himself absolutely clear, "Again, Bastila isn't to be harmed. I'll know she's gone. We're still bonded."
"You're not getting soft on me, are you?"
"Not on you, no," he vaulted his hood back up to cover his thinning hair. "It's time to get ready, I imagine."
Bastila heard the metallic clink of a blaster against someone's belt. The little brups changs and shinksof equipment were the only audiblenoises in the conversationless air as the party neared their destination.
Canderous' enormous boots drew Bastila's focus as he marched ahead of her, leading the group. Centering on one object helped her concentrate on little disturbances in the Force. When the boots suddenly came to a halt followed by a grunt, Bastila motioned for the others to stop as well.
"Tell me, do you Feel anything?" he asked.
"Not anywhere near," she replied. "But if I stop and meditate, I can See farther."
"Well why don't you help out and do that then," he said matter-of-factly.
"I'll help. Even though I find you extremely annoying," Bastila stated clearly so that the other party members, including the two Dark Jedi, could hear.
Canderous treated her with one of his disimpassioned grins. It was a gesture meant to provoke her. She knew that, so she chose to ignore it.
She launched her gear off her back and began channeling the Force in search of life forms. She was sure Revan would disapprove of the little rendezvous with trade pirates Canderous had planned in spite of the urgency of their mission. But everything about the operation, the pit stop, and her companions, distressed her; she had, however, lost much of her intuitional Force powers since joining the Sith. She hadn't even Sensed Revan's sudden distance. Although she surmised being more adept at Force Attacks and Defense was worth the trade.
As they advanced, Bastila felt resentment at being charged with what seemed like a Padawan's mission. Being treated like an inferior instead of recognized for her power was the primary reason she left the Order. And Canderous called you a Jedi Princess. How absurd, she mused. Lost in her animosity toward both Revan and his Mandalorian lapdog, Bastila was the first to notice that the ground ahead had suddenly given birth to a perfectly linear streak of white light.
"The Umboo Lightstation…" she said. Bastila never would have imagined it was underground, but with all the thieving moles on this planet, she saw the need to keep everything out of sight.
One of the Sith Officers motioned for the company of troopers to disperse into attack formation. "When we take control of the surveillance, we should be able to track any communications about unusual visitors wielding lightsabers," Officer Qarenad informed Canderous. Yet from his battle-ready-stance, it was obvious the Mandalorian predicted more resistance than the officer. "Aleorid, test the ground for an entrance," he called to a short but confident Twi'lek male trooper. His friend, a brutish blonde with a crook nose helped him unpack the geometric scanner from her backpack.
Bastila was, as always, a millisecond's reach from her double-bladed saber. When the red lights on the scanner indicated unnatural terrain, Aleroid began to dig, uncovering an elevator hatch within minutes.
"Who's volunteering for lookout?" The Mandalorian spat the question. His harsh tone and war-weathered attitude usually had an affect on the soldiers.
When none of the troops took the initiative to step forward, Qarenad priggishly volunteered Aleroid again.
"I don't blame you," Canderous muttered, "I'm guessing lookout will be the first easy hit when and if they call for reinforcements. Hey sister, why don't you stay here with him." The female trooper followed orders and stepped aside. Bastila realized the two troopers were lovers. That she realized it after Canderous bothered her. The privates and lesser officers took the elevator down into the control center before her, Canderous, and the Dark Jedi.
The lightstation appeared completely abandoned. While the vacancy seemed to unsettle the crew, it alarmed Bastila for another reason… A steady undercurrent of the Force told her that if anything, she should be running from her company, not from armed trade lords. As the current of feeling towed at its hardest, she heard the door behind her being shut and sealed, the control panel blasted.
She wondered if Canderous really thought that a blast door would stop her… Then she realized he might have planted explosives. With accuracy set off by Anger, she drew her lightsaber and stabbed it into the first sheet of metal. But the bronzium door held proudly. And even as her saber continued to melt it into molten liquid, she began to realize that her escape would not be expeditious. The red blade of her weapon and the flushed anger in her cheeks were the only illumination in the room as she continued to work at opening the door.
Chapter 3: Saving Bastila
The room was rank with fungus and disuse. Oxidation stains created by multiple leaks in the ceiling stretched from the walls down to portions of the computer terminal. Bastila could only hope that the sound frequency monitor was operational. Listening and waiting for the next caravan of smugglers seemed to be her only means of escape. By the time she had cut through the blast door with her lightsaber, Canderous and the others were gone, leaving her stranded.
Damn you Canderous! She thought.
Some part of her knew that this was Revan's doing. Revan. Her Dark Lord. Her only love. It felt like there was nothing inside of her that wasn't putrid, toxic, resentful. And as if she were force-fed fish mixed with shattered glass, her stomach began to churn and bleed. But the vomit on the floor and the subsequent bowel-stink were the only material evidence of what was happening to her. She kneeled down, oblivious to the puke on the floor, as if ignoring it would make her less ashamed of the way her body, of all things, had reacted.
There must be another explanation, she thought. If Revan were displeased with me, he would rather kill me. Although their Force and love bond was not what it once was, she was confident that she was still in control of her destiny, and her destiny was with him. But if the plot to leave me in the Outer Rim were Canderous' invention, he of all people certainly couldn't risk leaving me alive, she reasoned. And he has no real motive, no ambition to become his apprentice. She didn't want to think about it; not even the feeling-free zone of the dark side could save her from the emotional limbo Revan had thrown her into.
So instead of letting herself feel hurt or vulnerable, she came to Anger. It wasn't the fleeting anger she felt when becoming defensive, but a festering anger… a resentful anger whose catalyst and main ingredient was guilt. She recognized this formula: she felt it when she was a young girl and had tried to contact her father, she'd felt it at the very mention of her mother, and she'd felt it after the guilt of being overly harsh on her had worn-off. Her instinct for dealing with her anger now was the same as in the past – to block out the feelings and concentrate on linear tasks.
Bastila pulled down on the manual-control lever effectually shutting down the systems autonomous programming. Using her Force Sight, she traced for signs of fingerprints used to key in the password for the terminal.
Learning to use the console didn't come naturally, but after thirty minutes of trial and error, she learned how to intercept communications signals. The first few were coming from too far away to be useful, and just when she felt herself nodding off, the location tracker flashed red. She opened the link.
A dumbfounded Bastila paused… the communication was being relayed by Belaya, and even more coincidentally, she was hailing Master Dorak…. She knew she didn't have time to think, and quickly responded to the message, luring her old Jedi acquaintance to the lightstation. Then she would have enough time to ponder her strategy… should she befriend her or kill her? She wondered.
Strangely, Belaya was the one person Bastila never thought of. She was the one person that she and Revan had dealt-with along their journey that hadn't kept her up at night wondering if he had handled in an appropriate way… wondering if even she had handled appropriately.
Bastila could see Belaya's face when she found out her old academy-mate had gone to the other side. She imagined her hazel eyes glaring at her in disapproval. The same tired look her mother would give her as a child when she spilled on the carpet or when she purposefully decorated her clean clothes with glower algae from the nearby sea.
The ruby power signal on the console flashed intermittently, awakening Bastila from her fear of Belaya's reaction, and the woman herself. She was a Jedi. She was weak. But perhaps, she rationalized, Belaya didn't know of her turn. She remembered Revan's, response to her when she confronted him at the temple. He had recognized her, even before she had revealed herself from the shadow of the archway, but he hadn't seen the dark seed's full flowering; the sinful germ she came to believe was placed in her heart not by Revan himself, but by the Will of the Force in exchange for saving the life of the Dark Lord. But succumbing to the Will of the Force was the root of her problems as a Jedi; and now, now she could bend the Force that she once worshiped instead of her own power. There was no reason Belaya couldn't be bent in the same way.
On Roon, the general rule was that for every twelve hours of unendurable heat and humidity, a three hour tropical rain would follow. The native Mudmen linked the recent overwhelming force of the showers to the near destruction of their natural habitat. If that were the case, Belaya supposed, then more swampland on the darker side of the planet was being cleared for safer smuggling roads. Every part of her felt the stickiness in the air, and the permanent overcast seemed more full of perspiration than her foreign guide on the first day she had arrived.
Belaya messaged Dorak, "It's about that time of day. We should get inside." She assumed he was off somewhere archiving some local flora. "Meet me back at the Floater. And hurry. I'm dying to get out of here anyway."
"Bel-Belaya…" Dorak's voice sounded unsure, unusual. "I need you to bring the Floater down to Umboo Station. I think I got tangled up in something poisonous." The Sense that something was amiss, that Dorak was not Dorak, amplified when she heard his inflection on the word something. Dorak, she believed, was the most indecisive grouch of all the Council Members – but the buoyant emphasis on something was the old Master. Ever since the destruction on Dantooine, the Master's voice had dimmed to a whisper. Drawing inward for meditation during crisis was the Jedi way… And although she believed in it, she was starting to realize that it wasn't her way. It was still possible, she admitted, that a force user was imitating Dorak's voice. It was also possible that his spirits had lifted enough so that he could resume his once peaceful grumpiness.
Belaya willed herself through the Force to investigate. If there was something wrong, at least her foresight gave her even ground with her opponent. She hoped.
The trade guilds were experimenting with operating the lightstation through artificial intelligence now; but Belaya wouldn't be surprised if it had been repopulated by pirates.
A few meters away from the lightstation, she heard someone speak her name. Then again.
"Belaya. It's been a long time," came a familiar voice. It was Bastila, her Talravin accent unmistakable.
She scanned the woman head to toe, simultaneously giving her a nod. "It's good to see you alive, although I have to admit you don't look so well. How did you get here?"
Inwardly Bastila laughed at the force of Belaya's denial. "Well, after the battle for the Star Forge… and our… defeat, I crash landed here. Have you been able to reach anyone on Coruscant?"
"No, the Sith Cloak is making it damn near impossible to contact anyone on the other side of the planet, let alone anywhere remotely near the Core."
"I see. Could you help me get to the city?"
"Sure, we've got shelter too. I just need to find Master Dorak. He's somewhere around this lightstation."
"I intercepted a transmission from him just before you arrived. He's wandered a kilometer or so South of here." Bastila's face remained entirely stoic, even though she knew she might have given away incriminating evidence.
"You pretended to be Dorak on the communicator," she stated.
"I needed your attention."
Belaya was relieved Bastila was alive, but also irritated that she had unnecessarily tricked her. Belaya grabbed her arm and lifted her to the floater anyway.
After an uncomfortable silence, she finally ventured to ask what she had been dreading to ask since she first saw Bastila. "Did Juhani survive?"
