Title: Destiny's New Path
Summary: A what if. What if it wasn't Revan on the Bridge when Malak fired on his Master's ship? Suddenly the Apprentice is betrayed by the Master, and Revan then infiltrates the ranks of the Jedi. The Dark Lords mission: turn Bastila to the Dark Side of the Force.
Disclaimer: George Lucas and Bioware own the basis of this FanFic. I am merely entertaining the idea that I am good at making Star Wars stories (stupid ideas).
Author's Note: Okay, the idea I had for this chapter (which I got after reading one of my favourite books) made it necessary to write from different characters, especially since I wanted to write in the first person again. So this chapter will come from both Bastila and Kayle.
Chapter 17: Choices Made
Bastila
I ignited my turquoise lightsaber, spinning it in a wide arc to deflect a volley of blaster fire coming from the dozen Sith Soldiers that had managed to board the Ebon Hawk without being shot down by Carth's blasters bolts.
Now Carth was unconscious, and Kayle and I were being pushed back further and further.
Allow me to elaborate your obvious confusion. At that moment we were stuck in the hangar bay of a Sith Interdictor Ship, having been pulled in by their tractor beam on our way to Korriban. And we were fighting a losing battle to try and give the rest of the crew a chance to hide or escape. Everyone had their own unique plan, revolving around whatever unique gift they possessed.
"Ha!" I raised my hand and fired a pulse of Force power down the corridor, knocking the front row of Sith Soldiers down. Kayle and I took advantage of the momentary recovery to push forward a little. It didn't last long, and we were soon backing down the corridors again.
Kayle was spinning his emerald-green lightsaber 'round and 'round in his hands, making it almost look like a disc instead of a single blade.
I turned, sensing a rush of the Force. Too late, I saw the giant blue rings sail across the room. The moment they touched me I was thrown into unconsciousness.
I opened my eyes slowly, a vision ending as I did. A vision I'd seen every time I closed my eyes to sleep, and a vision that ended only when I woke. I sighed, and sat up, groaning as I felt the after-effects of a stun ray. The human body just was not designed to have energy pulsed through it, and my body was pointing that out all-too-clearly.
"Bastila?" I looked over to my left and saw Kayle. Only then did I realize that we were in two separate Force cages. I looked over to my right and saw Carth, groggily getting to his feet.
"What happened?" He asked.
"You were stunned." I answered. "As were we."
"What's that noise?" Carth asked. I listened carefully and realized I could her the sound of blaster fire.
"That would be total and complete chaos being created outside our cell." Kayle answered. "More likely then not by a certain blue Twi'lek."
Carth chuckled despite the situation we were in. I chuckled as well, and reached out through the Force for Mission. She still had a lot to learn, but at least she showed no signs of falling to the Dark Side. In fact, she was drawing heavily on the light side.
"She will make a fine Consular one day." I thought out-loud. Kayle looked over, and I shook my head. "Nevermind." I said.
He nodded, and at that moment, the cell door burst open, revealing a cranky old man, an exited Twi'lek and one ticked-off wookie.
"Oh, good, we found you." Mission said. She walked over to the control panel and shut down the power to the Force cages.
"How long has it been?" I asked, getting to my feet. I suddenly realized I had been stripped down to my under garments, and upon looking around saw that Kayle and Carth had as well.
"About twelve hours." Jolee said. "We spent the first six hours regrouping, then we spent the next three hours trying to find the detention block. We only just broke through the blast door."
I nodded. "Very well." I turned to Mission. "Can you upload the layout of the ship from that console?" I asked. Mission nodded.
"No problem." She said, tapping a few buttons. "There, no problem at all." She said. Kayle, Carth and I all walked over and examined the map.
"They'll have the hangar bay door sealed." Carth said. "And in most ships this size, the hangar bay can only be accessed from the Bridge."
"Wonderful." Kayle said sarcastically.
"Which means we'll have to get to the Bridge in order to escape." I said. Carth nodded.
"Okay, we need a plan." Kayle said.
"Surprise and secrecy will serve us best." I said. "A small group might have a better chance of sneaking onto the Bridge undetected while the others make their way down to the Ebon Hawk."
"May I suggest that the team consist of Jedi?" Juhani said. "This is, after all, Revan's ship, and is likely to be crawling with Dark Jedi." Kayle nodded.
"You're right." He said. "Okay, Bastila, Juhani, you come with me." He turned to Canderous and Carth. "I'm counting on you two to get the rest of the crew to the Ebon Hawk and prepping her for take off. We'll signal you when we deactivate the lock on the bay doors."
Canderous and Carth both nodded.
"Good. Get to the equipment room, grab what you need, and get going." Kayle said. They nodded again, and turned and led their team into the equipment room. After they left, Kayle led Juhani and I in.
Kayle and I both grabbed our lightsabers and our robes, and quickly got dressed. I also grabbed a datapad I'd recorded earlier that day, not long before we had left Manaan. I turned to look at Kayle.
"Kayle…" I took a step toward him, and handed him the datapad. "Don't activate here." I said. "Wait til we are back on the Ebon Hawk."
"Why not give it to me then?" He asked.
"Because, I almost forgot it once." I said. "I don't want to forget it again."
Kayle nodded, accepting my story, andslipped the datapad into a pocket of his robes. "Okay, let's go." He said. He led us down a different corridor then the one the others went down, and we got the elevator within five minutes.
And in my heart, I knew that the time of lies was coming to a close.
Kayle
I ignited my lightsaber as the elevator opened, as did Bastila and Juhani. Lucky we did, too, because as soon as the door was opened about a half a dozen Dark Jedi poured into the elevator.
With a flick of her hand, Bastila sent all of them flying back out. We then exited the elevator and began the unpleasant task of killing them all. It was not easy, and it took far too long considering we had no idea if Revan actually was on the ship or not.
Finally, all the Dark Jedi were dead. We were about to continue down the corridor in the direction we hoped would lead us to the Bridge, when Bastila suddenly clutched her chest.
"Revan…he knows we're here." She gasped. "And I think he's on the ship somewhere." She fell to her knees, her lightsaber clattering the floor. Juhani and I were by her side in an instant. "I think…I think he's trying to find sense us." Her eyes widened. "What if he sense's Jolee and Mission? We would barely stand a chance against Revan together. Those two on their own would be like a Gamorrean against a Rancor."
I thought on what she had said, and an idea came to me. "Then we won't let him sense them." I said. "Bastila, I need you to open yourself up to the Force as much as you can, make sure Revan knows which group he's going for."
Bastila nodded, and I gave her my hand, helping her back to her feet. I sensed her open up to the Force and the Living Force. My eyes widened as I sensed and almost saw more and more power gathering around her.
I gaped at the amount of power. "Well, Revan would have to be completely blind to the Force not to sense that." I said.
Bastila smiled, and we continued our way through the corridors. After two more incidents with Dark Jedi, and one Dark Jedi Master, we finally got to the door between us and the Bridge.
"It's locked!" Bastila exclaimed. I typed ina few codes I'd gotten when Mission had hacked into the system. Bastila was right, the blast door was completely sealed off from this side.
I sighed in frustration. "Okay, through the airlock then." I said. "And be on your guard. We don't want another Dark Jedi Master sneaking up on us."
Bastila and Juhani nodded in agreement. We turned around and went in search of the armoury, where I hoped to find a set of space suits we could use to go through the airlock.
Thankfully, we found some. We quickly grabbed three of the cumbersome suits, and ran through the corridors to the airlock doors. Pulling on our space suits, we passed through the airlock with little trouble.
The ten minute walked between the two airlock doors was uneventful, unless you counted seeing a meteor hurl past the ship. We passed through the second airlock, and found ourself in a sealed off room. We removed our space suits and dropped them in a corner of them room.
Then, igniting my lightsaber, I opened the blast door in front of us. I heard several more lightsabers igniting, some behind me, some in front of my. Bastila, Juhani and I rushed into the room, lightsabers spinning and slashing and striking and parrying against the Dark Jedi and Sith Soldiers we met in the two adjoining rooms.
When the battle was over, we took a moment to recover.
"He's in their." I said to Bastila. It wasn't a question.
She nodded. "And he knows we're here as well." She said. "He must be waiting for us to make the first move."
I nodded, and we stepped forward, opening the blast door between us and Revan.
At the end of the Bridge, looking out at the vast emptiness of space, stood Darth Revan, his back to us. But he knew we were there. He had to, we were all gathering some much of the Force around us that someone would have to blind, deaf and mute as well as Force-blind to not sense us.
As one we leapt forward, lightsabers blazing to life again, with the intention of crippling Revan with an unexpected attack.
In one quick motion, Revan was facing us, raising his hand and calling upon a small amount of the Force compared to us. And all three of us were sent hurtling backward, crashing to the floor.
He laughed as he stepped forward, a lightsaber sliding down the sleeve of his black robes as he approached. His hood was up, and he was wearing that demonic looking mask he had been wearing the day of my Padawan trials.
"So, for four months I chase you from planet to planet, always just missing you, or else finding the dead remains of one of my servants I sent after you." He said. "And suddenly you start chasing me, the Force truly is gracious."
Faster then I would have thought possible, Juhani was on her feet, lightsaber ignited. She leapt through the air, making a quick slashing movement at Revan. The Sith Lord barely had to gesture and Juhani was sent sailing through the air, crashing head first into the wall and sliding down to the floor unconscious.
"Foolish girl." Revan sneered. He turned back to Bastila and I, though I was sure his eyes were on me. And I sensed…recognition. "No…it can't be. I can hardly believe my eyes..."
Before he could say another thing, Bastila was on her feet. She was not foolish enough to use her lightsaber. She wrapped herself in the Force, sealing out everything else, and thrust her hand forward, palm facing Revan.
Revan, despite the fact the he seemed to have expected the attack, only just managed to fend it off, raising his own hand and unleashing his own Force wave. Both waves hit between the Jedi Padawan and the Sith Lord, and bounced back to where they had come from.
Bastila was thrown backwards into the air, flipping once, and colliding with the wall, sliding down out of sight into the lower part of the Bridge were all the consoles were.
"Bastila?" No answer. I turned back to Revan, the green blade of my lightsaber erupting from the end of the hilt. I rushed forward, striking Revan with a flurry of split second attacks, parrying each blow he made. It wasn't skill that was keeping me going; it was anger.
He backed away, trying to get in a decent attack as I struck ruthlessly again and again, not letting a moment of chance for him to turn the tide of the battle.
And then, with a sudden and unexpected attack to my lightsaber instead of me, my lightsaber was gone, clattering across the Bridge and down to where Bastila lay. There was a searing pain in my arm for about a split second, and then all I felt there was numb. Revan raised a hand, and pushed me back with the Force.
"Fool!" He said. "Did you really think a mere Padawan could defeat me, a fully-trained Sith Lord?" He was walking toward me now, slowly, taking his time.
I tried to reach out with the Force, to summon my lightsaber into my hand. Only then did I realize why my arm had gone numb: there was no arm.
I groaned. There was no chance of me stopping Revan now, not with only one arm.
Bastila
Wiping blood from my mouth, I managed to pull myself up into a crouching position. My eyes widened when I heard laughter, from Revan, and then screaming from Kayle. I saw a glint of a cylindrical shape; a lightsaber. I didn't care who's it was, I wrapped my hand around it and pushed myself unsteadily to my feet.
I staggered to the small staircase that was my only way back up onto the main deck of the bridge. My finger rested on the activation panel of the lightsaber I held, and I looked over the edge of the deck.
The sight that met me hit me like a blow. The scene that was playing out before me was the one that had haunted my every sleeping moment since leaving Dantooine.
Revan, standing their laughing like a maniac as sharp bolts of violet electricity blasted from his hands, snaking around Kayle as he cried out in pain and anger. Despite myself, my eyes darted to where Juhani lay. She was struggling to her feet just outside the Bridge. Our eyes met, and she nodded. She knew what she had to do.
Revan neither sensed nor saw either of us. His focus was purely on destroying Kayle…on destroying Malak. For a moment, I felt a small bubble of hope, but I quickly suppressed it. I could not allow myself the luxury of hope right now.
With a deep sigh of acceptance, I ignited the lightsaber, the bright green blade erupting from the end.
"Revan!" I shouted. The vision had played itself out, he turned to me, and the lightning stopped. Now! A voice in my mind said.
I rushed forward, Kayle's lightsaber a blur as I struck again and again. I did not expect to live, so I did not care what I did. So long as Kayle escape, I would be at peace when I died. And so I gave into my anger. The anger at Revan for what he'd done over the past years. The anger at Erik/Revan formaking me give intomy emotions back on the Ebon Hawk.The anger at the Jedi for taking me from my mother and my father. And the anger the Council, for thinking they had the right to mess with someone's mind and make him someone they could control.
Revan was obviously shocked by the ferocity of my attacks, and was barely able to parry the blows. I struck at him, again and again and again, long suppressed anger bubbling to the surface. Compared to the anger I felt now, the anger I had felt back on Kashyyyk and Tatooine had been a mere trickle.
But, minute by minute, my anger waned, and my attacks weakened, and my body tired. I could not keep it up for much longer.
Please, let them be away from here. I begged to the Force. Please let him be safe.
With that final thought, the last of my anger was gone. My attacks stopped, I let go, and Revan struck.