Chapter 5: Darker
Oh how she loathed them…
Nay… loathed them was the wrong word… Joanna hated them… she wanted nothing but to wipe them from the face of the galaxy…
Those bastards had taken Joe from her… she had broken the jedi code for him… and now he was gone…
"Easy Joanna…" said Revan softly as he held her softly. "I can feel your anger… but you must let go of it."
She sobbed again into his shoulder. "I know… but I can't."
Revan sighed but said nothing.
"Now I know how Bastilla must feel… I can't believe what you did to her," she said suddenly, trying to blot out the memory of Joe.
"Jo… Jo I…" he paused. "I don't really want to talk about that."
But she realized she had hit upon something her. She reached out to Revan, trying to understand… but he easily kept her attempts to get in his head away… "Revan… what is it?"
He said nothing for awhile, and Joanna was preparing to drop it when at last he said, "She wouldn't listen."
"What?"
"She wouldn't listen. She wouldn't of understood. No matter what, she would of come. She would have been corrupted... turned from a pure angel to a dark creature… she may not have fallen… but she would have been changed."
At last she understood what Revan was saying. "You don't have to keep everything to yourself… you don't have to shoulder it all."
He nodded once at her, wiping a tear away. "I knew… I knew deep down that from this war, horrible things were going to happen… That this war was going to be unlike any war before. Not that we would fall or anything… but that we would all be changed. That is why I only took volunteers. I wish that I could of told everyone the truth… but if I did, the republic would fall. A Jedi's life is pain, and pain is something we'll all have to accept for the republic… for life itself. What I could not bring myself to do was to subject her to this… I very nearly couldn't bring myself to subject you to this. But I think I know you… I think even if you knew, you'd of come."
Joanna nodded simply, confirming his suspicion, and Joanna felt a great relief pour out from Revan.
"But you see… Bastilla is… hard headed, and she is willing to take on other's pain. But she is not ready. She is to susceptible to her emotions… her masters are correct on many points for her. If… If she were to die… or even fall… I would… I don't know what I'd do, because I wouldn't be the person you see here… I'd be someone different… someone…"
"Darker," Joanna said softly.
Revan nodded. "Yes… I couldn't handle it like you are… if she died, I would of crushed every man, woman and child responsible, and probably of lost everything else because of it."
Joanna dropped her head sadly. "I want to do that… the anger inside me… it is a well that I could use to crush the mandalorians. They would be as nothing in front of me, and my veangeance would cut a course across the universe…
"But then I would give up everything that is me… everything that Joe loved… that I loved… I just can't do it."
Revan hugged her tightly again. "You're a stronger woman than I Jo… much stronger."
1 month later
"Focus… focus… come on now padawan, you're better then this!"
Bastilla tried as best as she could to keep her concentration, but again Master Roke broke through her defenses, causing her to cry out softly as it delivered a stinging blow to her thigh with the stunsaber, a sword that was similar to the lightsaber save it merely stung when struck against a person.
Her master deactivated the sword slowly, shaking his head as he reached to put his arm on her shoulder. "Bastilla… you haven't been the same for awhile… what's the matter."
She pulled back tightly. "Nothing Master…" She saw he wasn't buying this, so continued with, "It's just this war… all of this news, of jedi, the republic winning… or Revan. It's distracting." More so the Revan than anything else.
"Well, I suggest you pay no heed to that… there are no jedi, merely exiles in that war. Revan should be nothing to you…" he replied curtly. "Since it is clear you are not in the right state of mind, I suppose you may have the day to yourself… try to center yourself for tomorrow Padawan."
She bowed slightly. "Yes, Master." She bowed again before leaving and returning to her room. But she would not be centering herself… not today. She just couldn't draw the attention to it. Couldn't find the will…
What she wanted to do more then anything was to fly off, and murder that bastard Revan. If she didn't, she'd never find peace. Her thoughts constantly hounded at her… making her wonder where it was she went wrong. Any conversation she could remember, she must of played it out in her head at least a dozen times… she had played out they're final conversation hundreds of times, looking for a secret flip word… a word that would change it to mean something else… but she couldn't find it.
The only way this would ever stop was if Revan was gone… with him gone, she'd no longer have to worry about it, right? She could return to normal, go on to be a great jedi…
But if she killed him, she wouldn't be a jedi anymore… so instead she was forced into hoping that the mandalorians got him… doubtful as that may be. If she wanted something done, she'd have to do it herself…
Perhaps she could find a way to take a leave of absence… Find Revan… get him to attack her somehow, and then kill him…
Impossible to accomplish… she knew that… didn't mean she couldn't dream…
Her anger was deep… but she could control it. No one need ever know of her hate for that man….
No one.
"This is utterly ridiculous… they revoked the act! What do you mean they revoked the act! We're finally winning and now they seek to pull the rug out from beneath us!" screamed Revan at the lowly ensign who had relayed the message, who visibly cringed beneath him. "It's the god damn senate… corrupt, senile fools…"
Malak stepped forward beside him. "Easy Revan… you had to know this would happen… you're winning… but only because you're doing things that are political suicide… the politicians are being lynched by there people… though that's really quite minor…"
Revan nodded. "I know… our method is meaning those corrupt fools can't reap great benefits…"
Malak stood there as he continued. "And they must feel you have the situation under control… you've pushed them from the deep core in just the past month…"
Revan shook his head. "You know as well as I do that it will merely get worse the farther out we get… They're still powerful in the core worlds. And we were lucky to push them out of Khomm… It's a good thing they came from the direction they did, or they'd of had coruscant before we even came into the war. I don't know how we'll win this."
"we will merely have to be better."
Head held dejectedly, Revan merely nodded.
"Sir, we're 2 minutes from coming out of hyperspace."
At this Revan perked up. "Fleetwide general quarters… this is gonna be bad."
But there was no time to dwell on this as they came out of hyperspace into the planetary system of Belgaroth, deploying fighters and opening fire within seconds.
"3 Mandalorian Fire Class Cruisers, 1 Destructor class battleship and… holy shit, 32 Mandalorian Annihilation class Destroyers…"
Revan paled… that was much larger then he expected, considering this was a minor Class Epilson planet, unimportant for anything… He had his Leviathan, and it was easily a match for the destructor battleship and 1 or 2 of those cruisers… he had a single Battlestar cruiser, and 24 Destroyers of basic makes…
he was outgunned, outmassed, outarmored… this was gonna get nasty.
Revan slowly grinned… he loved nasty…
"Helm, come about to .324, all ahead. Have the Lion's Den and Cluster A come in right behind us. Cluster B, right flank, try not to get in close. Same with C, except they're on left flank. D is on general reserve, and have our torpedo groups group up to fire…" Revan paused for a moment, then placed a nav point down… "At Location Charlie 4."
"Roger sir." The ship thrummed loudly as the powerful engines brought it up to flank speed, his battlestar cruiser, Lion's Den hot on his tail, with his 5 heaviest destroyers, Cluster A, closing up.
He watched as the mandalorians split up into umbrella formation. That would make it tougher to get them bunched up so the torpedo ships could get off a good barrage… he'd have to sacrifice a few ships but it was doable.
"Have Cluster B and C cut to ¼ throttle. Bring D up closer. E, set your torpedoes to target Beta 6." He dropped another navpoint on the radar.
"Sir, that will put us right in the middle of them. Right where they want us" said the captain, Saul, worriedly.
"I am aware of that captain…" he said, slightly annoyed. Saul said nothing.
Inexorable slowly, the ships closed.
The leviathan rocked as another blast shook it. Behind them, floating lazily through space in several pieces were 2 of his destroyers. And the Lion's Den's shields were down, and was taking a pounding… he either won now or he'd lose. But he was running from the mandalorians, and they were getting bunched up.
"Communications, tell cluster E to fire all torpedoes at Beta 6. I repeat, fire torpedoes. Reload, then fire a second wave at our present location. Then have them move closer and prepare for standard combat."
He turned away without waiting to hear the comm. Officer order E. Timing was everything here. B and C were waiting to smash in on the sides, and D could reinforce them within under 30 seconds, and enter the fight if it was needed…
The torpedoes were still a minute away, and the mandalorians had to be drawn a good deal more bunched up and closer… While not locking the torpedoes onto the targets made it possible several would miss, with enough warning, ships could easily either avoid a torpedo or shoot down a torpedo. This way, they'd have under 15 seconds to do anything about the torpedoes, as about 15 seconds from impact, they would activate they're own radars and select a target… unlikely the mandalorians would be able to stop more then a handful then hitting, and over 40 torpedoes were heading towards them from the first wave, and a second wave of 40 was coming… less of those would hit as they would be alerted to the torpedoes by then, but he expected horrendous casualties among them.
The Leviathan shook again, and another destroyed exploded brilliantly, but at last he saw the mandalorians see the torpedoes… the pounding on the Leviathan paused a moment as ships turned to shoot he torpedoes, or maneuvered to avoid it…
Not one of the ships that a torpedo locked onto avoided it.
A standard torpedo's missile guidance systems were poor, easily confused… their explosion was not that big either, enough to say, strip the shields from a light destroyer.
These were not normal torpedoes… Not only were these torpedos guidance systems upgraded…. Though only slightly, and the warheads on them were increased incredibly… to the point where just 2 would destroy a destroyer…
Of course, they were expensive, and he had fired all the ones he had on hand in that one first wave, the second one being regular torpedoes…
Best of all, Revan was able to use the force to help aim them, making sure they struck home. It took a lot of effort, but he was able to push any torpedoes in the right direction… a little trick Malak had thought of… he'd have to thank him for that.
Within seconds of the torpedoes arriving, 17 destroyers were wiped out, 2 of the Fire class cruisers exploded brilliantly, and best of all, the destructor's shields failed, and its entire structure cracked… it was out of the fight, but still salvageable.
The remaining destroyers in the killzone, 5 of them, and the fire class cruiser slowed down, obviously fearing a second wave… The 2 destroyers that were heavily damaged drifted slowly forward as well…
Revan frowned. He'd expected them to slow yes, but more then they had… as it was, only the rear destroyer and the 2 damaged destroyers would be cause by the torpedoes…
"Order Cluster B and C to pull in to us, get away from their remaining destroyers. Cluster D is to get in here and prepare to hit them with everything they have… about face our force, time for the close quarters battle," Revan said grimly.
A crushing defeat of the Mandalorians. Malak smiled proudly as he watched his good friend walk off the bridge, finished with the battle. The entire mandalorian fleet had been wiped out, in exchange for a mere 7 destroyed Republic destroyers, the Lion's Den being damaged, and 2 other destroyers also being damaged. They were even going to get to salvage 2 or 3 destroyers out of the wreckage, and a greater prize, the Destructor Battleship… it would be awhile before they were operational, but every bit helped…
He turned to congratulate his friend… but he sense he was in no mood for that. Something was eating at him. He wanted to talk to him… but as of late, he had becoming more and more distant from him…
Malak didn't understand what bothered Revan so much… the deaths were sad, he supposed, but they weren't horrible… just the cycle continuing, the strong praying on the weak…
Now they were the strong, not the mandalorians… isn't that the way it should be? They would crush them like ants…
And with them gone… what was the republic to them?
He laughed at that thought, and a soldier walking by looked at him weirdly. In flash of anger, Malak very nearly drew his lightsaber and decapitated the soldier…. But stopped his hand before it drew it…
What was he doing? What was wrong with him?