Chapter 6: Lamaredd

6 months later

"It appears he is as strong as we suspected."

"Indeed…this is unexpected. He is not a Jedi Master?"

"No master. He is a mere knight, though his power is… impossible to measure master."

"It may be useful to bring him over to us. Continue to monitor him."

"At your command, my lord."

Joanna walked calmly into Revan's room as the door wisked open and closed without bidding.

"Hey jo," said Revan somberly. "How you feeling?"

She smiled grimly. "I'm better… it hurts but I'm coping."

Revan nodded. "That's good… the coping part that is."

"How about you," she asked.

He stared at her with a long stare for a moment. "I… I'm ok. I'm having these weird dreams… they're scaring me. I think they're visions. They're slowly making more and more sense to me… I hope to understand them eventually…" He looked back down at his datapad, the topic obviously closed…

Joanna merely stood there awkwardly… he had summoned her to him… and he had nothing to say but ask her a simple question?

"What of the war…" she asked gently.

"You know what it's like… It's getting nasty… they cut our funding so severely, within a year they're likely to be back in the core," he said wearily.

For the first time in a long time Joanna looked at Revan meaningfully… he looked… aged… by what had happened… no doubt he'd sent enough men to their death… but there was a darkness to him now… something that had never been there before…

"What can I do?"

He shuddered lightly. "What I cannot…"

This worried Joanna further… if he could not do it, what chance did she have.

Slowly he reached out for the holoemitter, manipulating it before it came to rest on a planet.

"Onderon," he said simply.

She knew the name… Mandalorians had taken it early in the war, crushed the populace… made them slaves… as near as their intel made out it was a HQ planet for the mandalorians…

And far behind enemy lines… any force sent was unlikely to get reinforcements. Joanna thought she knew what he was asking… but that couldn't be!

"Revan… no, if you do this, you'll need to be there… we'll need you commanding."

He shook his head. "NO… no… I can't. I can barely stand the space battles now, where there are less casualties… ground combat makes me sick… so many deaths… I fear Onderon is going to be a blood bath… and if I go, I will never come back… at least as the Revan you know."

And suddenly she understood… he couldn't take all the death he was causing…

But he was thrusting it unto her.

And as if he could read her thoughts, he said, "I know putting this into your hands is the most horrible thing I could ever do… but… but I need someone I trust… If you don't want to, there are others… I'll find someone. I'll even go." But he said it with such morbidness that she just couldn't do it to him. He'd been there for her every step of the way. Time for her to repay some of that.

She shook her head. "I am here to help Revan… I will shoulder this responsibility. You have done so much for me… time to repay you."

Revan breathed a sigh of relied, as if a great weight had been lifted from him. "Thank you so much… But there is no debt. You owe me nothing." She nodded once to him, and then Revan was all back to business. "Here's the force you'll have," he said as he handed a datapad to her.

She gasped. "This is… this is amazingly large…"

On the datapad, was a list for well over a 1/5 of the republic fleet…

"It's not going to be enough I fear… I fear there will be enough mandalorians that they will tie you down until they can gather reinforcements… I expect you will be met by a large portion of the mandalorian fleet in the sector… and at this time, that means that they'll outnumber you… you don't need to win… you just need to inflict damage. In the meantime, the rest of our forces push forward all across the front."

She nodded slowly. "Very well… I will prepare my forces. When?"

"It will be within 2 standard months… you have at least 6 weeks. More then that, I'm not sure," Revan replied steadily. She bowed, saluted, turned, and walked away…

"What have I done?" Revan asked himself…

For although she would live through this battle… she would be changed by it. Not like he feared he would be changed… she was too strong for that. But she would never be the same. He had doomed her to a life of pain… and been thankful that it had been her instead of him.

What kind of a man was he?

"Where are we going Revan?" asked Malak fervently behind him. Revan ignored him, continuing onto the small freighter, the Night's Grace. He punched in the code for the boarding ramp to lowered, before getting on, Malak scurrying up behind him, and shutting the ramp.

"What a piece of junk! We can fly better Revan!"

Revan grinned lightly. "Piece of junk? This thing is more tricked out then you can imagine. Top and bottom guns are Quad Laser Cannons, shields strengths are at 70000 giggajoules… enough to take 13 or 14 full scale capital ship shots. And we have 2 proton Torpedo launchers, with 16 torpedoes… I'd take this baby over any other freighter created. We'd run faster then em too."

"Well… it sure don't look like much."

"It's not supposed to," snapped back Revan as he locked into the pilots seat and took off.

"So were are we going?" asked Malak again.

"We're searching… for what I'm not sure. But it's out there… on Lamaredd."

"Where's lamaredd?"

Revan glanced at his friend. "Past the outer rim… it's just barely in the 'wild space'. No one really knows whats there… anything that goes out there never returns."

Beside him Malak gulped audibly. "Is this wise then?"

Revan grinned. "Wise? What's the last 'wise' thing I did?"
Malak laughed lightly at the joke, poor as it may be… it was obvious Revan was nervous as well. But he trusted him. Revan had never been wrong before.

With a flick of a button, the ship entered hyperspace, bound for the planet Lamaredd.

"He is seeking us? Does he know?"

"Not yet. He won't find us their. But we had so little warning to escape…"

"Yes, I see… he may detect traces. It is too early. We need more time."

"Yes Master. What are your orders?"

"Keep away from him…"

"That's… that's just weird…"

Revan grinned at his friend. "Ugly world ain't it?" Before them was this brown dirtball… for lack of a better term. It was just roundish, and brown… nothing else.

"That's an understatement," replied Malak. He started to rise to use the refresher, but was pushed back down as Revan slammed down on the throttle, pushing it to full from idle. "What's the…" He stopped short as the ship rocked from laser blasts. "Son of a… I'll hit the top turret."

With that he took off running like a kid in a candy store… he was gonna enjoy this.

Revan shook his head. Malak had no idea how close they'd come to getting seriously pounded. The 4 ships had come from no where, and had all launched 4 proton torpedoes at them… he had narrowly avoided them, even with access to the force.

And of course, there was the issue that Malak seemed to enjoy killing… not a good sign. However, he could worry about that later. These fighters were powerful, and their pilots good… this could be nasty.

He called up what sort of ships they were, but the computer couldn't identify them. They had 6 laser cannons, 2 torpedo launchers, and decent shields… that was all the computer could tell him. He banked right, and put the ship into a roll as he closed in behind one of the fighters. It didn't take long before the lower turret knocked it out, and in the meantime Malak had smoked another fighter… but their shields were taking a beating…

He banked around sharply, unloading two torpedoes into a third fighter, instantly destroying it before turning his attention to the last fighter.

Revan resumed course for the planet as Malak came up behind him. "Geesuz what were those ships. They were strong, and pretty damn good pilots."

Revan nodded. "I'm not sure… maybe when we get back to our fleet we can find out. In the meantime, back to our original task."

Malak shrugged. "Uhhh, what was that?"

"I… I'm not sure yet. I just know we have to go down to the planet."

"Feeling?"

Revan nodded. "Yep… I'd suggest throwing on some armor or something… could be something nasty down there."

He could feel Malak want to brush him off, but he regained himself. "Good idea," he said gruffly as he turned away.

The ship landed softly, and Revan rose and went to the landing platform. He hit the button to open it, and Malak came striding up behind him, in heavy armor. Revan himself had donned some light echani armor, suitable for quick movement, with enough to at least slow down a blasterbolt or vibroblade… better then nothing.

The door opened, and a gust of cold wind blew in… really cold wind. Not a nice planet this was at all.

Revan walked down the steps purposefully. He realized he wasn't just cold from the environment… he was cold inside. This place screamed of the darkside to him… not just the darkside… it was like the entire planet was dead, hollow…

It scared him.

Malak seemed to not be bothered in the least… as of late, he had grown a bit… more distant from the war. Their anger over the Republics incompetence was great, but that alone wouldn't make someone fall…

Sure, Revan hated the politicians… but he didn't want them dead… Malak was much the same. What was different between the 2 was the way they had been handling the death around them. Revan had retreated from feeling the force… so as the battles carried on, he simply blocked the force… blocked the pain…

Malak on the other hand… he seemed to embrace the force, as if to shield him from the pain with it… but the force conveyed the pain, and so he grew darker… moodier… quicker to anger. Every once in awhile, upon hearing bad news, Malak would snap, his anger welling up and overcoming him. One time he nearly killed a soldier before Revan intervened… Malak did seem sort of sorry, but never actually apologized. Revan noticed that he himself also seemed to have a harder time controlling his temper, and knew it was of the darkside. But he couldn't help himself, and this war HAD to be fought…

Revan continued to walk out… he himself hadn't chosen the landing site. He had been guided here by the force, he was positive…

But the only thing nearby was a small mountain with a cave. Shuddering lightly, he jogged over to the cave.

The feeling within it was less dead… but more dark. He didn't know how to describe it. It didn't leave this complete empty, dead feeling in him. But it seemed to suck the very energy… the very force from him. Taking his lightside energy for something… Dark.

He didn't understand what was going on. Why him? Why was the force using him?

Wouldn't a Jedi master be more suited to this? Surely they would…

But who was he to question the force. Shrugging, he stepped in.

Into the darkness within.