Slayers of the Old Republic

Book VII: Leviathan

By Michael Weyer

If Yavin 4 had any major part to play in the universe, Faith didn't see it.

The large orange planet hung quietly in a quiet system. From the little she had gathered, Faith knew it was basically uninhabited and thus made it a popular place to hide out. She had no idea how Canderous even knew of this place nor did she really care. She was too busy reacting to her entire world being turned upside down.

The large space station hung in the orbit above the planet as the Hawk made dock with it. It appeared to be shaped like a large cigar and while several of its plates were torn and burned, it appeared in relatively good shape. The ship docked and locked down, its ramp lowering and Canderous, Zaalbar and Mission stepped out.

Waiting at the bottom of the ramp was a Riordian in a red flight suit who nodded to them. "Canderous…been a while. Doing an errand for Davik?"

"Davik's dead," Canderous rumbled. "The Hawk belongs to us now."

The Riordian nodded, not surprised. "Heard about Taris, figured he bought it when he didn't show up for any of his stuff. Also explains rumbles in Exchange."

Canderous motioned toward him as he addressed his companions. "This is Suvam Tan. He runs this place. The Exchange uses it regularly for storage, repairs and other things they don't want done in more open places."

Tan nodded toward them. "So what you need, Canderous?"

"Repairs, supplies, any extra credits you may have lying around and a place to hide out for a while," the Mandalorian said. "Let's just say we've had some Sith problems."

"More Sith?" Tam shook his head. "Not shocked. Sith like Exchange that way. Kill one, someone else takes his place. Always it has to be – guess universe likes it." He walked up to the large, hairy creature and examined. "Never see one like you before."

"His name's Zaalbar," explained the young Twi'lek. "He's a Wookiee. Sorry that he can't speak your language. I'll translate if you want. By the way, I'm Mission. Nice place you have here."

Tam beamed. "You like? Well, you friendlier than most Exchange. And so this is what Wookiee looks like. I hear those nasty Trandoshans talking about Wookiees – never thought I would see one."

"We're not exactly working for the Exchange, Tam," Canderous explained. "More like freelancing at the moment. And those boot-scrapings are still causing you trouble?"

"The Exchange hasn't shown up here in many months. But you telling me Davik's dead – makes sense as to why no visitors. Unfortunately, no Exchange means they start to get ideas…"

Zaalbar grunted. "Trandoshans here? That can be very bad."

"Mercenaries and thugs," explained Canderous. "They're frequent guests to this outpost, and the Exchange wielded the bigger club here."

"Beks and Vulkars all over again," muttered Mission.

"More like your Beks and Vulkars on battle stims, Mission," he told her.

"Trandoshans have a system of honor," Zaalbar said. "Closer to your people's than mine, Canderous. Czerka never got a good hold on their planet because they believed they would be rewarded in the afterlife by how many they killed. Wasn't 'cost-effective' as the Czerka would say."

"I don't suppose it would be," Canderous said. "Unfortunately, gaining an outpost like this would look pretty good on their score card."

"Anyway, you here now. I send my droids to fix your ship. Anything else you need?"

"I'll let you know," Canderous said. He gestured to a metal cargo box in the hallway. Tam hobbled past Zaalbar to open it. He took out the contents and inspected them. Ration bars, droid parts, computer spikes, security spikes, and grenades. Aside from the ration bars, the other things had been cobbled together by the crew – mostly as a way to earn pin money in port.

Tam's eyes lit up. "Wow. You know what I like! I'll get started, you can relax here. Don't worry! You be safe here!"

As he walked off, the three exchanged uneasy glances. "I don't know how much safety we can get now," Mission said. "Not just from the Sith but…"

"We'll keep an eye on him," Canderous remarked. "This place is pretty out of the way. If Malak is interested in going after us, he'll be looking at Republic and Jedi-connected places, not Exchange."

"Hope you're right," Mission let out a long breath. "Cause otherwise, we might as well stake a place out on Yavin to live at."

Canderous snorted. "The day Yavin 4 has any important colony living on it is the day the stars explode."

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Faith carefully entered the dining room of the ship. As she suspected, Carth sat at a table, his arms folded, his guns before him. He stared down as if trying to burn a hole in the table with his eyes. She cleared her throat but he gave no sign of hearing her. "Carth?" she softly said as she reached to his shoulder.

"Get. Back."

She pulled her hand back as she sat across from him. "Thought I'd find you here." She licked her lips. "Vance….I mean…Janar…he was afraid you'd be going after her."

"I wanted to," Carth said. "But that damn droid is stationed outside her room, ready to stop anyone who goes after her." He scowled "His Master."

Faith licked her lips. "Listen, Carth, I know this is hard…"

"Hard?" Carth glared up at her. "Hard knowing the monster who ruined my life, my family has been with us all this time? That she's in a room, ready to be executed for her crimes and none of you are willing to do it!"

"She….it's not that easy," Faith said.

"Why not?" Carth rose up. "She's not your friend, Faith! She never was! She's a mass murderer, a soulless, ruthless creature…"

"I've spent the last seven years fighting soulless and ruthless monsters, Carth," Faith snapped as she got to her feet. "I fought them and I ended up turning into the thing I was supposed to be fighting! I've killed people, Carth! Not soldiers, not evil, but people who didn't deserve it! I tried to kill Buffy! I wanted to!"

She pointed at the door. "And after all that…she was willing to give me a chance. She was willing to trust me again. It wasn't easy, she still had a bit attitude about me and rightfully so but she did give that chance. I'm not going to forget that."

Carth shook his head. "That's nice, Faith but you're forgetting what Jolee said. Your friend, the one who gave you that chance, is dead. That's not really her in there."

Faith set her jaw, fighting back the sorrow she'd felt ever since she'd learned the truth. "I have lost my family, what little friends I had and my home, Carth. I'm not going to lose her. That…that may be just her memories but it's the memories of a damn good woman and she deserves to have that kept alive."

Carth leaned in. "She. Killed my family."

"She. Saved me."

"If you're not with me on this…you're not with me."

Faith showed no backing down. "If that's what it's gotta be…fine."

Carth glared and picked up his guns as he stalked away. Faith watched him go before slumping in her seat and putting her head into her hands, allowing the events of the day to finally overwhelm her.

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Carth entered the training room, already upset and his mood was not helped as he saw Vance…no, Janar, he's Janar…sitting cross-legged on the floor. "Taking a break?" he sardonically said.

Janar looked up at him. "Meditating. Trying to clear my head of all this."

Carth's eyes narrowed. "Did you know about her?"

Janar shook his head. "I always thought Revan was a man, like everyone else. I sure as hell never suspected Buffy…"

"But you lied about yourself," Carth said, his voice cold. "I told you back on Taris I needed to trust you and you went on lying."

"I learned a long time ago that broadcasting being an ex-Jedi isn't a smart thing," Janar snapped. "I'm not going to apologize to you for it."

Carth paced the room, throwing up his hands. "You, Bastila, Faith, B---Revan, all of you have been lying since this started!"

"You can't accuse her of lying." The two turned to see Jolee stepped into the room. "She didn't know at all."

"But now she does," Carth said. "And I still don't get why she's still alive!"

"We need her," Janar said. "The Star Maps are in her memory, she could be the key to finding them."

"I don't care!" Carth yelled. "After what Revan did to the Republic, to my world-----"

"Oh, put a sock in it!" Jolee yelled. The two men were thrown by the sudden rancor in his tone. "You think you're the only one who's lost a wife?"

"You…." Carth blinked in surprise, as did Janar.

"This is a story I've told no one in forty years," Jolee said bitterly. "It's one I wanted buried with me, but the time's come to tell it, I suppose. You need to hear it, so you will shut up and indulge this decrepit old man."

There was something too familiar in Jolee's voice. Carth kept silent.

Jolee sat heavily on a bench. "One thing I will - very reluctantly - grant the Sith is that the messier baggage of being a sentient can scare a Jedi out of their mind. It's something too many Jedi would rather run from than face," Jolee admitted. "It's why I never made it past Padawan, and probably would have made a very poor Knight, especially in the here and now. Exar Kun's War changed so much…"

Jolee sighed. "My wife's name was Nayama. I won't call it the smoothest of courtships – it did start with her shooting me out of the sky after all. I think I told you earlier about my foray into smuggling," he said.

"Mission…mentioned something about it."

"She was a hell of a woman. Fiery, determined, strong…and oh, that body…" He was smiling slightly with the memory. "Foiled three of my attempts to escape prison, too. I ended up having to kidnap her to escape the system! As I said, not the smoothest of courtships…" With a heavy sigh, he forced himself back into the present. "I could tell she was strong with the Force. That's how she was able to shoot me down in the first place. After we were wed, I trained her in secret – AFTER the Jedi Council forbade it. She was headstrong and proud, but I loved her…I loved her so much." He hung his head and sighed. "Like you, I married a great woman and lost her."

"She was killed in the War, you mean?" Janar gently asked.

"Yes," Jolee said "But I didn't lose Nayama as you lost your wife. The Force decided it wanted to be crueler than that. She joined the war with Exar Kun - as a Sith."

"Your wife jumped ship? She betrayed you, the Jedi, the Republic…?" Carth's head was spinning. "What…what did you do?"

"I couldn't stop her. She came to me, pleading to throw off the 'decrepit trappings' of the Jedi. I tried reasoning with her, begged her to reconsider, but she would have none of it. In a rage, she drew her lightsaber."

Carth was stunned past belief. "You…you killed your wife?"

Jolee shook his head. "No. I had her unarmed and defenseless. She looked up at me and knew…she knew I couldn't."

"I…well, I couldn't either. Not in your boots. I…I mean Saul was one thing, but…"

"Ah, but I should have. I let her go, and she went on to kill many others before being killed herself in the final battle. I grieved for her death, inevitable though it was." There was a light shimmer in the old man's eyes. "All that fighting, all that madness, and in the big picture, it didn't seem to make a damn bit of difference. After all, the Sith are still here, right?"

"So what did you do?" Janar asked. "I'll bet the Jedi kicked you out so fast you hit lightspeed."

"No, the Council wasn't happy. They put me on trial." But then Jolee said the unexpected. "And they found me innocent."

Janar's eyes bugged out. "Innocent?"

"I deserved compassion, they said. I learned wisdom the hard way, they said." Jolee threw up his hands and paced. "I deserved every punishment and more, Carth. I don't have to explain it to you so much – you've walked this path."

Carth tried to make sense of what Jolee told him. "Yeah…I have. Saul arguing with me to "show a bit of sense" and resign his commission, then storming out. I kept silent when his aide asked me if the admiral was "acting strangely," and blowing the argument off as the heat of the moment and the half-bottle of Telosian brandy. How many lives could I have saved if I'd trusted my gut and not the illusion of friendship?"

Jolee chuckled mirthlessly. "I probably would have better luck with the current crop of masters. They're so frightened it will happen again that the robes are more straitjackets. Not that I can blame them for being so overcautious - discouraging marriages, taking kids from the cradle, elevating the council to a near-deity status, etcetera. Bastila is their best example of the Jedi they want, and she's so brittle that..." Jolee didn't want to say it aloud, obviously, but that possibility couldn't be discounted. "Hell, even if we do rescue Bastila from the Dark Side, and stop the Sith this time, they'll be back. They always come back. It's blasphemy for me to admit this, but the Force doesn't like one extreme or another, I've noticed."

"So that's why the indifference?" Carth asked. "That's why you don't care that we have a Sith Lord on the ship, or why you don't think this whole thing with Malak matters."

"Not so much indifference as just being old and tired," Jolee admitted. "It sometimes works as a way to keep the pain and anger at arms' length – not exactly a Jedi's way, but I'm not exactly a Jedi. I will have to admit that Malak makes up in cruelty what Exar Kun had in cunning, though, and I don't exactly relish watching the Republic fall."

"Well good to know you give a damn about something."

"Oh, it'll fall one day, Carth. Everything dies eventually. Trust someone who's already got a foot in the grave. I used to think none of it mattered. That's why you saw me in the Shadowlands. I had been just waiting for the forest to claim me. But unlike me, who took his saber and walked into the woods with aspirations of oblivion, I've seen you do the bravest thing someone can do - start over and keep going."

He rose up and headed to the doorway. "Lecture's over, boys. I just want to say that things are not as cut and dried as they may be." He looked to Carth. "Remember that when you look at her." He looked to Janar. "Remember that if you decide you still care for her." He walked off to leave the two men to mull over his words.

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Buffy swallowed as she faced her doppelganger. "Revan."

The Sith paced around her, looking her over with a somewhat amused glance. "Hmm….the hair isn't exactly what I would have picked." She frowned as she looked down at Buffy. "And I seem to have shrunk." She shook her head. "Amazing what they do with surgery these days."

Buffy kept herself on guard. She knew this was only in her mind. But she'd been in enough mindscapes to know that didn't mean she was safe. Especially given who she was with. "How long have…you been here?"

"I've always been here," Revan calmly stated. "Deep inside…watching…you may have felt me now and then but I couldn't really do anything. Not until now."

"I think…I've felt you," Buffy slowly said. "In my mind…when I used the Force, there was something…dark. I always figured it was the temptation of the Dark Side." She fixed a glare on Revan. "Guess I was right."

Revan studied her gloved hands. "Dark…Light…I decided to put aside such strict labels long ago."

"Oh, when you decided to go evil? Good thinking," Buffy sarcastically said.

Revan glared at her. "I had my reasons for going to the Dark Side, little girl. There are things in the Outer Rim you cannot imagine…things the Jedi cannot battle when sticking to their narrow viewpoint of the universe."

Buffy stared at her, waiting for her to go on. She held out a hand and waved it but Revan just looked at her. "That…that's it? That's all you've got to say on the subject?"

Revan crossed her arms. "That's all you need to know for right now. We have bigger concerns at the moment."

"Let me guess," Buffy said. "You want your body back, right?"

"Once that was all I wanted," Revan admitted. "Right after the change. When I first realized just what they had done, all I wanted was to find a way to crush you and take it all back."

"Fine," Buffy moved into a fighting stance. "Bring it on then."

Revan slowly shook her head. "I said…It was what I once wanted to do. But not anymore."

Buffy's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"

Revan calmly paced before her. "When Malak turned on me, I felt anger. After all we've been through, all we've shared…"

Buffy frowned as a rush of new thoughts flowed into her mind. Her jaw dropped wide open. "Oh. My. God. You…and him…you...oh yick!"

Revan seemed amused. "Making moral judgements? You forget, Buffy, I can see your memories as well. Angel, Parker, Riley, Spike? I don't think you have much ground to stand on when it comes to debating someone's choice in lovers."

As Buffy's face flushed, Revan went on. "I knew he was never happy being second-best to me. But still, to just attack me like that…" She shrugged. "I was weak. I admit it, I broke a key rule of the Sith. I let my heart overwhelm my judgment and paid the price with my life."

Buffy snorted. "You're still alive. Me…I…" She rubbed her face. "Oh, damn, I don't even know what they did with my body!"

"That's not important," Revan stated. "What's important is what they did with your mind."

"Put it in yours," Buffy snapped. "Which makes me…I don't know, a memory, nothing more."

Revan was suddenly in front of her, wagging a gloved finger in Buffy's face. "No. You are far, far more than just a collection of memories. If that was all you were, I wouldn't have been trapped here for so long. The Council thought they were just transferring your mind but they didn't count for the Slayer."

Buffy stared. "What are you talking about?"

"The power in you was something they didn't count on," Revan elaborated. "It effected the process, made it stronger but also ensured that it wasn't just your memories or personality they put into me. It was part of your…soul, for lack of a better term."

Buffy felt her jaw loosen. "Are…are you serious?"

"I've spent two years watching you," Revan said. "I've felt the power you give out. That's why you were able to grasp the Force so quickly, faster than they thought you would. The power that made you the Slayer is still with you, Buffy. That means that your soul, or at least part of it, is as well."

Buffy licked her dry lips. "How…how do I know you're telling the truth? I mean, you are a Sith Lord…Lady."

Revan shrugged. "Believe me or not but I am speaking the truth here. Now that you know the truth, you can get at my memories as I have accessed yours. What it comes down to is that you are stronger in this body than I am. That was a difficult thing to admit to myself but I know it is the truth. You stand a better chance of stopping Malak than I would. It is you who the Force has chosen to carry out this mission."

"I'm tired of being chosen," Buffy snarled. "My whole life has been turned inside out because someone up there decided to screw it up! I've had it with the Powers or the Force or whoever using me as a Stratego piece! Ok? You want your body back, have it and let me die like I was supposed to!"

Revan slowly shook her head. "In this we are much alike, Buffy Summers. Fate, the Powers, the Force, whatever you wish to call it…it chose us for a task no one else can do. For me, it was defeating the Mandalorians and what lay beyond. For you…it was undoing the evil I unleashed upon this galaxy. Like me, you cannot deny it no matter how much you try."

She backed away and the vision began to fade even as Buffy protested. "Great…just great….even my own mind is playing cryptic on me. I hate this galaxy."