Ossus, Universe 11-82.
Ossus, in Bastila's universe, had been destroyed when the Dark Lord Exar Kun had used a technique in the Force that had altered the core of the star Ossus had orbited, causing it to go nova. This Ossus was decidedly more intact, and from the green she could see out of the Ebon Hawk's viewport, lush.
The black, delta wing-shaped craft descended from the blackness of space into the golden skies of the planet, Carth flying expertly through turbulence in the atmosphere. Revan had been silent for most of the twelve hour trip, deep in contemplation over his actions. Bastila herself had been deep in thought, wondering how big a factor she had played in Nolin's fall by refusing to guide him, or whether it had been his own unknown emotional baggage that had doomed him.
"I've found that landing pad you mentioned. Setting her down..." Carth announced over the cockpit's intercom.
The ship rumbled as it touched the square landing pad. Bastila was the first to the landing ramp, walking out to get a look.
The Planet was dotted with flowers large enough to fit a person's foot in them. All bore curious swirling colors and they crawled over the fences of the compound, from the dark green forest that surrounded it, and creapt into its wide, square courtyards, most of which had been set up as a shooting range. The brown and white colors of the building were smothered with algae and vines.
The Precinct Building loomed over the rest of the compound that surrounded it, over most of the trees in the forest also. A silver shield, grayed with age, bore the sword and wings symbol of the Jedi on the front entrance. The building was composed of a square structure with a single obelisk jutting up from the center of the base structure. Windows lined the lower half, while the upper half was dominated by yet another of this universe's curious decals, this one bearing a gigantic circular portrait of a woman with curly, black locks that went down to the small of her back. She was light skinned, and wore a brown and white nurse outfit that stopped at her thighs. Her legs were covered by brown and white stockings in a candy cane pattern. Angel wings jutted out of her back as she held a long sword high over her head with her right hand, a badge held out in her left, giving a knowing wink to whoever gazed at her. If Bastila peered closely, she could make out a balance scale tattooed on the woman's neck, the green eyes of the figure lined by a domino mask.
"Jedi Betty. Something of a mascot for the Agency," Revan explained. "Strange...Nobody seems to have come out to meet us."
"It's not strange," Bastila grimaced. "It just means Nolin got here before we did."
"Look, even with him being as powerful as he is, he's still just one man. If he tried anything, someone would have managed to drop him eventually. They're probably preoccupied by something else," Revan tried to explain away, not really believing his own theory deep down, and feeling that coldness he'd felt in Rae's presence.
"Most of your people are probably dead. That or they ended up joining him," Bastila replied, not looking at Revan as she marched forward, feeling the cold get stronger as she approached the entrance.
The Entrance, many times her own size, parted neatly in half and Bastila stepped in.
She covered her mouth in shock and disgust. Revan dropped to his knees and Carth went a little pale.
Everywhere they could see in the large reception chamber, with a series of desks and computers set up in a circle at the exact center of the creamy, strawberry colored room, was a dead agent. Some had been flung into wall with such exertion that they had burst open, sliding down the wall like spread jelly, others had been impaled by pipes, or had their skeletons crushed. Tell-tale piles of ash let Bastila know that Rae had been refining his Draining Technique.
"I...I...I don't understand!" Revan shouted. "We know...KNEW these people. They were his friends! How could he do this to them?!"
Bastila shot Revan a look, hard and uncompromising. "That's the nature of the Dark Side, Revan. To be twisted into a mockery of the person you were, hurting even those closest to you. At this point I don't think he can be redeemed."
"I don't want to redeem him," Revan seethed, nearly throwing up as he spotted the head of a colleague jammed atop a lamp fixture. "I want to destroy him. To give him the pain he so thoughtlessly spread to others."
"Revan!" Bastila snapped, keen for any little screw-up he could make. "A Jedi does not take revenge. Vengeance is of the Dark Side. Let go of your hate this instant!"
"Why should I?!" he snapped back. "These were my friends! I asked them to trust me! To join me. He turned me into a liar," he snarled.
"No he didn't. You did. Did I not warn you of consequences?" Bastila countered, cutting into his pride with his own source of guilt. "You told him to bond with me, you told him to learn my secrets. You have just as much blood on your hands as Rae does. Think on that before you try and absolve yourself of all responsibility in this. Control your emotions!"
Revan grumbled but did as she asked, calming himself. He stood up.
"I'm better. Let's go find survivors...if he left us any," Revan spoke calmly.
Bastila nodded approvingly. Carth put his blaster back in his holster but kept his eye on Revan, starting to realize that he didn't trust Jedi.
As they walked. Revan unclipped Bastila's original lightsaber and handed it back to her.
She shook her head. "Keep it. Try not to lose it though. That weapon is your life now."
Revan shrugged and simply kept it in his hand as they continued to the back of the chamber.
"This leads to the research wing," Revan stated, stepping through a turbo door and into a lab that had previously been bustling, but was now as silent and dead as the reception chamber had been. It was filled with unfamiliar instruments and vials of chemicals, and holo-computers sat at research tables. Dead agents littered the place, some lay still, inert at their own desks, bloodied and broken. Others were hanging from a noose thrown around a built in light fixture. The walls were smeared with bloody handprints.
"As I live and breathe," Carth whispered, disgusted by the horror. "Did he spare nobody in this thirst for power he's developed?"
"Dark Siders do not know mercy, Captain," Bastila answered, stomach queasy at the sight. She felt the suffering of the Jedi here, cruelly cut down one by one after refusing to join Nolin.
Revan took a few tentative steps towards one body, that of a blond haired young man in the brown and white pinstripe suit of an Officer.
"Mical," he said, running fingers through the man's bloody hair, half his face turned into a black scorch mark from what seemed to be some sort of electrical burn.
"He was one of my earliest supporters. I was guest at his wedding," Revan said sadly. "Do I really have to let go of everything and everyone I love to follow the Force, even the memory of a now dead friend?"
"Jedi are allowed no such attachments. I'm not saying you should completely forget him, but do not allow his memory to affect your duty," she responded, examining the research tables for any clues as to what Nolin was after
Carth folded his arms, his garishly orange turtleneck sweater hurting Bastila's eyes. "So let me get this straight. If Juhani were to drop dead a few hours from now, you wouldn't bat an eyelash?"
"I'd be dismayed, but I would have to let it go. Juhani's troubles would be over at that point."
"But what if it was 'you' who dropped dead? Wouldn't you want to be remembered? Mourned over?" Carth pressed, seeking to find some humanity in her.
Bastila's response told him much. "I have no time for such vanity. Less so after expiring. So no. I'm just a speck of sand in the universe. I find meaning by being part of the beach."
Carth gazed at her in sympathy. "You live a sad, hard life, Jedi."
Her reply was with a deadpan expression. "I know."
"Oh, kek," Revan muttered, going over to one research terminal and overriding the security protocols with his password. "Tell me he hasn't..."
"What? What is it?" Bastila demanded.
"He'd been pressing me to give him access to some of the other things I found on the ship and had quarantined," Revan answered, glancing at the data as it flitted past his eyes on the holographic screen. "One thing in particular was an old tome. Hooked him from the very beginning. Said it 'called' to him. I thought he was simply curious but now I wonder...Bastila, can objects hold the Force as well?" he wondered.
"The Force can inhabit any number of objects," she answered, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Trust me, in this business, an old, dusty tome can be a harbinger of ruin."
"Then we should investigate the ship immediately. No telling what it can do," Revan replied.
The three had taken an old land speeder they had found in the facility garage, abandoning the search for survivors. Revan had piloted the orange, beat up craft, the canopy of the vehicle providing cover from the poisonous insects and plants and the strange flowers outside. After a few thousand meters of green darkness, they came to a clearing. A giant crater taking up the landscape at that point.
The craft was massive, about the size of those disk shaped Republic dreadnoughts in Bastila's universe. It was half buried in the dirt, it's back end clipping one part of the crater's rim. It was a muted, dark color, and bore the clear profile of a large bird with sweapt wings. Feathers had even been designed into the hull's appearance. She could see part of the bird like ship's head, It's beak crystalline in nature, exposing part of a darkened area that belonged to the bridge. On the wing that stood in the air partly, clearly exposing a blue version of the Order's sword and wings symbol, albeit with a curious circuit pattern designed into the wings.
"I found out from the ships manifest that it was designated the RSC Dark Peregrine," Revan explained, getting out of the speeder and leading them to a hastily constructed, skeletal turbolift platform leading down into the crater. Both Bastila and Revan felt Rae's presence grow stronger, but he went into the lift, continuing to talk as though nothing was wrong, even though the coldness of Rae's presence chilled him. "From what my engineers could piece together, the ship suffered some sort of catastrophic containment breach that ended up bringing the ship down into this universe. Everyone aboard was killed, including all the prisoners."
"Prisoners?" Carth asked.
"Yes. My engineers found a bunch of cryogenic modules filled with dead bodies. The mathematical code scrawled on each module described them as incredibly dangerous, and that they were not to be released under any circumstances," Revan answered as the lift carried them down. "All the bodies have stayed on site, in case there was some sort of contagion we ended up missing. Same goes for all the stuff we found."
"What sort of things have you recovered?" Bastila inquired.
Revan held up her lightsaber. "The crew all had weapons like these. Few of them worked, and they were not made the way yours and Juhani's were. We also found some encrypted holodisks, some weird sets of robes, armor, statues. Paintings-there's this really cool one I'll show you if we get the chance, and some weird little masks and blocks of crystal. There's so much in the cargo-hold that our engineers don't have any idea how to use. We're too scared to take apart anything intact to see how it works."
"Didn't that freaky holocron thingamajig say it was on a dangerous mission? Maybe we'll know more once we're inside and a proper Jedi is there," Carth suggested.
When they reached the bottom, Bastila went on alert. A number of agents, eight in all, were waiting for them at the bottom, and Bastila saw all of them bearing the same type of flat-bladed lightsaber design as Juhani.
Revan slowly took a step forward. "It's me, men. Its Revan. Where is Officer Nolin?"
"Master Nolin has shown us the true secrets of the Force, Revan. He has shown us the Dark Side," one of the agents, a red head in a skintight cat suit of green leather and a domino mask answered. Her eye sockets bore a distinct almond shape to them, as well as her slim mouth which was covered with bright red lipstick, her complexion was fair, and her nose was short, but slightly rounded. Her irises bore an ugly, sulfur color.
"Mira, has he turned you also?" Revan asked sadly.
Mira looked uncertain for a split second but covered it well. "I embraced the truth about the Force, that's all. It was given to us so that we might impose Order on an untidy galaxy, and take from our enemies and whatever we have to from those who will serve us."
"Did you partake in the slaughter of your coworkers?!" Revan demanded to know.
"I...those who resisted were killed," was all she answered.
"So it was fear, then," Bastila noted. She approached, fingers close to her weapon as she felt the tingle of the Dark Side. "Listen to me, all of you. Nolin...Nolin is sick. And he's made you sick also."
"He said the woman might say something like this," Mira countered softly, hand going close to her own, black hilt with a flat emitter. Bastila had observed that Nolin had learned more from her in the hours since leaving in how he was training his dark servants: these new blades possessed adjustment dials near the base of the hilt, to control power settings. As for why he was still teaching them to make flat lightsaber blades, perhaps he simply liked the style, or was going with what was familiar.
"He said you would try and convince us that we were wrong somehow for embracing the power of our own emotions. The power of our own passions."
"Your passions are destroying everything around you, made you hurt your friends! Did Nolin kill Mical, or did he make you do it?" Revan asked spitefully.
Mira's long legs nearly buckled. "Mical...he's...dead?"
Revan grabbed Mira by the shoulder. "Damn you, he killed your husband! Does it matter now?!"
"Revan!" Bastila yelled, retreating back a step. "You're not helping!"
"Aw, kek," Carth mumbled, fumbling for his pistol.
Mira shrieked, shoving Revan away and activating her weapon. The flat blade, pink and with a scalpel-like tip hissed out of the weapon. She screamed, the ground cracking beneath her, as the other agents activated their own blades, each a different color, but more curved then Mira's had been, yet still resembling a single edged sword
Bastila's own double ended weapon turned on, blocking Mira's vicious overhand strike from cleaving the unprepared Revan in half. Mira set a hateful gaze on her, slamming her blade with hateful, rage filled blows that drove Bastila backward, twirling and back flipping over three other opponents who swiped at her. She landed, axial flipping again and jamming her blade into the throat of a turned human agent, ducking as two others swarmed her, only to be dropped by two headshots made by Carth, who quickly shot a third in the head as he charged. Revan had brought out Bastila's old lightsaber, defending mostly, an only occasionally doing an experimental swipe, having not yet fully understood the weapon he was using. To his advantage, neither did his attacker, a Rodian in a dark pinstripe suit, who was just as new to this way of fighting. All of the attackers were off balance except with Mira, who swung her weapon at Bastila's desperate to dominate the fight. But, Bastila, having already had years of experience patiently blocked with her duel weapon, twirling the weapon around her arms, anchoring it it to her skin at the points it made contact with the hilt, just like her father had taught her, occasionally shutting one blade off and then quickly back on, catching Mira off guard and forcing her to defend against Bastila's aggressive one handed style that was reinforced by telekinetically empowering her muscles so that her blows struck faster and harder, and fixing her arm and blade in place to block Mira's ruthless counter attacks, basically just a series of repeated horizontal and vertical strikes without any flare or imagination, just a determination to bring the opponent down at any cost. If Bastila had been feeling generous, she might have described Mira's style as resembling Djem So, a lightsaber combat form that also lacked subtlety, but was also dangerous and practical in the correct hands.
Revan in the meantime had finally made his first successful attack, his blade nicking the wrist of his rodian opponent, causing him to drop his weapon, clutching his hand. The surviving Dark Agents retreated backward, guarding with their weapons, unsure suddenly of their new powers.
Bastila was lacking such a thing, and quickly switched her front blade off, activating the one behind her. Reverse Shien.
Bastila swiped, with weapon inverted and in one horizontal fan-motion, her tip severed the stem connecting her emitter to the rest of her hilt.
Bastila got the surprise of her life.
The top of Mira's weapon exploded in a shower of sparks-but the blade did not die. As the flat emitter fell, Bastila almost too late realized Mira had built a back-up emitter of lesser strength deep into the hilt. The pink blade had now taken on a foil-like quality.
A light-foil that now raced for the throat of Bastila, her blade at completely the wrong position to defend, and with no time to correct that error or even dodge.
Bastila steeled herself for death-but the blow did not come.
Mira held the foil mere hairs from Bastila's scalp.
"What-what's happening?" she whispered. "Why am I attacking you?"
"It's the Dark Side, twisting your actions. Let go of your hate," Bastila encouraged, eyes never leaving the foil.
"This...this isn't me," Mira said, stepping back, yet still holding her blade active.
"Mira, would your husband want you to act like this?" Bastila asked. "A creature of mindless wrath? With no future other than its next battle?"
"I...no. Nolin..." Mira started crying. "That animal...he showed us what he had done to the others. I said I'd join him if he spared me..." Mira dropped to her knees.
"Mira," Bastila said, reaching out slightly, "The Darkness causes nothing but suffering. If you keep it in you, you risk spending your life in a living hell. Let it go, before it consumes you."
"I..." Mira stopped, gazing at her weapon.
"If this is the truth about the Force," she spat contemptuously. "Then I no longer wish to keep to it."
Mira tossed her weapon aside. The hilt shut off as it left her fingers.
She tore off her domino mask, tossing it aside. She stared at her former compatriots. "Its destroying us. Its evil. Get rid of it before it destroys you too."
"You shall be destroyed for treachery!" one of the agents, a Devaronian shouted, charging.
He was stopped, slammed backward by an invisible bubble unleashed by Revan. He flew backward, unconscious before he hit the ground.
The others broke off into a dead sprint.
Revan sighed, shutting off his blade. He stared at the Rodian he'd been fighting.
"Don't look at me man, I'm done. Screw getting cut by a laser sword all the time," the alien complained in his language.
Bastila shut off her blades, helping Mira up as the sulfur-color finally left the woman's eyes.
Revan took a step back. "Can she be trusted?"
"Can you?" Carth asked Revan.
"Mira rejected the Dark Side in time. She just needed to overcome her rage at learning about her husband's death," Bastila explained.
"Pardon me, Lass, but I'm still plenty mad about that," Mira corrected, tone darkening. "I just want to pay the sonavaschutta back before I retire."
Bastila sighed. "It'll have to do."