8: The More Things Change
As promised, Satele was waiting for them as the shuttle settled in the Temple landing bay. She stood with the same ease Revan expected from Force users of confidence and talent, hands folded in front of her as the shuttle's ramp fell to the ground with a clank. There was little that made her look like Bastila — maybe something around the eyes, or the way the doublesaber at her side rested against her thigh. Revan paused for a moment at the top of the ramp, letting the warm mid-afternoon air wash over her.
Warmth. She wasn't used to warmth. Carth pressed his hand into the small of her back, and she looked up at him. "Are you alright?"
She nodded and smiled, despite the sudden churn in her stomach. "I'm fine."
Stasis had never been warm. Stasis had always been cold.
"Satele Shan," not-Bastila said, motioning to herself, as they stepped off the ramp. "Grand Master of the Order. The report I received claimed that you are Revan."
"Believe me yet?" Carth asked, frost biting at his words.
Satele frowned. "Are you?"
"I don't know." Revan motioned to Carth. "Do you believe he's actually Carth Onasi, former Republic admiral and participant in Revan's super secret suicide mission?"
"That is … true. If you feel well enough, the Council is eager to meet with you. They believe you may hold insight to a small problem we are dealing with."
Revan nodded, and Satele turned and motioned them after her. She leaned in closer to Carth. "They're still about as warm and welcoming as Hoth, aren't they?"
Carth chuckled. "And to think, I spent the last four weeks around here."
"Damn. Sorry."
The interior of the Temple itself was not unlike the one on Coruscant, albeit far smaller in scale. The shuttle pad itself was on the second level, with a tall, open arch heading inside. Revan followed Satele in, holding T3's memory core close to her chest and embarrassingly thankful for Carth's firm hand on her back. They entered another hallway and as Satele turned right, Revan looked left into a circular room with a blue-tinged glow, lined with shelves of flickering holorecordings. She only had a second's glance as they turned right again, onto a circular balcony around an enormous floating holocron-shaped object, framed by two sweeping ramps that led to the lower floor. A Padawan nearby met her eyes and quickly looked away.
"I think my reputation precedes me again," she said quietly. Carth shook his head.
"I'm sure it didn't."
She frowned and stared at Satele's back rather studiously as the woman pushed open a door at the top of the ramps, and paused to look back at them.
"Admiral, I am going to have to ask you—"
"No," Revan said firmly, reaching back and wrapping her hand around his wrist. She could tolerate a lot on a good day — but the past 114,080 days (she'd counted) had been the absolute farthest thing from a "good day," and she was not going to tolerate another Jedi Council solo just yet.
"Anna…" Carth tried to pull her hand off his arm. "Anna, it's fine. I'll just wait out here."
"No," she repeated, forcefully. "I didn't tolerate that secretive Jedi nerfshit before, I'm not going to tolerate it from any Council that doesn't contain Vrook Lamar now."
Carth sighed and looked at Satele; Satele rubbed a spot in between her eyebrows hard. "Very well. Come with me, please."
Revan triumphantly looked up at Carth, but he just shook his head as Satele closed the door behind them. "You're antagonizing them already?"
"Keeps them on their toes," she replied.
They followed Satele into the circular Council chamber, a large, windowless room mostly empty save for a circular holotable surrounded by twelve chairs. Only a few were occupied, and she quickly scanned them — a Togruta, a Kel Dor, a Nautolan, and another human. Satele took her place to the left of the table. Revan stopped at the edge, leaning heavily on one of the empty chairs near the doors.
Always good to have a quick exit, after all.
"This is the current Jedi High Council, save a few members who are currently occupied," Satele started. "Masters Bela Kiwiiks, Tol Braga, Wens Aleusis, and Jaric Kaedan. Masters … this is the woman from Master Galon's report."
"Revanna Galon," Revan said. "You may be more familiar with the name Revan, however."
The male human scoffed, folding his arms. "Is this a joke, Satele? Revan has been dead for three hundred years."
"You'd probably like that, wouldn't you?" Revan shot back. She glanced at Carth, currently pressing his fist into his mouth.
Great. Another Vrook.
"For what it is worth, Jaric, I believe her," Satele replied. Revan frowned, looking over. "I suspect I and Master Galon would know better than anyone, would we not?"
Kaedan's frown deepened, but he didn't argue.
"That might be the first time a Grand Master hasn't dismissed me out of hand since Master Sunrider," Revan muttered.
"If you are Revan," the Kel Dor — Braga — said, folding his hands behind his back. "Where have you been for the last three centuries?"
Revan straightened, shifting her weight to her other foot. "I've been in stasis in the Maelstrom Nebula, apparently, a prisoner of the Sith Emperor. He was going through my mind for information — fortunately, that link is now mostly dissolved."
That got their attention. Braga straightened considerably — Satele and Kaedan uncrossed their arms.
"You didn't mention this," Satele said.
"In our minute conversation earlier? It's not exactly something I want the Padawans gossiping about over dinner."
"You were … linked to the Emperor's mind?" Braga asked. Revan narrowed her eyes.
"Why?"
"The Emperor is our primary enemy," Satele said. "Striking a blow against him could end the war."
Revan shook her head. "The Emperor is the major power in the Empire, but it'd be easy for the Dark Council to take over in a vacuum. I fully support taking him down for a multitude of reasons, but it won't end the Empire."
"It—"
"It would strike a blow, yeah. But you're not …" She squinted. "What are you planning?"
Kaedan looked down at the table and shook his head. She squinted further.
"We are not planning—" Satele started.
"Let's get something straight, here," Revan interrupted said, knifing her hand into the back of the chair. "You do not understand the thing you are dealing with. Out in the Unknown Regions there is an uncharted world that has been wiped completely clean of the Force. I'm not talking about Katarr — I'm talking about a world completely blank. That was the Emperor.
"This man eats worlds. I have been inside his head. He will destroy the entire galaxy to fuel his own power, and if he gets the opportunity, he'll move on to another, and then he will wipe the entire universe clean. I don't know what clever plan you all have concocted — knowing the Jedi, I can guess — but there is absolutely no way to protect the galaxy, save for destroying him. The Emperor must be destroyed. That is the only way."
No one on the Council would meet her eyes, and she threw her hand up. "Will someone at least acknowledge that I just spoke?"
"Your point is valid, and we will consider it," Satele said, firmly. Revan grumbled in the back of her throat. No, they wouldn't. "Your experience doubly so. I have also taken the liberty of contacting Republic High Command. They are … skeptical, but wish to speak with you. Your strategic expertise — and experience with the Empire — will make you invaluable."
"Fair enough." Revan straightened up.
"Why were you kept in stasis?" Braga inquired. The Council was starting to meet her eyes again.
"Several reasons, as far as I could tell." She held up her hand. "One, the Emperor has the ability to dominate minds. I appear to be at least marginally resistant to it. He had to make sure that was an … anomaly, as opposed to something that had developed in the Jedi. Two. My connection to the Force is unusual, both in strength and type. My entire life has been a string of inquisitive Masters attempting to determine why that is, and the Emperor was no different. I suspect he wanted to see if it was exploitable, or at least duplicable.
"Third. I am, simply, a threat to him. I defied him once and lost him the Star Forge, and when I defied him again I destroyed his original Voice. I'm certain he's worried that another encounter with me, this time on absolute equal footing, might not end in his favor. And, fourth." She sighed. "I have information in here—" Revan tapped her forehead. "—that he is desperate to have. Locking me up and establishing a neural link with my mind let him go through my memories at will, looking for what he wanted."
"If the Emperor was the one … 'sorting through your thoughts,'" Kaedan said. "How can you claim to know so much about his plans?"
Revan scoffed. "A door once opened, Vrook 2.0. He wasn't bothering me all the time, so I occasionally snuck through if I realized his own protections were down. I didn't see everything — he noticed after a few minutes each time — but I saw enough to keep apprised. And occasionally he'd get sloppy and I'd catch the stray thought here or there. It's certainly possible to forget, even for the strongest Force-user in the galaxy. Getting through just involves making yourself very unnoticeable."
"Is this link still active?" Braga asked. She narrowed her eyes.
"Why? You looking to make a call?"
"No. It could simply be useful."
Revan pursed her lips but closed her eyes, and let the smallest bit of her own mental wards fall. At the end of a very, very dark thread she could still feel him, stirring at the other end of the galaxy. She frowned and quickly pulled away, resetting her protections before opening her eyes. "Yes. It's weak, and I doubt either of us could reach the other without a severe test of will, but it is there." He's there. She stepped a little closer to Carth unconsciously, and his hand slipped from her back to curl around her waist.
The Councilors looked between one another, and Satele finally nodded. "Very well. We will likely have further questions for you, but I believe that is all for now. You must still be tired."
"There is one thing," Kaedan said. Revan looked up — Satele was frowning, but otherwise silent. "You are back among the Jedi, now. That carries with it … responsibilities. Responsibilities and appearances that cannot be hindered by att—"
"Wait, wait, wait, wait." Revan straightened up, laughing. "Are you about to give me the attachments talk?" Kaedan opened his mouth, and she held up her hand. "Let me make one thing absolutely, one hundred percent clear, here. The Sith brutally tortured me, indirectly made me invade the Republic, and kept me in stasis for three hundred years. Now the Jedi though … they took me prisoner, 'rehabilitated' me —" She arched her fingers around the phrase. "— by brainwashing me with new memories that would have made me a servant, sent me running across the galaxy hunting down my own superweapon, and had absolutely no idea what to do with me because no one expected me to dare survive. As you can imagine, I'm not particularly fond of either Order.
"So I want you to understand one thing, Vrook 2.0 … I am not Jedi, I am not Sith. I am my own. And if you think for one godsdamned second that I care what you think, or what you would dictate, or that I'd take the Order that would have made me a slave over the man who iced himself for three hundred years just to yell at me himself, you are damn wrong. The only reason I'm working with you lot is that a Jedi has a better chance against the Emperor than a Sith. If you think I won't hire a shuttle, cart my ass to High Command, and leave you all high and dry as soon as you try and tell me what to do, you are sorely mistaken." She narrowed her eyes. "I've been in enough cages to recognize this one."
Kaedan scowled. She looked at Satele. "Am I free to leave, or is he planning on locking me in here until I acquiesce? Because I will tear off the godsdamned roof and fly out before that happens."
Satele's frown deepened. "You are free to leave."
Revan turned sharply on her heel and stormed out. Carth glanced back at the Council before jogging after her. "Anna—" He tried to stop her, and she jerked out of his grip. "Anna!"
"What?" she snapped, then stopped and dragged her fingers across her eyes. She looked tired again, like the Council had reminded her of her ordeal. "Sorry, Carth. What?"
"Are you sure it's … I mean, walking away from the Council like that? You've never been reverent on the best of days, but —"
"I had a lot of time to think in stasis, when the Emperor wasn't busy with me," she said. "The Sith certainly aren't right, but the Jedi aren't either." She sighed, picking up his hands. "I'm not worried about falling. My mind is clearer than ever, in that regards. But what I … I'm worried about scale."
His brows knit a little. "Scale?"
She nodded, looking down at their hands. "I lose track sometimes, get too focused on the big picture. It's what I did during the Mandalorian Wars — if ten thousand die here so that a hundred thousand live somewhere else, well, that's a good enough trade."
"What? No it isn't!"
"Exactly. I see results, you see costs. I …" Her tongue darted out, wetting her lips. "I need that. I need you. I'm afraid of what I could do if I don't have you keeping me on track. And if that means I tell the Council to shove it, then I tell the Council to shove it. I won't abandon you after you froze yourself for three hundred years, Carth, not for an organization that would have enslaved me, imprisoned me, or worse."
Carth stared down at her for a moment, then pulled his hands out of her own. She frowned until he tipped her face up and, not caring that they were standing in front of the Jedi Council Chambers in front of an unknown number of Jedi, he kissed her.
She stepped back and grinned up at him as she took his hand. "Come on," she said. "After that, I need to get some air."
#
They sat on a large hill overlooking the Temple grounds, the sun warm and full on their faces as it set. Revan leaned her head back onto Carth's shoulder, letting the dying warmth break over her skin. He tightened his arms, nuzzling his face into her shoulder with a heavy, contented sigh.
"This is real, isn't it?" she asked quietly, and he raised his head. "It was — it wasn't ever warm, no matter where I made myself think I was. This is real. I'm out — I'm free."
"This is real, gorgeous," Carth murmured, raising his head and pressing a kiss to her temple. "This is real."
She turned in his arms, wrapping her own around his neck and nestling her face into the crook of his shoulder. And for the first time in a very long time, the real Carth was able to hold her as she cried.