Coruscant Glory
"There!" Admiral Dodonna pointed. "A weakness in their left flank. Green squadron! Punch through!"
"On it!" Trev Collo replied. The Aleph class fighter jumped in his hands as he aimed at the Star Cruiser Mammoth. "All right guys! Let's rock!" Behind him, the seven remaining fighters of his squadron leaped into the fray. As they passed, the fighters blasted the huge ships. Trev detected the collapse of the gravity well generator aboard Mammoth, and shrieked with joy as his fighters punched through. Ahead of him a bare minute away was the Star Forge. He climbed sharply to make another run at Mammoth.
"We've broken through!"
"Understood." Dodonna's voice was still calm. No one had ever heard her any other way. The Ice Queen they called her. "Bastila is now assisting us with her battle meditation. Let's capitalize on it. Red Squadron, keep that hole open! All capital ships punch through and support the fighters!"
Like the behemoths they were the last capital ships of the fleet forged forward. There was only thirty odd left, and as they advanced, one fell out of formation, breaking up. Behind them the Sith fleet was pushing in, but if they could get through the gap and attack the Star Forge, the loss would be worth it.
Red squadron in the larger Crucis class assault fighters bored in. Their heavier guns ravened across Mammoth, and her sister ship Gargantuan. Both fell out of formation, air forming clouds like blood around them as the capital ships raced past them. Hundreds of Sith fighters came in, facing less Republic fighters now, but the Republic knew they could win. Even if every ship died in this system, they would win if they destroyed that huge suddenly fragile target before them.
Endgame
Danika
I had not mentioned it to Jolee, but after speaking to him in the mess hall, I had dreamed. I had seen him as I knew I had in reality when he taught his class when I was only six. I had seen someone who was an opposite image of Master Vrook, dark instead of light, his hair speckled with white rather than as it was now. He had been very circumspect in what he taught, and I had excelled in my studies after he left just for a chance to read his own Adventures when I was fifteen because after he had left, they had moved it to the restricted library.
What I had said in passing is pretty much what I had said when I was six, because the problem with history is not the subject, but the teacher. After he had left Vrook had taught it for a time, and if you wanted to know how stupid Padawan had failed in the past, he was excellent. But if you wanted to know why something happened, ask someone who had been there; not some fool that 'assumed' they knew, or taught it by rote.
Suddenly I remembered two others that had taught me well. One was a woman named Marai Devos, A Padawan that had lived among the Mandalorians with her master for those last five years before they went to war with the Republic. She had come not to teach history, but to teach the way Mandalorian society worked. The class had been discontinued because the Council had already decided not to intercede. She had left less than a week later, but what she had taught rang in my mind.
After so many years of being taught that our lives were forfeit to save the Republic, by what right had the Council decided not to help? Just before I had led my fellow Jedi in defiance of their edict, I had spoken again with Marai via the holonet. I had asked only one question; how would the Mandalorians react to the fumbling failure of the Republic? Her reply was only the first that had forced my hand.
Her reply was that the Mandalorians respected strength above all. That if they were not beaten, defeated by all the Republic's strength, they would fight until death to defeat the Republic. That had to include the Jedi, because until we foguth them, they would merely assume the Republic was only playing at it. When I asked if she would join me to fight them, her reply was simple. By everything we had been taught by those same masters that now stood by, she would.
I remembered the last of her time during that conflict even now. How she had lay upon a hospital bed after the hell of Malachor, and I did not feel her in the Force at all. The last of my wounded and beloved dead. Then, when I had returned from the Unknown Regions, and asked her to come back for the fight that was to come. But she had been a shattered shell of the woman I had known, and refused me.
The other had been the new librarian at Dantooine. What was her name? I had asked her what I should do, and her reply had been as she had said time and again. Know your enemy's heart, and you know his mind. Because you can never look upon an enemy as simply evil, because no one, no matter how vile, was wholly evil.
I had seen what she meant; judge them not by what you believe, but what They believe. I had seen that Marai had been right. To the Republic, they were monsters that embraced war for over twenty millennia, but that time had shaped them, and to their mind, only the strong deserved to win, and if we did not defeat them decisively, it would merely fuel centuries of war until they won, or died to the last child.
As I ran on, I considered everything that lay before and behind. In so doing, I was struck by a revelation.
I had discovered the true secret of the Dark Side. Something so deep that even the others that had succumbed had never seen it. Something you could only find by first falling, then dragging yourself back out of the abyss.
The dark side is fear. Nothing else. The fear of being weak, so you fought to be strong. The fear of attachment to others, so you made few friends if any. The fear of being supplanted, so you trained only one apprentice. Even then, you watched for the day when that apprentice became strong enough to challenge you. If you timed it right, you remained the master. If not, you died. Even hate, anger and pride, all of which leads to the force comes down to fearing the unknown, or fear that you must fall, as the prideful always do.
Last the fear of death. You knew that when you returned to the Force, you would be added to the balance. It is what all who live and die know will happen. But those who can feel the Force know it on a deeper level. How can you be great in the Force in life without knowing this? When you died, your energy returned to that well spring. Would your life add to the balance or throw it off?
My own fall, when seen through that prism was simplicity itself. I had realized what I had been taught was more important than their orders at the last. When we had won, I knew the Council would never forgive us. For all of my beloved dead, by those reduced to shattered flesh and minds, by those who had somehow survived, I could not merely allow them to punish us for doing exactly what we had been taught!
Condemn a generation of Guardians for doing that? I had refused to return, and except for one, all of us had refused that order. Marai had been the only one who returned, and what did they do? They stripped her of the Force, punished her for every one of the 1400 that had died, been maimed, and the slim one hundred that had not. Because we had not returned as they wanted, she had suffered for us all!
They had proven unworthy of our devotion, as the Senate had not been worthy of our blood.
Originally I had intended to inform the Council about the Star Forge, but when they punished Marai, I felt that only by hiding it, and using it myself to save the Republic; simply to give those others that survived a chance to return home redeemed. I had not even worried about myself. They could have executed me, as the leader, and I would have bent my neck willingly. But the conversation I'd had that the Rakatan Computer spoke of had been before I initially reactivated it, looking for a way to protect the few of us that still lived. Before my own fall into darkness. I had known it would taint and destroy us, known that it would not work as I hoped. Yet in the end I had brought it back to hideous life.
Needing people already tainted, I had gone to the Sith. Using that librarian's meter they were not evil, merely misguided. But using the Star Forge had made them worse.
Again, fear compounding fear until I stood here today, fighting to stop what I had started in my own fear for those who had followed me.
In knowing this, I also knew the secret of the Jedi, and the Sith. One that only those that had already died knew.
For I had died. The person I was now was both Danika and Revan, but both of us had died before I was reborn.
The Jedi were not here to rule. They were not here to control. We knew that for millennia. They were here to maintain that balance, and that was where history, at least as I had been taught by the order was wrong. Too much of the light would be just as harmful as too much of the dark. There is and must always be a balance. Death must balance life, light must balance dark. Chaos must balance order, and freedom must balance oppression.
The entire Galaxy, probably the entire universe was a living entity, and we as people were not even large enough to be a virus in such a body. But we could infect it, Force help us, weaken it enough that something else could kill it if we weren't careful.
I looked at the Republic, and inwardly I smiled. So many worlds, so many views, so many struggles, for struggle is part of life, the Sith had that much right. But the struggle is not the reason for living. It is part of it, but never all. The struggle only defines what is won or lost. Every gambler knows that simple fact. You only went down or up. Tomorrow would be different. The galaxy was one massive game of Pazaak, and no one won or lost forever.
There was a deeper secret that I saw in the light. The Jedi that had joined
The Sith had not been banished to destroy them, they had been banished by the Force itself because the Sith who had lived then were the balance. As they lost battle after battle, some of the Jedi must have seen what would occur. The light would be triumphant. But in that it would destroy itself from within. They would forget that the dark was always there and the seeds of their own destruction would be planted. Or perhaps the Force, as any living thing, itself had assured that the dark would survive as needed.
The antipathy between us had almost been planned. The Sith hated the Jedi because we stood between them and the Republic. But by the same token, if the Jedi were to disappear, the Galaxy could die. As much as the Jedi had hated the Sith for two thousand years, The Force itself had set us all upon this course!
I knew now the answer to the ancient riddle. The Force was not a unifying entity, it was a living thing that struggled to survive as any living being did. It had a body a hundred thousand light years across we called the galaxy, but we were so tiny in comparison that we merely thought it was a slew of stars with the dust motes we called planets. It had created antibodies to protect itself from our own feeble attempts to damage it, and those were called the Jedi. But our own bodies created chemicals that limited it's own defenses, because in humans, an over active immune system was also called Leukemia, just as one that was too weak could not resist infection. It had created an enemy for us to face, and when either side was too strong, it fought back to maintain the balance.
Even the Sith code was ours, merely perverted. Both should end the same, though the Sith had forgotten that simple line.
There is no death, only the Force. To which, if anyone would believe me, I could add a line;
There is no dark, there is no light. There is only the Force.
It was so simple.
I stepped into a smaller room. Large matter transmitters were aimed at the six platforms around the room. I was curious, because it hadn't been here before. Of course the Star Forge could change and grow on command. Whatever it was for, it had been built because Malak wanted it. I knew the last passage to the upper observation deck lay around the corner, and I ran that way.
The door opened, and my lightsaber lit off. Malak stood there, two struggling Jedi hanging in the air behind him.
"Excuse me a moment." His lightsaber flashed in an arc at one of the Jedi, decapitating him, as he reached out with his empty hand, and the other man's neck snapped as he spun the head completely around. Then he slung the weapon. "I had some garbage to take care of." He finished the sentence as the bodies crumpled on the floor. He stopped five meters away, hands clasped behind his back.
"I tire of this farce, Revan. You have been a thorn in my side ever since I seized the mantle of dark Lord from your feeble grasp! But you made your last mistake when you came here. The Star Forge feeds my command of the dark side even as it weakens your grasp on the light! You are no match for me here, and this time you will not escape."
"I have no intention of escaping." I replied. "Surrender. The Jedi can heal you-"
"Heal me!" He laughed. "Is that what you call what they will do? You think stripping away your power and identity was merciful? I would rather die!"
"They saved me from the darkness, Malak. They can save you too, if you allow it."
Spoken like a true slave of the Jedi." He sneered. "Save your sermon, I have already had enough of it. You are an insignificant speck beneath my notice here. I have surpassed you in every way and found the last secret of the Star Forge, what you had not even imagined! You have no idea what you took over here, Revan. The Dark energy of the Force fills its very walls, the people below are it's food, supplying more energy with every birth and death."
"They can't use the Force." I murmured.
"They can't because all of it comes here. They are sucked dry of the Force even as the Star Forge grows stronger." He sighed. "But as I said, I will not deal with you. The Star Forge will do that for me. Enjoy it." The door between us slammed shut, and I spun around. The matter transmitters hummed, and light flashed down. But as I watched, it flickered and died. Curious, I went to one of the workstations.
CONSTRUCTION ABORTED. ALL RESOURCES ASSIGNED TO OTHER PROJECT.
I grinned. COUNT ON SHELTERS CONSTRUCTED. I typed in.
9,975,792,210,442,721. the computer replied. INCREASING TO 10,000,000,000,000,000 IN FIVE SECONDS
I chuckled, and opened the hatch. The inner hatch opened, and I saw Malak standing in the center of the Observation deck. Beyond the transparisteel I could see ships approaching, just pinheads from where we stood.
"I'm sorry your death trap isn't working. The Star Forge is... rather busy." I commented.
He turned, glaring at me. "What do you mean?" He snarled.
"I locked in a priority rush order for tents. Quite a few tents, actually."
"What?"
"Right now there should be enough tents that every man woman and child in the Republic can live in their own personal tent, with enough to go camping somewhere else if they're of a mind." I shrugged. "You never can have too many."
He seemed amused. "Well done. I had thought I removed your access. It seems I should have checked more carefully. I see that you retained more control over the dark side than I might have imagined. You are strong. Stronger than you were when you were the Dark Lord. I didn't think it was possible."
"The Force is the Force. There is no difference between the Dark and the light in strength." I replied.
"I am almost tempted to capture you instead of killing you, Revan. Breaking your will as I did with Bastila would be merely a matter of time. You would make a far better asset that she could be. By the by, what ever happened to Bastila?"
"She is using her battle meditation to help the Republic now."
"No matter. They have less than thirty capital ships remaining. I still have over a hundred. They will die here, and my fleet will destroy the Republic they can no longer defend.
"I wonder. Would it be worth the effort to make you my apprentice? Perhaps not. You are already too powerful for me to guarantee that you would remain the apprentice for long."
"I will never serve the Dark side again."
"Foolish words. I have known you since you were a child old friend. The Dark and the Light has fought over you all your life. The balance is tipped toward the light for now. But you will tip the other way again eventually.
"Savior, conqueror, hero, villain. You have been all those things, Revan, and yet you are nothing. In the end you belong to neither the light nor the darkness. You will forever stand alone." He sighed. There was only one thing you could never be."
Think of the power an unrequited love could generate in your soul Bastila had said.
Looking at him, his eyes cold in hate, I realized how much of what was happening now in this room was my fault. He had been the older brother I depended on when I first arrived, a frightened girl of six looking up to the ten year old who had started his Jedi training at my age. He had been the friend I admired when I was assigned to his class, when I had begun to outreach him in the Force all those years ago, I only fourteen, he eighteen and a man worth admiring. we had played together, trained together, gone swimming in the lake near the Academy as unashamed as only children could be. Hugged each other when I had a nightmare, slept in each others arms for warmth and comfort as apprentices, and later as Padawan on our first missions.
He had felt more, wanted so much more, but had never said so. The Jedi teach that love is something that cannot be focused on just one thing, it must be given unsparingly to all. Love of all men if you will, rather than love of a man. He had wanted so much more, but I had been blind to it then.
Then the war had come. We had been friends, family in all but flesh, and I had grown to love him, not only for what he did in the name of the Republic, but as the man he was.
If only we had allowed what our bodies wanted then, we wouldn't be enemies now. But it hadn't happened.
When I had turned to the dark, he had followed, not out of need, but out of love for me. When he had lost his jaw at Trantor not long after Telos he must have thought it bothered me. I had come to see him in the kolto tank, and turned away. From repugnance, he probably thought. But I had turned away because I had never kissed those full lips as a woman would kiss a man in passion, and now never would. Never felt his arms around me in an embrace that wasn't for support or warmth. Never felt his flesh against mine since we were children.
It wasn't until his injury that I suddenly realized that I had yearned for that pleasure, now torn away from me. I had hurt more at that moment than I had from every wound I had taken before, and I knew, more than I had suffered since. I might have offered him my love then, but I had not. He would have seen it as pity, and hated me for it.
If I had been wholly in the dark I could have ended his life then, but I loved him still, and more desperately than before. Instead I made sure he was as well as he could be before assigning him again. I had given him his own ship, offered him his own fleet! Not to separate us as he might have thought, but to give him space to grow beyond that injury. Part of me might have hoped that he would, that one day he would accept what I yearned to offer.
Instead his love had festered, and when it was possible, had struck me down. That explained his rage at Taris, at Dantooine. He could not have me, and refused to let others have what he could not. If he could, he would have fed the entire galaxy into the Star Forge, including himself. As long as he assured that I went into the furnace before him.
I had known him for eleven years then, and I had known in all that time that he had an enormous capacity for love, but as large a one for hate.
Since he could not enjoy the one, he had indulged the other.
"I believe in redemption for all I care about, Malak. That still includes you."
"Of course you do." He spoke as if to a child. "It is all the Jedi masters left you. Fate and destiny have conspired to have you destroy the Galaxy, then to save it. You have been thrust into the role of savior again, and I must fight you because this is all I have left.
"Once again we face each other in mortal combat. This time only one of us leaves here alive. But first, say hello to my guests." He motioned, and a series of cylinders slid up into the room. I looked at one, and my blood ran cold. Belaya hung there, peaceful as if in death. But I could still feel her life force. Zhar, a few others I didn't know by name, but remembered from the Academy.
"What have you done?" I asked in horror.
"I told you the Star Forge was alive. In many ways it needs to be fed like any animal. The Rakata weaken. Within perhaps ten years they will die out as a race because of it. But there are other sources of power. While you were busy running around defeating and conquering, I spent my convalescence studying the Star Forge.
"When you sent captured Jedi here, to be sent on to the Trayus Academy, I used some of them in experiments, and discovered that with these simple tubes, I can draw the Force through them to fuel the machine.
"Every Jedi that would not submit, every Sith that disobeyed my orders or angered me has been encased in cylinders like these, scattered through the entire station since I deposed you. They have become parts of this machine, and it feeds off their energy. Disposable parts that are replaced as they wear out."
He spun, waving at the cylinders. "Look around you! These are the Jedi that fell at Dantooine. Dead in every way save one. They cannot return to the Force. I have stayed their decomposition, and they draw the Force from the Galaxy to feed themselves instinctively. And in so doing, they power the Star Forge for me.
"And I have discovered more. I can drain their Force into myself, making myself stronger with every life, making me immortal. Once I have finally beaten you, I will add you to my collection, and you will fuel my conquests! I shall rule forever!"
I felt a part of my mind reel, but in the same instant, I understood why Ajunta Pall had gifted me. I had instinctively used one of the many powers he had gifted me with when I had sent his spirit on. I reached out, and I felt the lives of all those trapped people. Not just the dozen or so here, but hundreds no, thousands trapped between death and life throughout the station. I felt the life force, and gathered it to me as I had with Ajunta Pall.
The bodies spasmed eyes open and screaming, then I felt them slacken throughout the station in true death.
"What have you done!" He screamed as he saw the bodies collapse. I smiled, and held out my hand. A glowing ball arced up, then sprayed the room with sparks. Every one someone now freed forever. One of them floated before me, and I heard Zhar's voice.
Well done, my beloved daughter.
Malak screamed, and he caught me with an angry hand instead of the Force, slamming me into the wall. "I will still win the day!"
"No." I held out my other hand. In it was the grenade I had made. I triggered it and there was a blinding flash that flung us apart. I had wondered when I heard of Marai's exile, what it would feel like to have the Force ripped from you.
It was worse than I had imagined.
Picture having every cell of your body suddenly explode, but you're alive to feel it. I screamed in agony, and knew even as it happened that every ship in the system, every being in every ship was feeling it. Every being on the planet feeling it. Perhaps everywhere in the Galaxy. For those used to the Force, it was bad. For the two of us at it's center, it was sheer agony that seemed to never end.
I found myself kneeling, shaking my head to clear it. Across the room Malak was trying to get back on his feet. "What madness is this?"
"I always wanted to defeat the Jedi, not destroy them." I gasped. I could stand, but I was shaky. "Before I reactivated the Star Forge, I had asked the main computer on the Rakata home world for a way to neutralize the Force. It didn't want to tell me."
The Star Forge staggered, and I could hear metal sheering somewhere. One of the transparisteel windows fractured in a crazy pattern, but didn't burst.
"It designed a grenade that neutralizes all of the Force within its blast area. That was what you just felt."
"What is the blast area?" He staggered, and steadied himself.
"I don't know." I admitted. " Farther than this room obviously. A few light seconds, maybe the entire system." I shrugged. "Possibly the entire galaxy."
"You, you fool!"
"Perhaps. But think of this. On Tatooine we found the wreckage of Rakata ships, but the metal has proven worthless because it is maintained by the energy ofStar Forge. It doesn't have the strength of forged metal, and collapses rapidly. Even now 30,000 years of history is catching up with everything constructed here." I pointed out the armorplast. A Sith fighter had been flying by, followed by an Aleph. It had made a sharp turn to evade, and collapsed as if the main supports had vanished. "How much of the armada you're using now for your conquests, that we built, came from here? That cannot even be repaired, except by using the Star Forge?"
He screamed and charged me, lightsaber humming. I blocked, and I could see in his eyes the loss of all his dreams. Even if he killed me now, I had beaten him. He cut again and again, and I blocked him. He had been my equal with a lightsaber before, but he hadn't been fighting for his life every second of the last months. All I needed to do was wait.
I struck, and knew he was dying. Yet instead of striking again, I dove forward frantically catching his body as he began to fall. His lightsaber fell, and his hands once so strong, so sure, weakly pawed at me as he tried to breathe. I lowered him to the deck, holding his head up, looking into his eyes.
The Star Forge shuddered. The fleet had begun pounding it, shattering a structure older than time itself, and I didn't care that I was inside that target. All I cared about was the fragile life slipping through my hands.
He looked up, and for the first time in years, I saw actual pleasure. "Revan." He whispered.
"Forgive me old friend. No. Forgive me, my love." I whispered back, tears falling onto his face.
"All these years." He husked. "I yearned to hear those words. Too late, Revan. Too late."
"No my love." I held him against my bosom, caressing his head. "I wanted to hold you like this for so long. But the war came between us, then the dark side did. When I realized that fact, I wanted to give myself freely, but you felt that I was repulsed by your condition." I touched the metal gorget he had worn all this time. "I wanted to show you that I loved the man you had been. The man you had become. That I had always loved you. But you would have thought I pitied you."
His eyes looked confused. "Then..?"
I nodded, kissing his cheek.
"You know what I regretted most?" I asked. He looked even more confused. "At first that I never kissed you while you still had lips. But now I regret that I never bore our children."
His eyes understood my pain, then regret. "A waste." He whispered. "My life, all I have done. A waste."
"No my love, you were part of the balance as I was."
"Still... spouting the wisdom of the Jedi, I see. Maybe there is more truth in their code than I ever believed. I... I cannot help but wonder, Revan. What would have happened had our positions been reversed? What if fate had decreed the Jedi would capture me instead? Could I have returned to the light, as you did? If you had not led me down the dark path in the first place, what destiny would I have found?"
"I wanted to be Master of the Sith and ruler of the galaxy. But that destiny was not mine, Revan. It might have been yours, perhaps... but never mine. And in the end, as the darkness takes me, I am nothing."
"No my love. I know the true secret of the Force. The Dark and the Light." I bent down and whispered in his ear.
While he no longer had a mouth, I could see the idea made him want to smile. "How droll." He reached up, and I caught his hand, holding it against my face long after the muscles had gone slack.
Coruscant Glory
"What the hell was that?" Admiral Dodonna shook her head. She felt as if someone had smacked her in the forehead with a four kilo hammer. She staggered to her feet, looking around. Master Vandar lay in a heap, shuddering.
"Master-"
"I will be well. Fight your battle, Admiral." A soft weak voice ordered.
"Damage report!"
"None from that blast, Admiral." A lieutenant reported. "We have half a dozen in sickbay complaining of severe headaches, but only the Jedi seem to have been really hit by it."
"The damn thing keeps coming up with more things to hit us with, and I for one am sick of it!" Dodonna pointed. "Take us in!"
The ship turned, and her guns punched into a frigate. Everyone gasped as the ship came apart as if it were a badly assembled toy.
"What is going on here?" She screamed. No one answered. "Send to all ships, close on the Star Forge upper structure."
Danika
I watched the approaching ships, knew that I was going to die, and was content. This battle, the war, all of the death had all been my fault. It was I that led my comrades into the Darkness, taking my best friend and first love with me. I had dragged him over into the darkness, never requited his passion for me, never born his children, been beaten by the Jedi. In so doing betrayed the Sith I had led into the slaughter. Then in turn had failed Bastila. Failed the Republic. How many billions could point to me and say 'she caused our deaths'?
I had failed in everything.
I pulled out the package I had taken from Korriban, the Ebon sword of Ajunta Pall, and laid it on Malak's chest, clasping his hands on the hilt. I had promised to have it destroyed, and from the look of the ships approaching, that was guaranteed.
"Danika, Report." Carth. I'm sorry, Carth. I betrayed your trust by being who I am. I must atone.
"My Mand'alor, answer." Your entire race I have failed. Pick someone who won't fail you.
"Danika?" Mission the sister I never knew I needed. Be well, live long, have children.
"Danika." I heard Bastila's voice. "Please, don't make me go through life alone again." I sobbed. Of all of them this call I wanted to answer. I'm sorry, Bastila. The blood of billions of dead is on my hands, on both sides. I can't live with that. Please, think well of me.
"Amma Mata?" I spun. Sasha squirreled out of a vent, and ran to me. She caught my arm pulling frantically. "Come!" She said in Mando'a.
"You go my love." I whispered, turning back to that beloved body. "I have something I have to do first."
"No! You come with me now!" She begged.
I looked down into that still face. So peaceful now. I couldn't bear to look away. "Go on. I'll be with you in a moment."
"I can't." She said. "The vents have collapsed. I don't know the way." She cuddled against me. "I'm scared."
I burst into tears, holding her as I stood. I failed one more time on that day.
I didn't die.
As we fled the Star Forge, I saw it for what it was. The Rakata had been that first race reaching for the Force. They had used it, and like any unsupervised child had abused it. Their abilities had not disappeared. They had been suppressed. The plagues had been the Force striking back at them, balancing the Galaxy in the quickest manner possible. Like a surgeon saving the life at the cost of good flesh.
The Star Forge had merely added to their pain, drawing away all of the Force before they could even learn to use it. That they had survived at all was testament to the fact that they still had a place here in this galaxy among us. Now their crowning achievement was falling to pieces before our very eyes, from millennia of torment, freeing them at last . A section of ladder someone had installed broke away as the wall behind it fell into dust as we climbed down. Still I strove to save Sasha.
No one had ever dreamed of such a structure, powered both by machinery and the Force except for them. No one would ever do so again. I knew the inner workings of that creation, and I vowed that nothing like it would ever be built again. I would place my records in the archives. But what I knew, what I remembered, the surveys done by Malak and I before the Sith arrived, that I would take to my grave. Even the existence of the Star Forge must become a legend nothing more, I would assure that only those that were worthy would ever know of the truth.
I finally found a lift shaft that hadn't collapsed, and felt the car hurtle downward.
How would I choose who was worthy? I wouldn't. The Force would.
Coruscant Glory
"All ships target the stabilizer at grid 411." Admiral Dodonna ordered. There were only 20 capital ships left, but they had more than enough firepower to finish the job. Blasters ripped into the oddly fragile metal, tearing deep into the structure. A transparisteel panel on an upper deck shattered, and the air within belched out, carrying a man's body. His hands had been locked around a sword of some kind. Dodonna shook her head, smiling, but then looked around to make sure no one had seen it.
The stabilizer tower shattered, and as it did the Star Forge began sinking toward the star.
"All right, let's get out of here!" Dodonna shouted. The capital ships clawed for separation. There were a dozen ships waiting for them. "Where's the enemy fleet?" She demanded.
"A lot of them ran, Admiral." The sensor officer reported. Those ones..."
As he stopped talking, fighters were pouring over the enemy frigates, all, she noticed of alien manufacture. One shattered like a crystal goblet under fire. Another struck its colors, signaling its surrender. The others ran. The fighters harried them.
"Admiral." She turned. Vandar was sitting up, holding his head.
"Are you all right now?"
"The battle?"
"Somehow we won. The enemy ships were starting to come apart. I don't know how to explain it."
"I think I know who to ask. Where is the Ebon Hawk?"
"Sir?" She walked over to the sensor officer. Ebon Hawk wasn't on her screen.
Ebon Hawk
Carth
Something happened. The Jedi all screamed, and collapsed, and we had one hell of a time getting them aboard the ship and holding off attacks at the same time. A short while after that Bastila and the other Jedi of our team staggered in. But of Sasha and Danika, we had no trace. I called her. Canderous called her Mission called her. Even Bastila called her. But there was no reply. Bastila seemed to be taking it the worst. She had collapsed, crying, shaking her head when we questioned her.
"She wants to die." She finally got out. "She expects to die, and thinks... she thinks she deserves to die. That is why she won't talk to us."
I stormed out onto the deck, thumbing my com unit. "Danika, answer or so help me-"
"So help you what?" I spun. Danika was walking toward me, holding Sasha in her arms. I whooped, charging at her. She set the girl down just in time to avoid having her crushed as I picked her up in a bear hug.
Behind me I could hear shouting, and Bastila leaped past me. Danika turned as if she had known what would happen, and caught the smaller woman in a hug.
"You are never leaving me, Danika." Bastila looked up, and I was astonished by the joy in her eyes. "Never! Do you hear me?"
"All right already." Danika replied.
Mission was there, and Danika hugged her wordlessly. She nodded to Canderous, then motioned. "Can we all get out of here before we find out what the inside of a star feels like?"
We ran aboard, and Bastila and I took our stations. The ship shuddered, staggering into the air, and spun on her thrusters, punching through the force field and into space. We were closer to the star than I would ever want to be, and the glare almost blinded us. I climbed frantically, and watched the sensor behind us. The Star Forge sheared, the lower half suddenly buckling and falling away as the upper part spun madly. Then it was gone into the star as if it had never been.
"Where is everybody?" Mission asked. "All I am getting is a lot of small returns. Wreckage, a lot of wreckage."
"Maybe they're dead." I turned to see Danika standing behind us. "It would be just my luck."
"Now don't-" I started.
"Ebon Hawk, this is Coruscant Glory. Standby for Admiral Dodonna."
"I expected her to survive." I chuckled. "Never thought the Ice Queen would even get scratched."
"Well a little scratched Carth." The admiral's voice replied dryly. "Finally I found out what you lower ranks called me all these years." She chuckled in delight. "How are you down there?"
"Something big knocked out the Jedi. We had to drag them aboard. The Jedi from our team are all aboard. In fact, I don't think we lost anybody."
"Understood. Stand by for Master Vandar."
"I will speak to Revan." He said.
"Danika Wordweaver here, Master." Danika replied. "We all know Revan is dead."
"As you will." He answered. "What happened to Bastila?"
"Other than having been suborned, redeemed, and getting bonded in truth to me? Why nothing, Master."
There was a long silence. "And the affect of the weapon?"
"I don't know, Master." She admitted. "I don't know the range, power or
cumulative effect of it. Perhaps we will regain the use of the Force. Perhaps not." She shrugged though he couldn't see that. "But I submit that it crippled the Sith facing the fleet, and allowed them the victory." She rubbed Bastila's neck.
"I think it a fair trade."
"Such a weapon must never be made ever again."
"Master, I destroyed all records as I went, and the only device that can make such a weapon is falling into the sun as we speak. I promise you that."
"It was not your decision to make. But done is done. Bastila must be retrained-"
"Master, unless you want me there as well, I suggest you rethink that." Danika broke in. "I am protective of those I love."
"You always were." He grunted. "Meet us on the planet. Much there is to do yet."
"On our way." I called.
Recessional
Danika
The temple had not seen such a crowd in millennia. Hundreds had gathered. Humans, Twi-lek, Rodians. To one side stood a group of the Elders, and with them grim faced Mandalorians.
Master Vandar stood with the Admiral as she prepared for the ceremony. I would have preferred to relax with a glass of Tihaar among the Mando'a, but Bastila would have none of it. While preparing for the ceremony, we had discussed it at length. "We are being honored, my love. Better to be there than to appear to be sulking."
I am not sulking." I groused, brushing Sasha's hair, then braiding it with economic skill. "I just would rather have some Tihaar and relax than have to stand around like a prize animal at a market." I chuckled at a sudden vision. "If the medal says 'Best of Show", I am going to misbehave."
"Hush." Bastila draped her arm over my neck, nuzzling against me. "We have to decide about Sasha. They will want to train her."
"Why not?" I asked. I turned her around. My hairstyle on that small head should have looked silly. But she had her own presence. "Our girl can do anything. As long as she learns to clean up after herself."
"I couldn't use a broom on the Leviathan." She chirped back.
"Don't get cheeky with me, young lady." I admonished.
"I am no lady." She retorted. "I am daughter of a farmer, was slave of a Mandalorian, and am daughter presumptive of a Jedi!" She retorted.
"Daughter presumptive?" Bastila asked confused.
"She's been calling me Amma Mata for months now. Don't you know what it means?"
"Mandalorian is very difficult, and the Goodar dialect doubly so." She closed her eyes. "Person I-" Her eyes opened. "Person I accept as my mother?"
"Close enough." She was calling me the equivalent of 'stepmother' all that time, and you didn't know!" I caroled.
"Enough. What does that make me?" Bastila asked tartly.
"Amma tu che Mata?" Sasha answered grinning.
Bastila mentally ran through it. "The not-so-nice stepmother? Wait! The wicked stepmother! Oh, no, I am not going to- Danika will you stop laughing! Sasha there must be..."
All that was behind us now. The door of the temple stood open, and I gloried in the feeling of the Force again. The effect had not been permanent, but I stood by what I had told master Vandar. It would have been worth the loss for the victory.
The Admiral was all set to give a speech, but I stepped up to her. "Please, there is something more important to do first." I whispered.
"There can't be!" She waved toward the medal boxes on a tray her aide carried. "We've won a great battle, and you say there is something more important than that?"
"Yes, Admiral. An entire race needs to regain their honor." She looked confused, and I stepped past her, leaping up on the edging stones of the ramp. "Mando'a! Hala! Macht Che-na!" I shouted.
The Mando'a around the One stiffened, and their clan chief ran forward.
"No, all of you!" I roared in Basic. The other Mando'a looked at each other confused. Then they marched forward. The Republic troops muttered and backed away.
"ALL!" I roared. About a quarter of the humans among the Republic Forces came forward. Not all of the Mandalorians had become mercenaries. They gathered before me at the edge of the ramp.
"As Mand'alor, I took your honor. For services to myself, to the Republic, and to the Rakatan people, I give it back, as you deserve." I said. The crowd below me stiffened.
"Canderous Ordo of Clan Ordo, come forth!" He came forward, and I motioned toward the stones at my feet. "You took cleansing the honor not only of your clan but others upon yourself. I say that no man deserves to be Mand'alor more than you." He stared at me in amazement. "That is once I am done."
The Mandalo'a at my feet roared at that. "Makiel Suuchin of Clan Lembat!" He stepped forward. "You are now Makiel Suuchin of Clan Suuchin. All that remain of your people on this planet shall bear your clan name with honor. Do any deny me?"
"I only ask." Konrad Morgo of clan Shoomart said. The local Mandalorians groaned.
"What is it this time, Konrad?'
"Should we not be Clan Wordweaver?" The others looked at him then at me intently.
"Konrad, you are the most irritating man I have ever had the misfortune to meet!" I motioned for them to go away. "Choose among yourselves. Your Mand'alor will be there when we are done." They retreated bickering. Sasha giggled. "Nothing from you, little girl!"
"If I may?" Admiral Dodonna asked sarcastically.
"I apologize, Admiral." I bowed to her. She shook her head ruefully, then looked at Master Vandar as if to say 'She's your problem'. Then she turned.
"We come to honor the heroes of the battle fought over our heads. It shall be called the Battle of Lehon after those that have asked to join the Republic." She motioned toward the Elders. One by one we stepped forward, each bowing to accept our medals. Republic Crosses, the second highest award. The Droids went first, each accepting the medals with a bit of confusion. Then Mission and Zaalbar together. She had threatened to dump a ton of unprocessed Kolto on the proceeding if they ignored Zaalbar and our droids, and I had worried more that she might actually carry out the threat than where she might have gotten it. Then Juhani, Canderous and Jolee. Canderous took it as he did everything, stoically. But I could see the gleam in his eyes. When he died, he expected to be in that front rank of that heavenly army.
Finally Carth Bastila and I stepped forward together. The Admiral smirked, and reached. "For the leaders of this endeavor, we have Senate Medals of Valor." She leaned down. The highest award that can be offered, she had to get the Senate's permission to even consider issuing them. She motioned, and we knelt. The only medal for valor you had to accept on bended knee.
A tradition I understood, because all but ten had been posthumous. With the award came a lifetime stipend, and the honor of having everyone whatever their rank right up to Chancellor bowing to you first. I felt the ribbon drop, the medal hitting between my breasts. As I stood, I saw Carth's face begging to be anywhere else. Bastila merely bowed her head as if remembering as I did all those that had died to earn it.
"Our heroes!" The Admiral shouted. The crowd roared, and we gathered on the edge of the ramp, waving like idiots.
"And the redemption of the fallen." Vandar said. I winked at him, and he solemnly returned it.
Most of the modern ships had escaped the battle, several of the Rakata designed ships had also fled. Reports said the Sith advance had stopped, and nw had begun to withdraw. We hadn't won the war yet, just set our toes and shoved the darkness back a pace. Would anything we had done matter?
Who cared? We had won the breathing space.
There is no dark, there is no light. There is only the Force.
End
A brief Aside.
If you go over to Lucasforums in the Coruscant Entertainment Center, you will find I started my time in fan fiction there. As mentioned in the intro to this, I had written it back in 2005, and originally posted merely snippets as a thread entitled KOTOR Excerpts. After about three years of trying to find an agent, I finally just posted the entire bloody thing, going back to where I had begun and posting in sequence. In fact this work you have read is different from that one, because a writer, as Michelangelo admitted about the Mona Lisa, is never satisfied, and wants to tweak it forever. Check that work out to see what I mean.
A reader posted this to this story here:
The Echani are a result of genetic tampering by the Arkanians, resulting in the entire Near-human species to have nearly identical appearances. This made it impossible for them to know each other base entirely on looks, so they developed a culture that used body language and violence as a form of communication, as scars and the way you carry yourself become their identity. At least, this is what I've understood and sued in my own story.
My reply to that comment deserved a response all of you should see and is (Slightly edited) as follows:
'While that is what is said now, when I wrote this (In fact I had finished my TSL novel and two pre Republic novels long before this 'explanation of the Echani' was written.) there was no mention at all in the Wookiepedia about the Echani. Your argument is similar to using one statement in the Bible (The crowd of maybe a hundred or two) accepting the blood guilt for the execution of Jesus, and that blames the entire nation (later used by the Nazis to give them the justification for the Concentration camps) among others to blame all of the Jews for that death.'
Addenda to the last: After reading the above, I remembered an old TV show named Buck Rogers, and especially the very bad second season. In the Episode 'The Dorian Secret', you have a human society where everyone wears masks, and it is believed that it is because of radiation scars from a decades old war. However it is later revealed that it is because a genetic mutation has made the entire race look exactly identical, and they wear the masks to stop themselves from going insane.
There is also inside the SW Universe, the Lorrdians; who had been conquered by another race centuries earlier and had been denied under penalty of death from speaking aloud. They developed sign language and mimicry to a high art as a language. If you haven't read it, that is Han Solo's Revenge.
I'm not sure which of these the author of that 'explanation of the Echani' read or saw first, but isn't it awfully familiar?
Final note. This is the end of the story, but as Bilbo Baggins said, it is only the end of one story, because stories have a mind of their own. There will be one further post, but it is for those of you that want to understand the provenance of Return From Exile, my KOTOR: TSL novel.
When I started writing them both, I used my own love of military history as the background, so there are brief glimpses of our own past through their eyes.
I am posting it here because I don't want to have to put in 'if you hated history in school, you can just go on to the story' as chapter 1. Most of the hits on any thread are on the first chapter, and while I might get a lot of them, it isn't fair to those who refuse to accept the Quote from Tacitus:
'Those who refuse to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it'.
I have my own version I used in another story of mine:
'Those who refuse to learn from history, are only doomed to repeat it if they are lucky. If they are not lucky, all they fought for dies along with them, and good riddance'.