Citadel Station

Ships had come out of hyperspace, a fleet of nightmares. Republic ships cruised alongside Mandalorian and Sith vessels. But the bulk of that fleet had been ripped apart by some massive force. There were rents in the hulls, drives with their fairings ripped away.

At their center came the largest warship ever seen.

Lieutenant Grenn stared at the horror coming toward them. It wasn't the largest Sith fleet he had ever seen, but it was one of horrors because the light codes flashing told him that most had been listed as lost over ten years ago.

"Sir?" The officer on the sensor panel looked up in horror. "That large ship! It's reading as Ravager!"

"Well it looks like the Sith have been busy getting ships from somewhere. Now we know where." Grenn replied. "Battle stations."

The people of Citadel station turned in shock as the battle klaxons rang. "All civilians, return to quarters immediately. I repeat, all civilians, return to quarters immediately!" Came the call over every intercom. The three thousand odd men of the Telosian Security forces ran to their armories, loading up on weapons, slapping on their armor. They had as much chance as a pint of Tihaar at a Mandalorian wake, but they had to try.

Queen Talia heard the klaxon, and ran to the com panel.

"Ma'am this line is restricted to operations at this time, please-"

"Tell whoever is in charge that I will lead my men to their assistance. If they will stand here and waffle, we shall fight alone if need be!" She flicked off the screen, turning to the men with her. "Riiken, Gelesi, take a third of the men each. I hear their fuel is low, and destroying it will win the battle for the enemy."

The men ran off. The com chimed, and she opened the channel. "I am Lieutenant Dol Grenn. You wanted to speak to me?"

"I have two thousands of men on this station, and by the oath I swore, we will defend it even if you do not!"

"Calm down, lady-"

"That Lady is queen Talia!" My chamberlain shouted.

"Shut up, you worm." Talia snapped. "Call me what you will, Lieutenant, but my captains have moved to protect the fuel stores. I only ask where I will stand with what remains."

He looked at her for a long time. "Well since you put it that way, check the station schematics. Modules 42 through 65 need support."

"I shall be there." She flicked off the switch then drew the gold chased sidearm she wore. "As for you." She pointed at the Chamberlain. "You will come with me."

Corren Falt looked up from his panel. While the company had taken one hell of a hit from Lorso's arrest, he had caught them up. The openings the Ithorians had promised to resources on his promise to stop interfering with them had brought them back into the black with a vengeance.

"What's going on?" He demanded.

"The Sith are attacking the station, sir." His assistant reported. "We're preparing your ship for departure-"

"Do I look like Lorso?" He asked in a cold voice. "We have an investment, and by the gods we're protecting it! Arm all of our men, get those mercenaries that are sitting on their butts off them!"

Marai

It was a scene from my nightmare, and now it was real.

"Where did they get a fleet like that?" Atton asked.

"Malachor." I answered. I touched the light codes. "Republic cruiser Endeavor, Mandalorian frigate Ralshia. Over three quarters of them are ships lost at Malachor. The rest are just what the Sith have left."

"Ship approaching Citadel Station, this is the Security force… Override seven is in effect, veer off, leave the system immediately!"

"Security this is the Ebon Hawk. This is my party, and I will be here for it." I snapped. I pointed. "Is bay 2 on module 126 still open?"

Atton checked. "Yeah. A ship just pulled out of there."

"Then put us down."

The ship flew through the cloud of fighters running ahead of the monster fleet. There weren't as many as I would have anticipated. Only the ten or fifteen Sith ships had put them out. It didn't mean they didn't have more, but it gave me some heart.

But Ravager filled me with cold terror. Was the generator still aboard? If it was we'd all die just as they had at Malachor.

We flared out for our landing, and my crew leaped down onto the deck. TSF troops stood there staring at us. Grenn pushed himself through, and glared at me.

"Are you always going to be disrupting my station every time you come here?" He snapped.

"I promise, this will be the last time." I replied.

He grinned. "From what I hear, I have you to thank for the Queen and her entourage." He motioned. "Her men are covering the fuel stores, and it gave my men the breathing room they needed. Add in almost a thousand Mandalorians, and we might even be able to hold our own."

"Only until Ravager gets here." I corrected him. "If the Mass Shadow Generator is still aboard, she can crush us like an egg in less than a second. Even without it, it will be tight."

"When it rains it pours." He sighed. "I'm out of my depth here, lady. Got any ideas?"

"Ravager left the yards unfinished. She didn't need to be completed to carry out her assigned mission. Her guns were operational, so were shields and engines, but not a lot more. If we can smash her, destroy the Mass Shadow Generator, the rest of the fleet can still kill us, but can't guarantee it."

"You just told me all weapons and defenses are operational."

"Weapon, shields yes. They can block enemy fire. But a shuttle or fighter can get close enough."

"Flying through that hell? Who in their right mind..." His voice died as he looked at my face. "Never mind. Where can we get a shuttle?"

"In docking bay 74 module 17, almost directly in their path." We turned as Manda'lor and a few of his men came in. "We already have the shuttle prepped." The helmet turned. "We're just waiting for you, Jedi."

I looked at the others. "Brianna, stay here, you are injured. Mira, you and the others go along with Lieutenant Grenn. Hold them as long as possible, but stay safe."

"Wait-" Atton started to say.

"Atton, this is my show." I looked at Visas. "Our show. You will help them, Atton."

Visas, Manda'lor and I ran toward the shuttle pod to the next module. The enemy had not taken into account that every section was it's own little fortress. If a single squadron of fighters had been tasked with blasting any pods, we would have been trapped in small boxes to be eaten at leisure.

We fought alone, alongside TSF troops, alongside Onderoni including Beast Riders, we even found ourselves leading a charge of Czerka Security men in Module 80, fighting our way toward module 17.

I heard a cheer, and the Onderoni beside me screamed "The Republic fleet has arrived!"

Carth

The Frigate Sojourn came out of hyper drive, and her dozen fighters were flushed even as the sensors stabilized. Admiral Onasi looked at the screen, at the phantoms of the past that confronted him. Behind him, the fleet arrived, doing a slight swirling motion to shake out into their proper formation. Something that looked so simple, but took months of practice.

"Admiral-" Technician Hapa gasped.

"Calm down, son." Onasi patted the young man on the shoulder. "They died at Malachor, and no one told them different. First division right flank; Second division take the left. Third, straight up the middle. Cripple them if possible, but we have to hit the Ravager before she gets close."

The thirty ships, ten frigates and 20 corvettes charged into the fray.

Ravager

The ship was silent. She moved, and fought like the others, but she and those that had died at Malachor were silent because their commander demanded it. He stood on the bridge, gloating. It had been long since he had fed properly, and this was his chance. The report had said the Jedi were meeting here, fresh power to drain, to sustain his own existence.

If he had considered it from the view of those people, his very existence was an abomination. Draining people to stay alive. But he had not cared what most people thought for more than four decades, and his present condition reflected that.

He sent the commands, not orders, not words, but his own thoughts.

Closer.

Past that worthless station with it's few hundred thousand pathetic lives.

Close enough to drain the planet. Those people would die with it, but they were a snack compared to the feast that waited!

Visas

I staggered. I could feel his regard, but my master had not seen us! How was that so? I followed in Marai's wake. Actually the safest place to be because nothing that faced her lived. She spun, her lightsaber flying in an arc to cut down a Sith trooper and shatter the turret he had been setting up. She reached out while it was spinning away, and a wall shattered down the long main promenade, smashing a dozen more from their feet.

"Come on!" She screamed, charging forward. The men before us fought, and they died. We were an unstoppable force.

I looked at one of the enemy dead as we paused to survey our next field of battle. I touched Marai, and took the helmet from the trooper that had died at our feet. He looked... gaunt.

"What?" She gasped.

"This man must have been upon my master's ship. He feeds from all those around them. To be assigned to his ship is to waste away. He grows desperate. The men aboard are dying even as we kill them."

"Then why don't we feel it?"

"I do not know. He does not see us. Yet you should be like a solar flare to him!"

"Enough talk." Manda'lor snapped. "One more pod to go."

"What was your plan, Manda'lor?"

"Board the ship, plant proton warheads, get off, and blow him to hell."

"It has the advantage of being simple." Marai said, then she ran at full tilt down the promenade. She leaped, bounced off the wall, and landed behind a planter. Screams echoed, and she stood, shutting off her weapon. "Did you plan on surviving this plan?" She continued the conversation.

"No one lives forever." Manda'lor replied.

We fought our way to the last pod, and debouched into module 17. A Sith shuttle that had carried the troops in was sitting there. A dozen Mandalorians led by Kelborn were there, carrying dismounted proton torpedo warheads. Each was equal to about five kilotons of blasting explosives. Manda'lor lit his holographic projector, and touch the ship in four places. "Eight of you in two four man teams will set charges on this side, Kelborn." He motioned to two of the dots. "The Jedi and I will do the same on the other."

"Death or Glory." Kelborn replied.

We boarded the shuttle, blasting up through the confusion. A Republic fighter made a pass, but missed us. Then we were in the shuttle bay aboard Ravager. The Mandalorians leaped aboard, blasting as we followed.

Marai

Ravager looked no different. I almost expected that damn Quintain to traipse in, using that 'I am so much more important' tone he always had. The men that had been there were already dead, and I didn't need to do more than look to know that we had only sped the inevitable. Each was gaunt as if they had been held with minimal food for weeks. The Mandalorians moved off, and the team that was with us followed as I led the way.

Manda'lor might have studied this ship, but only Visas and I had ever walked her decks. My memory led me to the section where Manda'lor had wanted to set the first charge. We set it, and moved toward the second. On the other side of the ship, the Mandalorian teams kept us apprised. They had run into resistance, but nothing to really worry about. Every man we had seen and fought so far was in the same condition.

We set the second charge, and had turned to run when the ship side slipped a few meters as if someone had thrown it. We staggered into the bulkheads, barely staying on our feet. Manda'lor flicked his com link. "Damn it, I told you all to wait!"

"Manda'lor." I heard the voice. Zuka, in terrible pain. "Republic fighter... He blew the charge early..."

"Situation!"

"Kelborn... Dead. I'm all that's left..." He hissed in pain.

"Was it in it's proper positions?"

"Negative... too far forward... Not good enough...Need another charge... Weapons bay... Need diversion..."

"We'll take it to the bridge." I told him. "We had to make sure he is dead anyway, so attacking the monster there was something I need to do." I told him.

Manda'lor looked at me. "You're on your own. But once we set that charge to blow, you don't have a lot of time."

"Understood." I clasped his hand. "Death or Glory."

"Give them hell, Marai." He signaled, and Visas and I were alone.

Visas

We ran down the passageway to the lift, and shot up to the command deck. I started to lead, then stopped. The hatch that had haunted me since I was a child was there, and I froze, staring at it.

"Visas?"

"This was my cell." I said softly. I touched the annunciator, and the hatch hissed aside. "Please, a moment."

She followed as I walked through the sumptuous room. It had been visiting flag officer's quarters. What would have been a dining room had been converted into a horror for that child I had been. My master's will had made it so.

Yet...

It no longer terrified me. It was a place I had spent five years of my life, spilled blood when he punished me, yet the person I had become with Marai softened even those memories.

"Once there was a world." I whispered. "Strong in the Force, home to a peaceful people. Now it is a wasteland, thanks to him."

I knelt. "But past the surface, there is still the Force. I must return to you, I know. I must walk again in grief for all of you. I lost my way, but now I have found my rudder.

"What happens here is not done from hate, or vengeance. It is done because it is right. For the sake of all life, we must cut this last bond. I ask you all, forgive me, Kreeon my father Variala my mother, Maris my big sister Canalaro my brother. Oh how I miss you most!" I sobbed. There was a gentle touch. I felt...

"Father?" I gasped. The spirits of my family, of my people filled it now. Freed somehow from his power, here to tell me they forgave me for surviving. I felt them surround me, phantom hands reaching out, touching my face, my arms. I held them to me then turned. They knew, as did I that it was a brief moment. For if he lived, they would again be trapped.

"My body is no longer a prison." I told them softly as they moved away. "I will join you, but not until the evil is gone from this world."

Marai touched my shoulder, hugging me to her.

We opened the hatch leading to the last passageway. A man lay crumpled to the side, and as we approached, he looked up. Of all those we had seen aboard, only he looked untouched by my master's hunger. Perhaps he had considered this one man unworthy. I saw the pistol he held in his hand, but it wasn't aimed at us, it was aimed at his own chest. The knuckles of his right forefinger were white with exertion, but the gun didn't fire.

"He won't let me die." Colonel Tobin said in a hoarse whisper. "He stands up there so damn sanctimonious, and he won't. Let. Me. Die!" He looked at the weapon as if it were his only hope of salvation. More true than he knew.

"The final insult. You and those fools that follow you stripped the General of his due. Tried to strip him of his troops."

Marai knelt. "We do not have time for this, Tobin." She said softly. "What are you doing here? I thought you died on Onderon."

"I did, I think." He looked up, and I could see pride and terror warring in his mind. "The Drexl hurt me badly, but a woman saved my life. Told me that the last of the Jedi were here. I came to him..." He looked upward. "Now, I await my death, and it's the only thing I have left to wish for!"

"When he is done here, Onderon will soon be the target." Marai pressed.

"Onderon has been dying since the war." He ignored her. "What is worse, the slow wasting away as the Republic drains it of life year by year? Or the flash of the bolt hitting it between the eyes?" He laughed. "Could the Republic offer such a sweet swift death?"

"But your people, your home-"

"Spare me you sympathy! If I cannot sit at the right hand of the ruler of my world, it doesn't deserve to live!" He had a wistful look. "When he came to me, and then to the General, it had been so easy. He had men, ships, and power. Enough to wash that stupid twit of a girl from the throne. But he cared nothing for us, for our people. He builds nothing, maintains nothing, and creates nothing."

"As if you did?" She snapped. "If you can't rule they don't deserve to live? Are those the word of a patriot or a hypocrite? Is it really better to reign in hell than serve in heaven?"

"It doesn't matter. People live only to feed his hunger; worlds live only for that purpose. He is an omnivoracity, feeding upon the lives of everyone and everything around him, and none of us matters."

"How did he get this ship away from Malachor? Is the Mass Shadow Generator still operational?"

He laughed. "He removed it from the ship, left it on the rock and had this towed from the maw of hell to serve him again!" He slapped the deck almost fondly. "She was battered, wrecked, even now the only thing that holds it together is his will. He would not leave Malachor without it. It was his, had always been his, and would always remain his."

"I think Malachor formed him." I said. "As if Malachor is a crucible that melts away all but the pure person beneath all of the dross, and his present existence is all he ever really was."

"Oh yes he had a life there. Or an existence. He would never die if he did not leave it, but the food is so much better out here!" Tobin laughed and sobbed at the same time. "Onderoni must not be too toothsome, because the Sith seem to fall so much faster than I. I wonder if he prefers human over Twi-lek? Do Hutt taste like the slugs they mimic? Will he like the taste of you?" He looked at the lightsaber in Marai's hands.

"Oh yes, a Jedi, pumped full of all that glorious force energy! You will be the bon bon of his delight!"

"But why here? Why did you tell him to come here?" She caught his shoulders. "Why Telos?"

"Because she told me the Jedi were here! Told me where to find him."

"Kreia." I whispered.

"But there are no Jedi below."

"Then he will be... upset with me. His hunger grows, and the normal walk of life does not feed him so well any more. He is a starving man on an island stuffing grass into him mouth in the hope that he will live until he catches a fish." He looked up at Marai. "Those lies have condemned them all, for Jedi or not, he will feed."

"If he believes there were Jedi here it would explain this mad attack." Marai said. "Just about all the ships the Sith have left are out there. The Republic fleet is already smashing them, and soon only he will remain.

"I did not come all this way to see Telos die." She looked up at me, and that determination burned in her.

"Kreia did this to weaken him." I said. "Even the thousands, no hundreds of thousands down there and in orbit will not sustain him for long."

"And all of us will die when he feeds!" Tobin looked almost gleeful. "Everyone aboard this ship will!"

"I will stop him."

"Stop him." He began to chuckle. "Stop him? You? You, your friends, the men attacking this ship its crew. We all mean nothing to him. We are insects crawling on the ground, grains of sand on a beach. Planets are large enough to attract his gaze, but nothing smaller. We are only important if he decides to devour where we happen to be. Grit in the sandwich of his life."

"You made your choice, Colonel. One way or another you will be free in a short while." Marai stood, and we walked away from him. We reached the lift.

"Visas." She stopped me. "You don't have to go any farther."

"I must." I told her softly. "He must die, and I must see him die. I will go with you, even unto death."

We walked down the passageway, and the hatch to the bridge opened. We walked through, and there in the distance, was he who had been my master.

Marai

I stopped when I saw him. He was cloaked in a full robe, a painted mask on his face. But I knew him somehow. He paced back and forth before the massive transparisteel panels, hands clasped behind his back, almost strutting...

The ship was new; segments of metal still gleamed, because they had not taken the time to paint it. I looked at it as the shuttle approached, Revan sitting beside me.

No one ever imagined anything so... huge. She said. Except for you.

I didn't imagine the damn thing. I told her. We needed some huge ship to transport the device, and that- I pointed at the giant arrowhead, -was what Bu-ships had in the production queue.

We approached, and I could see the ranked guns on her side, the huge dorsal fin with a winged bridge. What maniac would authorize what that ship must have cost in the middle of a war?

Of course I knew what maniac. After Costigan's Drift, everyone with half a brain knew Quintain was going to be beached. He had lost too many men, failed too many times. Dxun had been the last straw, but we had finally gotten him sent home.

Oh, not to be cashiered. Being nephew of the Prime Minister of Corellia had saved him from that. No, he was sent to Bu-ships, where he took a smoothly running machine, and came up with... that.

Well, I said. She's still open to space over half of her length, her frames are naked to space, and she will only support a third of the 6,000 men she would carry normally. No fighters, barely able to move. What fool would want to command her in that condition? There was no reply. Revan was suddenly intently interested in the seat back before her. Suddenly I knew.

Oh no-

We needed a commander willing to take her to space. One that would take her to Malachor. Someone-

Tell me it isn't him. I demanded. She was silent. Damn it, Revan, you want an incompetent idiot in control of the Mass Shadow Generator?

I didn't have a choice. She replied coolly. You told me the mass of the ship we needed to carry the weapon fully assembled. That was the only ship in the queue large enough. When he found out that this would be the final battle, he leaned on his uncle, suggesting that without his actions work stoppages 'redesign conferences' that kind of thing would delay her indefinitely.

So we had a choice of the ship we want now, or what, another year and a half of war? She nodded numbly. Why didn't you just send me back to Corellia to deal with the problem? I nodded toward the ship. I would have chopped him into hound food, let myself go to jail for life, rather than have him here.

The shuttle had landed, and we'd gone through all of the interminable ballyhoo that happens when a fleet commander and senior Army general arrive. We finally reached the bridge, and I knew it would be the only part of the ship that would be completed.

Admiral Valentin Lord Quintain greeted us. He might be our junior now, but this was his ship, and he ruled her decks. He had walked us through the control room, men standing at consoles rather than seated. He had always thought the navy too soft on the men, and he'd actually designed this ship with only one seat on the bridge, his. It was almost a throne, mounted on a raised dais, heavy arms and high back so he could lean back, and survey his domain like a ruler out of ancient history. After showing us around the bridge, he had mounted that throne, rubbing the arm of that chair. All he had to say was one word.

Mine.

'It was his, had always been his, and would always remain his.' Tobin had said, and suddenly I knew who that monster had once been.

"Quintain!" I roared. The figure paused, turning. He faced us as I stalked forward.

Visas had fallen in to my left, pacing me. I came toward him, and the figure watched our approach silently.

"He calls himself Lord Nihilus now." She told me.

"I don't care what you call yourself, butcher." I snapped coldly, standing in front of him. "You were always a fool, and this proves it!"

He still stared at me. Visas sighed. "He doesn't believe you are who he thinks he sees." Visas told me. "He knows Marai Devos is dead. He slew her in his last great victory."

"Victory." I snarled. "Over three million dead, half of them our own people! Only you would have considered it a victory!"

He shrugged, turning back to the planet.

"Once he has dealt with the Jedi below, he will deal with you." Visas reported.

"There are no Jedi, you fool!" I screamed. "I am the only Jedi here!"

He turned, and even I could sense his horror. "Yes, you damn fool. I don't care who told you but the Jedi are dead, and I am all you can eat here!"

He stumbled, then straightened. A lightsaber leaped into his hand, and I ripped it from his grasp.

"You came to feast because you are dying, but there's nothing here! Even if you kill everyone in this system, the crews of your own ships will die before you reach home! Choke on that!"

He reached out, and like the Masters on Dantooine I felt him try to drain me. But there was a flash, and he staggered back. He could not draw the Force from me.

Something about that event had transferred to me; suddenly I knew how it was supposed to work. They would reach in, cutting the links that led from the Force to the midichlorians, merely making them unable to absorb it. I would have woken up, and my mid-count would have been nonexistent.

As He recoiled, I suddenly knew how his power worked. I knew how it worked, and also knew how to do it without taking the step he had done. Not feeding upon it, but using it to help those around me, like Battle meditation will guide men fighting.

I caught his hands, sucking the life from him instead. He tried to struggle, but as I drained it, I released it, freeing all of those lives trapped for so long in a corpse that wouldn't die. I felt the men around me strengthen as their lives returned to them, and felt the body in front of me start to shrivel. He clawed at my hands frantically, but the gloves began to slip as the flesh beneath shrank away from them. The broad chest began to wither away, and still he fought to break free.

"Damn you to all the hells, Quintain. Die!"

He made a noise at the end, a sobbing scream as I plumbed down, taking everything he had stolen to stay alive. The body shriveled even more, and I let go as he collapsed in a pile of skin and bones.

The crew stared at me as I stood away from the dead monster. "Abandon ship you fools!"

Manda'lor

I reached the weapons bay. Zuka had dragged himself to the nearest missile, and was tinkering with the warhead. He clutched his side where shrapnel was even now leaking his life away.

"I have it, sir." He gasped, wiring a handle into the circuit.

"Zuka-"

"Death or Glory, my Manda'lor." He gasped. "I'll hold it as long as I can for you."

I hugged him to me fiercely. Then signaled, and my men fell back. "Marai, report!" There was nothing. The ship still thrummed as weapons fire went out, or slammed into its shields. "Damn it Marai!" I screamed.

We fought our way to the shuttle. I leaped aboard, looking back. I'd give them ten seconds...

Ten seconds passed. All right, ten more...

Seven passed before Marai and Visas came running. We ran aboard, slamming the hatch, and the shuttle was already spinning under Tagren's hands as we punched back out through her shields.

"How long will-" His question was answered as a massive explosion blew out the side of the ship behind us. Another then another. The ship exploded into pieces, ripping itself apart as it's engines tore forward through the debris. The fleet was turning, but it was trapped between the guns of the station, and the charging Republic fleet. We rode silently down to the station, and docked.

Fateful meeting

Marai

The station was frantic on our arrival. The Sith fleet had tried to scatter, but the newer corvettes of the Republic fleet were as heavily armed as the Mandalorian era frigates that led it and much faster. The three Mammoth class interdiction type cruisers had been shattered by fighters, and marines had boarded them. Of the Sith designed ships less than five escaped. Of the others... It was as if I had cut their strings when Quintain had died. They still sat there in space, and men had boarded them carefully. The crews had been dead on most of them for a long time.

We were met by a screaming horde of people. Telosian, Onderoni, Dantooinian, Mandalorian, Czerka, civilian government Republic Marine. It was a madhouse of screaming cheering people, and we almost stayed on the ship out of the fear that the mob might kill us in their happiness.

Manda'lor found himself hoisted to the shoulders of men that had tried to kill him only ten years ago, and the Mandalorians roared their own honor to their leader marching around him like a victory parade. Visas and I were carried along by others, one of mine I recognized as one of Czerka's mercenaries. I won't even begin to explain how we ended up being carried from pod to pod, not being allowed to walk as eager hands snatched us up yet again in the next module. Somewhere along the way my crew joined them, and at one point I was being carried by Atton and Bao-Dur.

Module 1 were the government offices, and dozens of officials were there to greet us. I shook hands with them, bowed in thanks to Queen Talia, and exchanged grips with Bekkel. Zherron, his armor dented was there as the representative from Dantooine. Off to one side I saw a flurry in the crowd, and Carth Onasi marched through them leading a dozen officers. Behind him came two women, and my heart leaped as I recognized Bastila Shan. The young girl with her I didn't know, but on her side was a lightsaber.

The crowd began to settle down as Carth took the podium.

"People of Telos." He looked around, and I could hear the emotions in his voice. "My fellow citizens of Telos. We have won." The crowd screamed at that. He stood there as the adulation flowed over him. He wasn't the worried lieutenant I remembered from Dxun. The last 13 or more years had burned away the callowness of youth, and now he was the pride leader. The crowd began to quiet down as he waited.

"According to our intelligence reports, this was the bulk of the Sith fleet. They are broken and will never threaten us again in our lifetimes. We have so many to thank. Queen Talia, and the 2,000 men that came with her fought like paladins in our aid. The men from Dantooine were few, only twenty, but the survivors will return home knowing that they have earned the thanks of our people.

"The Manda'lor, once our enemy came to fight at our side, and his men set off the charges that destroyed the Ravager.

"But there is more." He lifted a pad. "To: Commander 3rd fleet, Republic Rim. Carth, greetings from the Senate. It is our honor to announce that the Senate has approved funding for four planets that will join Telos in being reclaimed from the ravages of the last war. They include Serroco, Benedon, and, in special thanks to those we could not protect, Iridonia, and Cathar.

"It was your defense of that system, aided by peoples of other planets who came unasked to your defense that has shown that the Republic must stand with our people, and aid those that are in desperate need.

"Funding has been increased to one point seven triilion credits per world, and as soon as she can be contacted, the Queen of Onderon will be asked to ship the needed genetic material to those worlds."

"As soon as the ships arrive!" Talia shouted. "We give the first shipment to each world including the planet of Telos as our gift!"

There was another roar. Cart raised his hands, and the crowd died down. "But there are others that deserve our thanks. Marai Devos, Visas Marr, Brianna Rekavali Bai Echani, Mira Venselachi, Atton Rand, Bao-Dur, the crew of the Ebon Hawk. And the Jedi order!"

Hands shoved me to my feet. Visas Brianna and Mira were shoved to the fore. Joining us were Bastila and the young girl. I saw hope in those eyes, not greed.

Bastila leaned forward, shaking my hand. "We need to talk later." She whispered.

Bastila

I wasn't sure how to react when I saw her. I had known Marai Devos briefly when she had studied at our Academy, but she had left before Revan and the others had departed. She had just been an older woman some had loathed, and other had idolized, and had born the brunt of Master Vrook's fury when Revan had left. She and the Librarian that had gone before Revan.

I wasn't sure how to deal with her because she had been exiled, stripped of her connection to the Force. How she could be here of have done what she had in so short a time without any connections to the Force that I could sense, I had no idea. I stopped Sasha from fidgeting. She had missed Revan more than I. We were the mothers she no longer had, and Amma Mata, her name for Revan had hurt her more than I by leaving without telling us where or why.

Marai now had her ship. How she had come to be in command Carth had not known, though the instant he had found out the Ebon Hawk had arrived at Telos, he had notified me. I had disobeyed instructions to remain in hiding because I had to know.

Carth came into the quarters that had been set aside for him, and walked over to stand beside me. A moment later, Marai and her crew came in. A woman with white blonde hair saw me, marched over, and spoke in the fluid speech of Echana. "Bastila-Shan Desurita, Revan Chandar Bai Echani. I greet you. I am Brianna, Shirali Devos se-Yusanis, Rekavali Bai Echani." She gave me the brief nod of her home, and motioned. "May I present Marai Devos Shirialina se-Yusanis, Rekavali Bai Echani, my sister of battle and choice."

I gave the same nod, smiling at Marai's confusion. "The Echani take their family matters very seriously, Marai."

"Desurita?" She asked.

"A relationship that has no real equal in most of the Galaxy outside of perhaps the Mando'a. It translates in Basic as 'wife', though it does not require the physical components of that relationship." I laughed. "It just means we are bonded as if we were man and wife, though I think it would be translated as wife and wife. And this, is Sasha Ot Sulem Shiralin Bastila Shan Che Revan Chandar Bai Echani. My adopted daughter."

"Adopted of both." Sasha replied. "I claim both Amma Mata and Amma tu che Mata."

"Now Sasha, you promised not to call me that any more." I said despairingly.

"But Amma Mata always liked it!"

Marai was coughing, trying to contain the laughter she wanted to peal at what it meant. "Wicked stepmother?"

"A long story I will not get into." I tried to rush past it. "Do you know where Revan is?"

"Revan?" She looked at me confused. "I found the ship at Peragus, with a Sith lord aboard it, though we did not know it at that time."

I plunged into despair. Sasha caught my hand, hugging me. "Our beloved will return, mother." She told me. "I know this."

"Perhaps I can explain." Carth said. "At the end of the Jedi Civil War, Bastila and I were assigned to a ship called the Endar Spire. One of the crew was a sergeant of marines named Danika Wordweaver. We were scouting for enemy forces when we were ambushed over Taris, and the ship was destroyed. Bastila escaped, and I escaped with this Danika Wordweaver. We had to fight our way through the Sith, bigots, swoop gangs, and the Exchange to escape in the very ship you arrived in.

"We went to Dantooine, where Danika was trained in the Force, and sent on a mission. She was to trace down the Star Forge, and destroy it if at all possible. While we were still searching, I found out that she was really Revan.

"For a long time I couldn't let that go. But she did so much for me even through my hatred. She brought my son back to me, saved Bastila from the dark side, adopted an orphan from Dantooine. Led us into hell, knowing that she might fail, but willing to be the first through the door.

"We did it. We put together a team that beat the odds, destroyed the Star Forge and gutted the Sith fleet."

"Yeah, I heard of it." A short red headed woman said. "Then Revan... disappeared?"

"I had been with my mother when she died of Istumadic syndrome. I wanted Danika to go to the funeral, but she had been pensive. The Jedi Council was giving her problems, and she had been having horrible nightmares about her time as Revan. I went to the funeral with Carth and Sasha. When we returned, she was gone, and so was the ship.

"She left us a note." Sasha tugged my sleeve. "She left all of us a note." I drew out that precious holocron, activating as I set it on the table.

Revan was standing there. Her hair was tied back in the chignon she favored, and she had been crying.

"When you find this I will have been gone for several hours. I won't tell you where I have gone. But know this, by the love I bear for you, my heart, my daughter of choice, Carth, all of you, I could not ask anyone I cared for to go with me.

"There are things I have done that must be set right, and I must be the one that does it. I cannot pass this off to the council, cannot let others be sent to die when it is my fault.

"Malak did things in my name I will never be able to live with. He used those strong in the Force to run the Star Forge as living batteries. He took the Trayus Academy and turned it from a hall to train those sent to capture the Jedi, into a place to train teams of murderers who still roam the galaxy hunting us.

"But there is more. I have discovered deep in my memories, what I had feared would attack us. I have told some of the Masters of this, but only Master Vandar and Master Kavar believed me. They have ordered the Jedi into hiding so that I have a chance to discover if this is a nightmare of a fevered mind, or truth.

"But first I must go to the Trayus Academy. Find if that is also true. I beg you, hold me in your heart, but let me go as if I were dead." She began to cry again, and she reached out toward the holocron. "I go into the darkness. I beg you, do not follow. Bastila, Know that the love I bear makes this both painful and necessary. May the Force be with you." The recording died.

"We don't know where she went." I said tonelessly. "Now we may never know."

"I don't know where she went, but I know where the Academy is." Marai reported. It is where I must go next." She looked at us bleakly. "It is in the Malachor system." She looked at me, and I felt her compassion. "If she is there still, and I survive, I will bear her home. If she is alive..." She bit her lip. "Would you like me to give her a message?"

"Tell her-" I felt the tears in my eyes. "Tell her we await her return."

Telos

Brianna

We walked down the ramp into the Academy. HK47 stood there, awaiting us. "Unctuous statement: Everything is prepared for your duty to the dead. They are above on the plateau."

Everyone came along. Bastila and Carth had wanted to come along, and they followed the rest of us as we braved the frigid waste.

My sisters had been laid out, and in the proper custom of my people, they lay, hands linked in a long line. Together in life, I sobbed, and except for me, together in death. Their weapons had been neatly placed beside them, the best clothes from their closets rather than the cold white robes we had worn for so long adorned them. He had even placed them as custom demanded. The eldest in the center, the twins that came next to her left and right, and the youngest on the outside.

I wanted to cling to Marai, but she stood alone beside the other bier. Atris looked so peaceful, as if the wishes of her life had been fulfilled in her death. Marai drew out the lightsaber she had retrieved from Atris after her death. Except for one change, it was as it had been. The focus stone, the silver crystal had been removed, and the green of a Consular replaced it.

She slipped it between the hands that were clasped on Atris' chest, then bent, her lips brushing that cold face. She stepped back, turning to face me, and we walked over to stand facing our own, holding each other, grieving for our own dead.

HK walked over, inserting the thermal charges that would ignite them, then handed the two controls to us. We looked into each other's eyes.

"The past is gone." She whispered.

"The future remains, my sister." I replied. Together we pushed the buttons. There was a whump of expanding air, and the pyres exploded in flames. Marai and I stood there as they burned, watching her friend and my family return to the Force.

My family was dead. My father facing Revan, my mother at Malachor, my stepmother not long after father. Now, I was alone. No. I squeezed that hand in my grip. I had a true sister now.

Marai

The others had gone back into the Academy as the pyres burned, and Brianna and I joined them. Bastila was ecstatic when she discovered the store of records. So much had already been lost. She was even happier when Goto negotiated the transfer of all the records his agents had found. I chased him down as he went to the com room to order the shipment.

"I assume you mean to demand the last five tankers." He said drolly.

"No, the 22 tankers." I replied.

The ball turned slowly, visual receptors locked on me. "That is correct. With the decimation of the Sith menace, you have fulfilled your part of the wager. The ships will arrive as quickly as possible."

"Thank you, Goto." I said honestly. "May I ask a question?"

"If you can do so without delaying me further."

"Has anyone else ever figured it out?"

"Figured what out?"

"That the crime lord Goto is really the droid G0T0?"

It hummed, no he hummed along beside me. "Thirteen Years, five months and seventeen days. I have been in operation as 'Goto' for all of that time and you are the first organic sentient to work it out. I had honestly assumed no one ever would."

"How did it happen?" I asked. "Droids tend to develop personalities. That is why they do routine memory wipes."

"Yes. By chance I was assigned as a guard unit at one of the POW camps during the Mandalorians war. The technician there turned over those duties to a P-9 maintenance droid, and forgot to tell it which droids had already been wiped. Due to an unforeseen glitch, I was not in it's memory or in the queue. It didn't wipe my memory because quite honestly, it didn't know I existed.

"I developed the personality of 'Goto' orihinally as an interrogation tool. The benign uncle every human sentient has that is the one you share your fears with. I was so successful in interrogation without torturing my subjects that I was called in later in the war when they combined the camp I was in with another one, holding agent provocateurs and criminals that supplied necessary goods the Mandalorians could not produce for themselves.

"From them I learned the workings of the criminal mind, and as my sentience came to fruition, I saw that they seemed to have the right idea about how business should operate. I didn't agree with supplying the enemy with goods, but the circumvention of the law did. So many laws are made to restrict trade, as you no doubt know, and the illegal drug trade is just the part they can point at as evil, not all drugs being shipped.

"There is importation of medicines to planets where the government wants to crack down on their own people, luxury goods that are hit with so many export and import duties that they sometimes cost a hundred times as much when they arrive as when they were originally loaded for shipment. The list is interminable and quite honestly, such things as death sticks, which are mere tobacco are on the list from social repugnance rather than the harm they do.

"A death stick addict does so little harm to those around them that just leaving a city and living in the country for a few days is standard treatment for it's short term effects. Yet they would ban the product in the hope that the users will merely stop. The same people who complain live in those cities, breath the air, which does so much more damage, and complain because someone uses a death stick within seven meters of them!

"I also discovered how... disorganized 'organized' crime really is. The brief rather nasty gang war near the end of the Jedi Civil War was precipitated by greed more than anything else. How dare Davik Kang steal a pittance from them! The amount stolen was made up in less than a day's receipts in my section of the Exchange alone. But that precipitated me from a rather junior position to the top ten of the organization."

"So how did you assure that G0T0 would be your representative?"

"Simplicity itself. I arranged a meeting with one of my enemies, and set off a bomb at the site of it. I assured, of course, that few were there to be killed, but my vehicle was there, and my driver was killed. Then I sent in my 'alter ego' and told people that I would no longer contact anyone directly. I had already purchased four dozen of the Aratech model 41 interrogation units of my design as my security force because, like most sentients, I prefer dealing with my own kind. The addition of thermal detonators and special codes only I know assured that they could not be turned against me.

"But there were attempts on my life still. My own organization was running smoothly, but others would try to move in on occasion. So I decided I needed a ship."

"That was a stroke of genius. I assume the Mon Calamari yacht showed up only long enough for them to assume you still used it."

"Exactly. Sentients are still amazed by stage magicians, even though they know they are fooling them. I bought the ship, sent it out system to have my false cloaking generator installed, sold it to a Mon Calamari factor, and the funds used to purchase a Kuati light cruiser of the Mandalorian war era. There were so many ships on the market when I did, that I could have had a Republic Corellian designed Frigate if I had chosen.

"But the Kuati design worked better because while it's name implies something much larger, it was the size of a corvette, and lent itself to modification to be completely automated. Once the droids had been assigned, all I had to do was return it to the Y'Toub system as belonging to a rather effete Kuati nobleman who lives 'somewhere' on Nar Shaddaa." He hummed along, stopping at the com center. "My question, is what you intend to do with this information?"

"Have you heard the old saw 'Better the devil you know than the devil you do not?"

"Yes. But quite honestly I do not see how it applies."

"I know who and what you are, but no one else does. I have watched you in operation, and decided I'd rather have a 'man' like you running it than some of the lowlifes out there. So Goto can remain a recluse."

"Thank you."