Reviews.
A.W
Your right that line could be a lot clearer. I'll change it after I put this chapter up.
Tylermech66
Gothic's Jedi Saber will be blue as I like that colour more than green.
In my view one way to prevent the endless Sith verses Jedi conflict is to somehow wipe out both one group won't work because as long as you have Jedi you will have Sith (even if they are not called Sith) and long as you have Sith, there will be Jedi heroes fighting to take them down, or the Sith destroy themselves. For better or worse Star Wars is classic good verses evil story telling, and in those stories the struggle never you'd have to take out both groups, but if you did that the light and dark will battle it out in the other ways.
So a better way is turn the Sith into something that won't fight the Jedi in destructive wars. Then again I don't know if this possible and while Sith Gothic might be able to create a group of Sith that don't back stab each other they would still end up fighting the Jedi.
But at least such a war would be fun to write.
A third group more balanced that the others would just end up having to fight both Sith and Jedi, and this story is Sith Gothic so we know what he's going to end up doing.
Sith Gothic. Part 11.
"What we pretend to be we often become." -Darth Krayt
Anchorhead. Tatooine. Malak's Sith Empire. Star Wars KOTOR Galaxy.
In life there are these moments, these little moments of peace right before the poodoo hits the fan, and everything goes to hell.
Right now I was experiencing one such moment.
Three Dark Jedi stood just outside the space sport as the crew of Ebon Hawk exited their ship. The good Jedi, Revan, Shan and the cat like alien, whose I always kill on Dantooine, were about to go through what passed as customs on this world. Once they did they would encounter their three dark counterparts and then people would start dying.
The air was so still and no one who lived in this settlement had any idea that a small war was about to break out on the doorsteps.
No one but me that is.
It was a bit like watching a car crash, you know you shouldn't watch but you can't help it. I couldn't of torn my eyes off the scene not matter what I was offered.
Lightsabers came into play but neither the lightsiders or darksiders went to attack. The battle hadn't started yet there was still time for me to make my move.
"My lord?" questioned one of the two silver armoured Sith soldiers who had been escorting me around the town "should we intervene?".
Time seemed to slow down, and just for a moment I felt guilty about what I was about to do. Its not easy to betray others even in you never really considered yourself to be 'one of them'. I pushed such feelings aside and called upon the Force, but rather than use feelings like lust, anger or greed I made myself feel nothing but grim determination.
Not so long ago I wouldn't of been able to use the Force in such a way but I wasn't a mere student any more. I was a Sith Lord now, even the title had been granted as a sort of political move rather than due to merit.
"My lord should we...?" repeated the Sith solider, but that was as far as he got.
My new sabre then appeared, the blade was coloured blue and device contained the priceless pearl which boosted its power, but it didn't need to be the masterpiece I considered it to be to do its job.
With a fancy flourish the sabre killed both of the Sith troops before they even realised that I had turned on them. The Jedi style weapon cut through the armour the Sith troops wore with ridiculous ease.
Before the bodies hit the sandy surface of this world I was moving. The three Dark Jedi were so totally focused on the three not so dark Jedi that they didn't noticed that I was literally stabbing them in the back.
My blue blade killed one of the Dark Jedi as the darksider duelled Bastila Shan. The evil human male never saw his death coming, I could sense his shock as the weightless blade struck him down.
The second of the Dark Jedi had two lightsabres and was able to block my blow while also blocking a strike from Juhani's light blue blade, but I had prepared for this when mentally planning my attack. From my long coat appeared the Sith sword I had taken from the tomb of an ancient Dark Lord. The blade slide into the guts of the female Dark Jedi with such ease that I hardly felt any resistance until the metal met the bone of her spine.
My help wasn't required with the third and final Dark Jedi as Revan's two blades, one purple and the other green slew the darksider, by removing the man's head with a sort of scissor cut move.
How long had that taken, less than five seconds?
Then time started to flow normally and I came face to face with the group that was the only hope of stopping Malak.
Needless to say they were all a little surprised to see a guy dressed as Sith, complete with dark robes, body armour and a hood, had come to aid them.
The blue blade and the sword must of thrown them off a little as well, but Bastila Shan was shocked for a very different reason.
"I know you!" she said an a mixture of relief and what seemed to be fear "you're the one from my visions".
Now it was my turn to be surprised. I'd seen plenty of vision with Shan in them but I'd never imagined that she would seeing me.
"Wait this is the Sith you saw leading us the Starforge Map?" asked Revan with confusion rich in her voice.
The former Dark Lord was older than I had imagined, but years of war fare can age a person. She was by no means a grey haired old lady but there was a certain tiredness around the eyes and she was starting to get wrinkles.
"While it would be nice to sit down in a cantina and discuss our visions of the future" I said "sadly we don't have the time. There are more Sith on this planet and by now one of them might of reported my betrayal".
Before that could really sink in I piled on more information
"I know what your looking for and where it can be found, I even have a speeder waiting to take us there, but we have to move quickly".
"Your a Sith" remarked the Cat Jedi "Why should we trust you?"
If my display of darksider killing didn't convince them then nothing I could say or do in the time we had remaining would. But I had prepared a sort of speech and I might as well use it.
"You don't trust me. I know that and I understand why, you'd be stupid to give your trust blindly. I'm not going to be able to ease all your fears about me in the short time that we have. I couldn't even if given all the time in the world, and my words alone would never alleviate your fears, you'd still fear I was planning some treachery. But that's alright as I'm Sith. I just want to make you understand a few things".
For a moment I paused so that they could absorb my words. It wasn't a great speech but it seemed to have some effect so I carried on.
"I know why you are here, and I could easily of buried the Star Map or tried to destroy it".
Again I paused to let me words sink in before saying more.
"I even could of told Malak exactly what you are up to, and exactly who was coming here, but I didn't".
That was when I heard the sound of a few dozen Sith troops running towards us.
"Also I'm the only who with a chance to convince the small army of Sith soldiers heading this way to stand down, rather than say blast us all on sight".
Revan's group was tough but they couldn't fight an army, and there were still hundreds of Sith troops on this sorry excuse for a planet.
Sadly the soldiers weren't willing to back down, their orders to kill any Jedi who arrived on the planet came from the Dark Lord and therefore my orders were overridden. However they didn't start shooting at once as they didn't understand why I was trying to counter Darth Malak's order.
"These are not the Jedi you are looking for" I told the Sith officer while trying to influence his mind.
The effort proved to be a waste of time as the silver armoured Sith trooper was able to resist the Mind Trick, either because he was mildly force sensitive or because he had a much stronger will than most of the ground pounders.
"Blast em all!" ordered the officer.
Well that went well.
Lightsabers sprang to life and blaster bolts were deflected. Mine went up into the air, as I didn't have the skill to deflect them back at the soldiers, and I didn't want blaster bolts hitting anyone else, but Revan and her fellow Jedi did have the skilled required. Still if it weren't for the fact that the rest of the crew of the Ebon Hawk had joined the fight we would of either been gunned down or we would have had to make a run for it.
Soon Anchorhead was full of dead Sith as more troops arrived and died, a single Jedi or even a Master and Apprentice team would of fallen but the troops faced three Jedi, a Sith Lord (albeit one who had gotten his rank for the wrong reasons) and a very irate Wookie who actually could rip people's arms off.
But there were more troops on the way. I knew this because I could hear them via the comm device implanted into my ear, they soldiers hadn't changed frequency for some reason and that was good because if they had I wouldn't of been able to overhear everything they said.
"There's more incoming" I shouted to the Jedi "I had the troops out on patrol so they're scattered, but its only a matter of time before they get their sh... act together".
I had to stop myself from using English curse words because while Basic was pretty much the same as English they didn't use the same curse words in this galaxy.
Revan, ever the commander, even when she doesn't remember being one, took charge.
"Its Gothic, right?"she asked.
I simply nodded, not knowing how she knew my name and not really caring right now.
"You need to get me to where the Star Map is," she instructed "we can lure the Sith away from here and then have Hawk pick up when were done".
That was a great idea, the Dune Sea was a vast place and I had a Speeder waiting if we could get of this settlement then we could led the Sith away from the Ebon Hawk.
"Okay this way" I said.
Calling upon the Force once more I used to boost my speed, as did Reven, and we both sped away. We encountered more troops but they were still scattered and confused, so they fell to our blades easily.
I forced myself not to care about killing the men under my command, there was far more at stake going on here than the Jedi Civil War and only I knew just how fucked the galaxy was if Malak was allowed to keep waging war upon the Republic. If the Republic, and the Jedi didn't survive then there would be nothing standing in the way of the Sith Emperor, whose empire would conquer everything and then the Emperor would consume all life in the galaxy. The Sith Emperor had to be stopped and Revan was needed in order to stop him. Only she had a chance of stopping the Emperor, and even Revan wouldn't be enough. Perhaps if I realised my full potential, then I could aid Revan but that meant gaining her trust and keeping her alive.
Compared to the whole galaxy, the lives of the Sith troops who had been mind to command, meant very little.
"HK, get us to the cave!" I shouted as Revan and I jumped into the waiting Speeder.
"Polite Request: Please fasten your seatbelts".
"Shut up and drive" I told the droid.
Several blaster bolts convinced the machine that it was wise to obey my orders and the Speeder shot of Anchorhead.
The trip wasn't a long one but it did give the memory wiped former Dark Lord the chance to ask a few questions.
"Why are you helping us?".
That was a hard question to answer, I could tell Revan about my future knowledge, and say it was all visions of the future, but the Jedi might not believe me or worse by sharing knowledge of the future I could change the course of events so much that. But given that Bastila had seen me in her visions, just as I had seen her, it made no sense to lie, although I could omit a few things.
So I began to tell Revan about myself, or at least the cliff notes version of the story , and about how I had seen myself fighting the Sith while at her side. Also I told the female Jedi that I sensed that the war would led the galaxy to disaster. If Malak wasn't stopped then we'd all end up dead. Last of all I explained that I had foreseen us fighting the Sith together, and that it must be the will of the Force.
I wondered then if Revan herself had been granted a few visions because she seemed to accept, rather easily I felt, that I should be on the team as it would allow me to follow the will of the Force. Either Revan's faith in the Force was very strong or she really believed in redemption, and wanted to give me the chance to join the light side. Not that I would but compared to most Sith I was quite reasonable and kind. Also I didn't think I could be redeemed because I'd never fallen to the dark side. I'd always been dark even if I wasn't evil, long before I become a Force User.
If the former Dark Lord desire anything further evidence of my desire to defect from Malak's Sith Empire then she was about to get as the Speeder was now at the cave.
"Its in the back of the cave" I told the brown robed Jedi.
The Star Map wouldn't respond to me so there was no point in me going in there. Revan knew what she was doing, and could deal with any defences the cave had.
As it turned out it might have been better if I had ventured the Star Map cave as I was soon in a new kind of trouble.
I'd forgotten about that damn bounty hunter, Calo Nord if I remembered right, and worse he had back up, a few Rodian mercs and their Speeder had a heavy blaster manned by what I guessed was Duro.
"I have to give you credit. You've led me on quite a chase. But nobody gets away from Calo Nord in the end".
Cocky bastard.
"Have we met?" I asked of the bounty hunter "I don't recall ever getting away from you before".
The bounty hunter completely ignored me, as if my presence didn't matter one bit. Which was very odd for me these days as even a highly skilled killer like Calo Nord knew better than to underestimate a Sith Lord, and he couldn't mistake me because I was wearing black armour, covered with a black cloak and had an unlit lightsabre in my hand.
"You got lucky on Taris; the Sith attack saved you from a quick and gruesome death. But I promise you, the Sith won't be getting in my way this time!".
Rather annoyed that I was being totally ignored I decided to end this encounter right now.
"You're wrong" I told the hunter of men "A Sith will be getting in your way. Me".
I lit my red bladed lightsabre and attacked, but no just because I was annoyed but also because we really didn't have time to try and talk Nord out of fighting, not that we could, and already I could see the Ebon Hawk making it way over to us.
A Force Push from Revan sent the Bounty Hunter crashing into his Speeder, while I leapt forward to slash at an alien gun for hire. The Rodian died and I twisted on the spot to deflect a blaster shot.
A salvo of shots went high into the air as I gracefully swept my lightsabre around. Revan took out the heavy blaster while I was batting bolts aside and then I moved into to kill the remaining aliens.
"Follow my led next time" chided the long haired Jedi women.
The rebuke wasn't an angry Revan must of known that we would have to destroy the mercs in order to leave, but she clearly wasn't happy about it.
Anything else she might said of on the matter would not be discussed, at least not now, as the Ebon Hawk was coming in for a quick landing.
The remaining Sith soldiers had organized themselves enough that I was very glad that the empire hadn't had the resources to place any sort of air support upon Tatooine. If they had the Ebon Hawk wouldn't of been able to make out into the Dune Sea without coming under fire.
Even as things were it was going to tricky for the freighter to land safely, and very tricky for Revan and I The military Speeders had heavy blasters mounted on them and couldn't just tell them to stand down.
Wait could I?
"This is Lord Gothic to all units".
That sounded professional enough, hopefully the Sith would buy it.
"Stand down, repeat stand down".
The Sith didn't stand down, but they did slow down as obedience to the Sith Lords was part of the programming the Empire's propaganda machine had installed into the their minds. If it weren't for the fact that the orders to kill the Jedi came from higher up I would have been able to send all the troops back to their barracks.
At least my orders caused come confusion and gave Revan and I enough time to jump onto the lowered landing ramp of the Ebon Hawk.
Heavy blaster fire chased us into the ship but the distance, and the fact that we were fast moving targets, prevented any shots from getting near us and we were out of range soon enough, as the ship quickly made orbit and then shot into space.
Revan raced up the cockpit while I decided to find somewhere to sit down and rest, but I never made it that far as Shan appeared from no where and dragged me aside.
Clearly she wanted a word and wasn't going to be denied the chance to speak her mind.