I flew the ship into the main hangar of the rebel base and Rakine slowly flew the rebel ships gently to their landing spots. He sighed in relief as they landed and groaned.
"Well that was exciting. I need a rest." He took off his rebel pilot helmet.
"Well, you just carried two heavy ships with the Force on an entire flight to Yavin." I chuckled.
The Nightmare landed in the hangar of Yavin 4 and the doors opened, Rakine and I sighed as we stepped out.
"So good to be back." Rakine smiled.
"So good to have to you back," Mon Mothma grinned and she watched the other Rebel pilots flew their starfighters toward their hangar. I looked down to the floor, thinking about how I ranted on at Vader, about my family. I started walking out of the main hangar toward the council chamber where I expected to see Rooda, sill in the chair. She wasn't in there, she was gone. Only Rulus Knil-Wean was in there. She was straightening out the chamber, fixing up the mess that the rebels left.
"Something bothering you, Lord Venison?" She looked to me as she set up the chairs back on their legs.
"Just- something from my past," I sulk as I sat down in a chair and she walks over to me.
"I know that face anywhere," she said as I looked up to her and she sat down on my left, next to me. "You miss someone."
"My family."
Rakine entered the room.
"Ven, have you found Rooda yet-" he stared down at me as Rulus sat next to me. "Hey, what's wrong? It's your family isn't it?" He sat down to my right.
"I wish I could have saved them."
"Hey, don't put this on yourself," Rakine looked at me sympathetically.
"I just wish I could've done something." I stared at the floor, I almost feel my anger towards myself rising and my voice grows louder. "I tried to do something." I calmed myself down and said quietly to myself, but loud enough for them to hear. "I wasn't good enough."
Rakine and Rulus pat my back to try and pacify me.
"Vader told me that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't save them. He said I couldn't do anything."
"Hey, you weren't there. That's all." Rakine said as He stared down. "Don't think about what Vader said-" he muttered but we both heard him "-even though it was true."
Rulus turned to Rakine and glared at him with her orange eyes. He chuckled nervously and gulped.
"Sorry."
"He's right. I couldn't do anything to save my family. Not my mother, or my father."
"Your father?" Rakine turned to me. "You never mentioned him."
"My father had died just a week before you came to Zant. He was the Head Warrior of Randin back then. Rooda and I were his best fighters and he proudly trained us since we were both fawns. Rooda and I grew up to be best friends, but due to our positions we were meant to show no emotions. We couldn't look each other in the eye or smile or laugh, or show our emotional feelings for each other. The more we kept our true feelings secret inside, the worse it got. Then one day, we were hunting for spiders in the buttes of the desert with my father, to use the spiders' corpses to feed our people back home. Then those damned arachnids attacked."
Rulus and Rakine watched as I held my head with my metal clawlike hands, scratching the backs of my large ears.
"Rooda and I tried to help but we were too late. They tore him apart. My own father, and I watched him die!" I yell angrily and blame myself for not being able to save him.
Rulus looked down to the floor, saddened.
"Wow, Ven-" Rakine stared at me. "That's horrible."
I nodded slowly, trying not to suffer an emotional breakdown like the one I had with Vader in the town square.
"After he died I had to carry my family's pride and honor. Each day I was out hunting with Rooda, slaughtering the spiders that killed my father. My mother had to take care of herself and my soon-to-be sibling."
"Your sibling?" Rulus turned to me. "What do you mean "soon-to-be?"" she gasped and covered her mouth. "You mean-" she stared in horror.
I nodded.
"She was accompanied mostly by the fawn she carried while I was out bringing honor to the family."
"So your mother- she really was-." He turned to me, saddened by the thought and I nodded slowly. "Ven, I'm so sorry."
Rulus covered her face and a tear came from her right eye.
"That's absolutely horrible."
I sighed, after thinking about the loss of my whole family, in a matter of weeks. Tears formed in my eyes.
"That fawn would've been my father's last gift to her. Without him, she was left alone, an emotional wreck, and the other villagers had to help her around. That's how the days went after that. Until you came."
"Until I came?" Rakine stared at me.
"When you first arrived and you met me and Rooda, and everyone in the village Randin. Then came the Force and training came in, all the way until where we are now."
"If I had known about all this sooner, if I had known you had to look out for your family and protect the village, I never would've asked you." Rakine sank his head in his hands and shook his head side to side.
"Hey," I turned to him. "But you did. And I think if you didn't get me into all this, I think the Empire would've taken Kommaden, Sot-Kolok would be successfully liberating systems, I never would've figured out my true potential . And without you, Rooda and I need would have gotten together."
"But the death of your mother and the baby," Rulus looked to me.
"And all of Randin was laid to waste and destroyed." Rakine spoke up. "Remember?"
I nodded.
"If I had stayed there, and denied your offer to learn the ways of the Force, Sot-Kolok and the Empire would have come and completely razed the village anyway. But they also would've killed me and Rooda."
"But he can't now. Because Darth Venison killed him, remember?" Rakine rubbed my shoulder to try to help.
"Even if I stood a chance against him as a Sith Lord, deep down, I'm still Eyt. I'm still just the young stag you met on Zant. I look nothing like a Zan-Deer now, I'm half machine!" I stared at my cybernetic hands and my left arm up to the shoulder. I felt my antler-sabers and opened my Sith outift, revealing the metal plate around my abdomen. "But I'm still the one who brought dishonor to Randin before it got destroyed. I only take a different form."
Rulus looked down to the floor.
"Don't say that." Rakine shook his head. "You say you dishonored Randin, but now you're honoring the Rebel Alliance, the Old Republic. Doesn't that mean anything?"
Rulus looked back to me.
"It does. But the Zan-Deer were my family."
Rakine sighed and nodded.
"I know."
Rulus stood up.
"We are all very sorry about your loss, Lord Venison. But are you wondering where your dear deer, Rooda is?"
I nodded as I stood up, Rakine standing up next to me.
"She went into one of the living quarters. I think she's waiting for you."
I nodded and turned to the door.
"Thank you, Rulus." As I left the council chamber, Rakine started to talk to her about the successful Battle of Kommaden.
"The battle was a success. The Empire has been stopped, and now, they won't ever be able to invade the Wild Space."
"Wonderful. Thank you both for protecting my people."
I looked back in the council chamber.
"Rakine was the real hero," I grinned. "Vader threw me like a ragdoll while you tore his armor apart."
"Can't argue with that," Rakine rubbed the back of his head.
"We must go tell Mon Mothma and the Rebel Alliance will celebrate this victory." Rulus and Rakine walked out of the council chamber to the hangar, being joined by Captain Antilles as he jumps out of a Kommaden Starfighter.
"The Empire- they're done. For now," he took off his rebel helmet and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "The Battle of Kommaden was a success. But we need to gather the Alliance." He pulled the communicator from his belt. "And this is a very important reason why we are fighting against them. Back on Kommaden, I recorded something that I think will be a great message to the people of the galaxy."
I nodded to Antilles.
"Gather everyone. That must be shown to everyone. If we use that message you recorded and even that doesn't help push people to fighting against the Empire, then ai don't know what will."
"Yes, Lord Venison." He nodded.
I turned down the hall to the living quarters and began my search for Rooda.
"Rooda?" I called down the hall and hoped for an answer. One of the doors slowly opened and Rooda came out.
"You're back." She smiled.
I walked over to her and she held her hands out to me. I held both of them in my metal hands and grinned.
"I have good news. The battle was a victory for the Rebel Alliance. The Empire will be completely unable to invade the galactic west."
She looked at me surprised.
"The galactic west is safe?"
I nodded.
"That means Zant won't be harmed anymore." She smiled.
"That's right."
"And Ikana-"
"It's all safe Roo. Now we can go back home to Ikana where nothing can possibly hurt us."
She smiled and pecked my cheek with her lips.
"The people on Kommaden, are they safe?" She asked me.
"They're all okay. They're tough enough to defend the whole galactic west with the army they have."
"That's wonderful, Eyt."
"It truly is."
Antilles walked into the council chamber with the rebels following, Rakine, Rulus, and Mon Mothma walking in after them. I walked toward the entrance and saw Antilles play the holographic recording on the large projector in the chamber. I hear my voice echo through the room.
"You knew my family and my Zan-Deer friends were important to me. Everyone that lived in that village I had a connection to. Even mum."
The rebels start to talk to each other and murmur about the recording.
"My mother was the only person in that village I truly looked up to, after my father died." The recording went on and I saw my own image as it yelled at Vader back in the town square. I felt my anger and sadness slowly rise inside me. Then the image started yelling loudly at Vader, tears rained from my holographic cheeks.
"I've tried so many times, spent so much time in my younger life, trying to impress my family, trying to prove I can do things right. And when I turned my back to them just once, you had killed them all, everyone I had left! You think the First Galactic Empire is so great and powerful, that it was meant to rule the galaxy. Yet you mercilessly end millions of innocent lives like we're worthless animals. Animals! My own mother was pregnant with a fawn when your army had gunned her down!"
The rebels started shouting angrily at the holographic image of Darth Vader, and they all started booing. Captain Antilles stopped the recording.
"Everyone please don't fight the screen. It's just a holographic recording." He tried to stop the commotion.
"But was it true what you said to him?" Knuks, the boy pilot turned to me. "Was our mother pregnant when she was killed?"
I nodded slowly.
"She was."
The rebels shouted again and Rakine rolled his eyes before pulling out his pistol and firing three blaster bolts in the ceiling. The council chamber went silent.
"Will you all shut it?!"
Antilles nodded to Rakine.
"Thank you, Captain Cerivian. Now I'm going to play the rest of this, and see how your reaction goes for the rest of it. Okay?" He smiled weakly and played the rest of the recording. My image began screaming at Vader, tears still falling from my eyes.
"You hear me, you ruthless, Imperial hunk of metal?! She wa-"
Vader's image began Force choking mine and the rebels continued shouting angrily. I watched as Vader picked me up by my neck, choking me, and the holographic recording stopped before Vader began yelling back at me.
"Now you see what the Empire has done to innocent people." I walked into the council chamber and looked at the angered rebels. "They killed all I had left in my family. My father had already died, and so the Empire killed all my family I had left. A pregnant mother, and a younger sibling I never got to meet." I sighed. "Not just my family, but my whole village too. They left not one survivor!"
The rebels began shouting again and I held one of my metal hands up, silencing them.
"But we can stop the Empire before they do this to every other innocent person in this galaxy. We have possibly just saved countless of lives in the Wild Space in the galactic west, but if we keep fighting, we can stop them entirely. Right now the Empire is weak, they can't perform any acts of evil for-" I looked to Rakine in the back and he nodded, "-for a long time at least. The Empire has suffered greatly. Hundreds, maybe thousands of Imperial soldiers died in that fight. And even Darth Vader is in critical condition. It should be at least years before they can attack us again. And right now, we have them on their knees. We're winning the battle against the Empire already!"
The rebels shouted happily.
"If we keep this up, we can stand up to them, destroy the Empire, and bring true peace to the galaxy." I stop and look at Rooda, she leaned against the council chamber doorway, smiling at me, with a hoofed hand over her heart.
"What Ven here is saying-" Rakine Force jumps over the rebels who are seated and lands next to me, "-we won a great battle defending Kommaden. This is a turning point in the war. We are winning."
Rulus Knil-Wean nodded.
"And tonight," Rakine glanced at every Rebel seated, "let us celebrate out victory at Kommaden. Let us shake these walls and tremble these halls! Let us know here that we have won and as that Empire is slowly recovering, we will let THEM know, that we are the Rebel Alliance!" He held his fists in the air as he yelled motivating words to the Alliance. "And we are not afraid! We are not weak! We are strong knights of the Old Republic! Peace will be brought to the galaxy, one day." He spoke calmly again, "but for now, let's just celebrate our victory." He smiled to the crowd as they got up shouting happily, high-fiving each other and laughing. I walked out of the crowded council chamber and looked at Rooda, she smiled at me.
"You're a very motivational speaker, Eyt."
"Not me. Rakine is." I point at Rakine behind me as he's being carried in the air by the rebels, like he's at some big party.
"Maybe," she chuckled. "But I have been thinking. Since you brought me here, because you didn't want to leave me alone on Ikana."
"That's right."
"But now Ikana is safe from all harm, and we can go back home. We can finish our home in the canyon." She smiled. "You still remember that, right?"
"Of course I do, Roo. But I have to make sure if we're allowed to leave."
"Of course you can go, Lord Venison." Mon Mothma came out of the council chamber behind me. "You helped make the greatest Rebel cause yet a success. If it weren't for you and Rakine, the Battle of Kommaden would have been a tragic loss. I think you deserve this. Go to Ikana with Rooda, and go pursue your personal dreams. We will let you know when we need you."
"Thank you Mon Mothma." I now my head to her and Rooda and I walk down the hall to the hangar, where the Zant's Nightmare waits for us.
"So we go back to Ikana to finish our home, where we will be safe from the Empire?" She turned to me and the Nightmare's doors opened in front of us.
"Yes, we have time to ourselves now." I sat in the pilot's seat and Rooda sat next to me. "We can finally finish what we've started on Ikana."
The Nightmare picked up off the ground and flew out of the hangar, up into the skies of Yavin. I activate the ship's antler-like sails and the ship accelerates through the atmosphere as I activate a holographic map of the galaxy. I tap the tiny Ikana system, the furthest system westward, at the end of one of the galaxy's spirals, and the ship entered auto-pilot toward the Ikana system. I lay back in the pilot seat and looked down at my Sith outfit, remembering Lord Sorin, the Sith Lord who truly attacked me, cut off my antlers and tricked me into joining the Dark Side. It was him who got me this far and made me a killing machine. And I hate him for it.
"Something wrong?" Rooda turned to me.
"Well, I started wearing this when I became Sorin's apprentice, when he fooled me into being his puppet. He tricked me into becoming what I am now, and this outfit always reminds me of him. How he made me a Sith Lord." I glared at the ribcage design on my long-sleeve tunic. "Now it just doesn't suit me anymore. I have to take it off."
"You're getting rid of the outfit are you?"
"Not all of it. Just this stupid tunic. It reminds me too much of him."
I took the cloak and threw it behind my head and watched as it sank to the floor behind me. I took my belt off and set it on my lap, and I grabbed my tunic to take it off. I threw my tunic to the floor and I put my belt around my waist again, feeling the metal plate around my abdomen. I took a long look at my natural body, rubbing my chest and the black, fur covered skin on my right forearm, where the black dye stopped at my elbow. I looked at my cybernetic right hand rubbed the fur on my arm, up to my shoulder.
"I haven't seen my own body in so long-"
"You miss your old self, don't you?" She chuckled as I felt my arm, the tan fur that covered most of my body.
"I've changed a lot, have I?" I turned to her.
"You have. But you haven't forgotten who you really were, right?"
I shook my head.
"I never forgot. I still remember my past."
"You know what I think? I think you're now an upgraded version of our old self. You remember everything, but you've changed so much in such a short amount of time."
I shrugged.
"But the pain I've caused still stays with me. Look at me Rooda. I'm still a Zan-Deer, no denying it. But I've done so many things that completely changed our lives. Even my own impulses to fight have changed my appearance. Look at my wrist-" I raised my right hand, "-my arm and shoulder-" I lifted my left hand. My eyes trailed from my hand to my left shoulder, where the cybernetics stop. "My stomach," I tapped the metal plate that covers my lower body and the metal antler-sabers on my head. "My antlers too. Replaced with sabers. I'm half machine now."
"Take it easy. Just scars from your battles, I think." Rooda took my wrist and sat me back down. "I think you look just fine."
"But I still feel like everything is all my fault."
"Stop dwelling on the past and blaming yourself. You're not the proud, strong Eyt I remember on Zant. Now you need to stop worrying so much."
I sighed and rubbed my bare chest with my metal fingers.
"You're right."
I took the ship off auto-pilot as it neared the Ikana system. The ship's sails deactivate as we near the atmosphere and the ship flies down to the Ikana Canyon and lands down on the canyon's floor. The doors opened and I picked up the bits from my Sith outfit I left on the floor. Rooda walked out onto the sand and I felt the soft sand under my bare, hoofed feet. I looked at Rooda and she sighed happily as she ran to the door of the cave, opening it and finding the cave just the way we left it. I walked in and headed toward the stone table, setting my cloak on the table top, still holding the Sorin's tunic, and resting my boots on the cave floor. I looked around at the empty cave and notice Rooda looking at me, a smile growing on her face.
"What is it?" I asked her and she walked to one of the chairs at the table, pulling it out and picking up her loincloth outfit in her left hand, and my loincloth in her right hand.
"I saved these old cloths. I couldn't leave them behind because they remind me too much of our village back on Zant. I still want to remember what life was like before everything changed."
I walked to her and took my loincloth from her hand and held it by the straps that used to wrap around my waist. I stared at the leathery cloth and grinned.
"I still remember too." I lowered the old loincloth. "We should never forget what life was like back then, even if everything has changed and now-" I stopped and thought about how everyone else in the village was killed when we were gone. Rooda and I are the only living members of the village.
"Now-" she stopped and looked at me confused, "-what?"
"Nothing," I set the loincloth on the table. "Just- thank you for remembering to bring these loincloths back. They will serve as a way to remember. These could be a memorial for all the Zan-Deer that died in the village, a way to remember the ones we connected to in the past, a reminder of what the Empire has done to us."
I felt a bitter sadness rise in me and Rooda too began to grieve over the loss of the innocent lives that ended in the Randin. Now a ghost town, destroyed and erased from the surface of the desert, it will always have a place in our hearts. From the canyon of Kakariko, to the buttes of the high desert, we still knew the village that stood tall, and the people who lived in it. The chief, Tzano, who I regretfully murdered in my own anger, my father who taught me how to fight for the village, my mother who stayed in the house caring for herself and her unborn fawn, the villagers who greeted us every time we walked past them with a smile on theirs faces, and the fawns that liked to frolic in the streets, running and laughing, pretending they were warriors too.
Rooda and I were caught in a wave of grief as we mourned over our whole village and it's people. I watched as she picked up her two pieces of clothing and walked outside the cave to an old dead tree next to the river that runs through the canyon, and she sat under its crooked branches. She held her loincloths tightly in her hands and started to cry, and I walked out and stood behind her, resting one of my metal hands over her shoulder. I felt tears began forming in my eyes and I watch them drop down my cheeks, as I mourned over the loss of Randin. I sat next to Rooda and she looked to me, hugging the side of my body, her tears dripped down onto my arm. Both weeping silently, we stayed under the tree with our heads lowered. I looked down at Sorin's tunic and I laid it on the ground in front of the tree, pulled my darksaber from my belt, ignited it, and slowly held the blade against the tunic. A small fire started on it and Rooda and I stepped back, watching the tunic set ablaze, burning in front of us. I feel my sins from my past burning inside me as the tunic's flames grow. I stare angrily at it and I slowly start to think more of how Sorin's influence got me to kill Chief Tzano.
"Forgive me, Chief," I whisper to myself as the flames of Sorin's tunic dies down. The fire stops and the cloth has burnt down to ashes. I blow the last flame out and scoop up the ashes of the tunic in my cybernetic hands. I screamed angrily and threw the ashes out of my hand and watched as the singed tunic's remains sprinkle down into the river, and are carried away by the current. I fall to my knees and hold my head in my metal hands. Rooda looks at me.
"Are you okay?"
"I feel- better. As if burning up Sorin's tunic got rid of most of my troubles. Like Sorin's grip on me had finally been released, even after his death on Hoth."
"How is that possible?"
"I don't know," I shook my head confused and I stood up, looking at her. "It just felt weird."
We stared at each other in confusion and Rooda rubbed her right forearm before asking me.
"You want to go inside?" She stood up and put a hand on my metallic left shoulder. "We can work on the cave if you want. Would that help you take these things off your mind?"
I nodded weakly and she held my hand as we walked inside. I closed the door behind me.