Disclaimer: Lucasfilm, Bioware, Disney, et al. and whoever they sell the rights to next own Star Wars and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I write this for fun and not for any monetary gain.
Chapter 2: Escaping Taris
"Where is Gadon Thek?" Revan asked Zaerdra, the Twi'lek bodyguard of the leader of the Hidden Beks—the man in question.
"He has retired to his private chambers," she answered. "I am afraid he is grieving over Brejik's death. As you know, Brejik used to be his protégé…"
The Sith Lord snorted. "You mean, he's afraid that the Vulkar assassin is out to get him?"
"Uhh… that too, I suppose…" the bodyguard admitted.
He gave her a disgusted look, "No wonder he wanted me to do his dirty work for him. Unfortunately, I really needed to save Bastila, so I had little choice. But you gangsters—murdering people on the street, bleeding the population of Taris dry—disgust me. The people deserve better." He turned on a blue lightsaber and stabbed Zaerdra in the abdomen.
Around him, all the Beks started screaming, "Assassin! Assassin in the base! Attack!"
While the bandits charged at him with their vibroblades, the Sith Master simply raised his left hand, and a torrent of Lightning flooded out, electrocuting all the not-so-hidden Beks in the room. In a few seconds, the room was silent once more.
Bastila looked quite impressed by how quickly he dealt with the Beks, but asked him an unrelated question, "Where did you get that lightsaber from? I know the Jedi destroyed yours."
"I got it from one of the other Jedi on the Endar Spire. She was fighting a Sith and managed to kill him. Somehow, she didn't see the grenade the Sith armed in his dying moments and was blown up. I salvaged her lightsaber. It's not as good as my old one, of course, but it'll have to do for now."
Opening one of the doors with the code he got from Kandon Ark before he met an unfortunate end, he recalled the last words he had said to the Black Vulkar lieutenant: "Unfortunately, my usefulness to you will end the moment I deliver Gadon Thek's head. Bastila is too important to me. I shall have to count on the untrustworthy gangsters that need me." Indeed, as Bastila had deduced earlier, both swoop gangs, despite appearances, only cared about their own power, and saw her as a tool to achieve dominance. Revan had little love for gangsters, but he normally would not go out of his way to destroy them. However, the thought of his beloved being treated as a trophy—and almost violated in the worst way possible—forced him to take action. The Black Vulkars had suffered for it. The Hidden Beks, having taken advantage of him to eliminate their rivals and become the strongest swoop gang on Taris, were now getting their just deserts.
They continued on. A group of Beks ran at him with vibroblades, but the Dark Lord simply shot a purple beam from his hand without even slowing down. It connected with all of them, causing them all to twitch for a second, before they all dropped dead. Their bodies were completely unharmed, yet their life forces were sucked dry. It was a Death Field, another quick and painless way of death, with the added bonus of healing the caster.
Still, despite their mounting casualties, the Hidden Beks seemed determined to fight to the last man, and more of them charged at the couple. With a wave of his hand, the attackers found themselves trapped in Force chokes and slowly lifted from the ground. Bastila was rather impressed by his ability to split his focus between multiple acts of telekinesis. Her musings were interrupted by a crunching noise, as he simultaneously snapped their necks, before letting the bodies fall to the floor with a thud.
And yet, the Beks fought on. The couple systematically scanned through the entire level of the base, clearing every pocket of resistance with similar tactics. Once finished, they returned to the centre of the base, where the elevator was, and used it to reach Gadon Thek's room.
"Hello, Erich. I must congratulate you for winning the race for us and destroying those Vulkar scum," said Gadon, rather pleased with himself, apparently unaware of what had transpired below.
"I had no choice but to help you with your dirty work since I must rescue my friend Bastila here. But now, your criminal days are over. You dared to suggest to my face that if I don't risk my life on a bike none of your people would use, one of you gangsters would keep her as a slave. She belongs to me!" the Sith Lord declared possessively. Beside him, Bastila smiled. While some women would have bristled at the declaration, she was a submissive who loved the idea of being owned by the man she loved. "You are no better than those filthy Vulkar slavers and deserve the same fate!" he finished.
"What? No!" Gadon protested. "We fight against the Sith! We are the good guys!"
"Do you really think I'm ignorant of the nature of organized crime?" Revan asked with an edge. "You might be able to fool Carth by declaring support for the Republic, or Mission by claiming heroics, but you won't be able to fool me. Nothing can change the fact that you are exploiting the people of Taris for your own gain. You hate Malak's Sith not because you find them morally repugnant, but because there are still some among their number that won't tolerate slavery."
"I—" Gadon stuttered. "I don't know what you are talking about!"
Bastila joined in, "So this is the man that took advantage of the Republic army to wipe out his opposition during the Mandalorian wars." Gadon's eyes widened in shock. She grinned viciously. "And now you take advantage of our situation to do it again. Well, may you be One with the Force."
Gadon and his bodyguard looked rather confused by the odd expression, but their facial expression quickly turned to horror as Bastila ignited her twin blades, poised to throw them.
"Please!" Gadon pleaded. "The Sith are our common enemy! The enemy of my enemy is my friend!"
"No," the rightful Dark Lord of the Sith said coldly, the irony not lost on him. "The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend, but certainly a useful tool. Now, your usefulness has ended, and I am no longer willing to ignore your past transgressions." He waved his hand.
At his signal, his new apprentice threw her saberstaff at them, cutting them both clean at the waist, and allowing them to join the Force as promised. Catching her blade, she gave the remains a disgusted look, and commented, "Good riddance."
Revan looked at the massive cauterized wounds on Gadon and his bodyguard and winced. "Okay, it is obvious that everyone here was killed by Force users," he said while shaking his head. "If Malak's people saw this…"
"They will definitely get a clue about our location," she finished for him. "Maybe we can set the bodies on fire, Master?"
"Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking," he agreed. He pointed his hand at the bodies. With a blast of superheated lightning, the clothes reached its autoignition temperature. The flames quickly consumed the remains of Gadon and his bodyguard. Taking a moment to look at the handiwork, ensuring that the fire wouldn't burn out prematurely, they went back down the elevator.
On the way out of the base, the couple split up to burn all the bodies. Revan used superheated Force Lightning, while Bastila levitated a burning body to use as a makeshift torch. She noted how sterile the base was and shook her head. There was no wood anywhere to make a normal torch, forcing her to resort to such methods. She wished she could command Force Lightning.
After finishing the deed, the duo donned their Sith uniforms and flew the swoop bike straight into the Upper City, bypassing the elevators, and soon reached the apartment complex where the hideout was located. On the way, Revan gave her an overview of their situation on Taris.
In the corridors of the apartment complex, Bastila took out the neural disruptor collar she wore in captivity, pocketed the actual neural disruptor, and placed the collar around her neck with a leash attached. She held out the other end of her leash towards the man she loved, and stated with an impish grin, "Your prize awaits you, Master."
Revan showed a look of surprise. "Are you trying to give our allies a heart attack or something?"
"Perhaps… but Master, imagine how priceless the look on their faces would be!" she said while trying to conceal her laughter.
He pretended to be serious for a moment. "I suppose a bit of laughter can prove helpful in our rather dire situation," he decided. He took the offered leash into his hand.
With that, they opened the door to the apartment and entered.
Carth saw them enter first, and began, "Bastila! You are alive! Finally things are looking up. Now we— Wait a minute, Erich, what did you do to her?"
The Sith Lord tried hard not to laugh. "Did you hit your head or something? Remember Bastila was the prize for the swoop race. I won, so naturally I own her now," he stated with complete seriousness.
Carth looked speechless while Mission started coughing, having apparently choked on her drink.
Finally, the Republic pilot regained control over his mouth. "You mean, she's actually your slave now? Bastila is a Jedi! I don't see how she could possibly stand for this."
In response, said slave looked down and adopted a meek and submissive expression. "I am only a servant of the Master," she said. Turning to Revan, still looking down at her feet, she continued, laying it on thick, "What is thy bidding, my Master?"
Carth stuttered, "Bu-But… Wha-What th— What is happening?"
The couple burst into laughter. After what seemed like hours, they finally steadied themselves, and Bastila removed the collar and leash.
"You were right, that was priceless," the Sith Lord admitted.
Carth looked rather angry. "Was that some sort of a joke?" he demanded. "If so, that was not funny."
"Oh, but it is funny," said Mission while giggling. Zaalbar growled with a hint of amusement in the background.
The pilot looked rather put out. "Jokes aside, how are we getting off this planet?" he asked impatiently.
Bastila immediately shot back, "You mean, you haven't figured this out yet? What were you doing all day?" Somehow, she slipped into a stereotypical upper-class Coruscanti accent.
The Sith Lord noticed his apprentice did not like Carth for some reason. He was a bit annoyed too, since the latter had done nothing except relaxing in the hideout while he spent the night at the Hidden Beks' headquarters and most of the day racing. Not wanting to waste time, and not expecting the Republic pilot to be of any help, he held up a hand and suggested, "How about Bastila and I head out to one of the cantinas to see if anyone can help us out?"
Carth seemed rather pleased to avoid an argument and immediately agreed.
As soon as they changed out of their stolen Sith uniforms and left the hideout, a green Twi'lek ran towards the couple and immediately started to ask Revan if he was the winner of the swoop race in the Lower City. He narrowed his eyes, and asked, "What do you want?"
The Twi'lek explained that he was just a messenger for Canderous Ordo. The Sith Lord's eyes narrowed further at the mention of that name. His expression turned thoughtful when the messenger mentioned that Canderous had an offer that he couldn't refuse. He saw no real choice other than agreeing. With a vague threat of violence should he delay too long, the Twi'lek left.
As soon as he was out of sight, Revan took Bastila's hand and led her outside towards the nearby cantina. On the way, she asked, back in her normal accent, "What was that all about? Do you know this 'Canderous Ordo'?"
"Well, I have never interacted with him," he replied. "Most of the Mandalorians that I had interacted with were… killed in action. But I have heard of him. He appears to have survived the war and became some sort of mercenary. I saw him in the Lower City threatening people on Davik's pay. I doubt he enjoys the menial tasks he's doing now. Whether that means he'll help us, or simply wants to take on bigger prey, I have no idea yet. I am just rather concerned about the safety of our hideout…"
"If Canderous can find us, so can Malak's Sith…" the apprentice finished her Master's thoughts. "We can only hope that they only know you as the winner of the swoop race and not our true identities."
"Well, Bastila, the situation is slightly worse than that. Gadon Thek knew your name and that you were the prize for the swoop race. I don't even want to imagine how many people know. We are running out of time. Perhaps I should have brought one of the others… If anyone knows who you are, I can't imagine it ending well."
"I can't imagine it ending well in the hideout either, with its location already compromised. I would be a sitting duck in there if they decide to surround and assault it. No, I'd rather fight by your side than anyone else's, especially with our location unknown in a planet-wide city. The others would also be safer without my presence. Why don't we dress up as Sith troopers?"
Revan hated to give her the bad news. "It is a sound idea, but unfortunately, Sith in uniform are not allowed in the cantina, which seems to be our destination. Still, there are alternative disguises available through the Force."
"But they are just fancy mind tricks, which may work on a simple trooper, but it's not good enough to fool anyone with a strong enough will…" she said, her disappointment evident.
"Well, the Sith were always a fan of illusions. Their illusions are more solid and harder to see through. It shouldn't take much effort for me to change our eye colours and facial features. Brown hair is common enough that it shouldn't need changing, but you might want to untie your hair. Your twin pigtails may be too recognizable."
When his eyes turned from dark brown to green, Bastila found herself unable to pierce the illusion. "When we are out of immediate danger, can you teach me this technique? It's so useful," she declared. Revan quickly agreed.
She quickly noticed how eager she sounded. Just a few short months ago, she would never have entertained the thought of learning such a technique, simply because the Jedi had told her it was used by the Sith. Somehow, that automatically made it evil and must be avoided at all costs. She scoffed at the notion now. The Jedi Council had shown her exactly how silly it was, in a way.
She remembered the stories she was forced to read as a child—in other words, the Jedi propaganda to paint the Sith as the bogeyman—warning about how the Sith could enslave you, make you turn on your friends, and destroy your very identity with their mind magic. Was that not what the Council had done with Revan? Was he not enslaved? Was he not forced to turn on his former comrades? Was his identity not destroyed in those horrible months? Bastila silently thanked the Force for giving Revan back to her.
Still, she wondered, how much of the Force was hidden from me by the Jedi Council? How many useful powers were denounced as "dark," never to see the light of day? How many could be saved had they known these powers?
"So, what's with the accent?" Revan asked, interrupting her from her thoughts.
"Ah yes, the accent," she replied with an exaggerated fake Coruscanti accent. "You know how there is a certain class of Republic soldier that only respects you when you use the speech of the powerful élite of the Core? Well, Carth is one of them. And when I was assigned to the Endar Spire, I had to deal with him a lot, me being the commander of the mission, and him being the senior pilot. He did not take me seriously, so I had to use the fake accent to make myself sound more important."
The Sith sighed. "I hate those people. But is that all? You seem to dislike him much more than that."
She took a moment to organize her thoughts. "Well, his trust issues were also super annoying. He constantly questioned me about my mission and everything, always passive-aggressively commenting on how strange everything was. I mean, yes, my mission was fucked up, with me watching over my lost love and trying to get visions, but it wasn't my damn fault!" her voice grew louder. She turned around, feeling the eyes looking at her, and realized it was a bad idea to attract attention. Hoping they would dismiss it as a simple argument between a couple, she took a deep breath and continued quietly, "And eventually, he apologized for his behaviour when it seemed to not work and started trying to 'charm' me instead… when all I wanted was you, Master, and I thought I had lost you forever. I saw you every day, only to see you look at me with curiosity instead of recognition… You have no idea how much it hurt… You can imagine charming a grieving woman not ending too well for Carth, especially when he commented how I reminded him of his dead wife."
The Sith Lord felt like laughing at the pilot's lack of tact. "Yeah, I can see that happening. He was like that when I was stuck with him too, constantly telling me how suspicious he was of me. It served no purpose except to annoy me. A great idea when he was forced to work with me." his voice dripped with sarcasm as he finished the sentence. "At times, I genuinely felt an urge to practice my Force choke on him. Admittedly, he never tried to romance me, so I wouldn't know about that part."
"That's probably for the best," Bastila decided. "I don't like sharing." She leaned onto him for emphasis.
"You'll never have to," he promised, putting an arm around her.
Soon, they found Canderous in the nearby cantina, and Revan dropped his disguise. After some introductions, Canderous quickly outlined his offer: he wanted to escape Taris after getting bored working with Davik, and offered Davik's flagship, the Ebon Hawk, which alone might be able to outrun the Malak's blockade. But to avoid automatic fire from the usurper's fleet, the launch codes must be obtained from the nearby military base. To aid in this effort, he offered T3-M4, Davik's custom droid, currently in Janice Nall's shop. "Normally I'd do this myself, but everyone knows who I work for. If I broke into the Sith base, they'd send an army down on Davik's estate to get those codes back. That's why I need you. You seemed to have dealt with the swoop race and the subsequent brawl nicely, as well as Bendak Starkiller, so you probably can handle this too," finished Canderous.
To their surprise, neither Revan nor Bastila sensed any deception from Canderous, and so they agreed with the deal. The former re-disguised himself, and they quickly went to Janice Nall's shop, and asked for the droid, stating that Canderous sent them.
"Okay, the droid is ready. You can have it for 2000 credits," Janice said pleasantly.
"Why don't you debit it directly from Davik's bank account? I am just the delivery guy," retorted Revan, unwilling to spend the credits when he had such a convenient excuse, especially when he was stealing from a criminal lord. He was also displeased with Janice for lying and selling Mission a droid that blew up in her face earlier, which injured the teen and made her feel ashamed of her attempt to contribute to their mission, and didn't care if she ended up giving the droid away for free.
"Good point, I'll just charge Davik's account," the Twi'lek shopkeeper agreed. With that, the couple walked out of the store with T3-M4 in tow, and they quickly reached the military base.
It was a simple matter to breach the door with T3-M4 and get rid of the unhappy receptionist with some simple persuasion. With liberal use of Death Field and Force chokes, it was rather easy for Revan to systematically dispatch all the opposition on the first floor. Any returning fire proved easily deflected by Bastila's saberstaff. Of course, she shot all the dead Sith soldiers with a blaster afterwards, since there was no need to leave strange causes of death that screamed "the Force," which would effectively narrow the pool of suspects down to just them. It was much better for Malak to think it was some common criminal rather than his prey, after all.
After clearing the first floor of the base, the couple approached the elevator room. Inside was a heavily shielded battle droid and two turrets, which all opened fire. Revan demonstrated the utility of "Light Side" powers for the first time in the mission, blasting the droid with destructive powers that went straight through its shields. At the same time, Bastila deflected all the incoming fire with her lightsaber, allowing him to work without distraction. In less than ten seconds, the heavily armoured droid was blown into pieces and the turrets fried beyond repair. With a lazy wave of his hand, he forced the elevator door to open and entered with his apprentice in tow.
Opening the first door on the second floor, the couple was met face to face with the commander of the base. Looking upon the newcomers, the commander got up from his meditation. "Who dares to break my meditation? Wait…" Suddenly he smirked. "I sense the Force is strong with you. Who would have thought that a Force adept could be found on this insignificant corner of Taris? Here I was, working on the last bit of training to become a full Sith, and you two came along. Surely eliminating two Force adepts would impress my master enough to give me a lightsaber directly…"
While he rambled, the duo took the opportunity to make themselves resistant to Force-based attacks. They both snorted when they realized their enemy did not even possess a lightsaber. They ignited their lightsabers, which surprised the commander. He lost some of his confidence, but soon rallied himself, reasoning that the blue and yellow blades meant they were Jedi, weak servants of the Light Side.
He opened the battle with the Force, channelling it to stun Bastila, deducing that she was the weaker of the two. However, at the same time, Revan launched torrents of Force Lightning at him. While Bastila successfully resisted the stun attempt, the Lightning hit the commander squarely in the chest, causing him to drop his double-ended vibroblade. Holding the commander at his mercy, the true Sith Lord quickly used mind domination to force the commander to reveal the location of launch codes. When he was done, a purple beam slammed into the acolyte, draining him of his life force. Bastila shot him for good measure.
With the launch codes, they quickly left the base, freeing a familiar Duros on the way out. Said Duros had disposed of a bunch of Sith corpses for Revan when he first left the hideout after crashing, so the Sith decided to return the favour. With the illusion working as intended, the Duros did not recognize him, however.
"What would happen if the Sith fleet realized the launch codes were stolen, Master? Would they just be able to revoke them?" Bastila wondered.
"Normally, yes," he answered, "but look at these." He handed her the datapad containing the codes. "The way the document was written implies that all base commanders got the exact same codes. It will be a long time before the fleet could update everyone's codes and shoot at any ship transmitting the old codes without decimating the fleet itself."
The apprentice's eyes opened wide as she stared at the datapad. "I still remember you drilling into my head ten years ago that sharing credentials was a terrible idea, exactly for this reason… That was once your fleet, why would they do this?" she asked in confusion.
He sighed. "Unlike you, Malak never took that lesson to heart. He constantly complained about my 'ridiculously complex' security measures 'making everyone's life hell.' Presumably, out of laziness, they just decided to use the same code."
"Unbelievable," she said as she shook her head. "I am so glad though."
"Yeah, me too," he agreed.
On the way to the Lower City, Revan saw the moving fleet above them, and cursed. "It appears that our time is running out. Malak seems to be positioning the fleet out in preparation for a full planetary orbital bombardment."
Bastila gasped. "What? Is he going to destroy the whole planet to take me out? I don't have words to describe this insanity…"
"Well, he has done it before. Against my orders, Telos IV, which happened to be Carth's homeworld, was completely destroyed by orbital bombardment. When I talked to him later, he thought it was perfectly reasonable and actually accused me of being too soft and merciful when I insisted on conquering worlds with minimum collateral damage. The point of the entire war is to liberate the galaxy, not to destroy it! He disobeyed a direct order and committed treason and mass murder. That was the day I removed his jaw, but the lesson didn't stick, apparently." He shook his head at the memory. He really should have had Malak executed as a traitor and a war criminal that day, per law and custom, instead of "lightening" the punishment for old time's sake. "But I digress. We really should hurry…"
After sending T3-M4 to the hideout by itself, they headed to Javyar's Cantina in the Lower City. There, Canderous offered to take them to Davik's base and steal his ship while Davik ran a background check on Revan. Both of them were unhappy with the plan, but with time running out, they had no choice but to agree.
After Davik's rather forceful offer of accommodations, the trio began preparing for their escape. They decided to obtain as much information as possible before revealing their hand, and so they headed to the one place Davik explicitly allowed them to go: the slave quarters.
As they entered, the Sith Lord was greeted by a Twi'lek slave girl. "Welcome to the slave quarters, master. Would you like a relaxing massage?"
He could feel Bastila's jealousy flare through the Force, as if suggesting she should be the one giving her Master a massage. He was rather touched by her possessiveness, but decided it was not a good time for such thoughts. Instead, he simply pulled his submissive girlfriend close with one hand to calm her and used a mind trick on the slave with his other hand, "Tell me anything interesting you know about this place."
The Twi'lek's eyes glazed over, and she told him that Davik's pilot for the Ebon Hawk, Hudrow, was locked up in a torture chamber for stealing spice and pointed out the direction to said chamber. Thanking the slave, they left for the torture chamber. On the way, they met some of Davik's henchmen, which proved easily dispatched with Force Lightning. The party of three figured that charred bodies would not be suspicious anyway after the bombardment and they needed to escape as soon as possible. They quickly searched the bodies for anything useful.
After disabling the torture devices, Hudrow quickly gave away the security codes to the Ebon Hawk to spite Davik before sprinting away for the nearest exit. Letting the man escape—for all the good it would do once Malak began the orbital bombardment—the trio then headed for the hangar. Revan let out a curse when he found the door locked, too thick to cut through with lightsabers in a reasonable amount of time, and the system too complicated to slice in the very limited time they had. Davik had not cut corners when building his base, much to his chagrin.
With a sigh, he turned back in search of something to help them unlock the door. Dispatching more thugs on the way, they finally reached a room with a computer terminal, and used the access card from a bounty hunter they had dispatched earlier in the base to disable the hanger security system and rushed back to the hanger.
As they entered the hangar, the orbital bombardment started, and they found themselves confronted with Davik and Calo Nord. The Sith Lord quickly used Force Lightning to dispatch the two, but to his surprise, Calo Nord survived the initial onslaught.
"You may have me outnumbered and outgunned, but if I'm going down, I'm taking all of you with me! This thermal detonator will blow us all to bits!" threatened the bounty hunter. At that moment, before Revan could figure out what to do, the hangar started collapsing, and Calo was buried beneath some rubble. The Sith gave the rubble a look and shot the characteristic purple beam of Death Field at the rubble just to make sure. Then, they quickly made their way to the Ebon Hawk and flew it to their apartment.
On the way, Bastila asked, "Was that really necessary? There is no way Calo would have survived that."
"Yes, it was. I learned it the hard way," the Sith Master answered bitterly. "During the Mandalorian wars, I was in a similar situation. I barely avoided getting shot in the back thanks to the Force. Also, I felt Calo's life being drained, so he was still alive under there. Think of it as a coup de grâce for him, if you want, so he doesn't have to die slowly and painfully."
The Mandalorian jumped in, "So you were one of the Jedi that fought against my people during the war? I have never met anyone as powerful as you are. Who are you really?"
The Sith couple looked at each other, both realizing that his Force abilities must be kept secret from the galaxy for now. But Revan, knowing the Mandalorian tendency of following the strongest, decided to tell Canderous the truth in hopes of gaining him as an ally. "I am Darth Revan, supposedly deceased, but very much alive as you can see. At the moment, no one save Bastila knows who I am. Everyone else thinks I am a Republic soldier…"
"You mean you are that Revan?" the Mandalorian asked suspiciously. "You don't look or sound like him…"
In response, Revan decided to quote the speech he broadcasted before the battle of Malachor V. Dramatically, with his voice booming through the Ebon Hawk, somehow enhanced by the Force, he spoke. "Knights of Revan! Soldiers of the Republic! I can feel your fear in the Force. Who wouldn't be afraid, when so outnumbered and surrounded? A day may come, when the courage of our people fails, when we surrender in the face of such adversity, but it is not this day. A barrage from Mandalore's fleet bringing the galaxy to its knees, but it is not this day. This day, we fight! We fight for all that we hold dear in this galaxy! Blades shall be shaken, ships shall be splintered! We fight! For death! For ruin! For the galaxy's ending!" He continued in an amused voice, "Am I really that hard to recognize without the robes and mask?"
"Yes, actually," Canderous admitted. "You look surprisingly normal, nothing like the scarred and terrible warrior that we all imagined under the mask."
"I would really appreciate it if you kept my abilities and identity a secret," Revan requested. "And as you might have guessed, Bastila is my new apprentice. Please don't let anyone know of that fact either."
"Of course I won't. You defeated the best Mandalore had to offer. In my mind, that makes you a worthy leader. Whatever you are fighting, I would gladly help. I am your man until the end, Revan," the Mandalorian pledged.
"I am honoured. And believe me, you will have plenty to fight. I happen to have a lot of enemies. Keep in mind that the Jedi believe me to be mind-wiped and genuinely believe myself to be a Republic soldier, while Bastila was supposed to watch over me for their own nefarious purposes. Make sure you don't accidentally give us away. But now, we should probably contact the apartment, so they are ready to leave."
Quickly sending a message to Carth, the Sith Lord then asked his apprentice about their destination.
"Before, I would have said Dantooine without hesitation," she answered, "but I don't want the Jedi to find out that you still remember… Still, it might be our best bet. The Jedi presence at least acts as a deterrent for any attack and the Republic will most likely keep it well-defended… and we really need time to rest and recuperate."
"You are right, as much as I wish you weren't," he agreed, setting the coordinates in the navigation computer. "We can always change our mind later when we are out of danger."
They soon hovered the Ebon Hawk near the entrance to the apartments and lowered the loading ramp. Carth, Mission and Zaalbar quickly climbed on, and they shot towards the sky.
Soon, however, Bastila found herself growing weaker from the increasing number of deaths she felt through the Force. Her leg grew unsteady, and Revan shouted "Bastila!" as he ran to catch her. He carried her to a bed on their new ship and laid her down.
"How come you are not affected by the massive disturbance in the Force?" she asked weakly.
"From experience," he answered sadly. "I got used to the deaths in every battle…"
"I have been in battles too, Master," she whispered. "I've gotten used to what my meditation wrought. You don't see me react to killing those gangsters, do you? Yet, it was nothing like this… death of billions."
He sighed. "It is fortunate then that you never had to deal with the Fett clan… They showed us the true meaning of the word atrocity."
Just then, the ship shook, and Carth's voice came over the intercom, "Incoming fighters!"
Revan promised her that he would return as soon as possible and ran as fast as he could to one of the guns on the Ebon Hawk. With help from the Force, he managed to eliminate the fighters that were firing on his ship rather quickly, and soon the stars in the windows elongated as they entered hyperspace on a path towards Dantooine.
A/N: Bastila faking an accent is based on the fact that her voice actor, Jennifer Hale, is Canadian and faking a British accent. In the Star Wars universe, the British accent is used to represent the accent of Galactic Basic spoken in Coruscant. In this story, the "prestigious" Received Pronunciation accent is used as the speech of the Republic élite. Bastila's true accent is much more like those spoken in the Outer Rim, and very similar to Revan's, given how close they were during their formative years.
Also, apologies to Aragorn and Théoden for borrowing their speeches.
By the way, the next chapter probably requires the rating to be upgraded to M. Since FFN loves to hide M rated stories by default, I might hold off on posting it for a bit. I've also crossposted this story to AO3 just in case.