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Chapter 35: The Star Forge
Above the skies of Lehon, the Ebon Hawk met with some of the Jedi strike force in snub fighters. A few of them have already landed on the Star Forge, but more Jedi were on the way. Together, they flew towards the behemoth of a space station. They faced heavy fire from the defence turrets, but the Ebon Hawk was able to dodge them with aid of Revan's command over the Force and Bastila's battle meditation. In fact, knowledge of Bastila's arrival and her battle meditation had spread in the Republic fleet, and morale was high.
Seeing the success of the Ebon Hawk, the other Jedi fighters started following the ship as closely as possible, and that turned out to be a good strategy. They were far less likely to be hit that way. But this caused a conundrum for the Dark Lord seeking to regain his throne. Every Jedi on those fighters would be helpful when fighting against the usurper Malak, but as soon as they revealed their true objective of seizing the Star Forge, the Jedi would turn on them.
Suddenly, a turbolaser shot covered the cockpit window. Fortunately, it merely flew past sideways, but a split second of difference and the Ebon Hawk would have been hit. Revan cursed himself for getting distracted. Eventually, he decided that to do anything to deliberately sabotage the Jedi would be too obvious.
After weaving through more enemy fire, the Star Forge was now close enough to occupy most of his field of view. He flew around, towards the side that was close to the command centre, where Malak most likely was. Finally, he saw an open hangar. By then, the Star Forge's turrets could no longer fire upon them due to the shallow angle. A clear design flaw in the turrets, he noted. I'll have to fix that later. He directed the ship to land in the hangar, and found no resistance. Canderous and a few more Mandalorians had been stationed at the Ebon Hawk's turrets to clear any defences, but that proved unnecessary. Another flaw.
Once the ship was stable on the hangar, the Dark Lord took his wife's hand as they left the cockpit. As planned, Canderous, Juhani, HK-47, and Jolee followed them off the ship, along with thirty of the Mandalorians, while Mission, Zaalbar, and the remaining Mandalorians stayed to defend the ship against potential attacks. In truth, Revan didn't like the idea of putting a minor on combat duty, but this was probably where she would be safest—safer than fighting her way through the Star Forge or staying alone on Lehon.
As soon as the group left the hangar, they saw a few other Jedi outside. The leading Jedi Knight immediately tried to assume command and started a pointless speech, much to their annoyance.
"You made it!" she stated the obvious. "Several Jedi have already gone ahead into the Star Forge. Wait! What are all these Mandalorians doing here?"
"We managed to convince them to fight for us in exchange for getting off the planet," Bastila explained. As far as the Jedi were concerned, she was the highest ranking member in her party, and she hoped her authority would end this waste of time.
"That is outside of our mandate for this mission," the Jedi complained, dashing the Sith apprentice's hopes. "As Jedi, we shouldn't do such things. We need Jedi, not Mandalorians. Ah well, let us strike while we still have the element of surprise! We must find Malak! A victory by the Republic fleet won't mean anything if the Dark Lord gets away! Come on, before they—"
Suddenly, an elevator door opened and a group of Dark Jedi came out. Revan almost snorted. A long-winded speech complaining about unexpected reinforcements and rehashing everything they already knew was an excellent way to waste their element of surprise. He supposed some of the Jedi really loved showing their loyalty to the Order by repeating everything the Jedi Council said and blindly following the orders to the letter. Bastila shook her head also, knowing exactly what he was thinking.
"Damn!" the leading Jedi cursed. "So much for catching them unprepared. We'll deal with these Sith," she declared confidently, "you get into the Star Forge and find Malak."
And the group of four Jedi met the squad of four Dark Jedi in combat. Revan led his warband down the corridor into the Star Forge, where it took him a minute to slice the system controlling the doors, armed with a general knowledge of how it worked, knowing the door was fairly sturdy. Malak, it seemed, did not make any substantial changes to the Star Forge's security systems. Before his party could go through the door however, he looked back to find that the four Jedi Knights had already been slain by the Dark Jedi, though they'd lost two of their number as well. The remaining two were desperately deflecting blaster shots from the Mandalorians, who'd taken it on their own initiative to open fire while Revan worked on the door. It only took a few more moments before the last two Dark Jedi perished.
The Sith Lord sighed at the pure arrogance of the "Light" Jedi. Evidently, the Mandalorians were much more valuable allies than they were, despite the latter's delusions. Sparing the hangar one last glance, Revan saw more Jedi fighters looking for hangars to land. Ignoring them, he led his warband on.
In front of them, the corridor branched out, with both branches ending with a door. Before he could pick a side, the doors opened suddenly, and six assault droids rolled out, firing blaster bolts at them. Fortunately, the Sith couple had the foresight to raise a shield, blocking blasters, denying the droids the element of surprise. Immediately, everyone who could reached out with the Force to fry the droids' control circuits, while the Mandalorians focused their fire on the droids. Juhani and HK-47 leapt into action, engaging the droids with lightsabers, taking advantage of the lack of cortosis in the droid chassis, accelerating their demise. In less than ten seconds, all six droids were crushed.
"Now which way do we go?" Canderous asked.
"Left," the Dark Lord decided arbitrarily. He knew that corridors like that on the Star Forge were mostly symmetrical, so there was little to be gained or lost picking either path.
Opening the door, they came upon more droids, which were destroyed similarly. Finally, they opened a door into a huge open room with a few interconnected walkways. In the middle, three Jedi knights fought with three Dark Jedi, with ten more Dark Jedi coming in as reinforcement. However, before the latter could reach the scene, the poor combat skills of the "Light" Jedi became apparent as they fell one by one to the blade of their Dark counterparts. Clearly, in their eagerness to prove themselves, they had massively overextended themselves.
Revan sighed as he entered a battle stance, which was followed by the rest of his party. With himself and Bastila at the forefront and the Mandalorians offering supporting fire, they advanced and confronted the Dark Jedi. Of course, these Dark Jedi, while skilled compared to their "Light" counterparts, were a far cry from a Sith Lord and his apprentice. After trading a few blows, two of them already fell. The married couple continued advancing, engaging another two each, while Juhani, Jolee, Canderous, and HK-47 each took on a Dark Jedi. The Mandalorians used blaster fire to suppress the remainder, forcing them to focus all their attention on blocking the blaster fire. Still, two of the Dark Jedi fell to the blaster fire.
Two eager Mandalorians charged ahead, attempting to engage the last Dark Jedi in mêlée combat, seeing that he was able to deflect all the blaster fire with a saberstaff, but that proved to be a mistake. The band of Mandalorians was forced to stop firing, and that enabled the Dark Jedi to blast the two with Force Lightning. They fell down screaming, but that also left the Dark Jedi open to attack. The remaining Mandalorians avenged the deaths of their own with blaster fire. In less than 30 seconds, the fight was over.
Again, they arbitrarily picked the left exit, and continued on to an elevator.
"Is this all Malak's got?" Canderous asked with a yawn after the door closed.
"Don't jinx it," Bastila glared at him. "We are nowhere near our destination." The Force had a sense of humour sometimes, and such arrogant boasting had a tendency of invoking it. Or perhaps it was simply confirmation bias, but overconfidence led to mistakes regardless.
Soon, they found themselves on the next level. They continued forward through the corridors, but this time facing much stiffer resistance. It was not droids and random Dark Jedi that faced them, but rather well-prepared squads of Sith acolytes and heavy troopers armed with plasma grenades and thermal detonators. The Dark Lord focused on dispatching them with Force Lightning while his apprentice concentrated on using the Force to debilitate her victims with insanity. Jolee joined in, using the Force to slow down their opponents, while the Cathar Force jumped to attack the teams from behind. The Mandalorians and HK-47 instead chose to gun them down with blaster fire. Their teamwork allowed them triumph over all the teams they encountered, but Revan knew they couldn't do this forever. They'd lost five more Mandalorians on this level already to unlucky shots and grenades, and the remainder of the party was tiring, however slowly.
On the way, they also saw other Jedi teams fighting other Sith squads, but the rightful Sith Lord opted to ignore them for the moment. They clearly had no mental model of the place and were most likely lost. They probably thought the same of him too and didn't move to follow either. It was quite likely that there were more Jedi in the more distant parts of the Star Forge, wandering around in search of Malak.
The corridor merged into another, bigger corridor. The right path was full of sentry guns, while the left, the rightful Dark Lord recalled, led to a computer room. Knowing that destroying the guns manually was silly, he led the group down the left path. After dispatching two more teams of acolytes and troopers, they reached a door. With the Force, he pushed on a button on the other side, opening the door.
They were immediately confronted with three acolytes. In a blink of an eye, Revan and Bastila drew their lightsabers and engaged, with the others close behind. But before the others could engage, two of the acolytes tried to attack the Sith Lord together, which proved to be a fatal mistake. He silently drew his second lightsaber and ignited it, surprising one of the acolytes with a fatal wound as the blade formed. Before the other acolyte realized what had happened, Canderous already cut off his head with his Baragwin blade. The stump splattered blood all over the Sith Lord's robes, leading to a disgusted look on his face, as well as the Mandalorian's armour, but it only made the latter look more fearsome. The last acolyte proved easily dealt with when Bastila blasted him with Force Lightning from her left hand while her saberstaff in her right hand kept him busy.
After dispatching the opposition, Revan made his way to a computer terminal. Armed with a computer spike and his intimate knowledge of Rakatan software, acquired through programming HK-47 and similar feats, it didn't take him long to slice into the Star Forge's systems, and easily reconfigured all the sentry guns outside, allowing them to continue on unimpeded, while leaving them as a nasty surprise for Malak's people and any Jedi. However, noticing the dispenser next to the terminal, he opted to continue probing around the system for a few more moments instead of continuing on.
Using several passwords that only he knew, he was able to gain full access to the Star Forge's repository of designs, finding some of his old files. One of which was the blueprint for his robes as the Dark Lord of the Sith. These were the finest robes in the galaxy, lightweight yet providing armour-like protection. It had a myriad of other advanced features, most notably being cortosis woven into the fabric itself, allowing it to hold up against a casual blow from a lightsaber, though not repeated ones. It would be his most valuable asset against Malak and his cheating ways. It would also make him look the part of the rightful Sith Lord, which could hopefully encourage troopers to at least back off. To build a set of robes like this conventionally would cost over a hundred million credits, but he had the perfect opportunity here with the Star Forge. With some more slicing and secret codes, he coerced the Star Forge into making the robes and depositing them into the dispenser nearby.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party took advantage of the lull in the fighting to refresh themselves with some water. The Mandalorians quickly checked each other over, searching for injuries that they might not have noticed due to the excitement of battle, and then bandaging each other's wounds. Once they were done, they quickly redistributed their supplies, ensuring everyone was prepared for the offensive to continue.
Once the robes were done, the Sith Lord quickly discarded his blood-soaked Jedi robes and changed into his new robes, suddenly looking far more powerful and menacing. While the rest of his warband turned away to give him some privacy, his lover enjoyed the show, considering it a well-deserved break from the battle. When he was done, she couldn't help but notice he looked the same as the day they met on his flagship, and it reassured her—if he could breeze through Malak's followers like he had with the Republic elite soldiers and the Jedi that day, then the odds were in their favour.
"Can I have some robes too?" she asked, hoping to discard her Jedi robes and display her true affiliation, and tease her Master a bit while she was at it.
"I don't have a template that fits you," he replied. "And unfortunately, we don't have the time to make one."
With that, they left the computer room, and continued down the corridor unmolested, as the sentry guns had all been disabled. They entered an elevator and went up another level—the same level as the command centre, Revan recalled. When the door opened again, he led his party on the shortest path. Together, they dispatched the teams of Dark Jedi, Sith acolytes, and Sith troopers that tried to overwhelm them, but not before their Mandalorian contingent took casualties. Three of them fell fighting against Sith acolytes, though one of them managed to blow himself and his enemy up with a grenade in his dying moments. Two more were unfortunate enough to be hit by blaster fire. Still, they made good progress, and it wasn't long before they found themselves in front of the locked doors to the command centre.
Bastila closed her eyes and reached out with the Force. "There are three Sith in there, and they are fairly powerful," she reported. "They seem to be standing near the middle, waiting for us."
"I recall the corridor is narrow, so only Bastila and I will be able to enter at the beginning. The rest of you should take this opportunity to use grenades and other ranged forms of attack," the Dark Lord ordered. "Once we fight the Sith inside, Mandalorians should take the opportunity to gun down all the regular soldiers inside."
When his team acknowledged, he waved his hand, and the doors opened.
"Revan!" the leading Sith called out. "You were a fool to be captured by the Jedi, and an even bigger fool to return to the Star Forge."
"The only fools are those who still follow Malak," Bastila shot back, angered by the insult of her Master. "Open your eyes and behold the true Lord of the Sith, for Revan is returned!"
"Revan is nothing!" the Dark Jedi shouted. "Malak earned the title of Dark Lord by defeating his old Master, and now I will become Malak's new apprentice by doing the same!"
Instead of answering, the rightful Dark Lord waved his hands, and the entire party opened fire. HK-47 and Canderous each threw a thermal detonator at the three traitorous Sith, while Revan and his apprentice charged down the narrow corridor, followed by Juhani and Jolee. The thermal detonators exploded, forcing the three followers of Malak to duck and shield themselves for protection. In a synchronized move, the couple took advantage of their distraction by Force jumping over the three, landing right behind them, poised to strike. At the same time, Juhani and Jolee approached from the other side, surrounding them.
The battle was properly joined when Revan opened with Force Lightning, blasting the nearest Sith, who struggled to deflect it with his lightsaber. While his enemy was preoccupied, the Sith Lord ignited his lightsaber, batting the deflecting lightsaber aside. The traitor was forced to roll aside to avoid electrocution, but had to let go of his lightsaber in the process. With the heat from the Heart of the Guardian, Revan easily cut into the handle, destroying it. With a Force push, he threw his opponent into a wall and followed up with Force Lightning. His opponent, winded and disoriented from hitting a wall, and without a lightsaber, could not deflect the Force Lightning or dodge, and soon ended up as a smoking corpse.
At the same time, Bastila ignited her saberstaff and engaged the Sith who also wielded a saberstaff. They both attacked each other multiple times, but neither could gain a decisive advantage over the other. She decided to try a different tactic, launching a quick flurry of attacks, forcing her opponent to spin his saberstaff in front of him. Suddenly, she surprised him by turning off one end of her lightsaber, and with the lit blade directly in front of her, pushed her entire body forward to impale him. Evidently, this attack came as a complete surprise to the traitor, as any normal saberstaff wielders would have impaled themselves doing so. Knowing he had no way to defend himself against the strike, he instead attempted to slash at Bastila's abdomen with the end of his saberstaff that was below Bastila's blade. She responded by ducking down, lowering her lightsaber to block the attack. After she lowered her entire body to below the level of her opponent's blade, she pushed up with the lit end of her saberstaff, the handle between her opponent's blade and body. Suddenly, she ignited the other end, which cut into his groin, eliciting a scream of pain. Spinning her saberstaff, her opponent was cut off at the waist. Pushing aside his blade, she stood back up and drained his life, ending the fight.
Juhani and Jolee fought the last Sith, who dual-wielded lightsabers. The Cathar threw herself into battle, while the old man occasionally helped out, concentrating his efforts on attacking through the Force. But the Sith was strong enough to throw off his attempts at freezing him, and with his dual lightsabers, pushed Juhani back. Suddenly, he launched Force Lightning at her. She was hit and screamed in pain. He attempted to end her life then, but fortunately for her, Jolee took the opportunity to summon a whirlwind around the Sith. It sucked her attacker inside, ending his attack. The Cathar was mostly fine, but needed a minute to recover. HK-47 took her place and attacked the Sith, whose reflexes were quick enough to deflect his first few attacks despite being spun around in a whirlwind. Of course, the massive turbulence also prevented the droid from engaging properly. Seeing this, Jolee stopped his attack and dropped the last remaining Sith back to the ground. The assassin droid quickly engaged the disoriented foe with the ferocity of Vaapad and the mechanical advantage of his Baragwin assault blade, pushing him into the defensive. The Sith tried to escape, but was prevented from doing so by Canderous's blaster cannon. With a sudden burst from the droid's new Baragwin flamethrower, the follower of Malak was in flames. Jolee threw his lightsaber at the burning foe, who despite the flames still dodged. However, HK-47 attacked at that moment, cutting off an arm with his vibroblade, spewing blood everywhere. The wounded Sith struggled no more, and soon was consumed by flames.
Finally, as planned, the Mandalorian gunned down the rest of Malak's soldiers in the command centre, losing two more of their number to an unfortunate grenade as they did so. And thus, the battle ended, and Revan was in full control of the command centre. But not all was well.
"Lightsabers!" he cursed as he saw the giant holoprojection of the Star Forge and the Republic forces besieging it. The Republic was making good progress through the defences. In less than half an hour, the Star Forge itself would be under attack. Clearly, there was insufficient time to deal with Malak before the Sith Empire's great factory was beyond saving. "Bastila," he shouted, "you have to start your battle meditation now!"
Without hesitation, she immediately sat in a meditative pose in front of the projection and channelled the Force to influence the ongoing battle. She poured everything she had into the battle, summoning all her power, amplified by the Mantle of the Force and boosted by the enchantment on her collar. All present could feel a wave of power originating from her, radiating into space.
After half a minute, she slumped from the effort and opened her eyes, which glowed with an unnatural yellow, but also filled with tears. "I am so sorry, Master," she said, pain clear in her voice. "There are simply too many people. Two whole Republic fleet groups came despite our reports that Malak only had half a fleet group. I simply can't summon enough power to influence the whole battle. It's all my fault. Now our fates are sealed."
Her Master cut her off before she could blame herself further. "What headspace did you use?" he asked.
"I poured all my fear, anger, and hatred into the headspace and it still wasn't enough," she answered sadly. I even tried a positive feedback loop of self-hate and disappointment, and it wasn't enough, she confessed to him alone. Indeed, these emotions were still at the forefront of her mind, for he could easily feel all the negative emotions radiating from her—from her fear of failure, to her anger at her inadequacy, to her rage at the Republic and the Jedi, and to her hate of her own self for failing her Master when it mattered the most. The weight of these emotions radiating from her would have crushed the average Jedi in the same room. She clearly tried her best.
"Do we run for the nearest hanger?" she asked, resigned.
"Let me see what I can do first," the Dark Lord offered. He closed his eyes and reached out to the Star Forge through the Force. To his relief, it still recognized him and was willing to answer his call. In fact, the Star Forge seemed almost pleased by his return. Undoubtedly, it was sick of being tortured by Malak and forced to work way beyond its maximum capacity.
"Bastila, I am going to give you full access to the Star Forge's power. Please try to be ready," he warned.
Wait! How? her shocked voice echoed in his mind.
He did not reply, instead reaching out to the Star Forge again.
A few seconds later, Bastila felt herself stagger a bit as she felt a foreign presence in the Force reach out to her and latch itself onto her. She gasped. "Was that the Star Forge?"
"Yes," he answered. "Now try to draw power from it and use it to power your battle meditation."
The Sith apprentice restarted her battle meditation. Any Force sensitive in the room could feel the almost oppressive amount of power flowing from the Star Forge into her before being radiated out into the battlefield. Even Canderous, unable to touch the Force, looked uncomfortable in the face of this power. Outside, the Jedi must have felt a massive disturbance in the Force. Bastila's newly empowered battle meditation had altered the fate of the Star Forge—and with it, the entire future of the galaxy. Historians would look upon this moment and note that in a single instant, the fate of generations was decided.
With the Republic kept at bay for now, it was time for the rightful Dark Lord to confront the usurper. But first, he must leave behind a force to protect Bastila while she meditated, as he remembered that vision he saw on Ilum. Bastila must be protected at all costs. At this point, they had 16 Mandalorians left alongside Juhani, Canderous, Jolee, and HK-47. To his surprise, the Force gave him a nagging warning no matter how he decided to split his warband between guarding Bastila and confronting Malak. It only relented when he gave up and decided to face Malak alone.
He was rather upset by this. Facing Malak alone wasn't a wise choice. While he probably could have defeated his old apprentice in a fair fight, the usurper would definitely be using dirty tricks. Perhaps he should have taken the risk and deliberately sabotaged the Jedi who followed in his wake while he flew to the Star Forge. The fog of war likely would have ensured the Jedi and the Republic stayed ignorant until they revealed their hand with that massive disturbance in the Force anyway…
Nevertheless, he must continue and finish the job. "Bastila can't protect herself while meditating," he declared. "All of you, stay here to protect her. I shall go confront Malak alone. And remember, you must protect her without interrupting her meditation, or the battle is lost!"
Before anyone could protest, he left the command centre through the only other exit.
