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 14: Memories of War
After lunch, Bastila remembered that they had to prevent their ship from being recognized by Malak's forces. Once her mother left, she asked her Master exactly that. She finished with a suggestion, "Is it possible to disguise the Ebon Hawk as another ship?"
"I suppose? Dynamic-class freighters are quite popular, although they are often highly customized. For example, this amazing soundproof bedroom we share was installed by Davik or another previous owner, not part of the factory configuration."
"I assume it comes at the expense of cargo space?" she guessed. "Makes sense that most people moving freight around won't bother with such luxury."
"Yeah, exactly. The other thing is just how much faster this ship flies. Davik called it 'the fastest ship in the Outer Rim,' and while that might be a slight exaggeration, it's certainly one of the fastest."
"I suppose we also need to remember to fly it slower…" she agreed. "I can see why it would be difficult to hide the ship with all that."
"Well, fortunately for us, most customizations require at least getting inside to identify. A primary radar will only be able to see the general shape of the ship, so it will only know that it is a Dynamic-class freighter. However, typical ship identification relies on secondary radar, where the ship transmits its identification code. If the code is invalid or a duplicate of some other ship, drastic measures are usually taken…" the Sith Master explained.
"So essentially, if we want to disguise the ship, we need to swap transponders with another ship," the apprentice concluded. "So we need to find another Dynamic-class freighter somehow."
"Yes," he confirmed. "Except we can just steal the code instead of physically swapping the unit."
"How are we going to find another Dynamic-class freighter though? Buy one? Or are there scrapped freighters whose codes are still valid?"
"We can't afford one right now and there aren't any scrapyards nearby, so that's difficult. I have an idea though," he grinned. "Remember the slave auction?"
Her eyes lit up. "I am sure there will be a lot of slavers that no longer require transportation. Hopefully at least one of them will have a Dynamic-class."
"Let's hope they do. Otherwise, we have to steal one of their ships…"
"And then we'd lose this nice bedroom…" she sighed. "Hopefully, the Force will be with us…"
"Yeah, let's work under that assumption because moving all our supplies around is a huge pain. If we do that, we should probably ensure our livery is different," the Dark Lord noted. "I've seen plenty of freighters during the war, and I've never seen that white and brown pattern until the Ebon Hawk."
"I suppose we ought to repaint the ship? I guess we'll need to buy some paint."
"Yeah, we might as well buy it from Czerka," he decided. "That way, it won't be weird if the other ship that we program to pretend it's the Ebon Hawk doesn't look the same."
"Wait… Czerka would surely have records of which hangar the Ebon Hawk is parked in," the apprentice observed. "Wouldn't it be weird if we swapped it?"
"Good point," he agreed. "I suppose we'd need to slice their systems then… Okay to do that, we need to repair T3-M4 first."
Thus, the couple left their bedroom to find the broken remains of T3-M4, before carrying him to the workbench room to study the damage. The Dark Lord disassembled the droid while Bastila watched, making a list of components that needed to be replaced. Fortunately, nothing too special was damaged. As he worked, Canderous showed up, and Bastila told him of their decision regarding the Ebon Hawk.
"To further obfuscate our paths, perhaps we can get one of us to fly the disguised Ebon Hawk out and land in the Dune Seas beyond Czerka's radar range," the Mandalorian suggested. "We will then bring the rest of our party out to the Dune Seas and board from there. Czerka's records would list us as missing and presumed dead, given that no re-entry record would exist, and what they believe to be the Ebon Hawk would remain in Anchorhead. This will reduce the chances of us being identified significantly."
"Somehow, I don't think Malak will be convinced that we died in the Dune Seas to… wraids, Sand People or even a krayt dragon…" Bastila observed.
"Probably not," Revan agreed, having completed his study of the droid. "It's still better than us being seen boarding the disguised ship though."
"Let's do it then," his apprentice concurred.
"Now, let's go to Yuka Laka's shop to get the parts that we need for T3," the Sith Lord proposed.
"Be sure to bring HK-47," Canderous interjected. "I have a feeling the Ithorian will be a lot more compliant."
They quickly agreed on this course of action, heading back into Anchorhead.
"Oh, it's you again," Yuka Laka greeted when he saw Revan, Bastila, and Canderous. "I am afraid I have nothing new to show you. Things are very slow."
"Well, I am in need of some droid parts…" the Sith Master stated, handing over the list. "Do you have them?"
The proprietor scanned over the list. "I have the parts. I am afraid all these will cost you 4000 credits though," the Ithorian stated at last.
"Seriously?" the Sith apprentice asked. "The whole droid we are trying to repair only cost 2000 credits when we bought him!"
The shopkeeper shook his head. "Parts are hard to come by on this remote corner of the galaxy, I am afraid. No one else has them on Tatooine, I promise. I have to charge more for the cost to import them."
"Query: Would you like to revise that statement?" HK-47 asked, entering at that moment. The droid always had a flair for dramatics.
Seeing those malevolent red eyes and knowing how much the droid delighted in threatening him last time, Yuka Laka immediately changed his tone. "You can have the parts for 2000 credits," he offered.
"The full price of the droid for parts to carry out a minor repair on the same droid?" the Dark Lord summarized, incredulous.
"Query: Shall I blast this meatbag and save you the trouble, Master?" the assassin droid asked, blaster already at the ready.
"That's too messy," Revan decided. "You mustn't be so trigger happy, HK. I am sure Yuka Laka here can be more reasonable…"
"Yes, 1000 credits, no, 500 credits will do," the proprietor offered. "Is that a deal?"
The same parts would have been worth 250 credits at most on a planet like Taris—at least, before Malak destroyed it—but the Sith Lord supposed he was in the middle of nowhere. "Fine by me," he decided, handing over the credits.
"Thank you for shopping in Anchorhead," the shopkeeper stated as they left, breathing a sigh of relief.
The quartet continued to the Czerka offices, buying several cans of paint and refillable spray bottles from the attached store. Back on the Ebon Hawk, the Dark Lord quickly repaired T3-M4 with the new parts. The resurrected droid circled around him in joy. The quartet then started repainting the Ebon Hawk, replacing the white and brown livery with cyan and blue respectively, colours more befitting of the Sith Empire.
During dinner, Helena Shan joined the other three humans onboard the Ebon Hawk in conversation, while HK-47 stood guard, watching Griff and feeling sorry for the organic meatbags needing sustenance in such a messy way. The crushed remains of plants and animals mixed with acid, slowly sloshing inside their meatbag bodies was an unpleasant thought for the droid. It did not help that his sensors could detect the noises coming from the inside of said meatbag bodies. Connecting a wire or standing on a wireless charging platform is vastly superior, the droid thought. He let out a small sigh of relief when the humans finally finished chewing through their food.
Soon, Helena retired for the night, and the remaining humans started discussing the wars in the past decade.
"So what exactly happened to you, Revan?" Canderous asked. "Bastila certainly did not kill you like the Republic claimed."
"No, she did not," the Sith confirmed needlessly. "The truth is far stranger than the fiction concocted by the Jedi, as it often is. She was part of the Jedi strike team, that much was true. Of course, they had no chance of winning against me. I had taken out all the Republic soldiers, and was in the process of eliminating the Jedi, when Malak decided to fire on my bridge to promote himself. The explosion killed everyone onboard, save for Bastila and me. She was lucky and escaped mostly unscathed, while I was severely wounded. She carried me out, and brought me to the Jedi enclave to be healed. They did that, but they decided to pretend I was dead and attempted to wipe my mind and make me their slave. You knew the rest."
"I don't understand," the Mandalorian frowned. "Why did Bastila save your life instead of killing you? She was supposed to be your enemy back then, wasn't she?"
"It's far more complicated than that," Bastila interjected. "I've known him since I was a child. Despite the repressive doctrines of the Jedi Order, we were lovers before he left to fight your people in the war. The thought of killing him was totally alien to me; it never even entered my mind, not even while he was helpless. It's the same for him. He would have killed the rest of the strike team if given the chance, but he would never have harmed me."
"I never imagined you two had such history," Canderous admitted. "I thought you became his apprentice for power because you always call him master. Not that I am judging, mind you. We Mandalorians have always followed the strongest. This begs the question though: why would the Jedi send you of all people? Surely they knew you were close."
"They probably didn't understand the depth of attachment that could form between people, having denied it all their life," she guessed.
"Sometimes, I wonder how the Jedi managed to survive all these years, let alone having so much influence," he noted, shaking his head.
"To be fair, they had more immediate concerns," she offered. "Revan's fleet was too large, and the only way to get through to his flagship and board it was with my battle meditation. That was my job, and I wasn't supposed to do anything else."
"Still, it was foolish of them. If only the clans faced the Jedi Council instead of you, Revan…" Canderous sighed. "The Republic was on the brink of destruction when you and your followers entered the war. We were so close, so close!"
"How was he able to defeat you?" the Sith apprentice asked.
"Once Revan took charge, things began to turn against us," the Mandalorian explained. "Revan employed strategies that went far beyond any commander we have seen. Feints, counterattacks, mass deceptions. Truly the works of a genius. He abandoned entire worlds to their fate, so that others would be too fortified to strike. He made huge sacrifices, but they paid off so well. In every engagement, Revan's forces somehow outnumbered us, even though he never had as many soldiers at his disposal as we did. He commanded a single fleet, yet somehow he always outnumbered us where it counted. Slowly, our gains were reversed while our casualties mounted."
"And your side eventually lost too many soldiers and couldn't keep up?" she surmised.
"No, that's Republic propaganda. They always claimed that we were doomed to failure from the start, and eventually the attrition caught up to us. But it was a lie to hide just how close we were to winning in the very end. The last battle of the war, at Malachor V… Mandalore had come up with the greatest plan I have ever seen. He pulled a page out of Revan's book, and planned the decisive engagement that would end the entire war. It was the perfect plan, its sheer audacity was so unimaginable that even Revan had not realized the true nature of the plan until it was too late."
"What was it?" Bastila couldn't help but ask.
"I always wondered how your side saw the whole thing," the Sith Lord interjected. "Please continue."
"The night before the battle, Revan had used one of his classic tactics to overwhelm a force commanded by Mandalore himself. But little did he know, it was a trap. His fleet pursued our forces to a supply depot planet, Malachor V, and he was planning to raid it with a large infantry force after driving our seemingly broken fleet off. However, Mandalore had secretly ordered all his forces—a full five fleets by Republic standards—to abandon the entirety of Mandalorian-controlled space and gather at Malachor V."
Bastila gasped. "He didn't…"
"He did. It was unthinkable. And that's why it worked. Revan was surprised for once. We had him surrounded, poised to annihilate his entire fleet and army through the sheer force of numbers. Even if he had your battle meditation, he would not have been able to beat the odds. But that was not the entire plan. No, Mandalore had another trick up his sleeve. You see, he managed to generate a series of fake distress calls to lure four other Republic fleets to Malachor V, their arrival spaced so that he would be able to annihilate the fleets one by one, as they arrived. Remember, you can't receive communications in hyperspace, and so the fleets on their way would not have realized what was going on until they arrived, and by then it would have been too late. In a single, glorious day, we would have crushed five out of seven Republic fleets, and the remainder would be too demoralized and outmatched to fight us. The war would have been won that day, if it weren't for Revan."
"How?" Bastila asked, too shocked to think of anything her Master could have done.
"We are not exactly sure. Revan pulled some Force magic on us. It was unlike anything we have seen. The survivors recalled some kind of oppressive, tangible force, coming from everywhere in space. Our ships exploded left and right, torn apart by an unseen force out of nowhere. Even Revan's own ships were not spared. When it was over, we had lost almost the entirety of our armada, and Revan lost almost half of his. My forces were among the last to arrive. We were spared the carnage, but I was too outnumbered to continue the war… And so we lost, and the rest was history. But Revan, what was it that you did?"
"It was the desperate last move of a cornered animal," the former admiral explained. "I knew it was over, one way or the other. If I don't do something drastic and risky, I would certainly have lost. Nothing I could have done would have worsened the outcome for me or my side. So I harnessed the full power of the Dark Side to do what could only have been theorized. It was an atrocity, to put it bluntly, but there was nothing else to be done. I called upon all the Jedi under my command, pooled our Force powers together with an old Jedi technique—one that was designed to take down a powerful Sith Lord—and used our combined strength to cast a Death Field upon Malachor V."
"That's insane!" Bastila exclaimed. "But even draining all the life from a planet won't give you the power to obliterate entire fleets, if I understood Death Field correctly."
"No, it wouldn't have. But that was not the plan. The plan was even more insane," he revealed. "You know how you need to concentrate on pulling the drained energy towards yourself and inside you?" She nodded. "That was not what I did. Instead, I focused on pulling the energies through the gathered mass of the Mandalorian fleet." At those words, her eyes widened in shock. "But that's not even the craziest thing. That was deliberately losing control over the entire beam of energy. It started fluctuating chaotically, and I tried to control the frequency of the fluctuation so that the fluctuations stack on top of one another, amplifying, compressing and stretching any matter it touched, until microscopic black holes started forming on the path."
The Sith apprentice and the Mandalorian stared at him, completely speechless.
"It was the radiation from those many, many, tiny black holes, all evaporating instantly that vapourized the Mandalorian fleet," he finished. "Looking back, I am still surprised that it worked. I got incredibly lucky that day. It was just as likely to vapourize my entire fleet, and myself included. There is absolutely no way I would do this again."
"No fucking way," Canderous said finally. "I was on Malachor V after the space battle… The whole planet was destroyed, nothing on the surface was left alive. All of that destruction was unleashed through the Force?"
"Yes," Revan confirmed.
"What if… someone else… tried to copy what you did?" Bastila asked. "Someone less sane, using it for senseless destruction?"
"I've tried my best to keep what I did a secret," he explained. "I had to enlist help from the Jedi that served under me, asking them to donate power for my last ditch attempt. Most of them were ignorant of the true nature of the attack, only knowing the destruction unleashed, but there were two who were by my side. They had the special ability to form Force bonds easily with others, and that was necessary to funnel all the power together for me to perform the attack. I suppose they would know that I was casting a Death Field on the planet, though they wouldn't know how it was used as a weapon of mass destruction."
"What happened to them?" his apprentice asked.
"The amount of destruction I unleashed hurt them terribly. Their ability to easily form Force bonds also meant that they were unconsciously attached to many more people than we ever expected, and many of them died in the backlash since I couldn't control the beam of energy."
"Given how much it hurt me when you were dying on that flagship, I don't even want to imagine what they felt…" she interjected.
"I don't think the bonds they formed were as strong as ours, but yes, it hurt them so badly that they completely disconnected themselves from the Force," he elaborated. "After the battle, they both left the fleet, not wanting to be around the reminders of all they've lost—all we've lost—despite our victory. One of them even returned to the Jedi…"
"That was the one who vanished, right?"
"Yes, and I don't even want to imagine what the Jedi put her through after what they put me through…" the Sith Lord sighed.
Bastila shook her head, not wanting to remember the horror of her Master being erased from existence. "I suppose we don't need to worry about anyone discovering your technique anytime soon…"
"I don't think so," he agreed.
"So what happened after the battle?" she inquired.
"Well, my victory spooked the Republic and the Jedi. The Jedi feared me and denounced me as having turned to the Dark Side after they felt the massive disturbance in the Force, even if they were unaware of the true nature of my actions. The Republic feared that someone who could single-handedly defeat the entirety of the battle-hardened Mandalorian armada was a threat to their power. They accelerated their plans to remove me. As a result, I took my fleet—what remained of it—and left the Republic almost immediately after all the Mandalorian forces finished surrendering. There was no time to publicize our account of the war, so the Republic made up their own fictional account: a fantasy of a desperate struggle between the 'good Republic' and the 'evil Mandalorians,' ending with a triumph of good. It would make a good children's novel, but it was hardly the truth."
"What Revan skipped over was the final duel between him and Mandalore himself," Canderous added. "Mandalore survived the carnage, and gathered the survivors on the lifeless remains of Malachor V. He knew our only chance was to kill Revan. So he challenged Revan himself to a duel to the death, with the condition that if Revan defeated him, our forces would surrender on the spot, and no more blood needed to be spilled."
"And Revan's forces would surrender if he lost?" Bastila frowned. "Somehow, I don't think he would accept that."
"No, we didn't ask for that. We weren't in a position to do so. Only with the enemy leaderless did we stand a chance to win, and so that's all we asked for. Mandalore had reflexes that rivaled the best of the Jedi, sufficient will to fight back while tortured with Force Lightning, and the physical fortitude of a rancor. With our best armour, rocket packs, and vibroblade, Mandalore was undefeated in battle, and collected over 50 lightsabers from Jedi he had slain himself. We had hopes that he would defeat Revan, as well. There were rumours of his combat prowess, but we had our doubts, not believing he could be both strategist and fighter. And how wrong we were… Revan wielded his lightsaber with so much speed that it was only a blur. There were no flashy acrobatic moves like we had seen with the others. Every blow was cold, vicious, and well-calculated, or at least, the ones we could see after Mandalore barely managed to block them. And he mixed his blade so well with his Force powers. It was the greatest battle I have ever witnessed, and I doubt I will ever see anything else like it in my life. Then, all of a sudden, we saw Mandalore impaled on Revan's lightsaber. And that was when we knew it was over. As promised, we all surrendered."
The trio took some moments to gather their thoughts. It was Bastila who broke the silence. "So, why did your people choose to attack the Republic in the first place?" she asked.
"The Sith came to us with an offer," the Mandalorian started, "to fight a worthy enemy in a battle that would be remembered forever."
Revan immediately cut him off. "What Sith are you talking about?" he asked with alarm.
"What do you mean 'what Sith?' Aren't you supposed to be the Dark Lord of the Sith or some such? Surely you know what they did, or did the Jedi mess up your head too much?" Canderous asked back, unsure what he was talking about.
"I didn't take over the Sith or anything. I took the Republic fleet under my command beyond the borders of the Republic after it was made clear to me that the Republic Senate wanted to be rid of me. When my followers longed to return home once again, to remove the corrupt Republic and forge a new system, we created the 'Sith' organization. The previous Sith was created by Exar Kun and died with him," he explained.
"And that's what's concerning," Bastila finished for him. "Is there some other Sith around that we don't know of?"
"The Sith I am talking about were the ones that offered to help us conquer the Republic. They provided a lot of valuable intelligence to us during our war. Without their support, we would never have been so successful…" The Mandalorian scowled. "Now I wonder who they are, and what they were hoping to gain. We had thought they were the remnants from Exar Kun's empire."
The Sith Lord frowned. "My Senate sources pointed to the Optimate faction betraying planets supporting their opposition to the Mandalorian fleet…" he interjected. "If we look at the results, the Populare faction went from occupying around 40% of the Senate seats to only around 5% when the war ended. This can't really be a coincidence…"
"Are you saying that the 'Sith' we were dealing with were actually agents from a faction of the Republic using us to remove their opposition?" the Mandalorian raged, although it was not directed at the couple.
"I don't know for sure, but it does look highly suspicious. The results of the war do suggest that the Populare faction was deliberately targeted for total destruction. That was part of the reason why my forces opted to use military force against the Republic, because reform had failed with most of the reformers dead. If we ever manage to capture the senators, I will be sure to interrogate them and find out the truth," Revan promised.
"Did the Jedi Council know?" Bastila inquired. "It would explain why they forbade us to go to war."
"I am not certain," the Sith Lord replied. "It is possible, and we'll have to interrogate them when the time comes."
The couple looked at Canderous, who was strangely silent. They waited until the Mandalorian collected his thoughts, and then a dam burst open.
"This is an outrage!" the seasoned warrior shouted, slamming the dinner table with his fist. "What was supposed to be the most glorious war in our history… turned out to have been nothing but a sham. They used us to do their dirty work. There weren't so many of us left… after Malachor V… and we had to watch everything we had be destroyed… our armour, our weapons, our Basilisk droids… In the end, we had nothing… the remnants of our once glorious race turned into bandits. All of this… for nothing!" he lamented.
"Things might not be as bleak as you make it sound, Canderous," the Dark Lord tried to cheer him up. "Once we take back the Star Forge, you can gather your former comrades to take your vengeance against the Republic."
"I don't see why any remaining Mandalorians would not want to fight under a worthy leader like you, Revan. For us, it would be so much better to fight real battles than being mercenaries or bandits."
"I am glad to hear that. I also have a gift for you all…"
"Oh? Is it the mask of Mandalore that you took?" the Mandalorian asked.
"You shall see," Revan grinned mysteriously.
"Master?" Bastila asked that night as they laid in bed in post-coital glow. "I have been wondering how you managed to make HK-47. It's a marvellous piece of engineering, with that personality of his… but it seems way too complicated for you to make from scratch in the time you have, especially given your other duties…"
"Your mind is sharp as ever, Bastila. You are right, of course," her Master confirmed. "I did not make the pieces, only assembled them together."
"Where did you find the pieces?" she asked naturally. "I have never seen a droid that acted anything like him."
"The chassis I copied from some old Rakatan droid designs with elements of more modern designs mixed in. As for the software, I copied AI from the Star Forge's computer systems. That's why he can speak so many languages, even the Sand People one that I couldn't," he explained.
"That makes a great deal of sense," she agreed. "However, he sounds nothing like that droid guarding the Dantooine map. Did you add a Basic speech engine to it afterwards?"
"Yes, but that's after my first attempt at making him speak Basic."
"Which was?"
"I made the Star Forge's AI analyze recordings of Basic, similar to how that computer system managed to learn Basic from my datapad. It didn't work that well. Just like the Dantooine droid, it spoke in monotone. So I programmed him to state the tone of the sentence as a prefix."
"So that's why he's always like 'statement' this and 'query' that?" the apprentice deduced.
"Yes," the Master confirmed. "I eventually found a good Basic speech engine that I liked and incorporated it into his programming. However, I decided to keep the tone-as-a-prefix feature. I mean, don't you love hearing him say 'veiled threat'?"
"He actually says stuff like that?" Bastila asked with some surprise, before starting to laugh. "You have excellent taste, Master."
"I am glad you agree, because most of the people he said that to didn't find it amusing."
"I can't imagine why," she replied, still laughing. "What other stuff did you add?"
"The Vaapad algorithm, of course. What else? I also borrowed code from many other combat droid designs and added an augmented version of the assassination protocol I copied from a Rakatan assassination droid. I also copied a bunch of systems from those Basilisk droids that Canderous was so proud of."
"This is amazing! But how did you figure out how Rakatan computers worked?"
"Well, it's actually quite similar to modern computers in the end," he explained. "I wonder if our current computers were somehow derived from the ancient Rakatan ones… I suspect the records were deliberately purged, but the implementation details live on…"
"Perhaps it's not so surprising if the Dantooine computer can just read your datapad," she noted. "Either way, can you show me the code one day? I really want to see how that droid of yours works."
"As long as you promise to not complain and never show it to anyone else…" he replied, somewhat uncomfortably.
"Why would I complain? It sounds like something to be proud of, not ashamed of, Master," she observed.
"The code quality is terrible," he stated simply. "It's many systems hacked together in my spare time."
"I get that, but how bad could it really be?"
"So the code is written in over ten different programming languages, and the names, comments, and logs are in some mixture of Rakatan, Mandalorian, and Basic. It's all glued together haphazardly based on my understanding of the interfaces. To be honest, I don't understand most of the internals… In some cases, the last person who understood the code died something like 20 millennia ago," Revan explained, painting a horrifying picture in her mind.
"You don't need to say more," she said quickly, not wanting to hear more. "I see what you mean. Is that also why there aren't more copies of HK-47 running around?"
"Partially it's because I don't want to show the somewhat embarrassingly bad code to others, but I also like being the only one with a temperamental assassin droid," he admitted.
"I can see that," Bastila concurred. "Mass production would really ruin the appeal."
And with that, the couple moved onto other topics before falling asleep.
A/N: Reflex, will, and fortitude are the three "saves" in the game. Having higher stats in those allows you to dodge attacks completely or reduce the damage taken. Canderous is basically saying that Mandalore had very high stats.
