The deck shook.

Not with the tiny, almost imperceptible shiver of powerful machinery at work, but with the bone wrenching shudder of a chemical explosion. The air was filled with noise and fire, the pressure enough she almost choked, the heat against her skin, even crouched behind a security console, intense enough she winced. But it lasted only an instant, the tightly-controlled destruction flaring out as quickly as it'd begun.

As soon as she'd recovered from the unforgiving force of the shape charges, Bastila sprung up and rolled over the sparking console, dropping to her feet and running for the neatly obliterated blast doors. She wasn't at all surprised to see the other Jedi all seconds ahead of her, Master Kavar already disappearing through the smoke-obscured doorway. One by one they slipped through, the soft glow of lightsabers a variety of colors enduring a second after their forms had disappeared. Bastila dove into the smoke last, the remaining strike troopers folding in behind her.

She stepped over the shattered remnants of the door, blinded by the yet thick smoke, but her feet falling true. The cloud parted after only a few steps, revealing the Jedi gathered, the bridge just beyond. Rimmed with tall windows of transparisteel, divided into sharp triangles here and there with beams of solid metal, so clear and so clean it might as well not exist, the stars beyond, the burnt orange of the dead planet to the right, so vivid she could taste them. To the left, above, all around, dozens of lumbering capital ships, great wedges of gleaming silver and white, flickering with the flash of turbolasers and missiles against shields, the flare of energy so constant it almost seemed solid. The front line, so to speak, was some distance off, the Interdictor they'd infiltrated screened by an escort of intimidating strength, only a handful of Republic fighters penetrated this far, rushing Sith guns with suicidal bravery.

Some distance away, yes, almost hard to see, but Bastila could still feel them. Minds focused on the here-and-now with razor keenness, blood hot with adrenaline, so thick with tension it was painful, joints aching and eyes stinging with sweat. Not a single mind, that would be distracting enough, but thousands of them. Packs of them, hundreds and hundreds each, collected into the tight mass indicating greater capital ships, the smaller gunships and smaller yet fighters buzzing between them, so quick and so many she felt them not as single points of light but a diffuse cloud, sensation blurring into a seamless whole. The terror at near misses, pilots scrambling as potshots flared against their shields, exultation as a shot struck home, an enemy reduced to plasma, far outliving the terror and agony as lives winked out. By the hundreds, a tempest of death, of pain, of fear, of ecstasy, so many and so much it was hard to keep it all straight. Hard to keep it all outside, so powerful it forced itself upon her, couldn't be denied.

It was so much, she couldn't help feeling it, it was distracting. But she couldn't let herself be distracted, not longer than that second she'd just lost. Even a second was enough to get her killed.

Somewhat to her surprise, the bridge crew, the familiar uniforms looking slightly strange in silvers and blacks, were still at their stations, sunk into the floor on either side of the walkway she and the other Jedi now stood on, still going about their business, muttering light on the air as rustling leaves, hands against consoles a constant shiver of movement. Not perfectly at ease, no — a few snuck cautious looks at them, not quite fearful, but perhaps anxious, a low anxiety that many eased with a simple glance forward, toward the other end of the walkway, the two figures standing there.

One, Bastila knew from the insignia pinned over his left breast, was the captain of this particular Interdictor. (She knew she'd been told it at one point, but she'd since forgotten his name.) He was half turned toward them, eyes set in an oddly youthful face narrowed with...annoyance? Something less than fear, in any case. After a tense moment, the gathered Jedi waiting for some sign to move, the captain glanced at the figure next to him, a clear question in his bearing.

This one was not wearing the off-color Republic uniforms the traitor navy had adapted. From behind, the figure was entirely obscured by a heavy cloak in black and deep red, only a pair of shining combat boots peeking out from under the hem. But that was more than enough, Bastila knew who this was. She'd be able to tell with her eyes closed. Power filled the room, power so thick it was as a charge on the air, like the fiercest of Dantooine summer storms. So thick her skin tingled, so thick she could taste it. Power intense yet calm, solid as ice and rimmed with blackness, ferocious yet tame. Death lying in wait, restrained with iron will.

Yet, despite herself, Bastila was surprised. She'd expected Darth Revan — former Jedi and hero of the Republic, current Dark Lord of the Sith — would be taller. The top of her head barely reached her captain's chin, and he wasn't a tall man, either. But Bastila shook the thought off, dragging herself back to the moment. Even a second was enough to get her killed.

"You'd better get behind the ray shields, Captain." She spoke with an obvious educated coreworld accent, cool and refined, an alto so clear and smooth a person couldn't help being instinctively drawn to it. The voice of a scholar, the voice of a leader, the voice of a Jedi. With a touch of dark humor, she added, "I'm afraid our guests intend to make a mess."

A smirk twitched at the captain's lips. "Of course, my lord." After a bow so abbreviated it was more a nod, the man stepped away, down a few steps among the consoles. A push of a single button, and impenetrable ray shields snapped into existence with an actinic crackle, the depressions to both sides of the walkway locked away with shimmering blue and white. The captain shot the gathered strike team a last glance before putting his back on them, turning to his crew.

And Bastila could feel it, the sense obvious in the air. They weren't afraid. Not a one of them were afraid, not of her and the Jedi, not of the soldiers at their backs. Not of the battle raging just bare kilometers away. Focused, yes, nervous, yes, but afraid? Not even a little. Honestly, she wasn't surprised. They had Revan. The Revan. They had every reason to believe they'd be making it out of this in one piece.

Bastila suppressed the cold shiver working down her spine as well as she could.

Lightsabers losely gripped in his hands, deactivated for the moment, Kavar finally spoke. She wondered if that was what he'd been waiting for, for Revan to protect her men, what that said about Kavar, what that said about Revan. Perfectly calmly, as though they weren't confronting a Dark Lord, Kavar said, "I don't suppose you'd be willing to surrender."

"I don't suppose you would. Save me the trouble." Of killing you, she meant. She didn't seem even the slightest bit concerned, everything about her perfectly confident, that hint of humor still in her voice.

"You're outnumbered, you're cornered. You can't win, Lesami." Bastila blinked at Kavar's use of Revan's birth name — she hadn't heard it spoken aloud in years.

"Good point. It's not like I've ever been outnumbered before."

She shivered again. In part, it was Revan's voice, the way she said it, too calm, too confident, too light and sarcastic. In part, it was the truth in what she said. This was Revan. If numbers were all it took, she'd have been defeated long ago.

Not for the first time, Bastila had to wonder if this assault weren't horribly misguided.

"You know what we must do." With the slightest flick, Kavar's twin blades came to life with the familiar cry of barely-contained plasma, his robes and his close-cropped hair awash in blue. The rest of the Jedi followed his lead, Bastila bringing her own blade hovering across her face in a guard. She could feel the fight coming upon them, hard and tense in the air, and she swallowed down the instinctive dread, focused on the here-and-now. "I am sorry, Lesami."

"We both have our regrets, Kavar. But, you're wrong."

Without a twitch, with hardly an instant's warning, a pulse of deadly power washed out from Revan in an inexorable wave. Bastila cringed away, reached without thought for the Force, struck out against the incoming blackness with an intangible blade. It broke around her, quickly dissolving into nothing.

The air broke with a staccato series of sharp snaps. Bastila glanced behind her, toward the sound of weight slumping toward the floor, and jerked away, failing to hold in a gasp of shock. All the remaining troopers and one of the Jedi, a Bith named Tak'ak Bastila had never met before, had fallen, dead. Their heads had been jerked around, all the way around, shards of bone splitting skin, blood slowly pooling on polished gray metal. They were dead, just like that, in an instant—

There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no—

Voice still smooth and terrifyingly calm, filling the room, Revan said, "There is always a choice." And she moved.

Kavar darted forward to meet her, so quick they were both blurs, but Revan ducked under his blades, her cloak whirling about her, and she was behind him, thrusting both hands forward to nearly meet his back. Kavar was taken from his feet, rocketing away toward the far bulkhead with deadly speed, and Revan was already moving, appearing among them in the blink of an eye. A clench of a fist and Koran's head imploded with a sickening crunch, blood and brain streaming through the air, verdant light was descending for Revan's neck but was met with violet, sprung from Revan's right hand, a bloody blade appearing in the other, Yurishtal was disemboweled before he could pull away. Anis and Bastila were falling upon him, blue and yellow lightsabers inches away when the tang of ozone suddenly filled the air, Bastila barely caught a bolt of purple-blue lightning against her blade, deflecting it into the ceiling, but still her skin tingled with power, her stomach turned at the waves of darkness washing over her, the force enough she was pushed backward, boots sliding against the deck with a high squeak, Anis had caught hers with her bare hand, flesh burning and fur singeing, but she held on, face twisted into a snarl, even as Revan stepped toward her, the purple blade moving in to—

And suddenly Kavar was there, the death blow turned aside with violence enough Revan was unbalanced, the lightning fading away, grasping for the red lightsaber she'd kept floating at her side. And Jedi Master and Sith Lord descended into a flickering storm of motion, skipping back and forth, blades moving so quickly they painted the air with solid swirls of blue and red and violet, green and yellow joining the display as Anis and Davon moved in, trying to circle to Revan's back, but she darted away, spinning around, kept the Jedi to one side, outmaneuvering them with casual ease, the Knights reduced to an occasional swipe past the Master's side, all but useless.

Bastila didn't join them, standing back. Instead she took a slow, deep breath, sank deep into herself, and reached outward.

Ever since she'd been the greenest initiate, back in the earliest days of her training at the Temple on Coruscant, Bastila had had a gift for perceiving and influencing the minds of other beings. She hadn't even needed to be taught, it was just... It was intuitive to her. She couldn't explain it, had never been able to, no matter how many times fascinated instructors and masters had asked. She would know what people were feeling, sometimes even their explicit thoughts, without having to try. (She had the feeling she'd always done that, since she'd been a small child. Might have had something to do with why her parents had surrendered her to the Jedi in the first place.) She could get people to do simple things — answer her questions, hand her things, minor compulsions that only required a few seconds' influence — simply by wanting them to happen. It could be difficult to avoid doing it sometimes, she had to be mindful, constantly aware of what she was doing just to stop herself. The greater compulsions weren't quite so natural, but they'd always come easily to her as well. It had never been difficult for her, any of it.

Fortunate, really — it was very possible her development in other areas had lagged behind a bit. Her own special talent was generally enough for most people to overlook mild weaknesses elsewhere.

Starting a few years ago, though, it had started to get...odd. She'd noticed it the first time during a practice duel between two fellow padawans. She'd been able to feel their... Oh, she never could decide on the word for it. Their feelings, but not just their feelings, their movements, but not just their movements. She'd been able to feel it, everything they were doing, not just the placement of each limb, each breath and each twitch, but their intentions in doing so. And not just the two of them individually, but how their senses of themselves and their opponent fluctuated moment to moment, the back and forth of the duel forming an almost tactile presence before her. She'd been able to see the balance of their duel before her, as though their performance, the balance of advantage within it, were a physical thing she could touch or taste.

A couple weeks later, she'd realized she could put her finger on the scales. She could prop one combatant up, or sabotage them. Make them quicker or slow them, slip an extra bit of grace into their movements or set them to stumble. She could sharpen their vision or blur it, turn their thoughts quick and focused or slow and distracted. Any contest performed in her presence was decided before it began: she could choose the winner, and that was that.

The fight before her now was...more, different than any she'd ever felt. Mostly, it was Kavar and Revan who made it so. Every Jedi had a slightly different presence in the Force, distinct enough it was more identifiable than anything physical. Kavar didn't feel entirely like himself, descended into a deep trance, sunk far into intuition, power flowing through him in an unceasing wellspring of light, nearly overwhelming. Revan's presence was just as immediate, just as monolithic, but focused where Kavar was detached, mind and power narrowed to a razor edge. Before the dueling giants, the two knights were hardly perceptible, lost in the background of suffocating light and blazing shadow.

Normally, in a fight, she would be able to follow the movements, she could see it all, highlighted with supernatural clarity. Even whole battles, hundreds of ships carrying thousands of beings, all of it arrayed before her. But this, this she couldn't follow. They were just too fast, sabers clashing and repositioning too quickly for her to keep up, moving, the angles between the combatants shifting, the Force swirling about them, into and through them, doing something she couldn't even say, advantage slipping from one to the other before she could properly read it.

But she didn't have to be able to read it. She leaned on them, not so much putting her finger on the scales as slamming her hand down as hard as she could, power moving through her so thick and so quickly her muscles twitched, her blood burned. It hurt, rather more than she'd expected — physical bodies could only channel so much power at once, after all, and she'd had little reason to push that boundary in the past — but she didn't let herself waver, but pushed, pushed, pushed—

She had only the barest of warnings. If she hadn't been so deeply fallen into the Force, she likely wouldn't have felt it coming at all. A sudden flare of alarm, her entire body giving a hard thrum of imminent danger, Bastila leaned, stumbled backward. Her eyes focused on the here-and-now just in time to see a purple lightsaber sail through where her head had been an instant ago.

Despite herself, she froze, trapped under the gaze of the Dark Lord. Her hood had fallen back at some point during the fight, but Bastila couldn't see her face — she still wore her famous Mandalorian mask, gleaming beskar colored red and black, the paint chipped away here and there but the underlying metal still impenetrable. Bastila couldn't see Revan's eyes, but she could feel the Dark Lord's attention on her, pressing in all around her, frigid and intense and suffocating, as though she were standing at the icy bottom of an ocean. She couldn't move a muscle, could only stand and stare back, feeling all too tiny (despite being nearly a head taller), all too vulnerable, helpless, her reflection in the empty visor swiftly paling.

After a short silence, a short stillness, Revan only said, "You are something."

Then Revan was moving again, meeting Kavar in an incomprehensible tumult of motion and color. And Bastila was — somehow, miraculously — still alive. She came to understand, slowly, as she tried to get herself moving again over the next couple seconds, that Revan had spared her, consciously chosen to let her live.

She had absolutely no idea what to think about that.

The fight dragged on for what felt like hours, but could only be but minutes. Her battle meditation obviously useless against the Dark Lord, Bastila joined the fight more directly, but she wasn't doing much good. She and the two Knights, as they tried to circle around, tried to get a shot in at Revan, she could only think they were getting in the way. Revan maneuvered around them with casual grace, batted their clumsy assaults aside with contemptuous ease. Kavar was the only one who seemed to be making any showing of himself at all. While she and Anis and Davon were forced back occasionally, by either lightning or blunt force summoned from the ether, one time a gout of purple flames that had Bastila skipping back and cursing under her breath, Kavar and Revan stayed toe-to-toe, lightsabers meeting and retreating and meeting again, the dance so fast they drew a solid web around them. They three could dart in and nip at the sides here and there, but Bastila couldn't help feeling their efforts were worse than useless.

That feeling only intensified when Anis fell to the floor, neatly bisected, dead so quickly she hadn't made a sound. Bastila hadn't even seen the blow that had taken her life, so sudden it had been, and she'd been standing right next to her.

As the fight dragged on and on, Bastila's limbs growing gradually heavier, sweat stinging at her eyes, she and Davon too obviously slowing, even Kavar turning tense, his movements tighter, less wasted energy, striking more cautiously, while Revan still seemed singularly composed, casual, she couldn't help the feeling, she knew this fight would last exactly how long Revan wished it. As soon as she wanted them dead, it would be so.

And then, all at once, the four of them froze. She and Davon gasping, even Kavar seemingly at least slightly breathless, all of them focused on something else. A feeling, a blanket of descending doom, overwhelming, she could feel it falling, noise and terror and agony and death, only seconds away. But the feeling was too diffuse, too large, she couldn't tell where it was coming from, what it was. The Force wasn't even telling her which way to move, she was getting nothing. Only danger, imminent danger, that she was helpless to protect herself against.

The other two Jedi seemed as clueless as her. But Revan, she had turned away from them, head tipped to look out one of the windows. At the Sith capital ship there, slowly tumbling in place, a maneuver of some kind Bastila couldn't read. Lowly, talking to herself, even as the shields above them started to flare white with deadly radiance, Revan muttered, "Alek, you stupid son of a—"

And then everything was noise, and fire, and the rushing blackness of hard vacuum.

Beskar — For any who don't know, this is the word in Mandoa for Mandalorian iron, the infamously nigh-indestructible metal the Mandalorians use for almost everything.

First posted in "Back Burner" some time ago. More notes on chapter 2.