21

To Go Beyond

1 Féel, 1,018 DÉ

2.2.20376

That final instant could have stretched into infinity had they let it.

I did not come this far to lose, Bastila heard herself speak with a greater resolve than she had ever before experienced. Not to lose our dream, and not to lose you.

Nor I, émhwelin. It cannot all come to this - come to nothing.

And, at that, the very same idea entered both their thoughts: the same mad, impossible idea that, It cannot come to nothing unless we allow it. Somehow it made sense, though, in light of all that had led to this point, that possibility and impossibility were defined only by one's will. It had all been a part of the journey: every triumph and tragedy, every success and every mistake along the way had been the steps that led them to this, their ultimate destination. They had done everything exactly as they had needed to that they might fulfill their dream. All that remained was the determination to take the next step, and to commit one crowning, superlative act of will.

Beholding nature's perfect and timeless beauty, she reached out into it, and took hold, and felt power and strength rise up out of her. She was a part of that power, as it was a part of her; as Revan was a part of her, and she of him. They were not servants of that power, though, not as the Jedi had served the light and the Sith the darkness, but rather stewards, for nature herself - the Force as it should have been, pure and unadulterated by the taint of either light or dark - did not enslave, but uplift. She held the power of life and death, and, as they now began to understand, the power to go beyond. It was not a power open to all, and nor, their hearts told them, did it come without a price, but was it not an honorable price to be paid? Was it not the same price they had been willing to pay from the beginning? They had already bound their honor to their duty, their purpose - now they would bind their very lives.

When has either of us chosen the easy path? they both inquired of each other.

That final instant could have stretched into infinity, but they didn't let it, and it was with a positively explosive suddenness and vigor that time resumed its onward march.

Wallen felt his fear break and exultation wash over him as his blade exited sideways through Bastila's forehead. He had lain there, waiting in vain for Revan to come, until he was certain that he would die where he lay if he waited even a minute longer. He had known that Revan was still elsewhere, still battling the Jedi, and…losing. It was just after that understanding had taken hold of him that he sensed the presence of that kark of a woman nearby.

He had never trusted Bastila Shan, not from the day Revan had spared her life, having known that act of charity to have been a contemptible error. She was powerful, and dangerously so, and there was something in her that left him at once resentful and afraid of her. He resented that she had risen to such power and prominence while he continued to toil in obscurity. He had followed Revan since the Mandalorian Wars, and yet it seemed his destiny to never be anything more than a servant, a tool, a weapon. Not from Revan would he ever receive any authority, any prestige, any power, and as time had worn on, he had come to understand that these things would have to be taken for himself. For all his sadism and incipient madness, Exar Kun had at least been right in telling him that.

And so it was that, when he felt Bastila run past him, he had woken from his trance and risen to his feet, calling his lightsaber into his waiting hand as he did so. His heart had been racing such that he thought it would burst, his pain eclipsed by an electric fear that ran through his every nerve as he ignited his weapon and lunged. In that instant when she had turned, he was all but certain that she would fire and he would die, but then he saw his blade plunge through her temple and knew that he had won. With a flick of his wrist, he wrenched the blade out through her forehead, leaving a glowing line that he knew would soon fade into blackened tissue as she fell.

As it appeared to Wallen, only the barest instant elapsed in the time that Bastila beheld all the wonders of the universe. His heart paused as he waited for her to fall, and then his eyes were met with so peculiar and ephemeral a display that he couldn't be sure of what he had actually seen, or if he had even truly seen it, or merely hallucinated it as a result of his condition. It looked to him, though, as if she…flickered. There was no other word to describe it, really. For the briefest of moments, her head and neck and hands appearing to flicker off and on - out of and back into existence - like a cheap hologram.

In the same instant, it was as if he had been suddenly plunged into a freezing ocean, as biting, piercing currents whipped around him and through him and stole away all warmth and strength. As the irresistible power cut through his very spirit like wind through cloth, he saw in it an incomparable, indescribable beauty, but it was a perilous beauty, and compared to it, he was an insignificant speck in the vastness. The darkness fled him, his hatred turned from a source of power into a hollowness that gnawed at his spirit, and he felt the sudden agony of his wounds with such intensity that it shut out all conscious thought. Then, like the passing shockwave of an explosion, the storm was gone, and all was utterly still, including his own limbs. He stood frozen with eyes riveted to the woman before him, whose head was unmarred by the slightest of blemishes. Then, weakly, numbly, with what must have been his very last drop of strength, he raised his left arm for a second time, watched his blade swing down toward the crown of her head, this time intending to cleave her in half.

She vanished in a grey blur before the weapon ever made contact, and he heard a scream. He didn't realize that it was his own, or even that he was sailing through the air, until he connected with a boulder with enough force to shatter his spine and most of his ribs. He collapsed in a mangled heap, staring up at the sky until it was blotted out by the face he so hated and feared. He tried to speak, but no words would form as blood filled his throat. You can't be alive.

Bastila heard him anyway as she raised her left hand, slender white fingers held together and aimed at the center of his chest.

"But I have to be," she answered him just before she let fly.

Thunder echoed in the hills.

"You were wrong," said Revan softly as he turned.

He was no longer running, having stopped not five meters from where Konnuff lay dying, with his pistol still firmly in hand. In the tall grass by his feet was the Jedi's lightsaber, the blade now extinguished, and there he let it lie as he stalked back the way he had come. Raising his left arm, he was transfixed by the sight of his hand and forearm, which were no longer gashed and burned, and no longer the source of throbbing pain. He would have laughed aloud with the joy of being alive were it not for the stunning magnitude of events.

"I didn't fail her," he murmured, as much to himself as to the Grand Master. "We didn't fail, and we never shall, not for so long as we don't stop trying. We have our duty, to each other and to our dreams, and we shall never stop."

Konnuff stared blankly skyward with the glassy eyes and tear-stained cheeks of a man who had just lost everything, as if his world was shattered and his very purpose in life had been stripped away. He turned to Revan, murmured weakly, "Then you…can never rest."

It was true, Revan knew in his heart, and that in no way troubled him. The idea that they would, some day, grow so weak-minded and weak-willed as to want to stop, want to rest, was abhorrent to him. They were the architects of history, and the guardians of dreams, and so they would remain.

"You do not understand," he replied. "And you never will."

He took aim for the second time, looked into Konnuff's glassy eyes, touched the pad of his finger to the trigger, but he never fired. As he first began to press it to the rear, he saw those eyes grow dim and distant, and felt life leave the Jedi's body.

It was done.

As he holstered his sidearm, it was as if he was taking his first breath after years of suffocation, so profound was the refreshing cool that broke over him. What precisely had just occurred, he did not rightly know, but nor did he care. It mattered not how they were alive, only that they were, in fact, alive when they should have been dead. And were we not dead for a time, however brief?

He was running then, his boots stamping through the grass, bounding over bare rock, driven now not by terror but by love. Over a hill and down the opposite side he dashed, then up another rise, and there she was, her hair disheveled and her uniform torn and flecked with blood, but the latter was not her own, and there was not a mark upon her. Meeting at the top of the hillock, they threw their arms about each another, as if to make certain that they were both real, and discovered to their boundless mutual relief that they could still hold one another. The tears came, flowing freely down their cheeks as they sobbed unabashedly, even as they gazed into eyes glowing blue with rapturous elation. No words were spoken, for what could be said at such a time? What words could adequately give voice to the sentiments they felt on so momentous and unprecedented an occasion?

They didn't know how long they stood on that hill, holding on for all they were worth and sobbing on each other's shoulders, before the chime of Revan's commlink shook them from their tearful celebration. Wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, he fished out the commlink with the other, paused to restore his composure before answering.

"Revan here."

It was Céle whose voice came through a filter of static.

"It's good to hear your voice, sir, very good. After the admiral's fighter returned on autopilot, we began to fear…" She trailed off, dithered for a second or two, then cautiously inquired, "Is she alright?"

"Quite alive, I can assure you, Céle," Bastila answered for herself, who could hear the other woman's relieved sigh.

"And the Jedi?"

"Finished. The Imperial Guard battled them to the death, and we felled those who remained."

"Then it's over."

"That it is, Céle," he said as he acknowledged the fact for the first time. "It's over."

There was a long pause, all three of them allowing those words to sink in, before practical concerns could return to the fore.

"If I may ask, sir, what's the terrain like at your position?"

"Predominantly hilly, and rocky in places. Why do you ask?"

"Well, sir, I thought that one or both of you might be needing a lift, and the pilot wants to know if there's any place to land."

He and Bastila made a cursory survey of their surroundings, and, seeing no level, open ground large enough upon which to land a shuttle, he answered, "We'll just have to climb aboard. We're on a hilltop that's clear enough to at least touch down on the main gear."

"Understood. I'll be there in…eight minutes."

"Very good. Until then, Céle."

Then he glanced about him at all the land, and up at the sky, wherein he saw no sign of a shuttle as of yet, and then he sat. He sat cross-legged on the cold stone and let his eyes fall shut, and breathed in the warm, clean, late-morning air. He heard a rustle of clothes as Bastila sat beside him, she being as exhausted and as overwhelmed as was he. They rested in silence, in a state resembling shock, too swamped by emotion to think coherently. His thoughts ran around in circles, asking questions to which he knew no answers, and which he knew were irrelevant, until the double crack of a sonic boom tore through the tranquility.

Little more than a minute later, a blue-grey Xg-40 assault shuttle made a half-circuit of the hillock before dropping down in a sharp flare. Touching down with only its main wheels and rear ramp on the rock, the pilot held the nose in open air, while in the cabin stood Céle in her black service uniform. Revan stood aside and, gesturing with his hand, let Bastila step aboard first before following her up the ramp and into the cabin.

"Ramp up!" Céle ordered over the shrill whine of the engines, and the daylight streaming in was slowly squeezed out until they were left with only the vaguely-orange glow of the cabin lights.

By the time it was closed and sealed, all three passengers were seated on the uncomfortably hard benches with safety belts drawn tight.

"All aboard and secure!" Céle called to the pilot, and the shuttle was almost instantly in motion. It was plain from the way they were fairly tossed about the cabin during the ascent that the pilot had flown so many combat insertions and extractions that, even when not being shot at, he or she flew the shuttle to the limits of its performance.

"Permission to speak freely," Céle said after awhile.

"Granted, as ever," he replied.

"You look terrible-both of you. Especially you, ma'am."

Bastila looked down at her blood-stained jacket, then back up at Céle, said, "It's not mine."

"Ah. From the pattern, I'd venture a guess that you shot somebody point-blank."

"In the head, yes," she answered flatly.

There followed another quiet interlude, and then Céle spoke again, her voice soft and solemn, "I almost didn't think it would ever end. Sometimes, I half-feared that it would somehow keep going, on and on, until there was nothing left."

Revan nodded subtly in agreement, while Bastila, with lidded eyes, just leaned back against the quilted padding of the cabin wall, looking thoroughly spent.

"A pleasure to see you, as ever, My Lady," Revan greeted Meric not long after his return to the Deralí.

By now, he was outfitted in a fresh uniform, and as he sat at the desk in their quarters, was feeling slightly more grounded than he had been an hour ago. It was only slightly so, however, for he still felt moderately numb as his mind continued its struggle to process the morning's events. He should have been overjoyed, but instead he was just numb.

"I understand you have good news," said Meric in return.

She was looking more cheerful than he had ever seen her before. In fact, her expression was actually something approaching "radiant."

"Superlative news," he replied. "I expect you've already read the official report, but, to summarize, after we successfully intercepted the Republic battle group bound for home, the Imperial Guard pursued the Jedi contingent to the surface of Bimmisaari. The seeming flight of the Jedi proved to be a trap, however, and the Imperial Guard suffered total losses in the course of the subsequent action. Fortunately, Bastila-Méthnin and myself then engaged and eliminated those Jedi who had survived the initial battle, as well as Major General Wallen, who betrayed us in the end and attempted to assassinate the two of us. Overall, I deem it safe to conclude that this morning's events ended as well as was possible under the circumstances."

"There's an understatement. From what I read, you've wrapped things up as neatly as anyone ever could." She smiled thinly and shook her head in what might have been awe or disbelief as she continued, "I always knew that the Imperial Guards couldn't be fully trusted, and expected that they wouldn't remain around indefinitely, but Wallen actually tried to kill you?"

"Well, he only ever had the opportunity to make an attempt on Bastila's life, but I don't question that he intended to come for me as well, in spite of the…appalling wounds he suffered in his fight with the Jedi. It was really quite remarkable that he was able to stand at all, much less fight, but, in the end, he couldn't stand against her."

They had yet to decide to their satisfaction if, when, and how to relate what had really transpired on Bimmisaari, for how could one tell of such a thing without sounding like either a lunatic or - and this was far more likely - a self-aggrandizing liar? What was one to say? No, what had happened was firmly anchored in the realm of the fantastic and the impossible.

"And she's well, I hope?"

"Oh, yes, the very picture of health. In fact, I daresay neither of us has ever been better, although we have been feeling slightly overwhelmed of late."

"Perfectly understandable. Just as it's perfectly understandable what I hear about Admiral Wintae. I assume it is true that he shot himself rather than surrender?"

"Yes, entirely true. I ordered the body examined, and the identity has already been confirmed."

"Saved you the trouble, I suppose."

"That's one way of wording it, but before we get any further," he interjected, "I have some news on the Jedi children and their minders."

With the press of a key on his terminal, he transmitted to Meric the file which he and Bastila had spent every spare minute composing since their return to the Deralí, recording from memory what they had seen when they died. He watched the SD Director's eyes flit rapidly from side to side as she scanned the names and places with mild incredulity.

"Where did you get this from?"

With a half-smile gracing his lips, he touched two fingers to his temple. He knew that he should have been more cautious, knew rationally that it could have been merely their neurons firing randomly as they died, but, on the other hand, how likely was that, when they had overcome death itself? If we could manage that, then I think we can safely trust our insight, whatever our condition might have been at the time.

"You saw this?" she asked.

"We saw all of it."

"So long as this proves accurate, then you have my eternal thanks and congratulations for the… Well, I've lost count of how many times it has been."

"No need to keep tally," he assured her. "We do our duty, nothing more."

And so we shall continue for as long as we're needed, he reminded himself. Then he leaned forward, and folded his hands on the desk in front of him, and said,

"Now, then, I find that I must ask, for I am most curious to learn if you have had any further communication with Xentorell since yesterday."

"Hardly, though of course I can't expect him to comm me when he's been arrested for treason. It was on one of the Republic news stations - GNS, I believe, as they're one of the few still broadcasting. Obviously, he wasn't careful enough about keeping his clandestine negotiations clandestine," she said with some derision. "Idiot."

"Though no more foolhardy than those who arrested him for trying to end a war they've already lost. Still, at least the Humbarine sector was handed over by Marshal Tepplan."

"Is that so?" she asked, her mood brightening once more. "I hadn't heard."

"Well, the report reached me not five minutes ago, and the surrender came scarcely twenty prior to that."

"Fair enough. Tepplan, though… I can't remember them having a marshal named Tepplan."

"He was a general until last month. Sullustan, former tank officer, a brilliant tactician, although he was always at his peak in smaller, more irregular actions. He's been out of his element ever since…"

It was then that a low tone beeped from Revan's terminal, indicating an incoming priority call, and he felt his heart quicken its pace, his first thought being that it might be word that Oberreck had surrendered. It probably isn't, he told himself in an effort to quash any false hopes before whoever was calling had a chance to do so. Not this soon. The man must first move past denial. Give him time.

"Begging your pardon, My Lady, but it would appear that my attention is in some demand from other quarters," he said offhandedly.

"Of course. Give my regards to Bastila-Méthnin."

"Assuredly I shall. A good-day to you."

"And to you."

No sooner had Meric's image flickered out than he switched channels, just barely seeing as he did so that the priority call was from Rear Admiral Votrun, who was tasked with overseeing and defending the Star Forge. Peculiarly enough, the call originated not from the Star Forge itself, but from the Theenes. When the admiral appeared, his mien was deeply troubled, even fearful, and he blinked rapidly and often as he stood at attention with his hand raised in salute. In his dark eyes, there was concern that he would be…blamed…but also outright fear, and not of censure by Revan. Something had transpired that had shaken him considerably, and, judging from the fact that the two unfastened buttons on his butternut-colored Tethan uniform.

Revan snapped off a return salute, bade him, "At ease, Admiral. What news have you?"

"Forgive me, sir, but we're experiencing… Well, to put it succinctly, My Lord, the Star Forge has suffered a total systems failure."

Revan stared at him for a moment, pondered the words he had just heard, and the wheels of his mind began to turn.

"When did this occur?" he asked quickly, almost automatically.

"Er…just over an hour ago, sir," said Votrun rather reluctantly, just before his speech became quite rapid.

"I really don't understand it at all. What I mean to say is, we've never seen anything more than a one or two percent fluctuation in power, not in thirty-five months of operation. Granted, we have been pushing harder lately in the hope of finishing off the Almania before the surrender, but everything had been running well within safety tolerances. I suppose it's possible that we haven't had as clear an understanding of the station's capabilities as we thought, but… Well, sir, to be perfectly forthcoming, there weren't any warnings at all. One minute, everything was running smoothly, just as it always had, and the next, as I was sitting in the officer's mess at breakfast, the lights went out. Just like that, like somebody had turned off the power. It was the damndest thing, sir."

Picking up his glasses from the desk, Revan slipped them on and called up the files retrieved from the flight data recorder on Bastila's Xg-33, hunting for the time that she had egressed the fighter and sent it back into orbit. He was surprised to see the letters blurred, however, and, removing the glasses, wiped the lenses while Votrun went on.

"I went to the command center straight away, of course, as soon as the emergency lights came on, but nobody could tell me anything. As soon as I started looking through the readouts - we still have battery power - I found that I couldn't blame them at all, because there wasn't anything to tell. We spent half an hour running every diagnostic we could think of, but the station's completely dead. Like I said, it's as if somebody just…switched off the power. If this station had a normal reactor, I'd say that not only is the reaction dead, but the fuel's been removed."

The admiral shrugged, shook his head helplessly.

"I don't know what else I could have done, sir."

Revan was devoting little attention to him now, however, for the mystery of his glasses had momentarily captured his attention. When he looked at the display with his naked eyes, he could read the words upon it with perfect clarity, and yet, the very instant he peered through the lenses, the world went out of focus. He nearly jumped when he understood the meaning of this, that it was not the glasses that had changed, but his eyes.

By this time, Bastila had heard enough of the conversation for her to be standing in the doorway, just out of sight of the camera. Though he didn't turn to look at her, he easily read the mysterious excitement that danced in her heart, which was so alike to what he, too, was feeling as he set aside the glasses and returned to the far more significant issue of the Star Forge.

"I have my entire crew working to find a solution to the problem, but in the meantime, I flew over to the Theenes, which isa light cruiser we launched just last week, because the Forge doesn't even have any comms operational."

Revan had spent much of the story waiting for Votrun to simply finish, for a question loomed large in his thoughts, even larger than the question of his eyesight, and it was only now that he could ask it:

"Admiral, can you tell me at precisely what time this total failure occurred?"

"Yes, sir. It was…0648 if I'm not mistaken."

0648! Neither of them had thought to note their own time of death, but they knew that it had been sometime around ten minutes to seven, and the flight data recorder had confirmed it.

"If you could please confirm the exact time, Admiral, that would be most useful."

"Yes, sir," said Votrun, who looked more confused than afraid now, for there had been neither recrimination nor accusation in Revan's response, and this request clearly struck him as a puzzlement.

"Yet more important, however, is that you begin retrieving from the Star Forge all unfinished vessels and armaments that are at such a stage of completion as to make their salvage worthwhile."

"Yes, sir. Although, if I may suggest, we've barely begun to troubleshoot the problem, and there's still a good chance that we'll get the station operational again, given time."

"With all due respect to your crew and yourself, Admiral, I do not believe that the Star Forge will ever again become operational, and nor should it. I trust you haven't forgotten that it was never planned to be retained following the cessation of hostilities."

"No, sir, I haven't."

"The Republic is finished, and the Forge has fulfilled its purpose. Please do keep me posted as to the progress of the salvage operation, however."

"Yes, sir."

"Carry on, Admiral."

"Yes, sir. Good day, sir."

Votrun saluted again in parting, and then he was gone, his hologram absorbed back into the thin air from whence it came. Abandoning his stiff-backed posture, Revan sank into the chair as Bastila swiftly crossed the room.

"I wasn't expecting that," he remarked, even as he thought it a perfectly empty-headed thing to say.

"I'd be astonished if you were," she quipped in reply, then turned far more serious. "What do you suppose it means?"

He spun his chair around and looked up at her, and said earnestly, "I haven't the faintest idea. Obviously, we didn't consciously do anything regarding the Star Forge."

He stood, ran his fingers through his hair in consternation, "Why, we didn't even consciously do anything to save ourselves apart from…"

"…will it," she answered for him. "We knew that we couldn't leave, not when we're still needed."

"And so we stayed. We bound ourselves here, to our duty…to each other… I doubt that we'll ever fully comprehend it."

"No, probably not," she conceded. "As for the Star Forge, it was a tool of the dark side, a corrupting influence. What if…"

She trailed off, shook her head. "No, we'll twist our brains into knots trying to sort this out, and we're tired enough as it is."

"Now there at last is a certainty: we really ought to rest."

And, with that said, they both suddenly felt the crushing weight of the past day bear down upon them, and there could be no further argument with their need for sleep.

They slept soundly that morning and on into the afternoon, and what few dreams they shared and could recall were filled with bright sunlight and moonlight, with warm breezes and cool water and the music of forests. They felt as if they had been awake for a lifetime, and had only now gone to sleep for the very first time, but there was no doubt that the time would also come for them to wake. There was still so much yet before them, and while there yet remained much hard and bitter labor, there was also the promise of joyful reward. When they were roused by a soft chime, they did so with none of the old fears that such a disturbance had once produced, for how could whatever news awaited them be ill when in their hearts, they felt only hope?

"C-in-C," Revan answered the call as, stifling a yawn, Bastila looked to the chrono, which proclaimed the time to be 1507.

"Good evening, sir." Unsurprisingly, it was Céle. Surprisingly, however, she sounded more enthusiastic than he had ever heard her before, and without further ado or explanation announced that, "I'm patching through a signal we've just intercepted."

There was a click, followed by a deep male voice, which was bereft of strength or confidence, barely above a whisper, and speaking in almost a monotone.

"…bravely, but I cannot ask you to fight any longer, not when there remains no possibility of winning even the most modest form of a negotiated peace. I thought for a time to drag this on no matter what the outcome, and…to make the enemy pay as dearly as we could…but I can't ask you to do that. There's no longer any point in that, because there's no Republic left to fight for… There's nothing at all left to fight for, except death.

"From the citizens of the Republic, who I had once promised this day would never come, who have had to endure more than any people ever should, I can't ask for forgiveness. I've failed you. I… I took an oath to protect the Republic, and I've failed completely in my duty. I can ask you only to…to live on…to move forward and be strong through these dark times that lie ahead. I know that even that's more than I should have to ask of you, when you've already suffered through so much, but I…"

Oberreck trailed off completely then, and Revan wondered if the Chancellor was actually crying. He could never pity the man, though, certainly not after he had ordered the attack on Deralí, and he wondered for what it was that his enemy wept. Was it for the people of the Republic, or was it for his own failure and the loss of all he had gained in life? Was it for the loss of all that he valued, for the loss of what little he genuinely believed in, and the death of the despicable system he had championed?

"In light of recent military developments, I have decided to order all units still fighting to cease fire immediately; and as of 8:00 this morning, Republic Standard Time, I am offering the unconditional surrender of the Galactic Republic."

If he said anything after that, neither Bastila nor Revan heard him. For the second time that day, they held each other and wept.

19 Féel, 1,018 DÉ

20.2.20376

She knew perfectly well that the Star Forge was built by the Rakata as a conduit for the power of dark side; that, just as it fed off the Rakatan star, so did it feed on greed, malice, and cruelty; that, most dangerously of all, this dark power fed back into Force-users, amplifying all their most negative emotions and proclivities. To use its power was to ultimately be destroyed by it, and Revan had once remarked that he treated it as a radioactive hot zone: exposure was to be avoided whenever possible, and strictly minimized when not. He said that it was an unwelcoming place, almost alive with an anger all its own, and that when he set foot in it, he frequently suffered from the maddening sensation of being watched or, far worse, of insects crawling beneath his clothes. At the same time as he made full use of its power to further his beloved cause, he hated the Star Forge itself to the very depths of his being, and, from the first day he set foot in it, had longed for the day when it could be destroyed.

Now that she set foot in it for herself, it was almost difficult to imagine the station producing such a primal reaction in him, for there was nothing here whatsoever. It was dark, hot, and, above all, cavernous on a scale that staggered the senses, but it was utterly still and silent. In fact, it was safe to say that it competed admirably with open space for its total absence of life. The air was so oppressively close as to give her a headache within a few minutes of climbing from the comparatively refreshing atmosphere of her fighter, and their footsteps sounded as loud as gunfire, so perfect was the silence that they shattered. Through the Force, she felt an absolute nothingness. In this place lingered no power, no darkness, no anger, nothing. It was dead. Granted, it was an inanimate object, but when compared with Revan's descriptions of it, the Star Forge was beyond inanimate.

That, she knew, was precisely why Revan had wanted to come here one last time: to be certain that it was dead.

Stopping on a catwalk that spanned a shaft extending above and below into pitch blackness, she reached above her head with electricity arcing between her fingertips, and cast a blue light into the space, to find that even that couldn't illuminate the entirety of it.

"Did we do this?" she asked, all the while knowing that he had no more answers than she.

"Hard to say, seeing as we didn't try."

"No, but we could have, couldn't we? Would it have been so different from what we did at Korriban?"

"Not at all, but then would it not be a reasonable assumption that this, too, would have entailed considerable effort?"

"Unlike returning to life?"

He only shrugged.

"I could hypothesize that the 'death' of the Star Forge was, in fact, a direct consequence of our return to life; that the corruption of this place could not survive the power we tapped."

"As fair a theory as any," she granted him as she took his hand.

Looking about by the light of her free hand, she noted the bleakness of her surroundings. The creation of a savage race, the Star Forge was a pure expression of brute industrialization, without the least concession to aesthetics or comfort. Even the thoroughly businesslike interior of the Deralí had been designed to at least be tolerable by human standards, albeit not for extended periods of time. This, however, was a place to crush the spirit beneath a staggering mass of lifeless metal and machinery, and she loathed it down to her marrow.

"And to think there were some who wanted to replicate this," she remarked.

"There will always be those with the dreadful ability to consider an issue on purely technical or scientific grounds, and without due regard for morality," he replied with distaste as he, too, surveyed the expanse of dull metal.

"It is high time we be rid of it."

She laid a hand on his shoulder and said firmly, "I couldn't agree more."

The operation of extricating the Almania, the incomplete battlecruiser Vigilance, and the array of other unfinished military hardware had been concluded the day before yesterday, and the Star Forge was now deserted save only for themselves.

From the inside of his black jacket, Revan produced his surviving lightsaber, holding it in his open palm and seeming to study it in the blue glow of Bastila's light. Gently curved to fit the contours of his hand, the hilt was fashioned of unpolished steel and fitted with a subtly textured grip of black composite. The feel of the weapon in his hand conjured up ghastly images of those who had met its blade. War was a brutal and uncivilized affair, and, regardless of whatever the Jedi might believe to the contrary, a lightsaber was a brutal and uncivilized weapon. Reaching over the railing of the catwalk, he turned his hand on its side and let the hilt fall away into the abyss, never to be touched or seen again.

"Long overdue," he declared, and turned without waiting for the sound of the discarded weapon striking bottom.

For her part, Bastila couldn't have been more eager to be gone from this miserable place. A brisk minute's walk brought them to a hangar just as vast and oppressive as the rest of the station, only here at least there shone the landing lights of their parked fighters. Here, however, at the outer edge of the hull, onto which the sunlight beat heavily, the air was so swelteringly hot and dense as to be almost unbreathable. No time was wasted in getting sealed inside their cockpits, and the air conditioner was the first system which she activated. Almost immediately, she was greeted by a refreshingly cool breeze, and even the recycled air of the cockpit seemed fresh as it filled her lungs.

She ran through her checklists, tested her comms, checked the interface with the hangar door controls. Emergency battery power being limited, the hangar's magnetic shield had been deactivated early on in favor of opening and closing the doors, but by now, after nearly three weeks of activity by the station crew, all power had been nearly exhausted. There was just enough to open the doors one last time, and only halfway at that, and her fighter shuddered and rocked around her as it was buffeted by a hurricane-force wind. She watched what little moisture there was in the air crystallize on contact when it hit hard vacuum, and then all was calm.

Soon she was flying free of the Star Forge, rocketing away from it at full throttle with Revan on her wing, and watching the range open on her HUD. The Rakatan star was behind her, though even then her canopy was automatically tinted to shield her eyes from what would have been blinding light, while ahead of her shone the emerald icons representing the Deralí, the Almania, and a host of other vessels. Upon drawing nearer, she could observe small service craft hovering around the incomplete battleship, which was parked not far from her illustrious sister, the latter being aimed squarely back at the Star Forge.

Within minutes, they were safely aboard and in a turbolift bound for the bridge, wherein Revan put his commlink to his ear and called ahead.

"Bridge, C-in-C."

"Bridge here, sir," answered Tanen.

"Weapons status, Captain."

"Main battery is charged one-hundred, all safeties engaged."

"Unlock main battery and target the Star Forge, firing pattern A2."

"Unlock main battery, target the Star Forge, pattern A2, aye."

She watched him drop the commlink back into his pocket, and saw the corners of his lips turn up ever so slightly. It was a sight that filled her heart with gladness, for he had been altogether too somber in the weeks since the ceasefire. Granted, so, too, had she, for the prevailing sentiment had been one of numb, almost disbelieving relief, rather than any measure of joy. It was probably normal, she told herself, for it to take some time to entirely relax from the constant strain of war. It would be especially difficult for him, she understood, as he had been fighting for so much longer than her. She also had to acknowledge that he might never be able to fully move past the war, and all that he had done.

She, too, could never forget her experiences. There were still nights when she lay awake in bed replaying battles in her head and asking herself the maddening question "What if?" There would always be the terrible lingering doubt that she could have done something differently, done it better, perhaps ended the war sooner. There would always be the knowledge that she had sent good people to their deaths, and that she was responsible for the deaths of civilians. None of it was pleasant to live with, but she had no choice in that, and the best she could do was to put it from her mind for as many hours a day as she could.

The turbolift stopped, the doors opened, and they stepped out into the bridge corridor. A crewman in olive coveralls ceased his work behind an open service panel to stand to attention and salute as they passed, and then the bridge doors were opening for them and Aimirdel was shouting, "Attention on deck!"

"As you were," Revan ordered. "Report."

With his shoulders square and his chin high, Tanen rather proudly reported that, "Turrets B through F are locked on the Star Forge, pattern A2, and all safeties are disengaged. We are ready to fire."

"Very good, Captain. Visual display of the Star Forge," Revan ordered.

In the center of the bridge appeared a live projection of the station as it sat adrift against the backdrop of the Rakatan star, the latter being automatically dimmed so as to be viewable.

"Magnify."

Now the Star Forge, as viewed from the top down and slightly askew, filled the entire open area of the bridge.

"Weps," said Revan.

"Yes, sir?" asked Drunin as she turned her chair to face him.

We've already done enough deeds of renown, Bastila agreed with him via their bond. It's good to let her have this to her name.

"Fire main battery."

Turning back to her console, Drunin all but exclaimed, "Firing main battery, aye!"

Bastila watched the senior lieutenant's finger stab a glowing key, the bridge lights dimmed, and a new light, brighter even than the Rakatan star, flared in the center of the projection. Eight white flashes temporarily blotted out the Star Forge while the computer struggled to adjust for brightness. When the brilliance had vanished, there was no longer anything in view that was recognizable as the Star Forge. Where the immense structure had been a moment ago now floated a dense-but-expanding cloud of swirling, tumbling grey fragments that collided with one another to yield still more debris. Though they appeared minute at this scale, many must easily have been hundreds of meters in length or breadth, but even by eye, one could see that a significant portion of the station's mass was simply gone, having been completely vaporized in the initial blast.

"Weps, secure main battery," Tanen issued the anticlimactic order.

"Secure main battery, aye. Primary and secondary safeties engaged, MBEs B through F closed."

"Track the debris and engage anything not on a descent trajectory."

"Tracking debris and arming secondary batteries 1 through 20. Targeting priority by trajectory."

More commands and acknowledgements were exchanged, but Bastila paid them little heed. What counted this day was that the Star Forge - one more relic of evil, one more corrupting force in the galaxy - was forever purged from existence.

38 Féel, 1,018 DÉ

4.3.20376

Marching briskly out of a turbolift with a bulging forest-green duffel slung over her shoulder, Céle's eyes alternated between the passageway ahead of her and the datapad she held in her free hand. On the latter was a list of names of junior officers, the vast majority being from the SD, although there were a few from the Army and Navy. She had spent much of her spare time in the past month narrowing the list, until now it encompassed just fourteen individuals, all of whom came highly recommended by their current commanders. It would now fall upon Revan and Bastila to interview those remaining candidates, and make the final decision. They were, after all, uniquely qualified judges of character, who could scarcely be deceived on any point. It was also just as well, in Céle's eyes, that she wouldn't have the final say in choosing her own replacement.

There had been something conflictingly bittersweet about the task, for whereas she indisputably wished to return to active SD service, she would always look back on these past eighteen months with fondness and pride. Even if she had at times lamented the dullness of her duties, it had truly been a rare privilege to work so closely with Revan, and to do so in the final months when the war was won. She had witnessed historical events of monumental scale and significance, had worked with the man who made the plans, had seen him wrestle with the decisions. She reckoned that she had come to know him better than all but one other living person in the entire galaxy, and that had to count for something. No, she would never forget these days.

She was nearly at the hangar, wherein waited a shuttle to take her and a number of the crew down to the surface, when she ran across a familiar face. It didn't come as a surprise at all that Cálen was waiting for her to see her off. On the contrary, she would have been rather wounded had he been absent.

"Céle," he greeted her with a short bow.

"Vílith," she returned as she inclined her head. "I thought I might be finding you here."

"I couldn't just let you leave without saying farewell."

"I don't suppose you're going on leave, too, are you?"

"Actually, I'm scheduled to rotate out in the morning," he answered with evident enthusiasm. "Naturally, I'll be visiting my family in Aitanir, but I'm getting an entire month's leave, so I should have plenty of time on my hands."

"Aitanir," she began awkwardly as she worked up her courage. (Why it was that she often found it easier to make a forced entry of a defended target than ask a man out, she would probably never know.) "If I'm not mistaken, I seem to recall passing through there when I was a teenager. Tiny little town at the mouth of Íthsgintraust, with about three streets in the whole place?"

"Nine streets, as a matter of fact," he corrected her with a broadening smile. "But if you were only passing through, you never would see more than the three big ones."

"Ah, so that's it. Still, it doesn't sound as if there's all that much to the town, so if you ever find yourself bored, well… you might find Tséchsnol a little busier than Aitanir."

"I expect I will," he chuckled. "I'll probably get lost as all hell - I don't think I'll ever be able to find my way around any town bigger than a few thousand people - but I'm sure I won't be bored."

"If you're asking for a guide, it's only fair that I warn you that I don't think anybody really knows their way around Tséchsnol, whatever they might say; it's still under construction, and everything's changing from one week to the next."

"Well, better to be lost with a friend, anyways."

"That's the spirit," she said, giving him a friendly slap on the arm. "You know my comm channel if you're in town."

"I'll see you there."

Flashing him a smile as she walked past him, the weight of the duffel beginning to tell on her shoulder, she entered the hangar, wherein waited, among other craft, a boxy grey-green shuttle with its ramp down. A crewman stood at the bottom, clearly waiting for her with ill-disguised impatience, and immediately set about sealing up the shuttle the very moment she was aboard. She shoved the duffel under a vacant blue and white upholstered seat, then made herself as comfortable as she could and cinched her lap belt tight.

"All aboard and secure," said the crewman just before disappearing into the cockpit.

There was some muffled conversation from up front, and then she saw through her narrow window the rows of parked Xg-40s appear to move. It took her brain a moment to accept that, in spite of whatever her inner ear might be saying, the assault shuttles were, in fact, perfectly stationary, and it was she who was in motion. By the time she had overcome the vertigo that accompanied the illusion, the hangar was replaced by solid black anyway. They were on the night side of the planet, somewhere not far past sunset, although when they landed in Tséchsnol, it would be early morning.

As she waited for the shuttle to hit the upper atmosphere and the light show to commence, she found herself thinking on the matter of Cálen - Vílith - and what would happen when his leave expired. Or mine, for that matter. Once I'm back in Enforcement, I could end up just about anywhere, including in the ground. There's a mountain of work to do, and all too few of us to do it. There might turn out to be something between her and Vílith; or not; or something might develop, only to have it fade away with time and distance. It wouldn't be the first time she had played through that scenario.

Take it one step at a time, the same as everything else, she reminded herself. Get the most out of life that you can.

It wasn't long before she was disembarking from the shuttle at the foot of the Érilínash, descending the ramp into the cold, damp sea air and a light snowfall. The mountaintops surrounding the fjord were already white, whereas the lower ground remained largely green, though she doubted that would last for very much longer. Her thoughts turned to the impending ceremony, which had been planned with a clear evening in mind, and thought that it would be a terrible shame if the sunset was veiled on this historic day, as there would only ever be one such evening.

Well, whatever the weather does, history will be made, she told herself on her way up the steps. It was an encouraging thought: the knowledge that a new era was being born, and that she was helping usher it in. That was her duty, her calling, and her reason for being, just as it was that of her lord and lady, and she could imagine her life no other way. For that matter, she didn't want to.

Nearing the top of the steps, she put her commlink to her ear, and called ahead to notify them of her imminent arrival.

"C-in-C's office," answered a male voice, "Lieutenant Sincréd speaking."

"Lieutenant, this is Senior Troop Leader Diric at the main entrance. Could you please inform the C-in-C that I wish to speak with him if possible."

"I should notify you, ma'am, that he's presently in conference with Minister Meric. He should be able to see you as soon as they're finished, however."

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

Rather absently did she salute the sentries on duty as she passed through the double doors, wondering if perhaps there was some news of great import that prompted the conference with Meric. The last of the Jedi were caught? she hoped. A mere handful of adult Jedi had remained after Bimmisaari, and three of them had already taken the sane and decent way out by surrendering themselves and their young charges over the course of the past few weeks. There still remained a few out there, however, and nearly every last man and woman in uniform was hunting them. It was only a matter of time before they were caught, or else saw reason.

Revan had never felt Meric so tense, so anxious, so nervous. Something had greatly unsettled her, and it was something which she could apparently not sort on her own. In the time he had known her, she had always been the picture of rational calm, and he knew of no recent developments that could begin to explain such a state in her. She even fidgeted slightly as she stood near the entrance to his office, her eyes flitting between himself and Bastila, whom Meric had explicitly requested be present for this meeting.

"If I may be so bold, My Lady," he inquired following the usual exchange of pleasantries, "what is this news that you bring with such disquiet as I sense in you?"

"My apologies if I appear flustered," she answered quickly. "I just didn't know quite how to approach you about this…and I still don't. To be perfectly honest, I debated with myself if I should tell you at all, but I couldn't possibly betray your trust by keeping this to myself. You need to know what I know."

"Know what?"

"It's about the cameras - the ones that some members of the Imperial Guard wore on operations."

"Please do go on," he said when she hesitated, and suddenly felt as if his heart should have skipped a beat, except that it couldn't anymore, not ever since…

Bastila's mind, meanwhile, was racing back to that fateful day, trying to recollect events that were indelibly seared into her memory down to the smallest detail. She knew Wallen hadn't worn such a camera, at least not when he died, (by then he had too much to hide) but there had been the bodies of other Imperial Guards about. At the time, she hadn't thought to check any of them for cameras, but on subsequent reflection, she could be certain that none of those bodies had actually faced her when she…died. She and Revan had previously considered this possibility, had thought of it when they ordered those cameras retrieved and secured by the SD, but that had been weeks ago, and they had heard nothing since. It would have appeared suspiciously peculiar for them to order the cameras destroyed and, in any event, they were by no means certain that they wanted to keep this a secret indefinitely.

"My Lady, am I to assume that you found something significant in the footage recorded by these cameras?" she pressed.

"Yes, My Lady. Analysis of the footage was never a high priority, and many of the cameras were damaged in the battle, and many files had to be repaired in order to be viewable at all, so you must understand this was brought to my attention just last night. I was called in to look at a particular clip that had just been restored, because the tech who was working on the file said that he must have made a mistake. The camera in question had been knocked from the associated body and was damaged in the process, and the tech said that he must have made a mistake in recompiling the data, because what it showed wasn't possible. The first time I saw it, I knew it wasn't a mistake, but I…" Meric answered in a voice choked with… What was it that lodged in and tightened her throat?

Then, sweeping her hat from her head, she bowed to Bastila as low as she possibly could in a gesture that left her utterly dumbstruck. Meric had always been cordial and respectful to her, but never before had she displayed anything like this.

Meric stood and continued, "I saw you… Forgive me, but it looked as if you died."

"I did die," Bastila whispered, feeling as if the floor was falling away from her.

That explains why she's so unsettled. What must she think of me? What she read from the minister was nothing short of awestruck reverence, and that, in turn, put Bastila somewhat ill-at-ease.

"That wound was instantly fatal. I don't understand…"

"Neither do we," Revan told her frankly.

"All that matters to us is that we're alive," added Bastila. "Both of us."

Meric then looked to him with near-disbelief cast into her elegant features, but he hesitated to elaborate, only to feel Bastila urge him on, to give himself the credit - if it could be called that - he was due.

"It was Konnuff who should, by all logic, have felled me," he said. "I am not infallible."

Pausing to catch her breath and restore her composure, Meric fitted her hat back in place and discretely moistened her parched lips with the tip of her tongue. She smoothed her jacket (which was already smooth) and exhaled hard.

"If I hadn't seen the holocapture, I would never… I still can't believe it except for when I'm actually watching the recording. 'Shock' doesn't even approach what I felt when I first saw it."

"Try to imagine how we've felt for the past month," Bastila told her without criticism.

Meric gazed at her thoughtfully just then, the awe beginning to fade, and said soberly, "No, I don't think I really can. In fact, I'm sure I'll never know."

An awkward silence reigned for awhile, and the three of them stood there in the domed office, watching the snow softly fall upon the transparisteel, melt on its heated surface, and glide down the curved slope in long rivulets. Nobody knew what should be said next, but it was ultimately Meric who spoke anyway, saying,

"I'll keep this quiet for so long as you wish. The recording's sealed in my personal vault, and the tech who saw it has been sworn to secrecy."

"Thank you, though I know and understand that nothing remains secret forever," Revan told her gratefully.

There had never been any serious thought of making it public knowledge, certainly not through some egotistical proclamation, but if it eventually leaked out, then so be it. Most people would never believe it, in the first place, and would assume the recording to be a fake if they saw it, but from those who did believe, the reaction would probably not be to Revan and Bastila's liking. They had no desire to be worshipped, or to be thought of as anything other than what they were.

Anxiously had Revan watched the skies throughout the day, and repeatedly called up the weather reports with their satellite imagery, hoping all the while that he would be greeted with a clear evening. From his office at the pinnacle of the Érilínash, his gaze reached across the fjord, over the mountains with their fresh blanket of snow, and out to the dark expanse of the ocean. Finally, what had been a solid overcast was belatedly breaking apart, and slanting golden rays burst forth from between ragged strips of steel-grey cloud, which were, in their turn, painted with pastel violets and oranges.

"Magnificent," he softly voiced his praise as his heart leapt at the sight.

"And just in the nick of time," Bastila added as she crept up from behind him to lay both hands upon his shoulders. "We'll be late if you stand here sightseeing any longer."

"Sorry," he said with a trace of the sheepishness that only ever surfaced in her presence.

"You never have to apologize to me - you know that," she told him sweetly, and he smiled as he turned to face her.

"I know, darling. I know."

They left together, taking the lift a short ride down to the Imperial Council Hall, where they were greeted with much pomp and ceremony by the Imperial Ministers (Meric included) and the Chiefs of the General Staff. Also present were the grand admirals of the five Groups, and six grand marshals from the Army, all of them eager to sign their names to the Treaty as well. Added to these distinguished guests were a number of adjutants and aides, and for the first time in its brief history, the vast hall was actually crowded.

There were many formal bows and salutes, greetings and congratulations, comments on how serendipitously the weather had cooperated after all at the very last minute. The atmosphere was almost that of a party, being rich with subdued, dignified elation and celebration. Everyone was attired in their finest uniforms or, in the case of the civilian Ministers, suits, which filled the room with a veritable rainbow of color. Revan wore his usual black and emerald, but with the addition of traditional silver knotwork about the lapels of his jacket and a chest gleaming with medals accrued over the past five years. Bastila was likewise outfitted in her admiral's ceremonial dress uniform, complete with her own growing collection of decorations. Perhaps most notable on both of them, as well as on a significant number of other officers present, was a four-pointed black star with a silver vastínhaig at its center, worn like a brooch at the throat of one's collar. It was aptly named the Victory Medal, and had been handed out to senior commanders during the past week on the basis of "actions contributing to the overall victory of the Imperial Cause."

The sun was sinking lower still, now centered in the V of steep hills near the shore, when the general chatter of the gathered dignitaries was drowned out by a single voice that rose above them all.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if I may have your attention, the time has come," Céle crisply proclaimed.

She stood to the side at the head of the conference table, one of the most junior officers present, but projecting no less authority than any other. On her command, all conversation instantly ceased, and neat ranks were formed either side of the table as though the conference room had become a parade ground. Revan took up station at the head of the table, with Meric immediately on his right and Bastila on his left. When he looked about at the faces that surrounded him, and thought back on all the years of toil, all that had been won, and all those who were lost, he fought to hold back the tears that welled beneath his eyes. He blinked a few times, hoping that the cameras wouldn't be focusing too closely on him, and stood steadfastly at attention as he waited. The moment he had so long dreamt of, and had so many times feared would never come, was nigh.

After what could have been hours, or even days, but was in reality scarcely a minute, the doors were opened, and there entered a small contingent of ruined and pathetic figures. In the lead was Oberreck, who, though suitably attired and well-groomed, was a shell of the man he had once been: a slouching, shambling ghoul with eyes sunken into an ashen face, and almost devoid of life or energy. With him were the Devaronian chief of the Diplomatic Corps, Tian G'Haaklen, whose chestnut fur was notably lackluster and whose gait was far from confident; Xentorell, who had conveniently been released from prison just in time to sign the cease-fire agreement nearly a month ago, and who now gave every appearance of an embittered and disillusioned man; and Grand Marshal Otragan, chief of the Republic Army, whose face was a blank mask and whose stare wandered aimlessly about the room. Last in line was Grand Admiral Najel, whose otherwise-pleasant face was shadowed with grief, but who, alone of the Republic delegation, still carried herself with professional strength and dignity. It was only she for whom Revan or Bastila felt the slightest pity, knowing as they did the position in which she had been placed against her will. In the others, they could only ever see the hated enemies of all they had fought so hard to create.

"Be seated," Revan bade them, gesturing to the chairs at the opposite end of the table.

The visiting delegation meekly took their seats without a word, and Revan waited until after they had done so to follow suit, taking a few moments to glower sternly down at them from where he stood. When all were seated, a captain of the Imperial Army stepped forward bearing two dark green binders, the covers of which were stamped with the Imperial seal in gold inlay. With slow and deliberate formality, these were set on the table in front of Oberreck and opened to reveal two documents, each comprised of two large pages; one copy was written in Basic, the other in Deralsbanif. The captain stood aside, and a Navy lieutenant carrying a wood box richly engraved with leaves and vines assumed her place. Pens were set out on the table, before the lieutenant, too, stepped to the side.

From his position at the far end of the table, Revan watched the Supreme Chancellor reach out and take up a pen with a hand that betrayed a subtle tremor. Oberreck looked down at the documents before him, then back up and across the length of the table, and for the first time, the two great adversaries actually met each other's eyes. What Revan saw was a broken man in whose heart still burned a vitriolic hatred of himself and his cause, though it was now but an impotent hatred. That hate, however, was all Oberreck had left to which to cling, and so he kept it alive even now as his hand hovered over the document that would end an institution that had endured for twenty millennia. The Treaty of Tséchsnol was not a peace treaty in the classical sense, in that it established no settlement or understanding between sovereign states, but rather agreed to the complete annexation of one state by another. To sign it was the ultimate act of capitulation, acknowledging not only the loss of the war, but far greater losses.

It's over. All of it: your power, your schemes, your ruling "elites," your so-called Republic. You fought on the wrong side of history, on the wrong side of decency and morality, and now you are being swept aside by the tide of a new age. Sign and be done with it, Revan projected his thoughts, and in Oberreck's eyes, he briefly glimpsed hatred swallowed by fear.

Then the Chancellor turned his gaze down to the treaty, and Revan could actually hear the tip of the pen touch the page and scratch across its surface. The process was repeated on the Derals copy, and then the pen slipped from his fingers and rolled a short distance across the table before being arrested by G'Haaklen. The Army captain then returned and moved the folders over, and it was Xentorell who signed next. The process was repeated thrice more, then the lieutenant blotted the ink, and the captain collected the binders, and a new participant stepped forward.

It was Céle who delivered the treaties to the opposite head of the table and laid them before Revan, who realized, only as he took up a jet black pen, that there was a solitary tear trickling down his cheek. He could feel the last rays of the setting sun on the back of his neck, and when he looked down at the pages, he felt almost weightless, almost unable to feel the chair beneath him. On each copy, the bottom half of the second page had been left void of type, and on the left side of this space were the five signatures of the vanquished foe, while the right side remained blank. It was to this open space, and in particular that on the copy printed in Derals, that his attention was drawn.

"With this signing, as the sun sets upon this day - upon the last day of the last year of this age - we forever close one of the darkest chapters in history," he declared solemnly, deliberately, in a voice almost choked with sentiment. "May the next one be brighter."

He set pen to paper, and sharp, fluid letters took form on the pristine white surface. He paused at the end, read his own name at it appeared on the document, then turned to the copy in Basic and signed again.

Behind him, the sun at last sank behind the horizon, beneath a tattered canopy of deep violet, and, if only for a minute, the waves shone gold and amber.

1 Mégteníd, 1 ÛÉ

She was warm. The first physical sensation of which she was consciously aware (for she was perpetually aware of Revan's comforting presence in her mind) was that of pleasant warmth, which resolved itself into the warmth of Revan as he lay beside her. That was followed by the exquisite softness of the sheets and her nightie against her skin, and the subtle scent of soap that clung to her beloved. She opened her eyes and looked upon him in the dim twilight of their bedroom, and felt a refreshing calm wash over her.

She knew perfectly well that it was silly to the point of absurdity, but a tiny part of her had almost feared that they might fade away during the course of the night. At least it wasn't every night that she speculated about such a fate, or told herself that they were living on borrowed time, but with the signing of the treaty, she almost had to expect that something supremely terrible would happen to spoil what would otherwise be a crowning moment of triumph. Instead, they were at home, in bed, lying in each other's arms, just as they had been when they fell asleep the night before, and the same as they woke every morning. She thought Revan held her with just a little firmer grasp than usual, however, as if he, too, dreaded losing her, which he did.

It will pass in time, she told herself. Eventually, their lives would find some kind of equilibrium, and they would forget about fading and borrowed time, and accept that they were here to stay. And for how long, exactly? The idea had naturally occurred to them that they might have attained some level of immortality, and for all its supposed appeal, they both understood that forever would be a very, very long time. She reassured herself with the thought that, If it is to be forever, then at least we'll have each other. As she had said to herself more than five months ago, they deserved a measure of happiness in return for the responsibility they had taken upon themselves.

Taking care not to move so far as to disturb Revan, she craned her neck to look at the windows, which admitted not a glimmer of light, then even further to see the chrono, which read 0810. Eight hours of sleep - that's a novelty I could gladly get used to. Revan stirred in her arms just then, murmuring something too soft to be intelligible, and his eyes fluttered open.

"Good morning," she whispered to him as she disentangled her right arm from him and gently ran her fingers from his temple, across his cheek, and down to his chin.

"And a very good morning it is," he concurred almost dreamily. "Is it very late?"

"Late, but not yet dawn."

He shut his eyes briefly, and smiled sweetly just before re-opening them.

"Good. I do so love the time just before dawn."

She felt a cool lightness in her chest, smiled back, told him, "I know…and so do I."

They lay together a minute longer before pushing back the covers and rising from their bed into the invigorating morning air. The heat had been set low, and the vents were open, and the atmosphere within the house was pleasantly cool. She stretched her arms to the sides and above her head, fluffed out her hair, which had become somewhat matted in the course of the night, and padded across the thick carpet to the closet to dress for the day. It was forecast to be a chilly day, though not so cold as in the capital, where more snow could be expected that evening. Here, it was supposed to remain generally clear all day, although a passing shower couldn't be ruled out entirely. It would be lovely to take the day off, but there was renewed rioting on Coruscant, and acts of sabotage were being committed at the Kuat Drive Yards, and all manner of other difficulties were persisting throughout the occupied territories. As if that will change any time soon. At least she could remain home and work from there, whereas Revan would be spending much of the day in Tséchsnol. She was technically on leave, after all, and it still suited their purposes to be seen apart from one another.

She dressed in a suit of green and black, and looked quite similar to Revan once he was attired in his uniform. In fact, so acute was the resemblance (at least in dress) that she had to smile to herself when they passed the mirror on the closet door. She brushed her hair, although rather than drawing it up as per her custom, she chose to leave it loose today, in keeping with the idea of staying home for a change of pace.

As she was doing so, Revan drew open the blinds over the windows, and revealed a world just waking from its nightly slumber. The sky overhead was a dusky blue speckled with a few lingering stars, while over the distant hills in the east there shown a light peachy hue, and the scattered fluffy clouds that drifted slowly overhead were lit up in shades of pink and amethyst. Below, fog clung to the low places of the land, and over the river, while out on the moor, the craggy peaks of the tors protruded from the murk.

"Care to watch the sunrise?" he asked without turning from the vista that held him so enthralled.

Creeping up behind him, she wrapped her arms around him, and said softly, "I'd love to. Outside?"

"It's cold…but not so cold as to deter me," he remarked lightly.

She released him, and from the bedroom they ventured downstairs, stopping at the entryway to don their boots and greatcoats. Surmising that it was only a little above freezing, she took the time to fasten the rows of silver buttons all the way up to her throat, and followed Revan's suit in slipping on a pair of gloves for good measure. That ritual done with, she opened the front door and was at once struck with a wave of cold, damp air. As always, however, it was wonderfully clean and fresh, and proved ideal for waking one up in the morning as she stepped outside.

Immediately in front of and below the door were five stone steps, and it was on the second to the last that Revan sat, even though it made for a cold and clammy seat. The sun would be up soon enough.

"It's so peaceful," she commented as she watched a large grey bird soaring above the moor.

"Isn't it, though? As though none of it ever happened. When I'm here, with you, in these quiet times, I can almost pretend…"

Sitting down on the step above him, and just to the side of him, she slipped her arms around his torso much as she had done upstairs, and this time drew him back against her. Reaching up, he covered her hands with his own, and looked back and up with adoring eyes.

"I can almost pretend that none of it ever happened - that everything has always been this way, and that it always will, for ever and ever."

"I know what you mean," she murmured back. "I know that it wasn't always like this, of course, but I'd like to think that it always will be."

"Well…"

Resting his head against her, he stared off to the eastern horizon, where a warm glow was building just behind the far-off hills that rose above the mist. She felt him shift subtly in her embrace, snuggling closer to her, and felt the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath her hands.

"I've been here before," he said after a while.

"Hmm?"

"Aboard Conqueror, when you saved me, I imagined myself sitting here, before dawn, with you. I saw this then as clearly as I see it now. I didn't know it then, but this is where our choices that day led us."

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

The sun was cresting the hilltops as a fat, rosy orb, its rays spreading across the grey and green and white, and casting long shadows that vanished in the fog. As they sat, they watched the light creep steadily west toward them, crossing the river and finally climbing the slope below them. As the warm light touched her face, helping to banish the chill that hung in the still morning air, she felt also a warmth rising within her. This is where we wanted to be; where we meant to be.

"I love you, Revan," she told him with all the depth and conviction that was in her. It was probably at least the three-hundredth time she had uttered those words, but they held no less meaning now than they had the first time, when she had spoken them in the middle of Operation Impulse.

He craned his neck again to look up at her, and never had she seen him happier than in that moment; and it was a look she would never forget, not if she really did live forever.

"As I love you, Bastila."

Then he turned his gaze back to the resplendent vista, and let his head rest against her chest once more, and together they sat in silence. She knew that there were matters of state demanding their attention, and that soon he would have to leave for Tséchsnol, but she knew also that he would return later in the day, and that they would be together tomorrow, and the next day... There was nothing that could part them from each other for so long as they remained true.

The sun was risen on the first day of the first year of the Third Age, and Bastila - decorated officer, revered noblewoman, loving and beloved mérin, steward of nature's power and architect of the future - knew in her heart that it would be a beautiful day.

Well, here we are at the end, at last. I must say that I well and truly enjoyed writing this, and, at the risk of sounding trite, hope that at least some of you enjoyed reading it just as much.

I previously posted a list of Derals words and phrases at the end of Chapter 9. Here are those that have appeared since:

Tho thíle íl dur: I love you, too.

vacht: folk

Fídéothsél: Starry Lake (literally: Lake Full of Stars)

aithlín cían: fair night

Hai thíle íl dur: As I love you.

Ro atse: Sleep well.

Ro fíra, Férdin: Well met, Minister.

Tséchsnol: Imperial City

Érilínash: Sovereign Tower

Nai ûltín elth salitse mín: We serve with loyal strength.

Aithlínnel: Fair Water

Valta: Admiral

É, druch: Hello, friend.

tchochaiv: literally "shits," as in plural of shit, being used in reference to people

Fé: Hail, though the word holds considerably more meaning than that (see Chapter 17)

tchéne: thank you

Dalsfam: White Harbor

Saicreg: Great Rock

Naioné rai mith: The time has come.

mérin: spouse (A loose translation - it refers more to a state of mind than to any state of legal matrimony.)

DÉ = Désh Émith: Second Age

ÛÉ = Ûlísh Émith: Third Age

The months and their meanings:

1 Mégteníd: of long shadows

2 Hindel: mist-month

3 Venthil: regrowth

4 Tsédíth: of green

5 Lüindel: warmth-month

6 Thilnuth: mid-year

7 Celeth: ripening

8 Aihwirth: harvest

9 Dûlif: fading

10 Féel: closure