Star Wars

Knights of the Old Republic

Revan's Mark

By

Gipper 40 & Sarge42

Part I

Reemergence

Chapter 1

Disruption

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away…

Three years have passed since the fall of the Kraxis Rebellion and the death of Lena Verado. The slowly deteriorating Galactic Republic has been unable to stop the rise of the Sith Triumvirate and its Great Purge, leaving the Jedi Order on the brink of total annihilation.

As the remaining Jedi fight for their lives against a threat they cannot see, the slowly rebuilding Kraxis Rebellion has been forced to remain dead and silent beneath the scouring eyes of the True Sith in the freezing ice caverns of Nagai.

In a daring effort to further bring life back to the dying rebellion a series of small operations has been launched to cripple the Sith as they come ever so closer to attaining total control over the galaxy. The following is the concluding story of Revan.

"Welcome back…" – Jace Myrther

Deep in the Unknown Regions and far to the south of the Psytosis Nebula, more than a few light years away from the Galactic Republic, a group of several planets floated idly in their own isolated star systems. Closer to what could be seen as the middle of this region lay the planet Lazoris. It was a sentient world, consisting of enough land, water, and greenhouse gas to sustain all organisms for millions of years. For the most part, it was a peaceful and rather uneventful planet. To any stranger, this world was beautiful. It was untouched by dense colonization and heavy industry, but this was not to say that intelligent sentient life did not inhabit this world.

Roaming and settling in small militarily strategic areas throughout the planet lay several satellites, bases, and communications arrays of an incredibly powerful entity. This entity was the power that lay in the Unknown Regions, and it had cast its powerful but phantom hand outward, enslaving all that it could within, but careful not to intrude upon the known and densely civilized galaxy. Their influence was widespread, and with their great power, they hunted and suppressed all that may oppose them. Lazoris however, was only used as a beacon in that specific region of the galaxy.

They were as they claimed themselves to be, the Sith – the True Sith. These horrendous and fierce looking organisms held the deepest secrets and most ancient knowledge of the dark side of the Force. They were the masters, and with their rule, came an iron fist that struck fear into the hearts and minds of all other life forms in their official territory. The planets on the other end of the Psytosis Nebula could not have been compressed into a system because they were too far apart. Also, what lay on these worlds were overall of absolutely no value to the True Sith, so they left it alone. There were no mass colonies of people on these planets. Anyone who lived there lived in isolation and tranquil solitude. The True Sith only used Lazoris to monitor space activity in that part of the Unknown Regions, just in case something was attempting to creep up behind them. The location of Lazoris made it likely that anyone attempting to venture into the Unknown Regions after passing Rakata Prime would stop there first, and the True Sith would immediately be alerted to their presence.

The center of communications lay at the north pole of the planet. A large island, elevated about a hundred meters above sea level was where it was stationed. The island was surrounded by a wide fast-flowing river that forked around the island and then joined again. This way, the facility was completely isolated.

It was a large building that connected with all the others on that remote island. As a central hub, it was responsible for receiving encrypted data and transmitting it back to all the other facilities. It also served as the command center for the True Sith on the planet. The True Sith were stationed so far away from the core worlds that only the central outpost was able to send and receive orders and information from them. It was the only way of communicating with the core worlds. However, aside from its main purpose, this building was a fortress. It was surrounded by a pentagon of guard towers, all looking over the outskirts of the island and down at the river. Three men were placed on each tower, all of them working six hours shifts each day.

Otherwise, those manning and operating the areas were completely self sufficient. There were fifty outposts scattered across the planet in total. Each outpost had a battalion of soldiers and one Sith warrior in high command. It was considered a reward for good service to be stationed on Lazoris, for there was little to do but relax, train, and occasionally explore the nature and wildlife.

At the point of high command in the command center was Cavix Sharkraw, the single apprentice to Rixxon Zazz, the Grand Sire of the Sith. Like Zazz, Sharkraw had separate features from the rest of the True Sith, and it was implied that these features had slowly developed over time. He was slightly taller, a full seven feet tall. His eyes were a blackened yellow basilisk color and his face was dark orange. He bore six fingers on both hands, three toes on both feet, and long sharp nails. Thick veins bulged out of his face, chest, and limbs, echoing a frighteningly noisy pulse. Though he was taller than the rest, his weight was distributed proportionally. His balance was perfect, as was his posture, and though he was leagues away from his master in terms of aptitude with the dark side of the Force, no one else besides Commander Rexx and the high ranking military leaders could possibly possess the capability to challenge him. He had no reservations about bragging and showing off his abilities, and he was insistent on making everyone aware of the fact that he was the single and irreplaceable understudy to the Grand Sire.

Dawn took over the darkness above the planet as the sun began to rise and shine brightly down on the northern hemisphere, with no cloud to block the light. It was just another day for the men stationed in the central command, but the apprentice sat on his high chair, gazing up at the sky, pondering quietly to himself, as if expecting something to ruin the beautiful new day.

From thousands of kilometers above the facility, far above the plain sight of anyone, a single-man air pod fell from the sky, dropping towards the planet at the speed of a Basilisk War Droid. Despite the slight burning at the bottom, it remained stable as it neared the facility and activated the parachute. The pod headed straight for the building, looking as if it held a lone infiltrator.

Three separate radars picked up the pod falling at a slightly slower speed and beeped loudly, alerting everyone of the intrusion. The automated guns, stationed at the top fired away, immediately hitting the parachute and causing the pod to fall at a faster rate and smash against the roof. Despite the heavy impact, the pod remained intact, as if built for such a crash landing. It made a dent in the roof, but it did not penetrate.

Four human soldiers grappled their way up to the rooftop and faced the door of the pod, their itchy fingers on the triggers of their blaster rifles. As they pointed at where they expected the head of the person would be, the airlock around the door began to depressurize and the door fell forward. The four men in plain sight were not in falling range of the door, but they immediately began firing at the inside of the pod, their lasers and gun smoke clouding their vision of what or who was actually inside the pod. They emptied two full clips on the pod, but it only filled the air with more smoke. The commanding officer held his hand up, signaling a cease fire.

When the smoke finally cleared, all four men experienced a shiver of fear in their spines, for the intruder inside the pod was a skeleton. It was a fully built human skeleton that looked like it had recently been burned alive, but the fire was put out just in time to prevent the demolishing of the bone structure. From the looks of it, the ammunition the men had emptied onto it had done absolutely nothing. The men gave each other a perplexed and fearful glance.

Meanwhile, below the facility, at the base of the island, a patrolling guard was walking through a blind spot between two of the guard towers outside. A small metal star blade cut through the air and landed in his throat. As the guard fell, a shadowy figure jumped over him and leapt high, ascending several stories of the facility and gripping the wall right underneath the window. As the stealthy individual flipped through the window, the star blade embedded in the fallen guard's neck was Force pulled.

On that same floor, the bunks and sleeper rooms housed the men. At the very end of the hall was a public bunk room with one soldier who was sleeping. His alarm suddenly began to buzz in excitement. With his eyes still closed, he leaned to his left and reached his hand out, finding the reset button. Rubbing his eyes, the soldier opened them and then gasped in a fright, seeing a young scary looking man with a hooded face and moderately dark clothing standing before him.

"Good morning," said the man. As he finished, he dealt a heavy backhand slap to the man's face and then with both hands, smashed two hammer fists downward, pulverizing the man's upper rib cage. The force of this strike bent and pushed the upper four ribs inward, pressing against his lungs, suffocating him. The soldier gagged and crocked as the man jumped up towards the ceiling, into the ventilation shaft. "And good night."

He quickly crawled through the ventilation ducts until coming to the elevator shaft. The elevator was slowly coming up and past him, docking on the floor right above him. The man jumped up and grabbed the bottom of the elevator, placing both his hands in a firm grip while he dangled below it. The elevator slowly descended, and with the Force, the man could see that there was one military officer inside the elevator and he was heading to the basement. As the elevator neared the bottom, the man swung his feet and vaulted off, landing feet first into the ventilation duct right above that floor. Crawling through the duct, he came across a room with two soldiers in it. They had just finished changing and one of them was washing his hands.

"Yeah I know," said one of them. "Shark's going to go insane when he finds out about the skeleton…if he hasn't found out already."

"I've never seen him flip out before," said the other.

"I did," said the soldier but he was given a look of disbelief. "It wasn't pretty. He grabbed the guy and threw him head-first out the window and into the water."

"Why not just Force lightning that guy in front of everyone? That would have made a better impression."

"Well Shark's just unpredictable like that. He threw the guy out the window for questioning his orders in front of the whole room. And then he went: Do you know who I am! I am the Grand Sire's one and only apprentice. My will is second only to his, and if anyone should think otherwise, I'll be happy to teach you the same lesson as I did him. Is that understood!"

"Nice impression," said the other. "You remembered the words?"

"You don't forget something like that. I mean, the guy probably deserved it and all, but it was crazy, because you wouldn't have seen it coming."

"Wow, what an ass."

"Careful," said the soldier mockingly. "One word from me, and Shark might just come down here himself and gouge your eyes out in front of everyone."

"Yeah yeah, I know." They laughed as they exited the room. The man dropped down into the room as the door closed.

Peering out the window, he noticed the same officer walking down the hallway. He opened the other door slightly ajar and as the officer blindly walked by, he stuck his hands out and grabbed him. The man pulled the officer in and twisted his neck twice before he could make a sound and dragged him into the room, stuffing him into an empty locker, but not before taking his security clearance card.

As he turned the corner, he sensed a security camera. He unclipped and then re-clipped the wire, cutting off the camera's feed for a split second with the Force, as he darted past it with ease. At the end of the hallway, was a locked door with a level five clearance requirement. Scanning the card, the door did not budge.

"Hmm?" said the man to himself as he scanned the card again but the door beeped red and did not open. He looked at the scanner and then at the card to see if he was doing it right, but he scanned one more time. The door beeped red and a loud alarm went off, lighting the halls in flashing red.

"Ah hell," he said as he Force blasted the door open. The door flew through its hinges and smashed into the wall. A single computer engineer was working at the mainframe with one soldier supervising him. The guard reached for his pistol but the man flicked open his left wrist blade and jumped up, jabbing the blade into the guard's right eye and grabbing the pistol from him.

"You have five seconds to put this drive into the mainframe before I burn a hole through your head." The flabbergasted engineer nearly fumbled the memory stick he was tossed. "Five….four….three…!"

"Okay it's in!" yelled the engineer as he raised his hands to the back of his head.

"Download it…" The engineer did not move, for he was scared for his life. "NOW!"

"Alright alright!" he yelled. "Damn it," he whispered as he began the downloading process. The terrified servant was cursing and panting to himself. "What is this?"

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with." The engineer felt as if the apprentice himself had come down and threatened to spill his guts for pleasure.

"Look…Revan right?" The man made no reply but merely kept the pistol aimed at his face. "Look…if Shark comes down here, we're both dead…and I mean, you're supposed to be dead already right?"

"Shut up." The download finished and suddenly the computer screens began to fuzz and a red text encrypted code filled the screens. Once the download was finished, the stick self destructed in the compartment. "This ought to calm you down." He gripped the gun by the barrel and pistol whipped him across the face, knocking him out.

The young revanchist darted back down the hallway and entered the stairwell.

"It's done," he said through his earpiece communicator.

The reply came from his rescue, Cassandra Vesta. "I've got your exit. Sixth floor…take one of the water speeders and head down the river. I'll pick you up at the end."

He smiled. "See you there."

Dustil Onasi, the son of Republic war hero Carth Onasi began vaulting himself upward, flipping over the stair railings. He was dressed in dark blue gear. It was his custom self-made armor, made mostly from Echani fibers and woven with Mandalorian Iron, making it nearly indestructible to lightsabers or the Force. There were heavy metal pads on his shoulders that he put on specifically for melee, but aside from that, the garbs were light and comfortable. There was no heavy chest plate or steel boots like Revan. His sleeves were partially rolled but his black polyester gloves wrapped over them and a short wrist blade attached. Below his waist, the top part stretched slightly downward almost like an overcoat, but not so long as to be a cape or skirt. His dark blue pants were made of the same material, stretching down to his feet like a jumpsuit. It ensured stealth, for his shoes did not clank when he ran. He wore a cup to protect his groin and a utility belt, filled with grenades, knives and star blades. Strangely enough however, he bore no lightsaber or any kind of long blade.

As Dustil made it to the sixth floor, the door opened and two guards rushed in to ambush him. Dustil slammed the door in the face of the first one and grabbed the second one, hurling him backwards and over the ledge. Dustil turned left and ran straight into the room at the end of the hall. As he entered and shut the door, Cavix Sharkraw was strangling a helpless soldier with a line of soldiers on the right side of the room watching. Sharkraw looked at him.

"So this is the little rodent that's been running around my facility. Revan…you're alive…and you changed your appearance. It's a shame…I rather liked your old armor."

"Me?" said Dustil with an ascending smile. "Revan's dead, and I'm sure his armor is too, if all the stories are true."

"I'm going to make an example out of you!"

"We'll see," said Dustil as he pulled a grenade out of the back of his belt and chucked it at him. Sharkraw swerved to the side, causing it to explode in the face of all the soldiers. Dustil vaulted off the ground, flipping over Sharkraw and landing on the other side of him. As he landed, he took both of his star blades and hurled them at him. Sharkraw caught them with his hands and hurled them both back at Dustil.

Dustil grunted as he bent himself backwards, limbo dodging them, while the two blades went straight into the window. Turning around, Dustil charged forward and dove straight through the semi-broken glass and onto the platform below. The glass shattered and fell with him, but Dustil rolled and jumped before they could hit. He turned about to see the apprentice following closely behind him.

Dashing forward and taking the nicest speeder that he saw, he jumped into the single seat and primed the engines. Switching to forward gear Dustil accelerated and took the speeder straight off the platform and into the river, heading east. With the current on his side, Dustil accelerated, heading straight downriver.

"NO NO, NO!" yelled Sharkraw. "That's my speeder!" Jumping into the one next to where it was originally parked, Sharkraw took off into the water in pursuit.

Dustil laughed aloud as he increased his speed to nearly full throttle. Sharkraw's face turned from orange to red as he maxed out his engines, his head fuming with rage.

"Attention! Our intruder has escaped! Whatever damage he did, undo it immediately! Alert the other communicators as well and let them know of our status. This is a direct order from the apprentice himself! If things aren't fixed, I will personally crucify random members of the security team!"

Dustil kept his speed consistent, but he noticed that Sharkraw was slightly gaining on him. Sharkraw used the Force to send rocks from the nearby cliff down at Dustil himself. Dustil swerved and ducked to dodge. Seeing a straightaway ahead of him, Dustil turned around and pulled the pistol he had taken from the guard in the basement. Dustil fired continuously at Sharkraw, but the apprentice merely swiped each laser bolt away and sent the last few back at him. Dustil dodged them, but Sharkraw was still gaining on him.

Attempting to get him off his back, Dustil activated the depth charges and then ignited the afterburner. The charges blew in the water, but Sharkraw had already veered straight upward, sending his speeder into the air, flying over the explosions. The afterburner wore off as Dustil came to the end of the straight away and steered with the current. Sharkraw came down and landed in the water very close behind him.

"Damn you for making me do this!" yelled Sharkraw as he sent two underwater torpedoes straight for Dustil. Dustil veered to the left and to the right trying to shake off the torpedoes, but they stayed hot on his trail. Looking at the controls, Dustil submerged the speeder underwater and threw it into a frenzied spin. The two torpedoes that were locked on spun around each other along with the speeder and eventually collided with each other in an underwater cannonball splash explosion as Dustil re-emerged.

Dustil shook the water off his head and looked back to see Sharkraw almost within arm's reach of him. Switching to full throttle, Dustil rocketed ahead of him while tossing his last grenade backwards. This time, Sharkraw leapt off the speeder and landed high atop the cliff on the right side as it exploded. Dustil slowed back to his speed before and veered left at the approaching river fork.

"Cass, I'm almost out! Are you in position!"

"I see you," said Cassandra. "Maneuvering pattern echo – you know the drill." A little more than a kilometer ahead of him, was a two kilometer high waterfall. It was very wide, like the river Dustil was on, but the water raged downward as if never ending.

Dustil looked to the right and then to his left to see that Sharkraw had jumped to the other side of him. He was now running beside the river at the same speed that Dustil was travelling at. Dustil looked back to his controls to see that the afterburner was still recharging. It was slowly rising to the top from 88%.

"Come on, come on!" yelled Dustil out loud. The edge of the river was now dead ahead, several hundred meters in front of him. Sharkraw was still running alongside Dustil and was now charging up a massive bolt of red lightning. As he aimed and shot it towards him, Dustil increased to full throttle, charging ahead quickly, the lightning barely missing him.

As the afterburner approached 96%, the edge was now a few hundred meters in front of him. The meter read 97%...98%...99%...100%.

The split second it reached max, Dustil activated the afterburner and flew straight over the edge. Past the raging water and into open air the speeder began to fall at an incredible speed, Dustil clinging to the handlebars for his life and dangling upward.

Sharkraw cursed and screamed as he stood over the edge of the cliff overlooking the falls. Dustil vaulted off the speeder as it fell to its imminent doom. While still falling, Dustil reached his hand all the way forward to the approaching Outrider. His hand caught onto the lowered ramp of the floating vessel and Dustil gripped it with all his might. Pulling himself up and onto the ramp, Dustil began moving further in.

"Go!" he cried as Cassandra put it into full thrust and the Outrider jetted into the sky. As Dustil kept moving in, he looked back to see a massive boulder heading straight for the ship. Without even thinking, he used the Force and grabbed onto the boulder, stopping it from hitting the ship, and then threw it straight backward. He was too far away to see the impact, but he knew not to underestimate the famed apprentice.

Meanwhile, a thick red aura floated around Sharkraw's fuming state of being. His sick yellow eyes beamed up at the sky with hatred and malice. He stood for hours and the longer he stared up at the empty sky, the more violent his thoughts became.

The Outrider hit hyperspace the moment it cleared Lazoris atmo. Dustil sighed and gave himself a smug grin.

"Oh, don't do that," said Cassandra, looking back at him with her own cheerful smile. "You haven't won yet. We could get intercepted and torn to pieces in hyperspace."

"And the odds of that happening are one in…a very large number," replied Dustil. "We're still dead, remember?"

"We keep this up, the Sith'll figure it out and come after us hard."

"And I'll be there to keep you safe and warm."

"Well I am a little cold…" Cassandra didn't even need to say that considering her relationship with Dustil as it was now. Dustil tilted her head back from the top of the seat and kissed her upside down.

"You ever going to let me fly this thing?"

"Nah, not really. Besides, you have other things to worry about. I know you haven't done your daily meditations yet."

"Meditations can wait – what Revan doesn't know won't hurt me."

Cassandra laughed. "If you took the same attitude to your training earlier on, you might not have gotten me."

"Oh alright," said Dustil and he pecked her lips one more time as he walked away.

An hour passed and Cassandra pulled the ship out of hyperspace into the Nagai system. Immediate contact was established with the rebels and the response man was happy to see them.

"How is it that even though all you did was fly the ship you always have that look on your face like you haven't slept the previous night?"

"Because Jace, thanks to someone whose every failed experiment turns into an explosion…" They both shared a laugh.

"I can tell my virus worked," said Jace. "That'll get our own database synced up with theirs and at the very least, triple source every piece of intel we get on them from now on."

"This mission seemed a bit more…overt than usual." But Jace gave her a look to hint that she shouldn't worry about it – as if he had already taken care of everything. "Am I clear?"

"You even have to ask?" Cassandra smirked and cut transmission.

Nagai was not a planet built to withstand civilization but the artificially drilled caverns beneath the icy surface housed a slowly growing military industrial complex from the ashes of the Kraxis Rebellion.

What was once less than fifteen had over the past three years grown to about two hundred strong. The infrastructure of the base was enhanced accordingly and the power and heat generators designed by Jace Myrther had done their trick of making it comfortable enough to work with. What was tricky about this was that these soldiers tended to have a much more structured and even somewhat overzealous discipline when the overall temperature was lower than normal because their bodies had to be moving and the drive to work would be increased.

But at the same time it was problematic because of their recruiting procedures. Secrecy was absolutely the biggest challenge for an organization attempting to grow itself and the bigger it got, the harder it could conceal itself. A well known constantly moving fleet was much more attractive to locate the potential for dissidence among the populations – much more than an underground hole in an empty ice planet with similar cold conditions inside. Second Lieutenant Yuthura Ban had hoped to have found a happy medium in the temperature but it was but a small remedial task in an otherwise extremely non-trivial set of duties and tasks to manage. It was indeed why she was appointed for the job.

The way they had grown in membership was thanks to the former second in command of the old rebellion, Archie Saww. He stealthily scoured the outer planets of the Sith empire looking for dissenters and troublemakers to the regime. When he'd find them, he'd do enough studying to determine whether it was a trap or not, and if they checked out, he'd quickly nab them before they could draw too much of the Sith's attention. With Jace's help, he'd quickly slap out any grand ideas for rebellion they might have and get them on their side. Then he would use them to recruit their contacts and friends into joining. Compiling all these dissidents into one big ice cave might have seemed like a challenge but the structured organization and strong physical training, working, and leadership quickly brought on loyalty and dedication from their new members.

But Revan could not be fooled. If the current situation could be summarized into a book, the positives would occupy about one in every 100 pages of negatives. The size of the rebellion now was less than a tenth of what it used to be and three years seemed to have gone by at the drop of a hat. He couldn't sit forever and only be able to actually fight the enemy when he reached Jolee's age before his death, and those people he recruited were also not going to wait forever. This was an uphill operation from the start and there was no margin for error at all. As was expected they had sooner had more weapons than soldiers who could use them and with the exception of the Outrider and a few squadrons of snub crafts for shuttling cargo and personnel, they also might as well have been stranded. He felt like a marooned pirate trying to get off the island without the resources to make a raft big enough for all his furry friends.

There was so much to do and so little to work with. The hopes and ambitions they had when they pledged to revive the rebellion and bring down the Sith were getting dimmer and dimmer and the fact that they were dead was of no consolation. He needed to find followers, win the support of big groups. Groups that may well have resources they don't. This individual recruiting wasn't going to be good enough. Revan found himself pacing the floor more often than he probably should of, but his power as a leader rested in his charisma but before that, his innovation and ideas. The rebellion as it was now could be handled between Yuthura and Trek so long as Revan himself didn't run out of energy.

Cassandra set the Outrider down in the designated docking bay in the Nagai base. The shielded blast doors closed above it as the ramp opened.

"Welcome back," said Jace who was waiting for them both. Dustil shook his hand. "Come on…Revan is waiting."