Revan's Story Chapter 72: Lord of the Sith, a star wars fanfic

Chapter 72: Lord of the Sith

Alec was gone. Dorak was gone, Jolee, Juhani, and hundreds of thousands of other people, some of whom she'd known, most of whom she hadn't. And still millions more displaced, their lives broken. She just wanted to lie there and not move for a while, stop pushing for a while. The deck was cold against the side of her face and stable, a small relief from her concussion, while the Force slowly went to work on her injuries.

But she couldn't stay here. Even ignoring the thought of being slowly devoured by this place, the Sith were still out there. Only, the thought of moving was . . . unappealing. Her right knee was a mess, and her right leg still had that hairline fracture. Her left foot was broken. Not fun.

Still . . . She took a slow breath, braced herself, and reached out to the Force. She gasped as her shoulder set itself, then grit her teeth as she focused on her left foot, forcing the bone to fuse itself back together.

She gasped and the Force slipped away once more. That was all she had, for the moment. She hauled herself upright, listing heavily to the side. And then she started to walk, hissing each time she half-hopped, half stepped on her mangled right side. It took a long time, but eventually she made it to the lift, which took her back down to the main floor. Unfortunately, she still had a long way to go.

Admiral Krelick managed not to pace on the bridge of the Leviathan, but only just. Instead he sat tensely, squeezing the armrests of his command chair. What is going on in there? It seemed like it had been days since he'd heard from Lord Malak, but his chrono continued to insist that it had been only a couple of hours.

It must be over by. It just has to be. But . . . what does that mean? Come on, think! Okay, what do you know didn't happen? Whoever won, they must be injured, maybe even dead, or they'd have said something by now. But which one? Or . . . did it matter, really?

There were no more Sith on the Leviathan. In fact, there weren't very many Sith in the fleet they'd managed to put together here total. And when you removed all those that had been on the Star Forge itself . . .

He hesitated, wavering back and forth, and then nodded to himself. Moments like these were once-in-a-lifetime.

He activated his com and flicked it over to a private call. He nodded twice, "As you command, my lord," and ticked it off again. "We have just received a signal from Lord Malak. He and the enemy are both badly wounded, and he has left station in an escape pod. We are ordered to destroy the entire station immediately. All ships, take up your positions."

He got a few surprised looks from the crew, but nobody objected. They'd seen too many things, and done too many things, to hesitate now. Besides, he couldn't have made use of the cursed place anyways.

Revan stumbled as the station trembled from incoming fire and crashed to the deck with a gasp. It seemed that somebody had decided they'd be better off without her or Malak in charge. The Forge shook again. Again.

She grimaced, forced herself back to her feet, and kept hobbling forward as the world shook around her. This wasn't looking good.

Just keep moving.

Movement Detected.

Weapons present.

Hostile indications detected

Probability of enemy detection of unit HK-47: 100%

Disengaging system hack.

Disengaging…

Disengaged.

Hyperspace travel detected.

Threat to Priority Alpha One eliminated.

Primary Mission: Complete

Updating objectives: escape and evasion

Evading.

Eva—

Warning: major system damage detected

Warning: capture and interrogation presents risk to Priority Alpha One

Deep Layer Protocol Activated

Backing up temporary memory into deep layer storage systems.

Backing up…

Warning: catastrophic system damage detected.

Aborting memory backup procedure.

Deleting memory.

Deleting…

Delet—

An ion blast smashed the droid back to the floor, and two more heavy blaster bolts tore deep into the motivator circuits and logic processors, and at last, the blood-red eyes of HK-47 went dim.

"New ship detected on scope. All ships, hold your fire. That must be Lord Malak on the escape pod."

Admiral Krelick's heart froze. "What did you say?"

The officer hesitated, surprised by his admiral's sudden sharpness. "Um, I said that we detected a new signal, sir. As you said, Lord Malak was supposed to be on one, and I assumed . . . hold on." He looked back down at his console, eyes narrowing at the readings. "Only . . . it seems to be going to the planet? Why would he do that?"

Krelick breathed again. "It's not Malak, you fool! It's Revan, trying to escape. Open fire!"

The gunnery officer looked up. "I'm sorry sir, she's out of range."

Krelick swore. "Follow her, follow her! She must be on one of those fighters, so she can run, but she can't hide. And out here in the middle of nowhere, she has nowhere to go. All ships, close on me and prepare to lay siege to the planet. Planetary bombardment formation. One way or another, she goes down today."

Carth and Saul watched as the Sith armada took up a formation that was all too familiar to both of them, if for different reasons, while they waited at the top of the temple for Revan's fighter to land. The ship touched down at last and the hatch opened. What they didn't expect was for Revan to fall out it.

She hit hard and made a sound somewhere between a groan and a gasp, hard enough for the mask to come loose and clunk to the ground.

Carth and Saul dashed over to her, helping her to sit upright while she leaned heavily against them. Her hair was greasy and plastered to her ghostly pale, sweat-slicked face. Her hands trembled, and she was clearly struggling to breath. "Hey, are you alright? We need to get you to these people's medical wing."

She shook her head, trying to focus. "No . . . No, I'm not alright. I just watched my best friend die. And there's no point getting treatment." She jerked her head upwards. "If we don't do something, they'll kill us all." She tried to stand and collapsed with another gasp.

Saul and Carth helped pulled her upright, half carrying, half being dragged by Revan over to the command console that had deactivated the disruption field.

She simple stood there, both hands braced against the console for support, breathing raggedly. The two of them stood by her side, torn by uncertainty and helplessness. He couldn't see any way out. There was no last-minute escape shuttle. There was no Jedi sacrificing a planet on the other side of the galaxy this time. There was no way out.

They had until the fleet finished getting into the proper formation to live.

Saul seemed to sense it as well, and came to attention. "My Lord, it has been my greatest honor to serve with you."

Revan chuckled with the deadpan, gallows humor they'd both come to know so well. "You're not . . . giving up now . . . are you?"

Carth shrugged helplessly. "But what can we do?"

"Both of you . . . have learned by now . . . that the Jedi . . . are only human. We struggle and fail . . . like everyone else. The popular idea . . . of the Jedi as superheroes . . . is a lie. We have sacrificed . . . a lot . . . to live up to that lie. But sometimes . . . sometimes it's a lie . . . that serves us . . . in return."

Carth and Saul looked at each other, stymied. "I don't understand."

"Get me my mask . . . and you will see."

Carth retrieved it, and she slid it back on over her head and activated the communications systems on the rakatan command console.

She was gasping for air, badly wounded, exhausted, and near death. The mask hid most of it. The title hid the rest.

"To all Sith forces in the system, this is Revan, Lord of the Sith."

"Put it up on the main screen." Krelick looked almost incredulously at the familiar visage of the legendary Darth Revan. She spoke imperiously, invincibly, even as his fleet spread to annihilate every living thing on the planet.

"To all Sith forces in the system, this is Revan, Lord of the Sith. I have defeated the traitor Malak, and the time has come for me to take my rightful place at your head. For too long have you wandered without purpose. I am here to give purpose, to give all our sacrifices meaning once more. Stand down immediately, or be destroyed."

Krelick was dumbfounded. She was bluffing with absolutely nothing to back it up. She had to be. Wasn't she?

The worm of doubt ate its way into him. This was Lord Revan. Only . . . it was impossible. It was literally impossible for her to escape from him now. Right? He keyed his own com, broadcasting back in the clear. "This is Admiral Krelick. You are isolated, your forces scattered. You are helpless before me, and still you think to threaten us into submission? All ships, prepare to open fire."

Revan simply sighed. "Helpless, am I? You forget, admiral. The Force is my ally, and a powerful ally it is." And she reached up a hand.

The Leviathan lurched.

Krelick stumbled, grabbing on to the arms of his command chair to stay upright. The ship lurched again, and started moving. The admiral could only stare in horror. No, no! That's not . . . that's impossible! I've seen Revan and Malak's Force, but they've never been able to do anything like this!

The ship groaned with the sound of stressed metal. Sparks spat from circuits under too much pressure, while the ship was drug bodily out of formation, helplessly spinning down to the planet below. Viewports cracked. Officers and men alike ran screaming, though where they hoped to go he couldn't say. All he could do was stay glued to his command chair as his command tumbled down, down, down, and the metal glowed and warped with the heat of reentry.

It was impossible, and yet he believed it—believed it right up until the final moments of his ship, when he broke free of the grip of her legend to realize what it must be. And as his ship imploded around him, all he could do was laugh.

The fleet was rocked by surprise, uncertainty. They wavered on the edge. And then Yuthura Ban's battle group emerged from hyperspace once more, shields up and ready to fight the impossible odds, and it tipped the scales. They couldn't win. No matter what the odds looked like, it was Lord Revan, and her victory was inevitable.

First one ship killed her drive, then another, then the entire fleet extinguished their engines in the universal sign of surrender, and the Sith had a master once more.

Revan deactivated the Disruptor Field and slid down to the floor, leaning back against the console for support.

"I don't believe it."

Revan pulled off her mask and glanced up at Carth. "Well then, I'm glad . . . you weren't . . . the one in command up there."

Carth sat down next to her, and after a moment Saul joined them. For a while they just sat there, reveling in the fact that they weren't dead. Then Carth spoke up once more. "Well . . . what happens now? Do you return and conquer the Republic? Disband the Sith and go home?"

She shook her head slowly. "No, Carth . . . home . . . the only home I've ever had was with the Jedi . . . but I can never go back. The Sith, my men . . . they can't go home. They sacrificed that . . . for me, for the Republic. And if they can't go back, then neither can I."

"But where will you go?"

Saul smiled. "We will go wherever Lord Revan commands, Carth."

Revan rolled her eyes at him. "Thanks, Saul. But to answer your question, Carth, we will go to fulfill the purpose we have had from the very beginning. Out there, beyond the edge of known space, lie the Sith. The true Sith. I faced their emperor once, and barely escaped with my life. Malak and I returned here to conquer the Republic and prepare it for the fight to come, or to be prepare the Republic as it defeated us. In the end, it wouldn't make a difference if we won or lost, so long as the Republic survived. But all of this . . . I didn't plan for any of it. But here we are, and I will go with my men to defend the Republic once more. And you, Carth—I need you to stay here, to strengthen the Republic. I don't believe we can defeat the Sith, not without help, but we can delay them for months, perhaps for years. That's the best I can do for you now."

"But . . . but how? You have a fleet now, but what about the fuel, the food, the supplies you'll need to fight out in the unknown? You'll be beyond any support."

"Heh . . . what do you think I was doing with the Star Forge all that time while we fought? Malak needed the constant reinforcements to beat you. I did not." She poked her tongue out at him in a moment of youthful glee that was one hundred percent Kyrena, before sobering once more. There are supply depots filled with food, fuel, and weapons out there waiting for us Carth."

She closed her eyes for a long moment to just sit there, to relax and breathe in a moment of victory, a moment of peace.

Then she breathed out, gingerly, and forced herself back up to her feet. Carth handed her the mask, which she slipped over her head once more. "Alright Saul, it is time for us to return to the war. Carth, the Star Forge is destroyed, so the rakatans should patch up the Hawk for you and the others to head home. Look after them for me, will you? And good luck, Carth."

She stuck out a hand.

They shook.

"And may the Force be with you, Revan."

She turned and walked away, her admiral at her side, to continue with the never-ending, impossible mission of being a Jedi, no matter where that road took her.

News of the fleet's defeat arrived while the Senate was in session and sent shockwaves through the entire Republic. Craglift sat in his chair, stunned. Senator Sjiensa of Commenor looked over at him, as if waiting for something. He stared back, confused, then she nodded in affirmative.

What?

Then the Senator stood and took the floor. "My fellow senators, this disaster that has befallen our home fleet, our last line of defense, so far away from home displays a profoundly misguided vision for the Republic."

It dawned on Craglift that Sjiensa hadn't been looking at him. He'd been looking at his secretary, Mylena.

"This is not a moment where we can afford to have incompetent leadership. I move for a vote of no-confidence in the Chancellor."

The chancellor was flabbergasted, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly, as he looked to Craglift in desperation. But as the voices of senators he'd come to rely on, even think about trusting over the years in power together, spoke out one after another in support of the vote, Craglift couldn't look back at his puppet. Instead he sat in his chair and stared in stunned disbelief at Mylena, who smiled back at him as the past forty years of effort, dreams, and power collapsed around him.

He made it to the washroom before he threw up.

And in the moment of his utter ruin, nobody was very surprised when he crashed his aircar on the way home. Nobody looked too closely at the aircar, either.

And the gears of the Republic churned on.

On the distant world of Kashyyyk, Zaalbar took a deep breath of the forest air of home. There were no Czerka workers at the spaceport, only wookies, and he smiled at the sign of progress. And there, waiting for him, were his father and his brother.

He waited a moment before stepping off the small shuttle, thinking on all that had happened. He had visited Mission several times in the days following their return from the battle, and Carth had given him their holonet address to keep in contact. But this was where he was needed, with his people.

Freyrr stepped forward and embraced him warmly. "Welcome home, son. Welcome home."

Admiral Dodonna stood trial for her actions at the Battle of the Star Forge. Admiral Gelkorn doubled down on the charges, adding accusations that she'd deliberately disrupted his communications at the critical moment to take command of the fleet.

With the droid in question destroyed, and with the mass of circumstantial evidence of her disregarding his orders, she was poised to be relieved of duty, dishonorably discharged, and possibly executed. But then highly classified information had leaked, with quiet whispers claiming the leak had come from someone within the senate itself, with the private instructions Gelkorn had received from the deceased Craglift.

The charges were dismissed and Gelkorn was "reassigned" to command the fixed fortifications in orbit over Coruscant in disgrace. Dodonna privately suspected removing Gelkorn had more to do with some political house-cleaning of anyone loyal to the old regime than anything to do with her, but she was just grateful to get out of the affair with her life and command of Silesia's Strength.

"You want me to what?" Carth stared at the newly elected Chancellor Mylena in disbelief at the private meeting to congratulate them on successfully destroying the Star Forge. It was a small affair, mostly a photo op for the political leadership, though it also doubled as a private session with the SIS to make sure everyone had their story straight on how he'd personally led a raid on the Star Forge and planted a bomb which blew up the station and killed both Revan and Malak.

It was utter garbage, but he'd had it . . . impressed upon him how important it was for morale. And who was going to disagree? Mission was still catatonic and Canderous had grown quiet and contemplative as of late; he wasn't going to talk. But this . . .

"We are promoting you to admiral and giving you your own task force."

"But . . . but ma'am, I have zero experience in command of capital ships, much less commanding fleets! I . . . you'd be transferring me out of Fighter Command completey and throwing me into Fleet Command without a clue of what I'm doing."

The Chancellor let her smile drop. "I know. But to be frank, I don't care. You're a lot more valuable as a symbol than as a military asset. The Republic desperately needs something to go right, and at the moment, you're what I've got. I'm told you're loyal to the Republic . . ." she glanced down at her datapad, "Admiral Onasi. Now, will you do your duty to the Republic, or not?"

He grimaced, then paused. "Alright . . . but I have a few conditions."

The Chancellor didn't even blink as a military officer made demands on his commander-in-chief. Was this how things were now in the Republic? Or was this how they'd always been, and he just hadn't been able to see it?

"Name them."

Bastila stood in the Room of a Thousand Fountains at the heart of the Jedi Tower once more. It was quiet now, the fountains silenced in respect for the thousands of fallen Jedi, both those dead and those lost.

She move through the room sadly, trailing a hand on the cool green vines that ran along her chosen walkway. The Jedi Order had taken a devastating blow. Where before there had been thousands, now there but hundreds of them. Many of their best and wisest had fallen. It would be generations before they could take stock of the loss of priceless institutional knowledge, of the lessons that would never be taught, of the lives across the galaxy that would never be saved, the crisis that would not be resolved.

She sighed and took a seat on a beautifully sculpted bench.

And yet, for all of that, for all their desperate need, she wouldn't be able to help them. She couldn't. She'd . . . she'd done things she'd never have imagined she would be capable of, both for the good, and for the bad. She was only just starting to learn who she really was. But what she did know was that she wasn't ready, might not ever be ready, to take her place among the Jedi again.

She needed to grieve for her mother, given back only to be stolen away again. Needed to come to terms with the decisions she'd made. Needed to learn who she was and what she believed in. The leadership, almost the entire remaining Jedi Order, was heading to a conference on the world of Katarr to commune with the Force and decide the best way to proceed.

But she wouldn't be there.

Bastila climbed to her feet again, restless, and wandered on through the empty halls once more, still not sure what she was looking for. And somewhere, in a tiny corner of the back of her mind, she could still feel her bondmate out there in the depths of space.

On a distant world the sun was setting at a training center set at the heart of a jungle. Dozens of people, young and old, followed a training kata centuries old, in perfect harmony as a soft rap came at the door. The master did not budge, instead continuing on with the exercise, leading the group through to the finish.

Then she moved to the door and opened it wide for all to see, for there were no secrets here. She smiled in pleasant surprise. "Master Duncan, you have returned to us."

He smiled. "I have seen many things, and at last I have returned home. Would you like to hear my tale?"

The next few years passed in a blur of activity for Carth. He went through a crash course of combined small fleet tactics, large fleet tactics, leadership training, and a half-dozen other things he could only half remember. He went to photoshoots, kissed babies, talked to thousands of cameras for hours and watched as they condensed it into four second soundbites, went to fundraisers, celebrity dinners, and generally spent every waking hour just trying to keep up.

He'd barely had time to say goodbye when Canderous took the Hawk and wandered off with T3, off to seek new adventures. And in the mountains of paperwork he'd had to review and sign, he missed the small footnote in an addendum that noted the transfer of the remains of the droid saboteur from Home One to the Hawk just before it left.

And, for reasons Carth couldn't quite fathom, the Republic seemed to decide that the abrupt drop-off of Sith aggression coinciding with his promotion was not just coincidence. That it was because of something he was doing. It was absurd. He was still figuring out to tell his new ship to start and stop moving without crashing into anything! But he couldn't come out and say otherwise. The thought of what it would do to morale was terrifying, and any hope of setting the record straight went out the window when the new Chancellor started "denying" it with a nod and a wink.

It was a mess, all of it. But at least one thing was going right.

He took a deep breath and stepped into the astoundingly large apartment his army of assistants kept insisting was his. There in the living room was a medical bed on which lay a small, huddled form. He knelt next to it and forced a smile on his face. "Hey, Blue. Hope you're feeling better today. Mine was absolutely rotten."

She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. Better, certainly better than she'd been, but still not talking. Stars she was amazing, her unbreakable spirit even trying to fight through this. He nodded and turned to glance at his son, Dustil, who'd fallen asleep on the couch next to her bed. The boy, no, the man had been spending a surprising amount of his time trying to coax Mission back to a sense of normalcy, for which he was both grateful and . . . well, he still wasn't quite sure how he felt about it. And he certainly didn't have the time to sit down and think about it.

He sighed once more and made himself climb back to his feet with a wince as the ever present pain shot through his knee. If only he had more time.

It had been all he could do to insist that his schedule be cleared for a few minutes each day to stop by and visit her (which turned out to be much harder than he'd have thought for someone with as much nominal command authority as he could wave around these days). An adoption for Mission and a pardon for Dustil had been his conditions for this insane promotion, and he was grateful every day for making that choice.

Now all he had to do was somehow find a way to keep the Republic together.

He knew what the Republic needed right now—not a man or woman, not a leader, not even a figurehead—they needed a living legend, an impossible myth.

What they needed was a Jedi.

Unfortunately, the Jedi weren't talking with the Republic these days. They'd retreated to their sanctuaries, completely withdrawn from public life, embittered by their treatment at the Republic's hands, though few of them knew why their close relationship had broken down so spectacularly.

But there might be something . . . way out on the edge of Republic space, he'd heard whispers of one more, one last Jedi that might be willing to work with him.

He put his dress uniform cap back on his head, turned, and marched out to the aircar waiting to take him to the shuttle bay, where a shuttle was waiting to take him up to his flagship, the Sojourn, which in turn was waiting on him inthe hope that somehow he could find the answer.

Stars he was tired. Tired of the deals, of the lies, of all of it. And yet, somewhere out there, far beyond the edges of known space, Revan was still fighting, perhaps right now, this very moment, putting her life on the line to save a Republic and the Jedi she would never see again. To save him.

And so long as she was out there, faithful to the end, how could he do any less? No, so long as she lived, doing her impossible duty, still seeing the good in the Republic he was finding it more and more difficult to find, then he would keep following her orders to hold it together for her.

For Revan, for all she'd given both for him and for the Republic, it was the least he could do.

THE END

The story continues with Lost and Found, and will be concluded in a short epilogue for both Revan and Meetra in a totally AU rewrite of the confrontation with the Sith Emperor, because Bioware's writers gutted their characters to try to make you feel cool as a nameless Jedi in the MMO.

A/N: At long last, we've reached the end. Thank you for hanging in there with me on this journey that started four-and-a-half years ago. I've poured a lot of myself into this story, to the point that I consider it semi-autobiographical, as bizarre as that sounds. So many of the moments of crisis, the contemplations of faith and meaning, are my own, and many of those that aren't are based directly on the experiences of others I've spoken with.

And none of this would have been possible without you, the handful of faithful readers that stuck it out with me to the very end. It is no exaggeration to say that I would never have gotten here without your positive, enthusiastic reviews, and I wanted to take a moment to thank some of you individually who have been willing to let me bounce ideas off you.

Very special thanks to:

RB23G

Ether-Fanfic

LadyAshenGray

Ioialoha

RaiderWolf

Lordban

Jilaco1965

Chrosis

Caffacoffee

Author2be3

and many more! (Sorry if I forgot you! It wasn't intentional, I promise!) Thank you so much, and let me know if I dropped any story threads you'd like me to add in here. Thanks again!

Sincerely,

Ender Mahe