Post #791941

Entry Twelve

As the tale goes, I brought a comatose Darth Revan to the Dantooine Enclave where the Jedi concocted a risky plan: suppress Revan's memories and implant in him the personality of a basic soldier. If we gained his trust, he may incrementally remember where the Sith were generating their fleets and tell us.

Admiral Dodonna requested I take command of the capital ship Endar Spire. I accepted. She sent me on a patrol of shipping lanes where Sith interdictor cruisers frequently ambushed Republic carriers. I placed Stroud Solman aka Revan on the Spire and set out with a full complement. Twenty interdictors attacked us. I and my soldiers destroyed a dozen and the rest fled.

Over the planet Taris, however, Sith flagship the Leviathan appeared and inflicted heavy damage on the Spire. I was forced to flee alone in an escape pod which crash-landed in the Undercity of Taris. Disoriented as I climbed out, I was met with scavengers who captured me and sold me as a slave to Brejik of the swoop gang the Black Vulkars. Brejik's men placed a neural-inhibitor collar on my neck and trapped me in a cage where I was displayed as prize for the winner of the next swoop race.

Stroud turned out to be the victor. He'd escaped the burning Spire with Carth Onasi. Brejik wanted to keep me, though. Stroud and I defeated the gangsters. We rendezvoused with Carth Onasi and their companions, the sassy Twi'lek teenager Mission Vao and her Wookiee companion Zalbaar. We needed a way off the planet and through the Sith blockade.

In a cantina we met a Mandalorian named Canderous Ordo who helped hatch a plot to find us all a ship, the Ebon Hawke. He took us as guests to the estate of criminal lord Davik. We killed mercenaries who blocked our path to the docking bay. The structure falling down around us and the ground quaking, we ran to the Ebon Hawke and escaped Taris. Darth Malak, aboard the orbiting Leviathan, had ordered the destruction of the entire planet.

We took refuge on Dantooine where the Council deemed this Stroud Solman a Force-sensitive and began to train him. I helped to brandish his dueling skills and answer his questions of Jedi ideals, hoping to cement this new personality as dominant in his brain.

Master Zhar Leston sent Stroud to deal with Juhani, a Cathar padawan who had fallen to the Dark Side and begun to taint the native wildlife with her evil. Stroud, Carth, and Canderous encountered packs of malicious Kath Hounds, slew them, and found Juhani. Stroud convinced her to turn away from the darkness and re-embrace the Jedi way, an impressive feat for an amnesiac Sith Lord. Leston promoted Stroud to padawan.

The Council sent Stroud and I to an ancient temple where we fought Rakatan droids guarding a Star Map. The artifact indicated five other planets. We left on the Ebon Hawke to piece together the rest of the Star Map that would lead us to the Forge.

Stroud chose first Kashyyyk. We entertained Wookiee crewmate Zalbaar's family drama in order to reach the forest floor, promising his clan brother that we'd deal with their rebellious father Freyyr. We met hermit and human Jedi Jolie Bendo who, in exchange for our expelling Zerka Corp's local occupation, led us to the Star Map at a Rakatan ruin. Stroud killed Freyyr against my orders. He had gone through the trouble of redeeming Juhani on Dantooine. What was his game?

Secondly, we voyaged to Tatooine where, on our way through the spaceport Anchorhead we purchased the assassin droid HK-47. It was here that I reunited with my mother who'd been there on a treasure hunt. Stroud and I traversed vast deserts, fought hoards of Tusken Raiders, and found the Star Map in a Krayt Dragon cave. My father's remains lay in the same place. Stroud held me for a few moments.

I hated Revan for his betrayal of the Republic, for everything he had done to civilians. I had admittedly left him to die on the Endar Spire, feeling proud to have rid the galaxy of his evil as I plummeted to Taris. The Living Force or fate or destiny or whatever. . . showed itself to be sadistic.

We boarded the Ebon Hawke and set course for Korriban. After landing in Dreshdae, Stroud approached me in the cockpit where I co-piloted for Carth.

- - -

"What are your thoughts on this place?" Stroud was dressed in light combat armor, durable and stylized plates over major muscles, tough fabric underneath. His pants highlighted his shapely posterior... a distraction on missions. The man had short black hair, combed back and gelled, a spit-curl hanging down, and for his face a goatee which he trimmed every morning. His squared jaw and forehead, his prominent and angular features, gave him a sophisticatedly masculine though dangerous aura.

"Korriban is the birth place of the Sith." I stood beside the co-pilot seat and faced Stroud, myself in a basic form-fitting but modest body suit. "There are secrets here best left buried."

Carth Onasi rose from the pilot's chair. "The homeworld of the Sith isn't a place you want to spend any more time on than you have to." He was an honest soldier with an honest face, built body clothed in conservative military attire. Still a young man, his cynicism could spread across a lifetime. "I say we keep our profiles low and high-tail it off this rock ASAP."

Stroud regarded Carth with a hint of amusement and turned to me. "Our vision revealed that the Map rests inside a tomb. Korriban is a world of tombs. We had best start, eh?"

Carth clicked his tongue. "Won't some Sith recognize you, Bastila? You've been their prime target since this war started."

"I should stay behind." I tapped my lower lip with an index finger. "Take Jolie and Juhani along, Stroud, if you will. They can provide you spiritual support when you feel the lure of the Dark Side." Korriban presented a real problem. The Sith would in fact recognize me and send repeated squadrons against our party until they captured me, but the heavy concentration of Dark Side energies on this planet may summon Darth Revan from within Stroud Solman. I needed to keep a close watch on him.

"What if I should prefer to take Juhani and you, Bastila?" He put his hands behind his back and tilted his head to the side.

"Did you hear what I said?" Carth sounded quite annoyed. "Her showing her face would compromise the mission."

Stroud said, "Jolie has been a hermit for many years on Kashyyyk, outside the Jedi Order for longer than I've been alive. Where lectures are concerned, Bastila is better equipped than that crotchety man. And once in a while I do heed her wisdom." He winked at me.

"Then we shall risk it."

I locked myself in the crew quarters and stripped. During missions, we looted objects from our dead enemies we thought may be useful in the future. I pulled on the snug outfit of a Sith Assassin. We'd encountered a group of them back on Tatooine.

Stroud and Juhani waited by the loading ramp.

"Thank you," he said. "I know this must be frightening. But we have each other."

I covered my head with the hood and my lower face with its mask. The ramp lowered.

- - -

We learned from a Sith guard that to enroll at the academy we would need to speak with Yuthura Ban at the cantina. Once there, we spotted a Twi'lek woman in a plain uniform standing in a corner. Juhani and I took seats while Stroud walked over and began speaking with Ban. I heard snatches of what was said as I watched them in my peripheral and stole glances. She evidently suspected him to hide a great power and wanted to learn more about him. They smiled and chuckled together. I grit my teeth.

"All right." The man came over and sat down beside me. He lowered his voice. "We're in. I convinced the deputy that you are my slaves. While we're at the academy, you should both refer to me as master."

Juhani, a feline humanoid, scratched at the fur of her face. "Should I dress in something more revealing?"

Stroud smiled. "I was thinking bikinis for the both of you. A face veil for our friendly assassin, of course."

I gently kicked him under the table. "Pfft. Now I understand why you wanted to bring us along. But we'll keep our current outfits, thank you."

We exited the Dreshdae compound and, outside in the dry desert air, traveled down a ramp onto a dusty flat. Ahead, a bridge spanned over a canyon ravine to another flat fronting the academy entrance, a stone slab door sunken into a metallic wall which was built into a cliff. I looked to my left and saw dust like fog swirl across a vast scenery of table mountains and boulders. Though mid-day, the skies had a feeling of evening as sunlight burned at worn clouds. Ancient dark emotions pulsated at the heart of this planet, infecting the crust, the structures. . . and certainly the inhabitants.

Inside the main chamber of the academy we stopped among several other new students. At the center stood a man with a bald, intricately-tattooed head and sleep-starved eyes. He introduced himself as the headmaster and told us that we would likely die in the trial ahead. He said that to become Sith, we would need to prove an impressive understanding of the Sith ways. Yuthura, the deputy, gave us a quick tour of the various wings. There were student quarters, a training room, and a dungeon where a suspension-field tube glowed next to a raised console.

Later, our trio claimed an empty room and sat on the bed. "Watch and listen for missions of prestige that may take us to the tombs," Stroud whispered. "We'll find the Map eventually. If not within the next few days, then I'll speed up the process."

Juhani and I accompanied him wherever he went in the academy. My first clue that something had gone awry with Stroud Solman came but an hour after we had arrived. He approached Headmaster Wynn and they spoke of ways to gain prestige. Stroud recited a poem. . . using a foreign language.




I focused on my breath, staving off worry, as I followed my leader. He took us to the dungeon where a student at the console interrogated a prisoner.

The boy turned a knob. The naked man in the suspension-field yelled as electricity wreathed his body for five seconds.

"Where did you hide the stolen cache, Mandalorian? Tell me, damn it, or I'll turn this to full power and give you an agonizing death."

"A Mandy, you say?" Stroud went to beside the student. "Allow me."

"Think you can crack him? Best of luck." The boy moved to give him access to the console.

Stroud spent a few minutes asking questions and turning knobs. The prisoner begged for the torture to stop, revealing the cache to be hidden under the deck plates of his ship.

The student switched on his saber and smirked. "I'll be giving the information to Wynn."

"Oh, I'm sure." Stroud flung out his hand and Force-pushed the boy into a wall, killing him. I sensed dread from Juhani. The Cathar looked at me, silently asking that we take action.

I went to the man and put my mouth close to his ear. "You and I need to speak privately."

"I have everything under control, dear." He gave me a reassuring smile, patted me on the back, and walked out of the chamber.

"Come on," I said to Juhani. "It's only a matter of time before someone in authority here asks that I remove my mask and hood. Best that we meditate on our options."

"What do you know that I do not?"

I led her back to our quarters where we sat cross-legged on the bed and whispered conspiratorially. We decided we would wait for the right moment to confront him about his passive-aggressive hints that his memory had returned. Juhani left it to me to determine when that moment had come.

Stroud appeared later that evening and said that Wynn had given us an opening to gain prestige. We were to enter the tomb of Marka Ragnos and destroy a malfunctioning droid there.

"We have our excuse to wander the Valley of the Dark Lords." He took a small mirror and grooming tool from his pocket, as he always did prior to a major mission. "But we shall skip that Marka Ragnos business, if possible, and go straight to the Star Map."

- - -


Inside the last room of the tomb of long-dead Sith Lord Naga Sadow, a Star Map's arms opened and from its center popped a twinkling galaxy map that pointed to Kashyyyk, Tatooine, Korriban, the watery world Manaan, and a general region of outer space where waited the Star Forge itself. A disaster felled the Infinite Empire millenia ago and damaged the Maps. Over centuries the semi-sentient machines repaired themselves, interacting with the minds of those who found them. Revan and Malak. Revan again. They narrowed down the area where could be found the Forge by reading the residual thoughts subconsciously implanted by other Maps.

I pulled off the disguise, high on my self-hatred and hatred for the man standing in front of the Star Map, his back turned at me.

"How long have you known?" I held my saber-staff. Juhani beside me readied her weapon.

"Since Taris. Since I saw you as Brejik's captive." His tone was matter-of-fact, confessional. He faced us. "Seeing that face of yours churns a man's baser aspects."

"I owe you a chance at redemption," Juhani said. "You helped redeem me in the Grove. But..."

"Did you redeem Juhani to gain favor with the Council?" I struggled to find my resolve in this demon-ridden dungeon. "Never mind that. Why did you bother going to the trouble taking us to the Maps when you already knew where to find the Forge?"

"I did it for your sake, Bastila. To show you that a person can wield the Dark Side of the Force toward righteous goals. To show that we may exploit the Dark and Light as weapons and continue to live, whole in being." He spread his arms out wide. "Join me, both of you. Let us make this galaxy ours!"

He had paid me a grave insult.

Juhani argued, but my shock obscured the words.

In my peripheral I saw shapes stretch, reach, and grow. When I looked straight at them, they stayed, having assumed the appearances of naked men and women who now gathered in the light of the Star Map. Only I could see them.

I placed my shaking hands over my face and tried to meditate. But the urge to end Darth Revan, once and for all, competed with my habits as a Jedi.

'Her power shall put ours to shame. . .'

'She is too meek. . .'

'If only our hearts beat in this Age of the Dark Side. . .'

"Tell me," Revan said. "Have I set a prime example for you?"

I lowered my hands. "This is for Meetra Surik." I broke the shields over my soul. Apocalyptic hatred for Revan, for the Jedi and for the Sith, exploded forth and polluted my cells. "The woman you caused to be the Exile. The woman you took from me."

"Bastila, please." Juhani carefully approached me, radiating a pseudo-calm stirred with her personal sense of fear and sadness. "Don't do this. Let me help you settle your emotions."

Revan showed me his palms and shook his head. "Yes, please, Bastila. Let us peacefully discuss ---"

Beyond tolerating a lecture, far past the point when I would have anyone else but myself tell me how I should live my life, I pressed the activator on my staff, jumped at Revan and struck out of rage.

The Jedi had wasted my life. The Jedi had wasted my childhood, they had wasted my teenage years, they had tried in all their holier-than-thou might to squander my humanity, my very womanhood. I would annihilate the man who had robbed me of Meetra, given her up to a tragic event that moved her ever further from my reach.

Juhani escaped while she could. The ceiling cracked, the floor heaved.

Revan and I fought with lightsabers and Force powers as the structure quaked around us. Long-slumbering spirits awoke in the stone walls of Naga Sadow's tomb and wailed their grudges.

We ultimately faced each other outside at the edge of a cliff, pausing. A storm, answering my emotions, struck with supernatural lightning this place where the Dark Side concentrated so, blasted apart piece by giant chunk the Valley of the Dark Lords.

I raised my saber and zoomed at him with the speed of a comet. We collided, were knocked apart, then we reunited for the final stage. We exchanged a series of strikes that ended with him chopping my lightsaber in half. I leaned back from his next attack, dropping the pieces. I summoned Force Gauntlets, the same technique Vox Aben had used against our enemy on Dantooine.

Another series of blows. I deflected his blue saber blade with one construct and attacked using the other, again and again, faster and faster, until. . .

I shoved my hand through Revan's torso.

He doubled over, made choking noises, and dropped his weapon.

I yanked out and swung my other hand at his neck, decapitating him.

It was done. The inevitable had happened. I had wielded the power of the Dark Side, the strength bestowed by focused anger. The Jedi taught children from a young age to suppress their darker emotions and temper their instinctual desires. The Jedi feared themselves, what they were capable of. They feared me.

My pupils burned. Veins in my face rose and throbbed under my skin. Rage had given me new strength, a fresh resolve.

I sat cross-legged atop an outcrop overlooking the Valley of the Dark Lords and privately watched students scramble about in confusion, listened to their endless questions and speculation as to what had laid waste to Naga Sadow's tomb. A ship took off from Dreshdae. The Ebon Hawke.

It was dawn when I decided on a plan. I slid down a face of slick stone, jumped out into the open and strode for the academy entrance. Stray would-be Sith balked, gawked, asked my identity or purpose. They would find out soon.

I stopped a dozen meters from the stone slab portal where stood chrome-armored guards. "Retrieve your Headmaster and his Deputy. Tell them a woman at their front door claims to be responsible for the disaster." The guards hurried.

A minute later, Uthar Wynn and Yuthura Ban passed the threshold and halted.

"Who are you?" The tip of Yuthura's lekku writhed.

"Wait," Uthar eased closer, smiling. "That face. I recognize you, young one. You are Darth Malak's most wanted Jedi padawan." The man reared back and laughed pleasantly. "Quite a bold move, for the great Bastila Shan to come here of all places. Indeed, quite risky for a Jedi. Such a bold risk. That is something more of the Sith. Or is that why you have requested to see me?" Students in their plain gray uniforms exited the building to encircle us and observe quietly.

I placed my hands on my hips. "We have work to do, Headmaster. But first. . . a change of command's in order."

Yuthura hissed. "Our archaeologists determined the tomb was destroyed from inside. There are only three people who could've gained access. Lord Malak, Uthar Wynn, or Revan. Lord Malak is continuing his campaign against the Republic, Uthar stands next to me, and Revan..."

The onlookers began to whisper among themselves.

Uthar said, "I received a priority message from Lord Malak a mere hour before the event. It seems. . ." He chuckled. "It seems Stroud Solman was in fact. . . none other than Revan."

Students gasped, made surprised guttural sounds, then became a babbling chorus.

I mentally elevated my Force signature, filling the area with echoes of my stored power. Static burst in distorting air. Stalking spirits giggled. The ground groaned. And to hint at my ability to manipulate hearts and minds, I released a cloud of abject horror toward those present. . . the weakest fell to their knees and cried out. The stronger drew lightsabers and killed the weak, out of duty.

The Headmaster nodded to me. "If you please, milady, let us enter the academy where we can deliberate the future."