Vanished in the shadows 2/?
I had intended this as one piece, but the post was too large, so I had to cut it. Here's the second piece.
Title: Vanished in the shadows 2/?
Pairing: Revan/Carth
Genre: Adventure, Romance, Slash with some Angst thrown in for good measure
Age: 15+
Disclaimer: This is a work of non-commercial fiction, the rights of SW and Kotor belong to George Lucas, Lucasarts and Bioware respectivly. No copyright infringement was intended.
Comments: I am no native speaker of english, neither is my beta, albeit her grip on grammar is better than mine. I apologize for all annoying mistakes I made, they are completely my fault. It should be considered somewhat AU because the events after Leviathan did take an unplanned turn.
Summary: Upon seeing the Ebon Hawk aboard Citadel station Carth Onasi finds himself drawn back to memories of the past. Confronting these memories means asking questions about where the Ebon Hawk came from, and where Revan vanished..
2. The things we cannot change
The Iridonian had been good as his word, or so Carth assumed, when he entered the hangar bay three days later. The ship, Jyarél was intending to take into Malachor V’s remains, was ready. Ebon Hawk stood beside it, looking abandoned and gloomy. Jyarél on the contrary was her old, serene self again. “I am leaving T3 with you, Admiral Onasi,” she announced. “He seems to be part of the ship anyway.”
Carth nodded; glad to hear he could examine T3 at any length. “Just Carth,” he corrected. “I am an Admiral no longer.” Leaving the military all at once should have been the toughest decision of his life; instead it had seemed all too easy in comparison with other things. Carth still thought of himself as a soldier, even as he was a civilian, technically at least. Bastila had admonished him about it, but he had refused to listen.
“You are departing soon, I take it?” Jyarél interrupted his trail of thought.
“He isn’t because he’s coming to his senses before.” Bastila Shan had entered the hangar bay and walked towards them. Her frown seemed to be frozen to her face. “Carth, you can’t give up the Republic for a wild bantha chase like this. Not for Revan.”
“Can you ever let someone make his own decision, Padawan?” Jyarél’s voice was serene as a cold sea on a grey autumn day. “If Carth made his decision you should respect it.”
Carth saw Bastila’s blush even as she tried to hide it. Due to the chaos that ensued after the destruction of Starforge she had never been formally pronounced a Jedi Knight, something that she tended to forget. Thus being reminded, by someone who had held the rank of Jedi Master before being exiled, rankled her. “I’ve seen too many foolish decisions this way,” she replied. “And this one is…”
“…is one that will rankle you to the end of your Jedi days.” Mandalore’s deep voice sounded like a battle drum into the middle of that argument. “I’d like a few words with Carth myself, but you obviously had more than a few and certainly more than enough.”
Bastila took a deep breath. “I don’t expect you to understand, Can… ahem, Mandalore.” She began but got no chance to go on.
“It’s you who doesn’t understand, Bastila.” Jyarél’s voice was stern now, she was pronouncing an end of discussion and everyone felt it. “Carth has made up his mind, and no one should gainsay him. So Padawan, I suggest you return to Dantooine, were you will find Master Vrook and Kavar injured but alive. Report to them and see what they decide about you.” She turned from flabbergasted Bastila to Mandalore. “I think this is the end of our journey. Have all the words needed when you and Carth are on your way.”
Mandalore seemed taken aback. “I have no intention of leaving you, Jyarél.”
“But you will,” she replied. “You are still needed. Revan needs you, which is why Kreia tried to tie you to me, so that you could not help him. I am headed for a last battle, while your way isn’t at an end… for long. There is much still waiting. I thank you for all the help and your friendship, but here we part.” At this she turned and the others followed her.
***
“So you wanted a word with me?” Carth asked when Ebon Hawk had jumped into hyperspace. It had been simple enough to access the navcomputer and find the coordinates where Ebon Hawk had started. What worried Carth was that it had been more than two years ago that the ship had departed the unknown regions, and talking distracted him right now.
Canderous sat opposite of Carth in the cockpit and seemed to study the indistinct blue of hyperspace. “Yes, this I did,” he said, turning his grey eyes to Carth. “I wanted to ask if you sorted out your feelings and got to your senses at last?”
“To my senses?” Carth arched an eyebrow. “I don’t really know why I am doing this. But then I regretted for five years what I said back then.”
“I assumed as much,” the Mandalorian replied. “Fallouts between Shieldbrothers tend to be a rough thing, but are more commonly resolved by some Duelling circle match. But that’s the Mandalorian way.”
Carth blinked twice trying to get Canderous meaning. He had heard the term Shieldbrother before, among the briefing materiel about Mandalorian culture he had read shortly after the war began, but that had been sometime ago. When he eventually realised what Canderous was hinting at, Carth could not help blushing furiously. He eyed the Mandalorian suspiciously. Did he really mean what he had just said or war this some kind of joke? Canderous had a warped sense of humour. But the Mandalorian did not look like joking. “You mean Revan and me were….” Carth did not even dare to speak it. It came too close to his true feelings, to things that might have been, had there been time, or had circumstances allowed it. He still could feel that short, fleeting moment, deep in the bowels of Adjunta Pall’s tomb. ‘There will be a time, Carth. A time, when no mission, no danger and nothing else will stand in the way. Until then, know that you always have a place in my heart.’ He tried to shake this voice off.
“Shieldbrothers, yes.” Canderous confirmed. “Did you think you fooled someone? You had the signs written all over you. I confess I felt a little jealous in the beginning.”
Carth managed not to blush again, even as the very idea that Canderous might have realised, might have seen it before he himself had admitted it, was disturbing. “You are really serious about this,” he observed.
Canderous scoffed. “Where, if not in a fellow warrior, will someone like us find his soul companion? Had I been twenty years younger, I’d have fought you about Revan.”
Inwardly Carth kicked himself. Of course Canderous was serious, his people having their own outlook on these things. In a way the admission of jealousy made it only worse. “It wasn’t exactly like you believe.” He explained slowly. How could he explain someone else what he himself hardly understood. “I….we…” he stopped shaking his head. “We had hardly acknowledged our feelings for each other, when Leviathan ambushed us. And after that…” he fell silent, unable to speak on, the memories were drawing closer, like shadows lurking all about, memories uncalled for emerging from the veils of five years time, coming to live again before their inner eye.
The past
Ebon Hawk was nearly falling apart under the heavy fire from more than a dozen fighters chasing after her. Leviathan was still visible portside, launching another wing. Even Silvain had trouble shooting them down as fast as they came. For every single one that he blew out of the skies another two followed. Using the force to speed up his movements he nearly doubled the speed with which he was moving the canon, laser blazed across the vast emptiness out there, filling it with flares, bloody flares. Some part of Silvains mind heard the screams of the dying pilots, as painful as the ache of Silvains battered body. He accepted the pain, welcomed it in fact, thrived on it, and shot faster. The pale light of the Interdictor’s gravity fields outside grew more intense, as it tried to keep the Ebon Hawk in real space, the hyperdrive of the ship howled and whined, for some endless second’s it seemed like they were falling back, then the night outside vanished for the swirling blue of hyperspace as they jumped. They had made it.
***
“And all this time a Sith Lord was sitting right beside us, listening to out every plans and we fell for it!” Carth voice was somewhat outraged but not as much outraged as cold, cold from shock about the dread revelation onboard Leviathan. He didn’t want or even dare to think of things he had felt, back when Revan…no Silvian had been tortured by Admiral Karath. “Must have been a tough thing to pretend being all good and loyal all the time.” He added shooting a mocking glance at the tall man leaning on the bulkhead.
Silvain swallowed hard, trying to suppress the shattered pictures of old reminiscences that were haunting his mind. “I can’t even remember being Revan,” he replied, his voice hardly more than a hoarse whisper. “And I still can’t believe it. It’s like a mad dream with me unable to awake.”
Carth’s reply was something that resembled a snort close enough. “Bastila said you were Revan, and she’d have to know, wouldn’t she? She was with the team that took Revan down, a year ago. That took you…”
Silvain tried to meet Carth’s eyes, but did not manage. Deep down in his heart he knew the truth. In a way he had always known, ever since that fever-ridden nightmare back on Taris had freed reminiscences of that fateful duel with Bastila. Perhaps these memories were too deeply engrained into his soul to be easily forgotten, or perhaps they were connected with the memory of pain. The fresh pain from the injuries he had received from the escape pod’s crash on Taris might have conjured up the past that should have been forgotten. “It is so, I can’t deny it.” He eventually admitted, his voice a little more steady than before. “But we have to go on. Bastila would have wanted us…”
“…to stay clear of the likes of you.” Mission blurted angrily, trying to sound as adult as she could manage. Her eyes were filled with disgust if not outright hatred. “You were Malak’s teacher!!”
Silvain understood all too well. Malak had destroyed Mission’s home world Taris and he had learned his deadly craft from his master, Revan, from him. He had learned it on Telos, Carth’s home world. Silvain still could not recall why he would have ordered a full-scale assault on Telos, but done so he had, and the order had been carried out to the letter. Malak would not have dared to do something like this without orders. Looking around at his comrades he met cold eyes. Finally Carth nodded. “Mission is right, Revan. We don’t want you around here, to spy on us or to use us for some dirty scheme. Be glad that I let you go alive, because you saved all our lives on Taris.”
Zaalbar howled angrily. His life-debt bound him to Silvain, much as he detested him. Slowly, as if an invisible weight had been put on his shoulders, Silvain stepped away from the bulkhead. “No, Zalbaar, you will look after Mission. That’s an order. My last order for you. Look after her as long as she lives.” He said firmly. Shortly he looked to Carth. “Will you that they are safe? That they find a home?”
“Meaning a home you did not destroy?” Carth snapped even as he was nodding. “You bet.”
There was nothing more to say. Silvain took his belongings from the bunk and left Ebon Hawk. Technically speaking it was his ship, but what did it matter? The others needed it to get away from here. They had set down on the next Republican world after escaping Leviathan. He did not know the name of the planet or what sector they were in or which race populated this place. While he walked away from the spaceport and towards the city below, he never saw the curious looks his wounded, bloody, exhausted appearance attracted, he never saw the beautiful roads of the port city, while he wandered by he just kept going to get some distance between himself and the spaceport, without realising when he walked the same road thrice. Sheer luck and perhaps the force prevented him to run into vehicles that were flashing by. He saw nothing, no city, no streets, no people just images, dark they were, gory and pained, lonely, drenched in shadows, the past was dancing before his eyes, worlds burning, ships exploding and Jedi dying, there was nothing but the night he walked in.
Eventually Silvain collapsed on a small bench beside some green park somewhere on the other side of town. Exhausted as he was, he did not really care if someone saw him. Bent forward, elbows resting on aching knees, he buried his face in his hands and let himself fall into the pain, the exhaustion, and the desperation. Pain again crept up his body, the wounds received in the fighting onboard Leviathan, the traces of the torture he had been subjected to, took their toll at last. Along with the pain his mind began fully to realise what had transpired in this last hours. The cold words of his friends echoed his mind and realising that he probably deserved them hurt even more.
A shadow fell over him, the shadow of a tall, muscular man, standing right before him. When he looked up, he saw that Canderous had stopped right two feet away, looking down on him. The Mandalorian was his usual self, in his heavy armour and fully armed in the middle of a civilian town. “If you came to gloat, you just chose the right moment.” He said, rather hoarsely, trying in vain to marshal some of his inner defences again.
Canderous eyes became dark, almost hurt at this suggestion. “No,” he said, “stepping past Silvain sitting down on the bench beside him. “I came to find you.” His eyes scanned him for another moment. “I said, I’d never let you down, and I mean it.”
Silvain looked up, into Canderous rough, edged face. That from all his comrades Canderous would stick with him, was unbelievable. The very thought that someone would want to stand by him was almost too much. He blinked hard, fighting to retain his composure. “Canderous, I am so sorry. I should never have assumed…” he felt ashamed for the way he had greeted him moments ago.
The tall Mandalorian shook his head. “No need to apologise,” he said gruffly. “and please, stop sniffling!” True a Mandalorian as he was he could not stand any display of weakness and Revan’s seemed particularly to upset him.
It took more than huge effort on Silvain’s side to regain some control of himself. “I am glad you came, Canderous.” He said eventually.
The Mandalorian waved it off. “Let me have a look at your injuries first.” He scowled removing a medpack from his gear. “Had I been there, I’d given Captain oh-so-righteous Carth some talking to.”
“I can’t judge them,” Silvain replied. “After what…”
“After what you went through, after all you did for them, to let you down? No, you really can’t blame them.” Canderous replied somewhat ironically. “And now: stop fidgeting, this is going to hurt anyway.”
Silvain followed that order, relaxing a little. Canderous wasn’t exactly a medic or emdee droid, but forty years of war had taught him good skills when it came to tend injuries. He wasn’t exactly a gentle healer but when he took care of some wounds, you somehow felt that he cared, really cared and that meant a lot. After Canderous was finished he gave him a shot of stimulants and Silvain started feeling that he could keep going for another twelve hours, and perhaps twelve after that. Canderous grinned at him. “That’s better.” He said. “Feel like going on?”
Silvain was a little astounded. “Going to what?” he asked. “With what happened…”
“You won’t let Malak win, won’t you?” Canderous replied. He retrieved a datapad from his beltpouch. “All data from the starpmaps, plus some stuff I downloaded from Leviathan mainframe. Thought it might come handy.”
Canderous perhaps never knew what force his words carried. The fact alone that he believed, trusted that Silvain would go on, made the Jedi take up responsibility again. “Thank you,” he said. “This will allow us to locate the Starforge.” He hesitated slightly. “But…should I find it? After all what I’ve done…”
Canderous gripped his shoulders; his hands nearly smashed Silvains shoulder blades. “You are the only one who can do it,” he said seriously. “You were the one who found it in the first place and you are the only person alive who can stop this maniac Malak. No matter what you did, no matter what all the others say - you are Revan, the greatest warrior alive! You even bested my people. You stood single combat against Mandalore. You fought him to the death, and you were the winner. If you really want it, there’s no one in this world who can stand against you.” Canderous storm-grey eyes were fixed on Silvain as he spoke.
Silvain could see the strength behind these eyes, strength that had nothing to do with physical prowess but with the strength of the soul, he saw the trust that shone in this eyes, the friendship, the willingness to stand with him to the very end. A shudder crept up his spine. Canderous was a warrior with nearly forty years of fighting to his name, he had been in battles longer than Silvain/Revan himself lived, and he trusted him, Silvain, no he trusted Revan that he would win this one, because Revan had smashed the Mandalorians. “You are right, Canderous. For good or ill, Malak is my responsibility, and I won’t run from it.” From somewhere, deep down in his soul strength seemed to return. “We’ll have to find a ship if we intend to go on.”
A grin lit Canderous face. “This may be a small port, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any thugs around who just might give up their vessel for us.”
***
It was late afternoon when Canderous and Revan returned to the port. The baking heat of the midday was slowly fading to comfortable warmth. For a moment Silvain was tempted to return to Ebon Hawk to speak with Carth again. But on the docking bay’s entrance he ran into Juhani. The Cathar woman eyed him coldly. “Don’t you dare to come nearer. Take your Mandalorian dog and never ever return.” She hissed.
Revan marshalled his strength and hid his feelings, he wasn’t ready for another fight here. “Very well then. At least I don’t have to take care of a pathetic cat any longer.” He replied as he turned to go. He saw Canderous waiting for him some yards away, judging by his composed pose, he had just bashed the skulls of some Rodians and taken their vessel. Exactly what he’d term “fun”, even as cleaning out a Rodian ship would be a bitch.
Carth blinked, he’d never been aware when exactly Canderous began talking. “So you went on alone.” He said after a while. “You and him, searching for the starforge.”
“It wasn’t all that hard.” Canderous intertwined his fingers and stretched his arms until the distinct cracking of this was all too audible. “There was only Tatooine left, nothing some good old skull-bashing and ass-kicking didn’t solve. We had to take apart some Tusken-tribes and getting rid of a Krayt-dragon. From there we went on… to the starforge.” He stopped glancing at Carth. “But that’s not what you wanted to know, wasn’t it?”
Carth didn’t answer at once. He had never known what exactly had transpired from the moment Revan left the Ebon Hawk. Even the encounter with Juhani was something new to him. He wanted to know what had transpired in those weeks before the battle of the Starforge. Yet, the other question he had was far more urgent. “What happened afterwards?” he began. “I mean… I know you two took out Malak, this much I heard from Admiral Dodonna while she was grilling Bastila over the whole incident. But what of you and Revan? On Admiral Dodonna’s orders the Ebon Hawk, along with T3 was send to get off whatever planet you must have been stranded in the aftermath. But no one ever heard of you again. You just vanished, yet here you are. Mandalore to your people and as oblivious of Revan’s whereabouts as I am.”
He saw Canderous eyes flicker for a mere second. The tall Mandalorian shifted uneasily in his seat. “It’s not something I like to recall.” He answered gruffly. “And nothing I like talking about, either. Revan got heavily injured in the battle with Malak. It took him weeks to recover and month to find his old strength again. I had found and reclaimed the Ebon Hawk and for weeks at a time we would drift from place to place, avoiding attention, just recovering. But during that time, Revan’s memories began to resurface, not his memories of Darth Revan, but things of the time before, of something that had belonged to his life in a time before the wars. We drifted further away from Republican space into the more remote regions of the Outer Rim. I didn’t really mind, the further away from the Republic the better. As Revan regained his strength we would wander to strange place, dangerous ruins and… let’s leave it at that. There was fighting enough to keep me happy and loot enough to make it worth our time either, but Revan was searching for something different. Something he did not mention or name, but he was again searching for some traces. Thus our journeys led us more and more away from well known space, we passed through the Grazzar nebula and left behind the Rishi maze. Revan knew the Rishi maze well enough to bring us through without problems, into spaces unknown.”
Canderous stopped dead as he entered the bridge of the Ebon Hawk. Not that something had changed about the place as such. It was like it had been for most of the time during that past year. Revan was occupying the pilot’s chair, while the ship was on another journey to yet another destination. Strangely, despite their being in hyperspace Canderous saw the blackness of space outside the viewport and the lights of stars flashing by. It took some minutes to realise that it must be something Revan was doing with the force, probably projecting whatever was outside into the viewport. Silently the Mandalorian warrior studied his comrade. Revan’s feet were resting on the edge of the seat, he had drawn his knees up, close to the body, his arms rested relaxed on his knees, while he was staring outside. “Canderous,” he said without looking around. “you rarely tend to hover in doorways.”
Without much ado Canderous walked over and sat down in the co-pilot’s chair. “I just realised we made another jump and figured you’d found our next destination.” He explained, then pointed at the viewport. “Albeit this makes me wonder, how we are travelling.”
“It’s nothing, just something I remember. A projection.” Revan said, his eyes still on the outside. “I remember know, Canderous. I remember coming this way before, journeying along a route half forgotten, half forbidden, searching for whatever was at it’s end, at that place, where the stars grew thin.” He raised his hand, pointing out a place among all the other stars. There were only few of them, sitting in the blackness like glittering jewels. “The place where all lights go out. I’ve been there before.” Revan whispered. “It’s the place where it began, it’s the place I need to find again. The place where the stars end.”
Canderous shook his head. “I couldn’t follow him there.” He said hoarsely. “My people had come close to that place before, and I… I couldn’t face it again. Not that place, the place where my clan died.” He fell silent for a time, avoiding Carth’s eyes he faced the outside of the viewport where the eternal blue shadows of hyperspace passed by, his eyes fixed at one imaginary point, the past, nowhere. “He saw it,” he eventually went on. “before I even could speak of it, or voice my thoughts, he had seen it. He always knew the warriors he led inside out. So he set me down at a world, on the edge of known space, where a Huttese trader would take me back towards Republican territory. He ordered me to stay behind, to return to my people. And yet… even as I was glad to have a way out, I was ashamed. He knew my weakness, and he let me go, sending me back to take care of my people. I hated myself that day.”
“Have you any idea what made Revan return to a place even your people avoided?” Carth inquired wondering where exactly Revan had learned all those things he needed to crush the Mandalorians. Had he perhaps perchance fought them before, in other parts of the galaxy? It might explain some things.
Canderous shrugged. “I don’t know. He never said more about it to me. It was something from his past, something he remembered. Perhaps he had been searching for clues ever since we left the Starforge. But what made him do it, I never knew.”
Title: Vanished in the shadows 2/?
Pairing: Revan/Carth
Genre: Adventure, Romance, Slash with some Angst thrown in for good measure
Age: 15+
Disclaimer: This is a work of non-commercial fiction, the rights of SW and Kotor belong to George Lucas, Lucasarts and Bioware respectivly. No copyright infringement was intended.
Comments: I am no native speaker of english, neither is my beta, albeit her grip on grammar is better than mine. I apologize for all annoying mistakes I made, they are completely my fault. It should be considered somewhat AU because the events after Leviathan did take an unplanned turn.
Summary: Upon seeing the Ebon Hawk aboard Citadel station Carth Onasi finds himself drawn back to memories of the past. Confronting these memories means asking questions about where the Ebon Hawk came from, and where Revan vanished..
2. The things we cannot change
The Iridonian had been good as his word, or so Carth assumed, when he entered the hangar bay three days later. The ship, Jyarél was intending to take into Malachor V’s remains, was ready. Ebon Hawk stood beside it, looking abandoned and gloomy. Jyarél on the contrary was her old, serene self again. “I am leaving T3 with you, Admiral Onasi,” she announced. “He seems to be part of the ship anyway.”
Carth nodded; glad to hear he could examine T3 at any length. “Just Carth,” he corrected. “I am an Admiral no longer.” Leaving the military all at once should have been the toughest decision of his life; instead it had seemed all too easy in comparison with other things. Carth still thought of himself as a soldier, even as he was a civilian, technically at least. Bastila had admonished him about it, but he had refused to listen.
“You are departing soon, I take it?” Jyarél interrupted his trail of thought.
“He isn’t because he’s coming to his senses before.” Bastila Shan had entered the hangar bay and walked towards them. Her frown seemed to be frozen to her face. “Carth, you can’t give up the Republic for a wild bantha chase like this. Not for Revan.”
“Can you ever let someone make his own decision, Padawan?” Jyarél’s voice was serene as a cold sea on a grey autumn day. “If Carth made his decision you should respect it.”
Carth saw Bastila’s blush even as she tried to hide it. Due to the chaos that ensued after the destruction of Starforge she had never been formally pronounced a Jedi Knight, something that she tended to forget. Thus being reminded, by someone who had held the rank of Jedi Master before being exiled, rankled her. “I’ve seen too many foolish decisions this way,” she replied. “And this one is…”
“…is one that will rankle you to the end of your Jedi days.” Mandalore’s deep voice sounded like a battle drum into the middle of that argument. “I’d like a few words with Carth myself, but you obviously had more than a few and certainly more than enough.”
Bastila took a deep breath. “I don’t expect you to understand, Can… ahem, Mandalore.” She began but got no chance to go on.
“It’s you who doesn’t understand, Bastila.” Jyarél’s voice was stern now, she was pronouncing an end of discussion and everyone felt it. “Carth has made up his mind, and no one should gainsay him. So Padawan, I suggest you return to Dantooine, were you will find Master Vrook and Kavar injured but alive. Report to them and see what they decide about you.” She turned from flabbergasted Bastila to Mandalore. “I think this is the end of our journey. Have all the words needed when you and Carth are on your way.”
Mandalore seemed taken aback. “I have no intention of leaving you, Jyarél.”
“But you will,” she replied. “You are still needed. Revan needs you, which is why Kreia tried to tie you to me, so that you could not help him. I am headed for a last battle, while your way isn’t at an end… for long. There is much still waiting. I thank you for all the help and your friendship, but here we part.” At this she turned and the others followed her.
***
“So you wanted a word with me?” Carth asked when Ebon Hawk had jumped into hyperspace. It had been simple enough to access the navcomputer and find the coordinates where Ebon Hawk had started. What worried Carth was that it had been more than two years ago that the ship had departed the unknown regions, and talking distracted him right now.
Canderous sat opposite of Carth in the cockpit and seemed to study the indistinct blue of hyperspace. “Yes, this I did,” he said, turning his grey eyes to Carth. “I wanted to ask if you sorted out your feelings and got to your senses at last?”
“To my senses?” Carth arched an eyebrow. “I don’t really know why I am doing this. But then I regretted for five years what I said back then.”
“I assumed as much,” the Mandalorian replied. “Fallouts between Shieldbrothers tend to be a rough thing, but are more commonly resolved by some Duelling circle match. But that’s the Mandalorian way.”
Carth blinked twice trying to get Canderous meaning. He had heard the term Shieldbrother before, among the briefing materiel about Mandalorian culture he had read shortly after the war began, but that had been sometime ago. When he eventually realised what Canderous was hinting at, Carth could not help blushing furiously. He eyed the Mandalorian suspiciously. Did he really mean what he had just said or war this some kind of joke? Canderous had a warped sense of humour. But the Mandalorian did not look like joking. “You mean Revan and me were….” Carth did not even dare to speak it. It came too close to his true feelings, to things that might have been, had there been time, or had circumstances allowed it. He still could feel that short, fleeting moment, deep in the bowels of Adjunta Pall’s tomb. ‘There will be a time, Carth. A time, when no mission, no danger and nothing else will stand in the way. Until then, know that you always have a place in my heart.’ He tried to shake this voice off.
“Shieldbrothers, yes.” Canderous confirmed. “Did you think you fooled someone? You had the signs written all over you. I confess I felt a little jealous in the beginning.”
Carth managed not to blush again, even as the very idea that Canderous might have realised, might have seen it before he himself had admitted it, was disturbing. “You are really serious about this,” he observed.
Canderous scoffed. “Where, if not in a fellow warrior, will someone like us find his soul companion? Had I been twenty years younger, I’d have fought you about Revan.”
Inwardly Carth kicked himself. Of course Canderous was serious, his people having their own outlook on these things. In a way the admission of jealousy made it only worse. “It wasn’t exactly like you believe.” He explained slowly. How could he explain someone else what he himself hardly understood. “I….we…” he stopped shaking his head. “We had hardly acknowledged our feelings for each other, when Leviathan ambushed us. And after that…” he fell silent, unable to speak on, the memories were drawing closer, like shadows lurking all about, memories uncalled for emerging from the veils of five years time, coming to live again before their inner eye.
The past
Ebon Hawk was nearly falling apart under the heavy fire from more than a dozen fighters chasing after her. Leviathan was still visible portside, launching another wing. Even Silvain had trouble shooting them down as fast as they came. For every single one that he blew out of the skies another two followed. Using the force to speed up his movements he nearly doubled the speed with which he was moving the canon, laser blazed across the vast emptiness out there, filling it with flares, bloody flares. Some part of Silvains mind heard the screams of the dying pilots, as painful as the ache of Silvains battered body. He accepted the pain, welcomed it in fact, thrived on it, and shot faster. The pale light of the Interdictor’s gravity fields outside grew more intense, as it tried to keep the Ebon Hawk in real space, the hyperdrive of the ship howled and whined, for some endless second’s it seemed like they were falling back, then the night outside vanished for the swirling blue of hyperspace as they jumped. They had made it.
***
“And all this time a Sith Lord was sitting right beside us, listening to out every plans and we fell for it!” Carth voice was somewhat outraged but not as much outraged as cold, cold from shock about the dread revelation onboard Leviathan. He didn’t want or even dare to think of things he had felt, back when Revan…no Silvian had been tortured by Admiral Karath. “Must have been a tough thing to pretend being all good and loyal all the time.” He added shooting a mocking glance at the tall man leaning on the bulkhead.
Silvain swallowed hard, trying to suppress the shattered pictures of old reminiscences that were haunting his mind. “I can’t even remember being Revan,” he replied, his voice hardly more than a hoarse whisper. “And I still can’t believe it. It’s like a mad dream with me unable to awake.”
Carth’s reply was something that resembled a snort close enough. “Bastila said you were Revan, and she’d have to know, wouldn’t she? She was with the team that took Revan down, a year ago. That took you…”
Silvain tried to meet Carth’s eyes, but did not manage. Deep down in his heart he knew the truth. In a way he had always known, ever since that fever-ridden nightmare back on Taris had freed reminiscences of that fateful duel with Bastila. Perhaps these memories were too deeply engrained into his soul to be easily forgotten, or perhaps they were connected with the memory of pain. The fresh pain from the injuries he had received from the escape pod’s crash on Taris might have conjured up the past that should have been forgotten. “It is so, I can’t deny it.” He eventually admitted, his voice a little more steady than before. “But we have to go on. Bastila would have wanted us…”
“…to stay clear of the likes of you.” Mission blurted angrily, trying to sound as adult as she could manage. Her eyes were filled with disgust if not outright hatred. “You were Malak’s teacher!!”
Silvain understood all too well. Malak had destroyed Mission’s home world Taris and he had learned his deadly craft from his master, Revan, from him. He had learned it on Telos, Carth’s home world. Silvain still could not recall why he would have ordered a full-scale assault on Telos, but done so he had, and the order had been carried out to the letter. Malak would not have dared to do something like this without orders. Looking around at his comrades he met cold eyes. Finally Carth nodded. “Mission is right, Revan. We don’t want you around here, to spy on us or to use us for some dirty scheme. Be glad that I let you go alive, because you saved all our lives on Taris.”
Zaalbar howled angrily. His life-debt bound him to Silvain, much as he detested him. Slowly, as if an invisible weight had been put on his shoulders, Silvain stepped away from the bulkhead. “No, Zalbaar, you will look after Mission. That’s an order. My last order for you. Look after her as long as she lives.” He said firmly. Shortly he looked to Carth. “Will you that they are safe? That they find a home?”
“Meaning a home you did not destroy?” Carth snapped even as he was nodding. “You bet.”
There was nothing more to say. Silvain took his belongings from the bunk and left Ebon Hawk. Technically speaking it was his ship, but what did it matter? The others needed it to get away from here. They had set down on the next Republican world after escaping Leviathan. He did not know the name of the planet or what sector they were in or which race populated this place. While he walked away from the spaceport and towards the city below, he never saw the curious looks his wounded, bloody, exhausted appearance attracted, he never saw the beautiful roads of the port city, while he wandered by he just kept going to get some distance between himself and the spaceport, without realising when he walked the same road thrice. Sheer luck and perhaps the force prevented him to run into vehicles that were flashing by. He saw nothing, no city, no streets, no people just images, dark they were, gory and pained, lonely, drenched in shadows, the past was dancing before his eyes, worlds burning, ships exploding and Jedi dying, there was nothing but the night he walked in.
Eventually Silvain collapsed on a small bench beside some green park somewhere on the other side of town. Exhausted as he was, he did not really care if someone saw him. Bent forward, elbows resting on aching knees, he buried his face in his hands and let himself fall into the pain, the exhaustion, and the desperation. Pain again crept up his body, the wounds received in the fighting onboard Leviathan, the traces of the torture he had been subjected to, took their toll at last. Along with the pain his mind began fully to realise what had transpired in this last hours. The cold words of his friends echoed his mind and realising that he probably deserved them hurt even more.
A shadow fell over him, the shadow of a tall, muscular man, standing right before him. When he looked up, he saw that Canderous had stopped right two feet away, looking down on him. The Mandalorian was his usual self, in his heavy armour and fully armed in the middle of a civilian town. “If you came to gloat, you just chose the right moment.” He said, rather hoarsely, trying in vain to marshal some of his inner defences again.
Canderous eyes became dark, almost hurt at this suggestion. “No,” he said, “stepping past Silvain sitting down on the bench beside him. “I came to find you.” His eyes scanned him for another moment. “I said, I’d never let you down, and I mean it.”
Silvain looked up, into Canderous rough, edged face. That from all his comrades Canderous would stick with him, was unbelievable. The very thought that someone would want to stand by him was almost too much. He blinked hard, fighting to retain his composure. “Canderous, I am so sorry. I should never have assumed…” he felt ashamed for the way he had greeted him moments ago.
The tall Mandalorian shook his head. “No need to apologise,” he said gruffly. “and please, stop sniffling!” True a Mandalorian as he was he could not stand any display of weakness and Revan’s seemed particularly to upset him.
It took more than huge effort on Silvain’s side to regain some control of himself. “I am glad you came, Canderous.” He said eventually.
The Mandalorian waved it off. “Let me have a look at your injuries first.” He scowled removing a medpack from his gear. “Had I been there, I’d given Captain oh-so-righteous Carth some talking to.”
“I can’t judge them,” Silvain replied. “After what…”
“After what you went through, after all you did for them, to let you down? No, you really can’t blame them.” Canderous replied somewhat ironically. “And now: stop fidgeting, this is going to hurt anyway.”
Silvain followed that order, relaxing a little. Canderous wasn’t exactly a medic or emdee droid, but forty years of war had taught him good skills when it came to tend injuries. He wasn’t exactly a gentle healer but when he took care of some wounds, you somehow felt that he cared, really cared and that meant a lot. After Canderous was finished he gave him a shot of stimulants and Silvain started feeling that he could keep going for another twelve hours, and perhaps twelve after that. Canderous grinned at him. “That’s better.” He said. “Feel like going on?”
Silvain was a little astounded. “Going to what?” he asked. “With what happened…”
“You won’t let Malak win, won’t you?” Canderous replied. He retrieved a datapad from his beltpouch. “All data from the starpmaps, plus some stuff I downloaded from Leviathan mainframe. Thought it might come handy.”
Canderous perhaps never knew what force his words carried. The fact alone that he believed, trusted that Silvain would go on, made the Jedi take up responsibility again. “Thank you,” he said. “This will allow us to locate the Starforge.” He hesitated slightly. “But…should I find it? After all what I’ve done…”
Canderous gripped his shoulders; his hands nearly smashed Silvains shoulder blades. “You are the only one who can do it,” he said seriously. “You were the one who found it in the first place and you are the only person alive who can stop this maniac Malak. No matter what you did, no matter what all the others say - you are Revan, the greatest warrior alive! You even bested my people. You stood single combat against Mandalore. You fought him to the death, and you were the winner. If you really want it, there’s no one in this world who can stand against you.” Canderous storm-grey eyes were fixed on Silvain as he spoke.
Silvain could see the strength behind these eyes, strength that had nothing to do with physical prowess but with the strength of the soul, he saw the trust that shone in this eyes, the friendship, the willingness to stand with him to the very end. A shudder crept up his spine. Canderous was a warrior with nearly forty years of fighting to his name, he had been in battles longer than Silvain/Revan himself lived, and he trusted him, Silvain, no he trusted Revan that he would win this one, because Revan had smashed the Mandalorians. “You are right, Canderous. For good or ill, Malak is my responsibility, and I won’t run from it.” From somewhere, deep down in his soul strength seemed to return. “We’ll have to find a ship if we intend to go on.”
A grin lit Canderous face. “This may be a small port, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any thugs around who just might give up their vessel for us.”
***
It was late afternoon when Canderous and Revan returned to the port. The baking heat of the midday was slowly fading to comfortable warmth. For a moment Silvain was tempted to return to Ebon Hawk to speak with Carth again. But on the docking bay’s entrance he ran into Juhani. The Cathar woman eyed him coldly. “Don’t you dare to come nearer. Take your Mandalorian dog and never ever return.” She hissed.
Revan marshalled his strength and hid his feelings, he wasn’t ready for another fight here. “Very well then. At least I don’t have to take care of a pathetic cat any longer.” He replied as he turned to go. He saw Canderous waiting for him some yards away, judging by his composed pose, he had just bashed the skulls of some Rodians and taken their vessel. Exactly what he’d term “fun”, even as cleaning out a Rodian ship would be a bitch.
Carth blinked, he’d never been aware when exactly Canderous began talking. “So you went on alone.” He said after a while. “You and him, searching for the starforge.”
“It wasn’t all that hard.” Canderous intertwined his fingers and stretched his arms until the distinct cracking of this was all too audible. “There was only Tatooine left, nothing some good old skull-bashing and ass-kicking didn’t solve. We had to take apart some Tusken-tribes and getting rid of a Krayt-dragon. From there we went on… to the starforge.” He stopped glancing at Carth. “But that’s not what you wanted to know, wasn’t it?”
Carth didn’t answer at once. He had never known what exactly had transpired from the moment Revan left the Ebon Hawk. Even the encounter with Juhani was something new to him. He wanted to know what had transpired in those weeks before the battle of the Starforge. Yet, the other question he had was far more urgent. “What happened afterwards?” he began. “I mean… I know you two took out Malak, this much I heard from Admiral Dodonna while she was grilling Bastila over the whole incident. But what of you and Revan? On Admiral Dodonna’s orders the Ebon Hawk, along with T3 was send to get off whatever planet you must have been stranded in the aftermath. But no one ever heard of you again. You just vanished, yet here you are. Mandalore to your people and as oblivious of Revan’s whereabouts as I am.”
He saw Canderous eyes flicker for a mere second. The tall Mandalorian shifted uneasily in his seat. “It’s not something I like to recall.” He answered gruffly. “And nothing I like talking about, either. Revan got heavily injured in the battle with Malak. It took him weeks to recover and month to find his old strength again. I had found and reclaimed the Ebon Hawk and for weeks at a time we would drift from place to place, avoiding attention, just recovering. But during that time, Revan’s memories began to resurface, not his memories of Darth Revan, but things of the time before, of something that had belonged to his life in a time before the wars. We drifted further away from Republican space into the more remote regions of the Outer Rim. I didn’t really mind, the further away from the Republic the better. As Revan regained his strength we would wander to strange place, dangerous ruins and… let’s leave it at that. There was fighting enough to keep me happy and loot enough to make it worth our time either, but Revan was searching for something different. Something he did not mention or name, but he was again searching for some traces. Thus our journeys led us more and more away from well known space, we passed through the Grazzar nebula and left behind the Rishi maze. Revan knew the Rishi maze well enough to bring us through without problems, into spaces unknown.”
Canderous stopped dead as he entered the bridge of the Ebon Hawk. Not that something had changed about the place as such. It was like it had been for most of the time during that past year. Revan was occupying the pilot’s chair, while the ship was on another journey to yet another destination. Strangely, despite their being in hyperspace Canderous saw the blackness of space outside the viewport and the lights of stars flashing by. It took some minutes to realise that it must be something Revan was doing with the force, probably projecting whatever was outside into the viewport. Silently the Mandalorian warrior studied his comrade. Revan’s feet were resting on the edge of the seat, he had drawn his knees up, close to the body, his arms rested relaxed on his knees, while he was staring outside. “Canderous,” he said without looking around. “you rarely tend to hover in doorways.”
Without much ado Canderous walked over and sat down in the co-pilot’s chair. “I just realised we made another jump and figured you’d found our next destination.” He explained, then pointed at the viewport. “Albeit this makes me wonder, how we are travelling.”
“It’s nothing, just something I remember. A projection.” Revan said, his eyes still on the outside. “I remember know, Canderous. I remember coming this way before, journeying along a route half forgotten, half forbidden, searching for whatever was at it’s end, at that place, where the stars grew thin.” He raised his hand, pointing out a place among all the other stars. There were only few of them, sitting in the blackness like glittering jewels. “The place where all lights go out. I’ve been there before.” Revan whispered. “It’s the place where it began, it’s the place I need to find again. The place where the stars end.”
Canderous shook his head. “I couldn’t follow him there.” He said hoarsely. “My people had come close to that place before, and I… I couldn’t face it again. Not that place, the place where my clan died.” He fell silent for a time, avoiding Carth’s eyes he faced the outside of the viewport where the eternal blue shadows of hyperspace passed by, his eyes fixed at one imaginary point, the past, nowhere. “He saw it,” he eventually went on. “before I even could speak of it, or voice my thoughts, he had seen it. He always knew the warriors he led inside out. So he set me down at a world, on the edge of known space, where a Huttese trader would take me back towards Republican territory. He ordered me to stay behind, to return to my people. And yet… even as I was glad to have a way out, I was ashamed. He knew my weakness, and he let me go, sending me back to take care of my people. I hated myself that day.”
“Have you any idea what made Revan return to a place even your people avoided?” Carth inquired wondering where exactly Revan had learned all those things he needed to crush the Mandalorians. Had he perhaps perchance fought them before, in other parts of the galaxy? It might explain some things.
Canderous shrugged. “I don’t know. He never said more about it to me. It was something from his past, something he remembered. Perhaps he had been searching for clues ever since we left the Starforge. But what made him do it, I never knew.”