The Shadows You Cast – Chapter 2
The computer emitted subdued (wiseass!) as its screen flashed to display a long roster of names, all of which belonged to Jedi, dead or living alike. Some of them Revan even recognized, albeit as vaguely as a distant dream: her fellow students, perhaps, or mentors. The déjà vu was similar to her training – no, re-training would be more accurate – at the Enclave on Dantooine. When she gripped the lightsaber hilt, when she meditated, when she learned to discipline her command of the Force – it all had had a faint echo in her head, as if she had done them all before. She had shrugged the instinct off. On hindsight, she shouldn’t have. A connection that was remotely close to the truth would have been ridiculous, but even so…
Revan uttered a soft curse in a mixture of Huttese and Basic vulgarities. She couldn’t find the name she wanted – hers.
There was an entry, of course, for Launia Andem, the smuggler-turned-Jedi. Born on Darellia, on such-and-such date, to so-and-so parents, aged twenty-six, and so on. Likely the only true part was the age, but for all Revan knew, she could have been a well-preserved fifty. She wondered why the data wasn’t there. Access restricted? Deleted in shame? That didn’t sound like it. She hadn’t been the only one in the history to fall, and there were still records for Exar Kun in the databank. For all intents and purposes, Launia Andem’s existence was more solid than Revan’s.
Granted permission to peruse the files, she had all but locked herself up in the archives, a high-ceilinged hall furnished with row after row after row of shelves standing on polished marble tiles. Her search had been fruitless, and she had been swimming in information both electronic and written. The archive’s accumulation of scrolls and tomes was somewhat at odds with its collection of holobooks and datapads. The interior of the temple, too, was positively archaic with its many arches, columns, and sunlit corridors softened by thick carpets – hand-woven, she’d heard. She would have appreciated its elegance more, had her mind not been so occupied.
From a triangular, blue-tinted window, she could see two of Coruscant’s four moons, though they were dimmed by the dots of lights that were zooming speeders and glowing artifices. She’d started long before sunset, which made it about four hours since she’d begun. Her eyes were protesting, and her head throbbed with a mild ache. There was HK-47, of course, though he was not much help when it came to describing the more subtle aspects of a person. Much of his accounts tended toward the bloody and the gory, imparted in gleeful details and embellishments that were almost undroid-like. Dark Lord Revan had always enjoyed hacking the limbs off of offending meatbags, Dark Lord Revan always found putting people into torture cells amusing, and master, would you like that looking-at-you-funny man blasted into smithereens right now, please? Not quite the insights she had hoped to glean.
The formal pardons, where her rank of a Knight was restored, had come and gone, and then partings. Canderous had disappeared without a word or a trace, in search, others had speculated, of some new battle. Somehow, Revan doubted that. The words he’d spoken in an unguarded moment still remained with her. When I think of the battles I’ve fought, the thousands I’ve killed, the worlds I’ve burned, I weep for my past.
Zaalbar had returned to Kashyyyk, and Mission with him, to prepare the Wookiees in establishing their place in the galaxy, no longer as slaves or animals. Juhani had gone to take her final Padawan trials; all things considered, Revan was fairly certain she would emerge as a Knight. Bastila had been taken for further training, a decision that she accepted humbly. For all we’ve done, for all that I’ve perceived myself to be, I still have so much to learn, you have taught me that, she had told Revan quietly. There was no sisterly bond forged here, but they had come to a conciliatory ground on which they admitted respect for each other.
Revan let the monitor go silent, withdrawing her touch from it. She considered enlisting T3-M4’s help to slice into the system, since all else had failed. She was about to go fetch the cylindrical droid when the doors slid open, gleaming white panels whose noise was no louder than a clandestine whisper. Jolee entered, waving away murmurs of “May the Force be with you” from archivists and apprentices as he came.
She shot him a grin, feeling her heart lighten. “Congratulations on your Council seat, Jolee. Or should that be Master Bindo?”
“Hmph,” he grunted with a feigned scowl. “Fine, mock the crazy old man.”
The cranky old Jedi had been offered a place on the Jedi Council, since some of the Jedi Masters had fallen in the attack on Dantooine. Revan’d thought herself beyond surprise; when she heard that Jolee accepted, she had come close to introducing her jaw to the floor. “Well, you could have said no,” she pointed out cheerfully, “both to that and taking up Bastila’s training. I thought you’d finally gone well and truly senile when you agreed to it.”
“Ha, ha, ha. Very funny, my girl. Wait until you’ve heard what they’re going to saddle you with.”
“It can’t be a fate worse than tutoring Bastila, even a somewhat loosened-up Bastila.”
Jolee chortled. “Let me see.” He held up a tanned hand, ticking off his fingers. “This week, meeting with the Senators. The next, represent the Jedi Council in a negotiation with the Alderaanian royal family to establish a new Jedi academy there. Remember to nod and smile, eh?”
Revan stared, and couldn’t stop her decidedly childish response: “Why me?” Quickly, she added, “Surely there are others more suited to the tasks! I’m no diplomat.”
“Heh, they must’ve thought you did pretty good back with the Rakatas.”
“At the end of assorted arms – swords and spears and javelins. That didn’t exactly require simpering and suave charms.” She slumped into a nearby chair, trying to find comfort in the hard, unyielding wood. “I think I’m beginning to see why you fled for uncivilized hermitage.”
“Ah, no. You’re too young to have the right to that kind of mystique. Give it a few decades first. Carth is worried enough as it is, he’s pacing like a trapped, rabid Wookie.”
She stiffened, wrapping the dagged sleeves of her blue robe around herself to ward off a sudden chill. “Did he send you, then?”
“Do I look like an errand boy? No respect for the elderly, people your age, I tell you. I do know, though, that if no one acts as a go-between for you and him, things would never get done. So let’s be blunt: do you intend to play the perfect Jedi and leave him cold and dry, or give the Jedi Masters another merry hell?”
“You are a Jedi Master, Jolee.”
“Forget I am one for now. As a matter of fact, whether I am one or not is irrelevant at the moment. And you said I’m elusive.”
“I don’t think I’ve come to a conclusion yet,” she murmured distantly. “You know, at first I shied away from it, but I realized that it’s no good. As much as the others will reassure me otherwise, Launia Andem doesn’t exist. Revan did; Revan still does. I exist.”
“Contemplating a dual identity will lead nowhere but madness, girl.”
“A false identity doesn’t sound too sane to me, either,” she countered. “I don’t want to tempt fate and go down that path again, of course. I just… want to know why, and how. I’ll go on as a redeemed Revan, not some non-existent woman the Jedi Council created. Carth doesn’t deserve a… half a person.” She tightened her lips. “I’m sure this must all sound terribly melodramatic and maudlin to you, but—”
Jolee waved his hand dismissively. “You’ve earned the right to be as sappy as you want, considering. Frankly, I was expecting you to be enraged or fall into despairing pieces. Young things like you tend to. But you held yourself together, no mean feat.”
“I was furious, initially. As for falling apart, well, there was no time. So now there is time, but unfortunately, not a trace of me is left in the Jedi archives. Care to give a hand?”
“If I told you to let it go, will you listen to the old man?”
She smiled slightly. “No, don’t even bother. So, either the file is deleted, or access is given only to Jedi Masters. If it’s the latter…”
Jolee heaved a sigh. “The former, actually, to prevent just what you’re doing now. For once, I’m inclined to agree with them. You’re chasing your own shadow.”
“Shadow it may be, but this shadow is as close to a truth as I will ever get. Perish the thought of plunging into the archives, then. Do you know anyone who might have known me personally before? I’d hoped to find someone who’d trained me on Coruscant. Apparently, either all of them are dead, or none of them wants to talk to the new and improved Revan.”
“Kid, I’ve been out of touch with the order for the last two decades or more, I can’t remember the precise date anymore; you know that.”
“I should’ve sat Malak down to a tea party before we went at each other’s throat,” she muttered. Then a thought occurred to her. “Jolee, do you think…?” Without waiting for an answer, she sprang up and strode to the computer. A single keyword, an appropriate command, and she was rewarded with a page of information, alongside a two-dimensional animated image of an all-too-familiar figure. The first few lines read: Malak Sovran. Homeworld: Alderaan. Training: Dantooine. Personal training: Jedi Knight Thasei…
* * * *
Yuthura Ban surveyed the groups of trainees and teachers with disapproval; several that dared to meet her gaze wilted. The Twi’lek violently shook her head-tails, further alerting them to her foul humor. Immediately those unfortunate enough to be in her way scurried to give her as wide a berth as could be managed in the crowded hallway, all but flattening themselves against the walls. And unusually crowded it was, the whole academy crammed with Sith refugees – refugees, because there was no better term to describe the pitiful remnants of Malak’s followers. Lost and frightened, they were constantly on edge, as if expecting an army of Jedi to barge in and slaughter them to the last man.
The worst of it was that Yuthura shared their fear.
Malak – May all the dark voids damn his soul and his name! – had had most of his forces converged at the Star Forge. Which meant, when the station went crashing down, almost half of the Sith fleet was eradicated in a single fell swoop. To be sure, their enemy suffered its share of casualties, but nothing compared to the Sith’s. Now Dreshdae bristled with battle-ready starfighters, ships, and war droids, anticipating skirmishes that might come at any time or not at all. The high-strung vigilance could only hold for so long before something snapped.
Yuthura almost regretted, for a moment, killing Uthar. Almost. If he were here, at least someone else would be shouldering most of the burden. With power comes responsibility, and you must therefore learn discipline, the Jedi Knight who had trained her had said. She’d refused to believe it at the time; restraints, she had seen, kept her from freeing the other slaves. Kept her from righteous vengeance.
Her dark musing was shattered when someone touched her elbow. “Master Yuthura.”
The Twi’lek regarded the source of disturbance with a cold gaze. It was Sorcia, a recently recruited student. The girl was nothing extraordinary: a fair adept of the Force, a reasonably capable hand with the lightsaber, but she had always disturbed her peers. Yuthura had once seen her interrogate a prisoner. Sorcia knew just where to insert a sharp object, when to apply drugs, and could keep a man conscious for a great length of time. But she did it in a way she did everything else: passionlessly. In duels against other would-be Sith, in competitions against other students. Given different contexts, her serenity was almost Jedi-like – a sadistic, carnivorous Jedi, to be sure, but Jedi nonetheless.
The last time Yuthura had had such misgivings, the object of her suspicion had been an infiltrator that turned out to be none other than Revan. Who had proceeded to defeat her in single combat, making her ask for mercy. Yuthura had been genuinely surprised when mercy was granted, and knew that, if not she, then someone else would make the woman pay for such a mistake. What she hated most, though, was the vague sense that she now owed Revan a debt for sparing her life. But the woman had turned to the Jedi when she could have taken the title of Sith Lord back from Malak. A galaxy at her feet, the dark side at her beck and call – what sane person would not desire that? No, former Dark Lord or not, Revan had become foolish and weak.
“Report,” Yuthura said curtly after deeming that Sorcia had waited long enough. Her other subordinates would have been fidgeting under the pause; the girl was statue-still, untouched by the fact that Yuthura could crush the life out of her at a whim.
“Devon is dead. The man who crash-landed is, as you’d said, Mondrey Kreed.”
“Indeed.” The Twi’lek quickened her pace, forcing Sorcia to fall behind her a few steps. “And why hasn’t he accompanied with you? I believe, student, that I distinctly told you to persuade him to come to the academy.”
Sorcia shook her head, causing the red curls on her close-cropped head to dance. “I don’t think he is predisposed to, Master Yuthura.”
“Your opinion of his disposition is hardly in question,” Yuthura snapped. “Did he offer an excuse for killing one of ours and then refusing to face me? The imbecile should know that thinning our own ranks at this time is sheer idiocy.”
“He wishes you informed that he will want a ship, Master. And provisions.”
“And he wishes me informed, why exactly? Don’t tell me that he has eliminated one of my students without my permission and now demands transport.” Yuthura sighed. “Tell me, girl, why do you feel obliged to spout his ridiculous request at me?”
“He told me a story, Master.”
Yuthura might have laughed in sheer exasperation, had she not known that flippant jokes were quite beyond Sorcia. The girl wouldn’t know humor – or sarcasm – if it ran her through with a vibroblade then danced a jig on her grave. The Twi’lek again wished dearly that they were not under a crisis, or she would have gotten rid of the pesky girl once and for all. If Kreed had killed her instead of Devon, now, she would gladly give him a ship and a squadron of Force adepts for him to command, to boot. “A story, he told you a story. Very good. I hope you were suitably entertained. Now, what is his reason to leave instead of joining us to defend Korriban?”
“He didn’t say, Master, but I glimpsed something in his mind. A woman.”
Yes, the girl was good at mental probes and mind-tricks, if nothing else. “Pray tell.”
“She wears Jedi robes. Dark hair, not very tall, high cheekbones, fair-skinned.”
A description that could have fitted any number of female humans, but for that it conjured a certain name to Yuthura’s mind. “Revan,” the Twi’lek thought aloud. “What does he want with her, revenge?”
“I can’t be sure, Master; Mondrey Kreed isn’t a weak-willed man. I couldn’t read his thoughts further and not have him notice. If what I have gleaned is any evidence, however, I believe he intends to seek her out and pledge allegiance to her.”
