SWKotORRL Prologue: Motive

Star War: Knights of the Old Republic: Revan's Legend

Prologue: Motive


“You’re loosing her!”

“No I’m not.”

“She’s barely alive!”

“We’ve got this under control.”

“We have to help her!”

“You do know who this is?”

“That doesn’t matter!  It shouldn’t matter!”

“The question remains.”

“Of course I know who it is!  I’m the one who saved her!”

“You saved her!  Why would you do that?”

“It doesn’t concern you!  Where is Master Vandar!  I was told I would report directly to Master Van…”

“I’m on duty, that’s what matters.  I’m as good a healer as anyone…”

“She’s been unconscious to long already!  There might be brain damage!”

“Padawan Bastila!” the healer finally spoke the woman’s name; clearly he was reaching the end of his patience, as was the one named Bastila.

“If you aren’t going to get Master Vandar than I will; I told you, this was a classified mission, I can’t say why, but you can’t let her die!”  As if to underline her fears, the woman on the table breathed in a shallow breath, it was gargled with blood.  “DO IT!”

“Alright, alright!” the healer spat, “I just don’t understand why we’re going to help her!  She’s the Sith Lord for…”

“Quiet you fool!” Bastila nearly shouted, “If anyone heard you!”

“You can see it plain as day!  She’s still wearing the mask for crying out loud!” the healer jerked his arm out in a sweeping motion.  “If you don’t want anyone to know who it is it would be better to take the mask off!”

“You want to see!” Bastila reached down and yanked the mask off of Revan’s face, the healer blanched and darted from the room mumbling that he would find Master Vandar.  She knew she was panicking, she knew that she was behaving very unjedi like, but Bastila couldn’t help it.  All she could think of was the last conversation she’d had with Reven.

It had been just as her war party had reached the Bridge.  Revan was shouting orders, and she had turned to face the intruders, wearing her legendary robe and that terrifying mask she had ordered her crew off the Bridge.  Bastila ordered her men to activate her light sabers but Revan had not drawn her own, and they waited in silence as the crew members left the chambers.

“Revan!” Bastila had challenged once the Sith Lord was the last in the room, “You are ordered by the Jedi Council to come with me to Coruscant to face trial and sentencing!”  Without speaking, without even reaching out an arm, Revan called upon the force.

To Bastila’s horror her entire Jedi strike team stiffened, their light sabers seamed to drop in unison, and each began making a sickening gargling sound as their airways were constricted.  In a heartbeat Bastila understood what was happening.  Revan was using the force to choke them to death, all five of them, and the Sith wasn’t even trembling with the effort.

With a roar, Bastila shoved out her arm, intent on force shoving her adversary to the ground, hoping to interrupt the Sith’s attack.  She couldn’t know why, but Revan’s force attack had left her completely unaffected, and she planned on using that failing to her advantage…

But as suddenly as her strike team fell to their knees beside her and lost consciousness, it became translucently and terrifying clear that Revan had not failed to catch Bastila in the attack, but that the Dark Lord had simply blocked the Padawan’s connection to the force.  Bastila’s force shove had come to naught, and for a moment Bastila was terrified that this mission had been woefully foolish to embark upon.

Even as her men fall around her she could hear their airways clear, she could feel through the force their lungs working furiously, keeping them alive, and she realized that Revan, despite having the power to kill them all where they stood, had not done so.

“I will not be going anywhere the Council tells me to go Bastila,” after being under the influence of the Dark Side of the Force for so long, Revan’s voice sounded scratchy, like that of an old woman, though Bastila knew the Sith Lord to be no more than her mid twenties… so young to have been a General, and yet… “As I am sure you know, I was banished from the order long before I became a Sith.  They have no right to call on me anymore.”

“I… I…” Bastila stuttered, not at all confident in her position.  She was terrified and she knew of only one mantra that might help.  There is no emotion, there is…

“Peace is a lie,” Revan interrupted her thoughts, “There is only passion.  Your Jedi Code is an aging defense, one that leaves most questions unanswered.  Trust me Padawan Bastila, I spent many years hoping to find the answers I sought within those hollow words, but there is little truth in them.  There is little truth in our own code as well.”

“Your passion has wrought death on a scale unimaginable!” Bastila countered, spurred on by the insult to the Jedi Code, “Your passion will end the existence of the Republic!  It will cost the lives of every man woman and child!”

“Nonsense,” Revan stated with a flick of her wrist, hardly perturbed, “Everything I have done I have done for the Republic.  Everything I do, I do for them.”

“Lies!” Bastila scowled, not angered, but disgusted by Darth Revan’s feeble words, “You have given in to the Dark Side.  Everyone knows that Sith think only of themselves!”

“In the past it was so,” Revan nodded, almost sadly, though Bastila could detect nothing from the Sith, nor see her features.  “I am different.”

“How!” Bastila snapped appalled at what she was hearing, “You stand before me, in a Sith Interdictor ship reigning fire upon the very Republic you claim to protect!  What about Malachor?  What about Telos!”

“I had nothing to do with Telos,” Revan stated coolly, “I did not intend for that to happen…”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing!  I suppose it was all the other Sith Lords who…”

“Malak acted on his own!” Revan snarled, cutting Bastila off, “I did not realize how far he had fallen!  I grieve for the lives of all those on Telos!  I swear it will never happen again.”

Bastila recoiled in shock.  These were words she had never thought to hear from the likes of a Sith.  It was always possible that Revan was lying, that the Dark Lord was trying to unbalance the young Padawan, but somehow she didn’t believe this was the case.

“And Malachor!” Bastila accused, “Half of your own forces died on that rock as well!”  Revan reacted to the accusation as though it were a physical blow.  The Sith’s shoulder’s slumped and she grasped for the edge of a technicians console.

“Malachor was…” Revan broke off for a moment, her head turned to survey the battle taking place on the holomap in the center of the Command Center, but soon her masked gaze fell back on Bastila, “Malachor was a mistake… I wanted only to end the war.”

“And so you killed your own men!” Bastila shouted, she couldn’t contain her voice any longer.  She couldn’t understand how Revan could sit there and try to explain her actions as though they were noble when every evidence proved the lie.  In truth Bastila could hardly keep herself from flinging herself at the Sith with light saber drawn.

“I could see them!” Revan exclaimed and at last she was shaking, Bastila was amazed to hear youth in the Sith’s voice again, she no longer sounded as though the taint of the Sith was in her, though her passion was evident, and Bastila knew that such adamant passion was a tell tell sign of the Dark Side, “I saw them Bastila!  Every death, every single one!  Can you imagine!  Each time the Mandalorians set their sights on another target I felt the planets die, and I was lucky! there were those who could feel it so completely… so intimately… and they would tell me what they saw with dead eyes, I heard Jedi speak as though they wished they had never touched the force… the war was stretching to long and I acted to end it… I acted in haste and it was an action that haunts me even still!  

“It’s worse now even!  I know now that I only weakened them!  I only hindered those Republic soldiers because I let them fall behind me for protection!  They did not learn to protect themselves, they learned only to cower behind those more powerful than they… it’s pathetic… but it’s the truth, and for what its worth I apologize!”

“You apologize!” Now Bastila was truly upset, “You apologize!  Look at what your doing now!  You are bringing those visions you spoke of to other Jedi!  Not the Madalorian’s Revan, YOU!”

“Some sacrifices are necessary!” Revan shouted, and while the statement sounded a horrible testament to her fall, Bastila actually felt the sorrow behind them.  It sounded as if Revan spoke the words as much for her own sake as for Bastila, and the Padawan’s certainty that she was dealing with nothing more than a Sith Lord wavered, “I am doing what I must!  You don’t know what’s out there!  They aren’t prepared for it and neither are the Jedi!  I have only ever done what I had to!

“I don’t kill because I want to!  I have always avoided worlds that are to weak to fight back!  Look at my strategy Bastila!  Look at the cost of this war!  Aside from Taris I have never destroyed a world!  I seek to unify them.  If everything happens as it should I can force the Republic to work as one cohesive whole!”

“You can force them!” Bastila staggered backward, “are you so arrogant that you can’t see the flaw in that thinking!”

“There is no flaw!  Once they are under my control they will resent me!” Revan snapped, “They will hate me and they will grow unified in their hatred!  A world first, and then more, all will be one!  The word will spread like wildfire and the Sith will mysteriously know nothing of it!  When the time comes one planet may retaliate, and they will succeed!  They will crush their opposition!  The Rebellion will grow and soon there will be nowhere for me to hide but the outer worlds, and by then they will be at their strongest!  By then they will be ready!  I know it, I have seen it, and I can make it happen!”

“You can make it happen,” was Bastila’s shocked whisper. The young padawan was not certain if she was disgusted or awed, or simply just confused by Revan’s words.  How could she believe what she was hearing?  The words of the Sith were, more often than not, lies, and yet the passion in Revan’s words was undeniable, when she spoke of the Republic triumphing over her own forces she sounded almost proud, but then pride was also a path to the dark side… “It would be against their will…”

“No it wouldn’t!” Revan all but pleaded, “They would be doing exactly as their nature dictates, they would be seeking their freedom…”

“But by your design!  If your… plan… were to succeed it would have been you that had brought yourself down, not the Republic!”

“No!” Revan shook her head and her voice at last fell calm again, still the taint of the Dark Side was unheard in her voice, it seamed almost as though her passion on this subject was protecting her, “Following orders does not make one a slave to another’s intent.  If I commanded the battle on Dxun, the victory is no less the Republic’s than it is mine!  The men and women who fought were invaluable, their help mattered!  I cannot win a war with tactics alone, I need soldiers, I need people willing to fight!  This is no different.  They may not know it, but the Republic will still be following me!  They will fight and they will win, and their victory shall be no less theirs than it is mine!”

“And if you should die in this?  If you are killed as a war criminal?”

“Than I will die at peace knowing that after all these years, after all the pain I have felt, that they will be ready!  I will die knowing that they are all safe, knowing that when a war comes, they will not need the Jedi!  They will not need to beg for relief from a source that will not give it!”

“And if you should die before then?” Bastila cried, almost as horrified by the Sith’s apparent willingness to give up her life as she was by the lives that had already been lost, “your plan would fail!  You could not ensure that such Rebellions were successful, what then Revan, how will you spend your afterlife then?”

“It is a risk I must take!” Revan replied quietly, “There is no other way, they come!  Time is already running out, even if my timetable is flawless there is still a chance that they will be here!”

“Who are you talking about!” Bastila frowned, and then a more important question filled her mind, “wait… If this is your plan than you have taken a terrible risk in revealing it to me…”

“It is a necessary risk,” Revan replied.

“What do you mean?”

“I need you Bastila.”

“I refuse,” Bastila replied without hesitation, “I will never fall to the Dark Side.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Revan replied, and her determination suffered another blow, “I will win this war Bastila!  I will take control of the Republic and if you are not with me, they will never succeed in retaking it from me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your battle meditation!” Revan snarled as though it were obvious, “I need your battle meditation!  No other Jedi is as powerful in the ability as you are, no other Force User can help me accomplish what I’m asking you to do!”

“I Don’t believe you,” Bastila shook her head coldly, “I want to, I want to believe that, even through your flawed methods, you are acting in the interest of others… It would mean there is hope for redemption in you… but how can I trust a Sith?  You could be luring me into a trap!”

“Bastila please!” Revan said, “Look around!  Your Strike Team can’t fight me!  I didn’t even have to kill them!  They are all alive and ready to be sent back to the Jedi temples.  I have no desire to kill any of you!”  Bastila had a hard time arguing against this point, she could feel the life in her unconscious companions, each would make full recoveries, “If I had merely wished you dead I would have…”

“A trap to lead me to the Dark Side,” Bastila interrupted and again she repeated the Jedi code in her mind, this conversation was taxing on her emotions, but also she was… tempted… not to kill or fight in this war… but if what Revan was saying was true… than maybe in the future…

“I am willing to hear more,” Bastila stated, her own composer now calm as well, “I am not convinced.  Not yet, but I am willing to listen at least.  If I am to believe that any of your strategy is real, I need to know more about this threat you perceive is coming.”

“Very well,” Revan sighed, and Bastila could hear the relief in her voice, “I first felt it on….” all at once Revan froze.  Behind her mask it was impossible to see her features but Bastila felt the alarm in the Sith Lord’s emotions none the less, “Malak no!” Bastila’s senses went on full alert, had Revan not sensed it first the Padawan would have entirely missed it, but even sensing the danger Bastila feared it was to late.

A hail of fire blasted into Revan’s Interdictor class ship, all around her, sudden explosions ripped the Command Center to pieces.  Rivets popped, consoles flipped up and onto their sides.  Half the ceiling suddenly gave way, Both Revan and Bastila stood in danger of being crushed beneath it, and it was already to late.  Bastila could only watch as her death fell at her at a speed she could never match with all the power of the force… and then a force wall slammed into her back and propelled her out of the way and hard into a wall and everything went black…

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Light returned to Bastila and she groaned in pain and confusion.  She was lying on her back amid a great field of rubble and she swiftly deduced that she could not have been out for more than a few minutes.  Rolling onto her side, suffering the pain it caused her, she looked around to assess the situation.  Her Jedi Strike Team had been crushed, she could not feel them though the force, but Revan had somehow managed to get clear of the ruble as Bastila had… or at least, she had cleared most of it.  The Dark Lord of the Sith lay on her own back, her entire right side crushed beneath the smoky ruins of the Command Center’s fallen ceiling.  Bastila had almost given her for dead, until she groaned.

“Revan!” Bastila called and quickly reached the crushed woman’s side.  She could feel the Sith’s pain now, not just physical pain, but mental anguish, and strain, she could almost feel the struggle inside this woman, and Bastila could only wonder if it was Revan’s will fighting off the corrupting elements of the Dark Side.

“He…” Revan coughed up a clod of blood, “He… ruined…”

“Revan save your strength!” Bastila shushed the woman.  She was loosing blood at an alarming rate.

“Bastila you… you have…” the Sith coughed out another sickly spray of dark red blood.

“Don’t worry Revan I’m going to get you out of here!”  Bastila was no fool, the only person who could have shoved her out of the falling ceiling’s path was Reven herself.  For this reason alone the Sith had earned the Padawan’s assistance, but it was more than that.  Bastila had been reached by Revan’s attempt to recruit her.  She was not at all convinced that Revan was right, or even that she was moral in her quest, but Bastila did believe that the Sith Lord had spoke truthfully.  Revan’s life was flowing away quickly, but Bastila used the force and took hold of it, not allowing it to slip away completely.

“Save them… Save them,” were the Sith Lords last words before she lost consciousness, and in may way’s, were Darth Revan’s last words.

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Revan’s wounds had been so great that Bastila had changed course to the Jedi enclave on Dantooine, where now the wounded Sith Lord lay comatose.  The Jedi masters had healed Revan’s wounds, but they were using the force to keep her unconscious as they interviewed Bastila.

“You believe this Bastila?” Vrook was saying, he sounded suspicious as ever, “you mean to tell me that you believe that Darth Revan herself spoke such words and believed them to be true?”

“I do,” Bastila replied, and she meant it, “She said things that… I don’t pretend to approve of her plan wise Council, but… there was something… I believe she can be saved… I believe that she did what she thought was right.  I believe she acted wrongly, but in the interests of others… I believe that she deserves a chance for redemption.”

“It would be hard,” Master Dorak intoned, “The Republic hates her, the Sith themselves turned on her… her face is well known…”

“Is it?” Bastila asked, “She hid her face beneath that mask… even I can hardly remember what she looked like and I had lessons with her, by now she will have aged a great deal, and no one is looking for her.  Revan is dead, at least she is as far as the Republic is concerned.”

“It would be hard on her,” Master Vandar announced, “She has already had a hard life.  I know now that it was our mistakes that led her to take so many of us with her to war.  I wonder if it would be more merciful to execute her.”

“The Jedi do not kill their prisoners!” Bastila cried out, dismayed, she didn’t understand why, but she felt connected to Revan now, and the thought of execution turned her stomach to bile.

“She is right Master Vandar,” and Bastila was surprised to hear these words from Master Vrook, “We must not kill her.  It is not our way or our right.  We are somewhat responsible for her.”

“She must not know who she was,” Master Vandar sighed, “If we are to do this, we will have to remove a sizeable portion of her memory, and she will know it is missing.  If we do this Bastila, we will have to use her, you know this?”

“I do,” Bastila replied.

“We will also hold it to you to guide her.  She will be lost at times.  She may feel the dark impulses of her old life, or she may be an entirely new person, only time can tell, but you would be responsible for her… are you willing to live with that kind of responsibility?”

Bastila remained quiet for a time, it was an important decision, one she knew would impact her life for all time, but then… hadn’t her meeting with Revan already done that?   On the other hand, could she bring herself to try and help Revan further?  Saving the dying woman who had saved her had almost been like returning a favor… but could she honestly trust herself to guide one who had once tossed the Jedi teachings aside?

Save them, the Sith Lords final words.  Words spoken on what Revan must have believed she was passing to another on her death bed, and it was these words that spurred Bastila on.  It was because of these words that Bastila knew she could guide Revan, or at least try, and rather than lie she said, “I am willing to try.”
It seamed as though it was what the Masters wanted to hear.  But the truth was that they never had a choice.