Force Blind

A Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic AU fanfic by Princess Artemis

© S.D. Green 2005, except for the really obvious parts that are © BioWare and LucasArts

Darth Revan strode toward the Ebon Hawk, her new apprentice Darth Stilita in tow. She grinned, yellow eyes flashing. It felt good, so right, to claim her rightful place as the Dark Lord of the Sith. The inevitable culmination of a life, what she knew of it at least, lived in Darkness. There were just a few minor matters to address, little things such as slaughtering Malak for his impudence, attacking her from a distance like a coward. It didn’t matter to her that she couldn’t remember her previous life as Revan; she would fill her new existence with future glories. She knew she was more powerful than the old Revan, and she reveled in it.

She expected little resistance from the crew that had inadvertently helped her regain access to her Star Forge. Oh, they hadn’t meant to, they had tried to reach the Star Forge to destroy it, by the dangerous gamble of the Jedi Council. Well, they would soon find how well that had turned out.

The crew of the Ebon Hawk spotted her and jogged up the stretch of white beach to meet her. Carth spoke first. "Bastila! It’s good to see you, I was worried about you after...." He slowed down and a puzzled expression replaced the previous relief. "W-where’s Jolee? What happened?"

Revan tapped her teeth with a fingernail, a tiny smile on her face. "He died fighting the Dark Lord," she answered, too sweet to be anything but venom.

"What? Wait, what, what are you talking about?"

Mission was just as confused. "Malak wasn’t there, was he? Jolee run out of here like a gizka with a rancor on his tail. He was worried about you."

Bastila, the newly renamed Darth Stilita, put her hands on her hips and declared in an icy tone, "No, fools, Revan has reclaimed her throne! He refused to bow down to her might and he died for it."

Mission gasped in disbelieving horror while Carth took a moment to let this revelation sink in. "Ni’e, that can’t be...you...no, I don’t believe it," he said.

Still on her tirade, Stilita shouted, "Now all of you must bow to Revan reborn or die!"

A quick Force shove sent Stilita sprawling. "I’ll speak for myself, apprentice," Revan said, and Stilita simply nodded, chastised. "Now, as Darth Stilita was saying...I have reclaimed my rightful title and rule. Swear loyalty now or regret it at your leisure." Revan turned to address all of them, Dark Side bleached eyes lighting upon Carth, Canderous, Mission, HK-47, Zaalbar, and T3-M4 in turn.

Zaalbar held his head in his paws and uttered a quiet, keening wail that held no words. HK-47 stood tall, his grinning and malevolent voice standing in well for his motionless droid face. "Answer: Yessss, master! Of course, master! I could not be more delighted to hear you reclaim your rightful place. I look forward to the bloody massacre and charred corpses we will leave in our wake."

"No!" Carth yelled, "This isn’t you, I know it...you’re, you’re not Revan, I can feel it!"

Stilita stood and dusted sand from her dark robes. "My, my, I think he’s in love with you, master," she sneered.

Revan glanced at Stilita, then looked at Carth. "Is that so?" She stepped toward him, and Carth took a step back. He wasn’t quite fast enough—Revan rested her arms on his shoulders, gracing him with a predatory grin. She had found him an endless source of amusement, stringing him along, even making the effort to turn his son way from the Sith just to see how blind he was. It delighted to her to no end that he had fallen for her. "I am Darth Revan, and you could rule at my side if you wanted," she whispered, voice silky. Before he could answer, she kissed him.

He couldn’t claim he had been caught off guard, but Carth was unsure what to do with himself. He found, much to his confusion, that he was returning the kiss and holding her with a startling desperation.

Despite the unfavorable conditions of having a few two many Darths on the beach, Mission couldn’t keep an offended "ew" from escaping.

Carth didn’t hear it, but he reacted as if he had. He managed to shove Revan away, with no little force, but she didn’t seem to mind. "No," he choked, then with a stronger voice, "No, you, you aren’t the woman I love."

"Aw, I’m so disappointed," Revan mock pouted.

Shaking hands raked through dark hair. "But, but...I, we, I’ll help you find her."

Revan glared. "You are an epic fool. A twice blind fool! I was and always will be Revan!" Sometimes her amusements failed to amuse. She spun on her heel and stared at the rest. "Anyone else feel like denying me?"

Canderous shrugged. "I already told you it doesn’t matter to me. Light side, Dark side, what’s the difference? I’ll follow you where ever you go, Revan."

"Well, at least there’s one smart man here," Revan said. "I’ll just assume T3 will follow me, since I am its master."

T3-M4 confirmed her statement with a series of rather resigned sounding beeps.

"T3 doesn’t sound very happy about that," Mission observed, her head tails wrapped protectively around her throat. "Me and Big Z, we’re with Carth on this one."

Zaalbar shook his head. /I swore a life debt to her, Mission. I can’t dishonor that sacred vow./

"What?" Mission shouted. "Zaalbar, it doesn’t count if she’s gone all Sith on you!"

"But it does, Mission," Revan said, grinning. "He said it himself, he confirmed it, when you all found out I was Revan the first time around. And you were nearly as blind as Carth, going on and on about how you didn’t see a Sith Lord in front of you." She laughed. "I can’t believe the gullibility of some people! You watched me revel in cruelty and anger for months, and you still thought I was on your side! Even Stilita was a bit deluded at that point. You, Mission, I’ll put aside your delusions to youthful naïveté; at least you have an excuse. Perhaps you had never seen a true Sith before and didn’t realize what was before your very eyes."

"No! I’m not going to join you!" She stomped a foot then looked up at her Wookiee friend. "Big Z, you can’t go with her, she’s evil."

/I’m sorry Mission, I can’t go back on the traditions of my people. It would be a betrayal to my ancestors and myself. Join us./

"Oh, oh, y’mean those traditions you tossed out the nearest window when Chuundar had Freyyr killed? The ones that you upheld because Wookiee slavery is such an old and venerated practice? I see you holding Bacca’s Blade and I know what you said about it," Mission snapped. "Yeah, you hold onto traditions all right. At least if you break this one you’ll be helping people and being loyal to your friends."

Zaalbar looked down at Bacca’s Blade, then back at Mission. /Perhaps you are right. We have abandoned the old ways.../

"You still owe me a life debt, you walking carpet!" Revan declared.

Carth ran over to Mission’s side and grabbed her wrist. "As long as I’m here, you won’t have to serve the Sith. Come on, we have to get out of here and find some way to save Ni’e and Bastila." With that, he started running up the beach, away from the Ebon Hawk, Mission in tow. Mission motioned to Zaalbar, and he too began to flee.

"Not so fast!" Revan shouted. She snapped back her arm as if she held a rope in it, and indeed she did, a Force binding. The bind yanked Carth’s feet out from under him and he slammed into the sand so hard the wind was knocked from him. Mission tripped over Carth’s prone body, and the only thing that saved Zaalbar from following them down was a quick leap. It took a moment for Mission and Carth to sort themselves out—a little longer than it should have, since the ends of Mission’s head tails had instinctively wrapped themselves around Carth’s arm and neck. Mission managed to get up after regaining control of her errant lekku, but Carth could only turn over; it felt as though something was eating him from the inside out, some dull burrowing thing, leaving him with just enough strength to gasp and watch. He didn’t doubt that Revan had used some kind of Dark Force power on him.

Mission tried to help Carth up, but it did no good. The Force affliction left him too weak. "You’re not doing too good...well, all right, I’ll just have to, to drag you away, that’s it, that’s what I’ll do..." That plan was not the best; Carth was a good deal stockier than a teenaged Twi’lek could handle, but Mission couldn’t think of anything else.

"Now, Zaalbar, you still owe me a life debt," Revan said. "I’m not one to release anyone from their servitude to me except through death. I can kill you if that’s what you really want. But, what I want is a demonstration of loyalty." Revan waved her hand and said, "You want to kill Mission. To fulfil your oath."

For all that had happened on Kashyyyk, words spoken in derision of ancient tradition and values, in reality, Zaalbar had not quite disposed of them in his mind. It would have been better, perhaps, if he had. Then the Force persuasion wouldn’t have worked so well; he did put great value on his life-debt. /Forgive me, Mission! I must honor my debt!/ he howled, and raised Bacca’s Blade to strike her down.

"No, Zaalbar! No!" Those were the last words Mission spoke as the unexpected attack eviscerated her. She fell forward onto Carth, draining her lifeblood onto the white sand of the beach. Carth had strength enough to set a hand on the dead girl’s shoulder.

Zaalbar straightened and shook his head, freeing it from the compulsion. He rounded on Revan and roared, /You tricked me! For that you will pay!/

"Of course I tricked you," Revan answered, as if it were the most obvious and reasonable thing in the galaxy. Zaalbar charged, but Stilita stepped in and with a flick of her double bladed lightsaber, clove him in two. He died before he hit the ground.

"Are we finished now?" Canderous asked, unconcerned with the drama playing out. He pointed up at the blue sky. "With the disruptor field down, I’m sure the Republic and Sith fleets are having fun up there. Don’t you think we ought to get going?"

"Yes, of course. Just one more thing." Revan stepped over to Carth’s side and said, "Maybe I’ll just keep you by my side anyway, whether you like it or not." She grinned down at Carth. "You did say we were in this together, didn’t you? That I gave you a reason to live?" Her words mocked him, but sworn and witnessed by the Force and the unyielding stubbornness of Onasi nature, neither one of them had any idea what that would entail.

She then Force choked him unconscious, and had Canderous carry him into the Ebon Hawk.

‘Mandalorian of burden’ wasn’t quite what Canderous had in mind as for what work he might perform for Revan, but it could have been worse. He just wished Onasi would stop muttering strange codes in his ear. That’s what it sounded like to him, at any rate. Force this and Force that, it was a litany of denials and statements that would likely have made Bastila, Jedi Princess of Pretentious Prattle, want to slap him upside the head.

Canderous dropped his unconscious charge on the bed in what passed for a med. bay on the Hawk and restrained him so he wouldn’t cause trouble when he woke up. Then he wandered into the cockpit. "Hey, Bastila, I need to ask you something."

Stilita narrowed her eyes at Canderous. "That’s Darth Stilita. Remember it."

"Whatever. Come here ‘Stilita’, and tell me what Carth’s nattering about."

"Mrrrgh, fine."

The two walked into the med. bay, and Stilita frowned. "It sounds like the Jedi code."

"That’s what I thought, all that Force talk."

"No, no, it’s not quite right. It only sounds like the code. This is some perversion."

"What, like the Sith code?" Canderous grinned.

"No, you idiot, it’s all wrong." Stilita waved her hand. "Although it sounds like he’s muttering about the Sith code as well." Stilita leaned in so she could make better sense of Carth’s quiet mumbling.

"There is no emotion; there is the Force. No peace; there is the Force. Peace is a lie; there is only the Force. No ignorance, no knowledge; there is the Force. No passion; there is the Force. Through passion I gain nothing; there is only the Force." All of this whispered, muttered, and it appeared to Stilita that whatever was causing Carth to say these things was not pleasant.

"Perhaps he’s just having a nightmare," she said, voice hesitant. Something tugged at the edge of her mind, but she brushed it away. "Don’t worry about it, just more delusions." She breezed out of the room.

"I didn’t say I was worried about it," Canderous said to Stilita’s retreating back. "I was just curious if you knew what the hell he was talking about."

After spending a few moments lying through her teeth to Admiral Dodonna and Vandar, Revan had the Ebon Hawk well on her way to the Star Forge. With Darth Stilita and Canderous installed in the cockpit and enjoying the wonderful irony of having a Jedi escort onto her dark factory, Darth Revan decided she would pass a little time amusing herself.

She stood at Carth’s head, one hand settled to each side, and watched him. As Stilita had said, he did seem to be having a rather nasty nightmare. Revan wished she could feed off of whatever plagued him, but it was often a difficult matter to sense the emotions of Force blinds with strong wills. One of the reasons that the Dark Side was so appealing was the ability to enjoy the emotions that others broadcast, and in many cases, draw power from them. Taris had been a thing of beauty, to her. It wasn’t mindless cruelty; she wouldn’t bomb planets just to feel all the death, but it was something that empowered her and delighted her. Why experience such emotions as stunning pain the way Bastila had when they could be pleasant and enjoyable? It wasn’t just so-called negative emotions that a Sith could draw power from, but they were often the most potent. It was all about passion; sure, Iziz the Jawa’s happiness at having his people rescued had given Revan some raw material for power, but it was nothing like the fury of the Selkath when they found out about the Progenitor. Even love would work, if it were passionate enough. Revan wondered if that was the reason the Jedi proscribed attachments. Did they realize that the seductive power of the Dark Side was close when a person could feel the emotions of another, the passions? Should that person learn to draw power from them, they were well on their way to the Dark Side. She wondered for a moment if there were any Sith who based their power on love and familial attachments. Probably not; the darker passions were easier to induce, easier to find...that and a lovey-dovey Sith would likely be unable to stand against the more common sort simply because the undeniable passions of love often lead to mercy, a terrible weakness.

Fighting Mandalorians was useless for feeding off their emotions...there was just something about Mandalorians that made them difficult to sense. And the whole Leviathan adventure had been a huge disappointment. Carth was just as Force dense as a Mandalorian, which made Revan’s hope for reveling in his feelings when he finally got a shot at Saul almost impossible. Just an echo came back through Saul, and it was hardly worth a Force spark. It frustrated her to no end knowing that there was so much anger and hate standing right next to her and she couldn’t use any of it. She was glad the Force had thrown Mission and Zaalbar in her path, if only so she had some people around that she could fully feel their passions.

She settled in a little closer so she could hear whatever it as Carth was saying, but she could make very little of it out. Just that he hissed unsounded words as if they hurt to say. Soon the words were sounded, and now it was as if Carth were fighting not to say them.

"No serenity; there is the Force. No death, no life, no love, no hate; there is the Force. No Dark, no Light; there is the Force."

I wonder what sort of dreams cause men to obsess on the Force like that? Revan mused. Especially men for whom no love was lost on the Jedi or the Sith.

"No identi...no, no, identity...no self, no identity...no ide...." Carth shook his head hard, and woke up with a gasp. "Identity, there’s, there’s, no, yes...not a thing, not a tool."

"Not a tool?" Revan asked, curious.

"Huh?" Carth looked up at her, startled, then tried to shrink away, but there was no where to go. "Uh, why, why do you ask?"

Revan shrugged. "I’m curious. You know that. What were you dreaming about?"

"Caused enough trouble answering your questions," he grumbled. "Shouldn’t have done that, should have kept it to myself."

"Ah, well, the harm’s been done by now, hasn’t it? What’s one more little secret?" She paused. "Well, I suppose if you hadn’t told me about Saul, and I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have been so encouraging. How was I supposed to know you were gunning for one of my best soldiers?"

"He would have died anyway."

Revan gave a little shrug. "So, what were you dreaming about? The Force?" She started stroking his hair, much the way an owner would a furry pet.

"Stop that," Carth demanded.

"No. I like your hair. Dark Lords aren’t immune to handsome pilots, you know." She smiled, and it looked genuine enough.

Somehow, someway, Carth found it in himself to play with her...maybe habit, or maybe just to forget for a moment what had really happened. Maybe because it was a connection to the Revan he loved, not the Dark Lord he hated. Everything had gone quite surreal on him. "Oh, now I’m a handsome pilot. Not a Gamorrean pig-man, not a monkey-lizard..."

"Nope, not a hairless Wookiee nor a sexless marsh-toad. My handsome pilot. So what were you dreaming about?"

Carth’s playfulness evaporated. "I’m not yours, no one owns me."

"I suppose that’s true, all except for the mine part." Revan wasn’t angry at all; she was fully convinced that everything her eyes surveyed was hers, if not now, then in the future. She continued petting his hair. "Sooner or later. Easier on you to admit it sooner, more fun for me if you take your time. Short term fun, anyway. I’ve never been fond of broken toys, even if breaking them was satisfying."

As futile as he knew it was, Carth still tried to get away. "Let me go! There is life and death and love and hate and identity and I’m not going to be owned by anything!"

Revan snickered, amused at how strange he was acting. She figured he must have had a first rate nightmare; he didn’t seem all there just yet. "We’ll see about that." She changed tactics; if he was dreaming about identity, she didn’t want to know. It struck too close and she was here to have fun, not get angry. "And didn’t you say you loved me? That makes you mine already."

"I, I didn’t, I didn’t say that, and no, it wouldn’t. Stop touching me!"

"Not in so many words, and no, I’m not going to stop. I always liked these bits of unruly hair, do you leave them like that on purpose?"

Carth didn’t answer; there wasn’t much point to it, since it seemed Revan was just trying to rile him with silliness. Talk of ownership angered him and for some reason gave him a sudden, unholy headache out of proportion to any emotion he was feeling.

"Back to the ‘Carth loves me’ part. Will you talk about that? I’m very curious to find out how fundamentally deluded you really are."

"Very, very deluded," was his unhappy answer. He felt like he was fighting a mental rancor and losing—but he also felt as though he had to fight it, whatever it was. It made any other thoughts too difficult to keep to himself. As if he’d ever found it easy to keep his thoughts to himself around Revan... "There’s no, uh, ownership involved, though. Binding, you could say, but not ownership. I’m such a damned fool. I do love you, and that makes certain demands of me, but I don’t know why. You’ve never been anything but repulsive, I see that now, I don’t know why I didn’t...didn’t before...but...." He trailed off, headache blinding for a moment. He growled, "There is life and death and love and hate and identity!" Glaring right into Revan’s eyes, Carth hissed, "I saw another life in you. I don’t care, I love you, I will save you, and I will not be a tool!"

Revan stepped back. So much for having fun. She didn’t like the look in Carth’s eyes when he said that. His conviction that he had seen another life, another Revan, somewhere in her, was real. That she had felt, despite her difficulty sensing his moods, and she didn’t like it at all. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he had seen a vision through the Force. One way or another, she would not tolerate that piercing look a second time.

Not wanting to think about the import of such a gaze, the insistence on identity, nor the sudden strong sense of defiance she felt from Carth, she brushed them aside. She did not take well to being rattled, and she had been, and she didn’t know why. Instead, she channeled her feelings into anger and petty spite. "It’s nice, I think," she said, tone slow and deliberate, "when delusions fall away. I’m honored that you find me repulsive; you should." She waved her hand, putting Carth in stasis. "You are too Light to honestly see me any other way. But we must replace blindness for blindness." Using one of her short lightsabers and surgical care, Revan burned out Carth’s eyes. Another wave of her hand removed the stasis and the restraints.

Carth immediately covered his face with his arms, partly an instinctive move to protect himself from something that had already occurred. His breath was gasping and ragged, but otherwise he made no sound. Revan was disappointed; she had hoped to hear Carth’s pain, not just see it. No such luck on feeling it either; that had gone as soon as it arrived.

When it became obvious she would hear nothing except the unfathomable attempts by Carth to speak through his agony, she left the room, forgetting for a while his strange talk of life and death and love and hate and identity and a twice blind fool’s perfect perception. She was the only Revan that had ever been.

"We’re getting close to the approach," Canderous stated, preparing the Ebon Hawk for docking at the Star Forge. "It’ll be a few minutes, so we should get ready."

"I’m prepared," Stilita said.

"All right then. I’m not quite ready. You handle the approach while I go get suited up." Canderous got out of the pilot’s seat and turned around. He wasn’t expecting to see Carth standing there, still in Cassus Fett’s armor. "What are you doing here?" It was an honest question; if it had been up to him, he wouldn’t let Carth wander around the Hawk. Especially not in fancy armor and possibly armed, although Canderous didn’t see any vibroblades or blasters on him.

Carth shrugged. "I didn’t have anywhere else to go." He rubbed his forehead. "Been keeping my seat warm?"

Canderous snorted. "It’s not your seat, Onasi. Unless you’ve decided to join Revan now?"

A faint, weary smile tugged at Carth’s mouth. "No, but if it would keep her from being flown into the broadside of a planet, I might have piloted the ship."

"I can fly the Hawk as well as anyone." It was almost true; Canderous was a talented pilot and it had taken both of their combined efforts to escape the destruction of Taris. However, he knew he had nothing on the born pilot Onasi. Canderous was man enough to admit this to himself. He stepped past Carth, and on the way, he added, "You look like hell, by the way."

"My head hurts."

Canderous paused and took a closer look at Carth. "Yeah, I’ll bet." Someone was understating the matter by quite a lot. At a glance or a distance, nothing appeared out of the ordinary, but close up, Canderous could see that the curve of Carth’s closed eyelids was wrong; and it really was nothing more than that. His eyelashes were still there, as were traces of tears. Canderous couldn’t blame him; he imagined that there wasn’t enough kolto in the galaxy to make Carth look less like a ghost right now. He shook his head and continued on his way. "Whatever the Jedi did to you, Revan," he muttered to himself, "they definitely did a number on you." The rest of his opinion, that blinding one of the best star pilots he had met, for whom he held a very grudging respect in terms of battle only, was not perhaps the best military move, Canderous kept to himself. Neither did he say out loud that he thought this iteration of Revan might be lacking in the tactical genius of the original. She was still Revan, and he would still follow her, but he did wonder if she would have been able to defeat Mandalore and his people in her current state.

After Canderous left, Carth sat in the pilot’s seat, running his fingertips along the wall and console the only concession made to his new found blindness. He knew he couldn’t pilot the Hawk now, but he had no trouble making his way around. He knew her too well.

"Don’t touch anything," Stilita said.

"Wasn’t planning on it. I just thought I’d get comfortable for a bit, before everything goes to hell." He leaned back in the seat, just as he had numerous times over the course of their mission for the Star Maps. Booted feet rested against the console, and Stilita scrambled to correct whatever may have gone wrong...until she belatedly and with no little embarrassment remembered that control of the craft was entirely on the co-pilot’s side of the cockpit. She was an average pilot, capable enough, but over the months they had spent seeking out the Star Maps, she had hardly done any flying herself.

Stilita glared at him, put off by his placid attitude. He had never been a calm person as far as she knew; he was rather intense, a bit on the suicide by proxy side...but now that things seemed their worst in his world, he was calm. It was unnerving. She tried to push the feeling aside; it was just as likely that he’d given up to the inevitable, didn’t care anymore.

"Why, uh, why did she do it?" he asked after a short silence.

"Do what?"

"You two have a bond, from when you saved her life before. You have an idea of what is going through her mind, right? I suppose I understand why she fell, it couldn’t have been easy to even pretend to be anything but on the Dark Side after you fell, and she’s definitely been cruel just for the sake of it before...but this was different. She’s a liar, but she’s not very good at it when she’s startled. Likes control too much. So why did she do it, why blind me? And why did she think it would make a difference?"

Stilita frowned. It wasn’t a question she could answer. She had felt Revan’s unease, and she thought she had an idea from where it may have come. Revan didn’t remember her past life, she was, in many ways, a newborn. Stilita sensed through their bond that Revan had felt something tugging at the Light she didn’t recall. "You should know better than I do," she said after a moment, although she doubted her own statement. He wouldn’t have asked if he really knew. "Caprice, perhaps."

"Mmm." Carth rubbed his forehead. "I guess so. Maybe. I don’t know. This isn’t, isn’t...this isn’t...going to, uh, go well." He got up and shuffled out of the cockpit, trailing fingers along the wall. "Gonna be sick..."

For the continued cleanliness of the cockpit, if Carth did end up getting sick, it wasn’t there. Stilita watched him leave, and for reasons she never could explain, she felt sick as well.

"Revan, what in all hell are you thinking?" Canderous demanded as he stood on the Hawk’s gangplank. They had just watched their Jedi escort defeat a squad of Sith and run into the Star Forge to further secure their passage. "This place is crawling with Sith who aren’t loyal to you. You need every advantage you can grab."

Revan adjusted her bloodstone mask one more time. "I am taking an advantage. I’m telling everyone here that this is my Star Forge. I’m walking in like I own the place, which, incidentally, I do."

Canderous almost sneered, but fought it down. Not that she would have seen the expression behind his Mandalorian armor; it was the principle. His guess must have been right—she had lost some of her tactical mind, although he granted her current plan might catch some of the enemy off guard out of sheer audacity. Still, it was a fundamental fact of battle: feet had to be on the real estate. Declaring ownership in the middle of a swarm of enemies just didn’t work.

"It’s psychological. Trust me, the Force serves me well."

"All right, but I’m not watching him. He gets shot, it’s all on you." Canderous strode forward, hefting his favorite repeater, ready to fight.

Revan, now dressed in the voluminous black robes she had worn before as Dark Lord, held a chain in her left hand. Attached to the chain was Carth—his hands were shackled in front of him and the chain was part of that. He had an idea of what was going on, and he did not like it. Revan planned to use him to proclaim her dominance. To say she was so sure of herself and her place that she could parade captives around and fight at the same time.

He agreed with Canderous; it was a damn fool thing to do. He thought it likely she was also doing it just to humiliate him, and that galled. He did hope that dumb luck was on his side, though; he was as good as a giant target with no way of knowing if he was about to be hit at point blank range. Cassus Fett’s armor wasn’t that good.

He didn’t doubt Revan had the power to pull off a stunt like this, but it was not the best tactical move. Never mind the chill sense that Revan’s actions were dooming her to a painful end. He wished that headache would go away. It would be hard enough being lead around as it was...he had no idea how long his other senses would take to compensate enough to spare him vertigo, he didn’t need a migraine making it worse.

The Force moves in mysterious ways, Canderous thought as they traveled through the outer edges of the Star Forge. Revan’s plan to both use and humiliate Carth worked often enough for Stilita, Revan, and himself to get in a couple good shots before the enemy Sith realized what was happening. He thought it very likely that she was also using some of her Dark Force powers to affect their minds as well. Maybe Revan projected such confidence in her place, such an alpha hound mentality, that the Sith, conditioned for pack behavior, immediately responded. Canderous couldn’t tell, being immune to Force suggestion and thus unable to sense its use. That many of the Sith recognized her robes and mask also gave her an edge. Whatever it was, Canderous wasn’t going to question the gift-giver. It made blasting them and keeping his hide intact a lot easier, and in the end, that’s all that really mattered. Perhaps he had underestimated her tactical skill; he remembered the Revan that had fought his people and won, and certainly this Revan worked differently, but it didn’t seem to be less effective. At least, not for this situation. He still wasn’t certain this new Revan could have defeated the Mandalore. He would make a final decision on the matter after they had secured the Star Forge and he saw her leading the Sith fleet.

He did smile slightly at Carth’s luck, though. The pilot had managed to be dragged through half the Forge with only a few blaster hits to show for it, and every one that had found its mark only winged him. His ability to dodge blaster fire was uncanny; it always had been, but Canderous had thought being able to see the other guy was a big part of Carth’s reflexes. Apparently not—maybe he had just enough Force-sensitivity to know when he was being shot at. It was as likely an explanation as any; a person didn’t have to be a full-blown Jedi to have a hell of an intuition.

It would also explain why he walked a step ahead of being dragged. None of the rest noticed, including Carth, and he wondered at that.

While she was fighting, lightsaber clashing against lightsaber, Revan felt a sudden tug at her left hand. She ignored it for the moment, her attention focused on the Dark Jedi before her. Her Force senses alerted her to another behind her. Twisting to fight them both, what met her eye nearly startled her enough to drop her ‘saber. That almost cost her, but she recovered and finished off the Dark Jedi before her.

Then she turned to get a better look at the impossible.

Stilita battled a Sith soldier and Canderous covered them, but that wasn’t surprising. What did surprise her was the Sith she had sensed behind her—he had a chain wrapped around his neck, choking him to death. The only one with access to a chain was Carth, and it was not possible that he had done what he had obviously done. There was no way he could have used it as a whip to strangle the Sith, but he had.

"What happened?" she demanded, a squeak in her voice she didn’t care for at all.

Carth was holding his head as best he could with shackled hands and wavering, as if standing upright was a very difficult thing. He also held the end of the chain in one hand. "There, he...he came up, uh, gggh, he came up, behind you...nnmm..."

Stilita finished off her Sith and turned to see what Revan was on about. Her expression was incredulous. "What happened?"

"Heh, you should see the look on your face, ‘Stilita’," Canderous said with a smirk. "I think Revan’s description, what was it? Oh yes, smunched up like a kinrath pup, that sounds right. Anyway, I’ll spare you the obvious details; you can see what happened just as clearly as I can. I’m a bit surprised myself, but...it looks like Carth saw that Sith through the Force. Saw him dead to rights, judging by his current state of asphyxiation."

"That’s not possible. He’s Force blind," Revan insisted.

"And he’s regular blind, too. That didn’t stop him from seeing that Sith. I saw the whole thing; he saw that Sith. You want to say he didn’t, go ahead, but I don’t believe in coincidences like that. Sometimes someone gets in a lucky shot, but that was not a lucky shot." Canderous put his repeating blaster on his shoulder and started walking forward. "You go ahead and gawk, I’ll go see what’s in this room up here."

Revan unwrapped the chain from around the dead Sith’s neck. "Come on," she said sharply, pulling on the chain. She didn’t see any Force talent in Carth, but she didn’t believe in luck either. She figured that with so much Dark Side energy around them, he could have channeled it without being formally Force sensitive. That was not unheard of, although it would be surprising for someone as Force blind as Carth.

When she yanked on the chain, Carth jerked forward, keeping his feet by main force of will. He was dizzy and nauseated—and as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he could see where he was being led. Not well, not well enough to walk unaided, but enough. Enough to wish he couldn’t, for the Star Forge was an hideous place seen however it was he was seeing it. It wanted to devour them; it had dark teeth and horrifying madness. Seeing this served to redouble his efforts to protect Revan; otherwise he would take that chain and use it to garrote himself to get away from the Star Forge’s crawling walls. It was outside his ability to understand how Stilita and Revan walked through it without going insane. Maybe they couldn’t see it. Maybe he was imagining things.

Somehow, though, he knew he wasn’t. He was seeing through the Force, that was the only possibility, although he found it almost impossible to believe.

The unadulterated evil he saw would explain how Revan and Malak could come here with the best of intentions and find it a shortcut to hell, however. Even the slightest Darkness in them would have been magnified, no matter why they came.

He had never been so relieved at any one simple thing in his entire life as he was when the Force sight faded and the world became an ordinary dark once again.

That his headache went away was secondary.

The room Canderous had gone to explore turned out to be a small, personalized armor factory. "Pretty useful," he said under his breath as he let the machine scan him. As he went to fetch the armor it made for him, Stilita came in.

"I don’t think I can wear this," Canderous said, not turning to look at Stilita.

"Why ever not? From what Revan and Malak told me of this Star Forge, what it creates is perfectly suited to the person it is created for. In fact, every fighter and ship in the fleet was manufactured with their crews already in mind. It is one of the reasons the Sith fleet is so effective."

Canderous held up the armor for Stilita to see. "This is the armor of the Mandalore. I’m not the Mandalore."

"Perhaps you are and don’t realize it yet. The Rakatan Elders spoke the truth: the Star Forge is filled with Dark Side energies. It may see your future."

"Huh. Well, I did say that if Darth Malak fell into my lap on the Hawk it wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve just seen too much." With that, Canderous quickly changed into the much better armor patterned after the Mandalore’s. Stilita had the machine scan her as well. For her it produced a sleek red robe with gold embroidery and a circlet of gold. When she donned the garments, she could feel them augmenting her Battle Meditation, making it easier for her to move swiftly into the frame of mind needed to use it. She also sensed that the circlet would make it easier to use her Force powers.

"This will be quite useful, I should think," she said, adjusting the circlet.

While Stilita and Canderous finished settling into their new armor and robes, Revan and Carth entered the room. Revan shut the door with a wave of her hand. "What have you found?"

"Personal armor manufacturing device," Canderous answered. "It definitely makes good armor, but I think it has delusions of grandeur."

She looked over Canderous’ new set of armor and nodded. While she didn’t remember defeating the Mandalore, she had seen holos of him. "It suits you, Mandalore."

"I suppose if you feel I should bear the title, I will. To the victor go the spoils, and I think that goes for granting rule as well, now that the clans are scattered. I’m not sure how the other Mandalorians will feel about it, but I’ll kick them into line."

"That’s one way of gaining allies," Carth said.

"Time honored," Revan replied. She smoothed down a bit of her black robe. "I don’t need to change my armor, these robes and mask have served me well in the past and they serve me well now."

"Shall we go then, Master?" Stilita asked.

Standing as if she were sniffing the air, Revan held up a hand. She lowered it and relaxed. "We have a moment. There’s not much farther for us to go. Let’s take the time to regroup, heal. Then we can go on."

"Sounds like a plan, as long as those doors stay shut," Canderous said as he pulled out a few medpacks from his pouch and passed them around. Stilita might have been able to Force heal them without tiring herself too much, but Revan was incapable, and the kolto saved them the effort. Fortunately they had stockpiled medpacks before Revan poisoned Manaan’s source of kolto. They had enough to last a while yet.

After using one of the packs, Revan pulled Carth over to the machine. "Let’s see what the Star Forge thinks is appropriate attire for you. Satisfy my curiosity." Canderous had to make an effort not to roll his eyes; not because anyone could see him, since Mandalore’s armor came with a helmet, but because he’d unconsciously picked it up from Mission. Revan and her damned curiosity was going to get her killed some day, he thought.

"Ah...I, I don’t exactly trust this thing," Carth said. After seeing the Star Forge through the Force, Carth was loath to keep his feet on the deck plating. He did not want the monstrosity actively looking at him.

"Your left hand doesn’t trust your right hand," Revan scoffed. "Just stand there for a second."

Although the machine made no noise when it scanned, Carth flinched when it started. It made him feel far too exposed, although he sensed no real malice from the machine.

Canderous, curious despite himself, picked up the armor the Forge had made for Carth. "Nothing surprises me anymore." He looked over the robes, more suited to a Jedi than a soldier, and tossed them at Carth. He caught them with his face, although he made a surprising effort to catch them with his hands.

Carth felt the robes while he pulled them off his face. "Light Side. I didn’t think it could do that." When he felt Revan disengage the lock on his shackles, he made a face. "I’d rather have armor instead of cloth between me and blasters, lightsabers, and grenades I can’t see, Revan." When she didn’t say anything, he said, annoyed, "Fine, fine, whatever you want, sister."

Canderous understood Carth’s hesitation quite well, and he thought it would be a shame to leave behind a fine set of armor like Cassus Fett’s. He didn’t mind leaving his Mandalorian battle armor behind, as his new armor was superior in every way. But exchanging good armor for Jedi-styled robes when Carth couldn’t take advantage of them seemed like a waste.

As soon as Carth managed to get the robes on, he wanted to tear them off. They burned. His attention was quickly diverted to the much clearer Force sight and the near-debilitating headache that accompanied it. Before he realized it was happening, he was on his knees, vomiting.

When he finished, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve. The robes weren’t burning anymore at least. He turned toward Revan and said, "Please, please turn back. Go back to the Light Ni’e, you have to."

"Don’t look at me like that!" Revan screeched, snapping out a vicious kick to Carth’s head. He dropped to his side, covering his head.

"I can’t look at you like anything!" In spite of that, he still seemed to be looking at Revan. "All I can do is talk, are you going to cut out my tongue, too?"

Revan grabbed the front of Carth’s robes and hissed in his face. "I will when I get the chance!"

"If you don’t turn back to the Light, you won’t get a chance."

"Are you threatening me?"

"No, I...I don’t know why I said that." He was sincere; wherever those words had come from, that certainty, he didn’t know. Yet it was there, he was positive that if Revan kept to her Dark road there would be hell to pay, and soon. "Please go back."

"You forget I was never there to begin with." She snapped the shackles back on his wrists. "Now get up."

Carth staggered to his feet and kept anything else he might have to say to himself. He didn’t tell her that he remembered there had been a Jedi Knight Revan once upon a time, a servant of the Light, and it made a difference to him, even if she didn’t remember it. He wondered which of them was more foolish.

Behind him, he heard Stilita mutter to Canderous, "Why would the Forge make robes that radically increase and focus Force power for Carth?"

"You’re the one that says the Star Forge can read the future, ‘Stilita’, not me," was all Canderous had to say in response.

Revan laughed in the faces of the three Dark Jedi that Malak had sent after her. Silly Sith wannabes thinking they could actually defeat her. She did respect that they were stronger than any of the others they had encountered on the Star Forge, but that was meaningless. Drive horror into their minds and she cut them down like wheat before the blade. She let Darth Stilita cut down one, and Canderous riddle the other with blaster holes.

"If that’s the best he has left, I’ll be shocked if Malak lasts more than a minute," Revan said.

"Master, he is far more powerful than these," Stilita replied.

"I doubt that. And he’s afraid as well. He wouldn’t face me on the Leviathan, and then he had a clear advantage. Just ran away like a kath with his tail between his legs."

"He defeated me," Stilita said. "And here he has a far greater advantage in the Star Forge itself."

Revan waved her hand. "I doubt the advantage will be so great that I can’t surmount it. As for defeating you, what does that mean to me? Your talents lie elsewhere. He fights with brute force while you undermine with meditation. You ought to do that now. It won’t do me any good if the Republic fleet is able to get to the Star Forge. And it will help me as well."

Stilita bowed. "Yes, my Lord." She found a spot, then sat down to meditate. A swift blue glow surrounded her.

Revan felt the power of the Battle Meditation reach out past her and into space. She smiled beneath her mask. "Good, good. This battle will be over soon. Canderous, guard Darth Stilita. I’m going on alone from here. I sense nothing of importance between me and Malak."

"I told you, I’m not babysitting your pet pilot, Revan...," Canderous replied as he situated himself to guard Stilita.

"Pet pilot?" Carth snapped, indignant.

Revan ignored it and said, "No, I’ll take him with me."

The incredulity of both soldiers was palpable. In unison, they both shouted, "What?" Canderous looked over at Carth, a habitual glance that the two often shared when one of the less military minded of their hodge-podge party came up with some gizka-brained plan. He and Carth weren’t friends, would never be friends, but they did share a remarkably similar outlook on idiotic plans. It wasn’t until Carth turned toward Canderous that he remembered he couldn’t share that secret ‘these fools!’ glance with him. It also served to remind him that something very strange was going on. Maybe Carth had turned toward his voice, but Canderous didn’t think so. He was convinced that Carth could see something, although he wasn’t sure what. He was also convinced that this was an unpredictable card in the side deck. Force sight, the Jedi robes the Star Forge made for him, Stilita’s confusion over them, Carth’s preternatural talent for dodging blaster fire blind, and that deadly strike against that Sith...none of it sat well with Canderous.

"Maybe it would be best for all concerned if you just killed him, Revan," Canderous suggested after a moment. "I’ve got a bad feeling about this."

"Oh, thanks, yeah, killing me would definitely be in my best interests," Carth muttered. Canderous was surprised to see that for an instant, Carth’s expression suggested he did think it would be in his best interests. That put Canderous even more on edge.

"No, I have plans for him," Revan answered, and the firaxan smile was clear in her voice.

Canderous half-shrugged. "OK, whatever you want, Revan. Just don’t tell me what it is, because I know I don’t want to know." Obviously not military, so it’s none of my concern, he thought to himself. But if he thinks it would be a good idea...? He’s changed as much as I have, and he has his son now...there’s more to it than what I’m seeing. There’s something very wrong here.

Canderous found out soon enough what was wrong, but by then, it was too late.

Furious, Revan cut down yet another defense droid that the Star Forge had produced out of nothing. She hadn’t sensed this trap. Of course she hadn’t; there were no droids until she entered the room! There had been a number of Sith, but she had dispatched them with ease. These droids, however, were another thing entirely.

She frantically sliced into the nearest computer console, telling it to stop producing droids. She needed both hands to slice and defend herself from droid blasters, so she had left Carth to his own devices. That was her own fault for being arrogant, but it was no skin off her hide if the droids killed him. She would have liked to have kept him, but there were more important things to consider, such as keeping her own life.

Too bad Destroy Droid was a Light Sided power. She could use it, but it would be exhausting to destroy this many droids with it. She wanted to save her power for Malak.

The droid producing device sputtered and groaned, then with a flash, it stopped working. Good, one down, five to go, and a sea of red droids in between. She was about to dash over to the next computer panel when one of the droids skittered up and cornered her. Revan would have no trouble dispatching it, but the longer it took to get the production machinery down, the less chance she had to get out of here with her skin intact.

The end of a chain struck the droid like sudden lightning, shattering its one visual sensor. It went crazy, staggering about on spider legs and bumping into another droid. Stunned, for an instant, Revan just stood there.

"What are you doing? Move!" Carth shouted, pulling up on the chain, preparing for another strike.

She growled under her breath. She hadn’t thought she had been that surprised, not enough to warrant being yelled at by someone who shouldn’t have seen her hesitate in the first place. She ran over to the next console, not thinking about the sound of that chain tripping droids, putting out their sensors, and otherwise doing things its wielder could not possibly be making it do.

It didn’t take a very long time to finally disable the last droid production unit, but it had taken too long for Revan’s taste, and she had not made it out uninjured. Even using two lightsabers she couldn’t deflect every blast, and that was when she didn’t have to turn her back to the droids in order to slice the computers. In her robes, she still had a few of the medpacks, but she hadn’t been planning to use them this soon, if at all. She looked over at Carth; he hadn’t faired that well either, but fortunately for him, the droids had concentrated their efforts on her. They had only started attacking him in a distracted manner after he had shut a few of them down with the chain. Since he was not very badly hurt, Revan Force drained him.

The Force drain wasn’t as effective as she would have liked, due to Carth’s robes and his innate resistance, but it worked well enough to heal most of her injuries. She examined the rest to see if they were worth using a medpack on while Carth fought and lost the battle against vertigo. Finding that the rest of her hurts were minor, neither bad enough for a medpack nor to waste Force on, Revan made her way back toward the door she knew Malak hid behind.

"That was a dirty trick," Carth said as he managed to get up.

"Nice to know you aren’t totally worthless. Quite useful as a backup battery."

"Mmm, I suppose I should have just let those droids blast you full of holes then?"

"I can handle myself quite well on my own. I didn’t need any help." Revan picked up the end of the chain, glaring at it.

"I couldn’t let them hurt you," Carth whispered to himself. He tapped his forehead with his fists. "Damnit, damnit, damnit."

"What are you grumbling about?" Revan continued glaring at the end of the chain. Carth should not have been able to hit those droids with it!

Instead of answering, Carth said, "Jedi Ni’esla Stargazer. You need to be her again. You have to."

"The false name the Jedi gave me was just Ni’esla," Revan ground out. "I do not need to be their puppet. I do not need to be their tool. I think you can understand that."

"Yes, yes, I understand that, I do...I do, I’m not a tool, I don’t want to be a tool either. But you were a Jedi once. The real you, you were a Jedi. You did follow the Light. You have to again. You have to. You weren’t always Dark, even if that’s all you remember." Carth was holding his head now, though it didn’t look like he was going to get sick again. "I, I, I told you I met, met Malak once. When he was a Jedi. He was strong, intelligent, and Light. He was also, uh, named Senil then, I didn’t tell you that...maybe I forgot. Malak and Revan, you used them as cover names when you decided to help us. It wasn’t very smart of the Jedi to rename you with half of your real name...I forgot that too, I guess, but something in me remembered. That’s why I was, uh, so, so suspicious. I know I’m suspicious of everything, but...I mean, I was...more suspicious than usual. So I forgot, but part of me remembered, and that part remembered what a good person Ni’esla used to be I think. Could be again..."

"Will you stop rambling?" Revan said, annoyed. "I’m Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith. Emphasis, underline, exclamation point, DARK! If I’ve ever been Light Sided, Force forbid, I don’t remember it and I’m perfectly happy to stay that way. I am not turning Light now, I never will."

"Please? I’m begging. Again. I’ll do anything you want, anything you ask. Just go back, turn back, before it’s too late."

Revan narrowed her eyes. "Not that it matters, but satisfy my curiosity. You would, say, slit your son’s throat if I asked? I’m assuming that I get to ask now, since obviously a Light Sided person would never ask you to do that on a whim."

Carth took a shuddering breath. "If you went back to the Light, right now, yes, I would." Those words were not easily said, perhaps not willingly said.

There was silence for a space. "You want it that badly. Why? Is the Republic really worth murdering your son?"

"Th, that, that’s not why, that’s...not it...." He was clawing at his head now, as if he were trying to crack it open and physically pull out whatever was bothering him so much, whatever was driving him mad. "You have to, have to, there’s, there’s love and and hate and life, life, and death and i-i-identity and I won’t be a tool! I can’t be a tool! It’s too much! I can’t! You have to! You’ll lose everything!"

"You’ve lost it," Revan declared, putting an end to the conversation, and dragged Carth into the room in which Malak waited.

The great doors opened. Visible in every direction was the space battle between the Republic and the Sith. Catwalks lead to odd tanks, each containing a person. In the center of the room stood Darth Malak, his black capes flowing by the power he held, arms crossed over his chest. Revan stepped forward, her lightsaber drawn but not lit. Carth came after her, head in hands.

Malak turned to her, and Revan could see that he was about to speak in his yellow eyes, but the words did not come. To her surprise and anger, Malak instead turned his attention to Carth.

"You play a dangerous game, Revan," Malak intoned, metallic voice echoing on the catwalks.

"I’m not here to play games, Malak. I’m here to take your cowardly existence, stamp it out," Revan replied.

"Indeed...then why bring such a dangerous toy? Do you think you can threaten me with such a thing?"

Not wishing to gape like a fish a second time in front of Malak, Revan said, "I will fight you with honor, which is more than you deserve."

Carth lowered his hands, which were now trembling. "Jedi Knight Senil," he said, voice soft.

Startled, Malak blinked and dropped his arms. "Where did you learn that name?"

"Once, uh, a long time ago. When you followed the Light, when you fought in the Mandalorian Wars," Carth answered.

"I don’t remember you."

"We, we, only met once. But I knew your name. W-w-will you, will you turn to the Light? It, uh, it might not...might not make a difference, but there’s always hope." Carth didn’t sound convinced.

Malak approached, and to Revan’s fury, he seemed more interested in speaking with Carth. "You are no servant of the Light, no Jedi. You don’t wield the Force, but it’s on you like a parasite. Those robes you wear, they bind it tighter against you. You know your destiny, don’t you." There was no question in Malak’s voice.

"I, uh, I have...I have an idea, yes. I don’t know how bad it will be. I know that it doesn’t have to end badly, Senil."

For a long moment, Malak seemed to consider this. "No, it does. It is too late. Even if I were to renounce the Dark Side right now, it would be too late. It was Revan that had to turn; she is the point upon which destiny waits. The Star Forge knows, but it gambles. Will the gamble pay off? Or will we all become lost like these Jedi the Star Forge has trapped?" Malak extended a hand, indicating the pods with men and women floating inside. "Not dead, but not alive either. Trapped in limbo, they will never join the Force; they will feed me." He looked sharply at Carth. "Or will they feed you, I wonder?"

"I, I don’t...no, I don’t think they will."

The Dark Lord nodded to Carth, then Malak turned to Revan. "Come, let us dance for the entertainment of the Force." He brought up his lightsaber and ignited it.

Revan crouched into a fighting stance, dropping the chain and lighting her ‘saber. "I am not here to entertain the Force! You should worry about your own destiny, Malak."

"Mine shall be yours and yours shall be mine, it seems. The Force has already decided how the story ends, so play your part!"

Carth sat down behind Revan, holding his head.

With a snarl, Revan pulled back her lightsaber to attack, Carth screamed, and Malak died.

Revan checked her swing, and silence ruled for a long while.

Then, Carth spoke. "It... it made a mistake, a terrible mistake."

Revan stepped back from the place Malak had fallen. Fallen as if he were never more than a marionette, strings cut, without one stroke of her lightsaber. "What are you babbling about?" she asked, turning her masked face back toward Carth. "What was he babbling about?"

"A mistake. A vast, vast mistake." Carth waggled his fingers, little sparks of what Revan easily identified as Force lightning jumping about and snaking up his arms. Blood poured from his nose, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Revan snapped off her red lightsaber and stormed over to where Carth was sitting. "I heard you the first time. Repeating yourself doesn’t answer my questions."

"It doesn’t matter, it thought it won, but it’s trapped now. Only, only, only, except there is Carth Onasi. There WILL be Carth Onasi, there’s not just this, not just this, this...." His tone carried a distinct note of hysteria, although otherwise he was calm, as if anything he was saying made the slightest bit of sense and having Force lightning flicker over his hands was an everyday occurrence. Revan narrowed her eyes. After everything and now he cracks completely.

"I have, uh, I have done no such thing," he said, and she recognized it was in answer to her thought. It wasn’t an answer that carried much conviction.

"What is it you have done, then?" she asked while examining him. There was Force lightning; she had used it often enough to know exactly what it looked like, but she could see no Force in Carth at all. Not even a flicker; nothing had changed about him since the last time she had looked. Anyone who was so strong in the Force that it bled out their fingers should have had a tornado of Force swirling about them. Anyone like that was locked up in a deep cavern and gassed to death; they were dangerous and the only safe way to destroy them was to be far away when they died. The released Force power often took the cavern with it, and obliterated the minds and souls of anyone in the vicinity.

"At least I know you won’t try to kill me then, will you?" He giggled a little, and Revan was certain he’d lost his mind. Carth didn’t giggle, not like that. "There is no Force; there is only Carth."

Revan stared at him for a moment. He was not amusing her any longer. "I can have you killed. Toss you out in some little bucket of bolts and have one of my ships destroy it. I suspect you’ll make a pretty little nova, if there’s as much Force hiding in you as I think."

"You’ll have to touch me first. Do you dare?"

Revan grunted. Crazy or not, he had a point. Force conduits, they were called, people or things so attuned to the Force that it flowed near unhindered through them. Nothing could touch them and expect to live long. That didn’t explain how Carth had become a Force conduit in such a short time, however. It might explain how he had used the chain, though.

"Never mind that. Look outside, look around you, look at your own hands, Dark Lord Revan."

She clenched her fists, unused to being commanded...and also unused to Carth addressing her that way. But she did as she was bid, first looking around at the Star Forge.

A strangled cry escaped her. What she saw was impossible. What she saw was nothing. The Elders had been right, the Star Forge was a living thing, breathing Dark Side power, feeding off of it, but now it was dead. No, worse than dead. It was just...metal. It was a vast...thing. "What happened to it? What happened to the Star Forge?" Revan could not keep the horror from her voice, although she tried. Nor the rage.

Carth shrugged. "Malak said it took a gamble; I guess it knew what I was before I did. I think Malak did, too, a little bit. I’m the Star Forge. Well, uh, whatever made it alive, anyway."

She whipped around and extended a fist toward Carth. Enraged, she planned to choke him, never mind that to kill a Force conduit was to flirt with abject, final destruction. Nothing happened.

"There is no Force; there is only Carth. Look outside."

"What in the darkest pits of hell does that mean? Other than you are completely, utterly insane?"

Although he could no longer look at her, he managed to pin her with a sightless gaze anyway. "Look outside. See the mistake, part of the mistake, foolish, foolish Force."

Revan growled, and again did as she was told. Oh no, Carth was definitely not amusing her now.

She stalked over to one of the huge view ports and saw thousands of ships, Sith and Republic, falling. Falling to gravity and inertia. Some crashed into one another, without even trying to avoid the collision. Others just kept on, but most had begun falling into the star below. "What is going on?" Revan demanded of the universe at large. Her fleet was nothing more than giant toys spread around, forgotten. Though it did please her to see the Republic fleet was just as useless. There were still armies of Sith out there, far from this dead Star Forge for her to control. The fight wasn’t over.

"You’re probably right, the war isn’t over," Carth said. "The entire Republic fleet wasn’t here either, although quite a lot of them were. But for you, it’s over. You aren’t even the Dark Lord of the Tachs, much less the Sith."

"What, precisely, does that mean?" Revan hissed.

"‘Peace is a lie; there is only passion. Through passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power. Through power I gain victory. Through victory my chains are broken. The Force shall set me free.’ Do you feel particularly free? Powerful? Victorious? I’ll give you passionate, but you aren’t strong anymore. You aren’t a Sith, although you could always enlist as a soldier if I had any intention of letting you leave this system."

"You let me leave? My, haven’t we become arrogant. You forget, in your madness, whom you are speaking to."

"I haven’t forgotten, beautiful. I’m talking to someone who doesn’t know what the hell is going on. I’m talking to someone who hasn’t looked at her hands yet."

Against her will, Revan glanced at her hands. There was nothing special about them, nothing unusual. Nothing as world-shaking as an empty Star Forge and a dead fleet. She gritted her teeth and asked, "What about my hands?"

"Other than the lack of Force? They’re very nice hands, I always thought."

Lack of Force? She jerked her hands up, and with growing fear, looked at her arms, then down at her body. Carth was right; she saw no Force. She couldn’t feel it anymore. As a forgotten Jedi she let it move through her, as a Sith she harnessed it and used it like a tool. Now, there was nothing to harness, nothing to let move, and she felt the lack, keen as a blade. Force sensitivity was not a talent based in the Force; she didn’t need to contact it to know that it had vanished. She glared at Carth, wishing for a moment that she could kill him with a look. Around the Sith, that was something that happened now and again. Revan hated, loathed, despised not knowing what was going on, and that idiot, that madman Carth seemed to have all the answers.

"It’s not fun being on the short end, out of the loop, is it? But I guess you knew that already," Carth observed. "Take me down to the planet, where the Rakatans used to live."

"You don’t command me anything. I’ll leave you here. This, this thing is bound to fall into the star soon, and I’d rather be elsewhere when it happens. And then you can be a pretty little flare and I’ll be happily rid of you." Revan moved to leave the room, prepared to leave one crazy pilot and one dead apprentice-usurper behind.

"I didn’t ask you, I didn’t command you, I willed you. Sorry gorgeous, but the will of Carth rules here. You can’t leave me unless I let you, and if I let you, you die." His voice was calm, no threat, just truth.

Revan stopped. The certainty with which he spoke made chills run up her spine. He had been right about everything else; it frightened her that he might be right about this. With as little emotion as she could manage, she asked, "Will you please explain what you mean, Carth?"

"I told you already. There is no Force; there is only Carth. Here at least." He motioned with his shackled hands, indicating the area around them, including the star system. "I’m the Star Forge, Malak didn’t become one with the Force, he became one with me. So did all those Sith, the Jedi, the Republic fleet..." He paused for a moment, and Revan saw that he was on the edge of weeping. "Bastila, Jolee, Mission, Zaalbar, Canderous...they didn’t get away. Hell, the Dark Side in HK-47 is part of Carth now. Dodonna, Vandar, a hundred thousand men and women, the entire Rakatan race, every tree, every rock, every singly blasted gizka is one with Carth. The Force doesn’t move at the speed of light, especially when it wants to use someone as a sink."

Revan wasn’t prepared to believe any of that just on Carth’s say so, although she couldn’t deny the evidence of her eyes—the only thing displaying the slightest bit of Force power right now was Carth, and her entire fleet could not have all died at once, not by natural causes. And they were dead; that she knew, even if she couldn’t sense it. He was talking nonsense, but it was the only nonsense that made any sense. "A sink? And what does that have to do with me?"

Carth wiped the tears off his face, either not noticing or not caring about the Force lightning that flickered through his hair when he did so. "Now we’re getting to the huge mistake. You’ve heard of heatsinks? Nice things to have if you don’t want your electronics to melt. The Force was unbalanced, too Dark here. It willed a Force sink here, something it used to dump all the Dark into, oh, and the Light and everything in between, so it would be balanced again. The Force doesn’t care about Light or Dark, it likes balance, and most of the time little pockets of Dark balance with pockets of Light. It’ll send out Dark to places that are too Light, too, if it needs to. But the Star Forge and Rakata were just too much Dark all in one place for the rest of the system to dissipate it in the usual ways. Well, it would have been taken care of without a sink if you hadn’t gone Dark! Guess who is your lucky Force sink? Guess who your Force betrayed?"

"When did you become an expert on the will of the Force?" Revan asked, sneering.

"Since I found out I’m a Force sink. Do you listen when someone answers your questions? I’m a Force sink. Tend to learn stuff pretty damn fast that way, you know, having a star system’s worth of Force dumped into me all at once. You thought I’d turned into a conduit, but I’m not so lucky. You could have just offed a conduit. You can’t do a damn thing about a sink. The stupid Force willed that a sink find its way to the Star Forge. If you had taken the chance the Jedi gave you, turned to the Light, you could have saved both yourself and the galaxy from a deluded, lovesick, supposedly Force blind Republic pilot who just happens to be a damned Force sink."

Revan pondered this for a long while. She knew the essential definition of a sink: a natural or artificial means of absorbing or removing a substance or a form of energy from a system. Heatsinks played with physics in order to pull heat away from something and make it go elsewhere. Usually they relied on balance, equilibrium, to take away the heat. She looked around at the Star Forge, or what was left of it, and frowned. It had been a virulently Dark creature, so Dark that it destroyed, no, consumed the Rakatan Infinite Empire from parsecs away. If Carth was right, then no matter what had happened, the Star Forge was to be destroyed. But why in such a dangerous way? Why use a...sink? She’d never even heard of Force sinks before.

Given that Carth spoke the truth, the Force had used him to remove all of the Force from the Rakatan system. Made him such a powerful and effective sink that he had removed the Force from a star system just by being in it. No, not removed it—captured it, absorbed it. That would explain why he kept saying there was only Carth; if all the Force in the system were in him, of course it would be his will and not the Force’s. There was no Force here, only Carth.

"There’s something not right about your scenario. If you really are a Force sink, a veritable Force black hole if what you say is true, why are you still here? Why am I? If the Force were seeking balance by using a sink that absorbs Force, the logical response would be to destroy or disable the sink as soon as possible once the alignments were dissolved. I assume that’s why you say everything in the system is now ‘one with Carth’; balancing out the extreme Dark of the Star Forge with the Dark, Light, and mostly neutral life—"

"Don’t forget the rocks."

"—by putting it all in one place, pulling the extremes back to an equilibrium. Then it should dissipate back out again. The system would have as much Force as ever, but largely balanced. Why hasn’t that happened?"

Carth affected a very annoyed expression, which for some reason was not rendered a whit less effective by his lack of eyes. "Does being a persistently nosy woman exclude you from actually hearing the answers? And before you get your robes in a twist and try to Force choke me again, remember there’s only Carth, and while you might have done a bang up job of using me, you don’t know how to wield Carth. The Force made a mistake on an epic scale. It’s not a smart thing; it has no more sentience than a growing vine, but it is just as wily as any growing thing and it has the advantage of being, forgive the pun, a natural force. The Force had enough wile to artificially restrict a powerful Force sink the moment he became dangerous, but not the wits to leave that man enough Force sensitivity to be trained. If I hadn’t been Force blinded so completely, what you suggest is probably what would have happened. I’m pretty damn sure that’s what the Force wanted; I know for a fact it doesn’t like having a star system’s worth of Force trapped in a sink with no way out. That was the first mistake: a Jedi or even a Sith would have more practice allowing the Force to move through them than a Force blind. Frankly, I have no idea what to do to let this out; I wish I did, it’s agony, and it’s not fair. My friends shouldn’t be one with Carth. I’m no good as an afterlife for anyone. The Force trapped itself in its own tool.

"The second mistake it made was underestimating what a lovesick fool who had lost too much would do. You are alive right now only, solely, because I love you. Your Force was trapped just as fast as Malak’s, but a promise is a promise. All life isn’t the Force—it is not rational but sentients are. Carth keeps you alive somehow. Maybe the Force that once kept you alive has been replaced by Carth. I’m alive for the same reason, I think. I promised you I would protect you, and I am. If I die, you die. If there is no Carth, there is no Revan, so obviously, Carth better stick around. I can’t say I ever expected to protect you from the Force, though."

Revan snorted. "How disgustingly romantic."

"Isn’t it, though?" Carth answered, voice laced with biting sarcasm. "You used me, and I was a damned fool to fall in love with you. But surely you must appreciate the dark irony. You made your bed, now lie in it."

She growled low. He was right again. If she hadn’t decided to amuse herself trying to figure out how far a blinded, albeit quite handsome, brain-damaged bantha would fall for her, and later entertained the pleasant fantasy of having her own willing if deliciously conflicted love slave, she wouldn’t be in this mess. She should have listened to Canderous; he knew something was wrong and she hadn’t listened. This was a mess, in her opinion. Her Lordship of the Sith was probably now in the hands of an incompetent moron, her fleet was in shambles, her Star Forge was something that skirted the edges of undead, and she was trapped. Trapped in more ways than one. She couldn’t leave Carth to fry in the Rakatan sun, she couldn’t leave him at all, and given that he was well aware of his blindness on the subject of loving her (hadn’t she made that point as viciously as possible? Don’t think about the real reason...), now she had to find it in herself to keep his favor.

"Damnit all!" Revan shouted, stomping around the room. "Oh, how neatly the tables turn! I’m trapped with an idiot Republic flyboy that, dare I piss him off, I’ll die for it! If it weren’t happening to me, I’d revel in it!"

"I would never do that," Carth whispered, "despite everything."

The hair on the back of Revan’s neck rose and goosebumps prickled her arms. It hadn’t quite sunk in until now that he was dead serious when he said he loved her. She had thought it was something shallow, something she could comprehend and laugh at, but it was not. She would be dead now if it were. He had been serious when he said he wanted to get it right this time. He had every intention of doing everything in his now considerable power to keep her safe. It made her sick. She didn’t care that someone loved her, but she would have rather it been someone she hadn’t toyed with, an equal, someone as Dark as she was. Someone to rule a galaxy by her side, not...not...someone whom she owed her life. Not a hopelessly Light Sided Republic enemy, not someone who loved her near unconditionally. It was an affront to everything she stood for. Love wasn’t a weakness if power could be gained from it, but unconditional, revolting ‘I’d die for you’ love certainly was. And there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it. Even if she wanted to cut Carth open with her lightsaber, she was certain he wouldn’t allow it.

"That’s true. Carth won’t let you. I don’t know how, or why, and I’m not likely to find out. But you can’t hurt me, well, not physically anyway. I think now would be a good time to leave. Go to the Rakatan homeworld. Take me there."

"Take yourself. You’re perfectly capable of walking," she spit out, furious to the point of seeing red over the corner she’d been painted into. She hated everything right now, more than she had ever hated in her life. The Force, Carth, herself, everything.

"Oh, I know, but how does a blind man find his way through a maze like this? Even if I’m not Force blind anymore, that hardly helps any, does it?" He giggled again, that just shy of insane giggle that made Revan’s skin crawl. Still, he had a point. She would have to lead him out, in reality this time. Damn Canderous for seeing what was staring her in the face. She wondered briefly how long she had to lead Carth before, wondered when he had gained Force sight.

"A while...I couldn’t see the Star Forge, or anything else except in flashes until the Forge made these robes." He ran a hand down the plain fabric. "That wasn’t very smart of the Forge, but the Force willed it. These helped it chip the last bits of Force blindness, uh, Force resistance, away. I couldn’t stand it, it hurt so much."

Ignoring Carth for a moment, she tentatively picked up the very end of the chain attached to the shackles on Carth’s wrists. What she had so gleefully used to humiliate him, use him, and amuse herself now took on the loathsome feel of a physical symbol. Worse that this chain had choked a Sith and disabled more than a few droids. ‘Through victory my chains are broken. The Force shall set me free.’ She shuddered, feeling as though she wanted to wipe imaginary filth from her hands, gloved though they were.

A half-smile graced Carth’s face as he stood. "Sith code, Jedi code, the Force just uses them. They aren’t entirely wrong, I don’t think, but just enough for the Force’s purposes. Although I’ll admit, my view is a little skewed, not having ever been a Jedi Master or Sith Lord."

"Uuagh," Revan muttered. "Why can’t you follow me? You can sense me, read my mind obviously. Then I wouldn’t have to touch this thing."

Carth shrugged. "I could, I suppose, but you’re the only thing I can, uh, see. I don’t trust that little bit to keep me from falling over a railing. You could just, ah, take my hand."

Revan shuddered again, wishing with all her might that she could pour every iota of hate into the chain, melting it and frying Carth to ash. With a disgusted snort, she dropped the chain and unshackled him. She grabbed one hand with a good bit more force than necessary and started dragging Carth toward the exit. She hadn’t hesitated to touch him; she wasn’t stupid. It was she who had assumed it would be dangerous and he hadn’t denied it, that was all. A minor omission, although it was quite true that anyone else who touched him would be lucky to survive the encounter, assuming they could get near him.

To the best of her ability, she ignored the pleasant tingle of the Force lightning trailing up her arm. She snorted again. Carth lightning. Most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Not by a long shot, but she didn’t feel like thinking about the rest. The rest was too big, too hateful, too real; she wanted to ignore it for now, so she settled for grumbling about small, stupid things.

Picking her way past all of the dead Sith on the Star Forge wasn’t terribly difficult for Revan, even with Carth in tow. Seeing their bodies was a surprising relief to her; she hadn’t realized how eerie Malak’s death had made her feel until now. His death...she wasn’t even sure she could call it a proper death. A bastardized version, some strange facsimile, but not a real death. She glanced back at Carth, realizing suddenly that while the Sith bodies showed all the proper marks of a real death, they too must have been denied an honest Sith eternity the same way Jolee had been denied his Jedi return to the Force. ‘There is no death; there is the Force’. Except now, here, there was no Force, only Carth. Revan found the idea disturbing in the extreme.

"What is it like?" she asked, avoiding another sundered Dark Jedi body.

"It’s, uhm, not very pleasant. I mean, for me. I feel all of them inside, but I don’t think, uh, think they’re really aware of what happened. Except for the people who died before...Jolee is confused, he keeps bouncing off walls he knows shouldn’t be there. He had enough, enough time to get a sense of what being one with the Force was like, and he knows something’s different. The Sith are worse, they’re c-clawing at me. It hurts. I don’t know if it hurts them, but I feel their frustration. It’s pretty unfocused. The rest, uh, they, they didn’t know what to expect, so a limited space doesn’t disturb them. The wind and the rocks, heh, they don’t know any different, part of Carth, part of the Force, it’s all the same. Vandar is a bit confused, too, but he’s not trying to ram his way out." His grip on Revan’s hand tightened, nearly crushing it. She didn’t need any unusual perception to know he was angry. "I’d let them out, I would, I just don’t know how! I don’t know how! And, and, even if I did...I don’t know if I could, if I could give the Force the satisfaction."

"What do you mean? And would you mind not pulverizing my hand?"

"Sorry. I’m just so angry." Carth loosened his grip enough to let the blood flow back through Revan’s fingers. "I mean, the Force, it did more than use me, it tricked me. It’s supposed to use people, things, that’s just how things are, but it actively tricked me. Didn’t handle it very well. It betrayed me. Lied to me, as much as an insentient thing can...let me live for nearly forty years Force blind, then, surprise! It’s time to pull out the heavy artillery! Never mind what that sort of thing can do to a person, let’s just use him and drop him. Damn stupid mistake. Even if I had some clue as to what to do to be an efficient sink, I don’t know that I could, that I would. I’m not a tool, I’m not something to be used and tossed aside at a whim. I had no choice in this, none at all, and I don’t take that lightly. I’m not going to let it win...there is identity! There is more than the Force! I can’t let it take that from me, from you. If it had...if it had just given me a clue, left some of this, this Force sensitivity intact, maybe things would have been different. Maybe...never mind. It doesn’t matter now. It betrayed me, and it betrayed itself. I won’t forgive it for what it did to me and my friends."

"I’ve heard that before," Revan observed. "Planning a little vengeance, are you?" The idea seemed rather agreeable to her; a hyperspace jump straight to Coruscant with Carth would devastate the Republic. Then she might almost be happy to come back here and rot in whatever strange prison the Force had fumbled on her. She might not like it, but she couldn’t deny the attraction of having a weapon like Carth to use. If she couldn’t conquer the galaxy, perhaps she would take as many down with her into hell as she could.

Carth shook his head. "Wherever I go, everything will die. I’m not going to do that. I don’t see a very bright future for myself now...just as I was thinking there might be some kind of future for me at all...but I’m not going to go off and take away the futures of anyone else. I don’t know how much Force I can absorb, but I think it’s a lot." He shook his head again. "I can’t think straight, I can’t do this."

"But what about my future?" Revan snapped.

"Your future is with me, for better or worse. Better get used to it. I’m not letting you leave the system. I don’t know how I can stop you, just that I can and I will. I won’t let you use me either."

Revan seethed all over again at how tight the Force chains wrapped around her. She heard the unspoken ‘If you had done what I asked, you would have a choice in the matter’ and she hated it.

It didn’t take long for the two to reach the first of the many dead that had not died by blade or blaster. Darth Stilita, merely Bastila now, was the first, slumped over sideways from her meditation position. She appeared to have simply fallen asleep. Canderous seemed to sleep against a wall, Mandalore no more. Revan nudged her apprentice’s body with her toe. Stilita slid farther to the side until she lay on the floor. It wasn’t right. Revan had killed with the Force before, but it was a very different thing. This was something more akin to the ‘deaths’ the Jedi Malak had trapped in the Star Forge to feed him, never to know true life or death again, just limbo. Malak had not had a chance to subject any Jedi to that fate, but Revan couldn’t help but wonder if the Force had inflicted it upon them anyway. There was no way to know, other than Carth’s explanation, what it was like to be trapped in a Force sink. He didn’t seem to know much about it himself.

"Revolting," she muttered.

"I don’t think it’s like that...they are with the Force, it’s just limited to me. I think, maybe, it’s bigger on the inside than on the outside. But I can’t really disagree with you, it isn’t a fair way to die."

Revan shook her head, ire rising still, as she stepped over Bastila and led Carth around her. She wanted to lash out, to crush, rend, destroy, but with no Force to guide through her passion and hate, she was reduced to nothing. She wondered if all Force blinds felt as impotent as she did right now.

"We use it for other purposes," she heard Carth whisper behind her.

I suppose I’ll have to learn those other uses now, she thought, anger and hate bleeding out of her with each step she took, replaced by resignation, for now.

The Ebon Hawk’s gangplank was still down, and T3-M4 was beeping and whistling a frantic melody. The Star Forge was falling. The sky was falling.

"We’re coming T3," Revan shouted to the little utility droid. Still beeping wildly, T3 rolled up the plank and waited.

At the top, HK-47 seemed to blink in confusion. "Query: Why is the Star Forge no longer working? The Republic fleet didn’t get near it, master."

"It doesn’t matter, HK," she said as she rushed up the plank, not caring that Carth tripped over the end of it and had to crawl the rest of the way. "We need to get out of here fast, HK. Get us out of here."

"Statement: Yes master." There was some surprise in its voice; it clearly had expected Canderous and Stilita to come back to pilot if they needed to leave. HK stalked off toward the cockpit, and T3 followed to help.

"You think we’ll be OK with them piloting?" Carth asked.

"Does it matter? There’s no one to stop us...we just need to get out of here."

"Yeah, I guess." Carth didn’t bother getting up. "I’m tired. I’m going to tired for a long time, I think."

The Ebon Hawk’s thrusters started up, and soon they felt the ship lift off, away from the Star Forge. The intercom crackled. "Query: Where are we going, master? Are we going to meet up with the rest of your fleet?"

Revan laughed, her voice cracking. "No, HK. We’re going to Rakata. Take us to Rakata."

"Astonishment: But why master? You are their leader. You must go to them or some unworthy meatbag will try to take your place!"

"It doesn’t matter, HK. Something happened on the Star Forge, and now Carth won’t let us leave."

The ‘com was silent for a moment. "Query: Master, if I kill the meatbag pilot, will we be able to leave the system?"

"HK, if you kill him, if you can kill him...I don’t know. You and T3 might be able to leave. But if you mean me, no, I’ll die if he does."

More silence. "Statement: I cannot act in a way that would directly lead to your destruction. Observation: However, I can still act in ways that may indirectly lead to it. Are you certain that if the meatbag pilot were killed that you would die as well? Query: This isn’t a display of revolting organic sentimentality, is it, master? Please say it isn’t so; it would pain me to think you would stoop so low."

T3 beeped, causing Revan to shout, "Just because I kissed him doesn’t mean I like him!"

For some reason that escaped Revan, Carth thought that was funny. "She liked the kiss, though. I could tell."

"Exclamation: Master! How could you?" HK sounded thoroughly scandalized, and Revan imagined its elaborate shudder. T3 made a sound that bore an uncanny resemblance to a tuk’ata-whistle. The droid had clearly spent too much time with Mission. Even Carth was laughing at her.

Revan gaped, and silent gibbering words failed to escape her throat. She wouldn’t be surprised if she were blushing as well; she was grateful for the bloodstone mask she still wore, although she would have liked to still have Force powers. Destroy Droid and Force choke, that would be nice... "Forget all that!" she squeaked. "Just take us to Rakata! No more questions about why!" She slapped the intercom off, just shy of using enough force to break the thing.

Then she glared at Carth, although she realized the action would be lost on him since her mask was on and there was no Force to use to intimidate him. "What exactly was that all about?"

He took a moment to wipe the blood off his face, although his nose still bled. He was smiling, a real smile. It was the first time Revan had seen Carth smile like that, and she wondered for a moment what it would have looked like to see it in his eyes. When he finished wiping his face, he said, "My wife used to say that she would laugh not to cry. I’d forgotten that...I never did that after Telos was destroyed."

Revan said nothing. She had never seen him cry, either. As for her, she felt no use for either. No real laughter and no real tears. For the first time in her remembered life she wondered if she were missing something.

"I’ll laugh for you, and cry for you, as long as I can," Carth said softly.

"I don’t want that," she replied. Then she made her way to the cockpit.

As soon as she got there, she said, "Change course, HK. Take us to Coruscant by the fastest route possible."

HK tapped in the new coordinates. "Confirmation: I have input the shortest route to Coruscant. We will have to make two stops along the way to refuel."

"Good, good," Revan said, slipping into the pilot’s seat.

"Query: Why were you so insistent that we return to Rakata?"

"Carth thinks he can stop us from leaving. I don’t quite believe him, but I wasn’t going to tell him that." She took a moment to examine HK, then shook her head. Damnable crazy pilots being right all the time. Her assassin droid was as Force neutral as T3. Before, it had radiated a pleasant Darkness, a result of its construction by the Star Forge. At least its personality was still intact.

"Query: Were you misleading him regarding your own mortality as well, master?"

Revan snarled. "No, that, unfortunately, is true. But we can make the best of a bad situation. Once we drop out of hyperspace near Coruscant, everything alive there will be instantly snuffed out. We can stop by a few more Core Worlds, then inform the remainder of my fleet to take over. The Republic will be devastated. I only wish I could lead the occupation myself; I suppose I’ll just have to satisfy myself with the knowledge that a new era will dawn."

HK’s eyes gleamed. "Statement: The imagery alone makes my servos tingle. But how will you manage such widespread destruction?"

Smiling behind her mask, Revan answered, "Did you notice what happened to the Sith and Republic fleets? Somehow, Carth did that...but he doesn’t know how and he can’t stop himself. He’s a Force sink. All we have to do is drop into orbit, and the Force for an entire system will be removed."

"Exclamation: What a wonderful weapon you have discovered master! Statement: I did not know there was such a thing as a Force sink, but I can see how effective one is. A pity, however, that it is such a bloodless weapon. Still, so much death on such a grand scale...." HK trailed off, its voice blissful.

"Well, take us there."

"Statement: Certainly master." HK activated the hyperdrive. The Ebon Hawk didn’t move. It didn’t even sputter or stall.

"What’s wrong?" Revan demanded.

"Confusion: I do not know, master. All systems report as functioning normally."

"T3, talk to her."

T3 beeped and started communications with the Hawk. After a moment, it whistled in confusion.

"What do you mean everything is working fine? It can’t be working fine, we aren’t going anywhere!" Revan started the hyperdrive sequence herself, with the same results. "Damnit!" She stormed out of the cockpit and toward the hyperdrive. She examined it; she was no engineer, but the smuggler’s identity the Jedi had given her had extensive knowledge of ship repairs. There was nothing that she could find wrong with the hyperdrive, nor any of the other flight systems. The Hawk should have had no trouble flying at all.

Angry, she hunted down Carth. He was easy enough to find; he hadn’t moved from where he lay before. "What are you doing to my ship!" she demanded.

He turned his head up, seeming to look at her. "As far as I know, nothing."

"Then why won’t it move?"

For a moment, Carth thought about that. He wiped his nose; Revan noticed for the first time how much blood was on his sleeve and the front of his robes. After another wipe, he asked, "Were you trying to leave? I told you I wouldn’t let you leave, I told you to go to Rakata." He tilted his head up at her again. "That’s what you were doing. Sorry, beautiful, I can’t let you leave. I don’t know how far you can get from me without, without dying...definitely not outside the system, but I think it’s much shorter. If you want to die...I, I...I’ll let you...if, if that’s what you really want...but you have to take me to Rakata first."

Revan clenched her fists. "Does it please you to play god with my life?"

"That’s not what I’m doing," Carth answered, laying his head back down on his arm. "Somehow I saved your life. That’s all. I know I said I wouldn’t let you leave, that you can’t leave. That’s not quite true...you can leave, it’s me that can’t leave. But if you leave, you’ll die, just like Bastila and Canderous died. I’m guessing I know you well enough that you don’t want to die like that. I don’t want you to die like that."

"There’s no way out, is there? Now way out."

Carth shook his head in negation, but said nothing. Revan stared at him, then returned to the cockpit, where she set course for Rakata over the protests of HK-47. This time, the ship moved.

The second time the Ebon Hawk landed on the Rakatan beachfront, it did so with a good deal more grace. Revan powered down the engines and looked out the view ports. The entire planet was dead in that strange, wrong way that Malak, Stilita, and Canderous were. The palms stood still, the grass did not rustle in any wind. She sighed and walked to the Hawk’s exit, dropping off her mask in the common room on her way. There wasn’t much use for it now.

Just above the plank, Carth was sleeping. Peaceful, this time, it seemed, although he was snuffling through blood. His nose had stopped bleeding; judging by how much had pooled on the decking and stained his robes, he would likely be rather faint. Revan sighed. She was too tired to find the idea or the sight even mildly entertaining. Lightly, she kicked him.

"Hey!" Carth snapped, startled fully awake. "What the hell was that for?"

"We’re on Rakata. Thought you might want to get off the ship. Just in case I decide to take her to the other side of the planet."

Muttering under his breath, Carth got up. "Didn’t need to kick me." He ran a hand through his hair then pulled it away it away with a yelp. "What’s in my hair?"

"Blood," Revan answered, voice flat.

"I’ve been lying here bleeding and you couldn’t spare a medpack? What happened? I didn’t feel anything."

"Nothing happened. You got that nosebleed on the Star Forge."

"Oh, huh...didn’t realize it was that bad." He shuffled a few steps to the right, hands out, feeling the deck plates with his feet. Orienting himself didn’t take long. "I’ll get off the ship after I clean up." Trailing bloody fingers along one wall, Carth walked toward what used to be the men’s bunkroom. "Be careful plotting how far you go," he said as he walked. "Ah...unless you, you want to."

Revan just watched him walk. It didn’t surprise her that he was so certain of his destination; she was sure she could walk through the Hawk blindfolded herself after spending so much time aboard her. She noted with detached interest that HK would probably enjoy the trail of blood Carth was leaving on the bulkhead.

After a moment, Revan disembarked, a bit surprised that T3 insisted on going with her. The little droid had sneaked up on her and nudged her leg with one of its folding appendages. "Sure, come with me. I’m not going far, though. Maybe later we can go to the Elder’s encampment or the temple. I’d like to see if the computers still work."

T3 beeped, surprised, when it got a good look at the trees.

Walking across the white sand, Revan said, "Yeah, the trees died fast, and they didn’t die of natural causes."

A confused beep was her reply. The two set out for the temple, passing by mock-sleeping rancors and gizkas frozen in time. The grass sometimes crumpled beneath their tread and sometimes kept its shape. After a good hike, the two reached the plateau where the Rakata temple stood. Revan looked toward the wide entrance. There was no Rakatan field; she had dropped it before. The Force field was also gone, another obvious symptom of the Force void that Carth had caused. "Well, there’s no reason the computer wouldn’t work, is there?" Revan asked herself. "Even if their self-repair and maintenance was by Dark energy, the computers themselves should still work."

T3 made an agreeable sound.

"That’s true, you and HK are still working. I guess artificial constructs aren’t affected by a lack of Force."

If T3 could shrug, it would have. Beep whistle zzt beep boop.

"I’m sure the computer will know. It was quite well informed."

The two entered the temple and quickly made their way to the Rakatan computer. When she approached the computer, it spoke in Rakatan. The computer’s voice was calm and serene. /Greetings Revan. My sensory input systems indicate that your physiology has again changed since I last spoke with you. I have noted and recorded these changes in my database. May I make an inquiry?/

/Go ahead./

/Is it normal for humans to change so rapidly?/

/No, it’s not normal. But you could say I have lived a rather abnormal life./

/I see./

Before the computer or Revan could continue, T3 poked Revan’s leg. Bzzop zzeet woop.

"Well, connect yourself to the computer then. It will teach you Rakatan. And while you’re at it, teach it Basic. Rakatan is a pain on the vocal cords."

T3 beeped agreement, and after Revan confirmed with the computer that it was safe to do so, T3 attached its appendage to the computer. A few moments later, T3 withdrew, and made a low series of sounds.

"It gave you a headache," Revan stated, a bit incredulous.

Bwwwoop.

"Sometimes droids are weird, you know that?"

T3 gave Revan a half-hearted poke in the leg. Boop beep zzep beep bop.

"All right, I’ll see you later." Revan watched T3 head back to the Ebon Hawk, then turned back to the computer. "I want to ask you some questions."

/Certainly Revan. What do you wish to ask?/

Revan was pleased to find the computer understood Basic now; she had no idea why she would not have taught it Basic before. "I’m curious about the changes you say your sensors have detected in me."

/My data indicates that the energy which flows through all life is no longer present in your system. You are not alive by the strictest physical definitions, yet you, by all appearances, are indeed alive. Another form of energy has connected the neurological patterns that make up your mind to your body. Your body, however, is in an unusual stasis. You are not static, but most physiological processes have ceased. It is quite interesting./

Revan rubbed her forehead. "You’re saying I’m dead?"

/No, not at all, Revan. I said you were not alive by the strictest definitions for physical life. You do not respire, you have no metabolism. As I said, all of your physiological processes are in stasis, except for your cardio-pulminary system. I suspect that you only breathe and have a heart beat because it is habitual for you and you would not feel correct without them./

"I guess that’s interesting...if a bit confusing. How does that work?"

/I cannot say with certainty. The unidentified energy tying your mind to your body is, from what I can detect, manipulating your body through energy fields directly under command of your mind./

"Can this link between my body and mind be broken?"

/I believe so. The energy source providing the link is not strong and does not appear to be stable, although I will know more if I am able to identify the source. However, I would not suggest breaking the link, as it would ‘kill’ you, after a manner of speaking./

Revan gritted her teeth. "What about the unidentified energy? Can that be removed?"

/I cannot say./

Her foot tapped on the rough floor. "Do you know what would happen to my mind if the link were broken?"

/I cannot say./

Frowning, Revan said, "I’ll be back. I know the source of the energy, I’ll bring him here and see if you can figure a way for me to get out of this situation."

/I will do my utmost to help you as I am able, Revan./

Revan nodded and walked out of the temple, heading back to the Ebon Hawk. Her travel was interrupted by T3-M4 doing its best to lead Carth up the path. She had to smile at the sight—Carth was stumbling around as if he were drunk and T3 circled around him in a dizzy display of speed, poking and prodding his legs in an attempt to keep him from falling over the short escarpment.

"T3, poking me isn’t helping!" Carth told the droid, but that didn’t stop it.

Brrzzzt! T3 declared, and poked Carth again, making him stumble a bit to the left, farther away from the edge of the path.

"It looks like T3 is helping," Revan said.

"Hmph. He’s just having fun playing nerf herder, I think." Carth didn’t seem surprised at all hearing her.

Revan snickered. "So, you’re a nerf now? I’ll add that to the list."

Carth stopped and wrinkled his nose in annoyance. "That’s not what I meant." He was back in that battered leather jacket he seemed to like so much, and he was clean. If his hair was a bit more disheveled than usual, Revan couldn’t blame him. To be honest, she thought it looked better a bit less severe.

"Well, it’s what you said..."

"No, I said T3 was...never mind." After a tiny poke in the calf by T3, Carth said, "Fine, yes, I’m moving!"

Beep. T3 circled around front and tried to move a few rocks out of the way. Zrrrbat, bing... it beeped in frustration.

It took a while to return to the plateau. Revan refused to help Cath, and T3 was getting increasingly frustrated. When the three finally reached level ground, T3 jabbed Carth’s leg with one of its electrical appendages, giving him a thorough and painful zap.

"What was that for?" he shouted, "It’s not my fault! Look at her, not me!" He waved a hand in Revan’s general direction.

Zzzzraaappppt. T3 moved away in a huff.

"You were the one that dragged me off the Hawk T3, so really, you got what you were asking for. Damnit, where is he, I want to kick him!"

T3 made a remarkably rude sound. Revan shrugged and said, "He’s right there." She motioned toward T3 with her hand as vaguely as possible, unable to stop her smile when Carth’s annoyed expression turned aggravated.

"Maybe I’ll just kick you and tell you to give my respects to T3 for me," he grumbled.

"I don’t think so," Revan replied. She grabbed Carth’s hand and started dragging him toward the Rakatan temple.

"Where are we going?" he asked while trying his best not to trip on anything.

"You’ll see," Revan tittered.

"You’re just a regular comedian, aren’t you," Carth snarled.

"Even Dark Lords need a sense of humor."

Carth muttered under his breath words that were, like as not, something quite foul in one of the Telosian creoles he sometimes used when frustrated.

/Welcome back, Revan,/ the Rakatan computer said when she and Carth reached it.

"Hello again," Revan replied. "I brought what I think is the unidentified energy source." She pushed Carth in front of the computer terminal.

Carth hissed another obscure creole word; Revan had an idea he had resorted to a creole because there was no way for her to know exactly what it was he was saying. She knew an almost obscene number of tongues, but unless she was Telosian, there was no reason and no way for her to know any of the creoles. She only knew of them, and that because this wasn’t the first time Carth had muttered under his breath in one. Now, because of Malak, it was unlikely that there were many people at all who knew them and even fewer who needed them.

"You’re doing that on purpose," Revan grumped.

"I’m not allowed to curse in a language you don’t know, Miss Ex-Sith Lord shi’ losi reallin phe?"

"No," Revan stated, crossing her arms and frowning. It bugged her that she half-recognized the words, just enough to know that it was a mild but derogatory description of a powerless something or other.

In response Carth spat out a long string of words that Revan didn’t understand. His expression was clear enough; ‘yeah, and what are you going to do about it?’

Revan just ignored it. If Carth wanted to talk in some hodge-podge semi-language no one left in the galaxy except perhaps Dustil understood, it was no matter to her. It was just irritating, which may very well have been the point. She turned her attention back to the computer. "Well, here he is."

/Indeed. I am most curious about his language./

"Forget the language! I want to know about the energy source!"

/As you wish, Revan. Scanning will take me a moment, stand by./

"Does this thing speak Basic?"

"Probably, it understands Basic. Do you speak Basic?"

Carth snorted a small laugh. "You’re reaching sister. You used to be better at insulting me."

"Forgive me, life has been a little rough lately."

Revan received no reply to that, just a dark, unhappy expression. She smiled.

The computer reentered the conversation. /I have finished my scan Revan. You are correct, this one is the source of the unidentified energy. I believe I have the answers to some of your previous questions, Revan. Do you wish to hear them?/

"Yes, tell me what you know," she answered.

"What is it saying?" Carth asked, perturbed. He knew the computer was talking about him in some form.

/Revan, do you wish me to communicate in a language you will both understand?/

She glanced at Carth, then said, "No, please continue."

Carth looked suspicious, then stood very still, as if he might learn Rakatan just by listening to the computer.

/As you wish. This energy source is, as I surmised, unstable, but not in a way that would be threatening for its continued existence for some time. It is an energy very similar to what you call the Force, but essentially trapped. This gives it unusual properties; unlike the Force, which flows through all life, this person, as a receptacle, controls the energy to a very fine degree. It flows only where he wishes it to. I sense no conscious understanding on his part of how to control this transfer, as evidenced by the discharge from his hands. As I scan, the repository of energy is steadily, although minutely at this point, growing.

/To answer your question as to what would happen if you were to break your mind/body link—it would only be possible if you were to remove the energy. While the link is unstable, it appears to be strengthened by proximity. To destabilize the link to the point at which it would be most likely broken, you would be required to distance yourself from the source. As for what would happen to your mind at such a point, I cannot say. I speculate it would either revert to what you call Force, or, lacking the energy that has replaced the Force, your mind would lose cohesion and become nothing./

"What! Are you saying that if I get too far away from Carth I might not even die, I might just disappear? Like I never existed?"

/Yes, that is a distinct possibility. To avoid it, I speculate that you would have to find a rich source of Force so that it might replace the energy that now composes you. Your best chance to ‘survive’ such an action would be to find the Force that already contains an imprint of your mind./

Revan jabbed a finger in Carth’s face. "It’s in him! He’s a Force-damned Force sink!"

Carth absently shoved Revan’s finger away from him; he was still in an attitude of careful listening.

/Then your best chance at preserving your mind in the event of a removal of the energy linking it to your body would to become part of the Force sink./ The computer either had no trouble extrapolating what a Force sink was or it had heard of them before under a different name.

Rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands, Revan hissed, "There is no Force, only Carth."

/That would be a simplified way of stating the matter, yes./

"So I’m stuck. Completely stuck. Even more stuck than before."

/I am uncertain what you mean by ‘stuck’, but your current condition regarding the filtered energy as opposed to the Force likely has not changed significantly since it began./

"But I didn’t know about it before!" Revan shouted.

If self-aware computers could shrug, there was a chance this one would have. /I see that you are distressed by this./

"You’re damned right I’m distressed! I don’t suppose you would have any idea what it’s like to be a mobile being, used to traveling the stars, doing and going anywhere she pleased, would you."

/No, I do not, Revan. My purpose does not require such mobility. Is there anything else that you require of me?/

"No, not now."

"I’d like to ask something, if I could?" Carth said.

/I will answer to the best of my abilities, Carth./

Revan looked sharply at Carth. "You can’t understand it, what would be the point?"

"It understands Basic, and if it’s willing to talk to me, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t speak it, is there?"

/While it is true that I understand your Basic, I will not speak it unless Revan asks it of me. I prefer not to use the languages of slaves and lesser beings. I only allow Revan to address me in Basic because she has proven herself to be more than a base creature by her understanding of Rakatan and her desire for the knowledge of the ancients./

Carth paused for a moment, as if listening again. "Do...do you mean that, I, uh...need to learn Rakatan to talk to you?" He sounded uncertain of his statement.

/Yes./

Revan’s jaw dropped. Anger flashed in her yellow eyes. "How did you know what it said?"

"I can...hear it...it’s really hard, but I can hear what it means, kind of. I think I’m picking it up from you." He shrugged.

"You’re reading my mind." This wasn’t a new thing, but it bothered her still.

"I guess that must be it...more like, um, listening in, eavesdropping. It’s hard to hear, though, what the computer is saying. You’re fluent, so I only catch some of the meaning, not the actual words. Would you ask it to speak Basic?"

"Why don’t you just steal the knowledge out of my mind? I’m sure you can do that, Captain There is no Force only Carth." Revan thought it was possible, but the idea made her skin crawl.

Carth didn’t look as if he liked the idea any better than she did. "I don’t know if I can, Revan. I don’t think I’d want to even if I could."

"Why not? You don’t seem to care if you read my mind, why would you care if you snatched Rakatan out of it?"

"Because it’s all been passive so far," Carth snapped. "Like I said, I don’t even know if I can. I would care about not doing it because I don’t like the idea of mucking around inside your head. It’s repulsive."

"You’re such a charmer when you want to be, you know that?"

"That’s not what I meant! Although I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it’s true. It’s the idea that’s repulsive, since I have to spell everything out for you lately."

Revan just snorted. "Good luck learning Rakatan then."

"I suppose the Elder’s computer might be willing to teach me."

"And how are you going to get there? Hope you fall off the right cliff?"

"You’d like that, wouldn’t you?" Carth said, but his tone was distant, as if he had switched gears. When he next spoke, it was to the Temple computer. "You were curious about my language?"

/Yes. I can extrapolate from the ancient slave languages what they could potentially become, but none of my extrapolations lead to any quite like the language you were speaking. There were familiar forms within it, but as a whole, it was unique to me./

Revan crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. She didn’t think she wanted to sit here and play translator for Carth, but she couldn’t deny her curiosity; she wanted to know why he wanted to talk to the computer. After a moment, Carth said, "Do you want to learn it? Would that be worth answering a few questions in Basic?"

The computer was quiet, thinking. /There has not been anything worth recording until the very recent destruction of the Star Forge and the final end of the Rakatan people. As a footnote to the history of the Infinite Empire, it would be of some minor historical value to record the language of the one who destroyed the Star Forge. For that I will answer one question in Basic./

It took Carth a few minutes to answer, as he was trying to tease out the best understanding of the computer’s answer as he could from eavesdropping. When he did answer, it was in the language he had been speaking earlier. Then the computer started speaking in the same tongue. They continued the exchange, and Revan, growing frustrated and angry, decided to leave.

She wandered around outside the Temple, wondering why the computer was willing to speak in Telosian if it balked at Basic. She guessed it was probably just confirming that it was learning the language and wouldn’t say anything of substance in it. While she wandered she came across a preserved gizka and kicked it, turning it to dust. Walking didn’t relieve her frustration at all, however, neither did kicking dead gizkas. She felt so completely trapped, so powerless, even more than before, and she loathed it.

Every several minutes Revan would wander back to the Temple and far enough inside to hear what was being said. Several times she just heard the gibberish Carth called a language. Then finally she heard Basic and walked back down into the Temple computer’s room.

The computer was speaking, and Revan was certain she had missed a good chunk of the answer it had deigned to provide in Basic. "It is much the same with you. However, because of both the strength of the altered energy source and some damage I would classify as Force-inflicted, the bond between your body and your mind is much weaker than Revan’s. You do have this advantage in that regard—because this bond is dependant on the energy source, you are in no danger of breaking it via distance. It is stable, but the inherent weakness of the bond will be overpowered by the alternate energy. It is my estimation, that at the rate of power growth currently detected, the power output used to control your body will be overwhelmed in approximately five days."

Carth’s clenched his fists so hard his arms shook. "I couldn’t change that even if I did know how to control the power I have."

Reverting to Rakatan, the computer said, /Unlikely. The Force damage is the main cause of the weakness of the bond, and putting more power into it might break it. I could not predict what would happen if that should occur. I can say with certainty the alternate energy source would be severed from any connection to the body containing it./

Bowing his head, Carth took a few steps away from the computer. Revan just caught him saying to himself, "Damned Force. It’s gong to make sure. It already did...just time, then nothing."

Revan glanced at the Rakatan computer, then at Carth, who had moved away. It was obvious that he was troubled by what the computer had revealed. Not for the first time, she wished she could sense him and his emotions. Without the Force, it was even more difficult. Whatever he was feeling now, it would certainly be something she would enjoy.

Then an idea struck her, and a slow, feral smile spread across her ashen face. He might even be willing, and she would prove she was not entirely powerless while enjoying herself. She unlatched her gauntlets and pulled her gloves off, carefully setting them across the edge of the computer console. Stepping lightly, she walked over to Carth and stood in front of him. She wondered for a moment how much of her expression he could ‘see’. If it were much like Force sight, not much, although Force sight was more a sensing of intentions and emotions than it was actual seeing.

Her grin broadened when he just looked confused. Perhaps too distracted by his own thoughts? No matter, he could think whatever he liked as long as she got what she wanted. Quick as a snake, she grabbed him, pulling him down, and kissed him.

She laughed to herself at his reaction; he hadn’t caught even a hint of her intentions, and just like on the beach, he was caught so completely off guard that after his initial shock, he returned the kiss with surprising fervor.

Revan took full advantage of Carth’s disorientation to back him into a wall. She had just started unhooking the clasps on his jacket before Carth managed to regain control of himself enough to push her away. "No, stop it. I, I, I’m not doing this. Get away from me!"

"Ah, my mistake, Carth," Revan said, smiling. "For someone who wasn’t kissing me, you were certainly doing a fine job of it."

He ducked away from her, but moved in the wrong direction. Now she had him cornered. She started on his jacket again, standing on her toes so she could continue kissing him. This time, he didn’t push her away, he shoved her hard enough that she almost lost her footing.

Revan laughed. "You can’t tell me you don’t want me. It’s perfectly obvious."

"I certainly can say so!" Carth snapped. His hands were shaking, but Revan couldn’t tell if it were because he was angry or because of his physical desire.

"Don’t lie, Carth, you’re no good at it." Revan stepped forward, standing about as close as she could to Carth without touching him. She took his hands; it surprised her how nice the lightning felt on her bare arms. "Why not? You want it, I want it, so what’s the problem?"

"There would be the part where I don’t even want to touch you. You’re an unrepentant monster."

Revan didn’t even flinch. "An unrepentant monster that you love."

Carth growled at that. "You destroyed my home world, you killed my wife."

"Wasn’t me," she said, "and you said you couldn’t hate me for that, anyway." Revan started kissing him again, and Carth had a bit of trouble getting away from her...and it wasn’t just because he was cornered; he was fighting himself, too.

He hit his head on the wall pulling away from her. "I, I said that before, when I was fool enough to think there was more to you than just this ugly thing. Get away from me." His anger at her was mounting.

Revan was starting to get angry as well. "Well, master of mixed signals, don’t tell me you aren’t strong enough to make me stop. Make me stop if that’s what you want. Might be your last chance to do anything."

Carth snatched one hand back and grabbed a fistful of Revan’s hair, pulling her away. Physical state notwithstanding, he was glaring at her. She was right, he did want her, he had for a while. He did love her. And he was lying when he had called her nothing more than an ugly thing. He knew there was more to her than that, despite how she seemed to be going out of her way to prove otherwise. But then she had destroyed everything that meant anything to him; it didn’t matter if it was Malak and Saul that had pulled the trigger on everything he cared about, she was responsible because she was their leader. She was the Dark Lord of the Sith. He was furious with himself for loving her in spite of all that.

He was furious with himself for liking the feel of her lips on his.

"You don’t want me, you don’t want to do anything even so meaningless as just having sex, you want to use me." Perhaps most of all, in that moment, he hated himself for considering giving her what she wanted; he knew the computer was right, he could feel it. In a few days, he was as good as dead to the physical world. If he gave her what she wanted, he would be no better than every damn thing that had used him because he would be using her, too.

"What do you expect?" Revan growled. "The Force broke my toy, of course I want to use it before it falls apart."

It was unlikely that Revan could have said anything at that moment that would have made Carth any angrier than that. "I don’t think so, sister. You be careful what you wish for." He kissed her hard, catching her off guard this time.

But only for a moment; after that Revan was quite pleased with herself. Carth was incredibly angry, and she couldn’t have been happier.

That was until Carth sneaked in one very well timed sucker punch. Revan gasped for breath and doubled over, cursing, unprepared for the hard kick that sent her sprawling. She lacked her Force reflexes, but she was still a trained scout and smuggler, so it didn’t take her long to get back up.

"What in the hell was that!" she shouted, just dodging a right hook that looked like it might have knocked her out. She didn’t wait for an answer before she took her advantage and threw Carth on his back.

His recovery was a lot more graceful, simply because he had expected a fight. "Apparently, that’s the only ‘no’ a Dark Lord takes for an answer," Carth spat back, rounding on Revan.

"Dark Lords don’t take refusal at all!" she yelled, furious to the point of shaking. Revan had every intention of beating Carth to within an inch of his life for that stunt, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew that the only advantage she had in this was that she could see the walls. No extra speed, no Force-honed reflexes...and no way to know for certain that Carth wouldn’t suddenly figure out how, in his anger, to throw that lightning.

Revan moved first, hoping that however it was that Carth could see her was not very accurate. Unfortunately, it seemed it was and he blocked her easily, knocking her down a second time. She was quicker to get up this time, and determined not to be laid out a third time.

Until the end, Revan managed to stay on her feet, but it was difficult. She was frustrated and angry, but so was Carth, and neither one held back. Neither one had an advantage—Revan could see the layout and that caused Carth problems, but Carth knew what Revan’s next move was almost before she did, and he seemed to get better at it the longer they traded blows. It was a long fight, and an exhausting one.

The final hits to land just underlined how evenly matched they were; energy flagging, Carth hadn’t been able to dodge a knee to the groin, but he had managed to hit Revan’s head so hard she fleetingly lost consciousness. They both went down, and didn’t move for a long time.

"Think...call it...draw," Carth managed to gasp out. Revan did not kid around when she went for the kill.

Dizzy, Revan slurred, "Uh, yessh...’k." She didn’t bother getting up, and she was too worn out to feel angry anymore.

It seemed Carth didn’t feel very angry either. "That hurt."

"Woulda been more fun my way." Revan was nearly asleep now.

"No...just would have gotten inna fight anyway." Carth sounded sleepy too. /Have honor, won’t be used./

Revan was asleep before it registered that Carth had said that last in perfect Rakatan.

The next morning was rather painful. "Ow...," Revan muttered as she roused herself and stood from the stone floor. She looked at her bare hands; she was not at all surprised to find bruises. She hadn’t pulled her punches. She’d hate to see the rest of her. She had taken a few strikes to the face...probably looked like it, too. Her bloodstone gauntlets weren’t shiny enough to use for mirrors; she put them back on so she wouldn’t have to see the ugly marks on her hands.

The only nice thing she could think of was that Carth probably looked just as bad—they had certainly beaten each other senseless. Seemed to have burned off some frustration, though.

Revan didn’t see Carth in the room, so she walked out of the Temple, looking for him. It didn’t take her long to find him; he was sitting in the dead grass very near the steps up to the Temple, his arms folded over his knees and his back to her. She made a face; no bruises on his hands at least. That wasn’t fair. She hoped that at least he was hurting.

"Oh, I am, no doubt about that, beautiful. Sorry you don’t think it’s fair though. No blood, no bruises. Pretty sure I bled out on the Hawk. Hell of a nosebleed." He didn’t turn.

Revan huffed. It was also not fair that she couldn’t sneak up on him either. She went and stood next to him. A quick examination of his face turned up no bruises there, either, despite the fact that she knew she’d nailed him in the face more than once. Strange...there were tear trails. He’d been crying very recently.

Carth turned away from her and wiped at his face. He said nothing, and Revan stood there for a while, becoming increasingly curious about not only why he was crying but why he wasn’t saying anything. She knew full well that he could tell she wanted to ask about it.

"If you wanted to ask, you would."

"Now you’re selectively answering my thoughts?"

Carth ran a hand through his hair, settling it more than disheveling. "What am I supposed to say? What do you want? I know you don’t really care, you’re just curious. Maybe I don’t want to talk about it."

Before Revan could answer, HK-47 tromped up the hill and called out to her. "Statement: Master, sensors picked up two Sith Interdictor ships and one Republic ship enter the system." When HK got closer, he said, "Query: What happened? Did this meatbag somehow manage to hurt you? Shall I dispatch him for such blatant disregard for the sanctity of your Lordship?"

"I look that bad, HK?" Revan hissed.

"Appeasement: You look fine, master," HK was quick to respond. "There is no shame in appearing as if you have been in a fight."

"Well, I was, and no, you can’t shoot anyone for it." HK somehow managed to look upset about that. "About the ships. Tell me about the ships."

"Statement: Certainly master. The ships entered the system, but there do not seem to be any meatbags aboard. They have not entered any sort of entry flight path, nor do they seem to have changed direction at all. Prediction: The ships will leave the system without stopping."

Revan turned to Carth. "Is that what happened? The ships? The crews?"

Carth just nodded.

"It upsets you? It hurts?"

He nodded again. "Both."

"HK, let’s see if we can find out the exact boundaries of the system, find out where this, this...event horizon is." Revan waved her hands, then strode down toward the path to the beach. She added, "Just to keep the Sith out, you know. Even if I can’t lead them, I don’t want them getting killed trying to get here."

HK nodded. "Statement: Of course, master." He followed her off the plateau and down to the beach.

When they were gone, Carth said, "I saw you again yesterday, Revan. I didn’t mean to, but I did." He snorted a bitter laugh. "Learned Rakatan a shade too late, too, but now I guess something will remember Teleiotjs forever."

It took several hours for Revan, HK-47, and T3-M4 to calculate the boundaries of the Rakatan system. Or rather, the boundaries of the Force sink. They used the Ebon Hawk to fly to several points using the Rakatan Temple as the center point, and every time Revan started feeling dizzy and weak, T3 would record the point and set out a warning beacon. They didn’t require many points of reference, only enough to rough out a somewhat spherical shape that ended up encircling Rakata, its two moons, and the star. While they were seeking out the boundary, Revan took the opportunity to clean herself up a bit. She found that her bruises had faded very quickly, and she wondered why. She supposed she had subconsciously willed it—the computer had said her body was entirely under her mental control, so that made some sense.

As soon as the first boundary was established, Revan returned to the beach and instructed HK and T3 to send out more beacons along the outer edges of the boundary they had found so it would take in the entire orbit of Rakata.

She did not specify to whom the warning would get sent, so T3 encoded both a general warning about the dangers of approaching the system and a specific one that transmitted directly to Coruscant. The droid thought it best to make sure the Republic found out as soon as possible so that the dissemination of the information would be very quick.

"No, no...no, why...? Why did it have to happen this way? There is life and death and love and hate and identity, but...but all, all that’s left is identity and that will be gone soon, too! It’s not right, I can’t do this..."

Revan settled back against the rock on the Rakata beach, near Carth. She supposed that the four Sith ships that had entered the system while she and the droids had been scouting were responsible for Carth being so upset and she was concerned despite herself. If there were to be any of those things Carth wanted so badly, those things the Force tried to render meaningless, she would have to try and make them. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t maintain any real hate for him for what happened. It wasn’t his fault, not entirely, just as it was not quite her fault. It was just such a tangled mass of mistakes. She didn’t think she wanted the things Carth wanted just for him, though. She at least wanted identity, life, and death. Hate would be a nice benefit, but she could do without love. It was confusing her. Maybe it was because there was no Force, only Carth...maybe she had a Carth infection.

She sighed and said, "Carth, no, there’s no life and death here, you’re right about that, but maybe there can be something else. I wonder if, if I hadn’t gotten so upset that you saw a Force vision of another Revan, if I hadn’t taken those lovely eyes yours, if this wouldn’t have happened...maybe the Force wouldn’t have been able to break you."

He shook his head. "It had already started, Revan. Hurting me a little more didn’t change that. You must not be feeling well to think it would make a difference...but then I guess you thought it would before... I did see a Force vision of another you...not so different, really, but just enough. I don’t know how, or why, but that’s what I saw. Maybe the Force put a glamour over you...you fooled more than just me into thinking you were something other than completely Dark. I’m sorry, I am, it’s that Revan I love. So there’s no love or hate."

"Maybe...but you wouldn’t have been able to see a Revan that was impossible to be. She was a potential, and potentials have to be rooted in reality." Revan snorted. "This is so stupid. Why am I even having this conversation with you? Why do I even care?"

Carth shrugged. "Survival instinct? I’m sorry, I wish it didn’t have to be this way."

"So, would you let it go now, if you could?"

"I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m really selfish when you get down to it. And stubborn. I made a promise, I won’t forget that. I won’t fail this time."

"Would you still be willing to murder your son to stop this?"

"NO! No, no, I...I don’t know why, why I thought that would be, uh, something I could do." Carth twisted his fingers in his hands, lightning sparking off. "I was out of my mind."

"I think you still are," Revan said.

Carth just nodded. It was a jerky nod, and for a long moment after, Carth didn’t move.

"It’s not done, is it?"

"No, it’s done. It’s just taking a little while for the damage to show up."

Revan frowned. "The Force royally screwed with us."

"Oh yes."

"If you hated me, what would have happened?"

Carth thought about that for a long time. "I...think...that I would fallen alone into the star along with the Forge. I would have still been there, with no way out...I would have still fought the Force, just wouldn’t have had as long to do it. We’re a little bit immortal, you know. Death is a matter of the Force, and it’s gone now. Only Carth left."

"But I thought that was one of the things you wanted? Death?"

"Yes...but, uh, I want it because I knew the Force would take it all away. I want things to be normal again. I, uh, I didn’t know...what it was going to do...just that, when it did it, it would take everything away. I don’t want death for myself anymore, but I didn’t want...this." He spread his hands, taking in a gizka that looked serene in its stationary existence, about to hop, but static in a strange un-death. The trees faded to the color of ash with no wind to break their fragile, lifeless leaves. The ocean that still crashed ashore, but in an eerie powerless way, one that would never erode rock. "This isn’t death, this is...I don’t know what this is."

"It’s an abomination," Revan answered. "I want to smash them, cut them, make them bleed, fry them, just so I can pretend they died honestly."

"Carth can’t give that to them. Carth is barely a man, Carth can’t be the wind or the tides."

Revan snorted. "But Carth can keep me alive."

"Only a little. Remember what the computer said? Your mind is alive, Revan, and Carth can make it so your body obeys your mind’s commands, but...I don’t know what kind of life that is. The Force made sure Carth couldn’t do that for me. Is it a tolerable life, Revan? Is it all right for you?"

"Yeah, it’s all right. I can’t really tell the difference, except for the lack of Force. I feel that very keenly."

They sat quietly for a while. Revan occupied herself thinking of nothing in particular, letting her mind wander. There weren’t even any clouds to watch. Leaving was out of the question; life here might be disturbing and boring, but she wouldn’t even contemplate succumbing to the mock-death that surrounded her. She tapped her lips. "Here’s a tricky question. Why do you think I had a ‘glamour’ over me? Why would it matter?"

"Huh? Oh, uh...it would have been dangerous to the Force’s grand plan if anyone really believed you were who you are, probably. I mean, believed it deep down, that you were a real threat because you were a real Sith. There would have been assassins coming out of the woodwork. They would have found out. I probably would have killed you before they had a chance, or died trying."

"Oh really. I thought you loved me."

"We’re talking hypothetically here, you without the glamour. I’m too much of a paranoid jerk to have bought what you were selling without it. One of the only nice things Canderous ever said to me was that I had good instincts for scenting out bantha crap. But you were full of it and I couldn’t see it. I know Bastila couldn’t either, and if anyone should have known better, it was her. You’re a lying, manipulative schutta. You really think I was honestly that stupid?"

"You sweet talker, you," Revan growled, holding up a fist. She lowered it with much silent cursing.

"Are you trying to tell me you helped me convince Dustil to leave Korriban out of the goodness of your heart?"

"Fine, I’m a lying, manipulative schutta. And yes, I do think you are honestly that stupid. Force, it was funny!"

Carth frowned and did his best to glare at Revan. All things considered, he did a good job of it. "Stupid or not, I had plenty of hate left over to share some with you. There’s a damn good chance I would have tried to kill you at the first opportunity, since killing Saul wasn’t enough. Don’t think I didn’t want to as it was."

"You wouldn’t—," Revan protested.

"You don’t think so?" Carth yelled, moving so he was right in her face. "Did you know I held a blaster to your head on Korriban while you slept?" He mimicked the motion with his hand, pointing his finger at Revan’s temple. "The only thing that stopped me from putting a blaster bolt through your skull was remembering what you did for Dustil just a month before, before we went to Manaan to find the Star Map." He dropped his hand, and Revan exhaled hard, not realizing she had been holding her breath. This was a dangerous conversation, and to her horror she discovered she was afraid. "That and no matter how hard I tried to hate you, I couldn’t. I know all about hate. The only thing that kept me moving for four years was hate of every kind."

He sat back, giving Revan some room to breathe. "You’d think with all that, so much hate and anger, on Korriban of all places, I should have been able to find a way to hate you, but I couldn’t. I still can’t. The glamour is gone, and I still love you so much it hurts." His voice lowered to a near-inaudible whisper. Revan didn’t notice that his voice had been falling quieter all along. "Maybe that’s why. Too many people I loved are dead or lost to me, I couldn’t kill you, too."

Revan took a moment to calm herself. What Carth had just told her was a revelation. She had no idea that her life was in danger from him on Korriban, such a short time ago; the last Star Map they found was Korriban’s. She had badly misjudged him...both then and now. If he wanted to, he probably could find a way to kill her and she was helpless to defend herself...just as helpless as she had apparently been on Korriban. All she had was his word that he wouldn’t. It was a sobering thought.

That explanation for why everyone seemed to be completely blind to her real intentions made sense, though. The Force was hedging its bets. It couldn’t make her lead Carth on, and it couldn’t make him fall in love with her, but it could certainly will the right conditions together to make it easier. At the least, it had blinded everyone enough to guarantee she would get to the Star Forge with the least amount of suspicion with its weapon present. Even if she hadn’t dragged Carth all through the Forge, the Force still could have used him.

The only thing that would have stopped the Force from using its sink was if she killed it first. But she had been far too arrogant and pleased with herself to do that, she thought everything was under control. "I should have listened to Canderous," she muttered.

"Probably...but that might not have helped anything. The Force planned this pretty well, you don’t suppose there was a second contingency plan in place?"

"Ugh. I hadn’t thought of that. There’s no way to know now, is there."

Carth shook his head ‘no’. You don’t stay afraid long.

Startled, Revan jumped to her feet. "What was that?"

"Easier." It’s getting hard to talk. You don’t have to be afraid. Might not hurt to remember why you’re afraid, though...a little humility never hurt anyone.

Revan pulled her hood up and sat back down. "It’s not the way of the Sith. And kindly remove your voice from my head."

"I will as long as I can," Carth answered, his voice much weaker than it had been, but Revan thought it likely she only noticed it because he had brought her attention to it. Thinking back over their recent conversation, she did see that he was having some trouble with his voice.

They sat in silence a long time after that. Revan stayed and slept on the beach; she didn’t feel like bothering to board the Hawk.

Revan woke early. She saw that Carth was still sleeping...possibly. The only way to know would be to try to wake him up, but she had other things she was more curious about, things that could be better answered if Carth wasn’t aware of her ‘asking’. She wondered most at Carth’s insistence on identity. If anyone alive had a better idea of what waited on the other side than Carth did, Revan would be surprised. He had talked about Jolee as if the old Jedi were still in some form identifiable, someone of whom one could say he still possessed a certain identity. She narrowed her eyes and wondered if it were possible for her to slip as easily into Carth’s mind as he seemed to slip into hers. Hell, she didn’t even think he tried, he just did it as if he had always had the ability to read her mind.

She closed her eyes, choosing a form of Jedi meditation in order to conduct her experiment. Sith though she was, she was not a stupid Sith and didn’t reject Jedi practices just because they were Jedi: if they were useful, then she used them, culture be damned.

Now, however, instead of emptying her mind so she could better sense the Force, she pushed away all that was Revan in order to find what was Carth. It was not an easy task; she found she had to push far more to the outskirts of her mind, empty herself more than she ever had as a Force user. With some difficulty she pushed away the question regarding why that should be so. A smart remark about the emptiness of a certain Republic pilot’s head flitted by, and she let it flit; it soon left.

There it was. A thin line, a jagged line, faint, nothing like the Force in its whirlwind and its inundation. She took a moment to concentrate on nothing but that line that was Not Revan, and it became more distinct. With great deliberateness, she brought to mind a merest sketch of her hand. It took some time to do so without losing the line. When she had accomplished this, she set her mental hand on the tiny line.

The line became a thousand, a hundred thousand, untold fine threads touching everything. In that way it was like the Force; it was everywhere. She pushed away thoughts of using this not-Force, for now at least. Now she only wished to learn why identity was so important to the line.

The question was asked and answered, but not in a way Revan had expected, though she didn’t realize she had expected anything. It was answered through the Force. She would wonder later how that was possible; for now, her meditation had become so concentrated on something so unfamiliar and faint that the more powerful and familiar Force vision hit her with such strength she physically flew back and hit a rock. Her eyes had so adjusted to the necessary dark that she was blinded by what she realized later was a mere candle flicker.

She stood in a small room, undecorated and sparsely furnished. It held that particular odor only Jedi enclaves managed, the mingled scent of the material used in construction and the unnatural lack of emotion. Revan had always hated that smell. She supposed it wasn’t something that most people could smell, but they might feel it anyway. It was a Force scent.

She looked around the room. On the bed sat Carth, hair a bit wild, wearing plain robes and a sturdy looking neural disrupter band. Revan took a closer look at it. One of the most powerful versions; it was one of the sort that was used on Force conduits if anyone could get close enough to put it on...and then only long enough to get the conduit into a cave to destroy it. She wondered if that was what the Jedi were planning to do. She wondered how they had managed to put the band on him.

The door to the room opened and a master Jedi entered, a human by appearance, but she sensed he was very old. He looked nervous for a master. The man stopped short and looked at her. "You should not be here, Revan, it is dangerous. Please leave."

Surprised, Revan said, "What? Why? Why is it dangerous?"

"That I cannot tell you. There may come a time when you may find the answer, but otherwise, you must not pay any mind to what you have seen. Forget it, for it is of no importance to you."

"Much as I’d like that to be true, it is important to me. Why in the world do you have Carth here in a neural band that should have him drooling?"

The Jedi master looked confused. "Carth?"

"Yeah. Him."

"Oh. We never learned his right name. I sense you are telling the truth as you know it." The master paused a moment in thought. "So be it, I will tell you what we know, but you are bound under oath to keep this private. This man is the most powerful Force sink the Order has ever encountered. We were fortunate to find him when we had, before his ‘talent’ had a chance truly to manifest. He was untrainable...wild, uncivilized, no doubt traumatized by all the death he had witnessed. Of course there was no way for him to know he was the cause. At least, that is what we hope. He was very young, which is quite unusual in itself, but he was very powerful.

"Without training...we had little choice in the matter. We could not allow him to come into his full potential. It is not usually our way, as you know, but I would rather we had destroyed him. But many had visions of his future, a destiny that we could not ignore although we only recently began to understand its import. I will go with him when the time comes. It is the least I can do for allowing this monstrous condition to continue as it has."

"I’m not sure I understand," Revan said. "Do you mean you’ve kept him like this for most of his life in order to use him as a weapon whenever the Force tells you the time is right?"

The master nodded. "Disgusting, I know. Fortunately the time is fast approaching. We have received reports that the last Star Map has been found. We will depart for the Star Forge soon. It is believed that the Force has allowed his existence in order to neutralize a great Darkness there."

"Wait a minute," Revan shouted, "you mean that no matter what, this fool pilot was going to destroy my Star Forge? And that there was no potential path where he would have been trained to handle being a Force sink? So Carth was born a weapon, and that’s that, but at least in the real world he got to live a real life for a while? Ugh, I almost feel bad for him; and that makes me queasy. But what a delightfully Dark Side thing for the Force to do."

No Dark, no Light; there is only the Force.

"I don’t believe I catch your meaning," the master said as he fetched a comb, his tone momentarily cagey. He made an effort to tame Carth’s hair, but it was slow work when the Jedi tried his best not to come into more contact with Carth than was absolutely necessary. The master was scared, and it appeared he had good reason. Revan could see the Force drain out of him as he worked. That surprised her; even if Carth didn’t know how to use or control the Force, the neural band should have scrambled his mind enough that the Force couldn’t move through him at all.

The master sighed and stepped back, examining his rude handiwork. He wasn’t a very good stylist. "I just can’t stand to leave him no dignity at all...it’s quite bad enough that he’s virtually mindless, he’s still human."

"What you do is dangerous. I can see it."

"Yes, it is, even for me, the first Force sink the Order ever knew, but what choice do I have? What would you do, Padawan Ni’esla Stargazer?"

Revan crossed her arms. "What did you call me?"

"By name."

"Who are you?"

"I am Master Sri. Don’t look so surprised, Padawan Stargazer, I do know who you are. You are the one who came to us with reports of the last Star Map."

"I am Darth Revan," she said.

"Yes, I know. But you once were Ni’esla Stargazer, named for she who became the wind and she who helped save the wind. Two quite different paths, two very different women, and I think it was foolish to give you back only the first when you were brought to us broken. You have followed the path of ancient Ni’esla and not Stargazer. But the wisdom of the wise is often confounded." Master Sri motioned to Carth. "Another good example, I think. It is an evil matter for the end to justify all means: this is, as you said, an act of the Dark Side whether the Council thinks it for the best or not. Is it the will of the Force to rob a dangerous man of any chance at a real life? Is it the will of the Force to use a dying woman as a tool?"

Revan laughed without mirth. "Yes, I think it is. When I look at it from a certain angle, I know I was given a chance few are given, but I chose to be myself in my Darkness despite the crafted identity. But that was done by sentients. This man, whom you don’t know, I do, and he had a life and he was a good man, but it was taken away from him for the same end the Council foresaw. That, however, was an act of the Force, not men and women. Which is the darker path, Master Sri?"

Sri folded his hands in front of him. "That is a difficult question. The Council has done great evil to him, but if you are correct, the Force has also done great evil. I judge the Council’s answer to be the greater of the two. The Carth you know had something this poor soul never had. Viewed from a certain angle, this man was denied a chance many are given, to be more than a mindless weapon, but all become one with the Force in the end. He should have had the chance to live, and ultimately all are tools of the Force."

"That answer is too easy," Revan replied.

"It is still true. I would certainly have rather spent the last thirty-five years in the company of a good man rather than caring for someone who had his mind destroyed by premeditated violence."

"I see your point...but I’m missing the point of my being here. Why send me this Force vision?"

As soon as she said it, Sri became indistinct, blurry. "It is the will of the Force, I imagine. Although I don’t believe this is your vision," Master Sri said. "But then, perhaps it is all of ours. I suspect that outside this vision I know more than I did before this vision was sent...as will you. Give my regards to your Carth." He turned toward Carth and whispered to him. Gently, carefully, he pushed him down on his bed, then pulled a blanket over him.

Revan caught Carth’s eye for a fraction of an instant. Long enough for an irrational urge to put them out a second time to rage through her mind. Empty, empty eyes, not soulless but so close, dry but crying, This is all I ever was.

Sand shifted under her. Revan sat up and rubbed at the back of her head. She shook the daze out of it, then allowed white-hot rage to course through her. She had only a normal woman’s release for it, but she would take it. She slammed her fists into the white sand and screamed, "I will hate it on your behalf! We are not just tools!"

She knew that she didn’t harbor any feelings for Carth beyond a respect for his talents and a healthy appreciation for his form. She didn’t particularly care about him, but she didn’t hate him, try as she might, and what she had seen in the vision was not something she would wish on someone she didn’t hate. It was not so much what Master Sri had said; he did have an excellent point, it was that gut-wrenching look in the potential-Carth’s eyes. That Force vision had originally been Carth’s, she was sure of it, and she could only see it as an answer to his demanding why? It was a poor answer, she thought. The potential-Carth might have known it, too. This is all I ever was. No wonder he was fighting the Force with everything he had, past the point of return, perhaps past the point of sanity.

After a few moments to calm down, to nurse her rage into a budding hate, she said, "That’s what you were dreaming about, wasn’t it."

Yes, part of it. I didn’t remember, uhm, until now, the whole thing. I think I was too busy trying to get the Force to stop breaking its enforced blindness. It hurt me...that vision, the Force...I just wanted it out of my head.

"Sri’s point was all philosophy, he never had it happen to him, so he wouldn’t know. You feel kinda like the Force did to you what the Jedi did to me, in a way, don’t you?"

Yeah...not, not quite the same...but sorta the same. I have a real identity, but it was never meant to be anything really. I, I don’t mean that I was ever meant to be anyone important, but, uh, I guess I wasn’t meant to be anyone at all. That’s what the Force thinks, anyway.

Revan scooted over and sat next to Carth. After a quick check to be sure HK-47 wasn’t anywhere nearby, she maneuvered herself close enough so that he could lean against her. She didn’t think it would be much longer before he couldn’t sit up on his own anymore. Then with a frustrated sigh, she put her arm around his waist and covered one hand with hers. Lightning flickered up her arm, harmless.

He twitched his fingers and moved his head just enough to make it clear he was asking a question.

"Because. I don’t know. I’m mad and this feels good, damnit."

The honest laugh she got in response was stronger in her mind than in her ear, where it was nothing more than a faint cough.

"Not funny. And don’t get any ideas. I’m not making a habit of this."

Whenever you like, gorgeous. I’m mad, too, and it does feel good. I guess sides don’t really matter now.

"Meh. In a way, they never really did, did they? Force-damned Force was going to get what it wanted come hell or high water."

They did, but it’s done now. The Force will be done... It was becoming easier for Revan to sense Carth’s feelings; he was getting angrier. It’s not going to win. I won’t let it, I’m not a tool, there is identity. I’ll die before giving in. Revan also sensed that he was losing himself to the fight just as surely as he was losing his connections with the physical world.

Revan nodded. She hadn’t needed to fight the Force for her current identity, the one crafted for her just hadn’t held up under what she assumed was her natural bent, but she understood the sentiment. She thought it likely that untrained Force sinks shared the same fate as Force conduits...which meant Carth was in for a long fight. Revan didn’t expect to die any time soon, and she couldn’t find it in herself to be at all upset about that, at least not at the moment. Real Sith never died.

She pulled Carth’s head down to her shoulder and stroked his hair. Honest this time, no games. Something between a smirk and a frown touched her features. She realized she must like Carth a bit more than she thought if the Force vision had angered her as much as it had. Revan had never been one to get angry just for the principle of the thing as far as she knew, and while Jedi masters and their dirty tricks were personally enraging, she had to admit she had been angry because it was Carth in the vision. Oh, that’s rich, Revan, she thought to herself. No, wait, it’s just because I don’t like other people breaking my things, that’s all.

There are some advantages to this...you’ve got a very twisted view of the world, so it’s probably both. Which is a bit...weird...but I never claimed to understand real Dark Side thinking.

"Go blow yourself out of an airlock. And stop eavesdropping on my personal thoughts."

On the balance, Carth seemed mildly amused, but Revan didn’t miss the undercurrent of anger. She understood that very well; the universe at large had pretty much told Carth, in a most potent and spectacular way, that he was nothing but a thing to use, of course it stung when someone else laid a similar claim. The amusement, though... Revan sighed. Carth hadn’t missed the thought that led to her reassuring herself it was all because she was really just that nasty at heart. Unfortunately the truth that she was that nasty at heart didn’t change the truth that she liked Carth more than she had thought. "Upgrading slightly from ‘I don’t hate you’ isn’t much."

A mental shrug was his response.

Revan wanted the Force back. At least, some of it. The part that she didn’t hate. The Dark Side...her thoughts were clearer in the Dark, she didn’t question herself in the Dark. She put those thoughts aside. They were pointless. So there was more to her than she could see in the Dark, so what. She had to live with it now, live with it and be curious about what other surprising things she might find lurking around.

No one could accuse her of not being curious. Other than angering her to a degree that surprised her, the Force vision piqued her curiosity. "Did you ever know a Master Sri?"

Sri? Not sure...I knew a Jedi Master a long time ago, but I don’t remember his name. He healed my family, my mother, father, brother, and I when we all got sick once. Well, he, he didn’t heal my younger brother, but he was too young. I was only three, so I suppose I got lucky.

Revan snorted. "There just happened to be a Jedi master on hand when your family got sick? Nice bit of luck."

As Carth recalled the events, his expression regressed, tone becoming more child-like, as if he were reciting from a past point of view, not the present. He was, he was called in, I think? Another Jedi said we got sick from a Force drain, something like that, and we weren’t recovering as fast as we should. So they got a Master to come help. I don’t remember very well, we were all really sick. My brother died, but he wasn’t even a year old...and Grandmother took him and said he was safe now, so it was...it was OK. Grandmother had died a few months before, so...I guess she was a ghost...but I believed her, so I wasn’t as sad. I don’t know why I don’t remember the Master’s name, he came in every day for six months. I was the sickest, except for Thanar.

The Jedi was busy...I heard later that my aunt got sick, too, and so did our neighbors, but they didn’t get as sick as we did. We never found out why we got sick, just that it was a probably a Force attack and that no one had found the person responsible.

"If credits were worth anything, I’d bet an even thousand that that master was Sri." Revan laughed low, a cold sound. "And I’d bet another thousand that Sri knew exactly who was responsible, but never told anyone because the Force made sure it wouldn’t happen again until it was damned good and ready."

At first, for a moment, Carth was confused. Then fury ran like ice through the jagged line, and Revan coveted it. His rage overflowed, as it always must have and she finally got to feel it, to take it and shape it...except she couldn’t. She became enraged in her turn, but for different reasons. Now that she had access to the violent passions she always knew Carth possessed, they were useless to her. It ran through her blood just as surely as such emotions always had, but she could not do anything with it. She could not even enjoy it. Fury there to revel in, but she couldn’t dance with it, couldn’t capture it. There was no reveling, only sharing...and underneath it was a sharp pain.

Revan did the only thing she could do with this mingled rage—she howled and screamed, impotent.

In the future she was careful; if she got that close to Carth, so that she sensed his feelings as her own, she made sure it was in peaceful times. There was no seduction left in a Dark Side that had no power.

350 standard years later

Darshin disembarked, unsettled but not surprised by the landscape that greeted him, just as he had not been surprised by the derelict ships that dotted the system. He had seen by his own hand on a miniscule scale what Rakata presented on a planet-wide one. Nothing lived here, but nothing appeared quite dead, either. A perfectly preserved gizka nearby might as well have been resting rather than mummified by the disquieting lack of Force. The place was beautiful, the sky a startling azure, but it was the beauty of a place perfectly preserved, untouched by time, untouched by decay, untouched by change. He had to tread with great care; whatever it was that had trapped the Force in this system was still active. Whatever it was that had drawn countless Force-sensitives to annihilation still haunted this world. Annihilation was the only word for it; they didn’t join the Force the way they should have upon death, they just vanished.

So did the Force that kept flowing into this void in a futile attempt to fill it. The Jedi Council had sent him to rectify the situation, if possible, if for no other reason than to stop the Force-impoverishment of the systems around Rakata. Darshin was well trained for many decades, so he sensed the siren pull and resisted it. It wasn’t easy, and he imagined it would become more and more difficult. It already had become quite wearying since he entered the system.

Good fortune was on his side in one matter, at least; it had been very easy to locate the Ebon Hawk, making a search for the Force sink most suspected resided here easier. A rare thing they were, Force sinks, he ruminated as he walked toward the Ebon Hawk, but they were known. Granted only by the highest echelons of the Jedi Council, but known nonetheless. They just didn’t know who or what was the sink in this case. They guessed it had been one of the crew of the Hawk, but nothing more.

He brushed against a plant, dead for centuries, and it disintegrated at his touch. Difficult to believe that wind hadn’t destroyed it before. Certainly wind and water still held the power to erode even if nothing else did. Then again, perhaps they didn’t. The Force was in the wind and water as well, under normal circumstances. He paused in his journey to listen to the wind. His disquiet grew when he felt none. How eerie to walk on such a desolate world! He continued on, glad he had brought a vacuum mask with him; it was possible that Rakata would have little in the way of life sustaining air.

Turning a corner, he pulled up short and stared. Then he blinked. He did not just see a youngish man sleeping against a rock. Sleeping, not dead. He took a step closer when a hand grabbed his arm.

"I’d stay away if I were you. You’re damned lucky to have lived this long," a woman’s voice hissed in his ear.

Darshin turned and blinked at the woman, stunned speechless. She was also young, much younger than he was, and she wore the robes of Darth Revan. The mask was gone, and the hood back, but those were Revan’s robes. Darshin found his tongue and asked what could not be possible, "You are Darth Revan?"

She snorted. "In a past life maybe. Make that two past lives. Drop the Darth; I’ve been reminded too many times that I’m no Sith. But I am Revan. What are you?"

What, not who? "I, uh, I’m Darshin. A Jedi Master sent to disable the Force sink. We would have left the system alone if the Force didn’t constantly try and fail to fill the void."

Revan laughed, a bitter sound. "Oh I know all about that, Darshin. The Force has driven one of my companions quite mad. Good luck ‘disabling’ the sink. How do you even know about Force sinks? I’d never heard of them."

Darshin shrugged. "I come from a long line of Force sinks. Most are pretty harmless, maybe what some might call psychic vampires, people that never have to learn how to Force drain...but some of us are quite powerful. But we’re trained vigorously on how to channel the Force elsewhere. If we must be sinks, we should do our jobs properly."

"So I see the Force learned how to better use a sink, did it?" Revan was angry, he could see, but the anger was so old it was nothing but embers now.

"I, I suppose it did. This," he flicked a hand at the land around him, "is the first time in recorded history that a sink failed so spectacularly."

"Heh. It didn’t fail, it outsmarted its destiny because it doesn’t take well to being used and betrayed."

"‘It’?" Darshin asked. "Is the sink a thing, then?"

"Not always, it wasn’t always a thing." Her voice filled with a sadness almost as old and dead as her anger. "I’ll take you to it, if you dare."

"Yes, please," he answered. Revan beckoned him forward and he followed her, marveling that she should be alive after more than three centuries.

As they walked, Darshin saw they were approaching the sleeping man. He wondered at that, but then he saw a rust red droid whiling away its time tossing tiny rocks at another rock. Perhaps the droid was the sink?

In a motion of surprising smoothness for a droid Darshin knew was centuries old, it stood and said, "Observation: You have a living meatbag companion, master. Query: Where did you find it? I suppose it would be too much to ask for you to allow me to splatter its entrails across the beach...it has been far too long, master."

Revan quirked a tiny smile. "As much as it would fill me with glee to see an actual, honest dead thing after all these mockeries, I’m sorry HK, but I can’t let you."

"Disappointment: A pity, master."

"Indeed," Revan sighed. "Although, it might be a mercy killing...save him the trouble of fighting."

"Astonishment: Mercy, master? Where do you get such awful ideas? My audio sensors ache to hear you say such things."

"I know, but I’m afraid the years have tempered me." She turned to Darshin. "While you still have a chance, let me introduce what is left of my once great empire. This," she pointed to the rust colored droid, "is HK-47. That over there," she waved a hand in the general direction of the soft sounds of a utility droid’s bleeping, "is T3-M4. My fleet consists of the Ebon Hawk, I’m sure you saw her when you landed. For what good she does me, since leaving is not an option." She spread her arms wide and her voice dripped with sarcasm. "And this dead planet is mine, too. Look ye upon the realm of the Dark Lord Revan and despair."

Darshin cleared his throat. "Uh, right. And who is that?" He pointed to the sleeping man.

"That, good Master Jedi, is the Force sink. Once upon a time it was a rather annoying Republic pilot by the name Carth Onasi. Now...it’s just a shell."

Darshin started, and that tiny moment of surprise jolted him enough for his shields to fail. For an instant, a moment so small it could be measured in tiny fractions of a picosecond, but long enough that he almost joined the rest of Rakata in eternal destruction.

When his mind recovered from exposure to the Force sink, he found that several hours had passed. Stars twinkled in the night sky. Revan looked over at him. "Darshin, you are the luckiest bastard to walk on this planet in a long, long time. Don’t expect to feel better any time soon, though. There’s no Force here to heal you."

Darshin shook his head; he felt woozy and unfocused. He had been trained well, however, so he didn’t have to think about keeping his shields in place. Those shields were supposed to protect others from his own power, but they also worked to shield him from the Force power of others as well. "I was startled. I didn’t tell you, but my family name is Onasi. I, uh, I didn’t expect Carth to be the sink. We all thought our Force sensitivity came through Dustil Onasi."

Revan tapped her chin. "It never occurred to you to wonder where Dustil came by his strength in the Force?"

"No, actually. Force power isn’t always genetic. We always thought it originated with him, since there was no evidence of Force sensitivity in his line before him."

"Now you know different, although you probably won’t live long enough to inform anyone. Who is ‘we’, anyway?"

"The Onasis. There are quite a lot of us, mostly Jedi, the rest smugglers, except for a few oddities. Dustil was a smuggler. I suppose that also clears up the question as to why so many of us are Force sinks, although I don’t have any clue why no one realized how powerful in the Force Carth was. He should have been trained."

Revan burst out laughing. Not a mirthful laugh, but the sort of laugh one might throw in the face of fate, the universe, the Force. "That!" Revan wheezed, "is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard! Only, only, only, but there is Carth!" She held her sides to ward off pain she was laughing so hard. "‘He should have been trained’!"

Darshin sat up, holding his spinning head. "I don’t see what’s so funny about it. Sri could have trained him, he trained me..."

In the midst of her laughing, Revan spluttered, "Of course you don’t! And the story is too long to tell." She managed, after a few false starts, to regain control of herself. "Well. If you really are a distant relative, maybe Carth will let you live, but it won’t let you leave. As I see it, you have three choices. Die by Force sink, become one with Carth; die by a nice blaster to the gut and entertain one former Dark Lord and one assassin droid, become one with Carth; or, if you are particularly unlucky, live forever in the empire of Revan. Which sounds the best to you? Because I doubt you’ll succeed in your mission."

"I might," Darshin said. "I might be able to reach him, teach him to let go of the Force the way he was meant to."

Revan looked at him, staring him down. "If you can, I would welcome it. I have hated for a very long time this trap I’ve been in, and I would welcome release from it. A Sith Lord is prepared to live forever, but not like this." Long years had changed her mind on that point.

Darshin frowned. "I wouldn’t be doing it for you. It’s the will of the Force."

Revan growled low in her throat. "One thing I’ve come to have in common with Carth is a virulent hatred for the will of the Force. But take your best shot. Remember that here there is no Force, there is only Carth. It’s right over there." Revan stabbed a finger in the direction of the sleeping man, whom Darshin now knew was his ancient forefather.

With effort, Darshin stood and walked toward Carth. Why did Revan insist he was an it? She had said he was nothing more than a shell now, but shells didn’t possess the kind of power Carth still held. He glanced back at Revan, and he again wondered how she was still alive, how she had remained untouched by time. It was clear the same could be said of Carth, except that he didn’t move. Darshin saw that he hadn’t so much as twitched in all the hours since he first saw him. He kneeled down next to the man who appeared to sleep in peace, and he pondered and he watched.

Force lightning flickered between Carth’s fingers and up his arms, but otherwise Darshin saw no evidence of any Force power at all. Someone, possibly Revan or one of the droids, had arranged things so Carth would be comfortable. Darshin drummed his fingers on his knees. How was he supposed to accomplish his mission without the Force? He knew the instant he opened himself up to the more powerful sink, he was a dead man.

He would try, all the same; it was the will of the Force. He set his weathered hand on Carth’s younger seeming cheek, and he was lost.

You are family. You live. Now leave.

"I’m here to teach you—"

No.

"But—"

Leave.

Darshin was aware of himself by the slimmest of margins. He had a sense that he should go while the getting was good, but he had a mission he intended to carry through.

To the bitter end, I know. I know all about bitter ends. I’m nothing but bitter ends. You might not like what you have now, but at least it’s not a bitter end. Warn them away. Tell them not to come, not to die, not to torture me with their bitter ends.

"If you let go, you would find peace..."

There is no peace; there is the Force. Peace is a lie; there is only the Force. Don’t lie to me. It lost. Sore loser, but what can you expect from a mindless stupid thing like the Force?

"If you don’t let go, they’ll come anyway. They can’t help it." Darshin had to find a way to convince Carth, but how?

Can’t. Fought this battle before. It always ends with the Force, and the Force is agony. I can’t let it go, and I can’t be taught to let it go. Revan stays where she is by choice; she’s as stubborn as I am. You can’t teach me because the Force destroyed part of me a long time ago, enough that Revan sees a shell and calls me a thing. She’s right. There is the shell; there is the Force bound sink; and there is Carth. Carth will not be lost to the mindless Force. Carth is already trapped as it is. Do the only thing you can—warn them away. And leave, before you become one with Carth.

One last attempt...he couldn’t leave him like this. Wherever this was, it was a horrible, painful place to be. "If you let it go, you can free everyone trapped in the sink, Carth."

Tell that to the Force that shattered me and trapped itself by doing it. It made a mistake it can’t fix. I made a mistake I can’t fix...I was too angry at it, and it moved too fast. It’s both our fault. Leave now, please. I’m begging you, leave me alone. And tell Revan I love her, that I wish things hadn’t happened this way.

Darshin fell backward into a sprawl. He scrambled back, wild eyed and frightened. Where were his shields? That was the only thing in his awareness for a long time. It felt as though part of his body had been ripped away.

But after a while, his mind righted itself and he looked around him. He realized he didn’t need his shields now; he wasn’t dead, wasn’t trapped in the Force sink, and there was no Force for him to sink. He was alive, though? It must now be in whatever strange life Revan had, the sort that didn’t age and didn’t change. At least he felt as though he could lower his guard for once in his long life.

Revan stood nearby, hands on her hips, an old vibroblade in one hand. "I see you decided to be part of the Revan Empire. You want to give it one last shot?" She held out the vibroblade, hilt first, to Darshin.

He stared at the blade for a moment, then nodded. Taking it from Revan, he poised himself to plunge the blade though Carth’s chest. He took a deep breath and struck, but the blade glanced away from something and Darshin ended up stumbling forward, following the momentum of his strike. His face hit sand.

Her voice toneless, Revan said, "It won’t let you kill it. Trust me, I’ve tried and tried and tried." Her pitch started rising, old anger kindling again. "It’s like a droid, in a way...very simple programming, really. ‘Nothing hurts Revan’. Since I’d die if it died, it doesn’t die. There’s no reprogramming it, though. A long time ago things were a bit different, but those are the rules now. You might be able to escape if you skewered yourself on that blade. Me, I’m stuck. It won’t let me skewer myself."

Darshin managed to pull himself into a more dignified sitting position. "He told me you were here by choice."

Revan made a face. "I didn’t have much of a choice. He said he could make it so I slept a dreamless sleep, never to wake up, but that’s all he could do. I’d rather live than sleep, even if this isn’t much of a life."

The older seeming man picked at his boot. Darshin sensed there was more to the story than that, but he did not push for details. Instead, he asked, "You can talk to him, if you want?"

"If I want." Revan sat down next to Darshin. "I haven’t in a long time, though. He’s a little bit crazy and in a lot of pain, and that stopped amusing me a ridiculous number of years ago. Last time I talked to him, he begged me to leave, so I did. I’ll grant the occasional wish if someone grovels right."

Darshin set his chin in his hands and gazed out at the starlit sea. "He told me to tell you he still loves you and he wishes things didn’t have to be this way."

"Damn him. I know that, which I suppose I should be grateful for, since it keeps me from being trapped in the Force sink, but I hate him too much."

There was some hate in her tone, but like her anger and her sadness, it was growing dim. Darshin glanced at her, then at Carth, then turned his gaze back at the sea. "So that’s it then."

"Pretty much. Welcome to my world, because you aren’t ever leaving."

Darshin stood and brushed some sand from his robes. "I may not be leaving, but it’s not your world and never was. I guess I’ll just have to wait then, and send off some warning beacons. I think, eventually, my mission will be a success, although I didn’t really need to be here for it. No sink can last forever before it reaches critical mass...though I do pity him, and you. I have a sense that this lousy situation could have been avoided, on both your parts. Or at least made easier." He sighed. "He’s still there, I could teach him..."

After he walked away, toward his own ship and out of earshot, Revan spoke. "HK, help him send off his warning beacons. Then terminate him with extreme prejudice. Make it nice and messy."

HK’s eye sensors gleamed. "Exclamation: Yes, master! Query: You will come to see my handiwork, correct?"

Perhaps the years hadn’t tempered her after all. Or perhaps Darshin had struck too close to home; Revan had not been reminded in quite some time that she could, if she wanted, make the best of this bad situation...and it galled her to remember how much of this situation was the result of her choices centuries ago. It was her foot in the tuk’ata trap, and pride would not allow her to ask for help to remove it. And she had never liked it when someone saw her too clearly. She stoked the embers of her rage as best she could, but she had long since found that she couldn’t really hate Carth for what happened, no more than he claimed he couldn’t hate her. It would be easier if he did...the whole thing would have been over the second it began if he did.

It would be easier if the Force hadn’t been so...personally involved this time around, rather than doing its usual thing of gently guiding. She rested her chin on arms crossed over her knees. There were a million and one things that participated in crafting this tangled mess; she could pin blame on everything five times over and hit the mark square every single time.

"On second thought, just help him, HK. I don’t need the grief."

"Query: Grief, master? Why would it grieve you to see a meatbag artistically splattered across his ship? I promise to make it as aesthetically pleasing as possible."

"It wouldn’t, HK, but it would add one more thing to this pile of serious messed up bantha crap I’m in." She sighed. "I don’t want Darshin’s pity, but I guess it wouldn’t be so bad having his company for however much longer we’re stuck in this weird limbo."

"Disappointment: As you wish, master." HK-47 shuffled away after Darshin, his rust red shoulders slumped.

"Wait, I have an idea," Revan called to her retreating droid’s back.

HK turned. "Statement: HK-47 is ready to serve." Revan almost felt bad. HK sounded so depressed.

"When you’re done helping Darshin, take the Hawk. Patrol the system, just outside the limits T3-M4 described in the first beacons. Blast anything out of the sky that even looks cross-eyed at Rakata. Put that in the new beacons, that there will be a patrol protecting my empire. I’ll contact you through T3 if there are any changes in those orders."

HK-47 perked right up. Sometimes it amazed her the kind of body language it had for a droid. "Answer: Certainly master! My circuits quiver in anticipation of any fool meatbags that come near. Assurance: I will make their deaths as vivid and painful as my extensive abilities allow. If possible, I will transmit through T3-M4 any explosions that might be visible to you so you may enjoy the sight of your enemies exploding in a most satisfactory burst of light."

"Good, you do that. Now go on." Revan shooed HK away with a hand. HK marched off, an excited bounce to his step.

Revan reached over and poked Carth’s shoulder. "Did you see that? I’m going soft. I could have had some actual fun but passed it up. And now, HK will kill anyone before they reach the perimeter. No more deaths on your hands. They’ll be on mine instead—I don’t mind and it’ll keep HK happy. Everyone wins."

She got no response, but she hadn’t expected one. "I’m getting tired, Carth. How much longer is this going to last?"

This time she sensed, just at the edge of her perception, a mixture of weariness, loneliness, and determination. There was also a hint of appreciation, for what, she wasn’t sure. If she had wanted, she could have had an answer in something like words, but she didn’t want to get that close to Carth now. "I guess that means as long as it takes," she muttered, drawing circles in the sand. "Thick-headed Gamorrean pig-man."

Having Darshin there on Rakata did alleviate a good deal of the dimness that had seeped into Revan’s soul. Simple, normal human contact had brought her back to life, even if that contact was with someone she thought she’d probably be in a perpetual argument with until the end of time. Having a Jedi to bait made life much more interesting; they argued back and forth over the cosmology of their respective sides. But after so long, Revan had gone Gray, neither true Jedi nor true Sith in her thinking. She didn’t know when it had happened, but it had. With no access to the Dark nor the Light, neither side of the Force could influence her. She had become simply herself, whomever that was now. Not Ni’esla Stargazer, Ni’esla alone, nor Darth Revan. She was still petty and spiteful, still what many would call Dark Sided, but without the power of the Force to feed her cruelties, anger, and hate, she had softened considerably.

She did not hate Darshin; she didn’t even really dislike him. She didn’t get along with him well, but she respected him. He could hold his own with her, and somehow knowing that she had never intentionally hurt him nor indirectly destroyed his life made him worlds easier to deal with than Carth. She supposed that someday she would have to address that. She wasn’t sure she felt guilty, precisely, but she did feel like she owed something to him, and she didn’t like that. Revan did not like owing anything to anyone.

A few years after Darshin had arrived, Revan finally brought herself to the point where she thought she was ready to talk to Carth like a person again, and not a stupid, insane non-entity. It had been many years, more than she cared to count and more than half the time they had been stranded on Rakata, since she had done so. She had held onto an irrational feeling that everything was his fault in one corner of her mind despite knowing full well he had been as ill used as she and that blaming anyone or anything for what happened on the Star Forge and all things after was pointless. It was time to let go of that, well past time.

It only took a moment of meditation to find the thin line. She had found it so many times in the past that it was second nature. She was a bit surprised to find that she could reach Darshin through the line, but she didn’t pursue it. She slipped inside the thin line while still holding onto it. She wanted a way back out should she become lost...it was far too easy to become lost trying to find Carth after he’d lost himself.

It was a bitter irony that fighting so hard to maintain some semblance of self against the Force inside him had subsumed him to a degree that often there was no recognizable self to contact. She nudged around the edges of what appeared to her mind to be a void, a vast emptiness of nothing. She didn’t fear it for its ability to swallow her whole, since she had no Force for it to absorb, but she never got close to it. No reason to take the chance. And she stomped down on her hate while near it, because it had eyes and it saw her when she felt too strongly around it. It saw her and she saw herself in it, the Force life that had been taken and replaced long ago. That she hated perhaps more than anything. The Force Revan was just a ghost, a faint animal thing. It wasn’t her, but she recognized it, and it recognized her...when she saw it she felt it scrape against her mind, trying to take it, trying to complete itself. She knew not all of the dead in the sink were like that, at least, she hoped they weren’t. But she never saw any of the others, only her own shadow.

She saw her Force ghost and stepped back, trying to put it out of her mind. It had startled her, but she shouldn’t have been surprised; she had been thinking about it. A few moments studiously ignoring the thing usually made it go away.

Revan wondered if she should have just tried talking to Carth with her own voice. It would have been easier, although it took time for him to be ‘loud’ enough for her to hear his mental voice. She guessed that Darshin had only managed to find him so fast the first time because he had tried reaching out with the Force. Neither of them could do that now. That left finding Carth or waiting for him to disengage from his fighting for long enough to gather a voice for himself.

She had realized long ago that finding him wasn’t easy for her but it was much easier on him. At first, when it became necessary, she would try to find him, but as time wore on she had stopped trying to make anything easier except for herself. Dragging him out...it shouldn’t have worked, but it did, and despite knowing it hurt him, he would still come out. That was, until the last time, when he had begged her to leave him alone and she had so magnanimously agreed, as if she were granting a boon.

She had been selfish more than anything else. Not a news flash; Revan was very selfish. But she had been more than a bit deluded at the time as well, having fallen back into old, easier ways of thinking, Sith Lord thinking, which was stupid because there had been no one to lord anything over and with no Force to command she, by default, could not be a Sith Lord. She was something else but it was too hard to figure out what.

Just selfish and bitter and angry. Dragging Carth out because she knew he would come, just to hurt him...when the only reason he would was because he still loved her, even if he didn’t much like her. She sighed. She wished Darshin had come around sooner; he had made it so much easier to figure out what she was now.

"You know that now? You have that now?"

Revan looked around, trying to spot him. Carth had said that, but all she could see around her were dancing shadows and specks of light. Whenever she had found him in here before, he had looked vaguely like himself.

"I was, I was, more like myself then. I can’t, can’t, uh, spare more."

She sensed the truth in the first part, but she knew he was lying on the second. She wondered why. She also wondered, in an off hand manner, if she was doomed to have Carth reading her mind forever.

The shadows and lights shifted faster. "What do you expect, you’re in my mind."

"Well, OK, I’ll give you that," she muttered.

"Why are you here? I want to be left alone. Please leave me alone."

She frowned. "That’s not true." Finding him did have one advantage that she had forgotten; she could read him almost as well as he read her here.

"Why are you here?"

"I’m not really sure," she said. And it was the truth.

Little lights flickered. There was ‘silence’ for a space. "I saw you in another life. It’s a lot like what I see now. Maybe this is what I saw all along. I’m...glad. Please leave, Revan. Leave me alone."

Revan stifled a mean-spirited giggle. As she was now she wasn’t exactly a prize—still selfish, petty, often nasty.... And this was the Revan he loved?

"Honest, strong-willed, full of conviction, able to see the pointlessness of unreasoning hate? A modicum of self-control and a wicked sense of humor? That’s not so bad, is it?"

"Honest? Carth, are you insane?"

"You are now, beautiful."

She started at that. Was she honest?

"Yeah, you are. You’re honest with yourself, mostly...you know what your faults are and you don’t pretend you don’t have them." The shadows shifted, curling like mist. "Stubborn, too. Don’t make me beg."

"To leave," Revan clarified.

"Yes, to leave."

"Why do you want to be left alone so badly? I know you’re lonely."

Instead of answering, the shadows and little lights retreated. They were fast, but Revan, somehow, was faster. She flung herself at them, willing herself to catch light and shadow, and she caught them.

Dancing shadows and glittering lights burned her hands and blinded her mind. Madness and despair were not complete, neither was intractable pain, but it near overshadowed everything else. Fear crawled over her arms, fury still hot, soul-crushing loneliness staggered her. The Force caused the pain, the fight caused the madness and despair. Despair lead to fury because there was deep stubbornness, too... He knew he would lose the fight, he knew that everything that made Carth Carth would be obliterated, and he couldn’t stand it and wouldn’t accept it.

If he let go, if he had learned how, to him it would be acknowledging that Master Sri’s Carth was just as real and valid an existence for him as the Carth that had been. That it would, in fact, have been preferable in many ways. So fury led to despair.

Loneliness went with fear. Loneliness was self-imposed because he was afraid. Afraid to be hurt more than he already was, afraid to hurt her. There wasn’t anyone else to hurt. Alone was the only acceptable condition because Revan hurt him and he hurt Revan...because he didn’t want to hurt Revan and Revan didn’t care if he hurt.

She snatched her hands away from the dancing shadows and flickering lights. That made sense. She could try to care, and succeed for a little while, but in her heart, where it mattered, she didn’t care, not in the way that really mattered. She had been hurting him since almost the moment she met him, though neither of them had realized it at the time. She couldn’t even claim that rescuing his son hadn’t been a round about way to hurt him. She did feel bad about it...but that triggered a realization. It was a matter of the heart and hearts were slow to change. She realized that Carth probably went round and round with himself about being in love with her, but he was and he couldn’t stop it. No more than she could manufacture enough care for him to endure with him and help him with any of his troubles. She just wanted to get away from it—it did hurt too much.

"I’ll leave. Honest this time. If it’s worth anything, I wish things could be different. And, and, thank you."

The shadows grew fainter and the lights winked out. "For what?"

"Saving my life. I’m not much on owing people anything, but I think I can handle this one."

"You don’t owe me anything, gorgeous."

Revan winced; it still bothered her that he loved her the way he did. There was something deeply wrong with ‘I’ll go through hell for you’ love. "Yeah, uh. Maybe, maybe you could let Darshin visit sometime."

"Maybe."

"Goodbye, then."

"Goodbye Revan."

She left fast, only sparing a glance of venomous hatred for the emptiness. She didn’t wait to see if it reacted or not.

That was the last time she had any sort of contact with Carth that could be called communication, and she was never sure if Darshin had been welcomed or not.

It wasn’t the last time she would ever encounter him, but that was an event far in the future.

Darshin’s prediction that there was a point at which the Force sink would fail because it simply could not absorb more did come true. It was not a dangerous outpouring of Force, not as it would be with a conduit or some of the old Sith who exploded when they died, but it was spectacular. Everything changed in an instant; many insentient plants and animals suddenly came alive, although none of the Rakatans did and neither did any sentient left in the system. They were not the same, however, as they were before. Life on Rakata became intense; things lived and they lived truly...no moment was wasted. Death on Rakata came swift, and it was right and welcomed. Creatures meant to die...Revan couldn’t help but see there was no suffering in it, even for the prey. They died truly. Everything on Rakata lived and died as though there were nothing more important for them—to live when it was time to live, and to die when it was time to die. Revan was not surprised that no sentients had returned to life; with so much change in the insentient, she didn’t think such change would have escaped the sentient...she supposed it was also a matter of fairness as well. They had died once, they need not do it twice, and with so many derelicts in the system, they would die quickly indeed. She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like for anyone on the fallen Star Forge to wake up in a sun.

She found that there were certain things that Revan could hate with purity. It shocked her to find that righteous hatred even existed—experiencing it did nothing to draw her to the Dark Side, now that the Force had returned. Righteous hatred would not fuel it, or rather, the flip side: the Force would not fuel righteous hatred. She wondered if it ever did. She was also surprised to find how short her list of hated things was. She hated the Star Forge, truly. She hated the Force, truly. But...not...this Force. Not the Force she felt through her now.

The Force thundering through her, whipping around her like a whirlwind, this Force was not indifferent. This Force loved her. Revan had nothing to compare it to. Not only did she now know what it meant to hate truly, she knew what it meant to love truly. She didn’t think she was capable of real love, but...she knew what it was now, and it didn’t make her want to stab anyone’s eyes out or gut them or even get angry. It didn’t disgust her. She was not capable of real love, but...she understood it. She accepted it. It was, after all, a law of nature on Rakata. The Force loved. It felt good, and it didn’t matter to the Force if she hated it or didn’t care.

She knew that this peculiar Force wasn’t the one she hated. This Force was shaped like a jagged line. Somehow, that made her smile.

This Force had an identity. Not a sentient identity—the Force could never be sentient—but it could and did become root-bound. It was stuck in a very stubborn and willful man so hell bent on retaining his own identity for so long that the Force became shaped like him. It mimicked him. The Force here had, in some fundamental and important ways, become Carth.

The Force that had escaped the sink and transformed Rakata in an instant was identifiable as Carth.

Carth had finally, after more than two millennia of fighting total destruction, found his life and death and love and hate and identity. Revan sensed that the real Carth had been utterly destroyed, but she fancied that his inevitable loss to the Force that irrecoverably changed it into a form of himself would have satisfied him.

Maybe. She had never cared much about him, but she hoped that the lost Carth would like the irony that the thing that destroyed him couldn’t have succeeded without taking on his identity and thus, in a sense, preserve him forever.

So she did encounter him again. She couldn’t talk to him exactly, nor communicate with him, because the Force was not rational nor sentient. But a part of it had become him.

It had also returned to her. She was strong in the Force once again. Revan wasn’t sure if she would be strong in the Force most knew, but she was quite strong in the Carth-Force. To her annoyance, the Carth-Force was skewed Light Side...or at least, it was far easier to use Light Sided Force powers than it was Dark, and some Dark Side powers just didn’t exist in the Carth-Force. No Kill, no Death Field. There was still Force lightning, but it was not possible to kill with it. A gizka found that out. It was still painful though, enough that the unusually intense gizka had bit her hard on the ankle after she threw lightning at it. Then it hopped away to continue being the best gizka it could possibly be.

Darshin found her practicing, and picked up the toasted gizka. The gizka snuggled up to him and cooed. Figured.

"He’s gone now," Darshin said. "Well, his body is. Disappeared, left his clothes behind." He petted the gizka. "Strange how this turned out. Did you know there’s no longer any Force healing?"

"No, I didn’t. I was never very good at it. But if it helps any, there’s no Kill now, either, and even Force Storm isn’t fatal."

"In this Force, things will live and die by their times. I think physical killing and healing still work. But the Force won’t let us use it to violate those laws. Decay and regeneration have returned as well."

"Finally!" Revan said, smiling. "I’m exhausted! I guess I’ll just start where I left off?"

"Probably. You’ll also have to eat. Anyway, I don’t plan on staying. There’s something very disquieting about Rakata. Not to say there hasn’t been since I arrived, but the Force is strange here. While I...well, admire I suppose is the best word for it, what Carth managed, and I figure it’s a good bit closer to real karmic payback the Force has had to endure in a long time, I find it very uncomfortable. I would like to return to places where the Force is true to itself. I sense that this...variety...of Force will not allow itself to be used nor will it use. It has a will, but I feel that will is turned toward things important to Carth, not to the galaxy at large. Maybe that too is the will of the Force. This is a unique place."

Revan was thoughtful. "I wonder if something bigger has happened than we understand. The mess that led to this was so...tangled...well, I wouldn’t be surprised if the truth now is just as tangled. Go your way, Darshin. It’s been an interesting time. I’ll stay. I think I prefer a Force that won’t use me. I’m a little tired of being used. And I think I’d have a hard time functioning without a Carth infection now, as insane as that sounds."

Darshin bowed. "Then I shall be on my way. You may want to call off HK-47, however. I fear it might shoot me out of the sky."

"Yeah, probably. I’ll do that. Farewell Darshin. I never liked you, but you made a hell of a sparring partner."

"As did you. Farewell Revan. May the Force be with you." He turned to go, taking the charred gizka with him.

Revan answered, "May the Force serve you well."

Darshin couldn’t help but grin as he walked toward his preserved ship. Behind him, a whirlwind had picked up, knocking Revan to the ground. She shouted in her most outraged tone, "I meant his Force!" He heard Revan stagger up and then fall after another whirlwind swept by. "I didn’t say you were my Force! Augh! You were easier to deal with when you were just a hairless Wookiee!"

Wind rustled Darshin’s robes, and he started. It had been a very long time since he had felt honest wind. Then, the Force rang in him, sang in him. The will of this Force...it willed Darshin never to cease being Darshin. It also thanked him. Until the moment he left the Rakata system, the Force never ceased to thank him.

The End

Author’s Notes: Beware of Sith Bunny Lords of Doom. Thank you to Jiara for beta reading and the Onasi Order for some nudging. Quick note—teleiotjs is a real Koine Greek word, related to telos. It means completeness or perfection. The j is just an attempt to transliterate eta in an alphabet with not enough vowels; τελειοτης is the actual word ...dunno if it’ll show up, but I can try.

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