Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan (23 page)

The Emperor had consumed
everything
. Life, sound, color, even the Force—nothing remained. This wasn’t about conquest or domination or destroying an enemy—all concepts Scourge embraced.

Everything on Nathema had simply been snuffed out, extinguished so completely that it ceased to have any meaning or purpose. It was a vacuum of existence; a blight on the natural order.

“I’ve seen enough,” he declared.

Nyriss nodded, and they turned and made their way back to the ship.

Scourge finally understood why Nyriss and the others wanted to take the Emperor down. Destroying your enemies—even destroying a planet—was understandable. But this wasn’t simple destruction. It was annihilation; obliteration. The very fabric of the Force had been shredded. Anyone capable of turning an entire planet into a nihilistic abomination had to be completely mad. After seeing the horrors of Nathema, he truly believed the Emperor might declare another war against the Republic, exposing them to the Jedi and leading to the eventual extinction of their species.

By the time they reached the shuttle, Scourge’s stomach was churning. He had lived his whole life attuned to the Force; having it stripped away had left him physically ill. The shuttle shook as they took to the air, and he fought against the urge to vomit.

As they broke the atmosphere of the cursed world, some semblance of normalcy returned. Scourge felt the Force rushing in to fill the emptiness inside him; he felt its power invigorating him and restoring his strength. At the same time, he also felt something else: the presence
of someone strong in the Force—someone who was neither Nyriss nor him.

Nyriss suddenly began punching away at the shuttle’s controls, scanning the system for another vessel, and Scourge knew she felt it, too.

“There,” she said, pointing at the readout. “A ship just dropped out of hyperspace in this system.”

“Could the Emperor have sent someone to follow us?” Scourge asked.

“I don’t think so,” she replied, staring at the screens. “Its signature doesn’t match any design I’ve ever seen before.”

From her voice it was clear she was as puzzled as he was. If the ship hadn’t followed them here, the odds against it showing up at the same time they were here were astronomical. But Scourge understood the ways of the Force too well to believe in coincidence. There had to be some connection between them and the unexpected visitor.

“Looks like a small freighter of some kind,” Nyriss muttered. “I don’t think they’ve seen us.”

Scourge realized they had two options. The first was to make a quick jump to hyperspace in an effort to escape before being noticed.

Nyriss decided to take the second option. Reaching out a finger, she activated the shuttle’s ion cannon, locked onto the unidentified vessel, and fired.

THE INSTANT THE
EBON HAWK
dropped out of hyperspace near Nathema, Revan was overwhelmed by a barrage of mental images. Everything came crashing in on him, the memories he was so desperate to regain fusing with a trauma he had tried so hard to repress. Caught between the two, he cried out and clutched his head in his hands.

For several seconds he didn’t move, his conscious will battling with his runaway subconscious. One by one, he was able to take the recollections, process them, and store them away, slowly regaining control.

He knew with absolute certainty that he had been to this world before. He remembered its deserted city and its lifeless surface. He remembered
searching the empty buildings with Malak, looking for archives, records, and astrogation charts that would guide them on the next step of the journey. But most of all, he remembered the horror of a dead planet entirely stripped of the Force.

T3 was at his side, beeping with concern. Revan blinked away the last of his fugue state and glanced down at the
Hawk
’s sensors to see what had the little droid so upset.

The sensors had picked up another vessel in the system. It was difficult to draw on the Force so close to the ravaged world, and he struggled to get some sense of the passengers on the other ship. By the time his groggy mind registered the threat they posed, it was too late.

The ion blast hit the
Hawk
full-bore, shorting out its circuits and engines and leaving them at the mercy of the gravitational field from the planet below.

Revan scrambled to steer the ship as it was pulled down into Nathema’s atmosphere, wondering at the chances of surviving a second crash landing in a row. The ion blast had damaged the flight controls and stabilizers, and the ship veered wildly as it plummeted toward the surface. He had no idea if the other vessel was following him; his sensors had been knocked out along with everything else. But he knew if he didn’t get the engines and repulsors back online, the
Ebon Hawk
would be smashed to pieces by the fall.

“Tee-Three!” he shouted, but the astromech had already sprung into action.

T3 had connected himself to the cockpit’s main control panel with a twenty-centimeter-long slicing tool. Lights on the cockpit dashboard began to flicker and flash as T3 rerouted power from damaged circuits. Through the cockpit window, Revan could see the distant outline of a city far below, the skyscrapers seeming to growing rapidly as the
Hawk
rushed toward them at terminal velocity.

Inside the control panel something crackled and popped. Smoke poured into the cockpit. T3 squealed in alarm, but his warning was drowned out by the sound of the
Hawk
’s engines roaring back to life.

Revan pulled back hard on the stick, and the nose of the
Hawk
grudgingly angled upward, emergency repulsors screaming.

“Brace for impact!” he shouted an instant before they slammed into
the edge of one of the massive skyscrapers, sending a shower of permacrete and plasteel tumbling to the empty street below.

The
Hawk
ricocheted off the building and began to spin wildly. Then it slammed into the ground at an awkward angle, skipping along the street like a stone cast across water before finally coming to rest.

SCOURGE HAD NO DESIRE
to return to Nathema, but he didn’t raise any objection when Nyriss redirected their shuttle back toward the planet’s surface in pursuit of the damaged freighter. They had to find out who was on that vessel, why they were here, and if they were still alive.

It had crashed down in one of the handful of cities that dotted the world, leaving a path of damaged buildings and mangled speeders in its wake. The ship itself still seemed to be relatively intact; it lay wedged against the base of a skyscraper at the end of a main thoroughfare.

Nyriss brought the shuttle in cautiously, wary of return fire as she scanned the enemy vessel.

“Anybody alive in there?” Scourge asked.

Anywhere else in the galaxy he would have been able to sense the survivors through the Force. Here on Nathema, however, the aftermath of the Emperor’s grim ritual blinded his abilities.

“I’m picking up readings of an organic life-form on board,” Nyriss confirmed.

They brought the shuttle in for a landing roughly fifty meters from the other vessel. There had been no reaction of any kind from the enemy craft as they approached.

“Search the interior,” Nyriss ordered. “I’ll wait here.”

Disembarking, Scourge got his first good look at the ship. It was an unusual shape—flat and circular, like a disk. He approached it cautiously, his heart pounding. Normally he relied on the Force to warn him of potential danger; without it he felt vulnerable and almost helpless. It was a feeling he most definitely did
not
like.

He was halfway to the vessel when another thought struck him. What if Nyriss simply decided to take off in her shuttle and leave him here? The thought froze him for a moment, until he realized how ridiculous the idea was. If Nyriss had wanted to get rid of him, she could have done so a dozen different ways already. There was no reason to abandon him on Nathema—not after risking her own life to bring him here in the first place.

Scourge steeled himself and continued his advance until he reached the strange ship’s underbelly. He pushed the access panel on the hull, and the boarding ramp slowly descended. He wasn’t surprised to find it unlocked; most ships had emergency overrides on their security systems in case of a crash, in order to allow rescue workers to get inside and help the injured.

Scourge activated his lightsaber. The familiar hum and hiss of the blade springing to life sounded weak and distant, and the crimson blade appeared faded—even his weapon was not immune to the effects of the dead planet. But he suspected it would still get the job done if he encountered any resistance.

He climbed up the boarding ramp and into the hull of the ship. He followed the circular layout, briefly glancing into storage rooms and passenger bunks in his search for whoever might be on board. He found nothing until he reached the cockpit.

Strapped into the chair was an unconscious—or dead—human male clad in simple brown robes. He appeared to be about forty standard years old. He was thin and wiry, with dark, shoulder-length hair and rough black stubble on his cheeks and chin. Blood poured from a deep gash on his forehead and covered his face; during the crash something that wasn’t strapped down must have struck him.

Coming closer, Scourge put two fingers on the side of the man’s neck, checking for a pulse. He had barely registered the faint flutter of
life when his gaze fell on the hilt hooked to the man’s belt: a lightsaber. Instinctively he tried to reach out with the Force to get some sense of the man’s power, but he felt only the emptiness of Nathema.

Grabbing the lightsaber and clipping it onto his own belt, he unbuckled the man, slung him over his shoulder, and carried him off the vessel.

The weight of the unconscious man made it difficult to move any faster than a brisk walk, but Scourge pressed the pace. He was eager to leave Nathema behind him for good this time. Nyriss was waiting for him back at the shuttle, standing just inside the boarding ramp. Scourge strode past her and onto the ship, where he tossed the unconscious man roughly onto the floor. He was about to mention the lightsaber, but Nyriss spoke before he had a chance.

“I know this man,” she said, her voice grim. “His name is Revan. He’s a Jedi and a Republic spy.”

“A Republic spy?” Scourge’s brain took the news and jumped to the next logical conclusion. “If the Jedi know we exist, they will come for us. They will try to finish the extermination of our species that they began in the Great Hyperspace War!”

“Our existence is still hidden,” she assured him. “Revan and another Jedi—a man named Malak—discovered Dromund Kaas by accident. They were captured before they could return and report their findings to the Republic.”

“When did all this happen?”

“Five years ago. The Emperor sentenced Revan to death.”

“Then what’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Nyriss admitted. “But he couldn’t have escaped the citadel’s dungeons unless the Emperor allowed it. It stands to reason that he wouldn’t still be alive unless he was working for the Emperor.”

“How is that possible?” Scourge countered. “The Jedi are our sworn enemies.”

Nyriss didn’t answer. “Watch him closely,” she said, returning to the pilot’s seat. “He is powerful and extremely dangerous.”

“Why don’t we just kill him?”

“Not yet. Not until we know why he is here. We’ll take him back to my stronghold for questioning.”

“I’ve never interrogated a Jedi,” Scourge said after a moment. He smiled. “I’m looking forward to it.”

REVAN HAD NO IDEA
where he was when he awoke, though it was obviously some kind of prison cell. He was propped up in a cold metal chair. His hands were bound to the arms, his ankles tied to the legs. For the moment, he was alone.

His mind felt slow and dull, and he knew he’d been drugged. It was difficult to concentrate; impossible to focus his thoughts enough to use the Force. It took all his willpower just to recall the last moments of the
Ebon Hawk
crashing on Nathema.

He struggled to take stock of his situation, but he couldn’t pierce the haze of the drugs.

The door to his cell slid open and two figures entered, one male and one female. The sight of their red skin tweaked something in his addled brain, but it took several seconds before he could make the connection.

“Sith,” he whispered, his throat dry and his voice hoarse.

“Welcome back, Revan,” the female said in Basic.

He stared at her withered, wrinkled face, trying and failing to dredge up her name. “Do I know you?”

The tall male Sith beside her reached out with a hand and casually delivered a backhanded slap across Revan’s cheek. “We don’t have time to play games,” he said. His voice wasn’t angry or threatening; it was calm and completely matter-of-fact.

Revan tasted blood; the smack had cut the inside of his mouth. He could feel the sting of the wound and the swelling of his lip. Apparently the drugs used to dull his mind had been carefully selected so they would not interfere with the sensation of physical pain.

“I don’t think this is a game,” the female said, raising an eyebrow. “I think he’s actually forgotten me.”

She leaned in close beside him and whispered in his ear: “What happened to you, Revan? Where did you go? Why did you return?”

When he didn’t answer, she stepped back and nodded. Then she waved a hand and an interrogator droid—Revan hadn’t even noticed
it hovering behind the two Sith—floated over and extended a long, thin needle into his neck.

He grimaced in pain as the needle punctured his skin, then screamed as it discharged a powerful electrical burst, setting his nerves on fire.

The Sith male waved a hand and the interrogator droid retreated.

“What happened to your partner?” he asked. “Malak?”

“I killed him,” Revan said.

“Why?”

“It’s complicated.”