He wants to kill them. It's his sole purpose of wandering so far out to the abandoned encampment at night, forcing aside his sickness just as he had forced the quarantine guards to sleep for an unobstructed passage.

Orbalisk was the name that Freedon Nadd's Holocron had given the parasitic creatures that only two days ago had tried to kill Revan. Orbalisk, who latched on and suffocated a host or who thrived on the dark side, in turn feeding the host adrenaline and energy that perpetuated an endless cycle of giving and taking. Nadd had used them as armor.

That was why Revan had managed to survive as long as he had. Ranthus had told him about the behavior of the creatures, yet his theories as to why hadn't come close.

"I can see into your heart, young human, and I see the dark kernel that is there."

Who had said that to him? Back on Korriban, when he was joining the Sith Academy under the guise of searching for the Star Forge and Malak. After the wars, after he'd been 'saved'.

He had always known the Bogan was there, lurking within and something he had to work in keeping at bay, but with the conversation at dinner still fresh in his mind, the remembered memory and new found information had only angered him more.

So he wants to kill them. All of them. A well-placed thought bomb that could destroy not only the Orbalisk, but vaporize every last particle within its intended radius. Destroy them as they might have destroyed and taken him away from his family.

But as he reaches the edge of the camp, he stares into the dark remains for the longest time. Their presence in the Force is stronger than it had been before when he'd stumbled onto the camp the first time around. Now they were buzzing with excitement, reminding him of his place.

In his anger, he had failed to see what he was about to do.


"Well, kriff."

When Revan wakes, it's to the savory aroma of Dewback ribs being grilled. A quick glance at the chronometer shows he slept through the day. Again.

His sigh loses to a yawn and he almost curls back up again when he hears Kira talking to Ranthus, some tale or another about what the twins had done. He listens for a moment before he eases out of bed, standing, unsteadily, to the feet to join them.

He'd missed out on a lot with the girls when he was gone and though he'd been deemed well enough to not be under monitor anymore, they were waiting a couple of more days before they risked traveling back to Alderaan. Even he knew, without the copious amounts of sleep he'd been doing to remind him, that he was no where near his usual healthy self.

He not only looks pale and weak, he is. Two days had passed since he'd initially awoken, and he needs to amble along, using furniture to help him when the ground spins out from beneath him.

He hates it.

Revan finds the downed ship not far north of the boundary, in the deep of the musty rain forest, surrounded by the burnt foliage it had killed in its descent.

It was a small freighter, easily manned by one and looked of Corellian design. It was nothing but a shell of its former self, stripped just as his father had said, yet broken before that with the plunge it took from space.

He'd checked the smuggler compartments to be certain. Yet he found nothing but a nest already burrowed in and he left the eggs to hatch. He had even tried to salvage the datachip from the navigational computer but the circuits had been too fried and the chip was burnt through.

Nothing left, he steps off the ship with empty hands.

He's not entirely surprised by the outcome. In this galaxy, in the Outer Rims especially, it was take everything, leave nothing, and hope to survive the next few months to actually enjoy the spoils.

He scratches at his too long beard - he'll need to trim it again before going home - and crouches beside the ship, a hand to its charred underbelly. He presses with the Force, the starting of a headache forming already as he tries to trace the course of the ship.

Each image is nothing more than a motion blur. A sick pilot. Loss of controls. Breaking up in the atmosphere. A falling star in the night sky. Heat. Fire. Burning.

Revan hisses, pulling away his hand. His palm is red, burnt from the heat of the ship that had long since died. Sometimes, he really hates psychometry. Especially when nothing comes of it.

He stands surveying the area. There are several tracks. Mostly bipedal. Mostly humans from Wayland Station. He kneels near a smaller print with too many large toes. Myneyrshi. Like his father had said.

Their marks head north, leading away from the medical compound and boundary, disappearing at the base of trees. Climbers. And fantastic hunters and trackers, he remembers. They'll be difficult to track.

He presses his hand against one print, closing his eyes. They carry crates from the ship. Their four arms make it easy to climb and carry. They head east, not north.

Revan follows. He keeps an eye out for tracks, a break in a branch from added weight, anything. He's not sure how long he walks for, the growth denser, the sky darker, but he eventually finds another slip in their covert travels: A series of scattered footprints by the base of one tree.

By the indents in the ground and broken foliage around him, it looks as if something fell from the trees. He finds a piece of plastic from a broken crate. He rubs a thumb over it.

One of them is sick. Like the pilot. Some... Some kind of creature. It multiplies rapidly. It starts to spread through the party. They decide to quicken their pace.

He leaves the plastic in the dirt, taking off at a run, but by the time he finds their encampment they're already dead. All of them.

"I'm here to see Ranthus Adler^*," Revan tells the droid at the front desk, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his all-too-Jedi robe as he crosses his arms over his chest.

"Do you have an appointment, Sir?"

Sometimes the monotone, mechanical voice of a droid annoys him. This is one of them. He sighs, fighting back the headache. "No, I - "

"He doesn't need one," a voice answers as a door slides open at the far end of the reception area and Ranthus walks out. "Revan."

"Ranthus."

His father's mouth draws into a thin line at the formal greeting. But he hides his upset well by quickly covering it with a grin and a hug that never fails to startle Revan. "C'mon. Are you hungry? We can - "

He stops his father there. "If you don't mind, I'd rather just see what I came to see." He immediately hears Kira's voice chiding him for being mean on missions. He sighs. "Nothing personal, I... I haven't been home in three months and you're my last stop."

He's tired.

His father, fortunately, understands.

"Autopsy showed it wasn't the crash that killed the pilot, but some toxin that got into his system," Ranthus says as he leads the way down some stark-white corridor. "Unknown. No one's claimed him. We think he was a scavenger. We got to the site after the Myneyrshi, but they're simple - they left most of the technology."

Revan follows him into a storage locker. It's mostly filled with medical supplies, but tucked away in a corner, hidden behind bedpans and kolto packs, is what he came for. It's smaller than what it looked in the transmission Ranthus sent and the metal older, but it's alive. It thrums with such dark energy that he's almost surprised the Medical Station wasn't feeling the effects of it yet.

Revan handles the Holocron with care.

"Archer snatched it from the wreckage. She's been around more Jedi than I have when she was working the Wars. She figured it had something to do with your groups. Said I should give it to you."

He raises an eyebrow at this unknown benefactor. "Archer?"

"She's good. A friend. I learned a long time ago who to put my trust into." His father's tone is short and cutting. "So, this one of your things or not?"




[*: Ranthus Adler's name is taken merely as a salute to Upper Deck Entertainment. No copyright infringement intended.]

Revan frowns, beating back the sudden wave of nausea that hits as he stares down at the half-chewed carcass. It's rotting already, maggots finding a new home amongst the leftovers.

He detaches a communicator from his belt and clicks it on. It's a direct-line to Bastila at the Temple in Coruscant.

"Hey, Bas. I think I've found her. Looks like one of the wraids got to her."

He kneels down to inspect the body closer, the pungent ordor stronger there. The stench will probably stay with him for a couple of days. He reaches for an arm - or what's left of one, anyway - and holds it aloft into what little light there is in the tomb, brushing the festering maggots off of it as he does.

"I'd say she's been dead a week already, if not more. I'm taking a print now to confirm."

He slips a scanner from his belt, pressing the partial thumb to the screen. It comes back positive, the results flashing in front of him. She was young. No family. He scans the rest of it; pictures for the file.

"No, it's definitely her. I'm sending the results and images to you now. What do you want me to do with the body?"

He pockets the scanner. Bastila's silent on the other end for a few moments, no doubt looking over the data. She comes back with an urgent question on the other end.

"No, no foul play. C'mon, you're sensing the area too. There's no residual energy to suggest it."

He frowns grimly, flicking a lingering maggot off his sleeve. He makes sure to purge his system clean with the Force then; a standard in case of any infectious diseases the body might carry. He wouldn't want anything to spread to the girls.

"No, no, it's alright. I was coming to Korriban anyway. Saved you from having to send another Jedi to check it out."

He constructs a simple pyre for the Jedi, standing back then to watch as the flames quickly spread, spurned on by the Force to engulf the body.

She was with the Force now.

"No, I'm done here. There was nothing in the tomb. Not that I was expecting much; scavengers have picked this place clean. But I'm just trying to keep close to home for now; I'm headed back to the Enclave tonight to spend some time with the girls. Kira's still there, helping Mical out."

He's thinking of Onderon next though. He's heard word of a Naddist there, still existing after so many decades after Nadd's fall. It probably wasn't a true believer, not one he could learn much from anyway, but he'd follow any lead he had to piece information about the True Sith together and Freedon Nadd was the next Sith Lord on his list to look into.

(But his family comes first because he hasn't seen them in over a week. Not since he left on this dudd of an expedition to Korriban for one, possibly final, look around the place.)

"Right, well," he says into the communicator, "I've to make some repairs to the Hawk before night falls. I'll talk to you later."

He cuts the line, takes one last look at the now charred remains - a moment of silence for the fallen - and heads out into the day.

Revan loves his nights off. He really does. Especially when it's quiet with everyone sleeping and he can curl up on the couch to flip mindlessly through the channels on the holo or read the Jedi reports he stole from Kira's bedside table.

He's doing the latter at the moment: skimming his way through a datapad with Ilona curled up at his feet and the only light in the room coming from the screen. Every so often he'll stop, frown, and add a note in the margins before continuing on. He's been at it for a good hour or so now.

Revan paces the width of the dock impatiently as he waits for the ship he knows is coming. It's not work though, not tonight anyway. It's Bastila and whatever the Jedi reason it is that's bringing her to Alderaan. At least, he thinks it has to do with the Jedi. He never really asked her. He just wanted to know when.

It's been so long since he's seen her out of Milliways that he's suddenly enlivened with the idea of seeing her outside the bar, hence the impatience – like it was with Kira when he first came back from the Unknowns and how he just wanted to spend time with her outside of Milliways for once.

But on a more platonic level, of course.

Revan had long ago programmed his computer to pick up any feeds containing the words 'Sith'. Usually it was nothing more than a writer calling some crime 'sithly' and had nothing of real substance about the Dark Jedi. This morning it was no different, but the article – and one from a gossip feed no less – that popped up on his screen caught his attention anyway.

Sith Lord or Sex Lord?

"...the kriff?"

While the infamous Revanchist may be laying low and quiet on the one front, rumors are abound that he's just getting started on the other after a holopic of him and his wife surfaced late Satunda evening.

"...the kriff?!"

The couple already have two children, twins born earlier this year, and look to be gearing - or should we say rearing? - for another.

Revan blanched. Slowly it was all starting to make sense: this past Satunda, the babies were napping, it was near the dinner hour, Kira and him in the kitchen, rearing.

We wish them the best of luck on that endeavour. Even though, and many of our readers will agree, it looks like they don't need it.

One commenter on the holopic said it was "the hottest thing" since the rumors about Revan and his then apprentice Malak during the Mandalorian Wars. And further more, our commenter wondered, "Does his position here have anything to do with that?"

Revan, are you missing your old friend?

"THE KRIFF?!"

Either way, the Revanchist and the gorgeous Jedi Kira Isek have our vote for 'Hottest Celebrity Couple' this year.

And then there, of course, at the very end of the article was the alleged holopic. It was nothing explicit, fully clothed and more allusion than anything, but it was definitely them: Kira with her head back on his shoulder, Revan with his hand south of the counter...

He shut off the datapad and sunk lower into the cushions of the couch, hoping to blend in.

Kira was going to kill him. And maybe he'd let her this time.

But not before attempting to sue the feed, that is.

A couple of days ago, Revan had a conversation with his father that went something like this:

"Right, okay. You say you're restless and the Hawk offers you a certain freedom from that, but why?"

"Because, it gives me...a chance to be doing something other than taking care of Kira and the girls."

"Well, one, what is so wrong with being just a father? And, two, you're a smart boy, Revan, and you can't think of anything else to occupy your time?"

"There's nothing wrong with being just a father. It's a matter of knowing I can..."

"...Be more?"

"I wasn't going to say that."

"Revan, its okay to think that. You were this, what, great Jedi, then a...what were they calling you? Right, the Revanchist. Then a Commander in the Mandalorian Wars before...well, we'll call it your lapse in judgment before you went on to defeat a Sith Lord –"

"I - "

" - No, be quiet, I'm talking. I might not understand the whole Jedi and Sith thing, but I can see where you're coming from. You felt like you were this great somebody and now you feel like you're none of that, is that right?”

"That's not - "

"Revan."

"..."

"You've admitted to it before. You said - that last time we talked before the Wars - you said you could do something about the Wars and you did. Granted not the way some of – Look, just, it's okay to admit to feeling like that."

"It was never about who I was. I could care less about my name in any holofeed or archive. All I was trying to do was help. But thank you, dad, for thinking like the rest of the galaxy."

"Revan. Don't hang up. I'm sorry, alright? Just...I want to help you now?”

"...Fine."

"So maybe it wasn't about feeling like you were some great warrior and now you're nothing. But you were a soldier, you were always fighting some cause or another, and now that you're not out there fighting some constant battle, you're starting to feel it. And that's why you think you're restless now. Is that, at least, right on some vague plane of existence?"

"..."

"...Did I kriff up again?"

"No. I...You're right."

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

"I said, you were right and you heard me the first time. Stop grinning, I admit people are right all the time."

"Just never me before. I was always wrong, in your eyes. You never agreed with anything I said."

"That's not...That doesn't mean I think any less of you, just because I have different opinion about things."

"...And you know that it's the same for me, right?"

"I'm beginning to learn that, yes."

"You're my son, Revan, even if I wasn't around to raise you. And I love you, no matter what."

"...I know."

"Anyway. Go home to that family of yours, Revan. Channel all that restless energy into something else. You don't need to be fighting battles anymore, if you don't have to. Let someone else do it."

"And what is that 'something else' supposed to be?"

"That you have to figure out on you own, Revan."

And today, two days after returning to Alderaan and with everything seeming to go alright with Kira so far, Revan decided to start on that 'something else'.

In the morning, while the girls were still sleeping, he slipped away to the store and bought a galleon of neutral paint, an assembly required desk, chair, and storage units, and an extra computer to start on converting the empty third bedroom in the house to an office/playroom for him and the girls (and Kira, of course).

After all, he needed a place to store all the writings (from notes about the True Sith to his maps on the Unknowns to whatever) that he was going to be working on and be sending to his friends in the Republic or the Jedi or anyone else who wanted or needed to read them.

Because, in the end, his father was right: it was time to let someone else do the fighting*.



*Which is not to say he'll be giving up combat and fighting forever, only that he'll be taking what peace he can and that there really is nothing wrong with just being a father in the meantime.