After the Fall Chapter 45 - Awakening

Awakening

Revan

The blackness dissolved. Just like that. All of a sudden, the balance shifted and I was ejected from that non-space and back into my body with a jolt.

I bolted upright to see--and smell--a very enraged Wookiee swinging a ceremonial blade at a squadron of Sith. The blaster fire coming from behind me was punctuated with sounds of synthesized glee. "Exclamation: Spurt fluids, organic meatbag scum!"

My head swam with the sudden uprightness and I rolled over slowly. The blaster fire ceased and I felt the impact of an armored body drop very close to me. I stared up into the implacable face of a shiny Sith armor helmet with nothing more than an empty shell inside it, two smoking holes that stunk of burning flesh sprouting from the chest. I groaned.

Zaalbar let out an overjoyed warble. [You live!]

"I'll get back to you on that," I said, looking around. Sith corpses littered the greenery around us, but Jolee and Juhani were shaking their heads. I rose unsteadily to my feet, thoughts of Carth and Bastila spurring me on. "Mission?"

[She sleeps still.]

I glanced towards the huddled form. "We need to move," I said. "Down in the canyon. Our friends need us." I crouched next to Jolee and held my hands out. I called on the Force and felt the cool flow, no longer poisoned, move through me and into him, healing him. "You okay, old man?" I asked. His words to me while we were trapped--I fought Nayama--filled me with intense sadness for him.

He waved a hand. "Do you think I haven't played that scene out a million times on my own? Hell, I dealt myself worse than anything that--thing could throw at me."

"But--Wookiee troubadors?"

"Have you ever heard a Wookiee sing a love ballad?" He sat up slowly. "They're a very earthy species."

"Eww." Sometimes it's better not to know.

Juhani rolled to her stomach and came up in a crouch, stretching her legs individually, first one, then the other. "I forgave Xor, released the past, and I saw him as a slave himself, imprisoned by his own hatred."

Jolee patted her shoulder. "Now you see how the Dark Side masks weakness with the illusion of strength."

"Speaking of strength," I said. "We need to lend ours to our friends down there. HK?"

The mechanical assassin perked up. "Statement: I am ready to serve, Master."

"Bring firepower. Zaalbar, bring Mission. Let's move." Overhead, I heard the scream and whine of repulsor engines from a troop transport. "The Republic's sending reinforcements. The Sith must be crawling all over the place."

"Statement: Affirmative, Master. From their comm chatter, it appears they have established a base in the canyon."

"All the more reason to head down, then," I said.

We'd made it halfway down, picking our way in and out of clearings, animal paths, and artificial dead spots smoking with recent blaster fire when I heard the scream. It ripped through the trees and lanced through my mind. "Carth!"

The Masters counsel us not to love, because love, besides being the savior of humanity, can also make humans do very stupid things. I took off ahead, my lightsaber at the ready, careening down the hill and towards the sound of the scream.

The jungle proved my downfall, and taught the lesson the Masters' lectures never could. I tripped over a bulbous root and rolled headlong into a thicket of thorny brush, which gave way to a three-meter deep pit full of sharpened stakes--a primitive trap, but effective. The Force was with me--because the universe must have a soft spot for lovesick fools--and I narrowly missed being impaled through something major. My rear end, however, was not so lucky and I felt the sharp hot pain of wood cleaving through muscle and tissue.

My vision grayed, and it was only the worried warble of Zaalbar that brought me around. I hung upside down in the pit, pinned by the stake through my left buttock.

"That'll teach you to run off half-cocked, won't it, Missy?" Jolee said.

I whimpered.

Muttering about damned incompetent fools, he closed his eyes and linked hands with Juhani. Together, they lifted me and my impaled rear end out of the pit. Zaalbar had the honor of holding me down while he removed the stake. I didn't scream. I knew I deserved whatever I got, but I kept quiet...mostly because I passed out.

* * *