Disgraced Knight's Atonement: 1 - Revelation

Lar-bo Ginz collapsed in a heap on the deck. Sweat that had built upon his brow during the pitched dogfight in space poured now to the cold, hard steel below him. Although surpassingly swift and well-armored for a ship of its appearance and size, the Ebon Hawk's illegal weaponry behaved more like a relic of the ancient Hyperspace Wars. Lar-bo felt as if he were fighting against the laser turret's antiquated and inaccurate controls more than he had been combating the small squadron of Sith fighters that had pursued and nearly destroyed them. A fraction of a second after pilot Carth Onasi's panicked voice shouted through the intercom, "Hull status critical! We can't take another hit!" Lar-bo had finally managed to align the unwieldy weapon upon the last remaining fighter and dispatch it.

Not that Lar-bo Ginz really cared about whether he and his companions could escape death anymore. As he lay panting in physical and mental exhaustion, the high pitched whine of the engines and the lurch of the deck plates as the Ebon Hawk launched herself into hyperspace failed to bring the sense of relief and escape that those sensations had brought before. Instead, he found himself wishing that they hadn't escaped. He found himself wishing that the cycle of death and destruction should have consumed him at last.

With an effort much greater than should have been required in the circumstance, Lar-bo Ginz forced himself to kneel, then ultimately to stand again. He was alive, so he might as well make the best of it. He might as well also make his way to the cockpit before his companions released themselves from their seats. The last thing he wanted was a replay of the interrogation that Carth had instigated before they blasted their way out of the Leviathan's docking bay. Try as he might, his legs could manage barely a stumble in some general direction. The battles on the bridge and the halls of the Leviathan, the struggle against the Sith fighter squadron, and the crushing weight of Darth Malak's revelation were overcoming his physical and mental strength. He did succeed in reaching the cockpit before anyone could get in his way. Once there, he found Carth Onasi manning the controls alone.

Carth had surely noticed Lar-bo's presence in the cockpit. Lar-bo had made more noise than a rancor with an empty stomach as he stumbled in. But Carth stoically eyed the controls and kept his vision forward, watching the hypnotic kaleidoscope of blue-white light stream over and around the Ebon Hawk. "Status?" Lar-bo asked weakly through lungs gasping for breath.

"On our way to Korriban", Carth snapped in a tone that left absolutely no invitation for anything other than the bare minimum of communication. "Once there, we'll see about patching up the Hawk. We'll be there in about ten hours."

Lar-bo suppressed a groan. Ten hours. He'd have to make himself invisible from the rest of his companions for ten more hours, provided that none of them decided to kill him before then. Not that we would care enough to fight them off if they tried now. "Fine. I'll be in my... the cabin... if you need..."

Lar-bo noticed absolutely no change in Carth's demeanor as he spoke. No head turn, no eye movement, no relaxation of the taught jaw line, nothing. Carth was doing his best to pretend that Lar-bo wasn't there. Or, perhaps, Carth was using all of his remaining restraint from drawing his blaster and burning a hole between Lar-bo's eyes with a shot from it.

"... whatever", Lar-bo finished feebly, and shuffled slowly out of the cockpit, to what he was sure was an approving sort of grunt from Carth's direction as he did so.

His companions were collecting in the main cabin space of the Ebon Hawk. Keeping his head down to purposely avoid eye contact, Lar-bo forced his way through the crowd and towards one of the passenger bunks. He was vaguely aware of Padawan Juhani's attempt to speak with him, but he ignored her and forced his way past. He entered a passenger cabin, and slid the cabin door shut with a punch from his fist on the door control against the wall. The door slid shut with a satisfying thump. He threw himself onto a bunk, and with eyes alight in pure hatred, he glared at the ceiling, as if he could see past them into the heart of the Force itself, where the answer he demanded must surely rest.

However, the question could not be formed beyond the word, "why...?"

In frustration, he forced himself into a seated position. He felt his lightsaber slap against his thigh as he moved. In disgust, he tore it from his belt and made to throw it hard against the far wall of the cabin. He wasn't fit to hold a lightsaber in his hands. He was only fit to be impaled upon one. But he stopped himself, and instead held the lightsaber hilt before him and contemplated it.

The lightsaber practically melded with his hand, as if the hand and the hilt were a pair that had never been parted. He could no more fling away the weapon in disgust than he could rip off his right leg. Reflexively, he activated the weapon.

The lightsaber released itself, humming as the pure energy of its construction leapt into form. A long, razor-thin shaft of green light waited his command. The weapon was the badge of a Jedi Counsular, one who sought to bring balance to the universe through efforts of mental discipline rather than through the exploitation of the Force. This was the path that Lar-bo Ginz had chosen for himself back on Dantooine.

A cold, mirthless bark of a laugh escaped Lar-bo's lips as he dwelt upon that thought. It could not have been a more ironic choice of paths, given what he now knew of himself. For he had not sought to bring balance to the universe; he had sought to bring the universe under his domination. He had forsaken the disciplines of the mind for the brute force of the lightsaber and the blaster. He had not enlisted in the Republic fleet to stop Darth Revan and his Sith's ruthless assault on the universe...

... he WAS Darth Revan himself. The Dark Lord had not perished at Jedi Bastila's hand, nor at the laserblasts of his dark apprentice Malak. He had lived, and the Jedi Order had reconstructed him as a tool of the path of Light to use against the Sith. A tool that had finally discovered the truth of its forging behind the veil of lies.

"I'm NOT Revan! I'm Lar-bo Ginz!" he growled to himself, but even then he realized that the attempt at self-persuasion was futile. He did not personally believe that he was truly Revan, but he could no longer convince himself otherwise. The circumstances were simply too convincing.

He eyed the bright green beam of energy emanating from his hands with cold skepticism now. Too many unexplained coincidences suddenly made sense with this revelation. The Star Map computer on Kashyyyk accepted him when it refused all others. His instructors had complemented him on the craftsmanship of this lightsaber, commenting that never had they seen one so expertly constructed by one who only recently began to feel the Force. He had accomplished in weeks of training at the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine what most Force Adepts needed years of training and study to accomplish. The Jedi Masters had treated him warily, excusing their demeanor as inexperience in dealing with an apprentice so advanced in years as he, and in light of the treason of the Jedi Revan and Malak. They had continually lectured him on the fall of Revan and his apprentice, and insisted that he learn about the lure and temptations of the Dark Side that can claim even the most promising of Jedi. They were not enthusiastic to send him on this quest, but claimed that no one else was suited to undertaking it.

The simple truth of Lar-bo Ginz being Darth Revan pulled down the curtain of deceit and half-truths. Suddenly, all the coincidences, visions, and distrust made perfect sense. They knew who he was. He had trained in the Force before. He had wielded a lightsaber before. He had visited all the Star Map sites before. He had installed the computer interface on Kashyyyk that recognized the biological impulses of his brain. His command of the Force was a weak muscle that soon remembered its old strength once it began to be used again. That was why his progress was so miraculous, why everything seemed to come naturally to him: because he had done it all before! He was simply tapping into ability he already had, locked away in his brain where he could not reach it.

But he wasn't Revan! He was Lar-bo Ginz, a scout from the Outer Rim, who was recruited for his knowledge of Rim worlds and his experience as a pilot! But was he, truly, any these things? Could he convince himself of that? Sadly, he could not. Much of his memory was clouded in veils of mental mist, and only occasionally would anything emerge from that mist, no matter how hard he stared into it. He accepted Carth Onasi's word that he had received a concussion when their escape pod crashed into Taris, and explained away much of his memory loss with that excuse. He was so convinced of his identity, but yet, he could not remember a shred of anything that made up that identity. How could he remember his name, but nothing else of himself?

When did he board the Endar Spire? He could not remember.

What did the spaceport look like? He had no idea.

Could he recall the exhilaration of his first space flight? Surely no one could forget that, but apparently, he had.

Why had he enlisted with the Republic? What was his motivation for siding against the Sith? There must have been some emotional reason to consider a cause so worthy that one would be willing to sacrifice one's life for it, but he could not think of any reason.

Could he remember his mother's face? The color of her hair? His room as a child? No.

Nothing. No images, no memories, nothing. Instead, he remembered facts, much like the fashion that a child might remember basic mathematics. The facts were unemotional. They conjured no images; they were merely items to be recited. He was a scout. He lived on Deralia. He had been recruited by the Republic. He was assigned to the Endar Spire. He was Lar-bo Ginz.

Yes, he knew the facts, but there was no substance behind the facts. They were a facade, a construction, a barrier placed there to either bolster up something, or to hide something. He now understood. It was to keep an animal caged.

How could he be the Dark Lord? Even though he could not recall anything for the life of Lar-bo Ginz, he could recall nothing of the life of Darth Revan either. So he examined what he could remember, everything from the attack on the Endar Spire. Everything he had done since then had been to serve the Republic and to champion justice. When the two conflicted, he chose to serve justice instead of the Republic. He had rescued Bastila. He felt the pain of those in the Taris Undercity. He had restored Zaalbar's honor with his family and ended Czerka Corporation's hold on his homeworld. He cancelled bounties on innocent people instead of claiming them. He stopped the Sandpeople battles on Tatooine and rescued Jawas. He even let a Republic citizen be convicted in the murder of a Dark Jedi and sabotaged a secret Republic base. Would someone who had lost themselves to the Dark Side of the Force have done any of that?

No, but a drone of the Jedi Council would have done such things. Someone who had been programmed by the Jedi Council would have done all this as if it were the only possible action to take.

Just as he had, just as it had seemed the only thing to do.

He could feel the anger rising in him, filling his stomach and his mind, tightening his muscles. The anger felt familiar. It felt comfortable. It felt natural. The anger consumed his emotions as he realized the magnitude of the conspiracy against him. Vrook, Vandar, Bastila; they were using him. Bastila's link to him had been intentional, not accidental. The Jedi Council would have much preferred that he lay in a semi-catatonic state, allowing Bastila to dig through the secret openings that they left in the wall within his mind to find the clues she needed to locate Malak's power base. The only reason the Jedi Council consented to training him and sending him on this quest was because Bastila had no prayer of finding the information they needed without the knowledge locked away in Darth Revan's brain. Bastila's love for him had been a hastily constructed fiction, a distraction that was planted to give excuse for her constant need to be near him. He was a tool, nothing more: a puppet that moved as commanded when the Jedi Council demanded. He no longer had any reason to believe that the Jedi did not execute their prisoners, for if they did not need what was sealed off in his brain so desperately, he was sure his corpse would have been fed to the kath hounds of Dantooine.

But the artificially constructed persona that now called itself Lar-bo Ginz refused to believe that its existence was entirely fabricated. It tried to force itself back into the foreground, suppressing the persona that must have surely been Darth Revan resurfacing. Lar-bo Ginz may have been an invention of the timid Jedi Council, or it may not; but in either case, it had learned how to fight these past few weeks, and it was not about to admit defeat just yet. It had overcome insurmountable odds to reach this point, and much of that entirely by its own skill. It had come to believe in itself, to see itself as real, and to be a champion for the light. It was not about to give in now, especially against its greatest foe, Darth Revan.

"There is no emotion, there is peace..." the voice of Lar-bo Ginz began to recite, hoping that the mantra would summon the strength of the Light and douse the raging fires of anger and betrayal consuming his soul. But the Light did not seem to answer his call, and his emotions raged stronger still against the effort to subdue them.

"There is no ignorance, there... is... knowledge..." he forced himself to continue.

His body went rigid under the strain of the competing egos within him. His grip on the lightsaber would have crushed lesser weapons.

"There is no passsssion, there is nooooo passsssion......!"

But there was no peace, or knowledge, or serenity. Even Lar-bo Ginz was forced to admit this. There was only anger, rolling with tidal wave momentum in his heart, feeding the flames of his passion. Before he realized it, he had swung his lightsaber in reflex to release the fury bursting within his soul. He did not notice that his blind swing of the weapon removed a chunk of steel from the interior bulkhead of the cabin until the loud thunder of its crash to the deck shattered his rage and drew him back to reality. He heard the echoes of his own voice, raised in rage, reverberating off the cabin walls.

For a moment, Lar-bo Ginz was back in control. But for how long?

Carth Onasi was right to fear him and the others were fools to trust him, he realized. Lar-bo Ginz's grip on reality was slipping now, and Darth Revan awaited his chance to restore himself. Darth Revan was responsible for the wars that now inundated the Republic. By his hand, peace had been turned to war, Jedi had turned upon Jedi, brother had turned upon brother, and the galaxy consumed itself in fire. Lar-bo Ginz might be in control for this very moment, but that was an automaton programmed by the Jedi Council and supervised by the young Jedi Bastila. Now that Bastila was dead or captured, there was no one to step in should the Dark Lord begin to resurface within Lar-bo Ginz again. Only Lar-bo Ginz remained to subdue Revan, and that lone champion was a fiction who was evaporating in the light of the truth.

Carth was correct to fear him, and to hate him.

It would be much safer if that threat of Darth Revan's return were removed from the equation. The Dark Lord cannot be allowed to rise again.

He raised his lightsaber, still humming in its green glow, so that the blade nearly touched his nose and the line of the weapon bisected his face vertically. This was a weapon of surpassing power, capable of slicing through any material ever constructed. A mere flick of his wrist would send the energy beam slicing through his own skull so fast that he could not help but cleave it into two non-functional halves. It would all end here. The Dark Lord would be defeated, finally, by a stroke from the Dark Lord's own hand. The team of champions he had assembled could proceed without him. They could succeed on their own. They no longer needed him, and their chances would be improved if the variable of Revan's return were removed.

All it takes is the will to do it...

His arms tensed in preparation.

All it takes is the will to do it...

His breathing became deep and purposeful.

All it takes is the will to do it...

His eyes closed as he searched fruitlessly for one final prayer of forgiveness.

All it takes...

He wished for his hands to move. He wished for the power of the Light Side to rise up and slay him on the spot. But neither happened. The anger abated, but the void was filled with self hatred. He had once been the Dark Lord of the Sith. He had then become a champion of Light. But now, he was a weakling, incapable of even the simple task of removing an evil from the galaxy, an evil that cowered at his feet and laid itself open to him. He threw himself back into the bunk, awash in self hatred and self pity as he contemplated how useless he had become.

"No" a voice said, "not useless."

He sat upright. Who was that? He listened for the voice again, but did not hear it. But the self hatred began to wane. Then he heard the voice again, but not from within the Ebon Hawk. It was in his mind, calling to him from beyond the walls of mist within it. It called to him in his own voice.

No, the voice said. Neither Revan nor Lar-bo Ginz would ever remove himself from a fight, whichever person he truly was. Neither would admit defeat while a battle continued. Each would persevere, struggling with the last breath to win for their cause. Suicide was for cowards, and neither Lar-bo Ginz nor Revan was a coward. That much, they shared in common. That much, the Jedi Council had not erased. Of that one fact, he was sure.

Of one other fact he was also sure. He loved Bastila. Whether or not her infatuation with him was a fiction, he loved her. She had saved his life, wretched as it had become, when no one would have faulted her for letting it end. She secretly struggled to keep the Dark Lord suppressed while aiding Lar-bo in his continuing training. It would have been far easier for her to abandon him, or to have subdued him and thrust him back into a catatonic state. Instead, she had taken upon herself the unenviable task of redeeming the former Dark Lord, and placed herself in greater proximity to the lure of darkness. She had rushed Darth Malak on the Leviathan so he and Carth might escape, when it would have been far easier to allow either Revan or Malak to annihilate the other and to cut down the weakened survivor.

Perhaps that was the clue that he was secretly hoping to find. Perhaps his love for Bastila was the indication that he was more than a mere automaton of the Jedi Council. Surely, the Jedi Council would have purposely omitted any desire for love and any other dangerous emotions from an artificial personality that they constructed themselves. The Jedi discouraged love, because the strength of that emotion was too powerful to subdue or ignore. The desires and passions of love could alter a Jedi's perceptions and cause a Jedi to fall to the lure of the Dark Side. Decisions made out of love might differ entirely from the course of reason, and could conceivably put lives at risk. If Lar-bo Ginz were nothing more than an invention of the Jedi Council, love would certainly have been excluded.

---

But more than love was present. Hatred and anger were present as well. He had not truly felt them before now, but now that he did, it felt as if an old companion had returned to him. It now seemed natural to him that they had returned. Hatred of Malak, hatred of the Sith, hatred of himself and what he had become, hatred of the Jedi Council for their lies and deceits, and sadly, hatred against Bastila for being part of the web of lies.

A shadow grew and took human shape in the mists of his memories, barely visible beyond the veils of amnesia. He knew only too well that it was himself -- Darth Revan -- seeking freedom from his bondage and sensing that his time was near once again. Perhaps the Lar-bo Ginz persona was incomplete, and these emotions, awakened by Malak's revelation, were seeping through the flaws in the Jedi Council's handiwork.

Lar-bo felt certain that he was more than merely a construct of the Jedi Council. He was not entirely sure whether this certainty came from Lar-bo's refusal to admit that it was not the real person meant to inhabit this body, or whether it was based on something more real if less tangible. The Jedi Council had built the image of a man, but he saw now that they could not build the essence of the man himself. They could feed his mind full of facts, but they could not manufacture the memories behind those facts. If that task was impossible, then he doubted that his convictions and motivations could have been constructed by the Jedi Council; they had to be innate, part of his being and beyond their ability to create or define. If his convictions had been somehow manufactured, the Jedi Council surely would have instilled him with motivations more mechanical and less emotional. That was not the case. He had more than seen the injustice of the class system on Taris; he had felt the pain of the outcasts. He did more than simply spare Juhani; he understood her sorrow and regret. He had allowed Sunry to be convicted as justice dictated, but he felt the pain of his wife as he did so. He not only seen the injustice of the Czerka slave traders on Kashyyyk; he empathized with the rage of the Wookies to off- worlders. An automaton responding solely to the programming of the Jedi Council would simply have acted, not felt. There would be no emotional response, just the factual knowledge of what should be done. It would be no more emotional than basic arithmetic.

Perhaps Lar-bo Ginz was the self that Revan had forgotten, a resurfaced echo of an idealistic past that had been sacrificed by Revan on the altar of power. Perhaps the Jedi Council simply rediscovered the Revan that had been discarded and simply resurrected it. Perhaps it was only through confronting his old self that Darth Revan could be redeemed.

So many questions. So many doubts. It had been hard enough for him and his companions to get this far -- to elude the pursuing Sith and be one step away from solving the mystery of the Star Maps -- when he was certain of who he was. How could he possibly complete that quest now, when all that he thought he knew about himself had been so very wrong? Would the monster resurface? Did Lar-bo Ginz have the power to keep the Dark Lord imprisoned within him? Could he overcome both his own nature and the lure of the Dark Side, a lure that would certainly grow ever more seductive as the stakes continued to increase in his quest? Would the fate of the galaxy hinge on a split-second decision that only he could make? Would he recognize the same fateful choice that he made years ago that caused him to turn to the Dark Side? Would he be doomed to make the same choice without Bastila to guide him? Would he finally, in the end, choose the path of expediency over the path of righteousness, and once again become the Dark Lord?

How could one venture into such uncertainty, without the conviction of who they were? How could he ever ask anyone to follow him into such uncertainty?

It didn't matter. He would struggle on, alone if he must. Whichever he was, Lar-bo or Revan, he was not one to quit. He'd find a ship at Korriban and take that if it came to such extremes. As if to confirm this, a soft whisper from the mists of his memory called out that he had made such sacrifices before.

But another voice called out of the echoes of his mind as well. The struggle was unnecessary, it said. Malak could be stopped, it promised. All he needed to do was embrace who he truly was: Darth Revan. If released, it promised to make a quick end to the war. At the very least, the reappearance of Darth Revan would divide the loyalties of the Sith. Many would see Malak for the opportunistic usurper that he was, and flock to the banner of Revan to depose him. Once unleashed, the battle prowess that the Mandalorians admired so much in Revan would surely resurface in time, like his continuing command of the Force. Malak had always been considered inferior in skill to Revan. Even if Malak succeeded in convincing the majority of the Sith to remain with him, Revan's skill would surely overcome the odds as they did in the Mandalorian Wars. Many might die, but many more would be saved in the end. Once Malak and his Sith were crushed, he could then bring an end to all conflict and restore peace to the galaxy through his wisdom and his might. No one need die again in battle. Justice need not be denied to anyone. He could see to that.

All he needed to do was embrace who he truly was...

All he needed to do was release his true self...

All he needed to do was to use the Force instead of being ruled by it...

All he needed to do...

"NO!" he growled, his voice filled with command and not fear.

This time, Lar-bo Ginz had been aware enough to smell the bait of the Dark Side's trap. Was that the bait that ensnared him years ago? Was he seduced by the promise to end injustice and suffering? Had it been this noble desire to eradicate evil that the Dark Side perverted into its trap for him? What the Dark Side promised would be easy; even he could see that. By reassuming the mantle of Darth Revan, he could easily divide the Sith long enough to give the Republic the time to mount a defense. But the cost would be too high. Either he or Malak would fall to the other, and a new Dark Lord would take power: a lord with no patience for anyone who did not agree with his perception of cosmic justice and order; a lord quick to judgment and bereft of mercy. And eventually, someone would emerge from the shadows on some noble quest to remove the Dark Lord's iron fist from the throat of the galaxy. The Dark Lord would fall, and the hero would assume his role, seeking to right the injustices of the Dark Lord. But in time, that hero too would lose sight of the higher goal, lose patience with those who did not see the truth, and in time would be corrupted into an overbearing ruler with no patience for those who did not see his vision. A new Dark Lord would appear. The cycle would continue.

Slaying the tyrant would not end the tyranny. The cycle could not be broken by slaying the tyrant, only through the redemption of the tyrant.

He could see that so clearly now. But would he be able to see the same truth again, in the heat of battle, before Darth Malak himself? Could he hold true to the path of light against Malak's mastery of darkness, and against all the seductions it could weave?

If Malak held a lightsaber to Bastila's throat, could he be as resolute as he was now?

The thought of her in peril froze his blood solid within his veins. Bastila. She was still alive, he was certain of it. Even though they were now separated, the link she forged with him still existed. Somehow, he knew that he would have felt her death with every fiber of his being, had Malak truly slain her. It made sense, but the realization did little to comfort him. Bastila and her Battle Meditation were enemies Malak feared, but if turned, they were tools that would make his quest for galactic domination complete. Bastila had felt the temptations of the Dark Side, most likely because of her link with Lar-bo Ginz and the poison from the festering remnants of Darth Revan within him. She had grown less resistant to those seductions during their quest even as Lar-bo Ginz grew stronger in his convictions. Perhaps the restrained Darth Revan had also grown stronger alongside Lar-bo Ginz, and it was only through the constant vigilance of Bastila that Revan remained subdued. And perhaps it was through this constant vigilance and exposure that Darth Revan poisoned Bastila without her consent or Lar-bo's knowledge. Lately, Bastila relied more and more on Lar-bo Ginz for strength, contrary to all expectations and good sense. Malak would most certainly sense the eroding resistance to the Dark Side's seduction within her. Without the strength of Lar-bo Ginz, she might falter as Revan before her had faltered, and succumb to the lure of darkness. Malak would then waste no time perverting her ideals to darkness and using her as a tool in his cause.

Perhaps Bastila's fortitude against the darkness would reform in Lar-bo Ginz's absence? With the constant struggle against the repressed Darth Revan removed, she might find anew her former strength and conviction. Perhaps she could resist Malak and the Dark Side long enough. He shook his head sadly; it was nothing more than a fool's hope. If constant exposure to the weakened power of the subdued Darth Revan had eroded her will this much, her will stood no chance against the full, persistent force of the Dark Side that Malak commanded.

He had to save her somehow. He must. Even if he could ignore his love for her, Bastila's sacrifices for him needed to be rewarded. He needed to atone for his sins against the galaxy, and his sins against her. And maybe, just maybe, Bastila really did love him as well. She must be saved.

Save her, at the expense of the galaxy? Surely, Malak would sense that opportunity coming. Malak would be sure to force Lar-bo Ginz to choose between the life of one and the lives of many. Malak would maneuver Lar-bo into a decision that he would regret, no matter the choice he made. Save Bastila, lose the galaxy; save the galaxy, lose the woman you love.

He spat in bitterness and contempt. Damn the Jedi Council! How could they simply turn a blind eye to love?! How could they expect you to pretend that love did not exist? Humans loved in one degree or another. It was a simple fact: they loved, just as they drew breath or smelled the air. Simply instructing someone to resist the natural urge to love was akin to telling someone to hold their breath forever. Yet for centuries, the Jedi continued to perpetuate the fiction that love could be subdued, could be controlled, and should simply be ignored. The old wind-bag Jolee Bindo was at least correct about one thing: the Jedi should teach you how to accept love and deal with it, instead of pretending that it did not exist. Perhaps if they admitted to that one simple fact and learned how to address it constructively, the Jedi Council would not have train so many apprentices who found the lure of Malak so easy to accept.

Now, the entire fate of the galaxy might hinge on whether Lar-bo Ginz could overcome his love for a woman and make the proper choice.

If one decided to choose...

Suddenly, a gentle epiphany arose and an unexpected peace filled his heart. He had been needlessly blinded by reason. The solution was obvious: when presented with the choice of saving one or saving many, the correct choice was not to choose. That was how the Dark Side would trap you, by giving you two options while a third option existed: save them all. It was the hardest road to take, and it might claim his life in the end, but that was the true choice of the Light. In the end, he must also try to save Malak, to end the cycle of tyranny and to make full amends for his own past. Perhaps Malak might have been corrupted to the Dark Side on his own, but Lar-bo Ginz was sure that Revan had set Malak's feet initially on the path of darkness. Malak would likely spurn any offer of possible redemption, but Lar-bo knew that he must at least attempt to offer redemption to his former apprentice.

"I hope that wasn't something important..."

The presence of another voice in the cabin startled him. He spun quickly, finding Carth Onasi in the cabin with him. He saw Carth reach reflexively for the blaster holstered at his thigh, only then realizing that his lightsaber was still active. Feeling like a fool, he deactivated the weapon.

Carth was much slower to relax. He couldn't blame him. After all, Revan had been a hero to him, then become a traitor to him, and set forth the series of events that robbed Carth of his homeworld and his family. Ever since the betrayals of Revan and Admiral Karath, Carth had been glacially slow to trust anyone. Since their mutual escape from the Endar Spire, Carth had begrudgingly allowed himself to trust in Lar-bo. Now that Carth knew the true identity of Lar-bo Ginz, he was certain that any ability left within Carth Onasi to trust anyone had been annihilated.

"What?" Lar-bo asked.

Carth pointed towards the large chunk of steel that Lar-bo Ginz had carved out of the bulkhead in his rage.

Embarrassed, Lar-bo replied, "it's smaller than the holes in the hull blasted by the Sith fighters. I'll see if I can't repair it before we get to Korriban. I'm sure that I'll have plenty of time to myself for the trip..."

Carth didn't move as Lar-bo Ginz walked over to the hunk of steel, still smoldering slightly from the heat of the lightsaber slicing through it. Lar-bo realized this, and recognized the now familiar posture of Carth Onasi struggling to figure out how to say something. At first, Carth's behavior grated on Lar-bo Ginz, but in time, he began to see it almost comically. This time, he was sure that this was no laughing matter.

"We need to talk" Lar-bo said, not looking at him. He, the former Dark Lord and one who had witnessed unimaginable destruction throughout the galaxy, could not bear to see what emotional injury his next words might inflict on a friend who had already saved his life many times. "About me being Darth Revan."

Carth stuttered for a moment, his posture reflecting the struggle in his brain to convert the flood of emotions and thoughts into a single stream of coherence. "If you're ready to talk...", he said, seeming to stall for time as he continued to try and verbalize the thoughts in his mind which he had been unable to do between the cockpit and the cabin. Finally, he finished, saying, "then yes, so am I."

Lar-bo turned and looked back at Carth, forcing his arms to hang limp at his sides and trying his best to show an outward composure that did not exist within his own soul. He was not going to try and extract words from Carth this time, or try and lead Carth's words in any direction as he had found necessary earlier in their adventures. Whatever was in Carth's mind, Carth had to be allowed to speak it in his own words at his own pace. In what he hoped was a calm voice, Lar-bo asked, "And?"

Carth could not bring himself to look at Lar-bo as he spoke. Instead, he turned his right side towards Lar-bo and took a hesitant few steps. Staring at a space of deck plating about a stride before his feet, Carth finally began to speak in a voice that sounded as if he were forcing it to be calm. "I can't hate you", he began. "I... I tried... I wanted to hold you responsible for all the things you've done: for my wife; for Telos; for Dustil." His voice paused and Carth lifted his eyes to now stare at part of the wall just above his head. "But I can't".

Only after Carth remained silent for a few seconds did Lar-bo risk making a reply. "Why can't you?" he asked in a voice that he tried to make sound patient.

With a sigh, Carth turned about and slowly stepped back towards the position where he stood when he first entered the cabin. Again, his eyes fell to stare at the deck plates. "I got the revenge I always wanted when Saul died, but it hasn't brought me the peace that I thought it would", he admitted with a low voice. Lar-bo could see the disappointment on Carth's face, the look of one who suddenly found that a long-awaited gift was not as fulfilling as was hoped. "That's why I can't hate you, why I don't want any more revenge."

Carth then stopped and turned his eyes finally towards Lar-bo Ginz. Looking him in the face, Carth continued in a more impassioned voice. "You... you don't have to be Revan. You can be so much more. Whatever the Jedi did to you, they gave you that chance!"

Lar-bo thought he heard a hint of resentment when Carth spoke of the Jedi. He knew that Carth viewed the Jedi as a valuable ally in the war against the Sith, but he also knew that Carth was slow to trust that which he did not understand. After hearing Darth Malak's revelation with his own ears and Bastila's panicked response, Lar-bo felt that Carth's respect for the Jedi had fallen considerably. But now, it seemed to Lar-bo Ginz that Carth was about to offer greater trust to the Jedi that had accompanied him on this insane adventure than he was to the rest of the Jedi Order, even if this was being done reluctantly.

"Whatever's happened up until this point, there's going to come a time very soon where you're going to have to make a choice", Carth continued. "And there won't be any turning back. I want you to make the right choice."

Lar-bo Ginz wondered if Carth could even begin to understand the doubt that gnawed at Lar-bo's soul. He was certain that if he could somehow place his distrust in himself atop the distrust that Carth had demonstrated moments earlier, the weight of Lar-bo's self-hatred would crush Carth's distrust instantly. Yes, the former Dark Lord was in check, but only for now. There was no guarantee that he wouldn't resurface at the most inconvenient of times, nor was there any reason to believe that Lar-bo Ginz could subdue the Dark Lord all by himself. In a voice that betrayed that doubt, he said, "And... and if I make the wrong choice?"

Carth's eyes were steady with conviction. "Well then, I hope I can save you. From yourself."

A tide of relief washed through his heart. If someone who had been betrayed as much as Carth Onasi could find it within himself to trust Lar-bo Ginz once more, perhaps he sensed a strength that Lar-bo Ginz did not. He felt a need to reciprocate somehow, to demonstrate that he realized the magnitude of risk Carth was making with this offer and to show how inspiring the offer was to him. Knowing no other way, Lar-bo Ginz removed his lightsaber from his belt, and held it out towards Carth hilt first. "I'll try my best not to let it come to that. Here. Hold onto this until we get to Korriban. It'll keep me from slicing another chunk of the bulkhead out."

Carth eyed the lightsaber, and for an instant, his arm twitched as if he intended to reach for it. But he stopped himself, and simply looked at the weapon and the hand that offered it to him. His eyes betrayed the flurry of arguments coursing through his brain. After a moment, he blinked, and looked back at Lar-bo Ginz. "Nah, you hold onto it", he said. "I'll probably bump it against something, turn it on, and slice my leg off, or worse. There are some things Jedi that only the Jedi ought to mess with." Carth fell silent for a moment. Then he added, "and there are some things out there that seem determined to hunt down and destroy Jedi. A Jedi should not face them unarmed." After a small pause, he looked towards the deck plates and added in a low voice that seemed to speak more to himself than to Lar-bo. "Or alone." He turned to leave. "Just keep that thing in check until we reach Korriban... which will be in about nine hours."

Lar-bo watched him in silence as he left and the cabin door slid closed behind him. Anything he could think to say sounded completely inadequate for the level of trust Carth Onasi was offering, so remaining silent seemed the best way to respect that offer. From Carth's words, Lar-bo felt a resurrected strength of his own will, and the shadowy figure in his mind's eye began to fade back into the mists of amnesia. If Carth could believe in him, so could he.

Nine hours, he thought. Enough time to begin the planning for the saving of the galaxy. He had done so before; he could do so again, now that he had the help and strength of his friends to help. This time, he knew the conflict would be different. The galaxy would not be saved through victories in battle. It would be saved through the salvation of souls and his not the least.