Chapter 6: General Revan
Revan’s new quarters were a vault. Three times the size of his cabin on the Endar Spire, they held a wide berth of desk terminals, a strategic holotable buzzing with low power, and a viewport that looked out not into open space, but into the ordered chaos of the Leviathan’s primary starboard hangar bay. The movement of technicians and fighters was a silent ballet behind transparisteel.
Admiral Karath stood just inside the door, his posture so rigid it seemed part of the ship’s superstructure. “All codes have been keyed to your biometrics, General. You have full systems access. Is there anything else you require?”
Revan placed his lightsaber on the desk with a soft click. He didn’t sit. “The civilians we extracted from Cathar, and the refugees already aboard the Spire. They’re not soldiers. They don’t belong on a warship.” He turned, his eyes meeting Karath’s. “I want them transferred down to Dantooine. Full humanitarian protocols. Coordinates for the agricultural settlements in the Norak Valley. They’ll be safe there.”
Karath’s sharp nod was a thing of precise angles. “An orderly transition. I’ll oversee it personally.”
“See that you do.”
With another clipped bow of his head, Karath left. The door sealed with a pressurized sigh, leaving Revan in a silence so profound he could hear the faint, tectonic groan of the flagship’s hull.
He walked a slow circuit. The space smelled of sterile cleaners and new upholstery, devoid of any history. It was a room waiting for a ghost to inhabit it. He ran a hand over the cool surface of the holotable, his own blurred reflection looking back from its dark face.
The bathroom was all gleaming steel and white tile. He grabbed a thick, grey towel from a heated rack and laid it on the sink. He turned the shower dial. Water roared in the pipes, then cascaded from the overhead nozzle in a steaming torrent.
He unclipped his lightsaber from his belt—the familiar weight, the cool metal housing worn smooth in places from his grip. He turned it over in his hands. A tool of peace. A weapon of war. On Cathar, it had been a pry bar, a lever, a beacon. It had cut through binders and battle armor with the same decisive hum. The line between those uses felt thinner now, blurred like the steam beginning to fog the mirror.
He stripped, leaving the pile of clothes where they fell, caked in the fine, red dust of Cathar and stained with sweat and engine grease. He stepped under the water.
It hit him like a physical revelation. The pressure was brutal, perfect, needling into knotted muscles across his shoulders and back. He braced his hands against the wall, head bowed, as the water sluiced in sheets over his skull and down his spine. The grime pooled at his feet in a rust-colored swirl before vanishing down the drain. He watched it go, the evidence of the mountain, of the fight, of the choice.
He washed methodically, scrubbing his scalp until it tingled, soaping away every last gritty trace. The heat loosened something deep in his chest, a tension he hadn’t fully acknowledged. It wasn’t comfort. It was a tactical recalibration. The external contaminants were being removed. The internal ones, the questions, the vivid memory of the Chancellor’s hologram superimposed over three hundred warships—those remained.
He finished rinsing and just stood there, leaning his back against the cool steel wall. The contrast was sharp: scalding water on his front, unyielding chill on his back. A suspended moment between one state and another.
Finally, he twisted the dial. The roar ceased, replaced by the drip of water from his body and the distant, ever-present ventilator sigh of the ship. He stepped out, the air cool on his skin, and toweled off roughly.
The mirror was still fogged at the edges. At its center, cleared by a swipe of his hand, his own face looked back. It was the face from the Jedi archives—sharp, intelligent, aristocratic. But beneath the surface, new data had been etched. A purpling bruise spread from his temple down his cheekbone. A fresh, thin scar bisected his eyebrow, courtesy of a Mandalorian vibroknife that had come too close. His eyes held none of the scholarly distance they once had. They assessed, calculated, judged the reflection as if it were a piece on the holotable.
He had come a long way in the last few days.
In the wardrobe recess, he found what he’d suspected Karath would provide. Not Jedi robes. Armoured robes. A layered combination of tough, black synth-leather and plated armorweave, dark grey and serious. The pauldrons and chestplate were forged from lightweight durasteel alloy, matte and unadorned. The garment of a general, not a monk.
He pulled them on. The internal climate regulators whirred to life against his skin. He fastened the clasps, adjusted the fit. It was heavier than his old robes, a deliberate, distributed weight. He shrugged his shoulders, rolled his neck. The armor settled snugly, comfortably, like a second skin that was harder than his first.
He grunted, a low sound of satisfaction. It was the right weight. The necessary weight.
He clipped his lightsaber to the new, heavy-duty belt, the motion now instinctively martial. He did not look back at the room. He had calibrated. The ghost had inhabited the vault.
The journey back to the bridge was a study in changing atmosphere. The cavernous hangar bay, now buzzing with the organized transfer of refugees onto shuttles. The turbo-lift ride, shared with two junior officers who fell silent and stiff in his presence. The final corridor, where the quality of light and sound sharpened, focusing toward the nerve center.
The great doors parted.
The bridge was no longer a stunned, silent cathedral. It was a living engine. Kavar and Ferus were bent over a tactical holo with a group of naval strategists, their voices a low, urgent murmur. Zayne was at a comms station, nodding along to some report, looking slightly overwhelmed but wired. Meetra stood off to the side, speaking quietly with a grim-faced deck officer, her hand on his forearm in a gesture of grounded reassurance. Alek was already there, looming near the main viewport, cracking his knuckles as he stared out at the fleet, a hungry smile playing on his lips. Jolee leaned against a support column, arms crossed, observing everything with a look of detached, cynical amusement.
They all turned as he entered. The hum of activity didn’t stop, but it dipped, reorienting toward him like a magnetic field finding true north.
Revan walked to the center of the deck, his new boots silent on the floor. He met each of their gazes in turn—Kavar’s analytical cool, Ferus’s questing honor, Zayne’s hopeful anxiety, Meetra’s weary vigilance, Alek’s fierce approval, Jolee’s wary watchfulness.
He didn’t offer a speech. The fleet outside was the speech.
Instead, he tilted his head toward the flickering star map where Kavar stood. “Status.”
Kavar straightened, his voice cutting cleanly through the background noise. “Refugee transfer is at forty percent and proceeding smoothly. Admiral Karath reports no issues. Initial tactical data from Outer Rim listening posts is streaming in. It’s… not good. Mandalorian advance fleets are hitting the Perinian Sector. Light resistance. They’re sweeping through like a scythe.”
“Where’s the main thrust?” Revan asked, his eyes already on the map, hands moving to manipulate the holographic display. Stars and vectors rearranged themselves at his touch.
“Unclear. Their movement is patternless. Psychotic. They hit a target, loot or raze it, then vanish before a counter-strike can be organized.”
“It’s not psychotic,” Revan said, his voice low. A few officers nearby paused to listen. “It’s predation. They’re testing reflexes. Looking for the softest belly.” He zoomed the map in on a sparsely defended cluster of agricultural and mining worlds. “Here. The Suolriep Corridor. It’s a backdoor into the Core. Defended by what?”
A young lieutenant at a sensor console answered, her voice tight. “Planetary militias, General. A single, aging Republic patrol group, the Third Flottila. Mostly corvettes. No capital ships.”
Alek snorted. “Bait.”
“Yes,” Revan said, his focus absolute. The cuts on his face looked like tactical markings under the hologram’s light. “But bait for the old Republic. For a Senate that debates while systems burn.” He straightened, his gaze sweeping his council. “We are not the old Republic.”
He looked at Karath, who had just re-entered the bridge and stood waiting. “Admiral. Plot a micro-jump rally point at the edge of the Suolriep system. Silent running. I want the entire fleet ready to translate in ten hours.”
Karath didn’t question. He barked, “Navigation! You heard the General. Plot the coordinates.”
A frenzy of quiet orders spread through the bridge.
Revan turned back to his friends, his comrades, his commanders. “They’re looking for a weak spot to drive a spear. So we’ll give them one. A single, tempting, aging flotilla.” He paused, letting the plan crystallize in the space between them. “And when they close their jaws on it, we’ll be the hammer that shatters every tooth in their head.”
Alek’s hungry smile widened into a grin. Meetra closed her eyes for a brief second, a flicker of pain for the inevitable cost, then opened them with renewed resolve. Kavar was already running calculations on his datapad.
Zayne cleared his throat. “And the… the Third Flottila? The militias?”
Revan’s expression didn’t change. The cold, tactical genius was fully ascendant, the scholar buried under armor and necessity. “They signed up to defend the Republic,” he said, the words leaving no room for debate. “Tomorrow, they get to.”
The bridge’s focused energy slowly dissipated into the more mundane rhythms of preparation. Meetra left to check on the refugee transfers, her expression still tight. Kavar and Ferus retreated to the tactical archives, debating the ethical weight of using the Third Flottila as live bait. Zayne followed, looking like he needed to hear the argument.
As the three were preparing to depart, Revan retired to his quarters to rest.
The door sealed behind him, muting the ship’s constant heartbeat to a faint thrum. He walked across the room, the weight of the armor suddenly feeling less like power and more like a carried load. He collapsed into a chair, a heavy piece of furniture bolted to the deck.
He admired the way the low, ambient light reflected off his new shoulder plates, casting sharp highlights on the matte grey. It was a good design. Functional. Uncompromising.
“T3,” he called out, his voice sounding too loud in the quiet. “Bring me a drink.”
The small, barrel-shaped astromech unit whirred from its charging alcove. It chirped a query. “Something local. From Dantooine. Something… red.”
The droid whizzed to a discreet conservator unit and returned a moment later, a delicate stemmed glass held in its manipulator claw. It contained a measure of deep crimson liquid. Revan took it, nodding his thanks. He sipped it slowly.
He sighed in quiet pleasure as the warmth of the red liquid flowed down his throat and seeped into his bones. It was fruity, robust, with an earthy finish that spoke of sun-baked vineyards. It tasted like a planet, not a ration pack. He kicked his feet up on the edge of the holotable and lounged back in the chair, closing his eyes, sipping his wine.
For a while, there was only the taste, the warmth, and the memory of Cathar’s dust, now washed away.
Half an hour later, the door slid open again. It was Alek.
He leaned against the frame for a minute, studying Revan’s reclined form, the glass in his hand, the unusual slackness in his posture. He walked in and sat heavily in the chair opposite, the furniture groaning under his mass. Without a word, he tossed a worn deck of cards onto the table between them.
The plasticene cards slid with a familiar whisper.
Revan cracked an eye open and raised an eyebrow at the cards. “Sabacc?” His voice was laced with amusement. They hadn’t played since they were padawans, hiding in the Temple’s sub-levels to avoid their masters.
Revan had always beaten Alek, and it seemed he was up for a rematch.
“What, you scared?” Alek grunted, already shuffling with thick, surprisingly deft fingers. “Figured you could use a reminder of humility. Fleet’s gone to your head already.”
A small, genuine smile touched Revan’s lips. He set his wineglass down and leaned forward, gathering the deck for his cut. “Credits?”
“Credits are boring. Loser takes the first boarding action against the Mandalorian flagship. Whenever we find it.”
“Deal.”
They began to play. The silence that followed was comfortable, broken only by the snap of cards on the table and the subtle hum of the ship. Alek had improved, Revan had to give him that. His bets were more aggressive, his bluffs harder to read. He’d clearly been practicing.
But he was up against a master who had been honing his skills for years in strategy sims and tactical probability games. Revan saw the patterns in the random shuffles, calculated the odds of every draw with unconscious speed.
After a few hands, mostly split, Revan raised the stakes, pushing a small data chip containing a month’s naval officer pay into the center. He smirked at his friend, and played down his cards.
“Two sylops.” The cards glowed faintly on the table, a perfect, unbeatable combination. “Pure.”
Alek stared. He tossed his own cards—a respectable, losing hand—onto the table and rubbed his forehead in disbelief. “Sithspit. Not even close.”
Revan chuckled, a low, warm sound that felt foreign even to him, and reached over to clap him on the back. “You forced me to reveal it. That’s something.”
“It’s kriffing infuriating is what it is.” Alek scowled, but there was no real heat in it. He gathered the cards, shuffling again. “Another? I want a chance to win my pride back.”
It was good to relive their childhood, if only for these few, stolen minutes. The universe outside the door narrowed to the deck, the bet, the familiar rivalry.
A minute later, Karath’s crisp, disembodied voice came over the intercom, shattering the moment. “General. Lord Alek. All squadron commanders report ready. Fleet is at final readiness for the micro-jump. Your presence is required on the bridge.”
They were ready to depart.
The easy warmth vanished from Revan’s face, siphoned away into the ship’s ventilation. He stood, his movements once again efficient, calibrated. He drained the last of the Dantooine red, the earthy taste now just fuel.
Alek stood too, stretching his massive shoulders until a joint popped. The playful challenger was gone, replaced by the eager weapon. “Time to go shatter some teeth,” he said, echoing Revan’s words from the bridge.
Revan nodded, his hand brushing the cool metal of his lightsaber. The game was over. The real hand was about to be dealt. He led the way out, the door sliding shut behind them on the empty glasses and abandoned cards.