Chapter 7: The First Battle
The bridge doors sighed open, and the three of them entered as a unit.
The effect was immediate. The low-grade professional chatter died. Across the wide deck, officers and crew straightened from their consoles, boots snapping together in a sharp, percussive ripple of sound that echoed off the high ceiling. They stood at attention, eyes forward, the air charged with a sudden, focused silence.
Revan didn’t break stride. He moved to the center of the space, his new armor absorbing the light from a hundred status screens. He raised a hand, a small, economical gesture. “As you were.”
The bridge exhaled, resuming its work, but the atmosphere had shifted. It was sharper now, a blade drawn from its sheath.
Meetra was already at the main holotable, her arms crossed over her chestplate. She gave Revan a tight nod, her eyes scanning his face, reading the fresh scars, the settled calm. No words were needed. She’d seen him step out of the shower looking human; now he was something else again.
Revan activated the fleet-wide channel. The holotable flickered to life, not with a star map, but with five shimmering blue icons. One by one, the faces of his commanders resolved above their ship sigils.
Kavar’s image was solid, his red beard a flash of color against the grey bulkhead of the Interdictor. “Interdictor standing by. All systems optimal. Grav-well projectors are primed and charged.” His voice was a deep, steady drumbeat. No emotion, just data.
Next, Ferus Olin. He looked strained, his aristocratic features tight, but his back was straight. “Valiant ready. Fighter complement is loaded and armed. We await your command.” The words were crisp, honor-bound.
Zayne Carrick’s signal was slightly grainy, his face smudged with what looked like engine grease. He offered a weak, hopeful smile. “Endar Spire is, uh, as ready as she’s gonna be. Transfers are complete. Got a few new stress fractures in the starboard hull from the Cathar evac, but the hyperdrive is holding. Mostly.” He shrugged, the gesture entirely him.
Jolee Bindo’s feed was the clearest, his cynical half-smile unmistakable. He was leaning back in his chair, boots up on some console. “Wanderer is in the black and feeling sneaky. Long-range sensors are dialed to maximum paranoia. We’ll see ‘em before they smell us.” No formality, just blunt readiness.
Revan acknowledged each with a slight tilt of his head. He turned finally to the helm, where the navigation officer waited, hands hovering over the levers. “All craft confirm coordinates.”
A chorus of affirmatives buzzed through the comm.
“Initiate the jump sequence. By ship groupings, on my mark.”
He paused, his gaze sweeping the bridge—the tense shoulders of the crew, Alek’s predatory stillness, Meetra’s watchful concern, Karath’s rigid anticipation. This was the moment the debating stopped. The moment the theory met the stars.
“Mark.”
At the nav officer’s console, a sequence of switches were thrown. A low, building whine permeated the deck, vibrating up through the bootsoles.
Outside the main viewport, the stars didn’t stretch. They snapped.
The nearest ships of the fleet—a wedge of Hammerhead cruisers—vanished. One instant they were there, silent sentinels against the black. The next, they were replaced by brilliant, shortening lines of blue light that lashed out and were gone. Then another group. And another. It was a silent, staggered explosion of potential energy becoming kinetic.
The Leviathan was the last. The whine peaked into a teeth-rattling shudder. The rusted hull groaned in protest. Then, with a final, stomach-dropping lurch, the static starfield was ripped away and replaced by the blinding, swirling tunnel of hyperspace.
A serene, surreal blue radiance washed over the bridge, painting every face in cool, endless light. The violent noise settled into the familiar, soothing hum of travel.
Revan stood before the viewport, hands clasped behind his back, watching the impossible physics stream past. In the hyperspace light, the bruises on his face looked like deep shadows, the new scar a stark line. He was a figure carved from the galaxy’s motion.
After a long minute, he turned. Alek and Meetra joined him at the holotable, which now displayed the Suolriep system in chilling detail. It was a backwater. A few mineral-rich planets, orbital refineries like gnats, and the pathetic, blinking icon of the Republic’s Third Flottila, holding position near the sixth planet—a gas giant called Suolriep Prime.
“The plan is straightforward,” Revan said, his voice low. He zoomed the display in on the flotilla. Four aging corvettes, a handful of gunships. “We drop out of hyperspace here, at the system’s trailing edge, beyond the range of their civilian sensor nets. Wanderer moves ahead, does a passive reconnaissance sweep. If the Mandalorians are already there, chewing on the bait, we hit them with everything, from their blind side.”
“And if they’re not?” Meetra asked, her finger tracing a line to the barren fourth planet. “Intel says their raiding patterns are random. We could be sitting in the dark for weeks. Those corvettes can’t maintain a defensive screen that long. Morale will crater.”
Alek leaned on the table, making it creak. “So we don’t sit. If the Mando’ade aren’t here, we find a different piece of bait. Something juicier. Let them react to us for a change.”
“That scatters the fleet,” Meetra countered. “And violates the core objective. We’re here to protect this corridor, not start a wild bantha chase.”
“We’re here to win,” Alek shot back, his voice gaining an edge.
Revan watched the debate, his expression unreadable. He was listening, but his mind was already several moves ahead, weighing variables. “Meetra’s right about morale. Alek’s right about initiative.” He looked at them both. “We wait. But not passively. We use the time. Kavar will run continuous tactical simulations against every Mandalorian fleet signature we have on file. Ferus and Zayne will drill their fighter wings until they can fly the patterns in their sleep. We stay sharp. We stay hungry.”
He made a subtle adjustment to the hologram, pulling the point of view back until the entire system was a tiny, insignificant jewel in the vast dark. “The Third Flottila holds. They’re professionals. They’ll understand the wait. And when the enemy does come…” He let the sentence hang, the implication clear in the cold blue light reflecting in his eyes.
The hours in hyperspace passed with a strange, pressurized quality. The bridge crew worked in shifts, but the command staff remained, a persistent nucleus of tension. Revan retreated to his quarters once, for twenty minutes of motionless meditation that wasn’t quite sleep. He returned looking no more rested, but somehow more concentrated, like light focused through a lens.
The alert came from Jolee, his voice crackling over the dedicated command channel without any preamble, just as the Leviathan’s chrono marked the final hour to reversion.
“Revan. Got a ping. Not the main course, but… an appetizer.”
On the bridge holotable, Jolee’s sensor data fed through. Near Suolriep’s fourth planet, a lone signature was moving fast. It was small, a light corvette or a heavy gunship, its transponder code a dead, Republic civilian marker. But its engine output and power curve were all wrong. It was running too hot, too clean.
“Mandalorian raider,” Kavar said from his hologram icon, his voice certain. “A probe. They’re here. Scouting the bait.”
Alek cracked his knuckles. “So they took it.”
“Not yet,” Revan said, his eyes fixed on the lone blip. “That’s a scout. The main force is hanging back, watching to see if the flotilla reacts, if there are hidden reinforcements. They’re being careful.” A cold smile touched his lips. “Good. We can use careful.”
He turned to Karath. “Alter our reversion coordinates. Bring us in between that scout and the likely approach vector from the Outer Rim. I want to be the surprise behind the surprise.”
Karath’s fingers flew across his console. “Altering jump solution. Fifty-seven seconds to reversion.”
The bridge grew utterly silent, save for the hum of hyperspace and the rapid, whispered confirmations from the fleet’s other captains as they received the updated orders.
Revan stood at the viewport again, watching the blue streams. In the reflection, he saw Alek grinning, a feral show of teeth. He saw Meetra close her eyes, drawing in a steadying breath, her hand resting on her lightsaber. He saw his own face, armored and remote.
The moment stretched, thin and tight.
The navigation officer’s voice cut through, calm and clear. “Reverting to realspace in three… two… one.”
The blue tunnel collapsed.
The shudder was violent, a bone-deep concussion as the universe slammed back into its normal shape. The viewport filled with stark, unmoving stars and the dull, orange marble of Suolriep Prime, hanging in the distance.
And there, directly between them and the planet, was the scout ship—a sleek, predatory Mandalorian Jackal-class raider, its hull painted in savage red and grey marks. It was already banking hard, its engines flaring in panic as the monstrous form of the Leviathan and the sudden, terrifying wall of a Republic battle fleet materialized out of nowhere behind it.
On the raider’s tail, visible now on enhanced scanners, was the tiny, brave, and utterly exposed formation of the Third Flottila, just beginning to turn toward the new contact.
The trap was set. But they were no longer the only hunters in the dark.
“All ships,” Revan said, his voice carrying across the suddenly bustling bridge, calm and absolute. “Weapons free. Engage.”
A beat of pure, silent vacuum followed his command.Then the Leviathan shuddered.
Across the fleet’s dorsal surfaces, cannons swiveled with a hydraulic whine.They found their target.And they spoke.
Streaks of brilliant green light streamed from the turrets towards the small raider. It was a storm of deadly emerald, cutting through the dark.The Jackal-class ship didn’t freeze.It danced. Its engines screamed, bleeding orange light as it dodged and weaved, snaking through the bolts of energy.Some missed by mere millimetres, their heat distorting its shimmering shields.
It wasn’t long before it started returning fire. Its own red bolts lanced out, a stunning, violent contrast to the fleet’s green. They splashed against the Leviathan’s forward deflectors in fiery starbursts.The bridge lights flickered once from the impact.
Revan stood perfectly still amidst the chaotic symphony of the pit. He reached out past the metal, past the void, seeking the crew inside that dancing speck. He expected the sharp, metallic taste of fear, the acrid burn of terror, the numbing fog of panic.He found none of it. Instead, a unified, unwavering sense of calm and collection resonated back to him. It was a disciplined, almost serene focus. Credit where credit was due, Revan had to admit that the crew of the craft were quite skilled.“They’re good,” Alek muttered, watching the display with grudging respect. “Wasting our time, but good.”
The Mandalorian pilot pushed their ship to its absolute limit, forcing a spiraling evasive pattern that made targeting a nightmare. But they were one against many.The sheer volume of fire became a net. Then a single, well-placed laser bolt from the Valiant’s point-defense battery caught their left-most thruster during an overextended spin.The engine module exploded in a silent, but brilliant shower of sparks and flame.
The raider’s graceful evasion ended. Its speed began to slow drastically, the ship listing to starboard as it fought the asymmetric thrust.
“Leviathan pit,” Revan said, his voice cutting through the tactical chatter.“Activate the primary tractor beam.Gently. I want their hull intact.”
A visible beam of shimmering blue energy lanced from the flagship’s bow. It gripped the wounded raider like a hand of light. The Mandalorian ship jerked, its engines flaring in a final, futile protest before being completely subdued. It was pulled, helpless, towards the glowing maw of the Leviathan’s main docking bay.
As the raider was swallowed by the shadow of his ship, Revan allowed a thin, cold grin to spread across his face. They had caught their fish.Now they needed to see what bait it carried.
“Meetra, Alek, with me,” he said, already moving towards the bridge doors. “Karath, you have the bridge.Hold position here, relative to the flotilla. If that scout missed a scheduled check-in, their main force might come looking sooner rather than later.”
The docking bay was a cavern of noise and frantic energy. The Mandalorian raider sat skewed on its landing struts, steam and smoke curling from its blasted engine. A cordon of Republic troopers in fresh plastoid armor formed a wide, nervous perimeter, rifles trained on the crumpled hatch. The air stank of burnt wiring and lubricant.
Revan strode through the corridor they made, Alek a looming shadow at his right, Meetra a step behind his left. The blue flame of his lightsaber erupted with a sharp snap-hiss, casting their elongated, dancing shadows against the bay walls. Alek’s blade followed, a brighter, standard blue. Meetra’s cyan light was the last, its hum a steadier, more melodic note.
The raider’s hatch was sealed tight, dented from the tractor beam’s grip.“They won’t open it,” Alek growled.
“They don’t have to,” Revan said.
He extended his free hand towards the hatch, fingers curling inwards.A deep, wrenching groan of metal tore through the bay. The seam around the door glowed orange, then white. With a final, deafening shriek, the entire hatch assembly was ripped inward, clattering across the raider’s dark interior deck.
Silence poured out.Then the red bolts came.
Two Mandalorians in battered, grey-stained armor fired from the gloom of a short corridor.Their blasterfire was precise, aimed. Revan deflected the first bolt into the high ceiling. Alek took the second on his blade and sent it slamming back into the shooter’s chest plate, throwing him against a bulkhead with a crack.
Revan was moving before the first body hit the ground. He moved like water through the doorway, his blue blade a blur.A third warrior lunged from a side compartment with a vibro-axe humming. Revan didn’t parry. He sidestepped, his lightsaber drawing a clean, diagonal line upward through the axe’s haft, through the armor, and through the man beneath it.The interior was a tight, utilitarian warren of corridors and compartments. Alarms blinked a silent, useless red.Smoke hung in layers.
“Clear the forward hold!” Meetra called to the troopers now rushing in behind them.Her voice was calm, a point of stability in the chaos. She pivoted, her cyan blade intercepting a shot from a crouched figure in an engine-access nook, the bolt neatly redirected into a control panel that exploded in sparks.
Alek fought like a force of nature further in, his powerful form barely fitting in the narrow hall. He used his bulk and his aggression as a weapon, shoving through a defensive position, his lightsaber a hammer breaking through a desperate guard. He didn’t speak, just breathed in heavy, satisfied grunts with each impactful swing.Revan reached the cockpit.The door was sealed. He placed his palm on the cool metal, feeling the vibration of the dying ship, feeling the two life forms pulsing with defiant resolve on the other side.
“Don’t bother,” Alek said, coming up behind him, his blade dripping melted plastoid onto the deck. “Just cut through.”
“They’re not afraid,” Revan said quietly, his forehead almost touching the door. “They’re waiting.” He reached out again with his mind, past their disciplined calm. He touched not fear, but a grim, fatalistic determination.And beneath that, a thread of… satisfaction.He stepped back. “Blast it.”
Two troopers leveled their rifles. Concussive pulses blew the locking mechanism apart in a shower of fragmented metal.The cockpit was small, illuminated by the soft glow of shattered instruments. Two Mandalorians stood before the dead viewscreen. One, a heavy-set warrior with a helmet crested with crude hash marks, held a battered blaster pistol aimed squarely at Revan’s face. The other, slimmer, held nothing, hands resting on the back of the pilot’s chair.The pistol didn’t waver. “Revan,” the lead warrior said, his voice distorted by his helmet’s modulator.It was a statement, not a question.
“You have information,” Revan said, his lightsaber held low and steady, its light painting the Mandalorian armor in cold shades.“The location of your main fleet. Their target.”
The warrior gave a short, static-filled laugh.“Our information is delivered. You just don’t know it yet.” His finger tightened on the trigger.Revan was faster. A subtle twitch of his hand.The Force shoved the pistol upward as it fired, the bolt scarring the ceiling. In the same motion, Revan’s lightsaber left his hand, spinning horizontally across the cramped space. It cleanly sheared through the pistol, the warrior’s hand at the wrist, and buried itself with a thunk in the console between the two Mandalorians.
The warrior stared at his cauterized stump, then at Revan.He made no sound.
The slimmer one, who had not moved, finally spoke.Her voice was lighter, unmodulated, tired. “You think this is the war.It is not. You are digging your grave with your own blade, Jedi.”
“Where is your fleet?” Meetra asked from the doorway, her tone firm but not unkind.The female Mandalorian turned her helmet towards Meetra.“Everywhere. And nowhere.You fight the symptoms. The disease is already in your blood.” She looked back at Revan.“They call you the Revanchist.A good name. You are a ghost fighting for ghosts.The Republic you remember is already dead.”
Alek moved forward, his patience gone. “Enough philosophy.” He raised his blade towards the uninjured one. “Talk.”
Before he could take another step, the female Mandalorian’s hand snapped up from the chair. She wasn’t holding a weapon. She was holding a small, silver detonator, her thumb resting on the activation stud.“Our mission is complete.Our duty is done. We do not yield.”
Revan felt it then—the sharp, decisive shift in her resolve. It wasn’t rage.It was a final, orderly click into place. “Alek, down!” he barked, yanking backwards with the Force.The female Mandalorian slammed her thumb down. The male one, clutching his wrist, stood straighter, facing them.
The explosion was contained, brutal, and terribly efficient.It wasn’t meant to destroy the ship. It was meant to erase the cockpit and everyone in it. A bloom of flame and concussive force erupted outward, swallowing the two warriors instantly.Revan’s precognitive pull and a hastily erected Force barrier saved them. The barrier took the blinding flash and the worst of the shrapnel, buckling under the pressure but holding just long enough.The shockwave still threw them all backward into the corridor. Alarms that had been silent began a new, urgent wail.Smoke billowed from the shattered cockpit. The air reeked of ionized metal, scorched flesh, and something bitter and acidic.
Revan climbed to his feet, his ears ringing. Alek was already up, cursing, wiping soot from his face.Meetra helped a dazed trooper stand.
“Fanatics,” Alek spat, glaring at the burning hole.
“No,” Revan said, his voice quiet amid the new noise.He walked slowly back to the cockpit’s jagged edge. Nothing remained of the Mandalorians but black smears on twisted metal. His lightsaber, half-melted into the console, sputtered and died.He stared at the wreckage, the words echoing. You are digging your grave with your own blade.
“They weren’t just scouting the flotilla,” Meetra said, joining him, her face pale.“They were scouting us. They let themselves be caught. They wanted to confirm we were here.”
A cold realization settled in Revan’s gut, colder than the Cathar mountain air. The Mandalorians hadn’t taken the bait.They had studied the trap itself.They had seen the hammer.
And now they knew exactly where it was.A shout came from a trooper down the corridor.“Sir! We found something in the aft compartment! It’s… it’s not theirs.”
Revan exchanged a look with Meetra and Alek. They moved past the cockpit, deeper into the ship’s belly.In a small, reinforced storage locker, a trooper stood holding a sealed container. It was a sleek, unmarked durasteel case, utterly unlike the rough Mandalorian gear surrounding it.It bore a simple biometric lock.
“It was magnetized to the deck under a false panel,” the trooper said.Revan took the case. He placed his thumb on the lock, not expecting anything.A green light scanned his print.There was a soft click. The trooper flinched, but Revan opened the lid.
Inside, nestled in black foam, was a single lightsaber.Its hilt was elegant, crafted from polished bronzium, its design utterly unfamiliar. It was neither Jedi nor Mandalorian.Beside it lay a data chip.
“What in the hells is that?” Alek breathed.Revan picked up the chip. It felt innocuous, final.This was the message.This was what they died to deliver. He closed the case, his mind racing, the acidic smell of the explosion clinging to his armor. The female Mandalorian’s voice whispered in his memory.Our mission is complete.
“They weren’t the fish,” Revan said, the cold in his gut spreading.“They were the fishermen. And we just took their package.” He looked at the others, the momentum of the short, brutal fight curdling into something darker and more uncertain.“Get this to the Leviathan’s analysis lab.Now. And tell Karath to ready the fleet. The waiting is over.”