The Old Republic Series

by Sean Williams

  “This isn’t about him,” Canderous said. “It’s about me, isn’t it?”

  Veela bit down hard on her lip but didn’t answer.

  “I’m not here to claim the Mask for myself,” Canderous assured her. “You’re the rightful leader of Clan Ordo. I’m not here to challenge you.”

  “You still don’t get it,” Veela said, shaking her head. “You should be our leader, not me! You were our greatest warrior. You were our champion. Our hero. When Mandalore fell, you should have been the one to take his place!” She looked at him sadly. “Instead, you abandoned us. You abandoned me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Canderous said softly. “When our clan fell apart, I was lost. I had to get away. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You could have stayed and help piece it back together,” Veela insisted, her voice cracking slightly as she lowered the blaster in her hand.

  “Cin vhetin,” Canderous said. “I can’t undo the past. But I’m here now.”

  “That’s why I didn’t tell the others in the camp,” she admitted. “I didn’t want to destroy your reputation by telling them you fell in with Revan.”

  “You didn’t tell them because you’re afraid they would agree with me,” Canderous countered. “Revan is not our enemy. Not now. Without him, Clan Jendri would have slaughtered us. Without him, we would never have found Mandalore’s Mask. Revan has proved himself to be our brother; and what you are doing brings dishonor on our clan!”

  “No,” Veela insisted. “You’re wrong. Clan Ordo might accept a Jedi, but not him. Anyone but him.”

  “There’s only one way to be sure. We let the whole clan decide.”

  “That’s not an option,” Veela replied, raising her blaster back up. “Revan cannot leave this chamber alive.”

  “You know Revan’s reputation,” Canderous warned. “And mine. There may be six of you, but do you really think you have a chance against us both?”

  “We’re not here to kill you,” Veela told him. “Just him.”

  “And you expect me to stand by and do nothing?”

  “I expect you to join us!” Veela shouted. “You are Mandalorian! Clan Ordo is your family, not Revan. You have to choose: him or us.”

  “It doesn’t have to be this way,” Canderous said evenly. “Lower your weapons. End this madness. We’ll take Mandalore’s Mask back down to the camp together.”

  “This is your last chance, Canderous,” Veela said. “Choose!”

  Her hand was trembling, making it difficult for her to aim. But the other five held their blasters steady and true.

  “You can’t win this battle,” Revan said quietly, speaking more to the others than Veela.

  “We killed dozens of Jedi during the war,” Veela answered grimly.

  “I’m no ordinary Jedi.”

  “Veela,” Canderous pleaded, “please don’t do this.”

  Her shoulders slumped and she let out a sigh of resignation. “Kill them both.”

  Revan was in motion, his lightsaber flashing to life, before the words had finished spilling from her mouth. As Veela and two of the others—reacting slightly faster than the rest—fired their blasters, the green blade transformed into a spinning, twirling blur as he used it to deflect their bolts back in the direction of the shooters.

  One of the deflected bolts struck its mark, taking down the woman on Veela’s left. Canderous and Revan dived for cover behind the sarcophagus just as the other Mandalorians opened fire. Canderous popped up briefly to fire, sending the Mandalorians breaking for cover. There were precious few places to hide in the open chamber, however, and Canderous took two of them down before they made it to safety.

  Veela and the other two survivors scrambled back into the passage near the chamber entrance, ducking out of sight around the corner to regroup. A second later a trio of grenades skittered across the floor, bouncing and rolling to a stop near the base of the sarcophagus.

  The instant before they detonated, Revan reached out with the Force and hurled the heavy stone lid of the sarcophagus toward the grenades. It acted as a shield, absorbing the worst of the blast before exploding into pebbles and dust.

  The explosion was deafening, though; the concussive force strong enough to knock both Canderous and Revan off their feet. As Revan struggled to stand up, the only sound he could hear was a high-pitched ringing in his ears.

  Veela and her team seized the advantage and charged into the room, blaster pistols blazing. All three aimed at Revan, who just barely rolled clear in time.

  From the corner of his eye he saw Canderous lying on his stomach, arms stretched out in front of him to brace his pistol on the floor as he took careful aim. An instant later, Veela went down from a clean kill shot through her heart.

  Their attention drawn for just an instant by the body of their leader tumbling to the floor, the two remaining Mandalorians faltered. Revan used that moment to unleash a sidearm throw of his lightsaber. The blade went spinning out in a wide arcing path that ended both their lives before they could move.

  Revan adeptly caught his lightsaber by its hilt as it returned to his hand, then slowly stood up straight, his ears still ringing. Nearby, Canderous still lay on the floor, frozen in the same position he had been in moments earlier. Slowly, Revan approached him, trying to see if he was injured.

  The big man didn’t move until Revan reached down and placed a hand on his shoulder. Then Canderous snapped his head around in surprise. He mouthed something, but Revan couldn’t hear what he was saying, so he only shrugged in response.

  Canderous pushed himself up off his stomach and onto his feet, leaving his pistol on the ground. He walked over to where Veela lay facedown on the floor and rolled her over.

  Her eyes were wide, gazing unseeing up at the ceiling. Tenderly, he closed the lids, then folded her hands over her chest. Then he stood up straight and turned away, staring off into an empty corner of the chamber.

  After a few minutes, Revan went over to stand beside him.

  “I’m sorry.” His voice sounded strange to him. His hearing was still distorted by the grenade, and he wasn’t sure if Canderous had heard him. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, this time more loudly.

  Canderous turned his head to look at him. “Me, too,” he answered before turning to stare back at the wall, his words hollow and flat. “Me, too.”

  CHAPTER 14

  CANDEROUS CONTINUED TO STARE at the cavern wall while Revan stood by in respectful silence. Eventually he turned back to Revan and said, “We shouldn’t just leave them lying here like this. It’s disrespectful.”

  Revan nodded. The Mandalorians still lay where they had fallen, their bodies crumpled in unnatural positions.

  Together the two men gathered them up one by one and lay them down side by side in the center of the room. As he had done with Veela, Canderous closed their eyes and crossed their hands over their chests.

  If there had been any way to make a funeral pyre, Revan would have suggested they burn them in the Mandalorian custom. But with no fuel that wasn’t going to be possible.

  “What am I going to tell the others?” Canderous wondered once they were done arranging the bodies.

  Revan understood his dilemma. There would be a lot of questions when they returned alone with Mandalore’s Mask, and Canderous didn’t want to bring shame onto Veela’s name.

  “Keep it simple,” Revan suggested. “Say we ran into unexpected resistance from guardian droids programmed to protect the crypt. Tell them Veela and the others died in battle, and they fought like true warriors before they fell.”

  Canderous nodded, then slowly walked over to the sarcophagus. He took out Mandalore’s Mask, then, almost as an afterthought, picked up the datacron.

  “What’s this?” he asked, looking curiously at the small cube.

  “It’s a chronicle of the Sith Lord who was buried here,” Revan said. “I think Malak and I found it hidden in the tomb the last time we were here.”

  “Do you remember what�
�s on it?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Tell me.”

  Revan knew Canderous was hoping there would be something in the history that would help him understand why Veela had turned on him. From what Revan remembered of the story, it would offer little solace, but he wasn’t about to deny the request.

  “His name was Lord Dramath the Second. A thousand years ago his father, the original Lord Dramath, ruled over a planet called Medriaas. He was overthrown by another Sith named Lord Vitiate, who renamed the planet Nathema. With his father’s death, the younger Lord Dramath fled. He hid on Rekkiad with a handful of loyal followers, and when he died they buried him here with the datacron.”

  “So it has nothing to do with Mandalore or his Mask?” Canderous asked, shaking his head. “You just decided to hide it here, too?”

  Revan hesitated for a moment. “Actually, it has everything to do with Mandalore,” he said finally.

  Canderous had a right to know the truth, but first Revan had to put all the pieces back together for himself. Coming to the underground burial chamber had triggered the return of a host of lost memories. They had come to him in disconnected scraps and momentary flashes of insight. He needed time to process the information—to sort it into something that made some kind of sense.

  “Can we talk about this later?” was all he said.

  Canderous studied Revan’s face, seemed about to say something, but then nodded. “Let’s get some rest,” he suggested. “We can’t make it back down the mountain tonight, anyway. We can talk in the morning.”

  Spending the night exposed on the plateau’s surface wasn’t an option; not while they could stay underground in a geothermally heated cavern that was sheltered from the elements. They unrolled their sleeping bags near the edge of the chamber, as far away from Veela and the other bodies as possible. Sharing the room with six corpses was unpleasant, but it was better than freezing to death.

  Neither man slept well. Revan could hear Canderous tossing and turning. Once Revan thought he heard him whisper Veela’s name.

  Revan’s thoughts wouldn’t let him sleep, either. He had hoped finding Mandalore’s Mask would be a breakthrough, the key to unlocking all his lost memories. But the more he tried to reassemble the fragmented images swarming in his head, the more he realized how much was still missing. He had taken only a small step forward, and he suspected the journey was far from over.

  When sleep finally overcame him, he dreamed about the world of endless storms and perpetual night again. It seemed more vivid than before; more substantial. More real.

  He couldn’t say how long he slept; it was difficult to sense the passage of time in the chamber. When he woke he didn’t feel refreshed, but he knew it was pointless to try to go back to sleep.

  Canderous was already up, pacing slowly back and forth from one side of the chamber to the other, staring at the Mask he held in his hands.

  Revan stood up and stretched, working the kinks out of his neck and shoulders. “I’m ready to tell you what I remember about Mandalore,” he said. “If you still want to know.”

  “I do.”

  Taking one last breath to help gather his thoughts, Revan launched into the tale. “About two years before he declared war on the Republic, Mandalore was approached by a man with skin the color of blood—a Sith.”

  “I thought the Jedi wiped the Sith out.”

  “So did the Jedi. The Sith species vanished after the Great Hyperspace War. One of their kind hasn’t been seen in Republic space in over a thousand years. But this red-skinned being came to Mandalore. He claimed to be the emissary of a powerful Master—a descendant of the Sith Lord who had driven Dramath into exile—and convinced Mandalore to help him search for his enemy’s tomb.”

  Revan was speaking slowly, the words coming out only as fast as the details came into focus. His recollections were still hazy and jumbled. The original time and place of each specific memory was unclear. Mandalore had told him some of this. Other details had come from the datacron in the tomb. Most of it he had learned much later, after he and Malak had journeyed into the Unknown Regions themselves.

  It was impossible to sort it all out. Out of necessity, his damaged mind had collapsed his memories into one another, merging them into a semi-coherent whole as he’d slept.

  “Mandalore helped the Sith find Dramath’s hidden crypt,” he continued. “The Sith took the remains to give to his Master, and in exchange he told Mandalore of a vision his Master had had of the Mandalorians rising up against the Republic. He told him they would conquer world after world, crushing their enemies until the Republic collapsed in on itself. He promised the Mandalorians a glorious victory, and Mandalore believed him.”

  “Mandalore the Ultimate wouldn’t lead us into war against the Republic just because some stranger told him we’d win,” Canderous protested.

  “It’s more complicated than that. The Sith used the power of the dark side to manipulate him. Only as Mandalore lay dying at my feet was the spell finally broken and he realized he’d been tricked. That was why he told me about this place. So I could come and see for myself.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Canderous said. “You say the Sith tricked Mandalore into attacking the Republic. But why?”

  “I don’t know,” Revan admitted. “Maybe it was a test of your strength. Or ours. Maybe the Sith are planning another invasion, and they sought to weaken the Republic.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?”

  “I’m remembering more and more, but there’s still so much missing.” Revan paused before adding, “Maybe I’ll find the answers on Nathema.”

  “Nathema?”

  “The hyperspace coordinates are on the datacron. I think Malak and I went there to try to learn more.”

  “Is Nathema the world you keep dreaming about? The one covered in storms and darkness?” Canderous asked.

  Revan closed his eyes and concentrated, summoning the image that had haunted him for so many nights. He tried to associate the vision with the name, but somehow he knew it didn’t fit.

  “No. The planet in my dreams isn’t Nathema.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I can’t really be sure of anything,” Revan confessed. “But it just doesn’t feel right. I think … I think we went there after Nathema.”

  “And when you returned, you tried to conquer the Republic. Just like Mandalore.”

  Revan shook his head. “It’s not the same. Mandalore was a warrior, and he had no loyalty to the Republic. Convincing him to attack was more persuasion than domination. The Sith was only telling him what he wanted to hear; he was playing off Mandalore’s own hidden desires.

  “But Malak and I were Jedi. It would take more than some persuasive words and a subtle push from the Force to turn us to the dark side. Something else happened to us out there. We found something that changed us.”

  “You don’t think going to Nathema again is a little risky?” Canderous asked.

  “I have to,” Revan answered. “It’s the only way I’ll find out what happened.”

  “What if the same thing happens again?”

  “I’ll be more careful this time. My guard will be up.”

  “Do you think that’s going to make a difference?”

  “I hope so.”

  “So when do we leave?”

  “You’re not coming,” Revan said. “You have to stay here with your people.” He held up his hand to cut off any protests. “Veela was right about one thing—you should be the leader of the Mandalorians. The Mask is there, just waiting for you to claim it.”

  “You need my help,” Canderous insisted. “I turned my back on Veela when she needed me. I’m not going to make the same mistake with you.”

  “That’s why you have to stay,” Revan told him. “The Mandalorians were tricked into a war that nearly destroyed them. I don’t know who the Sith was or what he was after, but he knew you couldn’t win. He knew a war against the Republic would leave the Mandal
orians devastated.”

  “If the Sith are planning another invasion of the Republic, they’d have to come through Mandalorian space first,” Canderous muttered. “Maybe they were trying to get us out of the way.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe they wanted to twist your culture and beliefs in the hope you’d join them. Many of the Mandalorians are bitter, and hungry for revenge. Without a new Mandalore, how hard would it be for someone to manipulate them into going to war again?” Revan frowned. “Your people have lost their way, Canderous. You need to help them find it again. The fate of the galaxy could depend on it.”

  Canderous stared at Revan, and then down at the Mask in his hands. He stood stock-still for a moment. Then, slowly, he raised the Mask and slipped it over his head.

  “Mandalore has returned,” he declared. “I am Mandalore the Preserver, and I will restore the honor and glory of my people!”

  T3-M4 GREETED REVAN’S RETURN to the Ebon Hawk with a shrill stream of beeps and whistles. The astromech was spinning in place so rapidly that Revan feared he might burn out a circuit.

  “Settle down, little fella,” he said, reaching out to pat the droid. “I’m glad to see you, too.”

  T3 stopped spinning and responded with an inquisitive chirp.

  “Canderous is staying here,” Revan explained. “These are his people. This is where he belongs.”

  T3 beeped twice.

  “No, we’re not going home yet,” Revan said, settling into the pilot’s chair and punching in their hyperspace coordinates.

  “We’re headed into the Unknown Regions, to a planet called Nathema.”

  CHAPTER 15

  SCOURGE KNEW THAT Nyriss was watching him carefully. For the past week, ever since she had told him the truth about Xedrix, he had felt her presence constantly. He had promised not to act on his knowledge until he saw Nathema for himself, and he intended to keep that promise. He knew she didn’t trust him, and he knew she’d try to kill him if she felt threatened—and also that she was powerful enough to have a good chance of succeeding. But he had his own reasons for obeying. He was curious about what she had told him. He wanted to know more about the Emperor’s mysterious past. And if it turned out that Nyriss was telling the truth—if the Emperor really was mad enough to start another war with the Republic—then maybe Scourge should consider taking her side.