Star Wars_ The Old Republic_ Revan - Drew Karpyshyn [80]
Bastila swallowed hard, suddenly ashamed. “You have the same right,” she said. “You stood by Revan’s side at the beginning; he had no truer friend. Whatever Tee-Three has to say, we should hear it together.”
Meetra nodded her appreciation, but didn’t speak.
Taking a deep breath, Bastila sat down on the living room chair, facing her guests. She folded her hands in her lap, mentally bracing herself for what was to come.
“I’m ready,” she said.
In a series of beeps, chimes, and holorecordings T3 relayed his story. He began with Revan returning to the Ebon Hawk on Rekkiad. He told them how he and Revan had left Canderous behind and journeyed to Nathema alone. He described the unexpected attack on the Ebon Hawk and the near-fatal crash landing on Nathema’s surface.
He explained how he had checked on the unconscious Revan to make sure he was still alive, then been forced to hide when someone else boarded the ship.
When he played the holorecording he’d made of the red-skinned man who’d taken Revan off the ship, Bastila gasped.
“I guess the Sith aren’t as extinct as the Jedi thought,” Meetra said.
“The Order is wrong again,” Bastila muttered. “Big surprise.”
T3 let out a low whistle, apologizing for his cowardice, but Bastila shook her head.
“That wasn’t cowardice,” she told the little droid. “If you hadn’t hid, they’d have captured you, too. Or turned you into scrap.”
“The only way you could help Revan was by making it back in one piece,” Meetra added.
Mollified, T3 continued his story. He told them how Revan was taken onto a waiting shuttle and whisked away. With his master gone, returning to Bastila became the astromech’s primary purpose, as per her last-minute instructions before they’d left Coruscant.
The first step involved getting the Ebon Hawk airborne again. The droid described in detail his arduous efforts to repair the damage done by the crash. For months he scoured the streets of the deserted city, gathering scrap, salvage, and other necessary parts.
“And you never saw anyone during that time?” Meetra asked. “No refugees? No looters?”
T3 chirped out a confirmation.
Bastila blinked in surprise. “No animals? No insects? Not even any plants? How could the entire population of an entire world just be wiped out?”
Meetra shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and Bastila knew she was thinking back to her role in the massacre of Malachor V. She felt a sudden burst of empathy for the other woman. Bastila didn’t condone what she had done, but she understood what it was like to be ashamed of acts in your past. She herself had let Malak turn her to the dark side; only the power of Revan’s love had redeemed her.
Bastila sensed that despite all Meetra had done to stop Darth Traya, she was haunted by guilt and remorse. She was still looking for redemption.
Unaware of the awkward tension in the room, the droid continued his tale. After nearly a year he was finally able to get the Ebon Hawk airborne again, though its hyperdrive core was only operating at minimal efficiency. The Hawk limped back to Republic space; by the time it arrived, Traya and her followers had all but wiped out the Jedi. Bastila was gone; T3 didn’t know where to search for her, or whether she was even alive.
It was during this time that the little astromech droid stumbled across the disassembled pieces of HK-47, abandoned on a remote and nameless world. Recognizing his old companion, the little droid gathered up the pieces and stored them on the Ebon Hawk.
The chance encounter was the kind of coincidence that Bastila would have chalked up to the influence of the Force had T3 been an organic being.
“Do you have any idea how he got there?” she asked. “I always wondered what happened to him after he disappeared.”
Meetra shook her head, answering on behalf of the droid. “His memory core was damaged. Even after I repaired him, he was unable to recall anything. Actually,” she admitted, “I had hoped you might be able to tell me what had