Star Wars_ The Old Republic_ Revan - Drew Karpyshyn [83]
At first she assumed some similar tragedy had occurred on Nathema; a superweapon capable of snuffing out an entire planet would leave a blanketing echo of death and darkness. As the Ebon Hawk descended through the atmosphere, however, she realized this sensation was markedly different.
It took her a few seconds to put her finger on it, her mind analyzing the problem even as her hands automatically made the necessary adjustments to bring the ship in for a landing near the coordinates T3 had given her.
The events of Malachor had left a mark on the Force; a wound that would not heal. Here, however, the Force was simply … gone. It was as if someone had ripped it away, leaving only an empty void behind.
Her discomfort grew as the ship drew closer to the surface. This world was unnatural, and her body’s instinctive reaction was one of illness and revulsion. She glanced over at T3 hovering anxiously near her in the cockpit, but the droid seemed unaffected. His lack of reaction merely reinforced the nature of her own suffering; as a droid, T3 could not sense the Force, and he wouldn’t notice if it was suddenly missing.
Through the cockpit window Meetra saw a path of destruction winding its way through the city below: the remnants of Revan’s crash landing. A massive chunk of permacrete had been smashed loose from a skyscraper passing by on the ship’s starboard side. The pavement of the street and sidewalk below had been torn up when the vessel had skipped and skidded down the thoroughfare. The mangled remnants of hovercars and speeders traced an irregular line down the street, the smaller vehicles crushed by the passage of the far more massive starship.
Meetra selected her landing spot and set the ship down carefully. The oppressiveness of the Void was bearing down on her, but she did her best to ignore it.
“Come on, Tee-Three,” she said, unbuckling herself from the pilot’s chair. “Let’s take a look around and see what we can find.”
As she stepped off the shuttle she felt like she had been punched in the gut; she doubled over, and T3 beeped in concern.
“I’m okay,” she gasped, slowly straightening up.
She had visited Malachor V years after the cataclysm of the mass-shadow generator. Traversing its surface had been agony. Mentally, she had still sensed the anguish of all who had lost their lives there. Physically, the intense gravity of the world had held her in its crushing grip, leaving her gasping for breath. It had been the most awful and horrific experience of her life … until now.
On Malachor she’d felt the echoes of unimaginable pain and suffering—but at least she’d felt something. Here on Nathema, there was only a cold emptiness. It was unnatural; abhorrent. On Malachor she had felt the echo of great destruction; here there was only the unbearable void of annihilation.
Her body reacted with a revulsion so strong she felt physically ill. Her mind briefly tried to imagine what had happened to cause such an abomination, then recoiled from the answers. Her mind went blank and her body numb.
She stood motionless for several minutes, or maybe it was several hours; time had no meaning here. But the incessant squawking of T3 eventually roused her from her stupor.
Drawing on the mental focusing techniques she had learned as a Padawan, she forced herself to concentrate on something—anything—besides the inescapable nonpresence of the Force.
You’ve come here to find Revan, she thought. There has to be some clue as to where the Sith might have taken him.
“We need to find some kind of archive,” she said out loud. “Something that can tell us more about this world.”
Her voice sounded hollow and washed out, but it was just one more unsettling detail of Nathema that she refused to dwell on.
The lights on T3 blinked