[Fic] Vremya, Opyat' ("Time, Again")

[Tysyacha]

(Author's Note: Installment 5 in the "Vremya" series. Enjoy!!!)

 

When I had finally finished shivering and waiting long enough for my Jedi composure to return, I found Rodion lounging in the pilot's seat, smirking at me with a wicked half-grin and a twinkle in his dark eyes. He cocked his head.

 

"Did the holocron inform us of our new destination, or shall we have to resort to mere mortal methods, such as viewing the tourist guides you mentioned?"

 

I returned his smirk. "For your information, Mandalorian, holocrons are not always so overt when telling us their hidden secrets. It seems it's up to us to figure out where we're going next, and the Jedi say learning to solve your own problems is half the battle. Of course, the Force helps, but it doesn't do everything." Not that it can't, I mused, but it seeks to guide, not to control. The latter was Kreia's theory--only time will tell if she's right...

 

Rodion brushed his chin with his fingers, thinking. "If you were Revan, where would you go before you flew into the Unknown Regions? For that matter, if I were Revan, what would stop me from trying to preserve myself and giving up on the whole quest--this 'true Sith' thing? What if I decided it was all a hoax, or else a fairy tale cooked up by superstitious people? I never served with him in the Mandalorian Wars--they were a little bit before my time--but I've heard the rumors. He turned to the Light Side, they say, but there's a fine line between self-sacrifice and stupidity. Heroics are fine, but not if they get both you and the one that you're trying to save killed. It's a suicide mission, I think. We should go somewhere and hide--settle down."

 

I nodded. "I'm inclined to think you're right. However, you're only half-so." A second chill ran down my spine. "I agree with you that Revan would think very carefully about going into the Unknown Regions without being fairly sure that the True Sith existed. On the second point--that he would give up the quest as a hoax--I disagree with you. I think he's gone beyond our reach, and our only hope of finding him is perhaps to revisit some of the planets to which he traveled. Tatooine might be a good start. It'll allow us to reap the fruits of physical labor again to fix up the Hawk even further."

 

"Agreed. I'll set a course for Tatooine, then, even though it'll take us a matter of days instead of hours to get there. Are you sure you want to?" After I gave him a signal that meant 'go ahead', we sprang forward into hyperspace, the vortex of speed consuming us and our ship for a moment.

 

My eyes instinctively flicked to my chrono. Hyperspace travel did strange things to time, warping it, making it ebb and flow like the tides of the ocean on Manaan. It did so naturally on its own, of course, but this jolt of ours seemed to pull hours down and then out, far away from us, like an undertow.

 

"Rodion?" I asked suddenly. "How old are you?"

 

"Young and old. I'm too young to sink into despair the way so many of my kind have, serving as blasters for hire because they neither expect nor believe in anything better. However, I'm too old to think that anything better will arrive soon. The galaxy is the way it is, and has been for centuries. How old are you, Tysyacha? By your years, I'd be forty-five, though newly so."

 

"I, too." I folded my hands in my lap. "I feel older, though, by twenty years."

 

The Mandalorian looked at me. "Heavy personal body counts can do that."

 

My head whirled around to return his gaze. "Chto?! What, Rodion?!"

 

"I've heard the stories--an exiled Jedi who was Revan's general at the time gave the order to activate a Mass Shadow Generator and kill everyone in sight upon Malachor V. Of course, in so doing, she unknowingly cut herself off from the Force in order to save her life. The Jedi Order had banished her, and then three surviving Jedi Masters who found her had the gall to try and punish her a second time. She spared their lives, and they turned on her. They betrayed her, just like Sith. The Masters died by Kreia's hand, and then Kreia was saved. The Exile redeemed her, but she could not redeem the secret villains at the heart of the Order, who never knew they had to be."

 

I was shaking again. "Do you want a round against my dvyxplanochniy?"

 

"Your double-bladed lightsaber? Tysyacha. Don't you see it? There are some things that time can't change, and the Jedi Order's one of them. That's the lesson you should have learned, the lesson Darth Revan failed to learn. He thought he could bring peace and order to the galaxy by becoming Sith, but in the end he found they were just as bad as the Jedi, if not worse. The truth is that no dogma can stand against time, and no dogma should. Not unless it's one of justice, one of fairness and logic, of honor...and love..."

 

He tried to kiss me. I fell back in his arms, tilting my head and gazing at the ceiling of the Ebon Hawk. "Give me time!" I rasped.