Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan (14 page)

“Tell Sechel to set up the meeting,” he said.

Nyriss smiled again, but this time Scourge didn’t find it so unnerving. Instead, he found himself wondering if it would be her he replaced when he finally ascended to his rightful position.

REVAN STARED AT
the flickering topographic map of Rekkiad on the
Ebon Hawk
’s navigation screens. The glacier-covered world had never been settled; no cities or villages dotted his screen. The scans revealed nothing but a frozen wasteland of ice and snow, stretching off for hundreds of kilometers in every direction.

According to Canderous, the Mandalorians had set up a temporary landing field somewhere on the planet’s surface. The clans that had gathered on Rekkiad worked together to maintain and protect the vessels there; it was effectively neutral ground. Outside the landing field, however, each clan laid claim to its own territory—a claim they were willing to fight to defend.

Neither Revan nor Canderous thought it was wise to take the
Ebon Hawk
to the communal landing strip. Outsiders weren’t welcome among the Mandalorians. Canderous figured they’d have better luck dealing directly with Clan Ordo, his own people.

The original plan was to land within walking distance of Clan Ordo’s base camp and approach on foot. Using spaceports was rarely a preferred option for the kind of smugglers and miscreants who had owned the
Ebon Hawk
throughout its history, and many had installed customized upgrades to allow the ship to land in less-than-ideal conditions.
But Revan doubted they had ever intended to visit a world as inhospitable as Rekkiad, and he was starting to have second thoughts.

Gale-force winds hammered the ship’s hull, causing it to buck and lurch, and a blizzard of swirling snow and ice limited the range of the
Hawk
’s sensors. To get close enough for the topographic scan, Revan had to bring them in only a few hundred meters above the surface of the world—close enough that one wrong move could send them crashing into the surface.

T3 beeped anxiously at Revan’s side, crowding the pilot’s chair as Revan fought to keep the ship level.

“Get Canderous up here,” Revan barked. “Tell him to check those grid coordinates again.”

The little astromech droid spun around and sped off in search of the third member of their crew.

A gust of wind caused the ship to veer down and to the left. The safety restraints bit into Revan’s flesh as he jammed the throttle forward and yanked back on the stick, pulling the ship up out of a steep dive moments before it hit the ground.

The ship veered off course, and suddenly a massive glacier jutting up from the planet’s frozen surface materialized on the nav display.

Revan banked hard to avoid plowing into the wall of ice, but even the lightning-fast reactions of a Jedi couldn’t entirely overcome the
Hawk
’s momentum. The ship was spared a direct hit, but its underside clipped a sharp outcropping of ice.

The impact sent the
Hawk
into a spiraling, twisting roll. Revan wrenched the stick from side to side, fighting for control. Using the Force, he was able to anticipate and react to the erratic flight with instantaneous precision adjustments, keeping the ship aloft until it regained its equilibrium.

The immediate crisis averted, Revan took the
Hawk
up to a safer altitude and set the autopilot. Then he slumped in his chair and let out a long, low sigh. After a few seconds he straightened up, readjusted his restraint belts, and checked the instrument panel.

A blinking red warning light confirmed his fears: the impact with the glacier had damaged the landing gear.

Revan muttered a curse under his breath, just as a much louder
string of profanity came from Canderous staggering into the cockpit. T3 rolled in after him, beeping indignantly.

“You trying to smash us into gree pulp back there?” Canderous grumbled, plopping down into the copilot’s seat. “I thought you knew how to fly this rusted slag-heap.”

“I thought you said Clan Ordo had set up a camp somewhere on this frozen rock,” Revan shot back. “Couldn’t see a blasted thing on those grid coordinates you gave me.”

“Maybe they moved to another location,” Canderous said with a shrug. “Can’t have gone too far, though. Not in these conditions. Do a ground scan of the area and they’ll probably turn up.”

“That’s what I was doing,” Revan replied through gritted teeth. “Turns out it’s a good way to get up close and personal with a glacier.”

Canderous glanced over at the warning light. “That why that red light’s blinking?”

“The landing gear got smashed up when we clipped the glacier.”

“You couldn’t just fly around it?”

Revan rolled his eyes.

“Go down for another look,” Canderous advised after a few moments of strained silence. “Clan Ordo’s gotta be close by.”

“Even if we find them, then what? You really expect me to bring the ship in on busted landing gear?”

“You’re a smart guy,” Canderous answered, shifting to get comfortable in his seat. “You’ll think of something.”

There wasn’t much point in continuing the argument, so Revan let it drop. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder at the recent change he’d noticed in Canderous.

As long as he’d known the Mandalorian, he’d sensed an underlying tension in him. Like a soldier in enemy territory, he was always ready for a fight. As a Mandalorian, he was never fully accepted by those in the Republic, and he knew it.

Now, however, he seemed different. He was still gruff and taciturn. But ever since they’d left Coruscant, he’d been less grim, more relaxed. He was eager to be back among his own people, and he wasn’t about to let a few minor setbacks like a missing camp or damaged landing gear stop him.

To be fair, Revan had no intention of abandoning their quest, either. There was too much at stake to turn back. Which meant Canderous was right: the only real option was to keep looking for Clan Ordo’s camp and hope they got lucky.

Revan brought the
Hawk
in low again, but this time he throttled it back to half speed. The swirling winds still made for a rough ride, but at least he’d have more time to react if something went wrong.

“See if you can do something to give our sensors a boost,” he said to T3.

The little astromech chirped with pleasure and extended a small probe from a panel in his side to interface directly with the
Hawk
’s systems.

While T3 worked, Revan began a standard search pattern with the original coordinates for the camp at the center. Taking the
Hawk
around in ever-widening circles, he spiraled outward, letting the sensors scan the ground for signs of life. Suddenly T3 began beeping excitedly. Canderous leaned forward to look at the scanner’s display.

“I think your droid’s got some rust on the brain,” he said. “I don’t see anything.”

Revan knew better than to doubt the little astromech. “Can you enhance the image?” he asked T3.

T3 responded with a low whistle, and a second later a static-filled thermal image appeared on the screen. The details were difficult to make out, but it appeared to be a small collection of tents and temporary shelters built against the leeward side of a small mountain of ice and snow.

“Could be them,” Canderous admitted, reaching out one of his massive hands to give T3 a friendly pat on the head. The droid squawked an indignant protest, and he quickly pulled his hand back.

“Doesn’t look like there’s a landing strip at the camp,” Revan noted. “See any place for us to touch down?”

The display zoomed out as T3 adjusted the
Hawk
’s scanners to pan rapidly back and forth across the snow. A few seconds later they zoomed in again.

“Perfect,” Revan said with a smile. “Nice work, Tee-Three.”

“Uh … that’s not a landing strip,” Canderous cautioned. “It’s a giant snowdrift.”

“With the landing gear shot, we’re going to need something to cushion the blow when we hit the ground.”

“You really think this’ll work?”

“Sure,” Revan replied. “But you’d better strap yourself in, just in case.”

Canderous scrambled to lock in his safety belt as Revan sent the
Hawk
into its descent. T3 scooted across the cockpit to the metal braces anchored to the floor and locked his wheels in with a metallic
thunk
.

Fighting wind and gravity, Revan struggled to keep the damaged ship level as he took it down. Seconds before they touched ground, a blast of wind grabbed the
Ebon Hawk
and pitched it hard to starboard. Revan jammed the stick to port, desperately trying to keep the ship from flipping over. It slammed into the snowbank at a forty-five degree angle, carving a fifty-meter-long trench in the powder before finally coming to rest.

Looking through the small cockpit window, Revan could see nothing but blue-white flakes; the entire front half of the ship was buried in the drift. But the sensors indicated that, apart from the already damaged landing gear, the
Hawk
had survived relatively unscathed. More important, so had its passengers.

Revan carefully unbuckled his safety belt, knowing he would have bruises where the straps had dug into him during the collision. Beside him, Canderous was doing the same. T3 simply unlocked his wheels from the braces and rolled free.

“I guess sometimes it’s not so bad being a droid,” Canderous groaned as he stood up, rubbing his right shoulder with his left hand.

“You mean like when you’re marching through a blizzard?” Revan asked. “This snowdrift’s at least five kilometers from the campsite.”

Canderous only grunted in reply.

While the big Mandalorian gathered the gear and supplies for their trek from the cargo hold, Revan and T3 ran diagnostics on the
Hawk
to determine the full extent of the damage.

“Doesn’t look too bad,” Revan commented when they were done. “Think you can fix it up while we head off to the camp?”

T3 beeped twice.

“It’s going to be hard for you to keep up out there in the snow,”
Revan reminded him. “Besides, someone has to stay and guard the ship.”

The astromech reluctantly whistled his consent.

“You get started on repairs; I’ll go give Canderous a hand.”

It took them almost an hour before they were ready to venture out into the frigid wasteland. They were bundled up head-to-toe in thick winter garb: snow pants, hooded jackets, scarves, goggles, heavy boots, and fur-lined gloves—all of it white to provide camouflage in case they ran into trouble.

Canderous had armed himself with a heavy repeating blaster carbine. He offered a similar weapon to Revan, but the Jedi shook his head.

“You don’t want to be swinging that lightsaber around when we get to the camp,” Canderous said. “Jedi aren’t too popular out here.”

Revan frowned, then nodded. He knew Canderous had a point, but he didn’t relish the idea of lugging the massive gun along. He picked up a pair of blaster pistols. “I’ll get by with these,” he said, sliding them into the straps on either hip.

“Suit yourself,” Canderous said with a shrug. Then he added, “When we get to the camp, let me do the talking. Remember: these are my people.”

“I can live with that,” Revan said, hitting the switch to lower the cargo hold’s loading ramp. “But if we’re going to get there before dark, we’d better get moving.”

They maneuvered the hoversled they had loaded up with supplies down the ramp and out into the raging blizzard. The howling wind threatened to knock them off their feet and made conversation almost impossible. The swirling snow almost blinded them, but Revan had entered the camp’s coordinates on a portable locater to keep them on track, and he used hand gestures to communicate their route to Canderous. The heavy layers of clothing made the subzero conditions bearable; the hard labor of trudging through the snow over uneven terrain helped warm them up, too.

After almost two hours of slow progress, Revan saw the dim outline of a small mountain ahead of them. He signaled to Canderous, indicating that the camp was on the other side. The Mandalorian nodded, and signaled back that they needed to step up the pace. Revan nodded
his agreement. The light around them was fading as Rekkiad’s sun—invisible through the storm—slowly set. The last thing they needed was to have to press on in total darkness.

As they skirted the base of the mountain and reached the leeward side, the wind died to almost nothing. It wasn’t long before they could see the soft glow of lights from the camp.

Gradually more details of the camp came into view. There were roughly a dozen small tents set up only a few meters away from a sheer wall of ice at the mountain’s base. Set away from the tents was a roughly constructed shack; Revan noticed a pair of generators hooked up to it, no doubt to provide power and heat, and he guessed it doubled as a meeting room and a supply center for any stores that would suffer if left out in the cold.

Several sleds were scattered among the tents, some laden with supplies, others empty.

On the far side of the camp were four large, tarp-covered mounds. Revan’s heart sank.

As part of the terms of the surrender, he’d ordered the Mandalorians to disassemble their infamous Basilisk war droids—great metal beasts the Mandalorians often rode into combat. Judging by the size of the covered objects, and by whatever hints of shape weren’t obscured by the tarps, some of the defeated had chosen to ignore his decree.

“One more step and we paint the snow with your brains!” a voice shouted out.

Four sentries rose up into view from behind the drifts, two on either side of Revan and Canderous. Dressed in heavy cold-weather clothes of mostly blues, golds, and browns, they were armed with blaster rifles, which they had carefully trained on the interlopers.

“Lay your weapons down and identify yourselves!” The speaker—a male—was the sentry closest to Revan on his left.

Out of the corner of his eye, the Jedi could see that Canderous was holding his ground, careful to avoid any sudden movement but not making any effort to obey the order. Revan decided the smart thing to do would be to follow his lead.