Archive of Our Own ^beta

Force sensitives, especially the powerful ones, sometimes have this...aura around them. It can feel like standing next to a live wire—like the moment right before a ship makes the jump to hyperspace. So much potential energy clogging the air that every hair on your body stands on end. That you can practically taste ozone in the back of your mouth.

According to the Jedi, that aura is simply the Force as they experience it. An afterimage of power burned in the fabric of reality so deep you don't even have to be sensitive to feel it. The Force pooling around its favored heavily enough that it becomes something you feel you could reach out and touch, if only for a moment.

It has been said that Darth Revan's presence alone was enough to bring a being to their knees. That standing near them came with a weight heavy enough to make even Malak kneel.

That looking directly at them felt like staring into the center of a black hole while being pulled beyond the event horizon, or watching a star go supernova from not nearly far enough away. A gravitational pull that was as enthralling as it was terrifying.

Now, Carth is about as force sensitive as a brick, but there's something about the Endar Spire's last minute addition that brings those stories to mind.

He'd never actually interacted with Revan—before or after they turned traitor—but something about the way Novak moves, the way they speak...the way sharing a room with them feels like being caught in a never ending freefall...it reminds him of the few glimpses he'd gotten of Revan near the end of the war.

Even as he's placing his life in Novak's hands while the two of them delve into the bowels of Taris, covering each other's backs through the hordes of rakghouls that call the place home, he can't stop thinking about it. The loose threads itch at him.

He'd checked, and checked, and triple-checked their file for any mention of force sensitivity. Every single time he checked the file, it returned the same unsatisfactory—absurd—answer. He practically went over it with a fine toothed comb to ensure he wasn't missing some tiny mark or miniscule mention, but every time there was nothing except for the bright red stamp signaling that, at some point, they were looked over by the temple and found to not be force sensitive in the slightest. Normally, he would have accepted that. He'd have tried to move on and find a different explanation.

But everything about them sends his hindbrain screaming that something was not right.

Someone who supposedly got top marks as a sharpshooter shouldn't be uncomfortable with a blaster in their hand. Someone with just basic marked on file shouldn't be fluent in Shyriiwook, or Twi'leki, or Ithorian, or Binary, or any of the other half-dozen languages they've pulled out of thin air. 

Two becomes three as Mission joins them in the sewers. He doesn't think she notices how little Novak actually needs her to clear out the Gammoreans. 

Someone who's only combat experience has come from the military shouldn't know the fighting styles they do. He knows jedi, knows how they walk, how they move, how they fight. He almost feels like he's hallucinating as he watches Novak pry a vibrosword off a corpse and slip into their left hand like it's coming home. Twin swords are briefly replaced by crackling blades of plasma in his mind's eye.

Three is almost four, but Zaalbar, still injured from his capture, is sent off to the apartment by Novak with a warm smile and their comm code.

No codenames on record—no nickname, no preferred form of address, not even something as simple as a callsign—but they don't seem comfortable with their own name, every call or question taking an extra moment to respond to. There are no instances of them taking command, yet they wear leadership like an old coat, effortlessly directing them down down down through the sewers.

Too many details conflicting between the 'pad and the person, what was written down and what he sees. It feels like he was given a puzzle missing half its pieces with just enough from another box thrown in to make it hard to notice.

It stinks of a cover up, and not even a well done one. One that was sloppy, done hastily and without so much as a shread of forethought.

The three of them carve their way through the Vulkar base. Bodies line their methodical, winding path. Every room cleared, every hostile eliminated, nothing left unchecked. They slink through the halls, all with their own stealth generators, every encounter an ambush of Novak's design. He almost feels like he's at war again—but that's just the battle shock speaking. It has to be.

Looking down at the bodies of the Vulkar leaders, he's too tired to even feel the prickle of dread go down his spine. That fight would have been grueling even if they hadn't cleared out the entire base on the way. The prototype accelerator is just laying there on the floor, untouched. In perfect condition. One of them tucks it into their bag. Novak is still grinning like they've forgotten people can see their face. Carth blinks and almost expects their eyes to glint gold.

But maybe he's just being paranoid. Maybe there's a reasonable explanation for everything. Maybe they were just special ops and everything was kept off file. There's probably a dozen little things that make all the details click, he just hasn't found them yet. After everything with Karath, with Telos, he's just looking to see the worst in people.

And yet...Of the pieces he has—the ones that he can make any sense of—the ones he can fit together even slightly...they all seem to point to one specific, impossible, picture.

Revan died on that ship. No one survives that kind of blast, even with immediate medical attention. Revan is dead and buried and gone—the entire galaxy rejoiced at the news. The Jedi wouldn't lie about something like that, they wouldn't have a reason to lie about that. They couldn't have. Surely they wouldn't do something like this? Revan has to be dead. He shouldn't even be considering it, he's just seeing patterns and making connections where there aren't any.

Revan is dead.

Maybe if he repeats that to himself enough times, he'll start to believe it.

They wind through the silent, empty corridors of the Vulkar's base, slowly trekking back across the Undercity to the Hidden Beks. Mission chatters in the background as they walk, but the girl's words barely reach his ears. Where she gets the energy, he'll never know. He's more than eager to get this leg of the journey over with, dead tired and ready to drop. At least they're one step closer to getting off this miserable rock.

In all things, a sudden and jarring absence warns of impending disaster. The quiet before a lightning strike, the calm before a storm, the empty forest right before a fire—when the sea rushes to pull away from the sand, you do not wait for the tides to come back in. You do not search for what the birds have fled from, you do not run headlong into the storm, you do not stop to investigate the tension in the air.

If there is one thing the first war taught him, it is that things are not always what they seem.

If there is one thing the second taught him, it is that you leave no stone unturned.

One of the gang members Novak was speaking with said something—made some snide little comment too quiet for him to even catch.

The ever-present taste of electricity in the back of his throat and the feeling of static lingering in the air evaporate instantly. All movement, all noise, all life in the commons area freezes.

For a split second, Novak has this fucking look in their eyes that scares him more than he thinks he'll ever be able to admit to.

And then they blink, and take a breath. The familiar scent of ozone and sensation of sparks filters back into the air. Gadon's thugs scramble into adjoining hallways. 

Then Novak just turns to Gadon, and smiles the way they always do, and speaks in a voice so warm and Light that you forget how heavy the air was with their anger.

The tension in the room disperses like smoke in a vacuum, and soon even he is drawn into the easy conversation as they're directed towards a place to sleep for the night.

They're getting Bastila back tomorrow. An actual Jedi at the head will fix it. Things will start making more sense with her to lead.

They have to.