When the rest of the crew arrived, Theron was already beginning the boot up sequence for the escape shuttle and working on wiping the ship's AI from its databanks so nothing would remain of the damn Rakatan weapon. "No, I am fairly certain that I very much want to do this," Theron told the ship as it tried to convince him to let it live. He wasn't the kind of person who would listen to it, not anymore.

"Revan, we good to go?"

He glanced over his shoulder at Ana and the others as they came up the ship's loading ramp. "Yes," he responded curtly. He turned past her and rushed over to Mari, who was limping up with her uninjured arm over Cade's shoulder. "Mari, are you okay?" He and Cade transferred her to Theron's shoulder and he helped her stumble over to a bench beside an escape pod.

Ana narrowed her eyes at the scene. For all that Revan had changed, he had stayed so very much the same. Focusing on personal desires and issues over the very fate of the galaxy. "We should get moving," Ana growled before she advanced to the cockpit, finishing the pre-flight checks and kicking the engines into gear. The ship slowly lifted off and rocketed out of the Forge, its hastily constructed lambda shape shaking as it hit the atmospheric orbit of the planet below. Ana checked diagnostics and frowned. They'd lost two of the five escape pods and the targeting dish for the rudimentary weapons. It didn't matter, though. It was time. She flicked on autopilot so the ship wouldn't tumble into the atmosphere to burn up on re-entry, then got up from her seat and activated the ship wide comms, connecting it to the fleets outside on an open frequency.

She entered the room where the others waited and crossed her arms. "Begin the message, Revan."

The static of the comms quieted for a moment. "Did someone say 'Revan?'" they heard a quiet voice echo over the system before more began to ask the same. Sith and Triumvirate both asking the question, until a cacophony was heard throughout the ship. "There's no way!"

Marien grit her teeth and forced herself to stand up. "This is Darth Traya, apprentice of Darth Nernyn. Command code: subservience is death," she snapped, shutting up those on the comms as they checked and verified this information. The Sith were the first to stop what they were doing. "Emperor Revan has returned, and he has killed Lord Nernyn in combat. By all rules of the Empire, he has ascended to his former position."

Theron glanced at the floor of the shuttle and clenched his jaw. Was this really what was going to happen? He turned his gaze on Deranis and Cade. "And this is Cade Skywalker. That's right, I ain't dead. She's not lying." The Triumvirate grew quiet, now.

Theron nodded at Deranis.

The Echani shook his head, not wanting the responsibility. "Well?" Ana asked Theron.

He ignored her, keeping his eyes locked on Deranis. "This is Revan," Theron confirmed, and the comms exploded once more until one voice rang out that silenced the others.

"Theron?"

Theron felt his breath catch. "Van," he muttered, guilt suddenly eating at his heart. Van was, if he was honest, the only one of his former friends he had been able to forgive in any way. He had been a soldier, following the orders that were deemed necessary to protect his government. And he had only been a friend, unlike Rhen and Ana. The others had been... "Uh, Admiral Taas."

"I thought you were on Coruscant. The Mandalorians said you were here, but how..?"

"I... Deranis."

Deranis stared into Theron's eyes, then nodded. "This is Deranis Ordo, son of Mandalore. I speak with the authority of Emperor Revan," Deranis said.

Ana frowned. "What are you -"

Theron turned to her. "We made a deal. I can't give orders," he explained coolly.

Ana's eyes widened and she reached for her lightsaber, only to have Theron's at her throat a moment later.

Deranis glanced over, then looked back up at the ceiling. "Emperor Revan demands that all Imperial and Imperial allied forces bend the knee to his authority once more."

"Revan..." Ana growled, hatred coating every inch of her voice.

Theron stared dispassionately back at her. "This is how it has to be," he said hollowly.

"All Triumvirate ships will have a twenty four hour period to evacuate this system before it is taken as an act of aggression. Alternatively, every ship is invited to join the Empire as well," Deranis finished to a quiet comms. "Consider this the beginning of a truce between the Empire and Triumvirate."

Ana snarled in rage and leaped at Theron, using her saber to slap his aside before diving to stab him in the chest. He sidestepped the wild, uncoordinated assault easily and held his saber out to his side. "I made a promise a very long time ago," Theron said calmly. "When I made the promise, I wanted to torture them. I understand what she wanted, now. To be remembered for the best things she did." He angled his blade and deflected her next blow, then twisted and slammed his palm into her chest, amplifying the power of the blow with the Force. She was blown backwards, crashing into one of the tables in the open area and knocking it over as she tumbled to the ground. "When you betrayed me, and I betrayed you, there were entire years where I worked for what I called 'the greater good.' It was all I had left. But the greater good was what she worked for. When I tore that knowledge from her head, and from that alien's head, and from Kralle's head... I did something to myself. I tainted myself with everything that they were, taking it into me and changing too much. So now I have to do the right thing, and the right thing isn't wiping out the Triumvirate, and it's not giving everything up to them, either. Maybe I would think that if they hadn't have tried to assassinate us, you, me, and all our friends. But they did, so they can't be trusted." Theron stopped over her and clenched his saber tight in his left hand. "I want to be remembered for the good I am going to do, which is why I'm giving you this chance to run away again."

Theron reached down and grabbed the stunned woman by her jacket, lifting her off her feet and glaring into her eyes. "I... hate you," she snarled, violet eyes a burning red now. Theron wanted to look away, to hide from those eyes, but he refused himself. They were his fault, those eyes. He had turned someone he had once loved into...

"I... I forgive you," he replied simply before kicking open an escape pod and tossing her in. He shut the door and smiled sadly as she threw herself against the viewport to glare at him, an explosion of the Force causing the metal of the ship to creak and groan. She was screaming, but it couldn't be heard through the metal doorway. "Admiral Taas, we are releasing a prisoner in an escape pod. You may collect her. Mandalore? Make room on your flagship. We're on our way." Then he pressed the ejection button and the escape pod flew away with the raging Ana Gann within, her red eyes burned into Theron's mind forever. He stared after her for a moment, then turned back to Mari and the others. "Cade, we'll send a shuttle to collect Artoo when we board. And then..." He glanced at all the others and felt something in his gut plummet. "And then -"

SWSWSWSWSW

And then they were gone. Cade was a Jedi, through and through. He couldn't stay with the Empire, not forever. He had left not long after the fight had finished, taking a shuttle into the darkness with a promise of returning once he got the Jedi back to what they were meant to be. In the meantime he had left Artoo in Theron's care. "Artoo's been there for everything for almost two hundred years," he had explained on the entrance ramp to his ship, a bag over his shoulder with enough supplies to get him to Ossus. He smiled at the tiny droid. "And he's always been by one Skywalker or another. It honestly feels like that's his job, watching our family do great things. My time's over. I can't wait for him to tell me everything you did." The old man had paused for a moment before continuing. "Theron. May the Force be with you."

Deranis had gone his own way, as well, deciding to stick with his mother instead of joining with Theron. He hadn't said much, and Theron hadn't expected him to. Neither of them had spoken since Theron had forced him to make the decision about the fate of the galaxy, all to force the Mandalorians and Echani to join the Empire and to consolidate Theron's power. All he had said to Theron was, "Make it worth it."

Theron stared out of the bridge of his new flagship, the Redemption, wondering where to go from there. The Triumvirate had retreated, each and every ship. Van had left a message saying that a treaty meeting would be set up soon. Ana's rage in the background had slightly confused that message. That would be a step, but after that... He wasn't sure what he would do. Before, he had been willing to do terrible things in the interest of his goal. Stopping the coming Rakata required that the galaxy be unified. But he hadn't actually been interested in that goal before all others. He had worked for revenge and hatred before doing what was right, and even then it had been 'the greater good.' He had never tried to be a hero before, so...

"You look like you're spiraling." A pair of arms wrapped around his waist and a head rested against his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Theron smiled and turned around, hugging Marien back. "Now that you're here, yes." He leaned down and breathed in the smell of her growing hair. "I think we can figure out where to go from here together."

She clutched him tighter. "Together," she agreed. "We'll defeat anything that comes our way."

Light years away, just beyond the edge of the galaxy in a long forgotten sector of hyperspace lanes that had not been updated for gravitational changes or stars birthed in nebulae for almost two thousand years, ships began to advance towards the edge of known space. War was the water of the Rakatan people, and their thirst could never be quenched. The galaxy would burn at their feet, no matter who stood in their way.

AN:

So that's it. It... isn't what I wanted it to be. I made mistakes that became too ingrained in the story, and for as much as I love Star Wars, there's this... feeling. Ever since TFA came out, there's just been this feeling that I can't go back to the way it was. No matter how much KotOR 1 & 2 I play, no matter how much I love the Solo Twins, no matter how much I want to feel that awe again... I just can't. It's not really an excuse for how this story degraded. That's on me, and it's something I'm really not happy about.

As I said, even before I lost my heart, I had written things that became too ingrained in the story to fix. For that I have to apologize. If the ending feels rushed at all, it's because I can't find any way to make it better right now, and I don't know if I'll ever find the desire to fix it down the line. I hope that I do, but I don't know.

Regardless, I want to thank all of you for coming this far. I hope that, even for just a moment, I was able to capture in this story just a spark of what made Star Wars so special to me. Maybe I didn't, but even still thank you for coming this far. I'll miss this story, and that I'll likely leave the third story on the shelf... forever. If anyone, ever, wants to finish the job I'll gladly hand it over to them with the basic idea I had for part 3. I don't know if that will ever happen, but the offer is there. I'm sure someone more passionate would do a far better job than I.

So I guess I want to end this the only way I can: May the Force be with you.