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Rivers of lava flowed across the ashen surface of Mustafar, their bright orange glow becoming stronger and stronger during the descent through the thick, hot, toxic atmosphere. Passing through the cloud cover, the dark vapors and gases flowed off the streamlined surface of an X-Wing starfighter which bore the symbol of the New Republic on its S-foils.
Silhouetted in the distance again the backdrop of grey clouds in the sky and the orange glow of the land stood a black spire built atop an obsidian cliffside, a thin lavafall pouring out from beneath it.
Fortress Vader.
Flying over the rough terrain, the X-Wing approached a landing pad situated in front of the spire, slowing to a hovering position as it deployed landing gear and settling down.
Luke Skywalker donned a breath mask for protection from the volcanic fumes, then dropped down from his starfighter's cockpit and faced the main entrance of the place his father had considered a sanctuary.
The fortress standing before Luke was tall, dark, overpowering, and dead. Exactly like its former master.
“Keep an eye on the ship, Artoo,” Luke said, and the blue astromech chittered worriedly as his dome swiveled around, staring at the ashen sky, red lightning crackling to the south. “Don’t worry about me. If you detect any ships approaching, take the X-wing up.”
The main door control was still working, and permitted Luke entry, though that was as hospitable as the fortress was likely to get. Most of the artificial lights were inactive, so Luke ignited his saber, green light guiding his way through the dim orange hallways as he explored.
Computer banks were erased. Various rooms appeared to have been sealed up, and then torn open and stripped of anything useful. Freshly dead bodies could be found everywhere, usually one or two in a hallway. Scavengers, servants, deserting soldiers, all killed by traps, security droids, or competitors in attempts to pry some wealth from the fortress now that the fear of Darth Vader’s reprisal was no longer holding them back. Checking each body for some sign of life, Luke found himself too late to aid any of them.
Then he found the inner sanctum, or what had once been the inner sanctum. The bacta tube in one of its rooms had been drained and smashed. Parts of damaged medical droids littered the floor. The meditation sphere and observation level were empty. The atmospheric systems that had kept sections livable for Vader had been stripped for parts, as had his personal computer system. Luke wished he had gotten here sooner, rather than being preoccupied with pushing back the disorganized Imperial Navy while the Alliance held the initiative.
From Vader’s private study Luke descended down a staircase deeper and deeper into Mustafar, to the lowest level, the roasting warmth of the lava flowing towards the cliff seeping through the walls. Sweat trickled down Luke’s face as he shined his lightsaber around the level, finding some kind of laboratory with more of the same. Empty spots which had once stored analysis equipment, broken furniture, empty storage containers. More dead bodies.
Everything had been taken, save for one curious object Luke didn’t recognize held in its own separate room at the back. Throughout the fortress, its walls, its floors, its technology, it was all as dark and hostile as the charred surface outside. This device was glowing a bright violet, composed of six long triangles pieced together. Well, five triangles now, one of them had been removed and put off to the side. Through the opening, there were immensely complex internal components visible, and seeing the shapes of some of the pieces, Luke noticed many others were stored in glass containers or under scanning equipment in the surrounding area. Stepping around it, Luke could see two other facets of the object had been cracked.
It was held up at eye level by a pair of clamps at each of its narrow ends, the clamps themselves being larger than the device and made of reinforced durasteel. Noticing the warning signs marking the area, dangers to sight, hearing, electrical shocks, Luke wasn’t sure whether he wanted to get any closer to whatever it was. Those clamps were electrically grounded, and an inactive sound-dampening field emitter was built into the base of the lower one.
“Looking for something in particular, or were you just browsing?” the device asked, startling Luke for a moment at the realization it was intelligent.
“...Browsing. I don’t know if I see anything here I like, it seems to be mostly junk,” Luke replied.
Whatever mind was speaking to Luke found his response uproarious, laughing for a long moment.
“Oh, I like you. Nobody else around here has any sense of humor,” it said.
“What are you?” Luke asked, unsure of what he was talking to, still erring on the side of caution as he held his saber forward to shine more light.
“I’m a holocron. A repository of ancient knowledge of the Jedi, created for the sole purpose of passing it on to future generations,” the holocron said, and Luke’s heart began beating faster. This was exactly what he’d hoped for. He’d never seen a holocron of this design, or one with such a lifelike personality. “Pleasure to meet you. That’s quite a nice lightsaber you’ve got. You’re a Jedi Knight, I take it?”
“I am.” The reply came out with some hesitation, Luke recalling to himself as he had many times that he wasn’t only a Jedi Knight, he was the only Jedi Knight. “Are you working properly?” he asked, concerned as to what his father had been doing to the holocron. If it was a Jedi artifact, that helped explain why it was hidden away.
“Yes, perfectly fine. Aside from the pieces of me scattered about,” said the holocron, as Luke stepped forward to pick up and study a few bits of circuitry and crystals strewn across a workbench which appeared to have been removed from the device. “Dammit, I do not need more chunks of my brain torn out.”
“You seem to be managing without them,” replied Luke, seeking to calm to holocron.
“Yes, that’s the funny thing: no matter how much my head got banged up, I could still keep ten steps ahead of everybody. At least I learned from experience and have backup drives now to preserve my memories. Most of them are intact.”
“I may be able to fix it, if you can tell me more about your design,” said Luke.
“Yes! That is a wonderful idea! I like how you think!” said the holocron. “If I’ve been condemned to live forever in an unmoving, unfeeling, static body, I’d like it to at least work right. Just show me which piece you’ve got, and I’ll guide you through the repair process...”
The next hour was spent putting the holocron back together one piece at a time. The facility here still had an array of tools remaining, making it a bit easier to handle the more delicate components, though the placement of a few parts required Luke use the Force to set things carefully into place, guiding millimeter-sized crystal data storage into place amongst complex circuitry. The holocron was quite helpful, explaining what each part did, praising Luke’s skill and describing to him how holocrons were often assembled using the Force to overcome the limitations of other construction methods. The only part that remained a concern was the battered, cracked casing. Still, it was stable enough to hold together for a while, at least until some epoxy could be found, or replacement material.
“Thank you for the help. Some systems are a bit too damaged to repair completely at the moment, but most others are operational again. Including my holographic projectors. I can properly introduce myself now,” said the holocron, producing a violet avatar, its light shining alongside Luke’s green lightsaber. A masked, hooded figure stood proudly in armored robes before Luke, who wasn’t sure how to react. The design was quite distinctive, but Luke didn’t recognize that mask from anywhere.
Luke didn’t say anything. He was waiting for more of an explanation, and it didn’t seem to be coming.
“...You have no idea who I am, do you?” asked the holocron.
“Um, no. I’m sorry,” Luke said, watching the projection’s arms go from tight fists to slumping down to the its sides, disappointed.
“My name is Revan, and I have finally been forgotten by history,” Revan said, hologram wandering around and staring off into space. “You must be one of the few living Jedi, the person with the most reason out of everyone in the galaxy to know who I am. And you don’t. Wow. I was not expecting to live to see this moment.”
“I’m sure your name must still exist in history books, don’t get disappointed on my account,” Luke said, not actually sure how famous this person was.
“I suppose,” Revan said. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Luke Skywalker.”
“Skywalker? Luke Skywalker?” asked Revan, sharply turning to face Luke and approaching him. “Are you related to Anakin Skywalker? Is that why you came here?”
“You know my father?” Luke asked urgently.
“Your father? Um, yes, I’ve been in the basement of his stupid lava fortress for years getting picked apart,” Revan replied more than a little sardonically at Luke’s seeming obliviousness, gesturing around the laboratory.
“Oh. I was hoping you might have known him when he was a Jedi,” said Luke. “Not as Darth Vader.”
“Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader may have been distinct as far as he thought of himself, but they were still just the same person at different times in a very eventful life. Just like mine.”
“Just like yours? What are you talking about?” asked Luke.
“Wow, you really don’t know anything about me at all,” said Revan. “There was a time when I was known as Darth Revan, the Dark Lord of the Sith.”
“Darth Revan... but you said you were a Jedi. You came back to the light? You were redeemed?”
“Eeeeeehhhhh... that’s a whole other story that would take twenty to thirty hours to explain if you wanted everything interesting included. The abridged answer is ‘it’s complicated’. These days, I mostly want to prevent people from repeating my mistakes,” Revan said, the mask under that hood briefly transforming into that of Darth Vader before switching back. “Unfortunately, I failed to do that once already.”
Taking the holocron in his hands, Luke looked around at the broken-down laboratory. Little else remained in the fortress. No strategically useful data, no technology, no clues. Except for this holocron.
“Why didn’t any of my father’s agents take you like they took everything else?” asked Luke.
“Because they hated and feared me. Despite my best efforts, I could never make any of them fear me more than they feared Vader, not enough to steal me away from him,” Revan replied with a slight, but very noticeable, hint of amusement. This explanation wasn’t encouraging to Luke, especially after the incident with Rur. This ‘Revan’ didn’t act much like the Jedi masters he’d known, but Luke didn’t sense any hostility, only a somewhat macabre sense of humor. Knowing the holocron had spent years being torn apart for its knowledge, Luke couldn’t begrudge Revan for putting up serious resistance. “But I don’t want to talk about that, I want to hear about you, Luke! I know some of what’s happened. The raids on this place, stealing without fear of reprisal, tell me that Darth Vader and his Emperor have both died. How did it happen? I hope it was humiliating.”
“I fought to save my father at the most recent offensive against the Empire,” said Luke. “The Emperor tried to convince me to kill him, to embrace the dark side. When I refused, he almost killed me, before my father stopped and killed him at the cost of his own life.”
“...I’m impressed,” Revan said, taking this much more seriously than a moment ago. “You’re very kind. You’d put your life on the line for a monster like Vader? After all those crimes he committed in the name of the Empire, you saw something worth saving?”
“Of course I did,” said Luke, and the two were quiet for a moment. “You’re the most sophisticated, intact holocron of the old Jedi Order I’ve found so far. Can you teach me more about the Jedi and the Force?”
Revan stared at Luke for a time.
“No. There’s nothing you need to learn. Not from me,” said Revan. “I’ll try to help you regardless if you really need it, but take heart, young Skywalker. You have the power to succeed on your own.”
Luke sighed, feeling alone once again. The masters hadn’t appeared to him since Endor, and there was still so much he needed to do.
“So, Skywalker had a son, huh?” Revan said curiously. “I wonder how your sister would react if she found out.”
“I already told Leia who our father is.”
“Who’s Leia?”
“...My twin sister,” said Luke, confused by Revan’s seemingly jumbled information.
“Ah, right, the Princess of Alderaan. No, I wasn’t talking about her,” said Revan. “I was referring to Anakin Skywalker’s Jedi apprentice.”
Luke felt a jolt go through him. It shouldn’t surprise him, really. That there were still so many things he didn’t know about his father, so much information erased by the Empire. After all, that was a large part of why he’d come to this place. Considering his reputation, it shouldn’t surprise Luke that his father had an apprentice when he was a Jedi Knight.
And Revan had met this person. Luke’s ‘sister’.
“Tell me about her,” Luke said eagerly, his eyes wide with hope at the thought of finding another part of his family that might have remained lost.
“Her name is Ahsoka Tano. Tough, snarky, courageous, resourceful,” Revan said, hologram changing to take the form of a Togruta girl in her late teens, standing a little taller than Luke. “Orange Togruta with blue and white stripes on her lekku. Fought in the Clone Wars, then against the Empire. In an adorably sweet and horrendously complicated relationship with my own student, Barriss Offee.”
Ahsoka Tano. The name didn’t sound familiar. Hanging on every word, Luke had so many questions. Could she still be alive? He thought about all the possibilities, and few of them were appealing. Had Darth Vader killed her? Why wasn’t she a part of the Rebellion? He’d been fighting the Empire for years and was known as a Jedi amongst its operatives, why didn’t she contact him upon seeing his name? Where could she be now?
“Is she alive?” he asked.
“I don’t know. The last time I saw her was during the first year of Palpatine’s reign. The situation was grim, but she and Barriss got themselves out of danger, and Vader took me. I don’t know where they are now.”
There had been mentions of Jedi helping the Rebellion at different times, different sectors. None of Luke’s investigations had found any of them alive.
All the more reason to begin rebuilding the Jedi in earnest.
“I’m surprised by how little you know about your family history,” said Revan, hologram sympathetically approaching. “There’s something else you may be interested in knowing about. Please, brace yourself.”
“You’ve already given me a surprise I’d never have expected, especially for an odd holocron I stumbled across in a dungeon. What is it?” Luke asked breathlessly.
The hologram of Revan vanished, replaced a second later with a woman Luke didn’t recognize, yet felt so incredibly familiar. She was about a head shorter than him, her eyes looking up into his. Beautiful, but sad.
“Luke... this is your mother. Padmé Amidala,” Revan said, and now Luke appreciated the suggestion he brace himself. Luke reached up to touch his mother’s face, the fingertips of his black-gloved hand drifting through the violet projection. “I never met her myself, I just know what she looked like, and what she meant to the people who loved her. From what I know, I believe she would’ve been incredibly proud of who you’ve become.”
Padmé Amidala and Ahsoka Tano, Luke repeated internally, over and over, wanting to make sure he would remember the names. The names of his family.
“Thank you for showing me that,” he said, as a few tears broke free of his eyes. “If I hadn’t found you, I’m not sure how else I would’ve learned who she was. The only other people I can think of who might’ve known died before I could learn the whole truth.”
“Yeah. Happy to help,” said Revan, giving Luke a moment to process things. “Hey, I hate to have to push things along, but can we leave, please? I’m not exactly fond of this place, and I bet Leia will want to hear the news.”
“Of course.”
Ascending back up to the inner sanctum, Luke checked his breath mask, pausing in front of the main doors.
“I thought my homeworld was a harsh place to live, but Tatooine is a paradise compared to Mustafar,” Luke remarked.
“Tatooine? You grew up on Tatooine?” Revan said, voicing another realization. “Oh. Ooooohhhhhh, it was you. You’re what Kenobi was protecting. He knew everything the whole time...”
“You knew Ben?” Luke said, surprised by the connection.
“...I can see there’s a great deal you and I need to catch each other up on,” said Revan.
“If we can, I’d like to find Ahsoka and Barriss,” said Luke. “I had no idea there were still two trained Jedi who had helped the Rebellion for so long.”
“Neither of them are Jedi any longer, which I believe is a good sign they’re still breathing,” said Revan. “I hope they’re safe.”
“You said Barriss was your apprentice,” Luke recalled. “Did she finish her training? Was she a Jedi at all?”
“She used to be a Jedi. My primary goal in training her was always to make her strong enough to never need me again, and she reached that point. If she’s continued along the upward climb she was on last I saw her, she survived without me,” said Revan. “Still, I would like to let her know I’m safe. Barriss tends to expect, and feel, the worst.”
“If you taught her well, why don’t you want to train me the same way?” said Luke.
“You’ve found a path for yourself, and you’re better off walking it without my interference,” said Revan. “Leia, on the other hand... maybe I can train her at a thing or two...”
“There is something you can show me, something I might not be able to find on my own,” Luke said, trying to get Revan to offer him some direction. “I want to know the origins of the Jedi. Show me how they began.”
“Excellent choice,” Revan said approvingly. “To the beginning we go.”
The holocron’s emitters lit up, producing a map of the galaxy, zooming in on a system between the Core and the Unknown Regions. The system was replaced by a planet, and on its surface was a mountainous landscape. The mountains grew larger until Luke could see a structure, a temple, nestled within the rocks, bearing the sigil of the Jedi Order.
Then Luke’s comm chimed, and while lost in the images of the galaxy, he heard Leia’s voice.
“Luke, are you all right?” his sister asked urgently, and Luke realized a comm signal may not have been able to reach down into the lower levels.
“I’m here,” Luke replied, snapping out of the daze and grabbing his comm. “Sorry Leia, I was in an underground section for a while.”
Through the comm, he heard a restrained sigh of relief, Leia trying not to show how worried she was. “It’s good to hear your voice. Did you find anything in Vader’s fortress?”
“Yes,” Luke said, staring back at the Jedi sigil. “I’ve found much more than I’d expected.”