Paranoia

A few seconds later he heard someone outside the door of his cell. When the door opened he expected to see Scourge, but instead he found himself faced with an unfamiliar guard.

The young man was a dark-skinned human. He was holding a blaster out at arm’s length, pointing it at Revan. His hand was visibly trembling.

From outside another voice shouted, “Hurry. Do it!”

Even in Revan’s clouded state, the situation was obvious. In the wake of the attack, someone had ordered them to kill the prisoner.

“Squeeze the trigger and it will be the last action you ever take,” Revan warned.

“Come on,” the other voice said. “Just do it! What’s the problem?”

“Shut up!” the young man shouted to his hidden companion. “You were too scared to even open the cell!”

Their fear was completely understandable. Since his incarceration, Revan had been held under strict quarantine. Nobody had been given access to his cell without Scourge being present, and even then the Sith had mostly come to see him alone. No doubt it had been drilled into the guards’ heads over and over how powerful and dangerous the prisoner was. They’d been warned against having any dealings with him whatsoever; his mysterious reputation built up over years of speculation and rumors among his jailers.

“Set the weapon down if you want to live,” Revan told the young man. Through the veil of drugs, he strained to reach out with the Force, amplifying the other’s fear and confusion.

“No!” his friend shouted above the piercing alarms, still staying hidden around the corner. “He’ll kill us!”

“I promise to spare you,” Revan said. “I give you my word as a Jedi.”

“See? See?” the man with the gun squealed. “I told you he was a Jedi!”

***

Revan, Chapter 24