Meditation Omega
a Star Wars Republic Commando: Hard Contact fanfiction by Tripleguess
January 2006

She focused intently on the candle; one lone star in the otherwise dark room, beckoning as though it had something important to tell her.

And maybe it did. She ceased to feel her crossed legs and cold feet; forgot the press of folded hands against furrowed brow and the trickles of invading winter air from the room's countless cracks. Her attention was turned inward, on the steady glow of camaraderie nestled beneath layers of silence and privacy.

It was something she never shared with anyone, least of all Master Arligan Zey. He'd known, of course; he'd been there. He was a Master, after all, and as such had strongly recommended a course of action and expected her to take it.

She'd taken the first painful step; separation. Let them go. Stayed behind on this wretched backwater, with its ghosts and haunting associations. Perhaps Zey simply assumed she'd taken the next logical step in due time.

She'd tried. She'd sat down time after time, candle before her, steeled to do battle with her own will; to root out the bond clouding her devotion to the Jedi way -- to detach herself completely from Omega Squad.

But every time she gazed into the candle, seeking to purify her emotions, its flame became a dancing campfire warming a bedraggled Padawan and four Republic Commandos. It became a swath of burning barq fields, torched to deny them cover. It became an inferno devouring huts and barns while villagers fled Hokan's militia, denizens of a memory that wasn't hers. It swelled into a deafening explosion, destroying a droid-swarmed hillside; it became a white-hot fireball, incinerating Uthan's bioweapons lab and the deadly nanovirus concealed within.

And finally, it subsided into a candle flame, warming her mind in the darkness.

And every time she tried to draw those memories out of herself, to divorce the firelit images from what they meant to her, she felt as though everything good in her were drowning.

She couldn't -- no, she wouldn't do it. Master Zey thought she'd become newly Force-proficient by turning her back on that bond. She'd never told him about Darman's refusal to turn his back on her.

Padawan Etain Tur-Mukan drew the candle closer and cupped its flame in both hands. It sprang higher, sheltered from the winter drafts, doing its feeble but valiant best to outshine the glow in her heart.

-The End

Disclaimer: Etain Tur-Mukan, Darman, and Omega Squad copyright Lucasfilm Ltd. This story was not created, acknowledged or endorsed by Lucasfilm Ltd. No infringement is intended. Meditation Omega is fan domain and may be freely recopied and archived. Constructive feedback welcome.