I used to work at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in California for eleven years. The last six of those years, I was a member of the Queen's court, and also taught a class I created called Crime and Punishment in what was called Workshop in the Woods.
Picture a bunch of inner city kids, brought to a small British village of 16th Century Elizabethan England, and having people like William Shakespeare teaching them about that time. Of course I was not the nice normal teacher you might expect. At the time I portrayed Sir Edward Coke (Pronounced Cook) who was the premier Justice of that time, and I pulled no punches in showing where their law and ours are different.
The reason I mention this is because in both KOTOR and TSL, the writers have a puerile view of warfare, and the law. All of the enemy soldiers are stereotypical lunatics, and when the law is portrayed (Sunri's trial comes to mind) you are using technicalities to get him off.
In the last year of the Northern Novato site, I was teaching my class when some kid came up with the peace movement's favorite comment. 'Violence never solved anything!' in a chirpy bright voice. She was a cute little girl that reminds me of a child you will meet in this first section, and as someone a lot older, I dealt with this misinformation simply.
So picture a man 5'8" tall, weighing about 160 lbs, armed as was proper at the time, with a sword and a dagger almost as long as my forearm. I asked her to stand, then took the sword and dagger from my belt, set them down, and walked over to stand facing her. Try about 3'6", and maybe fifty pounds. I didn't make a threatening gesture, I just stood there for a moment.
"I'm larger than you are. Am I correct?" She nodded, suddenly nervous. "And if I wanted to take away your necklace," I motioned toward it, "you couldn't stop me, correct?" She nodded again, now very nervous.
"But people like me stop bad people from hurting you. And we do that by using the law to tell them they can't or punish them when they try. So violence, me telling them I will hang them, does solve some things. Right?" She nodded. I handed her my sword, and said, 'Watch this for me'. Then returned to the lecture.
The substitute teacher that had probably given the kid that line was upset, and protested. But the kid, and her usual teacher who had asked for my class by name loved it.
Marai, my exile, is not the timid person you saw in Genesis. She is a warrior and proud of her skills. As I pointed out at the end of Genesis, she bore the punishment of all of her fellows for doing what, when you think about it, is exactly what the Jedi were taught to stand for.
So hate her all you like, but as Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men said, when it comes to defending those you love, you want someone like her on that wall.
Knights of The Old Republic
Return from Exile
It is a time of chaos and danger to the Republic. Bloodied by the Mandalorian Wars, decimated by the Jedi Civil War, the Jedi order reels back in disarray. Where once thousands stood, now barely a hundred remain. The Sith still press the Republic, and with no Jedi to restrain them, ruin awaits.
But there is still a chance...
Dreams and nightmares
Marai
It was so peaceful.
I think everyone has flying dreams. At least everyone I have ever asked. Floating, weightless, swooping like a bird across the landscape. That is what I was doing. I could see the city of Coruscant below me. The building of all the necessary housing and offices to hold all of the politicians and citizens had reached the point that the only bare spaces remaining were the oceans.
There was a massive pyramid, and suddenly I was diving for it. I cringed back mentally. No I will not go back there!
Unable to stop myself, I landed on the walk before the doors. But they stood open, wind whipping through the corridor. Stunned I stepped inside. It was as deserted as a tomb.
When I had been younger my master had taught me a trick to end a dream you did not want to have. Fleeing I ripped away the corner of the dream, diving through.
I found myself walking down a corridor. No, It was a ship, so the proper term is passageway. I was in my Consega Lines uniform, with the two stripes of a lieutenant, and the brassard of Security. I came to the captain's cabin, and knocked. When he called I entered.
He wasn't alone. Two men were with him. I pegged them immediately as Intelligence of some kind. With my checkered past I can still spot the type. Captain Loran looked up from his desk as I approached.
"Are you Marai Devos?" One of them asked me. I looked him over. He had the look of a field Security operative. Someone who thinks he can handle anything or beat it into submission. I merely looked at him. He hated me for some reason.
His partner was smaller, more slender, and much easier going. He drew out a flat pad, and flipped it open. Naval Intelligence. "Please answer the question."
"Yes, I am Marai Devos."
The bigger man jumped back into the conversation with both feet. "You will come with us now."
He reached out, and grabbed my arm.
Bad idea.
I foot swept him, my free arm slamming into his chest as I rode him down to the deck. He tried to do a break fall to weaken the impact, but my hand slammed his back down hard enough that he was gasping as I stood away from him.
"No one touches me." I said calmly. His partner was still standing there. Now he had a small surprised smile on his face. I knew what he was thinking. Here I was, a woman with strawberry blonde hair, perhaps 1.6 meters tall, weighing about 50 kilos, and I had taken his buddy down without even a sweat.
"Devos, we have been ordered to take you to Telos immediately." The smaller man said.
"Did those orders say to manhandle me?"
He shook his head, grinning. "That is why I let you put him on the floor." Then the smile wiped away, and I saw the cold interior. "But we do have orders to restrain you if necessary. Will it be?"
Politeness with a steel hand in the velvet glove. I looked to the Captain. He had seen the trick before. I was Chief of Security, Head of Casino Security, and the one of three plain-clothes female security officers aboard the Liner Vespa Sunrise. I was very good at my job.
"The Republic Navy ordered it. I don't know why, Marai." He looked down at the desk; his hands were clenched tight enough to see white around the pressing fingers. "The company had to agree."
"I understand, sir." I looked then at the smaller officer. "I am at your service, sir."
"We have time for you to pack, but not a lot. We'll pick up anything else you need there."
As he spoke the edge of the room tore away, and a pair of glowing red eyes could be seen. I turned toward the threat-
Awaken. A voice seemed to whisper.
I flinched. Then my eyes opened. I was in a liquid, looking into a partially lit room. For a moment I panicked, then I recognized it as a Kolto tank. A mask was firmly pressed against my face, and my body floated. No wonder I was dreaming of flying.
Any school child knows how a Kolto tank works. A liter of Kolto mixed into 300 liters of isotonic saline solution, heated to skin temperature, and the body is immersed. It would debride and help in the healing of all wounds. I was glad for the mask. When necessary, such as in lung injuries, they put you in the tank without it. I remember Salan Woor back on Zagosta. A lung full of poison gas from a ruptured coolant line We needed three men in the tank with him, because to heal the wound, the Kolto has to be brought into direct contact with the injury. If you think that means we have to almost drown you, you're right.
Of course the fluid is hyperoxygenated so you won't drown. For humans you spend the first nine months of your life breathing the fluid in your mother's womb without dying. This is no different. But tell that to your reflexes. You think you're going to drown until you find out you're still alive.
I looked but no one moved outside. That was odd. There should at least be someone monitoring the system and my heart must have spiked through the roof. Four other tanks, all with men and woman in them. There were signs of burns on some of them. But I felt... No, I couldn't be feeling anything. Just my trained instincts. But they were saying get out of here now!
I had to get out of here. I found the internal release. Back about thirty years ago, a man allergic to Kolto had ended up in a tank. It's rare. Try one in 70 million rare. The least contact with Kolto even in a medicinal bath could cause anaphylactic shock.
He was unconscious when he came in, and the med tech was new. Didn't bother to do a test swab. If he had the guy would have lived. Instead he had him stuck in the tank. He'd come awake screaming, and in the two minutes it took to get him out of the tank, he was dead.
Since then they been required under law to put in the emergency internal release, or Dead Man Switch. If the patient felt they had to get out in an emergency, they merely grab and pull. Of course if you played silly buggers and did it for fun, you'd regret it when you got the bill. That tank cost the user 100 credits a day. When that is the average family's weekly earnings, you had best expect your significant other whomever they are to rip a strip off you.
I didn't have a significant other, lover, mother or father. They could bill me.
The pumps began siphoning, and the fluid poured down into the holding tank. There it would be sectioned and filtered off, the Kolto that was still active going into one tank. All dead tissue including inactive Kolto would go through the incinerator, and the remaining saline solution would sterilized and returned to the reservoirs for later reuse.
I could hear the shrill alarm of a ruptured tank, but no one came running. I was still confused as the clearplast cylinder dropped into the deck, and I fell flat on my face. Who was running this mess? If you have people in the tank you never leave them completely unattended. Even if you had a case of constipation that needed blasting you never ignore that alarm.
But nothing. No one came in zipping their pants, no doctors complaining that you should have let them decide if you were well. Every sense I had was screaming danger and all I had done was get out of the tank!
But I was drained. Kolto may promote healing but it uses the body's resources to do it. I felt like I had run a marathon then gone ten rounds with a professional Martial Artist. I couldn't move.
Finally I could feel my arms and legs. I staggered to my feet, looking around. I estimated it had been at least five minutes from the time I awoke in the tank to now, yet still no medical staff. I hoped the guy stuck in the fresher had brought a crowbar and a good book. It was the same ubiquitous design you see the galaxy over. I could be on any planet in any system.
There was a door before me but first I looked at the other patients. None of them were moving, and none of them were breathing. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with being in underwear and soaking wet. I went to the door, and it opened with a touch. There were three doors. The one to the right was marked MORGUE. I walked past it to the door on my left; a standard medical monitoring system. I walked to the console. The words EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN flashed on the screen. I touched a control. ENTER COMMAND. On the corner I saw a name PERAGUS MEDICAL FACILITY.
Peragus... I had heard the name somewhere, but for the life of me couldn't remember. There are ove a hundred thousand planets, and you can't remember them all. But this one was important for some reason.
I looked at the screen and the list of options. I tapped medical logs. There were three, each a standard day apart. I touched the oldest. A hologram appeared in mid air. It was a woman a little taller than I am with cafe au lait skin and tight curly hair.
"...Still examining the survivor from the damaged freighter. The security officer told me it was named Ebon Hawk. The survivor was placed in the Kolto tank." She bit her lip. "The ship had been damaged, and carbon scoring suggests that they were in a battle. But I have not heard from the Security officer if we know who was shooting at them. He couldn't get much from the navi-computer. I am surprised they were able to get here at all, and so is Admin and Security. Only a fool tries to come here without the asteroid drift charts, and the Com officer told me no one called in for them.
"The only other person aboard was an old woman. No life signs. The body is in the morgue. When the next ship arrives from Telos we will send it to them. This is only a treatment facility after all. There were two droids aboard, a utility astromech and a protocol droid. Somehow the T3 was able to get the ship up and running again. Both were sent down to maintenance while security goes through the ship's cargo. We're prepared to..." The recording suddenly ended, like she had been called away.
Again a name I thought I knew. Ebon Hawk. That was... That was a ship reported as a smuggler on the Rim. I touched the next record.
"...Could be a Jedi, but we won't know for sure until we get a transmission back from the Republic. The com between here and the core is spotty at best because of the asteroids. If the survivor is a Jedi, that would explain the rapid recovery rate.
"But I am more concerned that a Jedi here might cause other problems. Some of the miners have been causing trouble since she arrived, especially Coorta. He has already st..." The record faded into static, then snapped back into view. "...Another accident today. There was a detonation in the ventilation system main access. If the lockdown hadn't worked, the base would have been flooded with fuel and one spark would have sent us home at light speed.
"Four wounded, one dead. I got them into the tanks, and they are recovering. One of them kept saying a mining droid caused it but he was so incoherent we didn't get much more..." It faded into static again.
Jedi. I wasn't a Jedi... at least not any more. Maybe they had meant the dead woman but it's like the joke 'let me know when he gets better'. Turn to other person. 'He's dead'.
Besides, my connections to the Force had been severed. I shouldn't heal like one. Part of me wanted to believe it was true. To think that the last ten years had been a nightmare I would wake up from.
Part of me told the other part to shut up. I tapped the last record.
"...Miners about the Jedi. A number of smaller injuries caused by droids. They tell me they are acting oddly, and not even doing memory wipes has helped.
"There was another detonation, this one in a fuel vent they were servicing. The droids that were there were deactivated and sent to maintenance. I have been treating burns all day... That cuts us down to half shifts, and with the problems they are having with the droids, we may not be able to make the Telos shipment this month. Those people need it desperately, but what can we do? Still not word from the Republic. Telos hasn't replied to our requests for additional maintenance personnel.
"At least we're still up and running. The blast didn't cause a lock-" Her voice was interrupted by a siren and a voice.
"Fuel detonation in the mining tunnels. Emergency lockdown commencing. All personnel report to quarters and prepare for emergency venting procedures." The voice was calm, feminine, and implacable.
"Wait! Admin, respond! If the ventilation system is malfunctioning we'll die! Admin, damn it answer me!" She stared at something. Probably the same screen I was at. Then she turned, waving. "Evacuate the medical bay, do it now!"
"But-" a man's voice from off viewer.
"We'll just have to hope they will live in the tanks. Move!" The holo died.
I stared at the screen for a long time. As a Security officer the series of accidents seemed almost... planned. The fact that the miners seemed to think I was still a Jedi didn't help. Why was my presence a danger?
And what about the bodies in the tanks? Why were they dead? For that matter, why was I alive? The air system for the Kolto tanks was a separate system. Something in the air might be making the patient sick, and to make sure this didn't affect the recovery the system piped in purified air. So a gas leak wouldn't kill them. It had to be something else.
Just to make sure, I touched the Patient status icon. All but one read deceased. Number three showed recovered; released. That must be me. I walked back in, and yep, my tank had been number 3.
I returned to the console, and I touched the patient treatment icon.
Patient three had been being treated for some kind of poison. Since they had not known what was used, they had been doing a full spectrum antidote regimen. The other four, as the report by the medical officer had said, were being treated for serious plasma burns. There was a last notation that chilled me.
LAST TREATMENT REQUEST RESULTED IN TERMINATION OF LIFE FUNCTIONS. PATIENT 3 REDUCED TO MINIMAL LIFE SIGNS.
With a shaking finger, I input the last treatment request.
ALL TANKS INJECT 40MG IRDANRIZINE.
Irdanrizine is a sedative. fast acting. What you might use in a police situation if you can use a tranquilizer dart. five milligrams would put a Hutt on his butt out like a light in something like seven seconds.
Nothing living needed 40 milligrams. Hell, a human died in less than a minute if you gave him three. If I had been cold before it was arctic conditions now. Someone had murdered those men and women. Someone who didn't know or care what was needed to do the job. I don't know why I was still alive, but someone here was a maniac.
I checked the facility, and gathered what I could. Med pacs, some chemicals that could be used to make more if I needed to and had the time. They could also be used to make explosives.
I stepped out, but the door into the complex was jammed. I needed something to open it. Wait, some of the miners had died. Maybe...
I went back to the console. Every bed was full. One woman caught my eye. She was in robes of some kind. I shook my head. Too many memories. I unsealed the door, and went across into the morgue.
Suddenly all of the memories were back. Walking the line of the dead at Zagosta, my first battle when I was in sole command. Looking into faces that just that morning had watched me. Some had been eager. Others resigned. Now they were all slack with death. I did not want to go into that room. Didn't want to walk another line of dead people.
But maybe someone there had a tool of some kind. There was nothing in the storage lockers.
I walked up to the woman first. She was frail, tired, and even without a mark on her she was dead. There was nothing on her that I could use. I found that by concentrating on just what I needed to find, I could do this. Each body got an impersonal once over. One of the bodies had a plasma torch. Maybe it...
There was a sound. The old woman was stretching as if everyone went to bed in a morgue. Then she sat up, and the hood she wore turned toward me.
Pain and Remembrance
Marai
It was like watching a revenant climbing out of it's grave. I was frozen staring at her. She adjusted her hood. Of her face all I could see was her mouth and the braids of her white hair. She looked back at me. If she had said boo I think I would have screamed. "Have you found what you seek amongst the dead?" She asked. The voice was dry, raspy. As if she didn't talk very often. But I had heard that voice somewhere before...
"It was your voice I heard in the Kolto tank." I blurted out. Great work miss oh so efficient Security officer.
"Yes." She seemed amused, as if my thoughts were a book she were reading. "I had hoped as much. I slept too long, and found I could not awaken without... outside stimulus."
I had almost expected her to say 'blood'. "Slept too long? I thought you were dead! So did the Medical staff according to the records."
"Close to death. Closer than I would like to contemplate." She admitted. "You have the smell of someone fresh from the Kolto tank. How do you feel?"
Actually I felt pretty good. Exercise will do that for me, and jumping to conclusions seemed to be my new hobby. "The Kolto tank drained me. Who are you?"
"I am Kreia, and I am your rescuer. As you are mine in turn. Tell me... What is the last thing you recall?"
I thought about it. "I was aboard a Republic Frigate, the Harbinger. Two Naval Intelligence men were escorting me to... Telos I think. We were in the second day of the voyage. The nicer of the two had wanted to talk, and he'd asked for drinks. A protocol droid delivered them. I remember talking, finishing..." No I did not remember 'finishing' the drink. I did remember drinking some of it. "No, I drank some of it, then everything was spinning. I remember red eyes, being carried." I looked at her. Whatever was going on had begun not here, but on Harbinger! "What happened?"
"Your ship was attacked. You were the only survivor. A result of your Jedi training no doubt."
Not this again! I knew my face went cold. "I am no longer a member of the Jedi order."
She looked at me, and I could sense puzzlement. "Your stance, your walk, even the way you speak shouts Jedi." Her head cocked. "But your pace is slower than your wont, as if you carry a heavy burden."
I looked away. "The Jedi and I had... differences." Yeah right, my mind chided. You couldn't explain it to them because they hadn't been there. It was like trying to explain to the blind how the sun worked, or explaining the way the Force felt to someone completely insensitive to it.
She seemed to sense that internal struggle again. "So it would seem." She shrugged as if it didn't matter. "Keep your past to yourself if you will. Let us focus on the now."
I was relieved. I waved toward the walls around us. "Where is this place?"
She gave me a look as if I was really an idiot. "It was I that was asleep and adrift from what was happening. You were the one that was awake. Perhaps looking about will tell us what we both wish to know. If nothing else perhaps you can find our ship so we can leave."
"Leave?" There was nervousness in her last words. As if she desperately wanted to get away, but at the same didn't want me to know it. "Why do we need to leave?"
She harrumphed. "You were attacked aboard a frigate, one of the most powerful ships the Republic possesses. What makes you think that they cannot track us down? Unless this is a military base with the defenses they would have, they can come and destroy us at their leisure. Without weapons without information, and most important without transport, we shall easily be run to ground."
It made sense. "But what of the people here? Someone must still be alive!"
"Then by all means look for them as well." She looked at me, and again I sensed amusement. "Might I suggest you extend that search to some clothing? If only to make a proper first impression."
I smiled at her. Then the smile was wiped away. "The patients in the Kolto tanks were killed, no murdered, by a massive overdose of sedatives. Any idea how that happened?"
She flinched. "You have the manner of a Constable or Security officer. You yourself can think of a dozen reasons why someone might have done so. My question is why you were exempted."
"I was not. I was just lucky enough to survive."
"Lucky." She said the word as if she had never heard it before. "Is it not true that the Jedi do not believe in either luck or coincidence? Consider your past training. A Jedi healing trance would have brushed aside the chemicals, or converted them to something less dangerous. A very useful skill when negotiating.
"First, is it not possible you were not the target? For that matter, have you considered that whomever administered the sedatives did so at a distance? They did not know which tank their target was in, only how many were occupied. So they gave each tank an equal dose."
I had not considered that, and having someone cold blooded enough to kill five people instead of the one they wanted was worrisome. Her face had not changed however. "What are you thinking?"
"If you were the target, and the enemy knew you were once a Jedi, perhaps the sedative was supposed to keep you compliant while their work was done. However whomever did this obviously places little or no value on the life of anyone else in that regard."
"You seem to know a lot about what the Jedi can and can't do."
"As do you. Perhaps once we have shaken the dust of this place from our shoes we can discuss it over a glass of something mildly alcoholic. As for now, we have other concerns. An enemy coming for us, and another enemy right here." She tapped her foot on the ground for emphasis.
"Are you going to be all right?"
"I had no intention of accompanying you. I have yet to regain my strength. I will leave the grunt work to you."
I wanted to slap her, but instead I smiled. She reminded me of a lot of the older masters; too crotchety to die, too mean to live quietly. "I'll be back."
"You do that." She slid smoothly into a meditation seat, and I was alone. I walked back into the hallway, facing that damned broken door. I lifted the plasma torch, but I couldn't bring myself to bring it down. To free myself from my prison.
Kreia, right. When I was a youngling at the Courscant Academy, I had heard of Kreia; or a Kreia at least. It had been a character in stories those who tended us in the nursery had told. A magical animal sort of like a Gizka, except it was furry and talked; a magical creature in stores that took younglings on grand adventures. We learned so much of our Jedi life from those stories. How to deal with other peoples, to deal with our own lives.
Long after I had gone on to the Apprentice quarters, I had realized that they were all just stories. Like the one where the Sith and Jedi youngling had fought over a plate of cookies, and when forced to sit down to tea had learned to get along and share. Like any child's tale, it is all allegory with no real connection with reality.
How had she known that name? Perhaps she had been part of the staff of a temple. Nothing I had learned back then had prepared me for Malachor...
Malachor V was the last major battle of the Mandalorian Wars. It was where my will finally broke. I had been through four years of it, and Malachor V had been where Revan intended to smash the last main fleet the Mandalorians had. She had discussed it with her war council; Malak, Vitoris, Sanso, and I.
We had been the best of the best. Our ranks had been harrowed, as had the men we led. Of the 1500 knights that had answered Revan's call, only 400 still lived, less than 200 were still whole. Of the 2nd Regiment Corellian Marines that I had led from the beginning, less than a Sergeant's guard remained of the men I had led onto Dxun that first time. That's 20 men for the uninitiated out of the 1500 they had been. A man who died years ago once likened a regiment to a drink. You drain the bottle one shot at a time into the glass, but as long as you don't drain the glass to the dregs, just add more in on top, it is still the same drink you started. Oh I led 1500 again every time I went into combat leading them. But only those 20 still held my entire heart as the original unit had, let me know that not everything had been destroyed. Lose 1400 people you considered friends and confidants, and you learn pretty damned quick to hold them all the new ones at arm's length. They must be precious to you or they will sense it. Their deaths must cause you to spend them like a miser with his last coins. But you cannot let their deaths tear you apart. Not and stay sane.
The plan was simple. We had captured the Malachor system, and emplaced gravity well generators in every asteroid we could find. Then we had tractored them into position so that the entire outer system could be locked like a massive cage. Revan and I were to command those in the center; 30 ships, enough to give a good fight, but not enough to cost us the war if her plan failed. The rest would wait until the gravitational flux was detected. They would be only minutes away when they came, but even as little as fifteen minutes would kill a lot of us.
Malak, Vitoris, Sanso and Karath would command equal portions. They would come in from the four axis assured to put them between the Mandalorians and home. The enemy would be forced to fight the fleet behind them to get home, and our cage meant they couldn't flee. Of course if it went to hell, it meant those of us in the center couldn't either.
Revan touched her mask. Then set it aside. Only when it was just us, she would show her face. If the average Republic officer saw her fresh 21 year old face, they would never believe 'Revan the stark Jedi warrior' again. "This depends on all of us to succeed."
"We understand." Malak sat there so calm, so self-assured. He was like a Circassian Razor beast, an animal that didn't know the meaning of retreat or restraint. Malak would charge in and if necessary die. He was the bludgeon.
Vitoris smiled. "It is not like you have not laid this plan out again and again, Revan." He was short, squat. A toad in human form with the heart of a lion and the soul of a poet. He had a flowing style of leadership that slid across an enemy formation like water. And like water, he would find gaps to flow through. His ships were all purpose built snub fighter carriers, and he would lead those snubs into battle.
Sanso shrugged. She was always somber, quiet. She kept her own counsel, and the men of her ships spoke of her suddenly appearing when things were about to get hot. As if attracted to the flames. She was the brawler. The one who got in your face with the Frigates she commanded, over a hundred of our largest ships. When it began she would dive in, place herself between our smallest force and the enemy, pinning them like prey in a Kath hound's jaws until we could kill them.
Karath was the cold and precise sniper, the one that would stay as far from the enemy as his guns and missiles allowed, pounding them until they broke.
I was the in your face scrapper. I liked getting in close and using hands, feet, head, anything to punish my enemy. Every Jedi learned to fight, but I was that rare one; the one who enjoyed getting into the fight. I would be the bear trap, the one that would bite down and hold until our friends arrived or we died, then one by one capture those ships. No one had ever seen me run from a fight, and I wasn't going to start now. "Bring 'em on!" I wanted to shout it; get the damn war over with! But I spoke softly.
Revan? She was the conductor of this hellish orchestra. Always so cool. Less than five months into our intervention the Mandalorians caught on. After we kicked their butts at 1st Telos, then at Dxun. They had marked Revan as a worthy opponent, and had set up a trap to test that. It was later called the battle of Hontaru.
I remembered the battle of Hontaru. Commanding the Marines of the flagship as we took fire. She stood on the deck calmly giving orders even as we were pounded by a dozen enemy vessels. But she got us close enough that our shuttles were able to board the enemy. We took three Mandalorians ships from the inside that day. Our ship had been scrapped after the battle, so badly damaged that not even a major shipyard could correct it. They had just planted the charges, and we'd watched while she disappeared in a fireball. It wasn't until later that we discovered that they had used her signals to purposely target her ship specifically. From that point on, every ship in a squadron with her present had repeaters installed. She would give an order via holonet, and an instant later every ship transmitted that order as if she were aboard.
She was so adroit at spotting weaknesses in us, in the enemy, in herself. She was also excellent at correcting those flaws. After over three years we were honed to an edge like an old Jedi metal blade of our beginning, able to cut almost anything.
"Then let us be to it."
I would love to say the enemy fell with no loss to us, but it wasn't even remotely true. Thirty ships facing 20 times their number at the start. It was like two wounded men crawling toward each other to strangle each other as they died.
The array of gravitational dumps guaranteed our ships would be close enough to the enemy that they couldn't miss. I commanded the left flank, and when the enemy was locked in tight, and Malak's forces had just jumped in to be caught by our own gravitational array, I struck. The shuttles from the Frigate Viridian speared forward even as she collapsed into a fireball. I was in armor, impatient to be at blows. The men under my command in that command shuttle were the few survivors of my first full command. With any luck, this would be the last battle of the war. They had earned their places to see the end of it.
We smashed into and through the hull of the Mandalorian Frigate Barakash, flagship of the third flotilla. If we could take her, the entire right flank would be in disarray. We plunged into her passageways.
Fighting up close like that is maddening if you want to record it. All you really see is the space in front of your eyes, where you can look flicking your eyes left and right. You are no longer commanding a group, you are alone, fighting for your life, and dragging your men like entrails behind you.
I had cut my way to the deck just aft of the bridge, and signaled. Ramos ran forward, slapping a charge against the bridge hatch. An instant later he was dead as intruder systems blew him into bite-sized chunks. Some of their ships had them, most didn't. I reached out with the Force, ripping the guns from their mounts, then I touched the charge with just a finger of the Force. It exploded, shattering the hatch like an egg shell. Men poured past me as I walked forward. Then I froze.
I knew the Mandalorian people. Hell I had lived among them for five years when we were still trying to negotiate with them during that expansion of the decade before, right up to when they crossed the Republic frontier. I should not have been surprised by what I saw.
There were three children against the bulkhead. A young Mandalorian cannot prove himself worthy to go to war unless they had faced death in battle. The heart of battle, they called it.
Oh they put them in the safest place aboard the ship. Unfortunately for them, it had been directly behind the hatch I had blown.
They had been picked up by that explosive charge and slammed into the bulkhead with brutal force. I walked over, kneeling beside them. One was perhaps 11. A young boy who if he had been born anywhere else would have been out playing with his friends. Now he never would. Another was a girl of about the same age. I could suddenly see her with pig tails and a cute little dress giggling with her friends. Not the shattered lump of dead flesh I had made of her.
The last was twelve or thirteen. Unlike his friends, he was still alive, horribly alive. I could hear the wheeze of his breathing, feel the life in his brain dying because bone had shredded it. I could see in his eyes the knowledge that even if he survived to reach sickbay, he would be little more than a vegetable in a chair. Unable to feed or wipe himself for as long as his life lasted.
I don't remember what happened after that. I awoke in the sickbay of the Tik Harvest Moon, our flagship. Revan was watching me with that damn mask she wore. If it had been just we Jedi she would have taken it off, I knew. But it helped convince men twice her age that she knew exactly what she was doing.
"Marai. How do you feel?"
"I'm..." I paused. I knew as any Jedi would how much time had elapsed. I suddenly realized that ten hours had passed without me being part of it. "What happened?" I felt my body. No injuries, no wounds. What had become of my life for those hours? I was terrified. "Tell me Revan, what happened?"
She looked at me for a long time. Then she turned to the bustling medical staff. "Stabilize any patients you must and get out."
"General-"
"That was not a request, doctor."
They cleared the room, and finally she sighed, removing that mask. She sat on the edge of my bed, looking at me.
"Marai, You need to go home for a while."
"What? But I am fine! I'll be back on my feet ready for duty tomorrow."
"Will you." She watched me. "What happened ten hours ago?"
"I..." I looked at her. "I don't remember."
"When they brought you into the medical bay eight hours ago, they told the medical staff that you were rocking the body of an injured twelve year old boy, and singing him a lullaby. That was after you had broken his neck. They tried to move you, but you wouldn't let go of the body. Then as if nothing had occurred, you lay him down, said 'Now rest until I return' to him, then stood and asked for reports. Instead of returning, you boarded another enemy ship, your marines covering you every step of the way because you were ignoring everything around you. After they had captured that one, your second in command suggested you come here to see some of your own wounded.
"When you got here, you went straight to that bed, lay down, and didn't get up until a few minutes ago."
"I-" I still didn't see it. I pictured picking up that boy. Snapping his neck wasn't a brutality; it had been mercy. But I couldn't remember putting him down.
She sighed. "We have too much cleaning up to do here, Marai, just about everyone killed in the hell blast." She shook her head. "Only Quintain would call this a victory!
"I am ordering you home. Go back to Coruscant. Get well." She stood, putting the mask back on. "If this war goes on much longer, I will need your good right arm again soon."
I had gone home. But meditation no longer reached into my soul as it should. I had been haunted in my dreams by that boy. Seeing his face slack with terror, feeling his life ebb away in my hands. Seeing it through their eyes as I blotted them away.
The Jedi that had stayed home had tried. They had mind healers try to work with me to bring it out and excise the puss of that horrible mental infection. But I resisted. 'Were you out there?' I asked them. If they were older, I asked them if they had faced Exar Kun in that war. If they had not, I told them to go away. None of them had been through that hell, and until they had been, I didn't want platitudes; I didn't want to hear that the children I had murdered were now living within the Force.
I. Didn't. Want. Their. Damn. Pity.
I had been exiled because of it. I could have stayed. Given up my lightsaber, gone into the Conservation Corps the Jedi also runs supporting the Ithorians. But I had given up too much of myself, of my very soul to be satisfied. I had gotten aboard a ship, that day not even caring where it took me.
I ended up on Corellia with no money. I had never considered that the order supplies every need to its members. Not your wants, your needs. If you were a pilot, they would supply a ship, and if not they'd supply a pilot. I had never missed a meal, or been without clean clothes until I was on the battlefield. But I was a good officer. I never ate if my men had not already eaten, or slept if they had not already rested, or wore clean clothes if they were not supplied with every need first. For the first time in my life I was hungry, thirsty, dirty, and tired but not sharing it with others. It was a humbling experience.
I cleaned up, and went job hunting. What powers I still might have had faded with time, I felt them slipping away, and part of me grieved, but part of me didn't give a damn. Those Jedi powers had murdered those children.
It was there that I had found part of myself. Working as a bodyguard for a firm that hired us out like cattle to visiting dignitaries. At one party someone had brought a Mandalorian Mercenary as a bodyguard and he recognized me from when I had lived among his people. We had been off duty together in the lounge, and he spoke of the war from their point of view. I didn't tell him that I had been exiled, only that I had walked away from it and not missed it for more than a second since. But somewhere in there, around the third bottle of tihaar I had broken down and told him what had happened.
I thought that he would hate me, that he would berate me as a coward. What I had not expected was this man twice my size built like a mountain would pull me into a hug and let me cry against his chest.
"Our history is replete with Jedi either guiding our steps or chastising us." He leaned away from me. "The young knew they faced death when they boarded that ship. Their captain no doubt thought too well of himself, because when the Young are among us, we protect them as best we can. He should have evacuated them. They died. But they would not have chosen to be anywhere else."
"But I set off the charge!" I almost wanted to scream. "I murdered them with this hand, no this single finger! I ripped away their lives for what? For a victory no one even wants to remember?"
He gave me that sad smile. "Why should we condemn you for that? Would you have given away the victory if you had known they were there?" He shook his head. "You knew us better than that. The Mandalorians would have enshrined their names as great warriors if we had won. Since the end of that war Revan has refused us the right to gather honor, and if she dies in this new one, we lose that chance forever."
To lose everything your race lived by longer than the Republic had been around? They had taken me to their bosom years ago as if I were born among them, filled me with their view of the galaxy, given me more than any other people I had met in my time. Hell, If I had been anything but a Jedi, I would have married one of them!
Yet that war I had fought against them had stolen that birthright. Yet another victim to my hubris.
I found myself comforting him the rest of the night. How you may ask? None of your damned business. But I felt that sore in my own soul break open, and felt clean for the first time in years.
After a few menial jobs Consega Lines had approached me. I had proven to be highly efficient as a courier and bodyguard, and they were commissioning a new ship. a luxury liner/casino ship. They wanted me as a plain-clothes security guard. A year and a half later I was Chief of Security aboard their newest liner.
Revan had been right when she tried to call me back to war. Not that her new war was right, only that I had not understood how precious life was for others until I went to war. I shrugged, and the plasma torch cut neatly across the locking face.
I faced someone willing to murder indiscriminately. Who now stalked me from the shadows. I had an enemy and a purpose again. I was back where I belonged. On the offensive.