This is sort of a prequel to The Last Laugh. Akite Chairu from The Last Laugh is the main character of this story, but I think the similarities end there. This story isn't funny, it's serious and frighteningly philosophical/theological, just to warn you.

Please do NOT complain about any non-continuities between this story and the canon. I had serious trouble finding any useful facts about the Battle of Geonosis. If you know that Bultar Swan is acting OOC please tell me, because I never really could find out what her character is really like, but don't expect me to change anything.

I have been interested Bultar Swan for about three years, since the second time I saw Ep. II. She was the ONLY female Jedi I had seen at that point, and I am a BIG feminist. The lack of female characters in Star Wars is one of my biggest complaints. I had, however, given up on ever finding out who that woman in the backround was until a couple of months ago when my friend sent me some pictures of random Jedi and she was one. To add to the fact that there are very few female Jedi, she is also the only Asian actor I have noticed in the movies. At least Lucasfilm is giving SOME attempt at diversity... Needless to say, I had to put her in this story.

Survivor's Guilt

The Battle of Geonosis

The battlefield is strangely quiet. I look around. A circle of Jedi. Maybe twenty. How many came into the arena? Twenty Jedi. So many battle droids. So many bodies. Twenty Jedi.

The arena spins before my eyes. My injured leg won't hold me up any longer. I fall at someone's feet.

"Master Alo?" I whisper. So many bodies. But he isn't one. I saw him just a minute ago – didn't I? So where is he?"

Someone's hand is on my forehead. A voice is talking. Count Dooku, I guess. I'm not listening.

"Oreti?" I ask, but I know the hand is someone else's. I have to talk louder. "Where's Master Alo? Oreti Alo? Is he alive?"

"I think so," says a woman's voice. I open my eyes. The light is so bright. I can't see who is kneeling by me.

Master Windu speaks. I don't hear his words, but the Force tells me that they are filled with defiance.

The woman who knelt by me stands. I try to stand, too. Even if I am only a wounded padawan, I have as much pride as any Jedi master. I won't die lying down. I have to stand. But my body won't allow it. I fall again.

Suddenly, shouting starts. And shooting. "Look!" calls the woman beside me. She pulls me to my feet. The light is too bright, but I force my eyes to focus and my mind to work and my good leg to help hold me up.

Ships. White droids that look almost human. Someone dragging me along the sand with little help from me. No, the white droids are men in white armor. One figure isn't a white man. It's Yoda. We will be okay now. The woman pushes me towards a ship. I manage to pull myself up on to it. The woman falls beside me. The ship leaves the ground.

I manage to stand. I fall sideways a moment later. Arms grab me. I look down and realize that I just nearly fell out of the ship.

I look around, making my eyes focus. There are several white-armored men in the ship. There is also a black-haired human Jedi – probably the woman who spoke to me and pulled me to the ship. A brown-haired man is steadying me. He pulls back the bandage that I had hastily put on my leg. I glance down. Dark red blood stains the light cloth of my pants and my dark brown skin, which I see through the tears in the fabric. Blood covers my black boots and it's all over my hands.

I wince, remembering how fire from a battle droid's blaster cut open my thigh when my attention was distracted. Oreti defended me while I tried to bandage the wound. I hadn't done it very well.

"Take care of her," the man tells one of the soldiers.

I lick my lips and ask hoarsely, "Where's Master Alo?"

One of the white-armored men takes my arm and leads me farther back into the ship, away from the noise of battle.

"I'm not sure," the woman says, following us in.

"He's my master. I need him," I whisper. I'm not sure if she hears me.

"You're Oreti's padawan?" she asks. I nod. "Okay. I'll find him if I can."

I sink down to the floor. The white soldier helps me lie down.

My leg hurts so much.

There is a battle outside. I can hear screaming and shouting and shooting. Where's Oreti?

The ship changes direction without warning. I almost faint from pain.

A woman's voice asks, "Is she all right?" A man's voice answers, "Yes, Master Jedi."

My leg feels better now. I can think more clearly. I touch my thigh and feel clean bandages. The battle sounds still rage around me. I don't want to survive all this lying down. I wonder if I can get up yet.

I try to sit up.

My mind is dropped into blackness. Because I sat up? No. Something is gone that I depended on.

Master Alo.

I haven't screamed for years, and I don't scream now. Not aloud. But through the Force…

Someone lifts my head. Light floods my mind, driving out the darkness. I have something to hold on to. "What's wrong?" asks the woman.

I am crying. "Oreti," I whisper. "My master. He's dead."

"I'm sorry," she whispers in return. She gently lifts me onto her lap and hugs me.

Such intimacy is not common among the Jedi. I am uncomfortable at first. But this somehow reminds me of being held by my mother… even though I last saw her when I was four… even though I am thirteen now… even though we are in the midst of battle… even though the woman holding me is Human instead of Zabrak like me.

After a few minutes, she puts me down, telling me that she has to fight.

I lie down and stay there. I have done my part; this battle is for others.

"How do you feel, Akite?" asks the woman.

"Okay. How do you know my name?"

"You're Oreti's apprentice. Get up. We're leaving, and we can't take off with you lying down."

I sit up and realize that the sounds of the battle have faded. My vision blurs; I sat up too fast. In only a few moments, though, my head clears. I guess I lost a lot less blood than I thought or the white soldiers are good doctors.

I stand slowly, with the woman's help, and make my way to a seat. The male Jedi looks at us with an annoyed expression. I sit and strap myself in. Finally, I can look around with a clear head. I think that I know the woman, but I'm not sure about the man.

All lucidity disappears as we take off. Escaping a planet's gravity is no easy task.

Escaping memories is much harder, says the Force. I start in surprise. The Force usually only speaks to me when I am meditating. But it does speak to me, which is more than most padawans can say.

Why am I crying again? I wonder. The straps holding me to the seat loosen and someone lifts me up. I sniff and dry my eyes.

"It's okay, Akite," says the woman.

"What's wrong with her, Swan?" asks the man sharply.

"Her master died," the woman replies. "His ship was shot down."

He scowls and says coldly, "Your master didn't die. He is one with the Force. He is beyond pain; he is happy. There is no death, there is the Force."

He is quoting the Jedi code. I wonder whom he is trying to convince.

I gather up my courage and ask, "Who did you lose?"

He turns away angrily and leaves us.

"His padawan," the woman tells me. "Who was not nearly as young as you."

I understand now why he is angry. I survived. His padawan, who was older and more experienced than I, did not.

Neither did my master.

"You're Bultar Swan, aren't you?" I ask the woman, trying to change the subject in my mind. She nods. "You are – were – one of Oreti's friends."

"Not friends, exactly." We sit on the floor. The white soldiers leave us. "We were near the same age, so we were in some classes together as younglings."

I am silent. I can't avoid thinking about my master. My former master.

Master Alo. Dead. I can't believe it. In a happier state? Yeah, right!

"If we are happier when we are dead, why don't we all kill ourselves?" I ask angrily.

Bultar Swan shrugs. "What would the point of that be? It would be so boring. We can't really be happy when we're dead, can we? If we are past pain, how can we feel pleasure? Think about it. If there were no evil, how could the Jedi be considered good? There would be nothing to compare us with."

"What do you think happens to us when we die?" I ask, confused.

She offers me a small smile. "I like to think that today, when a hundred Jedi died, a hundred babies – Force-sensitive babies, I hope – were born with their souls. The adventure begins again."

I frown. "That's not what the Masters say. That's not what the Force tells me."

"Okay, what do you think?"

"I think… well, you know that our bodies return to nature when we die. So our souls return to nature, too. They become part of the Force, no longer someone's mind but part of everything."

"And from nature comes new life," said Bultar Swan softly. "And so: from the Force comes new minds. Maybe they aren't the same souls reincarnated. But they are connected. Everything is connected. My ideas, your ideas, the masters' ideas. They are all the same. Everything, all our ideas, and all the religions in the galaxy – they are all the same. Because everything is connected."

I don't reply. I'm too tired for theological discussions. But I know that she's right. Often, I've wondered why so many people fight over religion when they all say the same thing: there's someone or something greater out there.

We sit in silence. I hear men talking on the other side of the ship. "Master Swan?"

"I'm a knight, not a master."

"Where did all the soldiers come from?"

"I don't know."

The male Jedi appears. "They're clones. Master Kenobi found them. Master Yoda went to get them. They saved us. Swan, come here."

Bultar Swan stands and follows him. I hear them talking. When she returns to me, her expression is achingly grim.

She sits in front of me. "Akite, 212 Jedi masters, knights, and padawans came here. Not all of the Jedi were ever in the execution arena, of course. Several never landed, participating in a space battle. Also, a lot were in Geonosian cities, and we don't know what happened to them."

"Master, please, what's your point?" I ask.

"I'm not a master," she reminds me. "My point is this: there are thirty to fifty Jedi that we can't account for. But of the ones we know about, we only know of…" She swallows. I wish she would just tell me. "Of the 212 Jedi, we only know for sure of 24 Jedi that survived."

I do the math. Over a hundred, probably over 150, Jedi died. I saw the bodies, yet this is impossible.

"Akite, of the 212 Jedi that fought in that battle, we only know of one padawan besides Anakin Skywalker himself who survived."

"And me," I say.

"No, Akite." I think she is going to cry. "Twenty-one masters and knights, Yoda, Anakin Skywalker, and one other padawan."

I start falling into the black void again. I wonder what has happened to my world.

"There might be more."

Two of my best friends were at the Temple when we were called to leave for Geonosis. They must be dead unless they are lucky enough to be unaccounted for.

"Akite?"

What has happened to my world? My master is dead. My friends are dead. I never thought any of us would die so soon. And all those Jedi…over a hundred Jedi…so much of my world is gone.

"Why were there so many Jedi here in the first place?" Bultar Swan asks herself angrily. I pull myself back into the world. "He brought every Jedi at the Temple. He didn't have to bring so many. We didn't have to lose so many."

"Who? Who's 'he'?" I ask.

"Master Windu. Who did you think you were following here?" Her voice is teasing but bitter.

"But – he must have known what he was doing." Master Windu was a senior Jedi on the council before I first arrived there, maybe even before I was born. "He doesn't make mistakes."

"Akite, even Yoda probably makes mistakes; we just won't admit it."

I stare at her. My amazement at her statement defies words.

She shrugs. "We're Jedi, not mindless soldiers. We question things. Do you know that I have never taken a life before today? I never knew what it was to kill. I wasn't proud of it, nor was I ashamed of it. It was a statistic; it didn't matter. The time would come. Well, the time has come. We've caused the death of civilians. The ships we shot down weren't manned only by droids. So many lives were lost today – Jedi and separatist and civilian. I should have appreciated the fact that I had never killed. It's too late now. There's only one thing to do – wonder why this happened. If we didn't, we wouldn't be good Jedi. And while we're thinking… well, we have to question the ones who caused this. Including Master Windu and the Council. Do you understand?"

I just look at her.

"Oh, you poor thing. You didn't want a moral lecture! I just had to talk to someone."

"It's okay. You're right, I think. Anyway, it keeps my mind off…other things." I don't want to say it, but I have to. "Why me? Only one padawan survived. Why was it me, a thirteen-year-old girl? Why not an eighteen- or twenty-year-old ready for his trials?"

"Like I said," she began cautiously, "There may be some padawans unaccounted for, and Anakin Skywalker is still alive."

"But – I'm thirteen. I've had a master for less than two years. But old, experienced masters died."

Bultar Swan shrugged. "The best fighters, the strongest masters lived. But so did I. So did the Senator. How can we explain the workings of the Force?"

Not more theology, I think.

"Survivor's guilt," she says. "You start wondering, 'What right do I have to live when others died?' Maybe we'll never know. Maybe it was just luck. Fortune is blind, they say. Or maybe there is a reason. Think about it: how did you survive? You were wounded badly. But you made it. What did you do?"

I think about it. "Oreti protected me. He defended me so I could get a bandage on and walk without bleeding to death. Some of the other Jedi helped, too, since I was a 'wounded comrade.' Then, we got ourselves against the wall so it wasn't so hard for me to stand or defend myself – I didn't have to worry about attacks from so many sides. But then the droids forced us away from the wall. And you know the rest."

"You see?" she asks earnestly. "You stayed against the wall, where it was easier to fight. You didn't leave until you had to. Most Jedi wouldn't have done that; they would have gone on fighting as if they hadn't been injured. Their pride would have made them do it. It's impressive. It's ordinary Jedi behavior. It's also potentially deadly behavior."

"I am a Jedi and I am proud of it," I say. How many times had I thought of my pride today!

"So am I, yet… you were the only seriously injured person that I saw in the circle of survivors, and that made me think. I can't blame the deaths of injured Jedi on too little will to keep fighting; we are Jedi. I can only blame it on too much will – they were too proud to be careful."

She makes sense, except for one thing. "If I survived by being cautious, how did the Senator survive?"

Bultar Swan grins. "From what I've heard of her, Senator Amadala is so stubborn that she would continue fighting a battle long after she is dead."

We laugh.

The man wakes me up. I look out the window to see Coruscant below me. We're almost home.

We have spent the past day in this ship in hyperspace, sharing stories, sleeping, and meditating – always trying to figure out just what happened on Geonosis. I have been given a lot to think about.

Before I fell asleep, I asked the other Jedi, "We did win, didn't we?" I had simply assumed that we had without asking. I thought that we wouldn't be leaving freely if we hadn't. But I had to hear it.

They looked at each other for a long moment. Finally, the man said, "We drove the separatists off the planet."

"But did we win?"

They were silent, weighing our losses against our gains. Finally, Bultar Swan said, "I don't know."

But now, with Coruscant below me, all that doesn't matter. The Force tells me that I cannot understand why I lived and my master did not. It tells me that I need not worry about anything now – not what happens when we die, not whether Master Windu was right or not, not what will happened to me now that I am masterless, not what will happen to the Jedi after this battle. Not even how my injured leg is. There will be time for all that later.

For now, all I need to know is that I am home.