—
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
—
When she saw the smoke still billowing from the Jedi temple, she knew that it was hopeless. Yet she crept closer, enough to see what had happened, enough to see the bodies strewn about the entryway and beyond and the traitorous clone troopers stationed at the gates. She'd felt the deaths, she'd mourned the deaths...
...But not as much as she mourned his.
His serial designation was CT-8762, but because he was so quiet his brothers had nicknamed him "Cricket." She was the General, commanding him and a squad of other clones as they swept through the droid armies.
Some Jedi treated their clones as the tools they were, adamant in their philosophy of non-attachment. To the chagrin of some of the Masters, she'd decided to know each of hers personally. When the battles were over she found time to make sure they knew her gratitude, when they were wounded or killed they saw her genuine sorrow. Most clones respected their Jedi. She was revered.
Cricket loved her first. He sought her out in the lulls between skirmishes and they would walk and talk and laugh together. Her love came slowly, for her training taught her to deny such things. When their lips first met, suddenly in the shadows of a dark warehouse full of materiel, her denial was swept away.
Their relationship became an open secret. The other clones ribbed him obliquely, aware of how proscribed their affair was. On the field it was all business. Back at whatever base camp was, however, Cricket's fellows made a game of finding ways to get him and her some alone time away from prying eyes.
Then she found herself looking down the barrel of his gun.
She saw the strain in his face, the tears, the way his hand shook against whatever was compelling him to kill her. The others were aiming as well, but he was closest and at the moment he was in their way.
"Run," whispered her love as he turned and began firing at his brothers.
As she ran through a hail of blaster fire she felt him die. The roar of the raging battle drowned her screams.
And now her home was gone.
She stripped her conspicuous outer robes and hid her lightsaber deep inside her clothing. Then the nausea that had been threatening her for the past few days crested and she vomited on the cement. The Jedi Temple hadn't been so sheltered that she didn't know what was happening.
Whatever the next days would bring, she would protect their child.
—
Through passion, I gain strength.
—
She decided to go home to Alderaan and became one of the many refugees wandering the capital. It was hard. At first she was tempted to look into bounty hunting, but the moratorium against Jedi was making everyone look sideways at strangers with combat skills. Instead, she overcame her revulsion and stole. When her pregnancy became too advanced for stealth, she begged. She did her best to discourage friendships and lived in a tiny, anonymous apartment.
It was there that she gave birth, alone. The tiny thing that emerged from her body was noisy and beautiful. She brought her son up into her arms amidst the sweat and blood and looked down, entranced. He had her pale complexion and dirty blonde hair, but his eyes... Ah, his eyes! Those shining green orbs were Cricket's.
She named him Ket.
Begging and stealing would no longer do. She lucked out and found the sympathetic owner of a local eating establishment, Br'Kree, who saw her pretty face and the baby strapped to her back and decided to give her a job. He allowed her to keep Ket in a bassinet in his office while she worked. The other waitresses doted on him. Br'Kree even let her feed him regularly, expounding on his seventeen spawn. The job allowed her to rent a bigger, cleaner place to live.
Ket wasn't force sensitive and for that she was relieved. It was enough that one portion of her mind was constantly working to mask her own power; hiding the two of them would have been impossible. Life settled and her boy grew.
Then the Inquisitor came.
—
Through strength, I gain power.
—
The holonews was often abuzz about the Emperor's glorious decrees and the hulking monstrosity that was Lord Vader. Once in a while they crowed about the elimination of another "treacherous Jedi." Many of her patrons cheered. She hid her dismay under a smile and a quip.
Rumors began swirling around a secret group of red-sabered Jedi who were being sent out to hunt the traitors. The news sent a chill down her spine, but the years were making her complacent. Surely no one would think to look for a Jedi waitress.
The smoke curling up from the diner as she arrived for her shift jolted her back to that horrible day three years prior when she watched the Jedi Temple burn. After leaving Ket in the arms of one of the other waitresses she rushed forward into the flames shouting for Br'Kree. His twisted, broken form was illuminated through the smoke by the glow of a red lightsaber. The sinister, black-clad figure turned and those eyes, those fiery Sith eyes, locked on her.
She ran. Her lightsaber was collecting dust under their bed. She snatched Ket with a hasty apology and headed for home, using the Force recklessly to speed her way. Her boy shrieked happily at being flown about. Unknowingly, her well meaning coworkers and customers were giving her time to flee with their lives. The thing with Sith eyes slaughtered the obstacles with glee.
In a bag under her bed were enough credits to furnish transportation for the two of them and her lightsaber. She snatched them up as well as a heavy cloak and jumped from their fourth floor window onto a neighboring rooftop...
...Where the Inquisitor awaited.
She put her bundles down and ignited her blue saber. He mocked her. He laughed at the boy and promised the child's demise. She watched the unusual lightsaber begin to spin as he advanced.
Ket began to cry.
It was surprisingly easy to slide back into the forms, to use the Force and her body in battle. She could hear Cricket whispering encouragements in her ear and the sobbing of her son pushed her to fight fight fight.
The Sith sliced a line across her face. She planted her lightsaber in his heart.
As the fury in her died, she found herself surprisingly joyous at the shock on his face. She breathed heavily and stepped back, relishing in the Inquisitor's defeat. He looked up, saw something in her eyes, and began to laugh. She stopped it by taking off his head
It was time to go.
—
Through power, I gain victory.
—
On Tatooine, on Naboo, even on Kashyyyk they found her. It was if the scar left from the first Inquisitor was a beacon. Each time she was victorious, and each time she savored their deaths. She took what armor could be salvaged from their corpses and repainted them in a tribute to Cricket's clone trooper pattern. Killing was becoming an addiction, a desire, but it was all overwhelmed by the fury that was a mother protecting her son.
The battles left her scarred, but her love remained true. Every moment spared was spent lavishing Ket with affection. She began his basic education during space flights and he picked up his numbers and letters with ease. Once in a while other children joined in and she became what she thought must be the strangest looking tutor this side of the Outer Rim.
Sometimes she thought she could hear her Master admonishing her over her anger, that her ways were not the Jedi ways. She didn't care. Ket was everything.
Eventually her infamy attracted Lord Vader. She felt him coming as they snatched a few minutes rest at an abandoned hovel in the middle of Coruscant. Nothing could have prepared her for the strength of his power and the chill of his hate.
Something in him called to her. But there was Ket.
He was sleeping fitfully. She looked at him and smoothed away a stray lock of hair. A maddening idea flitted through her, that if her son was dead then she wouldn't have to be worried about him any longer. She bit down on a knuckle and sobbed, abhorred at her own thoughts.
Gently she picked him up. She'd seen the orphanage, ostensibly built for those whose parents had been lost in the Clone Wars, as they were finding shelter. Hopefully whoever was in charge would answer the door at the late hour.
A young Twi'lek blinked sleepily at her. At first she was tempted to lie to the woman; after all, where did her allegiances lie? When the matron looked downwards in surprise, she realized that she had unconsciously been carrying her lightsaber openly as she shouldered her sleeping son. The expression on the Twi'lek's face was pitying and understanding. Gently, Ket was placed into her arms.
An envelope with a letter and credits was tucked into her son's tiny jacket. With her eyes blinded with tears she gave him one final kiss on his beautiful head before fleeing into the darkness.
Vader was close.
—
Through victory, my chains are broken.
—
The monster was enormous, there was just no other word for it. His harsh breathing could be heard from the opposite end of the square where she stood. When she ignited her lightsaber, the late-night denizens of the market square fled.
He was flanked by two more Inquisitors. The monster pointed and they charged. No longer hindered by thoughts of protecting her child, no longer hindered by the off chance that a small boy would become another innocent bystander killed in their melee, she gave in to the darkness. All of her anger, all of her hate, all of her fear gave her strength. Eventually one Inquisitor lay screaming, her arms gone at the wrists, while the head of the other rolled away.
Unbeknownst to her, the fire in her soul had ignited in her eyes.
And Vader advanced, intrigued.
She couldn't win. He was strong, both physically and in the Force, and he was impervious to pain. Sparks shot from the single wound she had managed to inflict on his arm, but other than that he was unaffected. He was tireless, she was exhausted by battle and sorrow. Every slam of his lightsaber on hers sent pain shooting down her arm. She risked leaping above him, hoping just to escape.
He clipped her leg off at the knee.
Desperately she crawled away, Vader's heavy tread ever closer. She turned around, defiant in the face of her death.
And he gave her an ultimatum.
—
The Force shall free me.
—
She killed and she killed and she killed. At night, sometimes, she wept as she thought of what Cricket would have thought of her, at missing the small soft arms of her son around her neck.
Her new Master did her two small kindnesses. He bestowed upon her a replacement leg that included a booster to help propel her further than the Force could. And he never sent her on missions to Coruscant. There were rumors that Vader himself had an aversion to Tatooine.
But that was the end of his mercy. She watched, apathetic, when he killed others for their failures. There was no mission, however, that was too difficult, too bloody for her.
That had been her promise. That she would use the skills that had cut down a half dozen Inquisitors to serve Vader, the Emperor... and the Dark Side. As long as she never refused, her son would live.
Once a year, on Ket's birthday, she received a message from the orphanage matron. It was part of the request couched in a short note amidst the donated credits. The much more substantial letter was to be given when he turned eighteen. For one day she remembered the Jedi mother who did everything she could to make sure he survived. By the time she was sent with the Grand Inquisitor to apprehend Jedi Master Luminara Unduli, her son was a youth who excelled at his studies and had dreams of becoming a fighter pilot.
When Master Unduli's lightsaber sliced a fatal wound across her chest, all she felt was relief.
Her son would grow.
And she was finally free.