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Defining the Jedi: Leadership

The crack of Brianna's skull against the pillar echoed, even amidst the thunder of the constant storm raging over Malachor. Mical threw himself once more against the bonds that held him fast, and broke free. "Kreia!" Brianna was little more than a child. She was still learning to open up to the ways of the Force after nearly two decades of trying to deafen herself to its call. One day she would be a fine Jedi, but here, now, she was unprepared to face an adversary like Kreia, and like a true Sith, Kreia had goaded her into confrontation first. Mical would not allow Kreia to cause further suffering.

Kreia straightened and regarded Mical with eyes black with the Dark Side. A smile, half-pity, half-mockery, creased her face. She knew as he knew that they had made a tactical error coming to this place. Like Darden Leona had done on Dantooine when she had provoked a confrontation with Azkul's mercenaries by prematurely releasing Master Vrook, they had let arrogance draw them into a fight that had not needed to be fought. In truth, Mical was no more prepared to face a Master of the Dark Side than was Brianna. Had not Kreia blinded him to her true nature for weeks on end? But now they had come to this place, now they stood before her, there could be no retreat.

"You are a wasted pawn of the Republic, young one." Kreia's voice was soft, but it oozed like oil through the thick atmosphere of Malachor, seeking a way into his head. "You could have been so much more, even with your wide-eyed innocence, your naïve love for others."

She struck like a snake, but Mical had felt the currents of the Force gathering around her, and he raised his hand and made a wall. Her blow broke against it, but again Kreia manipulated the Force. Mical struggled to keep up as the Dark Side swirled around him, beating at him. The screams of the world's dead drowned out the whisper of the Force. It was as if the warped gravity of Bao-Dur's Mass Shadow Generator weighed his spirit down like it had pulled the Ebon Hawk to ground. The Dark Side obscured his vision, Mical's enemy as it was Kreia's ally. He slipped.

Kreia flexed her fingers, and Mical fell to his knees as a phantom hand clutched his throat. He could not breathe. His lungs cried out for air, and black spots began to dance around the edges of his vision in the red lowlights of the courtyard. But worse, far worse, were Kreia's words. His defenses were down, and they crawled in his mind, seeking out his darkest thoughts, the ones whose fire he had tried hardest to smother. There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no passion, there is serenity.

"Think! Think before you throw your life away here! Think of everything you will lose by dying. Your lusts unfulfilled. A dance, unfinished. A love, requited. Think before you give it up so quickly!"

The Dantooine sun filtered through the skylight into the lower level of the Enclave Archives and came to rest on her long dark hair, lighting it up with reds and golds usually hidden, knotting in her Padawan's braid. Her small hands darted through the air with animation and her eyes—green as the moss on the stones in the creek—were bright with enthusiasm. He sat at Darden Leona's feet and listened to her tell stories of the innocents she had saved with her Master, and thought he had never met anyone so wonderful.

He sat beside her in the courtyard, eyes closed, and her calm low voice washed over him. He was swept along in the current with her, out across the plains and up with the water into the trunks of the great trees, into the limbs of the kath pups as they rolled with their littermates in the sun. He felt the strength the farmers mustered as they broke the ground to plant their crops. He experienced the life that was waiting in those seeds. And for the first time, Mical saw how the Force flowed and billowed and caught and released, how it ran in everything and through everything and connected all things together. Darden Leona smiled, and Mical felt that, too, like a feather had ghosted over his own face.

They never spoke her name alone. They always spoke it in the same breath as Revan's, and always as 'The Exile.' But after defending the people the Republic was sworn to protect alongside the Republic the Jedi were sworn to uphold, she had returned. And for that, they said she was not a Jedi. If Darden Leona was not a Jedi Knight, Mical did not know what a Jedi Knight was. The Academy echoed with the steps of the students who no longer walked through its halls.

The Academy was empty now. The ground floor was rubble, and even here in the sublevel the halls were dark and all that could be heard was the scratching sound of laigrek claws on the stone. Even the bodies of the Jedi that had been here when Malak had rained fire down from the sky were dust. The fresh corpses were those of salvagers and mercenaries that had killed one another over the ruins of what remained. Mical did not know what knowledge he could bring the Republic of the Jedi from this place, was trying to formulate a plan. Then there she was again, as if she had walked right out of his past. The bleak, fading evening light filtered through the wreckage atop the skylight to rest on her hair. It was short now. There was no Padawan's braid knotted in it. Instead of a robe, she wore battle-battered armor, and her hands were scarred. But her eyes were as green as the moss on the stones in the creek. When she smiled, he could not help but smile back, as if a feather had ghosted over his own face. "Well. You're not a salvager. Or a merc. You're certainly not a laigrek," she had said, and her calm, steady voice still swept him toward her, even after all this time.

He was unprepared for the sour bite in his stomach when he came back from placing his things in the portside dormitory only to see her standing close to the rude pilot, her small fingers streaked with the engine grease she had wiped from his face and hair.

As Darden Leona taught, the Light of the Force filled his mind and flowed through him once more, but it was tainted by that new sour pain that had never left after that first day. When she smiled at him, she saw only the child he had been. Time after time, she would she look into the medical bay and pass on. Mical listened, and once more heard her light footsteps recede as she made her way to the cockpit. Atton's smirk, his loose remarks, the hunger in his eyes when he looked at Darden were desecrations.

His mind was disordered, confused. In the blackness of Korriban's caves, Mical sat on hard, cold stone and tried to meditate on the teachings of the old Masters. Self-discipline, self-sacrifice, the sovereignty of the Force, but the Dark Side was suffocating, and Atton's ringing words reverberated in his head like an echo of Revan's manifesto. Another former Sith, declaring the shortcomings of the old Masters, the validity of love, passion and emotion in the movements of the Force. Mical had seen the shortcomings of the old ways himself, but where was the path if everything he'd known had been wrong? And what to do in the midst of all the anger, envy, and loss?

The night after the battle on Citadel Station, Darden and Atton had not returned to the Ebon Hawk. Mical stood over the console in the main hold until his body numbed entirely. He strained to hear the ramp descend and the main airlock open, but the only sound to be heard was the whirring of the gears in the broken droids G0-T0 and T3-M4 as they patrolled the empty corridors of the ship. As night passed into early morning, Mical did not know whom he despised most. Atton, because he was right: about Darden, about the Jedi, but still he did not deserve her. Darden, because she was what Atton said: no more than a fallible woman, for all her wisdom in the Force, for all her goodness. Or himself, because he could not help hating them both a little even as he honored and admired their truth, because he was still standing here when he should be moving on, because he had never possessed the courage to speak himself, even if to do so would always have been futile. He had known nothing when he had stepped aboard the Ebon Hawk. And Darden—Darden had already been beyond his reach.

But if he harnessed his emotions, let them lead him, perhaps it was not too late. Perhaps he could make her see he was no longer the child in the Archives, and far worthier than a man that could never climb from the depths to which he'd fallen as a Sith assassin, no matter what names he hid behind or how many grand gestures he attempted.

As Mical's vision began to darken, his eyes rolled to the entrance, to Atton. Every line of the other man's body strained against Kreia's stasis field, and his eyes were screaming. Looking at him, Mical did not see a rival. He did not see a Sith. He saw another Jedi Padawan—his friend. Kreia's oily words dissolved in his head as Mical released his anger, forgave, and let go. The Dark, parasitic vines of Malachor that had been wrapping around his spirit died and fell away, even as his lungs cried for air.

Atton still watched him, straining, and Mical heard Atton's mental voice in his head. It was difficult to understand, just one more scream in a cacophony, but as Mical lost consciousness he could just make out Atton's warning to him, and all Darden's other apprentices. It mirrored his own conclusion.

Don't you get it? It's Darden! It's Darden, not us! We're the way she wants to win here! If she captures us, if we fall, she'll turn us on Darden, and that will break Darden, not that damn bond! Run! Get out of here! Or if you won't—Whatever she does to us, don't let it get to you! Shut yourselves away. Remember we're the good guys here!

Mical had not mastered the technique of speaking to others mind-to-mind through the Force. Even if he had, he would not have had the strength to return a coherent reply. Kreia's Force-hold had cut off oxygen for too long. All Mical could do was try to keep his mind open to Atton, and hope Atton felt his gratitude, his apology, and his resolve that Malachor would not break him to use against Darden Leona. Never. Kreia released him just as he collapsed into senselessness.

Mical awoke to pain the likes of which he had never experienced, and the sound of his friends screaming. He jolted, kicked out, but his bare hand hit a wall that sent still more pain arcing though his body. His hair stood on end and his nose started bleeding. He tasted metal, and drew back. Force cage, modified for torture. It was an ancient device of the Sith. He had seen nonfunctional ones in the Academy on Korriban.

Mical breathed in and out and forced himself up on his knees. The beam stopped. Mical looked left and right. To his relief, he saw Brianna standing in a cage near him, fully conscious, though an ugly purple bruise on her forehead and the glazed look in her eyes told him she was most likely severely concussed. Visas, on his other side, looked worse. She was kneeling like him, but her face was tight with pain, and behind the field, her veil was dark and wet with blood. Like Brianna, Mira was standing in her cage on Visas' other side, but her knees were shaking, and she was cradling a useless right arm that was either broken or dislocated. Atton was nowhere to be seen. Canderous Ordo, too, was gone.

"Ah, our last guest has joined the party, I see," a cruel voice said. Mical tried to focus and saw a thin-lipped young man with cold gray eyes by the console, hooded in black in the manner of the Dark Jedi. "Rise and shine, handsome."

Mical kept his place and kept breathing. "Where are our companions?" His voice came out weak and raspy, a temporary memento of Kreia's Force-hold.

The man smiled. "Yes, there were two others that joined your foolish assault on this Academy, were there not? You may see the old Mandalorian again. In time. Provided you cooperate. As for the other young man…"he clucked his tongue once and tapped his long, thin, white fingers on the console's edge. "I'm afraid he…didn't survive his confrontation with our Lady. He proved too weak, and our Lady dealt with him in a manner suited to that weakness. But you—she claims that you show promise."

"You lie!" Brianna cried. "See?" she called to the others. "His stance, his eyes—he means to deceive us. Atton lives!"

The man's eyes narrowed, and he pressed a sequence into the console. Brianna's scream tore through the air as the beam danced in her torture cage. Mical shut his eyes and kept breathing, until it stopped. "So what if he does? He fled," the man sneered. "The coward abandoned you. But he will not last long. Where can he go where we cannot find him? Malachor herself will help us hunt him down. He will not live to see the morning. But you still have that chance, though it lessens every time you try my patience."

"What twisted game are you playing?" Mira demanded. "You might find out you don't quite have the hand you think."

Their captor raised an eyebrow. "Do you speak of your Master, the Exile?" he asked. "Do you sense her presence? I do not. Nor do any of our allies. I'm told your ship crashed into Malachor's surface and you were separated. What reason do you truly have to believe she has not died at last in the hell she created? It would not be so surprising. Even the bravest and strongest can perish by tragic chance. A bad parachute. A worse landing. The planet's surface is infested with wild, vicious beasts, and sometimes they travel in packs."

Mira furrowed her eyebrows. She appeared to be trying to concentrate, but her eyes widened, and her mouth opened. "Our prisons were designed by Sith. They will interfere with any use of the Force, Mira," Mical said wearily. "He may be telling the truth, but there is no way to confirm he is lying through the Force, even if as we are we could listen over the howl of Malachor. Even if Darden allowed herself to be heard."

The Sith smirked. "By all means cling to your delusions. Your friend is quite right about one thing: your Force abilities are useless to you so long as you stand in these cages. But how boring would that be for us?"

"So you're just going to let us out?" Mira scoffed.

"Certainly. Why not? But of course you can't have something for nothing," the Sith replied. "I will stretch so far as to give you a choice of payment, however.

"The Mandalorian—well, I confess we don't really understand his purpose here. He's hardly Force-Sensitive. He can't be of much use to your party, and his people were responsible for the carnage that you felt all around you as you walked the surface of the planet. Still, he seems strong enough. A fighter. We were of a mind to have some sport with him, but it would be even more fun to see him battle his erstwhile companions. If you were to agree to this game, my allies and I might be convinced to let you out of your cages—unarmed, of course. But what challenge would a Force-blind old Mandalorian be to four young Force Adepts? And you could stay all together and be housed in relative comfort. For now, at least."

Mira started up a stream of curses in Mando'a, and Brianna tossed her head, broken, bloody lips bared in a fierce smile. "You are a fool if you believe we would turn on a companion thus!"

"But is he a companion?" the Sith asked lightly. "Is he really? Can a Force-blind Mandalorian truly be a companion to one such as you? Doesn't your loyalty more truly belong to your fellow Jedi? This way you can all be saved…perhaps."

Mira finished her Mandalorian tirade, and the rest of them maintained their silence, in complete agreement. The Sith hummed. "I told them you might say that," he said. "I said you wouldn't see the fun. Not yet. But maybe you might like another chance to get out of those cages. I'm afraid I can't offer this to all of you. Just one at a time—perhaps you could pick the strongest among you? But I'm willing to go so far as to offer you a personal duel. I'd even provide you with a lightsaber for it. If one of you should defeat me, she could free her friends and you all might have a chance to escape, to give all of us what we truly deserve. If not, well, the next one could always try again. Of course, I can't let my allies believe I'm not doing my job in here. I'd have to just…leave the rest of the cages on, during our duel."

Brianna bit her lip. She looked at all of the companions, and Mical could see her thoughts. She was the strongest lightsaber and hand-to-hand duelist among them, perhaps in the best condition for a physical confrontation. If she could just be fast enough…

"Don't give in," he warned. "Malachor will turn against you! If you trust in your own skill, your confidence will betray you, and if he leaves on our cages, your anger as you face him will turn you to the Dark Side! Remember Darden's vision on Korriban!"

"I could defeat him," Brianna whispered, studying their Sith tormenter from head to toe.

"Perhaps you could," the Sith purred. "And if you should, you could save all of your friends. Maybe even the Mandalorian, if you proved truly swift. What matter if you use the Dark Side to do so? It is only a tool, far more useful to you on Malachor than the Light Side."

Brianna's eyes dilated. Her hands trembled. "Why do the Jedi fight?" Visas cried suddenly in a loud voice. "Brianna! Answer me!"

"We fight to defend others." Brianna replied at once, as Darden had taught them all.

"Would you fight this man in defense of others?"

"Of course!" the Sith tried to interject, coaxing tone now tight near to breaking. "You would fight to gain freedom for your friends, Echani!"

"Brianna!" Visas insisted.

Brianna breathed in and out, in and out. Her fists unclenched. "No," she answered finally. "No. If I took your offer I would fight to kill you, because I believe you should die," she said. "That is not for me to decide, but for the Force to determine." She swallowed. Nodded. Then slowly, deliberately, she knelt on the floor of her force cage, like Mical and Visas.

"Well done," Mical murmured.

The Sith's eyes glinted dangerously. His jaw clenched, and his hand twitched on the console, but he turned his face to Mira. "How about you, little Mandalorian firecracker? Will you accept my challenge?"

Mira snorted. "Please. I've got a busted shoulder, genius, and I'm nobody's lightsaber duelist on my best day. Not yet. I'm not idiot enough to think I could do shit to you before you'd killed everyone else. So thanks, but I think you'll just have to kill us the hard way. I'm not falling to the Dark Side to dance to Kreia's tune."

The Sith's face was dark and ugly, contorted with anger and hate. "We shall see about that," he growled. His hand moved on the console. The torture beams started up again. Mical focused on holding his teeth apart so he wouldn't break them with clenching or bite through his tongue, and tried to recite a teaching ballad Master Dorak had taught him as a child in his head. But beside him, Brianna and Mira's screams rent the air, breaking his concentration. Visas kept completely silent.

When Mical came to himself the second time he was somewhere else again. It was dark. The stone was hard, cold and damp. His skin stung all over, burned by the torture beams in the Force cage. He was alone. Mical climbed to his feet again.

He could feel Malachor raging again. The anger, the loss, the fear, the despair screaming from the heart of the planet. Mical stretched out with the Force, and sensed he stood in a small, rectangular cell. There were no windows, but he could feel the door to his left. He tried to exert the Force on it, but there was no effect. It was as if the stone was dead to the Force, or the Force died when it touched Malachor's rock. He could sense an ancient mechanism in it, but his equipment had been taken. He had no security spikes to slice through the door technologically.

A ragged scream echoed through the hall. Brianna. She was still being tortured, but Mical didn't hear either of the others. But nearby there was someone, perhaps in the very next cell. She was sobbing. "Mira? Visas?" Mical called. He was relieved to find at least that his voice had recovered from Kreia's attack. He wondered how long it had been, however, since their capture.

"I am here."

"Mical?"

The voices were faint, but unmistakable. "It is I," Mical confirmed. "What has happened?"

Both began talking at once. Mira was panicked, near-hysterical. Visas was quiet, resigned. But it became very quickly apparent that neither one could hear the other and had thought they were completely alone in the cell block, listening to the others scream.

"Wait, wait!" Mical interrupted. "Mira, Visas, we are not alone. I am in the cell between you. Now, please. One at a time. Visas?"

"The Sith tortured us all," Visas reported. "I went into a trance to deal with the pain. When I awoke, I found myself here. But Mira screamed, not Brianna. When she stopped, I thought they had killed her. Then they brought Brianna to the torture chamber again, and I feared I would hear you all die one by one before they came for me at last. Mical—you swear you hear Mira in the cell on your other side?"

Mical had been repeating all this for Mira's benefit. Now he added, "You have my word, Visas. Mira lives. Mira—did you see anything?"

"It's not just the one guy," Mira answered immediately, but Mical noticed now her voice was considerably weaker than it had been before. "There are guards all up and down this hallway. I don't know how many. At least six. Maybe as many as ten. I get the feeling we're pretty important to Kreia. And I haven't heard anything more about Canderous."

"What did they do to you in there?" Mical asked.

Mira's voice shook. "Visas went into her trance. You and Brianna fell. These other guards came to take you guys away. I thought…I could see you breathing, but you were all so messed up…I thought they'd decided to just kill you. And then…there wasn't any more talking. Not like before. It was like he didn't want to know anything. He didn't even care anymore. There was just the pain, until I blacked out, too."

Mical considered this. "I do not think the Sith realize we can communicate through the walls of these cells," he said at last. "I do think they mean for us to hear one another through the door and down the hall. I think we in the dark are meant to suffer far more than whoever they might bring to the torture cage." Brianna's scream broke midway through. Not as though she had fallen unconscious again, but as if her voice could simply cry out no more. "They will come to us," Mical concluded. "One by one. They will lie. They will claim we are alone. They might take us out of the Academy and give us weapons, say we are not worth the effort after all. Or they might offer us food and medicine and claim we have passed their tests of strength and will."

"Whatever they do, the aim will be to turn us to the Dark Side, and eventually against Darden Leona," Visas said. "I have walked this road before."

Mical relayed this to Mira. She was quiet a moment. "Everything we've done since we got here has played right into Kreia's hands," she said then. "This—it's been her plan all along. Sending Hanharr to wait for me here, setting Brianna up to face Atris and her sisters, Visas up to face her old master. She wants to break us, and use us to break Darden. It's why Atton ran, isn't it?"

"Yes," Mical said, heavily.

"Force, he'd known Kreia longer than any of us. He knew. He never wanted to come here. He was right. And where'd it get him? It's like that Sith said—Atton's alone out there. How long can he last?" Mira half-sobbed, half-laughed. "How long will any of us last?"

"You might be surprised. The Force loves Atton Rand," Mical said, not without some irony. "Take heart—men like Atton have a way of surviving. And if he finds Darden, his chances and ours may be much better than they seem."

"I can't feel her, Mical," Mira objected. "I see Sith, and Malachor, and that's it. Just Darkness, as far as I can see. There's not even the sense I had before, just enough to tell me she's alive."

"The Dark Side obscures your vision," Visas had Mical say, when Mical had relayed Mira's words to her. "The cry of Malachor is strong, and fear, grief, and guilt only add to it."

"She's right," Mical added. "Mira—you must clear your mind. Only then will you have any hope of hearing Darden's whisper in the storm. She walks alone now, apart from the Force, to protect herself from Malachor. You have seen it before, on Telos."

"She did the same when she faced Nihilus," Visas added.

"I do not know how, but when Darden releases her hold on the Force, the only way she can be seen is through our bond with her—and that is an uncertain connection. I have only observed Kreia and you do it, Mira, and that weakly, faintly."

"Maybe you're right," Mira said. She was quiet for a long, long moment. "I don't hear Brianna anymore," she said then. Maybe she's dead, rang out, as clearly as if Mira had spoken it.

"She might be unconscious. It could be that her voice can't sound anymore," Mical said. "Maybe she is gone. There is no death, Mira."

"'There is the Force,'" she answered quietly. "Okay. Okay. But the Code's wrong, too. Mical? Visas? I love you guys, okay? I love you."

Mical nodded, although Mira and Visas could not see him. For a moment he could not speak past the lump in his throat. "And I love you as well, my friends."

"I had thought the galaxy a dark and empty place, and love a lie," Visas answered. "I was wrong. If I must die at last, I am glad to die beside you."

Mical focused, then. He could not speak and concentrate as he needed to through the stone of Malachor, so he was silent as he stretched out his mind, past his cell. Just a little. Just a few meters out. There was Visas, calm—regal as a queen, the last survivor of Katarr, risen above the horror and fear she had been subjected to and at peace in the heart of Malachor. There was Mira, battered, beaten—humbled, but not broken, and reaching out to meet his presence with her own. And there—yes, there was Brianna, huddled on the floor in the cell beyond Mira's, insensate, her mind awash with pain and dark dreams. But as Mical touched her mind, he felt the Echani girl shiver, and relax, as though he'd pulled a blanket over her.

Mical couldn't speak into their minds. Just reaching out to all his friends took all his strength, all his focus. But the walls of the cells disappeared in the Force as he sat on the damp stone floor, and in the quiet meditative space Mical was content to just sit with his friends, his fellow Jedi, and wait.

Mical did not know how long it had been when his meditation was shattered. It could have been no more than half an hour. It could have been much, much longer when his cell door opened, and someone seized him and pulled him up on his feet and out into the corridor.

The light of the corridor burned his eyes after the complete darkness of his cell, but Mical had other senses. Mira had been right. He heard several angry, worried voices. At least six. Maybe as many as ten. And from down the hall, through an open door that did not appear to lead into the interrogation chamber he'd seen already, strange sounds emanated from the Academy at large. There were screams, the clash of lightsabers. But it was all disordered. These were the sounds of battle, not the sounds of drills. Someone was coming for them.

A collar snapped around Mical's neck.

"Make sure they're functional. The Miraluka and the man still have some fight in them."

Someone laughed. "We'll fix that soon enough."

"Hurry!"

"We couldn't collar the Mandalorian."

"Take him out back and shoot him, then! We have our orders: the Jedi doesn't get any of the prisoners alive."

Rough hands shoved Mical to his knees while someone else clapped chains on his wrists. His eyes were starting to work properly again, but now his thoughts were scrambled, his skin still burned, and now his knees were protesting their treatment. Mical ignored the pain and tried to focus past it. A neural disruption collar. He remembered discussing the circuitry of different detention devices with Bao-Dur aboard the Ebon Hawk. If he could just remember the workings of the device…

A heavy booted foot kicked him ahead, and as if through a haze, he seemed to see the others bound on the chain with him. "Get moving!" Mical's feet began working mechanically as his brain continued to work out the neural disruption collar.

They passed from one room, through another, and into a third, but they were not moving fast enough. The sounds of battle were nearer now. The young woman in front of him tripped. One of their escorts backhanded her across the face, and Mical caught her. Some of her red hair had got in his mouth. He sputtered and helped her stand. Mira. Something clicked in his brain, and Mical changed his grip on her arm and shoulder, wrenched it hard once. Mira gave one short, sharp cry as her shoulder popped back into its socket.

The guard that had hit Mira growled a warning.

"Leave it!" someone else said. "She'll move faster now. That's all that matters."

Mira stood and they continued on, but Mira kept Mical's hand. Mical's mind sharpened as she joined her strength to his again. He had almost figured his collar out. He focused harder, not only on his own now, but on the similar collars all around him.

"Canderous," Mira mumbled under her breath. "He's alive? Did they say-"

The guard's helmet turned, and Mical squeezed Mira's hand hard enough she winced, but fell silent. "Courage, Mira," Mical breathed.

The fear behind them spiked, and a guard shouted, "Move!"

But another voice rang out through the room, loud and clear and angry. It cut through the haze of the neural disruptor and the noise of Malachor both, just for a second. "Hey!" Beside him, Mical felt his friends stand straight as well. Behind him, Visas and Brianna turned and raised their hands on instinct to catch the silver objects flying through the air toward them. "Mical, now!" Darden cried again, and Mical short-circuited four neural disrupters at once as a very-much live Mandalore opened fire on the eight Sith escorting them.

Things moved quickly after that. Brianna tossed his lightsabers. Mical caught them, activated them, and sliced the chains off his wrists in a single movement. Brianna went to work on her own. Behind him, Mira had caught the lightsaber Visas had thrown to her. Half the guards tried to defend themselves from Mandalore's blaster bolts. The other half remembered their orders and turned to attack the prisoners. By then, it was far too late. Darden was among them. She was a whirlwind of green armor and silver double-blade. Her lips were compressed, and her eyes flashed fire. Mical caught a guard at Mira's back in Stasis. He pushed another onto Brianna's blade with the Force. He swung his saber around in a Shien attack to finish the man already falling to one of Canderous' bolts.

Then, all at once, it was over. Mical stood in a circle with the others, panting, lightsaber drawn, before they all realized that there was no one left to fight. Mira let out a breath and tried to take a step, but stumbled again, in reality this time. Mical shot out his arm to catch her, but overreached. He was spent. He could not support her now, and buckled himself. Darden's small hands caught his shoulder. She meant only to keep them all from falling to the floor, but the strength of her grip against Mical's burned skin left him hissing in pain.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Darden yelped, jumping back.

Mical grit his teeth, and he and Mira together regained their footing. Darden's sharp eyes ran over them both, over all of them, checking for the severity of their injuries. "It is nothing," Mical lied.

Darden grimaced. "You guys have to get out of here," she told them all. "You're in no shape to do any more battle today, and the second I give the word this whole planet will implode."

Mandalore came up to stand beside her. "The Mass Shadow Generator?"

"Primed and ready," Darden confirmed. "I found the ships on the surface. All I need to do is send the signal to the remote."

Brianna's lightsaber still hummed, and she watched the door for soldiers. "Does Kreia know?'

Darden nodded wearily. "When I opened my mind to find you and learned you were in danger she saw." Her voice was grim.

Canderous reloaded his weapon and took up position. "Then you have to make sure the Sith here don't get to escape."

But Darden had another assignment for the Mandalorian. "Leave it to me," she told him. "Canderous—can you see they get to the hangar and get out? Commandeer one of their ships."

Mandalore was silent for a moment. Then he agreed. "I know what to do. I'll see to it."

Darden swept her eyes over the group again, and frowned. "Where's Atton?"

She had cut herself off from the Force. She was a non-presence in it, a hole in reality. Isolated in this way, Malachor could not effect Darden Leona, but she could not sense anything through the Force. Brianna stiffened, and her lip curled. "He broke away from Kreia. He fled."

Mical opened his mouth, but Visas beat him to the pilot's defense. Always she had been a friend to Atton. Together they had worked toward redemption. "It was not cowardice, Brianna. Atton was uncertain of our chances against Kreia, and when he was proved correct and realized she meant to take us alive he would not give her the opportunity to turn him to the Dark Side. He would not be used against you in such a way, Master," she added to Darden. "I am only sorry we did not see Kreia's purpose from the start."

Mical remembered his moment of weakness in the courtyard, how Kreia used Malachor as a crowbar to open the lid on all his darkest feelings, how in that moment, he had almost given in to the lies he had sometimes allowed himself to believe, and fallen. But his senses had been blurred long before that. "I failed you, Master," he said. "I fear Malachor affected us more than we anticipated. I should have known to wait for you, not to confront Kreia. You warned us she would attempt to use us against you, but I—"

Mira interrupted, irritated. "Oh, shut up, Mical. You're the only reason we didn't break back there, when they were…" she closed her eyes for a moment, mastering her pain before she would continue. "It's my fault, Dar. I led them to her. I said it was because we'd need a ship, but that was a lie. Half of one, anyway. I wanted to confront Kreia. She…she saved Hanharr, back on Nar Shaddaa. Made him swear another life debt, to find me here. I killed him. I'm not sorry I did, and I think it was the right thing to do. But just knowing that she'd set me up like that…it burned me up. I lost my head. And I couldn't find you, but I could find her."

Visas spoke again. "It was the only plan we had. Do not waste your time with guilt."

Darden squeezed Mira's shoulder. "She's right. It's over now. All of you just need to follow Mandalore and get out. Go to Coruscant. Tell the Republic what's happened. Rebuild the Order."

"You'll meet us there, though, right?" Mira asked. "After you find Atton and take care of Kreia and Sion. You'll join us on Coruscant."

Darden winced, and Mical knew the answer before she gave it. "I can't promise that, Mira. In fact—just in case. This place needs to go. The breach in the Force has to be closed. It can't be permitted to wound anyone else ever again." She turned around and rummaged in her pack for a moment, and entered a few numbers into it, speaking to Mandalore. "If I don't make contact in two hours, send the code to the remote," she told him. "Malachor's already dead. Bury it."

Brianna and Mira started to object, but Darden cut them off with a hand and a glance. "That's an order! And furthermore, you're in charge until the planet's obliterated. One way or another. Then Mical." Darden looked around the circle, challenging them all. "You got me?"

She trusted the soldier to complete the battle objective, even if it meant killing her. The General Darden Leona had been once knew that all her apprentices were compromised, emotionally as well as physically. Mical could appreciate her logic, but the coldness of the order still stung. But the mission of peace, the leadership of this little Jedi Order—that would be his. More than burden enough, he knew.

Mandalore took the datapad. "Yes, ma'am."

Now Darden hesitated, the General no more, nor even a Jedi. She bit her lip. Her fist tightened around the hilt of her lightsaber. "If you see Atton on your way to the hangar—"

Brianna softened. The child of Arren Kae knew something about love and the Jedi. "Darden—"

Darden closed her eyes, but powered through it. "He'll find you, he'll find me, or it won't matter to us," she said, rushing her words. "If he finds you, though, take him with you. Tell him—tell him it wasn't how I meant for things to go. Tell him—tell him I love him, and I'm sorry."

No—she had not meant for any of this to happen. The crash could not have been helped, but once again Mical felt guilt's pinch. If they had only waited, perhaps Darden would not be going on to face the Sith Lords alone, and Atton—Mical stretched out with his feelings, but over the roar of Malachor all he could tell was that Atton still lived. He had no direction to give Darden, nor the strength to reach out to his fellow Padawan.

"If we see him, I will tell him," Visas promised. "But I trust that you will defeat the enemy, and one way or another, we will see you both again."

It was all that could be said, and all that was left was farewell. Darden turned to Mandalore and shook his hand. "You're the best bet they have of getting out of here in one piece," she told him. "They're the Jedi now. Protect them until they get where they're going. I can trust you."

It was not a question, but a statement of fact. Mandalore gripped Darden Leona's forearm, like he might grip the arm of a kinswoman. "It's been my honor, General. I'll do what needs to be done."

"I know." Darden released Mandalore. She took a deep breath, and then, as if she had simply flipped a power switch in her mind, Mical felt Darden's presence among them in the Force once more, and he heard her spirit screaming in agony beneath Malachor's cry. Her knees trembled, and for a moment it seemed she might fall. She clenched her fists so tightly, Mical saw drops of blood well up where her fingernails cut into her palms. One fell to glisten on the white stone floor.

Shoulders squared as if Malachor's gravity pulled a thousand times more strongly on her now, Darden made her way over to stand in front of Brianna. "Just in case," she murmured. She took the Echani girl's face in both of her hands, drew it down, and kissed Brianna once on the forehead. A blessing. For a few seconds, Darden stared right into Brianna's eyes, and Mical knew she had opened her connection to the Force for this—to tell each of her apprentices privately the things she wanted them to know if she never gave them another lesson.

Darden went to Visas, then Mira, and for each in their turn she touched them, kissed them, spoke into their minds. It took less than a minute, but the time seemed to stretch into eternity. Finally, Darden Leona stood before Mical, and for the first time in over a decade, the first time ever she had done so intentionally, her mind reached out, and touched his directly, like a gentle knock on the door of the medical bay. A thought was all it took, and Darden Leona filled Mical's head. She was like a strange, sad song.

An image came to his mind. A small boy at the foot of the statue in the Jedi Archives on Dantooine. Himself as he had been to her. As in many ways he still was. But at the same time he saw himself through her eyes now, and felt her recognition that he had changed, her wish for him for others that would see the man, without the boy. Her eyes were stinging. She was on the edge of tears, and as Mical looked into Darden Leona's mind and saw himself through her eyes, he recognized she had always loved him and always would. And even though it was not the way he had hoped, Mical decided that it was enough, just knowing that.

It seemed to Mical that she was right, that if he and she ever met again it would be some time before they did, and when they met again, things would not be the same. She would no longer be his Master. There was a peace in such recognition, in accepting Darden Leona as she was: a woman, a warrior, an Exile. A teacher, but not a Jedi.

Thank you. I wish you all the best. He was uncertain if he'd communicated, but he knew before she moved that she would not kiss him, and he raised his hand to meet hers. They laced their fingers together. She squeezed his hand. Mical turned it and kissed the back of her hand, then touched it to his forehead. A long, long time ago, before the Jedi, it was how they had honored elders, teachers, sisters, when he'd been a child with his family.

Then her voice echoed in his head. You know they'll need you to lead. They'll need your wisdom. Don't look back when you leave here. You're better than I could ever be, and I think you know that now. It's better now that we see each other as we really are. If one day we do meet again, maybe it won't hurt you then, and when I see you leading where I can't I will be so proud.

Darden Leona squeezed Mical's hand once more, then released. She activated her lightsaber and disappeared from the sight of the Force again. Her lightsaber emerged from its hilt, humming for battle, but before she turned and ran out of sight she shot them all one last, dizzying smile.

In truth, Darden hadn't left them many Sith to fight in the Academy. Canderous and Mical were able to clear the few that remained with blasters from a distance. They made their way to the hangar with little trouble, and quickly found the Echani ship Kreia had used to flee Telos. Canderous looked over the group, and jerked his helmeted head at Mical.

"The Republic train you to fly a ship?" he asked.

"I am not a pilot, but I did receive training on a fighter in basic, yes," Mical answered.

"It'll have to do. Better to have a Force wielder in the cockpit in this storm even if you aren't Atton Rand. Girl—you know the guns on this thing?" he demanded of Brianna, waving Mical off to the cockpit. Brianna was already climbing into one of the turrets.

"My aim may be off," she warned. "At close quarters my training takes over, but Kreia threw me very hard into that pillar during our confrontation."

Behind him, Mical heard Mandalore's armor scrape as he descended into the other turret. "Leona will handle that witch," he said. "You'll be fine."

Mical sat in the cockpit. The Echani ship was much smaller than the Ebon Hawk, little more than an armed shuttle. He hoped that meant it was more maneuverable than the Ebon Hawk. Not that he trusted himself to handle it to its best effect anyway. Still, Canderous was correct. Without Atton, he was the best option to get them off of Malachor. He grit his teeth and started booting up the startup sequence. The ship hummed to life around them, already straining against Malachor's gravity well.

The ship shook and whined around them. It bucked and creaked, but slowly, Mical wrestled it out of the hangar, into the charged green sky, up and up and up. The further they flew from Malachor's surface, the easier it became—the opposite of how it was when a ship flew into Malachor's gravity well.

Mira echoed his thoughts. "How in the galaxy did Atton survive the crash?" she demanded from where she sat in the hold with Visas. "Force—how'd he control it long enough for us all to jump?"

Canderous snorted. "I'll say one thing for Rand—if he's nothing else, he's a damn good pilot. Maybe the best, though hell if I ever tell him that. Even if we all live and meet again and I get the chance. And that's a hell of an 'if.' Up and around, kid! Sith fighters!"

Mical had seen them. He pulled the Echani ship around, and lights danced on the cockpit display and out the window as the Sith sighted them and opened fire. Brianna and Mandalore returned fire.

After that, it was a long, long two hours of fighting Sith patrols and dodging others. Mandalore insisted they remain in orbit, in range of Bao-Dur's remote receivers, as per Darden's orders. When the hour turned at last, he didn't say a word, but a silence fell in the Echani ship. They all knew Mandalore had sent the code, and all eyes turned to the planet.

Malachor sat there, still, unaffected.

Brianna was the first to break the silence. "Do you think we are out of range?"

"Negative," Mandalore replied, after a moment. "I'm getting confirmation on the datapad that the remote's received the activation signal."

"Maybe Darden's countermanding the order, until she can get free," Brianna suggested. Her tone was hopeful.

"Don't you think she would've radioed us first, to let us know she'd got out?" Mira snapped. "No—she's still on the planet."

"Can you sense anything?" Brianna asked her.

Mira sounded frustrated. "Not through all that! Not through the entire planet! Mical? Can you?"

Mical shook his head. "Malachor swallows everything else in its Darkness from here."

"Maybe the Mass Shadow Generator is not as armed as Darden believed," Brianna speculated. "Or malfunctioning. It has been eleven years."

"Bao-Dur built the Mass Shadow Generator, and Darden has followed his plan," Visas said.

Silence fell again. "I'll keep trying," Mandalore said. There was nothing else to be done.

It wasn't until about twelve minutes after Mandalore had sent the signal that Mical felt it. The Darkness of Malachor trembled. "Mical! Fly!" Visas shouted. Mical was already gunning the engines.

They left orbit, flew out, far out. But at the last second, Mical couldn't resist turning the ship to see the end, and the others huddled around him in the cockpit to watch Malachor die.

The blighted, broken planet convulsed, its gravity turned in on itself once again. Slowly, the planet simply…dissolved, released finally from the fields of Bao-Dur's dark work of genius, the Mass Shadow Generator.

From where they parked the ship was clear of the catastrophe, just barely, but the grav-gauge was still going haywire, and Mical could hear the engines straining to keep them out of the disaster. It wasn't difficult for him to imagine how it had been that day, with thousands of ships caught up in the awesome destruction of the Mass Shadow Generator, as this second cataclysm reduced Malachor and all the ships around her, both living and dead, to so much space dust. No wonder, really, that the entire galaxy still reeled from the aftershocks of that day.

"Haran," Mira breathed.

"Oh, Darden," Brianna murmured.

"Wait," Visas said suddenly in a sharp, clear voice. "The Darkness that obscures this world-that-was—that casts shadows and echoes throughout the universe—it is lifting, like a fog. There! You sense it?" Her blind face and her finger pointed to the heart of the disintegrating planet.

A flash—that's all Mical and the others saw. A flash of red and white, then bright white as the Ebon Hawk jumped to hyperspace, barely escaping the annihilation of Malachor V.

"Rand," Mandalore said. "Gotta be."

"D'you think…" Mira said.

Mical knew with certainty what had happened then. "He was always better at evading Kreia than the rest of us. He escaped her, beat back Sion, and since there was nothing to be gained by defying the Sith with Darden unarrived, he waited. He survived—the Force loves Atton Rand."

Visas placed a slender hand on his shoulder.

"He found the Ebon Hawk, repaired it, and went back for Darden," Mira finished, smiling broadly and placing her hand on Visas' shoulder. "And now—"

"They'll go after Revan," Canderous said. "And Leona will be smarter than Revan, and take Rand along."

"Will we ever see them again?" Brianna asked.

Mical looked at her, and placed his own hand on the Echani girl's shoulder, completing the chain of the new Jedi Order. "Perhaps," he said. "But for now, the Republic needs the Jedi, not the Exile, and our path has diverged from theirs for a time."

"We will not forget her," Brianna said, as she looked at the space dust, the asteroid field where Malachor had been. But the Jedi could feel the galaxy sing though the emptiness, now that the dead world had finally been laid to rest. "The galaxy will not forget her."

"No," Mical agreed. "We will make sure of it."

And with that he punched up a course in the navicomputer that would take them to Coruscant, the heart of the Republic, and the ancient founding place of the Jedi Order. Home.

A/N: This concludes my Defining the Jedi student series. You can read five parts of the series on my profile, and the first, Defining the Jedi: Strength, in the main storyline of Defining the Jedi. It's been an interesting side project, examining the thoughts and fears and motivations of the Padawan companions of Darden Leona.

Coming Soon in the main Defining the Jedi storyline: "HK-47 Makes His Statement." HK-47 is tired of waiting for his master to return. According to the Republic meatbag, the Exile and the Sith Atton Rand have located her at last, but instead of returning to the ship like sensible meatbags, they have been wasting time in the ridiculous hole-in-the-wall colony for the last twenty-nine hours. This is unacceptable. HK-47 determines that if the meatbags cannot retrieve his addlepated master correctly, he will do it himself, enacting assassination protocols if necessary. Oh, he hopes they will be necessary. Taking place in the third-person present, HK-47 arrives on the scene in Defining the Jedi to explain everything to Revan and demand she return to him as she should have done years ago.

And a Little Later: "Homeward Bound." The Ebon Hawk echoes with the footsteps, laughter, and shouts of her crew. As Revan, sometimes known as Aithne Morrigan, steps aboard her ship for the first time in four years, she can hear them all—the companions of Darden Leona, the mysterious Sith Darth Traya, and her own friends. Some are living. Many are dead. None are present, save in the echoes. None save one. In the cockpit, Carth Onasi is waiting. But how can Aithne even begin to ask forgiveness for the years she's made him spend, too, alone with the echoes?

May the Force be with you,

LMSharp