A Sith does not know compassion.
That is what Master Finn taught me from the moment I became his apprentice. The student of the Dark Side was a simple enough position to achieve, given the circumstances. I lived on a god-forsaken rock of a planet, the world of Axxila that sat just outside the Core Worlds. Mine was the life of a slave doomed to an unimportant existence until the day Master Finn and his then-apprentice came to Axxila. His past apprentice – a boy, with the shallowest understanding of the dark side of the Force – took an interest to me and allowed me to tail him throughout the streets. I had been freed for only a few moments then, my newfound freedom thanks to the boy's anger.
In return for an insult, he had cut my owner down with the magnificent, glowing weapon of the Sith, the lightsaber. As my owner, the stinking Toydarian, lay on the ground in a blackened mass of flesh, I followed the boy in a desperate attempt to get off of the planet. The Sith often can control the thoughts of others and many times I had been able to hold the minds of sentient beings momentarily. I thought, if Master Finn was presented with this evidence, surely he would take me off-planet to train me. The boy was ordered to dispense of me, but instead, that spark of uncharacteristic kindness inside him won over and he lead me to Master Finn's starship. It was a marvelous thing, the black metal gleaming silver in the sun.
Master Finn made it clear that he had no desire for a slave and already had an apprentice. This statement set the gears in my brain swiftly rotating. The apprentice boy was fool enough to stand close to the edge of the roof. A grin accompanied my stroke of brilliance before I dashed forward and slammed into the boy. He toppled off the edge of the stories-high docking bay, landing with a satisfying SPLATCH.
Glancing down at my grisly work, I felt a shiver of pride. From now on, I decided, I would control my own destiny, carving it in stone. And the Force helps those who get in my way. Striding confidently aboard Master Finn's ship, I thought there was nothing that could ever defeat me. I discovered that I was very wrong.
If a Sith knows no empathy, I fear I am unfit for the position.
These feelings are no mind-trick, no Force manipulation. I felt care for two children – a baby and a girl – and regret after I killed them.
Even admiration for one I was ordered to dispense of. He was my age and in an attempt to learn more of my target I entered one of his haunts, a cantina on Nal Hutta's crime-infested moon, Nar Shadda. The place was half full; those inside were all sorts of scum, weak minds all around. Sliding into a seat at the bar, I requested plain water, sipping it cautiously. You can never know what gets put in the rivers of Nar Shadda.
I focused on the door of the cantina, only glancing down at the description of my target scrawled on a worn piece of flimsy. Red-orange hair, tall, wears a spacers' suit…. This could have described more than a few of the men in the cantina, except for one detail. His species was listed as Unknown, humanoid with pale skin and an extra digit on fingers.
His skin was so light that it seemed to glow in the dim light of the cantina. He stepped into the cantina and conveniently struck up a conversation with me. Instead of the information I wished to acquire, instead he told me about how he was working to help those enslaved under horrid conditions. He recalled terrible stories of children beaten so hard that they were lamed, girls sold to the pleasure houses of Corellia when barely into their teens. I began to care deeply for these victims, admiring the man who risked life and limb to help others. It was so much easier to kill than to help and I felt like I had taken the easy way out in life.
The admiration continued to grow as he continued to speak. He turned the conversation to me, complementing my hair, blue from Axxila's atmosphere. Thinking of Axxila, I wondered how I had gone from an innocent girl sitting on the street corner to the Sith's apprentice in only a few short years.
The man gave me his name, Danowin. Danowin…it did not seem a fitting name for a freedom fighter. The original Danowin was a Sith Lord who had destroyed dozens of civilizations and desolated countless planets during his ruthless conquest of the galaxy. The man explained that he had been a slave as a child, same as I had been. He had no name for his first years of life, simply being referred to as 'slave'. He drifted from owner to owner, eventually finding himself property of a crime syndicate. The leader of the syndicate, a Hutt, hoped that the boy would become useful and faithful, giving him the name of the most destructive man the Hutt's data archives could come up with. Danowin had escaped the syndicate eventually and devoted his life to help others. He set out to redefine "Danowin", to change the connotation of the name.
I excused myself from the bar and stepped out of the cantina. I considered going back to Master Finn's starship, then I realized he would know that I had not killed Danowin. In return for my reluctance to carry out this task, he would kill me. At that moment, I had the most significant epiphany of my short life. He would kill me. I was a dispensable tool in his plans. There were always other Force-sensitive people out there, many willing to trade in their normal live and devote themselves to the dark side of the Force. He would not care if I were killed, just as he showed no grief after I murdered his previous apprentice. Master Finn had taken me from that dead rock that had held me captive for so long and showed me the galaxy, honing my abilities. Didn't I owe him for everything I had? But hadn't I also sworn to craft my own path? He was controlling my future, directing me for his purposes.
The bastard could do without an apprentice for a while.
I tossed a credit chip to a street urchin, a girl who exhibited physical characteristics of both humans and the Firrerreos. Firrerreos were so rare in this quadrant of the galaxy that one displaying even the tiniest bit of Firrerreo blood should be valued instead of cast aside like so much trash. I even sensed a surge of the Force inside of her and wondered if such gifts were no longer valued in the galaxy. I instructed her to spread the tale that one Marka Teliapo was dead. Master – no, no longer Master – Finn would be able to detect me through the Force, but the rumors would throw him off my trail long enough for me to escape this smuggler's moon. I told the girl that I could provide her with a whole new life if she came back to this place at sundown tomorrow.
The Jedi, that ancient, dead society of peacekeepers and enforcers of justice, could be formed again. All it took was one being, searching the stars for Force-sensitive children to teach the ways of the Jedi. This half-Firrerreo would be my first student, but not a student of the Sith. Starting at sundown tomorrow, the Jedi Order would rise from the ashes and, in time, the grip of terror the Sith hold on the galaxy would slacken. A new era would begin, one of celebration and joy replacing one of panic and fear.
Striding back into the cantina, I was ready to join Danowin's quest for redemption.
This was written as a sequel to a comic in Star Wars Tales: Volume Five called "The Apprentice"
Star Wars, the Firrereo, the Sith, Nar Shadda, and all that good Star Wars-y stuff is (C) to LucasFilm.