The communication station aboard the Republic ship in route to Tylo activated. Kit Fisto was expecting Cad Bane to contact him to finalize the trade, and activated it without hesitation. He was therefore very surprised to see Serra Winters sitting in a chair with her arms crossed on her lap.
"Hello," Serra greeted him in a surprisingly cordial voice. "Are you Jedi Master Kit Fisto?"
"I am," Fisto agreed, recovering from his surprise. "If you'll pardon the question, why aren't you in a holding cell?"
Serra laughed, a soft, melodic giggle, and shook her head.
"I'm afraid that Cad Bane wasn't quite strong enough to keep me in his custody," Serra shrugged nonchalantly. "Are you surprised?"
Fisto chuckled under his breath. "Given what happened with Kenobi, no, not as much as I could be. Did you kill him?"
"I had no reason to," Serra shook her head. "I do not waste energy doing things that do not need to be done. Bounty hunters make a living by killing and capturing their acquisitions. Although I do not like what Bane did, I don't blame him for it."
Fisto was surprised, and it must have shown because Serra laughed softly. This was not the childish, girly laugh she had used before. This one was grown up, the laugh of a woman.
"You shouldn't be so surprised Jedi," Serra chided Fisto as if he were a friend. "I understand bounty hunters quite well. After all, I was raised by one."
"No," Fisto corrected her. "You were raised by a Jedi, and I regret that she was lost."
"Lost?" Serra interrupted him, her falsely good humor vanishing instantly. "What do you mean by lost? My mother was not lost."
"She was turned against the Jedi Order by the Dark Side," Fisto said flatly. "And I wish it wasn't so. Heather and I were friends. We were younglings at the temple on Coruscant at the same time and became Padawans in the same year."
"Wait, wait, wait," Serra shook her head. "You think my mother left the Jedi Order because she fell to the Dark Side?"
"Of course," Fisto shrugged, lekku rippling with the movement.
Serra sighed and hung her head. "You Jedi are something else, you know that, right? You think the only reason someone would leave your precious order is if they use the Dark Side? Let me tell you something, Jedi. The first time I ever felt the Dark Side of the Force was when I met Dooku. My mother never used it – never."
Fisto hesitated. That wasn't what he had heard.
Serra had spent the first half of her life on Mandalore, her mother's homeworld, with her mother's house. She remembered one day of many days. Her mother had given Serra one of her blasters and was kneeling beside her, showing her how to use it. Heather Winters had been wearing her bright pink armorweave vest as she always did. Despite having the right to forge a set of Mandalorian armor she had never done so, citing that the armor was too heavy to be bothered with and that it was Jango Fett's thing.
Serra's first shot had missed the target and it had made another member of her mother's clan – Serra's clan – chuckle, Heather had patiently corrected her grip and told her how to sight the shot. When Serra had shot a second time, she had hit almost dead center. That had shut up the clanmate's laughter and he had nodded appreciatively. Few Mandalorian clans bothered to learn how to shoot anymore, but all the clans of Serra's house did so.
"See," Heather had smiled and ruffled Serra's hair. "That wasn't so hard. Now, let's see how many more times you can hit the target."
"You think the Republic and your Order are so perfect," Serra taunted the Jedi Master. "My mother left you peacefully. She did nothing to harm you, and yet Jedi were sent after her to bring her back as if they knew what was best for her."
"She killed Jedi," Fisto cut her off, "dozens of us."
"After," Serra corrected. "She started hunting Jedi after you began hunting her. Why did you hunt her? Why didn't you just leave her alone? Well, I know why. It's the same reason you declared war on the Confederacy. It's because they left the Republic, and that's the one thing you can't stand. Nobody leaves paradise. Everyone should want to be in the Republic. Hell, you even want the Zygerrians to take their "rightful place" in the Senate. You believe yourself so high and mighty that you think you know best for the entire galaxy!"
"Now wait just a-"
"The arrogance of the Republic is something else," Serra laughed, a chill laugh that made Fisto's blood run cold. "Your corrupt Republic is run by money and the will of corporations, and the Jedi Order, which are supposed to be independent, take orders from them. You are slaves to the Senate's whims and the sad part is that you don't even know it. My mother realized it. That's why she left. It was not because the Dark Side clouding her judgement or whatever other excuse that's been fed to you. She left because she knew staying with you was a mistake."
There was a moment of silence where Fisto just stared at her, and then he sighed. "That's harsh."
"I could go on about why my mother left the Jedi Order, why the Confederacy left the Republic, and why those two things are the same but I feel I'd bore you."
"Eh?" Fisto smiled. "No, no. I am always interested to hear how the mind of a Sith works. I must know my enemy to defeat them."
"Sith?" Serra leaned back against her seat. "Aren't they all extinct?"
So Serra wasn't going to admit that she was a Sith. Well, Fisto could hardly be surprised.
"In a way," Serra added, her temper returning to cordial. "I owe you Jedi thanks for one thing."
"And what would that be?" Fisto inquired politely.
"You, or rather the bounty Cad Bane took, taught me how very unbecoming arrogance is." Serra smiled, the smile never reaching her eyes. "I was as arrogant as the Republic, overestimating my prowess and not taking the threat Bane posed to me seriously. I won't act so foolishly a second time. You've taught me a valuable lesson."
"Pardon me if I'm not thrilled by that revelation."
"You are pardoned." Serra covered her mouth with one hand to smother a laugh. "You might as well go running back to your Chancellor, seeing as Palpatine is the true leader of the Jedi. There is nothing for you to do out here."
"So it seems," Fisto nodded agreement, inwardly frustrated.
The last thing they wanted to do was make Serra Winters more of a threat and it seemed they had done just that. Heather Winters had been a successful and popular bounty hunter, so turning to the bounty hunters to handle her daughter had seemed foolish to him. It appeared that he had been proven right.
"I hope you will pardon me for cutting off the conversation." Serra brushed her hair over her shoulders, speaking with a note of finality. "My ship will be dropping out of lightspeed soon and I'll need to attend to certain matters. Until we meet again, Master Fisto."
She put two fingers to her lips and blew Fisto a kiss. Then the hologram shut down.
Fisto looked at the table-sized holographic center and then sighed and lowered his head. He remembered when Heather Winters had been apprenticed to Qui-Gon Jinn, having recently passed her Initiate Trials and become a Padawan. She had been hopping up and down like a girl half her age, an infectious joy.
Not all Jedi younglings who completed the Initiate Trials became Padawans. Some joined the Jedi Service Corps, putting aside their training and using what abilities they had to aid the galaxy from a grass-roots level. Others could leave the Order. For a Padawan to leave the order after they had been with their Master for several years was rarer, and usually happened because they had fallen under the sway of the Dark Side.
Serra's comment that she had never felt the Dark Side before Dooku had peaked Fisto's interest. As far as he knew, Heather had been hunted because she was a Dark Jedi. It was only because the Jedi had hunted her that she had taken to killing them, becoming a Jedi Hunter. If a Jedi left the Order in peace then they left. The issue was dropped. If Heather hadn't used the Dark Side they had no right to hunt her. Was Serra telling the truth, and if she was, why had the Order hunted an innocent Jedi?
He remembered catching up with Heather after she had killed a pair of Jedi hunting her, a Knight and a Padawan, her first kills. Fisto would never forget the moment when he saw her. She had been standing above their bodies with her blue lightsaber in her hand. Her hands were shaking so badly her lightsaber was. Then she dropped her lightsaber to the ground and let it deactivate.
She must have sensed Fisto's presence because she had looked up at him. The distress, the panic, the shock in her blue-green eyes had struck Fisto hard. Heather looked like Heather, like one of his oldest friends, not like an enemy.
"Kit," Heather had whispered in a thin, tiny voice. "Why? Why?"
Then she had turned and run from the sight of the Jedi bodies, abandoning her lightsaber. Rather than give chase, Fisto had checked the fallen Jedi to see if they were dead. They were. His master had tried to cut Heather off, but she had evaded him. He remembered seeing his master pick up Heather's lightsaber and comment that at least she no longer had it.
If what Serra said was true, that Heather had never used the Dark Side and was thus not a target of the Jedi Order, then Heather's plea of why now had a new light. Fisto closed his eyes and lowered his head, a pained expression taking over his features. He was assuming that Serra was telling the truth of course, but if she was…
The hologram of one of the Clones on the bridge suddenly appeared on the station in front of Fisto, jolting him to his senses.
"General," the clone greeted him. "There is an incoming message from General Skywalker."
"Excellent," Fisto said strongly, shoving Heather aside, "put him on."
The clone nodded and his image vanished. Anakin Skywalker took his place, and he seemed very pleased with himself.
"How did it go?" Fisto asked, hoping the turmoil he felt didn't show.
"We lost some clones," Skywalker admitted, "but we were able to stop the transfer. We're heading back to base. Do you have Winters in custody?"
Fisto exhaled in relief that Skywalker's mission had gone according to plan, although he knew what he was about to say would put a damper on the Knight's victory.
"No," Fisto admitted, "not quite."
Well, for the most part that was a civilized conversation. Assuming you've seen the Clone Wars series, you know from what happened with Ashoka at the end that the Order has some things to answer for. It almost needs to be gotten rid of by the Empire so an uncorrupted one can be put in its place. If Serra is telling the truth then the Order has a great deal to answer for. Fisto will see to it.