THE PRISONER


In the old days of the Old Republic, back when the Jedi Order was at the height of its influence, a renegade group of young Jedi Knights set off to confront the growing threat of civil unrest stemming from a system of bellicose malcontents in the Rim. By all accounts, the young breakaway Jedi Knights had the best of intentions. They had grown impatient with the High Council's official policy of caution. They were frustrated by the Senate's lack of attention to the matter. They were determined to do what they thought was right and optimistic about their chances.

Fifteen years of brutal slaughter followed. This was bloody civil war.

It was also the Republic's first blind and groping brush in over a thousand years with their believed extinct enemy the Sith Empire. And it was for the valiant young Jedi Knights their first step into a larger world of the Force when they came face to face with the mysterious Dark Side they had been warned about. Here was the existential threat to freedom and democracy surfacing at last. Here was the evil shadow power that imperiled their souls finally come for them. It was everything they knew to fear and far more than they collectively or individually could handle.

The Mandalorian Wars, as they came to be known, had far reaching consequences. No one escaped unscathed. Not the Mandolorians. Not the Jedi Order. Not the Senate. And most particularly, not the young Jedi Knights who set off to save the galaxy. Perhaps you know the story of Revan who slew Mandalore the Ultimate and learned the fateful truth from his dying words. Maybe you have heard the tragedy of Darth Malak who would follow his beloved 'brother' to Hell and back gladly. But do you know of the Jedi General who gave the order to activate the superweapon that annihilated everything in its vicinity, friend and foe alike? She is the reason that thousands of years later the Mandolore clans would still hate the Jedi Order. In the end, she would be punished harshly, her very name forbidden to be spoken aloud publicly. Some say she saved the Republic by making a courageous morally grey decision in the heat of battle. Others say she got what she deserved as the Republic's most notorious war criminal.

We meet her now several years later. She drifts aimlessly and anonymously as the Jedi Exile. She is numb to the Force these days, and that makes her easy prey for a Sith Lord . . .


Circa 3953BBY, in an uncharted system in the Unknown Regions, aka 'wild space' to the Galactic Republic, but otherwise known as the Hidden Sith Empire to the rest of the galaxy's citizens.

The door to her cell slides open. A man in some nondescript but totally predictable 'team Dark Side bad guy' black uniform walks in.

Meetra has to quell the urge to roll her eyes. The Sith and their minions might pride themselves on deceit, but inevitably they are always so obvious.

"Hello," the man calls out a casual greeting that seems all wrong for the power dynamics of her current predicament.

She eyes him. He is fully human, male, fair skinned, and light eyed, with neatly swept back auburn hair that is more a camera-ready Republic politician's coif than the usual Sith military buzzcut conformity. He must be an officer of some kind. He's not wearing any weapons that she can see. That's probably a precaution against her using them against him.

Is he here to interrogate her? To pry out information about the Jedi? Or maybe about Kreia and her two frenemy Sith Lord henchmen who are trying to use the chaos Revan left behind to their own advantage?

Will this pleasant looking newcomer be the one to march her to some exotic torture chamber? The Dark Side revels in that sort of thing. The crueler, the better. Sith Lords jerk off to pain. They are the galaxy's most gleeful sadists.

She's been here two days, and the wait is making her antsy. Is it finally time to answer the summons of this underling's Master? Meetra imagines this officer guy is probably panting to present her to the boss to receive commendation for her capture. She can see excitement in his face. When he marched in, she read anticipation in his walk. She doesn't need the Force to understand the subtleties of human body language. Yep, this guy is happy to see her and that does not bode well for the future.

Truthfully, part of her can't wait to meet her captor. He probably thinks he's caught himself a prize Jedi. Meetra looks forward to disappointing him. She will refuse to play the role of long-suffering Light martyr. She won't give him the satisfaction. For that matter, she won't give the High Council back on Coruscant the satisfaction either.

But in the meantime, there is her visitor to contend with. Meetra eyes the man plainly to let him know she can't be intimidated. She's seen the worst, she's done the worst, she's lived the worst. There's nothing left to be afraid of. Beware, you fool, Meetra thinks to herself, for a woman with nothing left to lose is capable of anything.

The guy says a cheery, "Hello," again now as if perhaps she didn't hear him the first time. He looks down at her sitting on the cell bench expectantly. Like it's her turn to say something. And what is this? Some sort of meet-cute in a prison cell? Are they supposed to be pretend friends? Well, fuck that.

"Hello," Meetra answers back with a cold glare and deliberate lack of enthusiasm.

Her visitor smiles. It surprises her. And then, it makes her suspicious.

"How are you?"

"What?" She frowns at her visitor.

"How are you?" the man repeats. "You didn't eat your dinner."

"Coming to check on me?" she snarls out sarcasm.

"That's right," he nods.

"So does this mean you're the good cop? Have you come to make me like you? To earn my trust?" Meetra scoffs at the idea that she could be so gullible. "Go tell your boss that I'm wise to your scheme. It won't work."

The man politely waits for her to finish speaking. Then, he doggedly persists. "You didn't eat your dinner. Did you not like your dinner?"

"I'm not hungry." She's also not interested in eating a meal she will only vomit up later when the torture begins.

"Are you on hunger strike?" the visitor asks in an almost teasing manner. She's a bit taken aback. But next he chides, "You need to keep up your strength."

"No, I don't," she snaps back. "I have no intention of keeping myself alive and well for your abuse. Go tell your boss that."

"He isn't going to torture you."

"Is that because he's still busy with the guy next door?" Screams from the prisoner next door kept her up last night. But that was probably the point.

"That man is dead. He died overnight. You didn't sense that?"

"No, I did not." She can't sense anything currently. She is numb to the Force.

"But you're Jedi."

Meetra looks away as she rejects the label. "I haven't been Jedi in years . . ." Maybe, she muses, she was never really Jedi at all.

"Yes, I know. You're the Jedi Exile."

He says this moniker like it makes her some kind of exotic, highly desirable specimen. Meetra shoots him a look. "I prefer to think of myself as a free agent."

"We have those too. We call them Sith Marauders. Do you miss being a Jedi?"

"No. But I do miss the Force." And wait, why did she say that out loud? She shouldn't have said that.

The comment elicits concern from her visitor. "I—we—thought you still had some Force sensitivity . . ."

"Yeah? Where'd you hear that?"

"I read your report."

"Right." There's a report on her. She's not surprised.

"Well? Do you still feel the Force?" the man wants to know.

Meetra answers truthfully, feeling her face flush with shame for it. "Sometimes. It comes and goes. And it's not like before. I have to borrow the Force now." This is a topic that makes her emotional to speak about. Angrily, she lashes out. "What's it to you?" When the man doesn't immediately answer, she hisses, "Do I disappoint?"

The man's face registers her bitter resentment. "Sorry," he mutters. And she's not sure if he's sorry he asked about the topic or sorry for her personal loss.

"Yeah, well, me too," she gripes. This is a sore point, and Meetra doesn't bother to hide it. "You were expecting a full-fledged Jedi Master? Is that it? Tell your boss there's no bragging rights in killing me. Not any longer. I'm just like everyone else now."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," the man affably disagrees. "You're a Jedi Crusader and a General of the Republic. That makes you a high-status target."

"The Mandalorian Wars were years ago. I don't have any Republic military secrets to tell you. My intelligence knowledge is years out of date. Tell your boss I can't give him anything useful." Is he getting this? She's of no strategic value as a prisoner.

"You're a close confidante of Revan and Malak."

"He was Alek, to me," she recalls sadly. "Look, Alek's dead and I haven't seen Revan in years. Vitiate's got him now. If you're looking for information on Revan, I can't help you. The man I knew . . . he's long gone, wherever he is. I'd be of no use contacting him telepathically, if that's your plan. I can't do that sort of thing any longer." Plus, she not about to enable Revan to be used as a pawn between feuding Sith Lords. "I'm not important now," she assures her captor. "Catching me gains you nothing."

"But you were the Jedi to deploy the super weapon to end the war," her visitor persists in listing more of her dubious exploits. "It was in your report."

Meetra shoots him a withering look. "I bet you people think that's the best part of my resume . . . "

He nods his approval. "It won the war."

"We won nothing!" she nearly shouts back. Yet again, her jailor has poked at a very sensitive topic. And once more, Meetra's bad attitude gets the best of her. She doesn't bother to hold back her feelings. "Vitiate ended up corrupting Revan and Alek to the Dark Side—the two best Jedi of their generation who were poised to take the Order in a new and better direction . . . Vitiate was behind the Mandolorians all along . . . he might have lost the battle at Malachor V, but he won the war. He divided the Jedi, provoked a constitutional crisis in the Republic, and weakened the Republic's most important political institutions in the process. Your Emperor did permanent damage in ways that matter." Meetra sighs and looks down at her hands. They appear clean but she knows they are soaked in the blood of millions. She will never wash them clean. "It was such a waste. All those dead people . . . and for nothing . . . "

She and the rest of the Crusaders thought they were saving the Republic from an existential threat. But in the end, they left the Republic far weaker than when they started. All along, they were fighting a proxy adversary while the Sith lurked in the background as a phantom menace. The Republic fought its own system Mandolore in a bloody civil war that divided the Jedi and confounded the Senate. It was the Republic versus the Republic while the gloating Sith Emperor looked on from afar. By the time they realized it, it was too late. The damage was done.

"I'm sorry," the man volunteers again.

"What?" She squints at him.

"I'm sorry about your Force. That must feel terrible . . . to lose your Force and all . . . I mean, I imagine . . ."

The guy seems absolutely, if awkwardly, sincere. Meetra nods to acknowledge the unexpected sympathy, feeling awkward about being pitiful to her enemy. "Uh. Thanks. I guess."

"The Jedi can be cruel in their own ways."

"Cruelty and orthodoxy go hand in hand," she gripes. This too is a sensitive topic. So far in their brief interaction, the jailor guy has managed to push all her buttons. Meetra vents, "The Jedi have no monopoly on truth or justice just because they practice the Light. They are far from infallible. And they are a lot less forgiving than they pretend."

That crack makes him smirk. "I read that you stabbed your laser sword into the stone floor of the Jedi's main temple in contempt of their decision"

She looks up. "Was that in the report too?"

"It was. What did that feel like?"

Amazing. It felt fucking amazing and she'd do it again in a heartbeat. The looks on the Council members' faces were worth it. They hadn't listened to anything she said that day. They were merely going through the motions of an investigation in a pre-determined show trial. Her guilt had been decided long before she ever set foot in the temple. And that made it extremely unfair when the Council made a very public example out of her.

She was the only Jedi of the remaining Crusaders to turn away from the Dark Side after Malachor V. She was the only Jedi to willingly return to Coruscant to defend her actions. She had wanted to share what she had discovered about Darkness in hopes that others might learn from her journey rather than repeat it. But no one on the Council wanted to hear about it. They were ruled by their fear. Terrified by her forbidden knowledge lest they themselves be tempted.

The jailor guy is leaning in, watching her closely. Waiting to hear what she'll say. He seems very interested in her, which makes Meetra wary. She looks away and explains vaguely, "I was angry."

"That's understandable."

"Not for a Jedi," she retorts dryly. The Council wanted her contrite, and she was in a way. But she was also frustrated to be treated so dismissively. "I was misjudged."

He nods and observes, "You're still angry."

"Yes." She won't bother to deny it. At this point, she has nothing left to hide and she's not giving any more explanations. She is who she is. She did what she did. And people can feel however they want about it. She doesn't care.

"Why did you go back to the Jedi Council anyway?" the man asks.

It's a good question. Meetra sighs and looks down at her hands. "Because I was a fool," she answers wanly. She foolishly thought there was value in explaining her side of the story. She foolishly thought the move would distinguish her from the Jedi-turned-Sith-Lords Revan and Malak, the bad company she was publicly lumped in with. She also foolishly expected the Council to show her compassion along with justice. But most of all, she had wanted to make things right, to reconcile herself with the Order, the only family she had ever known.

But enough about that. Time for her to ask the questions. "Who's your boss?"

"What?"

"Who do you work for? What minor wannabe Dark Lord of the Sith owns this remote fortress?"

"Sion."

Great. Just great. She's been captured by the self-styled Lord of Pain himself. The creepy zombie Sith she ran into on Korriban a while back. "I should have guessed."

"You didn't guess . . . " The man looks disappointed. Like somehow, he himself has been dissed by diminishment of his boss' stature. Probably because in his hierarchical society, the pecking order of power is everything.

Irritated Meetra snaps back. "No, I didn't guess. Look, there are lots of Sith Lords who would love to kill me."

"So you think you're highly sought after? Are you bragging?" The man smiles. Is he laughing at her? Maybe baiting her?

She shrugs. "It's more that I'm an easy kill these days. I'm low risk, high reward."

"You certainly will be easy to kill if you don't eat your dinner."

"What is it with you and my dinner?" Meetra grumbles. "Why do you care if I eat? Tell Lord Sion that I won't put up a fight. He can kill me. I don't care. It might as well be him."

"You got some kind of death wish?"

"No, but I'm a realist these days." Her idealism left with her Force. But truthfully, she's more apathetic than nihilistic in the aftermath. Meetra shrugs her ambivalence. "It might as well be Sion. He'll do," she harrumphs.

There was a time when she would have been formulating a plan to escape using this visitor guy. But those days are long gone. For one, she doesn't have the Force to assist her. But more importantly, she's too physically and emotionally exhausted to care what happens next. For what's the point of survival? Even the Council thinks she's functionally dead. She exists cut off from the Force that sustains all life, a living, breathing vortex of nothingness. Moreover, she has no creed and no cause. She's been cast out into exile, condemned to wander. She has a vague objective of finding Revan to help him. But mostly, she's been busy trying to avoid getting drawn into the conflicts among the warring Sith factions.

The Dark Side is much less unified and simplistic than the Light Side perceives. For the only thing Sith Lords hate more than the Jedi are each other. How their leader Dark Lord Vitiate holds together an empire of infighting warlords is a mystery to Meetra. The Jedi Council has no appreciation for the complexity of the Sith Empire or for its various vainglorious factions that constantly seek to supplant one another. Back on Coruscant, it's as simple as 'Sith=enemy.' And while that's generally true, it is a vast oversimplification of the situation and a very poor strategy for how to deal with the Dark Side. But alas, the Jedi High Council didn't want to hear about it. Not from her, at least.

Her visitor is staring at her now like he knows what she's thinking. He speaks and it breaks her bitter reverie. "You're so sad . . ."

"Yeah, yeah, I am. I'm a fucking wound in the Force. Was that in your report too?" she jeers.

"Yes, it was."

"Do you know what that means?"

"No. I guess not. Tell me."

"It means I'm dead inside. It means when I last saw your boss and he tried his friend Nihilus' Sith vampire trick on me, it didn't work. He can kill my body, but he can't harvest my Force—because I'm a void now. I am like I made Malachor V—empty! Soulless!"

"I'm sorry." The man truly looks as if he means it. "I read that the Jedi are afraid of you now."

"Some of them, yeah," she confirms. "They think that my uh current state is fitting punishment. That I'm some walking, talking allegory or metaphor or whatever . . . " She can just imagine what they tell the youngest Padawans—'follow the rules and keep to the Light or you'll end up like Meetra Surik . . .' It's galling to know, but she's a cautionary tale for the Jedi hypocrisy now.

"What do you think?" her jailor asks.

Is that a serious question? She treats it as such. "I thought what I was doing was the right decision in the moment. I didn't have perfect knowledge and I didn't understand the full ramifications. But based on the facts as I then knew them in the moment, I did what I thought was right." She committed mass murder with deliberate knowledge because she felt it was the best option. She's been paying for it ever since. Regrettably, a great many of those killed had been comrades she befriended and led into battle.

Her visitor digests this defensive sounding rant and distills it down. "So 'sorry, not sorry'?"

"Pretty much." She lifts her chin and glares. "Tell Lord Sion that I won't put up a fight. I'm done fighting." There's nothing left to fight for any more.

The man smiles as if he knows what she's thinking. "I wouldn't say that," he cajoles with another teasing smile. "You're fighting me now over dinner."

His low-key good humor sets her off. "Fuck Darth Sion! And fuck you!"

The man shifts his weight as he squints down at her. He's surprised by her profane outburst. Well, maybe more like perplexed. Definitely curious. "I didn't know a Jedi could swear . . . "

"I. Am not. A. Jedi," she grinds out.

"You mean you're not a fucking Jedi, right?" He's laughing at her. Or maybe it's with her. Meetra can't tell. For a Sith jailor, he's remarkably chill. "I like you," the man decides as his eyes twinkle. "You're not at all what I expected."

"Go away!"

"You were supposed to be feisty. That part is right. But you're not feisty how I expected. You're way more angry than perky."

"Perky?" She's supposedly perky? What sexism is this?

"Perky. You know, determined in a cute, know-it-all, valedictorian girl sort of way," the jailor guy elaborates. "Bossy with likeable qualities. That's how Jedi heroines act."

Meetra doesn't know whether to be offended or to laugh. "I'm not perky." She borrows his phrase from earlier. "Sorry, not sorry."

The glib remark makes the jailor laugh out loud. "You are definitely flipping the script, Jedi. I like you. I like you a lot."

Meetra ignores the comment.

"I read the whole report. I studied up on you. I know all sorts of things that you have done. There was a long section on your personality profile, but I guess that part was wrong . . . But you're a Jedi Empath, right?"

"No, not technically." Bastila's the empath, not her.

"But it said that you are known to strongly influence others. Like Revan, you have a lot of natural charisma. It's said you easily formed bonds through the Force with others around you."

"That's true." That sense of esprit de corps was a large part of what originally fueled the drive of the breakaway Crusaders. And it's what made the loss of Revan, Alek, and others to the Dark Side feel so personally painful. The Jedi Order has long been skeptical of emotional bonds, especially Force bonds. Too often, they led to forbidden attachments. But the young Crusaders blithely ignored all of those teachings. They were unabashed about their closeness. They saw no need to limit their emotional range or repress their personal feelings. If they were angry, they let themselves feel angry. If they were sad, they let themselves feel sad. There was no Jedi zen equilibrium to maintain as a false façade to their inevitable human frailty. But alas, the High Council was right. For allowing oneself to experience the passions of life completely is a slippery slope for those endowed with Force powers. It's a small step from feeling angry to using that anger for power. It's how Revan and Alek fell into the thrall of Dark power thinking they were doing the right thing. And it's how she ended up a notorious war criminal.

"The report says you have a tendency to redeem the troubled souls you meet. Is that true?"

She shrugs. "No one can redeem someone else. You can show them a different path, but it's up to them to choose it."

"So, it's true?"

"Yeah, I guess," Meetra reluctantly admits. She has helped others find their way a time or two. But it's not exactly a habit.

"You are renowned for your ability to empathize with others' situations. To be compassionate about their shortcomings. The report said that everyone who crosses your path falls a little bit in love with you. Is that true?"

Meetra gives the guy an 'oh, please' look and drawls dryly, "I guess you'll find out."

Her visitor laughs out loud again. It's a funny, braying laugh that's kind of goofy. And that makes her kind of, sort of crack a smile herself. "That's me," she smirks out more thick sarcasm. "I'm the femme fatale of the Light Side." She gestures to her utilitarian tunic, pants, and boots that are a far cry from seductive attire. "Tell your boss to watch out for my seduction."

"Oh, I don't know . . . " her visitor considers her, playing along. "I kind of see it . . . "

And wait—is he flirting with her?

The jailor now leans in conspiratorially to ask, "So . . . for real-does this mean you're going to try to redeem Lord Sion?"

She shakes her head no. "I'd have to care to try."

"What if I told you he brought you here because he wants you to try."

"Then I'd call you a liar," Meetra responds blithely.

"He's not going to hurt you. He doesn't want to kill you," the jailor again tries to reassure her.

Meetra's not delusional enough to believe that. "Then why am I here?"

"Lord Sion said he wants to learn from you."

"Learn what?"

"The Force."

"I don't have the Force."

"He thinks you have a lot to teach him." The jailor guy looks her over slowly and repeats his earlier comment. "I like you. I like that you get angry and I like that you swear. What other bad Jedi things do you do?"

She rolls her eyes. "Am I some Light Side fetish of yours?"

"You're the bad girl of the good side," he points out.

Meetra sighs and says nothing, hoping he will go away. This conversation is really strange and it's going on too long to feel inconsequential.

The man doesn't leave. Instead, he digs into his pocket and produces something wrapped in a paper napkin. "Here." He thrusts the little bundle down under her nose. "If you're not going to eat your dinner, at least eat these."

She unwraps the napkin. "Cookies? Sugar cookies. You're giving me sugar cookies?" Meetra squints up at her visitor in confusion.

"They're good," he assures her.

"Are you sure they're not poison?"

"I told you. He doesn't want to kill you. I'm not trying to kill you either. Just er . . . rot your teeth and make you fat."

The sweets do look good. Meetra impulsively takes a bite and chews. "Are you going to get in trouble for this?" she wonders before she devours the rest of the cookie in two bites.

"Maybe. Those are his favorites. He's not the type to share."

"Lord Sion eats cookies?"

"Yes."

"Who knew the Sith liked cookies?"

"We might surprise you . . . in good ways, I mean."

Meetra huffs. "I doubt that."

"Well, uh goodnight," the man tells her as he loiters to watch her lick crumbs from her fingers. He has an expression of surprised fascination. Like he's as surprised that a Jedi might like cookies as she is to learn that Sith Lords like cookies. He offers, "You'll probably get summoned by the Master tomorrow, just so you know . . ."

"Okay," Meetra nods as she begins gobbling her second cookie. "I guess it's good that my last meal is cookies. I'll go out on a sugar high."

"He's not planning to kill you. He's given specific orders for your imprisonment. He doesn't do that for those he kills."

She raises one eyebrow. "Will it be torture then?"

"Only if he learns you ate the last cookie," the jailor chuckles at his own joke. Then, he gives her a serious look. "Don't rat me out."

"Right." Meetra nods her understanding. He smiles, she smiles, and a conspiracy is formed.

"Well, goodnight," the man again begins to leave. "And good luck tomorrow with Lord Sion."

"There's no such thing as lu—"

"There is," the layman jailor preempts her, firmly wishing her again, "Good luck," before he resumes walking out.

Meetra calls after him, "Any advice?"

"For the Master?" The man pauses at the cell door threshold and half turns to think a moment before he answers. "Don't piss him off. Remember how you told me to fuck off earlier? Don't say that to him. Especially don't say that to him before witnesses. He'll change his mind and kill you on the spot."

"Understood. And thanks for the cookies."

"What cookies?" he immediately responds.

She takes the hint. "Right. I never saw a cookie. I never ate a cookie," Meetra replies before the cell door slides shut behind her visitor. She never got his name, she realizes. She'll have to ask him next time.