Feeling the Force
I left the mortuary armed with my plasma torch. Thoughts about my strange encounter spun in my head. I so desperately wanted to give the old woman a title. "Sith or Jedi?" I asked myself. "Perhaps I'm seeing this wrong. Maybe she is neither." I knew that but few could walk the narrow line between light and dark. The temptation of the Dark Side usually proved to much. I went up to the damaged door and bashed my way through. The sight that greeted my must have been my third shock for the day. Corpses were lying all about and destroyed droids littered the floor. Some of the destroyed droids had there mining equipment extended. They were covered in blood. The sight was disgusting to say the least. The corpses looked like they had been "mined". Holes in the corpses looked like they had been causes by the droids. "They must have malfunctioned." I thought. I went over to one of the corpses and picked up a vibroblade. "Well at least I have a weapon." I thought. One of the bodies that littered the floor seemed familiar to me. I went over to it and recognized it as the doctor from the log entries in the medical bay. She was shot numerous times in the chest by a weak laser.
I grasped my vibroblade firmly and opened the next door. The adjoining room was also filled with wrecked droids and bodies but also with two live druids that turned towards me instantly. I quickly ran over too one of them and split it in two with my blade. The other droid had begun firing at me but it proved to be everything but a crack shot and missed completely. I quickly destroyed it as well. The next room was empty but it had two doors. I approached the one to my left and attempted to open it. It was locked.
"…this is the exit… but it is sealed… strange… in my visions, it was open…" Kreia's voice startled me.
"Kreia?" I asked. No one answered. I once again attempted to open it but it remained shut. She was force sensitive alright. It was strange to hear a voice in my head but it reminded me of better days. I decided to try the other door since this door would be impenetrable to my plasma torch. It opened and revealed a room with a computer, some lockers, and of course bodies. I began by checking the lockers and with some skill I managed to open it. The two Ion grenades were a sight for sore eyes. They would be perfect against droids.
The computer was next. It contained a few logs which I listened too. The first entry was made by a man who looked like some one in charge. He mentioned that he did not want anyone violating anymore security procedures. He particularly addressed someone named Coorta. "Must be a trouble maker" I thought. The second entry described an accident with a sonic grenade going off prematurely. It also mentioned that droids were malfunctioning. "What an understatement!" I exclaimed aloud.
Log Entry #3 had a short communication of the enraged officer in the previous entries with some idiot from maintenance. The maintenance officer had been unable to figure out what was happening to the droids. The maintenance officer mentioned "binary decay". The man making the entry got upset and mentioned that everything had begun when the commander had refused to sell me to the exchange. "What would the exchange want with me?" I thought. "I don't owe them anything." I continued the entry. The officer mentioned that he was arming this level in case of droid attacks. I looked around the room at the bodies. "I guess he was unsuccessful." Entry four was quite interesting. "So if I shut down the energy field to the holding cells all the droids will turn off… good to know." Entry five. The officer explained his master plan about using a stealth field generator to turn off the holding cell field to shut down the droids and turn them on the saboteurs. "Good plan but it has not worked." I mused.
As I approached the door to the next room I felt a familiar tug in my mind. "… be careful… there is much energy in the room beyond… yet it stems from nothing that lives…"
"Thanks for the warning." I said out loud.
Kreia continued. "… can you not sense them… reach out… cast aside your sight… cast aside what you can see and instead reach out with your perceptions"
I staggered from the unknown yet familiar presence of the force. The energy field that had been my companion in the early years of my life suddenly returned. It felt a little different but it was there.
"… ah you can feel them… the droids you cannot perceive, but the small oscillations of energy… that you can feel… echoing outwards."
I could actually sense three droids on the opposite side of the door. I could wield the force again. It was an exhilarating sensation. I decided to use my newly found powers on the droids. I opened the door and with a force enhanced sprint leaped at the first droid and destroyed it before it could move. The other two mining droids began firing and I dodged there blasts. Three seconds later the droids were destroyed.
Kreia spoke once again. "Ah… you hear it. It is faint… but it is there."
"How was she doing this?" I thought. "What is happening?" I asked
"It is the force you feel… it has not been so long as for you to forget…" She was lecturing me again. Well it did feel different.
"But it doesn't feel like it did… it feels like it it coming from across a great distance." I replied.
"Do not turn away from it. Listen… feel it echoing within you." She told me, but it sounded more like an order. "Come, I shall guide you down the familiar paths- you will need it if we are to survive and escape this place."
I looked around the room, which I had just cleared. There were two lockers and one of them contained the famous stealthfield generator. Stealth had never been my thing and using my new force powers to kill the droids was too big a temptation. The other locker had two more Ion grenades. I proceeded to the next area and came to a very large room of sorts.
The large room was filled with computers… and droids. After destroying five I made my way to the administration computer mentioned in the logs. Above the computer was a huge digital map of the mining station and some strange looking planet with a hole in it. Maybe this was the planet mentioned by the administration officer in the logs.
I looked at the computer and found the override switch. The monitor switched to camera view and I saw how the energy field protecting a door disappeared. "Presumably the cell room." I thought. I used some of my scavenged med-packs to treat my bast wounds. Luckily these blasters were weak. The wounds were not dangerous so I made my way over to the now open door.
"…as… beyond this door is someone who yet lives… be mindful… his thoughts are… difficult to read… but you have nothing to fear from this one… and he might yet prove useful…"
"Kreia's voice again" I thought. This was getting annoying. "I'm being ordered around completely now. Maybe the force was not the blessing I thought it was these last ten years." I thought back on all the pazaak games I could have won with the force… "It does have some uses."
I opened the door to reveal some holding cells. The "someone who yet lives" was sitting on the floor of his cell playing pazaak with himself. He was being very careful not to get to close to the energy field, surrounding him. His clothes were singed in some places. "How long has he been in there?" I asked myself.
He looked up surprised. "Nice outfit- what, you miners change regulation uniform while I've been in here?"
"I better get some clothes." I thought. "The second comment now. First Kreia and now this guy."
I decided to address the clown. "Who are you?"
"Atton… Atton Rand. Excuse me if I don't shake hands. The field only causes mild electrical burns." He told me sarcastically.
"Yeah, I can tell." I replied. "Care to explain why you're locked up?"
He looked indignant. "Ok, here comes the: I didn't do anything speech."
"Security claimed I violated some trumped up regulation or another- take it up with them if you want, but they stopped listening to me shortly after they stopped feeding me. Now that's criminal." He said clearly enraged.
I must admit I felt sorry for him. I knew that he hasn't been taken care of since the droids had killed everyone. "But, better safe than sorry." I decided to ask him a few more questions. "
"This facility's deserted. What happened?" He proceeded to tell me of some accidents. He like Kreia was certain that the patient in the med-bay, me, was a Jedi. I vowed to myself to kill whoever had spread this lie about me. He continued his narration. Some of the miners wanted to sell me, unconscious, to the exchange. I already knew that the commander of the facility didn't go along from the log entries I had seen earlier.
"Then there was some big explosion, and then I was sitting here for a long time, waiting for some half naked miner to show up and ask a bunch of questions." His sarcasm was certainly not endearing. This was the second time I heard of this bounty on captured Jedi.
"There's a bounty on captured Jedi? Why?"
"Don't know much about it. Maybe someone wants one as a trophy, or someone has something against Jedi and is looking to collect. Not many Jedi left… wouldn't surprise me if the bounty's pretty high." Atton replied.
"Interesting." I didn't know what had been happening in the order the last five years. I didn't care, and in the rim you don't hear much about Jedi politics anyway. "Guess, I could pry some information from him."
"Not many Jedi left? What happened to them?" I asked.
"He must think this the strangest interrogation of his life." I thought amused.
He looked at me confused. "The ones who weren't killed in the Jedi Civil War ended up switching off the lightsabers long ago. Word is, there's not even a Jedi council anymore, but who knows?" he explained.
I didn't know the Jedi were in that bad of a condition. And I never knew Jedi fought amongst each other. "The stories I heard were of the Sith fighting Jedi, not Jedi fighting Jedi."
That must have sounded like I'm quite the ignorant. "Stories?" he asked. "Yeah, Revan, Malak, and the Jedi that went to join them in the Mandalorian Wars. They turned against the other Jedi and had a scrap that almost laid waste the galaxy. Heh. Where have you been?" he asked smiling.
"He must think me some ignorant miner who hasn't left this facility since ten years." I thought to myself. I looked around me. "What a horrid thought"
I turned back towards Atton. "I've been… away since the Mandalorian Wars."
"Well, I wasn't there, but like all Sith, Revan and Malak turned on each other. After they turned on the Jedi, of course." He explained.
"I will listen to the news more often." I told myself.
"The rumors I heard said Revan defeated Malak, then went to Korriban to unite the Sith against the Republic."
"That was the story, but whatever happened there must not have lasted. There was some big civil war on Korriban, knocked that academy to the ground. Looks like Revan's grand crusade finally consumed her." He told me expertly.
"He knows a lot about the Sith" I mused. "Or maybe I just know nothing."
" I am not surprised… Revan lived for battle. She could not easily turn away from war- or death."
He looked at me stupefied. I realized it was my first knowledgeable remark in the conversation.
"Yeah, well when she became a Sith Lord she sure didn't stop. She killed her way across half the galaxy. The males are bad enough, but when a woman falls to the dark side, you better space yourself before they catch you." I might be ignorant but that sounded awfully like he knew it from experience.
"You sound like you know from experience." I said curious as to how he would react. He reacted perfectly calm.
"Ah well, you hear a lot at pazaak tables." I realized that I had been carried away by the conversation. I noticed that it was time to try to get off this inhospitable facility.
"I had some more questions for you."
"Hey no offense or anything, but you weird half-naked interrogation is not my id…" It looked like something suddenly dawned on him. "Hey, wait a minute- you're that Jedi the miners were talking about. Where is everybody?" I decided not to argue that with him. Since everyone thought I was a Jedi there was no use arguing it. I renewed my vow to kill the person who spread that lie.
"I don't know- this facility seems abandoned." I replied.
"The miners can't all be gone, but if they are…" he looked at me pleadingly. "Look- hey, let me out, and I can help you. I can. I've gotten out of trouble countless times."
I felt a tug in my mind. "Kreia must be warning me to be careful." I thought.
"Tell me your plan, and we can go from there." I smirked.
"This facility is not a military instalation which means that we have a pretty good chance of getting out of here alive. You shut down this cell's security field, and I can reroute the emergency systems so we can get to the hangars. We grab a ship and then fly out of here." I told me. That sounded like a sound plan to me.
"I trust you. And if we work together, we may be able to get out of this mess." I hoped I wasn't making a mistake. Kreia told me I have nothing to fear so I decided to trust her. I turned off the energy field and he stepped out.
"Great- now to business. Let's get to the command console." I threw him a ration bar from one of the lockers, which he devoured eagerly.
"All right, let's go." We ran to the commando console. Atton finished eating and turned towards me. He explained something about orbital drift charts which guided ships to the station through the asteroids. He suddenly started. "What's wrond?" I asked.
He looked at me frowning. "This system's been severed from the main hub- after it was locked down by remote. You can't even reroute the system, it's been cut clean."
"Strange." I thought. "Everything on this station is strange!"
"That wouldn't be standard procedure in an emergency lockdown." I said out loud.
He stared at the console. "No- someone tried to lock down this whole level tight, and leave us here. Trapped."
"Maybe the same person who tried to keep me unconscious with an overdose of sedatives." I mused angrily.
"Is there anything else we can do with this console?" I asked him.
He sighed. "I doubt it. All we have is communications back, for all the good trying to shout in a vacuum will do us."
"Let's see if we can try and reach someone on the comm." I said filled with hope.
"Be my guest. Not much else we can do. The console's all yours." He said sounding as if all hope had left him.
