Chapter 45
It took me three days to track down Gai-jin. When I found the location, I quietly put the word out to avoid that side of town. I wore my black clothes to project my intent in advance. Gai-jin had set up in a prefab unit converted tooffice space. Since my encounter with Brachter, things had quieted down some. Most of the criminals I encountered were just petty thugs, easily run off. Twice I had to fight down bounty hunters looking for a Jedi kill. Gabrielle had helped with the second such hunter and last I'd heard that particular hunter was scared of its own shadow now.
As I neared Gai-jin's office, my combat senses were alert and watchful of every shadow, and every alley. Two thugs stepped in my way as I got to the door. I held up my hand and pointed first at the guard on the right then the one on the left. They started gasping for breath and stumbled back against the wall. I released them as soon as they were out of my way and went to the door. It opened as soon as I was close enough and after entering, I received two surprises in a row. Gai-jin was a woman! And she was Force Sensitive!
She sat at a desk consulting a portable datapad on one side and a full size terminal on the other. She wore a fake smile that exuded arrogance. In other surroundings, Gai-jin would have been quite attractive, though no woman would ever replace my beloved Gabrielle in my heart. She had liquid blue eyes, a small nose and a mouth whose lips were full enough to be considered 'luscious'. She also had prominent cheekbones and wore her hair cut short and colored green.
I sensed in her the ability to be a very seductive woman when she chose to be, and she probably used her beauty in a very lethal manner. Having never encountered a Dark Jedi, I had no measure to compare to as I scanned her. I concluded she was untrained save the occasional hunch that paid off. When she spoke, her voice was the type better suited to a singer than that of a criminal. She said: "Hmmmm, you are an attractive one. I can almost feel you taking my measure Jedi. Do you like what you see?"
As she spoke she pushed her seat back and put her long legs up on the edge of the desk. She was wearing a tight pair of pants that accentuated them and a tunic that was tight in all the right places to accentuate her breasts yet loose enough to enable free movement. A detached part of my mind was quite impressed with the view but then, I'm sure that was exactly what she wanted and knowing her nature, the rest of me was quite thoroughly turned off.
She said: "Is there something I can do for you Constable or rather should I say, is there something you want me to do too you?" I remained silent a moment to make her believe I was actually considering her offer then I said: "I won't waste your time Gai-jin, and don't bother playing your games of seduction with me because they won't work. I am here to inform you that the Council of New Hope wants you and your people off-planet. You have forty-eight hours to comply. There are regular shuttles leaving for Selkar's station and I suggest you get on one of them or face the consequences."
She was unimpressed with the ultimatum, as I expected. She put her feet down, got up and walked over to me and placed her hands on my chest in an attempt to arouse my interest by caressing me. This plainly disgusted me as I placed my hands on hers and pushed them down and away from me. She tried again and went for my crotch. This time I made my disinterest known as I grabbed her hands again and found the pressure point in them and squeezed.
She caught her breath and then smiled as she said: "I can take it rough if that's what you want." I applied a little more pressure. She whimpered in pain and tried to break my grip. When that failed she tried to knee me in the groin but her knee hit a Force wall and she winced in pain again. I let her go and she stepped away. Plainly put, she was pissed off. I said: "You're a failure as a woman Gai-jin. You don't interest me in the slightest."
Taking a short leap she tried to land a jump kick. With the Force, everything seemed to slow down. I stepped in, caught the extended leg and using her own inertia against her, spun around and threw her at her desk. She screeched as she flew through the air, hit her desk, and slid across the top knocking both her datapad and her terminal off it and then fell off the desk herself to land with a loud crash on the floor.
Her bodyguards came in to face a lit lightsaber at eye level as I said: "Think about it." They did and backed up far enough to allow the door to close. Gai-jin stood up and made a gesture with both hands. Only the Force alerted me to the danger as a whistling sound came through the air. I caught two throwing knives between the fingers of my free hand and sent them back to her. They stuck in the wall where Gai-jin's eyes would have been had she not ducked.
She stood up again and said with genuine fear in her voice: "What are you? What are you for Sith sakes? You can't be human. No man can resist me! No man!" I said: "I am Jedi that is what I am. Maybe you have lost the ability to be a woman. No matter. You have forty-seven hours and fifty-five minutes to get off-world. I hope you make good use of them. Good day." As I walked out of her office I heard her mumbling to herself: "How? How is it possible? No man has ever resisted me." After advising the Council of the actions I had taken to this point I went about my business for the day.
The next morning, I again went to Gai-jin's office. The guards of the day before were there again but seeing me, they backed away with their hands still on their weapons. Since I didn't want armed assailants at my back, I snatched their weapons away from them with the Force and put them on the roof where they would be inaccessible for the time being.
I walked in to see Gai-jin sitting at the same desk all pretexts of seduction gone. She was wearing a plain gray jumpsuit with several pockets of the type you see starship mechanics wear; only I doubted that she had any tools other than the kind to kill with on her person. I said: "You have twenty-four hours left to your deadline Gai-jin. Why haven't you left yet?"
She laughed at me and said: "Your blasted Council can go space itself. What do you know about me Jedi? I have power in the underworld the likes of which makes your sorcery seem like cheap parlor tricks. Don't mess with me." I said: "I know you're a mercenary thug, extortionist and a murderer." She said: "Yes, I am all of those plus a hundred more, but my favorite has got to be the murderer. There's nothing like the feeling I get when I see the life-light leave the eyes, it's better than multiple orgasms. It's even better when I'm riding them and just as the bust, I feel my cream mix with theirs as I slit their throat. I'm not leaving this planet until my work is done. I did some research on you and I know why I couldn't wet your appetite. Your wife is quite attractive but she still isn't as hot as me. Go away before I make your bitch disappear."
As I have indicated before, I am Jedi, but I am also a man. I still feel everything any other man can feel, I just control it better. But when a man's wife is threatened, he will do anything to protect her. I was surprised at the intensity of my emotions as a Burst of Speed had me around her desk and holding her by the throat with her back against the wall.
Her feet were kicking uselessly as I slowly started to squeeze the life out of her. Like an ice cube down the back, the savagery of my actions caught up with me and broke me free of the Dark Side's grip. I set her back on her feet but her feet wouldn't hold her as she collapsed against the wall. I couldn't help but notice the wet stain of a loosed bladder spreading across the groin of her jumpsuit or the bitter smell of urine in the air.
Calling on every scrap of strength I possessed, I let the Dark Side go and used the Light Side to heal the damage I had caused. The tears of pure fear mixed with mortified embarrassment rolled down her face as I diverted my eyes. I started to walk out and heard her tear-choked voice say: "You're dead! Do you hear me! You and your bitch and your bastard are dead!"
I stopped at her door long enough to say: "You are one certifiably warped thing in a human body Gai-jin. You have twenty-three hours and fifty-four minutes left." I left then not sure what I was more disgusted at, her threats or my actions. I asked myself: "How could the Dark Side grip me so easily? Not even when I fought Brachter did I feel anything like the power I felt in there." The answer would not become known to me until a few years later, but that is a tale for later in this narrative.
Chapter 46
The deadline came. I went to the Council to report. They said in no uncertain terms: "She leaves." I returned to Gai-jin's office. The two guards were now four. Upon seeing me with my saber in hand but deactivated, one dropped his weapon and ran away as fast as he could. One of the remaining three ran at me but caught a high side kick to the face for his trouble. He flipped completely over in mid-air and lay on the ground face down and unconscious. The last two started to fire their weapons at me. I deflected bolts back into one of the shooters who promptly was thrown back into the building and lay against the wall. With no other choice in the matter, I decapitated the final attacker.
The door wouldn't open this time but using the Force, I tore it from the frame housing and stepped inside to be greeted with blaster bolts and throwing knives. As I deflected bolts and dodged knives I stepped into the office itself and saw Gai-jin against the wall. Snatching all her weapons away from her with the Force, I split the desk in two with one stroke of my lightsaber.
Gai-jin was well and truly terrified now. I'm sure it was a feeling alien to her in her experience. In a last desperate effort she went to her knees and started to beg as she said: "I can make you a rich man Constable. Let me live and we'll be partners. Let me live and we can be more than partners. You can have me every night as we conquer the underworld. All that you desire can be yours."
Using Force-voice enhancement I said: "SILENCE!" I looked down at her almost prostrate form and said: "I pity you Gai-jin, I really do. All that power and it means nothing to me or to you now that you see there are those in the universe who don't crave power like a drug. All that power and it will never give you the one thing I think you want most, to accept and be accepted for whom you are not what you can give others."
At that moment, I did something I never thought possible, I opened a mirror in the Force and compelled Gai-jin to look into it and see into her very soul for what she really was. She stared at first and then screamed loudly as she saw the truth. Her eyes rolled up in her head and she fainted.
Extinguishing my saber, I carried Gai-jin's unconscious form in my arms to the shuttleport where my deputies took her into custody. From there they took her to the security wing of sickbay on Selkar's station where she would wait until the New Republic could send some agents for her. I wondered again at the ability to open a mirror in the Force and show someone their true self. I remembered how I did it and how I could do it again if I had to. It had been a strange day indeed.
About a month later, I received a call requesting my presence on Selkar's station. I hopped the next shuttle going up and was there in fifteen minutes or so. I met an officer wearing the uniform of the New Republic police. Amazingly, I recognized the person in uniform as the same woman who first took me to see General Naz all those years ago. She looked me over with the discerning eye of someone who knew their job. When her eyes came to my lightsaber, they lingered there a moment and then shifted back to my face. Her face lit up in a smile as bright as the sun and said: "Good to see you again sir!"
I smiled back at her and said: "Good to see you again too. I'm glad you survived the civil war." She took me to the holding cells in the medical wing. Upon entering a meeting area, she stood by the door as Gai-jin came in wearing binders and a plain prison suit. Her eyes met mine and then looked away. I turned to the officer and said: "Will you step outside please?" She gave me an unneeded salute which I returned to her as a courtesy and left the room.
I said: "You wanted to speak with me Gai-jin?" She looked at me again and said: "My real name is Mewala Preel." I said: "My apologies then Mewala, you wanted to see me?" She said: "Yes. I want to apologize." The wording, as much as the intent that I could sense in the Force surprised me. She was sincere! I wondered for a moment how a hardened criminal like her could be sincere about anything but her business as she said: "I know, I know. You're probably thinking how can I be sincere about anything right?"
I nodded yes as she said: "I've had a lot of time to think while I've been up here. When you showed me my true self, I was genuinely repulsed by what I saw. The doctors up here told me I had a mental breakdown of some kind after that. I'm seeing things much clearer now that my treatment in complete. In my rage at failing to seduce you, I resolved to either bed you or break you by killing your wife and son. Nothing has ever been out of reach once I set my mind to it . . . until you came into the holo-image. It would also appear that your aloofness to my wiles has completely backfired on me and made me fall in love with you Jedi."
I kept my expression neutral and said: "I can sense the sincerity of your words and the purity of your emotion but my love is committed elsewhere. Though I am flattered, I do not love you. Maybe in another life we could have been friends but here in this time and place, we must be enemies."
The woman named Mewala Preel, formerly known as Gai-jin, shed genuine tears. She said: "I just wanted you to know that even a hard case like me can be made to see the light. I'll be leaving soon to stand trial for my crimes. I expect to get the death sentence even if it is the New Republic doing the prosecuting."
She concluded with: "But know this Jedi, before you came and arrested me, I made some calls and hired a death squad to come for you and your family. I'm sorry for that too. But even if by some act of providence, I don't get the death sentence, the fact that I love you and can never have you will be punishment enough. Goodbye . . . my love."
I left the interview room and met the officer outside. She said: "Thanks Constable Jayks. We've been after Gai-jin for years now. Even during the reign of the Emperor that woman broke the law as flagrantly as ever. One question if I may?" I said: "What's that?" She said: "Even after taking you to the General, I never really knew if you were a Jedi or not. Are you?" I said: "Ask Master Skywalker about me and he'll tell you."
I had intended to catch the next shuttle going down. But a short visit with Selkar in his office turned into a dinner invitation which I couldn't refuse. After we parted ways, I caught the last shuttle for the night. When I got home I sat on the couch with Gabrielle and told her all that had happened on the station. When I finished, she said: "I think I can understand her, from a certain point of view." I couldn't hide the disbelief as I said: "A certain point of view? She threatened to kill me, you and our son too"
Gabrielle laughed and said with a sigh: "Ronin, I'm sure you have found that a great many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view. When I first met you, your kind and gentle nature spoke to me and said that you were capable of love and needed it as much as I did. So, clinging to this truth, I took a chance in getting to know you and was rewarded in a manner unlike anything I ever thought possible. Besides, you're an easy man to love."
This last came out so matter-of-factly that it didn't quite register until she started to giggle. That night we held each other tightly before, during and after the act of love and were content.