Chapter 6: The Perfect Padawan
"Master Unduli!"
Luminara Unduli looked over her shoulder to see Barriss running towards her. She held up a hand and her Padawan slowed towards a stop.
"Barriss," she said. "I'm surprised at you running in the Temple corridors."
Barriss blushed and pulled her face into her hood. "I'm sorry Master," she replied. "But I heard you were back and...I needed to see you."
Luminara nodded. "I'm on my way to report to the Council, but we can talk on the way."
"Yes. Thank you, Master."
Barriss fell into step beside Luminara. The older mirialan woman walked with a contained grace along the cavernous halls of the Jedi Temple, the light streaming in through the large windows along the walls. Some other Knights wandered the corridors, other Padawans making their errands, some of the menials about. But mostly it was quiet. Empty.
Luminara said nothing, waiting for Barriss to begin.
"Master," she said at last. "I have a...difficult question..."
"Another personal one?" Luminara commented, raising an eyebrow at her.
Barriss waggled her hands. "N-no! Nothing like that. I...it's more about...the Jedi Order."
Luminara nodded, masking her relief. This was safer ground. Barriss was an intensely studious Padawan, reading much of the lore and histories of the Jedi. Luminara would hide the feeling, but she was proud of Barriss and the way she applied herself. She had briefly worried that her friendship with Ahsoka Tano might make her...wilder, but thus far all it had done was bring her Padawan more out of her shell. She'd regretted the thought.
"What is it you wish to know?" Luminara asked.
"It's...I've been reading the histories and... Master...how do we know we are doing good?"
Luminara halted. Barriss didn't notice at first and carried on walking, then she paused and looked back. She nearly flinched when she saw the focused expression on Luminara's face. "Master?" she inquired, tone quavering.
Luminara shook her head. "I'm sorry Barriss," she said, smiling to reassure her and resuming her walk. "I was just caught off guard by your question. What has prompted it?"
"Master...I've been involved in this war since I was fourteen. I know from my training and all my learning that the Jedi are the Guardians of Peace and Justice in the galaxy and yet..." She shook her head. "All I know is us being soldiers. And I don't see how we are...how are we preserving the peace when all we're doing is fighting?"
"Barriss..." Luminara looked at her sadly. "Sometimes, to preserve the peace, to maintain and secure justice, we need to fight."
"I know that, I do. I just...how do we know when we're doing right? When we're fighting to preserve the peace?"
Luminara sighed. She stopped walking and Barriss did as well, her Master turning to her with a serious gaze. "Barriss, do you remember when Ziro the Hutt escaped?" she asked.
Barriss thought a moment and then nodded. "Yes, I seem to recall the incident."
"I was called in to try and capture the bounty hunters before they could escape. During the chase...there was a transport ship that was diverted and I had to make a choice. I directed the ship to crash into a wall. I saved most of the people but...behind the wall was an apartment block and the parents of two children were killed."
Barriss' eyes widened in shock. "Master...why..."
"Because sometimes there isn't a right option. Sometimes you have to choose the least bad option."
"And the children?"
"I went to see them. I told them the truth. That if I had to make the same choice again I would. It was the Will of the Force." She looked sad. "That is all I can do, to give them some comfort."
Barriss was quiet a moment. "Is that really all we can do?" she whispered.
"There is nothing more. What resources the Jedi have goes towards the war." Luminara held Barriss' gaze. "That is the most important thing, ending the war. Until that is over, we cannot do anything else. That is the Will of the Force. That is the lesser evil."
Barriss bowed her head. "Thank you, Master."
"You are welcome." Luminara turned to go and then hesitated, looking back. "Barriss...if you wish to talk you can...you can come to me. You know that, don't you?"
"Of course Master. Thank you."
Luminara bowed her head to her and then carried on down the corridor, towards the Jedi Council. Barriss sat down at one of the windows and looked out upon the planetary city.
She looked out at it for a long time.
She emerged from her meditation frustrated. She had considered what Luminara said, had tried to understand it, but...it was difficult. It wasn't that she couldn't rationalize it, she understood perfectly about utilitarian calculations. But...that seemed so far from what the Jedi Order should be. From what she was taught it should be as youngling. From everything she read in the archives. From everything she knew a guardian of peace and justice should be.
So she had locked herself in her room to meditate. To reach out to the Force and see what it could offer her if there were any answers she could discern in its will.
And there was nothing.
No response. Just the distant sound of the traffic.
Barriss flickered her eyes to her chrono. It had been about three hours since she started, hardly the longest she'd ever meditated, but one of the longest stretches with nothing. She sat back and sighed. Bit her lip and looked at the floor, pondering. She knew the Council talked of the Dark Side of the Force clouding insight, clouding what the Jedi could see as a result of the war and maybe that was why?
But maybe it was also something more than that...?
She picked up her datapad and started to scrawl through the HoloNet. It was an idle activity, more to settle herself before trying to get some sleep, but her eye was suddenly caught by a post. She tapped on it and it appeared before her. A rally of some kind, a meeting with a set of speakers. The advertisement read: 'Is the Republic Going Wrong? The War and its Consequences!'
Barriss shifted herself. She knew that this wasn't something her Master would be happy about her attending. It could get her into severe trouble with the Jedi Council. For the model Padawan, it would certainly do a lot of reputation damage...
But...but maybe she could find the answers here that had been lacking from her Master and the Force.
She took note of the date and time.
She moved with the bustle of people, crowding into the theatre where the talk was being held. She'd debated putting on a disguise of some sort, before deciding that her standard clothing would be enough. If she was caught...well she could always claim that she'd been caught up or had sensed something and decided to check it out. Whereas if she was in disguise then they would know she was deliberately trying to hide.
She felt uncomfortable though. There were so many people about, so many unguarded thoughts and feelings and she had to work hard to block them out. Many of them were angry and bleak. With the Republic. With the Jedi.
She didn't feel she could blame them though...
She managed to find a way to a seat and plonked herself down. It was a large auditorium, with a central dais and podium with a microphone where the speakers would be, the seats all ranging around it. Some video screens floated about, showing people a closer view of the stage and presumably the speakers when they took their place.
Barriss slunk into her seat and pulled her hood higher on her head. She was starting to think she had made a mistake coming here. That perhaps there wouldn't be much to this, that maybe it would be better to leave before-
"Barriss?"
Kark it!
Before she could stop herself she turned her head in surprise and found herself looking at the equally surprised expression of Senator Riyo Chuchi of Pantora.
"I thought it was you," Chuchi said in her soft tones. She wore casual clothes, as opposed to her formal senate ware, with her pink hair let loose. She looked like she was trying to go relatively unnoticed as well. Barriss had met her some time ago when she and Master Unduli had been assigned protection duty. She'd liked her. Quiet, thoughtful, but also given to standing her ground. "What are you doing here?"
"I...I saw it advertised on the HoloNet and I thought..." Barriss looked at her, pleading, desperate for her not to say anything.
"I take it your Master doesn't know you're here?" Chuchi asked.
Barriss shook her head.
The Senator smiled and slipped into the seat beside her. "Well, don't worry, she won't hear about it from me." Barriss let out a sigh of relief. "Honestly, I think it's good to see someone from the Temple taking an interest in politics, although...I'm surprised that it's you."
Barriss shrugged. "I've...been having a lot of questions."
"I imagine." She smiled kindly. "How is the war going?"
Barriss stared into the distance. "It continues," she said after a while. "I...fortunately I haven't been on the frontline for a bit..."
Chuchi put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it with sympathy.
Applause started up and they both sat up as the speakers made their way to the stage. There was a chagrian male, a cerean male and...
Barriss sat up and pointed. "Is that Senator Amidala?" she said in surprise.
Chuchi grinned. "Yes. That's why I'm here. To give some support."
Barriss had never met Padmé Amidala before, but she had heard Ahsoka wax lyrical about her on several occasions. She seemed to be something of a role model for her friend. Kind, compassionate, but fierce and not prone to backing down. From what she understood she was one of the few people, let alone Jedi, who could keep Master Skywalker in check and that took some doing. She was beautiful, dressed in some simple but delicate robes from Naboo and she carried herself with an easy grace and power.
Well...if she's here then maybe this won't be such an offence after all... Barriss thought.
The chagrian male stepped up to the podium and began to speak. "Thank you all for being here," he said. "The topic of discussion is a difficult one, particularly in these times, but we feel that it is a necessary one. I know we may not all agree, but I thank you for your bravery in coming here." Applause rippled out. "Now, without further ado, let me introduce Senator Padmé Amidala to open this talk."
More applause as Amidala thanked the chagrian and stepped up to the podium. "Thank you all, and thank you all for being here," she said. "The talk tonight is about the war and its consequences, but I want us to consider something wider than that. We have to think about what kind of Republic we are defending and what kind of Republic we want to be." Some murmurs in the audience. "This war has obscured something important: that there were problems of corruption in the Senate and in the wider Republic before. It does not make me a Separatist to say this," she added, heading off any potential grumbles, "but rather someone who loves our Republic. But love shouldn't blind us to the faults and flaws, but rather make us want to do something to improve it." Some applause. "Many Separatists left for precisely this reason, because they saw no way of improving the system other than breaking with it. I don't agree with this. But I have seen the horrors in the galaxy, long before the war broke out. Places like Kessell and Tatooine where slavery is tacitly endorsed by the Republic because they feared damaging trade. My own planet of Naboo was subject to an illegal blockade by the Trade Federation, that the Republic refused to do anything about for fear of upsetting the economic situation." Murmurs of assent. "That is one of the main consequences of this war. It has allowed the idea to emerge that the Republic before was a glorious era when this is not the case. We must not allow the war to trick us into nostalgia, and fighting for a return to what came before, the problems of which caused the outbreak of the war in the first place. Rather, we must fight to put something better in its place, so that when the war ends we can ensure that corruption is stamped out, that everyone in the galaxy feels they have a place and protection in the Republic, so that a terrible war like this one cannot break out again."
Applause filled the auditorium and Barriss found herself clapping along. She leaned over to Chuchi. "Do you agree with her?" she asked.
Chuchi nodded. "There are many Senators who do."
Amidala acknowledged the applause and then shook hands with the chagrian, who was making his way to the podium. She sat down in her seat and the cerean leaned over to her and she laughed at something he said.
"Thank you Senator for your powerful words," the chagrian said. "Now, may I introduce our second speaker, Han-Lon-Mutai."
A buzz swept through the auditorium, along with the applause, as Han-Lon-Mutai, wearing a simple suit and bearing the distinctive binary brain of the cereans, eased himself out of his chair and went towards the podium. Barriss sensed the change in atmosphere and turned to Chuchi. "Is he a Senator as well?" she asked.
"No...he's a philosopher and historian of the Jedi," she replied. She grimaced. "You might not enjoy this next part."
Barriss frowned. "Why would I not-?" she began but was cut off as Han-Lon-Mutai started speaking.
"Thank you, and thank you all for being here. I share many of the sentiments that my learned friend, Senator Amidala expressed in her fine speech," Han-Lon-Mutai began, turning to acknowledge Amidala again.
Barriss leaned in. "Are they friends?" she asked.
"Not really," Chuchi said out of the corner of her mouth. "Learned friend is just polite speak."
"Oh..." Barriss frowned. She really didn't get politics at all.
"It was a fine speech, but I don't believe that it went far enough." A soft chuckle broke out from corners of the audience. Han-Lon-Mutai gave a wry smile. "I see my reputation precedes me here. But I wish to talk about another problem: the Jedi."
Barriss gripped the armrests of her chair and leaned forward.
"We are told that the Jedi are the Guardians of Peace and Justice in the galaxy. Well? Do you feel at peace? Do you feel that justice is being guarded?" There were some shakes of the heads in the audience, some calls of no. Barriss almost felt her own head shaking. "No, sadly not. The Jedi Order has lost its way. The war is partly to blame for this. The last time the Jedi were involved in a war on this scale, was in the Jedi Civil War near enough four thousand years ago. Darth Revan and Darth Malak did untold damage to the Old Republic, and then between them, Darth Sion and Darth Traya near enough wiped out the entire Jedi Order."
Barriss flinched. She hadn't read that part of the history in the archives.
"But what did the Jedi do after? They rebuilt the order exactly as before. And now look: they walk into exactly the same problems that the Old Jedi Order had. They are too close to the Republic. They are not the Guardians of Peace and Justice, they are the Guardians of the Republic's interests. They are the Republic's secret police force."
Some applause broke out.
"My learned friend mentions the hideous blockade of her home planet, and how the Republic did nothing. But this isn't strictly true: they sent two Jedi out to negotiate. And Nute Gunray, with all of his battle droids, was ready to call off the entire blockade because two Jedi were sent out to him." Silence filled the chamber. "Now Gunray carried on because he feared the real mastermind more than he did the Jedi. But ask yourselves: what is the reputation of the Jedi Order if a man with an entire army between him and two Jedi is so frightened of them he would be willing to call off his entire plan? What must it be like for people who don't have an army of battle droids on their side?"
Murmurs. Barriss sweated, her hands gripped the seat tighter.
"What must it be like for the parents who have their children taken away? I have heard tales from many parents who have petitioned and begged the Temple to let them see their children, to let them at least know what has happened to them." He paused. "All refused."
Gasps of shock from the audience. Barriss swallowed. Had her parents been among the petitioners?
"The Republic is corrupt, Senator Amidala is correct to identify this. But the Jedi are part of the Republic and they are not immune to that corruption. They also need to reform after the war is done. They should drop this silly and archaic rule around attachment. Is it really so dangerous for children to have some contact with their family, for their parents to know something about them? It should be at the children's discretion. And what does it say about the Jedi Order's confidence, if they believe a little attachment would be enough to destabilise the whole order?"
Some laughs.
"The closed Council also needs to change. There should be elected civilian representatives who sit on the Council and take part in its decision making. Yes, I recognise and we should recognise that the Jedi commune with the Force and take decisions on that basis, something that those of us without access to the Force cannot take part in. But the Jedi should be able to explain their decisions and if they can't, others should be allowed to be part of that discussion and overrule them." He paused, looking out at the audience. "What the Jedi need is more contact with the lives of ordinary people. Only by seeing how they struggle, and what they deal with, can they really learn what it means to be the Guardians of Peace and Justice. Thank you."
Han-Lon-Mutai walked back to his seat to thunderous applause. Amidala smiled and said something to him and he smiled and nodded in return.
Chuchi applauded, but not as enthusiastically. "Sorry, you had to hear that Barriss," she said, glancing over. "He can be quite forceful."
Barriss didn't reply. She shook in her chair. It was as if all the fears, intuitions and abstract thoughts she'd had had suddenly been given voice and understanding.
It felt like a revelation.
She tried to sneak through to the back of the bar, but a hand slapped across her chest and halted her.
"That's as far as you go," the human man said, looking down at her with a raised eyebrow.
Barriss peered past him, to where Han-Lon-Mutai was sat drinking with some friends. "I'd like to see him," she said, trying to move around the man.
He spotted the lightsabre under her cloak and sneered. "I don't think so, Jedi," he said.
"Rathko!"
The man looked over. Han-Lon-Mutai was looking at him with a stern expression. "Let her through," he said.
"But, Han-Lon-"
"If she wanted to lightsabre us, she would have done so."
Rathko grumbled but removed his arm and Barriss stumbled over to the table, sitting opposite Han-Lon-Mutai as a woman vacated the seat. Han-Lon-Mutai smiled kindly at her.
"What can I help you with?" he said. "I'm sorry if I caused offence, I wasn't aware any Jedi would be in the audience. I realise I can be a bit forceful, but you have to put on a bit of theatre at these things."
"N-no, you didn't cause offence. Quite the opposite actually."
He raised a brow, intrigued. "Oh really? What's your name?"
"I..." She started and stopped.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to give you away. The Jedi haven't been listening to me anyway, not since Master Qui-Gon Jinn died."
"You knew Master Jinn?"
"Sure. Before the war, if you wanted access to the archives as a civilian then you needed someone on the inside to vouch for you. He and I had a lot of good conversations." He looked wistful for a moment. "Then the Sith killed him. Worst luck for the Order. They didn't seem to know it, but he was one of their best."
Barriss thought about Master Kenobi, his way of being. "Yes, I can imagine," she said. "I'm Barriss."
"Lovely to meet you Barriss. To judge by your braid you've been a Padawan for five years?"
Barriss' hand flicked up to the set of beads that hung from her hair. "Yes, to Master Unduli."
Han-Lon-Mutai took a sip of his drink. "Ah well, don't mention meeting me. Luminara and I have had some run-ins in the past and she doesn't like me all that much."
"Oh right. Well, I wasn't going to say anyway. I'd...likely get into trouble."
"One of the other things that is wrong with the Order." He sighed. "They never seem to quite understand that staying out of politics is impossible, certainly for them. That in practice being apolitical, just means they end up supporting whatever the status quo of the day is."
"Well...I want to help."
This brought some curious looks from Han-Lon-Mutai and his associates. "Help?" he asked.
"Yes. I want to reform the Order. Everything you said, it...it spoke to me. I've had these same doubts, these same issues but I've never had a voice for them. But you...you expressed it all so well. Everything that's wrong with the Order, everything I could feel that was wrong." She sat back. "I...I want to be a Guardian of Peace and Justice. That's what the Jedi should be. Not...not what we are..."
Han-Lon-Mutai considered her. He gave her a kind smile. "You've been at the front haven't you Barriss?" he asked.
She looked up, startled. "Uh...yes...I...how did you know?"
"Your eyes." He indicated his own. "You look young, but your eyes look old. You see in a lot of veterans."
She turned her head to the side. "I have...seen a lot..." She looked back, fierce. "But that's why I want to help. I want to reform the order, bring the Jedi back to the light, and make them Guardians of Peace and Justice again!"
Han-Lon-Mutai scratched at his cheek. "Look, Barriss, I realize I may have set your expectations a bit high with that talk. So, listen to me now." He paused a moment, considering his words. "An ideal, and that's what the Jedi as Guardians of Peace and Justice is, is not something you achieve, it's something you strive for. Now what you can't do is get obsessed with only the ideal being acceptable, and anything else being dismissed, otherwise you'll miss all sorts of opportunities to do good."
"But...but what can I do?"
"Survive Barriss. The war won't last long, it was over the moment they didn't win it in the first year. The Separatists can't support themselves economically and soon Dooku will be forced either to make peace with what he has or sue for some kind of negotiated surrender. And at that moment we'll need people like you, brave enough to make these arguments on the inside." He smiled at her. "So survive, Barriss."
She left the meeting in a fog. She had all sorts of thoughts swirling around her head, but she didn't know what to do with any of them.
She had hoped that Han-Lon-Mutai might be able to enlighten her, but he hadn't been able to offer anything. Survive...what did it matter to survive if the order just emerged preserved as it was? What could she do in that instance? She had no power to change things. Her Master very likely wouldn't even hear her out.
"Hey."
She stopped and looked back. Rathko stood at the door, and Barriss' hand instinctively went to her lightsabre. Rathko raised a hand. "I don't want trouble," he said.
"Then what do you want?"
He took in a breath. "Did you mean what you said? About wanting to help?" he asked.
Barriss nodded.
He stepped forward and handed her a card. It had a date, time and place on it. "Then come along to this. We all respect Han-Lon-Mutai, but believe it or not he has a real respect for the Jedi and what they represent, so he's cautious about taking action. But some of us are not the same." He looked at her. "Do you understand me?"
Barriss slipped the card into her robe and nodded. At least she thought she understood him.
He smiled. "All right, I'll see you there."
It was the stench that hit her. With such force she found herself pinching her nose and gagging.
The room was a mess. A mess of trash, and of dirty dishes. A rodian woman was nursing her wailing child. The room was tiny, barely able to contain the beds, the small kitchen and the piles of junk.
"This is...this is..." Barriss stuttered.
"Horrible?" Rathko finished. Barriss nodded. "Yes, it is. This is what life is like for many on Coruscant. And this is just Coruscant, never mind the galaxy."
She stepped back, the others allowing her past. She'd been going to the group for some months now, attending the meetings, a quiet presence, helping them by looking up information in the archives. But this was the first time she'd managed to sneak out to join them on one of their welfare trips.
One of the others went into the room to hand out donated supplies, as Barriss leant on the railing and breathed. Aside from the smell, the other thing that had struck her was the overwhelming presence of that room through the Force. The desperation. The sadness. It was the sadness she focused on, the sense of something or someone missing.
"What happened?" she asked Rathko. "I sense the...absence of someone."
He grimaced. "Her eldest son," he said after a moment. "He tried to rob a store. It wasn't the right thing to do but, seeing all of this, you can understand why he was driven to it."
Barriss' mouth was dry. "And...and what happened to him?"
Rathko was silent. "Luckily, the Jedi were around," he said, leaving the implication hanging.
Barriss vomited. She watched the trailing bits of puke sail down and down until it was lost in the smog. She wiped at her mouth as Rathko patted her on the back.
"I'm sorry," he said, genuine. "I didn't bring you here deliberately because of that."
"No...I know..." Barriss replied, sensing no deceit in him.
"You can go back if you want."
Barriss let out a sarcastic laugh, an odd sound to her ears and it felt odd in her throat. But also, somehow, appropriate. "I've been on the frontlines of a war. What I'm seeing here is not worse."
She carried on with them, handing out food, handing out things donated and it all felt so inadequate.
When she returned to the Temple, for the first time in a long time she didn't meditate. She just cried. Cried for what seemed like hours.
She felt a burning within her. She recognised the emotion intellectually as anger. She let it sweep through her. She knew she shouldn't feel anger, she knew that was the path to the Dark Side.
But what use was detachment, when it led to such evils?
She felt afraid. Afraid for everything she hadn't been taught, afraid of everything she was learning, afraid of the indifference she had shown for so long. She'd been so proud of herself, for all her work, all her learning, her grasp of meditation. The Perfect Padawan.
What a joke it had all been.
She sat at the back of the meeting, as the arguments on what to do sallied forth. More protests, more demonstrations, more petitions, more attempts to highlight.
She leaned forward, frustrated. "We need to do more," she declared. The eyes turned to her. "We can't just keep protesting, keep sending in petitions because the Council doesn't listen. Nobody does. We have to do something they can't ignore."
"Like what?" Rathko asked.
She looked him dead in the eye. "We should attack the Temple."
A murmur ran through the meeting. Rathko shifted uncomfortably. "Attack the Temple..." he muttered. "Barriss that's...that's quite a thing to..."
"We would be attacking everything the Jedi currently represent. The Darkness that has taken them over. That the war has corrupted them into. I've been on the frontlines, I've fought in this war, and I can tell you that violence is the only language the Jedi respond to now." She shook her head. "It's the only way to shock them out of this."
"Barriss, we can't...there's no way..."
She glared at him. "And I thought you said you wanted to take action." With that comment, she swept out of the room.
She was infuriated with them. With all of them. They talked and did good work, yes, but what was the point of it all? The Jedi carried on, marching into darkness, moving from the light. There was no reasoning with them. They had to be made to see, to experience the horrors that they ignored or visited on others in a way that they couldn't dismiss.
She stopped and leaned on the railing, staring at the rows of apartments in the lower levels, hazy in the smog. She felt it through the Force, the desperation, the pain, the suffering that was all around. Maybe that was why the Temple was at the top level Coruscant, and so far away. What Padawan could possibly concentrate and learn to detach if they were surrounded by this?
She had to do something.
"That was impressive in there."
Barriss looked over her shoulder. A human woman was leaning against the door, wearing some simple purple clothes and a cap. Barriss recognised her as someone from the meeting but didn't know the name.
"Thank you," she said. "Very un-Jedi of me to lose patience like that, but..."
"But it is frustrating, all that talk and piecemeal work without it seeming to build to something."
Barriss nodded.
The woman walked over and leaned back against the rail. "I think they forget that this is a war, and sometimes violence is needed to meet violence."
Barriss nodded again. "Yes." She looked over at the woman. "Would you be willing to help me?"
The woman smiled and nodded. "That's why I joined up with this crowd." She stuck out her hand. "Letta Turmond."
Barriss shook it.
She left Ahsoka's room and rested her head against the door briefly, before moving on.
She hadn't known what she wanted. Or what she expected. She'd meant to say so many things, sat up unable to sleep. She was having doubts, having doubts about herself, about what she was doing.
But this...this in some ways had resolved things for her.
Even Ahsoka was gone. She didn't think about anything except defeating the Separatists. And she believed that after that everything would go back to normal.
But she didn't understand. There could be no going back to normal. Normal had never been enough.
She looked down at her hand. Sometimes she thought she could still feel it, the warmth that had come from her hand as it held hers, as it urged her not to give up.
She rubbed her hand viciously on her robe and strode back to her quarters. She would be safe at least, she wouldn't be caught up in everything. But she was gone. As gone as the rest of them.
As gone as all of us.
They sat, the three of them, around the small kitchen table and she could sense the nerves, the nerves in all of them. On the table were the bowls of food, containing the nano-droids. They'd sit in the stomach undetectable until activated when they would spread throughout the body and turn the bodies heat and energy into a living bomb.
Barriss looked across at Jackar Bowmani. "I could do it," she said. "I could be the one. I don't mind." What did she have to live for really, after all?
The abyssin shook his head. "No, you're more valuable Barriss," he said. "From a strategic place, you could still do more." He bowed his head slightly. "I loved the Jedi and the Order, that's why I wanted to work at the Temple so much. But everything I've seen there...it's not the Order I grew up believing in." He looked at her with determination. "If this can help, help to restore the true Order, then I will do it with no hesitations."
Letta put her hand on his and squeezed.
Barriss nodded. "All right, then we're all committed. We do this not out of malice, not out of hatred, but because it needs to be done. Because the Jedi have lost their way. And we need to bring them back. If violence is the only language they understand, then violence they shall have."
Barriss looked down at her bowl. She dipped her spoon in and began to eat, and after a moment the other two joined her.
So there we have it. This one was a tricky one to write; I wanted to make it so that nobody here was really a villain, just committed people with beliefs that nudge Barriss along her way. Radicalisation processes do often take much longer than this, but the background and context of the war and the trauma involved can hopefully make up for some of the ground that leads to her actions. I'm not sure how well I've succeeded in conveying this, but hopefully, it gets to an understanding of how she ended up where she was.
I don't think I've contradicted anything in canon here - Barriss is still the mastermind of the plot - but if I've missed something let me know and I'll explain my handwave for it ;)
Thanks again for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Any reviews/favourites/follows are always appreciated.