A Shift in the Force: Chapter Fifty-Six: Meetra's Echo
AN: So, Depa's going to have a larger role in book two than I was originally intending, but it'll be great.
FFnet was acting up last time I posted, so hopefully, you guys will get this chapter a bit sooner than last time.
"Questions, you have?"
"Yes, Master Yoda." Depa bowed respectfully, hiding a smile as she thought of what Sabé would've done in her place; rest a hand on a cocked hip, eyes narrowed in suspicion of dubious intent. It was almost amusing how well she had come to understand the former Jedi, and how well she had been understood in turn.
Their bond was new, young and fluctuating as Depa's had once been with her old master, but she could still sense Sabé's emotions if she focused with enough time, assuming Sabé didn't shut her out, allowing for an easy transfer that she would never have thought possible–trepidationuneasewhatwillIfind.
"Left you with questions, my old Padawan did?" The Grandmaster inquired, his clawed hands clasping his gimer stick as Depa sat on the hard ground so that they were more on level with one another.
"I—" Depa paused briefly. "Yes, master."
Yoda considered her quietly, and his eyes seemed as old as time. Depa wondered if he would live to see the death of his old Padawans that still lived. It was a morbid thought, but the Force rang with warning, and she was graced with an image of Sabé unmoving, her chest blackened from blaster bolts, her eyes sightless.
Depa swallowed, clearing the image from her mind. "I think she's bitter."
Yoda remained impassive. "Angry at me, she is."
"I don't think it's that," Depa said quickly. "I think she is just feeling lost…and she said the pair of you never really…clicked as Master and Padawan."
Yoda's clawed hand played across the top of the gimer stick, his contemplation expression one that she was certain Sabé had duplicated. "True, that is," he said, heaving a heavy sigh, looking far older than she had ever known him to be; she suspected Sabé did that to a lot of people. "Perhaps my Padawan she was not meant to be."
Depa thought briefly that her heart had stopped at the admission. "Master?"
"Even then, twisted her path was, straining towards Dark and Light…feared the loss of a great Jedi I did, saw what she could become, I did."
The edge of her lips twisted downwards faintly. "That was why you were so distant with her?"
Yoda made a soft grunting sound. "Fear it was, perhaps that doubt her I did, and regret that I do. Know what attachments lead to, I do, seen others down a darker path, I have."
Depa could imagine Sabé's face, cold and furious. It sounded more like excuses to Depa's ears, excuses that Yoda wasn't common for admitting, which was the most surprising part about it.
The Chalactan thought maybe she'd picked up a bit of Sabé's cynicism in listening to Yoda's explanation. Perhaps Sabé would've been better off with Depa –No. No, she couldn't think like that, her thoughts couldn't dwell on the past that couldn't be changed, only on the present and the future.
Still, Sabé would've hated to hear the acknowledged doubt in Yoda's voice. It would've stung worse than losing her arm to Darth Maul.
"Be good for Grandma, okay?"
Sola ran a cursory check over Ryoo as Pooja was already inside her parents' house, making sure the girl had everything for her time with her grandparents while Sola was away.
This wasn't Sola's first mission off Naboo, she'd left the planet three times already, and only twice had gone to Tython where House Renliss HQ was located. House Renliss was everything Sabé had said it would be with women of different species and different backgrounds all helping one another. Some of them had been dealt a tragedy, not unlike Sola's, but not all. A lot of them were more interested in the fact that she was Darth's sister.
Sabé had a lot of friends among them, and Sola couldn't be surprised; Sabé had friends throughout the galaxy.
She'd done one job with a partnered pair known as Janildakara and Yvanna, and she was surprised to discover they were also romantic partners. They killed efficiently, and Sola's stomach had roiled once it was done, no matter how quick and clean it was. Yvanna had patted her shoulder but had offered no comforting words.
What Sola was doing wasn't legal, obviously, but it wasn't evil either; she'd looked up the details of enough of the targets of various members to know that their targets were unrepentant bad men, but it was still going to take her a little while to get used to…assassinations.
"Everyone's got their own morals," Sabé had told Sola before she'd left for Alderaan, her eyes distant. "Before I got involved with the Shadows and before Darth Maul took my arm, probably, it was easier to think of the world as black and white; the Light and the Dark. But it's not. And I do believe in House Renliss and what Gratina and Jalindas do."
Sola could see why Sabé spoke so highly of House Renliss, especially when they did the same. Apparently, Sabé had offered them use of the planet Tython which wasn't charted on any current star-map, like it had been purposefully erased, and Gratina was nothing if not grateful for their new stronghold.
Ryoo nodded in front of her, rather serious, and Sola wondered if she did indeed understand all that Sola was doing.
"And keep an eye on Grandpa, would you?" Sola asked gently as she embraced her child. "Read a holo-book with him; I don't know, keep him company from time to time, okay?"
Sola blinked furiously. Her father's illness was progressing, and they all knew that he wasn't getting any better, but he didn't want them to stop their lives just to look after him. He told Sola to go, just like he'd told Sabé to leave; he wasn't going to stop them even with his illness.
"Where're you going?" Ryoo asked when they parted.
"Ryloth."
Ryoo chewed on the inside of her cheek. "I'll miss you," she promised.
Sola couldn't help but laugh. "You better."
Sabé remembered the stories they'd been told as younglings, still in the crèche, eyes wide and holding onto every word of the crèchemaster; it was only later that Sabé had realized that the stories, the legends, were true, at least partially.
There were rumors mostly about its early history; what the Jedi Archives had on the Sith had always been minimal at best, and Sabé had suspected that had been on purpose. It had been believed that Malachor (sometimes known as Malachor V, and if that was true, Sabé wanted to know what happened to the other four) was one of the earlier settlements of the Sith, after Korriban, like Zoist, but not one of the five worlds considered most sacred to the Sith.
Most of what Sabé knew about Malachor had come from the Sith Holocron of Korriban, and she knew that at one point the planet had been a source of great power within the Dark Side of the Force. The Sith had populated it once before they had been forced to abandon it for some number of centuries until the tail end of the Mandalorian Wars, a series of battles that had spanned almost two decades between the warriors of Mandalore and the Galactic Republic. It was a battle of Jedi and Sith and foolish Mandalorians that had realized the trap too late, and it had resulted in a planet-wide decimation. It was the place where Meetra Surik became the Jedi Exile.
It was almost fitting that Bendu had sent her here, to a place with such ancient history.
The planet hanging in space before them was cracked and shrouded in darkness, like a visual representation of the damages the Mandalorian Wars had wrought it.
"I've got a bad feeling about this."
Arthree beeped in agreement.
Sabé's lips thinned into a line. Ordinarily, she would've simply rolled her eyes at their words, but this was Malachor, it was unknown in every possible way; there was a reason it was off-limits to Jedi.
"No going back now," Sabé muttered, more to herself than to her droids.
"We could turn around," Jay-Seven offered helpfully, and Sabé cast a glare his way.
She had no idea what she would find down there, and that was the most thrilling part about it. Sabé was meant for something more than wandering from system to system, charting Wild Space, occasionally doing jobs for House Renliss, often perusing the depths of the knowledge retained in her Holocron.
There would be no other reason for the Force to buzz with anticipation around her, like it wanted her to be here, on Malachor, even though Sabé was uncertain of what she'd find.
"That's not necessary," Sabé said shortly, twisting the clutch downwards, sending them closer to the planet, her eyes roving over the surface until she found something intriguing, a crater with high-reaching spaced out black slates.
The Force murmured in her ear.
"I'm going to take the Sunrise down," she said to Jay-Seven. "I don't feel comfortable about leaving The Dawning on the surface."
Arthree gave a whirring noise, and Jay-Seven tilted his head.
"Are you sure about this?" the security droid asked her.
"Quite," Sabé said dryly as she stood, shouldering a pack on her back, her fingers tapping an uneasy rhythm against her blaster pistols where they were locked into place on her thighs. She doubted there was anything alive on the planet anymore, going off of appearance alone, but better be safe than sorry.
The saberstaff remained in her quarters; Sabé had no need for either in this venture.
"Look after The Dawning while I'm away, boys," Sabé said lightly with a smile on her lips as she made her way out of the cockpit, not bothering to wait around to hear either's reply. Climbing the ladder swiftly to the trapdoor that led up into the Sunrise, she flicked a few buttons as she sat in the pilot's chair, detaching from the ship to direct it downwards towards the planet.
Sabé could feel a wave of cold as she set the shuttlecraft down, dropping the ramp, though she paused before descending it, looking down at the quarterstaff in her hand. She frowned but then she left it leaning against the side, stepping out into the stale air.
The Force was strong here, she could feel it all the way deep into her bones, much like how she'd felt on Atollon or Korriban or even Zoist. There was a soft echo of the past battle ringing in her ears, yells and screams, pain.
Sabé blinked furiously, shaking her head, clearing her thoughts as best as she could as she looked out onto the planet.
The earth was sandy beneath her boots, and the thick black slate before her was high-reaching, with several more spaced out not too far away and all within the crater in which she had landed. They must've been markers of some sort, but had the crater been caused by some seismic event or been there before the events that occurred during the Mandalorian Wars.
Sabé breathed out slowly, taking a few more steps forward until she was standing solidly before one of the black stones, eyes shifting over the symbols carved into it. It was in the Old Tongue, and by now Sabé was fluent in all its forms. It was easier for her to speak it than it was for her to read but even that wasn't too difficult for her.
"Taka…Sich matoka…" she murmured the words aloud, her fingers hovering over the symbols until she found the right one and pressed her hand firmly against the stone.
She didn't know quite what she'd been expecting, but the stone glowed red under her hand, spreading out to the ground like cracks along ice.
"Fierfek," Sabé managed to mutter before the earth beneath her feet crumbled, and she fell through the surface with a yelp.
It was a steep fall, and Sabé had to tuck and roll to avoid breaking any of her bones, avoiding falling chunks of rock as she righted herself, rubbing her head.
And that was when she found herself staring.
"Whoa."
Of course, Sabé had seen temples before; she adored temples. The older and more worn down they were, the better. There was so much history and knowledge, who wouldn't be awed by that?
The temple before her was largely untouched and pyramidal with the top being an obvious red; like someone had made a supersized Sith Holocron and sat it on top.
Some light shone down through cracks in the layer above that Sabé had just fallen through, casting light and shadow down on the realm below.
Sabé's brow wrinkled, and she resituated the straps of her pack on her shoulders, stepping forward over long-settled ash, blackened as though scorched from some kind of heat.
The Force was silent and at last Sabé could understand why.
Her eyes widened as she took in figure after figure in varying positions all frozen in ash, more like afterimages blazed into stone after a nuclear blast than anything else. They were just shells that had once belonged to living breathing creatures.
Sabé knelt before one, a sickened awe overtaking her. "How did this happen?" she murmured, extending a hand towards the figure, but she didn't dare to touch it, as she was certain it crumble away from even the faintest touch.
"I did it."
Sabé jolted at the sudden voice, turning slowly to see a woman standing beside her with an unearthly blue glow about her. She looked far less substantial than Nordia Gral had felt. He'd been so solid, even though she'd never set her eyes on him.
The woman had pale eyes and brown hair wearing loose robes with a lightsaber hanging from her belt.
Sabé recognized her instantly. "Meetra Surik?" she couldn't help the stunned breath that hissed through her lips. It couldn't be her, could it?
The woman arched an eyebrow. "I see you're familiar with me."
So it was her.
"You wanted to know how all this came about," Meetra Surik continued, gesturing around her. "It was my actions that caused this…" Her lips curled in disdain. "Massacre."
Perhaps massacre was the best word to describe the condition surrounding her.
"You did this?" Sabé asked with a broad gesture. "When you were still a Jedi?"
Meetra Surik's lips tightened into a grim smile. "It certainly wasn't my finest moments by far as a Jedi General in the Mandalorian Wars, but it was the last I made as one."
Sabé shot a confused look at her. "A Jedi General?" She thought of her dream, of a man calling her 'General' and ice traveled down her spine.
"It's a bit hypocritical, isn't it?" Meetra Surik asked with a light laugh. "A Jedi fighting in a war when they are pacifists by nature."
Sabé rubbed the back of her head uncomfortably.
"But the Mandalorian Wars were too great that I couldn't turn a blind eye to them as the Council had," Meetra Surik continued. "I left the Jedi with countless others to join Revan's faction."
"Revan?" Sabé's eyes widened slightly. "As in…Darth Revan?" The Jedi that turned Sith and then back to Jedi before going into self-Exile; the irony was not lost on Sabé.
"Quite," Meetra Surik agreed a bit regretfully, "he hadn't yet fallen to the Dark Side, but even I'm not sure of when that occurred…sometime before the Scourge of Malachor, I'm certain."
Sabé swallowed, looking at the ashy afterimages. "Is that what you call this? The Scourge of Malachor?"
"Unfortunately," Meetra Surik sighed. "The end of the Mandalorian Wars was in sight, and Revan had hatched a dark plan. He knew the Mandalorians were forbidden from Malachor, but if their enemies were discovered on the planet, how could they resist the temptation?"
That sounded very…strategic.
"The Sith had amassed on the planet, it was their planet, after all," Meetra Surik conceded, "they must've been Revan's Dark Side followers, but that didn't stop Jedi from arriving to combat them, Jedi I was commanding ." The words twisted in Meetra Surik's mouth. "When the Mandalorians joined the fray, and Revan's reinforcements were too far out, I knew I needed to act quickly, or all would be lost, so—"
"So you killed them all," Sabé realized, "friend and foe…how?"
"There was a super weapon made by a Zabrak engineer, Bao-Dur…it obliterated them." Meetra Surik sighed heavily this time. "And I carried all those deaths within me as long as I lived, and even now, there is still a dark hole inside me, one that can never be filled."
"I see," Sabé whispered. "And why are you here?"
That caused a smile to bleed across Meetra Surik's lips. "Shall we say that I am here because you are here? You and I are rather similar, are we not? Natural born leaders with prowess in the Force that inspires fear in others, and beliefs that the Council could never share."
Sabé looked down on the figure encased in ash to her side. She didn't even know how she was supposed to feel about Meetra Surik and how alike the pair of them were. But Sabé didn't know if she could've killed thousands for the sake of a cause like Meetra Surik's. It wasn't because she was better, or anything like that, because Sabé could kill rather senselessly, but she had her own code, her own morals.
"I don't even know why I was sent here," she muttered finally, "I just feel…"
"Lost?" Meetra Surik offered helpfully, her smile still in place. "I know the feeling. You're not a Sith, you're not a Jedi, you're something else, something new and old, but whichever path you choose, that will be by your doing, no one else's. The Council does not reach this far, nor would they dare to step foot on this planet."
"Comforting thought," Sabé said, closing her eyes briefly when she sensed something else. It would be a far cry to call it a similar sensation to something living, because there was nothing alive on the planet. She opened her eyes and turned in the direction of the sensation. When she looked back, Meetra Surik had gone.
"Very helpful," Sabé muttered before grabbing up two fallen lightsabers, thumbing them on. The blue blades stuttered to life briefly before cutting out. "Unsurprising," she added to herself, pocketing them in her pack before continuing on towards the temple until it curved slightly away, deeper underground.
Maybe that was why Bendu had sent her here. Maybe whatever was down there would help her stop being so lost, help her find her way.
She took the steps slowly, and every step she took seemed almost loud in the silence, surrounded by a darkness that would've been oppressive to a Jedi, but Sabé had long since learned how to operate within it. She stepped within it until she stood before a sharp triangular shaped doorway. It would only need her strength in the Force to lift the slab barring her entrance.
Sabé extended a hand towards it, feeling the weight there. She breathed out and rose her hand, lifting the stone with it, and Sabé could see a red glow underneath it as she walked under, the slab hanging a bit terrifyingly above her head, extending her hand to the next one.
Lifting two slabs that weighed as much as they did took skill and Sabé didn't think she could've done it more than a year ago.
And if that were a sign of true weakness, of susceptibility to the Dark Side, Sabé would cut off her other arm.
She dropped the first slab behind her, moving onto the third one and then the fourth and then finally the fifth, lifting it just enough to roll under before dropping the last two behind her.
Sabé dusted off her thighs as she rose, coughing slightly, her arms aching. She hadn't practiced her Force abilities all that much since accepting her place outside the Order, something she would be rectifying once she was off this planet.
The red glow she had seen before, when she was lifting the slabs, was emanating from the center, a gleaming red Holocron shaped like a pyramid. The Sith Holocron of Malachor.
Sabé took a few steps down, looking over the edge.
"It's very far down," Meetra Surik's voice mentioned at her side and Sabé fought the urge to jump.
"Thank you for that tidbit of knowledge," Sabé said dryly.
"Only someone willing to risk oblivion deserves to receive the wealth of knowledge within the Sith Holocron," Meetra Surik continued. "Maybe you can make the jump, but can you make it back?"
Sabé looked down into the darkness before looking to the Holocron once more. An image flashed before her eyes, a great hammer bearing down on it, crushing it to pieces. What an absolute waste.
She took a few steps back, bracing against the stone before taking a running leap and sailing through the air, buffeted by the Force, until she was skidding along the opposite structure.
The Holocron glowed malevolently, even as Sabé picked it up, but it was clear that was a mistake, and she'd tripped a trap, so to speak and giant spikes bared down on her from above, forcing her to leap prematurely to avoid being impaled, and that was her mistake.
She fell short, her fingers scrabbling at stone, not gaining enough of a hold to keep her clinging.
A yell parted from her lips as she fell and the last thing she saw was Meetra Surik above her, glowing blue and impassively watching her fall.
There was a boy with bright teal eyes looking at her with a fierceness that she couldn't help but admire. "Maybe it's not the Jedi that you hate, but the Council, or the corruption in the Senate."
"Maybe it's all three," Sabé found herself countering with a smile.
"Maybe," the boy admitted, "maybe not."
"Always questioning things, young Caleb Dume," Sabé laughed, "I can't imagine why they'd like you for that. You're too much like me."
Caleb was startled.
Then the scene shifted, and she was standing with Depa, her arm on her shoulder. "You know, the Council didn't want you to come with me."
"Surprise, surprise," Sabé said, but Depa still smiled.
"I told them you are my partner and there's no one I'd rather have at my back," Depa said warmly.
Then Sabé was standing in the darkness before two versions of herself.
There was the woman she'd been before everything, all brown-eyed and with a multitude of braids hanging down around her head, resting over her Jedi robes, two lightsabers at either side of her hips. Then beside her stood Carina in her rusty-red Mandalorian armor, her helmet at her side to reveal angry yellow eyes and red and black dyed messily chopped hair.
They were everything she'd been before.
The certain Jedi Shadow who'd never felt comfortable amongst the Jedi Sentinels or the Jedi Guardians, who'd found two violet crystals on Ilum when it was said never to host anything other than blue or green, who'd thought she wasn't ready for a Padawan when she'd first seen Talik Shala but wasn't willing to sacrifice so much promise to the ServiceCorps as Qui-Gon had, who had questioned the Jedi at every turn.
The cold Sith Lord who'd found solace in the darkness, who thrilled in the corruption she catalogued to be used to cause chaos at a later date, who'd believed wholeheartedly in using her emotions to fuel her power, who couldn't kill Obi-Wan and Anakin no matter how hard she'd tried, who never bowed, never to someone who didn't give her respect.
It was time to stop thinking of them as separate, they were both her and different parts of her life, and there was no going back to how things were.
In many ways Meetra Surik was right; Sabé had become something old and new.
The two images before her melded into one until she saw a reflection of herself before fading. The dark and the light in balance within her.
And at the bottom of the cavern that she had fallen, a pair of dark golden eyes opened.
AN: The gold eyes is an idea I cooked up a little while ago, symbolism of a melding of ideals; Sabé as a Jedi had brown eyes and Carina as a Sith had yellow, gold is their middle.
Some differences to those of you that've seen Rebels concerning the booby trap, but lets call it creative license.
And I don't know when I'll update again (sorry, but my obsession with HP is back!)
As Always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!
