Chapter Seven: The Taste of Victory
Satele Shan sat cross-legged in the ruins of Kaleth. She looked up at the bare stone beside her. Once, it had been part of a grand structure. Now, it was just a short wall that cut off not far above her own standing height.
She sensed Caecinius before she saw him. He was standing at the edge of the garden, looking hesitant.
"Caecinius," she acknowledged. "Please join me."
She gestured to the ground beside her. After a moment's awkward hesitation, he sat beside her.
"I prefer these ruins to the Academy," she said. "Somehow, The Force feels purer here."
"It feels unsettled to me," he replied. "I can sometimes hear echoes from the battle that destroyed it."
"Are you certain the echoes are from that battle?"
She gave him a very direct look. He looked away, at the rocks in the garden.
"When I was made a knight, after Coruscant," he said. "You opposed it."
"I had no voice in your advancement," she said. "I was not a member of the Council."
"But you disagreed with my appointment."
She nodded, admitting the truth.
"A part of you has never left Coruscant," she said. "Still, you have proved an excellent instructor. No one here has your skill with a lightsaber, and you have a gift for passing your knowledge to students."
"Are you saying you were wrong?"
Caecinius' emotions were always so strong. Doubt radiated from him. He was not trying to provoke an argument, but was instead seeking something from her.
"I don't know," she said honestly.
"Your senses are powerful," he pressed. "At Korriban, you sensed the Sith before the attack began."
She laughed harshly. "Seconds before. Too late to actually do anything about it."
"It's still more than anyone else can claim."
"I am no seer, Caecinius. Your future is yours to set, through the choices you make. I know that you struggle with anger, and I wish you would spend more time in meditation, working to control it."
That made him defensive.
"My anger is under control."
"For the moment," she acknowledged. "Here, in the controlled environment of the Jedi Outpost. But if war comes again?"
"You believe war is coming." A statement, not a question.
Satele reached out with her mind, lifted the smallest of the pebbles from the meditation garden. She moved it to them, let it hover in the air. Then lifted another, larger rock, and suspended that beside the first.
"Your appointment was not the first time I opposed the Council," she observed.
"You argued against the Treaty of Coruscant," Caecinius said. "That's a matter of record."
"Yes," she replied.
She set the pebble orbiting the rock, like a planet orbiting a sun. "Both Master Orgus and I believed that it was better to accept conflict in the present than to settle for a temporary peace that might doom the future. In the end, the Council voted a different way, and recommended the Senate pass the Treaty."
She moved the larger rock into the pebble, which was shot against the Temple ruin. She did not bother to trace its fall. The impact would decide its path. She felt no need to follow it.
"You were right!" Caecinius exclaimed. "You and Master Orgus were right!"
"I believe so, as well. But the decision was made. It is not our place to overrule the decisions of our elected representatives – Not those of the Jedi Council, nor those of the Republic Senate. If we do that, we create another Empire. If we do that, the Sith have already won."
When Reyenna regained consciousness, she was on a transport. She had been cleaned, and was now wearing a plain brown tunic and leggings. Around her were others, members of multiple races, all dressed as she was.
She was unshackled, but she and several of the others on the transport wore metal collars. Reyenna reached up, touched the metal. It did not feel like an ordinary slave collar.
A thin-faced alien with red eyes sat near her. He regarded her with a haughty expression.
"Those are for the slaves," he said disdainfully. "If you attempt any Force use, or any hostility at all, the collar will activate with intense, debilitating pain."
"You aren't wearing one," she observed.
"I am Sith," he replied. "Pure blood. I have trained for this my whole life."
"And what is 'this'?" she asked. "Where are we going?"
He seemed amused by the question.
"Our destination is the Sith Academy on Korriban. There, I will earn my birthright. While you and this other slave scum will earn your deaths."
Reyenna grinned in response, then threw back her head and laughed aloud.
The pure blood Sith seemed confused. "Did you not hear, slave? Very soon, you will die."
"I'm not so easy to kill," she responded.
Then she leaned forward and bit him on his thin, angular nose. The collar activated, and the pain was as intense as the Sith had described. It was as if lightning and fire ran simultaneously through her nerves. She ground her teeth down harder, tasting the Sith's blood even as she felt her body spasm.
He finally gathered his will and blasted her back from him. Then he raised his hand and slapped her across the face with all his strength. Her teeth tore at the inside of her cheek, and her own blood mixed with his in her mouth.
She grinned darkly at him, letting him see the blood between her teeth. Her pain had already faded, but his nose was still bleeding. She drank in the shock on his face, savoring it like the sweetest nectar.
She closed her mouth, swallowing the blood on her tongue. She decided she liked the flavor.
It tasted like victory.