Crux
47 BBY
Coruscant
Jedi Temple
"Chaos, yet harmony."
The words echoed all throughout the training dojo. A place that relied far more on the former concept than the latter. A place where Mace Windu felt right at home.
Every word was uttered between a staggered breath, violet blade illuminating the speaker's otherwise dimly-lit surroundings. Each syllable came with a swing of his sword. A familiar stance of combat, one reinforced by decades of lightsaber training.
"Chaos, yet harmony," a wizened voice repeated, stepping into the light. "For a Jedi, you draw a curious amount of attention to that line of the Code. However differing our interpretations may be."
"Master Dooku," he acknowledged the elder with a nod.
"Knight Windu," the man drawled back, more out of adherence than any real respect on his part. "I see you've been practicing. Good."
"I have," the knight replied, a grim smile on his face. "It's been a long time since the Dojo has been graced with your presence."
"It's been longer still since it's been graced with my blade."
The knight hesitated now, drawing his weapon further from its sheath on his belt. "You don't mean..."
The snap-hiss of a lightsaber told all, sapphire gleam counter playing violet. "Yes, I do."
"It's been a long time."
One glance in the saber light all but confirmed the notion. Their last bout had been years ago, long before ranks had felt like a necessity to tack on. The customary Jedi braid still adorned the knight's head, albeit tied back, rolled into a ponytail. He wasn't bald, not yet. The other was slowly getting there though. Youthful streaks of black deceived by a receding hairline.
If there was any 'right' way to open a duel against the most talented swordsman the Order had ever seen, Mace was unaware of it. The master knew more than the student had ever seen, after all.
These were men, though. Brothers in arms. Wardens of the Republic. No matter their differing backgrounds and skill sets. The infinitely opposing sects and creeds they had once been pulled from. Here, now, beneath the hazy lighting of the Dojo, they were equal.
Charging into battle, the naive promise was all he had.
Sparks flailed in all directions upon their weapons' impact. Dooku remained firmly in place, rigid as the moment he had entered. Strike after strike bounced harmlessly away, each yielding the same result. Soon it was a wonder if Mace could move him at all.
It was not the master's way to give ground.
The knight became increasingly aware of that fact. Somewhere along the way he had convinced himself that ranks were just that, titles granted at the Council's discretion. Only now did the gaps in knowledge became apparent. Only now did he realize how outclassed he truly was. Where a simple rush and charge of brute strength had been enough against peer and training droids, that was no longer the case. Every blow had an answer, and every answer had a cost.
"Chaos, yet harmony," Dooku mimed again, answer coming verbally this time. "I see now why you've become so enamored with the concept."
A pivot widened the gap between his foe. "'Enamored' is a strong word, Master Dooku. Particularly for a Jedi."
"If only it weren't so true. You seek power," the master stated firmly.
To which Windu could only shake his head. "I seek only victory."
The duelists came at each other again now, fiercer and fiercer. They spoke a language only they could know. One etched out over years of clashes. Only mere steps evolved from brute force, punches and kicks channeled into a blade that encompassed themselves. It was an extension of one's very being. So the Jedi had taught. So they had performed.
"You've come to rely on an opponent's weak points," Dooku decided in the battles' next lull, the knight all but toppled over in exhaustion. "On clawing at a person where they're most vulnerable. You fester like a disease and use your physical prowess to do the rest. It is... not a Jedi's mindset."
"But I am a Jedi," Mace breathed back, as much a reminder as it was a statement.
"Yet you lack restraint. Why do you battle? Spend hours practicing in here all alone?"
The question came, and it stopped the duelist cold. The only bout where pauses were expected, and questions were encouraged. Years of honing his skills, of reading every text the Archives could afford him. And in the end, all it took was a better man telling him he just didn't have it.
"For... my betterment."
The master shook his head at the statement. "Battles don't make you better than an opponent."
"They decide who's left standing."
"True," he offered with a knowing smile. "But I'll beat you all the same."
"Because you think you're better than me."
"No," Dooku asserted. "Because I'm truthful to my cause. Trade one adage for another and your own principle falls to shambles."
"Brave, yet foolish," the master said after a moment's pause, taking a step forward. "Wise, yet impatient."
"You make a mockery of the Code," the knight huffed back, charging forward with a sense of fury he hadn't felt before.
"No," the elder corrected again, sidestepping the charge and using the sudden leverage all in one swoop. Mace toppled over in the next moment. The master brought his blade down in turn, resting at the knight's neck.
"I simply know how to apply it."
22 BBY
(Hours after the Battle of Geonosis)
I was this close.
Each step towards the battleship is a painful reminder of that fact. And when you have twenty years worth of reminders, it gets hard to keep rolling with the punches. I can still remember the panic scrunched on his face. I can still remember the flicker of my violet lightsaber, mere meters from searing the flesh on his neck.
I was this close to killing 'Count' Dooku, leader of the Separatist movement. I was this close to ending a war before it even began. Before it could rage across a thousand planets and claim millions more.
But I hesitated.
And now, the Force is fragmenting. Shards scattering in a million different directions.
Geonosis was its first victim. Hours ago, a battle raged across it rocky plains. Attack ships soared through its amber skies. They carried soldiers, genetically-engineered tools of war. Crafted by the template of a man shrouded in mystery. The foe that waited for them below was no less malevolent, though their intentions were scripted by program instead of Senate mandate. Man met machine, and the legend of the Clone Wars had begun.
Except, this was no mere legend. And we were no actors.
For the first time in millennia, the Republic is truly at war.
If there's a fact to be hammered as I board the warship, it is that. Supplies, soldiers, wounded. A constant stream surge up and down its boarding ramp. The somber remains of a play long since concluded.
I'm hesitant to admit that it's the largest starcraft I've ever been aboard. It is a shrine to a decade's worth of unknowing preparation. A trumpet to the Senate's endless hunger for war. All their delegations, for all this bloodshed. In the end, the attack had been as much a proclamation as it was a distraction. Their interests - Dooku's interests - never lied here. Of that, I'm certain.
It had always been the same battle for him, even all these years later.
"General Windu," a soldier addresses me, snapping to attention.
It takes longer than usual to respond, the title not fully registering. It wasn't so long ago that I had no title at all. Finally, I regard him. "Yes?"
"You're... bleeding, sir."
The wound should have been obvious to me, but only now did the graze become apparent. A nod is granted in acknowledgement. "Wrap it."
I can see him stew in place, common sense overriding genetically-reinforced direction. "Are you certain? A Bacta injection would be highly more effic-"
"No," I interrupt. "Wrap it."
The soldier does as ordered, reluctantly applying an antibacterial swab.
Wincing at the sting, I slowly bring my eyes up to meet his helmet. The trooper's visor reflects my stony gaze. My robes are tattered, scorch marks telling tales of blaster-fire both narrowly avoided and not so. Of pits monsters and sandy dunes, wounds cauterized and blood splattered.
And that was just on the way here.
Now begins the long process. Clean-up work, excursions into droid factories buried kilometers beneath ground. Durasteel a harsh replacement for where the planet's core should remain. It would take months of raids to clear the place out, scouring every database for intel and slaying through every hive of Geonosians that ambushed us. And yet, it was in those moments I would be most at peace. In keeping the situation in front of me, knowing that death stared down at me from the barrel of a blaster and not some Senator's political scheming from far above.
I was unaware of how sand would cling to your throat in situations like those. How repugnant the mix of sweat, cauterized flesh and circuitry could truly be. I was unprepared, underexposed. One glance around the surrounding chamber indicates I was far from alone.
The oft-proclaimed 'Chosen One', remains sedated in a med bay nearby, hand cleaved at the elbow. His mentor is in no better shape, lacerations requiring hours worth of Bacta treatment. Even my own Master remains in solitude, insistent on meditating alone, no doubt displeased by his performance. I can relate.
That was personal though, my own stakes. There were casualties far greater than my own. The loss of Jedi numbers in the hundreds. The loss of Clones, in the thousands. Life of any kind cannot be understated, genetically-engineered, or otherwise.
This was no longer about the ancillary events, of the daily tedium of Senate hearings and stuffy Council meetings. This was real, the overflowing medbay projected signs of that from every angle. This was what I had been training all those years for.
And yet, as I slump against a wall, blood loss making itself more apparent, I can't help but think how meaningless it turned out to be.
The planet, the battle itself, all of it meant very little. Its causalities even less, in the grand scheme of things. We weren't fighting a true adversary. This was no Sith, no matter how much he might like to be called one. No, this was not our ancient enemy, not in the way they were foretold. This was one of our own, one of our best. One who fell due to neglect, who embraced chaos instead of learning to grapple with it.
One who we failed.
I can hear the warship's servos grind into position now. Auxiliary thrusters start to kick in, the hull shuddering all around us. Takeoff is imminent, the departure of a land left scorched and war-torn, the first of many to come.
I can see shards splintering all around in turn. Light and dark in a constant state of ebb and flow. Clones and droids little more than toy soldiers in our galactic sandbox.
The Force was supposed to be our guide through it all. A shepherd through the valley of darkness. A blanket in the cold. A drip of purity in an ocean of corruption. The Force, whose tests prove deadlier by the day and whose faith requires blind devotion. The Force, whose guidance has led us to a galaxy-spanning game of cat and mouse. Perhaps that's all this War will amount to, just another in a slew of minor conflicts. But, as I pan my gaze once more along the medbay, I know even that would be too much.
In a few brief hours, we've become shells of the people we had been training to become. When I look around, I don't see the keepers of the peace that we were sworn to be. In fact, I don't see people at all. I see tools.
I don't see Jedi. I see soldiers.
I don't see heroes. I see victims.
All my battles have been won by finding the weaknesses in others. But now, the weaknesses are my own. How can I defeat what is inherent to my being? How close can one teeter to that edge?
It is a battle of the mind, of one's self. And one, I'm slowly growing to believe, that cannot be won.
It takes knowing the unknown. The unseen. And that is growing more impossible by the day.
Because this is not a battle we can retreat from. It is one that lives on every day. In all things, and in every one. Because it is a battle worth fighting. It is not a battle that we will win, but it is one that must be fought all the same. Day in and day out. Long after the Republic ceases and the last Jedi has fallen.
There is much work to be done, many acts that need redeeming, but as long as we hold on to that fact, unflinching in its resolve, then nothing is truly lost.
It was once said to me to not grow too fixated on any one line of the Jedi Code. Perhaps now, if this war has truly just begun, if our fate is to be pieces in its game, then it's more important than ever that we stick to the tenets of that Code. And, more important still to focus on its unyielding conclusion.
There is no death, there is only the Force.
End