When it happened, Cianen was reclined on a sofa on an observation deck, pouring through samples of the Kwa written language the Jedi had handed over.
She wasn't entirely sure why modern ships, especially military vessels, still had these things. Once upon a time, a fair portion of navigation and such was done by sight, but it had been millennia since that had actually been necessary. Early sensors could be rather easily scrambled, they'd placed rooms with a view of space near the guns, marking and assigning targets manually, but that was virtually unheard of these days. What had once been a necessary, functional feature had become increasingly decorative, until they were reduced to rooms like these. A small space, yes, but holding nothing but couches and chairs, turned toward the shifting blue and white maelstrom of hyperspace.
It was pretty, of course, but Cianen wasn't sure why they bothered. Seemed like a frivolous use of resources, really.
As was her attempt at deciphering the Kwa script. It was obviously phonemic — in the few dozen brief texts the Jedi had recovered, she'd identified sixty-three different glyphs, which seemed like rather a lot for an alphabet, but far too few for a logographic system. (At least, she thought it was sixty-three, they did string together a bit.) But, well, that meant it was completely bloody hopeless. It was simply impossible to crack a phonemic script without any bilingual texts. Even if it were logographic, deciphering it would take decades of work and a lot of luck. (Not to mention a far larger corpus than she had to work with.) It was pretty to look at, anyway. The Kwa had taken angled, geometric shapes and somehow given them an almost organic flow, so subtle she couldn't quite pinpoint exactly what about the script gave her that impression. It was fascinating.
But it wasn't enough to distract her from the unanswered questions, floating distractingly around her head.
The Jedi claimed they wanted her to translate something they'd found on some ruins for them. Fine, but it wasn't quite that simple. They had their own experts. Even if they wanted to borrow someone from the University of Aldera, there were people more qualified and more conveniently located.
Why her?
The task they claimed they wanted her to accomplish, judging by the little they'd told her about it, was impossible. Quite simply, impossible. But the Jedi weren't idiots — they had their own experts, after all. They had to know it was impossible.
She was becoming increasingly convinced they were making the whole thing up. They wanted her for something else.
But what was it? Why her?
They were ferrying her to where they wanted her. All right, fine — that in itself wasn't unusual at all. An entire Republic battle group, though, was an absolutely absurd escort for one measly little university professor. It made absolutely no sense. Especially since it happened to be the one Bastila Shan, that self-important Jedi savior of the Republic, was attached to. Sending this much firepower to Dantooine, of all places? No, it didn't make no sense, it made inverse sense, it was pure blithering idiocy.
She didn't understand.
More, they had to know she wasn't an idiot herself. She did have a litany of references and an impressive curriculum vitae for her age, they had to know. They had to know she'd put it together quickly, that something else was going on. In the Jedi's eyes, the few times she'd ever been in a room with any of them, she could almost see it. They knew she wasn't fooled. But still they played along with the fiction she'd been told, and she played along with it too, despite everyone involved knowing it was a lie, and knowing everyone else knew it was a lie. And she just...
She didn't see what possible advantage there could be in any of this. The Republic and the Jedi both had far more important affairs to concern themselves with, she couldn't imagine what they thought they could gain through...
She didn't understand.
Perhaps more than anything else, she hated not understanding things. It ate away at her. She'd been trying to avoid thinking about the puzzle as much as she could, the last couple days.
But she couldn't always help it. Alone in the observation deck, save for her datapad and the ineffable chaos of hyperspace, her insatiable mind found itself wandering.
So, perhaps it wasn't much of a surprise she hadn't been focusing very well at all on her "work". Perhaps it wasn't much of a surprise that, when the flickering blue and white miasma fell away, stars appearing as blurred streaks only to refine into hard points in the sharp blackness of deep space, Cianen noticed immediately that they'd decanted from hyperspace hours before they should be making their next course change. When the intercom came on, Cianen caught the whole thing, from the very first word.
And, as she darted off toward where she knew she could get to the balcony over the briefing room at the center of the ship, she wasn't the least bit surprised the whole thing appeared to be going off the rails.
After all, even if she hadn't been able to begin to guess what, she'd always been expecting something would happen.
"No. This is a terrible idea."
Every sense of serenity, of tolerant superiority, of general Jedi self-righteousness, disappeared in an instant, leaving Shan's face hard and cold. "Forgive me, Professor, but I was not aware you were an expert in military tactics."
Cianen bit her lip, by some miracle managing to hold back the insult on her tongue.
The briefing room had cleared out already, everyone run off to carry out their role in this folly, leaving only Cianen and a few Jedi. They had gathered in the center of the room, risers crawling upward in a semicircle around them, the projection of Shan's battle plan suspended over their heads. The other two Jedi, whose names Cianen had semi-intentionally forgotten, were mostly keeping the stereotypical detached Jedi calm, but Shan was glaring at her, the lights of the hologram painting sharp shadows across her face.
Before the sight of the little idiot made Cianen say something she might regret later, she glanced back up at the projection. But that didn't make her less annoyed. The hologram depicted Taris — poor, unfortunate Taris, punted back and forth during the Mandalorian wars and now this nonsense, the place couldn't catch a break. In perilously low orbit over the planet was a split-hulled, curved ship Cianen recognized as an interdictor. The Leviathan, Malak's flagship, trailed by two triangular monstrosities, she didn't remember what those were called. They were big ships, anyway. In flashing blue and green above them, trapping them against the planet, was a whole web of ships — the battlegroup Cianen was hitching a ride with, along with a few other ships they were picking up from somewhere.
See, the Republic had stumbled on intelligence, Shan hadn't said where they'd gotten it from, that Malak would be visiting Taris. Something to do with chastising the local governor, not important. Malak always liked to make a dramatic production of this sort of thing — he particularly liked parking in an impractically low orbit, just to make himself all big and intimidating in the sky. This put him far into the planet's gravity well, he wouldn't be able to break to hyperspace with any kind of speed.
Shan wanted to use that to take him out. She was going to take as many ships as she could as quickly as she could, wait out of system for Malak to show up, then appear in the sky above him once he's stuck in low orbit. Malak would be unable to escape, unable to even properly maneuver to counter her. They'd pound them into pieces, Malak would be dead, and the war would be over.
But there was...well, there were numerous problems with that idea. Just during the briefing, Cianen, the civilian without any military experience at all, had come up with a few. How about the fact that the plan depended on utmost secrecy? That meant they were going deep into Sith territory with absolutely no backup. If anything unexpected happened, they were fucked.
She had more. In order to get there in time to hit Malak, they had to go very soon. That meant they couldn't wait to gather an overwhelming force. They'd be going with what they had, maybe a few ships Shan could pick up on the way. Cianen wasn't convinced that was enough. Malak's escort might only be two ships, but they were big ships, and his flagship wasn't anything to sneeze at either. Shan's battlegroup had a larger number of ships, but they had none even approaching that size, and Cianen didn't know if they had any firepower advantage at all. If they'd gotten the size of Malak's escort wrong, if Malak's people even got a few lucky shots, they were fucked.
And not done yet, either. To get into range to hit Malak in low orbit, they'd have to descend a bit into Taris's gravity well themselves. What was the problem with that? Oh, she wasn't an expert in military tactics, but couldn't Malak just do the same thing back at them? He could have hundreds of ships floating in the vast blackness between stars. It had to be possible, Shan's plan depended on the Republic fleet doing that exact thing. Which wouldn't be too much of a risk if Taris were a border planet, but it wasn't, it was firmly in Sith territory. Shan thought she was springing the trap, but Cianen couldn't suppress the thought they were walking into one.
Finally, she thought this was important to mention, she had never signed on for this! She wasn't a soldier, she was a fucking linguist! They were supposed to be bringing her to Dantooine, not dragging her into full-blown space battles!
She took a slow breath in, tried to force her own impatience out on the exhale. "Have you considered the possibility, Master Jedi, that this is a trap?"
The arrogant young woman shrugged, flicking one hand dismissively in the air. "It doesn't matter."
"It does—" Cianen choked on her own throat for a second. "It doesn't matter?!"
"Yes, Professor Hayal. It does not matter. It could be a trap, yes. I do not think it likely," the Jedi said, with a sense of no small amount of condescension yet absolutely none of irony, "but I will not deny it is possible. But it does not matter. Even if it is a trap, we haven't had an opportunity like this in some time. If there is a chance that we can neutralize Darth Malak, no matter how flawed, we must take it."
For a few seconds, Cianen could only stare at the Jedi, Bastila bloody Shan, in numb disbelief. That was one of the stupidest things she'd ever heard an adult person say.
And she'd been roped into teaching the freshman seminar a few times. She'd heard some impressively stupid shit.
She could point out that Malak likely knew just how desperate the Republic was to eliminate him, making it only more likely it was a trap. She could point out the assumption they were making that killing Malak would end the war was flawed — people had said the same thing when they'd assassinated Revan, and how had that turned out? Yeah, that's what she'd thought.
They'd lost Revan, and they'd kept fighting. Revan. Sure, she had been one of the greatest military strategists the Republic had ever seen, enough to beat the Mandalorians at their own game, but it hadn't been just that that had allowed one Jedi to split the Republic near in half. She hadn't coerced so much of the Republic military into following her, the vast majority of worlds in Sith space had never been conquered. People had followed Revan because they wanted to. For all the Jedi might lecture about the corruption of the Dark Side, how terrible and evil Revan had become, by all accounts she'd been a sympathetic and charismatic leader to the many peoples disaffected with the Republic, the Empire under her rule, so far as such authoritarian governments went, really quite fair and reasonable toward its people. They'd loved Revan. Malak was a petulant child playing at tyrant after her, there was no comparison. They would keep fighting without him.
If anything, knocking off Malak might be good for the Empire. Revan had been, again, charismatic and reasonable. Malak was anything but. He didn't have the restraint Revan had shown, indiscriminately destroying anything and anyone that showed the barest sign of resistance, slaughtering people by the millions. The Empire might be winning militarily, but they'd lost every inch of moral high ground they'd claimed to have; the people had loved Revan, but Malak was almost universally despised. Whoever seized the reins of the Empire after his death, Cianen doubted they would be nearly as corrupt and bloodthirsty as Malak. She wouldn't be surprised if, after the dust settled, the Empire ended up more stable than it'd been before.
Assuming it didn't tear itself apart, anyway. Unlike Revan, Malak had no clear successor. Sith space descending into civil war was definitely possible. Which, far from resolving it, would only increase the violence scourging the galaxy.
Stellar planning right there, Master Jedi. Just brilliant.
But there was no point arguing about it any further. Shan clearly had no intention of listening to her, and the rest of the Jedi seemed equally unconcerned. Arrogant fools, they were going to get them all killed. But that was Jedi for you, she guessed, they were in the business of getting other people killed.
"Fine, then," she grumbled, resisting the urge to curse and throw her hands in the air. "Could you at least drop me off somewhere first?"
"I'm afraid that won't be possible."
Cianen took in and out another long breath, the taste of it hot and bloody. "Why not? In case you've forgotten, war isn't exactly my specialty."
All four Jedi shifted a little, a brace of odd looks flicking across their faces too quickly for her to make out. One of them, a tall Iphigini with beads of ceramic and shining metals braided into the long hairs drooping from her face, took a step forward, a bony hand coming softly to rest on her arm. Cianen barely managed to stop herself from shrugging it off. "I am sorry, Professor," she sang. "I know you didn't agree to this, but we cannot leave you behind. The task force is running black — no transmissions in or out, nobody coming or leaving. We are even to avoid decanting within range of any planetary sensors. We cannot go into any system, not for even a second. If Malak finds out we changed our plans, he might grow suspicious. There is no quicker way to guarantee our assault at Taris will be a failure."
She opened her mouth to argue, then cut off, biting her lip. They were determined. Pointing out that the Empire's plants would already have reason to be suspicious when they didn't turn up at their next port wouldn't bend them. "Just don't take me into the battle, then. Leave me in a shuttle or escape pod or something outsystem."
"And if the battle goes badly, and we must flee? We may not have the opportunity to return to pick you up again."
Cianen grit her teeth, rubbed at her forehead with a hand, hard enough her vision blurred. There was nothing she could do. The Jedi wouldn't listen, the officers would yield to them, Cianen wasn't a good enough of a slicer to escape or even get a message out. She was screwed. "You know, if you get me killed my parents will hit the Republic with one hell of a wrongful death suit."
Again, the Jedi gave her a set of peculiar looks. Her voice hard, Shan said, "Martial law was declared shortly after Revan betrayed the Republic. The military is exempt from any liability for the duration."
She scoffed. Theoretically, sure, but rules like that could be bent — especially since the Chancellor just declaring he has broad executive powers like he did is flagrantly unconstitutional, making the emergency measures themselves illegal. She and her parents might be having problems, had for most of her life, but that didn't change anything, they would and could—
The thought broke off before she could finish it, and she was left frowning at herself. They could do nothing. They might want to, sure, but they were just common farmers. They hadn't the influence to make themselves heard. The suit would be dismissed out of hand, and that would be that.
Cianen shook her head to herself, though the odd feeling lingered, unease tingling at the back of her neck. "Well, I, ah... It's obvious I'm not going to be able to convince you how completely idiotic this whole thing is, so...that's that, then."
The Jedi didn't seem to have anything to say to that — though, by the narrow, angry set of her eyes, Shan at least certainly wanted to — and Cianen didn't wait to see if they'd come up with anything. She turned on her heel and walked off in the general direction of the pilots' lounge, where she could get herself a bloody drink.
The Jedi's eyes on her back only made that uncomfortable tingling worse.
He turned her lightsaber aside with a flourish, stepping forward to drive his shoulder into her chest. She hit the ground hard, her breath leaving with a harsh cough, the dull white of her weapon going out as the hilt spun from her hand. But the fight wasn't done, she didn't stop until she was stopped, Alek turned back around, thrust out for her heart.
Her dark eyes flashing, Lesami brought both hands halfway up, pulling at the Force so hard his face tingled, slapped them down to the ground at her sides. There was a hiss from the pool directly behind her, the rest all around, and the air was suddenly filled with fog, cool grey blankness pressing so thick against his face he couldn't see a damn thing. He stumbled, scrambled back, reached out, not to wipe the fog away, there wouldn't be time for that, he had to find her before she—
She suddenly appeared out of the fog, grabbing at his wrist, tore the hilt from his grip before he could react. He tried to step away, but she was on him in an instant, knee aiming to strike between his legs. Twisting out of the way, he stepped around her back, an arm coming around her neck. She tried to slip away, but he tightened his grip, locking his hand behind his opposite elbow. Both of her hands had gotten under his arm somehow, stopping him from putting too much pressure on her throat, but she couldn't escape, no matter how much she tried to kick at his legs, no matter how much she squirmed against him.
Which was really quite distracting. He'd been...noticing Lesami a bit more than he should, lately. But he forced himself to stay focused as best he could.
By the time Lesami gave up, slumping in his arms, both of them were breathing heavily, sweat tickling its way down his back. Her voice thin and breathless, Lesami said, "Do you yield?"
He laughed, the sound high and weak. "Me? What fight are you in?"
From so close his ear twinged, there was a very familiar snap-hiss to his right. He glanced that way to find the faded white glow of a lightsaber on the practice setting, floating in the air inches from his face. "This one." He could hear the smirk on her voice, as clear as though he were looking at it.
Keeping his arm firm, Alek looked around them, trying to find his lightsaber. Dammit, where the hell had it gone? He took a slow breath, reached through himself and out, grasping for the hilt Lesami was levitating somewhere over his head. He found it after a moment, tried to wrench it away, but no matter how hard he shoved at the damn thing, it stayed perfectly still, the blade unwavering, humming hard in his ear.
He sighed. "Fine, you win."
The grin she gave him as soon as she was free wasn't helping that...not noticing her thing.
A moment later, they were laid out on a rock in the middle of one of the pools, the air thick with the scent of green and the sound of falls striking the water surface. The thin mist was comfortably cool against his flushed skin, the gentle glow against the leaves over their heads, the glass ceiling further above dim enough he could fall asleep if not for the light burns the practice setting left, his off arm and ankle throbbing. Not that he could complain about that, really, he was sure Lesami had it worse — for all that he couldn't hope to compete with her in the Force, he was still better with a lightsaber.
Though his advantage even there was slowly shrinking. Lesami just learned too damn fast.
They laid there for a few minutes in silence, but eventually Lesami spoke, slightly thick with pain. "I think I'm going to the clinic in a few minutes. I managed to win twice at least, but damn, Alek, that thing hurts, you know."
"Once."
"Twice."
"Once. That last one doesn't count. You cheated."
Lesami snorted. "If it were a real fight, you'd be too dead to call me a cheater."
There was really nothing to say to that — he had no doubt Lesami would wipe the floor with him if she weren't at least trying to keep to a proper lightsaber duel. She could probably turn him into bloody paste with the wave of a hand. Seriously, she was unfairly good at Force stuff, he'd been sent to the Temple years before her and he couldn't keep up. "How did you even do that thing with the fog?"
"It's a tutaminis trick. Well, not really tutaminis, but it's a similar idea. Sort of doing it backwards, if that makes sense."
"No, that makes no sense at all."
"I don't know. Improve your tutaminis a bit and I might be able to teach you."
Alek just smiled. Lesami was hardly a Jedi Master, but she tended to skip the more esoteric theory and philosophy too many of their teachers lingered on and get right to the point. If she was offering, he'd take it.
A few minutes later, they were wandering through the Room of a Thousand Fountains, around columns and lumps of granite and pools and streams, under leaves and needles and falls, heading for the exit toward the center of the ziggurat. They were maybe twenty meters from the door out when a voice calling Lesami's name broke over the sounds of crashing water and rustling leaves. A Devaronian Master, Alek was blanking on his name, was walking toward them, clawed fingers fidgeting. "I've been looking for you, Apprentice."
Lesami glanced at Alek before turning back to the Master with a shrug. "I'm sorry, Master Tarkase, but I thought we had the rest of the day free."
"Oh, you didn't miss anything. You are needed for a meeting with someone from outside the Temple, is all." There were a couple slight hesitations in the second sentence, Tarkase, which was apparently his name, nearly stumbling over his words.
"Oh, um, if you say so," she said, confused. Really, what would someone from outside the Temple be wanting to talk to an apprentice about? "I'll just drop by the clinic quick, if that's okay."
Tarkase sighed, eyes tipping upward for an instant. "Unfortunately, there's no time for that."
"Master, Alek and I were sparring for an hour, at least. I've got burns everywhere." She held up a hand, pointing at the blotch of reddened skin on her arm. "Can't they wait a half hour for me to get treated and cleaned up quick?"
The Master hesitated for a moment, fingers twitching some more. Which was just damn weird, Alek couldn't remember the last time he'd seen an adult Jedi look so uncomfortable. "Lady kun si Revas is quite impatient. I'm afraid any further delay will only complicate the situation further."
From this angle Alek couldn't see her face, but he did notice Lesami's shoulders stiffen, her hands tighten into fists at her sides. Her voice hard, meticulously controlled, she said, "What is my mother doing here?"
Alek frowned. Her mother? The Order made every effort to isolate initiates from the lives they'd had before being brought to the Temple, their families especially. It was a new policy, instituted after the war, and yet extremely controversial, but they stuck to it firmly enough he'd never heard of a parent being allowed to visit the Temple.
Tarkase looked even more uncomfortable then he'd been a second ago, fingers fidgeting all the harder as he drew a sharp breath between jagged teeth. "House Reva has been...difficult, lately. They've been demanding they be allowed to visit occasionally, even for you to stay with them on Shawken for a month out of the year. If their demands aren't met, they've threatened to take the Order to court over custody."
"What? Why haven't I heard of this until now?"
"The Council hoped it wouldn't go this far. House Reva refuses to be placated."
Lesami let out a long, harsh sigh. "Of course they do. Take me to her, then."
His face falling into a subtle frown, Tarkase said, "Mind yourself, Apprentice. Remember, there is no emoti—"
"—there is peace, I know. Let's go."
Tarkase held a stern, disapproving look on her for a moment, but finally turned, starting off for the same door they'd been making for earlier. Alek watched the two of them walk away, Lesami's footsteps awkward and jerking, then jumped at the sudden pull at his wrist. Lesami glanced at him over her shoulder, just for a second, then turned away again, following at Tarkase's heel.
Okay. Apparently Alek was to come with. All right, then.
Even after living here for, oh, over six years now, it still got to him sometimes just how huge the Temple Complex was. Even just the Ziggurat above "ground" level, which was actually over a kilometer above the natural surface, was enormous by itself. With a base of a square kilometer, a height about four-thirds that, the place was an endless maze of huge corridors and tiny hallways, gardens and libraries, rooms for classes and larger ones for more physical training, apartments and common rooms by the dozens (though not enough for the whole Order, most of those were beneath the "surface"), and more and more and more. He'd gotten lost more times than he could count. It didn't help that the floors were skewed — chambers toward the middle had higher ceilings. One particularly odd case he knew of involved rooms directly across a corridor from each other that were labeled G-17046 and E-35947. One side of the corridor was on the seventeenth floor, and the other side the thirty-fifth. It was insane.
The walk the Jedi Master led them on took some minutes, down a dozen floors, down this corridor, then that one, stitching back and forth seemingly at random. Alek had the feeling they were getting pretty close to "ground" level, not far from the Entrance Hall...maybe. It could be really hard to tell.
Eventually, they were led between two huge double doors, the ancient wood carved with the visages of Jedi long dead dwarfing all three of them. Inside was a high-ceilinged room of granite, silver, and polished reddish wood, all of it set to a soft glow by sunlight slanting through tall windows to the west. Waiting on the thickly cushioned chairs and couches arrayed throughout the room were a slew of people. Some of them were Jedi, Masters all — Alek was a little surprised to see Grandmaster Sunrider, red hair lined with a little more grey than he remembered. Some were Republic officials, a human woman Alek recognized as the Senator from Shawken, along with a couple people from the Diplomatic Corps. Then there were several people Alek didn't recognize at all, most of them wearing fine clothes of shimmersilk and jewelry in gold and blue. He could only assume these were all related to Lesami.
Which was a bit of a surprise, really. Despite being sent to the Jedi rather late, when she'd been nine, Lesami had never mentioned her family at all. Honestly, Alek had been relieved — that topic would be a little awkward for him, considering his last memory of his family involved them all being murdered. Yeah, he'd rather not go there. But the people who came to the Temple later usually, well, missed their family, they all tended to talk about them, at least a little. He was starting to think maybe he should have asked her about that before.
Whatever he might have expected her family to be like, he certainly hadn't expected people so...important-looking, with pull enough to force Jedi and Republic to let them in the Temple to see her, with the Grandmaster and their Senator right there with them. It was... Well, it was just a little weird, was all.
Without stalling a beat, Lesami marched right toward the middle of the group, where the Grandmaster, the Senator, and her mother were waiting, moving quickly enough Alek had to scramble after her. He caught up in time to watch her stiff bows, hear the formal greetings passing her lips. The Grandmaster first, then the Senator, then her mother. Alek failed to hold back a wince when she called her mother, "my lady," her shoulders tense, her voice brittle. The woman — long-faced and black-haired, wearing an overly-elaborate dress in green and blue stitched with gold — flinched as though struck.
Yeah, there was no way this was ending well.
Apparently he wasn't the only one to notice. Before anyone else could figure out what to say, Lesami's mother just staring at her with her mouth half-open, Grandmaster Sunrider cleared her throat, every eye in the room flicking to her. "I think we should let the Lady kun si Revas and Apprentice Lesami have some privacy, hmm?"
"That's not necessary, Master."
"Oh, I think it is." The Grandmaster gave Lesami an odd, weak smile. She took a step closer, a hand coming to gently rest on Lesami's shoulder. "Some things aren't meant to be aired out in public." Her hand moved again, a knuckle tipping Lesami's chin up an inch, meeting her eyes. Alek felt something pass through them, something in the Force he couldn't read from the outside. A pained expression flickered across the Grandmaster's face, just for a moment, before it was wiped away with an empty smile. She straightened again, nodded to Lesami's mother, then led the rest of the intimidating group out into the hall. A few of the fancy-looking people Alek had pegged as more of Lesami's relatives hesitated for a moment before following along, leaving Lesami and her mother alone in the oversized room.
Well, them and Alek. He'd started turning to follow the Grandmaster out with them, but he'd been stopped by another tug at his wrist. Apparently he was staying for this too.
For long seconds, Lesami and her mother just stared at each other. As the silence stretched on and on, Alek shuffled his feet a little, avoiding looking at her mother's face. This was just...unspeakably awkward. It was something on the air, something hot and tense and...and wounded, it was unbearable.
The woman broke first. A hesitant but still warm smile pulling at her lips, she said, "You look well, Sami."
Lesami hardly reacted at all. She didn't move a muscle, still standing there so stiffly and brittley as though made of glass. Alek couldn't see her face from here, but he did catch a whiff through the Force, the air about her cold and hard and unbending.
Her smile faltered, twitching back and forth before vanishing completely. She shot a couple uncomfortable glances at Alek, before seemingly deciding to pretend he wasn't there. It took two attempts for her to find her voice again, her mouth opening once only to close again. "You haven't been taking any of our calls or answering our letters."
Alek blinked — he'd had no idea Lesami's family had been trying to contact her, she'd never mentioned it. But she must have known about it, the tension ratcheted up another notch, her shoulders ticking up an inch. "No, I haven't."
"We've been worried, Sami."
"Is that so."
The woman flinched again. She started to reach for Lesami, then seemed to think better of it, her hands falling awkwardly to her sides. "We feared... Well, the life of a Jedi can be...unsafe."
Alek almost had to laugh. Over just the last couple decades, near on a third of the Order had either died or gone missing. "Unsafe" was one way to put it.
Her arms coming up to cross over her chest, Lesami let out a harsh scoff. "Maybe you should have thought of that before sending me here."
"Sami, we had no—"
"You did have a choice!" Lesami's voice had gone low, a hiss that seemed to linger longer than it should. The air around her shimmered, the stone against Alek's feet throbbing, lub-dub lub-dub, the familiar, sickening taste of blood and ash on his tongue. Lesami slumped slightly, then took a long, slow breath, in then out. In an instant, the throbbing ended, the chill vanished, the taint of Darkness on the air gone.
It was so quick Alek could almost convince himself Lesami hadn't just nearly gotten too angry.
"Was there something you wanted of me, my lady?"
Of course, Lesami's mother, Force-blind as she was, had no idea just how thin of a line she was walking right now. She was saying something about her family missing her and such, but Alek was paying rather more attention to what she was doing. She was taking another step forward, her hands coming up again, going around—
Lesami took a sharp step backward, her mother's fingers coming to an abrupt stop a short distance away, as though striking an invisible wall. "I can't. I'm a Jedi now. My place is here."
"Your place is with your family!"
"Not anymore. You and your husband saw to that." The woman flinched again, and Alek saw the beginning of tears spark in her eyes. "Excuse me, my lady, but I have nothing more to say to you. I wish you a safe journey home." And Lesami spun on her heel, strode off toward the door without another word.
Alek jumped, muttered an awkward goodbye to her shaken mother before scrambling after her. By the time he made it out to the corridor, the Masters and the Republic officials and the Shawkenese were already descending into a loud argument, and he had to squeeze through the throng, forcing himself the same direction he knew without thinking Lesami had gone. When he was finally out in the open, it was just in time to see the hem of Lesami's overrobe whip around a corner. He broke into a run after her, around one corner, then another, far enough into the Temple the halls grew narrower, emptier, until his footsteps echoed around him in the stillness.
He abruptly froze in mid-step, sudden enough he nearly toppled over. He followed the twinge in his senses back to the door he'd just passed. Inside was a classroom, by the screens in the desks and the rounded holoprojector at the front one focused on astrogation, by the thin layer of dust on everything one currently not in use. And there was Lesami, standing in front of one of the tall flat-screens many of the internal rooms had in place of windows. At the moment, it was displaying a feed from one of the cameras on the outside of the Temple, but Lesami was flipping through the menu, searching for something else.
Even as he came up behind her, each step slow and uncertain, the endless cityscape of Coruscant was replaced with a beach. The sands were a brilliant gold in the alien sunlight, bits of quartz sparkling white and pink, the water a healthy blue-green, stretching off into the distance. The water was dotted with boats of all size and shapes, the beach thick with people, mostly humans, swimming and playing and sunbathing. At a second's glance he noticed many of them were going about completely nude, and he glanced away, cursing the warmth on his cheeks. It still took him aback sometimes, how...immodest certain peoples in the core could be.
Lesami closed the menu out, sank to sitting on the floor just in front of the flatscreen. And she stared up at the artificial view of some beach on another world, still and silent, her face almost eerily expressionless. Alek hesitated a moment, glancing at the door behind them, before sitting next to her. He hugged his knees to his chest, mostly just so he had something to do with his hands.
The silence stretched on for several, awkward moments. He had absolutely no idea what to say.
But he should at least try. This whole thing with her family and all was just...uncomfortable. Understatement, that. He didn't want to jump straight in, though, might as well ask. "Where is this?"
"Mathilnai, on Shawken." The harshness, the brittleness had gone out of her voice, leaving her sounding tired. "It's part of the protected lands in the east, it's not built up like the rest of the planet. There's a little town, just south of here, we used to stay there for a couple weeks every summer."
"Ah." And he had absolutely no idea what to say again already. Just, dammit. "Did you, uh, want to talk about it?"
"There's nothing to talk about. They gave me up. They'll have to learn to accept what that means, sooner or later. It's not my problem they're having difficulties with that."
That wasn't at all what Alek meant. He groped for words for a moment, then winced even as they left his mouth. This wasn't the right thing to say, he knew it. "You know, they really had no choice."
"They had a choice." Lesami turned to glare at him, but he didn't buy it for a second. He was sitting too close to miss the slight wetness to her eyes. "Other people might not, but they did. I'm po si Revas, Alek, if my family wanted to they could—" Lesami broke off with a sigh, her eyes falling closed. "They chose to give me away, and I refuse to forget it."
Alek knew what he should say. He should say something about the anger she was feeling. She was trying to hide it, he could tell, but her control wasn't quite that good, it leaked out into the Force, she might as well be screaming it for everyone to hear. He should say something about that, should say that holding onto this anger toward her birth family, holding onto this pain of betrayal, that it wasn't the Jedi way. That she had to let it go, she had to forgive them. If she didn't, she was risking...
Well, there wasn't a choice really, when it came down to it.
But he couldn't. Not when it was so, so raw, so... He knew she would hate it, if he tried to give her the party line, that she would be angry at him. He'd prefer Lesami not be angry at him. He preferred it rather a lot.
And he did understand. He remembered the Mandalorians coming to his village. The noise of blasterfire, the screaming, the fire and the blood. People dying, people he'd known all his life, all of his family, his dad cut down in front of him, his mom screaming, his brothers and sisters and cousins falling one by one as they fled. He still had nightmares about it, sometimes. The Mandalorians had taken his family from him, and he would never forget it, he couldn't.
It wasn't quite the same thing. Lesami's family was still alive, but they'd been taken from her all the same. Only, they hadn't been taken from her by force. No, it was her family themselves who had done it to her, had cut her away from all she'd known. It wasn't quite the same thing, but it was close enough.
In a way, Alek thought it might be even worse. The Mandalorians had been nothing to him, his family hadn't a choice in the matter. And he had been young, four or five, it was hard to even remember them sometimes. Lesami had been older. And it hadn't been by force, her family had chosen to betray her.
He should say all those Jedi things about letting go of the Darkness inside herself, but he couldn't. He just couldn't.
Instead he slid a little closer and — slowly, hesitantly — draped an arm around her shoulders, down her side. Lesami let out a thin sigh, leaned into him, tucked herself in under his arm. "If you ever do want to talk about it, or, anything else, I'll be here."
"I know."
They sat in silence, Lesami watching the feed from her homeworld, Alek...well, trying not to get distracted. Lesami could be distracting sometimes lately. He did manage to not think about wherever his hand happened to be at the moment, he wasn't thinking about it, but her head being against his shoulder made it impossible to not notice the smell of her hair. He meant, it was right there, that really wasn't his fault.
In a low whisper, Lesami said, "I know what you're thinking, by the way."
Alek jumped, went straight to cursing himself in his head. Of course she did, she was far better at this Force stuff than he was, he wasn't sure he'd even notice her in his head. Well, maybe he hadn't noticed her in his head, but things could leak out sometimes, she probably didn't need to actively look. She sounded more amused than anything, though, so Alek shook off his embarrassment, glared down at the top of her head. "Well, yeah. You are a cheater."
"Mm-hmm." He couldn't see from this angle, but he still knew she was smiling. "If, a couple years from now, you still want to talk about that, I'll be here."
Oh, uh, right, okay. Perfectly reasonable. They were young, after all, he fifteen and she thirteen. Waiting a couple years to even talk about it was perfectly reasonable.
At least, it would be perfectly reasonable if they weren't Jedi. That...complicated matters. They should probably...well, not.
All the same, he breathed in through her hair again, this time not even bothering to try to hide that he was smelling her.
He couldn't see from this angle, but he still knew she was smirking.
Cianen looked out over the nearly empty briefing room from the balcony, her hands so tight on the guardrail her knuckles had gone white.
The projection of their little fleet arrayed in space had gone out when they'd entered hyperspace, reverting to...she didn't know the proper name, diagrams of each ship with what looked like real-time status updates, whatever. Seeing it all made Cianen feel even more nervous than she'd been a second ago, biting her lip and tapping a foot against the floor. They were too few, somehow she knew they were too few.
She had a bad feeling, a very bad feeling. This whole thing was going to go all wrong.
The wait was interminable, despite the brevity of the jump they were making, Cianen almost agonizingly tense, the rumble of the hyperdrive deafening. The stillness of her Jedi minder next to her, the handful of crew members poking around down by the projector, was only making her feel worse, the eye of a storm inverted, rational panic surrounded by delusional calm. She'd mostly worked out her frustration arguing in the pilot's lounge and with Asyr, but she still had to bite her lip to keep herself from cursing.
If there was one thing she had trouble tolerating, it was idiocy. That this particular episode happened to be threatening her life wasn't making it any easier.
After what felt like hours, but could be only minutes, the smooth groaning of the hyperdrive ceased, the sublights kicking in an instant later with a thunk and a roar. Red lights along the ceiling came on, but alarms didn't blare — everyone had known they were going straight into combat, there was no reason to announce it. The projection blanked out, over the next seconds a hologram depicting the skies over Taris replaced it. Details were sparse, just an indistinct convex curve to represent the planet, the Sith fleet one pincer shape and two blocky prisms, all in red, the Republic fleet much the same, simple shapes more numerous but smaller, cast in greens and blues.
The coms burst into life, the chatter thin and tinny from up here, a dozen voices all at once scrambling enough Cianen only picked out a few words here or there. The green and blue shapes were moving, descending on the red ones, a net falling to trap them against the planet's atmosphere. Even as they moved, they disgorged a cloud of tiny colored specks, starfighters by the dozens. A few lingered with the larger shapes, but the majority darted out toward the Sith, squadrons mixed into a mass of light so thick it was almost a solid line, narrowing the distance so fast, too fast.
It was impossible to tell which, but she knew one of those tiny little dots was Asyr. She was trying to not think about that.
Watching the display, she felt her shoulders hunch, an odd tingling at the small of her back. Something wasn't... The vanguard of the Republic capital ships were just sinking into range, the first lines of simulated turbolaser fire already lancing out, pale white curves symbolizing energy shields fading into life around the larger Sith ships. But they didn't fire back. They didn't even fire at the cloud of approaching fighters, less than a kilometer out their windows now. They weren't shooting back. They just floated there, waiting.
Cianen realized what was happening seconds before the trap was sprung.
In an inexorable wave, a flood of tiny red dots washed out from behind the Sith cruisers. Even as they appeared, the capital ships fired into the densest parts of the swarm of Republic fighters, tight lines cutting through the ranks, blue and green dots vanishing by the handful. An instant later, the red dots fell upon them, coming from ahead, above and below and left and right. The first volley blotted out even more of the Republic ships, only a few Sith fighters taken by return fire, before the formations slipped into each other, the writhing mass of quick-moving dots too confused to make out what was going on.
A few seconds later, a grey haze appeared on the opposite side of the Republic fleet. The haze quickly resolved into ships, just decanted from hyperspace, a huge fleet, dozens of them. A fleet burning enemy red, positioned in a thin hemisphere around the Republic ships, pinning them against the planet.
And they came out firing.
Hundreds of thin lines of turbolaser fire, dozens of sparks of rockets, cut into the Republic fleet, each ship taking fire from somewhere, some from multiple sides. The floor jerked under Cianen's feet as the Spire took fire from two directions at once, an elbow slamming painfully against the guardrail. The lights overhead flickered just a little, the ship's systems redirecting power toward the shields, but the hologram remained firm.
So Cianen could see the first few green and blue lights already going out.
She turned to the Jedi next to her, screaming over the chaos on the coms, raised voices all around, the groaning and clattering of the ship around them. "See what I mean?! Trap!"
The Jedi didn't say anything to that, just looked at her, her eyes heavy and tired. The floor bucked again, nearly taking Cianen to her knees, but the Jedi didn't even flinch, standing steady as steel. "I have to go to Bastila."
Before she could go on a rant about these idiots dragging her into a battle she'd told them was a terrible idea, and this bitch just calmly standing there like nothing was happening, like people weren't dying by the hundreds because they wouldn't listen, they were interrupted with a shout of Cianen's name. Just as the man ran into the room the ship shuddered again, sending him pitching to the ground right at Cianen's feet, cursing and clutching his shoulder.
It took Cianen only a second to recognize him. "Ulgo? Now's a bad time, don't you think?"
Ulgo managed to get to his feet, still shaky, teetering a bit side to side. Not that Cianen could blame him — the shuddering of the floor was constant now, in time with a rattling somewhere deep in the ship that did not sound good. "I've been ordered to get you off the ship before they start boarding." He stumbled forward, wrapping an arm around hers and pulling her away from the guardrail.
Letting herself be dragged, feet spread wide against the heaving floor, Cianen almost wanted to scoff. Giving up on the battle already, were they? But a glance over her shoulder silenced her — half of the fleet was gone already, the remaining Republic ships lost in a sea of red. Fuck, that hadn't taken very long.
She also noticed the Jedi had disappeared, because of course she had.
Anyway, yes, escaping. Pay attention, Hayal, spending too much time critiquing these idiots' decision making will only get you killed. Staggering out into the hallway, the sharp right angles of the internal halls were shaking so badly they almost seemed curved. Over the rattling of the ship, the shouting of crewmen coming from somewhere down the hall, Cianen yelled, "Boarding? Won't they just blow us up?"
She felt Ulgo's head shake more than she saw it — she was busy watching each placement of her feet. "They'll want Jedi Shan alive."
Oh. Well, yes, of course they would. That should give them some time to get to the escape pods at least.
For a moment, Cianen almost wished Shan would be captured. The bloody infuriating idiot had dragged Cianen here, despite her protests, and by the look of it just might get her killed. It would suit her right. But no, no it wouldn't. Cianen had heard horror stories of how the Sith under Malak treated their prisoners. No one deserved that.
Even if she was a self-righteous little cunt.
Tutaminis — The proper in-universe name of the ability called "Force absorb" in a few video games. Essentially, absorbing energy of all kinds and converting it into something else. What Lesami did (applying enough energy to the nearby water to evaporate a bit off the surface) would be in the same class of energy-manipulating abilities, but I don't know if there's actually a separate name for it. Tutaminis will be showing up a lot in my fics, it's very exploitable.
[It was a new policy] — Many people tend to forget just how much the Jedi Order changed throughout history. At the time of the Great Sith War (3996 BBY), while Jedi were expected to live comparatively ascetic and selfless lives, they were allowed personal relationships. Jedi were often recruited as adults, had families and children. By the time of KotOR (3956 BBY), only forty years later, we see a far more dogmatic and restrictive Jedi Order reminiscent of the one depicted in the prequel movies. In my head, under pressure of certain conservative voices that had always existed, the Order officially adopted these policies designed to isolate Jedi from outside loyalties at the Conclave on Exis Station (3986 BBY). But this was a very recent development, and the new policies haven't yet been fully implemented. The Jedi Council certainly look very poorly on people flouting the new rules, and the youngest generations of Jedi are more effectively indoctrinated, but there are still plenty of Jedi who object to the new order around.
The Temple Precinct — Canonically, the location of the modern Jedi Temple was only donated to the Order around the end of the Great Hyperspace War (c. 5000 BBY). I'm not sure this is realistic, for various historical and political reasons. In my head, the Temple grounds were ceded to the Jedi during the reconstruction after the Pius Dea civil war (which, also in my head, was partially an effort by the Alsakani, who were in charge in the immediate aftermath, to neuter the religious cult by depriving them of the holiest site in their faith), which would have been around 10,960 BBY. The Temple Complex is thus much older than is suggested in canon, having had more than enough time to grow to the absolutely ridiculous scale of the prequel movies. Not the same Temple, of course, since it'll be destroyed more than once over those few millennia, but of similar size. Which is absurd, seriously, the place is fucking enormous.
By the way, anyone who enjoys nerdy things and hasn't informed themselves on the topic should go to the Star Wars wiki and read up on the Alsakan Conflicts and the Pius Dea era. Fascinating shit.
Grandmaster Sunrider — Nomi Sunrider, one of the main characters of the Tales of the Jedi comic series, and the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order immediately following the Great Sith War. Tionne of Luke's Jedi is fond of legends involving her, and Meetra Surik was (partially) trained by her daughter Vima, but her appearances otherwise have been limited for copyright reasons. (Actually, fun fact, Vima was intended to be a companion in KotOR, "Bastila" was originally Juhani's name.) Judging by her age, she should still be Grandmaster of the Order during the Mandalorian Wars.
Yes, I still exist.
I recently lost my job for medical reasons, so I've had more time to write lately. I've been too scatterbrained to focus on any particular one, but I thought I'd share what I do have for my poor, neglected readers. A few other fics were posted at the same time as this one. All of them will be updated randomly, as I finish chapters.
This fic specifically, I just wrote that last scene today. It is a bit awkward, and cuts off very weird, but the latter is on purpose, meh meh. (Also, holy shit, those notes at the end, what is wrong with me.) The next chapter will be the entirety of the Endar Spire sequence, plus a little extra. So, might be a little while, we'll see.
~Wings