Chapter 2: Brotherhood

I didn't go home that night. I could've, but then, I had thought that doing so could only result in a teary goodbye, which would've only hurt Mel even more. I now realize, however, that the only person I had been sparing from any hurt was me.

By dawn the following day, Roe and I had already agreed on a place to meet, and right as the sun rose, I was standing amidst the remains of an old school. Now just another victim of Lex's pyromania, some twenty years ago (though it feels so much longer than that) three young but idealistic boys met there for the first time. Their names were Alexander Damien, Roald Crestfall, and Brett Spade.

Our secondary education days came at the heels of what the people of Othros called the Extraterrestrial Revolution, though those of the intergalactic community know the event as the first encounter between the Kaiburr Empire and the New Republic.

For the socially-ignorant, the Kaiburr Empire was formed tens of thousands of years before the formation of the Old Republic and is the known-galaxy's oldest lasting sovereignty. The Kaiburr are amphibian-like bipeds with four-digit hands and two digit feet. They have no noses, instead absorbing sustenance through their smooth semi-permeable skin. They also have no mouths, vocal chords, or any speech-related faculties. Their species has an average midi-chlorian count of 7,000, among the highest in the galaxy, and thus, the majority is capable of at least average telepathy, making those with low counts equivalent to mutes in their society. Perhaps their most unique quality, though, is their immunity to senescence. Due to this unending cell division, only external factors such as disease and injury can cause Kaiburr death, resulting in the race's high average lifespan with the oldest among them in their 1,000's.

Because of their galactic seniority, for lack of a better term, they've taken it upon themselves to carry the responsibility of being the "nurturers" of other budding civilizations, keeping track of their development without actually involving themselves with the said species directly. They also keep primitive planets from encountering other, more advanced civilizations to allow the planets' development to flow naturally.

This last part of the Kaiburr's self-imposed responsibilities is what triggered the ER, as well as the conflict that arose between the Kaiburr Empire and the New Republic.

A group of New Republic explorers, among them a Jedi, stumbled upon Othros because of a hyperdrive malfunction. Whether that malfunction was due to the "will of the Force," tampering by the Jedi who was allegedly made part of the exploration group to investigate an "unknown planet strangely strong in the Force" (the explanation of many anti-Jedi conspiracy theorists) or simply luck reeking havoc remains to be seen, but whatever the cause, the vessel ended up in the Lumina System and headed straight for the most civilized planet in the system: Othros. However, the Kaiburr, protective as they are, shot the vessel down without warning, but before being blasted into oblivion, some of the vessel's crewmembers managed to flee via the vessel's escape pods, and a few of the pods landed on Othros.

The pandemonium that ensued afterwards was academic.

To make a long story short, the people of Othros, after a lot of explanations from these "aliens", finally became aware that they weren't alone in the universe, and the conflict between the Kaiburr Empire and the New Republic took root.

It was near the end of this series of chaotic events that Roe, Lex and I first met, each with similar ideas on the path Othros ought to take towards the future. We figured (or rather, they figured while I knew) that Othros had to form a planetary government in place of its numerous national governments to be able to have effective relations with the extraterrestrials, and we carried those ideas with us out of school and birthed the very successful Planetary Unification Movement.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of logic, I would eventually learn, behind the Kaiburr's reasoning on letting a planet's development flow naturally. The primitive mentality of most of Othros's peoples was too underdeveloped to run a planetary government, leaving the her vulnerable to greedy and corrupt leader, namely our "brother" Lex.

I don't know why Roe or I didn't see it earlier, but Lex had only gotten involved with the PUM to place himself in a position where he'd be able to take over Othros with ease, and after presumably waiting for the right crisis to scare the people into accepting his absolute rule, he did. I guess we were both too naïve to see it at the time.

A few weeks later, as he settled into his newly established dictatorship, Lex ordered our old school burned down since it "held him and so many other brilliant minds back during their adolescent years." (In retrospect, the same can be said for most of the government-run schools Lex himself put up.)

It was the first of his many demonstrations of power.

In truth, Roe and I once did agree that the school was holding us back, but maturity only skipped Lex, and the two of us were deeply saddened by the loss of the school. Guiltily though, I couldn't help but laugh a bit as my old alma mater went up in flames since Lex always joked about seeing the school burn when we were kids, while Roe and I never took him seriously.

Moral of the story: Always take a crazy guy seriously.

Speaking of stories, though, it seems I've digressed too far from the main one.

Roe was always one who appreciated life's ironies, so I wasn't too surprised when I saw him sitting at our group's old table, which he had refurbished to make it look as it had all those years ago, at the school's cafeteria.

He was more than a little on the chubby side when I first met him, and he surrendered several inches in height to me at the time, but by the time the Cold War had come and gone, Roe and I had about the same frame, except for the multiple layers muscle Roe had over me. His massive frame, I now notice had been shrunken a bit by the toils of running a war, but he still looked like he could snap a common man in half with his bear hands.

"It's beautiful, how things come together," he said once I had sat down, "The last of our great triad has finally surfaced."

"What can I say?" I replied, "I'm back."

"Indeed" he answered, "And I have a coming back present for you."

Casually, he rolled a familiar cylindrical object from his side of the table to mine.

"You told me to hold on to this when I left, but given the circumstances, I think it's time to give it back to you."

Not replying, I grasped the ebony hilt, taking in the sensation of once again having its comforting weight in my hand. Then, I flipped a switch on it and sent a beam of sunset orange energy, shining as brightly as ever, springing out, accompanied by the weapon's signature snap-hiss ignition noise.

Sighing in satisfaction, I switched it off and clipped my old lightsaber to my belt.

"Thanks," I said finally, "You don't know how much I've missed that thing."

He smiled in reply.

"Welcome back, brother."