7. Jedi's Code
Atton mostly slept whenever he could get away from the cockpit. In the Outer Rim it meant quite a lot of sleeping: the space-ways where for the most part deserted. But on the Dantooine's approach he resumed his vigilance. That passenger of his sought trouble, and Atton wanted to be ready for whatever came. It was quiet still. Atton tried to play pazaak, but instead found himself… well, not meditating exactly, but repeating the Jedi Code, quiet-like.
There is no emotion, there is peace.
Nobody shoot at them as they've landed by the City of Scraps as Atton came to call Dantooine's mighty capital. It isn't half-a-bad place for a strong man, and I could learn to herd… whatever they're herding here.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
Atton did not call after Quinly when she walked down the hall, down the plank into the green pasture. His company was rejected enough times, and only a fool-
Kreia? What's she doing following her out?
Now, that was sweet. Let the old witch be on the receiving end of Quinly's disapproval for once.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
It's probably the old ruins like her who wrote the Jedi Code. Only the senile could have come up with the scheme of gathering spirited boys and girls all across the Galaxy, and raising them all as jolly good friends. As if it took a particular talent to figure out how particular parts fit together.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
And not just the parts, it was the whole deal more, that one couldn't buy from a whore. What could possibly be wrong with it? Were Sith known for being extraordinary lovers? How's man with a sword was superior to a man with a sword and a girl?
There is no death, there is the Force.
The more he recited the mantra, the more it became clearer to Atton was that they were written by an ancient who feared death. He guffawed. All that ceremony - and for what? To keep one's nerve under fire? And, blazes, he couldn't see how anyone living by that code would have done differently than Quinly at Malachor. They've taught her to play by numbers, not emotions, and so she did. A Sith would have done no differently, from what Atton knew of them, except a Sith would have done it howling with laughter or rage, and Quinly made her choices in that serene, stifling silence. If Bao-Dur was to be believed, and why would he lie?
Were Atton in her shoe, that's what he would have told the Masters on Dantooine. He would have told them… no, he should tell her that it's all because the Jedi code has not a single damn line about love or goodness or kindness. If they'd mentioned love, well, maybe then they would be different from the Sith in more than the way they killed.
The less I tell her, the better. WHAT?!
Atton managed to get out of his chair before the pale white shadows rushed him, and a flurry of blunt blows crushed him to the floor. Not again! It was from this awkward point of view that he watched Kreia's soft slippers to shuffle away surrounded by the sturdy military boots of the Echani maidens.
Atton? Atton Rand?
Oh, pretty eyes! Not just eyes…good grief, looks like we've played rough— Oh, blazes. Jedi. End of the world. Quin-
"Quinly?" He groaned coming to his senses, despite his urge to cling to the very pleasant fantasy.
"Where is Kreia?" she asked in a clipped tone. Quinly looked battered and on the verge of tears. Hardly on his account though. The meeting likely involved the lightsaber or worse.
"Atris took that old Sith," Atton spat.
"A Sith? You think Kreia is a Sith?" Quinly grabbed him for balance. And he was only starting to get up. Together they climbed unsteadily to their feet and she let go so suddenly he sat down on the floor again.
"Look, go easy on me! Someone got to, and those Atris' wyverns sure weren't," he couldn't help but to grin up at her. Quinly flinched as if he hit her. "They took Kreia," he explained patiently, deciding to stick to short sentences. He couldn't handle the undercurrents just now. "Arrested her. As a Sith she is. You've heard her, didn't you? All that talk about strength, and standing on one's own two feet-"
"Kreia killed the Masters when they tried to cut me off the Force again," Quinly said distantly.
"Oh. Well. They were the Sith? You could have handled them, I am sure—" Atton fumbled.
"They were not. I've submitted to their judgment," Quinly said hollowly. "But Kreia interfered before…before they could carry out the sentence."
Atton finally managed to straighten up holding to the back of the pilot's chair. "There is nothing for it-"
"No. There is," Disciple cut through the doors and stared hard at Quinly. Oh, good. I desperately wanted his opinion.
"Master, what has happened? What did the Counsel tell you?"
"That I caused a wound in the Force at Malachor," Quinly said quietly, "that I am the wound that devours anyone who is sensitive to the Force. That the Sith whom we face learned from me how to exploit the others…"
"This cannot be," Disciple said with the certainty of youth.
"Then why do people follow me unto their deaths?" Quinly asked, "why do you follow, if not because the Force is perverted through me to bind you?"
Atton stared, transfixed by the power that filled her words. Is that it? The truth? That simple?!
Disciple crossed the room, reached for her, then changed his mind and run his hand through his hair instead.
"I follow you because I chose to, and others are no different. And we have made those choices well before Malachor." He colored slightly and finished quieter: "At least I did."
His voice picked up though and quivered as he went on: "You are not in control, Quinly, but you take charge, you always do. You are a Jedi, through and through, not just a Knight, but a Master. You will lead, and I will follow to whatever end."
Then he smiled so radiant, so young: "And that end, Master, is not going to be grim. Take it from a bookworm. I have read everything that was written about you, every report, every datapad. You are hope and life, not death."
Quinly closed her eyes and whispered: "Telos. We must leave for Telos, I feel that much will be decided there."
"I was afraid you're going to say that," Atton muttered and leaned over the panel. When he lifted his head again, both the Master and her beloved student were gone. He sighed. Education, you can't beat it. All I had to offer the girl was a quip, and not a very good one at that. He tried not to imagine what a younger man might offer in addition to words as a consolation.
When Telos came into view, Atton immediately knew the things were back to normal. The planet was surrounded by a fleet of warships, heavy fire blasting at the Citadel Station. "Hold tight, brethren!" Atton shouted into the com, and plunged the Hawk through the biggest gap in the battle he could spot. They docked with a resounding crash and Quinly had to pry the doors to the hangar with her lightsaber. The station halls looked completely different with the emergency lights flooding it with red glow, interspersed with the flares and flashes of the battle raging in the skies above. Lieutenant Grenn's attitude changed too: he showed no inclination at all to arrest them.
"The Sith, Ma'am," he addressed Quinly, "dropped out of the hyperspace like a locust. I do not know where they build the fleet—"
Visas lifted her veiled face upwards and said in her usual otherworldly way: "My Master is here. He has come to feed." That's helpful.
Lieutenant Grenn seemed to share Atton's indifference to the identity of the Sith fleet's leader, and quickly re-focused on here and now: "They keep dropping more forces. Queen Talia had sent reinforcements, and… and the Mandalorians are here of all things. On our side. Strange times… but we cannot hold the Sith back for long. Ma'am, we need help."
"Her battle is there, on the Ravager," Visas interjected again.
Grenn frowned: "You cannot gain access to shuttle on if you do not throw back the Sith—"
"We shall," Quinly said, and turned to Visas: "You will secure the shuttle bay and wait for me there."
"A moment, General?" They all turned to see Bao-Dur straightening from the TSF terminal. "General, they target Chodo Habat's shields."
"My Master has come to feed," Visas repeated mournfully.
"If I do not reinforce the shields now, your prize will be a dead planet," Bao-Dur concluded quietly, "I must go, General."
Quinly looked at the Zabrak for a moment, and started to nod, but checked herself, and spoke up instead: "Rejoin us at the TSF office once you have completed your mission." "Aye, General," Bao-Dur responded, "If we are separated, I have added subroutines to Remote to aid you." He proffered a datapad. Quinly took it without glancing at it and said softly: "May the Force be with you." Bao-Dur echoed her words. Atton sensed that something important took place, but he did not know what it could be. Bao-Dur's leaving now did not make sense, they were a sword short, and – Quinly charged forward, as if trying to recoup the lost time.
When he was a kid, they used to play ball games. Half of the kids will pull the shirts off, half – will keep them on, and you stack to your team. Pure pazaak. In the red-lighted Citadel halls, Atton had a surreal feel that the other kids ignored his shirt status, and he ended up playing for the wrong team. How many times did he charge with the others, carefully picking out the robed figures with the lightsabres among the enemy ranks? Now he was the robed one with a lightsaber, and somewhere with the mass of black-clad men, there was someone who ignored the soldiers and the blaster fire and watched him carefully, waiting for an opening. He tried to use his knowledge to pick them up among the attackers, and found it easy. His lightsaber neatly sliced in half a figure intent on the black, red and gold of Visas robes, a moment before a heavy blast ripped what was left of the would be assassin. The Mandalore towered protectively over the Miraluka and Quinly peeled of from the fight and made her way towards them.
"Just me, and Disciple then," Atton thought, but he was mistaken. Quinly shouted, Mira turned, and dropped one of her blasters in time to catch something out of the air. She kept shooting the other one even as a short ray of the silver white light cut the air around her in a hungry arc.
It took far longer than Atton expected, but finally a huge mass of black came crushing down and shook the Citadel. As the Ravager fell, the will to fight went out of the Sith forces. They've ran. Leaving the TSF and Ondoran soldiers to rout the enemy, Atton found Disciple and Mira, and made for the TSF office. Mira carried the lightsaber in an outstretched hand, from time to time giving it a quizzical look. And, for once, she kept completely silent.
The Mandalore came in first, his battle suit blackened, but a swagger in his step. Quinly was another matter entirely. She leaned heavily on Visas, and Disciple hurried with a healing spell, but stopped with his palm half-way in the air. Atton saw it too.
The Remote hovered by Quinly's ear.
"Bao-Dur," Atton mouthed. Quinlystraightened with a visible effort and solemnly intoned: "There is no death." They all echoed: "There is the Force."
"Maybe the ancients didn't mean their own death," Atton thought, "but the death of the others."