Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Mandalorian Wars
Chapter 10
It didn't take Avner long to learn that the pilot wasn't on Coruscant right then. This turn was a great setback and one that Avner didn't need right then. He and Alek were in the one of the many alleyways of the city. They weren't exactly alone there, but to find a place where you would be on Coruscant was like asking for the masters to have been convinced to go to war when Avner had told them what he'd seen.
"What now?" Alek asked as he leaned against the wall of the grimy, run down alley. Trash littered this part of the alley, showing that the droids had never gotten as far as this point to clean it.
Avner continued to pace, half ignoring the question. It was a valid question and the one that was most nagging right then. "This is what we're going to do," Avner began as he stopped pacing and placed his hand on his chin. "You're to head back to the temple and see what the council is up to. Don't do anything to defy them, show that you support them."
"That's a shitty plan!" Alek snapped as he straightened.
"No, listen," Avner held up his hand, stopping Alek from continuing. "While you're doing that, I'm going to spread word about the coming war. Try to get it to gain popularity among the people of Coruscant." Avner pulled up his hood. "With my face hidden and name unknown, I can convince people that war is coming. But I need eyes and ears in the order now more than ever, Alek. The Council will know it's me spreading word of the war."
"But," Alek started.
"Don't argue, Alek. We'll meet up again once I know for a fact that the pilot is back. Until then this is the best way to start getting the council to see war is coming to the Republic."
"I don't like it," Alek stated before he sighed. "But I'll do as you ask." He clapped Avner on the shoulder. "May the force be with you, my friend."
"And with you," Avner replied with a bow of his head to Alek.
Alek turned and started back down the alley towards the Jedi temple. Avner watched his friend go, a hallow feeling filling him. This was going to get Avner banished in the long run. But, the Republic's safety and wellbeing was far more important to him than being a Jedi. He'd give everything for the Republic, even his standing as a knight of the Jedi Order.
Turning, Avner took a deep breath. This was it. The second he moved into the closest market and spoke to the people there, he was defying the council. It was for the good of the Republic and all the people who called the Republic home. He closed his eyes, steeling himself.
Avner moved off in the direction of the closest market. When he stepped out into the market place, he wasn't shocked to see it teeming with people. He was jostled this way and that as he moved through the crowd, scanning for a good place to be heard.
He leapt up onto a few crates and raised his voice for all to hear him. "People of Coruscant, listen and listen well, for I bring a message from the outer rim!"
Several people stopped and turned Avner, muttering under their breath. Others just laughed and moved on. While others still ignored him completely… actually the vast majority of people just ignored him.
"When Tarnith fell, the mandalorians revealed their plan to attack Taris, a world on the verge of joining the Republic," he continued, drawing the attention of more people in the crowd. "If they're not stopped, if the people of the Republic keep turning a blind eye on the activities of the mandalorians, the Republic will be left wide open for an attack. War will break out once more!"
"Shut up!" someone shouted from within the crowd. "No one cares what happens on the outer rim. Those people chose to live outside the protection of the Republic."
"Go away!"
A metal can flew through the air and stuck Avner hard on his injured arm. He let out a small hiss of pain. The next moment he was being pelted from all sides by metal and trash. He used to the force to block the worst of the onslaught before he leapt down.
"Get out of here!" someone shouted at him.
Avner moved off and vanished back into the alley. "That could've gone better," he muttered, wiping the trash from his robes. He would try again in a few minutes, but right then the crowd needed to calm down before he moved back out there. The message needed to spread. It didn't matter the greeting he got or how much trash he was pelted with. The people needed to know the truth!
Over the next week, Anver moved among the people of Coruscant, trying to spread the message of a coming war. Most of the time the results were the same as the first time, but he no longer left the point after being pelted with trash. Instead, Avner held his ground and continued to speak to the crowd, normally over the shouting of people.
From time to time the media would be there and had started to record some of what he was saying. Though, he knew none of his message was really being repeated by the media. From what he'd seen of the news, he was side note, a curiosity who'd been dubbed "The Jedi Crusader." No one in the media had even tried to get his name.
It was near the end of the third month of this by the time Avner even got the first hint that Alek remembered him at all. Avner was trying to meditate a little in an alley when he sensed someone's approach. He opened his eyes to see it was Alek.
"You're next to impossible to track down after you've left a crowd," Alek stated when Avner stood. "I come with bad and good news," his friend continued, "Taris has been given a seat on the senate."
"Hmm," Avner sighed. "While expected, it still isn't the best of news. The Mandalorians won't be able to advance much more without declaring open war on the Republic."
"I know, but that wasn't the bad news," Alek stated. "The bad news is that the Jedi Council is ordering you back to the temple. The only reason I was allowed out of their sights was to get you to return. They think I'm going to drag you back."
"I take it they're really unhappy that I've gotten media attention?" Avner scowled. "I am as well."
Alek smiled. "They don't like the fact that a knight is being called 'The Jedi's own crusader.'" He laughed then asked, "Have any of them even taken the time to ask you anything?"
"Out of the Order? No. Out of the media? As if they would find the time to even try," Avner stated with a shake of his head. "I'm a curiosity to them and not worth the time to track down in order to be asked questions of. Besides I don't really want to become the face of this matter."
"Shame," Alek stated. "If you were, it might be the chance you're looking for to get people to start taking you seriously."
"I doubt—" Avner cut off and smiled. "That's it! If several in the Jedi Order show that they believe the media will be forced to take me more seriously. If that happens support for the fact the war is coming will grow!"
"Wait, what?!" Alek gaped at him. "Are you mad? I thought you didn't want to become the 'face' of the coming war?"
"I don't which is why I won't answer personal questions or actually show them my face," Avner explained. "I don't have to become the one who leads, but I can be the one to jar Kavar to his senses by gaining support for the war."
"I'm more than willing to help," Alek pointed out after several long moments. "Besides I'm getting rather sick of being stuck in the temple. And I have no intention of dragging you back with me."
Avner smiled at his friend. "One person won't make it seem like the message is getting through, though."
"What about four?" stated Darious as he appeared from the shadows, Jasper close behind as ever.
"Well, I count three and three will be—"
"Have you forgotten your training so readily, my old padawan," stated a cool voice. The next moment a cloaked figure stepped up to stand beside Darious. Her hood was up as ever to hide her sightless, white eyes. Two bound pieces of her white hair, streaked with some brown, fell from under the hood. She wore traditional robes of a Jedi master as the brown pieces of the normally tan part of the robe showed.
"Kreia!" Alek exclaimed, leaping back to stand beside Avner.
"Master Kae," Avner greeted his old master in as polite a voice as he could, giving her a slight bow. "I didn't sense your presences."
"I thought the order exiled you, Kreia!" Alek stated, his hand on his lightsaber.
"Kreia?" Both of her eyebrows rose at this. "I am curious to where that name originated from." She turned her attention back to Avner. "It was more a half exile. I am no longer permitted to train any padawans in the ways of the force. To fully exile me, the Order needs proof that I, as well as at least one of my former padawans, have fallen to the dark side before they can fully exile me."
"Which would mean you," Alek whispered behind his hand. "So she's a lot riding on you returning to the Order and showing the fact you're still on the side of the council."
"That is far from the reason I'm here," Arren looked at Alek as she said this. "If I was concerned with my own standing in the Order I wouldn't have trained padawans in the way I did."
"R-right," Alek muttered, seeming caught off guard by her good hearing.
"Master Kae, we're not going to go to war, only try to convince Master Kavar and the rest of the council that war is coming before it does."
"And if those fools can't see the truth in time, then what? Will you allow the Republic to fall without lifting a finger? Or lead us into the war even if it means sacrificing all that you are?"
"I'm taking one day at a time," Avner stated. "To predict the future and all outcomes is to take on fool's task."
"True, at least you learned that much since we've parted ways."
"You're standing is even more precarious than my own, Master Kae. If you help even with this small matter, you might end up banished fully," Avner warned.
"I'm not planning on helping with just this small part. I'll enter the war when it comes to that. The question now, my old padawan, is: are you willing to give up so much for so little?"
"I will do what I must do to protect the people of the Republic."
"That is all I needed to hear. Let's get started. I hope you had a plan in mind?"
"Always," Avner stated and turned to his childhood friends. "This is what we do." He told them of how best to gather people tomorrow in order to get more to listen to them, including telling them more of what he'd seen and heard on Tarnith.
"Which was, exactly?" Master Arren Kae asked.
So Avner filled her in on all that had happened there. "I think the reason they asked for you was—"
"Since I am blind and a master I could've been used as a bartering chip to gain more standing with Mandalore by the Prime Minister."
Avner nodded. "Yes, but that is only assuming that the Prime Minister would've been able to knock you out without you noticing," Avner stated. "He might have just been underestimating you and your ability."
"As he did with you by the sounds of it."
"At least Tarnith is now putting up some resistance against the mandalorians, that might buy us some time," Darious pointed out.
"I doubt that," Avner stated. "They will put up resistance on the planet itself, but majority of the mandalorian forces will continue on towards Republic controlled space, gaining territory and supplies as they come. The resistance on Tarnith is less than an annoying bug to the mandalorians right now."
Arren nodded while Alek and Darious exchanged looks. Jasper just seemed more than little confused by all of this. The poor boy was being dragged into this by his master. Avner only hoped this wouldn't end poorly for him.
"For now, we should rest before tomorrow," Avner stated as he looked from his friends and back to his old master.
The group split a little, but none of them left the alleyway. No one seemed to want to head for the temple and none of them wanted to get a room at a hotel. Instead of sleeping, Avner ended up refining what they were going to do if they got the media's attention and that didn't work to get the Order to believe them… or enough people.
The pilot might be back in a few weeks, so Avner pointed out that they could start to do what he'd originally planned and find the proof needed to get the Order to believe. The only one who wasn't fully behind the plan was Master Kae, but Avner just took that as her normal misgivings towards anything having to do with the Jedi High Council.
Dawn seemed to come all too soon for Avner's liking. Granted, what he was about to do really went against the council. They'd ordered him back after all and now he with a small group of Jedi were about to fully defy their wishes in order to try to get the Council to see the truth about the war.
Avner swallowed passed his nerves as he led the small group out of the alley and to where a crowd had already gathered for some early shopping. Most of them might have even been out all night trying to get what they needed or just having a good time. This was Coruscant after all.
He leapt up onto some crates and looked around. "People of Coruscant," Avner called to them, lifting his voice to a volume he wasn't used to using, one even louder than the one he'd been using for the past several attempts. "The message I bring shouldn't be ignored or dismissed by scorn and disbelief."
The people were turning to him. "You again? Didn't you get the message, no one believes you?!" spat the man.
"We do!" Alek shouted, stepped forward with Darious at his side.
Jasper and Master Kae stood back several paces, standing close to where Avner was. He shivered a little, but forced himself to continue, "War is coming. While the people of the Republic sit back and watch the devastation raging across worlds beyond the rim, countless people die for their homes. Mandalore's sights are on the Republic. The war so far has been for one purpose and one purpose only: to gather supplies!" Avner pointed off in the direction of space.
"All of you think that this has nothing to do with you! That you're safe so far into the core worlds, at the very heart of the Republic, but what of those who live on the edge of Republic space? What of those who have families on the rim worlds?
"My message is a clear one: don't ignore what is before you, the signs that point towards war! Ignoring it will only cause more pain and death than can be imagined."
Whispers sounded through the crowd. Avner noted, for the first time, that most people in hearing range were now watching him. "Who are you?" asked a woman in the crowd.
"Who I am is not important; my message is!"