That is not dead which can eternal lie
I know I thought I wasn't gonna start any more Forge fics, but, well, you know how my muse gets, at this point.
Beta'd by Sesparra
Mara Jade was not aware of how poorly she was treated, of all of Palpatine's many apprentices.
She did not know that she was not taught the raw skill at arms of Maul, or that she was not promised the esoteric magicks of the Nightsisters and the ancient Sith that Vader was, or that she was not aided in the conquest of half the galaxy as Tyranus was.
She didn't- couldn't- even know where she lacked in comparison to them before they joined Palpatine: Dooku's political acumen, Maul's fiery passion and hatred, Skywalker's raw power.
No, all she knew was what the Emperor allowed her to know: service, power… pain.
Power and pain all too often went hand in hand, especially when her efforts fell short of her Master's lofty standards, but she maintained her service. After all, a hand does not resent the body to which it belongs if it is forced to do something dangerous for the sake of the body, and so neither would a Hand.
Still, every so often, Mara, in between evenings impersonating the Imperial elite and missions at her Master's behest, allowed herself to gaze out at the stars visible from the Imperial Palace and want more than the life that she led.
She had never been prone to flights of fancy, but every now and again, she'd had dreams of herself, perhaps a handful of years older than the fifteen years she was now. The dream version of herself had lacked the comportment that her Master's training had instilled in her, yet… in those dreams, the version of herself that she saw laughed, and it lacked the careful distance that she was required to maintain from all those who she worked with as she interacted with a group of sparsely armored men and women, all of whom carried themselves with the bearing of warriors the equal of any of the Inquisitors, perhaps more so. In spite of that, though, they lacked the bitterness and resentment that were the hallmark of Vader's broken Jedi, with the touch of another warrior not slapped away with wary eyes but welcomed and reciprocated. Even without being able to understand what they said, she still drew comfort from the sentiment, and found herself awakening far more refreshed on nights she had those dreams than on nights without them.
Mara could not afford to become sad or even so much as wistful on the mornings she awoke from these dreams, lest her Master take it for weakness and sear it from her either psychically or with the scouring power of his lightning. Even so, she concealed these dreams from her Master, squirreling them away from his sight for no reason that she could discern save for the fact that they felt more comforting than anything she'd been allowed to have in years, though she couldn't find out why.
Tonight's dream, though, was different. A man with silvering hair clad in a breastplate covered in gold filigree stood at the head of a crowd large enough to fill one of the ballrooms her Master had always preferred for his parties, and though she couldn't understand him any more than she had been able to in the past, there was something about his tone that spoke to both the importance and the finality of the task he had set for himself.
Dream-Mara had been the first to stand forth in support of the man, and though most of the crowd had not, he still had a retinue of around a hundred warriors who chose to stand with him, and it was only when the man lit his lightsaber, a brilliant blue that seemed almost mournful even as it drove the shadows back, that Mara realized that they were Jedi.
Dream-Mara lit her own lightsaber, a bronze blade emerging from the hilt, and followed the man down into the natural cave system their opponents had set their final stronghold within.
It took hours to reach the depths of the caves, where the haphazard and raggedy group of enemies had set up their encampment, and upon arriving, the Jedi formed into a wedge, attempting to smash through the defensive line that had been hastily roused to action and reach something that was all but sweating darkness behind their perimeter of red-bladed lightsabers.
For a moment, it seemed like the silver-haired man might manage to reach the thing in the center, seeming like a pearl if the pearl devoured light instead of reflected and refracted it, but one of the opponents, with far better armor than the rest, clapped his hands and-
Mara sat bolt upright in her bed, violet lightsaber blazing to life and illuminating the sparsely furnished room she slept in at the Imperial Palace as she felt, for just an instant, the agony of being dragged out of herself by a dark power beyond any save her Master.
The Force rang like she was inside of a bell that had just been rung, resonating as something… more permeated every fiber of Mara's being, and she saw more than felt her lightsaber fall to her bed, extinguishing itself before it could do anything more than scorch the rough sheets with the heat the blade held around itself like a shroud.
Somewhere connected to her, yet farther than she could ever reach even with her Master bolstering her meager strength, there appeared a new stellar system. Four planets, one habitable, with the habitable one bearing two moons in a high orbit.
As the system appeared, beginning its orbit around a distant galactic center, Mara felt the Force overcome her, almost as her Master could when he sought to imbue her with some new piece of knowledge of the Force directly through their bond, and then-
Mara Jade, Hand of the Emperor, became Mara Jade, Jedi Knight and member of the Army of Light.
The process wasn't perfect, naturally- her memories were patchy, only getting flashes of faces and snatches of words, but she had the skill and the knowledge that Lord Hoth demanded of all of his troops, and more beyond that.
On top of the technical expertise that she'd had even before being chosen as a Padawan, which she'd continued to build upon even after her time learning from Pernicar and which even now swelled to levels she dared not guess at, she now understood the way that the Force ran through even inanimate objects such as droids, holocrons, and even such relics that were whispered of in cautionary tales such as the Star Forge, and how to recreate them, as well as how to integrate seemingly-discrete technological mindsets into harmonious solutions.
More than that, though, she could feel something else, a shroud of secrecy that she could draw around herself to protect herself against the observation of even the Emperor (thinking of him as her Master sickened her now, with how she could not help but see how far short he fell of Pernicar's standard). With it, she could feed him the appearance of the dutiful Hand, as she had once been, while not compromising the morals that bore her into the Army of Light.
With the benefit of her experience as a Jedi, she could see how Palpatine's promises of security and justice in his Empire were not only false but contradictory, how the dictates his servants obeyed perverted justice and the enslavement of his subjects denied them security, and she felt her contempt for him grow.
She picked up the lightsaber that had rolled to rest against her leg, and now that she knew how a normal one felt, she could sense the way that the kyber within mourned its old master.
"I'm sorry," she said, as loudly as she dared even through the protection of her shroud of secrecy. "I will do my best to live up to the conduct of a Jedi Knight and member of the Army of Light, from now on."
The mourning kyber didn't quiet down, but it did acknowledge Mara, which was good enough, by her reckoning, until she got the chance to go out to New Apsolon or somewhere else the Army had set up a kyber seed to grow into a deposit that I could try and find a new crystal that I could really synchronize with.
That thought reminded Mara of how much of a predicament she was in. Skere Kaan and his Brotherhood of Darkness was one thing, but she didn't like her chances against Vader, let alone the Emperor, and even if she did manage to kill them both, the Emperor was more than wily enough to have contingencies to ruin his killer, if not wholly return to the living, if his boasting about outdoing Tenebrae's Eternal Empire was any indication. On top of that, she lacked any way to get out of the Empire's clutches, and even if she was a skilled infiltrator and assassin, it was more than likely that the Inquisitors would be able to track her down in short order. For all her training under the Emperor, she'd never learned to conceal herself within the Force, and Pernicar had favored her mechanical inclinations as well as training her as a warrior, and the Inquisitors were all but designed to hunt down Jedi like her even without the aid of the Force.
Then again, that could be an advantage if she didn't seek an escape… the Inquisitors sought out Jedi, and she could use that to find Jedi for her own ends, which hopefully would lead to the Empire's downfall one way or another.
That, of course, was predicated on her being able to track the Inquisitors to their targets and intercede. It wasn't entirely out of the question, since she had killed members of the Brotherhood of Darkness who demonstrated deeper hatred and superior skill to the Inquisitors she'd seen training, but depending on the situation that she found herself in she could very easily get in over her head, especially if the Inquisitors could bring multiple of their number to bear against her. Jerec, for one, had always been keen on assembling his own posse of Dark Jedi, and she had heard that he had been given leave to do so almost a year ago…
So if the direct approach was out, and using the Inquisitors for her own gain was such an incredibly risky prospect, that left only spycraft for her to reasonably resist the Empire.
Fortunately, it was that that the Emperor had seen fit to train her in, if inadvertently, and if she could merely maintain the pretense of the loyal Hand, as much as that rankled, she could provide information to the forces opposing the Empire, and perhaps more material forms of support in time.
Yes, that would be what she would do. The Emperor trusted her to audit his officials, to hunt down inefficiencies and excise dissent against him. She would use that trust against him, leverage every scrap of technical knowledge, every lesson of spycraft and every moment spent in meditations with the Force, to subvert and break and ruin his Empire until he was left with nothing, king of a rotting corpse and only then-
Mara stopped, then breathed in sharply, feeling the haze of Darkness and oxygen deprivation clear away from her thoughts like morning dew under the Alderaani sun. She could not afford to Fall, not here and not now, in the center of such a potent wellspring of the Dark Side. If she did, she would lose herself to rage, to hatred of the man who had seen a girl who asked to go with him because the Force told her to and molded her into an assassin, to the Darkness he had husbanded in her for years.
She could not afford to do that, not now that she was very possibly all that remained of the Order and the Army of Light.
"I swear myself to the Force," said Mara, an all-but-forgotten oath spoken for the first time since the final, fateful Battle of Ruusan, "to the betterment of the people of this galaxy, and to the promise of a brighter tomorrow. Where the people of this galaxy cannot fight, I shall stand in their stead, and where those who seek their ruin scheme, I will be the righteous blade of the Order. This I swear under the eternal witness of the stars- there will be Light!"
She felt as much as heard her oath, that had started sotto voce but had grown to a full-throated declaration, resonate with the Force as well as… something else, and for a moment it was like that distant galactic center was exerting its gravitational pull on her as well, almost like she was being caught in the backwash of a tractor beam aimed at something far beyond her, before it faded and she was once again only bound by Coruscant's gravity well.
Then, the bond she lived by renewed, she returned her lightsaber back to its place under her pillow, the kyber within feeling more contemplative than mournful, and laid her head down on said pillow.
Fighting the Sith was heavy work, after all, and she'd long since gotten out of the habit of depriving herself of sleep with which to do it.
And that's that!
Perks earned:
Technical Specialist (Darth Bane Trilogy, 300 CP): It is arguable that this galaxy has, on the whole, reached a technological plateau. This bar may be relatively high if one was to compare it to that of previous Jumps. Sentient computer systems, widely available commercial FTL, weapons that can scour planets, miraculous medical technology and gravity manipulation to name a few. An extremely comprehensive database of all these discoveries, refined and developed over the course of millennia, will be mentally accessible for you. Should you have the resources and tools on hand, there's no reason you couldn't create almost anything natively produced in this galaxy.
Forceful Engineer (Darth Bane Trilogy, 200 CP): Force sensitive individuals and species have created wondrous unions of engineering genius and Force energies. Prisons to hold eldritch nightmares, holocrons and seemingly infinite factories that strip entire stars for the resources needed for your unending fleets. You are inspired when it comes to the design of such marvels, even being able to use the Light Side for unseen effects. This brilliance extends beyond the Force into the wider realm of 'Magitek'. The potential trichotomy of Machine, 'Magic' and The Force could give birth to near unimaginable wonders for the inventive mind.
Extragalactic Tech (Darth Bane Trilogy, 200 CP): Exo-technology is a field of science that specialized in studying in combining the technologies of various species of the galaxy. Your nature as a Jumper allows you to go beyond merely marrying the design sensibilities of several alien peoples. You easily blend the the varying physical laws and examples of causality you've encountered in the creation of any one thing.
Student of the Force (Darth Bane Trilogy, Free): Sat in deep meditation you awake to whole new memories and an understanding of your existence. Gasping for breath you try to hold onto your identity, images of your life here being washed up in a stream of new consciousness. Your first forays into touching the Force leads on to your tuition at the direction of your Master. Whether your education was a gentle and tranquil affair or painful and hate inducing experience will depend on your second background. Your potential is unlimited, and with the right choices you may one day reach it.
Army of Light (Darth Bane Trilogy, Free): The Dark Side is a corruption of the Force, an unnatural state of affairs brought about by the perversity of the Sith and their ilk. You joined up with General Hoth and his army in some capacity, determined to help the protectors of the Galaxy in their duty to protect it. The Jedi Order of the past has always been too soft when it comes to fully stamping out the Sith monsters. You've realized that it'll take extreme measures to fully burn corruption out and you'll carry these out... for the good of the Galaxy.
Untapped Potential (Darth Bane Trilogy, Free): Your potential is unlimited and currently unconstrained by dogma or learned methodology. Although you can and will grow and improve in time, you will never struggle to alter the practices you acquire. Should you develop a skill and later wish to change your learned idiosyncrasies or reflexive application, you can do so easily. There is no need to unlearn what you have learned, you only have to relearn what you knew in a different way.
Just Cause (Darth Bane Trilogy, Free): Your enemies might try to justify their beliefs with double think and sophistry, they might present their ideas in the most palatable way. That doesn't matter when their reasoning is flawed and positions baseless. You find yourself near immune to fallacious talking points, able to recognise them with ease and tear them apart to their proponents' discredit.
Blank II (Essential Body Modification Supplement, 200 CP): "Abilities which gather information about your past, present, or future do not work on you. This includes scrying, divination, mind reading, and even cold reading and lie detection. This ability not only affects your immediate person but also provides a degree of protection to items and people around you, making it difficult to predict the past, present, or future of any group you move with or vessel you travel on. If you have the Essential Mutuality perk, your affected companions gain the full benefit of your Blank perk even if they are acting independently.
I: You are immune to all supernatural and technological abilities and devices which perform the functions described above. You simply do not register to such abilities, though your own abilities function normally. Purely mundane skills at cold reading or lie detection will be less effective, but still function to some degree. Dsc: Sch/Ass/Arc/Sup/Lch/Bea/Dra/Exp/Hea
II: Even mundane versions of the above items do not function against you. Furthermore, you are able to detect when someone is actively attempting to discern such information through supernatural or technological abilities or devices and feed them false information of the type they expect. Thus, you can feed an image of yourself asleep in bed to a scrying spell while you're secretly across town beating up thugs or you can have a truth detection spell return 'truth' when you are telling a lie. Note that this does not protect you from compulsions to tell the truth or share information directly. Additionally, any items which you create have a measure of this protection, making it difficult to predict actions directly relying on those items and making it impossible to detect the items themselves with most supernatural abilities. "
If I had a choice I wouldn't have added Blank II but seeing as how Mara is mind-linked to the Emperor at this point I don't think it's unreasonable as a defensive measure.
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