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Beyond Good and Evil


Euphrosyne

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This is a story I've had sitting on my mind for about half a year. It's just taken me a fairly long time to finally get around to writing it.

 

It follows the story of the game fairly closely, but. In many cases, I chose to alter conversations, or change events outright, in ways that I felt made more sense than they do as they appear in The Old Republic itself. I don't think that what results qualifies as an "alternate universe"; things haven't diverged all that much. The basic path of the story is more or less the same. The details are what have changed. I have done my best to keep everything as canonical as possible.

 

It contains pretty major spoilers for the Sith Warrior class story, and somewhat major spoilers for the Imperial Agent, Sith Inquisitor, Bounty Hunter, and Jedi Knight stories. Some flashpoints are also spoiled, as well. These spoilers will not be marked on a chapter-by-chapter basis. In addition, the story has a considerable amount of combat and violence (although I avoided outright gore), and there are sanitized, non-graphic descriptions of abuse.

 

My writing style is such that I will make references and allusions to a very wide set of both real-world and Star Wars things. In order to make following these references easier, I will add a spoiler post with notes after each chapter.

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Chapter I - Nightmares and Daydreams (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter II - Felinx and Rodus (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter III - Road to Revelation (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter IV - Twilight of the Idols (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter V - Mvndvs Inversvs (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter VI - Traitor (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter VII - Bitter Work (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter VIII - Diapason (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter IX - Apocalypse (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter X - I'd Rather Be In Love (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter XI - Plan Zero (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter XII - Planetfall (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter XIII - The Province of Uncertainty (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter XIV - Iron Dice (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter XV - Aggressive Expansion (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter XVI - Friends of Old (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter XVII - The Province of Chance (Text) (Notes)

 

Chapter XVIII - The Siege of Olaris

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Nightmares and Daydreams

 

Dimidivm facti qvi coepit habet; sapere aude – incipe!”

-Q. Horativs Flaccvs, Epistolarvm liber primvs, i, 14

 

 

There are some people who think that history is just the facts. That there's a right answer for everything. That sober analysis is what yields truth, not bias or perspective. “How it actually was”: that's what we look for.

 

I guess there's something to that. There are a lot of wrong answers to every question. If you tried to write a biography of me and made me into a woman from Anaxes who destroyed a bunch of Sith superweapons and saved the galaxy, or something, that wouldn't be right no matter what kind of perspective you had on my life. No matter how much I wish it were true, it isn't, it wasn't, and it never will be.

 

But there's a lot of right answers to every question, too. Somebody whose only experience of the Republic was at gunpoint on Tatooine wouldn't have the same opinion of it as somebody who'd grown up on Pantolomin and lived on a resort world all his life. And neither one of them would really be wrong.

 

It's not just the facts that can change, either. The way each person relates history imparts meaning, too. Say you talk about the heroes and villains of the Great Sith War. Do you focus on the evil that Ulic Qel-Droma did in his life? His love for other people? His warrior's skills and generalship, both for the Republic and against it? The redemption he eventually is said to have found at the end of his life?

 

What anything means depends on how you tell the story.

 

For a long time, that was a problem for me. I wanted to discover meaning in my life, as though it were some kind of secret waiting to be unlocked. I was never totally sure what to do with myself. And there wasn't much that I did that really felt right, that I was following the “correct” path.

 

A friend of mine would say that the story of her life is how she became what she is. Behold the woman! Maybe that works for her. I don't totally see her that way. And I don't see myself that way, either. The story of my life...well, I don't think who I am really changed that much. I just adapted to changing circumstances and information.

 

You're free to disagree.

 

But this is my story, and this is the way I'm going to tell it: first I was uncertain, and then I found clarity.

 

“Sing, O Muse, the confusion of Gregor's daughter, Jaesa…”

 

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

 

But, hey, if you have a problem with that, you can tell your own story.

 

Endings are easy. Beginnings are hard. And this story doesn't really have a single point in time where it's obvious to begin anyway.

 

I could start with the Jedi coming to Alderaan and telling me that I had the ability to use the Force, that I could train as one of them. Which was something that Little Girl Me wanted to do more than almost anything. Jedi were the heroes of the galaxy. They helped people. And they always seemed so sure of what they were doing, always had the right answers. Sometimes they even knew what was going to happen before it actually happened.

 

I wanted that clarity. I thought I could find it by helping people as a Jedi.

 

Things didn't totally turn out that way.

 

Everybody's got talents - good at sports, singing, memorization, improvisation, and so on. Jedi have them, too. Some of them are good at telekinesis; some of them are bad at it, but really good at creating illusions. That sort of thing.

 

My talent had the Jedi especially interested in me. Because I had the power to invade minds.

 

They didn't put it like that, of course. The Masters would couch it in terms of discovering somebody else's true self, of experiencing profound empathy on a level never before seen in any Force-sensitive being.

 

It depends on how you tell the story.

 

And what I felt, as I learned to control my power, is that it was somehow unspeakably wrong. That I could violate somebody. Destroy their privacy. See the secrets that nobody else knew. See the things about themselves that even they didn't know.

 

It scared me. No one person should have all that power.

 

But I didn't have much of a choice. This was who I was.

 

And to the Jedi, I became a sort of human lie detector. The man who eventually took me as his apprentice, his Padawan, was a sort of spymaster. That skill was just what he was looking for. So I would learn to control and focus my power, to better interpret what I saw, and use that knowledge to uncover enemy agents.

 

I got to be really good at it. And the other aspects of being a Jedi, too. Contemplating the Force, telekinesis, self-healing, controlling my environment, using a lightsaber...sometimes, I'd overhear my Master tell other Jedi that I was a prodigy, a natural, somebody who was destined to be on the Council someday.

 

But I just felt confused, and alone, and uncertain about whether I was really doing the right thing.

 

It wasn't as though I was doing those things for no reason, of course. The Republic wasn't at war...at least, not technically. But it was under attack. Sith agents were everywhere, trying to uncover military secrets, getting ready for the big all-out war that everybody sort of sensed was coming. It seemed like a lot of people, on both sides, wanted war to break out, too.

 

What if they held a peace and nobody came?

 

Like I said before, I got to be really good at that mind-violation stuff, my internal revulsion at how tawdry and invasive it was notwithstanding. Because when you got down to it, sure, it felt bad that I was doing this, but I was doing it in service of a cause. Fighting the Sith. Saving people. Saving civilization. So if the sacrifice I had to make was my spiritual well-being, well, sacrificing for the good of others was what Jedi were supposed to do.

 

Not that that made me feel any better about it.

 

So I found a few of those agents. The Council wasn't totally ready to accept that they had turned, but I knew what I'd seen. So while they sent people to verify my claims, my Master whisked me away to a planet whose name I didn't even know, to continue my training in secret.

 

Secret and safe, hopefully, from the Empire's retaliation. Because if they ever found out who I was, what I was doing - compromising their agents - they'd try to kill me. My Master was certain of that. The way I saw it, though, I'd die doing something I wasn't even sure was the right thing to do.

 

I wasn't afraid of death. The Jedi taught me that much. But a meaningless death? An early end to a life that I'd spent without making a difference in other people's lives for the better?

 

That was enough to keep me up at night.

 

As time went on, my sleep patterns got worse. My dreams got darker. I had premonitions of danger, of the void closing in. For months after I'd found those spies on Balmorra and Nar Shaddaa, that uneasiness grew and grew.

 

Until, finally, one night – rather, in the wee hours of local morning – I had a dream so bad and nauseating that I awoke with a start.

 

I sat upright on my pallet, breathing heavily, and tried to figure out what had been going on. This dream...it was different from the others, in an unusual way. It seemed real, as though something bad was happening right then. It was a vivid feeling, but at the same time, fuzzy. Unclear. I wasn't totally sure what was going on. But the basic, underlying message: this is bad this is bad this is bad you are in danger. That, at least, was clear and sharp.

 

I leaned back against my pillow again, eyes wide open. "Message" had been appropriate. I slowly began to realize that this hadn't come from me at all. I'd received a warning through the Force. I couldn't even really sense who it was from, or why I was being warned.

 

Sighing, I rolled off my pallet and padded over to the refresher. Until the possible became actual, it was only a distraction. I had no idea what this warning meant. I could try to meditate on it in the morning. I could maybe ask my Master about it. But sitting half-naked in my bed on almost no sleep with not a whole lot of information...that wasn't going to get me anywhere.

 

So instead I focused on the actual, which was a very pressing need to relieve myself. Then I plopped back down on my pallet and tried to get back to sleep. And I conked out in a heartbeat.

 

It wasn't peaceful blackness that awaited me. I drifted straight into a dream.

 

No: a vision.

 

The first thing I sensed was the unbearable, scorching dry heat that baked my lungs and dried up my mouth. I'd felt that heat before: I was on Tatooine.

 

Slowly, I acclimated to my surroundings. I was in a hovel, sparse and spare with little but a few shelves, a desk, and a pallet on the floor. This was familiar too, from several years ago. I'd gone to train here with an old hermit out in the Dune Sea, a Jedi Master named Yonlach.

 

I guess you could say we'd become friends, sort of – not semi-close friends like I'd made with some of the other Padawans on Tython, but the sort of person you can chat with and feel comfortable around. Yonlach had said that we'd formed a bond that was as profound as any in his life. For me, it was just my empathic powers. It was just who I was. For him, it was a life-changing experience.

 

My wizened former teacher was sitting at his desk, talking idly to another man, much younger, bigger, and stronger. I couldn't keep the thread of their conversation, but it seemed to me like they couldn't, either. They were both focused on something else, something approaching across the sand. Not impending doom: they weren't whistling past the graveyard. But a threat, a fight...that was what they were expecting.

 

I wasn’t a warrior. And although I'd trained to fight, like all Jedi have, I was feeling more than a little bit squeamish about actually seeing one.

 

It wasn't very long before she walked in.

 

The whole thing almost seemed a little clichéd in a way. Like something out of the holodramas. Two Jedi, marking time and waiting for a standoff with their implacable foe…and then the darksider makes a dramatic entrance, they exchange a few words, and out come the lightsabers for a duel to the death.

 

She played that part to the hilt, sauntering through the open door, brimming with obvious confidence. What struck me first was her posture: calm and relaxed, obviously in control of every aspect of her environment. Pretty much everything else was of a piece of that holodrama image. Like her dark robes, caked with dust and sand from the Dune Sea, draped over functional body armor, heavy enough to stop a blaster bolt yet not bulky at all, so as to keep her movement from being impaired.

 

Only her face was uncovered by armor, and it was the sort of face that symbolized the civilized galaxy’s greatest fear. She wasn’t just a Sith, she was one of the Sith: the red-skinned, “pure-blooded” demons from the edge of the galaxy. Red Sith usually had little face-tentacles or jutting, sharp bones projecting from their heads, but her face was almost human-looking, with only a bone-ridge around her eyes that gave her face an extra tinge of ferocity. Her dark hair looked like it was long, but she’d pulled it back – the better, I imagined, to keep it out of her face in a deadly lightsaber duel.

 

And her eyes…they were red, bright red, searching and penetrating with the unmistakable glint of intelligence behind them. But where her face’s expression was more or less neutral – although she still had the sort of face that evoked thoughts of pure evil – her eyes seemed different. Not the cold sort of evil, the sort that made me think of a Dark Lord indifferently ordering the slaughter of thousands. But it wasn’t the hot sort of evil, either: she wasn’t bursting with passion and rage. They were just…different, somehow. I couldn’t place it. And it made me uneasy.

 

She strolled in, humming a nameless tune that felt familiar. But I couldn’t figure out what it was, either. It didn’t sound bombastic, or menacing. More than anything else, it just sounded sad.

 

We were off script a bit, there.

 

A young-looking Rutian Twi’lek girl, the Sith’s familiar, walked in a few paces behind her, clad in a dark longcoat and sweating profusely. It was clear from her gait and her posture that she’d aged far beyond her years, and I could soon see why: scars on her neck, the sign of extended shock-collar use. She’d been a slave – maybe was still a slave. Seeing her made me feel indescribably sad. No being should ever look as…used up as she did.

 

The man with Master Yonlach heard them enter and turned to confront them, blocking the pair with his massive body. I could feel worry seep into his voice: “Master Yonlach, the Sith you’ve been tracking is upon us! Retreat to safety – I will take the intruder on!”

 

My old teacher’s expression flickered to that not-quite-put-upon look I knew so well. “No, Yul-Li, control your feelings,” he said, rising from his seat and circling the table. “Stand at my side. I will face this trespasser.” It made me smile. My current Master had thought Yonlach was as infirm as his years suggested, too. My former teacher seemed to relish proving everybody wrong about that.

 

The Sith rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips, still acting the confident villain. Maybe she underestimated Master Yonlach, too.

 

“Come no farther, Sith. I have been aware of your…pilgrimage here,” my old Master started. “You are a fascinating and contradictory example of your Order. I know why you’ve come: Master Nomen Karr’s Padawan threatens you somehow. You seek to flush her into the open and silence her.”

 

Oh. I…wow. This was all about me. This is my fault.

 

I could feel dread uncoil in the pit of my stomach.

 

She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow-ridge. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

 

The Master shook his head. “Don’t insult me, child. You are an open book to me: you are here for her. I know it.”

 

His eyes sort of glazed over, and he started to reminisce. I could feel what he was doing: stalling for time. Not out of fear, but because he wanted this Sith woman to come to her senses about the suicide she seemed about to commit. Because going up against two Jedi Masters…well, suicide was pretty much the only way to describe that. “She came to me for guidance, and the bond we struck was the most profound of my life. We are psychically linked, she and I, and I have already warned her about you. She will not fall for your manipulations.”

 

I could feel a little flutter in the pit of my stomach. I was just as embarrassed as if I’d actually been there. But even more than feeling embarrassed, I felt guilty. Never mind that I never really thought I deserved the praise my Masters sometimes heaped on me. What I did deserve was the responsibility for the fight that was about to happen.

 

But the Sith’s face lost its smirk, and she uncrossed her arms. Instead, she seemed earnest. “I only want to talk to her.”

 

I will not fall for your manipulations, either,” Master Yonlach grated, and in response, she only shrugged.

 

Just like her initial appearance, there was something off about the way she was talking, as though part of what she was doing was just an act. Sometimes, she seemed like the typical cartoonishly evil darksider from the vids; sometimes, she didn’t even seem like a bad guy at all.

 

This was weird, and it wasn’t just me who thought so.

 

“You showed…restraint, and reason on your journey here. Your choices reflect conscientiousness I’ve never witnessed in a Sith,” Master Yonlach pondered out loud, then paused. I could sense what he was thinking – weighing what he knew about this woman so far, running through the alternatives. Then, the expression on his face changed, and it all clicked into place. He seemed sure this was a ruse. It had to be.

 

He spoke up again, one last try at warning her off. “The disparity in our abilities is equal to the disparity in our age. You cannot win. Turn away now.”

 

Her expression hardened. “I’ve come too far to stop now.”

 

“What does it matter how far you’ve come, if your life ends here? In me you face a full Jedi Master. And Yul-Li” – here the other Jedi affected an abbreviated, genteel bow – “has a greater command of lightsaber combat than any Jedi Knight I’ve ever trained.”

 

The Twi’lek unexpectedly piped up, “Uh, color me nervous. Have we ever faced a full-fledged card-carrying Jedi Master before?”

 

“The Jedi have no idea how lethal you are, Vette,” said the Sith playfully.

 

“I sense that’s a bluff. But no matter: your compatriot’s query is moot, as you will be facing us on your own,” Master Yonlach intoned as he channeled the Force. Power flowed in from throughout the universe and with a negligent flick of his hand was redirected towards the Twi’lek’s body. Her pistols dropped from nerveless fingers as she collapsed to the ground, completely paralyzed.

 

Yul-Li breathed a sigh of almost-relief. “Well done, Master Yonlach. Now please, retreat and let me face the Sith.”

 

I guess he hadn’t been paying attention. “Your concern is appreciated, Yul-Li, but I didn’t seize the advantage here to immediately relinquish it.”

 

They turned back to the Sith, who crossed her arms and leaned back. “You don’t fight fair, Jedi,” she said mockingly.

 

“When the stakes are this high, I am bound to do whatever it takes to preserve the Order. Now, for the last time, will you stand down?”

 

The corner of her mouth twitched, and then her face cleared. All I could read there was a look of openness and honesty. “Let me think about it.”

 

She didn’t look doubtful at all. It wasn’t that she was worried about losing the fight…she just didn’t want to fight in the first place. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Finally. Maybe this was all going to be okay after all.

 

Then Yul-Li ground out an exasperated groan. “Enough of this! It’s useless to reason with a Sith!” He snatched his lightsaber from his belt and lit it in a single flourish, aiming a side slash directly at her.

 

She moved, faster than thought, igniting her own blade and angling it to catch Yul-Li’s saber, just as Master Yonlach cried out, “Yul-Li, don’t!”

 

I could feel a wave of pain and sadness roll off of him. He was being forced into a pointless fight for what seemed like no good reason. But I could barely think about him.

 

What ran through my head instead was this: I did that. It’s my fault. This whole fight wouldn’t even be happening if it wasn’t for me.

 

Then everything began to happen very fast.

 

Master Yonlach’s lightsaber was still coming up in a guard when the Sith kicked him in the chest and sent him sprawling into – and then through – the table. She didn’t even spare him a glance, though: she was already attacking Yul-Li.

 

I was – I still am – no lightsaber combat expert. I knew the basics of how the different Forms work, and like every Padawan I’d had a lot of experience with the standby, basic Shii-Cho moves, along with some of the footwork and stances from Soresu, the defensive stance. I could tell that Yul-Li favored Soresu as well: I recognized some of the defensive velocities he used as being more refined versions of ones I practiced with my Master.

 

One skilled Soresu master could hold off an army. Yul-Li was having trouble holding off one woman.

 

She moved fluidly, but also powerfully: each hammerblow she directed onto Yul-Li’s blade bent his guard backwards until it scorched a line in his shoulder. He barely had any room to maneuver – almost tripped over the comatose Twi’lek, Vette, as he attempted to give ground. But she kept coming, delivering overhand chops that he could only barely direct away.

 

With a shout of the Force she leapt up and smashed her gloved fist into the ground, causing a shockwave that knocked him and all the nearby furniture back; by the time he’d recovered, she’d clambered onto his fallen chair and used it as a springboard to bodily jump onto him and knock him, flailing, to the floor.

 

But now Master Yonlach was back in the fight. He hurdled the remains of his table like a much younger man, alit on top of a chair with a crouch, and gestured with his free hand to telekinetically hurl a datapad at the Sith’s face. She fell back, giving Yul-Li breathing room. My old teacher redoubled his efforts, and all sorts of trinkets and gewgaws left their spaces around his hovel and flung themselves at the Sith. Her lightsaber came up to guard, and she managed to cut apart some of them, but the sheer weight was forcing her back against the wall.

 

Then Yul-Li was back on his feet as well, closing in to attack. But instinctively, even I knew this was a mistake. It was tight quarters in there – too tight for both of them to attack from the same direction. All Yul-Li would do was get in Master Yonlach’s way. I could see the telekinetic assault come to an end as my old teacher scrambled to get a better angle.

 

As Yonlach shifted around, Yul-Li loomed up in front of the Sith, whose amethyst lightsaber had returned to a normal guard. He brought up his own blade to swipe at her, but she was too quick for him. As Yul-Li’s lightsaber came down, she brought up her feet up onto the wall and pushed, hurling herself across the room right towards Yonlach.

 

Yul-Li’s attack missed her by a few centimeters. But she hit Yonlach dead on with her shoulder, snapping his head backwards into the wall with a sickening crack. He slumped to the ground.

 

The ground went unsteady underneath my feet. I could barely stand. For a few seconds, I could barely think of anything other than Oh no oh no oh no oh no.

 

Then his eyes blinked open again, woozily, and my feeling of dread evaporated. Not totally – it looked like he’d been concussed, or something. But at least he was alive.

 

And then I turned my attention back toward the Sith, who had already rejoined battle with Yul-Li.

 

It seemed like he’d switched tactics, and was trying to use his reach on her to keep her out of range. By rights, he should’ve easily been able to beat her. My Master once told me that “all else being equal, a bigger, stronger person can beat a smaller one”. As the initial burst of adrenalin at the beginning of the fight wore off, I guess Yul-Li was remembering that, too.

 

The Sith had other plans. She returned to the attack, battering at Yul-Li’s blade to bring it out of alignment. But he was too good a swordsman, and never moved his lightsaber a millimeter too far, always returning quickly to a center guard. It didn’t matter: she closed up on him anyway. He brought his legs up in what looked like an imitation of a windmill kick by somebody who’d never done one before, and managed to knock her lightsaber out of her hands. She ignored it, distracted him with a knee to the groin, and slapped his own blade away.

 

It was hypnotizing. The woman kept coming, getting in close, firing off a series of punches into his midsection that knocked all the air out of him. He tried to grab at her, but she twisted around it and latched onto his arm, letting his recovery help swing her onto his back. I could feel the gruesome pop as his shoulder dislocated; at the same time, she used her weight to drive him headfirst into the wall. This was all he could take, and he collapsed.

 

I guess my Master didn’t tell me that “all else” is never equal.

 

She summoned her lightsaber back to her hand and lit it, striding over toward Master Yonlach. My old teacher had started to unsteadily wobble to his feet, grabbing at his lightsaber. He must’ve been having trouble seeing through his concussion or whatever, because it took him awhile to figure out that the Sith was coming toward him. But as soon as he saw her, he raised his hands in the air and dropped his blade.

 

Yul-Li had rolled over and looked shocked as the Sith moved toward Yonlach, her lavender lightsaber still lit and glowing. He tried to crawl in front of the older man. “Stop! Hold your weapon, Sith! I beg you!”

 

Oh, no.

 

I could feel what was coming in my gut.

 

“Yul-Li, no! Hold your tongue!” bit out Master Yonlach.

 

“No! She is just a Padawan; you are a great Master! I must bargain for your life!”

 

The Sith stopped, a vaguely amused expression playing over her face, and closed down her lightsaber. Yul-Li continued, “Sith, I will tell you everything I know, if you spare Master Yonlach.”

 

Her smirk was back, salt into a wound. “Don’t you want me to spare your life, too?”

 

He played the part of the martyr, but I could tell he wasn’t totally sure if he wanted to live after such a defeat. “My life is less important. You may do with me as you please.”

 

She folded her arms, and I could see it in his eyes. He was going to tell her about me. He was going to rip away my anonymity, my protection, and then he and Master Yonlach were going to be slaughtered.

 

“Her name is Jaesa Willsaam, and Nomen Karr has taken her to…”

 

Then Master Yonlach intervened with a wave of his hand. “Yul-Li, you have no recollection of the Padawan this Sith seeks.”

 

His eyes dimmed. “…I have no recollection of the Padawan this Sith seeks.”

 

Yonlach sighed heavily. “Now sleep.” Yul-Li collapsed bonelessly to the floor, just like the Sith’s Twi’lek companion. My old teacher let out a breath.

 

I could barely think. This Sith knew my name. She knew who I was. What was I going to do?

 

And then, belatedly: but. She didn’t know where I was.

 

We hadn’t lost yet.

 

Master Yonlach turned towards the Sith. “I don’t relish wiping Yul-Li’s mind like that. But his…feelings…for me got the better of him.”

 

She shrugged sympathetically. “Don’t apologize for doing what’s necessary.” Good manners and a kind word, at this point, were scraps from the table of a very rich woman, evil or no.

 

“It is a terrible thing,” he continued, “a last resort. I had to act for the greater good.” It seemed like he was trying to convince himself more than her. “Jaesa is special. Her power’s unprecedented. If untouched by the likes of you she has the potential to lead the Jedi to greatness.”

 

“You’re being presumptuous, Yonlach,” the Sith murmured. “I’m not going to do her any harm.”

 

“I know your kind, Sith. You twist the truth and manipulate weakness. I must err on the side of caution. You know Jaesa’s name, but that’s all you’ll get here.”

 

He visibly tightened up, standing straighter – steeling himself for the blow he knew was inevitable. “So you may as well kill me. I have to find tranquility, so Jaesa will sense only peace when you strike me dead.”

 

“Peace”? Me?

 

I definitely didn’t feel at peace.

 

She shook her head sadly. “I’m not going to kill you. Just…” She took a breath, as though she were about to say the most momentous words of her life.

 

“Just tell her I want to talk.”

 

My mouth dropped open slightly, then closed. I…what?

 

Master Yonlach looked just as confused. “You, you only want to send a message?”

 

She nodded. Her eyes glistened.

 

“I’m at a loss to understand you, Sith.”

 

“I have a name, you know,” she said with a forced smile.

 

Yonlach wasn’t really paying attention, though, not anymore. I could see his eyes glaze over, and I knew that he was reaching out to me, uncountable lightyears away. That he was sending me this vision.

 

I didn’t know whether to be overjoyed about the whole thing, or horrified.

 

His eyes cleared again, then met hers. “Because of the link we share, Jaesa knows what happened here. Your message has been received: she will do with it what she will.”

 

The Sith inclined her head respectfully. “Then I leave you here to wrestle with what you did to your fellow,” she said, her gaze shifting over to the snoring Yul-Li.

 

He sagged against what was left of his table. “I…do feel the shame of my actions. It will be difficult to live with. Goodbye, Sith. You’ve left me much to ponder.”

 

Yonlach turned back to Yul-Li and nudged him, trying to get him awake. But I was drawn to the Sith and her strange companion – slave? friend? I wasn’t so sure anymore – as she rose from the floor and ostentatiously dusted herself off. They traded jokes, laughing about something I could barely hear…it seemed so surreal to see and hear them act like that, when my entire life was changing right before my eyes. Eventually, they left the hovel, and I could hear the sound of a speeder slowly diminish as it carried them back across the dunes.

 

My tired eyes blinked back open. I was back. I was me again.

 

And I even more confused than I’d been before.

 

So much for clarity.

 

Edited by Euphrosyne
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Notes to Chapter I

 

The chapter title is a reference to an episode of Avatar: the Last Airbender; the idea isn't exactly the same, but it's similar. Aang had anxiety about facing the Fire Lord, about his own powers, and about the safety of those he loved; Jaesa is experiencing anxiety over her personal security, her ultimate goals, and this mysterious Sith stalker.

 

Our chapter quote is from the Latin poet Horace's Epistles. It's a familiar proverb: "what is well begun is half done; dare to be wise, and begin!" Appropriate enough for the start of a story, I suppose. Also, sapere aude, or "dare to be wise", is often referred to as a slogan of the European Enlightenment.

 

What Jaesa articulates there in her little introduction is the idea of historicism. Leopold von Ranke, one of the greatest historians ever, once said that history was the story of how it actually was. In the last century or so, though, there's been considerable pushback against that, and Jaesa more or less gives a bare-bones outline of some of the reasoning for that pushback. "What anything means depends on how you tell the story" is the line that Matthew Stover used to talk about the same thing in Blade of Tyshalle.

 

"The story of how [she] became what she is. Behold the woman!" is a reference to the Friedrich Nietzsche work Ecce Homo: Wie man wird, was man ist. It's a literal translation. Nietzsche will come up a lot here; he's already made an appearance in the title. :p

 

"Sing, O Muse..." comes from the first lines of the Iliad: "menin aeide Thea Peleiadeo Achileos / oulomenen, he myri' Achaiois alge' etheke..."

 

"No one person should have all that power" comes

, although plenty of other people have said stuff like that before.

 

I've tried to work Jaesa's combat lines into the story as much as possible. "I wasn't afraid of death" isn't quite there, but it's close enough.

 

Qui-Gon Jinn was the one who said "until the possible becomes actual, it is only a distraction."

 

Originally, I had Yonlach narrate that particular fight scene, and he was able to describe the sorts of forms the respective participants were using in much more detail than Jaesa could. But I changed it around because the tone felt off; this is Jaesa's story, not his. She was able to correctly identify Yul-Li as a Soresu user, but she didn't make a stab at figuring out the Sith's moves. Single lightsaber, "fluid yet powerful", the hammerblows: they add up to Djem So, a variant of the Shien form. In gameplay terms, this Sith is a Vengeance (DPS) Juggernaut.

 

The Sith's conversation with Vette is about Sharack Breev, and how surprised she will be to see them.

 

Edited by Euphrosyne
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Hi, Adwynyth! Thanks for commenting. :) If you want more, I can definitely do more. Like, say, another chapter?

 

Felinx and Rodus

 

“Inevitably, underlying instabilities begin to appear.”

-Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park (Fourth Iteration)

 

 

Things began to move extremely quickly after the vision that Master Yonlach showed me. Months of relatively idle activity – training, awaiting the deliberations of the Council, meditating, and so on – gave way to rapid, even frantic action.

 

When I told my Master about the vision, something flashed in his eyes. He seized on Master Yul-Li’s slip of the tongue as a betrayal of enormous proportions. I asked him about the Sith’s request, about whether this could be the honest truth she was telling about only wanting to meet.

 

He brushed it off. “This Sith is a servant of Darth Baras, child. He’s the most cunning of all the Sith Lords. He can ferret out nearly any secret: he almost caught me when I went into the Sith ranks as a spy all those years ago. He knows how to teach his underlings circumspection. Baras has pulled the wool over the eyes of even Grand Master Satele with his spy network. It’s no stretch to think he could have taught this apprentice of his to fool Yonlach.

 

“Just remember this: the Sith always lie. I saw it for myself, when I was on Korriban. Kind words and a sympathetic ear are just bait, and the dark side is the hook. You’ll need to learn not to fall for these deceptions.”

 

I nodded, but I still felt uneasy about it. “Still, Master, isn’t there something we can do about it? Sith lie, but what if this particular Sith isn’t? What if she’s, I don’t know, trying to defect or something?”

 

Master Karr was already shaking his head. “Jaesa, I’ve already spoken with this apprentice, after she attacked a Republic listening post. She wasn’t trying to defect. And she works for Baras. It’s clear to me that she’s only after you because you are a threat to Baras’ spies.

 

“If she can come after you, she can destroy everything we’ve worked for. Baras’ network will stay in place. It will continue to threaten the security of the Republic. And innocent people are going to pay the price.”

 

“Oh,” I stammered. “I…I hadn’t thought of that.”

 

He smiled. “Don’t worry about it. You’re still learning. And this is a problem, but it’s not that big of a deal. All they have is your name. We’re just going to have to be extra careful from here on out.”

 

But I could see the expression on his face as he turned away from me: worry, and apprehension.

 

We heard back from Yonlach a few days later. He confirmed the events that had happened in my vision, not that I was surprised. My Master didn’t openly challenge him on his belief that the Sith’s intentions were benign, but as he listened to the recording, his expression spoke volumes.

 

In most of the rest of my spare time, my Master stepped up my lightsaber training. I wasn’t great with a saberstaff – contemplation and empathy were more my speed – but I ran through the drills all the same. I was still learning Soresu, but mixed in along with that were many moves that owed much to Juyo, a more aggressive style.

 

At one point in the training, I asked my Master about the aggressive moves. Weren’t we supposed to be practicing on personal defense? But he had an answer ready for that, too. “Jaesa,” he said, “what kind of person is going to attack you? You’re a member of the Jedi Order; the kind of person that can be warned off wouldn’t be up against you in the first place. That makes them a threat, not just to you, but to other people. And it’s your responsibility to others to end the threat that they pose.

 

“That’s why you can’t just spend time on defensive velocities and the Three Rings. You need to not only be able to defend yourself, but also be able to defeat your enemy. If you only prevent the likes of Baras from hurting you, he’ll move on to somebody else.”

 

The way he said it at the time, it made perfect sense. But at night, as I mulled his words over in my head, they looked more and more like cavalier treatment of the Jedi Code. Like he was talking about just the sort of way a Jedi wasn’t supposed to act.

 

Then came Alderaan.

 

I…I knew, I know a lot of the people that were important in the Alderaanian civil war. I was born there. My parents were servants in Castle Organa, and when I was older I became handmaiden to Lady – uh, General – Gesselle. And then there were the Jedi involved. I had met Kira Carsen, Master Kiwiiks’ Padawan, when we were in training on Tython, and we still tried to keep in touch. That strange Trandoshan hunter Qyzen Fess – the same hunter that was helping investigate the infamous dark side plague – had sort of become a fixture there right before I’d left, too.

 

So when the Alderaanian civil war went into overdrive, it was all pretty personal for me. I didn’t really know much about the military goings-on; I got the impression that the Republic was winning, but that was the Republic HoloNet talking, so who knew what was really going on. But I did know about the people involved.

 

At first it seemed like mostly good news. Kira sent me a message about some sort of superweapon she was helping disable. She was even part of the group that took down the usurper king, Bouris Ulgo. Reading about these sorts of things were welcome distractions from the dull, omnipresent dread I’d been feeling ever since Master Yonlach’s warning.

 

But then a Jedi Master was executed by a Sith Lord on the bridge of his flagship orbiting the planet, live on the HoloNet for the entire galaxy to see. The Killiks, humanoid bugs with a taste for war and assimilation and little else, started to swarm over large parts of the planet. And someone attacked the army base where my old boss – my friend – Gesselle had her headquarters.

 

She wasn’t hurt. A lot of her soldiers were. That would’ve been bad enough, but after the whole thing happened she sent me a message saying that the whole battle had happened because of me – not because she was a general. She’d just been unlucky enough to befriend a girl with crazy powers. So now my stalker, the Sith from Tatooine, was visiting her, instead.

 

Gesselle told me that she’d convinced the Sith woman to help her troops out against the Ulgos – repair the damage that had been done when her base was attacked. That seemed ludicrous enough on its own, but civil wars make strange bedfellows. The bad part was that the woman’s price was telling her about my parents. Who they were. Where they were. What they did. Gesselle said that it tore her up, that she felt incredibly guilty about it, but that she felt as though she had no choice. At least she’d managed to get a warning off to Castle Organa after the fact.

 

And she wasn’t quite so sure that the Sith meant my mom and dad any harm.

 

I got that message early in the morning, local time. All day, I couldn’t concentrate on my training. Master Yonlach was one thing; a kindly old man and a great teacher. But to threaten my parents…yeah, I knew that the Jedi shun attachments. That an inability to let something go and pass out of one’s life can lead to the dark side. Fear for another person’s well-being is still fear. And I’d have been the first to admit that I was at least a little afraid of what might happen to my parents.

 

Not that I was particularly close to my parents. I’d barely been a teenager when I left to train as a Padawan. I couldn’t say that we had an unhappy family or anything, but at the same time, they were just sort of…there, a lot of the time. There were some happy memories, there were some less than happy ones, there’d been fights. Living as we had, as servants, we hadn’t spent that much time together doing family stuff. No trips to the Apalis beaches or visits to Wuitho Trifalls.

 

In some ways, Gesselle had been kind of a surrogate mother for me, because I was around her all the time. I mean, abstractly, I thought that my parents cared about me. Cared for me. Loved me. And I cared about them, too. But there was still a disconnect there, a more abstract than real feeling. It hadn’t been that difficult for me to leave. I didn’t really think about them that much.

 

So it wasn’t like I was unduly attached to my parents, or anything. It was more the immediacy of it, the sort of feeling you get when you know something bad is going to happen to anybody but you can’t do anything about it. That sort of…powerlessness. Jedi weren’t supposed to get too attached, but standing by and letting awful things happen to people wasn’t something Jedi were supposed to do either.

 

I didn’t hear about what happened at Castle Organa until the next day. That didn’t matter. That night, I could feel it happening.

 

There wasn’t any vision, not like with Master Yonlach. Unlike with him, I didn’t have a strong connection to anybody there. I didn’t know exactly what people were there, or who said what, or any other specifics. Even though my feeling wasn’t exact, though, it was clear what it meant.

 

Sadness and confusion…lots of confusion. This Sith had been pretty confusing for Master Yonlach; my poor, slightly dim parents probably had no clue what was going on. But after the confusion, there was a sense of betrayal. Not a stab in the back. More like when a friend of yours starts growing apart from you, doing things you don’t like, and you can’t understand why.

 

Except they weren’t my friends, they were my parents. And even if our relationship hadn’t been everything it might’ve been, “betrayal” wasn’t exactly supposed to enter into the equation either. I didn’t know what they were doing that made them feel as though they were betraying me. But the feeling was enough.

 

It was hard for me to sleep that night.

 

My Master noticed the next morning. It was pretty hard to mistake the signs of worry and exhaustion. He didn’t seem as though he was doing so great, either, but he at least looked better than I felt. He’d just heard from Alderaan, from a Master Volryder, about the whole encounter at the castle.

 

Apparently the Sith had attacked Castle Organa and broken into the room where my parents were hiding. Volryder had been on guard there, had been told what to expect. But, he said, there wasn’t any fighting: the Sith had managed to twist my parents’ minds somehow and get them to “agree” to move to Dromund Kaas, to defect, and convinced Volryder to let them go without a fight.

 

“Don’t you see, Jaesa?” he muttered, almost desperately. “This is Baras again, it’s clear as day. He’s trying to draw us out – draw you out. It’s all a ruse. Has to be a ruse.” He rose from his seat and started pacing the floor. “No matter what happens, you cannot let this distract you. If you reveal yourself, Baras wins. All our work will be for nothing.”

 

I let my head bob in agreement. I said vacuous nothings and told him that of course I wouldn’t respond: a Jedi is calm. He seemed to gain strength from what I said, and became even more animated, moving around with manic energy.

 

I guess I was a good liar, if I could get a Jedi Master to believe that. It’s not a skill I’ve ever liked having to exercise.

 

But I was afraid of other things than just my parents’ safety. After that little display, I was worried about my Master, too. He was utterly fixated on Darth Baras and their private vendetta. It seemed like I was less apprentice and more tool: a means for him to hit back at his nemesis, not a person who was trying to help people. It wasn’t right. I wanted to get things back to normal.

 

I wasn’t totally sure how, exactly, I was going to go about this. But then I remembered the Sith on Tatooine in my vision. How she’d been ready to stand against two Jedi Masters for what she claimed – for what she said – was just a chance to talk to me.

 

Maybe she was feeling the same way I was about this crazy personal war.

 

Contacting her wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. My Master had built up a profile of her ship over the last few months, and he had a list of HoloNet frequencies from his listening post in Hutt Space. It took me awhile to figure out which ones on the list couldn’t be hers, but I finally narrowed it down to one.

 

That night, I went to my ship and spent a few minutes trying to steel myself for this. If I was right, I wasn’t, technically, disobeying my Master by contacting this woman. But if I wasn’t right about this, well, I’d be in serious trouble from pretty much every angle. I didn’t feel like I really had a choice. If I didn’t try to make this better, nobody would.

 

And for one of the first times in my life, I had the vague sense that I was following the right path.

 

Compared to the effort I went to in order to figure this all out, actually contacting the Sith was an anticlimax. I got a busy signal when I tried to make a direct call, so I had to settle for a message. But I dove right into a spiel that I hadn’t even written, and spoke as calmly and carefully as I possibly could.

 

“Sith, I’m Jaesa Willsaam. My Master, Nomen Karr, has no idea I’m sending this message.

 

“Let’s be real. We both know this isn’t about us. Our masters pretend otherwise, but this is personal. You and I are only pawns in their private war. And those I care about are caught in the middle. It has to stop.

 

“I appreciate directness. And as…merciful as your actions have been, it’s time you stopped this passive-aggressive stalker…thing. This message includes coordinates where I’ll be waiting in my ship.

 

“Let’s discuss this face-to-face. No more nonsense.”

 

I cut the audiovisual and uploaded a randomly chosen location in deep space somewhere in the Dufilvian sector. Only a few hours away with this ship’s speed, but much longer for someone coming from Alderaan or Dromund Kaas. I had time to rest…I could leave in the morning.

 

Of course, that plan neglected to account for my Master.

 

He wouldn’t let me go. Told me that it was “exactly what the Sith want you to do” and that making the trip would be the worst mistake of my life. He absolutely forbade me to leave my training. Where I was concerned to seize on even the slightest chance of help, he was concerned to avoid even the slightest chance of danger to me.

 

But after a few minutes of reprimanding me, his tone started to change. The metaphorical wheels were turning in his mind. Then he smiled.

 

“Actually, Jaesa, you know what? On second thought, I believe you didn’t do anything wrong. Sending that message was just the thing. I think this’ll work out fine anyway.”

 

I couldn’t figure out where he was going with it. “How do you mean, Master?”

 

“What if you don’t go…” he began, but raised a finger as I started to respond. “No, not like that. You see, you’ve given us a great opportunity. Baras’ apprentice will certainly chase down that lead: it’s exactly what she’s been looking for, even if she is being honest about not meaning you any harm. That means we’ll know where she’ll be…but also where she won’t be.

 

“And that means I have a chance to take on Darth Baras alone.

 

“I’ll challenge him to a duel, one on one. He won’t be able to resist; he’s been trying to draw us out for far too long. You can come with me, although you’ll have to remain out of sight. We can send somebody trustworthy with your ship to see what’s what about that apprentice. And then I can take on Baras. I can defeat Baras. I can roll up his spy network for good. Then we’ll be able to figure out this apprentice of his safely.”

 

I could…I could see it. It made sense. Maybe this was why the Force guided me to make that call. Maybe that’s the way everybody could get what they want.

 

But there was a little voice in the back of my head that disagreed. That said, everybody gets what they want except her. You’d be lying to her. And your Master still gets his private vendetta.

 

No. It didn’t matter. I’d said in my message that this has to end. I didn’t care if this wasn’t exactly the way I’d planned it, if this was all to feed a crazy rivalry my Master had conceived.

 

I could get past that. Maybe my Master was a little flawed. Maybe this wasn’t totally how I imagined myself doing things when I was a Padawan. But I couldn’t really see another way forward. At least this way something would get done. The last month and a half of bad dreams, strange harassment, and emotional turmoil could finally end.

 

One way or another, this was going to be over soon.

 

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Notes to Chapter II

 

"Felinx and rodus" is basically the Star Wars version of "cat and mouse", an allusion to the game that Karr, Baras, Jaesa, and our still unnamed Sith Warrior are playing out here. In The Essential Guide to Warfare, Jason Fry and Paul Urquhart used it to describe the deadly Batman Gambit played out during the campaign for Brentaal IV by Ysanne Isard, Gial Ackbar, Wedge Antilles, Soontir Fel, Sate Pestage, and the members of the Imperial ruling council.

 

The three rings of defense are a Shii-Cho concept of lightsaber fencing. They show up in I, Jedi, taught to the new trainees at Luke Skywalker's praxeum by Kam Solusar. The three rings simply characterize the sorts of moves that one makes in Shii-Cho style at various distances from the body: inner, middle, and outer.

 

If you're wondering why these visions tend to happen to Jaesa at night, it's really mostly because I tend to play mostly at night, because of my own weird sleep schedule. ;)

 

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Thanks, guys! It does mean a lot to see comments, not just views. (Hypocrisy alert. ;))

 

Of course, anybody who's done the Sith Warrior class quests (which, at this point, is probably everybody in this subforum) knows exactly where all of this is going. Or thinks s/he does. A lot of the storyline - including the dialogue - is pretty much intact, but hopefully enough's been changed to keep things interesting.

 

About the Latin: hah, yeah. I'm not a classicist, and I myself can't translate the stuff (although one of my proofreaders can), but I'm interested in classical history, so there are a few more chapters with Latin introductory quotes in there. They'll be properly esoteric, too, she said with a sadistic cackle. Most of these quotes are going to be in English (or German, my native language), though.

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Road to Revelation

 

“…er will bloß sagen, wie es eigentlich gewesen.”

-Leopold von Ranke, Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1514, Vorwort

 

 

The duel wasn’t difficult to arrange.

 

I don’t really know how my Master contacted Darth Baras. I wasn’t there; I was busily showing my two impersonators – well, “impersonators” might be too strong a word – the way around my ship, “my” little Defender that I’d never actually flown myself. The two of them, Ulldin and Zylixx, seemed like they’d teamed up for lots of missions before: they had a sort of banter going. But I couldn’t really keep the thread of their conversation. My mind was…on other things.

 

I guess my Master briefed them beforehand, because they didn’t really ask me many questions about Baras’ apprentice. Just the personal settings on the ship – that I hadn’t actually changed from the defaults – places they could bunk, and so on. Zylixx seemed more interested in finally getting down to brass tacks and flying off to chat with the Sith, but Ulldin, the big one, actually seemed pretty solicitous. Not in a “he’s totally hitting on me” way, but as though he genuinely cared about my well-being. He asked if I was going to be in a safe place while all of this was going down, and if I was okay with everything that was happening. That did a lot to set my mind at ease about the whole operation.

 

What I did know was where the duel was going to be. My Master wanted to have the face-off on Nal Hutta. It seemed like a strange choice at first: the slimy, mucky, polluted Hutt capital was hardly an obvious location for a showdown between Jedi and Sith. But Master Karr’s reasoning, once he explained it, made some sense. The Hutts were neutral, so theoretically neither Karr nor Baras would have an advantage. There were plenty of places to hide our ship on that mudball, so I’d be safe if anything happened to him. But I figured the most important reason was the one he mentioned offhandedly at the end: that it was where he’d had his last showdown with Baras, back in his spying days.

 

You’d think a Jedi wouldn’t be sentimental about that sort of thing.

 

The flight to Hutta went pretty quickly. I got my first good sleep in awhile. I was self-confident again. I had a purpose. I was helping my Master finally defeat his greatest enemy. I was saving people. And it felt like I was doing the will of the Force.

 

When we landed, though, doubts set in again. I started to second-guess myself, alone on the ship as my Master waded through the bogs towards the meeting point. So far, the sum total of my contribution to the whole plan – even though the whole confrontation was supposedly about me in the first place – had been to lie to a Sith and hide on a ship. I was at the most important point in my life so far and I didn’t feel like I was solving any problems. I was just sitting on Master Karr’s ship, offstage, waiting for other people to play their parts.

 

I got restless and started to wander around the ship idly, sitting down in various places to try meditation and standing up again almost instantly. Master Karr hadn’t really marked out places not to go – Jedi don’t tend to deal with personal possessions, much less boundaries. But I still felt…tied to the main hold, sitting around the holocommunicator.

 

So that’s where I was when the message came in.

 

I accessed the holocommunicator’s mail system by reflex, not really thinking about whether it was something private or not. There was no password prompt or biometric scan; I guess I was supposed to have the run of the messaging system…or Master Karr had forgotten about it…or something.

 

The scene that flickered into existence on the holocomm looked oddly familiar. It took a few seconds for me to realize that it was the interior of “my” ship. Master Karr must’ve installed some sort of bug on it. I lost myself for a few seconds in trying to figure out when he did that and so didn’t notice when Zylixx and Ulldin emerged from one of the other compartments, facing the main hatch.

 

I did, however, notice when she arrived, about a minute later.

 

She hadn’t changed much from two and a half months prior on Tatooine. Same robes over the same spare armor, although these were cleaner, less dusty. Same hairstyle. Same sort of swagger. Humming the same tune, tinny due to the bug’s little microphone…and then it clicked. Oh. Hey. I know what song she’s humming.

 

I started to unconsciously sing along. “I didn’t know that it was so cold and…you needed someone to show you the way…”

 

The Twi’lek, Vette, had come with her again. She didn’t seem like she’d changed much, except for looking a lot less nervous than she’d been on Tatooine. Actually, she was acting pretty chipper. I had a hard time believing that she would be so happy about going off to murder a Padawan.

 

“…so I took your hand and…we figured out that…when the tide comes I’ll take you away…”

 

And then they saw the two Jedi Knights standing in the hold, and abruptly stopped. Vette looked crestfallen, muttering something under her breath about “always has to be right about everything”. But the Sith was just inscrutable. She stopped humming and just quietly stared at the two Jedi. The expression on her face…well, it didn’t make any sense.

 

It almost seemed as though she was unbearably sad

 

Zylixx spoke up first. “Well, well. We’re going to have to thank Nomen Karr after all. The Sith showed.”

 

“Stand down, Sith,” added Ulldin. They’d probably done this back-and-forth routine so many times it was branded into their brains. “The Padawan you seek is not here. Master Karr discovered her plan and talked her out of it.”

 

“It’s just not your day,” said Zylixx sardonically. “You were expecting one lowly little Padawan to crush, and instead you get us.”

 

She finally broke her silence. “I should’ve known this wasn’t going to be easy.”

 

“Just like a Sith, always looking for a shortcut.”

 

“I thought the Jedi were big on bloodless victories,” she shot back.

 

They ignored her. “I am Ulldin, and this is Zylixx. We are fully trained Jedi Knights, and more than your match. You should submit.”

 

“You think you two are tougher than two Jedi Masters?”

 

Zylixx shrugged. “Of course. We’ve yet to encounter a Sith who had the sense to surrender. You all seem bent on having us destroy you.”

 

The Sith didn’t say anything for several seconds, her gaze darting around the compartment. Then, finally, with a heavy sigh: “I’ve got no quarrel with you. Let’s just go our separate ways.”

 

“Now, why would we agree to just…let you go?” tsked Zylixx.

 

His friend frowned. “Zylixx, we assumed this Sith would engage, as all others we’ve faced have. If that’s not the case…” he trailed off.

 

The other shook his head. “No, Ulldin, this Sith will continue to hunt Nomen Karr and his Padawan. We must end this threat for good.”

 

“Can you two just finish up your Wint and Kidd routine so I can leave?” She rolled her eyes. “…I can leave, right? Your Jedi Code prohibits attacking to kill. Doesn’t the light side demand temperance?”

 

Zylixx rounded on her. “Who are you to lecture anyone about morality? The Sith force us to take measures like this!”

 

“You, Sith, are an exception,” rumbled Ulldin. “Your vile attempts to hurt Nomen Karr and Jaesa Willsaam are provocation enough.”

 

“Uh, what attempts?” Vette chimed in.

 

“Yeah, you don’t know anything about my motivations, Knight Situational Kriffing Ethics,” added the Sith.

 

“Come on, it doesn’t take a genius to know you came here to destroy,” ground out Zylixx exasperatedly. “Your presence is all the confirmation we need. Right, Ulldin?”

 

But the bigger Knight was wavering. I knew how he felt. “No, Zylixx…I…I’m unsure.” He turned away. “Master Karr claims this Sith means Jaesa harm, but we have no proof.”

 

“Master Karr’s word is proof enough. Are you really going to have a crisis of conscience, accepting the word of a Jedi Master?”

 

The word of a Jedi Master. If his instructions to his Padawan meant anything, he didn’t seem to think one’s word was all that binding.

 

“That’s an assumption I can’t make, my friend. I won’t fight her. I have to walk away,” Ulldin said sadly, “and I hope you will do the same.” He left the compartment and disappeared from view.

 

Zylixx rounded on the Sith and Vette with what I assumed was meant to be righteous fury. “You may have derailed Ulldin’s resolve, Sith, but your luck ends there. I’ll take you on myself!” He lit his lightsaber and paced menacingly in front of her.

 

She shrugged, still unarmed. “You’re going to regret that.”

 

But Zylixx…it was sort of horrifying, in a detached way. He wouldn’t let it go. What had he said earlier? ‘You all seem bent on having us destroy you.’

 

Wasn’t that what he was doing now? What Masters Yonlach and Yul-Li had done?

 

A familiar feeling of dread settled in my gut. This was going to be like watching a shuttle crash.

 

It happened almost as fast as a shuttle crash, too. Vette didn’t even unholster her blasters in time to catch Zylixx. He sprang towards the Sith on legs strengthened by the Force, but her saber had already cleared her belt and easily blocked his blade. It seemed briefly like it wouldn’t matter, that Zylixx would just keep pushing until her arms bent backwards and she was gutted by her own lightsaber, like she’d almost done to Yul-Li.

 

All the while matching him strength for strength, she hooked her left leg around his right and twisted, then used her kneecap to hammer the back of his own knee. He snarled and collapsed backwards in pain, tripping over her leg and disengaging his lightsaber from hers. He tried to use the space he gained to push her back with the Force and give him some breathing room, but she was already on him, booting the saber out of his hands and using her own Force push to send him flying across the compartment.

 

For such an ostensibly deadly Sith-slayer, he went down embarrassingly easily.

 

He knew it too. “I yield! I yield to you!” And he had a scapegoat ready: “Damn Ulldin for leaving me to face you alone!”

 

She closed down her lightsaber and kneeled in front of him. “Wouldn’t have turned out any differently.”

 

Zylixx just gaped in amazement. “Your strength…it’s undeniable. Is there such power in the dark side?”

 

The Sith laughed mirthlessly and stood back up with his lightsaber in her hand. “The dark side…” She shook her head. “I’m out of here. Have fun thinking about your future.”

 

Zylixx could only stare as the Sith walked back towards the airlock, tossing his lightsaber into a corner as she left the room. Vette, whose pistols were firmly trained on the fallen Jedi, backed out behind her. About a minute later, I could hear docking clamps disengage. The airlock vented explosively. The Sith was gone.

 

End transmission.

 

I just sagged back onto the acceleration couch. I didn’t know whether to be horrified at what had just happened or overjoyed. So, this was how it actually was. No tricks, no mental editing, no intermediary parties. From where I stood, this Sith didn’t seem all that evil at all. Was I being vindicated? Would it even matter anymore? Had we – had I – blown the chance to see what she was after, anyway?

 

I was more confused than ever. What was happening?

 

My gaze drifted back over the frozen final image from the Defender. For the first time, I noticed the timestamp on the recording. Duh, that made sense. Probably on a preset transmit schedule.

 

Then it hit me: the recording had been made 17 hours ago. The Sith – I strangely felt like an idiot for still not knowing her name – could be anywhere. The Sith could be here, joining the showdown in the Hutta swamps with Darth Baras.

 

As if in answer, I suddenly felt a wave of pain wash over me. And it wasn’t coming from me.

 

My Master was dying.

 

I sprinted for the airlock.

 

Edited by Euphrosyne
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Notes to Chapter III

 

This chapter's title is from

. Although the music's not bad, it's less about the music capturing the scene and more about the title. The Sith's identity - still one chapter to go before you guys find out her name :p - and her goal are the "revelation" in question, and that holo footage put Jaesa on the path there.

 

Our quote this time is actually that Rankean saying I mentioned in the notes to Chapter I about "historicism". This is where it's from, the Foreword to Ranke's History of the Roman and German Peoples from 1494 to 1514, his analysis of the process of state formation under Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. Literally translated, it means "it [the book] wants simply to say, how it actually was". Jaesa herself references wie es eigentlich gewesen near the end of the chapter: "no tricks, no mental editing, no intermediary parties". Regardless of what Master Karr, or Gesselle Organa, or Master Volryder, or Yonlach has to say about all this, twice Jaesa's seen this Sith for herself, and both times she's been unable to find anything evil in what the other has done.

 

Oh, and if you think that's as esoteric as the history references in this story get, you ain't seen nothin' yet. ;)

 

If you couldn't figure out what the Sith is singing from just those lyrics, it's my favorite song. It'll come up again, along with some other Michelle Branch references. It's...well, it's appropriate for this story in a lot of ways, some of which will become apparent later. Like, say, five or six chapters from now.

 

Vette's muttering about Quinn, in case you don't remember. He claims it's a trap; she thinks that Jaesa's being honest. To be fair, when Jaesa made the recording she was totally earnest about it.

 

Wint and Kidd are two "ambiguously" gay henchmen in the 1971 Bond movie Diamonds are Forever. They have...similarly dumb dialogues during their appearances in the movie (attempting to kill Bond with a "bombe surprise", for instance). The caricature is pretty offensive even to me, and I'm not even a gay man. But anyway, Ulldin and Zylixx reminded me of them.

 

If that little fight scene was a little unsatisfying after the extended one in Chapter I, don't worry. It'll pick up. A lot. My proofreaders - editors? - really pushed me to add moar fites. The story doesn't really allow for it for awhile, but...well. You'll see. In my defense, I was simply trying to reflect how unsatisfying the fight itself was. Zylixx is just a Strong, for crying out loud.

 

Edited by Euphrosyne
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Really enjoying this, mostly because this story (in the game) is my favorite part of my favorite class story. :p

 

It's also refreshing to see it from a light-side perspective, since every single one of my Sith (Inquisitors included) is...shall we say...a bit less than light-side. :rak_03:

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Thanks for the comments, guys. :) All these popcorn comments are making me feel like I wrote a movie.

 

Which popcorn .gif is better: the Joker one or the Michael Jackson one?

It's also refreshing to see it from a light-side perspective, since every single one of my Sith (Inquisitors included) is...shall we say...a bit less than light-side. :rak_03:

Yeah, this way you get hand-wringing too, not just vicious fight scenes, supercilious one-liners, and gruesome executions! :D

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Twilight of the Idols

 

Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker.”

-Friedrich Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, Spruche und Pfeile 8

 

 

When I left the ship, I was running mostly on instinct. But as I raced towards the bog where my Master had gone, I started to reflect on what it was that I was doing. What it was that I was walking into.

 

Stretching out with the Force, I could sense that there was no Sith Lord out there…not one that I didn’t recognize, anyway. Baras’ apprentice was out there for sure: I remembered the way her presence in the Force felt, from Master Yonlach’s vision. But I didn’t notice anybody else. Baras himself must’ve stayed home, letting his apprentice handle the duel instead.

 

I was going to get that meeting after all.

 

And I had felt Master Karr dying. But he never actually let go, and I couldn’t figure out why. It felt like he was in intense pain, but still alive. Was he being tortured? Was it emotional pain? Self-inflicted? I had no way to know.

 

After I got off the speeder from the place we’d hid the ship and started picking my way though the Hutta swamps, I slowed down. I could sense that my Master was in no immediate danger. Everybody – everything – was waiting for me, ready to go. I could be a few minutes late. I already was.

 

The meeting site was literally a hole in the wall, a cave that had been strengthened with foundations and supports and filled with many of the comforts of home. Even had a few Imperial soldiers outside guarding the entrance. They recognized me on sight and waved me in.

 

I’d never, ever seen real combat before, and I’d grown up under the Treaty of Coruscant. Imperial soldiers weren’t really the Face of Evil to me like they were to older people who’d seen the first war. But even I thought that being cordially greeted by men in black armor was incredibly weird.

 

The Sith woman and Vette stood together inside the cave, chatting idly. Vette was facing the door, and she was the first to notice me. “Hey, lookie lookie. Jaesa showed up.”

 

“Guess we’d better make room for our guest of honor.”

 

Yep. Still weird.

 

The Sith turned around to face me. It was strange to think that I’d never actually seen her in real life before, but I was already so familiar with her…

 

You know, except for minor details like “her name” and “her personality”.

 

Trivialities.

 

I had a hard time forcing air through my lips. “All right, Sith. I’m here. You drew me out. Just…release Master Karr.” Come to think of it…“Uh, where is he, anyway?”

 

Vette pointed to the corner of the room, where a shriveled, wriggling figure sat, tied to a chair, guarded by an Imperial soldier. Was that?...no. Not possible. That horrible little creature, with a decaying face and glowing red eyes…

 

That was my Master?

 

I couldn’t tear my gaze away from him…it…whatever it was.

 

The Sith looked as though she were about to smile sheepishly. But she composed herself, pursed her lips, keeping her face as neutral as she could. “Hi,” she said quietly. “I’m Alypia.”

 

Vette rolled her eyes. “Smooooth.” She earned herself an evil eye for her trouble. “Hey, I know it’s all red skin one way or the other, but you’re totally blushing right now,” she laughed.

 

I…what. They were acting like teenagers. Vette probably was a teenager. This whole thing, which had been shaping up to be one of the defining moments of my life, was being treated about as seriously as a mynock. And meanwhile, the creature that used to be my Master looked like it was rapidly becoming a vessel of the dark side.

 

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

 

Then Master Karr spoke. Actually, it was more like a growl. I could barely recognize his voice; even his vocal cords seemed as though they’d been…twisted. “Jaesa, no! I told you to stay put! How dare you defy me?”

 

His Imperial guard raised his rifle, as if to whack him in the head with its stock, but the Sith – but Alypia – raised her hand, even as she continued to face me.

 

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you to show up,” she said.

 

Master Karr continued his rant. “My sacrifice for nothing! Stupid child! For all your power, you have understood nothing!”

 

I couldn’t stop myself. “What did you do to him, Sith? There’s no way this has been inside him all along. It can’t be. You can’t hide that sort of thing.” I turned towards her, pointing an accusing finger, less for emphasis and more for me to concentrate on something so I wouldn’t fall over from shock. “Somehow you turned him mad!”

 

Alypia shook her head sadly. “He’s exposed what was lurking inside himself. I didn’t want this fight. But he wouldn’t stop. He did terrible things to himself to try to kill me. They didn’t work the way he wanted.”

 

I tried to laugh bitterly. It came out like more of a whimper. “Is that what you call what you’re doing? Exposing what was inside?”

 

She shrugged. “Uh, yeah.” With a wave of her hand, she dismissed the guard. Now it was me and her, and Vette, and the…thing that had once been my Master.

 

I looked at him for awhile, the wheels turning in my head. His vendetta, the fear and desperation he’d shown as things had started to crumble around him…I’d had the pieces in front of me all along. Over the last few months, there’d been plenty of reason to suspect that my Master wasn’t exactly a model Jedi. I hadn’t expected anything this bad, though.

 

I’d thought that maybe he could teach me that clarity I’d been searching for. Now I knew he was even more lost than I was. So I let go. There was no more “Master Nomen Karr and his Padawan, Jaesa Willsaam”.

 

It was just me and what was left of my life.

 

Now what could I do?

 

“You spared Master Yonlach on Tatooine and my parents on Alderaan. And just now, I felt Master Karr slipping towards death, but I guess you…you saved him,” I said to Alypia, then made a face. “His body, anyway.” I started talking out the line of reasoning I’d been feeling my way along for months. “These…these things aren’t the sort of thing Sith do. Is it real? Or has it all been a trick to get me to lower my guard?”

 

Alypia smiled lopsidedly. “I’m not what you’ve been led to believe, Jaesa.”

 

The creature of rage and hate that used to be my Master bellowed, “Use your power, Jaesa! Look into the Sith’s heart, and you will see!”

 

She spread her hands expansively. “Go ahead, look as long as you like.” Vette snickered, but Alypia ignored her. “I have nothing to hide.”

 

Nobody’d willingly submitted to my creepy mind-violation since Master Yonlach, but she was acting honest, open, and willing, just like she’d acted toward Yonlach and Ulldin. That didn’t make me feel as good about it as I’d thought it would.

 

“Okay, then.”

 

I sat down, closed my eyes, and placed my fingers in one of the mudras that young trainees learn on Tython. I breathed slowly, surely, rhythmically, slowing my whole body down to conjure up the images in my head.

 

I felt my mind’s perceptions expand outward. I could feel the shameful thing that called itself Nomen Karr. I could feel Vette. The soldiers outside. The creatures in the swamp, the plants, algae, down to the smallest bacterium.

 

And then I felt her mind, and there was nothing else.

 

When I finally opened my eyes, I felt like days had passed. Years. I just went through the most intense experiences in a woman’s entire life in what in reality must’ve been only a few seconds. It was exhausting. And it was terrifying.

 

It wasn’t that I was terrified of having invaded somebody else’s mind. But I hadn’t been ready to feel what she felt. To see disjointed images, fragmented memories, the sensation of the things that she’d done to other people…

 

And, worst of all, the things that other people had done to her.

 

I slumped against the wall. I could feel the tears rolling down my cheeks. “How…” I whispered. “How can you stand it?”

 

She knelt. “What do you mean?”

 

Everything. Who you are. The life you’ve had to lead. There’s mercy there. Kindness. Even compassion. How can you be the way you are, especially as a Sith? How did it not drive you insane?”

 

Her expression softened. “Oh. ‘The horror! The horror!’”

 

My head bobbed.

 

Alypia looked away. “It…” She sighed. “It’s not easy. And you know I haven’t exactly stayed on the straight and narrow for my whole life. But, you know, I’ve got a mission. A goal. Thinking about that, just inching toward daylight one step at a time…sometimes it helps me ignore the worst stuff.”

 

Nomen Karr snarled. “Don’t listen, Jaesa! It’s all a trick. The Sith has disguised herself and me to cause you to doubt your power!”

 

After what I just felt and saw, that had to be the weakest attempt at getting me to do something…well, ever. It was hard for me not to just feel disgusted by what he said.

 

Instead, I just ignored him, and wiped my eyes with my sleeve.

 

“The masks we wear…”

 

Vette spoke up again. “Huh?”

 

“Alypia. She’s Sith. She looks the part of an agent of evil. But it’s just a mask,” I elaborated. I turned back to my Master. “And Master Karr also wears a mask. His deception is a much…uglier one.”

 

Alypia looked at him too. “Maybe it’s not so much his fault?” She caught the look of skepticism on my face, and continued. “I mean, a lot of the things he did were his fault. But from what I heard, some pretty bad stuff happened to him a long time ago to cause all this. Maybe because of that, his connection to the Force is flawed.”

 

I could tell she was just trying to make me feel better about what happened, and shook my head. “People can talk all they want about my power, but you were the one who showed me Master Karr’s true nature. Thank you.”

 

She looked a little surprised at first. Then she shrugged, stood up, and offered me a hand. “I…sure. You’re welcome.” I took it, and she hauled me to my feet.

 

“So,” I started. Seeing – well, feeling, really – the peaks and valleys of Alypia’s life had told me a lot about why she was here, but not enough. And I also wanted to hear it straight from her anyway. “I…I kind of know why you wanted to talk to me, but not really.”

 

Alypia laughed. “For a long time, I wasn’t too clear on what I wanted to do, myself.”

 

She looked at Vette. “You remember when Darth Sweet Tooth was torturing that poor SIS guy to death?”

 

The Twi’lek blanched. “Yeah, I’d rather not relive that particular part of my life.”

 

“Sorry.” Alypia turned back toward me. “Not too long after I first became his apprentice, Darth Baras told me he’d had a vision, that there was something haunting his dreams, ‘a grave and mysterious threat that could bring down his entire power base’. This Grik Sorosan guy, an SIS agent who was investigating your findings on Nar Shaddaa, told him under interrogation who that threat was: you.”

 

She briefly looked down at the floor. “I…I got Baras the ancient Sith tools he needed to rip your identity from Sorosan’s mind. I tried to do it to make it go easily for him, so he’d die without having even more of Baras’ torture inflicted on him. It didn’t work out like that.”

 

After a pause, she started again. “Before he died, Sorosan told Baras the vaguest details about your history. He knew you were Nomen Karr’s Padawan, and a bare-bones outline of your past: Balmorra, Nar Shaddaa, Tatooine, Alderaan. He said that you seemed to know any being’s true nature. That you could sense, ah, ‘hidden darkness and untapped purity’.

 

“I’m not too proud to admit that the first thing I thought was that you’d discover me and the game would be up. A Sith who isn’t completely evil? They’d kill me. It wouldn’t be quick or easy. I wanted to get you as far away from me as possible.

 

“And then Baras started musing out loud, about the threat you would be to his spy network. The threat you would be to his very source of power. I knew he was going to send me after you. Try to get me to kill you.

 

“I figured that maybe I could work something out with you and the Jedi. Lay off the heat on Baras, maybe. Fake your death for awhile. Something else. I didn’t know. I still don’t, really. I just needed to stall for time and come up with a plan.

 

“You have no idea how infuriating it was to get attacked by the people you’re trying to get help from.

 

“Now it seems like that’s all OBE. Your Master has a date with a psychiatrist. Baras knows that I managed to confront him. I don’t know if he knows you’re here, but the soldiers will tell him soon enough. You’re on Nal Hutta alone, and your ship, the one that the double act used, is probably halfway to Tython right now. We’re kind of low on options.”

 

I’d seen into her mind. I knew what she wanted to ask, and I also knew that she thought it was such a pie-in-the-sky best case scenario that I’d never agree to it.

 

But crazy as it seemed, I was already feeling a connection to her. Touching her past, feeling the horror of what she’d been through, seeing that she’d been completely honest over the last few months – unlike anybody else – and knowing that she wanted my help…if she couldn’t or wouldn’t ask, then I would.

 

I took a deep breath. “What about the one you suggested to Baras?”

 

She had a hard time meeting my eyes. “Are you…?”

 

“Wait,” said Vette. “Are you asking my boss to make you her evil Sith apprentice?”

 

“Hey,” objected Alypia, “I’m not that evil.” She was trying to act casual, but I could feel the tension roiling inside her.

 

“What about you, though?” I asked. “Why wouldn’t you want to defect to the Republic?”

 

Alypia turned back toward me. “I have…a lot of reasons to hate the Sith. I guess you understand that now. But it’s not just about them.”

 

Her eyes defocused, as though she were looking at something impossibly far away. “There are billions, trillions of beings who live in the Sith Empire. Normal people. Slaves. People who are going along to get along.

 

“You know: the ones who aren’t the evil jerkwads trying to rule the galaxy.

 

“If the Republic defeats the Empire, it’s not gonna go quietly. There’s too many crazy, fratricidal, even suicidal Sith to let that happen. The last couple of Empires went out with a bang. Primus Goluud. Ossus. Dantooine. Katarr. This one is bigger. More powerful. More psychopaths with their fingers on the metaphorical button. And that’s not even considering what happens if the Empire wins.

 

“I can’t change that from without. If I joined the Jedi, not only would I, you know, have to deal with being a Jedi, all the rules and orders and such, but I’d be an outsider. An enemy. Period. I want to be within the system and change it that way. Try to stop things before they get completely out of hand.

 

“But most importantly, I want to protect those billions and billions of normal people. They’ve got the Sith on one side and the Republic on the other. Nobody seems to care if they live or die. For the Republic, they’re legitimate military targets; for the Sith, they’re just tools, slaves, to be run through the meat grinder at their convenience. They need somebody looking out for them.

 

“And, well, considering the kind of person Nomen Karr over there is…I’d be honored if you would come help me, instead.”

 

Vette just gaped. “There’s no way you didn’t practice that speech.”

 

I tried to laugh. “I just went through her entire life and didn’t see it anywhere. Totally off the cuff. On my honor as a Jedi.”

 

Nomen Karr glared at me. “I’ll see to it that the Jedi disavow you. You will be labeled an enemy of the Order, Jaesa.”

 

And there it was. Decision time. The woman who’d been honest with me, who’d been repeatedly attacked for nothing more than the color of her skin, who wanted to give me a chance to actually go out and help people in need…or the man who’d convinced me to lie for him, who pursued a private vendetta instead of being a proper mentor to his Padawan, and who was less concerned with helping people than with destroying his enemies.

 

Finally, I had a handle on why I’d felt compelled to send Alypia that message, why I’d felt so confident about coming to Nal Hutta before languishing in that ship. This was what the Force was pushing me toward. There was the purpose I’d been looking for. I hadn’t had to go out and find clarity: it had found me. All I had to do was trust in the Force.

 

I took the plunge.

 

“Then I’ll finally know where I stand with you,” I said, putting on a much braver face than I actually felt. “You took me as far as you could. I hope you don’t feel bitter about it.”

 

Alypia gestured to Vette to have him leave. “Maybe the Jedi Council can help him out there. Or a good pshrink. He’s their problem.”

 

“I wish him the best.”

 

He started to hobble out, with Vette leading him away. “No…no…this can’t be…my fate. Who are you to preside over me? You are…nothing…I am Nomen Karr!”

 

I felt a little sick inside, watching him go. He had represented my last link to the Jedi Order. The heroes of the vids when I was growing up, the beings who to me had seemed like a collection of the galaxy’s greatest heroes.

 

Until the last few months.

 

Master Karr had looked the part of the great and noble hero on the outside. But that was just a shell, and inside there was nothing. A dark void. He was hit once, and he shattered.

 

Alypia had taken a lot worse than that and was still standing.

 

In the end, it was no contest at all.

 

I turned back to Alypia. “I’m ready to learn your ways, my lady. And I look forward to aiding you in any way I am able.”

 

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Notes for Chapter IV

 

One of Nietzsche's later books, Götzen-Dämmerung, or "Twilight of the Idols", is a pun on Wagner's Götterdämmerung, "Twilight of the Gods". In a very literal sense, Jaesa's former idols, the Jedi Order in general and Master Karr specifically, have a very dramatic fall from grace. The chapter quote also comes from that book: literally translated, it simply means "what does not kill me [lit. 'bring me down'], makes me stronger". Nietzsche said it first, before

and
and all the rest. :p

 

Hey, our Sith finally has a name! If you Googled it, I named her after the late Roman princess, not the moths.

 

"The horror! The horror!" were Kurtz's last words in Heart of Darkness (and Apocalypse Now). Alypia doesn't really say them

- this ain't Shatterpoint - but the details of her past are horrifying. And a jungle is involved. Unfortunately, Jaesa - and by extension, you guys - still have to wait a few chapters before she gets to find out what they are. Nyah nyah. ;)

 

Writing Jaesa in this confrontation was difficult, but writing her as she was in the actual mission - where she fights the LS Warrior anyway, even after seeing the 'purity of heart' and all that stuff - would've been downright impossible for me. I just couldn't make Jaesa attacking Aly work. So that's probably the first semi-big change from the way things went in the game.

 

I know "Darth Sweet Tooth" is a little tame, as far as nicknames go, especially compared with "General Pasty Imperial" from bright_ephemera's T7 story. Sorry. Maybe Vette can come up with some better ones.

 

"OBE" means "overcome by events".

 

Aly did a bit of a loop through Star Wars lore there when explaining herself to Jaesa. Primus Goluud was a star that was destroyed by Naga Sadow to try to wipe out a Republic fleet back in the Great Hyperspace War. In the Great Sith War a thousand years later, Exar Kun and Aleema Keto triggered a series of supernovae in the Cron Cluster (turning it into the Cron Drift) that wiped out the Jedi academy on the planet Ossus. Dantooine was bombarded during the death throes of Darth Malak's Sith Empire in KotOR, and Darth Nihilus consumed all life on Katarr (except for Visas Marr) during the immediate prelude to KotOR II.

 

That last comparison Jaesa makes between Alypia and Nomen Karr mirrors one in Stover's Heroes Die. Pallas Ril basically weighs her estranged husband Caine against her recent lover Lamorak and finds the latter wanting for a similar reason: Lamorak was all dash, but hollow inside, whereas Caine, like our Warrior, "was solid through and through".

 

And, hey, now we're done with the introductory stuff and can get into the meat of the story! :D

 

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Yeah, this way you get hand-wringing too, not just vicious fight scenes, supercilious one-liners, and gruesome executions! :D

But...but I like all those things. :D

 

I'm so eager to read the next chapter! :p

Edited by Adwynyth
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Is it possible that I've seen your character in some youtube story video? Just that name sounds familiar.

 

You write well btw.

No, I couldn't record gameplay on this little lappy even if I really wanted to. :( Lemme know if you figure out where you heard the name from, though.

 

And thanks! :)

But...but I like all those things. :D

 

I'm so eager to read the next chapter! :p

If you like fight scenes, one-liners, and executions, well, you're not going to be disappointed. There weren't really many opportunities for that sort of thing when Jaesa was still Master Karr's Padawan, but now that Aly's in the picture...:jawa_cool:

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Mvndvs Inversvs

 

Hekastos allotrioi barbaros esti.”

-Anonymous (tr. “keravnos”)

 

 

Vette had gone ahead on a shuttle to a local consulate to drop Nomen Karr off with the Republic. The Imperial soldiers had left, undoubtedly to report to Lord Baras about Karr’s defeat and my defection.

 

So it was just me and Alypia that trudged through the swamp back towards Jiguuna.

 

We walked in a sort of half-awkward silence for a few minutes. I mean, what sort of things do you even talk about after you’ve just made one of the biggest decisions in your whole life?

 

Not that I was rethinking things, or anything. That feeling of clarity that I’d had back when I first sent that message to her ship was there again. I felt no doubts in my mind whatsoever about joining a Sith apprentice on a quixotic mission to save the people of the Empire from their leaders and themselves.

 

That didn’t mean I was so blind to the problems that I couldn’t joke to myself about them, though.

 

My new Master broke the silence first. “So, uh, should we be heading to wherever Karr’s ship was parked?” We had both decided that giving Master Karr a hyperspace-capable armed space vessel in his current mental state was, to put it lightly, a bad idea. “Do you have stuff we should be collecting?”

 

“Um,” I said inarticulately. “I, uh, Jedi, we…they…crap. I guess it’s that I’m used to traveling light, Master. A few changes of clothes. Not really any personal effects. The whole monastic asceticism thing.”

 

Yeah. And I gave her a hard time about talking to me back in the cave.

 

Thankfully, she ignored my awkwardness altogether. “Okay, first rule. It’s going to get really weird if you call me Master all the time, especially since I’m still technically just Baras’ apprentice. If it’s just you and me, call me Aly. Or something that doesn’t involve an honorific. Please.”

 

“Oh. I’m sorry, Ma-uh, Aly.” I suddenly developed a considerable interest in the mud we were slogging through.

 

She laughed. “Don’t worry about it.”

 

“So, um, is Vette your only crew member?”

 

“No, actually. There’s a military man on board, too, Captain Quinn. He owed Baras a favor and I called it in when we were on Balmorra. He decided that he’d be doing a lot more for the Empire with me than anywhere else and, through copious amounts of bootlicking, managed to get himself assigned to my crew after I finished up there.”

 

“Oh.” That gave me pause. “A soldier? What’s he like?”

 

She shrugged. “He’s all right. It’s nice to have somebody to talk history and strategy with. Good medic. Excellent at filling out paperwork. He’s very good at handling all of the boring stuff about having one’s own ship and a tenuous connection to the Imperial military hierarchy.”

 

“So can we be as open around him as we are with Vette?”

 

“Nope. He’s pretty loyal to the Sith in general, and he…can be pretty okay with, say, committing war crimes in the name of military efficiency. ‘The ends justify the means’, and all that.”

 

“Oh.” I bit my lip. “Are they efficient?”

 

“Not usually,” she answered. “But a lot of people, both in the Empire and the Republic, like to think that they can be.”

 

Both of us stopped talking after awhile. I was still turning everything over in my head. There was a question I knew I had to ask. I also knew that I didn’t want to, and that Aly probably didn’t want to answer.

 

Eventually, obligation overrode everything else.

 

“Aly, I…when I saw your mind, went back through your life. You…um, some really bad things happened to you.” She’d stopped walking, and turned toward me, but I couldn’t meet her eyes. “I couldn’t tell exactly what was going on, just bits and pieces. But the feelings came through. That you were in so much pain, felt so helpless…”

 

She didn’t say a word.

 

Haltingly, I started again. “I mean, you’re my Master now. It can be one of the closest bonds somebody forms in their entire life. I just…I don’t want it to be the bormu in the room. I want to help. Even if you don’t think you need it.”

 

Aly finally spoke. “I know. I…” she trailed off. “I thought I had a better handle on it than I guess I did. I’m not ready to talk about it, not right now. But definitely in the next few days. I promise.”

 

I suddenly wanted to become very, very small. “I’m sorry, Aly.”

 

She forced a smile onto her face. “It’s not your fault. You’re right to be concerned. And look: I don’t see this as a traditional sort of Master and apprentice thing. We’re both going to learn a lot from each other. That means we’re both going to help each other. Your heart’s in the right place.”

 

“I think you’re going to be teaching me much more than the other way around,” I sighed.

 

This time her smile was real. “A great philosopher once said, ‘Is it what the teacher teaches, or what the student learns?’ She guided a man through hell, but in the end, she learned as much from him as he did from her. I don’t think I’ll ever be as great a teacher as she was, but I know I’ll be just as much a student of yours as she was a student of his.”

 

“Who was she? Jedi or Sith?”

 

Aly laughed. “Ah, ‘yes’, and ‘no’.”

 

“That…doesn’t make any sense.”

 

She kept smiling. “She liked to say that everything she said was a lie. Not because she said it with intent to deceive, although she did do that a lot. But because whatever she said was just words: they didn’t fully encompass the truth of something or someone, and never really could. She was Jedi, and she was Sith; she was both, and she was neither. She was herself.”

 

We started walking, but the conversation died down once again. Aly’d given me a lot to chew on.

 

After a few minutes, we finally reached something approaching a main road, within sight of Jiguuna’s town walls. The sounds of blaster fire and explosives, the unmistakable scent of ozone…this place was a war zone. Master Karr and I had landed far from Jiguuna for good reason. But other than “avoid this place”, I didn’t really know what was going on there.

 

Aly gave me a running commentary as we passed through cordons of motley guns-for-hire and Hutt enforcers. “This whole mess started out as a war between the local Hutt, Nem’ro, and his rival Fa’athra. Then it turned into a witch-hunt by Nem’ro and his goons to find ostensible traitors in their ranks. Now it’s a full-blown civil war.”

 

“Is there any way to stop it?” I murmured.

 

She slowed down. “The Empire wouldn’t much like if we intervened and started pissing people off. Nem’ro’s an Imp client and supplier now. It’d be an embarrassing way to blow our cover and it probably wouldn’t solve anything.”

 

I frowned. “It still doesn’t totally sit right with me.”

 

“That’s good to hear. Means you’re not a sociopath.”

 

“You’re not making me feel any better, Aly.”

 

She sighed. “Yeah, it’s cold comfort, I know. But there are always limitations. We can’t save everybody. Like as not, this would just end up a purposeless slaughter. That’d be even worse, right? ‘First, do no harm’, and all that.”

 

I didn’t respond, so she tried to elaborate. “We’re never going to be able to solve all the galaxy’s problems, and it’s going to be really difficult to solve much of anything while we’re in the Empire. We need to be smart about the things we do try to solve, and do it right. And, look, I don’t want to come across like your old Master. If somebody actually comes to us for help, we have to do what we can for them.”

 

That made me smile. “Even if it’s a trap?”

 

Especially if it’s a trap,” Aly chuckled.

 

After that, the talk turned to idle curiosities and chitchat. The sorts of food we liked, the pastimes we enjoyed. I hadn’t had many of the latter ever since joining the Jedi Order. I asked how my parents were doing, and what the deal was with them; apparently they were living not too far from Kaas City, enjoying a sedentary retirement as part of Baras’ retinue.

 

We met Vette at the Jiguuna spaceport, and settled in for the shuttle ride up to Aly’s ship. She gave me the rundown: she’d have to call Baras first to report mission success – “honestly, he acts like an overbearing mother” – and show me off. She didn’t expect me to have to talk much, but just get through the whole thing acting the part of the obedient apprentice. Then I could get settled in and move on with my life.

 

The only images I’d ever seen of Darth Baras dated back to the Treaty of Coruscant. He’d been a middle-aged, fit human male with thinning hair back then. When Aly made her holocall, though, the man who answered her looked like he’d, um, enjoyed the last few decades. And in the process, he’d made a lot of ice cream wholesalers very, very happy. His face was covered by a mask, although whether it was intended as a way to keep his visage fearsome or to keep himself from sneaking snacks constantly remained unclear. Maybe it was both.

 

“Apprentice, my soldiers informed me that you subdued Master Karr, but I’ve heard no further update. What has transpired? Where is Karr?” he boomed.

 

Aly did a credible imitation of a self-satisfied Sith smirk. “I left him there, a broken and empty shell.”

 

“I see,” muttered Baras dejectedly. “I had hoped to get my hands on him, but I suppose my imagination will have to suffice.” He seemed to brighten up. “Through the Force, I could feel some of his pain. It was a spectacular sensation.”

 

I felt a little sick, not just at how evil that was, but how ostentatious it was. With Sith like Baras around, it was easy to see where the holodramas got their cartoonishly cruel villains from. And most Sith were like Baras that way. I hadn’t really thought about how I’d need to blend in with that kind of person when I’d agreed to become Aly’s apprentice.

 

It definitely wasn’t going to be easy.

 

Baras turned toward me. “I see you have a new passenger. Jaesa Willsaam, I presume.”

 

I inclined my head respectfully, not trusting myself to speak.

 

The smirk hadn’t left Aly’s face. “What was your first clue?”

 

“I sense her devotion to you, apprentice. How ever did you manage that?” he said, his voice tinged with something approaching awe.

 

Devotion? I, um. I hadn’t really thought of it that way. Not that he was wrong, just…

 

“When will you realize that there is nothing I cannot accomplish?”

 

Baras turned back to Aly. “I’ll admit, this was more than I was expecting. There’s no denying you’re a master of the dark arts now.”

 

He gathered himself up – no small feat for an aging fat man – and projected his voice. “Only the most accomplished among us are named Lords of the Sith. You have more than earned the distinction. I hereby confer the title of Sith Lady upon you.”

 

Aly executed a half-bow. “You honor me.”

 

“Through your exemplary service, you honor yourself,” he said grandly. He briefly tilted his head toward Vette, then back. “I award a considerable stipend to those who attain such a rank in my service. Enjoy it. Celebrate as you see fit, then return to me here on Dromund Kaas.

 

“I have great plans for us.”

 

He cut the line, and I let my breath out. I’d barely done anything, and I still felt as though I’d dodged a blaster bolt. Baras hadn’t really even noticed me.

 

I was way too paranoid to be a spy.

 

Vette turned to Aly. “Wow, a Sith Lady. I’m impressed.”

 

A striking dark-haired man – Captain Quinn, I guess – spoke up stuffily from behind her. “Congratulations, my lady.”

 

Aly smiled. “You’ve both been a great help.”

 

Quinn straightened. “Service is its own reward.” He…well, his appearance conformed to most of the standby Imperial stereotypes: the pasty skin, immaculate uniform and hair, strong brow and jawline, and all that. But he had this weird beauty mark, or whatever you call an oddly placed mole on a guy, that distracted all attention from the rest of his face. And his voice made him sound like he constantly had a head cold.

 

“Yeah, what he said,” yawned Vette. She leaned against the acceleration couch and folded her arms. “I already got Jaesa’s quarters ready. I can go ahead and show her around.”

 

Aly raised an eyebrow-ridge. “Nice of you to assume some initiative.”

 

Vette grinned. “I’m here to help.” She stood up and beckoned. “Come on, Jaesa, let’s get set up.”

 

I turned back to my Master, took a deep breath. “Whenever you need me, my lady…whatever you order, I’ll be ready.”

 

She smiled broadly. “Don’t worry about it. Make yourself at home.”

 

I followed Vette out of the main hold, and listened attentively as she gave me an abbreviated tour of the ship before bringing me over to my room. She chattered on as though she wasn’t really expecting me to say anything back, and I obliged. I was still pretty new to everything, didn’t know much about her at all, didn’t know what to chat about…

 

“…oh, and we’re definitely going to have to go shopping for some clothes for you,” she said, peering critically at my Jedi robes. “You don’t exactly look the part of an evil Sith apprentice. We’ll need something dark, maybe with a hood, probably form-hugging and showing lots of skin because most Sith are dirty…”

 

She picked up on my expression of vague revulsion and giggled. “Hey, when on Korriban, do as the crazy lightning-throwers do, right?”

 

I forced out a laugh. “Sorry, it’s just…it’s a big change.”

 

“Yeah, but this one’s for the better,” she chirped. “You dumped the crazy hypocritical moral crusader and teamed up with our weird little family! That’s not so bad, right?”

 

“Not compared to some of the things you two have been through,” I said heavily, slumping down on my new bed. “I mean, you were a slave, and Aly…I’ve only got the tiniest idea about what she’s been through, but I can tell that even her scars have scars. And now I’m getting mopey about this?” I waved my hand around the room.

 

Vette sat down next to me. “Hey, hey, you don’t need to go all self-loathing here.” She didn’t need to be Force-sensitive to tell that that didn’t help much. “What’s bothering you, anyway? Is it that you don’t feel like you’re up to it?”

 

I nodded. “I want to be, but I just don’t know…”

 

“Aly thinks you are. She wanted to have you on the team a long time ago.”

 

“I know, but I don’t feel like…”

 

She crossed her arms, faux-seriously. “Are you calling my big sister a liar?” I couldn’t help but laugh.

 

Vette continued, “Look, I don’t have your crazy powers, but I saw what you guys were saying to each other on that slimy mudball. Aly thinks you’re the real deal, and she isn’t wrong about anything. Ever.”

 

“But what happens if I don’t live up to that?”

 

She shook her head. “You’re not going to change the way Aly thinks about you. She’s just going to trip over herself helping you however she can. You just gotta be who you are, and don’t worry about everything else. It’s a silly cliché, but it’s true.”

 

I guess I still looked like I was chewing it over, because she put her fingers near the corners of my mouth and pushed them upwards. “You know, ‘turn the frown upside down’, right?” She moved her fingers away, but I kept smiling.

 

“Besides,” she whispered conspiratorially, “you know what she’s been thinking about all this time? ‘Oh no, what if I suck at teaching, Jaesa’s going to hate me, so much pressure pressure pressure AAAAGH!’” She threw her hands up. “You guys just need to get over yourselves and just get down to the whole master-apprentice thing.”

 

Now I was laughing, too. “Okay, okay. I get it. You cheered me up. Anything else I need to know?”

 

Vette cocked her head. “Meh, not really. It’s not worth it to be nice to the droid, he never gets any less neurotic. Captain Boring is really easy to make fun of but Aly doesn’t like it if you poke him too much about serious stuff. Try asking him about ‘Broysc’, it’s hilarious to watch him squirm. Oh, and since you’re officially Sith now, I think you can do anything you like on Imperial worlds and they can’t get mad at you, so go wild!” She briefly mulled this last one over. “Uh, not that you’re the kind of person that goes wild or anything?”

 

I shrugged apologetically. “Not really.”

 

She jumped to her feet. “Oh well, maybe later. Hopefully Aly rubs off on you.” She giggled. “Get it?”

 

I just looked at her blankly.

 

“Wow, this is going to be fun. Bye, Jaesa!” With that, she skipped off down the corridor.

 

For a few moments, I just sat there, looking around the room. Then I sighed, and headed for the refresher to get ready for bed.

 

Oh.

 

Oh, that’s what she meant.

 

Eeeeeeeewwwwwww.

 

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Notes to Chapter V

 

Hey, more Latin! "Mvndvs inversvs" simply means "world turned upside down". This is the first of a few "Jaesa adapts to life with Aly's crew" chapters, so it seemed appropriate.

 

The quote is Greek this time, and comes courtesy of the Rome: Total War mod Europa Barbarorum. EB's creators thought that the image of classical history portrayed by RTW was inaccurate and Rome-centric, not affording much of a role to the so-called "barbarians" of Europe, the Hellenistic societies of the East, and so on. Hekastos allotrioi barbaros esti is the team's motto (the first person I remember articulating it is whoever uses the account "keravnos" on the Org forums, hence the attribution), and it simply means "everyone is a barbarian to someone" - a reminder that the Other isn't always that much of an other. I think it works pretty well as Jaesa first begins to experience being on the "wrong side" and looking at Sith and Imperials as people with lives and feelings of their own, too.

 

And yes, I mixed a Latin title with a Greek quote. Sue me.

 

It took me a bit to realize it, but I always found it incredibly strange that the Imperial soldiers stayed in the cave with the Warrior, Jaesa, and Karr even if you play as an LS Warrior. Wouldn't they report on the whole light side thing to Baras? So in the previous chapter, you'll notice that I had Aly dismiss the only soldier in the room shortly before the light side/dark side conversation starts. It's just one of those things.

 

This story is not about Quinn. It will never be about Quinn. He is a secondary character at best. I will not discuss the Quinncident or anything like that. Besides, that would destroy the main thing that sets this story apart from all the other Warrior fanfics on this subforum. Anyway, this story is about Jaesa, and it's about Aly. Not him. The fact that I have to mention Quinn and use him in the story doesn't mean I have to enjoy it. :p

 

For those with a passable knowledge of Star Wars lore, that "great philosopher" is Vergere, the man she taught is Jacen Solo, and Aly's making a reference to the events of Traitor, the best Star Wars book ever. Which, yes, takes place three and a half thousand years after this game. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. ;)

 

Darth Baras fat jokes never get old. Ever.

 

Yes, the Warrior's title is "Lord", not "Lady", even if you don't play as a guy. I hate this. So I changed it for the story. Lumiya was a Sith Lady; why can't a female Warrior or Inquisitor be the same? It's not like they can't make titles variable based on gender, because there's Flyboy and Flygirl. Same thing with how you're always addressed as "my lord" or "sir" in conversations. This sort of thing drives me insane. If I ever do a story about Aly's decidedly-less-LS Inquisitor counterpart, I'll have her zap anybody who tries to use masculine-gendered words to refer to her.

 

I always wondered how Jaesa instantly changed clothes from "demure Jedi Padawan robes" to "sheer, revealing Sith sex symbol robes". Pierce, Broonmark, Vette, and Quinn all wore the same clothing they had on when you recruited them.

 

Vette is clearly the sanest character on the Warrior's crew. Jaesa might get a lot of the more high-flown morality talk from Aly, but when it comes down to hard and fast solutions that come up in her daily life, Vette's actually better. (She also gives what I think is the most important lesson of the story in Chapter IX.) Hopefully I at least did her the courtesy of giving her enough funny lines to say. I decided early on that I was pretty much going to keep the "only one companion out at a time" thing intact from the game, with one or two salient exceptions. But the biggest drawback to that is that it meant I'd have less of an opportunity to let Jaesa act as Vette's straight woman, like she does here. Oh well.

 

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What an unrealistic Vette.

 

Clearly, she should have a funny quip in every second line.

 

 

Kidding, kidding. I quite like where you're taking this story. Just how far should I expect it to go?

Aaaaagh I have failed as a writer :(

 

But seriously, thanks for the comment. To keep one of this thread's motifs going, people talking about my story is like popcorn for the soul. :D

 

I've written most of the story already, but not all of it. (That's why the updates have been so fast thus far.) There're about twenty chapters, and it's going to go up partway through the Warrior's Chapter 2. I wanted to demonstrate Jaesa settling in, finding her place in Aly's crew, and then coming up against a big moral and physical challenge to cap it all off. I don't really want to say more than that because it'd give the game away. :p

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