Lots of juicy stuff in this chapter, hope you’ve been looking forward to it as much as I have! I had to break Nar Shaddaa in half so there’s more to come next time.
Inspiration track for this chapter is Inner Universe.
Part 5: Running and Drinking
Nar Shaddaa was filthy, packed and miserable. The crowds that trudged hopelessly through layer on layer of streets made it so easy for anyone to get shanked by anyone else. Refugees, former soldiers, thieves and thugs and Mandalorians staked out little empires, hiding amongst each other’s company, asking no questions and giving no answers. Glitbiters and spiceheads sprawled in doorways and alcoves, ignored even by the ignored. Enclosed by endless walls of skyscrapers, firmly under the thumb of the Hutts, a smoggy sky was all most of them could glimpse of a life beyond this place. The roads, coated in nameless substances, crunched and oozed beneath countless feet, and the very air felt like it was coated in desperate oil.
To Atton, it was the closest thing resembling home.
‘Home’ had once been Alderaan. A long, long time ago, in another life… A life too long and worthless to tell. Now this place, with its myriad fetid smells and copious blaster scoring, suited him far better. He could blend in here, hide here, never be found by friend or enemy. Every one of life’s needs and some of its more interesting pleasures were easy to hand. If he died here, no one would care. And that was all right.
It had been all right. He wasn’t convinced that it was anymore. And the reason was to do with a pair of absent-minded brown eyes smiling at him like he mattered again. She was dangerous. The longer he stayed, the more he wanted to stay, and the better the chances she would learn what he had been and kill him.
He should just leave, here – hop a ride to the other side of the planet and burrow into a hole somewhere. But if anyone could track him down, Kreia could, and her revenge wouldn’t necessarily take place immediately. If he ran he would never be safe again.
And more importantly, Selyn would probably fail without him around. She stood out here like a Rodian at a Gand convention – beautiful without flaunting overt sexuality, perfect upright warrior posture, lacking either a hunted or an arrogant expression. And it wasn’t like either Mical or Visas would be any help, they stood out as much as she did. Bao-Dur, maybe. The mouthy assassin droid, probably, or it would just draw more attention to her. Kreia didn’t stand out, but would she bother to help Selyn do the same? Probably not. So it was on him.
When they first touched down and she made for the docking ramp to go see what was out there, he stopped her in her tracks. “Where do you think you’re going, looking like that?”
She blinked at him, confused. “…Outside? What’s wrong with how I look?”
Jedi really needed to get out more. “In that shiny blue armour? With a lightsaber hanging from your belt? Nuh-uh, sweetheart, here that’s worse than painting targets on your naked chest in neon. At least if you did that, people would think you were high off spice or something.”
She folded her arms and frowned at him while Mical blushed in the background and Bao-Dur rolled his eyes. Visas made no sign as usual. “What do you suggest, then?”
“This is my home turf. I know how to help you blend in – although it’ll never be perfect. I’ll head out with Bao-Dur and get you all some nice scruffy clothes, all right?” He wondered if her Jedi Master was having problems like that. Although if he deliberately chose to come here, he couldn’t have been completely clueless about how to fit in. “I’ll be right back.”
“All right,” she said, but she wasn’t happy about it.
He wasn’t long, although he was tempted to beat the dockmaster over the head with his own cane – stupid Toydarian kept trying to make the Ebon Hawk put off again. After he spent two hours finding this parking spot.
He brought her clothes, practical, pre-dirtified, and not very feminine. Stars knew he could have brought her lingerie, it wasn’t hard to come by if you knew where to look, but that would have served no one’s purposes but his own. The way she accepted the clothes without comment and disappeared immediately to change into them made him wonder what her reaction would have been if he did bring lingerie.
She reappeared in a plain brown tunic with a black leather jacket over top; red pants and knee-high boots encased her legs. He looked at her, evaluating whether she should wear a hat or helmet to cover her hair at all.
“Better?” she asked, noticing his stare.
“A little,” he answered. “Hide your lightsaber inside the jacket- yes. …It’ll never be perfect. You don’t stand or move like a local.”
“What do you mean?” Mical asked in that annoying earnest way of his. To him, Selyn could never be anything less than perfect, it seemed, and no one was allowed to criticize her in any way. Brat.
“You’re even worse,” he told him. “Everything about you screams ‘Republic soldier, please shoot me’. The best you can do right now is slouch a little.”
“And pretend that I’m you?” Mical demanded derisively.
“I’m still alive,” Atton reminded him, and turned back to Selyn. “So what’s the game plan, princess?”
“It does not matter where we go,” Kreia interrupted in a low voice. “If what we seek is here, we shall come upon it in due time.”
“Thanks, your crypticness,” he muttered.
In the end, Selyn, Kreia, Atton, and both droids left the ship together, while the others stayed behind, at least for the time being. It didn’t take long for Selyn to start trying to help people, especially those who asked her for help. Didn’t she know what a panhandler was? Especially with that ‘I’m a newcomer, fleece me for all I’ve got’ aura she had.
Kreia also took a dim view of this, surprisingly, but for different reasons. “Why do you do such things? Such kindnesses mean nothing, their paths are set. Giving them what they have not earned is like pouring sand into their hands.”
Thoughts flicked across Selyn’s face too fast for him to read before she settled on a slight, pained frown. “How are their paths set? I cannot see their future, and maybe I’ve given them a little hope for another day.”
Oh, wow. She really believed that, too. No, they’d just rob her over and over and then do the same to the next person to fall for it. Maybe not all of them were bad. But enough were that helping all of them was useless.
“And would that be a kindness?” Kreia asked sharply. “What if by surviving another day, that one brings a greater darkness upon another?” Yeah, what if someone killed Exar Kun as a baby? “The Force binds all things. The slightest push, the smallest touch, sends echoes throughout life. Even an act of kindness may have more severe repercussions than you can know or see. By giving them what they have not earned, perhaps all you have helped them become is a target. Seeing another elevated often brings the eyes of those who suffer. And perhaps in the end, all you have wrought is more pain.”
Selyn was silent, her own pain rising in her eyes.
“And that is my lesson to you. Be careful of charity and kindness, lest you do more harm with open hands than with a clenched fist.”
“I… cannot believe that, not yet,” Selyn said slowly. “But I will think on it.”
“Good,” Kreia said. “Do so. Use your power, but in its proper place.”
“I just feel… there’s a hunger in the air. I don’t like it.” They were in a space between buildings, and the roads wrapped around the buildings, leaving a deep, deep open pit between them, and Selyn paused to look into it. Don’t fall in, please.
“It is Nar Shaddaa, the true Nar Shaddaa, that you feel around you,” Kreia said. Not creepy at all. “It is the moon, with the metal and machines stripped away and the currents of the Force laid bare. I am surprised you can feel it. I feared the damage to you had deadened you to such perceptions… What you feel is the echo of the minds of these creatures within the Force. Their anger… their greed… their desperation. It is life.”
“It is not like life elsewhere,” Selyn said, as if that was just a thing people said. Also creepy. What was he doing with two creepy Jedi women again? “Is there not some way to heal this pain and desperation? Visas’s master destroyed an entire world through the Force. Is there a way to do the opposite?” Okay, that was beyond creepy and going into nuts.
“One might as well heal the universe… but such manipulation is possible, yes. It requires that one feel the critical point in the fractured mass… and know how to strike it such that the echoes travel to your intended destination.” That sounded crazy. And impossible.
“But I don’t want to manipulate,” Selyn objected.
“Then you have learned nothing,” Kreia said, harshly. “Healing is manipulation, and if you do not realize it yet, then you will discover that an act of healing depends largely on your perspective. Manipulation is done through propelling events… or selected ones… into motion. It is done through teaching, through example, and through conviction.” Basically, everyone manipulates everyone else, all the time. Yep, that sounds about right. Especially the old bat herself. “And the greatest of victories are not manipulations at all, but simply awakening others… to the truth of what you believe.”
“Query: Did you have acquaintance with my former Master? Because that sounds oddly familiar,” the rusty HK unit that followed Selyn asked. Kreia ignored it. Selyn seemed lost in thought.
…And then five minutes later, she was doing it again, saving a guy from getting shaken down by the local gang or whatever.
Kreia was silent, so he guessed it was his turn to try. “I guess the Jedi code is still alive and well,” he commented, a little sarcastically. “You know, there are a lot of people who need help in this galaxy. If we stop to help each one, the Sith are going to be on us faster than anything.” Come on, sweetheart. You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t try to help, but be a bit more guarded about it, all right?
That seemed to make more sense to her than Kreia’s chaos theory argument. Ha! Score one for Atton! And still ninety-three for Kreia. Frak.
It didn’t take long to learn that every bounty hunter in the system was hunting Jedi… and Selyn wasn’t going to go unnoticed for long. She tried not to worry about it, but Zez Kai-Ell would not be easy to find here, and the more bounty hunters came after her, the more potential for collateral damage. Kreia – and Atton – might not want her interfering to help people, for various reasons, but she couldn’t in good conscience allow them to be hurt or killed, either. Her very presence put them in danger. She should have stayed in the Unknown Regions… but who would stop the Sith, then? Would Vrook or Vash figure something out? Maybe Kavar would have.
Atoning was hard. Life was complicated. She needed to deal with it and keep going without complaining. If she was a sponge for all the hurts of the Force, then that was her role in life.
They’d managed to make a loop of the closest neighbourhood and return to the Ebon Hawk unscathed, which Atton seemed to consider a miracle, when they saw a human man leaning against the entrance to their landing pad.
“Sithspit, what is it now?” Atton swore. “I thought I got the Toydarian off our backs.”
“Hey, I saw the ship you flew in on,” the man called out as they got closer. “That’s my ship.”
“Lay off the spice, buddy,” Atton told him. “That’s our ship, not yours.”
“Was I talking to you?” the man snapped, and turned back to Selyn. How he recognized she was the leader, she wasn’t sure, but it made things easier. “I tell you, that ship’s mine. The Ebon Hawk? Yeah, she was stolen from me during a routine Mid-Rim run near the close of the Mandalorian Wars. The registration’s 34-P7JK. She’s got a temperamental hyperdrive, and the turrets can be sluggish and unresponsive against fast-moving fighters. She’s also got two secret compartments: one’s in the back of the cargo hold, and the other’s beneath the bunks in the starboard cabin.”
She tried not to look surprised. What was she supposed to do with her face on Nar Shaddaa? From the way Atton talked, she wasn’t supposed to show any emotion at all, or it would make her a target. “That’s all correct, although I didn’t know about the cabin compartment.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Atton said, taking a step forward. “He didn’t have to get that information from owning the ship. He’s skifting us.”
“Statement: Master, this meatbag is tiresome and demanding. Request: May I put a blaster bolt in his skull?”
“Hush, HK,” she said. “I do not have the means to offer to buy the ship from you, so I will return it to you.”
“What!?” Atton exclaimed. “It’s our ship! I mean, your ship! That I fly! Do you know how hard it is to find working space-worthy ships here?” T3 also blatted indignantly.
She looked at Kreia, who only said: “It may take some time to discover what you seek here.”
“Yes, I will return it to you,” she said to the man. “What is your name?”
“None of your business, but it’s Derren Krald. Good to hear you aren’t going to challenge it, that makes things a lot easier. I’ll be going now, but I’ll be back in an hour. I want you and your stuff off there by then.” He began to walk away.
“Lemme shoot him in the back, no one has to know,” Atton seethed.
She put a hand on his arm to try to calm him down, and to her surprise, he subsided quickly. But the Smuggler’s Moon was bringing out a sharper side to Atton than she’d seen before. If that was who he’d had to be to survive here, it was understandable, but she liked him better when he didn’t have to be.
They gathered what few possessions they had and exited the ship. Only Mical seemed pleased with her decision, although neither Visas nor Kreia seemed to care. Atton grumbled constantly, but she could see him thinking at the same time, trying to figure out where they would go next, where they would stay, how they would get new transportation when it was time to leave. She regretted that her decision was burdening him with so much responsibility that he didn’t want.
They were in the Refugee Sector, where they went wasn’t important. There were possibilities.
Krald returned, and with a cool nod to them, disappeared inside the landing pad’s gate.
A few minutes later, before they’d finished sorting their bags outside, a whole troop of Trandoshans appeared, marching purposefully towards the same landing pad.
“I don’t like the look of that,” Bao-Dur said. “They look like slavers. That other fellow did not.”
“So he was in trouble with slavers,” Atton grunted. “No wonder he wanted the ship so badly.”
To stay, and help someone who had done nothing for them, or to leave, and leave him to a horrible fate? What kind of choice was that? “We should help him.”
The three men on her team stared with various degrees of disbelief. “What?” Mical asked. “I mean, you’re right, but…”
“Clarification: I believe what your meatbag fanboy is attempting to say is: it is only that meatbag’s just reward for taking the ship from us in the first place.”
“No, no, I didn’t mean that!” Mical cried, flushing red.
Selyn held up a hand for peace. “I didn’t give him the ship just so that he could get captured by slavers.”
“Or get the ship captured by slavers,” Atton muttered. T3 booped in agreement. “Shut up, trash-can.”
She gestured. “Let’s go, then.” They followed her.
The slavers discerned their intent, and without any attempt at speaking, opened fire on them. Selyn had a blaster as part of her ‘not standing out’ gear, and she used it instead of her lightsaber. The violet glow would draw the bounty hunters to them like flies.
But once the landing pad door shut behind them, once they’d reached the loading ramp of the Ebon Hawk, it sprang to life in her hand and several of the slavers flinched back from it. It didn’t save them.
A bigger Trandoshan than the rest stomped towards them. “You dare trespass on the territory of the Red Eclipse? You will suffer no better than this thief here!” He gestured to a crumpled body on the floor by the holoprojector.
“I don’t know who the Red Eclipse is, and I don’t care,” Selyn answered, saber pointed at him. “This ship belonged to him, and therefore he was under my protection. But if you leave now, I will not kill any more of you.”
The Trandoshan laughed and fired on her. She deflected it and charged the nearest underling, Visas behind her with her vibrosword.
It was a short, violent fight, and ended with Trandoshan bodies littered everywhere. HK had been in his element, charging into the thick of the fight after her and shooting enemy after enemy with wild war whoops, even after his head got punched off.
She knelt beside the body of the Ebon Hawk’s former owner. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. Maybe Kreia was right, that ‘good’ deeds only brought grief – but she couldn’t know that. No one could know that.
But in the meantime, a man was dead because she tried to do the right thing… She’d failed to save another one…
It took a long time for anything to happen, but surprisingly, he didn’t mind, though some of the others were getting cranky at no obvious progress. Apparently their plan for finding her missing Jedi was… well, they didn’t have a plan for that. They had several other plans, the main one involving ‘ticking off the local mafia until the bounty hunters came and brought Selyn to Goto – the one who had put a bounty on Jedi – and take him out, thereby eliminating the bounty on Jedi and convincing the local Hutt to supply fuel to Telos in one fell swoop’. Easy, right? Not at all.
It had been days already, but like he’d said, he didn’t mind. The most important reason was seeing Selyn act like a normal person. After a few more arguments, Kreia had backed off and let Selyn act as she pleased among the refugees packed into shanty towns made of shipping crates, though not without parting words of mumbo-jumbo.
But Selyn was actually sort of happy, for whatever reason, giving medpacks to sick people, finding lost kids, whatever. She almost seemed to glow when she was helping people, a veritable angel among the dim recesses and alleys of this desperate world. She was upset for them and their pitiful state, sure, but apparently she felt like she was doing good work, even if Kreia and he both kind of thought it was a waste. He was just happy she didn’t go around looking sad all the time for once. She was too pretty to do that, and she just had to blame herself for everything that went wrong, even though it was hardly ever her fault. Kreia’s influence, no doubt. That woman was not good for the mental health. Not that he knew much about mental health.
But no matter where she went, what she did, who she talked to, her small figure was always straight and confident… and heavy, as if she was carrying the galaxy on her slender shoulders, all alone. Just put it down, he wanted to tell her. Let the galaxy take care of itself. Which would have been awfully hypocritical, the way he dragged around his own baggage, nursed it in that guilty hole in his heart.
At least they got to eat not on the ship, for once, which was a nice change, even if it was greasy fast food from a hole-in-the-wall stall. Even the presence of whoever else was hanging out with her that day didn’t annoy him as much as it usually did.
“So, what do you do for fun when you’re not saving the world, blaming yourself for not saving the world, or hanging out with us losers?” he asked as they perched on stools at the noodle stand. “I know it’s not pazaak.” She was awful at pazaak. T3 was a better player than she was. Scratch that, T3 was a better player than he was, and he hated losing to a droid. Also, she lost her cards.
“We’re not on Nar Shaddaa to have fun, no one comes to Nar Shaddaa to have fun,” Mical objected.
“Shut up, blondie, I wasn’t talking to you.” He turned expectantly to Selyn.
“Don’t be so rude to Mical,” she said calmly.
“Yes, Mom,” he teased her saucily. “C’mon, what do you do?”
“No one’s asked me that in forever,” she said, laughing a little. Score! A laugh! But she was clearly getting her thoughts in order. “Well… observing the universe. Reading. Training. I’m better at dejarik, but I know you hate it.”
“Training’s not for fun, you do that all the time.”
“Reading? What kind of reading?” Of course that would get the kid’s attention.
“Is it the naughty stuff?” He leaned over to bump her with his shoulder. She blushed.
“Atton!” Mical exclaimed, scandalized. “She’s not you!”
“C’mon, even ex-Jedi need an outlet. But you’re right, she’s too pure and saintly to even think about that.” He ladled sarcasm into his words as thickly as he ladled sauce over his noodles.
“No,” Selyn said, regaining composure. “It’s not naughty stuff.” She paused. “It’s filthy stuff.”
Both he and Mical almost fell off their seats, and she giggled. Honest to goodness, she giggled.
He pointed his chopsticks at her, having managed not to spit-take his food, and talked with his mouth full. “That is an outrageous lie. You can’t fool me. You’ve never touched that kind of thing in your life.”
She giggled again, nodding.
“So what do you read?” Mical insisted, and he rolled his eyes. Kid had a one-track mind.
“Oh, natural history, historical fiction, adventures… that kind of thing. There have been some really lovely stories about Nomi Sunrider. Before I left known space, I downloaded as much as I could.”
“If I manage to track down a copy of The Adventures of Jolee Bindo, I’m giving it to you,” Mical promised. “Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and I’ve heard enough about Bindo to believe it of him.”
She smiled and thanked him. Argh, dumb blond, sucking up to her.
“So you didn’t expect exile to be very interesting then.” He braced himself a little, wondering how sensitive that subject was.
She looked down at her bowl. “Well, just in case. And it’s true, after a while I left them alone. Surviving on my planet, exploring my planet, that was interesting enough.”
“You were on a deserted planet?”
“As far as I know. I don’t know what planet it was, or where it was, or how to get back there. I just knew it was a good place to put the past behind me… and think. Or distract myself from thinking.” She trailed off, face growing still.
Frak, make a distraction. “And now you’re surrounded by billions of sentients on one of the most metropolized planets in the galaxy, and there’s no chance for you to use your no-doubt epic bushwhacking wilderness survival skills here.” He shook his head mock-sadly. “Not to mention, all these sentients and you’ve still only met one attractive man in all of them.”
She looked at him. “I’ve met several, you know.”
He wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or disgruntled, especially with Mical perking up on her other side. “Well, hell. My infallible plan to seduce you with my ineffable bachelor status and become King of the Jedi has failed, hasn’t it. That’s how it works, right?”
Mical facepalmed.
She giggled in disbelief. “Your what?”
He had to grin at her lopsidedly. “Just running my mouth, sweetheart.” But hey, he liked it when she showed a personality. It reminded him that she was mortal, not just a focal point for the past, present, and future, not just a broken figurehead for everything the Jedi stood for. Hopefully it reminded her, too.
Dinner finished, they paid and went on their way. She took the lead as usual, gliding along the alleys with effortless, tragic grace. He watched her back, watched her as if she’d disappear like a ghost into the ether.
Then one day, his world shattered.
She was walking through the refugee sector again, nodding at the people who recognized her. Atton had relaxed a bit about her safety in this area and wasn’t spending as much time glued to her side as before – not that she minded him being there! He’d been very helpful ever since they’d arrived, and he seemed to know just what to say to make her laugh. True, he was still rougher, harder-edged than she’d seen him be before, but in this place there wasn’t anyone better to come with her.
The other one who she liked to have along was Bao-Dur. He was so compassionate for the people here, especially for the children. He liked them, and they liked him. Whenever he went back to the ship, he and his remote built them toys from scrap parts to bring on their next visit. He let them swing on his prosthetic arm, and woe betide the Exchange thug who tried to harass a child while he was around.
Her heart ached for the people here. Packed in like cattle, subsisting on scraps, preyed upon by all of the groups that hemmed them in on all sides… it was no way for sentient beings to live. At least they were still alive… But some of them had been trapped there since the Mandalorian War. She hadn’t fought that war, hadn’t sold her soul, so these people could exchange one hopeless future for another. But there wasn’t much she could do about it. And that, too, was life. There would always be impoverished, neglected beings everywhere in the galaxy. There was a reason why the word ‘utopia’ was made of words that meant ‘no place’ in three ancient dialects…
“Psst, human! Over here!” A Twi’lek waved her over.
“We have something to sell you! Information!” the other Twi’lek said.
She looked back at Atton and Visas and nodded at them to let them know she’d be all right, then followed the Twi’leks. “How much is it?” She was running a little low on credits, and had been bartering a few odds and ends from around the Ebon Hawk to keep going.
“Actually, no charge,” said the first Twi’lek. “You’ve helped so many here, we thought you just ought to know.”
“Your companion, the dark-haired human male, we have seen him here before. That one came to the Smuggler’s Moon years into the Jedi Civil War, claimed he was displaced by the war.”
“Don’t trust him. He is no soldier. He is a killer, to the core.”
Selyn blinked and rocked back, her heart racing irrationally. “That’s- Atton? But- No. He has done nothing to betray me, and not for lack of opportunity.” At least, she thought so. She was good at fighting, but so was he, maybe not enough to take her in a fair fight, but she did not raise her guard to him. But her other companions were with them constantly, especially Mical, who trusted Atton as much as Atton trusted Mical, and it would have been difficult for him to get away afterwards – until now. No, Nar Shaddaa was the best place yet for him to kill her, and he had only been more attentive to her safety than ever. She trusted him.
“His name is not ‘Atton’,” said the second Twi’lek. “Please, we don’t want you to get stabbed in the back.”
“How do you know?” Selyn asked, still shaken.
“How do you not know?” returned the Twi’lek. “You are the Jedi, aren’t you? It is less easy to see now than it was then, but the way he moves, the darkness about him, the hardness in him, these are all signs. We can’t prove it to you. But if you ask him, please be careful.”
“I will,” Selyn said. “…Have a good day.”
She waited until they got back to the ship in the evening, where he vanished into the cockpit which was practically where he lived, and then followed him.
“Hey, sweetheart, come to play pazaak?”
The nickname no longer embarrassed her, but it would still have made her smile if not for the cold fear in her heart at what she was about to do. Atton had been with her since the beginning of her journey in known space, her closest friend here and now. If he turned on her… would she be able to forgive herself? “Not… really. Atton, I met someone today.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “You meet thousands of people here, every day.”
“They said they knew you.”
He snorted sarcastically, smirking at her. “Oh yeah? Did they say I owed them credits, too?”
She braced herself, clenching her hands together where she sat in the co-pilot’s seat facing him. “They said your name didn’t use to be Atton, that you came here during the Jedi Civil War.”
He flinched, and his face darkened with anger. “I’m as Atton as Atton will be, and yeah, your ‘trusted informant’ is right, I did come here during the Jedi Civil War! Me and a lot of other refugees! Is that a problem?”
Her heart was pounding. “I-I’m sorry- I just wanted to know-” What to say that wouldn’t make him angrier? Telling him that the Twi’leks had claimed he was a hardened killer certainly wouldn’t help. And there was enough pain mixed into his anger that she believed more than ever he never wanted to hurt her.
“Is this an interrogation? Because it’s a really terrible one, especially for an ex-Jedi. Why don’t you just crawl in my head and try to dig out whatever you’re looking for rather than asking about it?”
“I- I wouldn’t-”
He snorted derisively. “Don’t lie. All Jedi do. You know what? Not once have I asked you about the Mandalorian Wars. Not once. I heard about Dxun. Everyone has. I heard about Serroco, and I sure as hell know about Malachor V. What makes you think you’ve got the right to interrogate me on anything? You’ve got plenty of lives to answer for – all you Jedi do.”
The Twi’leks weren’t wrong – there was something there. But that wasn’t what defined him now. Was it? “I know.”
It was all pouring out now. “How did you even live with yourself after Malachor? Is that why you went back to the Jedi Council? Hoping they’d kill you? Maybe you thought they’d forgive you – sure, you might have thought they’d execute you. But Jedi don’t kill do they? At least not their prisoners. Maybe you were counting on it when you went back in chains.” He paused for breath. “So you got off easy – you were exiled, brushed under the cargo ramp, another dirty little Jedi secret. I’ll tell you – all those Jedi at Malachor?”
She sat very still, her gaze frozen on his smouldering grey eyes, as if any move she made might shatter her. These words were made to hurt her, and they wounded her deeply.
“They deserved it. Every last one of them.”
“They did not deserve it,” she struggled out. Atton, please, don’t be cruel in your pain. “No one deserved it.”
“They did,” he snarled. “You know why? Because Jedi lie. And they manipulate. And every act of ‘charity’ and ‘kindess’ they do, you can drag it out squirming into the light to see what it really is. The Jedi… the Sith… you don’t get it, do you? To the galaxy, they’re the same thing: just men and women with too much power, squabbling over religion while the rest of us burn. At least the Sith are honest about what they’re killing for. The Jedi are pacifists… except in times of war. They’re teachers… except when it comes to telling their students the truth.”
He slumped back in the pilot’s seat, his words finally spent. His eyes were tired and hurt and sad, none of their usual light in them. She sat frozen, staring at him, and he watched her, as if wary of her next move.
There was a lot here to absorb, and she closed her eyes to focus on it. How much of what he said was true? A lot of it. Maybe not all of it, not from her point of view, but a lot of it.
She opened her eyes. He was still there, still watching her. “What happened to you?”
“Me?” He seemed surprised, maybe surprised that she was still talking to him. “What, to make me hate Jedi?”
Did he hate her? It hadn’t felt like it. “Yes.”
His gaze fell to the floor. “I have this habit – I’m a deserter. It’s what I do.”
“You served the Republic?” she guessed.
“I did. Up until the Republic officers began to ‘betray’ their oaths to the Republic and side with Revan – Admiral Karath, Mon Halan, General Derred, and all the rest. Right after that final battle at Malachor, I was right there with the rest of the defectors, because it was the right thing to do.” He paused. “But it was more than that. You were there, you must have seen how easy it was to hate the Jedi who sat back in the Republic ‘evaluating’ the threat… and watched us die against the Mandalorians. The Mandalorians were slaughtering us by the millions. The millions. You were at Serroco, when they turned the Stereb cities into glass craters. At Duro, when basilisk war droids rained like meteors onto the orbiting cities, and when the Mandalorians set fire to the Xoxin Plains on Ereb III – the fires that still burn. Without the Jedi who turned on the Council – without you, the Republic would have lost the war, and we’d all be either Mandalorian slaves or corpses.”
“So you became Sith.”
“If that’s what you want to call knowing when to fight and when to kill, then yes, but you can’t really break down people into Sith and Jedi and expect everything to make sense.” His voice softened, as soft now as it had been harsh before. “We were loyal to Revan. She saved us. That was enough.”
They both sat in silence for a moment before he went on. “After Malachor, after the Mandalorian Wars, that’s when the Sith teachings started spreading through the ranks. We knew where our loyalties lay – to the Jedi who came to help us, not the ones who sat back on Dantooine and Coruscant, watching us die. So when those same Jedi who watched us die decided to start fighting us during the Jedi Civil War, we fought back. I fought back.”
“You fought Jedi?” she asked, not really shocked, maybe a little surprised. Atton was good, but she hadn’t thought he was that good.
“No. I didn’t fight Jedi.” He paused for a long time, and seemed to be bracing himself the way she had at the beginning of the conversation. His eyes flicked up and met hers. “I killed them.”
There was no emotion there. Anything he felt was completely walled off, so much that those eyes appeared dead. “People say killing Jedi is hard. It’s not, you just have to be smart about it. No blasters, no getting close to them, no attacking them directly when you can gun down their allies instead. There’s ways of gassing them, drugging them, making them lose control, torturing them. I was really good at it.” His voice sank even lower. “What’s worse, is that killing them wasn’t the best thing. Making them fall… making them see our side of it, that was the best.”
Kreia had said something similar when she was talking about manipulation. The similarities frightened her. Selyn had turned to the viewport, not really seeing it or the view beyond it, but unable to face him and the past he loathed. His voice was as cold as his eyes, droning on relentlessly.
“When fighting a Jedi, you wound the Padawan first, then let the rest take care of itself. Not only will the master move to protect the student, but the Force bond between the two will mess up the master’s head better than any stab wound. If there’s no whiny Padawan around, start shooting innocents – not to kill, just enough that they’re going to die unless the Jedi does something to save them. And if any Jedi is stupid enough to use their Makashi form against you, start shooting as fast as you can until you drop them while they’re exposed. Set mines. Set a lot of them. Fire gas grenades, but make sure they have magnetic lock targetters so the Jedi can’t force-push them back.” His voice softened again. “I’m not telling you to hurt you. I’m only telling you because you need to know, so you can protect yourself, because I guarantee the people who trained me are not the only ones to think of these.”
True. She nodded numbly and forced herself to speak. “Wouldn’t they sense you?” But Kreia had said once that he was hard to read.
“I taught myself… techniques. It’s hard for Jedi to sense what you’re really thinking if you throw up walls of strong emotions and feelings. Lust, impatience, cowardice… most Jedi awareness doesn’t cruise beyond the surface feelings, to see what’s deeper. And I was good at that, throwing up walls, and my superiors knew it. Sometimes the Jedi on our side wouldn’t even realize I was there.”
“That’s why Kreia says you act like a fool, isn’t it.”
“Part of it. Maybe it was always me. It’s hard to tell sometimes. I haven’t known who I am for years.” That made two of them.
“I know you left at the Mandalorian Wars, so you don’t know much about what went on behind the scenes in the Jedi Civil War. But Revan understood one thing – the real battle was going to be fought between the Jedi on both sides. That was the only battle that mattered. Whoever had the most, the strongest Jedi were going to win the Civil War. If Revan couldn’t convert Jedi, then she would kill them. So she trained elite Sith units into assassination squads, whose duty was to go out and capture enemy Jedi. I was in one of the special units trained to do this. I led it. Revan had plans for all the Jedi. I think it was important to her that the Jedi see her side of things, the Sith teachings. She wanted to break them. And then have them join her.”
She was silent. Revan had changed much from the beginning of the war up until Malachor V, but she had become even more ruthless afterward, it seemed. Well, Sith were supposed to be ruthless. Had she ever truly known Revan? Their friendship felt more like a passing acquaintance now. She hadn’t seen the fall. She had left the military right after Malachor, before any of the other Jedi… and now it seemed that she was the only Jedi to do so.
“I know what you’re thinking: ‘why are you telling a Jedi you killed Jedi’? Well… I’ve been with you only a short time, enough to know that as soon as someone signs on with you, they haven’t got long to live. You got history, and anyone who travels with you doesn’t. And maybe I want somebody to know who I was in case a story needs to be set straight. Maybe you understand.”
She wanted to save people, not drag them to their deaths. Was he speaking the truth here, or was it his own hopeless fatalism?
The silence dragged on, engulfing them in nervous contemplation. He had turned to look out the viewport as well, away from her. His fingers tapped gently on the edge of the console. Hers were wrapped around her knees.
“How did you leave the Sith?” she asked quietly.
She heard him swallow. “A… a woman. A Jedi. She… she gave her life for mine. I never knew her name. She sought me out. She said she had come to save me. She was lying, of course – or I think she was. It doesn’t matter – she told enough truth to get my attention. She said that Revan was doing something terrible to Jedi within the Unknown Regions. That when we captured Jedi, they were sent to a place designed to… break them. And that anyone in her service who showed any ability with the Force was sent there, too, to turn them, to break them into Dark Jedi… or assassins trained to kill Jedi. She said that’s what would happen to me – that I had the Force inside me, that’s why I was so good at killing Jedi. And that when the Sith learned of it, there would be no escape, no turning back. I would become an instrument of the Dark Side, forever. I had heard talk in the ranks, troops vanishing. I knew what she meant, but I didn’t believe her – or want to believe her.”
He swallowed again. “I did what I did with all Jedi. I hurt her. I hurt her a lot. And then, right when I thought she couldn’t take anymore – she showed me the Force. In my head. And I felt everything she felt, and I heard just an echo of what the Force was. And how what I was doing…”
He stopped, his voice choked up. “I-I think I loved her, but it wasn’t that kind of love. It was the kind of love where you’re willing to give up everything for someone you don’t even know. …I killed her for crawling in my head, for showing me that. But before she opened her mind to mine, my only thought was that I would love to kill her. And in the end… I killed her because I loved her.”
“In the end, she sacrificed herself to keep my secret, to prevent the Sith from knowing about that touch of the Force inside me. She wasted her life to save me. Me. And I felt her die, when she opened her mind. I’ve killed Jedi like I said, but I was never there to feel it, to be on the receiving end.”
“So I left them, too. I left my family, I left the Republic, I left the Sith… I don’t want to leave you.”
She couldn’t tell him that he wouldn’t. He knew himself far better than she did. She didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t anything to say to make it feel better, only to show him that she wasn’t going to abandon him for his past. He wasn’t lost to darkness.
“You’ve heard it all,” he said, tiredly. “All the ugly, twisted stuff that I did, the… monster that I was. And you haven’t kicked me out yet. Why?”
“Because who you are is not who you were.” She lowered her voice, as if speaking to herself. “I know that as well as anyone. I think we are a lot like, in many ways.”
“Maybe.”
“You are strong in the Force,” she said. “You felt it once. I know you hate Jedi, but…”
“You think I could learn to use it?”
“You could.”
“I have been thinking about it,” he admitted. “That if I knew, if I learned, maybe I could help protect you. Or at least buy you some time when disaster comes screaming in. …I… I want to learn how to use the Force. I want to learn how to use the Force to protect you.”
“Then I will train you, Atton.” I don’t want you to leave, either.
She felt fear drain from his body, replaced by slightly nervous anticipation. “What must I do? Is there… some kind of ritual, or something…”
“No ritual,” she reassured him. “Close your eyes. Be calm and still. Listen to your breath, to the echo of your thoughts, of your heart, separated from war, separated from hate.” In the Force, she reached out to cradle the light of his spirit, nurturing it, strengthening it. “Think of what you felt when you felt the need to help me, to protect me.” How to go on? This was second nature to her, even after ten years of exile. Explaining it was difficult. “Listen to the city around us, its currents and eddies.” Just a little more, and a touch of her mind would do it. “Awaken.”
He sighed deeply, relaxed but upright in his seat, and his mind turned towards her. “Selyn, I- you- it’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”
“It is beautiful,” she said, skipping over the second part. “Try to hold on to that. The Force is Life, and Life is beautiful, even when it doesn’t seem like it.” Don’t listen to Visas.
She wasn’t prepared for him to open his eyes, turn towards her, reach out and take her hand in his across the central console. Or that his eyes would be so serious and earnest. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, feeling oddly shy.
“Do you know, you’re so warm, like the sun, in the Force,” he said, and stroked her knuckles once with his thumb. “Thank you for showing me.”
Her heart was suddenly beating fast. “You’re welcome. …Your homework is to feel the Force, to just get used to it being there for you. Don’t try to use it yet. It’s a dangerous time to trust yourself to it too much.” He was still holding her hand, and for some reason she couldn’t pull away. She guessed she didn’t want to.
A lop-sided grin was her answer. “No super-powers on day one, huh. That’s fine. Wasn’t expecting that. What about a lightsaber? I know you bought a couple at the junk-sellers.”
“Soon. There’s so much to show you, and I’m not sure how much time we have. I’ll do my best.”
“I will too.” He finally let go of her hand. “So… I should get to my homework. Not that I don’t want you around, but-” As she stood to go, he turned suddenly to look around at her. “S-Selyn. You’re… not mad about… all the things I said? Really?”
“Really,” she said. “I’m not unscathed, and it’s a lot to take in, but… it must have felt good to let it out, right?” Almost impulsively, she reached out to touch his shoulder. “Your past has shaped you as mine has shaped me, but who you were is not who you are. It’s Atton I will train to be a Jedi, not… whoever you were.”
“…Jaq,” he said, very quietly. “I was Jaq.”
“And now you are Atton. Like you said. And… you don’t hate me, right? Even though I’m a Jedi?”
He took her hand from his shoulder and kissed it, and she stiffened in surprise. “You… I could never hate you.” But he let her go, and with another half-smile turned his chair back to the viewport. “Good night, sweetheart.”
“G-good night,” she murmured, and turned to go. Her hand was warm, her face was warm.