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| {{WIP}}
| | #REDIRECT [[Revan Saga]] |
| {{Universe|Xanadu}}
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| {{title
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| |name=Revan Saga Part Five
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| |author=Joysweeper
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| |user=Joysweeper}}
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| {{author endnote|''I'm trying to desensitize myself to certain things. You see, I plan to work up to including an antagonistic something from the Over-18 Hall in the future, but at present, my mind blanches away from what I need to write. That's the reasoning for why this story's antagonist is... um... sexy. Oh, do I have work to do...''}}
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| ''There’s something here, something I need to do.'' Leaving the little room and the puzzled David, I looked one way, then another. The helmet was off, as were the long Sithlike robes, so I was unimpeded. Even so, I wasn’t sure… where… which way… there was just so ''much'' here, so much that I could do, it made it hard to focus on just ''where''…
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| Someone was always attempting to rob or injure or enslave or rape or kill someone else. ''Always''. Experience, not cynicism, told me that. No matter the circumstances, there was no shortage of things I could interrupt or prevent outright. It would be too easy to spread myself thin. But there were others about trying to do the same, and there were some things only I could do in time.
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| ''There!'' A thread of need that felt right to me. Numerous individuals, seeming either shell-shocked or in slow motion, looked up when they saw me approach at my very fastest run, faces and bodies blurring to me. Guided by the Living Force, I pathfound even as I ran, threading between individuals, the hair and clothing of the closest ones whipping against my body with a numbness followed by stinging pain.
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| Running like this attracted more attention than I would prefer, and the pace was exhausting, even while tapping the ambient Force energy to refresh myself. There just didn’t seem to be a choice. This wasn’t as strong of a call as the lava boss’s beckon, where so many lives could be at stake. But if I missed this, I would be responsible for the result. So much had been laid at my feet already. So many things I could have done.
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| And so I ran.
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| There- ''there''! Maybe it was the clothing, but I’d moved faster than I’d thought, and was forced to make a right-angle turn at high speed, skidding for a moment and nearly bowling over someone in hooded brown robes who managed to sidestep just in time. If not for the Force fortifying my body, I might have snapped a bone, torn some ligaments, or dislocated something, but as it was, I registered pain and damage to my legs, but ran on, regaining most of my speed within a few paces. Very close now, a hundred meters or so. It looked like I might be early, for once.
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| <Continue at this pace, and you ''will'' hurt yourself.> “Hearing” that “voice” resounding in my skull, I stumbled, damaged legs sending me very quickly towards the carpet.
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| I didn’t impact, though. Two hands inserted themselves between the floor and my body. The robed someone had given chase and somehow matched my speed closely enough that the catch had been too gentle to bruise. The Force swirled around him and through him, making my own blood quicken in response. Force-Sensitive, at least as strong as me. Possibly stronger. Judging from the lack of Dark Side energy, I would have tagged him as a Jedi, and the odd relief at finding another Jedi surprised me.
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| If I’d had the breath, I would have said something, maybe a thanks, maybe a complaint about surprising me and causing that stumble. But my lungs were fully occupied heaving in and out, in and out, trying to pay the oxygen debt in my muscles. Inertia was exerting its hold on me.
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| The stranger steadied me, bringing me back upright before releasing me.
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| “What is so urgent?” He asked, voice soft and cultured and exactly like his mindvoice, a sign of high skill.
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| I still hadn’t recovered my breath, so I sent a silent statement of my own. It wasn’t as articulate as his had been, and there really weren’t any words in it, but it got the point across that I was on my way to get something done. And I would like to get back to it.
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| “I see.” There was the briefest of pauses, and then, “Well, go on. Do what you must.” No offer of help, naturally. I expected nothing else from another Jedi; I was competent, and if I’d felt that I needed help, I would have asked.
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| I ran.
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| There was a crowd of near-humans peering cautiously into a side room who scattered rapidly, making little sounds of protest as I forced my way between them.
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| Inside, five men in white armor stood in attitudes of discomfort and alarm as a human woman stamped her foot in a childlike display of temper.
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| She was… striking. Quite, quite striking. Humanoid, just under two meters tall, her arms, from the narrow fingertips to the flaring, pointed pauldrons were armored with a reflective, ornamented metal that I couldn’t identify. Heeled boots made of the same material encased her feet, stretching halfway up her sculpted thighs. Her hair was some impossible hue glinting iridescently between violent purple and lustrous silver; it cascaded and rippled with motion, caught in a breeze that was evident nowhere else in the room. Framed by the metal over her arms, two petite triangles of reflective metal tried in vain to restrain heaving, spherical bosoms. Beneath her shapely navel was a small, skimpy lower body garment, made of some kind of animal skin so thin and supple that little was left to the imagination. Other than those, a sort of visorlike metal piece crowning her head, and an enormous, gaudy pendant around her neck, her pale, faintly sun-seared skin was bare.
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| “Ah… ahhh- ''Clones!''” The voice was male, and followed by a rapid patter of retreating footsteps. Tearing my eyes away, I swiveled to see the brown-robed Jedi pushing his way out past the watchers in the doorway. Evidently he had followed me after all.
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| And now he was gone. Mentally I shook my head. ''Help me or stay out of my way. I’ve no use for people who take one look at a situation and then flee. But what was that about'' clones, ''anyway? ''
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| Well, at least he’d broken me out of that reverie. Now that I wasn’t focused on the girl’s physical appeal, I could sense the Force, or something like it, skirling and spinning around her, reaching out and withdrawing in a chaotic, tangled mess that tastefelt foreign to me. No Jedi or Sith or even untaught Sensitive was this one – I doubted she was even aware of it. The energy surrounding her seemed to be nothing more than an attractant, catching hold of onlookers - ''Look at me,'' it commanded. ''Aren’t I beautiful? Look at me. ''
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| And here I had just strode in and gotten myself caught up in it, just like that crowd of fools outside, unable or unwilling to look away. ''My Masters would be ashamed of me. I’m supposed to be better than that.''
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| The woman – a few years away from what I considered true adulthood, even though she seemed to have developed early and quite spectacularly - recaptured my attention, though in a more mundane fashion this time, by stamping her foot again and demanding, “Yes, you were ''staring'', you sons of bitches! Don’t you know who I am!”
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| She was not addressing me, but rather the white-armored individuals that I had mostly overlooked. As whatever had compelled me to run like this to get here didn’t appear to have completely flared up yet, I took a moment to examine them.
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| There were, as I had seen before, five of them, all extraordinarily close in height and bulk. Four of them wore identical armor, the fifth some mild variation on it. He – I sensed that all of them were male – seemed to be bearing the brunt of the dramatic woman’s wrath, for he was the one with his hands up, making an unsuccessful bid to placate her.
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| “Look, ma’am, I’m sorry, but-“
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| “Don’t you know who you’re messing with!” she half-screeched, cutting him off with a confused diatribe that seemed to describe either her parentage or her rank. Apparently she believed that she was either the daughter of an admiral and a general or she had been made “the strongest Majikal Girl in Living Memory”, possibly both. It looked like all five of her victims would have been only too happy to slink away. Each of them held some kind of ranged weapon as if seeking reassurance. Fortunately, they seemed reluctant to actually fire these weapons – if they hadn’t been, the idiot spectators would probably have been hit.
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| I noticed then that energy was starting to collect around her hands. It didn’t quite tastefeel like any of the variants of Force-based techniques that I’d ever encountered, but it was fairly easy to sense its destructive potential.
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| ''Time now to step in,'' I decided, and trusted the Living Force to guide my actions. Making use of my ability to move quietly, I approached to within five meters. The armored ones seemed to notice, but my target did not.
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| Clearing my throat produced a very amusing reaction; the girl literally ''jumped'' maybe twenty centimeters straight up and whirled to face me, as tense and angry as if I had struck her across the face. The face itself, although it seemed to express a rather disagreeable sentiment, was as attractively shaped as the body, but I now knew to ignore that look-at-me compulsion.
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| “Forgive a stranger, but don’t you think you’re overreacting?” I kept my inquiry smooth and pleasant, slightly deferential even, feeding into her subconscious expectation of how she should be addressed, and putting out my best “harmlessness” effect. It seemed to work as intended. The girl blinked, her hands lowering from their defensive position as she sorted out some internal dilemma. Some of the chaotic energy writhing around her died down, but by no means was it gone.
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| “These men have offered insult to my honor,” she said rather stiffly. “It- they… They were ''staring'' at me!” That last statement burst accusingly from her lips
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| “To be honest, fair one, you are easy to stare at,” I advised, voice dry. To my surprise, she laughed, appearing to relax a little. The smile transformed her face, making her look a good deal more likeable. I also noticed that her impossible hair’s movement seemed to have slowed.
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| “Truth. It’s not easy to forget what just happened, but…” Trailing off, she looked at her hands, encased fully in jointed metal. Then her elegantly-sculpted brow furrowed, and I sensed a quickening in her energy.
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| “Wait. You said ‘fair one’?”
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| ''Fantastic. No matter what I say now, she won’t take it well. Clearly, she’s unstable. Manic to reasonable to manic again…'' Still, I had to try to placate the girl.
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| “Of course. I do not know your name.” Sadly, my abilities in the Force do not include that kind of mind-reading. To get even something as clear as a name, I need to physically ''touch'' someone, and even then it’s more effort than just asking.
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| Now her personal energy was knotting and writhing again, as rapid and unpredictable as the tentacle-arms of a vaapad. She seemed to possess a momentary inability to speak.
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| “H-how ''dare'' you! You just... ''waltz'' in here, acting like you ''know'' me, ''ordering'' me around, and you had the gall to ''not know my name.''” With every syllable, her voice rose in pitch and volume. The beginnings of a headache started to materialize behind my eyes.
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| Internally, I sighed. ''I like people, I really do. Can’t live without them, literally. But sometimes…''
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| ''Uh oh. Perhaps, instead of being silently pained, I should have stroked her ego.'' The unstable girl’s eyes seemed to have rolled back in her head. The whites… glowed, softly, and her impossible hair whipped.
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| Whoops. Energy built again around her hands, and I felt her presence shifting in the Force, obviously a precursor to attack.
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| “You may regret this,” I warned, allowing one hand to grip the hilt of my lightsaber.
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| “I don’t care! I’ve already gone all ''day'' without-“ Not bothering to finish her sentence, the girl lunged at my face, her expression twisted into an unpleasant mask.
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| ''
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| Bipolar, perhaps? Or it could be chemically induced, perhaps.'' I wondered, leaning back so that her hand, fingers curved into claws, missed my face, what the problem was. ''Hormones or outside influence? For that matter, she might just be a spoiled brat.''
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| ''Swiff.'' Another swipe caught at the fine, wispy hairs around my face, the ones too short to tie back. And another, close enough that the malevolent energy around her hands made my skin sting as if it had been scratched.
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| The girl didn’t appear to be calming down, or off-balance from her failed strikes. As I performed the minimum movements necessary to avoid being hit, I considered my next course of action.
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| The white-armored men who’d been the previous targets of the girl’s ire did not seem to have left yet, unfortunately, despite the "look at me" command having shut off. I didn’t quite dare physically ''look'', which would mean taking an eye off of the wannabe psycho currently attempting to assault me, but I could feel them in the Force, too close to have snuck away.
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| They had very odd Force-signatures, but today that was hardly unusual. Most if not all of the beings I had encountered here were similar, in that their presence in the Force, or signature, was conflicted, strange. Normally, the signatures told me where they were, a bit about their physical and emotional states, and something about their natures. Here, the signatures they radiated were filled with confusing impressions.
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| The crazy girl before me was a standard example. Beneath the swirl of anger and confusion, she simultaneously felt the age she looked and several years older. Very peculiar. In the past I had encountered females who felt like males and vice versa, as well as some who felt older or younger than they really were, but never quite this ... duality.
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| So, what now? Turning my head to the side, I felt a thin tendril of energy lash my cheek, stinging. ''Her aim is improving. I may be able to block pain, but my legs are still worse for wear because of that high-speed corner back there. I can’t do this for much longer. They might collapse.'' If I ran, I would be leaving this situation to play out on its own. She was a complete stranger to me, so in order to pacify her mind I would actually have to physically touch her for a certain length of time, and that looked like a risky prospect just now. If I fought, I knew that I would win. But there was always the danger of collateral damage, and if I used my favorite weapon… The girl was unarmed; if I used a lightsaber she would lose something.
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| I wasn’t a Sith anymore. Trimming bits off of people was no longer one of my hobbies. Well, there was one thing I could do… I believed myself to be only average at unarmed combat, but the opportunity was readily available. It would hurt, but that would give me the chance to collect the white-armored bystanders and remove them from the scene.
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| As the girl swung at me again, conveniently taking a step and rotating her pelvis into position, I brought my knee up into that most sensitive region, and hit it squarely. ''Hard''. Nowhere near hard enough to fracture the pubic bone – that is a ''terrible'' way to die – but more than hard enough to ''hurt''.
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| As I had seen earlier, the only thing covering that region was a garment of thin animal hide, tight enough that if she had worn some form of armor there I would have seen it; although she was certainly ''furious'', she wasn’t quite mad enough to just shrug a shot off. She should have doubled over in pain, or had some similarly appropriate reaction.
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| Unfortunately, the girl wasn’t following my plan.
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| “Hah! ''Idiot'',” she declared, coming down out of her pique for a moment. “I think you will find that I have no testicles!” She wasn’t even hiding any pain, I could see through the Force. It was as if my counterattack had had no effect whatsoever.
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| “But- You…” It was my turn to be left without words. I’d been on the receiving end of a few of those groin attacks, and I knew what it felt like. “That ''had'' to hurt! There are enough nerve endings there-“
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| “Hmph! First you don’t know my name, next you don’t know that I’m ''female''! Idiot!” She was heating up once more. ''How many mood swings will this girl go through?!''
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| '''''Crack.'''''
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| ''Oh,'' finally'' you move...'' One of the white-armored men had taken advantage of the insane girl's distraction to smack her in the back of the head with what looked very much like a blaster rifle, instantly transforming her expression from furious to utterly blank.
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| From what I had seen, it didn't look like a particularly hard blow. The man obviously had no more desire than I did to go about randomly breaking people, even if they were idiots. It looked like the kind of impact that would stun and hurt quite a bit, allowing me to move in and use a Force technique, but she hadn't shown any signs of following my wishes before.
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| And indeed, she continued that trend.
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| The girl toppled, falling first to her knees, then flat on her face, one arm stretched out dramatically.
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| Sensing that this wasn't some kind of clever trap, I knelt to find her pulse and see if she was breathing, but I found nothing that the Force had not told me. Apparently, a rap on the head was enough to make her fall soundly asleep, so soundly that it would take an earthquake or a long span of hours to wake her. Further proof, if I needed any, that her anatomy was not as human her appearance suggested.
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| "Thank you. I was... somewhat distracted," I said conversationally, hoping that they wouldn't decide to feel antagonized. The day was finally starting to catch up to me, and my legs ''ached''.
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| "You gave me the chance," the man replied. His pleasantly-accented voice was as polite as mine, filtered though it was through a speaker in his helmet. Neither of us spoke for a long, uncertain moment.
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| ''Observation is one of a Jedi's most important skills,'' I reminded myself, tapping into the Force to ease fatigue. Standing a touch straighter, I looked the men over.
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| Gaps between pieces of the white armor they wore revealed some kind of black undersuit, which included gloves. All five of the men had blocky, solid helmets with short sagittal crests. The helmets also sported opaque black visors, each shaped like the inverted letter vev with a thick bar across the top. They looked faintly Mandalorian, and also vaguely like the faceplate of my war mask. Coincidence, surely.
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| I had seen them before, or soldiers wearing something very similar, hadn't I? Yes... My memory seemed a bit confused about it, but when I had been in my war armor and accompanied by the one who looked like Malak, I had seen and spoken to a larger group of these people, a group with far more variation in armor styles.
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| The only physical variation here was in the armor of the one who had spoken, I saw. The armor structure was the same, but parts of it, particularly on the arms and hands and on that crest, were colored a dull red. ''A sign of rank?''
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| More interesting was what the five of them felt like in the Force. Each of them had no fewer than ''three'' age-impressions - a competent young adult, an eager child, and, beneath the other two, a comparatively diminished third age, which varied between the five, and in one or two was minimal enough that it would probably be gone within a day.
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| The one with the red trim's deepest impression felt like the youngest of them all, younger even than the second layer's eager child, but the dominant, oldest layer was somehow... not ''older'', quite, but... more mature. There was responsibility there, compounded with the dedication I sensed from the other four. ''Very'' odd. They all shared a kind of likeness that I could tastefeel in the Force. Almost like brothers, but... different.
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| One of the plain-armored ones twitched his head a bit, as if he'd seen something. I sensed what I took to be comm transmissions, little bursts of inaudible sound.
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| The leader's posture shifted from uncertainty to something slightly more forward. The speaker in his helmet popped softly as he shifted from communing with his fellows to speaking to me.
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| "Ma'am, I might be wrong, but is that a lightsaber at your belt?" He sounded like he was trying to conceal hopefulness.
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| ''Should I lie? No, not this time''. "It is," I allowed guardedly. "Why?"
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| "It's just... well… if you have a lightsaber, that probably means that you are a Jedi,” he said, almost shy.
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| “And what if I am?” ''Guarded, guarded, stay guarded…''
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| “We need a leader, ma’am. We need directions.” It seemed that he was gaining in confidence as he spoke. I wasn’t sure I liked where this was going.
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| “So why not you? I don’t understand.” ''A safe enough thing to say when it’s true.'' “Why would you need a Jedi to lead you?”
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| As best I could tell, the man took encouragement from my questions. “I don’t suppose you know what we are? No recognition at all? Ma’am, we’re soldiers made for the Grand Army of the Republic. Since a few months after decanting, conditioning encourages us look to Jedi automatically whenever something crazy happens.” He moved his arm in a brief, all encompassing gesture. “I think ''this'' qualifies, personally. I’m an Advanced Recon Commando; that means I’m used to a certain amount of independence. But most of us are just troopers. There’s only so much that I can do.” ''Ohhh, there's a stew of emotion in him. Pride, hope, self-acceptance… Then again-''
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| ''Made? Decanting? Conditioning? He knows about Jedi; does that mean that my Republic does this? I don’t think they would, not after the wars… And I’ve only been away for a few years, I would have heard'' something… “And so you ask the first woman with a lightsaber that you see if she will lead you.” My voice was a bit dryer than I’d wanted to sound.
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| For the first time, one of the other soldiers spoke up. “Actually, ma’am, we’ve seen a few others.” His voice was eerily similar to the first man’s. More than similar – ''identical'', differing only in assertiveness. This one was more diffident. “I was part of Group One, and two different Jedi in red and black armor approached us and ordered pretty much the same thing." ''Red and black armor... me? Who else?'' "Since then, though… well…”
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| “They run from us,” their leader said. The tone of his voice suggested disgust, but I could sense hurt beneath us. “They run.” ''No doubt about it. That’s the same voice, and they tastefeel so similar in the Force, and there was what that brown-robed Jedi shouted before he fled… Has my Republic become so desperate that they need to grow clones to bolster the army? What has happened since I was gone?''
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| “If they are your leaders, why would they run from you?” I drained all accusation from my voice. ''No sense in provoking them…'' I could probably take them all, but there is wisdom in subtlety.
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| Perfect sincerity in his voice, the leader said, “I don’t ''know''! It doesn’t make any sense!”
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| ''Interesting.'' The leader spoke the truth as he knew it, but one or two of the others winced beneath their helmets. They obviously knew something, and just as obviously did not want to share it.
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| Well, I could handle that later. If I accepted this request. It had been a long time since I last led soldiers…
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| ''And it will be a long time before I do so again. What if I backslide and become a servant of the Dark Side again?'' ‘Hero, villain, savior, conqueror… all these things and nothing.’ ''That’s my fate, after all. I don’t want to take anyone with me. Not again. They might be able to stabilize me, but they might pull me down, too, if a situation becomes desperate.''
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| “I don’t have any better idea than you do about what’s going on, where this is, who the enemy is,” I warned, remembering too late that soldiers don’t like their leaders to be too uncertain. ''I’m not sure what I want here.''
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| “That’s fine, Ma’am.” From the way the leader’s pronunciation of 'ma'am' had changed, I could tell that group dynamics were already shifting. “You’re a Jedi. You’ll find out.” ''Because that’s what Jedi do,'' I filled in silently, keeping my face as blank as I could manage.
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| Another of the soldiers said, “Incidentally, we do know a name. It’s not much in the way of intelligence – just one word. ''Zahnnadue.'' Could be this place, this event, the mission’s codename, a person or a facility…”
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| “Yeah. Still, that’s more than we had before.” Now ''I'' was shifting the way ''I'' spoke and thought to make way for a little group. I shook my head. “Look, I can’t lead you. Not now.”
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| I cut off their protests before they were more than alarmed stirrings in the ambient Force, saying the first things that came to mind. “I can’t. You can find me if you need me later, but now I have to go it alone. This is a one-man operation. If you want me – “ I thought back a moment – “I think I’m in one of the sleeping chambers in that section of this place that rents them out. It’s…” The door to that chamber. In my memory, it had no numbers that I could recognize. “It’s marked by two vertical lines, each like the letter Isk, followed by a pair of circles, one over the other, like an infinity symbol turned sideways.”
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| As I finished speaking I winced. That was tantamount to agreeing to lead them, when I wasn’t even sure that it would be a good idea. ''Ah well. Can’t unsay what’s been said.''
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| “Wait… that set of symbols…” one of the soldiers blurted after a moment, “That’s… one one eight, I think. One hundred eighteen. You’re in room 118.” ''And now they will be able to find me, if I go back there.''
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| ''
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| I drew in a deep, resigned breath. What’s done is done.'' “Fine. Please, ''don’t'' call me ‘ma’am’. I feel like I’m being mocked. My name is – “''Wait, wait. If they are of'' my ''Republic, they'' will ''know my name. And aren’t standing orders in place to kill or incapacitate me?''
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| ''Dark Side take it. In for a landspeeder, in for a capital ship. '' “My name is Revan.” It was difficult to admit; my name stuck for a moment in my throat. For so long, I hadn’t known it, and for even longer after that I couldn’t bear to use it.
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| No signs of real recognition from the men. ''What an anticlimax!'' I suspected that they might have heard the name somewhere, but it obviously didn’t have the same connotations attached to it that I had.
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| It was deeply unsettling. Were they even from the same Republic? “I have to go,” I told them, turning to do so. The insane girl was still asleep, and without her influence the crowd outside had dissipated. “There’s ... something I have to do.” Indeed there was, a faint and sickly sense of'' wrongness'' that I ''might'' be able to right.
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| “Very well, General Revan. We will gather the others and contact you later. I am Ja- ARC N-98, or Nate. Until we meet again.” ''Wha- General? How many others? And what name were you about to give?''
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| ''Forget that. I don’t want to waste any more time.'' “Until we meet again, may the Force be with you.”
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| And I was gone.
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