Homecoming

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Like a young child drawn to the aquarium in a doctor's office, Halajiin Rabeak seemed magnetically sucked to the transperisteel wall of the lift, paws pressing against it, fingers splayed as he drew his face as close as he could for a better view. Coruscant was more beautiful than he remembered, and he gazed upon its changed skyline as if it was his first time to see the wonderous sight. Speeders rushed about in organized traffic routes, the sun glistened and glinted from countless millions of windows, and buildings rose and fell like sharp, gleaming mountains out through the horizon as the lift drew ever higher. "Wow.." was all he could managed, staring at it, slack-jawed.

Ahem. He asked us a question. Are you going to stare out the window all day? Hal's higher reasoning cleared its throat.

Like you didn't used to get lost staring at all this. It's been ages, let me have my moment! His base natures grumped in return.

Fiiine. You keep staring, I'm going to run the mouth.

His eyes remaining fixed on the endless cityscape before him, Hal shook his head and replied, "Basically only what you've just told me. Well, that and you've got a really sexy Selonian in your ranks, and I think she's still got my lightsaber. I bet this place is even more beautiful at night, what with lights and everything."

[Baastian Cain]

"Oh, it's a beauty, all right," Baastian replied. "Even prettier from orbit, like a big corusca gem. This has been my home all my life. I never get tired of the view."

He passed a few more moments in silence, just to let the panorama sink in.

"There are over one trillion people living in Imperial Centre. And that's just a tiny fraction of the people living under the Empire's protection. Every one of them is expected to do their part to help keep the Empire safe and strong - farmers, engineers, researchers, soldiers. Everyone has a role to play. Whatever talents you have, you have the responsibility to use them for the betterment of those around you. And when everyone does that, everyone thrives."

The Knight stepped toward the transparisteel to stand next to the mongoose, joining him in his contemplation of the sprawling skyline. "We believe the Force is a gift for all people, not just the handful who have the ability to use it. And so we identify people who have that ability. We train them to use it safely and responsibly. And we give them a job that makes use of their unique talents for the benefit of the whole Empire. Thanks to the Jedi, most Imperial citizens view the Force with superstition and fear. The Imperial Knights are trying to change that."

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"Change it by siccing a massive landing party on a fairly backwards planet, burning their forests, killing citizens as you see fit, just deciding that any furred alien should be executed in the search for one?" Hal's words came dripping with venom as he pulled back from the transparisteel. "You know, because that won't cause superstition or fear..."

His tailtip lashed back and forth, anger seething beneath the surface of his character - anger which should not be found in any Jedi of reputable training. "You seem to know a lot, and there were things my master either didn't know, or wouldn't tell me, so I'm going to ask you: What did the Jedi do to turn on what used to be the Republic? I've never gotten a straight answer on that, and since my world is in Alliance space, I'm pretty sure I've grown up under some propaganda which may or may not be true."

The anger slowly dissipated, but there was no doubting it had been there, and the Nehantite looked back out over the cityscape once more. "I've been searching for answers for so long. I just want to know the truth."

[Baastian Cain]

Baastian let him vent. He couldn't justly blame Kyle for feeling persecuted. He was told to expect monsters, and so he ran, and got the hounds. The Pax Imperium came at a price, and so far the mongoose had seen the cost and none of the reward. He had been, like so many enemies of the Empire, sorely misguided.

"If you knew what people with our power are capable of, unchecked and running rogue, I think you'd understand our methods a little better. Nearly every dark chapter of this galaxy's history started with Force adepts trying to seize power. The Sith Wars. The Freedon Nad uprising. The Krath Holy Crusade. Conflicts that wiped out entire populations. The Jedi came within inches of plunging us right back into those dark times."

He stared out the window at the passing cityscape with a pall of regret crimping his statuesque brow. He'd studied the Great Betrayal in detail. It was a sobering study in corruption and greed.

"During the Clone Wars, the Jedi stopped being peacekeepers and counselors, and became generals. It was expedient, given the scale of the conflict, but their leaders must have liked the taste of power, because on the eve of armistice they mounted an insurrection against the civil government of the Republic. The Council mounted a coup on the Senate, while Jedi generals across the galaxy attempted to seize their Clone divisions as their own personal armies. If not for the heroic actions of Lord Vader, and the unwavering loyalty of our men at arms, we would have been lost, and the galaxy would have crumbled into chaos."

[Halajiin Rabeak]

What a crock of -

Don't say it.

Why not? It's true, Baa-baa-baastian here is talking total bol-

You you want to get us demonetized?

...what?

Demonetized. If you mention politics, say bad words, talk about war or violence, or sensitive subjects, we'll get this thread demonetized and we won't make any money off of it.

Um, dude, we're not a HoloTube channel. This is RP.

Really? Then why do we ask people to like and subscribe at the end of each post?

We don't.

Huh. Wonder where I got that impression from.

I have no idea. Can I get back to the story, now?

Oh, sure. Sorry.

What a crock of shit, Hal thought as he listened to the pure propaganda that flowed from Baastian's mouth like a whole Pot Noodle being ejected after a ninth beer. The Jedi were the ones who were betrayed, by the very man the Empire called a hero. A hero who murdered innocent children. The Nehantite's face could not hide the conflicting thoughts running through his head, and he bit his lip, pondering over the new information.

At last, he ran his fingers through his headfur and looked out at the city beyond, lest his words come out too sharp and cut Baastian's sensibilities. "What if not all of the Jedi were in on this plot, this... coup? I was told I should help, that I should protect and be selfless in my actions. The man who taught me this seemed to truly believe that at heart. What if my master did not follow the other Jedi into darkness? If he didn't, and he taught me only what's good about being a Jedi, and not to hunger for power, then the Empire should welcome me instead of hunt me, right? I don't want to command armies. I don't want to hurt people. A man died on Pallaxides because of me, Baastian. It still weighs on me."

[Baastian Cain]

"I know it does. It should."

Baastian turned and looked Hal in the eye. Not with judgment, not with disapproval, but with alarming frankness.

"If you hadn't run from us, that man wouldn't have died. If you hadn't run, we would have welcomed you with open arms, no binders, no troops. I hate that we have to regard every unregistered adept as a potential threat. But that's the galaxy we live in. That's the price of peace."

He lifted a hand onto Hal's shoulder and squeezed. A gundark's paw couldn't have felt heavier.

"I know how you're feeling, Kyle. It's the same way I feel whenever someone dies on my watch. But that's what makes us stronger, more resolute. So next time nobody has to die."

The lift sighed to a halt, and the doors slid open onto another broad concourse - marble floors, vaulted ceilings, bronze statues of abstracted human forms in heroic poses. There was less foot traffic here, most of it in uniform. A pair of teenagers in the white-and-black jumspuit of the Knight-Cadets saw them and halted, eyes wide - a sandy-haired boy and a Zabrak girl with her hair in looped braids. Baastian nodded to them in passing: "Cadet Torus, Cadet Aryx. Good work in your saber trials last night."

"Th-thank you, sir," the Zabrak girl said, flushing. They continued to stare as Baastian Hal and Lieutenant Chell straight ahead, down another corridor that led toward the center of the temple hub.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Hal could list at least ten ways in which the Empire had not even attempted an "open arms" welcome with him, but it was neither the time nor place. There were so many games to play, so many roles to act as, each of them critical to get right or his facade would surely be blown. The bitter aftertaste of swallowed pride and anger lingered upon his tongue, forcing Hal to bit it on that subject for the time being.

Instead he changed tack, the boom of his approach swinging about to take the wind head-on. "So, what's to become of me, now? Am I still likely to get executed simply for having been born different, do I just wind up a prisoner forever, or am I going to be dressed up on one of those jumpsuits and actually given a chance to do something?"

The gambit was a dangerous one, but studies had shown that when you give two terrible options and one unsavory one, the unsavory option suddenly looked good and seemed more worthwhile. Forcing his way out unarmed would be an impossibility, and execution, well, that would really put a damper on his day, so he fell back on the old "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality, hoping it would at least provide enough time for him to plan a proper escape.

Also the jumpsuits looked kinda sexy.

[Baastian Cain]

"That's up to you, really."

The corridor was much narrower than the concourse outside, but the ceiling was just as high, so that they might have been walking down the bottom of a canyon. Immense crimson banners hung over the walls, easily ten meters high, and on the floor beneath them were transparisteel cases displaying artifacts of the past: lightsabers from the old Jedi order, crystals and power cells removed, spanning millennia of history. There was even a protosaber lying across its coiled up cable and hip-mounted power supply, dingy and corroded with age. Baastian paid no attention to the exhibits.

"I'll be honest, you're an unknown quantity. We've never had a recruit with prior training from the Jedi before. That's bound to make some people uncomfortable, considering our history."

They approached a set of doors on the left-hand side, the first doors they had come to after a hundred meters or so, but Baastian bypassed them and ferried Hal and Lieutenant Chell into another lift, this one open with handrails. He palmed a control, and the lift went sailing upward.

"But if you're honest about wanting to make a difference, living up to those ideals your master taught you... we can work with that."

They passed through the ceiling and emerged into a dimly lit room. To the right were several rows of staggered theater seats, all facing the wall to the left, which was one enormous, slanted sheet of transparisteel. It invited the viewer to gaze downward into the vast chamber that had been on the other side of the wall all along: a sparring gymnasium, cavernous and bright, its glossy floor marked out into multiple combat rings. To one side a stern-faced Arkanian instructor paced as a class of cadets twenty strong drilled with practice staves. In another, several pairs of cadets in loose tunics squared off for unarmed combat techniques. And in the center, on a raised platform, two fully fledged Knights sparred with shimmering white blades whose cracking and spalling were audible even here in the observation deck.

Baastian stepped up to the window and turned, beckoning Hal to have a look.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"Well, prior training from a Jedi," Hal interjected before they reached the lift, though it made little difference.

His eyes continued to wander over their surroundings, remnants of days gone by still visible beneath the paint and decor changes the Empire had mistakenly thought would improve the old Jedi Temple. Barring the massive, garish red tapestries, one would think that the Emperor had called upon an interior designer who'd accidentally grabbed her greyscale markers instead of the color set, but instead of admitting she'd made a mistake, drew up all the redecoration plans with what she had. It was a theory, anyhow, no less substantiated than some of his other wild thoughts. Hal could not hide his smile as he saw the old collection of lightsabers, nor did he even try, taking delight in the fact that they had been preserved - a clear display that deep down somewhere in the Force-sensitive heart of the empire there was a willingness to retain tradition and respect history.

A quick and silent fart was left on that level before Hal boarded the lift last. He knew with great precision where they were going, though he'd never had the pleasure of the vantage point they stepped out onto. Countless times he had glanced up at that one-way mirrored transparisteel from below, wondering if the Masters were watching as he practiced and exercised. His boots made no sound as they sank into plush carpet descending the steps down to the window, and he cast his eyes upon the scene before him.

"Do you all use white blades?" were the words that fell out of his mouth first. "I thought white was typically avoided because the crystals needed for those can be unstable, and are prone to shattering if their relays aren't perfectly balanced. My saber uses a red one because they're the most forgiving, and the most reliable regardless of circumstance." Silence, and he could feel a pair of eyes boring into him as he watched the duel. "Well, at least that's what I read on the holonet when I was trying to fix it," he added quickly at the end.

[Baastian Cain]

While Hal watched the sparring students below, Baastian watched him. Would he be reduced to wide-eyed wonder, overwhelmed by the spectacle? Would he quail with fear? Burn with ambition? Steel himself for the challenges ahead? In the end his response was a great deal more analytical, and educated, than Baastian would have guessed.

"On the Holonet," he repeated, bemused. "It sounds like your Master Abin Sur taught you well. We use white blades, but our crystals are synthetic. We've greatly improved on the processes the old Sith armies used to use. Ours are just as strong as natural crystals, maybe even stronger, and we can grow them to any specifications we need. Knight Vissica's is the largest I've ever seen."

He almost regretted invoking Vissica's name again, but at least he knew it was a surefire way to drive the mongoose's interest.

"You've obviously learned something of lightsabers. What else have you learned?"

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Hal stepped forward, paws pressing against the transparisteel as he watched the pair of Knights locked in combat below. Well, practice, not combat, as neither was moving with the speed or aggression required to truly harm their compatriot, nor did they seem to resonate the type of intensity one would find in a proper fight. Beneath the guise of study, Hal reached out further in the Force, locking onto one of their sabers to reveal what lay with in, and discern the truth of Baastian's words. Everything about the construction was modern, and it was difficult to follow through its construction while the saber was in motion, but at last he pinpointed the crystal and traced its structure. True to what the Knight had said, they were indeed synthetic, their makeup so uniform that they could not have come from nature, and they were indeed strong.

"Synthetic crystals, huh?" the Nehantite chuckled. "Well I'll be, I didn't think anyone was ever able to make those work." With an appreciative nod, Hal subtly disconnected a few crystalline fibers within one of the crystals. It wouldn't fail right away, or possibly even in the next few weeks, but in time, and with stress, it would fail and cast doubt upon the Empire's conceited mastery over the elements themselves, and possibly spark a recall for inspection. Nothing fouled up bureaucracy quite like a recall.

His tail swaying with each advance or retreat of those practicing down below, Hal snapped himself out of his daze and blinked, recalling that Baastian had another question for him. "Oh, uh, I learned how to fight with one," he replied, then scratched the back of his neck as nerves set in. "I, uh, I can move pretty fast. Like, I can run at great speeds for short distances, and if I try really hard I can usually make big jumps. My race seems virtually incapable of telepathy, as it hurts both parties when I try it, so my master had me give up on that one pretty quick. He also stopped me from doing the mind-moving stuff. Like, where you focus on something and try to move it. Things... kinda blow up when I try that, soooo, I stopped doing that." His ears then perked and he smiled. "But I did learn how to focus and detect where people are in a localized area!" His voice was spunky and proud until he realized the next question that would come. "Well, not like, specific people, but just people in general. I can tell that there are people if I close my eyes and focus. Usually. Doesn't always work."

[Baastian Cain]

Baastian nodded in approval. "That's a useful talent. With training, I'm sure we could help you hone your senses, make them more reliable. And if you learned the saber from a Jedi, you might even be able to teach us a few things. When it comes to traditional forms, we've been limited to what we can pull from the archives. Our forms are effective, but they don't have the same tradition behind them."

He crossed his arms, considering Hal carefully. "We might be able to help with telekinesis, too. You're not the first of your kind to be trained by a Jedi. I'm sure I could find some records of your predecessors if I search through the archives... what worked for them might work for you, too."

[Halajiin Rabeak]

At Baastian's initial mention of the archives, Hal's mouth dropped open to say something, then realized his new "mentor" was not done speaking quite yet. Deep down, Hal thanked his lucky stars, charms, garters, rabbit's foot, egg, horseshoe, hula girl, and socks (each possessing their own different, yet effective form of luck) that he remained silent. Nervous shock was covered with short cough which was followed by a clearing of his throat to give himself time to think.

Was Baastian speaking in code? Did he know Hal's true identity, and was subtly trying to tell him? Or was it a mere coincidence which threatened to unravel Hal's cover story upon his first day in the heart of the Empire? Either way it did not bode well, and so he maintained his facade of being an affable nobody.

"There were Nehantite Jedi?" he asked. His brow crimped, ears rotating forward as his head canted to the left in curiosity. "Really? Like... really?" With each question his voice grew higher in disbelief until he shook his head. "I ain't never heard of 'em. Besides, I think it's a bit more of a 'my master sucked at telekinesis and wasn't a good teacher of it' thing than a species thing," Hal dismissed the truth that he knew all too well. "But for lightsaber, I might be able to show you some stuff, though a lot of what I know is actually grounded in Nehantite fencing. It's kinda mandatory at school there for kids, so my master let me start from there before giving me pointers."

His head turned back to the arena below, watching as the duel drew near to its close. "But, give me and an opponent some training sabers, I'd be willing to show you what I've got," he said with a grin. "Live practice is all well and good, but it holds you back at the same time. Practicing with wood or training sabers, you feel the sting when you get hit, and you go after a real win."