(Moenia, Naboo)
"My name's Crissayel, but that isn't important. What is important, is that my sister Callista will die if you don't help her, Master Jedi." The tall, deceptively thin young man answered in a voice tight with worry. He was, despite his overt composure, obviously quite frustrated and upset by the need to involve outsiders in what was to him a family affair, but I wouldn't have gleaned more than the tiniest hint of that without my gift for empathy.
It was an impressive display of self-control that others might have esteemed too lightly because of the faint signs of deeper emotion to have noticeably emerged. Remembering he was almost certainly younger than Ahsoka, and that he believed the life of what was likely his only sibling to be in danger, I didn't make that mistake. For whatever reason, Crissayel seemed to be someone who prized his emotional equilibrium more than some Jedi I had met.
Sensing a dissonant pulse of irritated impatience from the young man I couldn't otherwise detect, I noted the slight narrowing of his ember colored eyes as he continued to watch me expectantly. Hearing my Master's chiding voice in my mind as I did so. Reminding me not to get so lost amid the hints and clues the Force could supply, that my focus on the present moment suffered.
"You still haven't told me what happened to convince you your sister's life is in danger, or why you're so sure only a Jedi can help her. I want to help, Crissayel, but I can't do anything unless I have an understanding of the situation." Keeping my tone sympathetic, I repeated my previous question as a simple statement of fact. It wouldn't be long until we were expected at the repulsor-boat landing by the guide who'd take us across the Lianorm Swamp to Lake Paonga, but I was understandably reluctant to leave when doing so might mean the death of an innocent young woman.
The uneasiness I'd experienced earlier began to intensify, as I watched the young Terellian work to order his thoughts. It was something of a relief when he started talking again in a straightforward manner, but as I listened, it was hard to ignore that uneasiness to focus only on the teen and his words.
"Callista, she stopped accepting commissions. Our parents wrote that off as her just needing a break, at least at first. It had only been a couple of months since she'd finished the Star Dragon sculpture for the park, they said. It took her nearly a year to finish the project, and she was working against the park's scheduled opening as a deadline, so no one else thought twice about the idea that she might need a rest." The slim, long-limbed alien began in the too calm manner of someone conveying information about a subject they found difficult to speak about.
I had the sense Crissayel was one of those people who usually talked with their hands, but right now those extremely long-fingered extremities were plucking at the large, elaborate, silver eight-sided polyhedral clasp to the thin black belt that was otherwise nearly invisible against his form-fitting black slacks. When he stopped playing with the odd belt-clasp, it was because of a sharp tic in the muscles of his long neck that caused his chin to repeatedly jerk left-to-right. These movements, and the short sharp coughs that followed made the thrown back hood of a jacket the color of wet ash bob up and down at the nape of his neck.
Eyeing the unmarked dark gray shirt partly visible beneath his jacket as the teen's narrow torso jumped a little with each cough, I suddenly found myself wondering about his choice in clothing. Why, surrounded by the riot of color that was so much a part of this city, did the Jango Jumper choose to dress as if he meant to disappear into the omnipresent mist? Shaking the thought away as entirely extraneous, I gave him a verbal nudge once he waved off the concern I expressed about his coughing.
"You said no one else, including your parents, thought there was anything unusual about your sister not accepting any new commissions. Does that mean you noticed something strange, immediately, I mean?" I made sure to maintain eye contact, lean forward ever so slightly, and make it obvious I was waiting intently for his reply. Diplomacy was easily my weakest area, but my Master had drummed into me the basic communication skills necessary to function as a Jedi. These included a capacity for gauging and projecting intent that I was using to non-verbally convey the fact I was focused and fully engaged with the conversation at hand.
It must have worked, because the Jango Jumper stopped worrying at his belt clasp to nod decisively. "Ever since I can remember, if Callista wasn't making a new entry in her data-pad's drafting program, she was working on a project, or preparing to start a new one. The closest she came to inactivity was going off to be totally silent, still, and receptive, when she was looking for a new idea. She just wouldn't have known what to do with time off. A couple of days to rest, after finishing a really strenuous project? Sure. Doing nothing for two whole months, and looking a little worse each time I managed to get a look at her? I knew something had to be wrong."
"Silent. Still. Receptive" I silently repeated the words. Giving no outward sign I now had an inkling as to where this was going, I asked "At some point, your parents and the other people in your sister's life also realized something was wrong. What happened then, Crissayel?"
Looking down suddenly, he began to scuff the sole of his right shoe back and forth against the duracrete of the walkway. In a much more defensive tone, he eventually answered "I didn't have any choice, all right? She wasn't picking up her comm at all, anymore. Wouldn't open her door when anyone came by, either. The only kriffing time she left her loft was to go straight to the store for sleep aids and premade meals. I got in the habit of shadowing her, because if I tried approaching her, she'd either ignore me completely, or plead me with me to 'Stay away, so she didn't drag me down with her.' Only to go right back to ignoring me, afterwards. I was the only one she'd say even that much to!"
I waited patiently, because pressing the now agitated adolescent would undoubtedly come off as accusatory. Finally, in a louder tone than I was sure he'd intended to use, he confessed "I spoofed her loft door's security scanner when she went out, all right? My sister was fading away right in front of me, no one else seemed to realize how bad things had gotten. I had to find out what was wrong, and the only place I could think to look for some clue as to what was killing my sister was in her journals. She's kept one as long as I've been alive, at least. She wrote in it every night, when she still lived at home. I know it wasn't right to go down to the edge of the swamp and buy a spike so I could break into my sister's files, but what else could I do?" The tic in his neck, and a second coughing fit starting as if in anxious emphasis to a question that sounded more like a justification.
Suddenly thankful my continual need for secrecy had forced me to hone the ability to keep my true thoughts and feelings to myself, I remarked with a genuine frown of concern only partly inspired by the teen's most recent admission "That was an extreme step to take. One which could have gotten you in a great deal of trouble with the constabulary." I'd said this in my best imitation of Ferus's grade-three tone of prim criticism. The one he used on older Initiates who'd willfully committed some minor infraction he was happy to provide correction for. It was exactly what most people would have expected a Jedi to say under these circumstances, so that was the response I offered, rather than mention I was now almost certain he was for some reason leaving important details out of his account.
Crissayel's expression of sullen disbelief was a perfect match for the emotions I could sense from him. It was precisely the reaction I would have anticipated from an adolescent male desperate to help someone he loved, so why was I growing more certain by the heartbeat that he was trying to cover something up?
The tall, long-limbed teen's face a mask of cracking composure, he stiffly replied "I already admitted that what I did was wrong, Master Jedi, but we're talking about my sister's life here. I have to hope you care more about my having found good reason to be afraid for my sister, than you do about how I discovered that reason."
Despite my disquiet, I had to agree this was a perfectly reasonable position to take. The alarm klaxon continuing to sound in my head, but I couldn't (passively) sense a wisp of the Force anywhere about the youth. I was as certain my mind and emotions were free of Force-based influences, but I knew my suspicions were valid, I farking knew they were, yet if they were leading me to any answers, it was a glacially slow process. There was simply nothing I could see about Crissayel in specific, or this situation in general, which seemed to suggest a solidly identifiable threat of any kind. I could do more than passively examine him and our surroundings in search of some more definitive reason for my nebulous concern, of course, but I knew from my Master's careful observations that the natal form of Clear Mind the Force had blessed me with dissipated the instant I actively began to use it beyond the confines of my own mind. The more deeply I called upon the Force, the longer it would take before the phenomena would recoalesce to conceal my otherwise noticeable Force-presence once more. Perhaps as a form of balance, there was only one technique at all related to concealing oneself in the Force for which I possessed any aptitude. Meaning I'd come to rely on this native attribute quite a bit. Especially in situations where I needed to keep a low profile with respect to other Force-sensitives. Like now, with a Dark Sider assassin on Padme's trail.
Unbidden, Dark Woman's words echoed in my mind again. This time concerning perception. "Your eyes can deceive you. Making it unwise to invest too much faith in sight. Trust your instincts, avoid making assumptions, and always, always allow the Force to guide you." The words made me think of my injured Master, but I stoically weathered the painfully sharp surge of worry that rolled through me. Actively allowing the fear and worry to pass through me, rather than simply releasing them along with my concern for how she was doing. It didn't take much effort to imagine the look of disappointment she'd lance me with, if I were to allow my fear for her to interfere with my duty.
"Master Jedi? I understand you disapprove of my actions, but aren't you going to ask me what I found?" Crissayel prodded. His voice a mix of understandable impatience and defensiveness. Ending the silence that had stretched since my criticism of his methods, and interrupting my troubled musings.
"Forgive me, Crissayel. I should have explained I was taking a few moments to focus on recalling something my teacher once told me that I thought might be helpful. Tell me, what did you find in your sister's loft?" I apologetically replied. My excuse even having the benefit of being true, from a certain point of view.
Wearing a grim expression that made him look much older, his answer was disturbing. "Callista's entire loft was filled with stacks of charcoal drawings done on old-fashioned drafting paper. When I looked through them, I realized the details were different, but the subject was always the same. Images of a faceless hooded figure, or maybe many different hooded figures. Sometimes tall and long-limbed, other times short and squat, plus everything in between. It, he, she, or they, appearing in places frequented by my sister. I had no idea what any of it was about, until I found a few pictures which Callista was in herself. Standing at her window to peek out through the curtains at the hooded figure crouched in an alley across the street. Looking behind her on a street, but not seeming to see the figure on a rooftop ahead of her. It took time to find enough pictures like that to realize she was drawing herself being watched and followed."
His voice dropped in volume, but there was such intensity in his whispered hiss, I might have found it frightening, if I wasn't, well, me. "Hunted. My sister was being hunted, by something with claws."
Fixing me with a look that seemed to challenge me to defy his interpretation of events. Crissayel finished his description in his previous worried but otherwise normal tone, with the ominous words "It's only the drawings of my sister and her apartment building that truly tell the story, but even then, I didn't realize how much more there was to it. Not until I got a look at my sister's journal files. If I thought the drawings were bad, that was much worse." Again, no sooner had he finished speaking, then the nervous tic in his neck set the Terellian's pointed chin and the lower half of his tapering jaw to jerking, once, twice, and a third time. A third fit of staccato coughing following the instant the twitching ceased.
During this entire conversation, I'd been acutely aware that Padme was listening in attentive silence to dissect every word spoken. Through our new bond, I'd sensed a surge of a very particular sort of sharp, tightly focused, slow to attenuate anxiety. The feeling had first risen up in her when I'd barely begun coaxing Crissayel's story from him. Experience allowing me to identify the very specific reaction as the emotional component of a line of thinking used to name a specific danger instinct or intuition warned against, yet the strong-willed woman's subsequent reaction had convinced me she'd recognized the momentary fear was groundless. When the same rush of emotion came again, and stronger than before, however, I initially thought the savvy politician had found the young teen's tale of locating and dealing with the smugglers of the Lianorm Swamp on his own just as implausible as I had.
Now, though, as a shock of cold disdain freighted with a weight of angry suspicion stole through her, I recognized my mistake while listening to the barking coughs that followed the alien's curious twitching. The odd physical display still didn't mean anything to me, but it definitely meant something to Padme.
"Crissayel, if that's even your real name, would you care to explain your lies to Knight Skywalker, or shall I do it for you?" Padme pointedly questioned. Her voice thick with stern disapproval and seething with disdain. I'd known she despised liars, but hearing the cutting contempt she was directing the Terellian's way for what were likely lies of omission as much as anything else, I was glad I hadn't exhibited the spectacular stupidity required to behave in a similar manner regarding my own secrets.
A look of panic suddenly suffused the Terellian's long face. It was by far the most emotion he'd so far shown outwardly, as he stammered fearfully "Be quiet, she'll hear you! You're going to get my sister killed!"
Instantly, I allowed my Force Sense to expand outward as far and as clearly as it could. At least while I remained as Dim as I'd been since I was ten. It was times like these, with a life or lives obviously on the line, that I most chafed at the self-imposed constraint I'd been made to see the wisdom of maintaining by my Master a little more than a decade ago. I'd been touched, in an odd way, by the enormous sacrifice of time and effort she'd made. The risk the Jedi Master had accepted to discover a means of hiding a sizable portion of the power I had, and would continue to grow into. The close call with Palpatine, and the growing alarm in some quarters concerning the rate at which my power continued to develop only two of the reasons such concealment had proven itself necessary, I knew. Not that this knowledge did anything to curb the frustration which tried, again, to boil over into anger. Only to be released, as it always was, wearily into the Force.
Through the Force, I was the duracrete of the walkway beneath our feet. Solid, seemingly immovable and impermeable, yet constantly subjected to countless tiny stresses. All acting to create change in the seemingly changeless stone.
I was the air we breathed. Full of myriad scents and subtle chemical interactions. Forever engaged in a silent dance of whirling, shifting, perpetual search for equilibrium. Complexity making of the swirl of gases an invisible kaleidoscope.
I was IG-1, watchful, and so very durable, yet capable of astounding fluidity. A symphony of astounding complexity in near-perfect harmony. My ever-growing command of Mechu-deru making my awareness an audience to the song my attention set to singing through every circuit, actuator, processor, and mechanical component.
I was Ahsoka, her bright luminescence the author of an aria which spoke of promise and potential. Curious, oh so curious, about the galaxy and everything in it. More passionate than many a Jedi would be comfortable with, yet fiercely devoted to realizing her dream of protecting and helping people. Presently uncertain, but determined to control the fear which had just set her heart to racing. The lightsaber at her side a chorus in miniature of many small interlocking components. with a glimmering song-stone of green fire for a heart.
Padme's warm glint, with it's present freight of uncharacteristically cold emotions, I was not.
Most relevantly, I was Crissayel. Desperate, driven, and struggling not to drown in a rising tide of panic. Experience and maturity giving a low reverberation of depth to all the emotions inside him, but an old, dreadfully tenacious fear fed an equally developed pain. Which, in turn, fueled a sense of hopelessness which constantly sent him careening from helpless rage to the brink of complete despair. There was a device of some complexity around his midsection, no, on his belt. Initially, I thought it was some sort of concealed listening device, but as my awareness traced the path of circuitry, I came to understand the machine was designed to receive rather than transmit any signals. An instant more, and I was examining in my mind's eye something that bore a great deal of similarity to a detonator. "Not military tech, and definitely not purpose-fashioned assemblages of bomb components. Perhaps a repurposed initiator and signal-receiver from a mining or municipal demolition charge?" I silently considered while suppressing a frown.
No more than two or three heartbeats had passed since the panicked exclamation of the teen-who-was-not-a-teen, so I pasted my best approximation of a surprised expression across my face, then made a very obvious cross-bodied grab for my lightsaber with my dominant hand. All the while twitching the first three fingers of my right hand in a subtle curving motion. A feminine voice with a growling timbre called out loudly from the same rooftop Crissayel had earlier jumped. The anticipated, but as yet unseen speaker's ultimatum halting my hand just before it could close about my weapon.
"Touch that lightsaber, Jedi, and my bomb will reduce the Shi'ido in front of you to bloody chunks. Same goes for your little Togruta brat, the Naboo, and the battle-droid. One of you tries something, you'll be explaining to that wretched Council of yours how you managed to paint half a Naboo city block the color of hostage. If you survive the blast to explain anything to anyone."
Craning my head upward and to the right, I spotted the speaker now standing tall and confident at the edge of the Wandering Wyyyschokk's rooftop. Feeling a pained pang on Crissayel's behalf as I did, and the familiar thrill that being in danger always sent singing through my nerves. All because I recognized the Dark Jedi from the picture I'd seen attached to her inmate dossier. Ravara Zi Venn was tall at nearly two meters, and a fit sixty-five to seventy kilos. Belonging to the Myr Rho subspecies of the feline Cathar, her attractive features contained much more subdued leonine influences than Cathar of more typical descent. The wide, narrowing "V" of her brow drew the eye downward to large, expressively golden, slit-pupiled orbs, and from there on to her inverted "V" of a nose. It wasn't until the observer took in her high, sharply pronounced cheekbones that the half-mask colored to blend almost perfectly into her short white facial fur truly became noticeable. Running as it did from where the snow white fur of her mane transitioned into the short fur covering her forehead, then down and to the right, before finally terminating just above the right corner of the woman's upper lip. I knew the mask covered an absolutely ghastly "\" scar. One kept sealed beneath the mask by a mix of metallic latticework and synth-skin. The existence of that scar, and what it always portended, was a big part of why I hurt on behalf of the desperate and now increasingly frantic shapeshifter.
Leaping from the rooftop, Ravara landed with graceful ease on the walkway. Touching down perhaps ten or eleven meters behind and just to the right of her hostage, the Cathar immediately grew still as a Narglatch waiting to pounce. Eyes like frozen chips of amber studied me with a dispassionate facade, but I could feel the rage, resentment, and cold contempt slowly rising to roil just beneath the surface like a writhing mass of vipers waking from hibernation. When the impassive mask finally threatened to crack and reveal her true feelings, the corrupted ex-Padawan sneered derisively. "Even a Jedi should be, if only just barely, smart enough to understand how this goes. Throw down your weapons, then get on your bellies, or we'll all get to see what interesting shapes my handiwork can shift the Shi'ido into. I'm afraid it will be a rather more permanent configuration than broken little Crissayel is accustomed to, but we all do the best we can with the resources at our disposal. Now, move!"
Locking eyes with the deranged Dark Jedi, I managed to keep my countenance calm, even placid, as I serenely replied "I have a counter-offer in mind. Disarm your explosive, remain where you are while Crissayel moves to a safer vantage after divesting himself of your handiwork, then you can disarm and surrender. Otherwise, as unpleasant a task as it will be to carry out in front of my apprentice and charge, I'm going to make you surrender. Now, decide!"
Staring at me with growing disbelief as I unspooled my own ultimatum, the pale alien's golden eyes narrowed to slits within slits, as she growled with unrestrained anger "You shouldn't have tested me, fool." Stabbing her thumb down on a blinking icon I could just barely see at the angle she held the data-pad with obvious satisfaction.
Crissayel, Padme, and Ahsoka all cried out in various ways over the next second or so, with the latter two hitting the deck unceremoniously, but otherwise, nothing at all happened.
Glancing down at the datapad in her hand with a look of frustrated incredulity, understanding was a second too slow in coming. Ravara's head snapped back up, but my hand was already out before me and rising, as I'd gathered my power and struck in her moment of confused inattention. The Cathar's body was hauled in it's entirety a meter into the air. Her arms pressed tight to her sides, and the balls of both shoulders threatening to roll the inside of her arms outward, as my hand slowly closed into a tighter and tighter "C." Invisible forces snapping her head back to stare skyward, as the Dark Jedi's joints continued to strain against the pressure being exerted.
"You were saying something about Jedi stupidity, Ravara?" I inquired conversationally. Giving no sign of the way my stomach churned at the thought of what I'd just put Crissayel through, and to a lesser extent, the women it was my responsibility to protect. Disabling the explosive with Mechu-deru had been a gamble, if an informed one, because many people knew how to make improvised explosives, but only experts were generally capable of creating the anti-tamper mechanisms standard in thermal detonators and the like. Catching Ravara out was another matter. One which had relied completely on the reactions of the others being genuine.
Out of nowhere, a blot of roiling darkness suddenly appeared well behind and to my left in Force Sense. An instant later, a low, coldly furious voice gritted out "Let. Her. Go. Jedi. Or their deaths will be on your head!"
"Anakin!" Padme called out in alarm. Causing me to whirl with my lightsaber already in hand, my concentration still full upon pinning Ravara. I took in the sight of the two white faced men, their night-black hair in rows of dreadlocks. Each man's face covered in intersecting straight lines of black ink. Similar enough in appearance to be bookends, the pair's positioning was as much a mirror as their looks. Behind a frightened middle-aged Naboo woman in white and turqoise, and a terrified teenage girl in a bright yellow sundress. Hands carefully positioned to snap necks with one easy twist.
Fark.
A/N: I want to apologize for the abominably slow speed that I've been getting chapters out. Life has thrown me some real curveballs of late, so it's been difficult to find lucid/fully awake time to produce wordcount that's not fourth-rate garbage (I hope). I have high hopes things will get better, but we'll just have to see.
I appreciate everyone's patience more than I can say. Your feedback means the world to me. It gives me the enthusiasm for the story to keep plugging away.