A Good Day To Die
Title: A Good Day To Die
Fandom: Star Wars
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Bant Eerin (mentioned), Garen Muln, Kyp Durron, Mace Windu, Obi-Wan Kenobi (mentioned)
Summary: Garen thinks about growing old, and faces the likelihood of his own death. A Jedi's life is sacrifice. Set in the Destroyer of Worlds universe.
Note: Possible (implied) character death.
-
There was a time when the shriek of proximity klaxons would have sent his hand scrabbling for the hilt of his lightsaber. Now, it was the stretched, artificial quality of the silence that sent a faint trickle of unease down Garen’s spine. It sluiced off his skin in icy rivulets that coagulated slowly in his veins and became fear.
There was a faint murmur, the barest of undercurrents in the Jedi Temple, as Jedi glanced warily into the bruised purple sky. Hurikane purple, Garen thought, staring at the faint wisps of clouds. He almost couldn’t summon to mind the faint steel-grey of the overcast Coruscanti sky, or the shining, translucent blue of the clear sky.
This was a deeper, brooding violet, teased with faint scarlet at the edges, and he frowned as he caught sight of movement in the planetary airspace. Through the Force, there was nothing there: absolutely nothing, but the enormous void that he had dimly sensed at the edge of his perceptions for days.
And then Mace Windu himself had called for a Code Echo-Home-Seven, and Garen knew there was something to the vague feelings of forboding he had. Code Echo-Red-Five had only been used once, and that had led slightly under a hundred available Jedi Knights to die on the sands of the arena on Geonosis. Garen had never been there; still, he had nightmares of red sand and strewn bodies and violent, stormy skies.
The last Code Echo-Home-Six was one priority level lower; Garen remembered the siege of the Temple only too well, remembered watching Padawans who should have been far too young to join the fighting go down and watching seasoned Knights fall to volleys of blaster bolts. He’d fought in that siege, and tried to save Tal-Ren Jorjan but failed and took a blaster wound to the thigh. Jocasta Nu herself had saved him, deflecting a spray of blaster bolts and a grenade, dragging him along with a tenacity that had meant Garen’s life.
Garen activated his comlink for the wide-frequency Jedi broadcast, watching as the comlink crackled and buzzed but then a spray of blue laser finally resolved itself into the grimly determined form of Mace Windu. The hologram flickered in and out; Garen frowned and suspected some intermittent communications disruption -
Communications disruption.
“Jedi,” the small figure announced, “This is an emergency. Calling Code Echo-Home-Seven. As many of you may be aware by now, Coruscant is under attack. The planetary defense systems are down - Tanir Mukdas has been trying to patch us through to the military.”
There were quiet murmurs from the Jedi near Garen, all glancing at their comlinks. Attack. An alien fleet was attacking Coruscant. Not just an attack, Garen realised, with a sudden, sharp horror. It was a full-scale assault. They’d begun with communications disruption, and something that looked like a chemical weapon, if the new hue of the skies above Coruscant was to be believed.
“Our starfighters are still functional, thanks to the shielding of the hangars. While we coordinate Coruscant’s defense with the military, I need at least fifty Knights to take to the starfighters. Master Plo Koon will lead the force to engage with the first of the enemy ships.”
The tiny simulacra of Mace Windu paused. Hesitated, in fact. Something in Garen clicked into place.
He knew.
And then, Mace Windu continued, almost unconsciously brushing the back of his hand across his forehead in a tired gesture, “The members of the force will be made up of volunteers only.”
Garen inhaled sharply. Volunteers. Mace was asking for Jedi to come forward to form a suicide squadron, to buy time for Coruscant’s defenders to assemble and to punch straight through the confusion that had formed.
None of them were expected to survive this.
“Volunteers, huh?”
Garen didn’t startle at the voice. He’d sensed the familiar presence approaching him, even before Kyp Durron had spoke up. He was quite used to the way his former Padawan liked to strike up a conversation right from the middle. Garen shrugged. He didn’t say it out loud, though from the frowns and mutters around them in the corridors, plenty of Jedi had already figured out what Mace hadn’t said explicitly.
“All Jedi stand by for further communication. Windu out.”
A Jedi’s life is sacrifice. They were taught this, even from a young age in the creche. A Jedi sacrifices attachments. A Jedi sacrifices his possessions, and if he must, he sacrifices his life.
Garen blew out his breath slowly from between pursed lips, and thought about how eager he was to die. “Looks like it,” he replied neutrally. Kyp laughed and clapped a friendly hand on his old Master’s shoulder.
“It’ll just be like old times.”
It was, Garen thought quietly, always easier to face death when one was younger. Kyp wasn’t getting accustomed to losing just a little of his edge, seeing the beginnings of grey, tiring just a little more easily. His brazen daring had eased out to a kind of brash confidence that was still mostly the dazzling luck of youth.
Still, he let Kyp guide them both towards the hangar. Oh, Padawan, you still don’t know what you’ve signed yourself up for…He glanced behind him, trying to see if he could catch a glimpse, or a lingering Force trace of Obi-Wan or Bant.
There was nothing.
The Temple was large, Garen knew. The chances that he’d run into Obi-Wan or Bant near the pilot simulators weren’t particularly high. Still, he thought about the last time he’d spoken to his Mon Calamari friend. They had dinner together the last week in the dining hall, when Bant had teased him gently about how his reflexes were dulling, and he’d countered by pointing out the faint trace of wrinkles in her salmon pink skin.
He tried to think about everything they’d said, and if anything could sufficiently count as any sort of goodbye. Funny, he thought, once you realised you didn’t have very much time left, everything changed. He wondered what he would say to Bant, even if he could.
-
Of the Jedi assembled in the hangar, Garen caught too many familiar faces. Jedi Master Plo Koon himself was one of the best pilots in the Jedi Temple, and while Garen had never seen Rahm Kota fly a starfighter, he knew that Rahm Kota was never one to shy from a fight.
“Big party,” Kyp commented innocently.
Garen rolled his eyes. He knew what Kyp was leading up to. “So it is,” he said quietly, “But that puts us at five squadrons, five fighter pairs to each squadron.”
“Think that’s enough?”
Garen considered the question, seriously, first. No. Fifty Jedi were nothing against an entire fleet they knew nothing about. Mace had known that too, and Kyp surely knew it. He’d trained the man better than that.
“I’m taking the first squadron,” Plo Koon was saying, “Second squadron will be commanded by Rahm Kota…”
A question of morale, Garen thought, and he forced himself to smile lightly. “Piece of quinberry cake,” he said, and Kyp laughed.
“Fourth squadron, Garen Muln.”
Heads turned, trying to spot him. “Congratulations,” Kyp smirked, as Garen slipped through the crowd to join the other appointed squadron leaders. Valin Halcyon headed the fifth squadron, and as the leaders assembled at their designated sectors of the hanger, their squads trickled in to join them. Despite the undercurrent of urgency, there was an almost party-like atmosphere as Jedi readied ships, decided wing-teams, and tried to ease the tension and the acute awareness of impending death with black humour.
Garen took the north sector and wasn’t surprised to see Kyp saunter over to join him. He’d take Kyp on his wing, he thought, ruthlessly smothering all thoughts that didn’t pertain to the mission. Kyp, at least, should know what lay in store for them.
He counted off his squadron - Jaskvi Yth, Brad Uchad, Loryn Kace…he recognised some of them, and took the names of the others before settling wing-teams and call-signs in under five standard minutes. That had to be some sort of record, Garen thought bemused, as they set about to double-checking their starfighters and swiftly running through pre-flight checks.
Pressurisation seal, activated, check. Gravitational compensator indicators green, settings at standard percentage. Cooling systems, green. Shield functions check.
He realised the indicator light on his comlink was blinking, and Garen hesitated before answering it. “Garen.”
“Garen, this is Obi-Wan,” the familiar, dry voice on the other end of the connection said, and Garen suddenly felt a warm prickle in his eyes and he squeezed them shut. Not now, he pleaded silently, doing a Jedi breathing exercise to force his breathing to steady. “Coruscant’s lost. Evacuate off the planet, we’re regrouping at the Weiszel sector. Mace’s called for a strike force of volunteers only…”
Garen swallowed, but still his voice trembled, “I’m leading one of the squadrons, Obi-Wan.”
For a few moments, he could hear nothing but silence, and the sound of comm static. Distantly, he could pick out the sound of Obi-Wan’s breathing.
“May the Force be with you, Garen,” Obi-Wan said quietly.
“May the Force be with you, old friend,” Garen said, forcing himself to sound casual. He added, “It’ll be a piece of sweesonberry cake. Tell Bant I said hello.”
“I’ll do that. Watch your six, Garen.”
“I’ve been doing this for longer than you, Obi-Wan,” Garen said, and his throat grew tight as he shut off the comlink and connected it to the Aethersprite’s intercomm. “Testing. Delta Squadron, this is Delta Leader. Do you copy?”
“Delta Two, checking in,” Kyp’s voice was another startling brush against normalcy, and Garen forced himself through Jedi breathing exercises until he felt perfectly calm and unrattled.
The rest of the team checked in, and that was the end of the pre-flight checks. Garen checked in with Plo Koon (“Delta Squadron ready, Alpha Lead,”) and received the departure clearance. He engaged the engines smoothly, and then flipped the repulsorlifts on, and pulled back on the control yoke.
The Aethersprite zipped out of the Jedi Temple hangar and shot into the hazy purple sky, one out of fifty starfighters all flying the red-and-white of Judicial Department colours. A Jedi’s life is sacrifice, Garen told himself again. It was as good a day as any to die.
He pushed the distracting thoughts out of mind as they locked wings into secondary positions and accelerated to attack speed to make the first run at the alien ships.
Fandom: Star Wars
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Bant Eerin (mentioned), Garen Muln, Kyp Durron, Mace Windu, Obi-Wan Kenobi (mentioned)
Summary: Garen thinks about growing old, and faces the likelihood of his own death. A Jedi's life is sacrifice. Set in the Destroyer of Worlds universe.
Note: Possible (implied) character death.
-
There was a time when the shriek of proximity klaxons would have sent his hand scrabbling for the hilt of his lightsaber. Now, it was the stretched, artificial quality of the silence that sent a faint trickle of unease down Garen’s spine. It sluiced off his skin in icy rivulets that coagulated slowly in his veins and became fear.
There was a faint murmur, the barest of undercurrents in the Jedi Temple, as Jedi glanced warily into the bruised purple sky. Hurikane purple, Garen thought, staring at the faint wisps of clouds. He almost couldn’t summon to mind the faint steel-grey of the overcast Coruscanti sky, or the shining, translucent blue of the clear sky.
This was a deeper, brooding violet, teased with faint scarlet at the edges, and he frowned as he caught sight of movement in the planetary airspace. Through the Force, there was nothing there: absolutely nothing, but the enormous void that he had dimly sensed at the edge of his perceptions for days.
And then Mace Windu himself had called for a Code Echo-Home-Seven, and Garen knew there was something to the vague feelings of forboding he had. Code Echo-Red-Five had only been used once, and that had led slightly under a hundred available Jedi Knights to die on the sands of the arena on Geonosis. Garen had never been there; still, he had nightmares of red sand and strewn bodies and violent, stormy skies.
The last Code Echo-Home-Six was one priority level lower; Garen remembered the siege of the Temple only too well, remembered watching Padawans who should have been far too young to join the fighting go down and watching seasoned Knights fall to volleys of blaster bolts. He’d fought in that siege, and tried to save Tal-Ren Jorjan but failed and took a blaster wound to the thigh. Jocasta Nu herself had saved him, deflecting a spray of blaster bolts and a grenade, dragging him along with a tenacity that had meant Garen’s life.
Garen activated his comlink for the wide-frequency Jedi broadcast, watching as the comlink crackled and buzzed but then a spray of blue laser finally resolved itself into the grimly determined form of Mace Windu. The hologram flickered in and out; Garen frowned and suspected some intermittent communications disruption -
Communications disruption.
“Jedi,” the small figure announced, “This is an emergency. Calling Code Echo-Home-Seven. As many of you may be aware by now, Coruscant is under attack. The planetary defense systems are down - Tanir Mukdas has been trying to patch us through to the military.”
There were quiet murmurs from the Jedi near Garen, all glancing at their comlinks. Attack. An alien fleet was attacking Coruscant. Not just an attack, Garen realised, with a sudden, sharp horror. It was a full-scale assault. They’d begun with communications disruption, and something that looked like a chemical weapon, if the new hue of the skies above Coruscant was to be believed.
“Our starfighters are still functional, thanks to the shielding of the hangars. While we coordinate Coruscant’s defense with the military, I need at least fifty Knights to take to the starfighters. Master Plo Koon will lead the force to engage with the first of the enemy ships.”
The tiny simulacra of Mace Windu paused. Hesitated, in fact. Something in Garen clicked into place.
He knew.
And then, Mace Windu continued, almost unconsciously brushing the back of his hand across his forehead in a tired gesture, “The members of the force will be made up of volunteers only.”
Garen inhaled sharply. Volunteers. Mace was asking for Jedi to come forward to form a suicide squadron, to buy time for Coruscant’s defenders to assemble and to punch straight through the confusion that had formed.
None of them were expected to survive this.
“Volunteers, huh?”
Garen didn’t startle at the voice. He’d sensed the familiar presence approaching him, even before Kyp Durron had spoke up. He was quite used to the way his former Padawan liked to strike up a conversation right from the middle. Garen shrugged. He didn’t say it out loud, though from the frowns and mutters around them in the corridors, plenty of Jedi had already figured out what Mace hadn’t said explicitly.
“All Jedi stand by for further communication. Windu out.”
A Jedi’s life is sacrifice. They were taught this, even from a young age in the creche. A Jedi sacrifices attachments. A Jedi sacrifices his possessions, and if he must, he sacrifices his life.
Garen blew out his breath slowly from between pursed lips, and thought about how eager he was to die. “Looks like it,” he replied neutrally. Kyp laughed and clapped a friendly hand on his old Master’s shoulder.
“It’ll just be like old times.”
It was, Garen thought quietly, always easier to face death when one was younger. Kyp wasn’t getting accustomed to losing just a little of his edge, seeing the beginnings of grey, tiring just a little more easily. His brazen daring had eased out to a kind of brash confidence that was still mostly the dazzling luck of youth.
Still, he let Kyp guide them both towards the hangar. Oh, Padawan, you still don’t know what you’ve signed yourself up for…He glanced behind him, trying to see if he could catch a glimpse, or a lingering Force trace of Obi-Wan or Bant.
There was nothing.
The Temple was large, Garen knew. The chances that he’d run into Obi-Wan or Bant near the pilot simulators weren’t particularly high. Still, he thought about the last time he’d spoken to his Mon Calamari friend. They had dinner together the last week in the dining hall, when Bant had teased him gently about how his reflexes were dulling, and he’d countered by pointing out the faint trace of wrinkles in her salmon pink skin.
He tried to think about everything they’d said, and if anything could sufficiently count as any sort of goodbye. Funny, he thought, once you realised you didn’t have very much time left, everything changed. He wondered what he would say to Bant, even if he could.
-
Of the Jedi assembled in the hangar, Garen caught too many familiar faces. Jedi Master Plo Koon himself was one of the best pilots in the Jedi Temple, and while Garen had never seen Rahm Kota fly a starfighter, he knew that Rahm Kota was never one to shy from a fight.
“Big party,” Kyp commented innocently.
Garen rolled his eyes. He knew what Kyp was leading up to. “So it is,” he said quietly, “But that puts us at five squadrons, five fighter pairs to each squadron.”
“Think that’s enough?”
Garen considered the question, seriously, first. No. Fifty Jedi were nothing against an entire fleet they knew nothing about. Mace had known that too, and Kyp surely knew it. He’d trained the man better than that.
“I’m taking the first squadron,” Plo Koon was saying, “Second squadron will be commanded by Rahm Kota…”
A question of morale, Garen thought, and he forced himself to smile lightly. “Piece of quinberry cake,” he said, and Kyp laughed.
“Fourth squadron, Garen Muln.”
Heads turned, trying to spot him. “Congratulations,” Kyp smirked, as Garen slipped through the crowd to join the other appointed squadron leaders. Valin Halcyon headed the fifth squadron, and as the leaders assembled at their designated sectors of the hanger, their squads trickled in to join them. Despite the undercurrent of urgency, there was an almost party-like atmosphere as Jedi readied ships, decided wing-teams, and tried to ease the tension and the acute awareness of impending death with black humour.
Garen took the north sector and wasn’t surprised to see Kyp saunter over to join him. He’d take Kyp on his wing, he thought, ruthlessly smothering all thoughts that didn’t pertain to the mission. Kyp, at least, should know what lay in store for them.
He counted off his squadron - Jaskvi Yth, Brad Uchad, Loryn Kace…he recognised some of them, and took the names of the others before settling wing-teams and call-signs in under five standard minutes. That had to be some sort of record, Garen thought bemused, as they set about to double-checking their starfighters and swiftly running through pre-flight checks.
Pressurisation seal, activated, check. Gravitational compensator indicators green, settings at standard percentage. Cooling systems, green. Shield functions check.
He realised the indicator light on his comlink was blinking, and Garen hesitated before answering it. “Garen.”
“Garen, this is Obi-Wan,” the familiar, dry voice on the other end of the connection said, and Garen suddenly felt a warm prickle in his eyes and he squeezed them shut. Not now, he pleaded silently, doing a Jedi breathing exercise to force his breathing to steady. “Coruscant’s lost. Evacuate off the planet, we’re regrouping at the Weiszel sector. Mace’s called for a strike force of volunteers only…”
Garen swallowed, but still his voice trembled, “I’m leading one of the squadrons, Obi-Wan.”
For a few moments, he could hear nothing but silence, and the sound of comm static. Distantly, he could pick out the sound of Obi-Wan’s breathing.
“May the Force be with you, Garen,” Obi-Wan said quietly.
“May the Force be with you, old friend,” Garen said, forcing himself to sound casual. He added, “It’ll be a piece of sweesonberry cake. Tell Bant I said hello.”
“I’ll do that. Watch your six, Garen.”
“I’ve been doing this for longer than you, Obi-Wan,” Garen said, and his throat grew tight as he shut off the comlink and connected it to the Aethersprite’s intercomm. “Testing. Delta Squadron, this is Delta Leader. Do you copy?”
“Delta Two, checking in,” Kyp’s voice was another startling brush against normalcy, and Garen forced himself through Jedi breathing exercises until he felt perfectly calm and unrattled.
The rest of the team checked in, and that was the end of the pre-flight checks. Garen checked in with Plo Koon (“Delta Squadron ready, Alpha Lead,”) and received the departure clearance. He engaged the engines smoothly, and then flipped the repulsorlifts on, and pulled back on the control yoke.
The Aethersprite zipped out of the Jedi Temple hangar and shot into the hazy purple sky, one out of fifty starfighters all flying the red-and-white of Judicial Department colours. A Jedi’s life is sacrifice, Garen told himself again. It was as good a day as any to die.
He pushed the distracting thoughts out of mind as they locked wings into secondary positions and accelerated to attack speed to make the first run at the alien ships.