Vigilance
Slide body weight forward. Stop.
Evenly distribute weight over balls of feet. Hips turned at an angle. Back straight. Eyes forward. Arms held away from body. Elbows bent. Knees bent.
Breathe, she whispered. Don’t forget to breathe.
Following one quick, shallow breath came two strikes in quick succession. She twirled, her saberstaff a blur of silver light as her furious flurry of attacks cut the air around her and cast an eerie glow over the surrounding area. The wet, grassy mud beneath her boots squelched and popped with every cautious step.
One, block. Two, parry. Three, counter.
Her wrists twisted, arms pulled, muscles strained as her saberstaff arched through the air, hissing as the larger rain drops collided with the beam in motion. The dark storm clouds swirled above Dxun’s endless forest and lent more shadows to the endless images of enemies only she could see.
But she didn’t see poorly armored troops clad in the drab monotones of gray and more gray, blasters strapped to their hips and thighs and screaming obscenities laced with disgust. Innocent faces warped with rage and clothed in black rivers streaming over shoulders, cut at the hips by crooked belts and illuminated by blades the color of a Laigrek’s eye.
She didn’t see smiles that took an edge and stretched to a cold, malicious grin of promises that involved tearing flesh from skin and drinking the Force from her veins.
Roll. Jump. Flip. Overhead slice, down. Land. Dodge. Parry. Counter parry. Lunge.
No, those shadows were dealt with as easily as they were cut down earlier that day. Other shadows, less familiar but more recognizable, danced just beyond the range of her blade. Shadows that closed in then stepped back. Every singular battle a battle of skill and talent and she hadn’t the time, hadn’t the strength, hadn’t the ability to take down every one so those that followed her didn’t have to.
But the shadows dissipated with each strike, the images cut clean through by the blade of silver that was once two separate blades the color of Manaan’s seas.
Her throat burned, eyes throbbed, muscles screamed in protest- but she had the Force and the Force sustained her.
So she danced. And as she moved, the images took a sharper edge. The shadows stopped being simple images and hardened. Plated heavy armor glinted in the pale light reflected through the night’s clouded sky. Enemies not of the tens but hundreds drifted behind grass and tree and everything in between. They fought with precision, calculated every variable her and her army posed to their base. Thousands of mines waited beyond the hills but she wouldn’t have known, couldn’t have known until it was too late and too far in to move anywhere but forward.
Lunge. Step. Step. Sidestep. Dodge. Parry. Twist. Counter thrust. Block. Thrust. Dodge. Flip. Roll. Upward stab. Evenly distribute weight over two legs. Center hips. Forward jab.
They moved closer. She moved back, glancing to her side to see innocent faces, faces too young and too soft to justify their sacrifice in the name of the Republic. The memory broke her resolve and echoed inside the figurative hole in her chest as she pressed forward in a furious series of complicated swings, cuts, parries and counterattacks.
They danced beside her, behind her, before her. Weapons raised, shields powered and bodies shaking with fear and adrenaline. The images approached close enough for her to smell the blood, the sweat, the anger, the exhilaration- them. Close enough for her to see the wrist mounted projectile launchers.
The scream of one rocket tearing through air and rain and past her defenses too quickly, far too quickly. Her hand raised and used the Force to redirect its trajectory.
Beside her, another scream pierced her eardrums and was quickly choked off by a strained gurgle. The smell of copper and heat broke through her senses and she felt, again, the excruciating tear of life ripped from existence.
“Man down.” The voice echoed in her memories.
“Call a medic.” Someone else cried.
“Keep moving,” she had commanded.
No choice, she told herself.
Parry. Sidestep. Thrust. Dodge. Dodge. Block. Lunge.
Sweat dripped into her eyes and down her back. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she acknowledged the pain in her joints, the low throb in her muscles, the dull ache that would escalate into a roar once she ceased her movements. But she wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop. If she stopped they would come and come and come and only she could hold them at bay.
If she had been faster. If she had been wiser. If she had been more aware. More aware. More vigilant. The Force was her ally, but what good was it when she was too slow? Always too slow, just too slow. One second. Half a second. Quarter of a second.
“Too slow,” she hissed under the roar of the sudden wind as the storm picked up and flooded the sky in a heavy torrent of ice rain. Every drop felt as though it cut through her robes and pierced her skin. But she did not falter, could not stop, when the Force sang in her veins and filled her with a life she had thought she had forgotten so long ago.
Her blade hummed and hissed as it cut the air and she rolled, thrusting her staff and disemboweling the owner of a sneering face illuminated by the glow of a Laigrek’s eye. “Too slow,” she grunted and could only feel a hollow emptiness where once her heart had been. Numb, with only an echo of the Force’s connection she once had, she continued cutting down the shadows, one by one, only to find a hundred more to stand in place.
What good was her skill when so many dropped dead like heavy sacks of barq?
Protected the people, but ended up a mass murderer.
Inaction served no one, but what did her action serve?
Step. Downward slice. Sidestep. Parry. Roll. Counter parry. Diagonal cut. Turn. Twist hips and slide step forward. Loosen grip on handle and twirl.
Breathe. Don’t forget to breathe.
Bao-Dur sat silently on the edge of the docking ramp, barely protected from the rain by the underbelly of the Ebon Hawk. His remote made no noise, other than its repulsorlifts hissing to keep the sphere afloat as it zipped around the ship in pseudo-defense maneuvers. There was no real need to be wary, as their camp on Dxun was as safe as any could hope to be on that moon. If there was danger, the Mandalorians were only a quarter of a standard hour away and would easily come to their aid in half the time.
So, the Zabrak technician merely sat and watched the General as she repeated her saber drills over and over without break or pause. It occurred to him that at the rate she was going, she could very likely work herself to death. He didn’t know what had taken place on Onderon, and didn’t speak to her when their team rejoined them on Dxun. But he had wanted her opinion on a now-forgotten modification to a Blaster Pistol when he realized she was nowhere on the ship.
He stifled a sigh as he regarded the day's events through his weary mind's eye. His team, lead by Atton with him and Mical backing up, fought Sith Assassins, Beast Masters, and Dark Jedi in what looked to be an ancient temple. Damages were sustained, and the fights were the hardest he ever had the displeasure of dealing with. The same commentary came from Mira about their trip to Onderon, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
When he had asked Atton, the pilot relayed the message, harping on about their fearless leader single handedly ending a war. It was the kind of comment Bao-Dur expected, a flippant response to defuse a particularly heavy situation. The General’s skill with words was only outmatched by her skill with weapons, yet he realized that said talents worked well not only as an offense but a defense.
She spoke to no one about her issues, if she had any- and she certainly had to have quite a few- and she spoke even less about the Mandalorian War. He suspected she had not quite come to terms as she claimed to, and his suspicions were confirmed when he had brought it up in a conversation while en route to Dantooine. She only smiled while her expression cooled into a mask of disinterest. She made vague comments, gestures that indirectly referred to certain battles and decisions she made, while at the same time dealing out comfort that he had unknowingly needed.
And it hurt, on some level, to know that she would not confide in him… or anyone at all.
The hollow thumps of boots on the metal ramp brought Bao-Dur’s attention back to the present, prompting him to look up though he already guessed who had come to join him at 0400 standard time. A head of perpetually disheveled brown hair, with equally brown eyes, peered down at him and offered a small nod before he focused on the woman still battling invisible demons.
“How long has she been at this?” Atton asked with muted disinterest, though Bao-Dur knew better. Atton’s clenched jaw and strained lines around his eyes belied his concern.
“Nearly as soon as they returned, is my best guess,” Bao-Dur offered after a moment’s consideration.
Something he didn’t recognize flitted behind Atton’s eyes, and not for the first time Bao-Dur wondered what had happened before they all left Korriban. But he didn’t ask, he simply turned back to watch the General and kept his medical supply kit at the ready, just in case.
The silence dragged on as the rain picked up. They could see her face locked in a blank expression, her eyes focused and her movements precise. Even though the technician estimated something else, the General seemed grounded in the present.
Again, Bao-Dur wondered what happened on Onderon, or if it was even Onderon that closed her off from the rest of them so suddenly.
“Eight hours of this?” Atton asked, his tone carefully neutral and very unlike him. Bao-Dur nodded.
“She’s going to work herself to death,” the pilot continued, his tone deepened but conveyed his anxiety loudly.
“I doubt that, Atton,” Bao-Dur commented softly. “But I think the General will be very sore for the next few days, possibly bed ridden.”
He heard the pilot heave a long, disgruntled sigh, followed by the loud clunks of boots descending the metal ramp.
Atton instantly regretted stepping out from under the safety of the Ebon Hawk. From dry to soaked in under a second, he mused inwardly as he gingerly stepped through the squelching mud. The things I do for women.
The modified lightsaber handle that hung off his belt clicked softly against the side of his pants as he approached the ex-Jedi Exile. She moved, flowed with purpose, viciously striking down attackers he couldn’t see. The sight stirred a certain warmth at the pit of his stomach, but he quietly pushed his lecherous thoughts to the side for another time.
“Sam?” he ventured in a failed attempt to get her attention. The wind picked up suddenly, drowning out his words with more rain and nearly knocking him off his feet.
But she continued to stand tall, and almost resembled a goddess unmoved by petty things like a raging hurricane. Or she would have, had she not been a good head shorter than him, with skin that looked to be turning a pale tint of blue and dark hair askew from the tight knot usually kept at the back of her skull.
“Sam!” Atton shouted with renewed vigor.
For a moment he contemplated an attempt to reach her through their Force bond, when suddenly the ex-exile turned and focused her gray eyes on him. Every hair not glued to his skin by chilled rain stood on end. Her expression was empty, devoid of anything more than a blank stare, and he felt her eyes rake him with the clinical interest of a being seeking only to find the quickest way to dispose of his life.
Atton knew that expression intimately, as it stared back at him from the mirror for years before he met her.
Compartmentalizing his emotions, he filed his fear away, along with his impatience and irritation regarding the poor weather, and instead fixed an easy smile on his lips. She didn’t know it, but he reserved it just for her.
“You need to settle down, babe,” he started.
The silver glow of her saberstaff sliced through the air and stopped, the tip pointed at him. He held his ground, even as something in his chest twisted painfully at the action. He would not move, and while he didn’t exactly enjoy being on the business end of the “Jedi’s Tool”, he wasn’t inclined to whip out his own yellow saber and do battle.
It just wasn’t his style.
“Been out here for eight standard. I think it’s pretty clear to the rest of us inexperienced padawans that you are the master of your craft...”
Her eyes narrowed, but he noticed her grip loosened on the handle slightly. He eased his hands into his pockets and made a show of looking around the area, before allowing his gaze to fall back on her. Somehow, his mind equated his situation to that of attempting to talk down an irate mother kath hound. The image did not help him in the slightest.
“And I don’t know about you, but I think this place’ll give Hoth a run for its money.” He let the comment hang and inwardly winced at the poor humor. It was a bad joke, even for him.
But it seemed to have the desired effect, as the ex-exile slowly straightened up and deactivated her saber. The light behind her eyes dimmed considerably, and without warning a wave of exhaustion hit him hard through their connection. Instinctively he moved forward, fully expecting her to collapse under the weight of whatever crazy impulse she decided to follow.
He was stopped by her hand, and the pained look in her eyes. Yet her face kept the controlled, impartial expression he had come to despise.
The tight-laced control drove him up the wall.
“It is cold,” she stated simply with eyes piercing through him.
“I can think of a few ways to warm up,” he replied automatically... and then winced again.
She blinked, slowly extracted her hand from his chest, and brusquely strode past him to enter the ship without as much as a glance back. To say it wasn’t the reaction he expected was an understatement, and it left him colder than he thought possible. Atton cursed and followed suit, eager to just get dry and get his mind off their exchange.
As he passed the now-standing Zabrak technician, he was stopped by a mechanical hand on his shoulder. “Did something happen?” Bao-Dur asked carefully.
Atton frowned and wavered slightly under the sudden, irrational urge to throttle the Zabrak for asking a simple question. He swallowed, closed his eyes, and got himself under control before he sardonically replied, “She’s been chewin’ the luna-weed.” Then Atton retreated into the ship before the war veteran could get another word out of him.