"Lady Padmé, I insist," the Naberrie family butler said, gently taking the girl by the shoulders and dropping to one knee. "Let us turn to the Judicial Forces or, as a last resort, the Jedi."
"Boderick said these mercenaries are honest and loyal to the cause of the Republic and Democracy. They have become the bulwark for millions of citizens of our great state." Almost stomping her foot, Padmé tilted her little nose up and began explaining "obvious truths" to her loyal servant. "Destroyers of piracy and the slave trade, fighters for justice and freedom!"
Thrusting a small fist toward the sky, Padmé beamed her best smile at the old servant, leaving him with no choice but to back down. The young mistress was very stubborn; if she managed to get something into her head, she certainly wouldn't budge.
"It's all that idiot Boderick's fault! Commoner from the Outer Rim, filling the mistress's head with tall tales, and now I'm the one who has to deal with it and worry."
The butler thought this to himself, but remained as silent as a fish. Bowing his head in agreement and standing back up, the elderly man tucked his hands behind his back, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin. Perfect posture, a stiff appearance, and the best manners—all of this was hardwired into his subconscious. Even Padmé, proud of her small victory, instantly dropped the theatrics and excitement, turning back into a miniature copy of her own servant.
"Then I beg of you, little mistress, let us proceed to the meeting."
"Of course, Kasendo, I am ready." The businesslike little woman, nearly tripping on her own dress, proudly followed the butler, stepping in sync with her servant. From under the half-closed eyelids of the young Naberrie, an intrigued gaze flickered. Hungry for the new, she struggled to contain her impulses, settling for what she could glimpse through her thick lashes. "How interesting..."
The delighted, childlike voice was too shrill; Kasendo's commanding figure froze in place, causing little Padmé to nearly walk into his back.
Turning his head slightly to the side, the butler measured his ward with an unreadable look, then exhaled tiredly and, maintaining his previous composure, moved forward toward the door that separated them from the mercenary representative.
Wooden, crafted from a rare and extremely temperamental tree from Naboo, this antique door was one of the many decorations that made the Naberrie house so influential and powerful.
Gently taking the door handle, Kasendo was about to open it habitually and step aside when he heard voices inside the meeting room.
"Fuck, I'm telling you, we're mercenaries, get it, kid?! We hunt pirates, slavers, and other scum... We don't help refugees in the way you want." A gruff male voice grated on the butler's refined ears. Wincing at the abundance of coarseness and profanity in the speech, Kasendo regretted what was happening more and more, and lamented his lack of willpower to stand up to his favorite pupil. "Now, if some scum needs their head put through a wall, we're always game. Hauling cargo, freeing slaves, protecting some planet... Cool stuff, get it? Not this touchy-feely crap..."
"Kasendo? Is something wrong?" A quiet girl's voice behind him pulled the man from his thoughts. Turning to the little mistress, the butler seriously cursed Padmé's incredible ability to read people, for as soon as she met his eyes, the girl frowned. "Do you really not want this? I can back down..."
Tilting her head and knitting her small brows, Padmé pursed her lips slightly, showing the full extent of her distress... which was saying a lot. Most wouldn't have noticed, but Kasendo had spent years teaching and raising the girl, so he knew her better than anyone.
Dropping to one knee again, the man smiled softly, showing that everything was fine and the girl had nothing to worry about.
"I just fear we've chosen people outside the required profile," Kasendo said, choosing his words carefully and forcing a crooked smile, which was immediately met with an ironically raised eyebrow. Coming from an eight-year-old child, it looked cute and amusing, but the serious look in her brown eyes boded no good for the butler. "Ugh, fine. Those you wish to hire are assassins, terrorists, and just plain madmen who bomb entire planets if their contract depends on it..."
"I think you're exaggerating." Caught off guard by such intensity and the admission, the little Naberrie even stepped back slightly, her second eyebrow joining the first in its ascent. "Boderick mentioned that not all their business went smoothly, but overall..."
"Your self-defense teacher is quite a character himself. I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Boderick used to moonshine as a mercenary or was a pirate altogether. How Master Ruwee ever agreed to such a thing..."
The rhetorical question hung in the air, but Kasendo received an answer anyway.
"Because we don't have the money for a qualified mentor, and Boderick practically works for food?" Smiling sweetly, Padmé tilted her head to the side, making it look as though the words she spoke were merely something she'd overheard from someone else, and that she didn't even understand what they meant. It would have worked... on someone else. "Ruwee's sister said so when she visited last weekend."
Pouting slightly because she had been forced to give away her relative with a single perceptive look, Padmé bypassed the butler and stood by the door.
"In any case, the Helldivers representative is already here, and time is running out for the planet Shadda-Bi-Boran. If we want to save its inhabitants from this catastrophe, we'll need the help of the best."
"You are right, mistress." Touched by the serious child, Kasendo straightened the girl's business suit, looking her over one last time from head to toe. Then, standing formally by the door, the butler began to open it, saying:
"Then let us go inside and find out if the famous Helldivers can handle your commission." Suppressing a sly smile when the unknown mercenary's face contorted at this simple ploy, Kasendo caught a similar glint in young Padmé's eyes out of the corner of his eye.
***
Watching his incorrigible student leave—a man in his fifties who still behaved like a beardless boy—I set the datapad aside, interlacing my fingers in front of my face.
Geen was, and probably still is, the best thing I achieved in my years as a Jedi. Though he is headstrong, stubborn, and always has his own ideas, my former student nevertheless became a model Jedi, and perhaps only constant conversations with him helped me maintain the remnants of my composure and faith in the Temple.
Qui-Gon Jinn's arrival and his report on the latest news pushed me for a few moments out of the rut of thoughts and worries that consume me daily. Like a swarm of voracious Locust, they attack my mind, nudging me into the Darkness of my own disappointment and fears.
Sitting in my quarters at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, I cannot rid myself of a sense of profound loss. Grand Master Yoda always insists that the bitterness of loss is the first and widest step on the path to the Dark Side of the Force, but I no longer have the strength to close my eyes to everything.
The Galactic Republic, which I once considered a symbol of justice and order, is slowly decaying. It is dying like the rotting corpse of a krayt dragon, while Scavengers and insects slowly surround it from all sides, eager to feast on the former master of the desert.
Picking up an old book from the time of the last wars with the Siths, I open a random page. A rare edition, pointless in its creation, for any tablet or datapad is far more efficient, yet still...
I liked this book much more than all those cold screens and computers that hum and attract dust.
Running my fingers over the broad handwritten letters, I read the intricate lines with hidden delight, simply experiencing comfort... but only for a brief moment.
Before me open the pages of history on which all this was written, and I read them with a clarity that comes only with disappointment and indifference.
The book snaps shut under my hand and is pushed aside as I try to calm the storm of agitation and The Force rising deep within me.
I remind myself every time of what I was before—full of hope and optimism, believing I could change something for the better.
A Jedi Master who staked his fate on serving this idea, but now I realize my influence is fading, lost in a quagmire of lies and corruption.
Long years of loyal service... full of mistakes and falls.
Every failure, every loss echoed in my head, returning me to the days when I barely noticed them, but...
The older I get, the more often I realize that in my long life, I have achieved nothing!
How many times have I tried to propose reforms in the Senate! Every time I raised my voice, my words met with misunderstanding and rejection.
"We cannot go against tradition," they told me, and tried in every way to hush up my proposals.
While worlds in the Galaxy died under oppression, Senate representatives preferred to conduct their refined intrigues, fighting to survive in this tangled game of power.
Their eyes glittered with greed, and I understood they were merely waiting for the moment to grab their share of the rotten pie that, it seemed to me, could still be saved if one tried.
And I tried. Time and again, I stood up, though I found myself on my knees once more. I rose and moved forward, feeling the years take their toll, and from the former hot zeal and confidence in my own strength, only a cold acceptance of reality remained, along with a heap of self-justifications.
I remember how, during one of the sessions when I proposed creating a commission to investigate large-scale corruption among officials, I witnessed a stream of fake smiles and unearned approval.
I felt that in that moment, my words dissolved into the air like the smell of cigarette smoke, leaving nothing but a slight nausea from the boring debates.
Oh, how that Senate pretended to sincerely care about the future of the Republic! "But the food offered at that cursed table" was thoroughly spoiled, and I, like a laughingstock, found myself in the midst of this disgrace.
A naive fool and a simpleton who believed in a dream and the stupid ideals of an Order of cowardly monks.
Clenching my fist in anger, I hear a nasty metallic clang. Tearing my eyes from the tabletop, I wince painfully, for in my lack of restraint, I had just destroyed a gift from one of the allied dukes of Serenno.
An inscribed saber from ancient times had turned into a crumpled piece of steel, shapeless and pathetic...
"Just like myself, actually."
A crooked smile crept onto my face. With a wave of my hand, I pulled the blade toward me, examining it more closely and remembering everything that was said that evening.
"With every strike, it binds the soul, because what does not kill us makes us stronger, and every loss only strengthens our roots." My father's old friend had said then, telling some naive legend associated with the weapon. "This relic blade, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, symbolizes not only the unswerving path to victory but also transformation through trials."
"Good words... a pity they're naive."
Setting the lump of steel aside, I lean back in my chair, sinking into thought once more.
I look back, thinking of the Jedi Order, of our sacred path, and I cannot rid myself of the feeling that we have lost our essence.
Grand Master Yoda, possessing a mind and wisdom as it seemed before, only prattles about The Force and its greatness, while we lose control and influence. With every year, the Order becomes weaker, more frail, and fewer in number.
Jedi Knights no longer serve as a guarantee of peace throughout the galaxy; rather, they have turned into terrifying monsters from fairy tales. Equally frightening and ephemeral, for we venture beyond the Inner Rim and the Core so rarely that in many corners of the galaxy, they don't even know of us.
And not just that. Where are the warriors capable of defeating armies, throwing ships from orbit, or reaching any, even the most protected castle, bypassing all security?
A few individuals out of tens of thousands. Yet every one of them knows how to meditate and speaks of The Force as if they, like the Grand Master, had lived a thousand years.
His otherworldly conversations about harmony and balance are becoming increasingly cramped and elusive to me, like castles in the air that crumble so easily at the slightest doubt.
I myself began by guarding them, but now I see only fragility and deception. Instead of guiding us toward a goal, he literally manages to leave us without protection. In the white shackles of this fatal rot, in vague reflections and conversations.
His wisdom and age have turned against him, and now he tries to prevent some distant steps in the future, while problems need to be fought here and now.
A new wave of The Force rolled through the cell. The walls trembled painfully, and the door creaked nastily as it began to warp outward.
It took more than ten minutes for me to simply calm this riot and another ten to more or less come to my senses.
Every moment spent among my brethren becomes a source of doubt. Every time I see how their devotion to a few dilapidated canons leads to catastrophic consequences, and they are unable to tear their minds away from the narrow framework of tradition.
I am disappointed, and this disappointment accumulates like a storm rising beyond the horizon. Seeing my comrades forced to follow dogmas, not noticing how these very dogmas lead us to ruin. To a fall, not into the thrice-cursed Darkness so often spoken of... no, to a common fall into the mud.
The sword lying on the edge of the table tilted slightly, about to fall to the floor, but my sharp lunge allowed me to catch it before the priceless weapon, a loyal companion and friend, touched the ground.
Staring into the smooth features of the perfect weapon, I felt the mood of The Force around me. Trusting my intuition, I timidly touched the crystal inside the sword with The Force, and it resonated sharply in response, beginning to hum steadily.
"Ugh, hope is the lot of fools... how foolish am I?" Asking the ceiling, I massaged my temples with my fingertips. A headache, damn it. Nevertheless, this brief moment of union with my weapon and the pain in my temples helped me regain clarity of thought.
"But perhaps, in this chaos, an inherent spark of hope still flows, and I cannot take it upon myself to give up?"
I still believe that change is possible. Perhaps it is worth continuing to fight, despite constant disagreement and resistance?
To push through, to cast aside politeness and subservience, and brazenly achieve my goal for the greater good... even if the majority will not appreciate such methods.
"They won't appreciate it right now, but decades later, people will say thank you... thank you for the grateful sigh of a Republic rested from the filth."
And I am ready to fight my own allies if it helps restore the ideals I consider sacred. Yes, I will fight in spite of all who believe there is no room left for justice in this Galaxy. I am still here, and perhaps there is still a light I can ignite in the heart of the once-great state?
With a flick of my hand, I straightened the relic saber, returning it to its original form. Infusing my fingers with The Force, I quickly ran them along the blade, increasing the material's density and giving it a much better chance of surviving my subsequent outbursts. A simple trick that most current Jedi cannot use.
Let the light from this fire burn that half-rotten titan the Republic once was. But afterward... afterward, it will rise much stronger and sturdier than it was before.
***
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