This is the second last installment I’ll be sending out to everyone. Eventually I’m going to be moving this to a different (still free) Substack, or finding a way to attach this to a special sub-list of users who opt in on this Substack.
If you haven’t already read part 1, it’s here.
Note: I’ve experimented by throwing in some illustrations from Stable Diffusion. They’re not very good, but, you know me, always gotta be on the cutting edge.
The galactic senate
Davin had a little trick he played when he didn’t want to be seen. He imagined himself small. Smaller than a human eye could see. He thought smaller and smaller, until eventually, in a way beyond words, he felt like he was taking up negative space. He usually then went and smoked Marcan herb in the toilet. Today, feeling especially dark-side-may-care, he sat in a corner of a thoroughfare. Looking at his left sole, he considered the patterns the senatorial carpet had scrapped into it.
“Hi- you’re just the tour guide I was looking for!”
Davin caught his tongue just before he yelped, then, recognizing the voice he sighed in audible release. It was just Rysi Courtee, the senator for the obscure ecumenopolis moon of Andi. Andi had perhaps the smallest population of any city-world- it was a minuscule moon, and standing on it, you could very nearly see you were on a ball. Despite this, it had near standard gravity due to the extraordinarily heavy exotic materials in its crust. Rysi had two bewildering traits of his own- he was a newly elected senator who was always very interested in talking to Davin, and he could always find and see Davin even when he hid himself using the force.
Also, he was always happy. This wasn’t bewildering per se, who wouldn’t be chuffed to be senator at his age? But it left you bewildered as to how to respond. Feeling sad around Rysi didn’t feel right, because what if you tipped him off about the existence of sadness? Davin had heard once of a small cult who believed that a special sapient being had been born, lived and then been slain to take the punishment for everyone in the universe. Rysi was a kind of inverse of that- it was comforting to know that even if you couldn’t be happy, Rysi was out there, being happy for you.
“Oh, yeah?” said Davin, raising a single eyebrow (he’d spent half a week’s worth of evenings in front of a mirror learning to do that when he was 15).
“Yes! See, I wanted to get your views on the Jedi.” Said Rysi.
Davin’s heart froze did he know?
“Given your upbringing, I thought you might have some insights.”
He knew. Odd relief. That’s that then. Discovered.
“The chancellor, who I never met personally but who always seemed an upright wartime leader, has perished. Most of the Jedi, who always struck me as compassionate, just, and merciful, have perished. Two tragedies then. But the mystery is that the allies of both say that the other is to blame. Palpatine claimed the Jedi had come for him not long before he died. At its face, it would seem the Jedi are to blame yet… Something is not right. Strange things seem to have shifted almost at the moment of Palpatine’s death. In a situation like this, it would simply not do to vote and speak along factional lines, I must find the truth to serve my Republic and my world.”
Davin, who, despite fierce competition, was one of the most cynical beings on the galactic capital world, nevertheless felt compelled to believe that Rysi meant every word he said. He began to frame a response without his customary flippancy, seriously contemplating what he thought of the two sides’ claims. Just as he was about to speak, Rysi turned as three figures walked toward them down the hall.
“Senators Amidala and Organa, Master Orar.”
Davin’s eye fell first on Amidala- who, it appeared- had recently given birth. She looked so tired though- almost as if she had come near death. Then Organa, upright and dignified as ever. Then… oh yes, Orar who would probably spot him in a few moments. The four began to exchange pleasantries. Then master Orar’s eyes begun glaze, he turned his head and
He’s spotted me.
Master Orar reached, very conspicuously, for his lightsaber, although he did not ignite it.
“Senators, it is not safe to speak. There is a spy in the corner, hiding with the force.
Rysi laughed, a brilliant sound, yet not shrill- like champagne bubbles. “Oh that’s Davin”
“Davin… Davin” repeated master Orar as recognition dawned.
Davin rose to his feet, snuffed out his joint and made a slight, stiff bow. “Master Orar”. He’d always been intimidated by this master and his stiff propriety. He came from some backwater ocean world Davin had never learned the name of, from a shark adjacent species.
Orar began “Davin, how strange to…”
Five blaster bolts sailed through the air. Orar had his lightsaber out, faster than a blur, all but invisible; he deflected four bolts, but he had drawn milliseconds too slow to properly position himself to deflect the fifth, which flew right into his gargantuan mouth, past his six rows of razor teeth and through the back of his head. He fell then with a mighty bang, 450 pounds of dead flesh.
Davin’s world slowed and he stepped forward, feeling a calculator in his subconscious trace out the skein of what he must do in the force. The senators took cover in an alcove. He sensed Padme about to frantically gesture for him to follow. He saw the five black figures ahead of him and felt their murderous intention. Like he was taught, he surrendered completely to the force. Orar’s lightsaber flew up from the corpse into Davin’s hand, and the yellow blade began to spin deflecting bolts into the wall.
He surprised himself with the speed and precision he was managing, even as he knew he wasn’t going to be able to keep it up. Surrendering to the force won’t cut this Pazak deck.
He felt the fury rise up in him. In his mind’s eye, even in battle, he could see master Yoda shaking his head sadly as Davin embraced that rage, but right now he couldn’t give a fuck. Absolute fire flamed out from his heart, out at these brutes who cared so little.
Now the lightsaber was moving at a faster blur. One of the bolts flew back and hit an assassin on the bridge of the nose. Two more ran forward, taking his place. Davin began to speak and advance. His eyes scintillating with a dread light.
“You think this is a fucking game don’t you. It’s chess or it’s Dejarik. Better kill the enemies’ Karkath- doesn’t fucking matter that she just gave birth. You think all of this -all these quadrillions of sapients- all their lives, all of this, is a fucking game to play with assassins. I think I’ll just bag a Bail Organa today eh?
More fell, more took their place.
“Oh look, there’s an opportunity to take the enemy’s pawn. Never mind that his name is fucking Rysi and he’s a gentleman beloved by his planet and many others. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU.
Sensing that all the assassins were bunched together now, Davin began to spin his fury along with his blade, turning it like a claypot on the wheel, compressing its fire into ice. It was a second -at most- but it felt like minutes, refining it, sharpening it- and then he let go.
FUCK YOU.
ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRE
A piercing scream, as much mental as sonic. Weapons drop, hearts freeze. Minds tear in that dreadful sound.
KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK
A telekinetic wave rushes down the hall, hoists the assassins and slams them violently against the wall. It wasn’t like when Jedi pushed people into walls in the holovids- there was much more blood. Davin wondered if any had survived. He turned to tell the senators it was safe to come out, but a foreign dizziness welled up and he began to tremble in the extremities. A few seconds later, he fell backward. To his surprise he felt the senators behind him, propping him then lowering him to the ground.
Rysi spoke: “Do you need medical attention? A Jedi?”
“…Jedi? No, no. Master Yoda will be sad. I’m sorry Grandmaster Yoda. I was only trying to help. I know I shouldn’t use my anger Mm…st… Yoda.”
Strangely, Davin knew he sounded like a child even as he spoke, but he could not help it. It was like the wave of force had broken apart the self-serious mask of adulthood. Despair. Sadness. All very real, all very large. Much larger than him. like he was a small cloth sack trying to carry a life’s worth of unresolved debts.
Then a presence, a warmth, a light, wisdom. The statues were not cast aside or broken. They were just… unmade. He felt strangely safe, floating, it reminded him of certain illicit substances, without the background guilt they usually evoked. He smiled benignly at senators Padme and Organa while Rysi fussed, looking him for wounds.
Rysi paused, weighing options, obligations, and intuitions.
“Organa. Please summon the senatorial medics. Top priority. Tell them there was an assassination attempt on three senators were injuries and deaths. Don’t tell them none of the injuries were senators- say you don’t know. Don’t mention master Orar. After you’ve done that, contact someone you trust from the senate guard to take any surviving assassins into custody. Someone who won’t ‘accidentally’ shoot them, or accidentally ‘shoot’ them. Padme, please inform remaining the Jedi of the death of Orar and tell them to send healers skilled in the force.”
It was a sign of Organa and Padme’s grace and maturity that neither bristled at receiving instructions from a political junior who seemed to know what he was doing in this particular situation. As he watched them go about their tasks with the calm of those who have fought multiple wars, Davin smiled beatifically and felt himself drift off. It was going to be okay.
The Jedi Temple
Master Yoda’s meditation room, was unlocked as the voice had promised. A large Kyber crystal sat next to a zafu, a skylight faced up to Coruscant’s sky and there was a small shelf holding about dozen objects, about half of which had the sense of the force around them. One in particular seemed luminous in the force, a dusty diadem apparently made of jade.
Take it
“Who exactly are you?” she spoke aloud. She felt her capacity to speak audibly gave her an advantage over this spectral threat.
There was a pause. Through it Jaa could feel consideration, musing, caution. It seemed she had some access to the internality of the voice in her head. In turn, I could feel her heart.
A Sith lord, dead long before you were born. Right now, intent on helping you revive your, uh, confidante.
With more power then she felt: “At what cost?”
Mmm? This assistance is gratis, but once we have revived Darro we can talk about terms for an ongoing and mutually beneficial arrangement.
“Gratis? Fuck off. I don’t believe you.”
You have at some limited access to my mind, it would be foolish beyond belief for me to lie to you. Let me tell you, in the most straightforward terms, that I have no ulterior motive in this, or rather what ulterior motive I do have is simply to help you do something extraordinary, for I know that after that I will have your gratitude. My hope is that it will create, if not trust between us, at least its foundation.
As the voice spoke, she realized that she did know it was telling the truth.
She paused for at least half a minute, trying to think the situation through. However, she found that she just kept catching herself staring ahead. Where would one begin to think about something like this? Ultimately though, she could find no way to refuse the voice and live in the knowledge she had left Darro to death. She knelt before the shelf.
“What… do I need to do?”
Take the diadem. Do not place it on your own head. Take it to Darro, place it on his head, leave it on for no less than two seconds and no more than four. Remove it. Channel the force in. He will awake.
Jaa had read many tales of the Sith, she wasn’t going to fall for imprecise words “He will awake unharmed?”
Yes
“Unchanged”
Yes
“Un…”
He will awake unchanged, unharmed, unbound by any outside force, exactly as he was before his death, save for the memory of that death. He may or may not have memories of the time he was dead, this varies. The ancients who created the device you hold regarded it more as a way of gathering intelligence on the world of the dead than raising them. But I give you my word that there is no trick, trap or clever irony of words here. He will return, more or less as he was.
All you need to do is place the crown on his head and channel the force into it.
“I can channel the force into the diadem, but for such a feat I am perhaps… surely… too weak”
*A scoff* You’re not weak in the force. The Jedi simply do not understand your strength- reducing such things to counts of organelles in cells. In this I can hardly blame them, as almost none of the Sith would recognize your strength either. To you is given the power of vision, a power quite separate from, sometimes scarcely even correlated with, the ability throw things around a room or cloud a mind. Often those with strong legs will also have strong arms, but this need not be so. Telekinesis, mind control… against the power to discern possible futures, to see the present- even the past- these are irrelevancies.
But to answer your question, it will not take much power to do this, it is little more than turning a switch, an ordinary citizen of Coruscant could probably do it with a few hours of training and an encouraging slap on the back.
Suspending all thought as to whether this would work, she begun to walk towards her lover’s corpse at a grim, quick, march. As she walked, she tried to burn out the part of her that was afraid and heap the ashes on the part of her that was guilty. It didn’t occur to her as odd that she didn’t need a map to go through these parts of the temple she’d never seen, because she never needed a map in her life.
Trudge
Trudge
Trudge
It took eight minutes in total, and then there he was. Pale, stiff, eyes opened, frightened. Giving her the leer of the dead. Hand clenched around a lightsaber that had since been removed. Cauterized lightsaber stab near the gut, having missed the heart by millimeters.
Fortunate that. Even a slight graze of the heart might have invalidated this method. Strange that such a wound should kill a force user… a state of despair perhaps. Too high minded to channel the dark side to stay alive, too sad and broken to reach the light.
She stooped down, numb.
A funny thing happened. She reasoned he voice might be playing a joke on her or this might be an extended prank, so, to show it hadn’t beat her, hadn’t tricked her- to show she was in on the joke- she started laughing. At first a little chuckle to show she got the game, then a booming, mirthless cackle, like a witch of Dathomir in a children’s book- malignity pointed inwards. Finally, she started sobbing
Ahhhm, if you’re quite finished, the diadem.
Another thought. If Darro did come back, it wouldn’t be seemly to be crying- he might be distressed. She blotted down her face, closed his eyes, then put the jade crown on his head. As she did, she felt blood at the crown of his skull where he’d hit the floor, she couldn’t stop another tear coming, but would not hesitate now for it to pass.
A mental flick to switch it on. It started glowing. A holographic image of an alien figure from a species she did not know appeared in front of her and started babbling- it sounded like it might be reading a report of some kind?
One
A plane of light appeared above Darro’s body and descended through it, showing successive layers of muscle, bone and viscera, down through which the fiery-stab descended like a snake burrowing to hell.
Two
Light from the plane stretched out in tendrils, winding through the flesh, knitting up the whole. The holographic figure was still babbling.
Darro’s heart jumped.
Three- now!
She removed the crown, Darro’s eyes flicked open and he gasped like a baby about to scream for the first time. His right hand flung up in a blur, preparing to strike but stopping inches from her neck when he saw who she was.
A long two-second pause, then guilt flashed. “I could have killed you” he said.
“No, you couldn’t have.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t have a a weapon.”
A moment’s puzzlement, a quick look at his fist, clenched on nothing “…Oh”.
And then they both laughed and laughed until they squeezed each other so tight they couldn’t laugh anymore.
An hour or so passed. To my surprise, I found myself turning away attention , wandering off down telepathic paths to other projects. Perhaps it was a residual courtesy or respect for privacy. I preferred to think of it as the conservation of temporal resources. After all, I rationalized, there is little of scientific curiosity here, notwithstanding the significance of these acts to the participants, the mechanics -emotional and physical- are very well documented.
A passenger ship
The figure was wrapped in layers of clothing and scraps all over. Only his eyes and nose were visible. He would not stop talking.
“So you see, the doctrine of the eighth punishment is the only application of mercy possible in the age of bronzed cruelty. Ironic really, that the only possible mercy is the preservation of cruelty.”
Eenkal Onon, Mon Calamari, the youngest scion of house Onon, a minor house, had been accustomed from a very young age to listening politely to people both more and less important than himself. He had never in all his forty years told anyone to shut up, but he was closer than ever. A sympathetic man, Eenkal was pondering the ethics of getting his fellow passenger involuntarily committed.
But he was beginning to worry that his fellow passenger wasn’t mad in any conventional way. Eenkal had majored in xenopsychology and considered himself a keen observer of sapience in all its forms, in his, admittedly amateur experience, mad sapients didn’t talk like this. If anything it seemed more like droid memory syndrome. He’d heard stories of rare forms of madness specific to force users. What were the symptoms again… why was he reminded of…
“It is then that I shall create the punishment world. quadrillions of beings will nurtured from birth to be complex, marvelous creatures- to live out whole lives and then, at a particular age, chosen by lottery to be harvested into the chambers of unending pain. Galactic scale mega- structures of unimaginable cruelty.
“Why?”
“The purpose of life is to feed the pain engine” he replied with quick contempt- as if to say isn’t it obvious.
Motivational absurdity: the subject exhibits motivations that bear no relationship to the normal bio-psycho-socially embedded motivations of that species- even distantly and which are grandiose in their scope.
“…Unlike every other Sith lord in history, I have not corrupted the dark side by trying to help anyone with it. They all called themselves acolytes of the darkness, yet they had the temerity to try and aid themselves with the darkness! A sin nearly as wicked as altruism. I too shall be cast down into the pit of pain once it is excavated! A trillion years of agony I suffer, and I too shall regret having ever conceived it. Only I have the courage to implement the try vision of the dark side- furious hatred of everything. Noble lord Darth Nihilus came closer than any other with his vision of killing all life- but it’s not enough. And thank goodness Nihilus didn’t succeed- so my pain chamber can feed! Hah! It rhymes, I’m a poet- the very poet of doom! But no matter, I will turn the whole galaxy into a vast, self-stocking torture chamber, breeding beauty and hope, only to defile it again and again. Again: I will turn the whole universe into a vast, self -stocking torture chamber. The dark side will feast. Life will be created endlessly, sanctified, pure, beautiful, happy, only to be violated again and again… I shall... again and again”
It was going to be a long trip to Coruscant.
The person sitting on the other side of the self-proclaimed Sith lord on the starliner had been silent all this time. Finally he spoke.
“I get that you got plans, but what’s made you too busy to take a shower?”
Suddenly the would-be Sith lord looked deflated- vulnerable, wounded in the eyes and heart. Eenkal should have taken advantage of the madman pausing - enjoyed the quiet. But instead he strangely felt moved.
“Hey, uhh, what did you call yourself again?”
The self-styled Sith’s eyes lit up and he spoke with a forceful, almost happy pride:
“Darth Carnifectus! It means Lord torturer in Sith Pureblood language.”
“Oh, uh… lovely”
“Yes, I…”
And on he went again
A Republic cruiser about to leave Red Nebula
“Hit me”.
“Stand.”
19 v18. The Padawan had won again. Never play Pazak with a Jedi. You might win a hand, you’ll never win the game.
A natural lull, a pause in which both weighed whether to call it a night.
…
…
…
“You were going to try to kill me.”
“No, we were going to kill you.”
*Snort* “Yes I suppose you would have succeeded. It would have been a magnificent ambush. Don’t they say the best ambushes are by someone the victim trusts?”
“This is unfair, it’s…”
“Yes, quite. You were going to kill me and you’re only getting a verbal sniping, not a firing squad.”
“You really want me dead?”
She arched an eyebrow as if considering. Catching a flash of sadness in his eyes, she stopped herself.
“No, no of course I don’t. I’m just sad that you wanted me dead.”
“I didn’t want you dead. The inhibitor chips…”
“Yes of course the inhibitor chips. I’m sorry Blue. I’m being a prat.”
He was no force sensitive, but he could all but feel her shut down her emotions. She was ceasing to relate to him as his pal who he’d wounded, and instead was booting up the courteous Jedi protocol, cutting off rough friendship and replacing it with silken, melancholy grace. The partial care of a friend- the only friend he’d ever had who wasn’t genetically identical to him- replaced with the impartial concern of the Jedi for all things.
“I need to sleep. So do you Vale.”
“Okay Blue. No staying up late watching anti-gravball eh?”
He headed to the bunks where his men were already resting. They would tease him in the way only brothers can with various iterations of the suggestion that he’d been canoodling with the Jedi charge- disguised congratulations more than anything. That they had, only hours ago, been plotting to kill her wouldn’t make tonight any different from the others. He wondered how he’d respond this time. In the past he’d endured their teasing with magnamity, even joy, seeing it as a sign that he had a secret they didn’t- the secret knowledge of the intimacy of friendship with someone who wasn’t half you. A friendship far more profound than the one night stands the others had had. A friendship perhaps even richer for its chastity- born of choice rather shared blood or, ...you know… the sharing of other fluids.
He was being ridiculous, the sign of fatigue. Tomorrow would be its own battle. He’d find a way back to friendship, or he’d find another way to live.
I like where it's headed. Please keep us informed of where you're going to host/post the rest of the story.