Maverik

[M_A_White]

This is the story of a young Jedi who doesn't 100% follow the code of the Jedi. During the Second War with the Sith Empire, she finds herself at odds with someone close to her, and must find a way to protect the ones she loves most from being dragged into the wrong side of the war. I won't say more on the character until the end.

[M_A_White]

Maverik

 

It is a period of healing for the galaxy at large. The war with

the Sith Empire is over, but not forgotten. Heroes from both

sides find themselves at a loss, and peace between the

Galactic Republic and the Empire is tenuous at best.

 

In the aftermath, the Jedi retreat to the ancestral world of

Tython to begin anew, separate but still a part of the Republic

they serve so faithfully. And while they accept the peace that

exists, they know that it is only a matter of time before hostilities

arise once more.

 

But not all Jedi are so forgiving. There are some that know that

the peace is a sham, and that the Empire is secretly rebuilding

to strike at the Republic when their backs are turned. Though

ignored for the most part by the Jedi Order as a whole, they

continue to spread the word, recruiting a secret army that will

be ready the next time the Sith strike....

[myolinyr]

A Jedi who doesn't completely follow the jedi code? What a twist!

[EverSteam]

Sounds good.

Excited to see what you write

[M_A_White]

-Prologue-

 

Alderaan

14 BTC

 

The once calm and peaceful forests of Alderaan were chaotic, alive with fire and smoke and movement. Far in the distance lay the smoking ruins of House Undal, destroyed with all members in the first wave of the Sith invasion. Large stretches of tree and brush had been uprooted and hacked to pieces to clear space for the mobile armies of the SIth — various combat droids ranging from small and humanoid to large and crablike, interspersed with the beskar-clad Mandalorians that had tagged along for fun and cortosis-armoured agents and troopers of the Empire itself.

 

But though the SIth themselves were outnumbered by their own followers on the battlefield by a factor of twenty to one, it was impossible to miss them. Clad in armour of cortosis, beskar, phrik or just plan durasteel and black or crimson robes, they carved their own way through Republic forces that opposed them with little effort. Lightsabers of crimson and violet and amber struck down those that got in the way of the Sith, even if they were soldiers of the Empire itself.

 

The Republic's own invasion — or, rather, counter-invasion — was somewhat lessened to that of the Sith. The Empire's regulars were numbered triple to that of the Republic's foot soldiers and armoured vehicles. And there were thirty Sith for every Jedi. But despite their numbers, the Sith greatly underestimated their foes, and those that allowed themselves to become complacent on the battlefield took a blaster bolt to the back of the head or a shock grenade to the chest for their arrogance.

 

Among the Jedi's numbers was fourteen-year-old Jedi Padawan Cyandrah, and she could barely keep the horrors of the battle for the planet out of her mind as she slashed back and forth with her twin amber-bladed lightsabers. The Republic's alliance with the ruling house on Alderaan — House Panteer — was deemed so important that to take back the planet, the Jedi had called even padawans to fight. Though Cyandrah's master, a Shi'ido called Calex Tuole, believed her ready, he had clearly underestimated just what kind of psychological effect the destruction wrought by the Empire would cause her.

 

Powerful Sith Lords who cared naught for the lives of their lessers carved through soldiers from both sides — whoever got in their way was evidently fair game. Other Jedi were butchered for sport by the ferocious Sith. Calex had already been cut down mercilessly by the muscular, bald Sith Cyandrah judged to be the commander of the Imperial forces on Alderaan. He was now fighting for every inch of ground he could take from Jedi Master Satele Shan — which wasn't much.

 

If she was true to herself, Cyandrah wanted revenge for the death of the wise man from whom she'd learned the ways of the Force. She wanted to be the one to drive her lightsaber through the offending Sith's chest and watch the light fade from his eyes as his life was extinguished. But that was a path to the dark side. She buired those feelings and thoughts under the adrenaline-fed alertness of the battle around her, her awareness of the locations of every individual so she could better plan her next move.

 

A small jolt from the Force warned her of imminent danger, and she ducked and swung around with her leg outstretched, catching the exposed calf muscles of a Sith Lord and sending him crashing backwards to the ground. His lightsaber rolled out of his hand and Cyandrah wasted no time in finishing him off with both of her lightsabers before he could regain his feet.

 

The Force guided her next movements so that they seemed more instinct than intention. Her left hand swung back around and parried the incoming strike from the lightsaber of another SIth who had obviously decided to take advantage of what he thought was a clear distraction. But Calex had taught Cyandrah better than that, and she shoved the offending blade away from her body before spinning around and kicking out at his chest. Her foot connected with enough force to dent the armour, crack a rib, and send the SIth sprawling. But he was back on his feet before she could reach him to deal the death blow.

 

Lightsabers danced and sparked. Her own weapons seemed a blur as she spun and kicked and launched herself into new sequences of motions that she hoped would get the better of this Sith. But he seemed to move just as fast as her, manoeuvring his one crimson blade into place to block both of hers every time she brought one of them around to cleave him in two. Thinking to catch him unawares with an unorthodox move, she dropped to the ground and rolled side-over-side. But he seemed to anticipate that as well and jumped over her with plenty of room to adjust.

 

He was on her the second she got back to her feet, hammering down with his weapon so hard that it sent one of her lightsabers flying from her hand and into the brush nearby. She gripped her remaining lightsaber tightly with both hands and launched herself into a counter-attack designed to force him back and give her more room.

 

His fist connected with her jaw and she spun away from him, barely avoiding a death-dealing side cut.

 

Someone nearby yelled — a battle cry! — and a Republic soldier in full armour charged forward at the Sith, blasting away with pistols in both hands. The Sith turned to meet the attack, cutting through the trooper's armour like it was nothing, and Cyandrah used that second to slip the blade of her lightsaber neatly between his shoulders. He went down with a grunt and she pulled her lightsaber free and called its twin to her other hand with the Force before continuing on.

 

Only a few meters away, she saw a Republic trooper leaping onto the back of an Imperial assault droid, severing connections and wires with a vibroblade while simultaneously yanking at servos with his other hand. Elsewhere, a pair of Jedi, Padawan and Master, were duelling against a Sith with a double-bladed lightsaber of crackling violet. Quiet signals from the Force told her that it was all in hand, and she scanned elsewhere. Another Sith was making his way over to the already wounded and useless soldiers huddled against a tree trying to keep their insides inside.

 

That spurred her into action, and she got to the soldiers before the Sith Lord, blocking his vicious early swipes and thrusting out with an open hand at his chest. She called upon the Force to aid her and a violent, invisible wave slammed into the armoured chest of the larger man and sent him flying away into a tree.

 

Satisfied that the Sith was at least temporarily out of the picture, she turned to the nearest trooper, who at least looked like she could move on her own. "Get some of these wounded behind the lines, fast!" she hissed, and then charged at the fallen Sith to finish him.

 

An explosion to the east drew her attention and she saw the Sith commander that had been duelling Master Shan pushing up from the ground, half his face covered in horrible burns. The skin was blistered and flaking away in places. A Republic trooper was on the ground nearby, similar burns across his own exposed face and gouges in his armour. The Sith grimaced as he switched his lightsaber back on and approached the motionless form of the soldier.

 

Then something stopped him, and Cyandrah watched as Satele Shan stepped out from behind a fallen tree trunk. Her lightsaber was nowhere to be seen, but she thrust out with a hand toward the Sith and sent him flying into a rock formation several meters away. He hit hard, cracking armour and, Cyandrah thought, bone upon impact. But he didn't remain motionless. Slowly but surely, he was fighting back. He began to peel himself away from the rock face, strengthening his own protective barriers to negate the effect the Jedi Master was having on him. Cyandrah ignited her second lightsaber and started over.

 

It proved unnecessary.

 

Master Shan drew the Force upon herself and flung it at the Sith commander in a great wave. The attack was so powerful that Cyandrah stumbled, numbed to the Force but for an instant. Rock around the Sith shattered and flew in every direction. The Sith himself seemed to disintegrate — he just disappeared.

 

She stopped. Master Shan stood there, immobile, watching to see if the Sith would reappear and strike out at her. But minutes passed and there was no sign of him. Cyandrah had not felt him die, but neither could she feel him through the Force anymore. Satele seemed to reach the conclusion that he was — if not already dead — dying, and paid him no further mind. She approached the fallen trooper and helped him back to his feet, pressing the assault rifle back into his hands.

 

Satisfied that she would not have to help at all, Cyandrah moved on again to help another padawan who was having trouble fending off two Sith at once with her double-bladed lightsaber.

 

She entered the bout behind one of the Sith, catching him off-guard to the point that she was able to take one of his arms off at the shoulder with a quick slash. He roared in pain, anger, but otherwise wasn't fazed by the debilitation. He just went on spinning on the spot, twirling his lightsaber through the fingers of his remaining hand to keep the blades of Cyandrah and the other padawan away.

 

The second Sith switched his attacks to Cyandrah, coming in from her left flank in the hopes that two powerful, experienced Sith Lords could overpower the padawan. But this mistake only served to lessen the pressure against the Jedi he and his companion had been duelling in tandem. With extra space to move, she was able to dispatch the one-armed Sith quickly and used the Force to thrust his body away from the three remaining so that it wouldn't get in the way.

 

Enraged by the death of his companion, the other Sith's attacks grew more frenzied. Each strike hammered down against Cyandrah's blades, threatening to loosen her grip on the weapons. But she held firm and changed tactics, opting for redirecting and parrying his attacks over outright blocking them. It soon proved a viable strategy, as he opened himself up to a defeat by attrition when small openings he gave both padawans allowed them to reach through his defences and armour to score numerous shallow wounds in places that would, on the whole, restrict his movements. Eventually, his attacks slowed, and both padawans drove their blades into him to finish him.

 

Another shout came from behind, and Cyandrah whirled at once with both lightsabers ready to strike. But what she saw, she wasn't prepared for. Republic soldiers all through the battlefield were raising their fists to the sky and shouting in triumph. Satele Shan was standing in the middle of it all, her arm around the trooper that had attacked the Sith commander, holding him up. Remnants of the Empire's assault droids and the corpses of Sith and soldier alike littered the ground. Scores of Sith and Imperial soldiers were retreating through the trees, a score of Jedi and Republic troopers on their tails, harrying them all the way.

 

Though it had been brutal, horrific, and personally tragic for the young padawan, Cyandrah felt giddy. They had won. The Republic had won. The Empire was on the run and Alderaan was back in the hands of her allies. Victory. She deactivated both lightsabers and belted one of them as her and the padawan she had just come to the aid of made their way over to the Jedi Master...

Edited October 15, 2012 by M_A_White

[M_A_White]

 

-Chapter 1-

 

Coruscant

25 Years Later

 

 

 

Cyandrah woke with a start. Her heart was pounding and she could hear the blood rushing by her ears as the last vestiges of the nightmare quickly faded from her mind to become nothing more than an old memory. She'd dreamed that she was back on Alderaan, watching her master being butchered by a Sith with a half-burned face while she stood helpless to do anything. The nightmare had haunted her dreams from time to time over recent years, but it wasn't until recently that she was suffering those horrors every single night. It was a wonder her children in the next room didn't wake from the screams.

 

She sat upright in bed for a while, hugging her knees tight to her chest in an instinctive defensive posture. Her thoughts wandered back and forth, chaotic, between the battle of Alderaan and the other horrors she had seen since. She'd fought four major battles during the war against the Sith Empire. The worst had been eleven years ago — a Sith Lord by the name of Malgus had personally led a strike force into the Jedi Temple on Coruscant while the Imperial fleet descended on the world and lay waste to it. She had barely escaped with her life — saved from death when a Jedi Master threw himself on the crimson blade meant for her. She honoured his memory every night in prayer, and she had exacted justice from the Sith that had cut him down. But the temple lay in ruins now. The Order had moved back to the ancestral world of Tython, partially segregating itself from the Republic. The treaty had been signed and the Sith had retreated.

 

Nonsense, she hissed to herself wordlessly. The Sith do not just disappear! They're up to something.

Resigned to the fact that she would not get back to sleep, Cyandrah threw the covers off and padded across the cold floor to the dresser. She picked as casual civilian wear as she could find and slipped into it gracefully. Then she checked the time on the glowing chrono facing slightly away from her bed. Frowning, she snatched her lightsabers up from the top of the dresser and clipped them to their places on her belt before leaving the bedroom.

 

She was not, thankfully, surprised to see that the children were still abed. Naturally, she thought, they wouldn't have the same terrors keeping them awake that she did. The youngest two were still at the stage where they were asking their mother every night to check for monsters before they went to bed, but they would soon grow out of that. She fixed herself a drink of cold water from the kitchen and then went out onto the open balcony to enjoy the early morning air — as much as she could.

 

Traffic was low that morning. Three lanes and an entire level were void of the typical numbers of speeders and shuttles that hurried back and forth across the ever-busy city-planet. Most sensible people were in bed. Many others who were coming or going from the world were probably being held in customs for clearance and final checks. And, of course, without the major Jedi presence on the world, traffic was still a little better at peak times than it had been nearly two decades ago.

 

She could see the monumental Jedi Temple on the horizon. Even after more than twenty years, tendrils of smoke were known to curl up from the ruins; fires that had never truly gone out. Looters and scavengers had stripped away all forms of usable technology from inside the ruins. The Jedi had claimed the archives before the looters had started to gnaw away at the temple, however, and moved them to Tython. Opportunistic, greedy foremen had stripped away great slabs of stone and permacrete for construction projects in other parts of the city. And all the while, the Senate turned a blind eye — eager to forget the Jedi who, some saw, were the reason the Empire had gone to war in the first place.

 

Movement behind caught her attention, and she realised with a start that the sun had started to come up. She had been standing on the balcony for hours, reminiscing on the better times in her life — when Coruscant and the Republic had been whole; when she'd been learning from Calex Tuole the intricacies and importance of the Force; when she'd had plenty of friends at the Jedi Temple with whom she could practice her skills without the natural fear of a student receiving criticism. All of those friends were dead now, even the one she had made on Alderaan after saving her life. She died years later with her master on Dantooine.

 

Cyandrah started to turn to see which of her children had gotten up first, but stopped and smiled when a pair of muscled arms wrapped around her waist. She leaned back against the other person, taking comfort from him and reaching for his mind. He wasn't Jedi, like she was, but he still had a strong connection to the Force nonetheless.

 

Recently, the Jedi had adopted the stance of taking only children into the Order for training. The rationale behind it was that it was supposedly to safeguard against applicants turning to the dark side and joining the Sith — that if they started training young, they had more time to adopt the Jedi philosophy and reject the Sith. Her husband, Rex Taloran, was unacceptable for training because of his age. But that didn't make him any less acceptable to her, and that, among other reasons, was why they lived on Coruscant instead of Tython.

 

“When did you get in?” she asked in a whisper.

 

“About an hour ago,” he replied, warming her as much with his voice as by his touch. “I have friends at customs. They were able to see me through quickly enough when I gave them the sob story of how I missed the kids.”

 

Cyandrah giggled. Rex was a smuggler — of sorts. The Republic and the Jedi Order both gave him a lot of leeway because he often smuggled arms and supplies to desperate rebels living under Imperial rule. They didn’t want to be caught by the Empire helping the rebels, so they’d surreptitiously arranged for a dozen known repeat smugglers serving life sentences to “escape” from prison under the condition that they helped the rebels survive harsh rule. Rex was technically wanted on Coruscant — a cover story courtesy of the Jedi Order — and so went under a different assumed identity every time he returned home.

 

It was just as well. Cyandrah knew she would fall under hardship if he was caught. If the Empire caught him, they were likely to find out about the children. If the Republic was forced to catch him to save face so the Empire wouldn’t accuse them of circumventing the peace treaty, then she’d have to deal with raising the children alone with no assistance from any of their friends, who would likely suddenly lose all interest in them. Even the Jedi Order wasn’t above cutting her loose in order to avoid being connected to illegal smuggling.

 

“I’m glad.” She said nothing else for a while, just luxuriated in his arms as they watched the sun rise over the tops of the highest towers in the city. It gleamed off the distant dome of the rebuilt Senate Rotunda, and was blanketed in places by the coiling smoke from the ruinous Jedi Temple. She sighed.

 

“The same nightmare again?” he asked her.

 

“Again.” She nodded. “Every night for the past three months. It’s that Darth Malgus. Ever since Grand Master Shan put out the word that Malgus has been personally overseeing a lot of the Imperial fleet’s doings in their outer territories, I’ve just had this sick feeling that something bad is going to happen. I’m worried about the children.”

“Of course you are.” There was something strange in his voice. She couldn’t peg it. Worry? Panic? Surely not. There wasn’t much that could scare him so badly. But a threat against the children might just do it, Cyandrah reasoned. “He won’t touch them. You and I won’t let him.”

 

“I know.” She sighed again. “But Tasha’s old enough. She’s been hearing the stories on the HoloNet … at school. She knows the Empire is planning something. Did you know that parents are starting to pull their children out of classes?”

 

“How would I? I’ve been on Balmorra.”

 

“Yes.” She turned to look at him. “It’s like they’re expecting the Imperial fleet to drop out of hyperspace in orbit and rain fire down on their heads again. It’s insane!”

 

“Of course it is. After the last time, you don’t think that Oteg and Var Suthra are going to let that happen again, now, do you?” He smiled then at some private joke. “I’d like to see them try. My friends in the fleet say that Var Suthra would really love to go head to head with The Butcher himself. I think that would be an interesting show, personally. I could score us front-row seats, if you like. Bring the kids along.” Then, seeing the scornful look on Cyandrah’s face, he added, “Or not.”

 

“‘Bring the kids along’? Indeed!” she slapped him playfully and then broke free of his grip. “You have too many friends, I sometimes think.” She kissed him on the cheek and went back inside then.

 

“Good morning, mum,” the girl waiting inside said when she saw her.

 

“Morning Tasha. Your father’s home,” she kissed her eldest child on the forehead as she passed and made her way to the kitchen to prepare something for breakfast. The youngest two were typically not far behind their older sibling in waking of a morning. Cyandrah had learned that having breakfast ready for them when they did was in her best interests if she wanted to avoid a headache.

 

“Dad!” Tasha squealed. She raced out to greet her father and within seconds they were giggling together out on the balcony while Cyandrah slaved away.

 

 

---

 

 

 

Cyandrah had just finished cleaning up after breakfast when she heard her holocomm going off from the bedroom. The children were with their father, playing and laughing and catching up; all of them sated from a delicious and bountiful breakfast that was rare to the occasions when her husband came home from wherever it was that he went gallivanting off to.

 

With a final look to the four most precious things to her, she dried her hands and went to the bedroom to grab the holocomm.

 

With a quick flick, a faint blue glow appeared above the thick disc and soon coalesced into a familiar shape.

 

“Good morning Nishta,” she said upon recognising the Chiss. Nishta—full name Issre’nish’talur—was historically the only one of her species ever to join the Jedi Order, or even serve the Republic.

Typically, the Chiss Ascendency kept to itself. But for reasons known only to the Dark Council of the Sith, they’d chosen to align themselves with the Empire during the war, and in the years since.

 

Nishta pressed her fingers together in a downward point and bowed. “Cyandrah,” she said.

 

“What can I do for you this morning?”

 

“The Grand Master is asking for you,” the Chiss said without hesitating. “She arrived here several hours ago and has been discussing policies with several senators in the tower. But she did request your presence at your earliest convenience.”

 

Cyandrah noted the typical formality of her friend’s tone. Even the close friendship they shared was not reason enough to allow the Chiss to address her by any means other than formality. It was as if she had something to prove to the Jedi, to the Republic, and found that her only way of doing that was to remain as professional and objective about anything and everything she could.

 

“My earliest convenience?”

 

“Correct.”

 

Cyandrah thought about this, looking over her shoulder for a moment. “Let the Grand Master know that I’ll be there in about two hours.”

 

“As you will.” And then the image was gone. Cyandrah set the holocomm back down on top of the lamp desk and set about changing into something more appropriate.