A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

  79

  Serenno. 36 BBY/964 GSC.

  White-silver light flew forward, slicing through the air with a steady thrum as I crossed the distance between us in a Force Speed empowered leap. A bar of green plasma snapped up to intercept it, batting it to the side and away to my right as the double bladed lightsaber in Krell’s upper left hand spun around in an arc with the motion of the strike, the other end threatening my head. At the same time, one end of the blue blade in his other hand snapped forward into a basic thrust aimed at my midsection.

  An instant, lethal counter. Basic, but solid. Good economy of motion. No wasted movements or energy. It didn’t need to be flashy to work.

  I felt the flow of the Force around us. The movements in the now and the immediate future. Like me, Krell was reading that same flow, leaning into battle precognition and already moving to follow through based on what we both read.

  The most likely move, the one that conserved energy, momentum, and the flow of battle was to move with the deflection. Adjust slightly and dive to the right and go flat, using my slim profile to slip between the attacks—under the arc of the upper swing and over the thrust. At which point, it would be down to momentum. Either I’d have enough to clear the gap before Krell could react, or those weapons would scissor closed and bisect me at the waist.

  I slammed on the brakes and broke left instead, dumping Force into a flight formula for just a second and sliding to his right and my left. I collapsed the songsteel staff, snapping my lightsaber in close as Krell’s swings whiffed through the air where I’d been a moment ago. Then, I made just enough space to snap the staff out and target his open side.

  He handled the sudden change better than I was hoping, twisting his body and leaping over my thrust, even as I flicked the pole up to send the blade following. His left sub-arm pointed in my direction and he blasted me and the area around me with a Force push, making space and trying to knock me off balance. I countered with a vertical wave of Force and a slice from my lightsaber that split the Force behind the blast, sending it rushing to either side of me where it flattened the ground.

  Krell landed on his feet and frowned, studying me as he circled, spinning his lightsabers as he looked at me with new eyes. Then, he launched himself at me, flipping through the air as his lightsabers spun around his body in a confusing whirl as they changed hands. I slid forward diagonally from his projected landing point, thrusting out with my saber and forcing him to deflect. He landed and sprang at me, the blade in the other hand leading in an arc that I slid back from as I repositioned and put my blade between us, smacking one side away then reversing the momentum of my swing and going the other direction to catch the opposite end of the blade as it spun around.

  The larger man made a triumphant sound as his other saber came up, in his left sub-arm, and caught the shaft of my staff just below the lightsaber it was attached to. Instead of cutting as he expected, the songsteel lived up to its name as it rang with a sound like a struck bell. I moved with the force of the blow, allowing the saber to be slapped upwards as I shut it off, thrusting out for his face with the blunt end of the staff.

  The response was another smack to the staff and another ringing sound as I let his powerful blow spin the staff around in my hands, ducking to bring it around from behind my back from left to right, and stepping into a strong two-handed diagonal swing as I lit the saber again at the last second. Green and blue blades crossed catching white-silver between them for just a moment, before with a yell, he grabbed both sabers each with both hands on either side, crouched slightly, and then thrust up and outwards as the same time he released a wide area blast of Force telekinesis.

  I found myself shoved away and spun with the blow, one foot touching the ground before he was on me with both sabers coming in one after the other and forcing me to spring backwards as he spun, whipping the opposite ends of both around and through the space where I would land—if I hadn’t thrust the butt of my staff into the ground and launched myself over his head with a brief burst of telekinesis, reversing course and sending me the opposite direction .

  The ground churned below us as we sped up, lightsabers flashing and snapping against each other in a flashing light show that lit the center of the maze in strobing green, blue, and white-silver. Patches of the hedges or grass that caught a stray attack batted aside caught fire briefly as they came near or into contact with contained plasma, before quickly burning out and leaving behind only smoke.

  Using his spare hands, Krell pulled up clumps of dirt and patches of hedge to throw at me, only to find them swatted aside with the Force and ignored. I countered with the occasional flash and boom of Force lightning, individual bolts he caught and deflected on his lightsabers with the aid of battle precognition, but which kept him on his toes and allowed me to break his concentration on trying any large scale Force manipulation.

  We clashed again, locking sabers for just a moment before breaking apart briefly as he tried to kick me away and I instead used the force imparted to get a bit of distance, buying us each a moment to reassess the other. We slowly circled the interior of the empty space, circling counter-clockwise, smoke rising and shifting in curls around us—not thick enough to hinder vision, but annoying enough to sting the eyes. Krell spun his blades and caught his breath while I held mine up and steady, ready for whatever he tried next.

  Regardless of his actions here today, Master Pong Krell had earned his title. Enemy though he may be, I had to acknowledge his skill and power. He was more of a threat than Mundi.

  Krell was a true master of Form VI/Niman with a focus on the Force enhanced movement and acrobatics that it took from Form IV/Ataru and the more aggressive Form V/Djem So. From what little I had seen, he had even begun incorporating elements of Form VII/Juyo into it. But at the end of the day it was still recognizably Form VI, tailored to his ability to wield two dual-sabers. The patterns were familiar, even if it was like fighting two enemies at the same time. Effective.

  He had the martial skill to back up the title and he was strong. Physically stronger than me and stronger in the Force. Not in terms of output—there, we seemed to be nearly evenly matched. But in terms of how much he had to draw on. It felt like he had a limitless well of Force power to draw upon, that refilled as he used it—not quite as fast as he used it but fast enough. Whereas I was carefully measuring out every dram and avoiding anything I didn’t explicitly need, mostly leaning on using the Force to enhance my strength and speed. The way I generated Force lightning was surprisingly cheap compared to how one should do it, enough to justify using the technique as a distraction and to break his concentration and force him to defend. However, unless I started tapping into my orb, I would eventually run dry and he would still have nearly as much Force to call on as when we started.

  But for as skilled as he was, I was at least equally matched, and playing explicitly against the strength of his choice in weapon—he couldn’t hit me if he couldn’t reach me. Likewise, I was faster and more agile—so his strength wasn’t worth much if he couldn’t close the distance and make contact. And where Master Krell had a seemingly bottomless well of Force that was refilling even as I watched, his physical stamina left much to be desired.

  He was winded and starting to show signs of exertion, whereas I was just getting warmed up. He may have more Force on tap to use, but all the Force in the world wouldn’t help if he ran out of stamina and didn’t know how to use the Force to refill it—which I could, did, and was doing with a healing technique. Between that and my constant training to always move at Force Speed, I was wearing him down by forcing him to move at my pace. Like most Jedi, he wasn’t used to a battle constantly moving at the speeds I did. They trained to do it in bursts, not in prolonged combat. It was the difference between someone who trained for sprints and someone who trained for marathons. If I could drag this out this into a battle of attrition, I would win. He would get too physically tired to keep up even with the Force moving his body like a puppet and eventually he would slip up and I’d land a decisive blow.

  The problem was, time was on his side. Or rather, on Master Koon’s and Knight Unduli’s side.

  He was explicitly trying to stall me. Sure, he had said he intended to beat me down and force me to surrender, but that had changed immediately when I sent the children away and he opened with lethal intent. Not that it mattered, as I had opened the fight with the same… Regardless, if this went on too long, I may find myself facing three on one odds and I didn’t like that.

  Or worse, Master Dooku may actually talk Master Koon and Knight Unduli down. Then, once they sense the fight in progress, they’ll come to break it up. And then, this toad will slink away without so much as a slap on the wrist for threatening children. My Padawans.

  No, turning it into a battle of attrition was a lose condition for me either way. I had to end it quickly and decisively.

  He has two obvious vulnerabilities. He tries to disguise the largest one, to hide it with all the spinning, but all that’s doing is highlighting it more as the fight goes on.

  That weakness was a simple one, but glaringly obvious when you thought about it—or got to see it in action. The reality was, having four arms was a handicap, not an advantage.

  Sure, he could pass his sabers between hands on either side, or across his body. Practically every blow could be made two-handed, compounding his already formidable physical strength. And disarming him using leverage just wasn’t going to work because he could, at any time, have two or even three hands on his weapons.

  But he couldn’t make up for the loss of range of motion. His extra arms got in the way of each other. It was simply physically impossible for him to make certain movements. His lower arms couldn’t raise above a certain point and his upper arms couldn’t lower beyond a certain point, accounting for the place where the lower arms met his torso.

  Put another way, there were two big gaps in his two-handed coverage on each side, directly above and below those arms, in an arc described by the area where both arms met. In front and behind him were the danger zones, where both arms had coverage and he could use both sides of each saber.

  Then, there was the limitation of how both arms on a side could actually work with each other for certain movements. It was why he was predominantly using only one hand per side unless he was going for specific strikes. One arm would be able to strike out to the side or at certain angles just fine, but trying to do the same strike with both was either physically impossible, or difficult, uncomfortable, and slow enough to not bother.

  Finally, the limitation to using his opposing limbs. Top right together with top left, or the same for the bottom pair. If he wanted to use a two-handed strike with either pair, then he was limited by where his other set of arms were and in his range of motion—the same problem with the upper set aiming low or the lower set aiming high that he had on the sides, except compounded because he would need to be mindful of the other saber and keep it out of the way of any such strike.

  The other weakness was even simpler. So simple it was honestly kind of stupid.

  A staff was slower to move than a sword. It was heavier. The drag created by a lightsaber on either end was double that of using a normal lightsaber, on top of the weight and length of the physical shaft of the weapon. It took longer to get it around and into position. More effort. In the end, unless fighting enemies vastly lower in skill than oneself, or using greater reach to neutralize an enemy’s advantage like I was doing, the lightsaber was superior to the light staff or light pike.

  But that wasn’t even the biggest weakness of using a double-bladed lightsaber. No, that would be the fact that most Jedi don’t believe in hand guards combined with the fact that the circular motions of a double-bladed lightsaber tended to put your hands in the middle of an undefended circle. Obviously a Jedi would try to defend against direct attack to the hands in such a way, but… Combined with the issues with his arms and the difference in our speed, I felt there was a good chance I could exploit it.

  Then, the time for thinking was over, as Krell rushed me through the smoke—a full on blitzkrieg of sweeping attacks from one saber while the other he adjusted his grip towards the bottom of and tried to get enough reach to use to skewer me. I parried attacks where I could and let those that wouldn’t come close pass by harmlessly as I waited, occasionally countering and going on a brief offensive, only to be deflected, countered, and forced back before I could land a decisive blow to his body.

  I didn’t have to wait much longer before I saw my opening.

  Another of those moments of following the flow of combat. Where Krell would most likely end the fight decisively—what felt like by taking my left hand before shoving his lightsaber through my shoulder and into my chest.

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  But after suddenly avoiding two such attempts and nearly catching him with a killing blow on the second one, he was wary. Unsure. He hesitated, just a bit. Was just a bit slower than he would have otherwise been as he studied me with his eyes and Force sense, watching to see if I would do it again.

  I tapped my computation orb and cast a formula—optical camouflage over myself, an illusion of myself over that. I left it there as we grew closer to the moment of his victory, matching my movements one to one. Then, as the moment came, illusion and reality separated—the illusion moving forward as he expected while I eased back, snapping my lightsaber back down into one hand.

  His right set of hands swung hard and I stepped aside to my left. He had just a moment to blink as he swung through the illusion and it vanished, before I struck, dropping the camo as I thrust my lightsaber into and through his upper right hand. The angle allowed me to do far more damage than I had initially planned. Instead of just relieving him of his fingers and rendering that hand useless, my saber entered at the knuckles between the first and second fingers, passed through the wrist, and up all the way to the elbow before I pulled it out—leaving behind a ruined mess.

  The lightsaber in his hand fell as Krell blinked, not having processed what happened. His body reacted on muscle memory, lower hand moving to catch the blade. My return stroke took the other arm at the elbow and the saber hit the ground—along with his arm.

  I felt as the pain and shock finally hit him, followed by incandescent rage.

  “YOU!!!”

  He roared and reached out, grabbing for me with his upper left hand as he shifted his remaining lightsaber to the lower left and slammed the saber out of my hand. I let him get in close, his huge four-fingered hand closing around the top of my head and jerking me off my feet. This close, his right arms disabled and upper left hand occupied with holding me, there were only two real remaining avenues for attack. A kick—non-lethal and not what he wanted at the moment. Or the lethal option of shoving his lightsaber through my pretty little dress and corset and into my sternum.

  He chose the killing blow, and so did I.

  The blue lightsaber came up and hit me hard in the side, burning a hole straight through the black dress I had been wearing… before skittering off of something beneath it with a shower of sparks and a high pitched, almost crystalline whine.

  “What?!” Krell’s eyes widened as he looked down.

  Just in time for my hand to come up, spear point swinging for his neck. He registered the danger in the Force but it was too late. Too close. The Mage Blade all but invisible and extending much further than just my hand.

  A red line split his throat and his body went slack as he collapsed. I caught myself and reached out with the Force, grabbing my lightsaber and shutting it off as I pulled it over, slipping it onto my belt. Krell blinked up at me stupidly as his heart beat and blood began to gush out from his throat, painting the top of his robes.

  Reaching down, I fingered the hole in my dress and the corset over it, revealing silvery metal. I had seen a problem with the last dress and the complete lack of armor so I had rectified it by making a form fitting armored chest piece to go under one using some sorcery—much better fitted than my normal under armor and made specifically for hiding under dresses. Not as much coverage, not as strong, but strong enough in this case.

  “Beskar,” I answered his question as the light began to leave his eyes.

  Collecting his lightsabers, I shut them off and dropped them beside his body. Reaching up, I tapped the comm bead in my ear. “Security, this is Mereel. Status report.”

  “Suzerain Dooku and the other two Jedi are coming to you,” Xana’s voice answered in my ear. “Sorry about the kids, boss.”

  “Did you see it?” I asked, my voice carefully neutral.

  She sighed. “Camera on the perimeter was destroyed before he came into frame and the guards were moving to investigate. He mind-whammied them and moved on. The height of the hedges made the camera angle impossible to get while he was in the maze, until he got to the clearing in the center with the kids—that, we’ve got from three different angles. You noticed the same time we did and the guy watching the cameras called me up to the office to verify the Jedi’s identity. By the time I got here, you were engaged.”

  I frowned, but nodded. “Understood. This is a security oversight, but one of implementation, not execution. Fix it. I want cameras and sensors in the mazes and on poles above them before the week is out.”

  “Roger that, boss,” Xana acknowledged.

  “And get me a physical copy of the footage. Send someone out here to drop it off,” I ordered, thinking of the mess to come.

  “Will do.”

  I felt the familiar presence of Master Dooku approach, along with one that wasn’t familiar and one that only somewhat was—which narrowed the unknown down to Master Koon. Allowing myself a brief sigh as I caught my breath, trying not to cough as smoke tickled my throat, I forced my body to keep the adrenaline going. To stay prepared for any coming altercation. Mentally, I prepared my defense, but I was almost certain the footage would speak for me. Drawing my saber again, I extended the staff attached to the base and leaned on it—weapon out and ready, but not lit. Then, I took a moment to use the Force to clear the smoke out and bury the last few licks of fire under mounds of dirt.

  The mess Krell had made to keep my Padawans shut in lifted and was thrown out of the way as Master Dooku entered, looking as angry as I had ever seen him. With him, Master Koon and Knight Unduli looked uncertain. They spotted me standing over the body of Master Krell immediately.

  For just a moment, I felt a flash of sadness and guilt from Master Dooku, before resignation took its place. Resignation and anger.

  I couldn’t see his face beneath the mask (and I didn’t want to, I knew what Kel Dor looked like), but I could feel the frown Master Koon was making as he took in the scene. He was upset but thoughtful, as his head swept back and forth across the destroyed square at the heart of the maze. Upset, but not angry, and it didn’t seem to be directed at me specifically.

  Knight Unduli’s reaction was the worst. Betrayal. Disgust. Anger. All aimed at me.

  “Murderer!” she hissed, drawing her lightsaber and igniting it.

  I raised an eyebrow, but didn’t respond otherwise as Master Koon held a hand out in front of Knight Unduli. “What happened here?”

  “I have someone coming with a copy of the camera feed,” I answered, nodding back towards the palace. “But the short answer is, he threatened my Padawans and attempted to use them as leverage. I defended them and myself. He tried to kill me,” I fingered the hole in my dress, pulling it open just enough to show off the beskar beneath. “Unfortunately, it was obvious that there would be no talking him down at that point and he had already made it clear he was a threat both to myself and the children in my care. So I eliminated the threat.”

  Knight Unduli’s anger flared and she stepped forward. “Liar! A Jedi wouldn’t threaten children—”

  “He had cornered them. I have no idea what he said to them, but I felt their fear from the palace, over the emotional noise of everyone else there. He had them scared enough to draw their lightsabers. My Padawans are well-trained, they know that if they draw those, they had better intend to use them. That tells me that they felt the need to defend themselves and the civilian child with them with potentially lethal force. When I arrived, he refused to let them leave and verbally indicated that not only did he intend to use them against me unless I surrendered to an unlawful arrest that he had no authority to carry out, but that he had already broached the idea to Master Koon, who had rejected it outright.” I turned my gaze on the Master holding Unduli back. “Is that true, Master Koon?”

  Suddenly the focus of everyone present, Master Koon sighed through his mask. Knight Unduli shook her head, beginning to radiate incredulity. “It is.”

  “What? No! When?!” the green woman demanded.

  “Before we arrived at the palace. You were in the restroom, Luminara. He suggested taking Knight Mereel’s Padawan and holding her as leverage to force her to surrender, so we could use her to force Dooku to surrender himself and return to the Republic with us. I reviewed Knight Mereel’s record, prior to our arrival. That is why I rejected the suggestion, out of certainty that it would escalate into violence.” He gestured at Krell’s body. “Obviously, it did.”

  The mirialan woman straightened, looking angry, but she shut off her lightsaber. “We are Jedi! The Code says we are to avoid attachments. If she is so attached to her Padawan that she would murder another Jedi just for the suggestion of temporarily taking their Padawan into protective custody—”

  “You’re twisting it,” I cut her off.

  Before she could retort, Master Dooku cut in. “Knight Unduli,” he began, and she fell silent. “The Jedi Code does say we should eschew attachments. However, the bond between Master and Padawan is sacred and is the unspoken exception to that rule. If you would not kill to ensure their safety, if you would not give your life for theirs, then you are no true Master. You are merely an instructor. A distant figure in their life, not the pillar around which they shape their view of the world.”

  Master Koon nodded as Knight Unduli frowned, then shook her head. “I do not need you to lecture me on the bonds between Master and Padawan.”

  Deciding to ignore her, I looked to Master Dooku. “Where do we go from here?”

  Masters Dooku and Koon shared a look, before Master Koon nodded. “We will collect his body and return to the Temple to make our report. The High Council will decide how we act going forward.” Turning to me, he said, “Master Dooku has already made his choice. Knight Mereel, you must decide whether you wish to remain a Knight of the Republic and a member of the Order or not.”

  Realizing I wasn’t going to be able to try to remain visibly neutral anymore, I shook my head. “I have no problem remaining a member of the Order, but I cannot remain faithful to vows to a corrupt Republic that refuses to uphold its vows to its own people. If the High Council wishes to expel me, that’s fine. However, that does not mean we need to be enemies, simply because we stand on different sides of a coming conflict.”

  Sighing quietly, I continued, “The Order should never have suborned themselves to the Republic after the Ruusan Reformation. We should have remained separate and stayed out of politics. Unfortunately, they did, and so we find ourselves here in a situation where on one side we have Jedi of the Republic and on the other, Jedi of the Confederacy. But we are all Jedi and there is a threat out there bigger than a simple disagreement of politics. The Sith have returned and this fighting amongst ourselves is only going to lead to more of this,” I gestured towards Krell’s body. “That is what the Sith want.”

  “Well said,” Master Dooku chuckled.

  Master Koon nodded. “Master Dooku said much the same. There are those in the Order who share your opinion. However, we have a duty to uphold.”

  “And what does the Force urge you to do, Master Koon?” Master Dooku asked. The other Master hesitated, so Master Dooku followed up more directly. “Does the Force itself tell you that you should wage war on us?”

  “That’s different,” Knight Unduli muttered, as Master Koon remained silent. “Sometimes, duty has to come before the will of the Force.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I thought going against the will of the Force was considered—”

  “Be silent!” the other woman snapped, but it was too late.

  I’d already given voice to the flaw in the logic, to the contradiction. If acting against the will of the Force was considered disruptive to the Force and thus some shade of ‘dark,’ then ‘duty’ that required the Jedi to do so should also be considered ‘dark.’ Exceptions were made occasionally, such as in the case of the Shadows, but for the Council to ignore or go against the will of the Force? Historically not without precedent, but practically every time they had, bad things happened.

  “Come. Let us return to the ship,” Master Koon spoke into the sudden silence. Reaching out with the Force, he lifted Master Krell’s body, laying his lightsabers out over his chest as he led Knight Unduli out of the maze, leaving a trail of blood behind them as Krell continued to bleed all over. As they reached the exit, a uniformed Serenno Security officer handed Master Koon the physical copy of the recording before turning and hurrying off.

  Master Dooku and I stayed behind for a few moments, letting them leave. Turning to me, he said, “This complicates matters.”

  “It couldn’t be helped.” I snapped the staff closed and slipped the lightsaber back onto my belt. “He crossed the line.”

  The older man reached out, laying a hand on my shoulder and giving it a brief squeeze. “Thank you,” he said quietly, before letting go and turning for the exit. “Let us rejoin our guests.”

  “Mm.”

  I followed along at his side, yawning as the adrenaline crash set in. I was not quite dead on my feet, but definitely not firing on all cylinders when Master Dooku broke off and headed for the front of the palace, while I made my way back to the side entrance.

  Mina came hurrying over as quickly as her dress would allow as soon as she saw me. “Tanya! What happened? You look like you’ve been in a battle,” the older woman said, and I blinked as she started fussing over me, taking out a handkerchief and licking it before wiping at something on my face. “Is this blood? And you’re covered in soot.”

  “Probably. Lightsabers aren’t as messy as what I used,” I murmured as she led me over to a chair and sat.

  “Where is Lux?” she demanded as she inspected me, her hand finding the hole in the side of my dress, only for her eyebrows to climb towards her hairline when she found armor underneath.

  “Right. Sorry. I sent him and my Padawans away. They’re safe. Give me a moment,” I said, brushing her attention off and reaching out with the Force. A moment later, a twist in space dropped off the boy, followed by a second one spitting out my Padawans. Catya climbed into my lap and turned in a circle, before settling down and beginning to purr like an engine as she kneaded my thighs. Reaching down, I absently scratched at her head.

  “Mom!” the boy, who now that I looked was closer to an early teen than the girls’ ages, grinned. “You should have seen it! It was so cool! This guy came out of the bushes and started acting all creepy, like, ‘Call your Master before I have to get rough,’ but I was all, ‘I’m not going to let you hurt them!’ and…”

  He continued on and I sent a questioning look to my Padawans. Allaya’s eye twitched and she looked annoyed, while Asajj simply sighed. “He’s exaggerating and has some details backwards—”

  “Wrong. They’re wrong,” Allaya grumbled. “He didn’t protect us, we protected him.”

  “—and then we were on a ship!”

  “A ship,” Mina murmured, looking to me for confirmation.

  I nodded. “I had Catya send them to the Redoubt in orbit. It was the safest place I could think of in the moment.”

  “Your… teleporting cat?” the redhead asked. She felt like she wanted to be skeptical, but she had just seen the evidence with her own eyes so she was conflicted and starting to doubt her sanity.

  “Yes. I promise, it’s not the strangest Force power,” I sighed.

  The boy spoke louder as he continued. “We got to see fighters and I got to fly one—”

  “You did not!” Allaya couldn’t take it anymore as she erupted angrily. “Stop lying!”

  “S-shut up! I’m not lying!”

  “You are,” Asajj shook her head.

  I found myself studying the girls as my mind wandered, while they argued with Lux about the details of his story.

  In my first life as a Japanese Salaryman, they would have barely registered as people. I wouldn’t have stuck my neck out for them any more than was required by social obligation. Certainly I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to do them harm, but I wouldn’t have cared about them either. The Salaryman I was would have let Krell take them and walked away without a second glance, as it wasn’t his business.

  At the start of my life as Tanya von Degurechaff, I would have seen them as useful pawns and soldiers. Meat shields at first. I might have even come to value them as something more, at the end of that life. Perhaps they would have fit in alongside Visha and Weiss, as people I trusted and enjoyed spending time with. The closest thing I had to friends.

  Depending on when in my life it happened, Tanya von Degurechaff would have either shrugged and labeled Krell’s actions as an internal Jedi matter and not her business… or she would have gone straight back to Jedha and demanded that Jedi leadership stop interfering in her handling of her subordinates. That is, unless he pulled a weapon. In which case, I would have executed him on the spot.

  This me, on the other hand… I had jumped straight to removing the threat. No discussion. No negotiation. No hesitation.

  I could dress it up and justify it how I liked, but the truth was, deep down, I knew why I had reacted the way I did. They were mine. My responsibility. My Padawans. My clan members. Two of the closest people to family I had in this life. I had grown… attached, even if I was bad at showing it.

  And I’d do it again.

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