Fiach’s Jedi Trials

[Fiach Dubh]

As in the vision, pain swept through her body. Fiach could hear the muffled pulse of the lightsaber as it grazed her skin. Her hands tightened on the steering column. White-knuckled and trembling, she felt another presence reaching out to her from that dark apparition. Someone she cared for cried out in agony.

Gunning the landspeeder’s engines, Fiach struggled to shake the haunting apparition. Blaster fire echoed in the distance; and from the corner of her eye, she caught the movements of armed troops on the rooftops of the buildings that the city’s main avenue.

Since word of an impending invasion had filtered through the capital city, the situation had changed drastically in the last few days. Traffic jammed the streets – empty cargo skiffs headed north into the city, while scout troopers escorted skiffs, crammed with equipment and officers, south toward the spaceport.

Fiach ignored the chaotic scenes, her mind searching the vision for clues. Rising from her memory, the apparition materialised in her mind. He was a faceless renegade consumed by dark shadows that threatened to engulf her. At his feet, on the windswept hillside, Fiach could see a body. And beyond them, there was a tremendous thundering that shook the ground. What could it mean?

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Fiach tightly grasped the controls of the speeder and stopped it across from the makeshift headquarters. She studied the old granitite building. Marblepillars lined the front entrances. Nearly four stories tall, the imposing, immobile stone sentinels held the weight of the structure and the ideals of the men and women who worked inside. Her eyes finally came to rest on the fourth-floor corner office.

She took a deep breath, staring at the movement of shadows in the glass of the private office. She did not enjoy subterfuge – but her current mission called for it.

The man in that office – the one she’d befriended – did not know about her activities with the Order. How could she tell him the truth? He was part of the problem she was here to fix.

Fiach bowed her head, willing her heart to slow its frantic pace. Smoothing the neckline of her gown, she stepped away from the speeder and closed the door. The heavy train of the dress pulled at her back and shoulders, but she shrugged at the slight weight and started up the corridor.

The florescent lighting grids inside were a welcomed blessing. Within the warm glow, there were no shadows to taunt her or to cry out in agony. By force of habit, Fiach moved through the vacant mezzanine to the lift platform. Arriving at the restricted level of the man’s suite, she stepped down from the platform. The troopers at the end of the passage hardly acknowledged her arrival, recognising her from frequent visits to the office. As she reached for the door, she noticed it was slightly ajar; and the sounds of voices escaped to her ears.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“Is it true? A Jedi Knight?” Lieutenant Heisser asked.

Fiach recognised the officer’s voice and paused nervously, waiting – as he did – for an answer. Unconsciously, she ran her hand back and forth across her arm where the lightsaber in her vision had slashed her.

“Indeed he is,” Brenard replied, “which is precisely why he was sent to conduct the evacuation. His being an actor is a boon really. I thought an impromptu performance might raise some spirits. He thoroughly agreed.”

“Isn’t there someone more trustworthy who could accomplish this?”

“None so close. Don’t forget, there are few dark Jedi around and even fewer that we can trust as much as Senn." It was a name from the past that made Fiach’s blood run cold. It was the name of a dark Jedi, who by all accounts had caused the death of countless Jedi and significantly more innocents.

Fiach peered into the office, slowly pressing the door open. Brenard stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back, staring outside into the darkening skies. “Are you sure you won’t join us, Lieutenant? Fiach will be so disappointed.”

“I’ll make it up to her and you, sir,” Heisser replied. “I’ve never been much of a theatre-goer. I’ll leave Senn and his entourage to you.”

“Senn?” Fiach questioned, masking her dread behind a smile.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“Good evening, Fiach,” Heisser said.

“Who’s this Senn?” she repeated, as she moved across the room to join Brenard by the window.

“An actor,” Heisser said with biting sarcasm.

Fiach looked up sharply and met his intent eyes. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she read the concern in his face and acknowledged it with a subtle nod.

“He’s not just an actor, Fiach. He is the gentleman charged with overseeing the orderly evacuation of the planet.” Glaring adamantly at Heisser, Brenard soothed the harsh glance with a smile. “And his credentials are impeccable...both in commanding troops and commanding an audience.”

He gently took her hand and squeezed it, kissing her knuckles. “You look lovely this evening, Fiach.”

“Thank you.” Fiach faintly blushed, a trick she’d learned after much practice, given she rarely felt emotions naturally. “But I really don’t understand this. It seems absurd to be attending this performance when we’re about to be invaded.”

“Senn has everything in control, Fiach. Besides, this dramatic presentation may help soothe the nerves of our comrades.” Brenard glanced over his shoulder and back outside at the activity in the streets. “Good for morale, you know.”

Fiach looked toward Heisser, catching the expression of disgust that crossed his face. Like her, he had nothing but contempt for the local government and its authority. The uniform he wore was strictly a cover. It allowed him to infiltrate the military command for the purpose of undermining and dismantling it.

“Heisser, are you sure you won’t keep us company?” Brenard pleaded.

“Sorry, Governor.” Heisser stared down at Fiach and shrugged. “I promised some friends I’d meet them at a local watering-hole. This evacuation is scattering us to different posts, so we wanted to get together for a good-bye drink.”

“Then we shall leave you to it, Lieutenant.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

A fine mist descended from the ceiling tiles above the stage of the theatre as a low fog drifted in from the curtain wings. The deceptive rhythm of spring rain echoed from the inner recesses and rooftop of the elaborate set of a nobleman’s cottage. It was night time in the drama; and in the background, the nocturnal cries of a wounded animal sounded in the distance. The agonising cry was the director’s subtle cue.

Sitting on a stool at the edge of an antiquated game table, the actor exploded into a blur of motion. In a rage, he swept his arms over the table. Fiach stifled a gasp, bracing herself against a reaction as the congregation about her lurched and bulked in their seats. There was a powerful disturbance in the Force as Senn used it to manipulate his mesmerised audience.

Fiach saw it as a malignant conjuration of his talents and ability. She took a deep breath. A knot formed in the pit of her stomach at the outpouring of darkness emanating from the stage presence. She swallowed pensively as she glanced into the faces around her.Those around her were aglow in the strength of the performance, smiling and attentive to the unfolding drama.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“Who would have thought a Jedi capable of such a moving performance,” Brenard said incredulously. Leaning against the back of his seat, he stared at the swaying curtains as Senn came through them to make his final bows. “I think it’s about time we met this young man. Shall we, Fiach?” He stood up, offering Fiach his arm.

Fiach was grateful for the weight of her gown as it slowed her eager reaction to meeting Senn face to face. Officers and prominent citizens parted before them, nodding respectfully as they passed between the rows. Fiach fixed her eyes on the dark Jedi. Standing only half a metre from the crowd surrounding the ominous figure, she studied the cool depths of his eyes.

With a tangible intensity that moved in his gaze, Senn turned to them. His eyes brightened immediately with recognition. “Governor.” He bowed with deference. “It is a great honour to meet you.”

“I think the honor should be mine,” Brenard replied with sincerity, offering his hand to the dark Jedi in friendship. Turning to Fiach, the governor pulled her close to him and held Fiach with warm affection. “Senn, this is the brightest star in my skies. Fiach.”

Several centimetres taller than Fiach, Senn stepped toward her, enveloping her in the length of his shadow. Fiach fought against a sudden tremor that swept the length of her back as the nightmarish vision came, unbidden, to her memory. Senn took her hand gently and bowed again, never taking his eyes from hers. “My pleasure, Miss Dubh.”

“Governor, a word with you,” an officer called from the back of the group. “That unfinished business, Governor.”

Fiach watched Brenard’s face darken with the mention. “Fiach.” He turned to her, whispering, “Please take Senn back to the mansion for some well-deserved hospitality. I have some other business to see to. I’ll join you shortly.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

They hadn’t travelled more than a kilometre when the static crackle of a comlink interrupted their conversation.

“Senn, contact-code red. Respond.”

Quickly pulling the comlink to his lips, Senn’s face hardened. “Report!”

“There’s been an explosion. Structural compromise. Collateral damage. The works.” The voice transmitted calm across the signal, lending a semblance of control to an otherwise chaotic circumstance.

“Brenard!” Fiach shouted.

“The Governor?”

“He wasn’t anywhere near the blast. We were in the headquarters building. You better get down here. It’s quite a scene.”

As they approached the scene, the deafening sounds of security sirens could be heard above the speeder’s engines. Fiach swerved through the abandoned checkpoint and braked sharply as an officer walked out of the commotion of emergency medical vehicles and rescue equipment to meet them.

Glancing at Fiach, the officer pursed his lips as if reconsidering what he was going to say. But as Senn’s sharp gaze fell over him, the officer straightened, ignoring Fiach as if she were not there.

“It was a thermal detonator.” Behind him, the rescue crews struggled to pull another body from the rubble of a local cantina. The entire front of the building had collapsed in the blast. Smoke and flames still rose from the expired explosion as a pair of droids sprayed the area with flame-retardant foam. Blown some eighty metres from the blast radius, glass and debris littered the thoroughfare and the steps of the headquarters building across the street.

“Where is the Governor?” Senn asked, motioning for a detachment of troopers to join him at the site.

“We were in his office at the time of the explosion. He should be on his way now to inspect the damage himself.” The officer turned to Fiach, sensing her unspoken question. “He’s a bit shaken, but fine.”

“Fiach!”

Fiach recognised the voice immediately. “Heisser! Thank the stars you’re all right. How did you get out of there alive?”

Dusted with glass particles from the explosion, Heisser brushed at the sleeves of his uniform. “I left about a minute before the blast.” He stared at the rubble of the pub and shook his head incredulously.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Transformed into a temporary refuge, the abandoned listening post was built deep into the mountainous countryside. Nearly three-stories tall, the bunker was well hidden in the remote forests. Stripped of intelligence equipment and support personnel, the purported safehouse offered few amenities. Fiach scanned from one corner of the room to the next. The small garrison reminded her of a prison or interrogation centre. The only furniture was a fairly uncomfortable-looking sofa and a conference table with four hard chairs.

The only window in the room opened onto an observation deck from where she could see one of the five scout troopers sent to protect them. From the extended platform and deck, the inner walls of the underground garrison sloped down into the mountain and outward to form the interior walls of a small hangar bay. There was little light, as the base was still under minimal power. The fragmented carvings of illumination reflected in the trooper’s armour were from an outside source, a nearby lamp or moonlight filtering through the bay doors.

Pacing around the confines of the small room, Fiach felt like a caged animal. The unseen prison which held her boasted no doors, no bars, no chains to bind her – which in a sense served only to heighten her agitation. The barrier was her loyalty and devotion to the cause.

“I feel like a prisoner,” she shared with Brenard, still unsure as to Senn’s motives.

“It’s only for a short while. Senn assured me it would be no more than an hour or two at best. And after that bombing in the city, we’re safer here, under his care.”

Peering out from the observation platform and into the darkened hangar below, Fiach wondered where Senn was and what he knew about the explosion.

Finally she said, “I’m going to get some fresh air.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

She slipped outside into the warmth of the night. Descending the blast-cut stairwell, she hurried to the ground level of the bunker. There were two scout troopers on duty at the entrance to the hangar bay doors. Before she could question them, she sensed Senn’s presence. Turning instinctively toward the only trail leading into the bunker and its hangar bay, Fiach saw Senn on the far side of the compound. A dark figure bathed in shadows, he was astride a speeder bike, his cape billowing in the breeze. He seemed to be waiting for her. Revving the bike’s engines, he took off down the narrow, winding road.

“Where’s he going?” Fiach asked one of the scout troopers.

“We discovered some unusual sensor readings, Miss Dubh,” the squad leader replied. “Senn wanted to investigate them personally.”

Why not send a pair of troopers to check the disturbance? What could be so sensitive that Senn would opt to venture out into the forest himself? A nagging suspicion – no doubt triggered by the Force – tugged at the back of her mind as the darkness enticed her to follow.

Fiach sprinted toward the remaining speeder bike.

“Miss Dubh!” she heard the scout trooper call. “Miss Dubh, Senn left direct orders not to allow you to–”

His voice was drowned out in the roaring thunder of the bike’s repulsor engines as Fiach hit the accelerator and took off after Senn.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

The twin moons created the dim illusion of late dusk. Their combined light filtered down through the thick forest canopy, casting elongated shadows across the hazardous mountain trail. Fiach carefully guided the speeder bike, navigating hairpin turns with ease. Two kilometres from the safehouse, she slowed her bike and quickly scanned the darkness. Catching Senn as he disappeared around a curve, she listened intently to the roar of the bike’s engines. The whine slowly diminished, but not because of distance. He was slowing down, perhaps turning off the road to scout out the hillside.

The familiar whine of his vehicle continued to echo through the trees, but it was no longer moving. Senn had stopped nearby and was revving the engines. What is he up to? she wondered.

She unconsciously ran her hand along the length of her arm. A chill raced up her spine as the burning sensation and the stench of charred flesh assailed her senses.

Studying the deep gloom of the forest, Fiach felt her heart quicken. The shadows lengthened about her, defying the glare of the twin moons. There was a profound silence that settled over the forest interior as if all the life in the immediate area was suddenly drained from the landscape.

She steered the speeder bike off the trail and headed into the trees toward the summit of a low plateau. Senn stood at the edge of the precipice. His back was to the moonlit horizon as he faced her, watching her approach with interest. The wind rose abruptly, blowing through the shoulder-length darkness of his hair. The Force was with him, rumbling with a din of absolute hostility.

It was not the gentle vibration that Fiach was used to with the Jedi.

This was a malignant manifestation – and Senn stood at the centre of it. Unwittingly reaching out with her limited senses, she recoiled in agony as the formidable presence of the Dark side lashed at her. The oily manifestation of its presence crawled over her skin.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

My vision, Fiach thought with dread. Her fingers slipped down to the side of the speeder bike, locating her purse and pulling out a small blaster pistol. Keeping the weapon to the side in the shadows, she dismounted from the vehicle and started up the gentle slope to the summit. “It was you who arranged for the explosion at the cantina wasn’t it?”

Dark laughter was the response. “Yes. It was me.”

“You’re here to discredit the resistance. But to what end? Change is on its way. The present government has no chance of holding onto this world.”

“Oh, my intentions are not so grand as that,” Senn whispered.

“Then what are your intentions?”

“I’m not here to decide the fate of this planet.” There was a spoiled, boyish quality about his voice.

“Then why not simply leave? Why kill innocent people?”

Senn’s shoulders swayed in the updraft from the lowlands, his robes billowing to the sides like the gigantic wings of some dark, predatory bird. “My plan is a very simple one – to discredit the Jedi. To cause chaos and mayhem and ensure as many innocent lives are lost in the process.”

The roguish grin deepened, becoming malevolent in the shadows. “And I intend to start with the one Jedi who might thwart my plan.”

“You brought me here to kill me?”

“No, I brought you here to spare your life.” Senn laughed easily. “I need an apprentice.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

There was a sound of a nearby explosion. The safe house was no longer.

As his intentions sank in, Fiach brought up the blaster. Before she could activate it, the weapon was ripped from her grasp. It flew through the night air, and disappeared in the darkness of the forest.

Weaponless, Fiach sprang at Senn, swinging a punch. She was no expert, but she understood martial arts enough to beat an average opponent – although a Jedi would be a different proposition.

As Senn agilely dodged her, the abrupt snap-hiss of a lightsaber broke the silence. The blade cut a wide swath in the darkness as it arced through the still air and slashed through Fiach’s jacket down to the skin. She cried out in pain, cradling her wounded arm.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” Senn taunted. “You can achieve so much more under my tutelage.”

“You may not be surprised to hear I’ve heard that line before. And it didn’t work that time.”

The presence of the dark side was so potent in him that it impacted Fiach’s connection to the Force.

“How did you know I was a Jedi?”

Senn laughed again outright, his face assuming a boyish charm that easily concealed the darkness of his being. “Your thoughts are so easily read, Fiach.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Wincing as the painful gash in her arm pinched and pulled at the tender skin, Fiach bolted toward the speeder bikes. She was mounted and spinning the steering bar as the repulsor engines ignited, propelling her back onto the forest path. She followed the dying embers of the blast and a trail of acrid smoke that poured from the site. Nearly a quarter of a kilometre from the bunker, trees were down, uprooted and flattened in the explosion. Fiach gunned the speeder bike over the threshold of the blast radius. The underbrush was little more than cinders, kicked up in the wake of her passage.

Outside the listening post, the bodies of the scout troopers had been blown thirty meters from the base of the staircase. The scent of singed armor was sickening as Fiach stopped the speeder bike and jumped off. She ran to what had been the entrance to the bunker.
The entire face of the mountain had collapsed in upon itself. With the fierce destructive force of the blast, it was impossible to imagine that anyone could have survived it. Senn’s motives for moving them here to this isolated place in the forest was a stroke of genius. They were completely cut off, isolated, and without support personnel. Nothing and no one would have prevented him from killing them and making good his escape.

Except for the crackle of a few remaining flames, silence pervaded the ruined area. Her eyes darted from one destroyed section to the next, determined to either find a way to Brenard or provide him with a way out. Though she knew her efforts would eventually prove fruitless, she continued to scan the still-smouldering ruins.

Then from the side she heard a soft scraping. Focusing her concentration, she listened as the sound intensified. It was coming from beneath the smoking rubble near the hangar bay. Channelling her senses toward the scratching, she perceived a faint glimmer of life buried beneath the rocks and mortar.

Lunging at the rubble, Fiach began heaving rocks to the side and digging through the debris. She ignored the painful lacerations spreading across her hands and fingers, desperate to reach Brenard, who was buried just beneath the collapsed wall of the entrance. Within moments, she uncovered one of his hands.

“Fiach?” she heard the muffled anguish in his voice.

Renewing her efforts, she ignored her straining muscles and continued to free him from beneath the collapsed bunker wall. “Can you move?” she whispered, uncovering his torso, his arms, and then freeing his legs. He remained motionless and unresponsive.

Behind them, she heard the distinct whine of repulsor engines as Senn returned to the ruined bunker. There was a gloated, sated expression in his face as he surveyed his handiwork.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Fiach pulled Brenard against her, using her slight weight to drag him from his smoking tomb. As they moved out of the crater, there was a secondary explosion deep within the bunker. The blast caused a shifting of the surface debris as the bunker sank deeper into the mountain cavity, quickly burying Brenard’s feet in the ruins.

As the deafening tremor subsided, Fiach stumbled and dropped to her knees. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Senn watching. “Help me,” she said.

“That’s not part of my plan,” he replied with an arrogant smile.

Fiach gritted her teeth and pulled, finally freeing Brenard’s body from the rubble. He was alive, barely. But without proper medical attention, Senn’s plans would be complete.

Beyond the blast wreckage stood a small storage barracks. It remained intact, despite the blast, half-hidden in an alcove of large boulders. Supporting Brenard’s weight against her, Fiach struggled to move him into the darkened shelter. She laid him in a temporary cot that must have been used by sentries between shifts. Activating the power source, she swore as the illumination grid flickered with sporadic dim snatches of light. Its backup generators, unattended in the absence of support personnel, were run down and inadequate. Within moments of turning it on, the unit shut off, allowing the darkness to return.

Seeing a glowrod in the far corner, Fiach took it from the wall apparatus and activated it. Along with the glowrod, she took a first aid kit from a pile of discarded equipment boxes.

Unconscious beneath her, Brenard was oblivious to her attempts to salvage what remained of his life. His laboured breathing grew more shallow by the minute as he began to succumb to his injuries.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath that rattled audibly in her lungs. She concentrated on Brenard’s face, feeling the pain of his injuries as vividly as the cauterising bite of the lightsaber. Without warning, her pain intensified. Internal haemorrhaging, broken bones, crushed organs. Fiach collapsed to the dirt floor with a resounding thud. Writhing in agony, she sought comfort, a release. Her skills with the Force were limited and undirected. Her attempt to control and define that power only sharpened the pain and prolonged the suffering, infuriating her.

Laying her hands on Brenard’s chest, she willed the energy into him. What made the difference, she would never understand but suddenly his body was repairing itself but it drained her energy. She mused it was a small price to pay for the life of an innocent; but now she was dying.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

The shadows converged on her and Fiach sensed a presence. Senn stood there, his hand reaching toward her. She took strength from it, never hesitating to take it as the breath was forced from her lungs. She moved closer to the dark vision, but it was not Senn’s face she saw peering back at her from the veil of darkness.

Recognising her own face in the black cowl, she tried to pull away. But the apparition held tightly onto her wrist with its fleshless hand. The other hand was moving toward her throat.

Fiach recoiled in horror as she felt the boney fingers at her neck. As she struggled to free herself, the hand tightened, restricting the flow of air to her lungs. “Do not resist,” it said to her. “Do not resist.” Fiach relaxed, and for a brief moment the tightness in her neck eased. But as she renewed her struggles, her muscles constricted on her again, cutting off the flow of air to her lungs.

Thrashing wildly as she tried to inhale, she lashed out against the apparition. Her hands clutched at her throat as she shook her consciousness free of the phantasm, only to find herself writhing on the storage shelter’s dirt floor. Shivering beneath a light glaze of sweat, she sat up abruptly and stared at Brenard’s face. His breathing was still shallow, but steady. As the sinister power of the dark side faded into her, she watched as his strength increased and his breathing came easier in the slow, even rhythm of peaceful sleep.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

She closed her eyes and shuddered at the echo of her demented inner voice. She felt violated, tricked. Quickly rising to her feet, she retreated from the shadows, trying to hide in the dim halo of the glowrod.

“Beware the brilliance of the light side,” Senn whispered, “for while it illuminates and warms, it casts a cold, blinding glare on those too humble to look beyond it to the shadows.” The dark Jedi stepped toward her, offering his hand. “Dear, gentle Fiach,” he sighed sadly, “won’t you come in from the cold?”

Trembling in the light, Fiach stared at him. “What have I done?”

“The dark side has its price. You’ve had but a small taste of it.” Caressing her face, he embraced her in an attempt to ward off the chill.
Though she heard his voice, she couldn’t register the deep, shifting tones of it. She felt him, his warmth, but her senses were failing. The walls of the shelter and the fixtures began to blur and she felt her knees buckle beneath her weight.

Senn caught her before her body could hit the ground. Unable to resist, Fiach laid her head against the dark Jedi and once again, she succumbed to the darkness.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Fiach awoke to the mournful howl of a wolf. From across a distance, the desperate cry reverberated inside her head, compounding the pressure behind her eyes. Head aching, she opened her eyes and struggled to sit up. As her vision sharpened, she concentrated on the peculiar shadow sitting across from her. A few minutes later, the face of one of Senn’s underlings appeared in the warm afterwash of a glowrod.

Dressed in a flight jacket and pants, he seemed more at ease in the garb of a smuggler than a uniform. His hair was damp and he brushed a lock of it from his face, staring at her with such tangible regret that Fiach could feel his emotions, unveiled and distinct.

“Where’s Brenard?” she asked, gripping the edge of the cot.

The man rose from his chair and walked a few steps to the shelter entrance. “She’s awake!” he shouted. Hesitating at the door, he glanced back at her with that peculiar remorse intensifying as he looked on her. Then without further comment, he pushed through the narrow opening to the outside.

As he left, Fiach could hear the steady rhythm of the rain falling outside. She swung her legs over the edge of the cot and slowly rose to her feet. The Governor was lying in a temporary bunk mattress where she had left him. Kneeling beside him, Fiach checked his vital signs and smiled as her efforts registered an improvement in his condition.

With each passing moment, Fiach could feel the strength returning to him. And in sensing that energy, she felt Senn’s power at work, cradling his life essence.

Sitting down on the ground beside Brenard, she turned to the apparition standing in the shelter doorway behind her. “Will you always be there, over my shoulders, watching me from the shadows?”

“When next you stare into the darkness, will it make you feel any safer knowing that I was there?” Senn remained in the doorway, making no effort to come farther into the light. “Your forces have arrived,” he said. “I took the liberty of alerting them of your status. They should be here in a few minutes.”

“You and your fellow Jedi are to be congratulated. This planet is finally free of its oppressors.” Raising his chin with cool arrogance, Senn stared down at her. “I can arrange for the Governor’s safe passage from here. He would be well guarded.”

“Well guarded!” Fiach responded. “By you?” She shook her head with firm determination.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“They’re here.” The officer’s voice drifted in from the darkness. “It’s time to go.”

Avoiding Senn’s piercing gaze, Fiach sat up on her knees. She pulled the blankets against Brenard’s neck, holding his hand as he slept. Not looking at the dark Jedi, she said “I don’t know if l should thank or curse you.”

“You’ll decide which in time.” Senn smiled, bowing his head to her. It was a thin, melancholy expression that actually touched Fiach with its sincerity. “Good-bye, Fiach.”

At the sound of incoming search crews, Senn stepped outside into the night, as if on cue, where he vanished into the shadows. Fiach listened to the hollow cadence of the rain against the rooftop.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

She was back at the temple and despite her initial de-brief, she had found trouble sleeping and – as had been the custom for the past few nights, walked the empty corridors.

She was surprised to see one of the Master sitting on a bench at a crossroads of passages. “Good evening Fiach,” he said, not looking up from the flimsy he was reading.

“You were…expecting me?”

“Yes. And no.”

Fiach smiled. Why were Jedi Masters so inscrutable?

“Could you explain what that means?”

Now it was the Master’s turn to smile. Fiach had a reputation for asking the direct question – when others would skirt the issue.

“Yes, we are aware that you have been troubled. But no, I did not expect you at this precise moment. I have been on watch so to speak at different times. This was the first occasion our paths crossed.”

“Why not simply speak to me during the day?”

“The Force is no doubt what is keeping you awake and therefore this is the correct time to discuss what disturbs you.”

Fiach nodded at the logic. “I am conflicted about my last mission.”

She took the pause that ensued as a prompt to continue.

“I had to go undercover and befriend someone that I would ultimately betray.”

The Jedi Master nodded.

“Which I found uncomfortable…but necessary. We needed to understand what the government was up to. It saved countless lives. Which is part of the conundrum but not the whole. Or even the most significant part.”

“I saved his life. I could have delayed and allowed him to die without regret.”

The Jedi Master raised an eyebrow.

“OK, I would not have forgiven myself. But it felt strange, on reflection, to use subterfuge to get close to an enemy and then risk all to save his life.”

“All?”

“The dark Jedi. He channelled the dark side through me – of that I am sure. And I allowed it. So, I feel as though I betrayed the Jedi and the Force.”

“Do you think the end justifies the means?”

“That, perhaps above all, is what troubles me. To what ends do you go to save a life? I did what I did not out of love or even friendship. My emotions were irrelevant and I did what I did to save a life. No doubt the dark Jedi believes I owe him some debt, which I do not think I do. So have I betrayed him?”

The Jedi Master and Fiach sat in silence for a few long moments.

“Did you do anything you promised not to do?”

Fiach thought for minute.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. "I do not believe so."

“Maybe it was the dark Jedi that betrayed you?”

Fiach’s brow furrowed.

“He offered a solution without any expectation and only subsequently made you feel as though an agreement had been struck."

Fiach’s face suggested she was still not convinced.

“Of all of the Jedi trials, Betrayal is the most challenging for some. The Council believes that, in arriving here, sitting on this bench with me, you have passed the test. That does not mean you have fathomed the true nature of betrayal. That may never happen. But for now, be assured you acted as a Jedi should.”

Fiach smiled but shook her head simultaneously. It summed up precisely how she felt.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

JEDI TRIAL: INSTINCT

“You will know when you are calm, at peace, passive. A Jedi uses the force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.”
— Yoda

Fiach was on an emergency mission – a part of a larger mission that had been cobbled together at the last minute as far as she could tell. That was due to the fact she’d been teamed with another Padawan when the requirement was surely for a Knight.

A planet had been suddenly overcome by a toxic disaster. Known for its high-tech weapons systems, a noxious cloud had been accidentally released by one of its weapons laboratories and is quickly spreading. Many had died; many more had become ill. But fortunately the damage had been confined to one area.

Since it was a new agent, there were many unknowns. The agent was not a gas, but an organic substance carried by the air. How it was spreading was one of the unknowns.

The governing ministers fled the planet and chaos had ensued. Anyone who could afford to join them did so. Now there were now no more transports left on the planet. Evacuation vessels capable of transporting the remaining population were headed to the planet and would arrive in three more days.

Part of their mission was to ensure that the evacuations take place in a peaceful and orderly manner. There was looting and unrest, so the secondary task was to keep the peace.