00.01 Prologue

[Gai'Solem, World of Solem, the Outer Rim]

[A Crack in Fabric of Reality]

It was a backward world, in a backward star system, on the edges of what some species like to pretend was civilized space. Like many words in this battered reality it had advanced for a time, but decay had set in just as it had with the Republic in general...and the Outer Rim had rarely been given a chance to develop in such a system that the Galactic Republic was. No, this region of space was one piracy, smuggling, and general criminality where the simmering discontent of centuries merged with callous apathy in the face of unchanging stasis.

For a millennia what they called peace had reigned with the perceived victory of the Light over the Dark in times long past and, as was the way of the Force, such things as Ambition for a Better World, Anger at the World, Desire for Change, and Destructive urge for Freedom had been subtly, unintentionally, suppressed by the tremendous galactic subconscious. With each passing year the Imbalance continued to grow; slow, subtle, gradual....but the slide continued year upon year unnoticed, unhindered, towards the moment the scale would break. For the Force was eternally at war with itself, a vast super-consciousness with no real intelligence as the sentient creatures that made up its 'body' would have understood. Higher than the Gods of many other realms in power, but somehow lacking as well in the scope of its designs; the great beast slumbering yet warring with itself across the stars.

But...

There were cracks in the universe, a fissure in the fabric as desperate souls prayed too long forgotten symbols as the battle raged above them as one faction fought another for dominance. Green-skinned defenders fought blue-skinned attackers from the stars in a savage melee upon the ground, a skirmish of flying craft above. Brutal, vicious, and on a knife's edge for the defenders of this particular city and its surrounding territories as it found itself alone against raiding bands. Desperate a small group of females and children had fled into the ancient depths, to the excavated tunnels and old bunkers preserved there, to escape the danger. Cowering in the flickering lights and shadows they prayed, some silently, some in sobs and whispered words as the hug their young and...

Something answered them...

...and, for a just a moment, the doorway slammed open...

.....and something came through.

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[Landed Combat Freighter Spicy Witch, Gai'solem]

Things had been going so well...till they suddenly weren't Khurid Thesh found she gunned down one of her crew who'd gone into a screaming fit and started shooting at everyone and everything. One moment they'd been looting the local's bank, with plans to grab slaves if they'd have time to check for quality, before their militia and what they called a military could react, and then it was like a wave had passed through them.

Them and her bunch of misfits...

'Save it drives them all in kriffing berserkers and my lot in screaming terror' she thought as she desperately used her anger to suppress the terrible sense of dread and terror boiling up in her stomach. Hard to do when she had to turn tail and run with three of her other comrades who'd manage to keep it together back towards the park where they'd landed the Spicy Witch. Her hand flew up to the communicator at her ear an mouth as she turned a corner and fell into cover as Jindo and Kyndo gave some support fire down the street she and others had just fled down.

"Lor? You hear me Lor-Lor?"

Static filled her ear a second, then the frantic and panicked voice of her chief pilot "Boss? Wha'za gonnin' Boss? Wez bez fines and nows mezza wannas swims across dezz oceans..."

"Lor, keep kriffing calm and prepare emergency lift off..." she snapped back "...send out the metalheads to cover our retreat. Got it?"

"Yez Bigs Boss, mezzza onits!"

'Good' she thought fingering the controls again on the entire group's comms as she watched the normally stoic and calm Ubjay run past her, screaming like a frightened child and arms flapping around him as if he were going to take flight "OKAY GUYS! BACK TO THE SHIP! BACK TO THE SHIP! WE ARE GETTING OUT OF HERE! REPEAT TIME TO BLOW THIS CANTO!!"

"Boss what about the other groups?" Jindo called out running over to her, firing a few blaster shots up the street and then back at her "...you know..."

"Who gives a..." she started to say but was cut off as an explosion ripped through the building nearby to them thanks to Lor-Lor Yinics probably, and moments later by the sound of two dozen armed droids coming down the freighters ramps and rushing forward. Thinking swiftly through the feelings of dread she slammed her crewman on the shoulder and motioned frantically for him and the others back across to fall back position nearer to the freighter. Better weapons and ships only got you so far, and when the natives got their blood up like this then it wasn't worth a kriff trying to stand and fight...

'Take what you got and bug out like your Poppa taught you' she reminded herself dashing across what had been a city square, hopping over a wood and stone wall, and then through the sparse trees as the combat droids rushed by firing. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the locals marching....actually kriffing marching....in organized formation down the street, firing as they went, and cutting down those of her crew too slow to take the hint, or too scared to think.

'Well, a bigger share of the loot for those of us alive I guess' passed through her mind on the only positive from the disaster as she hopped behind a solid, and modern, barrier and began to give cover fire to those running after here...

"Cover Fire! Fall Back as a group! Cover Fire Dammit!" she roared at them, Jindo and Kyndo at least doing so as they sprayed the enemy as best they could along with the Spicy Witche's guns so to give droids on their suicide mission time to get between them and the enemy. Not that the stupid things would last long, but they should last long enough to get her, and the rest of them deployed to get back in the freighter and to get spaceborne once aga...

WHUPPPP

WWWHUUMMMMPPPP

ROOAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

'Well...Kriff' was all should think as the Spicy Witch exploded behind her and a horrified silence descended upon the battlefield. Even the droids fell silent as their crude combat matrix went down without the ship's systems to keep them functional...

"Um...Parlay?" she managed to shout out, then dropping her weapon desperately and throwing hands up in the air at the lack of reply and utter terror possessing her frame "Ah...ah...Hello New Masters! Hello! I Surrender and so do..."

The blaster bolt took her between the eyes, and she knew no more...

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[Some Years Later]

Jedi Master Mace Windu frowned as the youngling glared at him from beside his father's legs "No, I will not go."

He sighed "Youngling, it is the will of the Force...."

"No, it is not" the youngling replied coldly and strangely vocal for one his age clutching at his parent's robes as the mother knelt down shushed him.

"I'm sorry Master Jedi, but he isn't normally like this" the mother replied, her green skin flushing as the father glanced down at the force sensitive that had been born to them.

"I think my son is clear on his desires."

Mace shook his head slowly, embracing the Force and radiating confidence to them "Ah, he is but a child, and it is not safe here for him, not with these gifts the force has blessed us with."

This family was far from prosperous, not poor, but a guardsman in the local military wasn't ideal for avoiding the dangers of the Dark Side in such an environment. Solem had even been raided upon the night of this youngling's birth, and again since then, and it would too much of a waste to allow such gifts of the force to slip through the cracks. Just a subtle encouragement here, a nudge there...the mother was already verging on agreeing and the father wavering as he glanced from the youngling to Mace and then to his wife and other, older child, sleeping across the way "I...do not know...perhaps..."

"I know what you are doing, I do not want this" the youngling hissed coldly, glaring and Mace's reasoning was even more at the faintest spike of power from those energetic eyes. The Force sang to him that this was right, that this needed to be done even as the air trembled around the youngling a moment, then passing as if a mirage "....walk away."

Mace shook his head and smiled sadly "A Jedi cannot walk away from one in need, you are too young to understand..." he answered the youngling then gazed at the parents who were both mildly discomforted by understanding at the youngsters flash of power "...and it is a gift but in danger of being harming the user if they are inexperienced"

"No, I..." the youngling started to say as Mace reached out with the Force to reassure everyone, then Father blinking a moment before kneeling down and placing a hand upon the youngling's shoulder.

"Daron, son....I...."

The mother nodded on the other side "We."

"Aie, my boy, We, this might be best for you..."

Mace tuned out the words, a variation of what he'd heard a hundred time, and merely waited calmly as the work of helping the boy was done for him. Unhappiness at leave was always to be expected from a youngling, and it was a duty to make the separation as painless as possible. Bonds such as this were unhealthy for a youngling with promise in the force, and the Force spoke of the Rightness of this decision with each passing moment as the family cried and hugged, the daughter being woken to join them in doing so. There was a spike of...something...he couldn't place, but he put that aside as the family gave their farewells after only the briefest of nudges of the Force. Walking outside after just an hour of the family drama he blinked as the youngling, holding a satchel over his shoulder, glared harshly at him and the Force flashed strangely around him a second before being gone.

"I will remember this Jedi, and you and your kind will regret what you have taken from me this day."

'Such a strange one' Mace mused to himself placing a hand on the youngling's shoulder and urging him forward. A bit more adult than expected, but world's like this bred them like that due to circumstances, and anger and fear were unfortunately normal responses to those he and others found in such situations. Childish threats too, soon forgotten, as they were brought to the Temple and their new lives began "I know it is fearful, but do not worry, it is a better life you are..."

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