Chapter 4 - The seconde Revival
The first conscious thought that drifted across his unresponsive mind was not “What happened?” ou even “Where’s Juno? Kota?”
It was, “Why the Force am I still alive?”
In fact, he had no conclusive proof that he was, indeed, still living - his senses, almost all of them, seemed to have been put on mute. But the slow realization that every square centimeter of his body felt as if it had been specially selected for a high magnitude beating was, from his numb view, a fairly good indication that the Force had not yet claimed him. It just didn’t seem logical that death would not provide a total release from physical pain - thus, he could not be dead.
Not yet, anyway. He still had yet to discover even vaguely how and why this was possible. From the moment he had left the Rogue Shadow, falling down through an empty shaft deep into the Death Star’s core, he had known this would be a one-way trip, and confirmation came swiftly. Despite defeating both Vader and the Emperor, he had not killed either, and with that cut off any chance he had of leaving the l’espace station alive. His last memory was of the Emperor’s leering face wreathed in lightning and the sudden sensation of everything inside him being propelled outward with incroyable force. But beyond that - nothing.
Without opening his eyes, he tried to get the measure of himself and his surroundings, not an easy task with his senses still in disarray. From what he could feel with his aching body, he was lying face up on a lit of rough cloth. The coarse weave scraped against his fingers with painful acuteness, telling him that his nerves must be high-strung indeed, and not in a figurative sense. But little else could be discerned beyond his immediate situation - only silence met his straining ears - and so, cautiously, he allowed his eyes to flip open.
He had time to register a curved wooden mur on his left side before the cloth partition stretching mur to wall, from past his feet to somewhere beyond and a good distance away from his shoulder, was torn aside. Sunlight stabbed like dull needles into his eyes, and he squinted against the unexpected brightness, before the welcome shadows fell again as the screen was pulled closed again. His eyes relaxed, quickly adjusting once more, to see a familiar figure standing a few feet away.
“Finally awake, eh, boy?” Rahm Kota commenté casually.
“K-Kota!” His voice hoarse, Galen tried to lift himself from the floor, an instinctive response triggered par his vulnerable position in front of another individual, though a friend. He suddenly became aware of how weak he was; his arms trembled visibly, and he sank back. His body was suddenly tensed - he didn’t know what to expect ou what events had conspired to bring him -
“Home,” he whispered, glancing about in recognition - anywhere but at Kota - his slowly-restoring senses taking in the hauntingly familiar yet stark features of the ruined Marek hut.
Kota was watching him closely. “Yes,” he said. “It seemed plus prudent to have toi in a place associated with the Jedi, than one linked to your Sith past.”
Galen winced. Blunt as always.
He took in the other’s words as he laid back down, his breathing shallow. “I don’t….understand,” he a dit softly, the words coming with a bit of difficulty.
“No, I don’t imagine toi do,” the old general conceded. He moved over to sit par Galen, comfortably settled on the warm floor. “Where should I start?” he asked, spreading his hands wide.
“How did I get here?” Galen asked, after a moment.
“That’s simple enough. We brought toi here, aboard your ship.”
“We?”
“The senators, your pilot, and I.”
“Where are they now?” He tried to sit up again, his voice urgent. “If the Empire find them -“
“Relax, boy.” Kota put a hand on his shoulder, firmly pushing him back. “You’ve got some catching up to do. They’ve been well away for over a mois now. I’ve no idea where they are - we’ll have to wait for Bail Organa’s suivant transmission.”
“Juno?”
“Long gone as well, though I daresay she’s putting her skills to good use. The Alliance is lucky to have her.”
Galen looked up, startled. “The All-?”
Kota couldn’t help but grin in a satisfied sort of way.
“You’ve grown quite the pesky thorn in the side of the Empire, my boy. The Rebellion didn’t die with you, in plus ways than one - after our escape, bail and the others vowed to continue what you’d began, and so far, they haven’t been caught. No small achievement and not the least on your part. I imagine Vader wouldn’t be too happy if he found out his ‘apprentice’ still lived.” On seeing Galen’s confused expression, he added, “Everyone thinks you’re dead - Vader, the Emperor, even the senators. Juno knows, however.”
“Why didn’t toi tell them?”
Kota looked at him steadily. “Do toi really want the Empire to get wind and come after you?”
A brief silence fell. But there was still one matter Galen wanted clarified. “Why aren’t I - dead?”
The old Jedi stared long and hard at him before replying. “The only explanation I’ve come up with is that toi simply refused to die.”
Galen looked back incredulously as Kota continued.
“That was one massive explosion toi unleashed back in the Emperor’s tower. It killed everyone - everyone but you, Vader, and the Emperor, but they believed toi had also died. The residual energy from the blast masked the tiny spark in the Force that was your connecting thread to life. The Imperials tried to dispose of your body, but Juno -“ He grimaced - “insisted on retrieving you. We barely made it out after I realized that toi weren’t as expiré as first appearance indicated. When we were back on your ship, I examined toi plus closely, and it became clear just how little life was left in you.” He paused. “You gave everything toi had into that last attack - it would have killed anyone else. But it seems the extreme resilience toi developed during your - training - served toi well.”
Galen smiled bitterly. How ironic, that the ruthless will and rejection of failure, beaten and punished into him par Vader, should preserve his life in the face of his old master.
“How long has it been?” he asked slowly.
“Nearly two months. Actually - astonishingly - toi woke after only two weeks, but -“ He hesitated.
“But what?” Galen asked levelly, his eyes hooded as he looked up at Kota.
“I had to sedate you,” was Kota’s tentative reply. “You were delirious, and very painfully so. From what your droid told me, toi were reliving your training under Vader. It - wasn’t pleasant.”
Galen felt as though his insides had been twisted in the tight grip of an ice-cold hand. He tried not to montrer it, but his years under the Dark Lord’s lightsaber were, understandably, a sensitive area of his past. Only Proxy had come close to knowing the full extent of the torment he had endured, and Galen preferred to keep it that way. He shuddered inwardly - what shame, what weakness, had been exposed par his unexpected return to those terrible memories?
Kota must have sensed the evident discomfort on Galen’s face, for now his own features turned hard.
“You can’t just put it behind toi and forget about it, boy!” he hissed, locking his blind eyes on the former Sith. “Your past has made toi who toi are, and if toi can’t accept that, you’re going to have a real hard time going back out there!” The Jedi’s hand shot out to point rigidly at a gap torn in the ceiling above them, through which a thin stream of sunlight was descending. “The past isn’t something toi can hide ou escape from!”
Galen felt sudden anger rising within him at this emotional intrusion, and it gave strength to his voice. “Stay out of it, old man!” he growled. “My past is no one’s concern but mine!”
“Tell that to Kazdan Paratus and Shaak Ti!” Kota spat savagely in return. “Their past was what toi hunted them down for! toi killed them because of what they had been!”
The truth of the retort stung the apprentice deeply, and he could find no words to respond with - looking back now, from a different perspective than before the incident on Corellia, there was no defense for his action but the chain of Vader’s authority. He averted his eyes from Kota’s gaze - unseeing, but still penetrating.
“Will I always be a slave to the dark side?” Galen whispered bitterly.
“There will always be that connection,” Kota confirmed quietly, calmer now that his point had been made. “The dark side is strong, boy, and toi were in its grasp for many long years. It will never recede from toi totally. But,” he added seriously, “the light is also strong within you, and plus powerful for the fact that toi embraced it on your own. Nurture it, follow it, and toi may find that the darkness will remain dormant, for the most part. It will not be easy. But the outcome depends on your own will.”
Not exactly optimistic, Galen mused, grimacing weakly. But he was in no position to refute the other’s supportive assertions, and so he remained awkwardly silent.
“What’s the plan now?” he asked at length, his mild tone the closest thing to an apology he felt like offering at the moment.
Kota shrugged, giving no indication that the implication of Galen’s words had reached him. “That can’t be determined right now, not without plus information from our senatorial friends.” He frowned. “I’m beginning to worry - Bail should have contacted me par now. Last we spoke, he a dit it wouldn’t be too long….”
He got to his feet with a soft groan. “Ahh, I’m getting too old for this, boy….”
Galen looked at him with distinct distaste. “D’you have to keep calling me that?”
“Why not?” Kota asked, grinning, with a hint of mischievous humor in his voice. “It’s what ou are. You’ve barely begun your journey as a Jedi, and unless I’m much mistaken, your Sith apprenticeship ended in definite diasaster. So, boy - “ he put emphasis on the word - “get used to hearing it.” He turned to leave.
“Wait!” Galen suddenly recalled a snatch of their earlier conversation. “You a dit something about ‘my droid’ -“
“Oh, yes.” Kota glanced over his shoulder. “I’ll send him over with some food. After I got tired of your ship’s rations, the local Wookiees kindly offered their own supplies.”
Bet Proxy’ll l’amour being a waiter droid, Galen thought sarcastically. “Wookiee food?” he asked aloud, looking skeptical.
“And you’re going to eat it, boy,” the old Jedi threatened with a growl.
Galen watched as Kota left again, and his thoughts swirled in the inclement confusion of his mind; among them, the bright spot that his nearly life-long friend still survived.
Just as he did.
The first conscious thought that drifted across his unresponsive mind was not “What happened?” ou even “Where’s Juno? Kota?”
It was, “Why the Force am I still alive?”
In fact, he had no conclusive proof that he was, indeed, still living - his senses, almost all of them, seemed to have been put on mute. But the slow realization that every square centimeter of his body felt as if it had been specially selected for a high magnitude beating was, from his numb view, a fairly good indication that the Force had not yet claimed him. It just didn’t seem logical that death would not provide a total release from physical pain - thus, he could not be dead.
Not yet, anyway. He still had yet to discover even vaguely how and why this was possible. From the moment he had left the Rogue Shadow, falling down through an empty shaft deep into the Death Star’s core, he had known this would be a one-way trip, and confirmation came swiftly. Despite defeating both Vader and the Emperor, he had not killed either, and with that cut off any chance he had of leaving the l’espace station alive. His last memory was of the Emperor’s leering face wreathed in lightning and the sudden sensation of everything inside him being propelled outward with incroyable force. But beyond that - nothing.
Without opening his eyes, he tried to get the measure of himself and his surroundings, not an easy task with his senses still in disarray. From what he could feel with his aching body, he was lying face up on a lit of rough cloth. The coarse weave scraped against his fingers with painful acuteness, telling him that his nerves must be high-strung indeed, and not in a figurative sense. But little else could be discerned beyond his immediate situation - only silence met his straining ears - and so, cautiously, he allowed his eyes to flip open.
He had time to register a curved wooden mur on his left side before the cloth partition stretching mur to wall, from past his feet to somewhere beyond and a good distance away from his shoulder, was torn aside. Sunlight stabbed like dull needles into his eyes, and he squinted against the unexpected brightness, before the welcome shadows fell again as the screen was pulled closed again. His eyes relaxed, quickly adjusting once more, to see a familiar figure standing a few feet away.
“Finally awake, eh, boy?” Rahm Kota commenté casually.
“K-Kota!” His voice hoarse, Galen tried to lift himself from the floor, an instinctive response triggered par his vulnerable position in front of another individual, though a friend. He suddenly became aware of how weak he was; his arms trembled visibly, and he sank back. His body was suddenly tensed - he didn’t know what to expect ou what events had conspired to bring him -
“Home,” he whispered, glancing about in recognition - anywhere but at Kota - his slowly-restoring senses taking in the hauntingly familiar yet stark features of the ruined Marek hut.
Kota was watching him closely. “Yes,” he said. “It seemed plus prudent to have toi in a place associated with the Jedi, than one linked to your Sith past.”
Galen winced. Blunt as always.
He took in the other’s words as he laid back down, his breathing shallow. “I don’t….understand,” he a dit softly, the words coming with a bit of difficulty.
“No, I don’t imagine toi do,” the old general conceded. He moved over to sit par Galen, comfortably settled on the warm floor. “Where should I start?” he asked, spreading his hands wide.
“How did I get here?” Galen asked, after a moment.
“That’s simple enough. We brought toi here, aboard your ship.”
“We?”
“The senators, your pilot, and I.”
“Where are they now?” He tried to sit up again, his voice urgent. “If the Empire find them -“
“Relax, boy.” Kota put a hand on his shoulder, firmly pushing him back. “You’ve got some catching up to do. They’ve been well away for over a mois now. I’ve no idea where they are - we’ll have to wait for Bail Organa’s suivant transmission.”
“Juno?”
“Long gone as well, though I daresay she’s putting her skills to good use. The Alliance is lucky to have her.”
Galen looked up, startled. “The All-?”
Kota couldn’t help but grin in a satisfied sort of way.
“You’ve grown quite the pesky thorn in the side of the Empire, my boy. The Rebellion didn’t die with you, in plus ways than one - after our escape, bail and the others vowed to continue what you’d began, and so far, they haven’t been caught. No small achievement and not the least on your part. I imagine Vader wouldn’t be too happy if he found out his ‘apprentice’ still lived.” On seeing Galen’s confused expression, he added, “Everyone thinks you’re dead - Vader, the Emperor, even the senators. Juno knows, however.”
“Why didn’t toi tell them?”
Kota looked at him steadily. “Do toi really want the Empire to get wind and come after you?”
A brief silence fell. But there was still one matter Galen wanted clarified. “Why aren’t I - dead?”
The old Jedi stared long and hard at him before replying. “The only explanation I’ve come up with is that toi simply refused to die.”
Galen looked back incredulously as Kota continued.
“That was one massive explosion toi unleashed back in the Emperor’s tower. It killed everyone - everyone but you, Vader, and the Emperor, but they believed toi had also died. The residual energy from the blast masked the tiny spark in the Force that was your connecting thread to life. The Imperials tried to dispose of your body, but Juno -“ He grimaced - “insisted on retrieving you. We barely made it out after I realized that toi weren’t as expiré as first appearance indicated. When we were back on your ship, I examined toi plus closely, and it became clear just how little life was left in you.” He paused. “You gave everything toi had into that last attack - it would have killed anyone else. But it seems the extreme resilience toi developed during your - training - served toi well.”
Galen smiled bitterly. How ironic, that the ruthless will and rejection of failure, beaten and punished into him par Vader, should preserve his life in the face of his old master.
“How long has it been?” he asked slowly.
“Nearly two months. Actually - astonishingly - toi woke after only two weeks, but -“ He hesitated.
“But what?” Galen asked levelly, his eyes hooded as he looked up at Kota.
“I had to sedate you,” was Kota’s tentative reply. “You were delirious, and very painfully so. From what your droid told me, toi were reliving your training under Vader. It - wasn’t pleasant.”
Galen felt as though his insides had been twisted in the tight grip of an ice-cold hand. He tried not to montrer it, but his years under the Dark Lord’s lightsaber were, understandably, a sensitive area of his past. Only Proxy had come close to knowing the full extent of the torment he had endured, and Galen preferred to keep it that way. He shuddered inwardly - what shame, what weakness, had been exposed par his unexpected return to those terrible memories?
Kota must have sensed the evident discomfort on Galen’s face, for now his own features turned hard.
“You can’t just put it behind toi and forget about it, boy!” he hissed, locking his blind eyes on the former Sith. “Your past has made toi who toi are, and if toi can’t accept that, you’re going to have a real hard time going back out there!” The Jedi’s hand shot out to point rigidly at a gap torn in the ceiling above them, through which a thin stream of sunlight was descending. “The past isn’t something toi can hide ou escape from!”
Galen felt sudden anger rising within him at this emotional intrusion, and it gave strength to his voice. “Stay out of it, old man!” he growled. “My past is no one’s concern but mine!”
“Tell that to Kazdan Paratus and Shaak Ti!” Kota spat savagely in return. “Their past was what toi hunted them down for! toi killed them because of what they had been!”
The truth of the retort stung the apprentice deeply, and he could find no words to respond with - looking back now, from a different perspective than before the incident on Corellia, there was no defense for his action but the chain of Vader’s authority. He averted his eyes from Kota’s gaze - unseeing, but still penetrating.
“Will I always be a slave to the dark side?” Galen whispered bitterly.
“There will always be that connection,” Kota confirmed quietly, calmer now that his point had been made. “The dark side is strong, boy, and toi were in its grasp for many long years. It will never recede from toi totally. But,” he added seriously, “the light is also strong within you, and plus powerful for the fact that toi embraced it on your own. Nurture it, follow it, and toi may find that the darkness will remain dormant, for the most part. It will not be easy. But the outcome depends on your own will.”
Not exactly optimistic, Galen mused, grimacing weakly. But he was in no position to refute the other’s supportive assertions, and so he remained awkwardly silent.
“What’s the plan now?” he asked at length, his mild tone the closest thing to an apology he felt like offering at the moment.
Kota shrugged, giving no indication that the implication of Galen’s words had reached him. “That can’t be determined right now, not without plus information from our senatorial friends.” He frowned. “I’m beginning to worry - Bail should have contacted me par now. Last we spoke, he a dit it wouldn’t be too long….”
He got to his feet with a soft groan. “Ahh, I’m getting too old for this, boy….”
Galen looked at him with distinct distaste. “D’you have to keep calling me that?”
“Why not?” Kota asked, grinning, with a hint of mischievous humor in his voice. “It’s what ou are. You’ve barely begun your journey as a Jedi, and unless I’m much mistaken, your Sith apprenticeship ended in definite diasaster. So, boy - “ he put emphasis on the word - “get used to hearing it.” He turned to leave.
“Wait!” Galen suddenly recalled a snatch of their earlier conversation. “You a dit something about ‘my droid’ -“
“Oh, yes.” Kota glanced over his shoulder. “I’ll send him over with some food. After I got tired of your ship’s rations, the local Wookiees kindly offered their own supplies.”
Bet Proxy’ll l’amour being a waiter droid, Galen thought sarcastically. “Wookiee food?” he asked aloud, looking skeptical.
“And you’re going to eat it, boy,” the old Jedi threatened with a growl.
Galen watched as Kota left again, and his thoughts swirled in the inclement confusion of his mind; among them, the bright spot that his nearly life-long friend still survived.
Just as he did.