Rippling Consequences

Posted on Tue Apr 7th, 2026 @ 10:07pm by Bomoor Thort & Amare & G2-O7 & 2-1BH "Useless"

2,643 words; about a 13 minute read

Chapter: Chapter VIII: Broken Chains
Location: Med Bay, Red Raptor, Varl System, Hutt Space
Timeline: After "Axion's Lore"

The Red Raptor felt different when it was quiet.

With most of the crew scattered across their own assignments, the old freighter seemed to breathe slower, her hull creaking softly as she sat anchored in the drifting asteroid field. Every so often, a pebble‑sized fragment of rock pattered against the shields with a faint, crystalline 'tink', like distant chimes echoing through the metal bones of the ship. The lights were dimmed to half‑power, leaving long shadows stretching across the corridors, with only the medbay lights operating at full brightness. Its clean sterile light spilled through the open door bleaching the aged metal outside.

Inside the room, Amare sat on the diagnostic bed, the faint smell of sterilising vapour clinging to the air. Her left side was exposed where a burn had set in: an angry, branching mark along her ribs where a plasma flare had caught her near the reactor core. It should have been worse but the skin was already knitting together, the edges smoothing with unnatural speed.

The holoprojector beside her flickered, and the translucent form of 2‑1BH hovered into clarity. His voice was clipped, precise, and perpetually irritated.

"Regeneration rate remains anomalously high," the hologram declared, adjusting a floating display of Amare’s vitals. "Frankly, Ms Amare, your endocrine readings continue to defy my programming. If I were a real doctor, I might suggest an overactive regenerative cascade or a hormonal imbalance. But, as a glorified piece of medical equipment, I am sadly lacking in such qualifications, so I will simply advise you to get yourself checked before something important grows back incorrectly.”

Before Amare could respond, the medbay doors hissed open.

Bomoor strode in with purpose, his heavy steps echoing in the quiet room. G2 trundled behind him, dome angled downward in a posture that could only be described as sheepish. The droid gave a soft, apologetic warble as if hoping to avoid being implicated in whatever was about to unfold.

Bomoor didn’t look at the doctor or acknowledge the visible wound. His gaze locked straight onto Amare's dark eyes.

"We need to talk," he said, voice low but firm, "About what happened back there."

Useless flickered irritably, "If this is going to involve raised voices, I must remind you that stress elevates healing time..."

"Not now," Bomoor cut in, and the hologram wisely muted itself.

He stepped closer, the ship groaning faintly around them as another micro‑asteroid brushed the shields.

"What you did on that station," Bomoor continued, "Has consequences far beyond Axion. Far beyond our quest to end him. That data, those records, could have shaped the future for Force‑sensitives across the galaxy. Sith, Jedi, or something better than either. You may think everything that touches Axion must be destroyed and I understand that: Force knows, I want to tear down his whole twisted network. But that data wouldn't have allowed him to amass any more power against us now; you’ve only altered the path for the generations who will come after."

Amare’s eyes narrowed, her posture sharpening like a blade being drawn.

Bomoor held her gaze, unflinching.

"And we are going to speak plainly about that."

For all of two seconds, Amare's glare held squarely at Bomoor's eye stalks until she snorted and caved into sudden laughter. It was interrupted by her wince of pain from her still-tender burn injury.

"Hehehehe, oww!" She chortled with a slap on her knee, snd placing her other guarding hand over her wound. "Speak plainly? What a laugh! Okay Mr. 'Wise and Grand Sage' who can do no wrong. You want plain talk? Then let's start with the part where you've consulted with the Sith holocrons longer than I've been on this ship, and still that isn't enough to convince you that such knowledge is all we need. And that's on top of your many years of Jedi upbringing and training. The Cult knows nothing that would be of any use to us, especially you. What use could it possibly have had?"

Bomoor exhaled sharply and shook his head, "A good deflection, but you know full well that the holocrons are rooted in the past and offer a narrow, curated ideology born of the ones who created them. In many ways, my Jedi teachings were much the same: clinging to a former age and ultimately replicating its flaws."

He went to continue but seemed to think of something. Turning slightly, he beckoned the astromech forwards.

"G2," he prompted, "Show Amare a sample of the data you pulled."

With a sliding warble of wary agreement, G2 tilted back and projected a square of data into the air at the Nautolan's bedside. A census record from Christophsis, timestamped only hours before the station fell. A young Rodian child stared out from the profile image, overlaid with biometric markers, ancestry records, and environmental exposure data. In the corner, a 'confidence rating' pulsed at 82%.

Before Amare could take in the details, the projection shifted: another record, then another, some with faces and some without, the algorithm cycling through dozens of candidates in seconds.

"This is what the station outputs," Bomoor started, before adding in a graver tone, "Or it did. Live, current data feeding into an immensely complex predictive algorithm to determine, among other things, where Force sensitive children may be located. G2 recovered only the most recent outputs from one of the terminals before it lost power. I retrieved that datacron and a few other fragments. Not much, but enough to prove that what was lost mattered."

The dismissive attitude charade had dropped in the Nautolan woman the moment a mention of a child came into the conversation. A potentially Force-sensitive child at that.

"I see..." she said in much more sober and mature tone without looking at Bomoor. She slowly nodded a few times, then gingerly started to slip off the bed to her feet, wincing as the recovering burn wound still stung sharply at her as a result of her turning down Useless' offer of topical analgesics. "Now I know for sure that I made the right choice. No one should have that kind of data. Not even us. Do those children a favor and destroy those records. Or perhaps I should do it for you?"

Bomoor exhaled slowly through his mouths, not in anger, but in a weary kind of resolve.

"Then this is where you and I differ, Amare," he said quietly, "I don’t destroy something simply because it might be dangerous. Not artefacts, not knowledge… and not people. If we start drawing that line based on potential alone, where does it end?"

"These children..." he gestured to the flickering projections "...could one day be dangerous, yes. But by that logic, you might argue they should be erased before they ever have the chance to become anything at all."

He stepped closer, through the projection so that Amare could focus only on him. His voice was steady but firm.

"Destroying the data would stop someone from twisting it for evil, yes. But it would also stop anyone from using it to help them. To find them before someone like Axion or the Jedi does. To give them a chance you never had or to avoid the indoctrination Thane and I underwent."

His gaze softened, but only slightly.

"What suffering might you have been spared if someone kind had found you sooner? If someone had known where to look?"

He let that hang for a moment before continuing.

"We can surrender to apathy and pretend that ignorance is safety or we can take responsibility for shaping something better. Not just for these children, but for the galaxy we want to build."

Bomoor stepped back and gestured for G2 to end the data stream. It flickered away, the faces once again hidden from their view.

"I don’t even know yet if any of this is usable or what the datacron holds. I am certain the full extent of the archive's algorithm was lost with it but what fragments remain will not be destroyed and I strongly advise you to leave them be as well."

Bomoor received an abhorrent retort of narrowed eyes from the Sith. His stern words came off as a deeply veiled threat to Amare, and it inspired deep seething at the bottom of each of her hearts. She was, however, in no condition or mood to test the most extreme limits of his patience, and so she let it slide this time. She made herself a silent mental note that if Bomoor crossed her in such a way again, she would entertain the temptation of answering him in a very particular and most aberrantly kinetic way, even if it meant eliciting Thane's potentially lethal wrath.

"'Strongly advise'..." she repeated in clear disgust. "Once more you pilfer me of my agency as you and Thane so often do. Fine. I'll not interfere with your little project any further, of that I swear. But answer me this: What exactly did you plan to do once you found those younglings, hm? Can you protect them? Did you plan to raise them yourself? Dump them in someone else's hands? I can tell you from personal experience that last one has a very low chance of success."

Bomoor shifted his weight, the tension draining from his shoulders as he looked up toward the flickering white light of 2‑1BH’s projection. For a moment, the sterile glow washed over him, softening the deep lines of strain that had carved themselves into his features over these long months. When he spoke again, his voice had lost its edge: not weak, but quieter, steadier, as though he were remembering something precious.

"Right now," he said, "There is nothing to be done with this data. Not yet. But when Axion is gone… when this crusade is finally behind us… I want to help build something new. A generation of Jedi without the pride or fear that blinds the Reborn Order. A generation that remembers what the Jedi were meant to be."

His eyes lowered back to Amare, and for the first time in a long while, there was no judgement in them; only a fragile, earnest hope.

He let the silence breathe between them, the hum of the ship filling the space like a heartbeat. G2 and Useless still looking on awkwardly.

Then, gently, he asked:

"Amare… did you ever hear the legacy of Grand Master Luke Skywalker?"

The startling shift in the Ithorian's demeanor had caught Amare off-guard. The implications of what he was revealing to her was like nothing she ever anticipated from him. Her brows furrowed and her shoulders tensed as it felt like she was speaking with someone who was being driven into madness through his grief.

"You're asking me if I know about some dead historical Jedi war hero right after you talk about this crude idea of rebuilding the Jedi?!" Amare replied in a raised voice as she took to her feet and moved wearily to face him point-blank. She then allowed herself a breath and calmed her tone. "Look, I get it. Losing someone you love can steer the mind in unexpected directions. I'm living proof of that. But need I remind you that you're not a Jedi anymore? You're Bomoor Thort, friend and ally to the Sith Order, brother in the Force with the reigning Sith Lord. Why would you even remotely consider this talk of Skywalker and the Jedi let alone reveal it to a Sith Apprentice? Don't you think that's dangerous for all of us?"

Bomoor frowned slightly, although kept his tone passive, "On the contrary: the Sith order I am seeing is one built on the knowledge of many Force-using organisations. It recognises that no knowledge should be rejected on the basis of who holds it or where it came from. 'The Sith' is a moniker adopted by many very different people across the ages: some monstrous and some noble, but all with an ambition to shape their destinies and build on what came before. The Jedi masters of old have just as much to offer and you already already follow many of their principles because many Sith began as Jedi, as your own master did."

He paused, rubbing an eye‑stalk as the weight of the day settled heavily on him.

"But perhaps you’re right about one thing," he admitted with a sigh, "Perhaps the name ‘Jedi’ should be left in the past. Whatever comes next it won’t be a resurrection. It will be something new. Force‑sensitives guided by a shared vision, unbound by the old duality of light and dark. Drawing from both.”

His gaze drifted briefly back towards G2, eyes pondering.

"Something worth considering," he finished, "If I can make sense of what fragments remain."

She had wanted to ask him about whether he considered the implications of potential competition for acquiring Force-sensitive children between the likes of the Reborn and Rift Jedi Orders, but Amare was still exhausted and recovering and left for another day and another conversation.

"I can see you have a lot to think about," she said with the warmest tone of their conversation yet as she started for the door with a hand still placed gingerly over her recovering wound. She then added over her shoulder to him, "I'm not going to apologize for destroying the station, but knowing your intentions helps, and I'm glad you retrieved what you could. If protecting and helping children is your aim, then I hope you can help them in ways my mother never could or would for me."

The door panels slid open for her, and she stopped at the open doorway, turned to Bomoor once further, and somberly confessed, "You know, in another life, I wish I could have known you and Thane as a fellow Jedi. I know you and I don't often see eye-to-eye, and that I've been an idiot and a nuisance and a less-than-ideal apprentice who failed to live up to your standards, but in spite of everything, I'm still grateful for all you've taught me. Had I known you much sooner and grew up in that Temple near you, perhaps I could have called you...my brother."

She nodded to him gently, attempting a weak smile, which then quickly fell into a frown bordering on tears of lament. She was feeling more than a little embarrassed by her words of admission spoken with the vestiges of love and kindness that she still held on to like a sentimental woman who couldn't let go of dying rose. She promptly left the room and returned to her cabin to rest and nearly tripping over G2 as the little droid was passing by.

Bomoor rubbed his eyestalks again, "Living up to my standards?" he echoed softly, "I'm not sure what those even are anymore."

A beat of silence passed before 2‑1BH’s monotone cut through it.

"Well, if we're discussing standards, the quality of medical equipment and stock has been severely lacking since Mistress Le'Shaad departed. She at least updated my codex regularly. Perhaps we could start there?"

Bomoor's brow sagged, "Yes, thank you 'Useless'," he replied, not answering the request directly, instead asking his own, "Will Amare recover quickly from that wound?"

Distracted immediately by his core programming, the droid's answer was swift, "Oh, yes indeed. Her healing rate is remarkable. I was only just saying..."

"Good," Bomoor was already heading for the door, "Add your medical requests to the resupply list and we'll see what we can get once we're out of Hutt Space."

G2 chirped something to the doctor before spinning to follow him out. The medbay lights dimmed behind them, leaving only the faint outline of 2‑1BH as he initiated a decontamination cycle and flickered out of sight.

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