The Avalan Crisis: Promise of a Jedi
Posted on Sun Apr 28th, 2019 @ 9:17pm by Thane & Bomoor Thort
Edited on on Wed Jun 8th, 2022 @ 2:01pm
3,616 words; about a 18 minute read
Chapter:
Additional Stories
Location: Iziz, Onderon
Timeline: Towards the end of the Thirteenth Battle of Onderon (after "Disconnection")
OLD
Octavia's eyes moved from Bomoor to Thane and then back to Bomoor. With a few final sobs, she rose and tried to compose herself, head bowed in defeat. "If I come with you... tell you what I can... You will take Maireen offworld?" Her eyes, glistening with tears, stared emphatically into Bomoor's pleading. "You promise?"
The kindly young consular gave her a firm look, all trace of the bumbling Ithorian gone as he answered, “I promise.”
NEW
Another instalment of The Avalan Crisis posts, chronicling the young Padawans, Thane and Bomoor Thort.
The din of battle was finally ebbing away.
For the past few hours, the sounds of a city-state tearing itself apart had echoed along its storied streets and alleyways, its ancient buildings filled with the self-destructive clamour of civil war as Iziz's citizens fell upon one another in misguided, yet righteous, fury.
Since Bomoor and Thane had confronted Lady Octavia by the former location of the ages-gone Sky Ramp, some semblance of order had been restored to Onderon's lone and capital city. The ochre-clad GalactaWerks Marines had swarmed the streets en masse, armed as they were with stun batons and pulse rifles, and seized sizeable portions of the city street-by-street, enforcing their own warped interpretation of martial law.
Elsewhere, local militias supported by the Royal Guards had assumed authority once more over the citizens in other quarters, tending to the wounded, all the while seeking out any hint of Avalan loyalty. Homes were being boarded and shops were being turned over. The muffled cries of children echoed from within the sandstone-covered buildings and an ambivalent aura of calm and fear had gripped Iziz.
For the Jedi, the path back to Unifar Temple had been calm. Whilst the offworlders had attracted glances from natives, either crumpled on the floor or being herded by soldiers, they had been unimpeded, each faction seemingly recognising their authority as being something quite separate from the planet's. The Lady Octavia had also passed into a slumber, ably encouraged by the gentle Force persuasions of Bomoor to ease their journey and calm her worries, even if briefly.
Having been carefully carried by the young pair to the palace, they were nodded through, with a modicum of suspicion, by the two chief Royal Guards standing sentry. From the looks of their uniforms, unblemished and crisp, they had seen none of the fighting in the recent Battle of Onderon, honouring their duty to Queen Omina. A younger guardsman separated from a nearby group, his uniform scored and black on one shoulder.
From the looks of him, he was barely older than Thane himself, and despite his recent combat, he made no objection to assisting the two Jedi in guiding them and Octavia into an empty servants' storage room nearby to the throne room. Before he left, he explained the queen was otherwise currently indisposed, but would call for them soon, and then handed his personal-issue bacta patch and medical kit to Bomoor.
"For the lady," the muss-haired teen said with a weary, crooked smile, before once again leaving the pair to their charge.
"What do you think Her Highness will make of this?" Thane asked the older padawan, watching Lady Octavia's slight form on the table they had adapted into a bed for her, noting the gentle rising and dipping of her frame as she breathed.
“I suppose that depends on which persona she adopts when she arrives,” the Ithorian pondered as he set about securing the basic bed frame they were using before he administered the bacta, “The monarch filled with righteous fury or the matriarch filled with compassion and forgiveness.”
He gestured towards Thane to roll up the woman’s sleeve as he wheeled over a small side table to place the medical kit down on beside her, “I wouldn’t blame her for being either at this point, but I hope if she sees fit to punish her, that punishment does not extend to young Maireen, who still hope will be allowed offworld.”
Bomoor paused for a moment, somewhat hoping that more assistance would arrive soon, if not immediately. The bacta patch would undoubtedly sooth the scarring and concussion Octavia had experienced out in the panic of the streets, but she might be too drowsy to communicate with the queen when she arrived.
With no sign of imminent assistance, Bomoor made the decision not to prolong her pain and set the bacta patch against the now-bare flesh on her arm, allowing the micro syringes on is surface to diffuse the healing chemicals through her skin and into her bloodstream. It was painless and she did not stir as the process began so the trainee consular also placed upon her the portable heart-rate monitor from the medical kit, which began to beat with the rapid but consistent rhythm of Octavia’s heart.
“She is not badly injured but the shock is still making her unwell,” Bomoor addressed Thane across their unconscious patient, “How is your healing aura these days? Think you can work with me?”
Thane nodded quickly, and positioned himself on the opposite side to the Ithorian over Maireen. Whilst healing techniques were quite rudimentary within the teachings of the Jedi, Thane had been slower than Bomoor to learn the technique. Fortunately for the young Guardian, Master Sotah - whilst an expert in the ability in his own right - had encouraged the Ithorian from the earliest stages of his and Master Thurius' join padawan enterprises to tutor Thane in perfecting the form, and those informal lessons had formed some of the earliest memories the Human had of his closest friend. In more recent years, those sessions had given way to late-night philosophical discourse. There had been more than one occasion in which Coruscant's sun had risen to greet the young Jedi's sleep-deprived eyes after a night of prolonged debate.
"I have to admit," Thane said, his eyes closed as his hands hovered over Octavia's unconscious form, his posture a mirror of Bomoor's own as their combined efforts began seeping into the Onderonian, "I am finding it hard to be understanding of the lady's point of view. I mean, I get it; after all that has happened and the issues with the girl, but... the amount of people she has harmed through her actions, Bomoor. She is complicit."
Even as he said the words, Thane could feel his frustration with Octavia and the situation at large within Onderon causing his healing aura to falter, his veneer of calm being chipped at by his malcontent. It did not help that it had been many hours since the masters had been taken, too, with no suggestion of their well-being having been made clear to them. For all they knew, Octavia's contact had already had them both executed, rather than risk whatever conspiracy there was being revealed.
“Don’t you think I feel that frustration too?” Bomoor spoke abruptly and his own healing affinity diminished slightly, before softening his tone and resuming the soothing aura with Thane’s assistance, “Of course she has done wrong and will most certainly be judged for that, but it was not our place to decide that judgement out there in all that chaos.”
Bomoor knew that Thane’s preoccupation on wider matters often made it difficult for him to focus on the here-and-now when it came to such Jedi techniques as the healing aura, which required devoting yourself to the life that was before you; not thinking about what they had done and what they had yet to do. A life was a life and Bomoor simply tried to concentrate on his own doctrine that all life was sacred: to be preserved and never taken, unless that life was an immediate threat to his or another’s.
“I know we want to find our masters safe,” Bomoor empathised, “but allowing harm to come to Octavia is not going to make them any safer.”
"I know that," Thane replied a little too quickly, realising a moment too late at how sharp his reaction had been. "It's just... Do you think Onderon's notion of justice is really enough like ours?" He asked, recovering his composure with the question, still doing his best to channel his will into their combined healing aura. "They hardly seem able to agree with another, let alone the wider galaxy - they flagrantly disregard Republic law and-" Thane stopped himself as he realised he had stopped contributing to the Force healing, and he withdrew his hands into frustrated fists. "The Conflict never ended here, did it? And I don't know what we can do to help; they continue to fight one another in the streets, tearing each other apart, blaming the galactic government or corporations for all their woes, but it's not as simple as that, is it?"
The young Jedi Guardian stepped away from Octavia's still body, his mind racing to best explain his frustration. "We try to help the government here, and we try to help the common folk on the street. We even try to help the ones hurting us," Thane went on, gesturing at Octavia. "But what difference does it make? What difference do we make? You may find sanctity in each life you greet, but what good is preserving that if they're going to get thrown into a dark cell for the rest of their days, or if they're executed in a week's time, or... or if they go on to take more lives, or cause more wars - more death?"
Bomoor simply listened as Thane aired his frustrations. While it might be seen to many as the outburst of a confused teenager, Bomoor knew all too well the frustrations that came with being in the position of the Jedi. Never the lawmakers, always the guardians – sometimes to laws that did not always seem fair or just. He himself often disobeyed the wisdom of his elders in the Order and attempted to right the wrongs in Coruscant’s undercity himself. But even that came with its own frustrations: trying to fight a battle against people’s own nature to be corrupt and corrupt others.
He found his own healing aura less effective so stopped and checked on the bacta patch instead, which was still diffusing and should provide adequate soothing to their patient, “I cannot answer those questions Thane, but I know what you mean. So please…”
Before he could ask anything further of Thane, they were interrupted by the sudden entrance of several people. The marshal they had met earlier and, just behind him, Queen Omina herself.
“Step aside, you two,” the marshal ushered them aside in a firm, but not disrespectful tone, “The Queen would see her handmaiden.”
Thane made no argument as he moved backwards from the table, making way for the Onderonians. Eyeing the queen, he wondered at what sort of reaction she was going to have. Not for the first time, he found himself thinking back to his earliest years on Caanus, straining to recall the approaches of his father and his courtly advisers to such situations. He had been young, of course, and there were no distinct memories. Most recollections had been taken over by his time with the Jedi and Master Sotah.
In moments like these, Thane was not sure if that was good or not.
"The treacherous fool!" Queen Omina started, the tresses of her minimalist eggshell-coloured palatial wear following behind her as she strode up to the still Octavia, her young and tanned features pulled back sternly - an expression that aged what would otherwise have been kindly features by a good decade.
Although he understood frustrations with intrigue and loyalties only too well, given he was still in the throes of his last tirade towards Bomoor at the situation, Thane hoped his passions and complaints would never wreak such havocs on his own young face.
"What did she say to you? What was she doing?" The queen demanded quickly, dark brown eyes piercing into Bomoor as she looked to the elder padawan for answers.
Bomoor’s eyes widened at the sudden attention placed upon him. This second meeting was a far cry from their first regal encounter with the Queen in the throne room, “Oh, um… we found her making contact with an unknown individual offworld. It seems she had been in regular communications with persons interested in provoking the conflict here in Iziz. However, she claimed to have been doing so because of a bargain to protect her niece. A young girl named-"
"-Maireen," Omina interjected coolly, her eyes finding their way back to Lady Octavia, an odd cocktail of feelings permeating her immediate aura within the Force. To her side, the marshal's stony gaze was more fixated on the younger Thane, with the occasional glance to both Jedi's lightsabers.
The young Ithorian nodded before continuing, “Octavia initially was hostile, realising we were Jedi but she agreed to surrender to us, if we made the same promise of protection to Maireen: that she could be taken offworld, somewhere away from the conflict.”
The marshal interrupted, having been listening intently to the story, “You have no right to make such offers. Only the Queen may decide…”
At that moment, Octavia began to choke, and her eyes burst open revealing panicked eyes that gazed at the Queen’s own dark irises as she bent over her. Her body became tense as her muscles unwillingly contracted and sent her body into a hideous spasm causing Omina to flinch away.
"Octavia!" the Queen shouted, halted by the marshal before she could get any closer to the convulsing woman. Foam was now erupting from the woman's mouth, her mouth torn back in pain, baring white teeth now being drowned by bile and other bodily fluids. "Help her!" Omina demanded to all of the others present, screaming loudly out of the room for assistance.
The grief pouring out from the Onderonian monarch struck Thane in a great wave, causing him to instinctively clench, teeth gritted. Although he was naturally less inclined to the emphatic talents, or even personality, of Bomoor or Master Sotah, he had also taken less care to craft barriers to some of the intense emotions of others he was unfamiliar with. In moments like these, it frustrated any desire he had to maintain his cool and show some degree of compassion to the woman, but he pushed past it, and, alongside Bomoor, took place at either side of Octavia, and once more tried to exert a healing aura over the dying woman.
The effort was made harder by Octavia's continued shaking on the table, knocking both Bomoor and Thane's hands away as they tried their utmost to focus their Force power upon the woman. Consciousness was returning to her, but in a hazed and pained panic. Bloodshot eyes darted from one Jedi to the next, pleading with them to save her as she continued to choke, fists banging against the sides of the table and legs thrashing about.
Even after the horrors of war they had been briefly exposed to on the streets of Iziz, the sight of the woman shaking and spluttering before Thane caused something deep and innate within him to shudder, shocked at the terror of it all. Despite that, and largely thanks to Bomoor's adept and calming influence, a flicker of deeper recognition seemed to pass over Octavia, and the convulsions seemed to abate. Regardless, the poison that was coursing within her had already spread into her organs, which were now systematically surrendering to the toxins.
Bomoor leapt forward and frantically looked over Octavia and at the heart rate monitor, which was showing a rapid, irregular rhythm. He suddenly noticed that the skin around the bacta patch was sore and inflamed so he quickly peeled it away to reveal a terrible reaction around the site of diffusion with violently red veins practically exploding from under the skin. He looked at the patch and it drew him to a horrific conclusion.
“I think…” his words stumbled out, echoed and distorted, “This patch has been tampered with. Someone intended to poison her…”
Queen Omina stepped quickly back over to the lady, grasping her hand tightly within her own, tears streaming down her cheeks, makeup being carried along the contours as she cried. "Why?" She asked between sobs.
Octavia's voice was rasping, the words barely reaching her mouth as each syllable escaped between gulping grunts. "Majesty... sorry... for... every... thing," she wheezed, the jolting slowly to almost nothing. "For... Maireen... no more... war... Galact... paid, promise... no death... but war with... with Av-Avalans..." The woman's straining eyes turned to Bomoor briefly. "Merch... warehouse 3... 341..." She then looked back to the queen, expression desperate and pleading. "Maireen... p-p-please... Omina..."
Shaking her head, the queen barely got her own words out, her grip on Octavia's hand tightening. "I'm sorry, too," she managed. "I should - can - do more. They can't be allowed to get away with what they've done to Onderon, to us... to you." The queen reached a hand up to the courtier's face, caressing one blotched cheek. "Maireen will be safe, I promise."
The corner of Octavia's lip struggled to rise up as her other hand laboured to reach for Omina's. "My qu... my qu... My queen..."
And then her hand fell.
The heart rate monitor that was still attached fell silent and, for a moment, so did everyone else in the room. They were stunned and processing what had just happened.
“I could try…” Bomoor’s voice was unusually soft, almost too faint to distinguish, “I could try to restart her heart…”
The marshal stopped him, clamping a film hand around the arm of the tall, young Ithorian, “It won’t do any good, Jedi. I’ve seen this type of poisoning before and nothing will bring her back now. Not even your Force powers.”
It did not seem right to accept that conclusion, not when they had just brought her back home, not when she had no reason to die at all. He could not even begin to face the fact that he himself had placed the patch upon her arm. Where had that patch even come from?
He suddenly raised his voice, “There was a guardsman! He gave me the bacta patch.”
Fighting back a surge of his own emotions, Thane placed a reassuring hand on Bomoor's arm, but there was an anger in his voice that he did not expect when he spoke. The revelation of the Avalans being bankrolled by GalactaWerks - the one constant in all of the evidence they had amounted - only served to stoke the flames of his ire. They should have known sooner! "One of your own did this," he seethed, "or someone dressed as your own, banking Avalan - GalactaWerks - credits. Your entire court is rotten, Omina."
The marshal appeared ready to swipe back the indolent padawan, but the grieving queen raised a delicate hand before the man said or did anything. The fire and venom that been her veil throughout their interactions thus far had now slipped away, and the young woman she actually was was now plain to see - a young woman bereaved, troubled and plagued on all sides by political puppeteers and traitors, each seeking their portion of ailing Onderon.
"You are right, Master Jedi," Queen Omina said softly, the striking makeup beneath her eyes having been drawn down her face by her tears. "My court is rotten. Onderon is rotting, deep from within. It has been for years, since long before the Conflict. GalactaWerks has not put anything here that was not before."
She was still holding Octavia's hand, which she now raised to settle upon the fallen woman's front, offering her as much dignity as could be managed after the tragedy that had befallen her. "You have proven yourselves good and leal friends to Iziz and her people. It is abundantly clear that I cannot trust those that claim loyalty to the crown, and I do not care for Octavia's death to be in vain. Maireen will be taken offworld, to leave as your wards and with the entirety of Octavia's estate and more." The queen looked now at both Jedi earnestly, a hand hovering to contain the marshal's unspoken concerns. "Words are wind, however, and we would need to verify these claims if we are to discredit GalactaWerks and expose their part in funding the Avalan terrorists. I could believe Prince Garius is not even aware that the corporation he claims to hate is his biggest supporter. Go to the warehouse, find what you can, and bring it back to me or the marshal only. We will find that guardsman."
A familiar branch-like hand came to rest upon Thane’s where he had placed it on the Ithorian’s arm. The pair shared a glance and were somewhat reassured by one another. Turning his slug-like head to face the queen, Bomoor agreed, “We shall draw this to a swift conclusion, your Majesty. Thank you for helping me to honour my promise to Maireen. She, like many of your people, is a victim of this unnecessary conflict and I hope that she shall someday return to a bright and prosperous Onderon.”
Then, nodding towards the marshal, the Jedi pair stepped forwards one last time to pay their respects to Octavia, before departing from the room. If the warehouse held the evidence they needed, as least some of the darkness that had infected Iziz’ people could be banished, much like the criminals of old into the wilds.
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