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Star Wars: The Old Republic
In the Burning of the Light
"Setting the Bar"
"Major Jorgan!"
The Cathar CO of the Republic's elite Havoc Squad, Aric Jorgan, turned back to face me. Like my wife, and a number of other Lords and Darths on the Sith side, Havoc Squad had had no inclination to simply lie down and let the Eternal Empire run them over without a fight, even if that's what their Senate insisted they do. It had taken them much longer to finally have enough their leaders' incompetence, than it had many of the rebel Sith. But the moment had come, and that was how Major Jorgan and his people had finally ended up here in the swamps of Zakuul, ostensibly prepared to aid me in the mission to attack the Spire.
At least that was what I hoped, as the Cathar made his way back towards me. What I'd seen so of Major Jorgan fit the stereotype of the ultra-patriotic soldier--the sort of man who would sooner die for his Republic than do anything even slightly smelling of treason. True, he and Havoc Squad had gone rogue...in service to the Republic that the Republic refused to provide itself. Joining the Alliance, however...that could prove an entirely different matter, considering the small detail of who commanded it.
Jorgan had an excellent sabacc face; that much was certain. What little I could discern of his Force emanations held a steadiness and fierce concentration that reminded me strongly of my brother Talos...but with a distinct edge. Talos was not the natural soldier. Jorgan was the living archetype.
He cut straight to the point. "What do you need, sir?"
I returned the same. "You expressed your willingness to commit to the Alliance out there. Will you have any reservations about working for a Sith Lord?"
Jorgan didn't hesitate. "Under any other circumstance, I'd tell you to go kark yourself." And probably right to my face, too, if I didn't miss my estimate of his character. "But this isn't 'any other circumstance,' for starters. Not that anyone with half a brain could miss that fact. But that's not all." This time the Cathar did hesitate...very much so. His eyes tracked somewhere deep into the distance. "I saw things in the Republic, even before the Eternal Empire came along...not everybody there is all they're cracked up to be. I spent a hell of a lot of time picking up the mess from my last CO after she finally bit it on Coruscant. I had to rebuild Havoc Squad from the ground up after her."
"She was less than competent, perhaps?" Such would have surprised me, given the elite reputation Havoc Squad had gained over the years, but I had certainly seen enough cases of subordinates keeping an inept commander afloat.
Major Jorgan growled deep in the back of his throat. "Oh, Phaedra Corlock was more than competent. Trust me, that wasn't the problem. Hell, Command promoted her posthumously to Colonel. But when you really get down to it, she was a savage, a war criminal--didn't bat an eye at offing civilians if she though it'd get her way. She was real tight with the other bona fide criminal on our squad. And the droids, of course. HK...Forex...C2...those poor guys didn't have a real choice like the rest of us, so long as what she was doing was some kind of version of what Command was asking. But Elara, Yuun, and me--we got pretty disgusted after a while. I thought I knew ruthless...but Corlock was something else. Should've been born Sith, if you ask me." He harrumphed again--a noise that reminded me of Master Iru Lhis, the Jedi's Hero of Tython. He hastily mumbled, "Uh...no offense, sir."
"So you expect more of the same, then. I'm well aware of how the Republic regards the Sith Order." And not without reason, given the 'standard methodology' of the Order. "I can't say I would be too pleased about the current situation if I were approaching this situation from your perspective."
"Let's just say I've heard a lot about the Empire and the Sith from someone who used to live there," Major Jorgan ground out. Intelligence had noted that one of the members of Havoc Squad--I couldn't remember the name...was it the Elara he had mentioned?--was a defector from the Empire. It wasn't hard to imagine the lurid narrative someone that severely disaffected might have to offer. The Cathar trooper wasn't done though. "But then I've also heard there are some Sith who have a sense of honor. Kind of an alien one sometimes...but still, honor. Rumor has it you might be one of them. That you got sent to find your Emperor with Marr because he trusted you not to blow the mission on some sort of personal berserker rampage."
"I've known plenty of the type." I smirked. "My predecessor, for one. As for Darth Marr and me--we certainly made a bloody catastrophe out of it...but no, not for that reason."
The Cathar sighed, folding his arms across his chest. "I didn't figure you did. At least...now that I've actually met you, I don't figure you did. So yeah...you asked me about working for you, considering you're a Sith Lord. So here's how I see it. A Sith knows how to get the hard things done--kinda like SpecOps. They're not gonna be dilly-dallying like a Jedi trying to decide if it's okay to kick some ass if it's needed. But if you really do have some...discretion, I'll call it...then I'd say working for you is gonna be an honest-to-Force improvement over what I had before."
That finally brought a true, broad grin to my face. "Ahh...the bar was set low, so I'll suffice. Very well, then. I shall attempt to raise the bar a few millimeters off the floor, at least." As for the hardened soldier, even he couldn't resist a laugh.
"Just one question," I added. A brief, incongruous memory flitted by of the twinkle in my wife's eyes as she said, Just one? When is a question ever 'just one' for you? I forced down any hint of levity--or longing. I dared let neither intrude now. "You didn't happen to...arrange an accident for your previous commander, by any chance?"
Major Jorgan snapped to attention even as the fur on the back of his neck rose and his words emerged with a growl. "No, sir! I would've liked to arrange a jail cell for her, for sure--but an accident? Hell no. That is not how I do things. Someone wants to go crawling in that gutter, I am not about to jump in there with them!"
"I couldn't have said that better myself," I replied, hoping to to reverse at least a little of the necessary offense given. "As for the question--I am a Sith Lord, after all; it should not be surprising I would ask, for amongst ourselves such things cannot be avoided. But I am pleased to hear that you have a sense of honor that excludes such things. The paperwork alone is a nightmare enough...not to mention the instability the constant turnover presents. It is quite the gutter, as you put it. We do not need that sort of behavior here, not with both my Empire and the Republic depending on us."
The Cathar chuffed...a mirthless sound. "Yeah, no kidding. Divide and conquer--that's how Zakuul got us in the first place. Arcann's probably out there licking his chops waiting for us to do it again."
It wasn't as if it would be that illogical a strategic gambit on his part, given our peoples' millennia-long track records of being at each other's throats whenever we came into any sort of prolonged contact. And this Alliance--this was truly pushing boundaries and I knew it. "I suspect so," I said. "The galaxy hangs on our every interaction...and I do not exaggerate in saying so. Therefore I must understand the men and women under my command as thoroughly as possible. To that end...I ask you to indulge my curiosity with one more thing, if you would.
Major Jorgan stared at me through narrowed eyes, though the pupils dilated wide. Watching...appraising. "What's that?"
"This conversation stays between you and me; you may answer candidly." Jorgan's stony visage barely twitched, so I forged on. "Why, precisely, didn't your former commander face prosecution? I thought the Republic valued such things. If they had known, surely they would have acted..."
The commander of Havoc Squad bared his teeth for an instant--just as quick he hid them out of sight. He released a long, slow sigh, gazed down at the ground as he folded his arms across his chest. "You're wanting to know why I didn't report her."
I nodded.
"Weirdest thing that a Sith Lord would care--but...kark me, who am I trying to distract?" Now the Cathar met my eyes with his own in gold. "Yeah. You got me. I KUBAR'ed pretty bad there." He let the admission hang in the air for a long moment. From the look on his face, I needed not tell him that did not suffice for an explanation. I began to wonder if he himself was only beginning to fully understand his reasons. "Problem for me was, who was I gonna report it to. General Garza was almost as bad herself sometimes. She'd watch the whole op go down through Corlock's armor cam, and be waiting with kudos no matter how the old boss got the job done. Wasn't exactly disapproving, if you catch my drift."
A contemptuous bark of a laugh escaped me as I said, "I am quite familiar with that sort of tone from one's chain of command, as I'm sure you can imagine."
"Yeah, probably sounds pretty normal to you now that I think of it." Indeed--it was about the only sort of leadership I had ever known. "Which makes it even weirder that you're asking me this, and I'm actually answering. So yeah...I guess I coulda reported it to the Senate...hell, they had me at a subcommittee hearing once trying to get some answers out of Corlock and me about some ops that Garza wouldn't give them. But if I'm being completely honest? I'd already gotten busted down to sergeant because Command decided somebody in the general vicinity needed to take the fall after damn near all of Havoc Squad defected to the Empire back on Ord Mantell, and...yeah, I guess was looking out for my own hide. It's gonna sit on my conscience all the way down to my grave, sir."
"You have a conscience for it to sit on," I replied in low tones. "That is what that tells me. Presumably your previous commander did not."
"Heh. If she ever had one, I certainly never saw it." Then Major Jorgan fixed me with a pointed glare. "What about you? You planning to give me more stuff to sit on my conscience?"
I folded my hands behind my back, gathered myself for a moment as I formulated a response. My own conscience had not been clean since the first time I had been forced to kill in the tombs of Korriban. And that had been only the beginning, but as Sith--which I still was, which I had to be in the way the galaxy understood the word for the sake of all who were watching--I dared not reveal the extent to which my actions weighed upon me.
"I make no promises," I finally said. "Our situation is desperate and you and I both know there can be no clean war."
"Yeah, yeah...I get that," Major Jorgan snapped, impatient. Impertinent, a traditional Sith Lord would surely say. The most I did, however, was raise an eyebrow. "But there's a difference between knowing war is hell and doing what you gotta do to get the job done, and...going on the hunt for extracurricular work, if you know what I mean."
"Yes...I do know what you mean. In fact...I recently lost a former apprentice to such a quest." It did not matter to me that Lord Aloysius had once warned me that Xalek's destiny, unlike my wife's, was fragile. That he would eventually have to seek his own path and bear the responsibility for his decisions. Not even the memory of his defiance--the nature of his defiance, which had to stop at all costs--made it any easier for me to contemplate. "I came upon Lord Xalek slaughtering a group of miners who had disturbed his father's grave on Ilum, at a time when he should have been doing his part to secure the resources of that world for our Order so that we might defeat the Eternal Empire. He refused to see reason when I confronted him with the utter insanity of his actions. He would accept no other recompense but those civilians' blood. We dueled in the Sith way. He fought hard, and only ceased once he was mortally wounded."
Major Jorgan gave me a piercing, appraising stare. "I'd have called it typical Sith stuff--master versus apprentice and all that. Except that I doubt most Sith masters would've made their stand on that particular ground. Hell...the old boss didn't."
"It had to be done. I do what serves the people of my Empire...and only that." The depth of that credo was one I dared not state. But the major was observant; I'd no doubt of his ability to read between the lines. That, I hoped, would be enough. "So know that in leading this Alliance, I make full consideration of the consequences of our actions. The Eternal Emperor--once the Sith Emperor--considered only the outcomes to himself. In doing so he betrayed the Sith Order, and all of those we bore the responsibility of ruling. I am not that man. Nor am I your previous commanding officers. You may speak with me, at least--privately--without reprisals, if there is something burdening you. I am prepared to give that much."
"Well," the Cathar soldier decided, "at least I've got the sense you're being straight with me. That right there is definitely an improvement over my last CO--Sith Lord or no Sith Lord." Jorgan grinned, revealing his fangs. "Got to take your victories where you can, I guess. They're not easy to come by these days."
"They certainly are not." I glanced back across the swampland to where the rest of Jorgan's elite Havoc Squad awaited. "And we had best return to the others, or your soldiers will begin to question the nature of our dealings."
"Yeah." Jorgan glanced back over his shoulder, then back to me. "All right. Time to get out of this weird alternate dimension I've fallen into where Sith Lords make sense, and get back to what I do best."
A twisted smirk played across my lips. "Would you care for me to stop making sense?"
Major Jorgan rewarded me with a laugh. A deep, honest one, if I read him right. "Nah, I'll pass on that."
"We carry on, then."
The commander of Havoc Squad stood to attention and offered his finest salute. "Yes, sir."
And with that, we set forth to rejoin the others.