The Dead Cry Out, the Dead Whisper

[Palara Iscandar]

Atrapes frowned; the expression was so slight it could have been easily missed, but his twiĺek protégée was able to discern the twitch at the corner of his mouth.

"This place is small. Barely ruins," he said, the breeze carrying his words to her.

"It was once vairy large, Inquisitor," she responded. "But I am certain that 'e is 'eaded 'ere."

They stood outside the ruins of the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine, the edifice aged and weathered, but still standing, if only barely.

"This Wei," Atrapes said with a curious air, "he has taken up more of your time than I expected."

She stilled herself. He studied the ruins for a long moment, his eyes boring into the stone, taking deep, slow breaths.

"There is a presence here," he said, finally. "But it is weak. An echo in the Force. But it is not alive."

She let out small breath of relief while he pondered the mystery he sensed. Finally, he turned to her.

"You have done well, aside from Wei. The Adept hunter you caught on Foless. The satellite hiding old Jedi codes. The library on Ossus, and the Force adept natives. Defeating that adept, Gethzerion, on Dathomir. We have recruited some of them into the Inquisition, due in no small part to the sight of you duelling her. We will study the natives on Ossus in depth as well."

He glanced back at the ruins of the enclave.

"Lord Vader travelled here before. He left under the impression there was nothing left to discover there. It seems he was wrong."

He gestured for her to follow him; he marched back to the speeder, where the Inquisitorial officer behind the wheel waited for him.

"Lay your trap for him here," he said, sitting down in the passenger seat and pulling on his gloves. "Once it is concluded, if you live, return to Imperial Centre. Plans are coming to fruition, and I expect the Inquisition will not be working anywhere near the public eye in the course of the next few months. You will report to me. Understood?"

Iscandar bowed. Atrapes nodded.

"Veritas vincit, Inquisitor Iscandar."

He gestured to the driver, and they sped off to the small town in the distance, framed by large wind-generators.

Palara Iscandar turned back to the ancient enclave and sighed, before marching toward it to set her trap.

[Palara Iscandar]

Even with all her training and all the things she'd experienced, the ancient structure was eerie and disconcerting to her. The halls and corridors were bare, the rooms and the courtyard seemed so old and deserted that it was hard for her to even imagine that at one point they'd been used.

She wandered and searched each level. The upper floors were bare and contained nothing at all, so thorough the scavengers had been in the past. The lower floors were less bare; some clutter remained on the ground, a podium or two still stood with its displays cracked and dark. Below that there was more, but it was difficult to navigate; several passages had caved in, and there were signs that once the place had been inhabited by wildlife, though the creatures had long since abandoned this place.

She felt, on occasion, the sensation of being watched. But every time she looked, or tried to focus on it, it would become elusive, like a mist. She never ignored it, but was unwilling to waste time chasing shadows.

The layout was difficult to get completely, and as the night bloomed overhead, she entered the courtyard and set up her living space. A tent, a bedroll, and a fire pit were set up reasonably quickly. Despite the darkness of the sky, the stars blanketed the heavens so thickly that there seemed to be hardly any space between each twinkling dot.

Iscandar felt, for the first time, completely alone. It was a feeling she enjoyed.

Igniting her lightsaber, she began her practice forms, remembering Wei and what she had gleaned from him after facing him so many times. She started slowly, so slowly that she had to restart her forms four times until she was satisfied with the control and neatness of her strikes.

Hours passed, and the solitary feeling remained until late into the night, while she was working on the hilt of a lightsaber. Her first one, with its curved hilt and yellow blade, lay to the side as she sat cross-legged, studying a longer straight hilt, and its innards displayed like the carcass of a hunter's prey.

"Humph."

She looked up.

"'oo is zere?" she called, and feeling somewhat foolish. The night made no response, but she could feel something, an anticipation that hung thick over her senses. But as soon as she felt it, it slowly faded, until there was truly nothing but the night and stars.

She returned to her work, but the solitary feeling had been lost.

[Palara Iscandar]

In the morning, she left the ruins and headed for town, dressed in a dark brown cloak and hooded. Along the long and winding path, she dropped sensors, which disappeared from her sight in the tall grass. More than a few times she stopped and enjoyed the sight of the sheaves of grain waving in the wind, and found the majesty of the mountains in the distance anew, framed by the dark clouds in the sky, back-lit by the suns.

The wind turbines marked as far as she would go toward the town.

The dark clouds released a torrent of rain later in the afternoon, as she was preparing the entrance with traps. Darts tipped with a sleeping agent, activated by a trip laser, were set up right within the door. Netting was placed at the first intersection on the ceiling, activated by a rigged flat sensory array in the centre of the intersection.

She set a basin beneath a funnel attached to a water filtration stand, and the patter of the water as it started filling the vessel was a lullaby.

She explored the lowest levels of the complex, setting small explosives by the blocked passages and clearing them. They were dark, and the sensation of being watched grew once more.

It was as she returned to her camp that she finally saw the creature she was sensing and hearing. It was small, and turning a corner in the upper levels. She ran to catch up with it, but there was nothing there.

"Ghosts," she huffed in annoyance. She walked back down to her camp, and knelt in the rain, and meditated, clearing her mind. Sleep still did not come easily.

[Palara Iscandar]

She felt the parts to the weapon she was constructing come together with ease four days into her waiting. The Force seemed to respond to her every whim; she had never felt so powerful.

Yet sleep was still ephemeral, weakly grasped and quickly fleeing. She treasured every moment of sleep due to its rarity, which is why she was annoyed when a voice woke her on the seventh night.

"Wake up!"

Her eyes snapped open and her weapon activated, lancing through the diminutive form sitting not a foot away from her. Its eyes widened, and it looked down at the bar of energy stabbing through it.

"A conditioned response is this?" it asked, looking at her in surprise. She stopped, pondering the transparent, blue tinged form in front of her. A hologram? But where was the projector?

"No dream this is," the creature said. "And no hologram am I."

"'Oo are you zen?" Iscandar asked, casting her senses out as she had learned once under the tutelage of a Jedi.

"My name is not important. Dead I am, and dead I shall remain!" he laughed, his heavy-lidded eyes widening again comically. "But many skills you have. A dangerous opponent you are, yes."

"I have killed many, yes," she answered stiffly, sitting up and trying to sense what the small, large-eared creature before her was.

"Oh! Killed many you have! Yet here speaking with you I am, and dead I am as well!" the creature laughed again.

"Ability to kill is not power," the creature laughed. "For there is no death, there is only the Force."

"You are a Jedi," the twi'lek said, attaching her lightsaber to her belt.

"Was a Jedi," the old, gnomish creature corrected.

"I am insane," she said, looking at the spirit intently.

He only laughed.

[Palara Iscandar]

Though its laughter had stopped, it still held a sense of joviality and age.

"Why are you 'ere?" she asked.

"No. Why are you?" it shot back, pointing at her with a gnarled claw.

"Zere is a Jedi I am sworn to kill or capture," she said. "I am an Inquisitor. 'E will come 'ere and I will face 'im."

"And what is an Inquisitor?" it asked, turning and looking into the fire.

"I serve ze Empire," she began. "As Inquisitor I interrogate, investigate, and inter prisoners and all Force adept individuals and Force related phenomena. Ze Force, as ze foundation of life, should be subjugated to ze will of ze Empire."

Why was she telling him this? He was a ghost, a spirit; either that, or an hallucination.

"If believe this you do, a fool you are," the creature snorted. He turned back to her, still holding his tiny walking stick. "The Force, subjugated to anything; laughable this is! Control of the Force, an illusion this is; control of self, discipline of the passions, possible these are. But though the Force may answer your call, a lure of the Dark Side is this notion of control."

He paused, weighing her intently.

"But believe in it you do not," he said, leading her to speak again.

"No," she said, and felt a weight lift off her shoulders in the saying. "I serve ze Empire because it 'as freed me from my suffering, and called me to serve in return."

"Know you the name of the Jedi you seek?"

"Wei Wu Wei."

There was silence, for a time.

"Imperial you are, yet not human. Imperial you are, yet use the Light side of the Force do you. Know that down this path you cannot continue? Fall into Darkness will you, should you not turn. If kill or capture Wei Wu Wei you do, your destiny lies in Darkness."

"Away from ze Empire?" she said mockingly. "And what? Join ze Jedi? I will surely face punishment, and if ze Jedi do not execute me as I 'ave done zem before, ze oath I 'ave taken is one zat not only I remember. I will die."

"There is no death," the creature intoned solemnly.

"If I die 'aving fallen into ze Dark?" she asked.

"There is no death," it said again, though its voice carried farther. It was as if more than just it were speaking. "Though muddy the waters of Life you may, its current continues. There is no death. Only the Force."

Suddenly another form materialized behind it. A young human man, with fair hair, and wearing black. An older man appeared beside him, dressed in the robes of the Jedi. An old man with a beard. And...

"No!" she cried, standing. "It is not true! You cannot be dead, you cannot. If you are..."

She trailed off, still unwilling to voice the hope that she had carried with her, that he would teach her and mentor her. She would have left, for him.

And the man she knew as Solomon simply returned her gaze with a serene remorse.