9.26.4786 Republic Reckoning

Igashu: As the train speeds along the track Igashu sits amongst the rest of the group nearest Mira and Elbram, breathing deeply, leaning back against the wall and trying to generally relax himself. Suddenly he sits up straight, and his eyes go wide as the color seems to fade from his skin. Mumbling, mostly to himself in barely audible tones you hear, "By the force... he... I just... no...", followed quickly by a rush to the lavatory. Minutes later Igashu emerges walking weakly, and looking even more pale. He returns to his seat, turns to Elbram briefly then leans his head back against the wall staring at the ceiling. Speaking barely above a whisper so as to not attract more unwanted attention, "I didn't even think Elbram... I just ran and then they fired and then I didn't think... I just wanted him to stop... I was just trying to help..."

Elbram: Elbram looks worried, even for him. "Igashu... I've never seen you look like this before... what happened? You wanted who to stop? You mean..." He blinks, as understanding dawns, and goes pale himself. His voice drops to almost nothing. "I see..." A few seconds pass as Elbram stares ahead, collecting his thoughts. "I would like to give you comfort, Igashu. You are my friend, and I have known you for long enough to have seen that your exposure to the world outside the Order has only made you more sensitive to the value of life... but I cannot, for I do not know what it is like. You know what the code says about taking life; I remember Davin quoting it to you just yesterday. But apart from that, all I can say is that if I ever must take a life -- and I may very well, someday -- I would know that it was because I became involved in a situation for which I was not well enough prepared, and I would strive above all to enable myself to respond to the same situation again, if ever it arose, without using lethal force. You may well relive that moment many times, Igashu, and eventually, if not already, you will see how it could have been handled differently. My advice to you is only this: learn. Do not despair, and above all do not hate yourself; do not let that death have been in vain. Learn from it, be prepared for the next time, and perhaps lives may, in the end, be saved instead. And... know that we will stand by you." He glances across at Mira to see if she overheard, knowing she probably did, and hoping she will fill his silence with words of her own.

Mira: Leaning forward, Mira reaches out and touches Igashu lightly on the arm. "Igashu, we all must face the reality that we have the power to end a life, to kill another being. There are times we must. Every time we mus take a life, we should ask ourselves 'In taking this life, was another life or lives spared?' and 'What could I have reasonably done to avoid taking of this life?' In split second decisions, it can be necessary to take a life, either in self-defense or the defense of others. What you did there, I presume, was in self-defense. If someone is using lethal force on you, you must respond quickly and sometimes that entails using lethal force on them, or turning their attack back on themselves.

"Meditate on this, and ask yourself 'If I had delayed so as to not encounter the situation in a way that brought about death, would it have resulted in one or more other deaths?' Remember who you have killed, where, and how and meditate on them every day to be certain you did the best you could to avoid taking lives at the time. Learn from this encounter to find a way to avoid it next time.

"I for one, am thankful that you showed up when you did, regardless of our prior meetings. Perhaps that can ease your mind." She sits back and looks out at the rocky terrain speeding by.

Igashu: Igashu sits in silence, listening to Elbram, and then afterward just staring up and breathing. He flinches slightly as Mira, practically a stranger to him, reaches out to touch his shoulder. What seems like forever, at least for Igashu, passes this way as he listens to her points as well. When she's finished Igashu tilts his head to face forward again, and begins to speak. "You're not wrong Elbram, so many different ways it could have played out." He turns to Mira, continuing "But what's eating me is what you said. It didn't have to happen at all. I forced it, like the meeting with you, and the shouting match with Altair. So many reasons to turn right instead of left that I see now. How did I expect to corner them in a pincer and not have them fight back with lethal force."

Mira: Mira turns back, a stern look in her face. "How could you have known that they wouldn't have caught me long before your friends could have caught up?" Mira counters, much to Igashu's surprise. "How could you have known for certain that it wouldn't be quicker to chase directly? Even if you were truly trying to pincer them, were you truly aware of your friends' intentions? Could you have coordinated with them enough in the heat of the moment to time it so you appeared on both sides at once? That may have caused a retreat when they were surrounded."

Igashu: "I could have not reflected their attacks back at them. Fallen back..."

Mira: "Fallen back into the reinforcements? You were having trouble with one, what would you do against that many. You are a life too, remember. Besides, if you had fallen back, could the delay not have caused them to catch me? Kill me?"

Igashu: "But Davin would have just closed the doors, sent them to another floor. They wouldn't have been there."

Mira: "And you knew he could speak to the mainframe and get it to do things so that you wouldn't have to fight you way out?"

Igashu: "I could have just surrendered. They game me the chance before firing. I could have called for help, my friends would have come to get me."

Mira: "And if the guards had gotten you away before they arrived? Would there not be casualties when they attempted to rescue you?"

Igashu: "I should have gone the other direction, I always said we were stronger together. It would have worked out better."

Mira: "And the guards would not have gotten around you? Would the casualties not have been your friends then? Or perhaps they would have stopped and you would be stuck going the wrong direction, taking much longer to reach them, again, letting them get to me."

Igashu: Igashu opens his mouth to continue, but finds he has no more ideas. He hangs his head in thought and yields.

Mira turns and resumes staring out the window, watching the bleak landscape speed by.

Quindo: "Igashu. As far as I can tell, it was an accident. Simply an accident. You didn't mean to kill. You didn't strike out in anger or hatred. You struck to defend yourself and your friends. Was there another way? Maybe. Could you have done things differently? Certainly. Did we handle.. have we ever handled.. the situation ideally? I doubt it. Does that mean you can beat yourself up about it? No! We do the best we can in the circumstances we find ourselves, and it doesn't always come out right. But what else can we do?"

"Mira is right. You can't figure out what might have been. You can't assume that what happened was avoidable or believe that it was inevitable. The past is past. It just was. We need you, and we can't have you doubting yourself when we need you most. We can't have you hesitating if there's another fight. There will be plenty of time for reflection once we're safe away from here. Fear and doubt are as sure a path to the Darkside as anger and hate. Make peace with yourself... of at least declare an armistice for the time being. We need you Igashu."

Quindo reaches back and pulls out the blaster he took from the security team, making sure it's shielded from the eyes of any other passengers.

"Igashu. This is a weapon. It's got a flashlight on it, it can be used to light your way. You can fire it in the air, or use it for target practice. It can be used as a tool, but it's made to kill. It has, for the most part, no other purpose."

Quindo pulls out his lightsaber, holding it in his other hand.

"I don't know how, when, or why... probably when the Sith rose the first time, but the Jedi made a weapon. That's all this is... it's not for show. I've never even really thought of it like this before, but there it is. You can use it to deflect blaster bolts, or light your way in the dark... but look at it. It's a frikkin LASER SWORD. It's designed and built for one purpose, and that's the same as this gun."

Quindo puts both weapons away.

"Like it or not, we're warriors. They train us to fight and they give us LASER SWORDS, which are designed to KILL. For all our talk, for all our code, we're killers. We're killers for the good guys."

Igashu: Igashu turns and stairs at Quindo in disbelief. "Of course it's a weapon. Of course it has and will be used to kill. But I am not just a killer. Remember your stupid speech for when it happens to you, and do me a favor in the mean time. Shut up."

Quindo: Quindo throws up his hands in exasperation. "I'm not trying to be a smart-ass Igashu. I'm just thinking out loud. Students or Masters, we're all sworn to uphold the Code and the principles of the Jedi. I'm just starting to wonder what those truly are. They tell us over and over of the sanctity of life, then they give us an object whose designed purpose is to kill. Every Jedi has one. A Jedi is coupled with the lightsaber the way a librarian is linked to books. I've just never though to ask myself why! Until now."

Mira: Mira turns back toward the conversation again. "Quindo, the lightsaber is more than just a laser sword. It is a focus of the Jedi's power and a tool to defend himself, yes, with lethal force should it be necessary, in his travels. I don't know when lightsabers were created, but they are not simply a means to kill. They are a means to show who we are and why people should not attempt violence against Jedi or those they protect. They are a symbol of justice to the oppressed, a symbol of hope to the hopeless. A lightsaber is much more than a tool to kill; it should not be necessary that a lightsaber be used to kill for it to be considered useful, but every saber should be able to kill because sometimes it is necessary to take a life that is threatening the will of the Force."

Davin: "I am sorry Igashu for what happened, and I only hope that in our lives as Jedi it does not happen often but we must move on and take advantage of the time we have...."

Davin turns and looks straight at Mira. "you know I believe in the code and lament the death, but we still are not out of danger yet and I feel our new found friend has information that could both enlighten us about our enemy and help in our escape from this tainted planet."

"Did you not know about the massive number of rogue force users acting as Police? Who are we facing? What are they plotting? How can we put kinks in their plans? Can we even escape?"

Mira: Mira turns back with a slight grimace on her face. "I had no idea about the corporate police having Force-users. Maybe J'ror did, but I was only looking for signs of subliminal messaging in the ImageWerks products. Even still, I doubt that J'ror had any idea as to the extent of such a force even if he had an idea of its existence. I would guess they're trained by one of the new P's or Veep's that came in recently, so they're probably a little off our radar screens.

"I can only guess that they're there as a method of containing us if needed. I didn't think our existence was that well known outside of J'ror, but I guess Dormamu was watching us as well. I would imagine that we have escaped already since we are currently in "neutral territory" as far as the corporations are concerned. The separation of corporate responsibility and the necessity of these rail lines for continued prosperity for all means that they are unlikely to be attacked except in the most desperate of situations. I don't think we're there yet. If they had that many of these troops and they really wanted to kill me then they would have sent a lot more than five after me."

Igashu: Igashu seems relieved as the topic of conversation switches from his guilty conscience to Dormamu's plans. Taking the brief pause allowed he relaxes while listening to Davin and Mira's exchange before jumping in. "Mira, I'm not trying to be rude here... but you, understandably, are having some issue trusting us. I don't know what else I can do to put your mind at ease in the short term, and we need your help now. I'm gonna spill what little I know, and hope that you can tell me what I need to hear. We are a bunch of misbehaving poor examples for the Jedi order. Not really our first choice mind you, but I don't have time to relate all of the extenuating circumstances that are usually trying to kill us. When you caught up to us on Coruscant we were busy explaining all of that, and J'ror's involvement in it. We were supposed to go find good grounded Master's to keep us out of trouble. He unfortunately got 12 years of meditation on a rather boring planet. Councilman Valis, though seemed in disagreement with the rest of the council on some level. He now denies this, but he told us to go get J'ror off the rock, and put him to work. Somehow it worked out, and we were here with him before he took off to find Vraile. That leaves us confused, but employed. Needless to say, I was a bit frustrated by all this. I'm sure I wasn't the only one... but I got a bit wordy with To'iir and Altair. Somewhere in all of the yelling I realized why I came here. Sure J'ror was released under the condition that we keep an eye on him, sure we f'd that up, sure we should go chase him... but there's something more important right now. I came here to help collect evidence and help monkey-wrench Dormamu's plans. Elbram had a vision. Kind of long... but the summary is that bad stuff happens to lots of people no matter what. The choice seemed to be stay and try, which resulted in a disappointed Valis and masses of people surviving, or leave to chase J'ror immediately which results in even more death and destruction and a happy Valis with some kind of saber wielding army. It lead him to the same conclusion I made, we have something more important to do here. The rest more or less agreed, so here we are. We stayed, but things aren't quite how I expected. We found you, so you're the link. Through you we have an opportunity to do something important, but I don't think there's a large window. I think you're right, Dormamu was watching you. I also think you're right, she could have just had you killed, but she didn't. The real thing that get's me though is why resort to force so suddenly? You were fired, interviewing at other companies... leaving. She had no need to rush you out until today. Something shook her up, and whatever it is gives us a bit of chaos... a window to crawl through. You're the key though. So I'm going to start asking some questions. I know you aren't all knowing, but don't say 'J'ror might know' again. You're a big girl, with a good head on your shoulders. Use it and take you best guess."

Igashu pauses to let his words sink in, and studies Mira for a moment before continuing. "You were looking for signs of subliminal messaging in the ImageWerks products. Did you find anything? evidence of said subliminal messaging, or anything else out of the ordinary? I'm guessing that Johan Vargus was also searching for the same thing, did he hint at finding anything out of the ordinary? What was Argel Philiste looking for? and did he find anything?"

Mira: Mira shrugs, looks thoughtful as she stares out the window for a moment, then looks back at Igashu. "I don't know what answers I can give that will really help, but I'll try. Johan was working in post-processing for live-action films. ImageWerks puts out maybe twenty large-release films per year, with another two to three dozen smaller releases for sector- or planet-level audiences. I looked at the final cuts before they were delivered to the theaters for animated films, some twenty percent of the total, and he looked at the rest. J'ror was concerned that subliminal imaging would be used to get a few species to riot or something. I had only been there for about a year, but was enjoying my work on both fronts. Johan had been there for years as far as I could tell and he really had his own set of friends in the company. We didn't talk much outside of one meeting per week with J'ror. In addition to looking for subliminals, I supplied J'ror with a number of the Shields. I don't know what he did with them, I never saw him use one. I also never saw any sign of subliminal messaging, but Johan and I definitely read up on this to make sure that nothing was out of the ordinary. All in all Santaros seems to be a very open and likable company aside from the senior management, so we had access to quite a bit of internal information as far as release schedules and the in-house subliminal reports.

"Argel was working with the droid manufacturing business Ravinin, which sells high-end security droids. I only met him a few times since it seems that he was placed on some projects that the company wanted kept secret. He's a talented droid engineer, and I think he was just there to keep an eye out for any droid armies that may be created. No word if he found any, but at the very least he's been transferred if not fired. We were supposed to meet last week regardless of J'ror's status and he wasn't around. Neither was Johan. Since I still had my login even though I was technically fired, I began to poke around a bit. I made some calls. It seems that the official word was that they were fired, but at least Argel may only have been transferred. He had received a dismissal notice, but apparently had also received some other word b/c one of his friends that I found said that he just smiled at it and then went and left for the day without doing the normal procedures for leaving permanently. They figured it was something about the project he was on, which apparently they couldn't talk about. I was going to really search the corporate database during dinner but first you guys broke in while I was out at the interview and store and then the police swung by and tried to arrest me! I figured it was over, so I was just trying to get out. You guys had scared me enough that I pulled out my saber and had it on when the cops came. I guess that was the Force telling me to be ready. So I don't know where he went, but it might be important."

Igashu: Igashu sits thoughtfully pondering Mira's answers before continuing his questions. "A couple of follow ups, and a few new ones... So Johan, is missing, but presumably ok, and Argel was acting funny, and might not have been fired... I've only been looking for a few hours so there must have been more of you working on this that I haven't found yet. Where could we dig up information on what happened to them or Argel at least. Something seems a bit strange about his specific case. Anyway I just want to know their current status... Like fired, transfered, etc. And I have the standard questions about anyone else you know was involved. What were they doing? Did they find anything? What happened to them? Oh, and you were interviewing at another Tower even though your cover was presumably blown. Were you still expecting to be able to assist from this new position? and How?"

Mira: "As I said, I was going to look into all that strangeness about Argel and Johan before you guys showed up. But no login, no luck. At least nothing easy. As far as anyone else being involved, your guess is as good as mine. This was a fairly compartmentalized operation. They might know about others involved, but I don't. And I have no idea if they found anything interesting. And my interview in another tower was for a job with another animation company because I happen to like Byblos and was glad that I had stayed put for a full year in one spot. I'm tired of moving around all the time." Mira sits back in her seat and crosses her arms at the last statement. She looks disappointedly out the window while waiting for more questions.

Igashu: "Nothing easy? So there is a way to find out where Argel was shipped off to. Where and how do we go about doing that? You don't have to come with, but I need to know."

Mira: Mira turns and looks at Igashu. "I would need to get at the corporate intranet to access those records, or at least the access records for Argel. They're physically separated from the public planetary network so we would need to be back inside the Santaros tower. But that looks unlikely. If you guys had access to J'ror's account, do you have access to anyone in his department's transfers or dismissals?"

Igashu: "His replacement has been very helpful so far, but we'll have to be careful contacting him anymore. Now that they seem willing to commit to more forceful measures I'm loathe to involve him in a situation that could get him killed. I suppose if we could arrange a more anonymous looking contact with him, he might help... though he's going to need an explanation and maybe some convincing... We also have a copy of the Vraile's transfer, which is more in line with what you were asking... but I'm not sure how it will be useful now."

Mira: "Vraile's transfer? You have that? Where's she been sent off to? That at least gives us a backup of where to follow J'ror to."

Igashu: "To'iir has it. Had it. I hope. I spoke with J'ror's replacement. Like I said, he's been very helpful. He sent us the info, we couldn't find it on J'ror's system for some reason. Either he deleted it or he never received a copy. We got tipped off as to you, Argel, and Johan the same way. I picked you because I have a special interest in you... but that can wait for later. Anyway, I arranged transfer of the file, but then you got in trouble. To'iir was waiting for it to arrive, and making sure we, and Altair, got a copy of it. Davin I think was the last person to make contact with her, shortly after the firefight. I believe she had received the copy, forwarded it to Altair, and was about to leave when some guards showed up at J'ror's apt. I was expecting to meet her at her ship... since she's usually more capable of handling herself than we are. Anyway, no changing the subject. I was asking how a transfer form for someone else would help figure out where Argel was, not how it will help us run after J'ror. So how does it help?"

Mira: "To'iir has it? I hope she gets out okay. I suppose I have to thank you for abandoning her in order to save me...

"In any case, it won't help us figure out where Argel was, but it could give us a hint as to where J'ror has gone, or at least give us a starting point in our searches in the company database if we get back in." She turns to Davin. "You were last in touch with her? You were... her student or," with a mocking tone "Padawan? Could you see if you could either get in touch with her or see if you can sense her? It would help me if I could know she was okay. I know J'ror spoke well of her and I would hope that I wasn't the cause of her falling into Dormamu's hands."

Igashu: "I wouldn't say we abandoned her in favor of you... she was perfectly fine and in no danger when we left. I'm really pretty confident she's fine. If she's not, we'll just go get her next."

Elbram: Elbram cracks a wry smile at Igashu's confidence, and puts in softly: "There is one thing I wish still to clarify, if I may. I remember hearing that our original plan was to rendezvous with To'iir at the spaceport complex and leave the planet immediately; this presented something of a dilemma, however, as we were then as now unsure whether that would, in fact, put us onto the track of leaving the planet rather than having stayed to begin with -- assuming, of course, that there is anything to my vision at all. I am led to understand from what Mira has said that we are essentially out of danger as we currently stand, since the complexes are mostly autonomous and Starburst will likely not pursue us beyond the boundaries of their dominion. It seems, then, that we are no longer in any rush to leave, and indeed it seems there may be some benefit to remaining close enough to Starburst that we might gain access to their computer systems again in the near future, to say nothing of finding Argel and Johan. My question to all of you now is this: where are we going? I assume we're going to the starport first, to make sure To'iir is all right and exchange information with her if for no other reason, but in my mind it may be prudent to remain on-planet after that and continue gathering information. Hopefully, Altair will be able to ascertain J'ror's whereabouts just as effectively as he would if we were with him -- a single Jedi Knight can get often a great deal accomplished." He looks at Mira, ready to be persuasive if necessary, but privately deciding she'll probably be quite amenable to the idea anyway.

Igashu: Igashu seems to ignore Elbram's comment and sink into deep concentration. "Maybe I wasn't entirely correct. I think she's been arrested... she's in close proximity to about 10 guards. Alive though, so we can go pick her up. Davin maybe you should really try and get in touch with her. It was difficult for me to find her, but I think you're a bit closer to her than I am."

Mira: The train is pulling into the station as Mira stands and begins to work her way out. "I think we should make sure that everyone is out of the grip of Dormamu safely and possibly find the destination of J'ror and the others as known by the Santaros computers. Unfortunately I think we're going ot have to go back, and this time they'll be on the lookout for us."

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