I came to lying on a bed.
A medical droid paced back and forth nearby.
Was I actually still alive?
I blinked, turned my head, bit down on my own cheek.
It hurt.
Guess I really was alive — I must have some kind of insane luck stat.
If our people had gotten there even a little later, I would’ve simply bled out.
I let myself sink back into the pillow, my head calm and, surprisingly, clear.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this good.
The Darkness was still swirling inside me, but it felt different now.
Not weaker — no — just calmer, somehow.
Something had changed in me, though I couldn’t quite pin down what yet.
But I definitely liked the change.
The door slid open with a dull hum.
I didn’t even need to turn my head.
The Force already told me who’d come to see me.
“Hey, Boss.”
“You’re up.
How are you feeling?”
“I’ll live.”
“Good.”
Silence fell.
He didn’t know what to say.
Thinking back on how I’d behaved these past few months made me sick to my stomach.
I was honestly surprised they’d even bothered picking me up.
“Koven, I’m sorry — for all the trouble I’ve caused.
I can’t promise it won’t happen again, but right now, I’m going to try to control myself better.”
I could feel the tension slowly draining out of him through the Force.
“You look like your old self again, Seth.
Your eyes aren’t yellow anymore, either.
Your skin’s still pale, though.”
“Might just be a temporary improvement.
Remember how it started last time — I didn’t turn into…
that overnight.
Anyway, we’ll figure out what to do about it later.
Let’s get to business.
What happened while I was out, and how much longer am I stuck in here?”
“Two more days, and they can discharge you.
The doctor says you’ve got some kind of freak recovery rate.
And insane luck to go with it.
If that blade had gone in at a different angle, you’d have said goodbye to some organs.
An ordinary person would still be laid up for a week and a half — if they even survived a wound like that.
As the Jedi say, the Force is with you.
“As for the news — after we took the fortress, the Separatists tried to push us out.
Though if the clones hadn’t broken through with air support from the pirates, they would’ve held their ground and finished us off.
Word is a Jedi’s on the way to our system soon.
The Republic’s decided to set up a supply hub here, so the war’s not going anywhere.
But I think we’ll knock the tin cans out of the city soon enough.”
“Just not with me, apparently.”
“Right.
If a Jedi shows up, you’re better off not leaving the bunker more than you have to.”
Another awkward silence settled in.
The Boss clearly didn’t know how to act around me anymore.
“Koven — anything on Malik?
Hasn’t turned up anywhere?”
“No.
This damn war’s got the comms all cut up, and there’s no way to reach orbit.
Once it’s all over, we’ll go straight back to looking for him.
I promise.”
“Good.
Sorry — I need to rest.”
“Sure, of course.
Get better.”
He turned on his heel and walked out fast.
The door slid shut again, and I was alone once more — even the medical droid had wandered off to do whatever it did.
Well, I figured I’d have time to sort through all of this while my head was still clear.
Turned out I had a lot more time than I’d expected.
The Force decided to hand me another unexpected twist of fate.
The Jedi did end up arriving on the planet and took command of the ground forces.
So for the next couple of months, the bunker became my home.
That’s what I thought, anyway.
It turned out to be a lot worse than that.
News kept crossing my path about how this Jedi general charged into every fight sword-first, without a shred of tactics.
I kept hoping it was just Separatist propaganda and nothing more.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be true.
There was no planning at all — massive losses among the clones, and just as brutal a toll on our equipment.
Maybe some Jedi made decent strategists, but ours definitely wasn’t one of them.
What had started as a winning position on the planet, he turned into something close to a catastrophe.
Republic forces got pushed entirely out of the city.
Now the clones were hiding out in the forests and swamps surrounding it.
They weren’t going to be crawling back out of there anytime soon.
My hideout, which used to sit smack in the middle of our territory, now found itself on a front line that kept shifting under my feet.
I lost count of how many times I woke up to the sound of explosions overhead.
The first while, it was terrifying.
Then I got used to it.
Though staying underground the whole time was its own kind of frightening.
Some corner of my mind kept whispering that any second now, the ceiling was going to come down and bury me alive.
So I went looking for new places to hole up.
Whenever I had to surface, the view that greeted me was one of total ruin. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
These places hadn’t exactly been beautiful before, but at least you could believe people lived there.
Now, all that was left as far as the eye could see were the bones of houses.
Every survivor had long since fled beyond the city limits.
Staying alive mattered more than anything else — the rest would sort itself out eventually.
Honestly, I understood them.
From what I could tell, most of the gangs had either dropped out of the game entirely or switched sides to the Separatists.
That idiot Jedi had decided to use our fighters as cover for his own clones’ retreat.
Now there were three forces active in the city — Separatists, Republicans, and independent gangs actively fighting the other two.
Not that any of it concerned me much.
With the change in circumstances, my whole life shifted direction again.
Now I spent a lot more time just thinking things through — what to do, how to move forward.
For a long stretch, my mind had been in the grip of a monster everyone feared, myself included.
I guess that’s why the Jedi hunt down gifted children.
If even one in twenty of them turned into…
that, the galaxy would’ve drowned in blood a long time ago.
Though apparently there were Sith too, or something like that.
So there had to be some kind of training system out there — but where to find teachers, or even manuscripts, I had no idea.
I’d have to teach myself, carefully and without rushing.
The most important thing was making sure I didn’t turn back into that psycho.
And the first step toward that was self-control, and the easiest way there, supposedly, was meditation.
At least, I wanted to believe that.
The memories were still just as vivid, flashing in front of my eyes.
But now I tried to control them, steer them where I needed them to go.
Whenever I felt the emotions starting to take hold of me, I’d stop meditating immediately.
In those moments the Force demanded release, and I’d go hunting for droid columns to destroy instead.
Those improvised training sessions weren’t wasted effort.
The limits of what I could do kept expanding, little by little.
The random, chaotic movements started fading away.
In their place came something a little rough around the edges, but still a real combat style — no longer just wild jumps side to side or wild swings.
I could vaguely picture what I’d do one step ahead, and how I’d do it.
Now I could hold onto more objects at once.
Overall, my connection with the Force was moving to a new level.
Things that used to seem impossible were slowly opening up to me.
My sense of danger kicked in much earlier than it used to.
Sure, we’re talking milliseconds here, but in a fight, even that tiny edge could raise my odds of walking away.
Still, despite everything I could do now, the surface stayed dangerous for me.
On practically every other outing, I ended up running in a hurry, doubling back on my own trail, or hiding under rubble to wait out artillery fire.
So I wasn’t exactly eager to leave my hideout more than I had to.
Just once a week, for food and water, or the occasional quick run for batteries to keep my life support going.
So I ended up spending most of my time in the bunker.
And not alone.
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