A warm welcome

[Jacen Voidstalker]

Jacen had been in one of these cells before. He could well remember the hours spend scanning the oppressive stone walls and looking for any kind of pattern to try and distract his mind. Anyone sensitive to the Force could feel the energy all around from the magma pools.

The lift shuddered and Jacen snatched the bar a little too readily. It continued on its journey down more smoothly. Only the most dangerous users of the dark side of the Force were sent down here. Where a cell could be dropped into the magma below at any attempt to escape. They were a long way from the surface and any form of freedom.

Conner had been on the level below him on Lujo. If he recalled correctly the man have fought beside Thurion and sent two sith lords fleeing from the temples. Jacen wasn't always the emotionless Jedi he should be, but he wasn't angry right now. He was sad.

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

No cloak. No crossguard saber. No wristblade. No amulet.

Connor stood in the warm call, feeling the pulsation from the lava he felt submerged in, deep underground on the Alliance world.

The might Galactic Alliance. To be fair, Connor knew little of this Alliance bar a few names here and there. He never had time for them, especially with the Silver Jedi. It was only now they seemed to be a growing name in the East of the galaxy.

The cut on his brow had been treated, but he still bore traces of the fight below the sub-station on Skor.

With hands clasped behind his back, he looked up at a small light in the cell, noting it blinking very slightly now and then. Faces and feelings raced through his mind. People he wanted to see, others he wanted to be rid of. There was little else to do but wait. This was not going to be easy. He had been imprisoned twice now in his life, and twice it had been with the Jedi. Once when he even was one.

This was going to be a long day. Or night. Under the lava, the days and nights blended into one.

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Connor Harrison"]

A glasteel door thick enough to stop a blaster remained closed as the lift doors open. Jacen Voidstalker stepped out, his robes brushing the floor. For a moment he was still, impassive. When the doors behind him closed the light in the crack showed that the lift was heading back to the surface. Only then did he reach for a console out of Connors line of sight and open the inner doors.

"Connor Harrison," he said quietly. "Last time I heard your name it came from Thurion Heavenshield. It was spoken with great respect."

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor felt somebody coming. He didn't know who, but it was one of them. His eyes moved right, as if waiting for the first move. There was some faint noise, and then the doors opened.

A voice spoke. A name mentioned. A dry smile.

"It wasn't respect."

Connor turned to face the male.

"It was just hot-air. He's good at that. They all are."

He didn't move. Just blinked.

"And whom do I have the pleasure of being patronised by today."

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Connor Harrison"]

"Lujo. I was there too," Jacen looked around for a chair. They used to have a chair as well as a bed in these rooms. Clearly that wasn't the case any more. So he stood and he shrugged.

"I can leave you to the walls if you want. They'll listen just as well as I will I suppose. Less patronising." He gave a quirk of the eyebrows.

Jacen stood there and waited to see if the fallen Jedi had anything else to add.

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor just looked at the Jedi, obviously playing good cop.

"I don't remember anything about Lujo, or you."

With a sigh, he turned back around.

"But please, go ahead and make small talk until somebody else comes in to try and get the darkness out of me. I'm all ears."

Lujo rang a bell....he saw a face, but he didn't remember.....

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Connor Harrison"]

Jacen shrugged. "No one can do that but you," he replied curtly.

He let out a sigh and found a space of blank wall to lean against. Fortunately there was a lot of blank wall to choose from.

"Most of the Ren I've met have been weak minded fanatics, young fools or in some cases slightly unhinged. You don't seem to be any of those so how did you end up following the Ren? Your life fell apart around you and you needed a glorious purpose to follow or some such nonsense?"

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor swallowed his pride. How it hurt to hear the truth.

His skin crawled with that uneasy tingling sensation that crept over each pore, because this Jedi was right and it was just how the Ren were seen.

Weak minded. Fanatics. Immature. Easily led.

And now Connor had fallen in with them and was trying to make himself feel like he had status and purpose once more, when in reality, he had lost it all.

"If you knew about my life, you could have reason to talk. You don't. So you haven't."

One chink in the armour.

"Tell me your name. Who are you? Leader? Interrogator? What."

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Connor Harrison"]

"My name is Jacen Voidstalker. Just a Marshal in the Jedi Order here. But at least we took the fight to the core and the Dark Lord whilst the Silvers kept to the rim."

With his left hand he idly reached out and brushed a mark on the wall. If one looked carefully they'd see a number of faint circular marks, but it had built up in one spot to the point where it wouldn't wash off easily.

"I don't know is you. I don't know your life. There are people who do. The Thurion's and Raaf's of this world. They'll come I'm sure. I don't know, but if you want to talk I'll listen and I won't provide any judgement. You should know that I've sat right where you are, bouncing a rubber ball against the wall." His left hand came back to his side. "And I've stood here several times and each time the person where you're sat now ended up back out of this place and free. Can't guarantee it. Depends what you did. But I'll listen."

 

[Connor Harrison]

As this man moved - Jacen - Connor watched his hand. What was he doing? Some surveillance? Security? Mere dusting?

He knew what he was doing. Getting on his good side, make him talk, form some understanding. And then what? Give him a cup of caf and tell him to be good and let him go? Jedi would do that, but he didn't know how the Alliance worked. When Thurion and Raaf - Taeli or Corvus - was mentioned, he couldn't help think back to an easier time. A meaningful one.

"I didn't DO anything. Simply doing my role. And your droid gave me a less than graceful beating and took me away, and then I ended up here. You invade our worlds, we invade yours. Back and forward. Who is right, who is wrong. I'm just doing my job, like you."

Connor took a step forward to the partition between them.

"And I will be leaving this cell, one way or another. I will not be kept here like an animal."

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Connor Harrison"]

"Two ways out of this place. When I say so or when you try and escape to the point where we have to drop the entire cell into the magma flow below."

Jacen's expression shifted from stoic to an almost amused grimace. "You're not a mindless drone Connor. You're capable of going where you want, fighting for whoever you want. You say right and wrong doesn't matter but it does. I'm content that I'm on the right side of this war. Are you? Are you so sure that the expansion of their facist regime is the right thing for the Galaxy that you'll turn up to fight alongside Kaine Zambrano?"

 

[Connor Harrison]

The name struck a chord with Connor. He had encountered Kaine Zambrano just once before, and he had spurred Connor on in battle to release his power. He was also the one who destroyed Connor's world when he took the life of former Grandmaster Iella E'ron.

Would he fight alongside that man? Or would he fight alongside and then turn the blade back on himself and end the coward's life.

"Dropping a cell into lava? That hardly sounds the Jedi thing to do. Or does the Alliance see themselves one step beyond what the Jedi are? Do you cover up murder and other crimes with the blanket of doing it for the good of the Light, or is it for the good of your power-hungry selves?"

His head cocked a little, a bemused smile forming.

"Why did you stand on this side of the cell, Jacen? What did you try to do before they got their claws into you?"

He ignored responding about Kaine.

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Connor Harrison"]

Without warning Jacen entered the cell and stepped inside. He was unarmed and seemed entirely unperturbed by the prospect of being inside the cell with Connor.

"I was in here because someone did something horrific that made me very angry. It was all the opening the dark side needed and I did something bad.

"I wonder is it wrong to have armed guards at a high security prison? If they shoot a man trying to escape is that murder? We'd rather avoid that. That does remind me we need to find a way to hold Kaine. A friend of mine killed him in battle, but it seems he doesn't die for good easily.

 

[Connor Harrison]

As the Jedi came through, Connor took two steps back but still faced him, not trying to defend or protect himself from anything.

"The Jedi always have ways to do things other than murder. Sounds like the Alliance are just as bad as the First Order but wear the Jedi name to make it better in the eyes of the disillusioned galaxy."

The man looked liked he had seen much war. Great experience in battle and in life, but still retained that that made him human.

"Are you trying to get me to win your battle with Kaine? Because I'm not interested in him."

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Connor Harrison"]

"Dunno, we didn't roast the people of Eriadu in the streets with flamethrowers for joining the Alliance. That dissillusioned Galaxy probably just got the wrong end of the stick there," Jacen said. As usual he was clearly amused by their arguments of being on the right side of this. "We'll deal with Kaine just fine. It will just take us longer now he's hiding under the First Order's skirts."

"What is it that makes you a believe then Connor? You still haven't told me how or why you ended up fighting for them."

 

[Connor Harrison]

There was little he could say to that. And he hated it.

"They are the only ones who allow me to be me. To serve and do some good. To feel I have purpose and..." he stopped for a second, "...to be me again."

It was harder to justify a cause he was seeing through, and Jacen would soon learn that pride and ego were Connor's worst enemies. When hit, they hit him hard.

"What of you and this Alliance? Why did you feel you had to stop being you, and side with them? What was their lure?"

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Connor Harrison"]

"The One Sith took my home. The Republic was crumbling. This is all there is that will fight for the side of the light any more. I've been here since the start. That's all it is really. A loose collection of worlds who had to side together or face eradication."

Jacen paused for a moment. The man was actually more forthcoming than he had expected so far. Even if there was more beneath his answers. They skimmed the surface of something Jacen felt went much deeper.

"What was it about the Silver Jedi that stopped you... Being you?"

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor nodded.

"When you had nothing, you had to grasp onto something. That's what I had to do. It was that, or as you say - be eradicated."

For the first time, he stepped away and paced a little to gather his thoughts. the faint light illuminating him in various angles as he passed.

"I spent over a decade serving the Silvers. And from it I got nothing in return except heartache and pain. I constantly tried to hold together alliances that were fragile. Remember Korriban?" He glanced up to Jacen. "Who was the one who bent over backwards to preserve the safety and faith of the Silvers. Not Thurion, or Coci. No, they were off living their own life and letting their private Jedi fall apart. I did so much more, and each time I did, I was questioned as to WHY I did it the way I had. They didn't trust me, and they held me back."

Shaking his head, he sighed.

"I lost so much in that Order that I stopped feeling like myself, and started to become this who you see before you. Smarter, stronger, but without purpose. And when you have no purpose, have you ever looked at yourself and really asked - what DO you have left to offer?"

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Connor Harrison"]

Jacen gave the question the time it deserved. "Responsibility...purpose...I think I've always had more of those than I could manage. I've had to choose between them rather than been left without one I think.

"I wasn't at Korriban. If you're referring to the Silvers being forced out recently. We offered to help and were told it was too late, to keep out of the combat zone. Sometimes I wonder if the Silver Jedi have the right idea. Find a little quiet corner. That's when I'm at my weakest, when I'm exhausted I guess. Having to kill Kaine again and again isn't the only way it feels like an endless battle. We get rid of the One Sith, but more dark forces just gather again in the shadows.

"Honestly, I don't think I'll run out of purpose until I've given everything I have to give."

His personal relationships, his time, his mental well-being. All those were thrown on the kiln to keep going down this path. But he had to own up to the fact that there were all his choices.

 

[Connor Harrison]

"I know you weren’t AT Korriban, but don’t deny you weren’t looking at the Silver Jedi with suspicion when we bombed the city into the ground. I spent weeks fighting for the justice system to take responsibility for the crimes committed, and in the end I dispensed it myself. And even that was ignored, swept under the carpet. Like everything else that doesn’t suit them; it’s hidden and ignored."

Connor span on his heel, hands behind his back, and threw a curious glance to Jacen.

"The Silver Jedi sit in their corner to the West and do nothing. They seek worlds to build as their own and brush away pirates and mercenaries. But they’re attracting attention from forces rising in the North and South – moving in on the dormant beast and want to take its head. The Heavenshields are no longer in charge. They gave up caring months ago and now have left it in the hands of someone who isn’t worthy to lead at all. The time to strike them is now."

With a small shrug, he looked away past the Jedi to the cell outside.

"It’s a vicious cycle. Good rises, darkness falls. Darkness rises, good falls. Etcetera etcetera. We are just pawns in the bigger game and our various skills are used to suit others pulling the strings." He looked back the man. "SO. Jacen. What do you want from me. You didn’t come down here for a talk about politics, so let’s cut to the chase. You can’t keep me here forever."

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]