Arrived in:
DD-Series Escort Shuttle
Wearing:
Enclave's Guardian (Dark Blue)
Armed With:
Nathan's Jedi Lightsaber,
Bacta-Works Capture Pistol
He didn't show it, but his duel with
Thomas Barran
still occupied his mind.
The biggest irony of that whole battle was that no one knew he had been aboard the Sepulchre to make a bid to destroy the ship. No one knew he had gone out of his way to have his forces evacuate as many from the temple and the Senate Rotunda as possible.
And once again, the sheer chaos of conflict had shielded his efforts. Eye witness accounts of the Clones would be lost, buried in the mad scramble to evacuate the Core. More hearsay. More rumors. Nothing solid.
Nathan's face was stoic, impassive as he stepped off the shuttle. He wore a variation of the Jakku Enclave robe and poncho set, colored a Dark Blue, silver hilted lightsaber dangling from his belt.
There was no question about it. His Clones needed an update to their gear across the board. Their skill had taken them as far as it could. Now they needed better gear to reflect the quality of soldier, and he was still working out how to do that.
He played his duel with Thomas over and over again in his mind. He had been holding back, not wanting to show too much of what he knew. He had barely used any Force Powers in Thomas. It had been mostly pure blade work.
The reminder of the death of
Caltin Vanagor
lanced through that duel.
He had always thought it would be Caltin who might eventually discover what it was Nathan did in his off time. Had always thought it might be Caltin who might one day come with the cuffs and those storm eyes that said
stand down more than his voice would.
Nathan would have had no choice but to surrender. Because the alternative was to go to an unwanted war with the very society and order he was breaking every last rule to try and protect.
The thoughts of
Braze
and his situation also haunted Nathan constantly since escaping the Coruscant battle space, when it was clear all was lost. He had been severely brainwashed from what Nathan had sensed. Commanded to fight his own.
His adoptive Mother,
Magdalena Bloodscrawl
had 'programmed' him as well, but only because the alternative would have been to leave him a blank vegetable: The process she had used to save his life wiped his mind of data back in the Gulag Era. Though his memory had eventually returned, and Magdalena had
finally started to understand just why her process was so deeply questionable on a moral level, she hadn't done what she had done out of malice, and she
never resorted to such a process unless all other methods had been definitively exhausted. It was further complicated by the fact Magdalena genuinely loved him as a Son and had tried to jog his memory of his past even as a Deputy out of that love.
But whoever had brainwashed one of the only actual friends in the Jedi that Nathan had ever cared to make had thought of only making a slave of him. Nathan wanted to find Braze, and he also wanted to find whoever had hurt Braze on that level and put a few bullets in them. Not out of vengeance.
But simply for the sake of appropriate
punishment.
(THIS PLAYS)
Nathan needed time to think. Needed time to figure out how to help Alderaan because he
knew the Sith were coming for this world eventually. If Alderaan fell...
Nathan didn't even want to think of that possibility. He intended his army to be fully ready the next time.
They wouldn't hold Coruscant forever. They had pissed far too many people off.
Syd and his Mother had slipped off planet, going their separate ways. His private apprenticed had escaped with their lives. They had evacuated many Jedi who were not in a position to try questioning who was getting their badly injured bodies out of the warzone. And many who were not injured at all still didn't have time to question...it was either uncertainty with the clones, or certainty with the empire.
It would add up, eventually. Someone in the order would try to track down the Clone Army leader.
But one thing was becoming abundantly clear:
The leadership had completely dropped the ball. How could the Empire have succeeded in taking the core when LITERALLY surrounded by the whole of Alliance territory?
Nathan knew. The worthless, complacent, corrupt Senate his men had bled out trying to save as many inside as they could. A Jedi Order who, no matter how many times this
same damn thing happened,
never learned from.
It was their own home turf, and they had been utterly humiliated, their temple burned, the Dark Side Nexus they had never bothered to try purifying unleashed in full.
There was only so much he could do. And while he did not regret saving those lives with his clones, he found himself holding the Chancellor,
Alicio Organa
, completely responsible for this failure. It was his leadership, therefore, the blame fell on him.
His path carried him to the Temple of the Gray, towards the Force imbued tree that was a central attraction.
He drew no comfort from it. So many lives lost. All because the ones around him cared more about the P.R. War than winning an actual war. About feeling good about themselves.
For a half second, he started to understand how his daughter,
Laertia Io
, could want to rebel against them. All he had seen at the battle space at Coruscant was insanity.
A tiny thought stirred in the back of his skull as he stared at the tree;
Am I gonna have to take this entire motherfether over from within to save it from itself?
He tried to dismiss the thought, what he was considering attempting in this moment of doubt and desperation.
Only Palpatine had ever pulled it off. He was no Palpatine.
But could he do it?
Could his motives remain pure if he tried?
There
had to be an alternative. Some way to convince these people to save themselves, he thought immediately after thinking that
extremely dangerous thought.
He didn't want to be part of the problem. He wanted to be part of the solution.
Except the Solution, as defined by the NJO...
...had cost them the Core. Had cost them thousands of lives.
Nathan stared at the tree, a flicker of uncertainty playing across his face for a split second before hardening into his typically grim, humorless expression.
There had to be a way out of this conundrum that didn't risk warping him into one of the very threats he was trying to oppose. He
barely knew how to handle the power he had already acquired, and trying to find some way to silently seize control of key areas of Republic leadership...he could risk destroying everything he had built. It was bad enough someone would eventually find out who wasn't sympathetic to his aims. But if he dared attempt pulling a Sidious? He knew full well
no mercy would be shown if he was caught trying
that.
And he
didn't want to try that to begin with.
Nathan continued staring at the tree, trying to soothe away his concerns, to momentarily forget his doubts...
Thressik Marn
Alexandra Feanor
Vulpesen
Shan
Connel Vanagor
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