Dominion Starting Anew | SJO DOM of H'ratth

[Gir Quee]

Mudekon walked quickly, and Gir began to wondered if it was from excitement of being able to show off his work, or if the man had always just walked that fast and he had never noticed it. The blonde man spared a glance at his aide as they entered one of the tents just outside the structure currently being built by Jessica Med-Beq . Ariela met his gaze and offered a brief shrug. Fantastic...He turned his sapphire-like eyes onto the tents other occupants.

An older 2-1B droid with fading blue-gray paint hovered over a small child, who abruptly turned onto his stomach when he saw the new trio. A middle-aged brunette rose up from her collapsible chair and wanly smiled as she approached Dr. Mudekon. She grabbed his hand and briefly shook it.

"You've returned."

"But of course my dear ma'am," said the aging researcher, "the walk to my ship wasn't far. Ah, let me introduce you to Mister Quee and Miss Ariela...they are...ah...backers of my research. With your permission, could they stay here while I administer this medicine? It's good to see how their funding helps my work to help others, you see."

Well, that's indirectly true at least...The woman's gaze sat on them for a few seconds, with it lasting more on Ariela than him. She then offered a demure nod before sitting back down.

"Come here, look closely..." said the doctor, beckoning them closer, "do you see the enlargement right here, underneath his neck? Those are a set of lymph glands, where the body circulates some of its lymphatic...well...fluid that can have infectious particle markers. It activates the body's immunity system to start producing antibodies along with a whole bunch of other immune functions...anyways, their swelling here along with the diagnostic assays ran by 4-1G here suggests that he has Megalyton Virus. A common infection really, but not one here that Dac here has been able to effectively fight off. But with this medicine here, we can suppress the virus' replication rate, and thus decrease the workload on his immune system in fighting this virus."

"So it's like an antibiotic?"

Mudekon hesitated. That was the wrong answer...Ariela briefly cleared his throat.

"Most antibiotics outright destroy the bacteria. This just...flattens the curve to make it easier on the body?"

Mudekon smiled and turned to Gir, "You should consider having her go to medical school. She seems to have an interest and understanding of medicine basics, and she certainly looks young enough..."

I'll get right on that. I'll send my replica droid to medical school, because she's demonstrated knowledge probably derived from her poisoning programming...

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

Objective 1: Refugees

The question being: was that camp going to be temporary or permanent? If the former, stresscrete would be the foundational basis, while reinforced duracrete would be more of use for a longer-term establishment. Of course, with the water and power supplies, as well as sewage and other utilities, being built, using trenchless excavation and specialized droids, they were going in the right direction. However, before pouring the stresscrete or the duracrete, hooking up all the subterranean utilities was required, and leaving the appropriate space so that they could be hooked up to the prefabricated walls of the housing. Meanwhile, one of the padawans on-site seemed to be struggling. She wouldn't know Kyra Perl well enough to help her, and, in fact, in an earlier attempt to help, may have disoriented her. Knowing when to back out is just as critical as knowing when to intervene, or when not to intervene: sunk cost fallacy and escalation of commitment were traps so many fell into.

 

[Kyra Perl]

Objective 1: Seperated

We can’t let our emotions control us.

How many times had she heard that in her training? Countless. And how many times had she taken it heart? Once. Just now. But this moment could count for something, right? Damian’s confidence besides her spoke louder than her fear. He believed unreservedly in himself, and in her. As he intended, his emotions served as a beacon. It was hard to feel incapable when you glimpsed yourself through a love-ones eyes.

The world felt like it was ending to the out-of-control padawan, but Damian had the life experience to know different. He asked her to breath and focus on him. She did. She had always had a habit of fixating on him, as her role model the man often garnered more of her fickle attention than the rest of the world could.

She held his emotions in her thoughts with single-minded focus. For the first time in her life, the chaos around her began to drop away. One by one, the static dampened out. And although the sounds of screams filled the air around her, the world felt dim. Quiet.

She gave a shuddering breath, the sound loud in her ears. Damian’s emotionless static reviberated through both of them. A tear slid down her cheek.

“There’s pain everywhere. How can I be a jedi? I can’t make it stop.”

Damian Starchaser

 

[Damian Starchaser]

Instinctively Damians hand reached up and wiped away the girls tear. “I hate to tell you this kid, but you can’t make it stop.” He let out a sigh, “I’m going to let you in on a secret Kyra, one that comes with experience. Life is painful.” staring her down, directly in the eye he looked at the girl and made sure to dramatically smile at the end of the statement. “But if you’re lucky there is also love, kindness, and joy. You ask how can you be a Jedi with such pain? You’re in a unique position, you can feel the emotions around you and know how people are feeling.”

Standing now he walked over to observe where others were working. “What do you do when you sense someone is unhappy or in pain? What is your natural instinct? You want to help them. How can you be a Jedi with such pain? How can you not?”

Staring at the sky. When has he gotten this way? There was a time he would have written this off and walked away. That time was past, it was too late and there was no walking away anymore.

Kyra Perl

 

[Kyra Perl]

Oh.

Kyra blinked rapidly at his words, the girl struck dumb. Never had she ever felt more selfish as she did in that moment. He was right. At least, he should have been right. Kyra should be jumping to her feet and running forward to help those who were panicked-- she could do that for them. She could soothe them.

She had been the one to hurt them after all.

Her vision landed on Kana Truden in the distance, the woman working tirelessly to undone the harm Kyra had done. She knew the pain it costed Kana to heal others, and yet she did it. Time and time again. She had healed Kyra on that day of great embarrassment, and she healed these people now. Regardless of the origination of their alignments.

Regardless of the cost.

Why couldn't Kyra do that? Why should she honor her fear, and not her desire to help? She had no answer, only shame. After a steadying breath, she brought herself to her feet.

She had come here for a reason. Least she could do was try and put them first.

~fin~​

 

[Auteme]

H ' R A T T H

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It'd been her first battle.

The first time she'd faced down a Sith, as well as a Mandalorian. Sitting at the temple a year later was... odd. The grass and trees outside had healed since the attack, and the temple itself had been repaired, but Auteme couldn't shake the feeling that something was now missing. Not long after, they'd had to bury the many Jedi who had died that day, and Auteme had wondered for a long time how she'd managed to survive when so many others fell. Luck? She didn't believe in that, now that she'd learned to manipulate probabilities. The Force? Maybe, but if so it was a cruel thing for so many others to be taken.

It was just life. And life hurt.

She'd been so panicked she'd thrown books at that Mandalorian. After that she'd blown up her kyber crystal in the face of a Sith warrior. She'd been desperate to live in the face of people who wanted to take her far away to a place the light did not reach; now she helped people searching for their light after their home was swallowed by darkness.

Had she really changed at all, though? When the call had gone out for support at Kintan, she'd stayed back, and even after the battle had concluded she'd been terrified of everything that had happened. She was a coward. She watched as evil unfolded and did nothing. She hid behind books and sheltered herself with the title of 'Jedi'. She tried to be good, to help, to be kind, but when it came down to it she wasn't anything like the others. They were all fighting so had, but she couldn't bring herself to do the same and work towards that same future.

And when the fight came, it never ended in everyone returning home happily. They'd buried their dead at every turn. If she fought, would that change things? Could she make a difference on a battlefield, or would she be struck down, too, by luck, the Force, or someone determined enough to kill her? No, she needed to stay this course. Heal, mend, speak, learn, teach.

Even so, one cannot heal until they have been wounded. Her hope might be in vain, but she held onto it anyways. She wouldn't stop until she found a way to set things right -- and that didn't just mean more books and research. Real change came with action, but action shouldn't need to be violence. She would find another way. Until then, she'd keep healing, keep learning, keep hoping.

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