quotes

[bellassa]

.dialogue

about Anakin Skywalker: "What worries me is his will. His power is so great that he thinks his judgment is as well. He sees something is right, so therefore he must do it. He argues against you without hearing you. He thinks he can change situations, beings. Maybe he can't do it alone, not yet. But someday he will. Should we trust someone who always believes he speaks with the voice of absolute right?"

"Everyone was my friend, but nobody was my particular friend."

"We are not tricksters. We are ambassadors of peace and justice."

to Anakin Skywalker: "Obi-Wan doesn't see you clearly. He is a great Jedi Knight, but he is blinded by affection. But I see. And I will keep looking. I will watch you, Anakin Skywalker."

on leaving the Jedi Order: "If the Jedi ever need me, I will be there."

Ferus: "You're staring."
Obi-Wan: "I'm sorry, it's that you seem so different."
Ferus: "You too. You've gone completely gray. In fact, you don't look all that well.''
Obi-Wan: "Thanks."

"I expect to overthrow the Empire, one planet at a time. Nothing less than that."

Obi-Wan: "I'm seeing something that surprises me. I would not expect that life outside the Jedi Order would suit you."
Ferus: "I would have said the same. But I adjusted. Siri used to always tell me that I must accept change. Welcome it, she said—change is what keeps the galaxy spinning."

Obi-Wan: "I'm sorry, Ferus. It is impossible to believe, but you must believe it. The Jedi are gone."
Ferus: "I will never believe it. And now that you're here, we can do something about it."
Obi-Wan: "I have my own task to fulfill. I will help you now, but then I must leave and never return."
Ferus: "You can't mean that."
Obi-Wan: "I do."
Ferus: "But there is so much to fight for."
Obi-Wan: "My days of fighting are over, for now."
Ferus: "What can be more important? I don't like having to question a Jedi Master. Old habits die hard. But are you kidding me? You'd rather hide than fight?"
(Obi-Wan keeps quiet in disapproval)
Ferus: "Now don't get all Jedi-proper on me. I can see it on your face. I'm not your apprentice, Obi-Wan. You deserve my respect, of course. But I've learned to speak frankly. This is a new reality, a new galaxy."

on a cyborg: "Handsome creature. Charming way to introduce oneself. Why knock when you can blast a door down?"

to the same cyborg: "We're not going anywhere with you, you slab of circuit parts."

Obi-Wan: "You must focus on the present moment. Not on what might happen."
Ferus: "Obi-Wan, I'm warning you. If you keep sounding like a Jedi Code doc, we are really not going to get along."

Obi-Wan: "Someone's coming."
Ferus: "Aw, I was just going to take the wheels off his chair."
Obi-Wan: "Ferus, will you come on?"

Trever: "Stop giving me orders! I'm not a kid!"
Ferus: "You are a kid. You've seen a lot and done more, but you're still a kid, and I'm going to protect you when I have to. End of story. Now wait here. If I'm lucky, I'll come out with Garen Muln and a lightsaber."
Trever: "And if you aren't lucky, a gorgodon will chew you up and spit you out, and I'll sweep up the pieces."
Ferus: "Charming. Good luck to you, too."

Obi-Wan: "Can you make it?"
Ferus: "Can a bantha fly?"
Obi-Wan: "Actually, no."
Ferus: "You're such a stickler for details, Obi-Wan."

"I know myself now. I didn't then."

Illusion!Anakin: "Your jealousy destroyed your future. You tried to destroy mine, and that didn't work, so you quit."
Ferus: "You knew Tru's lightsaber was faulty. You were jealous of our friendship, so you said nothing. You hoped we'd get in trouble with the Council. And we did. You knew we wouldn't step forward and tell the truth about you. And we didn't. So you kept your silence, and your place in the Jedi, and you let me walk away from it all."
Illusion!Anakin: "Is that your version?"
Ferus: "It's the truth. And the funny thing is that it was the best thing that happened to me. I found myself."

Garen: "What's your plan?"
Ferus: "I'm supposed to have a plan?"

Roan: "Can't you just escape and hide, like everybody else? Do you have to go looking for trouble?"
Ferus: "Well, you know those Imperials, they're such a bundle of fun. I just can't stay away."

Ferus: "It's been so long since I was a Jedi. The old ways are ingrained in me, but I have to struggle to rediscover them. Acceptance, right? Acceptance without judgment. That's what I need."
Obi-Wan: "It's something to strive for, anyway."
Ferus: "Then I will try."

Trever: "Okay, let's review. We're going to drop from a moving vehicle onto a ruined tower to find a maybe-opening that could lead to some blasted-to-bits tunnels, in order to maybe-make it into a place flooded with stormtroopers so we can maybe-rescue one Jedi who, if we're lucky, might still be alive."
Ferus: "You have a problem with that?"
Trever: "Nah. Let's go.''

Solace: "We could go out the front entrance. Take our chances. Leave the Temple and let it be destroyed."
Ferus: "I can't. "
Solace: "Neither can I.''

Obi-Wan: "News?"
Ferus: "Hey, Obi-Wan, glad to see you, too."
Obi-Wan: "You are supposed to contact me for emergencies only."
Ferus: "Well, it's not an emergency, so I guess you don't want to hear what I have to say. Bye!"
Obi-Wan (wearily): "Hello, Ferus. How are you?"

Clive: "I never realized what a mind for details you had, Ferus."
Ferus: "It’s an old skill."
Clive: "Must have made you popular."
Ferus: "It made me a bore."

"Want to be a Sith, Malorum? Is that it? Palpatine's puppy is tired of biting ankles?"

Dinko: "The real Ferus Olin could be trusted. The real Ferus Olin wouldn’t work for the Emperor."
Ferus: "Things change. Listen, I’m just a contract employee. Think about it. What better way to find out how the Empire works than by working for them?"
Dinko: "Are you saying you’re a double agent?"
Ferus: "Now you’re catching on."

Darth Vader: "To what do I owe this intrusion?"
Ferus: "The door was open, so I made myself at home. I'm getting bored. I thought I'd pop by and see if you received my orders yet."

Trever: "You’ve got some weird wacky Jedi obsession, that’s your problem. They kicked you out, so now you have to prove that you’re worthy or something."
Ferus: "They didn’t kick me out. I left. And this search has nothing to do with me. It has to do with saving anything that might be left."

Ry-Gaul: "I remember you well. I do not remember you this emotional."
Ferus: "I've changed."

"Something always goes wrong. The trick is fixing it."

"I've been in an Imperial jail. Twice."

Ferus: Tell me something. What is so wrong with using anger? 'Feel your anger, let it go.' What did that philosophy do for the Jedi? What did it get us but... here?"
Ry-Gaul: "The Jedi made many mistakes. We were... fooled."
Ferus: "Fooled? Children are fooled! The Jedi lost the galaxy!"
Ry-Gaul: "The galaxy was not ours to lose."
Ferus: "They destroyed us, and we never saw it coming!"
Ry-Gaul: "Ferus. To act with anger as your propulsion is never the way."
Ferus: "It is the only way. It is the only thing we have left! I will not be taken down. I will not be hunted. I'm going to take care of this now."

Solace: "What should we do now?"
Ferus: "Execute her."

Ferus: "I won't fail you. You must trust me."
Ry-Gaul: "Trust in the Force. It will hold you. Connect."

Obi-Wan: "Forgiveness isn't a feeling. It's a decision you have to make for yourself every day. Every day, you will fight for a moment of peace."
Ferus: "That is a journey I'm not inclined to take. Everyone I love is dead."

X-7: "You don't scare me, Jedi."
Ferus: "I should."

Div: "It was a stupid, childish fantasy. Coincidences like that only happen in storybooks. In real life, you lose people, they stay lost. The galaxy doesn't bring them back to you. Your precious Force doesn't make the galaxy any less empty."
Ferus: "It's less empty now. Now that the Force has brought you back to me. And me back to you."
Div: "And what good is that? We're both broken, Ferus. Or haven't you noticed?"
Ferus: "The Force doesn't always give us what we want, or even what we need. But it always gives us something we can use. To survive."
Div: "And that's exactly what we do. Survive. Good for us."
Ferus: "Yes, Lune. Good for us."

Darth Vader: "I had hoped you were dead."
Ferus: "Sorry to disappoint you."


.about

Obi-Wan: "You have a great connection to the Force."

Obi-Wan: "How good you are is not the point."
Anakin: "What makes Ferus better?"
Obi-Wan: "That is not the point either. The fact is he is ready!"

Qui-Gon: "Speak of what you know about Ferus, not what you can guess."
Obi-Wan: "He was the most gifted apprentice, second only to Anakin. With so many gifts, he is a formidable opponent of the Empire."

"I hear he's both brave and crazy," Weasy said. "But not dead - not yet, anyway. They ordered extra troops because of him, and they'd already imported one of those Imperial battalions. He was running rings around the stormtroopers. Became a legend on Bellassa."

"Ferus is more than a man to the Bellassans. He is a symbol," Wil said.
 "And he is our friend," the dark-haired woman said softly. "We have no leader, we are all equal here, but..."
"Yes, Rilla, Ferus was our leader," Wil said, nodding. "He was the one who bound us together."
 "I miss his jokes," the woman with the holsters said.
 "He made us brave," a man said. "I joined because of him."
Obi-Wan couldn't believe what he was hearing. The Ferus he had known as a boy had been a careful rule-follower. His skills had been excellent, but his style lacked Anakin's brilliance. What had Ferus said to him once'? Everyone liked him, but no one was his friend. This sounded like a different Ferus. Ferus a magnetic leader? Ferus with a sense of humor?
 Yet it was Ferus who had seen into Anakin's heart.. It was Ferus who had stood up to him, to Anakin's Master, and said, Something is not right. here. It had been a brave move for a Padawan, to challenge a Master about his own apprentice. Perhaps it shouldn't surprise him that Ferus was now capable of this. The seeds for leadership had been there. He just hadn't seen them....
 Because he'd always been thinking of Anakin. He had been the Chosen One. And their closeness had blinded him.


Now that they were in the light, Obi-Wan could see the changes in him. He was leaner, more muscled. His face had matured; its angles were sharper. He was still only in his early twenties, but the wide gold streak in his dark hair had turned to silver. He gave the impression of a man who had been through things he would not want to talk about.
 But there was a looseness to him, too, which was new. Even his walk was different. Once, Ferus had moved with the rigid assurance that came with a disciplined mind. Now he hooked a chair with his foot and dragged it in front of the fire and waved Obi-Wan toward it. The old Ferus would never have done something so casual, and so... graceful. And Obi-Wan had never heard Ferus joke before. He had changed in ways Obi-Wan had yet to discover.


Vader never second-guessed himself now. He so rarely made a mistake. He had reacted to the Ferus Olin he'd known. The obtuse, thick-headed, pompous Padawan. He had to remind himself that Olin must have changed. Ferus was quicker now, smarter.


Palpatine continued, "In the meantime . . . Ferus Olin's power is growing. I sense great . . . uncertainty in him."
"Will he join us?"
Palpatine smiled. "He will become one of us."
The hologram of his Master faded. Darth Vader didn't move.


There could be only one answer. Ferus could be one of the few left in the galaxy capable of becoming a Sith apprentice. Capable of being trained, capable of rising to the heights of power.
Of course it was laughable to think this could be the case. But perhaps his [Darth Vader's] Master didn't think it so laughable.


"You have the potential to be the greatest Jedi ever known," Palpatine hissed. "You have all the raw materials. You only lack training. You will be able to use the Force in ways you never dreamed of."
Palpatine paused, letting his words hang in the air.


"So he is struggling now with grief," Ry-Gaul said. "The danger, of course, is if his grief turns to anger."
"His better nature will win," Solace said. "The Force is strong in Ferus. He will remember the Jedi way."


Looking at Ferus's face, he felt the difference in him. It wasn't just that the humor was missing. Something that used to flow between them now was stopped up. It came through at odd times, odd moments. Trever wished he could take Ferus by the shoulders and shake the old Ferus out of him again.


Ferus hadn't aged well. The lithe, resolute man Div remembered, the proud Jedi with laugh lines creasing his worried face and a defiant gaze that dared the world to cross him, that person was gone.


.narration

A little too much isolation for his taste. He liked cities.
Funny, Ferus mused, staring down at the winter landscape. As a Jedi, he really hadn't known what he'd preferred. Jedi didn't care about choices. They were sent here, or sent there. They took a space-liner or a crowded freighter. They ate fine food or they ate slop. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was the mission.
It had taken him months and months as a private citizen to figure out that he could make choices. That he could prefer one thing over another. The city to the country. The color blue to the color red. Every day he made thousands of decisions, and he had to think about every single one of them. In the beginning, it had been exhausting and infuriating. He had hated himself for his hesitations; he used to he so decisive. He had met Roan one morning in a café, when Roan had burst out laughing at Ferus's long consideration of whether he wanted a muffin or a roll. Roan had tossed both on Ferus's tray with such genial good nature that they had taken breakfast together and talked until lunch.
The memory of Roan's booming laugh made Ferus's chest feel tight. After leaving the Jedi, he had felt as though the ground was dissolving under his feet. He had wandered from planet to planet. The Jedi had given him enough credits, contacts, and help to start a new life. But those practical things had not helped with the bewilderment he felt.
It was Roan who had saved him. Roan who had shown him what it meant to have a home.


Ferus tossed a grenade backward with a spinning accuracy that impressed Obi-Wan. He had timed it to fall short, but the two attackers didn't know that.


He pulled, and Ferus came up, propelled by his own strength and by the strength of the Force. Ferus swung one leg over the airspeeder and Obi-Wan pushed the engines hard. The speeder rocketed up, wobbling a bit from the added weight of Ferus and whatever had fallen off that had compromised its balance.
The blaster fire began. Obi-Wan had to deal with the speeder. He tossed the lightsaber back to Ferus. Ferus jumped to stand on the airspeeder.
He could see, out of the corner of his eye, how fast arid accurate Ferus was, deflecting blaster fire on the weaving vehicle. He kept pace with the turns, amazingly able to balance without falling off.


He wasn't sure what he was anymore. He was a strange creature, half Jedi, half-man. A space carnival creature for children to point at and laugh, waiting for him to turn into one or the other.
Focus, Ferus, he told himself sternly.


He'd only found freedom when he left the Jedi. Freedom to be himself. Roan had taught him that. Roan had taught him not to care what anyone thought, but to regard everyone's feelings. It was a distinction he had somehow not been able to learn at the Temple. He had been too busy trying to be perfect.


It felt extraordinary to have a lightsaber back in his hand. His training came back to him, and he didn't have to push for it. It was there in the way he moved, there in the precise angle of his attack.


He felt the searing heat in his shoulder. He was blown back off the mortar and hit the ground hard.
 Okay. A gorgodon uses me as a punching bag and an evil vision throws me around like a laserball. Now I've been shot with a blaster. Not a good day.


Siri had been right, of course. Thinking back to that moment, he remembered how careful he'd been to keep his spine straight, his gaze level. He had been conscious of his every word, tailoring it to what the perfect apprentice should say or do.
Every time Ferus looked back to a memory of himself as a Padawan, he wondered how anyone could stand him. It was only later, on Bellassa, through his friendship with Roan Lands, that he had learned to unbend from the rigid contours he had set for himself, to see that perfection was a prison he had built that kept him apart from others.


Ferus was already running, his lightsaber sweeping in a continually moving arc. The attackers were clearly startled at the ferocity and power he exhibited, not to mention the blaster fire that suddenly boomeranged back at them. They kept firing as they retreated, shouting curses at Ferus and promising to kill him.


Ferus adopted the shuffle-walk of the other prisoners. He didn't try to catch anyone's eye. He didn't speak. He could tell that the silence would get on his nerves after a while. He had never considered himself a social creature, but he'd come to realize after he left the Jedi that a life of solitude was not for him. He didn't like to live inside his own head.


Ferus liked to fight with his boots as well as hislightsaber. He had learned to fight without a lightsaber when he'd been a regular citizen of Bellassa. Sometimes that meant fighting dirty. Looking for openings, using whatever materials came to hand. He could still street-fight if he had to.


"Master, I've been thinking about something," he said. "I feel myself growing stronger in the Force. On this last mission . . . when we fought ... I was . . . happy."
She opened one eye and looked at him. "Do you mean, when we fought side by side on Meldazar together, you felt pleasure in how you could move, could bring down your enemy with one stroke?"
"Yes." Ferus felt ashamed. "Is that wrong?"


There were times that he felt he was doing absolutely the right thing for absolutely the right reasons. This was not one of those times.
 He had been in the resistance on Bellassa, but he’d always been a reluctant hero. He’d fought briefly in the Clone Wars, but he hadn’t been a great general like Obi-Wan. He hadn’t adapted well to the army at all. He had fought side by side with Roan, but he hadn’t been like the others, who’d joined the army for adventure. He’d seen adventure as a Jedi. He’d seen death and destruction and greed. He had no illusions about how thrilling great battles were. Great battles were hard and bloody and you never got the smell of it off you.
Maybe he wasn’t that great at being a double agent, either.


He didn't want to let them go. He didn't want to let any of it go. Any of the attachment in his heart.
 He would have to find a way to make it all fit. His connection to the Force, and his connection to the Living Force. Not the abstract, but the particular. A particular face that brought him joy. A familiar walk he searched for among the throngs in Ussa. He could find strength in that, not weakness.
 He hadn't known how to be close to someone when he left the Temple. He had learned. Roan had shown him how.


He turned to the stormtroopers. "You can leave me here. I can find my way alone."
The stormtrooper turned to the others. "We can leave him here. He can find his way alone." Was it really that simple? Simple, it is. Belief, it is.
To reach the point where it was simple - that was hard.


He concentrated on Zan Arbor. He sent the Force toward her, hoping that he could affect her mind. He'd never been particularly good at it as a Padawan. He had been too rigid, Siri had told him. Too set in his own mind patterns to influence anyone else.
Well, he was no longer rigid.


Roan was waiting.
Ferus kept moving, but his eyes blurred and it was hard to see. The cafe was full, and it was a swirl of color and motion, of sound that hit his ears in a continuous roar. He felt overwhelmed by the sensation. It was home, and there was Roan, waiting. For one impossible moment it was as though nothing had changed.


"I'll try the main computer," Roan said. "Come on, Ferus."
It was like old times. Ferus and Roan hit the keyboards under pressure, trying to track down secrets. Once it had been from dishonest multisystem corporations, and now it was from an empire they were certain was choking the life and heart of the galaxy.


If he'd still been a Jedi, if he'd been able to talk to Mace Windu or Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi about the offer of a Sith Lord, they all would have said the same thing: Do not listen. Walk away. He will corrupt you.
But that was the old way. That was the way of the Jedi who were gone now. All powerless. Because they didn't believe the Sith had anything to teach them.


The anger was a roar inside him. He didn't turn away. He felt it move and he brought back the same image again, brought it back so that it was imprinted on the back of his eyeballs, until he screamed out loud with his pain.
Something ripped from the wall and rocketed across the space.


The floor under his feet began to crack. A chunk of ceiling fell and wires spilled out, and still Ferus kept turning, his eyes burning and the anger now a rolling ball of flame inside him until he couldn't see anything but red. Red was the color of destruction.
"What's going on here?"
The Imperial officer stood in the doorway, his eyes wide.
Ferus came back to himself. He looked around. The room was destroyed.
He had never been able to do such a thing before. He was panting. The dark side of the Force had entered him, and the pleasure he'd felt was frightening. Frightening . . . and satisfying.
 Giving the officer a look of contempt, he walked out the door. The officer scurried backward in fear. Ferus enjoyed his fear.
 It was the first time since Roan's death he did not feel pain.


A tiny voice ordered him to step back. He tried to ignore it. There was still a voice there, a voice of a Jedi - of Siri, of Obi-Wan, his own younger voice -that told him the dark path was the path of madness and no return and he must resist. He wanted to stamp on that voice, grind it under his boot. Instead, it grew. He couldn't hear and couldn't breathe. He stepped back and pressed himself against the wall.


The transparisteel window exploded inward, showering the corridor with jagged remnants of what had been solid a moment before.
"Ferus?"
Lune wasn't practiced in the Force, but he felt enough to be afraid.
Ferus saw his reflection in the shattered glass. His eyes, glowing. His lip, curled. His face, dark with anger. He didn't recognize himself.


Ferus felt something strange, a humming in his bones that spread suddenly throughout his chest, like a burning star. Power. It seemed something apart from him, something he could reach out and tap if he wanted. This wasn't the fluidity of the Force, it was something different in quality. The dark side of the Force that could be grasped in a fist and used.
 If he wanted.


He had learned detachment as a Jedi Padawan, but he didn't feel detached. Not at all. A calm, steady fury was at the core of him now. It needed only a trigger to explode. He had been taught all his life that avenging a death was wrong. But this didn't feel wrong.
The Emperor had told him that he could teach Ferus about the dark side of the Force. He had told him that his anger would only make him stronger. Ferus had to admit he'd been right. You couldn't argue with results.


Ferus felt a surge of power. The Sith Holocron burned his skin, but he enjoyed the sensation of burning. He felt a darkness around him, a shimmering, beautiful thing.


Ry-Gaul was suddenly in front of him. "I felt something . . . the dark side of the Force. Ferus?"
He gathered himself together. He mustn't let Ry-Gaul know. He turned to face the older Jedi. He saw the careworn, silver eyes, the stubble of silver hair. Ry-Gaul suddenly looked pathetic to him, not strong.
"Ferus?" Ry-Gaul narrowed his eyes.
"The spy is Flame. You're right." He had been given a glimpse into dark hearts, and he recognized the breed. Facts clicked in his head, motivations, cunning.
Ry-Gaul strode forward suddenly and grabbed him by the shoulders. "Forget about the spy. I feel the dark side of the Force. Not from Flame, my friend. You."


Ferus saw the glow of Vader's lightsaber as he activated his own.
This was it, then. The final confrontation.
He was ready. His rage was ice and fire.
He charged.


Connect.
The Force was still here in the ancient stones.
The stories of all the Jedi who had lived and died here, they were here, too. His story was here. Not as distinguished as most, shorter than many, but his. He had followed the path for as long as he could, as well as he could, and the Masters had never asked for more than that.