Private A lack of respect

[Makko Vyres]

"Erm," Makko took a look around.

He was thinking more about what Starlin had said than the food options. There was nothing he recognised, which was the joy of street food. No boring McYoda's.

"Huh, what's that?" he asked, walking towards a stall.

Someone was getting creative with basic polystarch portion bread. They had a large flat wooden block and were rolling a huge blade over the bread to shred it down, whilst mixing in vegetables and spices.

"And yeah, I definitely wanna learn that," Makko said.

The war hadn't really affected him, neither had galactic politics. The idea that war was inevitable and that he might now be involved in it had put Makko in an obviously somber mood.

 

[Starlin Rand]

“I didn’t know you were a vegetarian,” Starlin remarked, noting the lack of meat in the food Makko had been drawn to.

“As for pyro…” He snapped his fingers, producing the little flame hovering just above the tip of his thumb again. “They’ve taught you that the Force is just intent, right? You exert your will upon the Force, and it does what you want it to do. Usually. So all there really is to it is thinking ‘I want to make fire’ and getting the Force to make you a fire.”

As he spoke, he spread his fingers, making the flame grow larger, a fireball floating over his open palm. He juggled it from one hand to the other before clasping his hands and snuffing it out.

“Got it?”

Makko Vyres​

 

[Makko Vyres]

"Think I can afford meat every meal?" Makko asked rhetorically. Meat, especially real meat and not just protein supplement mush, was a rare treat.

He watched the flame intently. It was a look that said: if I manage this, I will not use it responsibly.

"I get the idea," Makko said as they aimed for a vendor.

"Thing is I can't even lift a rock with the Force yet. It doesn't exactly...listen to my intent?"

 

[Starlin Rand]

Starlin shrugged. "I was also under the impression that I would be paying. But hey, if you insist..."

Cracking his knuckles, Starlin trailed the kid as he went from vendor to vendor, looking for something to eat. Makko complained that he couldn't even lift rocks. "Kid, did you even know you were Force Sensitive before a Jedi came along and told you?" he asked. "Were you able to sense the world around you in ways beyond the physical? Did you know things you shouldn't? Did you exhibit strange powers while under duress? How'd you wind up here?"

Makko Vyres

 

[Makko Vyres]

"Yeah this is where you're thinking what I'm thinking: what's this tattooed dickhead from Denon doing here?"

Makko stopped at a street vendor that was frying off strips of meat and putting them into wraps. If Starlin was paying then he was going to have some real meat for once.

"Lossa picked me up because I was using the Force to change how people saw me," Makko said. "Or to make them not see me at all. I went because....yeah...hit zeltron girl wanted me to follow her somewhere."

 

[Starlin Rand]

"Yeah this is where you're thinking what I'm thinking: what's this tattooed dickhead from Denon doing here?"

Starlin laughed uproariously, but allowed Makko to continue without saying anything.

"There are hot Zeltron girls in the Jedi Order?" was his first response. "Gee, I thought I left all of them behind with the Silvers... Mmmm, right. So you were messing with people's heads? Do I got that right? Or were you literally turning invisible? And, uh... why were you doing that?" Stealing, probably. Starlin knew the type. He used to be the type, after all.

Makko Vyres

 

[Makko Vyres]

"Not normally for any good reasons. It wasn't like anything I was that aware of. I'd try and slip through a crowd and hope a person didn't notice me. And they didn't."

Starlin laughed and didn't tell him off for his language. It could well have been a technique to get him to open up. Makko was aware of that, but it was such a refreshing change from being taught proverbs.

"What's a Silver? Sounds worth a visit."

 

[Starlin Rand]

“So… you were able to use the Force without knowing that you were using the Force?” Starlin blinked. “Nice. Not many people can do that.”

He laughed. “Silver Jedi, dude. They’re another Jedi Order based out of Kashyyyk. I used to be one of them, but then I transferred over to the NJO.” He sighed wistfully. “There was this gorgeous Zeltron girl in one of my classes—or part Zeltron, at least. Name was Kyra. Red hair, beautiful blue eyes, pale pink skin. I had a major crush on her… but then she just disappeared. Heard rumors she developed a spice problem. Sad.”

Makko Vyres

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

"Yeah, but not knowing how I did that...kinda makes it hard to do it in a different way?"

Starlin seemed different - or at least far more candid - than the other Jedi masters. It aroused his suspicions.

A pair of wraps, surrounded in foil, were placed down in front of them.

" Didn't know there was another jedi order," he admitted. "You definitely weren't sent to watch me right?" he asked, veering close to an accusation.

Makko didn't even think there was anything devious in this. It might just have been that they chose to send Starlin to try and speak closer to his level to get him to stay and to stay away from spice.

That warning had been a little on the nose too.

 

[Starlin Rand]

"Yeah, I see where you're coming from."

After handing over the credits for their food, Starlin picked up one of the wraps and began to peel back the foil. Hungry as he was, he opened his mouth to take a bite, forgetting the cig in his mouth. Luckily it fell on the ground, where he was able to simply stamp it out, laughing at his own absent-mindedness.

"Nah. I mean, I got a general notification saying you were AWOL, like when some kid gets abducted in your area and they send out a message in case people see them, or the vehicle, or the kidnappers, whatever. I recognized you in the lift, but my even being there at the same time you were was pure coincidence." He was quiet for a while, eating his meal. "I just wanted to come down and get some decent food. Good, mmm?"

Makko Vyres

 

[Makko Vyres]

"Yeah iff gerff..." Makko said, talking as he chewed. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then wiped his hand on a napkin.

Cora had explained fine dining to him, but it was something he would never get to experience himself. Makko got to enjoy the powerful, if not subtle and balanced, flavours of interstellar Street food.

"Means I'm in trouble though," Makko said. He was happy to accept the answer. Starlin didn't seem like he would continue to lie if caught out.

"You ever struggle? As a padawan? At one point I didn't really care, but now I feel more like I let the others around me down."

 

[Starlin Rand]

"Yeah iff gerff..."

"Wha?" Starlin asked, also talking with his mouth full. "Oh. Good."

"Means I'm in trouble though."

"I mean..." Starlin smirked. "I could just say you were with me the whole time." In which case he was off the hook, having left the Temple chaperoned by a Knight. Although maybe Makko didn't care. Maybe he wanted to get in trouble, although Starlin couldn't think of a reason why he would. Jedi punishments were brutal. Brutally boring.

"When I was a Padawan?" Starlin's eyebrows rose. "I screwed up really badly at one point. It's a long story, but I wound up on the wrong side of a battle and killed another Padawan. Was lucky I didn't get kicked out. I almost turned in my lightsaber myself. Of course, they blamed my master for what I did, and she became an outcast, and it was just a great big chitshow." He heaved a sigh. "To be honest, I kept going because I knew it was the best thing for me. Being a Jedi was better than becoming a gangster or a death stick dealer. I didn't wanna wind up like my old man, or the kids I grew up with.

"...I also liked being a Jedi. That helped."

Makko Vyres

 

[Makko Vyres]

"Oh," said Makko.

His gaze dropped and remained on the end of his wrap. He watched a sliced piece of vegatable fall from the end onto the counter.

"That kind of puts this into percpective a little," he admitted before the silence could stretch out to an awkward level.

He wanted to say that he had been quite happy being a low level enforcer and slicer on Denon, but even that wasn't entirely true. He'd nearly got Lossa Aureus badly hurt and had seen some of the true brutality that could happen when intergang or corpse against gang violence spilled out onto the streets.

His world had been small, confined to a single district of three dimensional cityscape. It had felt like enough, but he was starting to unpick that some of his loyalty had been deliberately cultivated. Without a family of his own, he had been an easy target.

"How did you even end up on the wrong side of a battle?" Makko asked. His own problems felt so small by comparison.

 

[Starlin Rand]

Starlin chewed his lip, wondering briefly if he should've said anything. Nah. It was okay. Maybe Makko needed to hear from somebody who had messed up much worse than him. Maybe he'd get something out of it, at least.

"Like I said, it's a long story...There was a big controversy among the Jedi a few years back over this thing called the Elder Compact, which was supposed to unite the Jedi and Sith to fight against a common enemy, the Bryn'adul. You ever heard of the Bryn? Big red crustacean species, wiped out entire planets and drove species to extinction? They were killing a lot of people, and they were spreading fast.

"Anyway, the Compact failed for obvious reasons. I was a teenager back then, and I was idealistic, and the whole thing just really pissed me off. It made my master, Syd, mad too. But nobody was as angry about it as Laertia Io... who happened to be Syd's girlfriend at the time. Laertia led Syd down a dark path, and because Syd was my master and I loved her, I followed her down that path. Eventually we wound up on Dantooine, fighting Jedi alongside the Sith." Starlin paused, rubbing his forehead. Even now, the past seemed so surreal.

"To make a long story short, I tried to avoid killing anyone in that battle. I was disarming people, stunning them, and so on. But at some point I slipped up and killed a Padawan who charged at me. Ran him through with my lightsaber. That was when an older, stronger Jedi came and kicked my ass. Took my hand." He held up his prosthetic right hand. "After the battle, I had to walk into a conference of Jedi and admit what I had done. That was when I tried to turn in my lightsaber. They took pity on me and said it wasn't necessary. I was young, I could still be of use. But my master? She should've known better. She had to go. I kept training with her in secret for a little while, until she disappeared... and that's the story of what happened, more or less."

Makko Vyres

 

[Makko Vyres]

"So... You fought for the wrong side but you tried to do the right thing. But someone still got hurt."

By you, Makko didn't say. Someone got killed by you.

"How do you know? How do you know who the right side is?" Makko asked.

It was obvious that this wasn't a particular story that he should have made Starlin dip into, but he couldn't help but ask the question.

When Makko knew so little about the wider galaxy and its situation how was he supposed to know if he was doing the right thing?

 

[Starlin Rand]

“Yeah, that about sums it up,” Starlin agreed grimly. He’d torn himself up over the years lamenting his mistakes, trying to figure out how he could’ve done things differently. Wondering where the Padawan he had killed would be today, what sort of person he may have become. A great Knight, maybe. A better Jedi than Starlin.

"How do you know? How do you know who the right side is?"

“Well, that’s the problem with taking sides—nobody’s completely right,” he replied. “Take the Alliance, for example. People living under their rule generally have a lot of rights and freedoms relative to, say, the Empire. But they’re not perfect, and people don’t always follow the rules anyway. So I learned to take it all on a case-by-case basis. If I see something bad happening, I do whatever I can to stop it. Even if it hurts me.”

He pointed his wrap at Makko. “You’re a Denon kid. You hate the Corpos, right?” Not to perpetrate the stereotype, it’s just that everybody he’d ever met from Denon hated them.

Makko Vyres​

 

[Makko Vyres]

Even though he had tried to soften his words, Makko could still feel Starlin's discomfort. That was the kind of event that stayed with you forever, he thought.

Some scars were writ in flesh, he thought, absently touching the pale marks between his fingers where a gang knife had doled out punishment. Some went deeper, but didn't show on the outside.

For a hardened street kid, Makko had a deep empathetic streak.

"Yeah, yeah I do," he said.

"CorpSec broke up the commune where I was born," Makko explained so that Starlin knew this wasn't just an idea he clung on to. "My parents went into a van. Never seen again."

Six years was a long time to someone his age. It still wasn't enough.

 

[Starlin Rand]

“I’m sorry,” Starlin murmured. His own parents had been forced into hiding years ago, and now he rarely heard from them. But that was because Starlin had made some nasty enemies.

“I bring it up because, you know. Denon’s in the Alliance, yet the Corpos are able to get away with all kinds of chit, whether they abuse loopholes or just plain break the law. So would you say the Alliance is good or bad?”

Makko Vyres​

 

[Makko Vyres]

"Huh."

Makko looked down at the floor and took a big bite of the wrap.

"Oh and thank you," he added. A perfunctory thank you for an apology for something that happened years ago. They always had to go through the motions when he had to explain it.

He realised that he hadn't explained what had happened to many people in the last two years.

"I guess I don't know," he replied. "Why don't they intervene? What is the Alliance and how do the Jedi fit in?"

He questions were painfully naive.

 

[Starlin Rand]

"Why don't they intervene? What is the Alliance and how do the Jedi fit in?"

“It’s like a big ass space government. Hundreds of planets have representatives in it, and they all get together in the Senate and vote on stuff. Not very effective at actually getting chit done, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

Starlin finished his wrap, licking his fingers. “The New Jedi Order is sorta its own thing, although we inevitably get sucked into the Alliance’s wars because so many of their enemies are Sith or Sith-affiliated. Your average GA soldier won’t do very well against a Sith Lord, but a Jedi Knight can stand against them. Ideally, the Jedi don’t get too involved in politics and the like, because we don’t want to abuse our power.

“If you’re asking why the Alliance or the Jedi don’t do anything about the Corpos, I’d say chit’s complicated. There’s corruption in the Senate, and a certain amount of impotence. Their hands are tied by the democratic process. The Jedi can’t necessarily just swoop in and kill all the Corpos, either. We’d be called tyrants and murderers if we did that." He shrugged grimly. "So there is no easy catch-all solution. All you can do is fight it where you see it. Do what you can.”

Makko Vyres​