The moments gone, there's no surrender

[jediontherun]

Siri’s lost count of how long it’s been, since everything went to shit. Since Palpatine made his move, since the clones turned on the Jedi. Since the Republic fell. Since the Jedi... It’s only what Master Adi called her extraordinary sensitivity to Force warnings that saved her life. Kept her own clone troops from murdering her. Not that she’d exactly escaped unscathed.

No. Being propelled via explosion into the opposite side of a chasm and falling into the river below tends to leave its mark. She’d gotten to her ship, and gotten off-planet and managed to scrounge together enough bacta patches from the medical kits on her ship to make her injuries a little more bearable. She didn’t dare rest, though, or chance a healing trance, not with everything that had happened.

It was too dangerous.

After Mygeeto, she dyed her hair and started going by the name Vala Dorn, and sold her ship for parts to insure it wouldn’t be traced back to her. Then she took her credits and ventured into the less reputable corners of the planet. It took several hands of sabacc, more drinks, and prolonged suffering of inept flirtations from the man seated to her right, but she not only won herself an impressive kriffing pot (in a variety of currency that included credits, peggats, and aurodium ingots), but she won herself a ship, too; a battered YT-1300 light freighter that had been heavily modified. Of course, things never could go smoothly, and shortly after the game and subsequent transaction had been completed, as she attempted to leave, both the planet and the shabby little bar they’d been playing sabacc in, an unrelated fight erupted. It was the hazard of dealing in the shady corners of the galaxy, but they were all that were left to her, now.

By the time she was in the cockpit of her newly acquired ship and blasting off the planet her old injuries were screaming at her, and the new weren’t much happier.

She needed somewhere to rest. Somewhere she could have a chance to heal. Safety. Someone she could trust. Despite her unwillingness to bring danger to another’s doorstep... she didn’t have much choice. She only hoped they would forgive her.

Siri set course for Alderaan.

She was still travelling under the Vala Dorn name when she arrived, a thoroughly unremarkable woman with red hair and simple clothing. No one paid her much attention at all. Once Bail had recovered from his surprise, though, he welcomed her into his home, all but dragging her to the healers to get her looked at.

They did more than that, though. It turned out that the Organas had a considerable number of contacts, which came as absolutely no surprise to her. But it was the identity that they were using their contacts to build for her that was unexpected. They were making her FAMILY. Leda Antilles, one of Breha’s cousins.

And the identity was thorough; built to withstand even the most dedicated of background checks. They’d even set up a “transaction” between Vala Dorn and Leda, for the purchase of one battered YT-1300 light freighter, so it wouldn’t look suspicious for Leda to go off planet in a ship a different woman had arrived in. It had gotten named, too, in that transaction. Because it needed a name. The Millenium Falcon.

Siri was dark-haired now, as was befitting Leda Antilles, and wearing clothing more suitable for a smuggler than a Jedi, all leather trousers and sturdy knee high boots and a dark red sleeveless tunic under a leather waistcoat. Not that she’d ever dressed very Jedi-like. Not since she was a Padawan.

It was odd; thanks to the Organas and her skill at sabacc she was now in the possession of more… possessions than she’d ever had before. She’d tried to decline their gifts, but they’d insisted, and Breha had gotten all… gently stubborn and before she’d known it she had... things. And more medical supplies than she would ever need. She hoped.

She’d left Alderaan as quickly as she could, not wanting to put Bail and Breha, and their people, in any greater risk than they already were, with the Empire. There are people she wants to find, needs to find... but it’ll take her time to track them down, first.

So she travels, doing her best to stay alive and stay out of the Emperor’s grasp. And the Millennium Falcon served her well. She’s a little bit in love with her ship, honestly. She’s always enjoyed piloting... but with the Falcon, as battered and banged up as she might be... it might just be the best ship she’s piloted.

Flying around the galaxy doing her best means Siri has a lot of time on her hands. Time to think. She still feels... raw, too. The Force feels raw, wounded, the loss still reverberating through it. It aches. And it haunts her.

Maybe that’s why an idea begins forming. It’s the most kriffing reckless thing Siri’s ever done. And she knows she shouldn’t. Knows that keeping as far away from Coruscant as she can is the smart move. The SAFE move. The move that’ll keep her alive. But the thought of the Emperor, of the Sith having Jedi artefacts in their possession sickens her. They’ll destroy them, or desecrate them, and it’s wrong.

Stashing the Falcon at a nearby planet for her escape, she buys a suspiciously junky ship that’s only a piece of junk on the outside. Not as fast as her Falcon, but it’ll do. So she returns to Coruscant, re-using her Vala Dorn identity one last time. And she broke into what had once been the Jedi Temple. What had once been her home. Echoes of what had happened there lingered, and she had to block them out. Had to ignore them.

(There’s no way she could ignore them enough. No way she could block them out. No, she felt everything)

Somehow she makes her way to the Jedi Archives without being noticed. Disguises her access so no one would notice the download in progress. Taking everything she could before she purged the system.

As it downloads she forces her way into the Holocron Vault. She knows it’ll set off an alarm but it’s the only way. Siri can’t help but think that Master Nu would approve of this, would approve of her stealing the Jedi’s history from the Sith. From the Emperor. She takes as many holocron as she can in as short a time as possible; there’s not enough time to take all of them. But somehow she manages to take more than she expects to.

Thank the Force.

She hates to leave them in the Sith’s hands... but destroying them isn’t something she can bring herself to do. So she leaves them, and she leaves, grabbing the data crystals she’d transferred the Archive to and starting the data purge, the warning in the Force deafening as she races from the Archives. A glancing blaster shot or two, but she managed to make it back to her ship mostly uninjured.

(Leaving her lightsaber on the Falcon was a good idea, she realises. She’d be too tempted to USE it.)

It’s a good thing she’d planned for a fire fight getting off planet, because there was one. And it goes exactly as she’d planned... ending with her pursuers believing that they’d destroyed her ship and killed her.

Waiting there in the debris field of her old ship, in the small fighter rigged to look like nothing more than part of that debris, feels like an eternity, as she waits to see if her ruse worked. And once she’s sure, she’s flying away, back to the planet and where she’d left her ship.

Once she’s back on the Falcon, course set and bacta patches placed, she settles down for a few moments. It feels wrong, somehow, her having all of this. It feels wrong, even thinking of activating a holocron.

But something brings her to pull a holocron out of the bag she’d hastily shoved them into, anyway.

Comments

[orren]

There's nothing visually remarkable about the holocron. It's beautiful, decorated with intricate but not ostentatious design work, but so are all the rest.

When she reaches out with the Force to activate the device, it powers up like any other. A warm glow - golden, in this case - begins to build in the center. The light spreads, following the crystal lattice of the holocron until the entire cube glimmers. Then, a figure flickers into being above the holocron. The holocron's keeper.

He's tall - or at least he appears to be. His frame is slender, his regal features strangely familiar. There are lighter streaks in his long, dark hair, and spots of grey in his well-trimmed beard. He looks up at her and smiles in a warm, almost fatherly way.

"Hello," He says. "My name is Master ..." He pauses before correcting himself, "Grandmaster Orren Organa. How can I help you, Jedi ...?"

He trails off, awaiting her name.

[jediontherun]

Siri’s interactions with holocrons has been relatively limited, so she’s curious, she has to admit. She doesn’t expect the holocron’s keeper to look familiar, somehow, and it catches her a little off guard. She can’t quite place who his features remind him of; but she has just robbed the Imperial Palace. That’s reason enough to be distracted.

It clears up as soon as he introduces himself. Orren Organa. You’ve GOT to be kriffing kidding me. Of all the holocrons she could have chosen, she popped open the one belonging to Bail’s ancestor. And there's no doubt that he is Bail's ancestor.

The smile she gives him is a strange combination of tired, friendly and amused. “Siri Tachi,” she tells him. “And I’m friends with one of your descendents.”

[orren]

"Really, now?"

Orren's eyebrows arch briefly in surprise and his smile widens a little. The House of Organa was a distant family - he was a Jedi first and foremost - but they were family nonetheless. They were a part of who he was and held a special place in his heart.

"A lot's changed in the ... oh, roughly four thousand years since I was recorded ... glad to know at least a few things have stuck around."