The End of an Era
Lysandre heard the device beeping long before he actually woke up. It wasn't loud, but it was persistent enough to intrude into the blissful oblivion of sleep and tell him that something was wrong. It was a sound both familiar and foreign, one he had heard frequently during the war.
But he hadn't heard it since that day. The day he'd turned against everything he'd ever known. The day he'd all but betrayed his best friend.
The day he'd lost his arm.
Said arm had since been replaced with a highly functional prosthetic, allowing him to continue living his life like normal.
Well, almost like normal.
He'd made no efforts to hide the metal limb, and anyone that dared to stare at him would be fixed with a glare so penetrating they would quickly avert their eyes lest they be struck down where they stood. Since that day, he'd been hiding. Watching. Waiting.
The early hours of the morning had seen him disturbed several times by various powerful ripples in the Force. Ripples of death. Painful death. He had long since grown numb to the pain--it was an everyday occurrence during the war. Every day, people died, all over the galaxy, caught in the lethal crossfire between Separatist and Republic blasters. These ripples, however, were familiar, try as he might to ignore it.
Somewhere in the galaxy (perhaps in many somewheres), Jedi were dying. Jedi he had grown up with, trained with, fought together with.
He would be lying if he said it didn't hurt at least a little bit.
The beeping refused to quit, bringing him out of his deep sleep with its insistence. It would continue to beep until he acknowledged it--or destroyed it. The latter option was very tempting. At least then he could sleep.
But sooner or later, his curiosity would get the better of him. If he destroyed the device, he'd never know what message it was trying to relay. And it would bug him. A side-effect of hanging around Augustine, no doubt.
Pushing aside the unwelcome thoughts of his former friend, Lysandre threw off the covers and got out of bed, half-stumbling across the room to the small desk on the far wall. The offending device was there, among other small paraphernalia from his former life. A small hook and cable. A rebreathing device. Some food capsules. A couple of healing packs he carried with him at Augustine's insistence, not that they ever did him any good. A round holoprojector, and a deactivated comlink.
Scowling, Lysandre picked up the device. It was smaller than the holoprojector, though shaped similarly. A red light flashed near the bottom, indicating that the message was urgent.
Very urgent, as it was coming over the alpha emergency channel, which pinged all active devices and would not stop making noise until it was actively acknowledged. Messages of lesser urgency would only make noise for a few seconds before falling silent, though a yellow indicator light would alert the owner of a new message. It was used a lot during the war to relay last-minute changes to battle plans, or send mass-generated messages to all or some Jedi.
Lysandre tilted his head. That was... odd. The device hadn't made a peep in months. Not since he'd left the Order. No doubt someone had remotely deactivated it so he couldn't intercept sensitive transmissions. Apparently they'd forgotten the alpha emergency channel. And why not? It wasn't like that particular channel was frequently used, except in extreme cases where many Jedi's lives were in danger.
Curiosity growing by the minute, Lysandre activated the message, even though doing so would give away his current location to anyone keen enough to eavesdrop on him. Ah, well. This place was boring him anyway.
URGENT MESSAGE FROM THE COUNCIL.
THE WAR HAS ENDED.
ALL JEDI ARE TO RETURN TO CORUSCANT IMMEDIATELY.
Lysandre raised an eyebrow, rereading the second line in particular. The war was over? Who had won? Surely this would be all over the HoloNet--
Suddenly, the message flickered, the text warping and disappearing. Now Lysandre's brow furrowed as he stared at the device in his hand, wondering what was going on. Someone had tampered with the message. Why...?
As suddenly as the old message had flickered and vanished, a new one took its place.
THIS IS OBI-WAN KENOBI.
REPUBLIC FORCES HAVE BEEN TURNED AGAINST THE JEDI.
AVOID CORUSCANT. AVOID DETECTION.
STAY STRONG.
MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU.*
Lysandre's breath caught in his chest. He reread the message several times. The deaths he'd felt in the Force earlier now seemed far more poignant despite his best efforts to keep his emotions in check. That part of his life was over. The Jedi meant nothing to him now. Allowing himself to grieve over those who had scorned him was weakness.
And yet...
He found his thoughts inevitably drifting to his friend--no, his former friend. Augustine, the Healer with a heart too big for his own good. He wasn't much of a fighter, never had been, despite both Lysandre and Augustine's Master, Rowan, attempting to toughen him up. Surely he was among the dead by now.
As soon as that thought crossed his mind, another immediately contradicted it. No. He wasn't dead, by some miracle of the Force. Had he died, Lysandre would've felt it. Tentatively, hesitantly, he reached out with the Force, shielding himself within it to hide his presence while at the same time searching for Augustine.
It took several minutes, but there he was. His signature was faint, but Lysandre attributed that to the distance between them. He was frightened. Had he seen the message too? He must've. He must've felt the death of each Jedi in excruciating detail.
He shifted his attention to Obi-Wan, the one who had tampered with the message. He'd worked with the Jedi Master a time or two. Found his strict adherence to the Code to be a bit on the irritating side, really. He was powerful, and could've been even more so if he harnessed his emotions instead of trying to banish them. Whatever had happened lately, however, even Obi-Wan couldn't banish to the Force entirely. He was reeling, like a confused fighter who'd been struck in the head, trying to regain his senses. Even from here, Lysandre could practically smell Kenobi's distress.
He didn't let himself linger too long--Obi-Wan would detect him if he did. He briefly thought about reaching out to his Master, but decided against it. If Giovanni still lived, he would immediately sense Lysandre as soon as he found him. He'd never been able to sneak up on him.
Lysandre brought himself back to the present, still clutching the device in his hand. He shut it off... and then smashed it against the wall. He had a feeling he had no need for it any longer. And if it kept the Jedi (if any still remained) or whoever might want to come after him off his tail a little longer, even better. There was no sense in remaining here any longer. It was time to move on, find a new place to settle, and figure out where to go from here, once he learned more about what had just happened, that was.
It looked like his life was about to get a whole lot more interesting again.
"Good. I could use the excitement. And the practice." he said aloud to himself, smirking as his gaze fell to the lightsaber on his bedside table. The era of the Jedi might have just come to an end, but for Lysandre, it was the dawn of a new day. A new life.
A new purpose.
(*The text of the second message comes from John Jackson Miller's A New Dawn.)
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