Woman without a Country

"Let's check out the Refugee Sector," said Ludmilla. "We've already been everywhere else."
"We haven't checked out the Cantina," said Atton hopefully.
Bao-Dur just looked at him.
"Why don't any of your friends talk?" Atton asked Ludmilla. "Why can't you have friends with normal eyes?"
Ludmilla hushed him, and gave his hand a quick squeeze.
"Oh, hey look at that pile of scrap. Looks like a busted shield or something."
Bao-Dur turned to look at the pile that Atton had pointed at, and Atton pounced on her for a quick kiss as soon as the Iridonian wasn't looking.
"General. That's really annoying."
"I didn't do anything!" protested Ludmilla.
"You could stop glowing every time he kisses you," muttered Bao-Dur.
Ludmilla pretended to think about it. "I'm not sure if it would work. Here, let me try," she pretended to concentrate. "Okay, Atton, kiss me and see if I look any different."
Atton obediently pulled her into a kiss, and pulled away to look at her. "I don't think it worked," he said seriously. "Should I try again?"
"General. Stop it."
Ludmilla laughed joyously, and headed to the Refugee Sector of Nar Shadaa. "I thought the outside was bad," she said softly. The misery here was almost palpable. The air stank of fear and unwashed bodies.
A Gamorrean at the door tried to stop her from entering, but Ludmilla didn't have the patience for it. He was a guard from the Exchange, keeping all these people trapped inside so that they could be picked off and sold into slavery.
"I get the next one, General," said Bao-Dur calmly as she stepped away from the slaver's body.
"Sure thing." The noise attracted some more Exchange guards, who yelled at the Humans for being too close to the door. "Well, that was easy." Ludmilla brushed off her hands while Bao-Dur shot down the guards.
"I really don't like these guys," Bao-Dur said calmly. "We did all that work to stop the Mandalorians, and for what?"
Ludmilla looked at her old friend. "See that platform over there? Where the guards slept? That would have been an auction hall. You can see it, can't you? The room is big enough for people in armor to mill around, watching the slaves on display." She looked at the adjoining room. "Junctions for catalog consoles. They're missing the delivery bay, though. It's probably on the other side of that wall."
Bao-Dur looked around at the reconfigured slave market. "You're right," he said slowly. "I guess we did make a difference, if only a small one."
"It's more than anyone else did. You shouldn't have left it for the Senate to pick up the pieces," said Atton bitterly. "They were too busy congratulating themselves, and the Jedi Council was still too lazy to prod them into doing anything. The only person who cared about the survivors was Revan, and that was only because she needed more bodies for her next war."
Ludmilla didn't answer. She knew that Atton was one angry sentence away from blaming her for leaving, and she couldn't explain to him why she had abandoned all the men and women who had trusted her to lead them; why she had left Revan to stand or fall on her own instead of staying to support her as she always had.
The next set of rooms was filled with refugees, living out of shipping containers. They huddled together and stared blankly at her. She moved around the room, speaking with them as people, not victims. She tried to infuse some of her own strength into them, tried to show them some path out of their hopelessness. She knelt by a sick man, pulled down more by malnutrition than disease, and was helping him when she noticed that Bao-Dur and Atton weren't nearby. Two Twi'leks, nervous but defiant, approached her.
"You are a Jedi," said the elder Twi'lek quickly. "One of the old ones, not one of the cowardly ones that hid when we needed them."
"I am," she said calmly, and stood to face him. "How may I help you?"
The elder shook his head. "This time, the pleeky helps the brave Knight, in memory of all those who have spared this humble rodent. The Human male that you travel with – he has been on Nar Shadaa before. He came to the Smuggler's Moon, claiming to be a refugee, but he had many credits, and did not stay here in the Refugee Sector. He lived in the Cantina, with whatever sentient being caught his eye. He changed them from week to week, and paid them all well."
"You haven't told me anything about him that I didn't already know," said Ludmilla gently.
"Has he told you what uniform he wore when he came to Nar Shadaa?"
"What?" Ludmilla met the Twi'lek's eyes, and saw the answer to the question. "No, I will hear it from his own lips," she said firmly. She bowed politely, and went to find Atton and Bao-Dur.
She found them fixing an air pump, part of the ventilation system in the Refugee Sector. Atton was reading off data from a nearby console while Bao-Dur was in his element, repairing the heavy machinery.
"Need any help, old man?"
"I got this, General. Thanks."
She smiled at her old friend. "Then can I borrow Atton for a few minutes?"
"Is this a kissing session?" sighed Bao-Dur.
Ludmilla shook her head, and Bao-Dur looked curiously at her. Atton glanced once at her, and tapped his elegant fingers on the console.
"Data saved," said Atton cheerfully. His voice didn't sound nervous at all. "You wanted to talk?"
She smiled at him, and took his hand, leading him out to the empty hall just beyond where the main body of refugees was camped. They had already taken care of the Exchange guards that used to patrol this corridor. Ludmilla took a deep breath, unsure where to start.
Atton smiled, half-mocking and dark. "You ran into someone who knew me, didn't you? And I'm guessing it wasn't someone who wanted credits. I suppose you want the whole sordid story?"
Ludmilla watched his eyes. They were cold, hiding the hurt. She hated the look on his face. "Atton, wait. I'm sorry, you don't deserve this."
"What?" he looked at her in surprise.
"You don't have to tell me anything. I trust you."
He watched her in stunned silence. "Are you really that insane?"
Ludmilla laughed nervously. "I guess I am. You said… you asked me not to make love to you if I didn't mean it. And I did. I trust you. Whenever you want to tell me, whatever it is, that's fine." She took one of his hands in hers, and was surprised by how cold they were.
"You can't be this stupid," he said, his voice twisted with anger. Not at her, but at himself. "Nobody would…" he choked, unable to speak, and she put her arms around him, trying to calm him.
"Atton, don't be angry with me. It's not that I don't care, I do. But I know you, you wouldn't betray me."
He buried his face in her neck, and gave a few wild sobs before he spoke. "I might abandon you," he said suddenly. "I've done that before, over and over. I abandoned my mother on Corellia to go to war. And I left the Republic to stand with all the other defectors and follow Revan." He moved away from her, and wiped at his face, not meeting her eyes.
Ludmilla stared at him. "You fought in the Mandalorian wars?"
Atton nodded.
"You weren't even eighteen when the wars started!"
"What difference does that make?" he snarled. "Yes, I was a child, but even I had enough sense to realize that we weren't going to win if we didn't stand up and fight! You knew that! You know it now! The Jedi Council sat and watched us burn, they did nothing while cities were turned to glass and worlds were set on fire by the Mandalorians. They told the rulers of the Core worlds to do the same, and they did because the Jedi are always right, aren't they? Aren't they?" he raged.
"Oh, Atton," she whispered, filled with grief for the pain that the damaged child had suffered.
"They attacked the docks where the capital ships were being refitted. I was visiting a cousin who was in the service. Yes, I was just a kid, and I held them off long enough for everyone to escape. Me and a half company of common security guards held back four waves of Mandalorians before we collapsed the tunnel on them and ran for our lives. No Jedi came to help us. There was one there, he was visiting the King or something. But he did nothing to help us. Not even to defend his own life. He just stood there and let us do all the work, then ran with all the rest. And then he left, left us, defenseless and half-crippled, to return to Coruscant for orders. We were nothing to them! To any of the Jedi, except Revan and her followers. The ones like you. That's why I joined her, and stayed with her when she turned to the Dark Side. Because from the outside, both sides look the same."
Ludmilla shook her head, not sure what to say, how to convince him. "But, to become a Sith?"
"We didn't care about the name. We cared about following Revan." He looked down, drained and shaken by his emotional outburst, and knowing that he hadn't even gotten to the worst part yet.
"I guess that's where we're different. I believed in Revan. I think I still do, but I'm not sure anymore. Too much has changed. But I would never have taken the name. I would never have followed her to the Dark Side."
"No," said Atton, trying not to lose control again. "But you left."
Ludmilla seemed to fade a little. "Yes," she whispered. "I left. I abandoned Revan, and all the people who followed me. All the ones I didn't kill at Malachor V, anyway."
"Well, that's something we have in common," said Atton with a sudden dark cheerfulness that made her look at him in surprise. "We've both killed lots of Jedi."
"What?" Her voice was calm, but her body was tense, stiff. She didn't want to hear this, but she knew he had to get it out, and she needed to listen.
"Why are you even asking me about this? Why aren't you just ripping it out of my mind the way Jedi do?" he asked suddenly.
She smiled weakly. "Because I'm not any good at it. I get distracted and forget what information I'm supposed to be getting."
"So you've done it before."
Ludmilla shook her head. "Revan tried to teach me, but decided it was a waste of time. I can't even be in the same room or I'll mess it up."
Atton looked at her in disbelief.
She laughed a little. "That's also why I sleep in the cargo hold instead of in the dorms. I sometimes end up in other people's dreams. If you ever find yourself floating on a river of chocolate, I apologize in advance."
Atton laughed lightly. "You're trying to distract me."
"So I am," she sighed. She didn't look at him for a moment, until he moved away from her.
Atton leaned back against the wall across from her, arms down, one leg bent slightly so that he could draw little circles on the ground with one toe. He was lean, elegant, lovely. He didn't look dangerous. Until he smiled.
"You fought Jedi? When?"
"Don't be ridiculous," he laughed, sweet and dark. "Look at me, I can't fight Jedi. I killed them," he repeated slowly. He was watching her eyes, and she was watching his, listening to his every word. Whatever he was looking for in her face, he didn't find it. He smiled, half-mockingly, and continued. "You weren't here, so you haven't heard about this before. Revan wanted Jedi. She wanted them on her side, or she wanted them dead. So for the weak ones, the students and the failures and the cowards who wouldn't fight, she sent assassins. Droids, regular soldiers – it didn't take much for the weak ones. Grenades, poison, mines – easy stuff. For the Jedi who were willing to fight, the ones who woke up too late and on the wrong side – that was when she sent the Elites. They were trained to kill Jedi. They usually worked in teams. They were sent a picture and given a location, and they killed whatever and whoever got in their way, until they eliminated their target. But then there the ones that Revan wanted on her side. Ones who had a weakness, a crack, something that she could use to bring them over. Those required something special. For those Jedi, they needed someone like me." His smile was a little prideful now, a little boy bragging.
He looked at the wall behind her, his eyes alight with a dark fire that did nothing to detract from his attractiveness. "We were above the Elites. We usually worked alone, only called in a team when we were ready to deliver. We had as much time as we needed, all the money we wanted, and we were allowed to do anything at all so long as we delivered a breathing Jedi at the end." He looked at her again, then back at the wall. She was still listening silently, and he still didn't see what he was looking for in her eyes. "My specialty was seduction. They nicknamed me 'Incubus,' and I never failed. Not once."
"Revan wanted Jedi," he went on. "She wanted to wake them up, she wanted them shaken out of their self-righteous complacency. The farther down I could pull them, the happier she was, because it made it easier to turn them. And if she couldn't turn them, she wasn't interested in them." He looked at her again, searching her eyes. "And if she couldn't turn them, we got to finish them off."
"Atton," she whispered. Not angry, but hurt.
"They never saw me coming. Even now, you can't read my emotions or sense me, can you? It's a skill," he smiled, prideful and dark. "Sometimes even the Force users on our own side didn't know I was there. I've been able to hide myself like that since I was a child. Self-defense mechanism. Never thought it would turn out to be so useful." He went back to staring at the wall behind her head. "You asked me why I hate Jedi so much." His smile twisted slightly. "My father was one. Well, until he was kicked out of the order and forced into marrying my mother. He got her pregnant and worse, got caught in a lie and his father insisted on the marriage. He liked fooling around with the pretty baker, but he hated being married to her and made her life a living hell every day of my life. He hung out with his friends, and pretended she wasn't there most of the time, which was better than when he paid attention to her. Some of his friends were Jedi. Not one ever stood up to him for the way he treated his wife or his son. They pretend to be so pure and noble, but they lie, and every act of charity is just a mask for their hypocrisy."
She flinched at the naked hatred in his voice.
"I saw them in the back halls, just like all the other nobles, making secret trysts and seducing maids and sleeping with other people's wives. Their robes don't cover anything different than the paint on a whore's face. Jedi, Sith, they're the same thing, they're just people with too much power and a religious schism that nobody else even understands or cares about. So yes, I killed Jedi. I made them fall to the Dark Side. And I'm not sorry!"
"Not even once?" she asked softly, trying to understand.
Atton sagged against the wall, his face twisted with pain. "No, I… There was a woman. A Twi'lek. She came to me, sought me out. I don't know how she found me, or how she knew what she knew. She told me that she was a Jedi, that she had come to save me. That Revan wasn't just turning Jedi from the Order to the Dark Side, but anyone she found who had any ability with the Force. People like me." Atton swallowed, closed his eyes, trying to find the words. "She said that I had a spark of the Force inside me, that's how I was able to attract Jedi. And that I was going to be taken, and turned. I would become an instrument of the Dark Side, forever. We'd heard stories, of random people disappearing from the ranks. I was pretty sure she was telling the truth. But I didn't care," he said softly.
"You still don't understand how bad I had it, do you?" he asked. "How much I hated Jedi? I hated the Jedi so much that I turned my back on Revan's cause rather than become one. Even a Dark one." Atton sighed, stared at his feet and drew little figures in the dirt with his toe. "And she was a Jedi. Even if she was trying to save my life, or my soul, whatever you want to call it. She wasn't on Revan's list, so nobody was going to miss her." He looked at her again, still searching her eyes. "I killed her. Left her body in my quarters, took a half-million credits, and walked out. Hitched a ride to Nar Shadaa, went to the Cantina, and drank until I couldn't stand up." He grinned, his smile twisted all wrong. "Not much interesting happened after that. Until I got picked up in a stolen scouter just outside of Peragus." He looked at her again. "Was she lying?"
"That you have the Force? No, she was telling the truth." Ludmilla's voice was very soft. So much pain. Why had he suffered so much?
"So I really should have been a Jedi." Atton laughed harshly. "I wonder how that would have turned out." He looked at her again. "Why? Why don't you hate me? Why aren't you angry?"
"I should have been there, I would have stopped her. Protected you." Her eyes fell, filling with bitter tears.
"You're blaming yourself." He stared at her. "You really think you could have stopped Revan? Kept her from falling to the Dark Side?"
"I would have tried!" she sobbed, "Even if no one else did, I would have tried. But I couldn't, I was too damaged, I couldn't…." Standing here, surrounded by all the misery and pain, she truly felt the weight of her failure. All the people that she had lost under her command, all the worlds she had lost to the Mandalorians in the course of the war, all the people that had died on that one dark day. And the worst of it all was this one child, barely a man, who had been punished and twisted over and over because there hadn't been anyone to protect him.
"Of course, if I'd been a Jedi, I would never have met you." Atton lifted her face, watching her eyes, sparkling with tears. "You're the only Jedi I've ever seen cry." Before she could speak, he kissed her, wildly and desperately, as if he feared that he would never kiss her again.
"I would have found you. Wherever you were, whatever you were, I would have found you, Atton." She kissed him again, tasted her tears on his lips.
He hid his face against her neck, held her close. "Please don't leave me. Please don't send me away."
"Atton…." She slid her arms around him, held him to her.
"I know I can't help you much, but please, let me stay. Please." She felt warmth on her skin, a single spot of wetness that ran down her neck to disappear into her armor. "If I could have been a Jedi like you, maybe … everything would have been different."
"Would you like to be?" she asked gently. "I could teach you."
"I'm too old, aren't I?" he said, confused, not daring to hope.
"Well," she smiled, "not really. The first Force users ran mostly by instinct. Of course, it's against the rules of the Order, and you're not supposed to train adults because it is harder to resist the Dark Side when you suddenly wake up to the power. But I think you already have a good understanding of what comes with the Dark Side. And I've given up on the rules of the Order."
"So, you could really train me? Really?" He looked her in the eyes, seeking and wondering.
"It's not so much training, as unlocking. There are different kinds of Jedi," she explained. "Some fight and defend, like me. Others are wise and spend all their time learning or teaching, like Kreia. Others," she stroked his soft hair, "have the ability to make the people around them better. They're the link between the heroes of myth and the incomprehensible sages. It's kind of hard to explain. Would you like me to show you?"
"I – I want to be able to help you, Ludmilla. I want to use the Force to help protect you. I know how stupid that sounds," he said hurriedly, but she interrupted him.
"It's not stupid, Atton. That's what Jedi – real Jedi – should always feel." Ludmilla was smiling, and she knew she was glowing with happiness, that he had found the strength to cross the gulf of darkness, that now, he would always be with her. "Open yourself to it, Atton. You've always felt it, the little currents, the eddies, the flow of life around you." She took his hands in hers, and concentrated on that feeling that had been lost to her for so long. "Listen to your thoughts, the echoes inside you. The joy in your heart, untainted by all the thoughts of war, by all your pain and suffering. Think about all the times you wanted to protect someone, help them. Think about how it makes you feel."
She sensed it, the hidden flame inside him flared up, bright and golden, sparkling with life. "I feel … like I just woke up." Atton looked at her in confusion. "I feel different."
"You are different. You're a Jedi." Ludmilla smiled at him. "What kind of lightsaber do you want?"
"It's that easy?"
"It's actually really hard, and quite dangerous." She pulled him closer. "But I told you, I trust you."
"Dangerous? But… you mean, you… I could have…." He paled as he suddenly began to understand the risk that she had taken.
She smiled at him. "I knew you weren't going to fall to the Dark Side." Ludmilla put her arms around his neck, kissed the corner of his mouth. "Nobody who cooks like you do could ever be truly evil."