The Jedi Master stood on the grassy plain, leaning heavily on his ever-present walking stick...


"doit doit doit..."


He shook his head imperceptibly, trying for the thousandth time to ignore the strange voices that crowded his head, willing him to do something that he knew he should not do...

The young woman crawled back away from him, a hood obscuring her face. he felt no fear from her, just a desire...

desire to get away from him...

The lightsaber in his hand was his, as he clearly recognized it as his very own craftmanship. It burned the color of the very trees that stood nearby offering their comfortable shade.

"You don't have to do this!" The woman said, still obscuring her face.

Vodo looked at her with absolutely no compassion. He knew this was wrong of him, and was not the Jedi way...

but ....

he didn't care.

The woman ignited a lightsaber of her own, and raised herself to her feet, holding it with both hands in a defensive posture. Vodo fell upon her with absolute fury, striking with walking stick and lightsaber, much as he had a certain wayward apprentice not to long ago.

The woman could not withstand such an attack, and Vodo easily disarmed her and lashed out with a vicious kick to her stomach, knocking her flat on her back.

The wind howled, and it whipped his hooded cloak around him violently. The grass swayed in the heavy wind.

Without remorse, Vodo raised his blade and stabbed the woman through the heart.

"vodo..." she muttered...

And Vodo looked into Leia Organa's dying face...



...and smiled.

The sign constantly changed itself based on the physiology of the being that came up to it, and changed it's language to suit the being's origin and could have been read in many different languages... basic, Huttese, Ithorian, Falleenese, Gand.... and something else.

It was highly unusual and was markedly different than anything Vodo had ever seen.

A nearby Bith came close to him, trying to read the sign, which had conformed itself to suit the Bith, and displayed a map of Krevas city, "Excuse me?" Vodo said.

The Bith turned to him, "What do you want, Krevaaki?"

The Bith radiated annoyance in the Force, and a thought arose in Vodo's mind to stamp out the Bith's attitude forceibly, but Vodo quickly suppressed the thought, "What was that language just a minute ago, I couldn't read it."

The Bith bagan to laugh, "Seriously?"

Vodo nodded.

"That was... Krevaaki..."

The Bith moved on, and Vodo just stood there. He felt a certain sadness creep up inside him, an old pain that constantly stayed with him, and had stayed for dozens of years.

He realized that he hadn't even recognized his species very own language...



***


"It's not much, sir, but I hope it will satisfy..."

The older Bothan woman smiled at Vodo as he surveyed the small apartment which she had shown him.

"It will do quite nicely, thank you very much." The Jedi said.

The Bothan's fur rippled, indicating that she was pleased, and she stepped through the door, which shut behind her. Vodo put his small rucksack on the bed and moved to the window, which overlooked the small square in the northeast end of the city.


As he gazed out into the bustling capital, he couldn't help but think over the past several months, and all the events that had happened, and lead him up to this point.

With the dissolution of the Jedi Order as a whole, he had suddenly found himself adrift, with no attachments, no contacts, and no life. He felt betrayed and abandoned by the Leia, Dolash, Irtar, and the Jedi Order itself.

He even sometimes felt that the Force was leaving him, slowly.

Vodo had come to the conclusion that if a Jedi has no direction, no use for himself or his powers, the Force would slowly abandon him. He had always been taught that with great power came great responsibility...

... but that responsibility had now been torn away from him, and left him wandering alone.

The dark thoughts of doubt slowly creeped into his mind...

Perhaps I should abandon the Force as it is abandoning me...


With an effort, he pushed those thoughts away.



"mustchoosemustchoose..."

The voices were coming back to him again. He had first heard them after leaving Naboo, on those long hyperspace journeys through the dark void that was space, they had spoke to him.

At first he thought they were messages from the Force, or even his own mind, subconsciously speaking to him. He even thought he might have been hallucinating.

He even thought he might be going crazy.

But the voices were not speaking unrecognizable jargon, they were actually coherent, willing him to do many things. Dark things.

He sat on the bed, laid his walking stick across his lap...

... and began to meditate.

The world seemed to move faster than time itself.

Vodo, hunched as ever over his baffor-wood walking stick, slowly crept through the capital city of his home planet. Krevas city, at one point, had been a sleepy little town that was only of interest to passing wayfarers as a small refuel/resupply point. The native Krevaaki were always hospitable, but kept the outsiders at arms length, and mostly ignored them.

But then something happened.


The pacifistic governing body had originally been very small, with a single leader who oversaw a council of representatives. Overtime, that had changed, and a new system took over.


Vodo hobbled to a small bench at the edge of the square his apartment overlooked. He sat, watched...

... and felt.


The Force stretched out before him, and he expanded his own sphere of responsibility outwards, several hundred meters in all directions so he could wait and listen for disturbances.

He felt one almost before his sphere reached three meters.

"Hey you!" A voice shouted. It sounded very close, within two meters.

Vodo looked behind him, pretending to do so with much labor. Three beings stood behind the bench, dressed in the uniforms and colors of the Krevas government, a Rodian with a red hue, a dirty-looking human decked out in cheap armor, and an Ithorian dressed in heavy robes. The Rodian and Human held beat-up looking blasters, and the Ithorian held a vibroblade, which also looked secondhand.

"What do you want?" Vodo asked in a scratchy voice, trying to make himself sound older than he looked. Using the Force, he imprinted an image of himself as a craggy old Krevaaki trying to stay warm on the minds of the three aliens.

"All of your credits. Now!" The human shouted, raising the blaster.

Vodo looked around the square, hoping to find police rushing to the scene of the painfully obvious daylight robbery.

But he found nothing. There were police, and they even stood nearby, but the did nothing but occasionally cast a casual glance in his direction.

"Oh don't go looking for them." The Ithorian said, "We work for the government of Krevas. They won't help you. Now give it to us!"

Vodo, not wishing to escalate a confrontation, reached into his robes and pulled a ten-ImpCredit chip from them and tossed it toward the human, "There, now please leave me alone!"

Vodo waited for the reactions of his three visitors. In reality he had thousands of credits in a bank account registered to him and could easily afford their demands.

But Vodo did not feel a change in their attitudes.

"Thats ten for me. But my colleagues need to be paid as well. Ten for each, scumbag Krevaaki!"

Vodo frowned, "It's all I have, sir! Please don't hut me!"

"I don't believe you. Ryth, kill him and get the rest of it out of him!"

The Rodian stepped forward, brandishing the blaster menacingly. Vodo stared at him, trying to decide which course of action to take. He could influence him by way of the Force, by manipulating his mind and harmlessly sending the three on their way...

...or he could use force.

Vodo had given in to their demands, he had tried to do as they demanded, he had tried to spare their lives. But a curious feeling rose inside the Jedi Master, a much different emotion than what he was used to.


Anger.


He suddenly had no interest in sparing these thieves. They were trying to hurt him and rob him, and now kill him even when he had tried to do as they ask. They were going to kill him in broad daylight with the police standing just a few hundred yards away, all for a few credits.

The Rodian raised his blaster, clearly intending to shoot the Jedi Master.

Without thought, his lightsaber sprang into his hand.

It was ignited as the Rodian fired from point-blank range. The bolt deflected off and hit the Rodian in the face., dropping him instantly.

His walking stick flew from his hand and struck the Ithorian so hard his skull collapsed, killing him instantly before he could come to the Rodian's defense.

Rage seeped into his mind. Into every crevasse of his being. Here he was just trying to sit and rest when these people tried to kill him. They deserved death.

He stood upright, not hunched and his stick flew to his hand. Vodo stepped over the body of the Rodian, and toward the human, who stood with mouth agape, staring at his to former compatriots.

"You...a ...Jedi!?"

"You tried to kill me." Vodo stated matter-of-factly.

"Fucking Krevaaki!"

The human raised his blaster and got off one shot, which went wild. With one gesture Vodo crushed the blaster. With another, he hurled the lightsaber. His aim was true and the blade lodged itself deep into the human thief's chest.

He retrieved the blaster, and his stolen ten credits.

"You! Stop!"

He turned around, to be greeted by several dozen Krevaaki police officers, all pointing blasters at him, "Drop the weapons and get on the ground."

The anger was leaving his body now, and a cooler head was starting to prevail. Vodo had no wish to kill his own people.

Hesitating just a moment, he tossed the lightsaber and stick away and did as instructed...

The room was dark other than a single, bright light that remained focused on the Krevaaki Jedi Master. Other than the eight armed guards standing behind him with high-powered blasters pointed directly at his back, there was only one other person in the room.

Vodo sat at a small table, his shackled hands folded calmly before him. He stared dispassionately at his human "interrogator".

"What is your name?" The human, who had identified himself as Hoon, asked.

Vodo considered his options. He was a prisoner of the government of Krevaak, a government that eschewed galactic politics but nonetheless was a respectable, peaceful planetary government in the grand scheme. As a prisoner, he had been informed he would be tried, and sentenced according to Krevas law. But Vodo had been - was - a Jedi Master, and even though the Order was no longer what it had been, that might still mean something...

His only other option was to remain silent. He chose.

"I am Jedi Master Vodo Baas."

Reaching out with the Force, Vodo waited for a reaction.

He was sorely out of luck, as Hoon was not amused, "There is no Jedi Order, Mr. Baas, or have you not kept up on recent Galactic going-ons?"

"I have, and I was there when it was disbanded." Vodo stated through clenched teeth, feeling the anger rising inside of him.

"So you come here, to act out your frustration?"

Vodo half stood, but thought better of it when he heard the symphony of Merr-Sonn 22-8 Heavy Repeating Blasters readying. He sat back down and stared at Hoon, "I was defending myself from those thieves, who tried to rob me in plain sight, in the daytime, with police officers standing thirty yards away."

"Mr. Baas, those 'thieves' were government tax collectors on their rounds." Hoon said.

Vodo scowled, "Is that what they are being called? 'Tax collectors'"?

"Thats what they are, Mr. Baas."

When Vodo remained silent, Hoon continued, "You are being charged with the murder of government employees, and resisting arrest. Tomorrow morning your trial will commence, followed by your sentencing."

The anger was at it's peak. Vodo knew he could easily crush this man without thought, but the other eight guards would be the problem. It would be better to bide his time.

He allowed himself to be taken away.