Naboo was rapidly being abandoned. The Force had been thrown in complete confusion. It seemed like the Jedi were being scattered like roaches when the light is turned on.




How quickly they abandon everything!



Although that was precisely what Vodo himself was doing, so he hardly had room to talk. Some seemed to feel that there was an imminent attack by the Sith, although Vodo doubted that. From what he had seen, the Sith Order was as disorganized and directionless as the Jedi themselves. He doubted they would have the organization needed to mount a serious attack.

The Empire was a different story, although attacks by them were still unlikely. Naboo was hardly a high value target now that the Jedi had dispersed, and it was pretty much a worthless planet now.

Nevertheless, Vodo no longer had any reason to be here.

The Hangar was large, like most other rooms inside the Temple. Vodo's personal vessel was towards the end, right where he preferred it. In case he needed to make a quick getaway, he always ahd it parked near the hangar door.

The ship was a highly modified Aethersprite starfighter used by the Jedi in the Clone Wars. Years before, Vodo had rescued several members of a very wealthy man's family, and he had provided the fighter as a thank you. Vodo happily accepted it.

Equipped with highly powerful engines and a complete stealth package, and also equipped with an internal hyperdrive (doing away with the hyperdrive rings of old). Vodo was very pleased with the craft.

"Vodo!"

He stopped in his tracks and turned around, frowning as he saw Leia moving towards him quickly, "Don't do this, Vodo. I know how you must be feeling..."

Vodo scoffed and continued walking towards his ship when he felt a hand on his arm, "You don't have to leave like this."

"Why would I stay? is there any reason to?"

"Always, the people of Naboo still look to us to protect them." Leia insisted.

"Then protect them." Vodo said, moving away from here still.

She stayed firm however, and refused to let him go without a fight, "You are a Jedi Master, Vodo. so you had better start acting like one. You have a duty."

Vodo turned, and with a single hand motion, the Force responded and shoved her back, "Not anymore. You have yourself to thank for that. Goodbye, Leia."

He turned, jumped into his ship, and was soon gone...

"Not anymore. You have yourself to thank for that. Goodbye, Leia."


Caught off guard by her old Apprentice's sudden Force push, Leia was sent stumbling backwards as Vodo leapt nimbly into his starfighter. Leia caught her balance and retreated to a safe distance from the fighter, where the hot exhaust of it's engines would not incinerate her.


Vodo wasted no time in powering up his ship, and soon the air in the hangar grew turbulent as he brought his engines online. Leia braced herself against the blast, and her worn Jedi robes billowed and flapped in the wind as she watched Vodo's fighter glide out of the hangar.


Just like that, Jedi Master Vodo Baas was gone.


Without the formality of the Order to forcibly hold them together, the Jedi Masters had already drifted apart. Would the Knights fare any better? The Padawans?


A cold dark voice in the back of Leia's mind said, "not a chance."


Leia pointedly ignored the little voice, and made her way back to the Jedi Temple. She had just enough time to collect a few personal belongings before it was time to see how many of the Padawans would return to discuss what had happened instead of blindly running away.


The Jedi Temple was desolate when Leia reached it, not a soul to be found anywhere. She found herself curiously on edge as she passed through the gate and continued on her way to her quarters. The little voice in the back of Leia's mind spoke up again.


Empty... just like that, they all ran away aimlessly. Never even asked a single question.


There wasn't much for Leia to collect; her extra lightsaber, a couple data cards, some clothes. Leia owned little in the form of personal keepsakes... after about the third or fourth time that her home had been destroyed in battle and all of her things with it, she had simply stopped collecting them.


Much as Vodo did, Leia already kept a backup copy of most of the Order's archives hidden elsewhere. It was an old habit she had developed back when there was still a strong Sith presence on Naboo, and attacks occurred on a regular basis.


One other thing had to be taken care of... the original archives would have to be destroyed so they wouldn't fall into the wrong hands. Thermal detonators would have done the job nicely, but Leia was not in the habit of carrying a crate of them around with her everywhere. Her lightsaber would have to do.


Reluctantly Leia made her way down to the library, and unclipped her saber from her belt. The delicate computers that held the archives of the Jedi were no match for the power of her lightsaber, and it was only a short time before the main computer of the Jedi Temple was scattered all over the floor around Leia in millions of melted pieces.


With the archives destroyed, there wasn't much else in the Temple that would be of much use to anyone. Leia slung her small bag over her shoulder, and headed for the main gate.



***



Before Leia ever reached the gate, the Force told her that none of the Padawans were there. Her heart sank, and as she drew closer, her eyes confirmed her feelings... no Jedi.


So this was it, the Jedi had chosen to scatter like spooked nerfs.


Leia reached the gates of the Jedi Temple, and paused.


"You allow your Old Republic government to vote a Sith into Office and then have the audacity to remove him from power without legal recourse! After your fantastic failure in that, you plunge the galaxy into a bloody Civil War to achieve your ends. In the aftermath of that, you try to take the reins of government yourselves with a New Republic only to burden your people with your religious war with the Sith and your hatred for the Empire. And when it all comes crashing down, you still have the gall to blame me... me? for your failure?"


Leia had finally reached her breaking point, and Simon Kaine's harsh words echoed in her mind once again. Her recent verbal standoff with the Imperial Supreme Commander on Bonadan continued to haunt her. This time, Tyscio wasn't there to catch her before she fell...


Vodo was right, Simon Kaine was right: Leia had failed again. The galaxy had needed her to train a new generation of Jedi who would step up and lead the fight against evil. Instead, she had apparently created a reclusive Order of so called Jedi who depended far too heavily on her ability to carry the burdens of leadership alone. She had taught them how to wield the Force, but not how to best serve it. How many innocent lives would her failure cost the galaxy this time?


Anger and sorrow burned deep in Leia's gut, and her head hung low with the weight of her emotions as she locked the gate and left the Temple behind. She stepped onto the street, and a dingy tapcafe that catered mostly to the spacers who came in from the nearby spaceport caught her eye. Leia's feet seemed to carry her into it almost of their own accord, and before she knew it she was sitting at a table working on finishing a whole bottle of cheap local liquor entirely by herself.


Anger and sorrow were not very Jedi-like emotions... perhaps she would just drown them. There was certainly nothing else she could do.

In a time of grave despair, when all felt lost, there was always a way to be led back into the light.

From in a dark corner of the local tapcafe, somber almond shaped brown eyes sat watching Leia from underneath the hood of a light blue tunic.

The sheer sight of seeing Leia with a liquor bottle in hand was enough for Bella...

.. but seeing the Jedi Master bring the liquid to her lips, that was adding fuel to a fire that had already been burning.

Inwardly, the gesture brought swirls of emotion from the patron who sat there painfully watching Leia.

Jaw set tight, eyes blazing with impatience, Bella watched her dear friend, a feeling of cruel unbearable torture drifting through her soul.

This would not go on. The streak of stubbornness that often radiated through Bella, would match Leia's own stubborn streak, tenfold.

With her emotions in a state of overwhelming disorder, Bella let those emotions fuel her as she carried them out into a noticeable wave of fury. The bottle of cheap liquor became Bella's muse.

Focusing all the energy of emotion that consumed her, Bella's aura drew out, capturing the bottle as its new fond prey. A wave of force energy that was neither light or dark in comparison, swiftly wrapped itself about the bottle, grabbing a hold of it for dear life.

Slowly the bottle shook, pulsating with life until it rapidly quivered with intensive speed.

Then all at once, the motions died. The bottle lifeless once more.

It shattered into a thousand pieces before the Jedi Master's very eyes.

Leia let out a startled yelp as the bottle sitting next to her suddenly exploded, sending bits of broken glass and liquor flying everywhere.


Magic exploding bottles... it had to have been another Force user. Now who wanted to blame her for every problem in the universe?


Leia angrily looked around the cafe, searching for the guilty culprit. Her senses were fairly dulled by alcohol however, and the search came up empty.


"I've had enough of this..." Leia muttered under her breath, and abruptly stood up from her seat. To her credit, she wasn't swaying too badly. As she turned to head for the door, she suddenly paused as if she were just noticing her surroundings for the first time. Her irritation faded.


Tyscio proposed to me in a bar... I was drunk then, too. For the same reasons!


Leia sighed, and glanced down at the ring on her finger.


If only he was here now...


What a mess, it was time to go home.


In some sort of compromise between a swaying walk and a stumble, Leia found her way out of the cafe and headed for the docking bay where her ship was berthed.


Yes, she would catch some sleep to sober up, and then start on the long trip home...


Naboo wasn't home anymore.

Bella let out a long winded sigh after Leia walked out. Taking a moment, she set her elbows onto the table top and pressed her face into her awaiting hands.

Time had changed a great many of things while she'd been gone. What was most devastating to Bella was that many of those things were disheveled. Just like her visions had promised to be.

It devastated her because there was still much more to come. This was only but the beginning.

Releasing her hands from her face, the force user combed her left hand through her hair in an automatic reflex to ease some of the tension that was shooting through her system. She inadvertently knocked her hood back in the process. The gesture did not seem to phase her; she did not care.

"I won't let you do this to yourself," the woman murmured to herself, determined.

Come hell or high water, Bella was bound and steadfast to help her friend.

She had no time to waste. No time to lose.

Abruptly rising from her chair, Bella hurried out of the establishment, intending to find a rush of inspiration before going after Leia.

Leia, like many of the countless other Jedi, would drift away from Naboo, trying to find a sense of refuge and peace.

They had to know, had to believe, like Bella already did, that everything would be just fine, despite how bleak everything around them all now was.

This was only the beginning to a brand new evolution.

Katria switched off the radio that she and the other kids had crowded around, and went to sit near the doorway. The children kept watching the radio, expecting something to happen. Katria glanced back at them, half expecting something as well.

There was nothing.

"It's... over?" she murmured, feeling a hollowness inside her with the words. What was there left to say? Where would they go now? What would they do?

The children started to whisper amongst themselves. Katria felt a tear creeping down her cheek. Suddenly, a shadow fell over her - she whipped around to see the foreman of the work group standing awkwardly nearby.

"We uh... we wanted to know what to put on the sign, mam?" the big man said, holding a blank wooden sign with both hands.

Katria stared at the block for a few moments, trying to puzzle it into her shattered world. After a few moments of glacial thought, she wiped her cheek and went over to the board. With a few deft strokes of a brush, she gave the sign back to the foreman. "Thank you so very much for your help, boys," she said with a weak smile before heading back inside.

the foreman looked at the sign for a moment, then passed it to the man on the ladder who fixed it in place over the door.

Madame Katria's Emergency Shelter and Orphanage. All welcome!

Katria sat back down inside the warehouse, looking glumly at the grey wall opposite. Suddenly, a hum came from her pocket, and she remembered the crystal that she'd brought from the temple. She took it from the folds of her robes and held it flat on her outstretched palm.

"I told you you couldn't always trust the Force, or its' messangers," said Barris's ghost, looking out from the shard.

Katria gave a harsh laugh, scowling at the crystal. "So I guess you're going to say I told you so?"

"What? Of course not," said Barris. "If no one else, you should trust yourself, as you have done. If you'll trust me, though, then maybe I can help you start a new... life." The ghostly apparition smiled at the irony as Katria considered the offer.



"So it's over," grumbled Shillia, unwrapping a sandwich with one hand whilst clinging on to the side of a building with the other. The two were at the top of a block office, looking out at the city.

Fwar was silent. His figure was still like some noble statue, lost and forgotten in a dark corner of the now quickly abandoned temple. Over the city he looked, seeking answers in rows of beautiful, artistic homes. The city was a work of art he couldn't stop looking at, as though a hidden meaning would click.

"We could always get real jobs, I guess," Shillia continued. She snacked down on the sandwich and glanced at the city. "A couple of tough nuts like us, we could be bodyguards, or security experts. Or mercenaries - live a bit of the glory days, huh?"

Still Fwar said nothing. Shillia started to get frustrated and threw the sandwich away, waiting for her companion to say something - anything to show he was still in the waking world.

"I wonder what'll happen to that obnoxious seer, Oblox?" she said, now really digging for conversation. "Probably get a job on a late-night call-in fortune reading scam."

Fwar tilted his head up to watch a circling seagull come closer and closer to the ground, before coming to a rest on a holonet antenna. As if this completed some grand internal puzzle, Fwar smiled and exclaimed "Yes! Of course!" and without further explination, leapt from the side of the building over the street and neatly on to the roof of the home across from them.

Shocked, Shillia had to leap after him and run as fast as she could to keep up? "Where're we going?"

"The Jedi Order is gone," said Fwar, vaulting a sky light. "But we are still Jedi! We don't need new jobs, we're still our old ones, only... only..."

"Freelance?"

"Yes! Of course!" Fwar leapt down into the street below, and it was all Shillia could do it keep track of him in the crowd - if he hadn't been an eight foot furball, it might have been a challenge. "To the ship! Let's try being Jedi elsewhere for a change!"



"Well that's just typical! exclaimed Proq, throwing his radio as hard as he could from the back of the travelling beast. He'd come to calling it Stinky but was suddenly struck with renaming it Dolash. "The best years of my life down the drain! What about my pension plan? And all those credits I sank into the 401k?"

Jubaz snapped out of his daze to frown at his fellow Jedi and say "We don't have those."

"Oh, really?" said Proq, who crossed his arms behind his head and lay back. "Then I guess this isn't a big deal after all. Looks like we're fired, buddy."

"Why would Dolash do that?" said Jubaz. It all seemed so sudden, so complicated - and so inconvenient for two lone Jedi riding back to civilization on the back of a pack animal, unable to be there for the end-of-the-Jedi moment. History would mark this day, but they would be marked absent, how embarassing.

"Why should we care why he did it?" said Proq, smiling. "It's the first good idea grey-boy's had since he got here. Have you tried going outside as a Jedi lately? It's incredibly dangerous - why, some people almost want us dead. At least this way we aren't advertising our location to the galaxy."

"Maybe..." said Jubaz. "Now what?"

"Now?" said Proq, who sat up and gathered the reigns in one hand. "We ride! Hi-ho Stinky, to adventure!"



Ian was sitting in the flight lounge, his ticket in hand. One hour 'till boarding time. One hour to go. One hour until he'd be on his way home.

There was a holoprojector in the flight lounge, one that he'd been watching with most every other passenger making the midday flights that day as the news came in. Ian didn't say anything, didn't make any sudden movements. His robes were in his trunk. As far as anyone knew, he was just a traveller.

A dozen nonedescript businesspeople broke into light chatter all around, but Ian heard none of it. So he really did have a plan after all? He smiled. He's more clever than I gave him credit.

Of course, now Ian was left with the question of what to do next. He looked at the ticket a little longer before deciding against it. There was no home to go back to. However, he wouldn't survive long in the wilderness of the galaxy without transport, or at least something mechanical to fiddle with. Then, he got an idea. The Force provides...

He stepped out of the flight terminal, where one of the Jedi he'd met earlier was sitting in their stolen speeder. "The radio's busted," he grumbled. "Any news?"

"What? Oh no, of course not," said Ian with a smile. "I've changed my mind though - don't feel much like heading back to Theed straight away. Here, I'll make you a deal, you take my ticket and I'll take this speeder back to the proper authorities. I'll just say it was ditched somewhere, no harm no foul."

The young Jedi brightened considerably. "Really? You'd do that for me? Thanks!"

"Think nothing of it," a grinning Ian replied as he got into the speeder and handed over the ticket. "When you get back to the temple, say hi to everyone for me, will you?"

"Will do. See you later, Ian!"

Ian floored it and took off into the wild blue yonder. Okay, so it wasn't strictly Lightside. It was a nice speeder!

Needed a new radio though. Or at least a replacement for the circuit he'd fried.



Dolash went unnoticed in the huge Theed starport. Had anyone recognized him, he'd have been houdned with questions and media within seconds, but thanks to the Force all any outsider could see was a travelling Kaminoan. The two races were fairly different, but just similar enough in stature for Dolash to fool those around him when he didn't want his status to be known.

Right now, however, he just wanted time alone to think. Sitting on a flimsy waiting chair outside the gate for his outbound flight, the Azguardian Jedi tried to commmune with the Force and feel the ripples of his actions. The task was too great for him, for just on the planet alone the threads of fate and reality churned like a violent sea - now, everything was different. Was it better? He couldn't tell.

What to do with the rest of my life... both brains asked in tandem. Well, why did I join the Jedi Order? To help people and serve the galaxy. Well then, why not do that?

To help prompt his thoughts, Dolash brought up his bag of paltry posessions. His lightsaber evoked memories of his old Master, and Dolash wondered briefly what he would have told him to do, but quickly banished the thought as he had in the council chambers. That time was over. Then there were the crystals, pried from the icy heart of Ilum, key to a mystery involving a weakening of the Force. He wondered if his actions would further that weakness by reducing the solvency of the Jedi, but dismissed this as an unknowable factor.

Nothing sparked his imagination. How could he do good things and help people if he didn't know where to begin? Does one need to know where to 'begin' to do good? Just go forth and do good, and don't get caught up on the how of it. Trust in the Force and those opportunities will find you.

It was a start. Something simple. The Jedi had had enough grand thinkers and plotters for a generation. Maybe now it didn't need a big idea? Maybe now wasn't the time for Orders and Councils and Masters? Maybe now was a time to just trust in the Force and get on with it? Maybe now was a time of action?

Maybe now wasn't the end. No, he thought, as he stretched out in the seat. [/I]Now is a beginning.[/I]

He heard a chime. The flight at puilled into the gate. The beginning of what... I guess I'll just have to find out.

The End