The chamber was narrow as a blade, quiet as the pause between heartbeats—buried deep within the cruiser's spine, where no troopers drilled and no techs wandered. There were no windows here, no stars to soften the edges of its durasteel walls. Only the faint blue shimmer of hyperspace bled through the consoles, pulsing against the ceiling like a ghostly vein. The ship's heart, beating in cold light.
Kaelen sat rigid upon the fixed bench. Dust streaked his tunic, and the soot of blaster-scorch burned deep into the folds. One glove off, the other folded upon his knee, he moved with deliberate precision. His gauntlets lay upon the tray before him—scorched, dented, cracked. He cleaned them not with reverence, but with necessity, as a soldier might clean his blade after a slaughter.
Across from him, Windu loomed with the stillness of a carved idol. Arms folded, eyes narrowed, he read the reports bleeding across the holopad. Numbers, facts, cold absolutes:
Civilian casualties: 0.Republic losses: minimal.Hostiles neutralized: 23.Explosives disarmed: 6.Time saved: 14 minutes.
The figures scrolled in silence. Windu's gaze traced them twice, thrice, as if a deeper truth lay buried between digits. He did not speak. His silence weighed more than rebuke.
Kaelen did not look up. The scrape of metal under cloth was his reply.
When Windu finally spoke, it was with the calm, measured edge of a judge pronouncing sentence:"You didn't wait for the extraction team."
Kaelen's hand stilled over the groove carved into the gauntlet's plating—a scar of blasterfire survived by instinct. His reply was neutral, unflinching."Didn't need them."
A command flick of Windu's hand filled the holopad with an image. Kaelen, mid-motion, shoulder lowered, driving a man against a ferrocrete wall with brutal speed—so swift the recorder blurred the motion. Violence caught in stillness. Violence undeniable.
"You used too much force," Windu said. No anger, only the flat iron of truth.
Kaelen set the gauntlet down with care, his gaze fixed on the metal."No one died."
The words hung in the chamber—defense and defiance both.
"That isn't the metric," Windu answered.
Kaelen's head lifted now, eyes steady, voice colder."Then what is?"
Their gazes locked, a current running between them. Windu's reply came measured, but each syllable pressed down like stone."Which are you? Dagger or mirror?"
Kaelen inhales, slowly, shoulders rigid."The Order made me a weapon. I make sure it's only pointed at the guilty."
For the first time, Windu's hand stilled, the holopad flicking to black. The room dimmed, candles guttering. He stepped closer, his voice soft but deliberate."And which are you, Kaelen? A weapon held… or a weapon turned loose?"
Kaelen closed his eyes. Silence coiled around him, taut as a bowstring.
Later, in the dark, Kaelen knelt in meditation. Three candles burned about him in a triangle, their flames trembling with the ship's hum. Shadows rippled like wounds across the walls. His saber lay in pieces before him—emitter, hilt, power cell, crystal housing, kyber crystal. The blade unmade. Like him.
He breathed, still as carved stone. Yet the stillness was loud.
Memory surged unbidden.
A rooftop. The glint of a scope. His body moved before thought—up, across, intercepting fire meant for a child. His shoulder caught the blast, the hiss of seared flesh.
(You knew. You chose which child to save.)
A tunnel. A man trembling, explosives strapped to his chest. Kaelen's words calm, his stride slow, his strike sudden—dagger to the side, elbow to the throat, wires cut in one motion.
(You watched his eyes before he fell. He believed he would live.)
A skull against durasteel. The sound echoes. The silence after.
Kaelen opened his eyes. His breath was sharp. Controlled, but no longer clean. His gaze fell upon the kyber crystal at the center of the cloth. Still. Silent. But as he watched, he swore it pulsed—not with light, but with something heavier.
"No one died," he whispered.
The words were smoke. Weightless. He tried again, harder, as though repetition could transmute lie into truth.
"No one died."
This time, the words rang hollow.
What if they had? Would it matter? Would he feel different? Would he feel anything at all?
The crystal rolled, just an inch, catching the candlelight. And in its warped reflection, Kaelen saw himself: scar deeper, eyes darker, face distorted. Not a mirror. A dagger's edge.
He shivered—barely. Enough.
He did not reach for the saber.
Observation deck. Above Coruscant, the stars lay like a field of knives. Lightning flickered within the storm-wrapped city-planet, its glow lost in oceans of neon.
Windu stood at the viewport, posture straight, gaze upon the storm.
"I sent a shadow into Vireen," he said without turning.
Kaelen stepped beside him, ash still dusting his robes. Unarmored. Unarmed. He stared down at the planet—at the storm that churned far below, mirroring the silence between them.
"What returned was… effective."
Kaelen's reply was quiet."So I did well."
"No," Windu said, voice cutting clean. "You did right. Not the same thing."
The correction lingered. Kaelen breathed slowly.
"Civilians lived."
"Yes."
"But the Council will ask questions."
Kaelen turned his gaze, eyes steady."Let them."
At last, Windu faced him. His eyes measured Kaelen as one might weigh a blade in the hand—testing balance, edge, inevitability.
"You are no longer learning how to fight," he said. "You are learning when not to."
The words pressed deep. Kaelen's shoulders shifted, a subtle drop as the weight of expectation gave way to something heavier. Understanding.
"Then let's keep learning," he said softly.
For a moment, Windu studied him—not only as Padawan, but as a consequence.
He turned back to the stars.
The silence stretched. Two reflections stood there—discipline and fire.
"The next mission's already moving," Windu said at last, voice low, resolute.
"And so are we."
Outside, the stars drifted eternally. Below, Coruscant pulsed with storms.
And in that silence, the future sharpened to a blade's edge.