Duel

 

"So for this fight you're neither the face nor the heel, Stranger. The audience can't see your eyes, and you don't ever spend time with the fans, so that's usually a Heel thing. But they like you and cheer you instead of booing, so you're not the Heel. You're facing Starkiller, and nobody's ever seen his eyes, and he's really cold with fans and he's killed 'bout a Huttload of people, but he's also been in a lot more fights and some people will always cheer when they see him. 'Cause he's been around like forever. Neither of you've ever lost an official contest, but he’s been doing it longer ‘n anyone else." The scrawny preadolescent who always saw to me before a fight - fetching water and doling out somewhat unreliable advice - nodded sagely at his own summary.

"I understand," I said softly, in my flat nigh-inaudible stage voice, complete with overly formal phrasing. Like facelessness, this was one of the Mysterious Stranger’s most notable traits. "The spectators are incapable of deciding if I am a 'face' to be supported or a 'heel' to be reviled. Either way, I am popular and the audience enjoys my performance. Bendak Tar'kyram, or Starkiller as he is known here, is beloved for the longevity of his winning streak and despised for his cruelty. As a Mandalorian, he is hated and admired, for Taris suffered somewhat in the Mandalorian Wars. The loyalty of the spectators is divided."

I suspected that the kid's eyes would glaze over even if I said something as straightforward as "Where are the refreshers?" using my stage voice. It seemed that, no matter what I said, within seconds his mouth gaped and his eyelids half-closed like an idiot. Maybe I wasn't supposed to tell him anything but orders.

After a moment he snapped out of it. "You've got five minutes left, Mysterious Stranger. Fight bravely! Die well!"

I nodded in acknowledgment. The child scampered off, leaving me with my thoughts. Even in the little cell of a challenger’s room, the audience’s murmur was too loud to ignore.

It was a big turnout; Ajuur was almost obscenely pleased, despite the fact that he had paid extremely heavy bribes to get authorities to ignore a deathmatch with so many spectators. The Hutt stood to make a lot of credits off of this. The largest media event on the planet had always been swoop racing, and that was controlled by individual gangs. He benefited from the races, but only because of the individual gangs he backed. But this? A percent of every ticket to the arena, every rental of a cantina viewscreen, every wager, and every live viewing went to him personally. This was the kind of profit that could make him into a rival for Zax.

Almost without my own volition, my hands flitted up to my head again, patting and smoothing the rough folds of cloth, once again making sure that the holoshroud was in place. It was, of course; it had been placed and centered and pinned and checked and rechecked. Repeatedly.

It was something I had insisted upon before my very first match. What if occupying Sith saw my face, realized that I had only started dueling after the Endar Spire was destroyed, and matched me to my record as part of the crew? I wasn’t going to draw stares in a crowd of fellow humans, even on Taris where the overwhelming majority was fair-skinned, but neither was I bland enough that it would be shrugged off as coincidence if I was broadcast planetwide in a duel.

The holoshroud was functioning perfectly. My vision was unimpeded, and yet there was no possibility that anyone would see enough of my face to be able to recognize me later. Perhaps the outline of my brow or some portion of my nose could be made out, but that in itself was not damning. I was fully anonymous, and unless I died only Carth, Mission, and Zaalbar would know for sure that the Mysterious Stranger – billed as having ‘no history, no past, and no name’ - was really Kyta, scout and interpreter for the Republic.

But I was nervous. Anxious. I felt restless, having to restrain the urge to pace rapidly in tight figures of eight.

If only there was another way! I didn't want to fight Bendak. Not to the death.

I'd been nervous before my previous duels, with Twitch and Marl and Ice. Heart pounding, stomach fluttering, palms sweating. I'd had Gerlon's measure before I faced him, but I had even felt nervous facing Deadeye Duncan. My previous duels, except the one I'd had with Duncan, who fell far too quickly, had been fun after they actually got started. Challenging. But our weapons had been inhibited. Blows had been painful, but my opponent and I were able to walk out and either shake hands or nurse sullen grievances. Even Twitch's concealed grenades hadn't ruined that sensation that dueling was fun.

Perhaps I indulged in a certain shameful pleasure in real combat, with Black Vulkars and rakghouls and hapless Sith patrollers, but I felt assured that no matter how melodramatically Ajuur hyped my matches, no one would really be hurt. Carth and Mission and Zaalbar wouldn't be at risk if I dragged a fight out. No one would die, not even my opponents. There would be no widows, no grieving friends, and no bereft relatives.

Well, that was changed. Bendak Starkiller would only duel to the death. Zax would pay me a considerable bounty, but it was insignificant when compared to the winner's purse for winning this lethal duel.

I didn't want the money for the sake of having money. But the Tarisian Season Opener was the day after tomorrow. And I just didn't have enough credits to pay the racer's fee. Gadon Thek had sponsored me, allowing me the chance, but I had never been initiated into the gang and so I wasn't actually a Hidden Bek. Gadon would only do so much – the Beks were numerous and loved by citizens, but not particularly wealthy. If his racers won, Bastila would be freed, but I knew it could not be so simple. To be there when it happened, I had to pay my own way.

If only I hadn't spent my credits so freely earlier. Paying off bounty hunters, treating injured folk, giving the hunted what they needed to pay their fees, buying drinks for Sith grunts, buying Matrik specialized explosives and helping him fake his own death, the credits I had "dropped" in the Outcast village, not to mention all that equipment I'd bought and the bribes I handed out whenever Sith felt suspicious about my papers... yes, I'd picked up healthy sums from Zax for Matrik and Selwen, and yes, I'd done a certain amount of looting off of downed opponents and in the Vulkar base, and yes, duels paid well, and all in all I’d come out ahead. But I still didn't have enough to participate in the season opener.

Well, what else could I have done? The majority of the credits had gone to people who had needed them more than I had. They were people who'd hardly done anything, who'd been a little late at returning loans, who'd informed on murderous criminals, who'd simply refused the advances of thugs... They were the thin, ragged Outcasts, the Ithorian bumbling into the territory of bigoted, predatory children, the terrified old men held at blasterpoint by smug goons. They were desperate, friendless, and alone. If I had done nothing when I could have stepped in... well, that would have meant I condoned such miserable actions.

After all, someone had to do something about these things before they became too terrible. And in my heart of hearts, down at a level of knowledge even more essential than my name, I am someone.

A pretty sentiment, and it hadn’t yet guided me into any inescapable corners, although I knew Carth sometimes disapproved of how freely I spent our money. What drove me to find Bastila, to try so hard to get into the season opener instead of working with the Beks, was more than the standard ‘rescue a captured superior officer’. More than keeping her Battle Meditation out of the hands of the Sith. It was the knowledge that when I found her, she would tell me why I dreamed of her. Why when I thought about her it became hard to breathe. I even forgot about the unfortunates around me, and sometimes I found myself reaching for something that wasn't there. It was related to Bastila somehow, I knew it.

The diode next to the door of the challenger's corner, the door which opened into the ring, blinked red, and the door itself opened. It was time.

For Bastila, I reminded myself as I emerged out from my "corner" and into the dueling ring. For Bastila.

The announcer did his job and the spectators screamed in gleeful anticipation as we were announced. While he built the suspense, Bendak and I took the time to study each other.

As I had seen before, he looked every centimeter the Mandalorian warrior. Tall, broad of shoulders and narrow of waist, his Neo Crusader armor had been polished to a soft sheen, the handful of nicks and cuts in it clearly visible, badges of pride. The armor's color was golden yellow, a sign of great rank among Mandalorians. Rank that I privately felt he had never earned. He had been one of them, he had fought the Republic under Mandalore. Of that I had no doubt. But if he had really attained the rank indicated by that color, would he be here, on Taris, living among outsiders? I thought not. He had a blaster and a vibrosword, both of very fine quality. I had no doubt in his ablity to use them.

I knew what I looked like. Leaning towards the "tall" end of the "normal height" spectrum, I was bulky enough to appear either male or female in my thin, lightweight combat vest - the antithesis of a Mandalorian's signature all-concealing, all-protecting armor, my vest would turn the sharp edge of a vibroblade and absorb some of the energy from a blaster shot, but it wouldn't help me with an impact, nor did it cover my head or limbs. The rest of my clothing was meant to allow me the greatest possible degree of mobility. From my boots to my vibroblade, the only thing that couldn't be found in the homes of average Middle or Lower City Tarisians was the holoshroud, which looked like nothing more than a hood that cast impenetrable shadows over my face.

The Mysterious Stranger versus Bendak Starkiller. The faceless mystery against the equally faceless Mandalorian. It sounded like a bad holodrama.

It took a moment before I realized that the announcer had stopped speaking. Introspection later, action now!

I'd expected Bendak to use his blaster. He didn't. He used his vibrosword.

The sight of the armored Mandalorian warrior charging full tilt with intent to kill was marvelously thrilling. I wanted to cower back, I wanted to run, I wanted to be anywhere but here. He was bigger than me, and stronger, and armored. Yet there was something spectacular about the sight, something that woke an aliveness that sang through my veins and held me steady.

A sweeping downstroke, powerful but relatively slow, came at my head, intended to cleave me from crown to pelvis. My arm shot out, hilt wide of my body, point in at a diagonal.

I caught his sword with a jarring impact that vibrated my body and woke an ache in my elbows, and saw as his sword started to slide, sparking, down my blade towards its tip. A lesser duelist would have slid all the way off, leaving himself off balance for a critical few seconds.

Bendak didn't. Recovering with a speed that was almost inhuman, he drew back and struck again, lunging low. Barely reacting in time, I kept the hilt by my navel and took it on the low part of the blade, shunting it aside and attempting a riposte. I struck sparks against his abdominal plate, leaving another centimeter-deep scratch in its surface.

I felt a laugh of joy and anticipation rising, and did not know if it was mine or his.

The Mandalorian took a few steps back; we circled warily. Lazily, Bendak spun his vibrosword loosely in his armored fingers, an arrogant gesture meant to show me that his hands hadn’t locked their grip; he was not nervous in the least. Had he been a lesser duelist, he might have tossed the hilt from one hand to the other, and I would have swung my weapon and taken it from him. But he was not, and I knew that his confidence was entirely justified.

He is better than me. The realization caused a chill shiver to move from my spine down my arms. The odd, tight thrill I’d felt when he first charged evaporated, leaving hollowness behind.

He’s better at this than I am. Before going to Ajuur I had looked closely at the Mandalorian, studying him from a distance and going by gut instinct, and I had made the decision then, for Bastila’s sake. I had misjudged him, and badly.

I’d thought that I was Bendak’s equal or superior. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t move as fast as I had assumed that I could, couldn’t strike with the power I’d thought I could muster, couldn’t anticipate his moves as I’d unconsciously believed that I could. I wasn’t a Jedi - how could I have assumed that I could fight like one?

Too late to back out now. Now the question was whether I could survive this, and how.

If he wasn’t in a helmet I could watch his eyes; sometimes the face gives away the next move. As it was, I kept one eye on his feet, knowing that they would have to shift before he attacked again. The floor of the dueling ring had been buffed and sanded beforehand, while spectators were still filing in; there were no littered objects or irregularities to trip a duelist and cast the outcome in doubt. The winner of this match would win purely by virtue of skill, with minimal reliance on luck.

I could die, I realized. Oh, I’d known it before, I wasn’t an idiot. But this was the first time that it really hit me. I’d thought about what it would mean to my opponent, but not to me. I could be killed, murdered over money.

I could die. There’s no taking cover or running this time, no allies to bail me out or back me up. They’re watching me fight, but they can’t help now. No wonder Carth had been so against this, no wonder he’d even started talking to Mission about burglarizing apartments when he’d been so set against the idea before. It had taken a long time to talk him around.

I could die. Bendak had no qualms about killing. He’d be happy to do it – he knew that he could. Where will Carth and Mission and Zaalbar be? Where will Bastila be?

The Mandalorian chose that instant to close with me, sword low and flashing, in my face almost before I’d seen him move. He was good. All I could do was react.

Block low, spring back away from a slash at my legs. I couldn’t get my vibroblade into position for a counterattack, not without leaving myself open. Bendak was good. His technique looked wild, random, as if he was simply flailing. He wasn’t. The control behind each blow, the training – he was a Mandalorian, he had trained and drilled since he was a child at the art of war, whereas everyone else that I’d fought had gone through a few years at most of formal drilling.

I stepped back, and again, trying to diffuse some of the bone-jarring force of his arms with only moderate success. My elbows, my shoulders, my wrists, my hands, they all hurt.

The strangest feeling came over me then – I’ve done this before. Not this, specifically. But at another time, in another place, in a different ring, I had strived against a tall Mandalorian with golden armor and frightening strength. And this attempt to lessen the impacts was part of a technique to maneuver me into a position of disadvantage.

The ring was at the bottom of a sheer-walled pit, constructed to keep audience and duelists close but unable to interfere with each other. If he could trap me against the sides – well, I probably wouldn’t like what happened then.

I sidestepped as I retreated, continuing to parry. Bendak was dragging this out, I knew, savoring his first duel in years. I was acting entirely on the defensive as he did nothing but attack and circle. If he just committed I would probably go down within–

I shouldn’t have thought that.

Ah! We closed again, and once more the Mandalorian’s vibroblade blurred from the speed of his attacks. High, low, left, right - fast, too fast! I could barely catch them, my vibroblade seemed heavy and sluggish-

Bendak swept my sword away from my body, though not out of my grip, and produced another of those sweeping downblows. I didn't have time to raise my blade back up or get out of the way. There was only one thing I could do to keep from being cleaved – only one thing that I had the time and speed to do.

The vibrosword impacted my raised right arm, shearing through the muscle to hit bone with a sickening thock.

Time slowed as I stared. It was like a piece of abstract art – the gleaming blade, contrasting sharply with the material of my sleeve, and the bright blood that just barely showed, in that moment before real bleeding could start. I felt no pain, not then, although certainly a curious sensation filled me.

I am about to die.

Oddly, the thought was not distressing or disturbing. I rolled it around in my head a few times, restated and rephrased it, and still, found nothing more bothersome than I can’t die yet. There’s so much I still have to do.

And then I felt it.

My senses all seemed to tingle and fluctuate, each hypersensitive in turn. I could smell and taste my blood and sweat, the polish on Bendak’s armor, the entirely different polish on the floor of the ring. My eyes saw every little detail and imperfection in his visor, his eyes barely visible through it, my faceless shrouded reflection in the visor’s surface. My ears could pick out the differences between my vibroblade’s hum and his, distinguish the shouts of individuals in the crowd – I thought I heard the voices of my friends, raised in horror and surprise. I felt the currents of air pumped in from the ventilation system, disturbing the way my clothing hung on my body; I was newly aware of the way my clothes hung on my body, the way my boots clung to my feet. Each normal sense flared up and damped back down, bewilderingly.

But more importantly, I felt something else. Something bigger. A oneness.

I was a part of something vastly, immeasurably greater than myself. So was everything and everyone else. A power that formed the very fabric of reality, that bound all things together to the point where all were one, and yet set each so apart from all the others that they were impossible to compare.

We were all interconnected on so many levels – me, Bendak, the air, the floor of the ring, the spectators… all of us and more, Taris’s core, the star it orbited, the space between the stars. Interconnected, interwoven into a vast, glorious whole of dark and light and shadow, competing and complementing each other.

To know that was … as if, for years and years, I had been blind, deaf, and insensate, and now that had changed. Like there had been a pipe filled with fluid under great pressure inside me, and it had broken, and I was more than filled, it was flowing from my eyes and mouth and nose, spilling over.

I could have laughed; I could have cried. It was beautiful. I hadn’t known how much I’d missed it. It was finally falling asleep after a very long, eventful day. It was waking up in the morning.

The sensation was one that I couldn’t possibly have felt before in my life, and yet it was as familiar to me as my own skin.

Instinctively, I reached out to Bendak, he who was closest. He was aware that something had changed. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but he took a step back, pulling the vibrosword away from my arm.

It had severed an artery. I stopped the bleeding with a thought.

Most of the rest of the world, the galaxy, faded from my consciousness. There was only Bendak, the ring, and me. He agreed to my proposal. Changing my grip on my vibroblade – my right hand was nearly useless, but that was not a problem – I anticipated the Mandalorian’s horizontal stroke to leap.

 

 

In orbit over Taris, an off-duty crewmember on the Leviathan watched the piped-in live feed of the Starkiller-Stranger duel. Stranger bounded over Starkiller, flipping acrobatically in midair, and landed swinging, but Starkiller parried, striking sparks.

Starkiller and Stranger exchanged a series of rapid flurries and counters so smooth that they could have been rehearsed, then started to chase each other around the ring. It seemed to the crewmember, as he sat back with his feet up on the console, that they were both moving faster now - and the next time Stranger leaped, it was towards Starkiller, who also jumped up to meet in another clash of blades.

The Sith crewmember sighed. He’d really hoped that the lethal duel would be real, but these days it seemed like all entertainment was faked. Both combatants were clearly working together and milking the drama, copying a lot of Jedi-type moves. The plebian masses, he knew, would be impressed, and it was true that he hadn’t seen two Dark Jedi duel it out since Darth Malak rose to power – after he became Daritha, poison and “accidents” had become much more popular than old-school duels and daggers in the night.  And a crewmember like him never got to see one of the Sith gutting a Republic Jedi.  But this! It was fake! A mockery!

Mandalorians just didn’t do that, that jumping around and doing impossible dodges. And if any acrobatic Jedi–types had been on Taris, he would have heard about it. The Daritha Lord Malak would have ordered strike forces out, and every crewmember on the Leviathan would know.  The only Jedi to escape the Endar Spire was Bastila. But her hips couldn’t have fit into that Mandalorian armor, and her waist and shoulders were too thin to belong to Stranger.  Besides, who in their right mind would enter into the highly public dueling arena?  Had to be fake.  He'd been following the Mysterious Stranger ever since the guy first started fighting - it was so dissappointing to see that the one and only deathmatch was more staged than all the non-lethal previous fights.

Where is the galaxy going these days?

 

 

The words, strange and hauntingly familiar, dropped through me like pebbles into a still pool.

Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet…

I moved and fought with more speed and agility and strength than I could have imagined possible, an even match for Bendak. He too was touched by whatever I felt, but not as strongly. Part of me, part of him, was focused intently on what we were doing, retreating, pursuing, clashing and locking and disengaging – and yes, getting marked.

But it had long stopped feeling like a fight of any kind. I felt no pressure, no anxiety, no pain, despite my arm and the other, minor wounds that had been created over the course of this bout. No fear either, no worry, and no doubt. Bendak, I tastesawfeltknew, was the same. Tranquility, suffused with joy.

It occurred to me, as it must have occurred to him, that this could be the moment I had been heading towards for my entire existence. It wasn’t, though, not really. There was so much ahead, and so much of it was dark and terrible, but as long as this state was with me, this state where I could pull back and see the connections binding all things living and non… as long as I had that, it would be fine.

I knew that I would be the victor. Bendak knew that too. He had little argument to make – the Mandalorian’s past was so sullied and stained that despite his riches and fame he felt no lasting satisfaction. Bendak had little desire to live, having sought an honorable death in the arena for years. If he won, he would simply continue on as before, waiting for a new challenger, alone and aloof. In his world there was nothing and no one to live for.  I was going to win.

The only question was how much effort he would get out of me first.

It was a long and dramatic battle, I was told later. The onlookers couldn’t tell who was winning from one moment to the next. I was injured, but I bled very little, and I also cut through Bendak’s armor in a few places. Messages, commentary, and fresh wagers, all related to the duel, alternately buzzed throuought all of Taris and silenced during one of the many tense climaxes. The event rivaled swoop racing in planetwide popularity, making Ajuur’s cantina into as much of a household name as Javyyar’s down in the Lower City.

I didn’t know any of that until after I was paid. For me, in the moment, it was almost as if we had rehearsed the whole thing beforehand; I knew what Bendak intended to do as soon as he did, and reacted accordingly, letting reflexes and that strange state of being guide me. It was like a dance. It was a dance.

It continued being a dance as the Mandalorian seemed to ease a weakened point in his breastplate over the tip of my vibroblade, which I extended automatically, bracing my arm so that it barely trembled. I felt the edges of my blade push through the cut in the armor, grating on the edges; I felt it as muscle gave and the same edge clipped a bone and continued on into softer tissue. Such a small distance in centimeters, perhaps a quarter of my vibroblade’s length, yet it seemed to take a very long time.

And then it wasn’t a dance any more. I pulled away, my hand releasing the hilt and hanging useless and empty as I stared, horrified. The sight imprinted itself into my brain – I couldn’t look away.

Not quite dead yet, Bendak’s vibrosword fell from his armored hand to clang unnoticed on the floor. He brought his hands up to where my blade still stuck out of his chest; they felt the blade and the hilt as he looked down, his stance widening as he fought to stand.

Slowly, slowly, he sank to his knees, trying vainly to get up again. His gauntlets clasped around my hilt and he tried to pull my vibroblade out of his chest, making his back arch with pain. Dark mixed fluids dribbled, then began to flow, tracing down his golden armor to drip thickly on the buffed ring floor.

He tried and he tried and just as I thought I couldn’t bear to watch anymore Bendak managed, forcing my weapon’s hilt away from him and exposing centimeters of dark, wet blade, until his elbows were straight and the tip was clear, and the fluids poured faster. Curled over in agony, he dropped the vibroblade and clapped his hands to the hole in his armor, but in the gaps between his fingers it still flowed freely.

I stepped closer, against my own volition, and could feel his labored, painful breaths. Rasp in, short and shallow and harsh; choke out, coughing wetly as blood and mucus and saliva drooled from his mouth and nose to pool within his helmet. It would kill him within minutes. Skilled medics might have saved him, but they would not come. He would not accept them if they came. This was, at last, a warrior’s death – slower and more painful than some, but far better than others.

Closer. I could see and feel and taste the energies roiling out of him like the smoke from a burning wreck. Pain and inarticulate regrets and the powerful animal fear of death, so powerful that it overwhelmed anything and everything else. I couldn’t abide it. Closer. Within arm’s length.

On a weak neck, Bendak lolled his head up to stare at me, trapping my gaze with his. Instinctively, on an impulse both alien and familiar, I reached out with both hands, not feeling the cuts and lacerations on my arms, and cupped them on either side of his visor. The energies within me rose and poured into him, running from me to him like a transfusion, compelling me to act further.

The words, my first since stepping into the ring, came from nowhere.  I didn't know what they meant.  But they had meaning all the same.  “You have reclaimed your honor,” I whispered, my voice low and compelling. He heard. Unseen, his eyes closed. “You have done as well as anyone. This is a warrior’s death. Go. Become a part of the manda.” Brain fogged and failing, he thought that I was someone else, some authority figure of his. A parent or teacher, perhaps. I didn’t bother correcting him.

Now the energies from him, though still tinged with pain and fear, were clearer. He accepted it. Embraced it. I released him and he sank, graceless, to collapse at my feet. Although he still breathed and coughed weakly, his essence was escaping, and soon all of the power would be gone from his body. I stood and watched.

As the last of it fled, I realized that I had given him too much. The life leaving Bendak’s body took with it my newfound senses, like a door closing to block the light outside. I felt a part of me ebb and fade and trickle exactly like blood from a deep cut, back into the ether from which it had come.

No! It was too late. The door was shut, the man was dead, and I was in the dark again. All that strange and glorious energy, that feeling as if I was so very much more than a simple scout – had I imagined it all? Had it been some kind of hallucination, brought on by stress and adrenaline? The entire exchange, from the stab to his death, had taken only a few seconds.

I became aware of where I was, then. The screaming of people around and above made me jerk, made my hands grope at my belt for something that was not there. But no, they were not screaming in fear – this was the frenzied joy of bloodlust. They were wild with it, and had been crying out for quite some time before I noticed. Looking up, I saw that they were surging around above the ring. Some dropped or threw credit coins, by the handful or in pouches. These fell to the floor like an odd rain.

Disgusting. That they would be so pleased at a death! It was-

“Bendak Starkiller is down! Ben-dak Starkiller is DEAD! “ The announcer’s amplified voice carried, even over the crowd, whose volume rose further into triumphant shrieks. I looked down and stared with growing horror at the Mandalorian’s crumpled form.

“No,” I whispered. “It’s not right.” I couldn’t have beaten him – he was better than me! It didn’t make any sense – I must have been phenomenally lucky. Yes. That was it, luck.

The cuts I’d picked up, most of them fairly minor but for the bone-deep one on my right forearm, began to bleed and to hurt, joining with an ache in my muscles and an intense headache. The fight caught up to me, then, and I staggered, suddenly so weary that I could have lay there and slept despite the screaming and the pelting hail of credits. But my wounds and exhaustion were not what rocked me back and made me feel sick.

Monster. Murderer. I had been so quick to condemn the spectators and their enjoyment of blood sports. But who had come down here and killed a man, not in defense of others or myself, without an opportunity of any kind to disengage? Me. I had done it. A man was dead, a man who surely had once had hopes and ambitions and friends and family and now that was gone and why? Money.

I… killed for… for money. I’m as bad as he was. He did it for the challenge. I did it for the credits.

This was worse than pressing Selwen, knowing that she would react and that we would then kill her. It was worse – had she relented, had she surrendered, had she tried to run… I would have called off my friends. I would have let her live, even knowing that she was the most dangerous assassin on Taris. She would not have done the same for me. And I would not have done that for Bendak.

I’m a murderer again. Again? For a moment, I was distracted. No, that didn’t make any sense – I’d killed before, on Taris and on the Endar Spire, but there was justification – war, defense of others, defense of myself. It was still a terrible thing to do, but it wasn’t murder. Why had I thought that? Had I done something in the past that-

…No. No, that’s not important. Not like -

I’m a murderer now. Cold seized me and I heaved as bile rose in my throat. With difficulty I swallowed, eyes watering up. Combined with sickened horror, the sour, musty taste in my mouth, in my nose, briefly made me heave again, but I swallowed that too.

Blood was trickling out of my nostrils and smearing on my face, hidden under the holoshroud. I had no idea when that had happened – I hadn’t been hit in the face at any point. It was strange. But it really didn’t matter.

Murderer. He was dead. He was really dead. Now that the duel was over, I could feel. Guilt. Shame. Even remorse. If only there had been some other way. If only!

Murderer. I stood fixed and rigid, staring blindly at the body as if expecting it to rise again. Eventually, before all the spectators could leave, the scrawny preadolescent boy, unshaken and chatty as ever, came and got me and led me back out of the ring.  I followed, as empty and artificial as a badly-programmed droid.

My friends were there, Carth and Mission and Zaalbar, and mercifully they did not lecture, or nag, or act joyful about the outcome of the duel.  None of them spoke at all as the medics injected me with antishock agents, put sterilizing agents into my cuts, and covered them over with adhesive.  My friends knew what I had done. Why I had done it. They could see it on my face, when I tore off the holoshroud and let it flutter to the ground.

I saw it on their faces.  And I was glad that I had spared them doing as I had done.  They felt the way I did. It was terrible.  It was necessary. I did what had to be done. For Bastila.

For Bastila.