The Old Republic: Broken

Dorian Cain sat cross-legged on the ceramic floor of the small room, eyes closed in meditation. In truth, this was only one of many similar rooms located inside the Jedi Temple at Coruscant. In places like this, Jedi Masters and Knights alike could teach their students the essential skills to become the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy.

"Focus your mind," a middle-aged man bade from the corner of the room. "Your sight is not required for this exercise, young Padawan."

The Padawan learner ran a hand over his head and back to his small pony tail, quietly digesting his master's instructions. Despite those directions, however, Dorian did indeed open his eyes and glance down once more at the deconstructed materials of his lightsaber on the floor before him. Each piece was essential, he knew, an intricate work of art that could only be constructed through the utmost level of patience. He could easily see why such a test had been required before-in order to become a Padawan learner-but to complete the task without the aid of his senses? Such a task seemed foolhardy. He'd hardly been able to take it apart at his master's bidding, let alone assemble it without his eyes or his hands.

The man in the corner scratched at his growing beard. "The task is quite possible, I assure you," he said through a smile, as if he was reading his student's mind.

Of course, he probably was, Dorian knew.

Dorian closed his eyes once again and worked to obtain the level of focus required for the task before him. He started by doing a mental check of each muscle, ensuring that he had relieved any tension that he might be causing consciously. Next, he worked to steady his breathing, taking deep relaxing breaths. Each exhale seemed to bring him closer and closer to that level of concentration, putting his nerve endings at ease one group at a time. It was all a process designed to clear his thoughts, to quiet anything that might disturb the mind.

"Good," the instructor whispered to himself as he watched the spectacle. He could feel more than see the tranquility emanating from his student, an image of serenity. He took a mental picture of the scene; his student was truly at peace.

Mind and body at ease, Dorian began to picture each component individually and, more importantly, in its entirety. In his minds eye, he could see the wear on the handgrip, the smooth level of the lens, even the scratch on the activation plate from when he'd first assembled it. One by one they came into his mind and one by one he willed them into position.

Dorian's master smiled at the spectacle, his expression one of satisfaction. He watched as the scattered components of his student's lightsaber rose seemingly of their own accord, all meeting in one central location. Piece by piece those materials went together, like some complex puzzle returning to its original, unbroken form.

"Well done!" the Jedi Master called out, clapping all the while as the completed form of the lightsaber hovered in the air before his student.

Dorian opened his eyes and his lightsaber fell into his hands. Though crafted of its original components, the weapon felt different in some way. It was said that such a weapon aided a Jedi in his connection to the force, attuning him to its ever-present energies. The thought seemed logical, after all. He felt like the weapon had become more apart of him, and he of it; it was one of the most important relationships a Jedi could form in his lifetime.

He ignited his saber and ran it through a familiar attack routine. The bright blue blade flashed and hummed as it passed through the air, arcing and slashing as its wielder guided it. Anyone who looked on might say that the saber wasn't an object at all, but rather an extension of Dorian's own arm, so controlled were his swings. In one fluid motion, Dorian extinguished the weapon and returned it to the belt fastened about his waist.

He looked up to meet his master's gaze. Within aged grey eyes he saw a proud man, one full of admiration.

====================================================================

Dorian's eyes shot open and the initial shock set in as his mind returned to the present. Whether the memory was a tool of the force or merely a random thought his brain had accessed during unconsciousness he did not know; he only knew that it had run its course.

But where was he? He glanced around, vaguely making out the ruins of the dark building he was located in. Most of the roof was still in tact, save for the radiating fractures that ran across its surface. Sparks erupted at random intervals above, evidence of some previous electrical system recently damaged.

He fought hard to remember the events that had led him here but thinking in itself was an arduous task. Everything felt fogged, numbed, as if his senses had been dulled to an almost non-existent level.

"Well, I see our prisoner is awake."

Dorian barely made the voice out, but the term prisoner seemed to stand out more than any other word the man had spoken. Alarms went off in his head and he sat up, or tried to, for only then did he realize his predicament. Faintly, he could feel the cold surface underneath him, hinting that his tunic had been removed. His hands and feet were bound by large manacles and several thick straps secured him to what seemed to be an operating table. Was he in an abandoned medical station, then?

A scrawny man came into view just then, his skin stretched paper thin over his skeletal face. Only a few strains of hair remained atop his nearly bald head and a pair of rectangular spectacles sat on his crooked nose. Even the Sith officers uniform, thick though it was, did little to hide his frail form. "Tell me, my dear boy, where are your fellow Jedi?" he spoke softly.

Fellow Jedi! Dorian's thoughts screamed at him. His memories came rushing back to him all at once. He remembered the deception of the Sith and their flag of peace. He remembered the assault on the Jedi temple and the pain he'd felt as each of his fellow comrades died beside him. He remembered the aerial bombers and their explosions, watching the once great statues fall to ruin.

The sacking of Coruscant was a memory he wished would have stayed buried.

"I ask again, where are your fellow Jedi?" the officer repeated more insistently.

Dorian guessed they thought he knew of some contingency plan, an emergency location that the Jedi had established as a place of safety should the temple ever come under attack.

Dorian knew of no such location.

The Padawan struggled to regain his senses; to fight against this imperceptible cloud that seemed to envelop his mind. He reached out through that cloud with his senses, weakened though they were, and asked the force to release him from his bonds.

The restraints didn't budge.

The withered old officer smiled, noticing the Padawan's brow furrow as he struggled for concentration. "Ahh young Jedi, your dark counterparts taught us well. You'll find your 'abilities' of no use here, not while our neural blocks are in place," he said, his voice showing the tiniest hint of triumphant satisfaction.

Dorian only then noticed the flickering light at the furthest edges of his peripheral vision. Though their presence was faint, he knew those green lights marked the neural blocks set against his temples.

His weak voice barely made it passed his lips. "I don't know where they are," Dorian said in all honesty.

A scowl quickly replaced the officer's smiling visage. The corners of his wrinkled mouth turned downward and his thin eyebrows slanted in anger as he snapped his fingers, signaling to whatever waited behind him.

A low hum sounded in response to that unspoken command, a mechanical vibration that was followed by a series of short bleeps. Into Dorian's vision came floating a spherical droid and attached to it were eight spidery arms, each outfitted with a variety of deadly-looking implements.

"Do it," the officer instructed.

All eight of those sinister-looking arms activated in unison just then, deadly tips twisting and rotating until thin razors adorned each limb. Not a moment later each arm darted into position, settling the razors against his naked abdomen and slowly drawing tiny red lines of blood as they made their way across his flesh.

Dorian wanted to cry, to meet the vocal requirement that his pain demanded of him. No scream issued from his lips however, nothing but a soft groan. Not even his eyes registered that pain, numbed as he was. However underneath his fogged shell of a body, his mind was indeed screaming.

The Sith officer jerked a lever and the medical table tilted forward until it was vertical, bringing Dorian face to face with the old man and also causing the droid to halt its torture tactics. His crooked nose nearly brushed Dorian's face as he snapped, "Where are the remaining Jedi!?"

Attempting to push the pain aside, Dorian searched for anything that could get him out of this predicament. Now that his table had been sat upright, he had a much better view of his surroundings. Quickly he made out the location of the three enemy troopers near the far entrance, a lower ranking Sith officer seated behind a mobile communications station, and-more importantly-his lightsaber resting on the belt of the Sith commander in front of him.

"I see he needs more 'convincing'," the man in command said, turning his head to the floating droid. "Activate your second protocol."

The droid's arms twisted and bent in their transformation once again, ending their sequence with rounded black tips. If Dorian had any question as to what they were for, those questions were immediately thrown aside when a strange metallic hiss came from within the droid. Like an ember fanned to life, those round black tips soon glowed red hot, promising a painful torture.

Dorian's head spun and his thoughts whirled as he searched his mind, looking for anything that would help him deal with the pain.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

He'd hardly caught the first phrase of the Jedi code as it fluttered by, but it was there. Whether or not the code applied directly to his current situation he had no idea; however the word peace stuck out to him. He needed to bring his mind to peace, to separate mind and body so that he wouldn't have to register that pain.

Dorian focused his mind and steeled himself against the incoming attack.

It was all futile; he felt every bit of it.

Those red hot torture tools touched down on his flesh one at a time, magnifying the pain as the seconds passed rather than experiencing it all at once. How a man could be so twisted as to program such a procedure into a droid, Dorian had no idea.

Dorian couldn't take it. Inside, his mind was a red wall of pain. He could actually smell his burning flesh as each poker made contact. The agony was so great, so extreme, that although he couldn't move, he managed to turn his head away from the awful procedure.

One of the droids arms snapped out, quickly rotating into a three-pronged claw and catching him by the chin. With one quick jerk, the droid snapped his head back into position, forcing the Padawan to bear witness as smoke wafted up from seven grisly wounds.

The thought flickered back. What cruel engineer would program such a thing?

Dorian wouldn't have thought thinking to be possible, not during what he was going through. However, through that wall of pain, he noticed pile of bodies at the door. The troopers were bringing in the corpses of the fallen from outside, stacking them in the far corner of the room. There were many former soldiers of the republic, even a few from the Jedi Order; however one in particular caught his attention. It wasn't the beard that gave him away, nor the garb that marked him as a Jedi warrior.

It was his eyes.

Those aged grey eyes, orbs now lifeless and staring back at him.

His sorrow reached its peak just then, a level of despair never before felt by the Padawan Learner. The man that had been a father to him, a brother to him, a friend to him, sat dead in the very city he felt most protected. Every memory he had of his master, every happy moment, every trial and tribulation, all of it came crashing down in a great heap of emotional agony.

Dorian's low groan turned into a scream of pain.

The Sith officer took a step back, confused by the spectacle.

Dorian screamed again, louder.

The Sith officer looked to his assistant, signaling for him to check the neural blocking levels.

Dorian's scream became one of primal fury, raw and uncontrolled. The fingers of his right hand flexed into a tight claw. He asked, no, he demanded that the force obey his command.

It answered his call.

The lightsaber on the officer's belt came flying to his grasp, silently promising to free him from his bonds. Dorian ignited the saber and began to twist his wrist violently, deftly angling the blue blade in a dozen different directions. Within seconds he performed acts that matched the very definition of precision. The saber severed the arms of the torture droid, seared the manacles and straps locking him in place, and even grazed the neural blocks at his temples, destroying them and allowing their melted remains to fall to the floor.

The commanding officer panicked. He began backpedaling towards the exit, offering quick glances behind him but never letting his eyes leave the Jedi for too long. On one of those glances, he seized what he thought was an opportunity and grabbed the wheeled chair the other officer was sitting in, sending him rolling toward Dorian in a foolish hope that it would slow down the Jedi's inevitable pursuit.

Dorian stood there, his entire torso a roadmap of pain. He felt nothing and everything all at once. There was no pain, nothing that could hold his attention now. However his senses were keen and his mind determined. He stalked forward now not just for his own gratification, but to avenge every death that had been wrongly taken. He executed a quick horizontal swing, a right to left move that seared the droid into two halves. He let his momentum carry him into a spin, coming around to thrust a hand forward. The seated officer yelped in his flight as a shockwave of force sent him into the air.

The commanding officer continued his backward stumble, finally taking refuge behind three troopers who hesitantly brought their rifles to bear.

"Shoot him!" the officer screamed, more panicked than angered.

Three rifles raised and three rifles fired, unleashing a barrage of blaster bolts in the Jedi's direction.

Dorian's saber worked in a blur, humming as it arced to meet each bolt that came close. He leaped forward and to the left, then pushed off his left foot to leap forward and to the right, keeping clear of the three-man shooting squad all the while. Off of his right foot he went, a third leap that sent him into the air and one that guaranteed that the distance between him and his enemy combatants would be cleared.

The center trooper's eyes went wide as he saw the bright blue blade descending rapidly. Effortlessly the lightsaber burned through armor, flesh and bone, cleaving him in two from his collar bone to his groin.

The blade flashed left just then, sawing the left trooper's blaster rifle in half then quickly performing a devastating horizontal slash to the right.

Darkness filled the right trooper's vision as his head detached from his body; however Dorian had the light saber inverted and thrust behind him before the head ever hit the ground. The blade buzzed as it entered the left trooper's abdomen, promising an agonizing death.

The commanding officer's eyes widened as he watched everything occur, his jaw even trembled as he sputtered something incomprehensible.

Dorian stood up and faced his punisher, leveling the lightsaber his way.

"Mercy!" the man shouted, falling to his knees.

Dorian visibly trembled in anger. "You tortured me," he said through a pained expression. "You burned me!" his voice raised one octave higher as he clutched at his wounds with his left hand. "And now you want me to stay my hand?" He asked, voice full of disbelief.

The officer looked up through spectacles fogged from rapid breaths, desperation clear on his face as he begged and pleaded for his life. He spoke of his son, of the boy that he wanted so badly to raise into manhood.

"I remember a boy," Dorian said softly, tears welling up in his eyes as he stared at the man; however his mind was someplace else, someplace far far away. "A boy who was saved," he said, the last word bringing a smile that allowed the first tear to fall.

The kneeling man nodded quickly, a knowing look on his face as he sincerely tried to relate to his escaped prisoner.

Dorian's expression drained at his next words. "You took that boy's savior away," he said. "You took him from me."

The Sith commander shook his head rapidly back and forth a dozen times, interweaving the words "No" and "Please" in one long sentence. Dorian couldn't hear him though; all he could see was his master's lifeless form. With every last vestige of strength he had, Dorian Cain let out a scream full of despair. He slapped his left hand on the commander's shoulder and pulled him forward, spearing him through the chest with a weapon built to save lives, not destroy them.

"What have I done?" he whispered to himself as the gravity of his crime became apparent. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he remembered the laws that he had sworn to follow, the code he had vowed to uphold.

The blue blade of the Jedi weapon extinguished and fell from his grasp, falling to the floor and bouncing out of reach.

Dorian dropped to his knees and buried his face in his hands, questioning a decision that would change the rest of his life.