Allegory 3

Allegory
Allegory 2

For four standard years I have been chased from one end of the Outer Rim to the other, eluding the Dark Lord Vader’s fleet by the skin of my teeth in some cases. So far, I had proven very proficient at slinking away like an adolescent hawk-bat into the crevasses of Coruscant’s untamed lower levels.

Perched in the tree, I calmed myself. I could afford a moment of reflection while I found my center and waited for my prey, but my ruminations came to a halt at a startling realization: I actually couldn’t remember the name of the planet I was on.

It was one of those numbered moons anyway, virtually anonymous—like most others this far from the Core Worlds. Not exactly a place the Jedi Order had actively sent envoys before the Clone Wars.

Sometimes it seemed like the rest of the galaxy had already forgotten what life was like during the peaceful days of the Republic. Then again, out here in the Outer Rim, the Republic didn’t mean much to begin with.

Another day, another flight from the nagging thoughts of futility and despair. Another fight.

Always another fight.

The stormtrooper contingent the Empire had sent here was today’s special. I waited, ever patient, crouching on the gnarled branch several meters above the jungle clearing. This squad of six had taken my bait and split from the rest of the garrison.

They intended to squash a local uprising and bring in a fugitive. Why the Empire cared so much about tightening its grip around meaningless worlds this far out was beyond me. Maybe I would find out. If not, at least I got to thin the herd a bit more. Win, win.

As the squad cautiously followed the trail I had left for them, slowly approaching my kill zone, I could sense their feelings in the Force. I imbibed their wariness, savoring the tang of fear in the pointman.

I also observed the uniqueness of each. Imperial stormtroopers, I had come to notice, felt increasingly different in the Force than the clone army had. Granted, the clones had been as unique as any other group of men just by virtue of their slightly disparate experiences, but the needs of the Empire (as well as the supposed termination of Kamino’s cannon fodder factory) demanded that regular, home-grown boys be integrated in order to make up for the dwindling numbers of hyper-aging clones.

Beneath their shiny new plastoid armor, however, the effect was the same: faceless, soulless, identical minions of the local Moffs.

They were so close that I could hear the static flicker of the leader’s built-in helmet comlink punctuating his order to fan out.

Closer…

Terrorist, I was dubbed by the local propaganda. Vigilante by some of the locals, nuisance by the Imperial officers. And those sentients who really knew their elbows from their dorsal parts labeled me a menace.

The Jedi Council, had they still been around to pass judgment, would probably call me dark.

Weariness once again began to creep in around the periphery of my being; thinking of the lost Jedi was hardly conducive to a positive outlook. I wondered what became of my old friend, whose offer I had refused two years ago. His words echoed in my ears from time to time: Sooner or later, you’ll be caught. Your personal rebellion will be over, and you will have done no one any good. At least with us, you can hold on to the Jedi ideals.

I knew that it was only a matter of time until Vader finally caught up with me. The Purge had to be near complete by now, the progress of which would inevitably place me higher and higher on the Emperor’s hit list. You cannot escape your destiny.

And so I was “fighting the good fight,” but for what? No insurrection maintains a solid shape for long enough before dissolving. The Empire pushes a people too far, squeezes too hard, and inspires revolution in the form of localized factions. Unrelated, without unification. These insurgent groups are weaker than the sum of their parts.

Those brush fires burn too hot, consume themselves too quickly, and fizzle out. The galaxy didn’t need a series of solar flares—it needed a supernova of rebellion in order to gain enough momentum to actually take the Empire down. Without alliances, every rebellion is doomed to splinter, fracture, and fly apart under the centripetal force of its own revolutions.

No such alliance would ever form in this galaxy. The Empire had successfully placed a very thorough durasteel grip on the civilized galaxy, even expanding its sphere of influence beyond the Inner Rim. Worst of all, the citizens of the Empire were complicit in this transformation. And now, no one could defy the Empire for long. Good job, Palpatine.

So I was a one-man rebellion, just as futile in the big picture as all the rest. So be it. Maybe this was all in vain. Maybe the Empire had irrevocably triumphed and those of us idealists who were still clinging to the past were just deluding ourselves. Maybe the Dark Times were here to stay forever.

Maybe, but Master Windu would not have stopped, either. He would have fought the good fight, too.

And maybe there was no “right” or “wrong” anymore. It was too murky to tell anymore. I had seen good people pushed into doing atrocious things, and even the most corrupt scumbags appeared relatively benign when you looked at the big picture.

I honestly couldn’t tell anymore why I had remained committed to this cause, this one-man crusade. Was it really loyalty to the Jedi Order? The Order was gone. Wiped out. Forever. Was it some perversion of my duty to the Republic? The Republic had mutated into something unfathomable.

So what was it? Revenge? How long had I been willing to fight evil with evil in the name of the greater good? Maybe one man couldn’t make a difference anyway. Maybe it would be okay to just carve a little piece out of the galaxy for myself, settle down in some quiet corner with a new identity, and live through these dark times as peacefully as I could.

Fierfek, I thought. Talk like that is what perpetuates the real darkness in the galaxy.

First things first: these stormtroopers needed to be dealt with, then the rest of their garrison.

I crouched deeper still, artfully poised as though frozen in a moment, watching and waiting from above as the scouting party walked right into my trap.

With a loving caress of the activation button, the yellow blade of my lightsaber seemed to scream into existence and I leapt down to ambush my unsuspecting enemies with unmatched fury…