After this is Star Wars: The Needle part 2
Then it's Star Wars: The Needle part 3

I.

Aron stood alone on the observation deck aboard the Chaotic Jester, a newly modeled Republic interdictor class cruiser. It was top of the line. Scary, new stuff. Scan frequency jammers, life sign signature scramblers, long range communicators, even a cloaking prototype that made the ship look four times bigger than it really was. Standard time had the clock at 3:00am, but it might as well have been noon to the young Jedi Knight. He didn't do much sleeping lately. The view outside the transparisteel window was eeriely black. The Jester was in the outer spiral arm of the galaxy on it's outermost recesses. Beyond was the void. It made him think of an ancient Dantooinian legend about gods that lived on the edge of their planet, that the local humans once thought was flat. At the very end of the world lived their gods of chance and destiny, beings so sacred they controlled the destiny of everything on the planet, including every single god of anything else. The few on the planet that still bought into that stuff a little now liked to joke that the planets are only round because once humans achieved flight, the gods put all the ends of the worlds together so that the temple of fate could never be found.

This wasn't the end of the world.
This was the end of everything.

The force itself seemed an echo down a long corridor out in that abyss. And Aron had only a skeleton crew of sixteen men running this overpowered, overqualified land mine of a ship out here, hunting for phantom Mandalorians based on a tip from a "reliable" double agent.

The Republic itself was a steely war machine now. Two civil wars ago they defeated Mandalorian rebels, and here they were again, battling those conquest obsessed barbarians again. The only mercy this time is that there were no Sith to deal with. Thank the Force, that last war had some actual finality to it. And finality was the rarest and most precious resource in the galaxy.

Aron cocked his head to the side, ineffectively flicking a long set of blonde bangs out of his eyes, and continued to stand there, as he had for the past two hours, and puzzle out his situation. He could see the dimmest, translucent reflection of his own eyes looking back at him, two orbs of almost nothing but cold, oceanic blue.

Andrea had said his eyes were her favorite part about him. Aron had also liked  Andrea's green eyes in return. And Aron was lucky it was Andrea who was expelled from the Order and not him. It was all her idea after all. And why was he thinking about that? That was six years ago, another lifetime. A "childhood," if Jedi had such things. Still, Cadence took that much harder than he did. But Cadence was a sentimental, head-in-the-clouds dolt back then, anyway. Still was.

Aron yawned and pondered his way back to the intercom and fingered the talk key.
"Ryot, please send the sitrep to Ayver One that there's still no situation to report, k?"
"Aye, Captain Slifer, will do. Get some sleep by the way, hear me? I shouldn't be taking orders from you two cemetary shifts in a row."
"I think I give the orders, here, Deckland." Aron keyed off, but smiled. Deckland Ryot was the only officer on this ship not furious to be under the command of a nineteen year old kid. Nice guy.

At 3:38am standard, the engines started up as Chaotic Jester began it's move to another patrol station closer to Ayver Three than the far, far out gas giant Ayver four that hung so far out that the massive binary star Ayver was little more than a dot slightly brighter than the thick globule of stars behind the ship.  the view went from bleak to magnificent as the nebulous treasure of gold that the galaxy was took up the whole of the viewport. Aron Slifer took a moment to close his eyes and enjoy the sexual purr of the cruisers engines as it steered back into the solar system. The sound of the Force was too quiet out here, but the engines somewhat made up for that.
Two weeks left. If they didn't fish anything out of hyperspace, then he could go back to the temple for a while. Get back to training with Master Novey-Uy. Maybe, if he was lucky, he'd have enough time there to return to military service with something other than his pedigree as a Slifer to warrant his command of a ship.

"If everything is relative, then why fight them at all?" the apprentice asked solemnly. The boy was very young, maybe six, but six was perfect for a human apprentice. Reason was just coming into the boy's mind, logic, as well, but he was still at the pliable pinnacle of his youth. There weren't enough hours in the day for him to learn all he wanted to. His master loved his desire to absorb all this precious knowledge.

"Simple. They will always, always fight us. We are an abomination to their ways, their traditions, their rules, their religion!" the master turned back to the  tree, where the Ysalamiri sprawled lazily along a fat, low hanging limb.
"They cannot allow our use of the force anymore than this Ysalamiri can."

The apprentice squinted his almond shaped eyes at the orangey polkadotted  lizard then back at his master. "The lizard doesn't have any choice! The Jedi have choices! They're sentients, like us!"

The tall, black cloaked figure of the master knelt down to the boy's height, peering at him through his white mask.
"My student, my student..." the master caressed the boys deep tan cheek with a black gloved hand. "So that we may always survive, there are but two of us, and always will be. This is our strength. And, yet, two Sith could never influence twenty thousand Jedi on how the Force truly works, how it truly IS. The masked master's head cocked sideways, questioning the boy like a bird questions prey.

"I don't think we should have to kill them like that." The apprentice said.
"Many sith have enjoyed the death of Jedi. I am not one of them. I never have, and I never will. But nothing makes my heart more glad, more full of love, than to use, and to protect, the true Way of the Force. And, if I am to keep my joy, and yours, my student..." The master ruffled the boy's jet black hair with an equally black glove, "Then I will kill every...last...Jedi in our way."

II.

Jedi Knight Cadence Slifer knelt in front of his master. He was supposed to be meditating with a clear mind today, but he was meditating more the normal way today. He was too restless, and, as such, he couldn't cease his thoughts, but he could force them to move slowly, and clearly.

Just like his older brother, Cadence was made a Jedi Knight a little early. The current councils masters were very flexible on the idea of promoting students these days. Typically, Knights were independant Jedi who studied the force without a Master, and in that phase, were meant to develop their own identity as a Jedi before being recognized as a Master. Very rarely was a Padawan called a Knight before the age of 25, at least for a human. Cadence was seventeen. And, in truth, like his brother, he wasn't a knight, truly. Both brothers were experienced pilots and their father was a highly respected Republic general. Knighting them was merely a means to insert them into the military as officers. Still, neither brother was so far off from being a true knight. It wasn't so scandalous, though Cadence's peers liked to gossip about it.

"Rrrrmmm, today is my last day to spend with you, Cadence. Wouldn't you like to make me proud one last time before I go?" Master Colossus Viktar Rock opened one eye, and peered down at the fair skinned, black haired teen in front of him. Though Master Colossus Viktar Rock (who would be mortally offended if one attempted to abbreviate his name,) was also kneeling, he towered over Cadence like a Coruscanti skyscraper. His red-hued eye glowered from underneath a golden eyebrow on a pitch black face. Unlike most Jedi Masters, who preferred the most plain monastic garb, Master Colossus Viktar Rock wore a robe stiched through with brilliant red feathers. 

"Master, you know that I should be commended for keeping this level of composure. They want me piloting a starfighter and leading a squadron by next month!" Cadence threw up his hands and relaxed from kneeling to sitting crosslegged.

Now both massive eyes on the Master's face were opened. "And you are afraid you will fail in your mission." Colossus Viktar Rock's voice, with it's rich baritone, did not add an interrogative inflection to the word "mission." as such, it was a challenge, not a question.
"Master, that is not the problem. I'm the best fighter pilot any sentient can possibly be at my age--"
"Pride." Viktar interjected.
"Pride you say! How is your insistance on "Jedi Masted Colossus Viktar Rock" not prideful?" Cadence leaned in, challenging, yet also teasing, as his slight lopsided grin implied.
"We've debated this. That is my name."
"Viktar is your name. To add a surname like Rock is tolerable, but a title such as "Colossus" is simply prideful." Cadence crossed his arms and stuck his nose up.
"To allow my name to be Master Viktar is not to diminish myself, but to humiliate those who awarded me my honorific."
"Circular logic, you giant oaf! Honorifics are meant as symbols of pride and status, things that have no place here!"
"Must I beat sense into you, child?" some fraction of the vocal thunder Viktar could summon came through in the question.
Unperturbed, Cadence said, "As I have pointed out before and before, your only "honorific" as a Jedi is Master."
"You take advantage of my poor basic again, padawan. Names given and titles given are not the same in my culture, and-- You are so sly I swear I should have your tongue cut OUT!" the last word came out loud enough to rattle the windows in the small room.
"Return to your meditation in silence, learner, or I shall give you sparring lessons instead," Viktar added more courteously and quietly.
Cadence smirked; relaxing meditation always came so much easier after a good laugh.


"Now, defense is the popular strategy of the Jedi swordfighter," the master knelt again next to his apprentice, holding the boy's small hand in both of his own, constantly adjusting the child's thin digits around the end of the durasteel rebar.
"Why should you then hold the sword like this?" he had the boy's index finger stretched along the back of the rebar, but not past the yellow paint about 12 cm up. His other three fingers curled down and around.
"I don't feel like I'm holding a sword, master..." the boy asked, his beautifully trusting dark brown eyes stared up at his master's mask, conveying the wide eyed incredulity of a pet cat even though the slants of his eyelids thinned them so, "I feel like it's a magic wand!"
"Yes, my student, it is! How do the Jedi on the holovids swing their laser swords? Hmm? Show me." the master crept back, still kneeling.
The boy frowned some, face pinched in such a serious attempt to remember the movements accurately.
"Like this!" the boy whirled the sword about in broad circles with surprising grace. Up and over, back and forth, over and down.
"Yes! Yes, you are correct, child. So why do you need a magic wand to fight him? Instead of another sword like his?"
"Well, master... The swings are wide, they cover everything. It can't be easy to get through!"
"Your first idea is correct. The swings are wide. Your second idea is somewhat true, for they cover much. Yet, my student, it is wrong for you to think it's not easy! Now..." the master deftly selected a fresh, green treebranch of equal length and width to his apprentice's rebar.
"Now, as fast, but more importantly, as gracefully as you can, swing your sword like a Jedi, cover your whole body like your life depends on it!!!" the last order was an urgent whisper, as the master assumed the grip he'd presented on the twig. He held it like a human would holda dinner knife with his fork.
The boy whirled the rebar in a figure eight so wide and so fast, the master's heart swelled with pride. However, the boy could not be allotted pride in such a fatally flawed art like form 3.

His master, knelt back down just out of range of his apprentice's swings, waited a few seconds, then held his pointer of a stick in front of himself, his hand in such a position as if he was  pointing a blaster instead of a freshly plucked, bendable twig. The next second, he jabbed his arm forward.

The master even felt bad afterward. It did take over an hour to stop the boy's neck from bleeding.