Chapter 9

I can't say I like fighting but I know I like winning, the rush of destroying a superior force user gives me a magnificent feeling.

I've been deployed several times for my healing skills but every time I've had to defend myself with lethal force. It turns out that wherever it is soldiers or force users, they will try their hardest to get rid of the healer. This makes the brotherhood of darkness and its allies predictable and simple to slay.

I'm really good at it, I've even got a better kill confirmation than some proper Jedi. It's all thanks to how I don't leave any witnesses to my fights. My tricks are kept with the dead and this means that the brotherhood can't learn from them.

My equipment has been upgraded. I have an energy shield ripped from a battle droid, It doesn't last long but it only needs to block the first swipe of a lightsaber for the force user to lose their focus and for me to use my lightsaber. I keep it hidden and only activate it in close combat. When it extends, that's the first and only time the dark side user sees it as it pierces into an arm or chest. Of course, they don't see it coming as I attack using blasters and bombs and only when they get close enough for them to use their own lightsaber do they realise that I too have a lightsaber. Sometimes if I'm lucky enough I can take them out with my new slugthrower. It's just a fully automatic pistol with an extended clip.

They don't see it coming and most people think slugthrowers are primitive tec but the speed at which they fire, out-classes blasters, making it hard if not impossible to defect the shots back at me. I also have a powerful blaster because while it's hard to hit anything with it, the massive amount of ammo makes up for it. I use it on non-force users.

Gripping grenades, sonic mines, teargas, and flashbangs are a few things I use to fuck up my enemy. I remember using a flashbang on a lightsaber-wielding jerk who sliced his shoulder with his own lightsaber when he tried to cover his eyes. He was most likely new to the brotherhood of darkness.

Then there were the environmental kills. I knew that the Brotherhood and their allies would attack the defenceless medics and healers, so I set up traps waiting for a passing patrol or getting lucky and getting a passing dark side user.

The best dark-side kill I got was when a shithead forced his way onto a parked ship I was on. Everyone on that ship was just there for support and yet this asshole thought it was a great idea for easy kills. That idea soon turned into a nightmare when I overclocked the gravity in the room he was in causing the lightsaber wielder to fall flat on his face. After that, he was easy pickings.

I had been in a lot of fights, most of them I won but there were times I knew that running was the best thing. I used guerrilla warfare, hit and run tactics. It works incredibly well when your opponents don't even know what you are doing it becomes child's play to lead them by the nose, even if you and they have the force whispering secrets.

To fight a dark side user there are rules.

ONE. DON'T LET THEM GET CLOSE

TWO. DON'T USE BLASTERS

THREE. EXPLOSIONS WORK WELL

FOUR. PRETEND TO BE WEAK AND TAKE ADVANTAGE. Darkside users are weirdly evil and will try to kill the defenceless to inspire hate and fear.

FIVE. DISTURB THEIR WAY OF FIGHTING, FIND THEIR PAUSE MOMENT. Do the unexpected and cause the force user to pause for a second.

With these guidelines, I have so far come out on top. My name has become famous in the right circle of Jedi and yet most Jedi don't make the connection that I, a service corp medical healer have defeated much more Brotherhood of Darkness members than a normal Jedi. All they hear is my name and think I'm a Jedi skilled in combat. Let's keep it that way, I don't want the Brotherhood of Darkness to attack me.

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I still heal my comrades but I find it easier to get rid of my enemy and then focus on saving life without looking over my shoulder from an unexpected strike. This is a problem, according to the Jedi in charge. While a full-fledged Jedi would be commended for removing the threat, I'm not a Jedi, there is talk about falling to the dark side. Just because I never give the enemy a chance to escape and kill without hesitation makes me a liability.

I was cornered by Jedi and subjugated to an interrogation due to my refusal to take hostages. They talked about how brutal and un-Jedi like I was but I soon shut their mouths up when I pointed out their weapons were killing weapons. A lightsaber had little to no defence against it. A casual blow from the weapon, if not deflected by another lightsaber would kill or at the very least dismember. I just don't have the luxury to take prisoners.

I'm getting chewed out by my superiors, but I'm not too unhappy. It's all thanks to my coping mechanism, I steal things. Nothing belonging to the Jedi but anything and sometimes everything from the brotherhood of darkness. A brotherhood transport shuttle was easy pickings. I just wait for the cargo doors to open a little bit and then I dump gas canisters into the vehicle and force close the cargo doors. This only works if there isn't any force user on board but when it does work, one free transport shuttle and everything on board. Easy pickings.

I've got into the habit of stealing ships, reprograming the droids and sending them back for my benefit, fully loaded with all kinds of useful things. spoils of war, I guess.

It's not all good, a few padawans have overstepped their ability and got themselves captured. The only reason a dark side user captures padawans is to torture them into the dark side or use them for a trap.

I thought the Jedi was going to leave them to the dark sides non-mercy but I was pleasantly wrong. Two masters, a bunch of Jedi followed by their padawans and to support them a special team of soldiers and one force healer that could survive,... It's me, I'm the healer.

Using one of my stolen transport ships we stealthy enter the starship that holds the padawans. Of course, the enemy demanded an access code to board but it's strange how much a droid will pick up and even stranger that people will overlook such things. Does everyone underestimate droids to such a devastating effect, you should never underestimate what a droid can do.

I would like to say the team stealthily enter, find the padawans and leave without trouble but the goddamn Jedi don't seem to understand that concept. They didn't even change their clothes, almost immediately they started to use their lightsabers, which is a dead giveaway that their multi-coloured weapons weren't part of the brotherhood of darkness. The team destroy whatever they come across, even if it be apprentices or full-on dark side user.

On the other hand, I feel like there is something amiss. The force isn't telling me anything but my gut is practically turning on itself. I separate myself from the group, by changing my clothes and picking up an engineer's belt and tools, I look like any average person.

I shouldn't leave the group as I'm the healer but it's quite obvious to me that they don't need me, and this feeling I'm having is causing my hair to stand on end.

The ship is on alert, yet I don't get a second look with the Jedi causing massive amounts of chaos and damage. I have complete free rain of the ship. As I go through the ship, I use my spy drones. They still look like bees but I've slightly upgraded them, they now can use their stings to hack the security video and relay it back to my holo-bracelet.

I flick through the images until I find what I want. The padawans are secured but what I see has turned my nervous stomach again. There doesn't seem to be any major security, all of the padawans are fine, and none seemed to be tortured. This goes against everything I know about the Brotherhood of Darkness.

I flick through the images and find the Jedi masters. They were going in a completely different direction from the trapped padawans. I watched as they busted into a room full of mediating dark-side users, the resulting battle left shivers down my spine. Both dark side and light side force users dropped as the battle continued, the special soldiers died almost instantly, not because of the enemy but because they were suicide bombers. They took out a good chunk of the brotherhood of darkness and gave one of the masters a chance to grab something and call a retreat. Just as fast as the Jedi entered the room, they had left being chased by the brotherhood of darkness.

I couldn't believe my eyes. The Jedi had left wounded allies behind and more unbelievable was the dark side users hadn't finished them off. Whatever the Jedi had stolen was something big.

I watched the images of Jedi making their way back to the hanger bay and back on my stolen transport shuttle. The basterds had gotten what they needed and had left followed by the brotherhood in their fighters. It hit me, the mission was never to rescue the padawans but to collect something. Those assholes had abandoned us on a brotherhood of darkness battleship without even telling me why.

No wonder my stomach was telling me things that the force hadn't. The force wanted this thing more than it wanted to tell me what was going on. I think the force is an asshole too.