In the Burning of the Light: The Alderaan Papers

Months have passed since my departure from Alderaan.  I have seen and done...much since then, not all of which sits easy with me.  Yet if there is one place that haunts me the most to think upon, it is Alderaan. 

Alderaan is undeniably one of the most beautiful worlds upon which the Sith Empire has a foothold--vast forests, rugged mountain terrain, and an enormous temperate area by human standards.  Even the weather is manageable--not the extremes of Dromund Fels and Tatooine, or Hoth, nor the devastating eternal storms of Dromund Kaas...and one must admit that despite the civil war that currently rages on the surface, the Alderaanians have largely done well by their planet, not filling it with poison like Quesh or stripping it of all things natural like Taris or Nar Shaddaa. 

But that well-manicured garden hides its bejeweled serpents.  Corruption and royal intrigue has spilled forth into outright war...and then there are the creatures of the caves, the Killiks, which absolutely unnerve me even though I am aware the Imperial Diplomatic Service has sought some way to negotiate with the expansionist insectoids.  No part of this seemingly placid world escapes the touch of at least one of these two malign forces.  And I cannot forget what it was to behold that.  It is for that reason that I have sent the last two of these letters...and why I have held on to the first to this day, still vacillating as to whether I ought to send it or bury it forever.

For truly has the spear of Alderaan struck deep.

To the Honorable Lady Rehanna Rist:

I neither expect nor desire a reply.  For that--for the tragedy that has befallen you, silence is my only due; I am acutely aware of it.  Though you state in your parting correspondence to me that in the loss of your former fiancé Nomar Organa you found freedom from the pall of unrequited love upon your life, I keenly recognize the truth that in this, neither of us rejoices.  Far from it.

It is true what our ambassador will have told you by now, that the first blow struck in our duel was not mine.  This is no mere diplomatic fiction.  It is, however, true that the final blow was mine, and the one provides little salve for the other.  A lord of the Sith is to be free of regrets, yet they are all I can convey to you.  I rather suspect the Imperial Diplomatic Corps will be livid with me for this confession; I can only begin to imagine how some of my own Order would react to know that it is a matter of conscience that compels me to write after defeating a Jedi in combat.

Passion--freedom--these are the touchstones of a Sith.  Nomar was right that I had need of the artifacts I knew you could help me obtain.  But when I saw the longing still in your eyes, that you still wished Nomar to return after leaving you for Jedi celibacy, I hoped that I might earn the gift of the artifacts by helping to resurrect the passion within both of you.  I hoped to leave something behind me better than how I had found it...the rekindling of a fire long thought dead.  I meant to leave you both alive, together...and, I hoped, finally happy.

Unfortunately I failed to comprehend just how deep the void of dispassion must run among the most devoted Jedi, to consider that Nomar might use you and feign renewed love, just to position himself to strike at me.  Otherwise I would have sought a different way to convince you to allow me the use of the Sith artifacts in your possession.  I did not see his lies and manipulation quickly enough.  As for Nomar, he never did see my sincerity.  He never saw past my robes and saber, nor past that terrible oath that stifles the spirit.

I wish for your sake that it had been different.  And I would not blame you if you have already destroyed this letter before reaching this point.  Perhaps you should burn it, for security and some small measure of satisfaction.  I regret, once more, that I can do no more to relieve the anguish my visit has caused you other than to obey your wish that I never return to your presence.

Yours in service of the Empire,
Lord Tarssus Kallig

Damn it all...it seems that no matter how many times I revise the bloody thing, I still cannot figure out a way to word what I mean to say that doesn't sound incredibly self-serving, as if I am still seeking her diplomatic favor or yet another artifact in her family's possession.  Or simply to assuage my own spirit without regard for hers.  It helps, at least, to write it.  But still it sits, unsent, much unlike the letters that follow, which could not be left to languish unread in a hidden file within my ship's computer.

For the eyes of General Stanel Thul only:

First and foremost, I wish you the best in your daughter's recovery from her enslavement by the Killik hive.  I can only imagine what it must be like to endure this as a family after a malevolent species has sought to eradicate that very concept from the mind itself.  As I noted upon returning Daria to your care, her rehabilitation is a task that calls for great patience as well as great reserves of strength until her faculties are restored.  And, according to my resources, even then the temptation will always remain to return to the hive as a result of the combined mental and physical intoxication induced by the Joining process.

But I firmly believe that, although a battle, it is one infinitely worth winning.  To that end, I have relayed my command to the Imperial representatives stationed on Alderaan that all possible Imperial resources are to be made available to the cause of treating your daughter and any others like her successfully rescued from the hives.

Additionally, I shall be more than willing to offer my support in repelling the Killiks, even to the very end, should the Empire conclude that all efforts to reason with them and make them understand that they are forbidden to suborn the minds of other species have ended in failure.  I do not speak of erasing the Killiks from Alderaan lightly--and while Imperial rulers differ with each other on the subject, I only raise the possibility because to murder the spirit is infinitely worse than to destroy the life of the body, and even genocide pales before the mass eradication of the self.

Should the Sith Empire succeed in gaining an adequate treaty with the Killiks, however, you may rest assured that I will continue to speak for families such as yours who have been personally touched by the ravages of the Killiks' forced Joining process, and that I will never be swayed, even by the arguments of idealists within the Empire, that there is anything even slightly voluntary about forced physical addiction and mental enslavement.  Wherever I go among the Sith Order, know that you will have at least one ally in that.  Though I may carry out some operations in a manner some deem unconventional, you can still count on me to understand that even if we strike a treaty, the Empire must retain a credible threat towards the Killiks for any diplomatic agreement to hold strong.  They must always know what we can do to them if they break their word, even if we find some sort of accord.

Finally, I ask that you not divulge the contents of this letter to Daria, whether in full or in any edited form, as she may prove unable to process my stark language to you for many years yet, if at all.  A second letter shall immediately follow this one, however, in hopes that it may someday offer her encouragement even if she cannot understand it immediately.  Again, you have my best wishes and I ask you to feel free to contact me if you find anything for your daughter's treatment to be lacking.

Yours in service of the Empire,
Tarssus Kallig

Thus far I know nothing about how things have gone for Daria Thul; her father is a private man, and it isn't hard to understand why he would keep his personal affairs even more carefully sheltered after what his family has endured.  But I did send the preceding letter and the one I enclose below.  May it eventually offer some sort of wisdom.

Daria,

I hope this letter reaches you in good health and in lightening spirits.

I appreciate the fact that the last time you saw me heralded the most difficult period of your life--but one of the things we all learn as humans on the journey of life is that for our species, birth is heralded by great pain...and extraordinary risk, one that does not always reward us with safety or even additional time in this universe.  I hold no ill will towards you for anything said and done within the hive...and I hope that someday you might come to feel the same.  And I recognize that in seizing you from the hive, you will face many struggles and hard decisions ahead, indeed, relearning the process of making independent decisions.  And finally I realize beyond that, that I must have appeared quite terrifying in my wrath against the hive, for I would not stop until they released you.

But my reason for all of that was to restore to you your rightful freedom of individual identity and decision.  This--freedom--is what I stand for, what I value most in being Sith.  I have been a slave in body in my past, so I have at least some small understanding that many do not.  But the type of slave I was until recently had one saving grace: the ability to preserve our minds against the overseers.  Whatever I might say or do on the outside, I was free to think and feel whatever I wanted on the inside, and they could not take that away from me.  I would not have allowed it had they tried...even at the cost of my own life.  Without the freedom of the mind, no external type of freedom is possible except its illusion.

In slavery, I led a very circumscribed life.  I knew my boundaries, I knew my rules, I knew my routine, and I knew what did and did not present risk, for the most part.  Absolute compliance would have offered some notable measure of safety.  But I would never have found out just what I can truly do, what wonders I could see, and what fascinating people I could know in their own individuality, had I never left the slave pens.  Here in the greater galaxy, I am learning for myself what true freedom is.

Freedom is not comfort, though it is an opportunity to beautify one's situation with the fruits of one's own labor.  I am learning in recent months that being able to move about wherever and whenever I want, without an overseer's vibrowhip lurking in the corner or a slave's shock collar around my neck to keep me corralled, entails an astounding array of risks, and doubly so for an apprentice of the Sith.  But I have hardly known greater beauty, greater exhilaration, than I have in being able to to chart my own independent course.  I have many rough interstellar seas to navigate, and it is certainly possible, as Sith, that I will die young.  But if I do, I will die knowing I have made the most of the gifts given to me.  I will know that I braved the pain to find the beauty where I could.

I realize that with your having experienced mental and physical addiction such as the Killik Joining process, contemplating these things can seem overwhelming at times.  As I am sure your father has already told you, there is no shame in admitting that it is hard, that it hurts, and that some days you wish you did not have to take the risks involved in the daily journey of freedom.  And even though you must perceive it differently now with restored individuality than one would within a hive, help and support is always there to lean on if you will only ask.  If there is one virtue to be carried away from the Killiks, it is the notion that you need not hide your secrets and your trials from your family.  I have counseled your father to be patient even in the face of utter honesty, for I could see it written all over his face, hear it in his voice--even sense it through the Force, an art at which I am no master--how much he loves you.

For now, I encourage you to place your focus there: on exploring all of the many ways that your family shows you their support and their love, even when the recovery process brings confusion and pain, and when they must say or do hard things.  For the love that lays at the root of it is by nature an act of choice, not compulsion.  The abrogation of the free will brings only blind devotion.  Only freedom, in all its risks and uncertainties, brings with it the greatest reward, which is love.

I require no reply to this letter, and while I appreciate the great effort it took to write that note to me at your father's bidding, this is the only return letter I will send unless it should be your genuine desire at some time to renew correspondence.

Sincerely,
Tarssus Kallig