Star Wars: The Fallen Brother

Chapter 1 - Premonitions

A curling wave of smoke engulfs the senate plaza. The orange flames of fire glisten inside the wave as the smoke begins to dissipate, revealing the domed structure of the senate building. A circular gunship with a droid head sweeps over the senate building and down along the open plaza edged with statues. Red lasers shoot from the turrets either side of the ship's head. Raining fire on the plaza below as it flies over and away into the distance. The stone walled plaza is covered in a fog-like smoke, with red and blue lasers cutting paths through the stone. Robot and human commands are shouted from inside the fog. Civilians scream as they are cut down, running from chasing droid soldiers. Dark orange skeletal droids with blasters stride through the smoke, alongside larger black armoured droids with wrist blasters. Shooting at the civilians they are cut from them swiftly by white armour-clad men, running between the droids and civilians with long blaster rifles. They fire back at the droids, stopping them in their path. A red and white armoured man stands among them, two short blasters in his hand and a sun visor red helmet with strange patterns covers his face. Behind him a wide gunship descends, and two cloaked beings jump to the surface below. Landing on a fallen statue, standing five feet above the plaza floor they ignite their lightsabers. One green, one purple. They stand next to each other, a great height difference between them, as they deflect dozens of lasers fired in their direction. The soaring of starfighters unseen above the fog of smoke. As the smaller Jedi with the green lightsaber unleashes a force push, a chunk of smoke is cleared from above them and above the great clear sky of Coruscant is plagued with the balls of smoke and fire; from starfighters exploding. The normal open blue sky is now covered with burning fire and a hundred battle cruisers.

Sifo-Dyas bursts awake. Sweat coursing down his forehead and breathing heavily. His thin night tunic is rimmed with sweat around the neck and armpits. His thick medium length brown hair sticks to his forehead, as he looks himself over – as though expecting to see some sort of wound from the battle he had witnessed. He sits upright in his thin bed of his quarters in the Jedi Temple. Like all the other Jedi quarters, his is plain and small. A thin single bed tucked into the right corner of the room, with plain blue sheets. To his left, a meditation mat in front of a small book and holocron, resting on a thin metal stand atop a small cupboard against the adjacent wall. To his immediate left was a wide window, currently blocked with shutter blinds that only allowed a small amount of morning light into the room. Sifo turned his head to the window sharply, breathing deeply still.

He raised a casual hand to the blinds, and they flung quickly open. Morning had already risen over Coruscant and the two suns had risen fully above the horizon. As usual, the air-lanes were full, as speeders and ships swarmed through the giant city. The open-air space of the temple allowed some breathing room between the temple and air-lanes, yet the rest of the city wasn't so fortunate. Speeders and ships worked their way through the labyrinth of buildings reaching far above the sky. As he saw Coruscant in its normal magnificence and most importantly – peace – he breathed a heavy sigh and laid back on the bed. The shadows on the wall played the vision in his dream. Silhouetted soldiers running and falling. The sharp edge of the shadow rising over the room like smoke and death over the battlefield.

What did his vision mean? Why did this same dream keep returning? When would it happen? Why? All he knew, was with every return of the dream, the need to raise a military for the Republic grew stronger within him. His stomach turned and he grew nervous at the thought of having to re-address the subject with the council. He knew their feelings towards the matter and knew he was dangerously close to consequence from his repeated attempts at suggesting a militarisation of the Republic. He sighed. His thoughts clouded from the smoke in his visions. The dark side plagued his vision, and this concerned him – greatly. Ten years had passed since the dark side returned to the galaxy, almost like a wave it covered the future. Since then, it had remained silent, watchful. Blocking the Jedi's foresight into the Force almost entirely. The reason and cause for the return of the dark side was unknown to the Jedi, but they had been on a low alert ever since. Yet not alert enough for the council to hear Sifo-Dyas' vision seriously.