The Wolf Pack

Chapter 67

Kriari was rather tired of being shot at while having to listen to her master bicker with the Duchess like they were a recently divorced couple. It was as if they didn’t realize Obi-Wan was copiloting and supposed to be firing back at the enemy. They were very much not out of the atmosphere yet and as Kriari veered left and right, avoiding shots, hills and forests trying to lose her tail, Satine insisted on antagonizing her master.

Kriari was fed the fuck up.

She decided to be especially petty, she turned off the engines, letting the mandalorian ships zoom past them and allowing gravity to do its work: pull at them with all its might straight towards the ground.  She could hear her Master and the Duchess yelling in the background, but there was too much blood in her ears as her body tried to adjust to the changes in altitude.

Their ship spun and spun seemingly out of control and progressively faster as they plummeted towards the hard Concordian ground. It was only when her Master’s usually calm Force signature spiked that she grabbed the controls once again and turned the engines back on. The entire time they had been pursued in their dive, Mandalorian ships had still been shooting at them as they spiraled down.
Kriari knew all of this, and was so tired, so frustrated, so incredibly annoyed, she had been willing to scare both grown ups to death just to make a point. The sudden change in momentum  made Satine grab at her harness tighter and her Master was now sitting rod straight gripping at the controls for dear life.
Of course she managed to stabilize the ship before they crashed, she was an excellent pilot, but her opponents had not been as lucky, in their desperate pursuit of them, they had not pulled up in time.

Two of them slammed straight into the ground, cabin first.

The cabin was silent like a graveyard as the padawan calmly flew them through the Concordian hills, going low so as not to be caught by any radars until they were far enough from the mines. The rest of the flight was rather calm, incredibly quiet. Until they made port in Mandalore and the Duchess was escorted to her residence by her personal guard without saying a word to her Jedi companions.

“Kriari that was the most-”

“Irresponsible thing I’ve ever done? Debatable. But it did the job, you guys were annoying me enough to consider turning to the dark side, I swear.”

“You can’t be this reckless with other people’s lives!”

“Oh please, you were both perfectly fine, I knew what I was doing, I just wanted you both to shut it,” She sighed and leaned back against the pilot seat. “But seriously Master, I know the mission is not over, we still need to escort her to Coruscant. So I’ll tell you now: She better not run her mouth again in the middle of a fight, or I might forget to block a blast or two.”

“What is it with you  lately, kid? This is not like you…”

“I don’t like people who are willing to stand by and do nothing, and I don’t mean the pacifism thing she’s doing. You can be a pacifist and not a moron, or at the very least not a nuisance to the people doing the fighting. It’s pretty rich to call us violent when she’s not being hit by anything  because our light sabers are drawn.”

“I don’t agree with her myself, Kriari but scaring us both half to death to make a point…”

“Is childish, and immature, and incredibly satisfying when you see the shade of white her face turned. At least I managed to shut you both up.”

“You and Anakin, I swear, you’re going to give me heart palpitations one day.”

Kriari grinned.

“At least we keep it fresh so you don’t get bored, Master. Better keep you on your toes so you don’t get too slow with age…”

“ Oh shut up, I’m not that old.”

“Your gray hairs say otherwise, Master.”

…

Kriari did not regret what she had done in the least. In fact, she was quite proud of herself, it wasn’t every day that you could shut a politician up. Satine, as good as her intentions were, as hardworking as she was, and as noble as her character was, she was still a politician. Kriari had learned not to trust them from Obi-Wan. She did not trust Satine to be able to do what as necessary, to sacrifice her ideals, herself , her spirit for the people she loved. And if you were not willing to give a cause your all, then you were nothing special in Kriari’s eyes. Obi-Wan had told Kriari he had been willing to leave the Order for Satine, what would she be willing to do for her master? Not commit an act of violence surely, not abandon her ideals either. Her Master had been willing to give far more than Satine could ever give, and Kriari saw that.
Yes Sarine was willing to give her life, her relationships and her sanity for her ideals, but those only served her and her ego in the end, to be able to say that she made it, that she was superior to those who resorted to violence, that even through everything, she had remained a pacifist.
To what end? Mandalore was still at war with itself because she was willing to eradicate its history and culture because she deemed them violent and savage. Those two words had been used to describe many kinds of cultures from different parts of the galaxy, and not once had they come from someone who belonged to those cultures.
Satine might have been Mandalorian, but she had decided to abandon who she was, her ancestral identity to fit into what the Galactic Republic considered civilized. Because what did not fit into their idea of civilization was simply savagery.
It was a rather colonial way of thinking and the fact that she held her ideals above her will to protect those she loved -Mandalore included- did not sit well with Kriari.

Oh well, she didn't have to agree with the woman, all she had to do was make sure she didn't die. It couldn't be that hard.

Could it?