The Liberator/Part 19

Day 66 of the Liberation of Milagro

When Mali Darakhan and the provisional government of Milagro had held their first town hall, they had crowded a sports stadium to capacity and filled the blocks beyond. Jeh-Kro, the man known to many Milagroans only as "the Pastor", had no such grand trappings, but the open-air meeting he held in a field outside Derresor had still drawn thousands. Many, Haleya sensed, were merely curious—not true believers, nor even peripheral members of the Pastor's resistance group, but those who had come to lay eyes on the mysterious preacher for themselves. His existence had not been a secret even during Karzded's reign, Haleya had learned, but this was his first public appearance since Karzded's demise, and the majority of those present had obviously come to see what all the fuss was about.

Others, though… Neither Haleya nor her mate, Trajan, was particularly religious, but as a Jedi Haleya respected the value of spiritual tradition, and as a Cathar she understood the importance of ancestral histories and customs. She did not judge these Milagroans for their beliefs, particularly because she was not yet sure exactly what those beliefs were. But the intensity of their belief caught her attention and helped her understand why Mali had called on her for this favor; such piety could be a great force for good or ill.

Just observe, Mali had cautioned her more than once, to the point that she had growled at him the third time. I don't want this guy to think I'm keeping an eye on him, especially if he's against the vote.

Haleya thought Mali would not be disappointed. Her clothing was tough, functional, concealing, and nothing like Jedi attire apart from the fact that her coat had a hood. Moreover, though she was certain she was the only Cathar present—Trajan was much taller and broader, so they had agreed he would be more of a liability than an asset—there were a good number of non-Humans in the crowd, so her feline features drew only a few looks, and those of genuine curiosity rather than hostility. Whatever the Pastor preached, it did not seem to be speciesism, and Haleya took heart in that.

A dais had been erected at one end of the field, and a group of robed beings sat on it. Haleya tried in vain to pick out a color scheme—some were dressed in bright reds and oranges, while others wore smoked grays and dull blues. Not all of them were Human, but she thought they were all male, though it was hard to be sure at this distance; she could really only tell with Humans up close. She had no guess which of them might be the Pastor, though she had been expecting something more grandiose than this docile group of robed acolytes. The armed guards at the edges of the dais fit the Pastor's Resistance reputation better, but none of them looked particularly monkish.

At the center of the dais was a brazier as wide as Haleya was tall, and smoke rose so thick from the fuel sticks there that Haleya could smell it fifty meters away. She had thought it might be incense, but it smelled only of burnt wood and accelerant. The fire had died to embers when, at no sign Haleya could see or sense, a hush fell over the crowd. She craned her neck like all the others around her, looking this way and that, and when she returned her gaze to the dais he had appeared.

Jeh-Kro, the Pastor, was a tall, rangy man, dusk-skinned and copper-haired. He was some variety of Human, Haleya thought—though with how fond their genes were of variation into "Near-Humans", that was a guess—and even that guess was more than she dared to hazard toward his age. His beard defined his gaunt jaw, though he bore no mustache, and while his hair was trimmed enough to be presentable and practically ascetic by Cathar standards, it was hardly what a Human would consider conservative; Haleya could see the guerrilla inside the holy man. He wore a charcoal-colored habit embroidered with faint traces of red and orange, surmounted by a cowled mozzetta in the same color scheme, belted around the waist with a simple rope; he wore the hood down, and with each step his clothing glowed like a dying fire. He carried a wooden staff, and whether by some artifice or he had actually set it alight, the staff's tip seemed to smolder too.

Haleya understood how this man had commanded a following during a time of trouble—his face spoke of shrewdness and intelligence, but his lithe frame, marked with the signs of hard living, was better suited to a commando than a sybaritic prelate. Enhancing her vision with the Force, Haleya saw the Pastor's lavender eyes gleaming against his dark skin. Even when she recalled her sight to normal bounds, the effect was not diminished; they shone like purple jewels set in a desert sand dune at night.

The Pastor raised his staff, then brought its end back down to the stage, and a deep boom swept the gathering. Haleya was not sure how he did it—she stood on nothing but grass and soil, and the speakers set up to carry the man's voice were well away—but the sound reached into vibration, a tremor in the bones that made beings around her shiver. As the sound died and thick, anxious silence replaced it, the Pastor took his time sweeping the multitudes with his eerie gaze. Haleya felt thrills of anticipation and awe around her, far more than the faithful she had sensed before. As Jeh-Kro turned his head, Haleya thought he caught her eye for a moment, and the force of the mind behind those eyes almost made her turn her head. She clenched her teeth until the Pastor's gaze moved on.

It took nearly a minute before Jeh-Kro had surveyed the crowd to his satisfaction, but no one seemed inclined to break the silence. When he was done, he drew a conspicuous breath, then nodded.

"My children," he said, and his voice carried to all edges of the field, deep and authoritative; the speakers produced it, but Haleya thought it was more than mechanical projection. "It is as I said it would be. The rule of the invaders over our people has come to an end, and the Goddess has cast them down in their arrogance and trampled their fleeting glory beneath her feet of destruction.  May her fire burn ever in your hearts."

"May her fire burn ever in our hearts!" the chants returned. Haleya was stunned for a moment by their numbers until she realized it was not the entire crowd, but individuals spread throughout.

The Pastor paced on the stage, taking his time, and every fall of his staff brought another tremor—not the bass vibration of the first, but a distant rumble, like thunder on the horizon. "I am Jeh-Kro," the Pastor continued. "I am called the Pastor, and so will I be for you, if you open your hearts and minds to the Goddess's truths."

He paused, sweeping the audience again, and smiled faintly. "I know not all of you are here because you believe, or because you seek truth, the deeper meaning beneath the lies of this world. You have come to see a revolutionary, a blood-soaked commander of armies who brought down forces of the Sith, and yet has not sought the rewards, titles, and powers the Republic sees fit to bestow upon its own faithful."

There were whispers in the crowd, and Jeh-Kro's smile broadened, indulgent. "I do not begrudge you this, my children; curiosity in not a sin, and the search for greater knowledge shows you have already taken the first step on the path, whether you knew it or not. But I am no slayer of monsters, nor a war-hardened soldier basking in the glories of his conquests.  I am only a simple man of faith, and any man might have done as I did, or led as I led."

For the first time the Pastor's words drew protests, insisting on his achievements, and Jeh-Kro raised a hand to still them. "Perhaps not any man," he allowed. "But any man who has embraced the fullness of the Goddess's truths, and seen the reality of our galaxy—the bones that remain when the décor of flesh and muscle are cleansed away."

"For I am no revolutionary, no more than I am a warrior," Jeh-Kro continued, and he paced back the length of the stage. "The truth I know—the truth the faithful among you have accepted—has been known for millennia. The Chalactan Adepts who have cast aside vanity and ornamentation in the search for enlightenment; the Children of Mani, who do not bind themselves to a single world, a single culture, but see the broader galaxy; the Trandoshan Scorekeeper, who demands action, not merely passive contemplation and sloth of spirit; the Seventeenth Personification of Virtue of the Drovians, which esteems those who cleanse the impurities from their lives.  Even the Jedi have perceived this truth in their renunciation of attachment."

Haleya did not know enough about the faiths he described to compare their teachings to those of the Jedi, though her interactions with Trandoshans made her skeptical of whatever religion animated their actions.

"Think back to when Zirist Lakalt and Vedya Gasald first descended upon Milagro," the Pastor said. "What did you feel in those days? Did you grieve those you loved who were slaughtered in our streets, in our very homes?  Did you rage at our oppressors, or weep at your own impotence to stop them?  Did you fear the future, wondering which day would be your last day?"

Haleya could sense the beings around her reacting to the Pastor's words; several shivered and many nodded, some with eyes on Jeh-Kro, others with their gazes downcast in grim remembrance.

Jeh-Kro nodded too, as if he too could sense the mood of the crowd. "You are not unique, and you are not alone. Before the Sith came, I was but a humble pastor, guiding those the Goddess has chosen to ever-deepening truth.  But many came to me who had lost.  Many came to me who were lost."

He smiled again, and there was comfort in that smile, a real understanding of what they were going through. "But those who committed to the path were found again. Not their old lives, the vanities that weighed them down with the yoke of suffering.  No, my children—those who sought the truth, and had the courage to walk the hard road, found themselves anew, the truth of themselves, and so of the galaxy."

Jeh-Kro stopped before the brazier, and the glow of its embers silhouetted him as arched wings of smoke rose behind him. "Ask yourself: are you here because you are curious, or because you are lost? Have you realized, like so many already have, how quickly the vanities of this world can be swept away, how much we can lose in an instant, the very moment powers beyond our control choose to deprive us of it?"

There was muttering in the crowd now—some unimpressed, Haleya thought, but others quite captured by the man's words. Looking carefully, she saw threadbare attire; gaunt, hungry faces; and the hunched, cross-armed, closed off postures of those who were adrift in the seas of their own lives on pieces of timber only wide enough for one.

"There is a reason for all that has happened here, just as there is a reason we prevailed over the foreign invaders," Jeh-Kro assured them all. "If you could only know, as I know, the truths of the Goddess…"

He trailed off, and the regret on his face complemented the profound longing in his voice. From the crowd, somebody called, "So what's the truth, Pastor?"

Jeh-Kro stepped out of his fiery silhouette so they could see his wistful smile. "Truth is a precious thing, and you're right to desire it. But it is also a dangerous thing, and too much knowledge at once…no, I can not do that in good conscience.  The truth has been entrusted to me, and I must be a responsible steward of it.  Learning is a process, and only when you have fully embraced the lesser truths will you be ready for the deeper mysteries.  So it is with all things; the one who can not understand why a ball falls to earth will not understand why a starship does not."

"But not all truth is, as they say, repulsor science," Jeh-Kro added with a smirk, and a ripple of laughter flowed through the crowd. He nodded, but his smile faded once the chuckles had died. "Here is a truth all beings can accept—a truth even unbelievers and foreign invaders can come to realize. What do you treasure most in life?  Is it physical pleasures—food, sleep, carnal delights?  Is it wealth, and all the things wealth can provide?  Is it perhaps another being—a parent, a spouse, a child?"

He let them think a few seconds, then said, "Destroy these things."

Muttering broke through the crowd, and Jeh-Kro let it carry on for some time, nodding, before he thumped his staff on the dais again and the air shook. "It is a first truth, and a hard one. But so long as we bind ourselves to what is—or even worse, what was and is no longer—we are unable to move on to what could be.  Remember how you suffered from the loss of what you had, and see in the torment of that loss your attachment to what was.  In the end, the Sith did not inflict this suffering on you—you inflicted it on yourself.  But that means you have the power to move beyond it.  This truth is not for everyone, and many will cling to the trappings of the physical, but if you can move beyond such vain wants, you have taken your first step toward the truth."

"Begin with a small thing," he advised. "Choose something you love, a single thing you value or enjoy, and destroy it from your life utterly. If this loss torments you, you are bound to this world and to weakness.  But if you can make this sacrifice—if you have the strength to see beyond the desires of the flesh and the simple wants of lesser beings—then you may be ready to learn further, and to grow stronger against a galaxy of danger."

"If you choose rightly, this challenge will not be easy. I know.  I remember…"  Jeh-Kro looked down for a moment as his bushy eyebrows drew together. The crowd waited with bated breath, and Haleya found herself wondering what this man had first sacrificed. Then, as if to demonstrate the truth of his faith, the Pastor's face smoothed into tranquility. "But a life unchallenged is a life unlived, and a life unworthy of sentient beings. There is more to learn, more to know.  I know that there are those among you ready to move beyond the lives you have lived to greatness."

He reached down on the way, patting the shoulder of one of the burly guards before the dais. Now that she thought about it, Haleya saw they were all imposing beings with confidence on their faces and cool competence in their bearing; it reminded her of a Republic Army recruiting holo.

"We stand upon a crossroads," Jeh-Kro told his audience, stepping in front of the brazier again. "Milagro has torn down the Sith and their vanities, those idolaters whose alleged commitment to sacrifice and purification of the old is nothing but a veil for their own greed. Yet many hesitate at the brink of true actualization, seeking comfort in what once was, blind to the fact that such things are dead and gone.  The Goddess has struck Milagro with her scourge, my children, and it is changed forever; there is no going back."

They were getting to it, Haleya sensed. Would he command his flock to abandon Milagro's failed isolationism and support the Republic? She could feel all around her that even the non-believers hung on the Pastor's every word now, wondering too with which edge of the sword he would cut.

"I know that some among you seek comfort from me," Jeh-Kro said. "You wish me to tell you that it is all right, that you can choose the course you despise because in it lies safety, security, protection of what you have managed to preserve despite all the Sith might inflict on you."

The fire crackled low behind the Pastor, but his lavender eyes gleamed in his dark face. "By no means! You have been told that you must choose the course that appears safe, that only in the arms of the staid and stagnant will your life be worth living.  Reject these lies!  Reject those who would return us to the failed systems that brought the Sith kath hounds to our doors!  Reject the failed Republic, hemorrhaging from the mortal wounds the Sith have dealt it!  Reject the fear of change and find in yourself the courage to be reborn from Milagro's ashes into something new!"

He brought his staff down on the last word, and Haleya's bones trembled as the bass ripple thrummed through the air. "Will you cling to the corpse of what Milagro was and let it drag you down into death as the weak and cowardly will, my children, or will you seize for yourselves a new destiny and liberate yourselves?!"

"LIBERTY!" cried a voice somewhere off to Haleya's right and closer to the stage. She looked for the speaker, but a second voice took up the cry, then several, all around her, and many in the crowd applauded, even those who had not echoed the call. Tension pulled her lips back from her fangs before she could stop herself.

"True liberty will demand sacrifice, my children," the Pastor warned. "Hard days lie ahead of us, and we may not all live to see the triumph of the truth.  Those who would hold you in the chains of the past may even strike me down, hoping the fall of the shepherd will scatter the sheep."

There were outraged cries in response, comingled fury and fear rippling through the Force. Jeh-Kro raised his hand for quiet. "We free ourselves from every attachment, children," he reminded them. "In the end even love of life is an attachment. I tell you now what I told those brave souls who followed me in the days of the First Resistance: if your liberation requires my death, then may the Goddess welcome me into her arms and her flames keep me warm for eternity as I tend the fire of her glory.  I face my fate without fear, but those of you who remain take heed—see what befalls those who speak the truth to power, and steel your hearts for what must be done to liberate ourselves."

Haleya saw the brilliance of the trap Jeh-Kro had laid. He had all but named the Republic and its Milagroan allies collaborators in continued oppression, and set himself up as a martyr should he be removed. Mali needed to be apprised of this before it spiraled out of hand.

"If you have heard here no more than a resounding gong, then I bid you go in peace, and remember what I have told you, for you will see the truth of it for yourselves all too soon," Jeh-Kro commanded. "But if you are ready to grow beyond lesser beings, to shed the chains others would fasten upon your spirit and discover the truth for yourselves, then seek me out and learn while there is still time. May the Goddess's fire light your way."

"May it light our way!" came the response from the crowd, and this time, after Jeh-Kro's strategically placed adherents made the first call, a second wave echoed it, those in the crowd who would now seek out the Pastor for what more he might have to say.

At the dais, the Pastor's robed followers moved at last, stepping forward to take hold of the brazier by handles that ringed its edges. The fire had never risen beyond its faint glow, but Haleya could still feel flickers of pain as the acolytes took hold of the heated metal. Some of them looked at Jeh-Kro, but none of them let go, and after a moment they swallowed their discomfort and lifted the brazier, carrying it from the stage. The guards at the foot of the dais snapped to attention, slapping the barrels of their rifles, and smoke billowed from the brazier. Before she noticed it happening, Haleya realized the Pastor himself had disappeared.

She grimaced as she thought it over and echoes of her understanding appeared belatedly around her. The new potentials were not to proceed directly to some more private gathering, but to find their way there alone…as a test, perhaps? Or to screen the Pastor's followers from real observation? It took only a moment of concentration for the Force to identify several of Jeh-Kro's faithful around her, but as she considered approaching one of them, the Force restrained her. She had no doubt she could sell the story of a lost soul seeking guidance, but something told her she should report to Mali first.

Feline grace moved Haleya through the packed masses faster than a Human could have managed on her best day, and she closed on some of the Pastor's robed followers. They had set aside the brazier and were fielding questions from curious beings. Mingling in the crowd of those waiting their turn, Haleya drew several deep breaths through her nose. She inhaled the scents, picking out the acolytes from the other sharp, warm smells, and attached their Force signatures to their scents. Drawing breaths until she had fixed them in her mind's nose, Haleya slipped away from the potentials, straying across the field until she was sure she was far enough to not attract attention by breaking into a jog.

The rally crowd had spread out in all directions, so Haleya had to take a roundabout path back toward the mag-lev before she found a solitary spot. Mali's fleet had taken pains to avoid Milagro's infrastructure during bombardment, but some speeder roads and train rails had been damaged by the ensuing ground battle or deliberate Sith sabotage; the rails to Derresor had only been repaired two weeks before. Ducking into a shelled warehouse that had yet to be rebuilt, she plugged her comlink into her imagecaster.

The blue holo static sharpened into the face of a young Human woman, whose big eyes widened in surprise before she controlled her expression. "Uh…hi."

Haleya narrowed her eyes. "Who are you? Vere is General Darakhan?"

"Oh, hang on, I'll get him for you."

Haleya was left staring as the girl's face vanished. A moment later Mali's entire body appeared, miniaturized above the imagecaster's surface. "Haleya."

"Vot happened to Aldayr?"

"He's offworld; I'll explain when you're back. What's the situation with the Pastor?"

"He von't support the election, Mali."

"Damn." Mali covered his mouth with one hand for a moment, the other on his hip. "Did he say why?"

"It's…" Haleya tried to come up with a way to summarize and fell short. "…complicated. Religious reasons."

Mali had been gazing offscreen—looking out his office window, perhaps—but something in Haleya's tone caught his attention, because he looked back and, even twelve centimeters tall, Haleya could see his eyes narrow. "What is it?"

"He's…something's troubling here, Mali. I don't know vot it is, it's just…off."

Mali crossed his arms. "Do you think he's involved with the Sith?"

"No," Haleya answered, sure of it. "I've sensed enough servants of the Sith to know vun ven I sense vun."

"So what is it?"

"…I don't know."

Mali frowned. "Come back to Rogeum and we'll discuss it."

Haleya considered mentioning her ability to track the Pastor's acolytes, but decided against it for now. There was no need to get into the debate if, in time, it didn't need to be debated. "I'm on my vay."