(Caamas) Search Your Feelings, You Know It To Be True

Within the wild jungles of Caamas, in the crumbling ruin of an old Jedi Temple, the moment of truth arrives for Captain Tomas Harlan of the Pentastar Alignment.

The charges were set. They had driven the refugees into the forest, and were to demolish this temple to remove any chances it was used for shelter by the locals. Once the ruins were flattened, their orders were to hunt down the rest.

But when they returned to the main sanctuary, they found it no longer empty. Two beings stood there, a young human and an Ithorian, both dressed in the robes of a Jedi.

Tomas had never met a Jedi before. But the ones in front of him, staring down the blasters of his men, weren't like he had heard. He had expected something like the InQuestors: mysterious and horrible, dangerous and preoccupied. But the two beings in front of him greeted them calmly, utterly at peace, as though they were hoping to run into them.

The young human Jedi looked around at the squad and then at Tomas, and his expression softened. There was a look in his eyes, like he sensed something about the captain.

"We mean you no harm," said the Ithorian, with a voice like the core of a planet. "But we would prefer that you did no harm to these ruins, or any of the people who dwell in this jungle."

He heard the colonel shouting to his men to take aim. The trooper with the toggle switch for the charges flipped open the cap, exposing the switch, holding it threateningly in the air.

Tomas put out a hand and authoritatively belayed the order. 

"Hold your fire. You do nothing until my word. Trooper, don't touch that detonation switch."

There was a moment of silence, while his fellow Imperials registered what he had said. Then Tomas heard the bewildered fury of the colonel, felt his spittle on his face. He saw his loyal troopers turn to look at him. Confusion, likely, beneath their facemasks.

"You have struggled for a long time, Captain," said the human Jedi, staring him down. "Your heart is for your people, for the good of the many. You saw everything the Alignment could be, the chance to put the cruelty behind you for good. But look at it now, Captain. Look at what this war has uncovered."

"How could you..."

"Search your feelings, Tomas," the young man said, brow furrowing. "What truth will you not face?"

The colonel was moments from grabbing Tomas's gun and doing the job himself. But he was afraid of these Jedi. They all were. Tomas perhaps most of all. Nonetheless, Janus roared, and snatched the detonation switch himself. 

"We'll bury you with us," snarled the old colonel, and he meant it. "Jedi scum."

The Jedi were undisturbed, eerily so. Luke kept his gaze on Tomas.

"There comes a time," the Jedi said. "When all of us have to make a choice."