It's His Galaxy (And We're All Living in It)

In Which Milo and Totalitarianism Get Along Unsurprisingly Badly

To a Jedi, a lightsaber was more than just a weapon. It was the most precious thing they possessed, an expression of their core self. Even though Milo abhorred violence, he had been absurdly fond of the lightsaber he had as a Jedi and having to give it up hurt him more in retrospect than he had been aware of at the time. One day, he would hopefully be able to get it back from Milder when she faced justice for trying to kill Amanda.

But his feelings about that lightsaber turned out to be a pale shadow of the feelings that he felt for his current lightsaber. More specifically, to the cracked lightsaber crystal within. He had started feeling shaky and feverish the instant it went missing, along with experiencing a feeling that could really not be explained with mere words, but if he absolutely had to describe it, it would be that someone was constantly walking over his grave.

It had taken an embarrassingly long time to figure out why he was feeling those things, but once they figured out that Milo's lightsaber had been stolen, it had all made sense. Zack had been furious that Buford had managed to have such an egregious breach of security occur in his own camp and went off to yell at him. Of course, Milo suspected that Zack would have taken any excuse to yell at Buford.

"I had no idea that Jedi were so affected when away from their lightsabers," Amanda told Milo when she explained everything he was feeling to her. After Zack had finished yelling at Buford, resulting in an epic shouting match that could probably be heard on Coruscant, the party had gathered in the mess hall to figure out what to do. "Is that something that can happen to me?"

She directed her question at Melissa, who was looking as if she was especially concerned about Milo's state of mind. Even more so than usual. "I imagine that Milo's case is special," Melissa said slowly, sounding as if she was choosing her words very carefully. "He has a particularly strong bond with his crystal. I've never seen anything like it."

"I have," Cavendish said quietly. And was that Milo's imagination, but did Melissa flinch at that? "Not in person, but I have heard tales of such crystals in the Jedi Archives. It strengthens the wielder, but that strength comes at the cost of the wielder being weakened the longer he is away from it."

Melissa looked panicked for a second, and then her normal composed expression returned to its face. "I vow to you, Milo, that I will see your crystal returned to you." And Milo could sense in the Force that she was absolutely, completely being sincere on that. "I had no idea..." She blinked and then gave him a reassuring smile. "Everything will be fine. We can track it down, can't we?"

Cavendish nodded. "In fact, I know where it is already. I can sense it like a light shining in the darkness."

Dakota looked incredulous. "So if you know where it is, why aren't we there?"

"Because it's in the tomb of Freedon Nadd," Cavendish responded darkly. "A nexus of dark side power. It's no Korriban, granted, but it's still very dangerous. The Sith are unquestionably responsible for this, though I concede that their allies in the Onderon government might have been doing their dirty work." His face went even grimmer than before, and it was pretty darn grim before. "Milo, this is just a guess, but I believe that they intend to use the crystal to harness the power of Murphy's Law."

Lydia looked confused. "Do they not already have the ability to harness the power of Murphy's Law? Orgaluth was capable of using entropy – Murphy's Law, essentially – to destroy a planet."

"Perhaps they're looking for more of a scalpel and less of a planet destroying weapon," Baljeet suggested. "The Sith are famous for their love of slaughter, but if they destroyed everything, there wouldn't be anything left for them to rule."