Knight of the Old Republic

Tiran stood at the Cantina door, the cold tip of his blaster pointed directly at the Rhodian's head. He was drunk. Angry. He always got angry when he drank, which is why he did it so often. Angry felt good. Angry felt alive.

Mos, his compatriot, looked on at the helpless alien with hungry eyes. Which color would this one bleed? Blue? Green? The patrol on Citadel Station was too small to keep the law, and the patrol for Entertainment Module 081 kept a safe distance over by the airlock down the corridor, never venturing into the Cantina. It would feel good to kill again.

Suddenly, three shadowy figures appeared behind them. The first, a roguish pilot, tapped a twitchy finger on the modified blaster at his side. The second... the second was beyond the description, like a damaged statue. Her eyes were white. Blank. Staring. Her brown cloak and the odd thrill of death enshrouded her in enough mystery to change the temperature of the room. The third held a vibroblade in his bionic right hand. Tiran could hear the gears clicking as it pulsed on the hilt of the weapon.

This last one was trouble.

The Rhodian pleaded with the strangers to help him. Fools. That modified blaster would fetch money. Modifications were illegal on the Citadel. Czerka's men would be hungry to get their hands on it and turn it on those tree-hugging Ithorians.

The thought was exhilarating. Tiran argued with the group over the Rhodian's fate, but he could barely hear himself think. His temper burned hot for a fight, and he could tell the pilot and the woman were boiling over, too. That's when the bearded man spoke up in a smooth voice.

"Can't we all just talk about this?" he said.

WAIT WAIT WAIT. You mean I will gain dark side points by kicking this guy's ass? WTF? Why does the Light Side have to be a frigging pansy parade? Obi-wan Kenobi cut a guy's arm off in a bar just because he could. Han Solo shot first and put a hole in Greedo you could fly a shuttle through, and I get to be Dr. Joyce Meyer with a Lightsaber and "talk about this"? Maybe next I should ask him how he's feeling. "You seem like an angry mercenary. Tell me about your childhood." This guy kills aliens for fun, and somehow I'm supposed to have a moral dilemma about slicing him in half, raiding his corpse, and using his keycard to ransack his apartment? Why the hell did I spend all that time making my Jedi look cool just to have him be a frigging ween?

Light side. Dark side. Sometimes a Jedi just needs to choke a bitch.

-m