Miran had never been suited to meditating. The quiet stillness always left him feeling unsettled, which was quite contrary to the activity’s purpose. IRSOG-37’s first engagement was just minutes away, and it was all the young padawan could do to still the restless thoughts of his wandering mind. Would the Order take him back? Would his family? Would he ever be able to face his master again? Meditation wasn’t the prescription he needed, action was. It was his master who had always professed that the primary catalysts for questionable actions were doubts: doubts of acceptance, doubts of success, and doubts of purpose.

Miran unfolded his legs drew in his surroundings. He felt invisible to the nervous silence that had settled over his detachment. With want for eyes to see, the miralukan felt. He felt the nervous twitching of a grunt’s fingers across the stock of his gun. He felt the measured observance of the sergeant across the room. Ironically, Miran even felt the calm exhalations of a fellow jedi as they accomplished what he had been too impatient to manage. The force was his guide, and it showed him all the things he assumed that eyes couldn’t.

The padawan focused on the feelings of those around him. Why linger on his own doubts when the doubts of others proved to be an effective barrier? Miran felt the weight of his worries drift behind a wall of conscious thought. His master had often told him that he put too much arrogance into what he perceived to be an uncommon understanding of the Force. Where others used it as a tool, Miran felt this action to be rudimentary. To truly know the force, once has to experience it passively. The fellow members of his species seemed to forget that they evolved in response to this very action. In remembering the distant memories of his youth, there are several images of one of his older brothers assuming a meditative state. If the purpose is to become better in tune with the Force, why not just feel?

Then, to break the reverie of weapons maintenance and meditation, the PA system crackled on with a deep male voice, [b]"30 minutes to drop. Prepare to board drop pods on the red light mark..."[/b]

Miran’s empty sockets twitched in response to the change he felt in the room. Every small, terse movement was felt in waves through the force, and he could no longer assuage the doubts that had been weighing on his mind, for they matched to keenly with those of the men and women around him. What happens when you can no longer block out your worries? You defeat them. His hand fell to his lightsaber and he was curtly reminded as to why he was there. Inaction was simply something he could not tolerate; he felt too much to remain idle. Just as meditation and consideration had not helped in his preparations for battle, they would do nothing for the atrocities that were being committed by the Mandolorians.

[i]‘Act if you must,’ [/i]his master had told him. [i]‘Fight your battles, defeat your enemy, and gain your satisfaction, but promise me one thing.’[/i] He still remembered the sheer will of the older man as his presence had borne down on him. [i]‘When this war is over, take those “eyes” of yours and tell me if the future you helped make is worth what you’ve seen to get there.’[/i]

That had been the final words they had exchanged before Miran had left Coruscant on a republic transport ship carrying another half-dozen of his fellow knights and padawans. The only thing he could think was how could it not be worth it? Why give us swords only to keep them sheathed? Miran’s gripped tightened around the hilt of his lightsaber. Why call us knights and then expect us to flee from conflict? At their core, he understood Jedi ethics, but so often they felt impractical and isolated from how the Galaxy actually functions.

There was no more room for doubts in his mind. The will to act had overcome them.