Timeframe: The next day
Setting: Jedi Temple – Deep Simulation Chambers (Trial Room: "The Fire Below")
The Setup
The Council stood above once more in the Trial Observation Dome—Plo Koon, Windu, Gallia, Yaddle, Fay, and Ki-Adi-Mundi. Today, no one spoke as Derran entered the sealed chamber below.
Derran Talvos stood tall, face composed but hands flexing slightly. He wasn't known for stillness like Cain, or presence like Anakin, but the Council knew what made him unique:
He saw things before others did.
And today, they would see if he could act on those visions with lives in his hands.
The Trial Begins – "The Fire Below"
The simulation activated with no warning.
Derran found himself in a crumbling underground outpost, filled with smoke, sirens, and unstable platforms. Flickering emergency lights cut through shadows as four figures ran toward him—Initiates and Padawans (simulated but alive to the senses), all coughing, one limping.
A voice crackled from a comm unit.
"Jedi Talvos. You're in command. Structural integrity failing. You have 6 minutes before collapse. Evacuation shuttle awaiting your signal. One passage is blocked. Others are unstable."
Derran immediately looked up and around. His eyes darted to movement, angles, weight-bearing beams.
A standard mind might panic.
Derran's activated.
The Choices Multiply
One child was pinned beneath a collapsed support. Alive, but fading.
Another Padawan was unconscious, dragged by a panicking Initiate.
The exit path on the left was clear but narrow.
The right—damaged and dangerous.
Derran assessed:
If he split the group, they might not regroup in time.If he saved the pinned one first, they'd lose the window for evacuation.If he left the unconscious one, it would cost him morally—but save more.
And all the while—everyone was looking at him.
"Commander," one of them whispered.
And in that moment… he realized.
They weren't testing his mind.
They were testing his trust in others.
The Real Leadership
Derran didn't command. He delegated.
"You—take her weight off the leg. You—guide her breath. You—watch the ceiling. We're pulling the beam together."
He didn't save the pinned Initiate.
They did. Because he trusted them.
Then he picked up the unconscious Padawan himself.
He sent a silent signal to the evac shuttle.
"You follow me, not because I'm right," he said to them as they ran. "But because I won't let you fall alone."
The chamber cracked—literally—and as fire erupted behind them, Derran didn't run first.
He ran last.
They escaped into the light just as the outpost collapsed behind them.
The Chamber Fades
As the simulation dissolved, Derran fell to his knees—not out of pain, but emotion.
He had made no perfect decisions.
But he had made human ones.
And they had followed him. Not as a tactician.
But as a Jedi.
The Council Reflects
The silence in the chamber lingered for nearly a full minute.
Then Master Plo Koon spoke first.
"He has learned that a leader is not the blade at the front—but the shield in the rear."
Adi Gallia added, "His instincts are sharp. But it's his trust that makes him strong."
Master Yaddle, blinking slowly, added: "See through strategy, he does. Into the spirit behind it."
Windu, after a long pause, finally said, "If the war ever comes… he'll be the one to win battles without losing who he is."
Fay simply said: "He will not be a general. He will be a guardian of the living."
Reunion
That evening, Derran sat under the star tree alone, arms resting on his knees.
He didn't notice Cain until he sat beside him, offering a bottle of water and quiet company.
"You did well," Cain said.
"I was afraid the whole time," Derran whispered.
"You still led."
Anakin, Barriss, and Seris joined them one by one.
No words.
Just quiet strength.
Tomorrow would be Seris's trial.
And the Force was already stirring.