It had been a long time since Asaak Dan had been to Coruscant; and what a sorry state it was in. Last he had walked its extraordinary levels, it had been the jewel of the Federation, a shining metropolis celebrating its victory over the One Sith.
This was not that Coruscant anymore.
Coruscant now was smoking rubble; crumbled remains crushed under the black boots of the irascible Sith, pissed on by those self-important fools wielding their poisonous red blades. This was not how the Jedi’s holy temple deserved to fall. How, then, did it deserve to fall, trickled the thought into Dan’s thick skull, pounding with crushing frustration at yet another Jedi holocaust.
His magenta montrals tapped his shoulders as he shook his head. The very last thing he should paint the Force with is negativity, especially not now, nor here. Not when the base they were posted at was on the edge of the Crimson Corridor. The people here suffered enough as is. He would never forget the torment he saw here. How can the former seat of Jedi power allow such darkness to run so rampant, so boldly? Perhaps an effect of the Sith? No. The Sith exacerbated it, yes, and feed off it now, but did not create it.
If—no, when they took the temple back, he would continue his fight against darkness here, first. After all, it was the little things that held back the darkness. Like laying a strong brick wall, one had to focus on laying each brick as perfectly as possible, until one had a wall, rather than focus on the wall itself. But that was a focus for the future. For now, he focused on his troops, infusing himself with the Light Side of the Force; he felt a great swell of hope build within himself, and he blessed them with the bounty. Periodical infusions of hope. Such routine diluted its potency, but what’s a Jedi to do?
He folded his arms, and returned his focus to the task at hand: tactical planning. He had been tuning out the arguments of the other Jedi Lieutenants pounding their fists upon the cluttered table upon which they'd unfurled a flimsiplast map of their surrounding districts. They stood now within the Crimson Corridor, a positively wretched hive of scum and villainy that many poor smugglers and ne'er-do-wells had taken up residence in. It had proved convenient when it came to securing materiel, as the underworld was nothing if not well-connected, but it was dirty, chaotic, and less than ideal in terms of strategic positioning. But it could be worked with.
Asaak pinched the bridge of his nose. “No,” he interjected, cutting off a lieutenant’s sad excuse for a suggestion. “We’ll press forward in the trenches. If we can carve out a new front line closer to the Temple District, we’ll be better positioned to take a more offensive approach.” He indicated his planned route on the map with a pink finger. “We can maintain this camp as part of our supply chain, and leave some of our troops here to defend it. But we need this.” He tapped the map. They needed the Temple.
It was then that he caught sight of one of the Order’s more prodigious padawans– a man known as Stryker Kai. “Come here, Padawan Kai,” Master Dan said, gesturing for Stryker to come to the table. “Come, and tell these lieutenants how important it is that we reclaim the Temple, rather than circumvent it and waste our time and resources securing less crucial districts.”