| abstract
| - I had the enemy in my sights. One twitch of my finger and they’d be blasted into atoms. Not that that bothered me; I was a fighter pilot, this was my job- nothing personal. Alright… maybe it was a little personal. When the Vagaari entered our territory last year, they wiped out an entire squadron of fighters that had been patrolling the border; four of them had been classmates of mine in the Defense Force Academy, one had even been my bunk mate for two years. They invaded on her 17th birthday. Nearly all recent graduates get patrol duty for a while, but I had applied to be part of a new squadron, to test the prototype Nssis-class Clawcraft. My application was accepted despite being fresh from the academy, and I became Claw 7, but I still wonder if I had been there, could I have saved them? So yes, it was personal. My finger twitched on the control. The pilot and fighter disintegrated into pieces before my eyes. No elation or celebrating, I coolly turned my sights to the unfortunate pilot’s wingmate. “If you knew the survivor’s guilt I was saving you from, you would be thanking me for pulling the trigger right now.” The errant thought caused a wry smile to pull at my lips. Then, suddenly, it was like a million lights flared up in front of me and were just as suddenly extinguished; like a million voices all cried out at once, and were suddenly silenced. “Seven, pull up!” I could hear my wingmate shouting, as if from across the galaxy. Nothing seemed real anymore. Nothing seemed real, until I felt the concussion torpedo rip off the tips of my stabilizer claws. Normally in space this wouldn’t have mattered much: even though I wouldn’t be able to fly in atmo, in space, a ship could tow me in with their tractor beams and I’d just have to go to a command ship for repairs rather than going back to HQ with the squadron. However, while I was dazed, I drifted too close to Yashuvhu’s atmosphere. I was spinning out of control towards the planet and its very solid ground, and I was apparently sick of being conscious. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ When I woke up the first thing I noticed was the headache. “Alright, I’m alive,” I thought, “because I wouldn’t feel pain if I was dead… would I?” I tried to sit up, but my head did not approve of motion; I groaned and nausea welled up inside me. I quickly lay back down; the last thing I wanted to do was clean sick off of the inside of my Clawcraft. Wait… I was lying down- there was no way I could lie down in that tiny ball of a cockpit, and what I was lying on was soft, like a bed…and was that a pillow under my head? I wanted to open my eyes and find out where I was, but the nausea hadn’t fully subsided yet. “Valara,” a voice called (did he have to be so loud?); “I think the girl is waking up.” Did he really just call me “girl?” No one had called me “girl” since I entered the academy. I wasn’t a child! I opened my eyes just enough to glare at the man sitting in a chair across the room, and he looked back at me with at least as much disgust etched across his face. It was a comfortable room, with wooden floors and warm, pale yellow walls. There were comfortable-looking chairs and a matching couch, with wooden end tables by each, and one of the walls was completely coved in bookshelves. A door on the opposite wall slid open and a woman with dark tan skin and dark brown hair appeared. She was carrying a tray with a glass and a pitcher of water. I let an unintentional groan of longing escape my lips, but I didn’t care. By the Ruling Families I really hoped that water was for me! It was. She set the tray on the bedside table, and when she did I noticed two white pills also, lying on the tray. I eyed them suspiciously. “It’s medicine, for the headache I am sure you have right now” said the woman, Valara, as she poured some water into the glass and handed it to me. “You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to, but I promise you have nothing to fear from me.” Something in her voice made me trust her, so I popped the pills in my mouth and took the water from her. The effect was almost immediate (those were some good painkillers!), and with the pain gone, I drifted once more to sleep. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ When I woke again the room was dark. Thankfully, Valara had left the pitcher and glass on the bedside table and I gulped down a glass. Tentatively, I tried to stand up, and found I could only do so with slight dizziness. There was only one door in the room, and I made my way towards, it hoping that there would be a bathroom not too far away. The door slid open as I approached, but when I stepped over the threshold my foot landed on something warm, feathery, and breathing. The creature yelped, and I jumped back into the bedroom. I had stepped on a green feathered lizard about the size of a small dog, which was now bearing its rather sinister looking fangs at me. I started to back slowly into the room, and the creature made a loud guttural call. I didn’t know where my charrics were; for all I know they were back in my ship, I had nothing to defend myself with. I only hoped that the noise the beast was making would wake up another of the house’s occupants. Sure enough, someone did wake up. The man who had called me “the girl” came running down the hall with a blaster, aimed not at the beast, but at me! I put my hands up and continued to back into the room. Was I a prisoner? If so, why not lock the door? Why even take the time to help me, why didn’t they just leave me to die where I crashed? Come to think of it, it’s a miracle I survived at all, and damned well impossible that I should be up walking right now. Well, I decided, I guess I’ll think more about that if I don’t get shot in the next few minutes. “I’m sorry,” I croaked, my voice raspy despite the water, “I was only looking for a bathroom.” “Sure you were,” he barked at me, “looking to murder us in our sleep is more like it. You people are nothing but trouble, and if I had my way, I’d have let the wild Duuvhals kill you in the jungle.” Ah, so that was an option. The pure hated in his voice caught me off guard. What could my people have done to him to make him hate me so much? The Chiss have a strict non-aggression policy: if you don’t bother us, we won’t bother you. I know the humans of Yashuvhu never took military action against the Ascendency, so I know we never attacked them. “I…” I started, with no idea how to respond. Luckily, at that moment Valara walked into the hall way. “Jedi, come.” She said, and the lizard creature immediately stopped threatening me and wound its way between her ankles like an affectionate cat. “And Gerard, if you would, please lower your weapon. Between the two of you I’m surprised you haven’t given our guest a heart attack!” “But Valara, she was sneaking around in the middle of the night and…” “And I believe she told you that she was looking for a bathroom,” Valara finished calmly, “I daresay, it is a reasonable thing to do. Now, your blaster, if you please.” I don’t know how she knew what I had said to him before she arrived, but at this point I didn’t care. He lowered his weapon, and I released the breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding. “Now, Gerard, you can go back to bed, Jedi and I will show our guest the bathroom and then escort her back to her room.” She said this with the same inflection she used while assuring me that I could trust her, and he turned around, still grumbling, and marched back to his room, and she motioned for me to follow her. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ I awoke the next morning feeling rested and healthy, which of course made me suspicious. There was no way I should have survived that crash, and because of that, I had a sinking feeling that no one would come looking for me. So, on the plus side I was alive and healthy. On the minus side I was alone, in a mostly hostile environment, with no weapons, no communications, and without knowing where I was, where my weapons were, or where my ship was or the condition it was in. “Ktah!” I swore softly. “Kriffing, Ktah!” “Come again?” Valara had slipped silently into the room. I blushed in spite of everything else; swearing like that in front of anyone was extremely taboo for a Chiss. “Nothing,” I mumbled, switching back to Yashuvhi (all members of the Defense Force need to speak all the languages spoken on planets bordering The Ascendency), but the purple blotches rising in my cheeks displayed my embarrassment, which only increased when I saw the wide eyed youth gawking at me from behind her. “Of course,” she said, tactfully changing the subject, “Well, as you haven’t eaten in over a day, I assume you must be hungry. I’m afraid you slept through breakfast, but Garrison, here, and I were just about to wake you for lunch, if you would join us.” She led me down the hallway, and into a small dining room, with the same cozy décor as the room I had been sleeping in. The table was set with more food than the three of us could possibly eat; there were rolls and an assortment of meats, a large salad, a collection of fruits, most of which I had never seen before, and a large pot of some sort of soup, the smell of which was making my stomach growl and my mouth water. Valara sat down at the table, and Garrison took the seat next to her, which left me to sit across from the pair. “Take whatever you want. We honestly weren’t sure what your people ate, so we made a variety. I hope something looks good to you.” I nodded my thanks, still embarrassed from my earlier outburst, and confused about my treatment. I couldn’t reconcile Valara’s kindness with Gerard’s obvious dislike, and the fact that he had pointed a blaster at me the night before. I filled a bowl with the soup. It was the most amazing thing I had ever tasted! Most of my life had been spent in military school and my squadron’s HQ; they don’t exactly serve five star food in the mess, let alone real home cooking. I downed my first bowl with indecent haste, and quickly helped myself to seconds. Coloring again with my lack of proper Chiss decorum, I sat down determined to eat it at a normal pace. The problem with this was that I was now more aware of my surroundings and the people in it. Valara was calmly eating her salad, but the boy was still staring at me, unblinking and wide eyed, as he munched on a sandwich. No one was speaking. Awkward. I looked down at my soup, not knowing what to do besides eat. They had both finished eating by the time I had finished my second bowl of soup, but still no one had spoken. I figured this meant that they were waiting for me to say something. “Thank you,” I said, quietly, “for the food.” “Did you like the soup?” the boy chimed in, “I helped make it!” he added proudly. “Yes,” I responded, smiling a little, “You and your mother did a wonderful job.” At these last words I knew I had blundered, as the boy’s face fell. “Valara’s my teacher, not my mother,” he said, “My mother died ten years ago.” I looked from Valara to the boy. True they looked nothing alike, but a grown man, a grown woman and a child living together, I had assumed… “I’m sorry.” I stammered, blushing purple again. “It’s an easy mistake to make, given how little you know about us.” Valara said, once again tactfully chiming in at the exact right moment in order to save me too much embarrassment. “But it seems you already know more about us than we do about you. Would you mind filling us in?” “I… I…” I stammered nervously. I certainly wasn’t being treated like I was a prisoner, but the last time the Chiss government had tried to establish contact with the humans of Yashuvhi, they had been met with hostility and violence. I took a deep breath, composing myself as best as I could. “First, I need to ask you one thing.” I tried to make my voice sound firm, but not aggressive, “Am I a prisoner here?” For the first time, Valara looked taken aback. “Of course not! What gave you that impression?” I was about to answer when the terrible lizard from the previous night entered the room and made its way to Valara. She scratched its feathered head and fed it some scraps of meat from the table. I eyed it warily. Valara saw this. “You have nothing to fear from Jedi, he doesn’t bite,” she said, and then with a wicked grin she added, “unless I tell him to. So, please continue with what you were saying: what made you think you were a prisoner?” “Nothing you did,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster, “But that other man, Gerard, he… well, he threatened to shoot me last night for stepping out the door, and well, I assumed that beastie,” I gestured to her pet, “was set outside my door as a guard.” “Ah, well, yes, I can see how that might give you the wrong impression, but Jedi likes to sleep near cooling vents, and there happened to be one on the wall near your door. The growling and all was just because you stepped on him.” I nodded to show that I accepted this explanation, and waited for her to explain Gerard’s behavior, but to my surprise it was Garrison who answered. “My dad doesn’t hate you… specifically,” he said, “he just hates all of you blue people.” He paused, “He says that your people killed my mother.” I was shocked. We never had a military conflict with these people, so it was impossible that we had a hand in the death of this boy’s mother. I was troubled by this development, but was soon brought out of my musings by Valara. “Alright,” she said, “we answered your question, now if you would please tell us who you are, and why you happened to crash onto our planet?” “I am Lieutenant Mith’ale’nuruodo of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Force.” I said. “I was responding to an incursion into Chiss territory by the Vagaari. They began a retreat and we pursued, eventually leading to a skirmish above your planet. I… uh…” I stopped, not know if I should mention the strange sensation that had eventually lead to my crash; I didn’t really know if I could explain it. I decided to leave it out; the last thing I needed was word getting to Gerard that I was unstable or mentally deranged in some way. “Sorry,” I continued, “My fighter was hit by a concussion torpedo which damaged the stabilizers, and as I was flying too close to your atmosphere, I lost control and crashed.” I looked up at the pair across from me, noting their bemused faces. “What?” I asked. “Uh… you have a nickname?” Garrison said. “Thale,” I responded, “but it’s my core name, not a nickname.” Noting his confused look I explained further: “It’s like this- you have a first name and, I assume, a surname. Your surname identifies your family and your first name identifies who you are in the family, correct?” He nodded. “Well, with the Chiss our names are one word. The beginning and ending portions, Mith and Nuruodo in my case, identify family connections, and the part in the middle, our core names, identify which member of the family we are. That’s the gist of it, anyway.” “Very interesting,” Valara chimed in, “However, if we could return to our previous conversation, I would still like to know why you crashed.” “I told you,” I responded, “The concussion missile hit my ship…” She cut me off. “If I am not mistaken, you have a very quick reaction time when you’re flying, almost as if you can predict what your enemies will do before they do it.” It was now my turn to look bemused; how did she know this? “But how…” I let my question trail off, as she continued. “Now, how is it that a being with your capabilities was hit by a missile?” “It’s hard to describe,” I started. I went on to describe, as best I could, the sudden pain and the emptiness that followed it just as suddenly. “It only lasted for a second, but a second’s distraction is all it takes to get you or a squadmate killed. I’m just glad no one else got hurt because of me, and well, I’m just lucky to be alive; I still can’t figure out how I survived the crash.” “You survived because there was no crash,” Valara answered, “Allow me to demonstrate.” ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ She stretched her hand towards the soup pot, and it glided gracefully into the air, and then landed gently back on the table. I stared back at her wide-eyed. “So you did that with my ship- you just waved your hand and it landed smoothly.” My voice conveyed my disbelief, and my mind sought frantically for some logical explanation to what I had just seen. “I helped!” piped in Garrison, obviously proud. “Yes,” said Valara, “and now, Thale, why don’t you try?” “But I can’t…” “Yes, you can.” said Valara. I rolled my eyes (extremely rude, I know, but this was crazy!), but I decided to humor her. I reached out my hand towards the soup pot and… wow, nothing happened. “You’re not concentrating,” Valara admonished, “even if you don’t believe me, just pretend for a second that you can do this.” Alright, you can do this, I thought to myself. Something stirred within me and I reached towards the pot again. It soared straight up off the table and crashed into the ceiling. My concentration broke and the pot fell back to the table, showering us all in broth and vegetables. Everyone was silent for a second. I looked up at them. As a drop of soup fell from the tip of my nose, I grinned sheepishly, both amazed and embarrassed about what I had just done. Then we all lost it, and once we started laughing, it was impossible to stop. I was doubled over clutching a stich in my side, Valara was wiping tears from her cheeks, and Garrison was literally rolling on the floor laughing. I honestly didn’t think I had ever laughed that hard in my life. The Chiss are a very reserved people and even though we feel emotions just as strongly as other beings, showing any sort of strong emotion is frowned on. Were we missing out or what!? “What’s going on here?” Gerard yelled, as he burst into the room. He was still angry and still toting a blaster, which quickly found me. “What did you do?” he growled at me. “Gerard!” Valara started, as Garrison yelled, “Dad, what are you doing?” Gerard rounded on his son, although he left the blaster leveled at my chest. “I told you to stay away from it. I’m not going to lose you like I lost your mother.” “Gerard…” Valara tried again, but he interrupted. “No! None of your mind tricks, Valara. I want this girl gone, now!” He was so angry, and his pain was real, I could feel it. Talk about an emotional swing; one moment I was laughing like I’d never laughed before, and the next moment I my eyes were tearing up for a man pointing a blaster at me. I must be losing my mind, but again, I’ll worry about that later, when I don’t have a blaster pointed at me. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly, calmly, and what I hoped was soothingly. Every eye in the room turned to me. “I’m sorry for what happened to your wife, but please understand, I had nothing to do with whatever happened. Our government forbids any sort of violent action against another being unless acting in self-defense.” Still no one else spoke, so I decided to push a little further, “If what you say is true, than the person involved is the lowest of criminals, and as such, if the crime comes to light, they will be tried and if found guilty, be disowned by their family and at least imprisoned for life, if not executed.” I directed my next words at Gerard, “If you let me I will make sure my government finds and punishes the person responsible for this.” Valara slowly walked up to him and took the blaster gently from his shaking hand. He stumbled into a chair at the table, resting his face in his hands. His son gave him a hug, and he began speaking without preamble. “She died here in this room. I was down in the other room with Garrison, he was three years old at the time.” His voice was rough, as he remembered, and he gazed at his now 13 year old son, as if amazed by how much time had passed, “She had left to get a snack for him. I heard her scream my name, and then I heard the blast. I put Garrison in his crib and locked the door behind me, and grabbed my blaster and ran to her, but…” his voice trailed off. I didn’t need him to finish the sentence. “I had my blaster trained on him at once but he grabbed a knife from the counter and threw it at me. I had to dodge it. He grabbed a bag that he stuffed with food, and he took off on a swoop bike.” He paused, and then said, almost to himself, “My wife died over a bag of groceries.” The mention of a swoop bike, stirred a memory. “How old do you think he was,” I asked, “and what did he look like?” “He was probably a little older than you are now, and he was… blue with red eyes and black hair.” He shook his head, realizing that this was a very generic description and not at all likely to help find this guy, “and he was wearing red and black armor with spikes on the shoulder, and he had a weird helmet, it was red and looked a little insect-like.” “Spiker,” I spat. I turned to Gerard, “I’m so sorry.” ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ Spiker was a wanted criminal of Csilla. He had grown up orphaned on the streets (he named himself and everything, couldn’t you tell?), and, as is sadly common, wound up in an organized crime ring as a “metal man.” I was only six at the time, but I remembered the panic in the city when Spiker was linked to a string of murders. Catching him would have in turn implicated the mafia he was working for, so a year later, when the murders stopped and Spiker disappeared, everyone assumed that he had become too well known and his employers were unhappy with that. It wouldn’t have been the first, nor, I’m sure, the last time that a mob boss ordered the killing of an underling who was no longer useful to the organization. Apparently law enforcement had been wrong, however; he wasn’t dead, he escaped. I related this story to a rapt audience. At the conclusion of my tale, Gerard, obviously upset that this person had walked free, grimaced and left the room. We heard a loud crash from the adjoining room. Valara and I were on our feet in a second, but Garrison, who had already made to follow his father, was in the other room in as much time. We started towards the door ourselves when Garrison reappeared. “It’s alright,” he assured us, “He’s just punched a hole in the wall.” Garrison looked a little embarrassed as he said this, and Valara rolled her eyes. “Gerard likes to deal with his emotions by hitting inanimate objects,” she explained to me, rather unnecessarily. “I really don’t know why he hasn’t bought some sort of punching bag. Anyway, Garrison, if you don’t mind cleaning up the kitchen and Thale if you’re up to it, we can move you into the spare room in my house, so Garrison can have his bed back tonight.” “Thank you,” I said as we walked out of the house, “for everything you have done for me. I was wondering, though, would it be alright for me to see my ship? I’ll assess the damage and start on repairs as soon as possible so I won’t have to trespass on your hospitality for too much longer.” The ship itself was mostly intact, aside from the damage to the top “claws.” The problem was that the damaged part housed not only the stabilizers, but the hyperspace beacon and the sublight navigation systems. The stabilizers and the nav system, albeit time consuming, would be no problem to fix, but the beacon was completely obliterated, and without hyperspace capabilities, it would only take me the rest of my life to make it home. That wouldn’t stop me from fixing my ship though. Valara was actually pretty happy that I was going to be staying for a while. “It’s been a while since I met someone with your Force abilities,” she told me. “Garrison has been training with me for almost two years now; I think you could catch up to him rather quickly, but don’t tell him I said that.” There were definitely worse things I could do while stranded here, so I agreed to train with her until I could fully repair my ship or someone from the CEDF came for me. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ And so my life went. I woke up each morning and ate breakfast with Valara. Then I would either work on repairing my ship or do odd jobs around the town in exchange for parts I needed. Then I would go home (yes, after a few months I did actually start thinking of this place as “home”) for lunch, and after lunch, start my training; Garrison joining in after he got out of school. Training would end each day when Gerard joined us for dinner. Although he was no longer openly hostile, he never warmed up to me the way the others in the town did. After dinner, Garrison accompanied his father home, and Valara usually retired to her room to meditate. She encouraged me to do the same. I would usually venture outside to do this, although sometime I would catch myself staring off towards Csilla, wondering why no one had ever come to look for me. It was on one of these nights that something in the sky caught my eye. It was a ship. My heart leapt; after a year had they finally come to look for me? No. The design was not one I recognized, and it was much too dilapidated to be a newly designed ship. I went inside and knocked on Valara’s door. When she answered, I said, “There’s a ship that’s probably landed by now near the edge of the jungle. It was an old ship and not a Chiss design. What should we do?” She walked briskly to the closet where she kept her staff, and my two charrics, which she handed to me. “Show me,” she said. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ When we approached the ship we first noted how small it was; it definitely couldn’t carry more than a few people. The hatched popped and a lone man stepped out, clothed in dingy robes (yes, I could tell they were dingy even in the dark, Chiss have excellent night vision, thank you very much). Valara remained stationary, but I trained my charrics at him; I wasn’t going to take any chances with Valara’s life. She was the only person I felt sure would come looking for me if I disappeared from here. He held his hands up to show that he was unarmed. “Identify yourself,” Valara commanded, in a calm but powerful tone of voice. “My name is Thantaroz,” the figure replied. “And what is your business here?” “I heard rumors,” he said, “Rumors that there was an entire planet of Force sensitive humans, and I had to know if it was true. Now that I am here, I know it was- I can sense it.” ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ He could sense it? That must mean he was a Force adept too. I concentrated. I could feel Valara’s presence in the Force, next to me like a warm glowing light, but in front of me was another Force presence just as bright, if not brighter, than hers. This Thantaroz was more than just an adept; he had had some serious training. “A Jedi?” I heard Valara, ask the stranger, a note of surprise in her voice. “Yes,” he said, “or at least I was until Order 66.” He went on to tell us a tale about clones, wars, Jedi, Sith, and how one evil man had been manipulating it all from the beginning. “So, we were all spread out throughout the galaxy. One of us assigned to at least one legion of clones. Most of us didn’t stand a chance. I was lucky to be away from the troops when the order was given. I intercepted the transmission meant for the pilot, who had been making repairs outside the shuttle. I got in my fighter and never looked back. I’ve been living on Ord Mantell ever since, hiding in the fringe, and even doing some smuggling work. I’m not proud of it, but the government is evil, so I don’t mind breaking a few laws here and there, as long as no one gets hurt.” Valara looked both shocked and sad. Earlier in her life she had traveled offworld and planned to study as a Jedi, but that hadn’t worked out as she had hoped; while she agreed with a lot of their teachings, she had found the Jedi Order too restricting, and they, likewise, thought her much too free-spirited. Despite this, she harbored no bitter feelings towards these Jedi; she had even named her pet after them. “You should come with us,” Valara said. She sounded calm, though through the Force I could sense her pain and worry about the people she had befriended all those years ago. “I have a sofa and some blankets at my house. We can talk more in the morning.” ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ So, for the first time in a year, my daily schedule changed. I woke up the next morning to find Valara and Thantaroz already talking over breakfast. I was about to walk in and grab some toast and jam, as per usual, but as I approached the door, which was slightly ajar, the intensity of their voices made me pause, unsure if I should interrupt. “No, I didn’t really think too much about what I would do if I found out that the rumors about this place were true,” I heard Thantaroz say. “I didn’t want to get my hopes up.” “But what now?” Valara prompted, “Now that you found us, what do you plan to do?” “Well,” he hesitated, “maybe, with your help, we could rebuild the Jedi Order? The galaxy needs more Jedi,” he continued, “We may be the only ones left, Valara.” “I’m not a Jedi,” Valara said coolly, “There were a number of their practices that I could never bring myself to agree with.” Her tone surprised me, as it contrasted starkly with her emotions, which I could feel clearly through the Force. If I didn’t know that she vowed never to marry, as the Jedi had, I would say that she liked him, and maybe she did. Maybe the coolness was a façade to hide her emotions. Now I was really glad I hadn’t interrupted. “That doesn’t matter,” he insisted, “We could change the rules. This could be a new Jedi Order with more freedom.” “And just what would be the purpose of this new order?” Valara demanded. “To bring down your emperor? Because the last time the Jedi became soldiers, it didn’t work out very well for them, did it?” “But we would be fighting the man responsible for destroying the Order,” Thantaroz countered. “No,” Valara said, “My people will not fight your war.” “Then you condemn an entire galaxy to be ruled by evil and fear.” “I cannot ask my people to die for something that will never touch them here.” She was practically shouting, and I was feeling rather uncomfortable. “He can destroy entire planets, you know,” Thantaroz said quietly. When Valara didn’t respond, he continued: “About a year ago he built a space station with a superlaser powerful enough to destroy a planet, which he did, by the way. Millions of people died in an instant.” Valara instantly knew, as did I, that that was the disturbance in the Force which had caused my crash landing. It had been such a powerful disturbance that there was hardly a person on this planet that hadn’t felt it, but stubborn as she was, she persisted, although I felt that her resolve was shaken. “I will not ask the people here to face that; why should they put themselves and their families at risk?” “They already are at risk!” He was shouting now too, “Don’t you get it? I found you here. Me, with very little money and other resources, who has to be incognito at all times, and not draw attention to myself, or I’ll be killed instantly. I made it here, because I heard a rumor. What do you think the Emperor will do when he hears that same rumor? Do you honestly think that he’ll leave a planet completely populated by Force adepts alive? The Rebellion may have destroyed his first superlaser, but you can bet he’s already planning a new one, without the flaws of the first!” It was at this moment that Valara’s pet, Jedi, decided to walk past me and push the door open with his nose, to see what all the commotion was about. The pair in the kitchen had been standing less than a foot apart, but moved quickly apart when they saw me standing in the hallway. Had I not heard them arguing, I might have though Jedi and I had interrupted something of a more romantic nature, and in spite of what I heard, I could definitely sense respect, and fascination, for the other radiating from both of them. It seemed that things were going to be changing around here. “Ah, Thale, you’re awake. Good,” said Valara, quick to compose herself. “Thantaroz and I were talking about you earlier; he thinks that he has some spare parts on his ship that could get your fighter fully functional again.” I was nonplussed by this quick change of topic, and so I didn’t respond right away. “Also,” Thantaroz jumped in, “Valara and I thought that I might help in your and, providing it’s alright with his father, Garrison’s training. There are Jedi fighting techniques that Valara has been unable to teach you because she does not have a lightsaber.” “Um, I don’t have a lightsaber, whatever that is, either” was all I managed. This was far too much for me to take in this early; I usually don’t even talk to anyone until after I’ve eaten breakfast. “That’s alright- once you’re ready you can use mine, but until then a vibroblade will work fine.” I looked at Valara for confirmation that she had actually agreed to let him train us, and she nodded. “Alright,” I said. “Excellent,” Thantaroz said, smiling. “Now let’s take a look at that ship of yours.” Thantaroz, it turned out, had exactly what I needed to finish the repairs on my ship and then some. After he checked out the nav system and what was left of the hyperspace beacon, we walked back to his freighter to see what we could find. The parts for the nav system were easy, but fixing the hyperspace beacon was going to be tricky. The Chiss, because we occupy such a small area of the galaxy, have installed a series of beacons that will relay to your ship’s beacon and guide you through hyperspace safely. The Galactic Empire is apparently much larger, and therefore this system is not too practical. So, they have mapped out routes and programmed them into hyperspace systems in all hyperspace capable ships. We couldn’t get my beacon working, but we could put together one of these systems for me. I liked the idea, because after a year away, I didn’t think I could go back to the ridged rules of the Ascendency. I still loved and respected my people, but I had become more free-spirited, as Valara had put it, and I wasn’t going to give that up. At the same time, however, I was not going to give up flying if I could get my ship running safely. We started gathering up the parts we would need when something that looked like a garbage bin on wheels trundled into the room whirring and beeping. “What is that thing?” I asked. Thantaroz looked up at me and then around the cabin apparently unsure what I was asking about. “You mean Glitch?” he asked, “He’s my R3-D-series astromech droid. After I escaped from my clone squadron, I had to scrap my Jedi starfighter, too much of a giveaway, but I couldn’t scrap Glitch here, he was the closest thing I had to family now that the rest of the Jedi were gone.” “Alright,” I said, “But what is an astromech droid? What’s a droid for that matter, assuming that ‘astromech’ is an adjective used to describe a type of droid… is this correct?” “Your people don’t have droids?” Thantaroz asked, amazed. “Apparently not,” I responded. “So, it’s a machine that does…?” “Well, almost anything really, there are so many different kinds of droids. Astromechs are the best, or at least I think so. They can essentially pilot a ship on their own. Granted, they lack the intuition of a sentient being, but they can plot hyperspace routs while the pilot has to fly, or do some tricky maneuvers that require precision timing, and well, it’s kinda nice to have someone to talk to on a long flight.” “But all it does is beep.” I responded. “Yes, but the beeps all mean something, and a lot of household droids have vocal processors so they can speak just about every known language. Anyway, I have translator screen on the control panel, so I know what he’s telling me.” “Hmmm… cool.” I said. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ So again my routines changed. In the morning I would have breakfast with Thantaroz, who was now sleeping on the living room sofa, and Valara. They never mentioned the argument they had had that first night. Rather, they were just extremely polite to each other, especially Thantaroz, who seemed determined to make up for the shouting match, and redeem himself in the eyes of his host. Then Thantaroz and I would work on my ship (which only took us about a week now that we had all the parts) and our new pet project, a mini astromech droid for my ship’s new nav and hyperspace systems. Then lunch and straight onto lightsaber practice. Gerard had forbidden Garrison to train in combat with me; I guess the idea of me armed around his son still bothered him, even if we were only using dull uncharged vibroblades. At first Valara would sit by and watch us practice, but her curiosity got the better of her and she eventually joined in, having never had the opportunity to study the lightsaber forms before, and it was through these lessons that I watch the two of them move from awkward politeness to actual friendship and admiration. Then Garrison would arrive from school and our lessons would continue as before. Alright, so nothing changed significantly in the routine, but something deeper had changed since Thantaroz’s arrival. While we worked in the morning he told me stories about the wider galaxy; all the places and people out there that I never knew anything about. Suddenly, I was restless, the same routine day in and day out was draining rather than comforting like it had been before. Guilt racked me as I considered leaving this place to explore the rest of the galaxy; this was my home. I never felt as safe and as cared for as I did here, but still, doesn’t every bird fly from her nest eventually? “Hey, Thals,” Thantaroz said, breaking me from yet another reverie about the distant reaches of space, “You know, that bolt won’t get any tighter! You’ve been tightening it for about a quarter of an hour, and when I say tightening I mean staring off into nothingness and moving the wrench back and forth… got something on your mind?” “Just…daydreaming I guess.” I said. We were at a table in the back of the house working on my droid, whom I decided to call mini-pilot, or M-Pi-1; Pi for short. “Uh huh,” not pushing the matter. That was one of the more frustrating things about being constantly surrounded by Force sensitive people; they could always tell what you were really feeling… unless they were distracted about something themselves. “Daydreaming. Yeah, I’ve been doing a fair bit of that since I got here- I think it’s the heat.” “I need to get out of here, Thals.” He said abruptly. He used my name, but it was more like he was talking to himself. “Oh? Why?” I asked “It’s… it’s nothing.” He said, my interruption bringing him back to reality. “It’s Valara, isn’t it?” “I… hmmm, I guess to you it would be pretty obvious wouldn’t it? Yeah, it’s her.” He replied. “But, I thought you were friends now?” I asked, “It looked like you had gotten really close over the past month.” “We have,” he said, “I, at least, have grown extremely fond of her.” “Then what’s the problem?” I asked, genuinely confused. Then it dawned on me: “Oh… you have a crush on her!” “Yes, I guess,” he replied, grinning a little at my unusually childish choice of words. “But, as she is determined to follow the teachings of the Jedi, which she was never part of and I am no longer part of because it no longer exists, it is… frustrating to be so close to her, and not be able to get closer… you know?” “Actually I can’t say that I do” I replied, attempting to be sympathetic, but just sounding pathetic. Then I added “…but I can imagine.” “The worst part is I can sense that she on some level has feelings for me, but she’s suppressing them. She won’t even believe me when I try to tell her that at least half of the Jedi before the fall were secretly engaged in relationships. I even heard that this one girl, Etain I believe, was married to and pregnant with the child of one of her commandos…I wonder what happened to them, but I guess I’ll never find out.” 1 “Let’s go then.” I said, suddenly determined. “We?” he asked. “Yes, that’s what I was day dreaming about. I need to see all those places you told me about. I want to see different planets. I want to fly again.” By the last sentence I was practically begging him to take me with him. “Don’t get me wrong, I love this place and everyone here. It’s become more of a home to me than Csilla ever was, but I became a pilot so I could get away and see everything there was to see, and then you come in telling me that there is more out there than I ever imagined, and I just can’t stay here forever.” He studied me for a moment, and then… “Alright,” He said, “but you’ll need some more training first; you’ll have to be able to mask your presence in the Force. The galaxy isn’t a safe place for Force users; I’m sure you understand this from what I’ve told you, and frankly, you’ll stand out, especially on the more backwater planets. Are you sure about this?” Admittedly, I was nervous, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. “Yeah, I’m sure.” “Okay,” He said, “We’d better tell Valara then, and I’ll start focusing your training more on what you’ll need out there. Pi, here, should be finished in a few weeks- we can leave then.” Valara had taken the news of my approaching departure with grace. She was sad that I was leaving, but she understood the need to see the wider galaxy; she had done the same thing herself when she was not much older than I am now. Gerard couldn’t quite manage to seem like he would miss me, although I give him credit for trying, for his son’s sake. Garrison was really torn apart when I told him that I would be leaving in a little less than a month, and telling him was the hardest of all. I couldn’t really say when it had happened but he had become just as much family to me as Valara. We saw each other and worked together every day for over a year. I had watched him grow from a child to a gangling young adult; when had he become almost as tall as me? This was going to be harder than I thought. The next three weeks flew by, and one morning when I walked into the kitchen for breakfast, there was Pi, leaning against my bowl, painted in a bright lime green, lights on and gears whirring. He was finished. “Good Morning, Mistress.” He chirruped in his mechanical voice. “Good morning to you too, Pi” I said, grinning a little. I spent the next week packing, saying my goodbyes to the people I had met in town, and testing Pi in my ship. Then the day was upon us. Pi was running a preflight check of the systems on the Clawcraft while Glitch did the same on Thantaroz’s ship. We were going to fly to Ord Mantell, where Thantaroz had been living before coming here. We planned to dock my ship there and then travel to the outer rim for some sightseeing and more training. Masking oneself from Force detection is much easier said than done, and I still hadn’t mastered it. Saying goodbye was going to be hard. Gerard, Garrison and Valara had come to see us off. I shook hands with Gerard, and thanked him for not killing me, I guess. I moved over to Garrison. “Hey, cheer up kid,” I said trying to sound more positive than I felt, “This isn’t forever. I’ll come visit.” “Promise?” he asked. “Promise.” With this he hugged me so tight it was a little hard to breath, but I hugged him back none the less. After a while I tousled his hair and he let go. “I’m really going to miss you kid, although I probably shouldn’t be calling you that anymore, huh?” He smiled as I turned to Valara, who was currently in the middle of her goodbyes to Thantaroz. “Take this,” he said, pressing his lightsaber into her hands. She opened her mouth to refuse but he cut her off. “No, I want you to have it. You know what’s out there now, and you never know who might show up. I want to know that you have the best means of protecting yourself from the Sith as possible.” “Plus,” he added, seemingly as an afterthought, “I haven’t exactly hid how I feel about you and I want to give you something to remember me by, so this is it.” With that he closed her fingers around the hilt, took her other hand, kissed it, then turned and walked straight into his ship. For a second, it looked as if she would go after him. Then she just sighed, and turned to me. “Take care of yourself,” she said hugging me, “and look after him too- he needs it.” “Of course,” I said, although I was dying to say “Why don’t YOU look after him? You know you want to!” “And if you ever want to settle down, you know you’ll always have a home here.” All I could do was nod, as I was choking up. I hugged her again and turned towards my ship. “Wait, Thale.” I turned and Gerard was walking towards me. “That Spiker guy, if you ever run across him…” he stopped not knowing how he wanted to finish that sentence. “I’ll see that he is punished for what he did here, you have my word.” “Thank you, for this and for putting up with an old man’s prejudice while you were here. I’m sorry.” I was stunned. He patted me awkwardly on the shoulder, and walked away. I waved to them all through my cockpit viewport, as Thantaroz’s ship took off. Then I started my engines and followed him. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ Ten months later, I was proficient with a vibroblade and could successfully shield myself from Force detection. We had just landed back on Ord Mantell. “Home sweet home,” Thantaroz said, smiling as we walked down a crowded street, and taking a deep breath, apparently enjoying the smell in the air. I wasn’t sure about “home sweet home” just yet but I was thoroughly enjoying myself, and Ord Mantell was home to so many different races that I only attracted a few stares. That, and a good portion of the people out and about seemed to be, at varying levels, intoxicated this night. “What’s the celebration?” I asked Thantaroz. “No idea.” He answered, “Hell, we’ve been out of touch for so long, I don’t even know what the date is here. Ah here we go.” He changed course abruptly heading to a holonews booth. One look at the date and he smiled. Turning to me he said, “Happy New Year, Thals!” I looked at the date on the screen, “But it’s the middle of the month?” “Naw, it’s not the planetary New Year, it’s the Galactic New Year. It matches up with time on Coruscant. I mean, with all the different planets on different day, week, month and yearly cycles, we need a centralized way of keeping track of the passage of time.” “Makes sense,” I replied “Come on,” he said, taking my arm, “It’s New Years, and that means it’s been two years since the Rebel Alliance’s victory at the Battle of Yavin. This is definitely something to celebrate!” 2 He pulled me through throngs of celebrating people, and by the time we reached our destination, the celebratory mood had worn off on me, and I was smiling and laughing with them. Our destination was a small but nice cantina near the outskirts of the party district, but of course tonight that made no difference and the crowd was just as thick here as it was down the road near the clubs and trendy bars. We found a pair of stools at the bar and he ordered a firewiskey for himself and a glass of wine for me. We drank and celebrated with the people in the cantina. All of a sudden, Thantaroz grabbed my arm. “Hey Thals,” he spoke softly so I leaned in, “You see that guy over there.” I looked where he was pointing. “Yes.” I said. “You should go talk to him.” I gaped, “Are you trying to set me up?” I asked. “No, you should just go talk to him. Here,” he said pressing some credits into my hand, “Buy that guy a drink and just talk to him, seriously.” I rolled my eyes and remained firmly in my seat. The “guy” in question was a young human, probably a few years older than me, now nineteen. He saw me looking at him and smiled. It was a friendly smile, unlike the smiles I had started getting from the old men at the other end of the bar, so I smiled back, and returned to my drink. The next time I looked up, Thantaroz had marched across the cantina, and was talking animatedly to this man. I groaned; he had obviously had too much to drink. I’d have to keep an eye out for that in the future. He came back smiling, but wouldn’t say what he had been talking about. “Thals, I’m ready to go, how about you?” “Sure” I said and we stood up. “Sorry,” he said “For what?” “For this.” As he said that, but before I could react to stop him, he lightly kicked the back of my knee, causing it to buckle and me to fall right onto the guy from the other end of the bar, who had gotten up and had been walking towards us. And of course he had been carrying a drink, which I managed to spill all over him and me. I heard Thantaroz chuckle behind me, “But I’m not really sorry.” He said, reaching down a hand to help me up. My pride of course made me refuse his help. I got to my feet, slipping a little on the now slick floor. I turned to the man, apologizing profusely, but he laughed it off. “I was just leaving anyway. No harm, no foul. I’m Dak, by the way.” He offered me his hand. “Thale,” I said, shaking it. “And I’m Thantaroz, though you both already knew that!” Thantaroz added. “So now that I finally managed to introduce the two of you, how about the three of us go for a walk?” He strode off without waiting for a reply. Dak looked at me and shrugged, and we both followed him outside. Once we were outside Thantaroz went on, “Young people these days; you can’t just talk to someone at a bar without assuming they’re in love with you. This would have been so much simpler if either of you had just talked to each other like I suggested.” “Okay, so we’re here now,” I said, “What’s so important?” “You,” he said, looking at Dak, “You’re part of the Alliance, and you are looking for help. Thale is a pilot; has her own fighter and everything, and I have my own reasons for disliking the Empire, which I’m not going to discuss here. Anyway, we’re what you’re looking for.” Dak turned to me, “Is he drunk?” he asked. “Maybe,” I said; honestly I couldn’t tell, “But everything he said about us is true. Are you really part of the Alliance?” I asked, slightly star struck after all the stories Thantaroz had told me about Luke Skywalker, Wes Janson, and Wedge Antilles, and all the stuff they managed to do in one-man fighters. “Do you know Wedge Antilles?” I blurted out, without really thinking. “Yes, I am and No, I don’t.” he said. “Thantaroz is right, I am looking for pilots. Are you interested in a simulation test? Just keep in mind if you do join up, you’re automatically a wanted criminal.” “That’s fine,” I said, “If the Empire knew I existed, they’d want me dead anyway.” THE END 1 Author’s Note: Damn publishing lawsuits and crap like that. Now I’m never going to know if Darman and Niner get out of the 501st and to Mandalore, where little baby Kad is waiting for his buir and Uncle Niner… 2 Editor’s Note: I realize that Galactic Standard Time at this point would’ve been based on the Great ReSynchronization rather than the Battle of Yavin, which wasn’t used as the zero year until 25 ABY when it was chosen by the New Republic Historical Council. However, GST was always based on the Coruscant solar cycle so no matter the point of reference for year numbering the beginning of the year (i.e. "New Years") would remain the same.
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