A Grievous Omission
I sat in the fishbowl of the Abyss Watchers med center. Look, after trying to do stuff I wasn't good at like spywork and combat, it was comforting to go do something I was actually good at. I still hadn't held my lightsaber since Coruscant, but I figured if I kept busy doing other things I wouldn't need it.
I walked back from the med center to my lodging and at my doorstep was Grievous. I blinked. "Sir?" I acknowledged. If he was here, something very bad was about to happen and the more I knew about it, the better.
Grievous looked at me and I thought I saw a hint of a smile on his face. "I have been watching you since you first joined my guard. I've seen you grow. I had been hoping advancing you would enable you to finally bloom. Your tactics were not bad, but your combat skill was embarrassing. I've arranged for you to train on Myrkr."
I blinked. "Understood, sir. What should I take with me?"
Grievous positively grinned, and my danger sense screamed at me. "Everything you'd want for a short walk. I will be back in one hour, and you will be coming with me."
My eyes went wide. I had an hour to pack everything I'd want for a short walk on Myrkr. I started my datapad loading everything available in the Abyss Watchers' files on Myrkr. I loaded up my combat harness. Medical kit, survival kit, scythe, blaster, lightsaber--look, it was a useful tool even if I couldn't use it as a weapon--datapad, and spare power packs for the blaster and power cells for the datapad and lightsaber, along with a basic toolkit to be able to repair these things. Look, ever since that warehouse on Coruscant I'm a little paranoid, okay?
The hour nearly finished and I met Grievous at my front door. "You're prompt. That's good news for your door."
I reviewed the datapad files on Myrkr while we flew there. The files were fairly brief. Forested. Plants tended to have a high metal content, which messed with sensors. Home of the ysalamiri and vornskrs. Vornskrs were vicious canines that got to around a meter high, sensed the Force and used it to hunt. Their typical prey, ysalamiri, were lizards that tended to cling to trees and generated bubbles in which the Force...was pushed back, or negated, or unable to be used. Reports differed.
Great. That uncertainty was just what I needed to be able to not sleep at night. I flipped my datapad back to "Introduction to Medical Ethics" and set up to sleep on the shuttle.
I woke to the sound of the proximity alarm.
"Well, it's beautiful, all right," I said, looking at the planet through the cockpit.
Grievous grinned. "Perfect for a short walk."
As we flew down to the planet's surface, I looked through the cockpit to try to find the Watchers facility. It wasn't showing up on the sensors at all, but that could be the weird plants having more metal than usual.
"I'll join you shortly. They're up ahead. It's a short walk," Grievous urged.
I made sure I had my things and stepped off the loading ramp of the shuttle. I'd taken about four steps and then the shuttle started to take off. I ran back toward it, but it was already pretty far up in the air. Apparently Grievous wasn't taking chances for some reason.
There was an electronic crackle and then the shuttle's speaker came to life. "The other side of the continent is your short walk. Do not fear, for I am always watching, and you will probably not die here."
I reached for the comm on my belt. "Probably, sir?"
There was laughter to the response over the comm. "Contrary to popular myth, I do sleep." The shuttle flew off.
"The other side of the continent. Oh. Shit."
I spent a few minutes looking over the map and getting my bearings, as well as where the actual Watchers facility was.
I then spent the next few weeks walking. And hunting. And walking. And running from vornskrs. And hiding from vornskrs. And finding ways to use ysalamiri bubbles to hide from vornskrs. And sleeping. And walking. And learning how to kill vornskrs. And walking. And sneaking past vornskrs. And finding water I could drink with the filter straw out of my survival kit. And sleeping.
I noticed my thoughts becoming more sharp, more focused. Immediate survival actions only. Keep moving to the target. Sneak past or kill anything in my way. If it took training from some form of hell to get to be good at this stuff? Well, a place where drawing upon the Force made you smell like a steak to two-meter-long scorpion-hounds and where there were areas sometimes kilometers wide where you couldn't actually grasp the Force would probably qualify as a form of hell.
By the end of week three, I started recognizing areas the ysalamiri liked congregating, started recognizing the tracks of vornskrs.
Up on top of what passed for a mountain here, I saw the facility down in the valley and started making my way towards it. I thought I saw the shuttle there too, but that might have been me hallucinating.
About a week later, I walked into the area the scientists had cleared for the facility. Grievous was there, and so was a dark-brown haired woman in black, holding herself as though the planet made her uneasy.
Looking at a timer in his hand, Grievous laughed. "I told you he'd make it under a month," Grievous said, extending his hand towards the woman, who seemed to growl in irritation.
"Remind me never to bet against you," she said in my direction, reaching into her pocket and slapping a twenty credit chit into Grievous' hand.
I grinned. "Thank you," I said, seeing amusement flare in her bright blue eyes. It was then that I recognized Masha.
She laughed. "Not you. Him," she said, indicating Grievous. "He's been telling me for the last week that taking his wager was a terrible mistake and he wanted to make sure I'd be here to rub it in, the schutta."
Grievous looked between us. "I have with me two training lightsabers. First one to land a blow on the other gets to go back on the shuttle with me. The other one has to walk back."
I blinked. Walking a month back? Like hell.
I started walking over, waiting for Masha to fully turn her back to me. I then called one of the sabers to hand, lit it and stabbed Masha in the back with it, the flesh sizzling and stinging. She fell, uninjured but very much in pain.
I turned to Masha, offering her my hand to stand up. "He didn't say when that started. You're way better at lightsabers than me. Also, there's no way in hell I'm walking a month the other way. It left me with one option, really." As she took my hand and pulled herself up, I leaned in close.
Don't worry, I'll make it up to you in private.
Grievous smiled. "A month ago, you would have fought her normally...and probably lost."
"I learned a lot on my short walk, sir."
A/N: For some reason Riphath doesn't want to recall the actual details of the walk. Somehow, I don't blame him.
Unrelated:
Hasn't he removed the elections with his emergency powers until the war is over? I could have sworn something like that happened earlier.
...holy crap the
Republic Emergency Powers Act is horrible.
Emergency Powers Act said:
It eliminated term limits for Supreme Chancellors, giving each Chancellor the option of when to stand down for new elections. The act also granted powers for chancellors to make instant decisions without the need for full senate approval, giving Palpatine all necessary authority to attempt to end the Separatist Crisis, including declaration of martial law on local systems.
The senate granted Palpatine special powers for the duration of the emergency, yet Palpatine himself was the only person who had the authority to declare the emergency over.
