This mystery had been chewing at me. I realized I named it in an omake I'd actually only partially written and never released. Expect that to finish sometime today or tomorrow.
Grip It and Rip It
When I heard they were starting a grav-ball league on Kalee, I knew I had to go check it out. I'd played, during my time at Byblos Medical Academy. We played Corellian Rules. I mean, of course we did, Corellia itself wasn't more than a few systems over and if there was ever a planet with an oversized cultural footprint...I mean, look, I'm from a boring agriworld people fly past without giving it a second thought. The only people who care about Ertegas live there, or they're from there. When I got the chance to adopt Byblos as my new home, I embraced it with open arms. There was nothing left for me on Ertegas anyway. My parents sold the farm to pay for school and became traveling traders. I never forgot that. I'd like to find them sometime, pull that chunk out of my money so I can help them find somewhere nice to settle down, get them a place on Belazura.
If I live through it. I know the Watchers have 'spy wills' arranged, I should probably make sure mine's in order.
Why don't I just retire? I'd love to. Except there's two little problems. Three if you're really pulling for straws.
Problem 1: Sid Vicious still wants to tear apart the galaxy and then bend it over for his own twisted delight. I can do something to stop him, long as I'm working with the Watchers. I wouldn't care about what's going on in the galaxy...except I'm one of the idiots who lives in it. Also, I'm probably just Force-sensitive enough that any of that Order 66 stuff Gulan told me about would probably come for me too, eventually.
Problem 2: Where could I go that Ciaran couldn't find me if she really wanted to? Nowhere. Not even if I managed to run the Black Nebula or pick my way through the Maw. So I can't retire without having to look over my shoulder for Ciaran or hers looking to drag me back in.
Problem 3: Even if I managed to hide from both Sid and Ciaran, there's still the matter of three or four dozen years of crushing boredom and not living up to my potential, never knowing what I could do or could have done.
So it seems the only choice is to stick it out and see how deep the rabbit-hole goes, hopefully without ending up dead before my time. Look, if you'd lived through all the crazy stuff I had, you'd have neuroses too. I cope.
Largely, I cope by doing the lightsaber katas Masha showed me and the Alchaka meditations Darra showed me. Get stronger, have fewer "how am I still alive" moments per year, and eventually I'll get to a point where I stop being scared because nothing in my pay grade is scary any more--and I just have to hope the transparisteel ceiling remains intact.
Ironic, that the path I started on to be less scared with the Kaleesh led to me being more scared and expected to stand on my own.
Kaleesh. Gravball. Focus. Right.
I landed on Kalee with the next supply drop, wearing my Kaleesh mask. Within a few hours I was on one of the outdoor gravball practice fields, curious to see how the Kaleesh played.
They were, in fact, playing by Corellian rules. At least, it looked compatible with Corellian rules. They seemed to be playing based on smashball rules--old-school, three meters and a cloud of dust, before the invention of the forward pass smashball.
I smiled to myself. Gravball on Kalee was about to go through a major innovation and start looking more like limmie than smashball. Oh, don't get me wrong, defenders would still have plenty of reason to take the body, but I was going to introduce catch-and-shoot strikers to a game that had been all about blocking wedges and pitch-out sweeps.
I won't bore you with more sports details. I know that not everybody goes in for this sort of thing.
For those of you who do care? Well, I'm pretty sure their sports news crews are still talking about Team Izvoshra, the human striker who replaced their injured striker, and whether or not the traditional favorites would be altering their strategy to account for the new individualistic tactics demonstrated by Team Izvoshra.
Okay, okay, fine, the real reason I don't want to talk about it is that because I hadn't played gravball in at least a decade, my play was atrocious, and we mostly won for the same reason the first guy to invent an air force won a battle. Not because they fought well but because they brought an overwhelming technological advantage. Look, I shot 40%, including an abysmal 20% from the edge of the scoring zone. Back when I was playing on Byblos they had a play called Grip It And Rip It, where they'd get the ball to me once I'd gotten open for a clean shot. I just could not get open. I wasn't very good on defense either. I'm going to stick to coaching, if I ever get involved in Gravball again.
At least that's what I said until I found out the Abyss Watchers had an intramural league.
A/N: An omake entirely focused on the play of gravball could be done, but I know not everybody goes for sports.
