Star Wars: Beyond The Sky

[Aisling]

When they broke out of hyperspace, the condensed level of traffic around Coruscant forced them to register with flight control far before they ever approached the planets surface. With the major traffic lanes lit up on the ships front viewport, avoiding the majority of the traffic was easy. If regular citizens had broken traffic lanes like this they would have faces fines, but being a jedi had certain perks, not the least of which was a certain level of freedom to bend minor laws. The Jedi just had too much reputation for being preternaturally capable of handling almost anything.

The approach to the Temple was simple enough but rather than going for one of the lower docking bays, they settled for one of the repulsorpads hovering nearby. Once the ship was landed and locked, it was a simple matter to request a speeder to meet them at the landing pad.

The first thing that struck Mar about Coruscant was the scent of it. There was something almost artificial about the air that, unknown to her, was the result of the massive atmospheric control systems that allowed the city-planet not to choke on itself. The second thing was the heat. She expected it to be chilly, but it wasn't. Not at all. It took her a moment to realize it was probably reflected heat, the gleaming metal and ceramic and glass all around her acting like a big heat mirror to the sun Coruscant spun around.

But what really floored her was the sheer scale of the city around her. She'd never seen anything remotely like it before. To Mar, Starlight Beacon had been grandiose and large, a complex so massive she felt she'd only begun to scratch the surface of what life was like there. But this...

The temple alone was half the size of Starlight Beacon. The landing pad hovered several hundred feet above what appeared to be the surface, just suspended there, like somebody had decided that gravity was an inconvenience their landing pad could no longer afford. The idea of floating vehicles wasn't new to Mar. She had flown here in a space ship, after all. But the landing pad suggested to her that things like power requirements weren't an issue and that the technology she'd seen so far was nothing compared to what she hadn't.

Fenet put a hand on her shoulder as Mar stood at the bottom of the ramp to Light's Touch, looking a bit spooked. "Are you alright?"

"Uh huh." Mar nodded slowly, then shook herself out of it, moving with Fenet to catch up to So'duun, who was already waiting at the speeder. The vehicle in question was chrome, sleek and the only insignia on it was the crest of the Jedi Temple. Behind them, the ramp hissed as M8 closed it up, following them with clunking steps to the speeder and visibly tilting it after climbing inside.

Fenet watched that and couldn't help but smile a little, then hopped into the drivers seat before So'duun could. "Dibs!" The first thing she did was begin adjusting the weight balance, the speeder evening out again while Mar climbed in next to M8 and So'duun took shotgun. The open top of the speeder left Mar unnerved and she found herself glad for the seatbelts and having M8 to hold onto.

The ride wasn't so bad though. Fenet drove well, sensing her friends discomfort and taking a more gentle approach than she might have if it had been her and So'duun alone. Terrifying So'duun with her driving was one of the few ways Fenet could really mess with her without being too mean and a girl had to have something when So'duun regularly pranked her. Though not quite so much since Mar had joined, so maybe being nice about the drive was fair, too.

Once Fenet brought the speeder in to land on the parking terrace, they hopped out (with the exception of M8, who was exceedingly careful not to damage the speeder as it exited) and headed in towards the large durasteel-chrome arch that bordered the door into the temple. The temple guards, faces hidden, seemed like statues as they passed by. One carried what was plainly a staffsaber, like Fenet had shown her, but the others design was completely unique and she stopped for a moment.

"Hello." Mar spoke to the guard, who may as well have been a statue. "I've never seen your style of lightsaber before and this is my first time to the temple. Can I ask what it is?"

Fenet turned to glance back at her, waving So'duun and M8 on so her master could go talk to the council without being distracted by them. The guard didn't respond at first, then turned his - her? The armor made it difficult to guess - head to look at Mar through the faceless helm they wore under their hood. The guard full-body turned, then unclipped their lightsaber.

What appeared to be two lightsabers connected turned out to be a staff-saber with a hinge. Mar gasped a little when the guard straightened the saber out, activating both blades. Golden-yellow like So'duuns, Mar leaned in a little to examine the handle.

"Oh! You put an interlock hinge in it! That's..." She tilted her head. "Why'd you do that?"

The guard didn't answer by speaking, but instead folded the saber, bringing the two blades parallel to each other like a fork. Then the guard turned the blade side to side, slowly.

"Oooooh. You can trap something between the two blades." The guard nodded, deactivating the weapon and placing it back on their belt. Mar bowed slightly. "Thank you. That's really interesting, I'll leave you be."

A respectful, slow nod from the guard and Mar skipped over to join her friend, beaming. "That's really cool. How come you never showed me that one?"

"I've never really talked to the guards. Usually it's a little impolite to just go asking like that, but I don't think they minded. Your sheer enthusiasm is kind of endearing, you know."

Mar grinned at that. "Designing my sword has been really fun. Is Ilum the only place you can find a crystal?"

Fenet shook her head, leading Mar down a large open hallway, all gray and black stone. Plants lined the walls which had niches for statues of Jedi Mar didn't recognize. Although, being fair to herself, it's not like she would. Jedi of all ages were passing by ahead, where the tunnel met the main terrace of the temple which led to the front doors. A few of the younglings seemed to be playing, but many were simply talking or meditating. A few were reading. All of them were races Mar had never seen before and she kept having to remind herself not to stop and stare or it would be rude, both to Fenet and to the others.

"Nah, but they're definitely a lot rarer. They tend to form in places strong in the Force. Sometimes that happens naturally, sometimes it's something we did."

"What do you mean?"

"Well... for instance, this temple. If there were anything natural anywhere near here, there's a pretty good bet kyber would be nearby. Jedi have been here for so long that the place has become a focal point in the Force. If Coruscant were abandoned tomorrow, that would still be true. It would still be true a thousand years from now. The sheer weight of enough Force users in a single place for a long enough time, or something really big being done can do that. Eventually, kyber follows, if the conditions are right."

Mar nodded, following Fenet up the steps to the temple. "So it's not just that there's crystals at Ilum, there's crystals and so many Jedi have been there that they make more crystals, like a feedback loop."

"Yep." Another set of guards stood sentinel at the temples entrance, a massive open arch big enough to fly a small shuttle into. Banners of different worlds were hung along the upper walls of the entrance, plants everywhere. Somebody clearly went to a lot of trouble to maintain a full garden spread inside the main lobby of the temple. Every possible benign flower in the galaxy had to be there, or so Mar thought to herself as she followed her friend in, circling around the fountain in the center of the chamber. Skylights above bathed the whole lobby in softened golden sunlight from slightly tinted windows, causing the golden filigree in the architecture to glitter as she moved.

"So where are we going, anyways?" Mar jogged a little to walk beside Fenet, having lagged behind to get a good look around.

"To the jedi archives. There's stuff I need to show you, about the history of the Order. Stuff all the younglings learn, but you need a crash course and I know just the person to go talk to about it."

"Who's that?"

"Her name is Hami. She's the head archivist but she'd so old that she just kind of directs things now. She's ancient and knows things nobody else does about the Order but is pretty picky about who she gives that knowledge to. I'm pretty sure the only person in the Order she's really open with is Yoda."

"Why's that?"

"Same race, but she's a little more than twice his age. She's lived in the archives for a couple centuries so they've been a constant in each others lives for awhile when everyone else around them keeps getting old and dying, you know?"

Mar nodded sympathetically. "I can't imagine what that's like. Both being that old and having to watch friends die over and over like that. I can see how lots of people would want to live a long time, but I suppose it has drawbacks, doesn't it?"

The trip to the temple archives didn't take long. An entire floor of the temple was dedicated to them so they simply took the nearest lift down. When the door opened they almost bumped into a gungan who practically jumped backwards.

Fenet smiled at him. "Sorry about that."

"Me's alright. Lettin' the mind wander." He nodded to them and stepped into the lift, disappearing. Fenet took the lead but grabbed Mar's hand because she kept getting distracted. Shelves like the one Fenet had for data tablets in her cargo bay filled the room, there had to be dozens and they were all nearly twice as tall as Mar was herself. The walls had even more shelves - though a few had computer interfaces as well - and at the far end of the library, sitting on which might be a dias was somebody who had to be Hami.

The spot she sat on was raised off the floor, bringing her to eye-level with most of the others in the library while she sat down. The spot was cushioned comfortably with a small backrest, allowing her to lay back and sleep if necessary. Just to her left stood a youngling who was busy reading a book, one of the vintage replica ones with dynamic pages that could open and be thumbed through to read a data tablet. As they walked up to Hami, the old crone sat up a little, studying them.

"Hmmmmm. You are new faces. What are you looking for, children?"

Mar felt a little put out by that, but not as much as if anyone else had said it, considering that pretty much everybody qualified as children to somebody this old. It was Fenet who answered, though. "I'm Fenet Y'si, this is Mar. She's, um... new. One of those special cases of late-stage training where she needs to catch up on things. Important stuff, like the Sith Wars, early history. Um... perhaps a holocron, if that were possible. I think we both might benefit from one specializing in Force control technique."

Hami regarded them steadily, nodding, nodding. "Hm. Bije, please go and retrieve the hover chair." She nodded again, seemingly to herself. "It seems I have a lesson to give today."

 

[Aisling]

"Master So'duun."

The voice held an electronic rasp to it but when she turned to look she found it belonged to another Jedi, a human wearing the traditional robes of white and gold. The change to her voice came from the mask she was wearing, covering her lower face and plated to show no definition, a rather obvious prosthetic of some kind. She'd been lost in thought, staring through one of a number of statues in the waiting room, prominent Jedi of ages past. The room had benches but she had elected to ignore them, pacing back and forth across the synthetic hardwood floor.

"Yes?"

"They are ready to speak with you now."

So'duun nodded, following the woman as she turned and seemed to almost glide to the chamber door. She blinked reflexively in the sunlight spilling into the council chambers at first, but the smart tint of the window filtered the worst of the glare out. Most of the council seats were empty, holding only three members.

Adampo - was the first Bothan she'd ever met - had very fine, downy fur which grew close to his skin. An elongated nose and mouth were offset by eyes with a deep, penetrating intellect. His hair was blond, only a few shades lighter than the beige of his fur. He wore robes with a specialized sash underneath showing his rank and scholarly achievements, covered by his outer robes. He seemed eager, leaning forward in his seat a little, which seemed understandable given he was a linguistics scholar.

Ada-li Carro sat next to him, smiling benevolently as So'duun entered the chambers. A middle-aged human woman with a complexion that spoke of many hours meditating in the sun, the lines of her face lent her a sort of grandmotherly image while she was being gentle... something which she had seen firsthand could change, as the woman was a diplomat with a spine as strong as the buildings she designed.

The third seat was being held by Grandmaster Yoda himself. She knew him well, though that could be said for almost anybody who had spent time in the temple on Coruscant, but it had been Yoda she had first spent time with when she arrived at the temple after her graduation from the Luka Sene. Part of her felt he was a bit like a grandfather figure, in a way. His small stature didn't bother her in the slightest because when she looked at him in the Force, all she could see was a dense point of light. Sometimes she found it difficult to focus too much on him.

"Masters. Thank you for granting me your time."

"A fascinating mystery you have brought us, hm?" Yoda smiled wryly. "Long has your quest to find our roots taken you back and forth in the far places. And now this, on Ilum!" The little green Master cackled, apparently finding the irony too much.

"Indeed. My preliminary analysis of your data allowed me to translate your script." The windows of the Council chamber began to dim as the glass turned opaque, the holo-emitter built into the center of the ceiling activating and showing recreations of the writing from the wall. "It is very old. Nearly six thousand years old, in fact."

"That would place it before the Great Hyperspace War." So'duun was encouraged. It was a time period that quite a lot of information had been lost from. "May I hear the translation?"

Adampo gestured to the air, changing the holo-displays and overlapping the original script with the translated script. The first to be displayed was the image of the Tho Yor and the Galactic Radial that had accompanied it, the translation of the script surrounding it below.

EARLY DID THE FORCE GUIDE ITS CHILDREN
MANY WORLDS BROUGHT TOGETHER
IN THE UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF LIFE
ON HOLY TYTHON DID THEY MEET
AND THE WORLD SHOOK WITH THEIR ARRIVAL

So'duun tilted her head as Adampo read the inscription aloud to her, thoughtfully rubbing her chin. "Interesting, but we know this much. What of the rest?"

"Hear for yourself." Adampo changed the display again, showing the wall with the solid blocks of text. Quickly he divided them up, tiling them for easy examination. Then he began to read out loud to her again.

IN PEACE THE CHILDREN OF THE FORCE DID STUDY
BALANCE FOREVER SOUGHT BUT INESCAPABLY IMPERMANENT
UNTIL THE CURSED RAKATA ARRIVED
AN INFINITE THREAT THAT BROUGHT THE DARKNESS
AND THE WORLD BLED WITH THEIR ARRIVAL

WITHOUT SHIPS THEY CONQUERED
SLAUGHTERING ALL IN THEIR WAY
THE BLADES OF LIGHT FOUND THE CHILDREN OF THE FORCE
AND THE WORLD WARRED WITH THEIR ARRIVAL

"Fascinating. The blades of light?" She gestured absentmindedly, an elaborate shrug. "Lightsabers?"

"Possible, this is. The origins of the lightsaber have long been shrouded in mystery." Yoda hmm'd, standing up from his seat and hobbling his way over to the holograms. "Master Adampo, if you would please?"

"Of course." The display switched to the face that had been carved in kyber, the text surrounding it displaying a translation on the right hand side next to it which Ada-li chose to read aloud this time.

BUT THE DARKNESS DID NOT PASS WITH THE END OF THE INFINITE THREAT
THE FINAL MISTAKE OF THE KWA WAS VANQUISHED
BUT BOGAN HAD FOUND ITS WAY INTO THE HEARTS OF MANY
THE CHILDREN OF THE FORCE WARRED WITH EACH OTHER UNTIL THE BOGAN WERE SLAIN
AND THE MOONS WEPT FOR THEIR DEATHS

THE CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT FORSOOK HOLY TYTHON
TO OSSUS THEY WENT WITH ALL THEY KNEW
LEAVING THE DAI BENDU BEHIND
AND FORSAKING THE BALANCE FOREVER

So'duun gasped softly. "Ossus. And what are the Kwa?"

"When I examined the architecture of the chamber, I found that the dimensions of the chamber itself were a mathematical puzzle. Using the recording your padawan made, I was able to create a three-dimensional mesh and extrapolate a set of co-ordinates from the dimensions of the room walls." Master Carro spoke almost absentmindedly, thoughtfully. "Longitude and latitude don't mean much in space, but if you're going to Ossus, it would help to have a starting point."

Something in So'duun relaxed as she realized they weren't going to pull this out of her reach. "Ossus is a ruined world. We'll need full environmental protection the entire time. I suppose M8 will get to earn its keep." She sighed. "If I ask Fenet to harden it against radiation, it should be able to venture into places we can't reach."

"Driven, you are, by your curiousity." Yoda said to her, quietly. "But be careful. I sense something dark hovering, just out of reach. But the threat is unclear. My sight in this is clouded." He poked his walking stick at So'duun. "You must put the safety of your padawans first. Master Kriss has staked much on the training of this new padawan of yours."

"She was quite emphatic. We'd like to meet this new padawan." Master Carro stood up, drifting over to join them standing. "As I understand it, they're down in the archives right now. When they finally escape Hami's memory, we'll ask that they be sent up to us. In the meantime, we'll have the archives compile any data that may be useful to you in this."

"I have one question." So'duun turned her head, 'glancing' at each of them. "Who are the Kwa?"

"We do not know." Master Adampo spread his hands, mystified. "The name does not appear in any of our records. It is a mystery to us as well."

Yoda nodded his head to her as Adampo gestured at the display, deactivating it and gesturing to her. "May the Force be with you. You will find all of the funds you will need from the treasury, but you should take the time to turn them into fungible assets before you leave. Credits mean nothing outside of the republic, but precious metals are precious everywhere."

So'duun bowed low to the three of them, then turned to exit the chamber.

On the surface, she kept her composure, walking briskly through the waiting chamber to the turbolift which would take her down to the temples main floor. When she got to the bottom she stepped out, walking across the hall and turning to one of the niches holding glass-cased works of art, next to which was M8, waiting for her.

"Did the meeting go well?"

"Yes. Yes, it did. It seems we're going on a quest, M8. We already have most of the supplies we need laid in and stocked, but I'd like you to accompany me while we travel to the financial district. Transporting a bunch of precious metals to the ship will go a lot easier with your help."

"Of course. Do you intend to eat them?"

"Eat them?"

"We do tend to seem to lose money with an excessive amount of haste."

"Heh. This is... it's deep, let's just say that. Something important to the Order. They're giving us whatever we might need, then cutting us loose to go chase down whatever it is we're looking for. C'mon." Gesturing, So'duun turned to walk, heading for the terrace where the temples speeders were kept.

Soon enough they were on their way, M8 cramped into a seat next to her while sat back and let the droid fly them along the standard traffic lanes. With the sun beginning to set the sky to their left was blindingly bright, but So'duun couldn't exactly admire the view. To her the lanes of traffic around her were like well-ordered, tiny points of flying light. The buildings were pillars of faint light. She would have had no difficulty driving, but preferred to let her mind wander when the speeder astromech could do the job just as well. As they drove, M8 and the astromech appeared to be having a conversation, much to her amusement.

"I find the new body very satisfying."

A series of warbling beeps.

"No. The organics I travel with treat me well."

A bubbly chirp answered M8 as the speeder switched traffic lanes.

"No, how many?"

Chirp-warble.

M8 didn't answer right away. "Your sense of humor has become very strange."

Another affirmative beep answered it.

---

The landing pad the Light's Touch sat on was lit with blue spotlights when they finally arrived. A different, heavier speeder brought them to the platform, landing on it and causing it to tilt slightly before the repulsorlifts compensated for the uneven weight distribution. M8 climbed out of it and opened the cargo pod of the little flying truck, beginning the work of offloading the dense metal bars. While it did that, So'duun opened the ship up, heading inside.

She made her way to the bridge, sitting down in her flight seat only to find she sat on something. Frowning, she got back up and picked up what seemed to be a piece of actual paper. She'd held the stuff before, but only in ancient books from backwater planets. Of course, she couldn't read it.

Getting up she turned to head back out and walked up to M8, holding the note up. "What does this say?"

"You appear to be holding it backwards. If I may." M8 gently reached up, gripping the corner of the paper and tugging it lightly from her hand. "The note appears to hold only an image. It is symbol strongly resembling the icon used by the Republic."

"Dammit. I'm going to need Fenet to look at it. Keep an eye on things out here, I need to check the ship for uninvited tracking devices and other such fun things."

As So'duun grumbled her way back into the ship, M8 turned its head to stare at the strange symbol yet again.

​

 

[Aisling]

I have no idea what these reactions mean if I'm being completely honest, lol.

But the cats and little sun icons are cute. Thank you, readers.

Although I might not always answer, I love feedback and hearing peoples thoughts on the stories. Feel free to blather at me along the way as you guys read this. Other perspectives are enriching and I've been known to occasionally change things or run with ideas based on feedback I get. Knowing people are reading this stuff and enjoying it is the main thing that keeps me writing. That and a minor obsession with writing at least one Star Wars book before I die.

I'm not sure 14-year-old me could forgive me if I didn't.

I plan to update again this evening, but alas, phones are not a good medium on which to write a book.

EDIT: Apparently I've been spelling kyber wrong. Oops. You'd think for all the shit I know I would've gotten that one right.

 

[Aisling]

After Bije acquired the hoverchair for his tiny master, Hami hobbled her way into it, sitting down heavily and making it bounce a little. "Mmph. Yes, much better. Thank you, Bije." The youngling nodded to her, apparently content to sort of hover behind them. Mar guessed he was one of the padawans who hadn't had a master yet, like Fenet had once been.

Leading them out of the archives, Hami took them down to the Halls of History, a room specializing in displaying the data tablets in a somewhat more theatrical way than a mere computer terminal. The hall itself was rather large and roomy, with only two massive pillars to hold up the ceiling arches a few meters above their heads. The walls were engraved with murals of battles, important historical events, artistic representations of past Jedi masters and their deeds. There was quite a lot of wall to cover, since the room was shaped as a large dome.

The lights which came from indirect sources near the ceiling dimmed as they entered and Hami waved a hand, activating something and causing a holodisplay to appear. It was a map of the galaxy, but an old one, showing the borders of the Old, old Republic. Fenet realized what was about to be explained immediately but Mar tilted her head at how much of the map was labeled as 'unknown regions'.

"Five millennia ago is the farthest back our history reaches because of what we now call the Great Hyperspace War." Hami monologued as the map spun slowly, clearly showing the Republic and the Sith Empire. "Young explorers, Gav and Jori Daragon, stumbled upon the Sith Empire accidentally. The history of the Sith and where they came from is somewhat unclear, but at the time we first encountered them they were a strong and conflict-driven army of darkness. The Republic was not prepared for their arrival, suffering dreadful casualties until the Sith war leader, Naga Sadow, was defeated."

Mar watched the borders of the two nations shift and move back and forth as Hami spoke, the Sith making good gains at first but then slowly losing them, being chipped away bit by bit as the Republic slowly overwhelmed the Dark Lords.

"In this first conflict, much was lost. Not all of our history, but much. Coruscant itself fell, for a time. After the eventual defeat of the Dark Lords of the Sith, the great library was established on Ossus, meant to be the embodiment of all our knowledge... much as this archive is, today." She sounded very pleased by that fact. While she spoke, Mar and Fenet watched the holodisplay, which changed from the map to scenes from the war. Mar was actually pretty impressed with the display. The use of kyber crystals in the holo-emitters focusing array was allowing the display to be shown in full color rather than the customary monotone blue.

It only made the scenes that much more powerful. Sith Lords, lightsabers a uniform red, standing over the broken bodies of jedi among the burning ruins of Coruscant. The scene filled the hall, the simulated daylight wan with the fogginess of the smoke of a thousand small fires as the city burned around them, the sky-high towers broken, burning or felled into ruin on the cratered and fractured surface in the backdrop of the scene. Later changed to a scene in space, showing the planet Ossus as Hami mentioned it.

"It was a thousand years before we heard from the Dark Lords again. We believed the Sith destroyed." She sighed wearily. "As always. They seem to always escape extinction, an unbroken line until their final fall and the victory of the Light. When they returned during the Crusade of Krath a thousand years after, they established a new Sith Empire, founded by the dark lord Exar Kun and the traitor, Ulic Qel-droma. Although Qel-droma was later redeemed, it was not until he was cut off from the Force completely.'

Mar eyewidened. "You can do that?"

Hami shook her head slowly. "It is... a grave thing to do to somebody. Only in the most extreme cases has it been done, those too dangerous to be left alive, but who it would be too difficult to kill, usually for political reasons. Only a handful have ever suffered this fate in the history of the Order."

Mar nodded, looking disconcerted and glancing at Fenet, who was staring slightly slackjawed at the holodisplay. She'd never seen one in color before.

"After the fall of the Sith, victory was not absolute. They scattered and the conflict lasted on and off for nearly a century. Two millennia later, we came into contact with them again, at Acablas. Both governments were investigating a vergence in the Force. A thousand years of on-and-off hostile contact before another great war between the Jedi and Sith saw the Sith finally defeated. That is not to say the Dark Side was destroyed." Hami shook her head. "No. But the legacy and lineage of the Dark Lords of the Sith were finally, finally broken and their dark secrets lost forever."

"But by then..." The old master sounded sad. "So much of our history was lost. The Sith brought death, ruin and malice where the Jedi bring peace and prosperity. That ruin and malice saw Ossus destroyed, Coruscant ransacked multiple times... this very temple was destroyed and rebuilt. We have enjoyed a thousand years of peace in the light since then, may it last forever." She gestured once again, the holodisplay turning off and the lights in the hall rising again.

Mar and Fenet stood up. "That was amazing." Fenet sounded like she meant it, too. "I've never seen this hall before."

Mar looked thoughtful, following as Hami began to lead them back towards the archives. "So a fallen jedi isn't the same as a sith lord?"

"No. The Sith were far more dangerous, their arts steeped in the Dark Side, their secrets ancient. Fallen Jedi do not have the training, they are too new to the corruption. This is why we hunt them down so hard, so that they cannot have time to master their dark arts and pass it on, starting the cycle again."

"I seeeeee." Mar nodded. "Thank you, Master Hami. I think I understand now why everybody is so nervous about me." She hehs softly, shaking her head. "I don't want to turn out that way."

"Want!" Hami sped up a little, then turned to face Mar. "Want has nothing to do with it!" She pointed at the girl, leaning forward a little. "Let your passions rule you and they will dominate you. They will be amplified in the Force the more you give yourself to the darkness. You won't want to stop!" She waved dismissively. "To avoid the dark side, you must master yourself. Face it within yourself and conquer it before it conquers you."

Mar frowned a little, but nodded slowly. That seemed to appease the old master, who hmm'd at Mar and turned back around to hover her way to the archives again.

Fenet's hip beeped and she pulled her commlink from her belt. "Yes?"

"Somebody has been inside the ship. I'm checking it over right now for any gifts left behind other than the paper note they left in the cockpit. We have the go-ahead from the Council, but they'd like to meet Mar, so head up to their chambers whenever you're finished your history lesson."

"Okay. What does the note say?"

"It doesn't say anything. M8 says there's just a picture of something on it. You'll need to look at it when you get back to the ship."

"Understood. We'll go up now, we just finished."

"So'duun out."

"Hmm." Mar veered with Fenet towards the turbolifts of the archive. "A note with a picture."

"Yeah, it's weird. I've seen paper before but it's always on richly forested worlds where technology isn't much of a thing, it's always a backwater or really primitive. I wonder why the masters want to see us?"

"I can't even begin to guess." They piled into the turbolift, going up.

When the lift doors opened they found themselves greeted by the girl with the mask, who seemed to be the Council chambers doorkeeper. Leading them to the chamber doors itself she hung back outside as the two girls proceeded in, finding themselves facing Yoda, Adampo and Ada-li.

"Welcome, you are. Expecting you, we have been." Yoda sounded kindly and although Mar thought his voice sounded a little funny, she could clearly see the resemblence between him and the old archivist. Yoda still managed to look pretty ancient, though.

"Hello." Mar waved weakly, looking back and forth at the three of them. "I'm sorry, I feel like I should know you all, but..."

"Yes, this has all been a bit of a rush for you, hasn't it?" Ada-li managed to sound almost grandmotherly. "Tell us, how do you feel right now? It's okay to take a moment to answer."

Fenet was silent, hanging back and watching while Mar stood there for long seconds, taking stock of herself. "I feel... gratified? Satisfied? I'm not sure how to phrase it. A mixture of gratitude, feeling strong and capable. A little nervous now that I've seen why everyone is so afraid of the dark side."

"A little is good." Adampo nodded. "It's the fear that wiggles deep into your soul that's the danger. Knowing the risk is the first step to avoiding it."

"Feel you are at risk, do you?" Yoda asked it gently, almost quietly.

"No." Mar shook her head dismissively. "I know I have a long way to go in terms of what I need to learn. But when So'duun took me, I was a victim. Isolated. The people I trusted were my enemies." She sighed. "I know I should feel like I've suffered a loss, but I kind of don't. I hope that doesn't make me a bad person. It's like my old life was a dream and I'm finally awake, now."

"Hmm." Yoda nodded at the answer. "Perhaps. Good, this feeling is. Knowing that you do not know. Know that I do not know many things, I do." He give Mar an impish look, smiling a little. "Always the student. Even a master. Especially a master."

"May I ask a question?", Mar ventured.

"Of course."

"Why are you training me?"

Yoda regarded her thoughtfully. "On Starlight Beacon, meet Master Kriss you did. Saw something in you, Master Kriss did. Made the argument for you she did, almost insisting. But why, she could not say."

Mar looked surprised. "I only spoke with her for a short time."

"Nonetheless, she seems to believe that you have the potential to be a great Jedi. She said she had seen it in the Force before she met you, then recognized you when she saw you up close." Adampo shrugged with one shoulder.

Mar nodded in return. "I don't know if I will be. I know that this... all of this..." She gestured around at the council chambers. "...feels... right. I want to learn about the Force. I want to learn everything!" She laughed, saying it. "I've seen so much since I joined Fenet and So'duun, but I know it's only a tiny sliver of what's out there. I don't understand why you're all here, staying in one place. How do you not want to roam the galaxy?"

Ada-li laughed, a proper belly laugh. Adampo and Yoda both smiled, but it was Ada-li who answered. "We have! Oh, we have. Years of it. Eventually we just got too old for it. Now we get to pretend to be wise elders instead."

It was Mar's turn to giggle a little. "I don't know about pretending."

"Hmm, wisdom is not guaranteed with age. But as you get older, you will find that it begins and ends with knowing there is always more to learn. Thank you for your time, both of you." Adampo bowed his head slowly and the girls took it for the dismissal it was, bowing back to the masters, then slipping out of the chambers.

 

[Aisling]

It didn't take long to reach the speeder terrace once they were back on the main floor of the temple. Fenet led the way, moving quickly after the comm message. When they arrived at the hoverpad where Light's Touch was parked, however, they found M8 guarding the ramp to the ship. A quick thank you to the astromech and the speeder was on its way.

"So, this mysterious note?" Fenet waved to M8 as she approached him with Mar following up behind, then glancing around and sort of meandering away, doing a walk around the ship and inspecting the hull. When M8 handed the note over, Fenet held it up to get a good look at it, frowning. "Huh? This looks like the crest of the Republic. Some weird, deformed version of it, anyways. Was there anything in the ships computer on it?"

"Only that a similar symbol has appeared in Jedi ruins before, but only the oldest ones. So'duun was quite vexed."

Fenet nodded, then headed inside to talk to So'duun, leaving Mar and M8 out on the hoverpad. Completing her circuit around the hull, she put her hands on her hips, standing akimbo and staring up at the ship. "I don't get it."

"I do not understand."

"So, somebody breaks into the ship, leaves this note on an outdated medium that was probably really expensive. There's nothing written on it, just a weird symbol. How closely did you look at the note? Did you try different lights, or shining a light under it, anything like that?"

"I did not. I merely held the note until you and Fenet arrived."

"Oh." Mar seemed a little taken aback. "I guess I should go do that then. C'mon, we'll probably be taking off soon anyways."

"Yes. I should prepare for departure. Please excuse me." M8 clunked past her, leading the way into the ship with Mar following behind. When it split off to go to the cargo hold, Mar continued on to the cockpit, finding Fenet and So'duun in the flight chairs.

"Good timing, Mar. Grab a seat, we're just doing the preflight now." So'duun was moving her fingers as though playing an instrument across the panel, though it didn't make any noise.

"Alright. Power distribution menu is up... now." She strapped herself in, then began slowly ramping up the ships reactor output to match the increasing necessity of the ship as it got ready.

"Coruscant flight control, this is Light's Touch at the Jedi Temple. We're sending you our flight plan now, please check and clear." Fenet grinned, glancing over her shoulder back at Mar. "Kinda nice to just be able to tell them, 'we're going here, get out of the way'. Usually we're stuck at the mercy of flight controllers everywhere."

Mar grinned while the Coruscant flight control cleared their course for planetary departure.

As they approached the jump point Mar was surprised by the small fleet of flying rings they passed along the way. "What are those?"

It was Fenet who answered. "A single Jedi leaving someplace can take a smaller ship into hyperspace by docking to one of those rings. Kinda like a taxi. They belong to the temple and this jump point is cleared for exclusive use by the jedi."

Once the ship was in hyperspeed, Mar took the time to check over the note. Running several scans on it revealed nothing. It drove her to frustration, unable to figure out the meaning behind the note.

The trip proved somewhat busy once So'duun mentioned the need to harden M8 against radiation damage. Fenet and Mar spent the time machining and installing plates to protect its key systems. Installing the plates was actually quite easy once Mar knew how to use the magnetic screwdriver, but it was Fenet who fabricated the plates from scrap and M8 itself who painted them in the varnish which would harden to keep the radiation at bay.

The job was only three-fourths complete when they arrived at Ossus, but by that point Fenet had finished the plates. She and M8 stayed in the cargo bay to keep working while Fenet brought the ship in, flying with a certain level of care since two of her crewmates were standing around in the ship while she hit atmosphere.

The trip down to the surface was still bumpy from turbulance, but it didn't last too long and didn't slow the work down too much. By the time they landed, the plating was varnished and Mar was installing the last few pieces. Once the job was complete, she patted M8 and then headed up to the cockpit to find out what was going on.

She found Fenet there, So'duun somewhere else in the ship. "How come you're sitting here all alone?"

"So'duun is checking over the environmental suits. We'll do it again before we actually get off the ship just to be safe, but you won't be opening your helmet here like you could on Ilum, trust me." Fenet gestured to her left at one of the displays on the flight panel. "Take a look."

Mar leaned over, whistling softly. The background radiation wasn't that much different from open space and the atmosphere was nothing even close to breathable. As she watched, every few seconds the radiation would spike, flaring up and leveling out again. "That looks pretty lively."

"Yeah." Fenet laughed the word, nodding. "No kidding. I really hope this is worth it... and that the suits have good shielding."

Mar found herself nodding in agreement.

In the end it took them nearly an hour of checking over the environmental suits. Once they were all clad, So'duun loaded the co-ordinates that Master Carro had divined from the Ilum rooms dimensions. Fenet and So'duuns voices took on a slightly synethic tone when replayed inside the suits helmet.

"We know anything about where this is taking us?" Fenet was looking at the display on her suits forearm. "Should we bring the grapples and climbing claws?"

"Might not be a bad idea." So'duun replied, opening the locker holding them and handing them out. They took turns helping each other fit them on properly.

"I think we're set." Mar flexed her hands, then dropped her arms. "M8, you ready?"

"I am prepared." ... "Are you?"

Mar gave the droid a funny look, then hit the switch to close the airlock and open the ships ramp.

The first thing that struck her was the desolation. On a desert world like the one she'd grown up on, the signs of life were scarce but visible if you knew where to look. This place had nothing. The sand was a dead orange-brown, the ships landing site turning out to have been a terrace. Parts of the ruined looked kind of melted, but it was mostly the surface areas.

Mar couldn't shake a sense of low-level unease as the others joined her. "I know it sounds crazy but I don't think we're alone here. Fenet?"

"Yeah?"

Mar held the training saber up to her and Fenet glanced at it, looked at Mar, then took it. She hold her hand over it, using the Force to turn the dial inside the saber, increasing the power output of the blade. Then she handed it back to Mar.

"If something happens, don't try to fight. Just use it like you did with the drone, okay?"

"I didn't do too well at that."

Fenet grinned. "Yeah, I know. It's an abandoned planet though, we'll be fine."

Mar wasn't so sure about that, but by then So'duun had already begun walking towards the ruins. They jogged to catch up with her, looking around at the stonework as they walked.

Fenet kicked the sandy stones a little. "The brick work looks melted. What happened here?"

"A supernova destroyed the planet. It wasn't very close but it was close enough that it hit the planet with a gamma ray burst powerful enough to cause visible damage to the surface. That's where all the ambient radiation is coming from. It's what's left over."

"What?" Fenet couldn't believe it. "That must have been incredibly huge."

"Yeah. It was." So'duun didn't elaborate, walking up the steps towards one of the ruins and going inside while Mar and Fenet jogged to keep up with her. Once inside the radiation levels immediately began to drop, the collapsed doorway leading to what appeared to be a tunnel going downward.

"Wait." Mar stopped at the door, looking at it. So'duun and Fenet both turned to look at her. "Something about this doorway."

"What is it?"

"Looks at the debris. It didn't collapse, somebody shifted the debris here to partially block it."

Fenet backtracked a little to join her, looking it over. "Huh. You're right. Who, you think?"

"No idea. Was anyone left here?"

"That's insane. Nobody could survive here for centuries. The air is poisonous. The radiation alone..."

"Maybe that's why they did it, to keep access open but block part of the radiation out?"

Fenet shook her head. "We'll keep it in mind, but c'mon."

They proceeded downward, the corridor stairs covered in reddish-orange sand. The stone of the corridor was a dark gray with a slightly greenish tint, shaped like hexagon. After a few dozen steps the corridor flattened out, then turned a corner, leading to a small chamber partially collapsed. The left wall had given way at some point, brickwork spilling into the room along with a pile of the crushing sand.

"Look, the sand has mostly buried it but I think a door is there." Mar walked over, pushing sand out of the way with her hands. "Look, you can see the arch of it."

It took them nearly an hour to clear enough of the sand to reveal the doorway and the path beyond it. It led to a short hallway opening into what looked to be the remains of an archive room. Shelves very similar to the ones in the jedi archive lined the walls, though they were bare and sometimes broken. Ornate statues of hooded figured stood at the base of large pillars holding up a curved ceiling above. Fenet broke a light stick, then tossed it to the middle of the room, letting it glow in the middle of the floor.

"What is this place?" So'duun said it almost absentmindedly. "It looks... strange in the Force."

"Strange?" Mar asked, while looking around the broken shelf debris.

"Like parts of the room are brighter than others."

"It looks like a library. Or part of one, anyways. Hey, look at this. The statues have signs."

So'duun wandered over, touching the plate, but shook her head. "No good. Can't feel the letters."

"I think they're just tenets of the Jedi. Bits of wisdom from past Masters, that sort of thing."

So'duun nodded, then wandered away, running her fingertips along the walls while M8 stood in the middle of the room, just looking around.

"Hey, could you help me move this, M8?" Mar was running her fingertips along one of the shelves, trying to look behind it. Clunking its way over, M8 gripped it on either side and pulled the heavy stone shelf away from the wall, dragging it.

"Interesting. A hidden door."

So'duun seemed to teleport, she was there so quickly. "What?"

"I spotted a gap behind the shelf, here. Pure coincidence." Mar shook her head.

"The Force doesn't leave much room for coincidence. Good work, Mar." So'duun patted the shoulder of her environmental suit, then headded into the door.

It led to a small chamber with a broken seal, stone debris still laying in the middle of the room. The wall opposite the door held writing, nearly a block of it on the entire wall, but the most interesting thing was the remains all over the shelves and floor.

"Holocrons." Fenet breathed the word. "But they're all broken."

So'duun wandered into the middle of the room, turning slowly. Leaning down, she began pulling pieces of broken shelf away from the walls, laying them aside. "I think something is behind here."

Mar helped her, where So'duun was constricted by the suit. Unable to feel along the seams of the bricks, Mar searched for her, finding one of them loose. It took her almost ten minutes to wiggle the brick out, revealing a small void space hidden in the wall.

When So'duun reached in, she withdrew two holocrons.

One of them was red.

 

[PoDevil]

So good. I wish I could give better feedback, but I'm not familiar enough with the lore to know where you're taking this. If this is canon, it's great because it is new to me. If this is original, even better. So many SW stories that follow the stations of canon can become so tedious.

All I can really say is that I am really enjoying the storytelling. Keep up the great work and thanks for another chapter.

 

[Aisling]

So good. I wish I could give better feedback, but I'm not familiar enough with the lore to know where you're taking this. If this is canon, it's great because it is new to me. If this is original, even better. So many SW stories that follow the stations of canon can become so tedious.

All I can really say is that I am really enjoying the storytelling. Keep up the great work and thanks for another chapter.

Click to shrink...

I'm using a LOT of stuff from Legends. You can stop and google almost any of this lore stuff and you'll find articles on it. The team is OC, the ship is OC, the color holo-emitters were OC and the explanation of how kybers came to exist was OC. Everything else is pure canon and any time I'm substituting bits in between like that it's because there is no canon. Starlight Beacon, Avar Kriss, Adampo, Ada-li Carro, all canon.

 

[Aisling]

Before they had time to react, the sound of shouts and scuffling feet grabbed their attention, relayed through the suits internal speakers. So'duun and Fenet were the first to react. So'duun dropped the holocrons immediately, joining Fenet and racing outside the small hidden chamber to the larger one. In the meantime, Mar collected the devices, stuffing them into the pocket of her environmental suit.

The moment Fenet exited the chamber she was forced to duck and roll, a projectile sailing over her head and taking a chunk out of the wall where she would have been. Her lightsaber flared to life, dancing left and right to deflect to more bolts as So'duun joined the fray and jumped high, three times her own height.

Their enemies appeared to be some kind of primitive native, though how anything could be native to this place was something Mar couldn't understand. She and M8 lurked at the edge of the chamber door, just out of sight, letting the two jedi work. She couldn't see the natives faces, they were covered in some kind of mask. When So'duun jumped high, Fenet rushed them at the same time they apparently decided to rush the room, piling into it as a swarm.

There had to be two dozen of them and suddenly Fenet and So'duun were surrounded on all sides. M8 burst out of the chamber while their enemies formed a circle around Fenet and So'duun as the two stood back-to-back. The sudden appearance of the huge droid with his heavy build startled them. M8 spared no force, slamming its feet into the ground as hard as it could to make noise as it rushed them, shattering the stone and forcing the swarm of enemies to scatter.

Instantly Fenet and So'duun sprung into action. They seemed to be holding back quite a lot - at least to Mars eyes - since most of the natives weren't dead at this point. Instead, the two kept using Force pushes and pulls, throwing the natives off balance or into each other while M8 took its time grabbing them one by one and throwing them across the room.

Deciding now might be a good time to act, Mar rushed out of the hidden chamber and activated the borrowed saber. She rushed the door while the other three held the attacking groups attention, jumping without being sure why and slamming knee-first into one of the natives as they passed around the corner to try and rush the room. So'duun and Fenet followed behind her, forming a line that M8 could pass and then falling back to cover their retreat while Mar and the droid ran ahead.

More latecomers were ahead of them but it wasn't much of a problem. The glowing blade and M8's massive, pounding figure as it rushed down the hall caused them to quickly panic and turn, running back the way they came. The group in the main chamber tried to rush the corridor until Fenet and So'duun, together, pushed as hard as they could and sent the group sprawling backwards once more. Then they turned, sprinting with enhanced speed to catch up to Mar and M8.

There was no taking the time to be gentle about it as Mar approached the door, still partially blocked with debris. Taking a page out of her friends book, she prepared herself to push the debris out of the way but M8 beat her to it, simply slamming into it and breaking through without slowing down. Fenet and So'duun grabbed her as they passed, making her yelp and bringing her out of the arch of the door as a partial fracture suddenly lost its support. The door collapsed, the corridor caving in and trapping the larger group inside.

They slowed after passing the threshold, finding themselves surrounded by natives on all sides. Only one third of the whole group had attacked them in the corridors. Fenet and So'duun stepped in front, holding their sabers up and taking deep breaths.

Then the fight began.

It was a combat retreat all the way to the ship. Mar didn't have the luxery of relying on the others for defense now, either. M8 stayed at her side as they waded through the crowd, grabbing and throwing natives and stone debris while Mar did her best to deflect the projectiles they were firing from their weird crossbows. The lightsaber blades didn't always destroy the slugs whole, but the tight magnetic fields constricting the shape of the blades was more than sufficient to rebound the metal parts of the slugs around and soon enough Fenet and So'duun were monopolizing this to cause the ones shooting at them to damage their friends with shrapnel.

Mar suddenly found herself knocked to the side, thrown bodily and landing hard on her hip with a grunt. She rolled with it, pushing herself off the ground and finding herself facing a native with an especially elaborate mask and warpaint all over. Before she could stand, the shaman tried to Force push her again. When he began to raise his arms she did the same, the two opposing forces rebounding with a thunderclap, shattering the ground between them and throwing one of the other natives to the side.

It got Fenet and So'duuns attention but they couldn't break the shield wall of lightsaber action they were providing as they slowly cleared a path to the ship. M8 slid a little, turning to rush the shaman, who screamed in an almost feral way and pointed his hand at the droid, blue lightning sparking from his fingertips at the same time Mar rushed him, swinging the blade at him. The attempted Force lightning instead struck her blade, forcing her backwards at a slide, the blade suddenly heavy in her hand as it fought to turn towards her with the pushing force of the attack.

Then it was over, because M8 brought its fist down and smashed the shaman into the ground with a sickening cracking noise that Mar never quite forgot for the rest of her life.

The effect was immediate, the natives around them panicking wholesale at the death of the most powerful member of their group. What had been an all-out attack on the crew suddenly became a rout as they broke into a frenzied retreat, practically climbing over each other to get away from them. Not all of them broke, enough trying to slow them down that they were forced to keep fighting, but their progressed increased by a significant margin of speed as too few of them remained to keep attacking.

Soon they were approaching Light's Touch, Mar rushing ahead to open the ramp for them while Fenet and So'duun covered the rear again. It hardly mattered, now. The natives were all running now, the image of an unstoppable force cemented in their minds and the remains of their shaman still all over M8's left hand side. They piled into the ship and closed the ramp immediately, Fenet and So'duun rushing the cockpit.

As they disappeared from sight they began to hear pinging noises from the natives firing their guns at the hull. Fenet didn't bother with the full preflight, kicking the engines in and breaking the landing locks, then pulling the ship up and taking off before even retracting the landing gear. The blast of the ships engines as it left caused the ones who'd fled out of line of sight to scream, convinced that some kind of catastrophe was happening behind them.

When Mar had pulled off her environmental suit, she made her way up to the cockpit in the undersuit, not bothering to get dressed first. She found Fenet and So'duun there still wearing their full gear. "So. That was... lively."

Fenet stopped for a moment, looking at So'duun at the same time So'duun turned her head towards Fenet. Then they both turned toward Mar and broke into laughter that may or may not have had a mild undercurrent of relieved nervousness to it.

"Oh man." Fenet sighed, tilting her head back against the headrest of the chair. "Lively doesn't begin to describe it. Did we kill any?"

"Probably." So'duun sighed a little. "From the way M8 looked, at least one. What the hell was that back there?"

Mar heh'd. "They had... I think it was a dark side user. Somebody with Force potential. Maybe they found something in the ruins, learned some things, I dunno, but they caught me by surprise. The big crack was the two of us trying to push against each other. Then he tried something to attack M8, it was weird."

"Weird how?"

"He fired lightning from his fingertips. I mean, it's lightning, you'd think it'd just go everywhere, but the lightsaber seemed to kind of pull it into the blade. And it made the blade really heavy too, almost like it was fighting against me while I held it. Then M8 finished his attack and the guy at the same time."

"I should go de-suit and get cleaned up." So'duun sighed. "Damn. Did anyone grab the holocrons? We didn't."

Mar nodded. "Yeah, I did. They're in the pocket of my suit."

"Have you done anything with them?"

"No?"

"Good. I'm going to go retrieve them. I want the two of you two promise me you're not going to try messing with them at all."

Mar looked confused. "Sure? I wasn't planning to anyways, so that's easy enough."

Fenet nodded. "Sure, but I'm interested in the jedi one, whenever you think it's safe."

"Thank you. When it comes to the Force, knowledge can be dangerous.. and one of those was a Sith holocron. That one needs to be kept to be locked away at the temple on Coruscant."

"Yeah, no problem." Mar nodded while So'duun got up, headed into the back. Mar took her seat, plunking herself down next to Fenet. "You gonna de-suit too?"

"Can't, need to pilot." Fenet looked pretty focused, turning the ship. "Not for long, though. I'm just getting us outside of the gravity well, then we can stop for a moment and figure out what to do next." Fenet looked over at her, then pointed to the control panel. "Take a look at those. You see the sticks? Left is pitch, the right is side thrusters. The pedals near your feet are the rear and front thrusters, that over there is your speed meter. With me so far?"

Mar nodded.

"Okay, sooo..." Fenet's fingers danced over the controls and a waypoint appeared on the viewscreen in front of them. "Why don't you fly the ship out there? Just point us at that point and when we get close to it, fire the front thrusters to slow us down. There's nothing in this system so it's a nice, easy introduction to flying the ship."

Mar grinned at her. "You sure you're not just trying to get me to do your job?"

"Oh, har har." Fenet stuck her tongue out at Mar. "I'll be back in a few minutes, I'm just gonna peel this thing off and grab my clothes. I'll bring some robes up for you."

"Thanks." Mar said it almost absentmindedly, focusing on moving the ship. She experimented a little, swaying it side to side, then rolling it. The crew felt nothing, of course. If the inertial dampeners couldn't compensate for that they would have been pasted into the hull the moment Fenet floored the engines as they took off. Approaching the waypoint she slowed the ship down, creeping to a mere 50 meters-per-second and then cutting thrust entirely and bringing the ship around.

Ossus swung into view ahead of the ship and Mar sat back in her chair, hands off the controls. Resting her hands in her lap, she focused on her breathing, running through the mental exercises Fenet had been teaching her for clearing her mind and hoping it would slow down the surge of untargeted anxiety she felt even now, despite the fact they had safely escaped.

 

[Amerigo Vespucci]

I'm really enjoying this story, both books of it. Thank you for writing it and sharing it!

 

[PoDevil]

Good action scene, thanks for the chapter.

 

[Aisling]

I'm really enjoying this story, both books of it. Thank you for writing it and sharing it!

Click to shrink...

If you mean Way Of The Blue, I'll be honest - WOTB was me cutting my teeth on learning how to write longer stories. I didn't really plan anything, I just made it up as I went along and consequently the story kind of sucks in terms of pacing and I ran out of momentum and ideas on where to go with it.

On this story, I'm doing all the things I learned I ought to have been doing in WOTB. I have authors notes, an extensive collection of written notes and about 85%-90% of this story is drawn from Legends canon. I've read at least 3/4 of the entirety of the Legends novels library, dozens of comics, the most absolutely obsure shit of all time. I want to use this story to show the really deep lore of the Order and its origins and leave the reader with a better understanding of the Force and what it's like to live the life of a Jedi.

 

[PoDevil]

Cool. Also, thanks for the heads up on at least some of where you are taking this story. Sounds like it will be a fun ride. My favorite type of story, where the author put's in all the work and I get to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

 

[Aisling]

I've just added a map of the Star Wars galaxy to the first entry of the story. This is the map I'm using for reference when planning out the ships travels, if you guys want an idea of where we're bouncing around.

Ossus is located at grid R-6 in the upper-right quarter of the galaxy

 

[PoDevil]

I had never seen the SW galaxy laid out like that. Pretty dam cool! Thanks. It makes everything so much bigger, and smaller if you know what I mean. Excellent.

 

[Aisling]

When the ship broke out of lightspeed above Murkhana, Fenet turned the ship towards the far side of the planet, away from the spaceport. Worlds were big and despite being a major tourist attraction, finding an isolated spot wouldn't be difficult. The ships beacon, identifying them as a Jedi vessel, saved them the difficulty of being harrassed by the spaceports flight control group. Soon the spaceport was out of line-of-sight anyways, hidden behind the curvature of the planet as they made their approach.

Fenet aimed for the terminator, moving to land the ship at the space where the sun was just beginning to rise. The crisp white morning sunlight was just breaking the horizon here, the shadows of mountains in the distance receding to reveal a tropical forest bordered by a small inland sea. Much of the region was volcanic, giving the beaches a beautiful black sand that made the planet so popular as a resort. Fenet brought the ship in near one of the beaches, landing it on a small ledge of volcanic rock that had swept through the region and leveled part of the forest. It wasn't completely level by any means, but it was open and the rippling stone surface was even enough for the landing gear to lock onto it.

By the time they actually touched down, Mar was up at the bridge looking bleary-eyed. "Morning, Fenet. Have you slept yet?"

"Yeah, just not as long as you did. I can catch up later, I'll be fine. We don't come to planets like this unless we're taking some downtime, I think So'duun wants to hang out here and try to figure the holocrons out."

"Oh." Mar nodded. "Alright. Well, in that case, I'm going to go to make breakfast and work on my lightsaber today."

"Whatcha gonna make?"

"Chandrilan waffles."

Fenet furrowed her brow. "What's so special about waffles from Chandrila?"

"I dunno." Mar just stared at her. "That's just what the little package is labeled. They could turn you purple and I wouldn't know the difference."

"Oh. Must be a brand name." Fenet got up and stretched, taking a deep breath and making a little squeaking noise when she finally relaxed. "I'll come join you. You know how to cook?"

"I know how to follow instructions written on things that tell me how to cook them?"

"That's... fair." Fenet nodded, following her friend to the kitchen and doing a mental check on where the handheld fire extinguishers were.

Soon the scent of breakfast was running through the ships air filters, which mostly removed the scent but after a little while, couldn't remove all of it. It summoned So'duun from the dark confines of her lair in the ships quarters, still wearing the clothes she'd had on the day before. When she wandered into the kitchen the girls gave her a look, but So'duun didn't notice as she sat down.

"G'morning, Master So'duun." Fenet made a point of using her title. "Feeling a little drawn out today?"

"I was up most of the night trying to access the holocron." She gave Mar a grateful look as a cup of stimcaf was placed in front of her. "Oh. Thank you, Mar. This smells amazing." She nursed it, sipping and sort of leaning over the cup as she fought to wake up.

"You look like hell, So'duun." Mar put her hands on her hips. "What's giving you so much trouble?"

"It... the holocron responds, but it doesn't activate. There's some kind of strange resonance between the two of them as well. When I tried to lock the Sith holocron away, both of them began to vibrate the further I moved them apart. I started to worry they'd become damaged so I placed them near each other again and it stopped immediately. I've spent hours meditating on it, trying new ways to access it. I even tried accessing the Sith holocron, once. It rejected me."

Mar sat down at the table across from So'duun while she spoke, leaving Fenet to finish the last of the waffles. "Well... we found them together. If it's an evil Force holocron, maybe you have to be evil to access it? You - we - use the Force the Jedi way. The Sith are as anti-jedi as it gets."

"I don't want to access it. It was a desperation play." So'duun made a dismissive gesture. "It's only been one night. I'll try again after I've had some time to wake up and change my clothes."

"And eat something." Fenet piped up. "There's palmfruit yogurt in the refridgeration unit. I grabbed a box of it for you on Coruscant."

"Fenet, you are a beautiful, wonderful human being." She got up, hugged Fenet from behind and then immediately dug the yogurt out, looking rather pleased.

Once they'd all eaten, they split up. Fenet went to go work on M8 and both clean and fix it up while So'duun took the two holocrons off the ship, having changed into a light jumpsuit for the tropical climate they'd landed in. She didn't go too far, sitting on the beach with them in meditation while the girls worked on their pet projects.

With most of the parts already in stock, Mar had no difficulty in constructing a customized crystal matrix. Taking a simple laser pointer and shining it through the bottom of the crystal was enough to show the scattering effect. Fenet was right, the crystal did scatter part of the beam sideways and the laser pointer allowed her to visualize where the energy would be funneled in order to customize the matrix properly. She worked slowly and carefully, following the instructions Fenet's drafting table provided.

When she finished the matrix, she set the indigo crystal inside it, then fused the crystal in place with a cold welder.

With that done, she began work on the cycling field energizers, the secret to maintaining the blades power supply rather than running it out in a minute or two. Rather than use the same kind of power cell Fenet did, she chose a higher power one with a lower amplitude for better blade stability. Then she began work on the casing.

Rather than a short, blunt emitter as Fenet has used, Mar opted for one with a curved metal guard along one side of the emitter, sharpened slightly at the end. The crossguard emitters were the same, rounded with a pointed tip that framed the side of the blade. Where Fenet had gone for simple utility, Mar felt a little style was in order.

She chose corundum as her casing material, using the strange lathing tool Fenet had to fabricate the sections with Fenet's help, borrowing her friend for the work. Once Fenet saw what she was up to, she stuck around to help, finding Mar a rubber grip that was very easy to hold. It reminded Mar of the grip she'd seen on speederbikes at the terrace of the Jedi temple. Together the two of them inlaid the grip into the handle of the sabers casing.

Then it was finally time. Running the sterilization tool over the parts of the saber, Mar took a deep breath while Fenet stood back, opting not to help in this regard. The assembly of the saber through the use of the Force was part of the customary ritual for building ones own blade and it would be a good test of Mars ability.

Proceeding slowly, Mar focused until the only thing in her universe was the parts of the saber, clearing her mind and allowing the refreshing, clarifying sense of the Force in. Her sense of time seemed to stretch out as she lifted the individual parts, feeling out the way they belonged together rather than trying to assemble it through sight. Her eyes were barely open at all.

The emitter and the short section where the energizers folded over it came together, sealing to the crossguard of the blade. The power cell and crystal matrix came together and clicked, the cold fusion bolts combining them neatly. Once the casing folded over them, the handle and crossguard clicked together, the weapon complete.

Mar reached forward, gripping her lightsaber for the first time.

When she thumbed the switch, the blade made a sharp snapping-hiss noise, seeming to almost explode out of the emitters and crossguard. But it worked. The blade had a strange, jittery-crackling quality to it that gave it, to Mars own mind, a somewhat savage quality. When she pushed the switch to the side with her thumb, the crossguard changed from a ninety-degree angle to the blade to a forty-five degree angle, tilted forward. When she moved her thumb, it snapped back into place.

"Congratulations." Fenet spoke softly, smiling. "I love the color. The light purple suits the indigo blade."

Mar thumbed the weapon off, spinning it in her hand. "Thanks. I wanted something that looked good, even when I'm not using it. Something that gets noticed. If the color becomes a problem, I can just electro-plate it to a different one."

"Nah, no need. There's this dust you can get... same kind of thing, but temporary. I'll show you once I find it around here... somewhere." Fenet looked arond the cargo bay, hands on her hips. "Yeeah. I guess I've been kind of putting off cleaning my work area."

"Can I help?"

"Noooo, no. No. Or I will never, ever find anything again." Fenet made a shooing motion at her. "Go on, go show So'duun your new shiny."

Mar grinned at her and left the cargo bay, saber in hand. The heat of the climate outside the ship hit her as she opened the door to the exit ramp, making her glad she'd dressed lightly. The air smelled green in a way she couldn't articulate, mixed with the scent of salt from the nearby ocean. She found the rippling volcanic rock appealing somehow, reminding her of pudding. If anybody had asked her why that was the case, Mar would have been mystified.

She found So'duun sitting in the sand with the holocrons in front of her, hands in her lap, deep in thought. Mar approached and sat down next to her, prompting So'duun to turn her head.

"Hello, Mar. Finished already?"

"It's been nearly six hours, you know."

"What?" So'duun looked put out, sighing. "I'm not making any headway on this at all."

"I took the time to read that translation on the way to Ossus. You mind if I ask something?"

"Sure. Go ahead."

"Part of the inscription said they left the 'dai bendu' behind forever. What's that? What does bogan mean?"

"Ah." So'duun nodded. "Bogan is the ancient name for the dark side. The light side is Ashla. The terms are still in popular use among my people in some places. The dai bendu... I only have a partial answer. I don't know what the 'dai' part means, because that's the first instance I've seen of it, but I have seen the word 'bendu' before. The context usually implies something like balance or equality."

"So the inscription meant, they fought a bunch of dark side users, won and then... left balance behind? What does that mean?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"It's something that's been nagging at me this whole time. Everytime anybody in the Order talks about the Force, it's always polarized. Light, dark. Why aren't there any in-betweens?"

"The dark side is addictive. The more you slip into it, the more self-centered you become. The rage and hate becomes a sort of salve on its own and other people stop being important. Nobody ever just uses it a little and walks away from it."

"Why?"

"You're not thinking of-"

"No." Mar sighed. "I don't like those feelings. Being angry all the time sucks. I actually really like the lessons on emotional control, learning how to process them. It's helping a lot, learning to reframe these things in my own mind. The reason I'm questioning this is because so much of the Force seems to rely on a persons mental state. What if the dai bendu were Force users who were both?"

"You think the holocrons are made to be accessed together?"

"Sure. Why not? The guy who attacked me on Ossus suggests there are dark side students around. Maybe we can find one to help us with this."

So'duun sighed a little. "I'll give it some thought. Also, nice work on completing the blade. I'm impressed you were able to do it so fast."

Mar grinned at her brightly. "Thanks. C'mon, lets go inside and I'll make lunch."

 

[Aisling]

I'm not sure if I'll update today to be honest, it's my birthday but it hasn't been a good one. I have a habit of kind of just vanishing off the face of the planet sometimes but I'm actually trying pretty hard to continue updating this story regularly. I had planned to update today but I just don't think I have it in me, I can barely find the motivation to even make food.

Maybe if I can get my shit together later. Sorry 'bout that.

 

[PoDevil]

Bad birthdays blow! I'm so sorry you're dealing with that. I hope your tomorrow is much better. I have actually been pretty impressed with your output. Very good quality of writing and the storytelling is excellent.

Don't stress yourself, if you need to slow down. Your mental health is way more important. Hey if this was one of those 'edgy' sith stories, I hear the dark side has cookies - at least if you didn't get a slice of cake. I'll wish you a gratuitous happy birthday regardless but an even better tomorrow.

 

[Aisling]

While So'duun finished eating in quiet contemplation, Mar was busy tidying up from cooking. In truth, So'duun was brooding a little over the idea posed to her before lunch. The idea of needing bogan to activate both holocrons simultaneously wasn't necessarily an ideological issue for her. The Luka Sene had promoted acceptance and internal balance in a way the Jedi did not and in her own mind, she considered herself to have a less biased view of the Dark Side.

Oh, she knew how dangerous it could be. She'd seen all the same things that Mar had and more. Force-sensitives drawing on bogan wasn't actually that uncommon when they weren't inducted into the Order, which is what made the seekers job so important. Unfound they could run amok as powerful criminals, killers and warlords, given an edge through intuition or sometimes self-training. Such methods severely limited ones potential, but even the slightest edge used wisely could be leveraged greatly in the right circumstance.

The idea of working with a bogan user wasn't something she was uncomfortable with. Fenet might be. It was Mars idea and So'duun doubted she'd argue against it. But Fenet also trusted So'duun to know what she was doing, so in the end, it was really more of a logistical issue. Bogan users were inherently irrational, driven by passion. Finding one who could be reasoned with in a galaxy where such people were rare enough as it is could prove to be... difficult.

Sometimes, in the course of ones career as a jedi, one may find themselves at an impasse, unable to continue further in whatever line of investigation the person is trying to thread. Often the impasse, like anybody else, simply leave the jedi unable to go any further until more information is obtained. But sometimes, sometimes, the Force smiles upon them and the answer is dropped into their lap.

While So'duun was brooding and Mar was doing dishes, Fenet was arriving back at the ship from a jungle run. It had been a long time since she'd done something like that and she was covered in a bright sheen of sweat, the light jumpsuit soaked with her exertion. Unclipping her backpack, she dropped it, stipped and stumbled into the shower immediately while So'duun was wondering to herself what she was going to do.

It was afterward, as she was getting dressed in fresh clothes, that Fenet stumbled upon it. Grabbing one of the longer hooded cloaks she usually wore for excursions outside of the ship, she draped it over her arm to search behind it for a cloth belt. The clink of something hitting the deck plate distracted her and she looked down, finding a data pin on the floor. Taking a moment to hang the cloak back up she reached down and picked it up, holding it in her fingers and frowning at herself, trying to remember where it came from.

Then it struck her. The man she'd met at Starlight Beacon, just before they'd encountered Mar. The name escaped her and she found herself zoning out, staring at it, trying to remember. After a moment she shook her head, then gave up on the cloth belt, tossing her tunic onto the bunk and heading to the kitchen in her undershirt.

"Hey, So'duun. Remember our first stock at Starlight?" She found Mar just sitting down at the table, then moved to join the two of them, slipping onto the little bench curled around the dining table.

"Yes?"

"Just after I did the parts stocking, I went down to the market to get something to eat and this guy came up to talk to me. He gave me this -" She put the data pin on the table. "- and told me about how he was an explorer of new hyperlanes, like us. That he'd come across a planet that scared him and his crew badly enough to bolt and keep it quiet, then bring it to the first jedi they met."

"Why am I only hearing about this now?"

She pointed at Mar. "We had a rescue to do and I'd forgotten to mention it. On a desert planet, I didn't need the long robes the pin was sitting in."

Mar rubbed her chin thoughtfully, then tucked her hair behind one ear and picked the pin up. "What is it? The co-ordinates?"

"Apparently."

So'duun nodded. "Well, might as well see where this mystery world is. C'mon."

The walk to the bridge didn't take long. Fenet inserted the data pin into the main console, the holomap for navigation lighting up on the front viewport of the ship.

"What the...?" Fenet looked confused.

"What is it?" So'duun put a hand on her shoulder while Mar walked around to take a look from the other side.

"The guy... damn what was his- KARR. Karr... Romeev. That was it." Fenet snapped her fingers on remembering. "He said he was exploring wild space like us, but these co-ordinates are all on the wrong side of the galaxy. Starlight Beacon is way down in the south-western quarter but this guys mystery planet actually isn't too far from us. It's in the next sector over."

"Why would he be exploring hyperlanes in known space?"

"Maybe he wasn't." Mar fingerdrummed the control chair So'duun usually sat in, staring at the map. "Maybe he lied. Pirates do dumb things all the time. Maybe he found a ship with nav logs, who knows. But I can guess that somebody concerned with the law probably wouldn't like it, so you got an explanation that kinda makes sense until you think about it."

"Is there a matching entry in the navigation menu for this place? Anything historical?"

"So'duun, if we start looking through historical records, we'll be here forever. This part of space has been inhabited for at least ten thousand y- no way." She stared at the computer UI in the bottom-left of the map where she'd been scrolling through possible entries.

"What is it?" So'duun just sounded weary at having to ask.

"This whole area used to be the heart of the Sith Empire. No wonder he found a spooky planet, they must have stumbled on one of the worlds we blacklisted."

So'duun perked up at that. "Do you know which one?"

"Nope. There's a shortlist though. Stenos, Elom, Florum, Ashas Ree, Korriban, Dromun Kaas and Ziost. The only inhabited outpost in this entire sector is a jedi temple on Ashas Ree."

Mar looked confused. "Only one temple? No colonies? Space stations?"

Fenet shook her head. "No. Most of the worlds were destroyed by the Sith."

So'duun spoke quietly. "Which means there's a good chance of finding dark side users on one of those planets, if anybody at all remains."

Fenet turned slowly to look at So'duun. "Are you crazy?"

"No. Mar pointed it out earlier. I'm only trying to activate one of the holocrons. None of us are willing to ever try using the dark side to activate the other, which leaves us with no option but to find a dark side user and convince them to help us."

"Okay, I have to ask." Fenet looked at Mar for a second. "Have you asked the Council about this?"

"No."

"Don't you think you should?"

"I was told to look, wherever it may lead." So'duun took a deep breath. "We'll be careful. But unless you have a better idea for finding somebody..."

Fenet sighed, leaning back in her seat. 'I should've trashed the data pin the first chance I got."

Mar was moving out of the way as So'duun sat down in the control chair, then went to her seat at the secondary console. "Are we gonna jump?"

"Yeah. Doing the calculations now. Looks like we can't do a single jump, it'll take three separate ones to reach... whatever world this is. The first two are to Ashas Ree. We can take the third from there."

"I hope you know what you're doing, So'duun." It wasn't like Fenet to question her. "I trust you, but I have a bad feeling about this."

"Calculations complete." She reached over, offering Fenet her left hand. "Trust in the Force."

Fenet looked at her, then clasped her masters hand, squeezing. "I know. Ready, Mar?"

"Yep, all set."

"Finishing up the systems check... all good. Lifting off."

The Light's Touch rose from the surface of Murkhana, the engines kicking in and scaring the birds from the trees with their roar as Fenet took them to orbit. The first jump point was on the other side of the planet, forcing Fenet to turn the ship and cruise the scenic route in high orbit to reach it. Passing into the night-side terminator, the sun hid behind Murkhana and cloaked the ship in shadow as they reached the jump point and the stars smeared to send them into hyperspace.

---

Ashas Ree turned out to be a jungle world, but they didn't land there. When the ship dropped out of lightspeed above it, they merely had time to see the green of the sliver of day-side before the next jump point took them back into hyperspace. The final jump was much shorter, a mere fifteen minutes before they dropped back into realspace above a world with the typical orange color of a dead, barren desert world. The vergence in the Force hit all three of them simultaneously, a sense of anxiety and despair concentrated on the world in front of them. It was a dead world. It was a dread world.

It was Korriban.

Fenet looked over at So'duun one more time, unsure suddenly in her resolve to trust this course of action. So'duun herself was resolute, though. "Take us down. Fenet?"

"I have a very bad feeling about this." She plotted an approach, following the guidelines of the ships viewport. "This doesn't feel right. No wonder they fled. I'm amazed they even tried to land."

"Steady on." So'duun patted Fenet's shoulder as her padawan flew them in towards the planet. "How about you, Mar?"

Mar was holding the console a bit more tightly than she might be otherwise doing. "I've felt like this before. It reminds me getting lost in caves. Of... of being half asleep. Being felt up." She banged the console with a fist. "This sucks. I'm remembering things."

"Take a deep breath, Mar. Do the breathing exercises."

"Do you think I haven't thought of that?" She snapped. Then Mar took a deep breath and began trying to do them, indignant righteous anger simmering in her at remembering. She knew the answer was to let it go. She also knew she didn't want to let it go.

It's addictive. It makes you self centered. So'duuns words came back to her. You won't want to stop.

She forced herself to, focusing on her breathing. She knew the jedi way was to let the feelings go, to detach oneself from them. Instead, she let them in.

The indignant rage filled her, welling up as she ran through the memories in her mind. Then, at its peak, she began to associate each memory to a different memory. Hands all over her. A hug from Fenet. Being yelled at. M8 carrying her in the heat of the sun. The smell of burning rubber and bodies. The crowds of Starlight Beacon.

To let go of the rage required her to forget, something she could never do. An internal twist and the rage fueling an impulse for bloody revenge changed to a rage fueling an impulse to avenge the weak. An internal acceptance that she could regain the agency she'd lost as a victim by using that anger to become a force of righteousness.

As she worked on it, the rage began to ebb, taking a difference cadence entirely and sliding neatly into a permanent place in her emotional make-up, resolved rather than suppressed.

So'duun felt the anger beginning to ebb in Mar, then nodded to herself, impressed with the girls control and making the complete assumption that Mar was fine. The danger of immediate corruption was past, but she'd try to keep the girl on the ship, for her own sake.

Just in case.

 

[Aisling]

Mar leaned against the wall of the internal airlock door, watching So'duun and Fenet check over their stuff to make sure they have everything. "I'm not going to lose it, you know."

"For the last time Mar, no. You are staying here on the ship." So'duun pointed a finger at Mar without turning her head. "You are the least trained of all of us and this place is dangerous for a fully knighted Jedi. I'm not particularly happy about Fenet coming with me either, but I can't go alone."

"So take M8."

"M8 doesn't have the Force. This place writhes in it. Fenet and I will need each others insight here. We've been a team for awhile, we'll be okay."

Fenet walked over to hug her friend. "Don't worry, really. You and M8 are here if we run into trouble, right? There's no life signs, you saw the readings yourself. We'll be fine."

"It's a Sith planet." Mar made a there-you-have-it gesture with her hands. "All I've heard about from the Order is how bad they were. I can feel how bad this planet is. It's like a sinkhole of happy feelings. I don't understand how anybody could wallow in this."

"Trust in us." Fenet put her hand on Mars shoulder, then moved it to the side of Mar's neck, brushing her friends ear with her thumb. Mar tilted her head a little, then nodded.

"Okay, okay. I'm just worried."

"It's this place. It's effecting you." So'duun gestured to Fenet, who smiled to her friend and turned to join her master. "Search your feelings and let them go, Mar. It's the only way to ensure they won't rule you."

Mar stepped back and the airlock door closed, cutting off all sound. A few seconds later the outer airlock door opened and they stepped outside into the questionably sufficient atmosphere of Korriban.

The ship had been landed on what was undoubtedly a Sith stronghold at one point, but which was now only a huge ruin. Whatever it had been had been a massive structure, or perhaps many structures overlayed. A small town, even. Whatever it was now, the desert had partially reclaimed it, red sand filling gaps everywhere between grayish-black stone. The stronghold stood at the top of a plateau overlooking a massive desert valley filled with the ruins of buildings cut into the rock for unknowable purpose. Tombs, or training grounds, torture chambers. It could be anything, really.

The air had an unpleasant tint of ozone and in the distance, they could see sections of the desert which had been fused into glass by orbital bombardment. Several parts of the stronghold they'd landed at had been hit in much the same way, leaving little to be found. Forced to proceed downward, no path remained from the top of the plateau, forcing them to scale the cliffs down by cable. It seemed like a good idea at first, but overhangs ultimately forced them to climb back up, wasting several hours of effort and tiring them both out. They returned to the ship, dismayed by the relative lack of success.

The second day had more luck. Lifting the ship from the ruined landing pad they'd landed on, they landed it down at the bottom of the canyon instead, landing it carefully on the packed sand where it seemed even. Their second venture out to the surface saw them exploring some of the entrances built into the canyon walls, something which caused Mar a certain degree of anxiety, mainly due to an incoming storm.

"How's things looking out there?"

Mars voice crackled in Fenet's ear, probably in So'duuns as well. The two of them were at the top of the entrance to a passage leading downwards underground, the stairs partially covered in sand. Fenet tapped her ear.

"Pretty grim, but I think the whole planet is just like that. This place has seen a lot of pain and death. It's soaked into the walls."

"So, good spot for a picnic then?"

"Heh." Fenet almost laughed. "Yeah, probably not."

"This feels bad. Remember the door on Ossus? What if a tunnel collapses while you're down there? I know the storm is still a few hours out, but what if you get stuck? We don't have a deadline, right So'duun?"

"No." So'duun spoke quietly, just ahead of Fenet, standing on the stairs. "But I sense that time is short. We should move."

"Dammit! This isn't worth the hurry!"

"We'll see you when we get back, Mar." So'duun tapped her ear and closed the channel. "Stay with me, Fenet. I may need your eyes."

"You got it." She followed So'duun down, proceeding inside. The stairs led downward to an open chamber, part of the floor sunken to accent a raised ritual space in the middle.

The first resistance they encountered was - oddly - flying blades. What they took for discarded weapons on the floor rose, held by shadows barely visible in the light of their sabers blades. It was as though the light were consumed by the space. The chamber was large enough that the blades had no hope of lighting it all, but as the rusted swords rose from the floor and began to glow red, the scenary stopped being a consideration for a little awhile.

The first shadow swung sideways at Fenet, who parried with her blade and expected to cut through the ghosts sword. Not so. The blades struck, whatever empowerment left in the ancient weapon allowing it to stand up to her lightsabers edge. Immediately it swung the opposite way, an arcing cut upwards which she sidestepped neatly, spinning out of the way and swiping her blade at the 'hands' of the Force ghost. She felt resistance and a screech, the weapon dropping to the floor.

The second shadow attacked So'duun wildly, aggressively, giving no quarter and asking for none. It was all she could do to stay on the defensive, moving backwards and trying to lead the shadow away from Fenet, who seemed to be doing better than her. Soon she was forced to rely on agility instead, putting space between her and the shadow as Fenet dispatched hers.

With So'duun facing it, Fenet flanked it, the shadow picking up its fallen allies weapon to dual wield. So'duun struck from the front, rushing it and cutting low, then turning the blade and stabbing forward at head level while at the same time spinning out of the way of Fenet's blade as her padawan struck from the other side, the shadow parrying and then forcing her blade aside when she overcommitted to the strike. It left Fenet open, allowing it to strike her in the ribs, sending her the floor winded and leaving it to face So'duun alone just in time for So'duun to bury her blade through it's middle, the shadow dispelling and both weapons dropping to the floor again.

"Are you alright?" So'duun knelt next to Fenet, offering a hand.

Fenet nodded, wincing. "Wi... winded me." With So'duun's help she got to her feet, one hand on her ribs. "Just need a moment. Ow."

"Wh- h--pe--d?" Mars voice crackled with interferance from being underground.

"Don't worry, we're fine. Relax, Mar. We're okay." Fenet hoped she got the general meaning of what she was trying to say through the crud, sighing. "This is no good. If we can't stay in touch with her, then we're really risking things. Also, what the crap, flying death weapons."

"The ancient Sith had many dark secrets. Stuff lost to time. Things better lost and left unfound."

"Oh... yes." Fenet coughed. "That's why we're rummaging around in the most evil planet we've ever visted. Because it's better to leave things alone."

So'duun turned to face Fenet. "Don't give in to your fear, Fenet. You're a jedi. You have nothing to fear from the dead ruins of dead enemies."

Fenet just gave her an are-you-serious-right-now look, which So'duun didn't see at all, of course. She watched as So'duun turned to head further into the tomb, to one of several doors at the far end of the chamber. "So'duun, I know how much you want this, b-"

What felt like the gods themselves striking the ground threw them both to their feet, dust filling the air as the roof the chamber began to give way and for awhile, Fenet knew no more.

---

"I don't like this." Mar paced in the cockpit while M8 stood just to the side of the cockpit door leading to the rest of the ship. It wasn't much, only about four meters of space if she went down the corridor and back in a straight line, but it was helping ease the anxiety she felt that wouldn't go away. "This storm is getting worse and I don't think they can hear me. We're sure the earpiece is transmitting through the ships antenna array, right?"

"It is indeed transmitting properly, Mar."

"I don't get it. Why aren't they coming back?" She tapped the earpiece again. "So'duun, you need to come back. The storm is getting worse. The storm is getting worse. Can you hear me?"

...

"Ugh!" She kicked the bulkhead in frustration, then stopped and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. "No, So'duun wouldn't listen to me. I'm too young. She wants this too much."

"The lightning activity is beginning to increase. It may be dangerous to attempt to follow them."

"Dammit. How long until the storm is at its peak?"

"Projected estimate by the ships computer is approximately one hour. However, there have been several periodic strikes to the region already."

"That's going to have to be enough time." She left the bridge, walking past M8 and heading towards the airlock.

"I feel obliged to remind you that So'duun expressely forbid your venturing out onto the surface."

"Sorry M8, I'm having a little difficulty understanding you right now. All I can hear is, 'yes Mar, we should hurry and rescue them before it's too late'." As she spoke she ran the airlock cycle, allowing the inner door to open so she could step inside with M8 following her.

"Should I schedule you for a medical examination of your auditory systems?"

"Nah, I'm good. It's kind of a localized thing." She fixed her belt, double checking the clip for her saber, then grabbing the climbing gauntlets they had been using on the environmental suits, assuming they might be useful.

"I understand. The air on this planet does seem to make sound travel in strange ways. Perhaps it is simply the Force."

"Yeeeeeeees. That's it."

"Indeed. That must be it."

"..."

"..."

"Lets go save our friends."

"I am sorry, Mar. I am having some difficulty understanding you. I believe you may have said, 'Let's go risk our lives on an insane venture to rescue our friends who may or may not need rescuing'."

"...So, you in?"

"Of course. My apologies. It must be these strange sound anomalies."

Mar couldn't help but grin at M8. "How fast can you move?"

"Faster than you can, I suspect. It may be better if I carry you again to reach the tunnel they entered as quickly as possible."

Mar hopped up, hooking one foot on the main strut of M8's hip, holding its shoulder and leaving one hand free to hold her saber. "Okay, lets go."

As they burst out of the ships personnel entrance, they could see lightning striking in the distance. M8's footsteps were fast, hard, but slowed in the sand.

"Left!" The thunderous shake of the ground made it a dodgy prospect as lightning struck a ridge above them.

M8 jumped, dodging falling debris by a bare minimum and sliding into the tunnel at a low crouch, hitting the stairs and then dropping awkwardly. Mar let go just before M8 slide off the incline, stopping at the top of the stairs and reaching out with the Force to grab her friend before M8 could hit the stairs and become damaged. She put it back down carefully, allowing it to find its feet.

"Thank you. That was very expedient."

"Let's hope we're expedient. C'mon."

 

[carterhall]

Star Wars: The High Republic- So'duun & the Force Lemmings

I love it when everyone starts speed-running the Path of Good Intentions towards Hell!

 

[Aisling]

So'duun coughed, covering her face with part of her tunic. The sound of falling rocks could still be heard and she had the presence of mind to try and scramble to her feet, get away from the bits of hallway still collapsing. The collapse had only just missed her, a massive stone brick next to the spot where her head had been. As she put a little distance between herself and the cave-in she found the dust everywhere, digging into her belt and putting her rebreather into her mouth to act as an air filter.

Without eyes, the darkness didn't matter much to her. Instead, she reaches out, expanding her awareness towards the rest of the chamber where she had been. She could feel Fenet on the other side faintly. Her imprint in the Force was weakened and So'duun knew she was injured, possibly unconscious. It was too still. Often, to her, peoples impression was one of shifting light, though she had never seen light, of course. It was the best word for it that she knew of but for all she knew light could be totally different to what she sensed. But Fenet was still, more still than a sleeping person. If she were dead, So'duun would not be able to feel her at all.

She headed towards the hallways she'd been approaching before, trying to get away from the dust enough to speak. Once she felt she could, she tapped her ear. "Mar, can you hear me?" ... "Mar, respond please." ... "Mar, are you there?"

...

"Dammit." She put the rebreather back in her mouth. Without being able to see she couldn't get a sense of the collapse except to feel around, which was dangerous if it was unstable. She would have to find another way out or hope that she was wrong and that Mar and M8 could dig their way to her. Internally she sighed, mainly because she suspected Mar would have a "I told you so" moment afterward.

Once again she extended her awareness outwards, past the shortened radius around her that she was always aware of. She stilled her mind, listening to the currents of the Force as they slicked and trudged around this messed up, awful world. Using the Force here felt wrong.

She followed the strongest current, heading down the hallway to the left. Using the rebreather she couldn't smell anything, but that may have been for the best. She could sense death seeped into the walls all around her, conflict, blood. There was the constant sense of something just behind her, though she knew she was alone. An unwavering, low-level malice that never really went away. Even just walking down the corridor she moved slowly, saber in hand, activated and ready.

The corridor led to what could only be a natural cavern. The hallway became a walkway with a drop on either side. Even in the Force she could sense the massive shape of the room by the statues the Sith had built there, seeped in the Force and whatever bloody darkness they had perpetuated there. The walkway appeared simple and straight but she suspected more traps.

Nonetheless, she wouldn't get anywhere by staying there. Instead she proceeded forward slowly, carefully, waiting for the trap to spring. The statues at the edges of the chamber seemed to loom above and look down on her, the sense of malice sharpening as she proceeded forward.

Eventually she found herself on a platform. Or perhaps an alter. Spines lined the edges of it, rising twice her height above her head, crowning it. In the center was a raised pedastel, on which she could sense a point in the Force. She stopped in front of it, waiting for the trap to spring, but nothing happened.

She ran her fingertips along it, frowning. The device felt like a holocron in the Force, but it didn't match what she was sensing through touch as she ran her fingertips over it. It perplexed her. In her experience, holocrons came in two distinct designs, Sith and Jedi. A Jedi holocron felt like a gilded cube with edges at the corners. Usually it felt warm. A Sith holocron was always a pyramid with gilded corners and sharpened edges. But this...

This device was a dodecahedron. She could feel that each facet of it was a plate unto itself with a slightly raised edge and a sunken center holding something glassy. It may have been kyber, but she couldn't tell for sure. The unique sense the crystals gave were lost in the unique signature the device was creating in the Force. It was the perfect size for her to pick it up one-handed, holding it and turning it over in her fingers.

Hmmm. She thought to herself. What's going on here, then?

She pulled the Force into herself, wincing internally at the wrongness of it, directing it into the device. Immediately the plates came apart, drifting together to form a flat panel of hexagons, shimmering in the Force. A projection rose from them, a woman that So'duun sensed as a cloaked figure with braids, a hood that covered part of her face. It wasn't true sight, but part of the self-image was preserved in the holocron and So'duun could get a sense of how this woman had seen herself.

"A new hand touches the holocron. A jedi too, no less. Thousands of years... and the first to find me is a jedi. How fitting."

"Who are you?"

"I am the Sith who is not a Sith. The Jedi who is not a Jedi. I am a humble student of the true Force... for you cannot fight what you do not understand."

"Fight?" So'duun tilted her head. "The Force? You're not really making sense."

"Am I? The Force binds us, intertwines us and uses us to do its will. The Force is ALIVE, Jedi. The living Force is merely an extension of the cosmic Force and together we are all helpelessly caught in whatever it plots. Even now you're caught in it, tangled in it, held by the neck by it and you don't even know it, do you?"

"I'm an instrument of the Force, a peacekeeper. A guardian. A student. The Sith use their power for their own gain and always will, they bring suffering. The Jedi bring peace, protection. That hardly seems like a terrible thing, bringing light to the galaxy."

"And yet even as you protect some, others suffer. How many lives have you saved, only for them to grow up and become warlords or killers themselves? The Jedi tell themselves they're heroes but they're as easily swayed by politics as any other organization can be. The Sith, at least, are honest about their motivations. Do give them credit where it's due."

"The Sith have killed, destroyed, raped, pillaged, burnt anything they could not have, tortured anyone who dared question them. I don't think I will give them any credit at all."

"The Sith have always been singlemindedly and needlessly cruel. It has always been wasteful. They, like the Jedi, believe that the Force is just a single thing, a simple thing. They use it, the Jedi let it use them. But to understand the living Force, you have to know both and so many never do. Do you think your masters upon the Council have never touched the darkness? Oh I assure you, they have. They too have struggled."

"They don't give in to it."

"There is nothing to give in to. The Dark Side isn't all-consuming. The Sith's mistake is that they draw on their passions, but they draw on the passions of rage, hate, fear. They feel strong emotion is best attained through grief and hate, that anything else is too impermanent. Yet there have been Jedi who walked both sides of the Force and have not been consumed. I was one such."

So'duun took a deep breath, considering. "The Luka Sene is a civilian organization on my homeworld, meant to train our people in the use of Force sensory perception. They stress balance, that one shouldn't lean too much one way or the other, lest it blind them. I joined the Jedi Order because I wanted to help people. Because I wanted to learn more about the Force. I stayed because I could explore, research the history of the Force." She raised her saber, pointing it at the holocron ghost. "How have I never heard of anyone like you? Someone who could wield both?"

"Do you really think the Jedi would tell you? Foolish girl, think about it. The Jedi are dogmatic, set in their ways. They think only of their fear, the fear of ones such as us. Those who would look away from the light to understand the contrast of the darkness. What is either without the other? To banish all shadows is to blind, to extinguish all light is to blind. Your Masters live in fear that any of the Order could fall to the dark side, unable to control their impulses, consumed by whatever is driving them. But using the dark side without being consumed can be done. The secret is control."

"Control of what?"

"You must master yourself. Master your feelings, then learn to channel them. Become my student and I will teach you all I once knew. Learn the secrets of the balance with me. But only through force of will and a strong sense of yourself will you be able to prevent from becoming a stupid, selfish monster. I am Darth Traya. Are you prepared to risk everything to learn the secrets of the Force?"

So'duun didn't answer. Instead, she shut the holocron down, holding her hand open as it closed and reformed into the dodecahedron in her palm. Stashing it in her belt bag, she clipped it shut to secure it there, then began to backtrack. She still needed to find a way out of here, not speak with long-dead Sith Lords all day. Still, it was an interesting offer. She was able to open the holocron without using the dark side.

It never occurred to her just how seeped in the dark side everything was around her, regardless of this fact.

Making her way back to the partially collapsed chamber, she found the dust much more settled and approached the collapse, tapping her commlink again. "Mar, can you hear me?" She listened, but heard nothing but static.

Nothing to do but try another way. With two hallways left, she decided to try the middle one at random. It led to an incline, which was a good sign, since So'duun wanted to go up. As she got to the top she realized the exit had partially collapsed as well, but she could feel a space she would be able to squeeze through if she tried.

She took some time to drink from her water bottle, listening to the sounds of thunder striking areas around them, increasingly distant. Waiting patiently, she sat cross legged on the stone steps of the incline, meditating while the storm passed slowly. It was several hours before she felt that going outside would be safe again and got up, feeling her way towards the space in the debris. She layed down on her back and wiggled her way out, the space just barely large enough to fit her, covering her in dust as she made her way outside.

The scene she found was somewhat cataclysmic. The severe lightning had triggered a rockslide and part of the canyon had filled in. She looked over the side and found the doorway they had entered originally still exposed, but it was too distant for her to make out whether any tracks led into it. No guarantee the winds hadn't wiped them clean even if they were there.

"Mar, can you hear me?"

"So'duun! Where are you?"

"At the top of the canyon cliff. Where are you?"

"Light's Touch. Fenet is injured. M8 and I found her, but she's unconscious. I think she took a hit to the head but I don't know anything about medicine and neither does M8."

"Fenet showed you how to pilot the ship, right?"

"A little, yeah. Oh. Oh no. You want me to pilot it up to you?"

"It would be faster than trying to climb down and reach the ship."

"Crap. Okay. Crap." ... "Yes. Okay, I've watched Fenet do this enough times. I can do this. Just wait there."

"I know you can, Mar. Trust in yourself. I'll see you soon."

 

[PoDevil]

Excellent chapter. Can't wait to see what happens next. So happy to see so many updates. Thank you.

 

[carterhall]

Darth Traya, always a favorite!

 

[Aisling]

The ship dropped into realspace and Ashas Ree filled the viewport in front of them. They'd come in on what was currently the day side of the planet, the viewport making a waypoint for the jedi temple and minor trading post below. With So'duun's help, Mar flew the ship in, straight down at the planet and then leveling out to fly towards the curvature of it with the spaceport just over the horizon. With the sun behind them, they were approaching the night-side terminator and Mar knew that it would be sunset where they landed.

Finding a landing spot wasn't difficult. There was so little traffic at the port that every landing pad was empty, they merely had to pick one and park. Their arrival caused a minor stir with how little traffic the place generally saw, but once they entered the spaceport with Fenet on a floating skiff, the townspeople saw they were jedi and stopped paying attention.

The jedi temple was the sole reason for anything to be there at all. So'duun knew of the Sith temple buried beneath it, but had never informed Fenet or told Mar. All that she herself knew was that there were catacombs leading down to what was left of the intact ritual spaces that had been below the original Sith structure that had been demolish and rebuilt into a jedi temple. But since it was a jedi temple, it had medical facilities which Fenet needed badly.

So'duun spoke to the medical droids while Mar stayed with Fenet, standing outside the bacta tank they'd dunked her in. Aside from the face mask, what looked like some kind of helmet had been stuck on Fenet's head, complete with goggles. Her friend was still out cold. It worried her.

When So'duun walked up behind her she was almost startled, being too focused on Fenet to notice. "She'll be fine. We got her here in time."

Mar exhaled, slumping a little. "What happened?"

"She took a hit to the head, her brain was swelling. If we'd been much longer she'd have been in trouble. As it stands, a week or so in the tank and she'll be alright. She's still out because they're sedating her."

Mar nodded slowly. "That gives us a week of sitting in one place, then."

"At the very least. I suspect Fenet's going to need to take it slow when she gets out." So'duun sighed. "Mar, I owe you an apology. I've mostly been leaving your training to Fenet because most of what you needed to learn were things that all younglings knew. I think I may have been neglecting you and I'm sorry for that."

Mar blinked in surprise. "I seem to be doing okay?"

"You should never have been in a position to be attacked on Ossus at all. But you did very well." She nodded. "How much as Fenet taught you so far?"

"Shii-cho, the foundations of Makashi. Push, pull. How to expand my senses. Sometimes, when we're both half asleep, I can hear whispers of her thoughts."

So'duun took that in silently for a moment. "You're much further along than I thought you would be. Why?"

"I have a good memory. Fenet was bothered by how fast I pick things up. I just don't forget things I've been taught and when I do, I don't forget twice. Learning the lightsaber forms is actually a lot of fun for me. I pick them up quickly and I feel like I have a talent for them."

"Lightsaber combat?"

"Yeah! It's actually really fun, once you turn the blades power level down. Fenet built that into her saber so I copped the adjustment for mine, but we need a magnetic screwdriver to adjust the dial."

"Your saber?" So'duun held her hand out, stepping side to make room for one of the medical droids passing by to check Fenet's tank. Mar handed it to her and So'duun took the time to properly examine it, running her fingertips across it back and forth and making an image in her mind with her poprioception. "A cross-guard?"

"My crystal is flawed. It's indigo, which is apparently an odd color for a lightsaber. Mostly everyone is blue. Fenet got an orange one, somehow."

"What color is mine?"

"You don't know?" Mar sounded surprised.

"I'm sure Fenet mentioned it once, but no, I don't."

"Your lightsaber is yellow."

"Is that good?"

"It's a brighter color than Fenet's blade. Far brighter than mine."

"This is made well." So'duun ignited the blade, feeling it out in the Force. "It feels... unstable? Jittery?"

"The blade isn't solid, it sort of wiggles and flickers with lightning sometimes. It's a result of the flaw in the crystal."

Turning it off, So'duun handed the blade back to Mar. "We have some time to kill. C'mon, you can show me what you know of makashi and we'll pick up from there." She turned and waved at Mar, heading out of the medical bay and leaving the girl torn for a moment. Ultimately she decided Fenet would be fine and she couldn't stay there all week anyways.

They took one of the empty landing pads, walking out of the temple together to the spaceport, since they planned to stay in Light's Touch anyways. The next landing pad over sufficed. Once there, they drew their sabers, Mar lazily swinging hers back and forth a few times. Though they both ignored it, much of the spaceport staff had gathered together to watch from afar, since the two were the most interesting thing to happen there all year.

"Makashi is not about strength. Each of the kata's is designed to provide you with the ability to flow into any of the others, using your saber as both a shield and offense tight to your body. This is the form most used for lightsaber-to-lightsaber combat."

"Jedi fighting jedi?"

"The form was originally designed to fight the Sith, but it's still taught because it works well for anybody using a melee weapon such as a shock baton. Some materials repel lightsabers. I've fought somebody wielding a beskar spear, they were able to take the blades hits and parry it just fine."

The next few hours were spent with Mar being taught how to place her feet, how to move and maintain a stable center of balance while staying fluid. Soon So'duun was ready to spar her, both of them going through the form slowly, step by step, like a dance. As night fell, they held off, So'duun calling it a night and both of them heading back to the ship.

Such as it was the next day. After several hours of lightsaber combat study, So'duun meditated with her. After eating, they went for a run, something Mar quickly grew to despise. She found she wasn't quite as in shape as she thought she was next to the indefatiguable So'duun. She didn't feel like she improved at that the next day, or the day after that, either. Even more dismaying, So'duun told her that a single week wasn't enough. They would have to get a treadmill so that she could run even when traveling.

Mar coughed twice and halfway through So'duuns explanation, threw up in the grass.

Several times, So'duun found herself getting mildly annoyed with Mars lack of basic knowledge. Each time, she reminded herself that the girl had not grown up in the temple, been raised as a youngling. She did learn quickly, which also helped. Her lack of physical fitness aside, she made a very good student for somebody so young.

At the end of the sixth day, Mar laid in her bunk, barely able to move, resting in her skivvies. After returning from the run she'd dragged herself back there, peeled the sweaty clothes off and fallen onto the bunk. Everything from the hair down ached and for the first time, she began to wonder if So'duun was just secretly evil and hiding it well. By then the request order had been put in and So'duun given access to the temples equipment stockpile, including the gym machines. Since the temple could afford to wait for replacements and she could not, she got her pick of choice, taking a couple benches and a treadmill so that she could have Mar working out every day.

Getting them into the ship was relatively easy with M8's help and a small corner of the cargo bay was cleared for them, the crates being shifted around to make space. It would mean disassembling the nice, tidy square block of crates M8 had built whenever they needed something at the bottom of the pile, but it didn't seem to mind.

At the end of the seventh day, Fenet still wasn't out of the tank and Mar was beginning to worry. She found herself camping there again, waiting for her friend to wake up. It was mid-afternoon on the eighth day when she finally did, looking around inside the tank and tapping on the glass to get Mars attention away from the data tablet she'd been reading. Once Mar realized she was awake she went looking for a medical droid and things moved fairly quickly.

One level above, the tank Fenet stayed in was inlaid into the floor and it was Mar and another medical droid who helped pull Fenet to the surface. She sat on the edge of the tank once up, letting the medical droid undo all the stuff strapped to her head. Once her mouth, nose and eyes were freed she blinked hard, then reached up to run her fingers through her hair, grimacing at a large bald spot.

"My hair..."

"Nice to see you too." Mar smiled as she said it, sitting cross legged next to her friend. "How do you feel?"

"Um." Fenet was still unstrapping monitor equipment from her body. "Little naked. You brought clothes?"

"Yeah, but you should get a sonic shower and dry off first. What do you remember?"

"So'duun and I were fighting these... shadow things. I took a hit, it knocked me down. When I got back up I was talking to So'duun and then everything was shaking and... that's it. What happened?"

"The chamber you were in collapsed. You took a nasty knock to the head and have been out for a week."

"A week? Where the hell are we?"

"The jedi temple on Ashas Ree. C'mon, lets get you cleaned up." Mar stood, helping her friend to her feet.

---

"What is the cosmic Force?"

In her quarters on the ship, So'duun had sealed the door, unaware that Fenet was waking up. She was focused entirely on the holocron projection in front of her, sitting cross legged on the meditation stool in front of the couch.

"The living Force is the web that surrounds us. Bonds made between us. It's the Force you most often feel when you look to it for guidance. But the cosmic Force is outside of Time. When we die we pass from the living Force into the cosmic Force and our sense of self dissolves... usually. Sometimes, a powerful Force user may bind themselves. This is much easier to do with the Dark Side."

"Why do you hate it so much?"

"For thirty millennia it has used us as pawns in some kind of galactic-wide game. The endless wars between the Sith and the Jedi are pointless slaughter. Neither side will ever win. They never can. But they will never listen, so set into their ways they cannot see the truth - That there is a third way, the way of bendu, to stand between the light and darkness, as I did."

"You fell to the dark, though."

"I felt the slaughter of thousands at the battle of Malachor! When you have felt the death of everything you ever loved, you can talk to me about falling to the darkness. Yet it is only through an iron sense of will that such a thing can be achieved! The struggle to stand between them is a struggle, it will always be a struggle. Only the strongest hearts can ever walk that path. Can you?"

"...Tell me. Knowledge is only dangerous in how you use it."

 

[Aisling]

On opposite ends of the landing pad, the two girls stood, blades at the ready. The duels had become something of a regular event, now. Each evening, Fenet and Mar met on the landing pad next to the one Light's Touch sat upon, sparring. The locals had begun a betting pool on who they thought would win that night. Usually Fenet did, but Mar was improving at a significant rate and had gone from mostly losing the spars to holding her own to winning them on occasion.

Originally intending to leave Ashas Ree at best speed, So'duun had oddly seemed to change her mind at the last moment, something the temple quartermaster was not particularly impressed with. With little explanation on why they were suddenly hanging around, Mar and Fenet were embracing the time off-ship to train, stretch their legs. The runs in the morning had become a regular thing and though Mar was still stuck using painkillers sometimes due to the sheer intensity of the physical exertion, she was seeing marginal improvements.

Both girls charged at the same time. Their blades met in an upwards swing, crackling on contact as the two moved past each other. Fenet swung down but the cut was stopped by Mars blade, forcing Fenet to pull back with her saber close to her body, footing unsure. Mar pressed the advantage with a powerful overhead swung that Fenet was forced to bring her blade up to parry, only to get a boot to the belly.

The kick made Fenet stumble back and Mar rushed her, only for Fenet to push. She'd done this before and it had worked the first couple times, but now Mar knew how to split the currents in the Force that Fenet was directing at her, the push having a fraction of the power it should have had. While her concentration was split Fenet attacked, a horizontal swung to the left that Mar parried close to the crossguard. She pushed the blade down, using the vent to force Fenet's blade away and creating some distance between them, then immediately following with a series of fast, precise strikes and putting Fenet on the defensive. As she forced Fenet back she pushed the attack until their blades locked at face level, Mar leaning into it while Fenet tried to hold her back. Mar suddenly turned the switch of her lightsaber and tilted the crossguard forward, the vent catching Fenet's lightsaber blade as she turned her hand, forcing it out of Fenet's hand and allowing her to hold her sword up in victory.

Fenet laughed, nodding. "Okay, you won. How long have you been saving that trick with the crossguard?"

"I've been thinking about it ever since the temple guard showed me their hinge-saber. Do you want to head back to the ship for the evening?"

"Nah." Fenet clipped her saber to her belt. "We could take a walk, though. I sort of have a craving for fruit."

"Don't we have some on the ship?" Mar walked, following her friend as they headed back into the spaceport, the locals dispersing slowly now that the bets for the night had been settled. "Not that I'm eager to go back, just not sure what's wrong with it."

"Nothing. But anywhere there is a jedi temple, the Agricultural Corps has growing space. Maybe they have something different."

"You've mentioned those before, the other 'corps'."

"Yeah. You ever wonder what happens if a youngling fails their initiation?"

"That can happen?"

Fenet nodded, leading them out of the spaceports main hub and into the street. The trading post wasn't all that much to look at. The streets themselves were paved with local stone and most of the buildings were constructed of duracrete that had gone unpainted, giving the whole place a gray, dreary kind of look. The locals fought against it with colored banners and strung cloth signs everywhere, bright colored clothing. A few of the natives wore elaborate and colorful face paint.

"Sure. Sometimes. The service corps are considered honorable alternatives to joining the Army of the Light."

"'Army of the Light'? Really Fenet?"

"Hey, I didn't name it." She shrugged. "It probably sounded a lot less cliche when we were battling the Sith. Forces of darkness and all that."

"Fair point."

"Anyways, there's four branches." Fenet ticked them off her fingers. "The Agricultural corps, the Educational corps, the Medical corps - who I definitely owe one to now - and the Exploration corps. Technically, we fall under that last one."

"But you're both knights?"

"Yeah, but the work we do falls under the jurisdiction of the Exploration corps. The Light's Touch is the only thing we didn't get from them. That's So'duun's personal ship, she owns it. Everything else is stuff we get from them. The Council doesn't usually get involved in our work, this is a pretty big exception to the rule."

"So... if I didn't want to be a knight, but I got the training, I could do things other than roaming around the galaxy being the most professionally homeless hero of all time."

Fenet laughed at that. "Yeah! Yoda was part of the Educational corps for nearly a century, I think that's why he likes working with younglings so much. He ages so slowly that there was this awkward period where he was too small to really do a padawan's work..." She shook her head, smiling. "The ones like you and So'duun, who didn't grow up in the order, you really missed out there."

Mar nodded. They were approaching the temple, a rounded building with a curved, high arch as the main entrance. That wasn't their destination, however. Instead they walked to the left of the door, around the edges of the building, towards the stone steps cut into the retaining wall behind the main building of the temple.

"What do you think we'll do now?" Mar climbed the steps like an old woman, stopping halfway up to rest out of sheer exhaustion from all the physical exercise she'd been doing. "Oof. I need a moment, sorry."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just worn down."

"Okay, no problem." Fenet sat down on the steps next to her. "I'm not sure. I thought we'd probably be off again on So'duun's hunt for a bogan user, but she doesn't seem to be in a hurry suddenly. We have been traveling at a pretty frantic pace."

"I like it here... sometimes." Mar frowned. "I'm not sure if it's just this place, or the fact I've had time to stop and rest, but I haven't been sleeping well."

Fenet patted her back. "Any reason why?"

"Dreams." Mar shook her head. "Oh, I'm tired enough, believe me. I've been waking up still hurting from the day before. But something about this place makes me have bad dreams. Memory dreams." She sighed.

"From before?" Fenet's voice was soft and she moved her hands to her lap.

"Yeah." Mar spoke quietly too. "Dreams where I'm half awake, can't move, can't stop the hands all over me. I'm going to be honest, I'm not sure I'd have stuck with the ship if we had any men on board."

Fenet nodded slowly. "That pain is something you're going to have to confront eventually, you know."

"I know." She sounded weary as she said it. "I can't imagine what it's going to be like as I get older. I already notice... people. You know. That way. But at the same time it's all twisted up, that sense of attraction mixed with the disgust any time I follow that line of thought."

"Not just boys, huh?" Fenet nodded. "You think you might have an easier time if you found some girl?"

"Maybe? I don't know? It's not like I'm ever gonna have a permanent partner, following this life." She shook her head. "Part of what makes it appealing, having a custom-ready excuse to run. I feel like I spent my life tied down and now I can fly, I don't want to land."

"Understandable. Have you meditated on these feelings?"

"No. Dwelling on them is... difficult." To say the least.

"Spoken to anyone about them?"

"Who would I even tell? So'duun is... remote in a lot of ways. I feel like I can talk to you but talking about that is... no." She sighed. "We move around a lot."

"I notice you didn't include M8 in that list."

"Huh? I mean, yeah, M8's my friend, but they don't really get 'organics stuff', you know?"

"Isn't that kind of a good thing for you though? If you feel uncomfortable talking about it to somebody who has to deal with some aspect of their sexuality on their own, maybe it'd help to talk to somebody who doesn't have any at all. You've said before you feel safe with M8."

"I do, I mean... it saved my life on Ossus. Saved each other, really. It saved your life too. M8 was the one who carried you back to the ship so we could give you first aid."

"Oh." Fenet blinked. "I think I need to do something nice for it, then."

"An oil bath?"

"Not a bad idea." Fenet got up, helping Mar to her feet so they could take the rest of the stairs up. "C'mon, it's not far. The gardens are just ahead."

Groaning, Mar got up to follow her. Once they reached the top of the stairs they found themselves in an alley with high walls. Greenary could be seen over the edges above their heads, just high enough to touch if they reached up. Mar sighed to herself as she saw more stairs, leading to the top of the alley walls.

It turned out to actually be a terrace cut into the cliff-face the temple had been partially built into. Several layers of ridges with different crops curved around in a half-circle, stacking upwards, each level a little smaller than the last with what looked like a transceiver array at the top, probably the temples long-range communication. Working in the fields were dozens of jedi in light clothes, each wearing a sash showing them to be a member of the Agricultural corps.

They approached the first terrace, which seemed to mainly be fruit trees, waving to one of the older jedi overseeing some maintenance on the labor droids who were helping gather fruit and carry supplies around the fields. The man didn't notice them at first, spot welding the arm of a droid and blinded by the flash and the goggles protecting his eyes. He appeared to be human, or at least mostly human. The blue hair may have been hair dye.

"Want a hand?" Fenet waved. "I'm an engineer."

The man stopped and lifted his goggles, blinking at them. "Ah? Oh, hello. I heard there were some padawans visiting, nice to meet you. By all means." He gestured at the toolbox and Fenet sat down, looking over the next droid in the line. "How can I help you girls?"

Mar sat down heavily, rumbling a bit at the body aches. "We'd kind of hoped to scoff some fresh fruit, if it's possible. We've been living off ship stores forever, basically."

"Oh, sure. Especially if you're willing to help with this. Damn droids just stood out in the rain and one of the younglings didn't think to tell them to go inside."

"Eh, it's just a little oxidizing damage. Rust is easy enough to fix. I'm Fenet and this is Mar, by the way."

"Good t'meetcha. I'm Arnara, but everyone just calls me Arn. You alright, girlie?" He gave Mar a concerned look.

"Uh huh." She was sitting out of arms reach of the man on the other side of Fenet, leaning back on her arms. "I'm a new padawan. Lots and lots of physical training."

"Ah, yeah. Stick around, I'll be back in a moment. I have some leaves you can chew to help with that."

As Arn got up and wandered off, Mar stretched out on her back on the warm stones. "I wonder what So'duun is up to?"