When the darkness dissipated, and the wounded haze cleared from her misted vision, the first thing Renora noticed was that she was still alive. The next thing she noticed was that being alive hurt. She groaned softly, clawing the grass with a pain-clenched hand.
“Did you make it?” Giddy’s voice crackled through the comlink.
“No,” grunted Renora, struggling to roll over onto her back.
“I always knew you’d be one of those Force ghosts who never shut up.”
“You shouldn’t talk about yourself that way,” Renora muttered, trying to pull herself into a sitting position but falling back against the densely packed earth.
“My hearing still works just fine.”
Propping herself up with her good arm, Renora shook her head to clear it, face reddening with the small exertion. Her deep, inquisitive brown eyes suddenly widened almost comically, the redness in her face fading with the surge of a white pallor.
“What…What the…How did…” she stuttered, sitting upright.
“Didn’t I tell you not to complain about something unless you can do better?” Gidrea asked wryly.
“Yeah,” Renora strained through gritted teeth, easing herself up until she was standing on two wobbly legs.
“Then you shouldn’t complain about people who can’t communicate properly.”
“You think I’m a poor communicator? I thought you knew me better than that.” The Tanc Mites still lurked in their epic ugliness everywhere she looked, but with one subtle difference compared to her last memory of them. While Renora was very much alive and in very much pain, the Tanc mites’ condition was directly reversed.
They felt much less pain than she did, because each and every one of those insectile monstrosities was dead.
“Better than you know yourself, perhaps,” said Master Lightsky. Her voice was very soft.
Renora looked around her, turning in slow circles to take in everything from as many vantage points as she could. Stretching her awareness through the Force, Renora touched each life form as gently as possible, nudging the oversized insects with a tender trace of Force energy. She moved past their primitive, predatory impulses and into the portion of their brains that regulated life, consciousness. She checked for the delicate but powerful synapses that fired continuously to create life. They were silent. She cast her awareness into the small, simple hearts that pumped alien blood through the insects’ veins. They were silent.
The Tanc mites were dead. Gone. Renora gasped.
“Padawan,” said Gidrea, her voice an odd mixture of compassion and authority that Renora had heard from her Master only a few times before. “Padawan.”
“I’m still here, Master,” bit Renora, her response sharper than she had intended.
“Come to the hangar bay.”
“Yes, Master.”
=========================
“I thought you told me that bravery was for people who prefer dying heroically over living heroically,” said Renora, looking at the small ship behind her Master’s robed figure.
“Yes, I did,” said Gidrea, pulling her hood forward. “But knowing you, I’m going to regret that in a moment.”
Renora gave her Master her patented “Who, me?” look, and folded her arms over her chest. “You came in that?” she asked, pointing at the broken-down, rust-streaked craft.
“No, I walked,” Giddy answered.
“No wonder it took you so long to get here,” said Renora, stifling a grin. “But if you came in that thing, you’re braver than I thought.”
“If I’ve ever done anything in my life to convince you that I’m brave, then I’m a worse example for you than I thought.”
Renora laughed, but her Master could tell that it was forced. Her apprentice was badly injured, and it wasn’t just her wrenched shoulder, cracked skull, and numerous cuts and abrasions that ran across her arms and legs--she was afraid. More afraid than Giddy had ever seen her.
“Let’s get you inside the ship,” she said. Renora nodded gratefully and followed Gidrea up the boarding ramp.
=========================
A ration pack and a short dip in a bacta tank later, Renora lounged in one of the surprisingly comfortable seats in the back of the small med bay. A new, refreshingly clean robe was draped over the back of her chair, and she was reading from a handheld data pad. Although her head still pounded slightly, the situation seemed to have improved. But she was still shaken. Renora shuddered as Giddy entered the room and took a seat across from her apprentice.
“I heard that during the Clone Wars, Master Kenobi went through fourteen robes in three years,” said Renora.
“I had nothing to do with it,” Gidrea laughed.
“Oh, sure,” Renora grinned evilly.
“Is that you’re way of thanking me for the new robe?”
“Possibly.”
“Whoever taught you manners should be impaled on the end of a lightsaber.”
“Do you want to do it, or should I?” They both laughed.
“I always thought that if the Jedi just got rid of those robes, it would make things a lot easier.”
“The robe is part of the look,” said Renora. “Part of what makes a Jedi who she is. It’s all about humility, something I know all about.” She tried to smile but failed. Gidrea didn’t need the Force to tell her that her apprentice was deeply troubled. She tapped her booted heal against the floor in the uncomfortable silence that followed.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t read minds,” Giddy said finally.
Renora stared at the scuffed floor below her boots. “Then how’d you know I was disappointed?”
Gidrea was silent, waiting.
Heaving a deep sigh, Renora raised her head slowly, as if all the burdens she was forced to bear since Gidrea found her as a young child, always in hiding but never in fear, had finally caught up to her. She seemed older, and infinitely more tired, than someone of her years.
“I think I touched the dark side today, Master.”
Gidrea nodded.
“I guess I was…too set on the goal. I forget to concentrate on the means. I looked around…and they were all dead.” She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “All the bugs.”
“I sent you on this mission because you needed to learn that taking a life -- even as small and ugly a life as a Tanc mite’s -- disrupts the balance of the Force. Do not become so preoccupied with what you’ve set out to do that you forget what it means to be a Jedi.”
“I’m guessing it’s not the robe,” said Renora, a ghost of her familiar, easy smile playing across her face. “But the Sith wear robes, too, Master.”
Renora leapt backwards, almost toppling over the wide-backed chair, as Gidrea thrust her blue blade in front of her apprentice’s face.
“What was that for?” asked Renora, right hand clutching her lightsaber. “It’s amazing I’ve kept my sense of good humor after being around you for so long.” She straightened her tunic indignantly. “And I haven’t lost any arms.”
“If I were a Sith,” said Gidrea, “I would try to kill you right now. Even though I’m tempted to do that anyway, I won’t, since some of what Yoda taught me did manage to sink in a little bit, unfortunately. But a Sith would focus only on the goal, and see that scaring you half to death is the quickest way to get you to understand what I’m trying to tell you. I focus on the method, and see that the quickest way isn’t always the best way.” She shut down her lightsaber and clipped it to her belt.
“So does that mean I get to live?” asked Renora, easing herself back into the chair.
“This time.”
“You know, I think I like you better when we’re separated by half a dozen light-years of vacuum.”
“I’ll remember that next time you’re in a room full of carnivorous bugs.”
Renora nodded. “Where are we off to now?”
“To visit an old friend.”
“Didn’t you say that last time?”
“Am I going to regret it?”
“I’m just not so sure I can survive any more visits from old friends.”
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