Chapter 1: Non-Fiction
Believe it or not, Renora considered herself an amateur poet. Of course, in this instance, the word “amateur” takes the meaning “not professional,” rather than “inept,” or “unskilled,” or “unpolished.” In her very few, very scattered, very coveted instances of solitude, Renora liked to keep her mental faculties in a relative state of preservation by composing short poems in her head. The most relevant example would be her latest literary concoction, a loosely fashioned limerick.
Nexus are far worse than Acklay and Reek
And the Sarlaac pit is worse than a Teek
But nothing I’ve seen
Has been quite so mean
As this green planet that they call Kashyyyk
This particular piece of poetry happened to be non-fiction.
“Have I told you how much I hate Kashyyyk?” said Renora, half-tripping, half-stepping over a large, rotting tree trunk.
“In the last five minutes? No, I don’t think so.”
“I managed to go a whole five minutes without saying something? I think I’m impressed,” Renora grinned.
“No, you’ve said something. Several somethings, actually.”
“I’m sure you didn’t hear a word I was saying,” muttered Renora, sullen again.
“How sure?” said Gidrea, momentarily distracted as she checked her wrist chrono and lifted her arm to the sun.
“We have about five hours of daylight left. I already calculated it.”
“How long ago did you calculate it?”
Renora glanced down at her mud-speckled boots. “When we left the ship.”
“In other words, two hours ago.”
“Yeah, in other words.”
“And five minus two is what, my mathematically challenged apprentice?”
“It depends on whether we’re speaking quantitively or theoretically,” shrugged Renora, smiling deviously.
Giddy sighed, sitting on a crooked, sunken stump that looked as if it had been anchored with decaying roots to the same spot for the last three thousand years. She smoothed her robes over its inexplicably clean surface. Renora glanced around her, searching for a similarly unblemished place to seat her filthy frame. She couldn’t find one.
“I think the only time you’re happy is when you’re controlling a conversation,” said Master Giddy.
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” asked Renora, her expression a study in indignant irritation.
“You’re right, that was unfair. You’re also happy when you’re complaining about something that you don’t want to be doing.”
“Master, what has you on edge?” probed Renora, growing concerned. “Besides me.”
Taking a long drink from her water bottle, Gidrea sighed again. “The mission.”
“Which you haven’t told me anything about, I’ve noticed.”
“Nice to see you putting those noticing skills to good use,” said Giddy, a faint ghost of a smile on her lips.
“Could you tell me something about the mission? And what about the old friend we’re going to meet?”
Giddy nodded. “Sit down.”
“Um,” Renora looked around once more, “I would, but I can’t find anywhere to sit.”
“Did you look for one?”
“Yes, and everything’s covered in muddy dirt. Or dirty mud. Or both.”
“And you’re not?” chuckled Giddy.
“No need to make matters worse,” said Renora, crossing her arms. “You taught me that it can always be worse. Just because it can be doesn’t mean it should be.”
“When you were noticing things, did you happen to notice that I found a clean place to sit?”
“Yeah, I did notice that.”
“And you didn’t ask how I did it.”
“So there’s some Force technique for cleaning three-thousand-year-old mud?”
“That’s why I’m not going to tell you about the mission. Yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because you need to learn patience. You’re so fixed on one thing that you don’t notice anything else.”
“I do notice things, Master. I just…don’t always…”
“Notice that you’re noticing them?” Giddy nodded. “Understandable.”
“Understandable?” piped Renora, suddenly hopeful. “You mean, it’s not uncommon?”
“No, it’s not uncommon. Just about every Padawan goes through it at least once in their training.” Gidrea paused for a moment. “Now that you understand it, move through it.”
“You mean ‘get over it.’”
“Basically.”
Renora opened and closed her mouth a few uncomfortable times, several rejoinders that were smothered in satisfying snippyness crossing through her mind but failing to reach her tongue. “Yes, Master,” she finally bit out, her voice strained. “I’ll figure it all out.”
Gidrea laughed, leaping to her feet with startling agility. “No need to try and figure it all out, Padawan. Just what matters at this moment! Don’t give yourself a bigger headache than you give me.”
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Part 1 - Tansarii Point Station (Chapter 3)
Chapter 3: The Fading Darkness
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.”
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.”
Part 1 - Tansarii Point Station (Chapter 2)
Chapter 2: Assumptions
Renora never had trouble remembering things under pressure. Not only was she capable of retaining nearly ten times the amount of information that normal sentient beings processed on a regular basis via memory-enhancement techniques enacted through the Force, Renora was born with a naturally photographic memory that she’d noticed even before she’d met the strange older woman who levitated rocks with her mind. Conversations, events, minute details that would typically bounce away happily unnoticed and unconsidered, were all logged away in her memory to be replayed, analyzed, and manipulated.
As a matter of fact, Renora probably functioned better under pressure than she did under normal circumstances, since she had not only the benefit of her intellect, her training, and the omnipotent threads of the Force, but of untainted, unmarred adrenal strength. Not to mention the quite formidable strength of her own verbal self-abuse if she screwed up. But sometimes, just sometimes, she wished she didn’t remember things so well.
Take the current state of affairs, for example. She was perched on a tree branch, the strength of which could only be calculated in terms of low probability (which Renora recognized immediately, despite her distaste for the word “calculate”), one arm wrenched painfully out of it socket (which was obviously not a natural thing, and Jedi were all for the natural thing), and the cords of muscle in her neck throbbing with a lifeless, deadening pain in time to the regularity of her pulse. She was surrounded by a bunch of oversized, carnivorous beetles that looked like a drawing from some sort of demented comic cube. She probably had a dislocated shoulder, possibly had a concussion, and was definitely in big trouble. And her weapon was gone.
Despite all of this, and all the inherent distraction that came with it, all she could do was remember something Master Giddy had told her a long, long time ago. Actually, it couldn’t have been that long ago, seeing as Renora hadn’t even hit her seventeenth year in this Force-forsaken galaxy that, against all the odds that her Master refused to hear, she had found some reason to love. Nevertheless, it seemed like several lingering eternities ago, and a couple of infinities tossed in for good measure; from a certain point of view and all that poodoo.
It was in that cave with the squills. Renora had been complaining about how repulsive the creatures were, hideously human in their stature and build, in their long, thin chests and two legs, but something obviously alien and revolting in their small, red-yellow eyes, and the dripping, gnashing daggers lined in neat rows within their cavernous mouths.
“Go on, say it.”
“Say what, Master?” Renora asked, pausing to catch her breath against the worn, corpse-gray rock in the cave wall.
“I thought it, too, when I first saw them.”
“Master?”
Gidrea regarded her apprentice for a moment, arms crossed against her robed chest. A thin strand of hair, still a blistering red despite her years, had fallen into the Jedi Master’s face. She brushed it away impatiently, reaching down into the backpack Renora had set against the cavern wall.
“Padawan, remember the holos of Master Qui-Gon I showed you?”
“Master, I’m many things, among them annoying and impetuous. But I’m not blind. And not likely to forget something like that. Or someone like that,” she chuckled.
“Those sparkling blue eyes. You would’ve liked him,” Giddy laughed, her eyes suddenly reflecting an odd mixture of happiness and forgotten sorrow. “He was a good man. And a great Jedi. Speaking of Jedi, your Master is getting old. Mind lifting that water bottle out of the pack for me?”
“Another one of those benefits of age, Master?”
“What, ordering you around?”
“No, of course not. You’re my Master, you’re supposed to order me around. That way I learn the value of humility. And, judging by the way things are going, you’re going to be ordering me around for a long, long, long time.”
“I never believed in all that ‘humility’ nonsense,” said Giddy, taking a sip from the water bottle. “I just like telling you what to do.”
“I know that. I just wanted to hear you say it.”
“Why? You haven’t convinced yourself yet?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t asked myself lately. I’m not the one who stands around and chats with invisible people. Master,” she added, muffling a short laugh.
“They’re invisible so they don’t frighten young Padawans who still sleep with stuffed banthas.”
“Hey, I’m not the only one who doesn’t sleep by myself, you know. And I noticed that before you introduced me to Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master Emeritus. That was just a confirmation,” Renora snickered slyly.
“Good to know some of those lessons on minding your surroundings have finally sunk in.”
“What can I say? I have a very good teacher.”
“Hmph. Anyway, I happened to notice that your skills with the Force haven’t gone away in all the time you spent practicing your wit. Yet you still managed to notice how handsome Master Qui-Gon is.”
“Last I checked, I don’t belong to any weird, backwater Force cult where they burn out your eyes when you achieve mastery of the Force.”
“Mastery of the Force is overrated.”
“I thought you said it doesn’t exist, because mastery is a relative term.”
“No, that sounds like something you’d say. But the point is, Padawan, your senses don’t just disappear when you call on the Force. Sometimes, it’s equally important to pay attention to what your eyes are telling you as well as what the Force is telling you. Otherwise, you might miss something you would’ve otherwise noticed. You can sense a person is coming, but you don’t know how good-looking they are until you do the important part: the looking.”
“So that’s why I’m always crashing into stuff. I don’t use my eyes.”
Gidrea laughed. “No, that’s just because all those lessons about footwork are only good for lightsaber combat. But you can certainly judge the location of a squill by using your nose. You complained long enough about the way they look, but you didn’t mention the smell.”
“I thought it was obvious,” Renora muttered.
“Obvious is a relative term.”
“That sounds like something I’d say.”
“The benefits of youth, Padawan?”
“What benefit is that?”
“Always taking credit for everything.”
“No, Master, that’s just the product of your training,” Renora grinned.
“Only in your mind, my very young apprentice!”
“Are you going to say it?”
Renora was startled out of her brief reverie and glanced down at the comlink on her wrist. Her thighs had begun to shake with the exertion of remaining crouched on the slender, serrated tree limb, and she closed her eyes for a moment to send tendrils of Force energy to calm the tense muscles. When the trembling abided, Renora took several short, gasping breaths, face and neck awash with perspiration.
“Say what, Master?”
“What you never said at the squill cave.”
Renora shook her head, deciding not to waste her limited reserve of strength on surprise.
“How did you know I was thinking about the cave?”
“I didn’t.”
Sighing, Renora risked a glimpse at the Tanc Mites below her, their gnashing mandibles working in a wet, repugnant display of visceral hunger. She suppressed a shudder, stretching her consciousness into the familiar arrays of the Force that surrounded and penetrated everything around her.
“You have to jump sometime,” Gidrea said, her voice unusually soft.
“Not before I say it,” Renora reminded her.
“That’s okay, we both know Tanc Mites stink.”
“You thought that’s what I was going to say? At the squill cave? That the squills smell bad?” Renora laughed, detecting the briefest of hesitations in her Master’s response.
“What was it then?”
“I was just going to say that Jedi have no sense.”
With that, she hurled herself into the terror below.
As a matter of fact, Renora probably functioned better under pressure than she did under normal circumstances, since she had not only the benefit of her intellect, her training, and the omnipotent threads of the Force, but of untainted, unmarred adrenal strength. Not to mention the quite formidable strength of her own verbal self-abuse if she screwed up. But sometimes, just sometimes, she wished she didn’t remember things so well.
Take the current state of affairs, for example. She was perched on a tree branch, the strength of which could only be calculated in terms of low probability (which Renora recognized immediately, despite her distaste for the word “calculate”), one arm wrenched painfully out of it socket (which was obviously not a natural thing, and Jedi were all for the natural thing), and the cords of muscle in her neck throbbing with a lifeless, deadening pain in time to the regularity of her pulse. She was surrounded by a bunch of oversized, carnivorous beetles that looked like a drawing from some sort of demented comic cube. She probably had a dislocated shoulder, possibly had a concussion, and was definitely in big trouble. And her weapon was gone.
Despite all of this, and all the inherent distraction that came with it, all she could do was remember something Master Giddy had told her a long, long time ago. Actually, it couldn’t have been that long ago, seeing as Renora hadn’t even hit her seventeenth year in this Force-forsaken galaxy that, against all the odds that her Master refused to hear, she had found some reason to love. Nevertheless, it seemed like several lingering eternities ago, and a couple of infinities tossed in for good measure; from a certain point of view and all that poodoo.
It was in that cave with the squills. Renora had been complaining about how repulsive the creatures were, hideously human in their stature and build, in their long, thin chests and two legs, but something obviously alien and revolting in their small, red-yellow eyes, and the dripping, gnashing daggers lined in neat rows within their cavernous mouths.
=========================
“Go on, say it.”
“Say what, Master?” Renora asked, pausing to catch her breath against the worn, corpse-gray rock in the cave wall.
“I thought it, too, when I first saw them.”
“Master?”
Gidrea regarded her apprentice for a moment, arms crossed against her robed chest. A thin strand of hair, still a blistering red despite her years, had fallen into the Jedi Master’s face. She brushed it away impatiently, reaching down into the backpack Renora had set against the cavern wall.
“Padawan, remember the holos of Master Qui-Gon I showed you?”
“Master, I’m many things, among them annoying and impetuous. But I’m not blind. And not likely to forget something like that. Or someone like that,” she chuckled.
“Those sparkling blue eyes. You would’ve liked him,” Giddy laughed, her eyes suddenly reflecting an odd mixture of happiness and forgotten sorrow. “He was a good man. And a great Jedi. Speaking of Jedi, your Master is getting old. Mind lifting that water bottle out of the pack for me?”
“Another one of those benefits of age, Master?”
“What, ordering you around?”
“No, of course not. You’re my Master, you’re supposed to order me around. That way I learn the value of humility. And, judging by the way things are going, you’re going to be ordering me around for a long, long, long time.”
“I never believed in all that ‘humility’ nonsense,” said Giddy, taking a sip from the water bottle. “I just like telling you what to do.”
“I know that. I just wanted to hear you say it.”
“Why? You haven’t convinced yourself yet?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t asked myself lately. I’m not the one who stands around and chats with invisible people. Master,” she added, muffling a short laugh.
“They’re invisible so they don’t frighten young Padawans who still sleep with stuffed banthas.”
“Hey, I’m not the only one who doesn’t sleep by myself, you know. And I noticed that before you introduced me to Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master Emeritus. That was just a confirmation,” Renora snickered slyly.
“Good to know some of those lessons on minding your surroundings have finally sunk in.”
“What can I say? I have a very good teacher.”
“Hmph. Anyway, I happened to notice that your skills with the Force haven’t gone away in all the time you spent practicing your wit. Yet you still managed to notice how handsome Master Qui-Gon is.”
“Last I checked, I don’t belong to any weird, backwater Force cult where they burn out your eyes when you achieve mastery of the Force.”
“Mastery of the Force is overrated.”
“I thought you said it doesn’t exist, because mastery is a relative term.”
“No, that sounds like something you’d say. But the point is, Padawan, your senses don’t just disappear when you call on the Force. Sometimes, it’s equally important to pay attention to what your eyes are telling you as well as what the Force is telling you. Otherwise, you might miss something you would’ve otherwise noticed. You can sense a person is coming, but you don’t know how good-looking they are until you do the important part: the looking.”
“So that’s why I’m always crashing into stuff. I don’t use my eyes.”
Gidrea laughed. “No, that’s just because all those lessons about footwork are only good for lightsaber combat. But you can certainly judge the location of a squill by using your nose. You complained long enough about the way they look, but you didn’t mention the smell.”
“I thought it was obvious,” Renora muttered.
“Obvious is a relative term.”
“That sounds like something I’d say.”
“The benefits of youth, Padawan?”
“What benefit is that?”
“Always taking credit for everything.”
“No, Master, that’s just the product of your training,” Renora grinned.
“Only in your mind, my very young apprentice!”
=========================
“Are you going to say it?”
Renora was startled out of her brief reverie and glanced down at the comlink on her wrist. Her thighs had begun to shake with the exertion of remaining crouched on the slender, serrated tree limb, and she closed her eyes for a moment to send tendrils of Force energy to calm the tense muscles. When the trembling abided, Renora took several short, gasping breaths, face and neck awash with perspiration.
“Say what, Master?”
“What you never said at the squill cave.”
Renora shook her head, deciding not to waste her limited reserve of strength on surprise.
“How did you know I was thinking about the cave?”
“I didn’t.”
Sighing, Renora risked a glimpse at the Tanc Mites below her, their gnashing mandibles working in a wet, repugnant display of visceral hunger. She suppressed a shudder, stretching her consciousness into the familiar arrays of the Force that surrounded and penetrated everything around her.
“You have to jump sometime,” Gidrea said, her voice unusually soft.
“Not before I say it,” Renora reminded her.
“That’s okay, we both know Tanc Mites stink.”
“You thought that’s what I was going to say? At the squill cave? That the squills smell bad?” Renora laughed, detecting the briefest of hesitations in her Master’s response.
“What was it then?”
“I was just going to say that Jedi have no sense.”
With that, she hurled herself into the terror below.
Part 1 - Tansarii Point Station (Chapter 1)
Chapter 1: Nothing Easy
The sickening squeals and coarse, vile cackling emitted by the gnashing talons of those massive fiends filled the room with terrifying echoes. Their dark, multifaceted eyes, glinting with tints of red and blue and green, reflected the horror in her own. Struggling against the pounding of her rebellious heart, she breathed deeply through her nose and tried to reach out to the Force. With the stench of these vile creatures filling her nostrils and making it impossible to concentrate, this wasn’t the easiest thing to do.
But since when was anything easy?
“Master?” she gasped, feinting at the nearest Tanc Mite with her long lance.
“Yes?”
Renora Ta’a rolled her eyes at the almost lazy response. It was apparent that her Master wasn’t taking the situation as seriously as she should be. As usual.
“Master, I’m not so sure--argh!” Amidst a shrieking cry, one of the beasts directly to her left raised his massive, sharply-haired leg, and brought it down with the full strength of his large body. Renora blocked the blow with her lance and batted its leg aside, pulling the weapon back and forcing it into the creature’s body with a nauseating crunch.
“Master, I don’t think this is such a good idea!” she hissed into her wrist comlink.
“It was your idea, Padawan,” Gidrea replied, her voice muffled by static. To her annoyance, Renora thought she could hear a faint hint of laughter in her Master’s words. Master Giddy was enjoying this.
At least somebody was.
“Master, you pick the weirdest times to be amused.”
“And you have the weirdest ideas of what a good idea is and what it isn’t.”
“I thought it was a good idea at the time!” Renora growled, thrusting her lance into the leg of the nearest overgrown insect and whipping it around just in time to block a mammoth strike from the one behind her.
“Then you should take responsibility for the fact that it’s not,” Gidrea chuckled over the static.
“There’s a word I’ve never heard you use before.”
“What’s that?”
“Responsibility,” she grunted, snapping her lance in an overhead strike at the Mite closest to her and leaping over it. She grinned savagely in apparent triumph, only to land roughly on her left shoulder and roll head-over-boot-heals against an immense tree trunk.
“Ow,” she muttered, looking around frantically for her lance.
When she saw it, she immediately wished she hadn’t.
“Oh, kriff.”
It was about twenty feet away, which wasn’t too far to sprint, even with her cracked head and injured shoulder. But it wasn’t laying in the wispy grass of the artificially maintained bestiary environment. It was resting in the jaws of a Giant Tanc Mite.
“Feeling responsible?”
“Are you kidding? Master, you taught me better than that.”
“I also taught you how to hold your weapon properly.”
Renora glanced down at her comlink in shock, then rebuked herself for being taken by surprise. For all her…eccentricities…Master Lightsky was wiser and more skilled than she let on. At least, Renora had to try and believe that as much as possible. After all, the pair had managed to stay alive all these years within the vortex of turmoil that was the Empire for some reason.
Renora had to believe it was something other than just dumb luck.
“I was holding it properly, Master,” she replied, tensing the muscles in her thighs and centering herself in the Force. “That is, until I wasn’t holding it anymore.”
“Holding it means keeping it, too, you know.”
“So I’ve heard,” Renora grunted, leaping for the tree branch directly above her head and hauling herself up onto the limb. The Mite who had captured her lance reared its head back shook it fiercely. Renora leaned forward on the tree branch and closed her eyes against her mounting fear, opening herself to the multifaceted tendrils of the Force.
She landed a bit awkwardly on a branch about ten feet away, wrenching her injured left shoulder sharply. With growing dismay worming its way through her chest, she felt the joint wrench from its socket. Clutching the bough for dear life, Renora threw her head back and screamed until her lungs ached. An icy fire seemed to weave its way up and down her arm, and her hand slipped off of the limb. Gritting her teeth against the pain, Renora used her good arm to pull herself into a crouching position on the branch.
“Kriff, kriff, kriff,” she mumbled as a thin bead of sweat began to roam down her forehead and into her eyes.
“Shoulder?” asked Giddy.
“No, just my head,” Renora said through clenched teeth. “It hurts from having too many good ideas.”
“I warned you about that…”
“I was too busy thinking to hear you.”
“I warned you about that, too.”
“Should I find it odd that you’re able to keep track of me with such efficiency from halfway across the galaxy?”
“You’d rather I didn’t?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“And I didn’t say that I was keeping track of you.”
Renora sighed in resignation. To her knowledge, there was only one person in this sentient galaxy who could manage to out-talk her. Not that Renora would ever admit it. At least she had been able to keep her mind off of the pain radiating from her shoulder long enough to regain some of her composure.
Hopefully, it was enough to keep her alive for a little while longer.
The sickening squeals and coarse, vile cackling emitted by the gnashing talons of those massive fiends filled the room with terrifying echoes. Their dark, multifaceted eyes, glinting with tints of red and blue and green, reflected the horror in her own. Struggling against the pounding of her rebellious heart, she breathed deeply through her nose and tried to reach out to the Force. With the stench of these vile creatures filling her nostrils and making it impossible to concentrate, this wasn’t the easiest thing to do.
But since when was anything easy?
“Master?” she gasped, feinting at the nearest Tanc Mite with her long lance.
“Yes?”
Renora Ta’a rolled her eyes at the almost lazy response. It was apparent that her Master wasn’t taking the situation as seriously as she should be. As usual.
“Master, I’m not so sure--argh!” Amidst a shrieking cry, one of the beasts directly to her left raised his massive, sharply-haired leg, and brought it down with the full strength of his large body. Renora blocked the blow with her lance and batted its leg aside, pulling the weapon back and forcing it into the creature’s body with a nauseating crunch.
“Master, I don’t think this is such a good idea!” she hissed into her wrist comlink.
“It was your idea, Padawan,” Gidrea replied, her voice muffled by static. To her annoyance, Renora thought she could hear a faint hint of laughter in her Master’s words. Master Giddy was enjoying this.
At least somebody was.
“Master, you pick the weirdest times to be amused.”
“And you have the weirdest ideas of what a good idea is and what it isn’t.”
“I thought it was a good idea at the time!” Renora growled, thrusting her lance into the leg of the nearest overgrown insect and whipping it around just in time to block a mammoth strike from the one behind her.
“Then you should take responsibility for the fact that it’s not,” Gidrea chuckled over the static.
“There’s a word I’ve never heard you use before.”
“What’s that?”
“Responsibility,” she grunted, snapping her lance in an overhead strike at the Mite closest to her and leaping over it. She grinned savagely in apparent triumph, only to land roughly on her left shoulder and roll head-over-boot-heals against an immense tree trunk.
“Ow,” she muttered, looking around frantically for her lance.
When she saw it, she immediately wished she hadn’t.
“Oh, kriff.”
It was about twenty feet away, which wasn’t too far to sprint, even with her cracked head and injured shoulder. But it wasn’t laying in the wispy grass of the artificially maintained bestiary environment. It was resting in the jaws of a Giant Tanc Mite.
“Feeling responsible?”
“Are you kidding? Master, you taught me better than that.”
“I also taught you how to hold your weapon properly.”
Renora glanced down at her comlink in shock, then rebuked herself for being taken by surprise. For all her…eccentricities…Master Lightsky was wiser and more skilled than she let on. At least, Renora had to try and believe that as much as possible. After all, the pair had managed to stay alive all these years within the vortex of turmoil that was the Empire for some reason.
Renora had to believe it was something other than just dumb luck.
“I was holding it properly, Master,” she replied, tensing the muscles in her thighs and centering herself in the Force. “That is, until I wasn’t holding it anymore.”
“Holding it means keeping it, too, you know.”
“So I’ve heard,” Renora grunted, leaping for the tree branch directly above her head and hauling herself up onto the limb. The Mite who had captured her lance reared its head back shook it fiercely. Renora leaned forward on the tree branch and closed her eyes against her mounting fear, opening herself to the multifaceted tendrils of the Force.
She landed a bit awkwardly on a branch about ten feet away, wrenching her injured left shoulder sharply. With growing dismay worming its way through her chest, she felt the joint wrench from its socket. Clutching the bough for dear life, Renora threw her head back and screamed until her lungs ached. An icy fire seemed to weave its way up and down her arm, and her hand slipped off of the limb. Gritting her teeth against the pain, Renora used her good arm to pull herself into a crouching position on the branch.
“Kriff, kriff, kriff,” she mumbled as a thin bead of sweat began to roam down her forehead and into her eyes.
“Shoulder?” asked Giddy.
“No, just my head,” Renora said through clenched teeth. “It hurts from having too many good ideas.”
“I warned you about that…”
“I was too busy thinking to hear you.”
“I warned you about that, too.”
“Should I find it odd that you’re able to keep track of me with such efficiency from halfway across the galaxy?”
“You’d rather I didn’t?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“And I didn’t say that I was keeping track of you.”
Renora sighed in resignation. To her knowledge, there was only one person in this sentient galaxy who could manage to out-talk her. Not that Renora would ever admit it. At least she had been able to keep her mind off of the pain radiating from her shoulder long enough to regain some of her composure.
Hopefully, it was enough to keep her alive for a little while longer.
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