The Way of the Mystics
by Tilt
(continued from Part 3)
Theri bowed with her hand over her fist in the Soritsu-ji way in perfect mirror image of Ratashi Qualara and dropped immediately into front guard position, circling to the right, every sense on the alert for the first hints of his attack. Qualara lunged forward with a Wind dragon attack, and she countered with the Whirling Cloud, grabbing his outstretched hand, pulling and turning simultaneously to unbalance him. He merely walked through the move and turned with it, falling back into guard position again. Theri shifted and jumped into a high kick, which he caught and deflected to the side with crossed wrists. Theri backflipped and jumped into another high kick and used the energy of his second deflection to flip over again and try a low sweep kick. Qualara barely managed to jump out of the way in time. He flipped in mid-air and came down behind her, but she had expected that and merely continued her kick in a circle. This time she connected and the Ratashi yelped a laugh and backed away for a moment. Theri bounced up to her feet again and went back into guard position.
Serala and Shosin-ka watched from the benches as the fight went on, Serala shaking her head at the two in faint disbelief. [She's got it wrapped up and tied,] Serala sent to her friend, tightening the black sash she wore around her blue silk Soritsu-ji uniform. [Why are they bothering with this? Kind of a foregone conclusion, don't you think?]
[The forms must be observed. Theri knows this. She wouldn't want something she didn't earn,] Shosin said with a shrug, [And too, she does not want anyone to be able to question the things she has accomplished.]
Serala Sent her agreement just as Theri managed to get Qualara pinned at last, holding him immobile. The Ratashi nodded and she let him up again, they bowed to each other.
"Well, I've seen enough. You've convinced me," Qualara said, gesturing her off the mat to the benches. "You're fifth-level now. We'll do the ceremony sometime this next week."
Theri smiled, catching her breath again, scrubbing the sweat off her neck with a towel. Fifth-level. A few more weeks, she'd be at sixth. And Ben could start teaching her lightsaber.
She felt arms go around her from behind and Ben kissed her cheek. [Fifth-level? You qualified?]
Theri grinned and turned to give him a hug. [Uh-huh. You heard the Ratashi.]
Ben smiled down into her eyes and he kissed her forehead. [You're doing so well at this! You really do have a talent for it. I managed to get through it, but I never really was all that good at it.]
Theri quirked an eyebrow at him and tapped his nose with one finger. [Now now! None of that in my presence, young man! I'll not hear you putting yourself down!]
Ben laughed and hugged her again. [What's this 'young' riff? I'm older than you, girl!]
She snorted. [Whoa, yeah, by a whopping two years.]
He let her go and pushed her toward the mats. [Go fight something, minx! Another few weeks and I'll show you! I'll have you running around a saber cube with the remotes zapping your butt!]
Theri tossed a grin back at him as she turned toward the group of older students pairing up for practice.
An hour later, Master Qualara let them all go early from class, and before she went to get her shower she wandered back into the lightsaber areas to watch Ben for a few minutes. She scanned the huge room filled with the transparent golden shimmers of lightsaber cubes and students and Masters and whirling glowing lightsabers. There he was, his mind that familiar balanced emptiness overlaid with blindingly fast movement and the hum of the Force. She found him and sat down on the bench beside the cube. Ben was practicing with a pair of remotes, dodging and twisting out of the way of the zipping little metal balls, deflecting the stun charges with his saber. He had explained how the remotes worked while they'd been on Tatooine. The remotes could be set on a timer or could be set to stop attacking when any of the three "disarm" sensors registered the energy jump of the saber blade hitting them. Theri found his bag under the bench and dug out one of the new remotes he had built with the new droid-brains, turning the little chromed metal ball over in her hands.
She felt Ben moving with the Force as if it was her own body that moved, her own energy he let flow through him. It was an odd sensation, though totally familiar now. Over the last few weeks since she'd come back from the Force she had learned that she no longer needed to consciously reach for the Force. In fact it was the other way around now. She had to consciously keep herself somewhat separate in order to be herself. When she relaxed into it, things...happened. Sometimes odd things. She'd gotten strange looks from all sorts of people, her teachers, her friends, even Ben and Kee. She couldn't blame them. Kee had told her he felt sometimes like he was talking to the Force itself, not his lifemate at all. Theri had taken his words to heart and worked even harder at living normally, at trying not to freak people out.
On the other hand, sometimes she got impatient and angry at the need to appear "normal" at all. Everyone in this Temple was a Jedi, trainee, Knight, or Master. They could all touch the Force, they could all do things that the great majority of the Republic's people could not do, so what was their collective problem? She had railed about it only to Kee, but he could only sympathize, not change people's minds or souls. But she had not once regretted going into the Force, save only that Kee had suffered for it too.
Serala and Shosin-ka joined her on the bench, both of them watching Ben with faint grins. "He's having to work at it again, with those new brains in the remotes," Serala said, nodding at Ben as he jerked himself out of the way just in time to avoid a stun charge.
Shosin gave a trilling chuckle. "As if he's ever had to work at the saber!"
Serala stretched and swung her backpack off her shoulder, reached inside for her own lightsaber. "I need to get him to scan my crystals, I think I've got a crack in one. I'm getting too much bleed-off from the blade."
"I still have some of those firegems, if you need them," Shosin said. "They're rough stones, but Ben can cut them easily. The green ones make the blades be yellowish! Very pretty!"
"You'll have to build your lightsaber soon," Serala said as Theri leaned over to watch her dismantling her own.
Ben came out of the saber cube and dropped down to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of them, panting with exertion, and nodded at Serala's words.
Theri blinked. "I have to build my own?"
Ben nodded and flopped over onto his back on the floor. "It's not difficult. Master was talking to me about it a couple days ago."
Theri blinked again, and thought about it for a moment. The answers to her unvoiced questions came into her head immediately from the Force. Powercel, switches, focussing crystals, something to make the grip and pommel. It was a remarkably simple device, really. Crystals. She would need crystals of some sort. Suddenly she was back on Thretketh in memory, climbing down damp rock walls with a glow-ball in one hand, a vibroblade in the other, her brothers' voices echoing in the tunnels behind her.
Ben shook her knee with one hand. "Hey, love, you look a million lightyears away."
She looked down at him, blinking in confusion for a moment, half-lost in the memories. "How do you get the crystals for the lightsabers?"
Ben shrugged. "Lots of different ways. Some people have crystals they got from their homeworlds. I've heard of people getting crystals out of old lasers or comm equipment. Prince Doran had the crown jewels of Naboo to pick from. We've got boxes and boxes of all kinds of crystals you can root through. Just needs to be a crystal that's at least as hard as beryl. Which means no organic-based crystals. Torin tried to build his first lightsaber with a piece of amber from his homeworld, and it melted."
Serala and Shosin-ka laughed at this and Ben rolled his eyes. "The smell went all over the Temple, I swear it did!" Serala said, still laughing.
"Do you think we could...could we go somewhere to get some crystals?" Theri asked.
Ben sat up and shrugged. "Like where?"
"Thretketh," she answered.
He smiled slightly. "Maybe. Ask Master about it." He got to his feet with a groan. "I'd better get back to work. See you at lunch?"
"Of course," she said as he leaned down to kiss her. She watched him go and turned back to go get washed up, feeling the rightness of her thoughts in the Force. Yes. She needed to go to Thretketh to get her lightsaber crystals from her grandmother's water-beryl mines.
[I can't keep anything secret from you, can I?] Kee Sent wistfully.
[Why do you say that, beloved?] she asked.
[I was going to surprise you by taking you home to Thretketh to get your lightsaber crystals,] he Sent. She could feel his disappointment. [Ben and I have been planning this for a couple weeks now.]
She Sent him a wave of love for that. [Oh, beloved, thank you! We can really go?]
She felt him smile at the eagerness in her mindvoice. [Yes, we can really go. I was getting things arranged today so you could leave your classes for a few days, now that Qualara tells me you just made fifth-level.] The pride and love he Sent with this was like sunlight and rainbows in her soul. [Qualara says you're one of his fastest students. Ever thought of teaching Soritsu-ji once you make it to Ratashi?]
[No, I hadn't thought of that,] she Sent, stunned. [Truly I hadn't ever thought of that.]
Kee's attention was taken elsewhere for a moment and then returned. [I've got to scoot, love. We'll talk more about it at lunch!]
[I love you,] she Sent with a mental caress which he swiftly returned before his presence faded from her mind.
The word had gone out the day Theri made fifth-level that Ben Kenobi had a new design of practice remote ready to be tested, and Torin had had his hands full since then organizing things on the run between classes. The buzz of conversations in the hallways and in the student lunchroom was all about the possible outcome of the tests. Theri had asked Torin casually about the betting, and he'd pulled out a textreader from his backpack and showed her the four screens full of bets he had going currently, and that was two days before the match.
"These tests of Ben's are like a circus here," Serala said to Theri as they were walking from Anthropology class together. Serala and Adara had joined the class three weeks after Theri had arrived, and most days now Serala and Theri went from that class together to meditate for an hour and then to extra Soritsu-ji practice together. Serala was Ratashi-level already. The sisters and Shosin-ka had become her best friends, along with Torin. But she was closest to Serala. Theri suspected and secretly hoped Serala and Ben would truly fall for each other soon, something more than the occassional tumble. But she didn't try to push things. "All the trainees try to be there, and most of the Knights and Masters too. At least, the ones who are home. Best kept secret of the Jedi, a gambling ring in the Temple."
Theri snorted a laugh. "That sounds vaguely sacriligous, doesn't it?"
"That's Torin all over," Serala said with a grin. "He can spot something getting self-righteous a mile a way. Keeps us from getting all high and mighty, I guess."
They turned down the hallway to the lifts and actually had to wait for one, and when it came it was half-full of people. Serala laughed as she and Theri and Adara squeezed into the lift. "Everyone going down to the match, huh?" she asked, and everyone in the lift laughed and agreed.
The lift opened and they followed the stream of people heading to the advanced lightsaber area. When they came to the double doors opening into the area, Theri took one look and almost stopped dead in surprise.
The lightsaber practice floor was a very large space, and the floor was thickly populated with trainees, Knights and Masters, mostly gathered in small groups. A carnival atmosphere was starting to build up, excited chattering and laughing. In the center of the room, the space was left open where the saber cube would be. Some of the trainees had dragged the matting from the Soritsu-ji area into the lightsaber area to sit on.
[Beloved?] Theri Sent, trying to find Kee.
[Here,] he Sent immediately, and she saw him near where the saber cube would be, standing with Ben and Torin and Master Windu. [It's a wonder the Council doesn't forbid Ben and Torin to do this. But it's a lot of fun and a break from routine. Good thing Yoda and Mundi and Windu are on the Council, I guess.]
[And that they all have a sense of humor,] Theri Sent back.
A familiar burbling laugh sounded at Theri's side and she turned to see R2-D2 rolling up behind her, Master Yoda sitting atop the domed head, R2 chirping to himself contentedly.
"You too, Master Yoda?" Theri asked as R2 came up and whistled at her.
"Ooh-ho, yes!" the Jedi Master said, laughing.
Theri turned to walk beside R2 as the little droid carried the Jedi Master into the lightsaber area. "So which one do you have money on, Master Windu or the remotes?" Theri asked in an undertone.
Yoda's ears waggled as he laughed. "Not telling til after match!" he said in a conspiratorial whisper, leaning toward her.
Theri rolled her eyes. [Kee! Your Master even has money on this match! Is nothing sacred?]
She felt Kee's laughter as R2 whistled and chirped his way forward through the crowd, people moving out of the way as they saw the Jedi Master riding on top of the droid. Kee swept her up into his arms as she and Yoda arrived, then helped his Master down from R2 to sit on the bench beside where the saber cube would be. [Actually, I don't know if Master has money on the match or not. He just likes to come watch,] Kee Sent to her. [Though I wouldn't put it past him! And we always let him watch up here next to the cube, so he can see everything.]
Ben looked up and smiled as Theri and Serala and Adara joined the group beside the cube, gave Theri a kiss as she hugged him where he sat on the bench, hurriedly making adjustments to the innards of one remote in pieces in his lap. Beside him, Torin was scrolling down through the nine pages of bets he had now collected, looking alternately gleeful and anxious. "You two are a disgrace to the Temple," she said, waggling a finger at them, trying to be stern. Ben just smiled up at her with a laugh as he fitted the remote back together and tightened down the locking screws. He pushed the testing switch and tossed it lightly into the air, where it hovered for a few seconds, the tiny stunners glowing, turning and rolling in the test sequence, then it deactivated and dropped back into his hand and he nodded.
"All right, the remotes are ready," Ben said, digging out the three other new remotes from his pack. "Is our test pilot ready to get zapped?"
A few feet away, Master Windu heard this and laughed. "We'll see about that!"
"Twenty-second delay?" Ben asked, taking out the remote programmer from his pack.
Torin nodded and stuffed the textreader into his vest. "Yep. You ready, Master?"
Windu tugged on a pair of polarized wraparound goggles and took his lightsaber from his belt, checking the charge indicator and walking to the center of the open space where the cube would be, stretching. He wore Jedi field combat clothing, similar to military camouflage clothing save it was all dark gray. As he walked out into the thirty foot square of black flooring the crowd began to go quiet in anticipation.
Theri and Serala and Adara found places to sit nearby in the crowd, scrunching down onto the floor hurriedly as Kee picked up the saber cube controller from the floor at the edge of the cube boundary.
The perimeter of the cube began to glow with a yellow light and the force-shield walls began to form from the floor up, transparent amber-tinted walls of energy that would not allow either stun charges or lightsaber blades to pass through, and would even stop the impact of solid objects. The walls rose up to thirty feet, then bent inward and melded together to form the ceiling of the cube. Master Windu stood calmly inside, and Theri could feel him touching the Force, preparing, his mind calm.
Torin and Ben stood up from the bench, each of them holding two remotes, and turned to hold them up so the crowd could see them, then Ben walked around to the other side of the cube where a small window was opening. Another small window was opening in the force-shield wall next to Torin. The two of them tossed in the remotes simultaneously, and the little chromed metal balls hovered automatically as they began to arc downward, humming slightly and turning in the auto-test sequence. Ben hurriedly came back around to stand with Torin, taking the remote progammer from the bench.
"Twenty-second delay!" Torin yelled to the crowd. Ben held up a hand and dropped it as he punched the Go button.
Theri shook her head and rolled her eyes. The crowd was counting down the seconds of the delay. The windows where Ben and Torin had tossed in the remotes sealed back up again as the count got down to five seconds.
Master Windu's green lightsaber blade flashed into existence as the count reached one, and the remotes began their attack, spinning around the Jedi Master in buzzing circles. The lightsaber blade spun and flashed faster than Theri could follow, deflecting stun charges into the walls. Then he really got fancy, deflecting the stun charges back at the remotes that had fired them. Usually this worked to knock out the remote. But these new remote brains were much smarter than the old remotes, and much quicker. Master Windu couldn't seem to deflect the stun charges directly back at the remotes that had fired them. The remotes were moving far too quickly for that!
Theri looked over at Ben, smiled at the look of rapt wonder and excitement on his face. Torin, beside him on the bench, was grinning and giggling maniacally. The crowd was yelling and cheering around them. Kee looked over at her and smiled mischievously, his eyes shining. [You're having a ball with this, aren't you?] she Sent to him. [I'd bet you're secretly tickled pink it's Ben who does this, just so you can join in the fun!]
She felt Kee's amused agreement. [Well, maybe a little!] he Sent with a laugh in his mindvoice.
[So much for the big bad mysterious Jedi!] she Sent teasingly.
Master Windu was truly a master of the saber and Theri was more than impressed. He leapt and spun and lunged like the ghost of some giant predator, untouchable. The new droid-brains in the remotes allowed them to work together and coordinate attacks, but it didn't seem to matter, none of the stun charges had so far been allowed through the whirling radius of the humming green blade. Four remotes against him and he was fighting them to a standstill! Theri could feel the same balanced calmness and flashing movement in Master Windu as she felt when she watched Ben or Kee practicing. It was a synchrony of blade and Force without Windu in it. Theri knew this feeling now, she knew what Ben had meant about getting out of the way of the Force. Windu was the best living example she'd ever seen of it.
[So when are you going to get in the cube with these things?] Theri Sent to Kee with a caress in her mindvoice.
Kee's smile was rueful. [Later. I did this last time Ben built a new batch of remotes, actually. Torin just managed to get Windu into it this time.]
Two minutes and ten seconds into the fight, Master Windu finally managed to knock out one of the remotes with a backslash that sent the luckless remote careening into the wall before it deactivated and fell to the floor. The saber blade flashed around again, deflecting stun charges in quick succession as the other three remotes orbitted around and tried to get behind him. Then Master Windu knocked out another by deflecting the stun bolt of one into the other.
"Come on, we've only got thirty seconds left," Torin yelled. "Come on, ya flying junk piles, I got my allowance for the next six months on this match!"
"You bet on the remotes?!" Ben yelled at him. "He's your own Master!"
"Yeah, I live with the dork, that's why I bet on the remotes!" Torin yelled back with a laugh.
Everyone within hearing cracked up at this.
"Ten seconds!" Torin yelled, jumping to his feet with the remote programmer in hand, looking down at the timer display. He held up a hand and dropped it as the timer counted down to ten, and the crowd took up the count, many in the crowd jumping to their feet to watch the last furious seconds of the fight as the green saber blade slashed and spun even faster, deflecting stun charges and lunging forward and blocking, the greenish yellow afterimages blurring around the figure in dark gray. The cheering thundered around them as the count reached zero and the two remotes still flying backed away and stopped firing. Master Windu flipped his lightsaber around with a flourish and the blade retracted and disappeared as he slid it onto the ring on his belt.
The crowd yelled and screamed as the saber cube deactivated and Ben caught the two remaining active remotes and retrieved the ones knocked out from the floor. Windu turned around, smiling and holding up both arms to signify he'd taken no hits from the stun charges.
Theri and Serala and Adara stood up as the crowd surged forward to get to Torin as he took out his textreader and went a few yards away to deal with those who had won their bets. Serala grabbed Ben in a hug and he managed to kiss her around the armful of remotes. Theri grinned at Adara. [So, would your father object to Ben?] Theri Sent on a narrow line to Adara.
Adara giggled, her eyes shining. [What the eye doesn't see the heart won't grieve!]
Theri grinned back, then laughed as Kee grabbed her from behind and tickled her, growling playfully and biting her neck. She turned to kiss him. Yoda laughed behind them and they turned to look at him. He was smiling, all his wrinkles turned upwards, his ears waggling as he laughed.
"Won bet, I did!" he said, poking Kee's leg with his walking stick. Kee and Theri both cracked up.
"You sure you want to try this?" Ben said the next morning as he and Theri dropped their backpacks next to a lightsaber cube near the wall of the beginning lightsaber area.
"I just want to see if I can do it," Theri said, unzipping her backpack to reach inside for Kee's jala scarf that she had snitched from his desk that morning. She was dressed in her Soritsu-ji uniform, and she and Ben had left half an hour early from the apartment in order to have some time before first bell to try out her idea. They were scheduled to leave today for Thretketh, and she wanted to try this first.
Ben watched her for a moment then sat down on the bench by the cube and unzipped his pack, taking out two of the new remotes and the programmer. "Get the cube controller, would you?"
She retrieved the controller from the slot in the floor where it was kept and brought it over to him as he progammed the remotes for a three-minute run. He took the cube controller from her, "Go on and get inside the cube and get ready, I'll toss them in."
Theri smiled mischievously and leaned over to kiss him, then tapped his nose with one finger. [Don't worry! I think this will work!]
Ben's face showed only worry, but he shrugged. [Well, I *am* always the one telling you to trust in the Force.]
[Uh -huh. So now I am,] she Sent, taking his tailbraid and tickling his cheek with the end of it. He caught her hand and kissed her fingers.
She turned to the cube as it appeared out of the floor and resolved into walls and ceiling, then the doorway opened in the wall and she walked inside it. Very strange! Like being inside a fishbowl made of amber-tinted glass. Yet she could clearly see Ben and everything outside, just amber-tinted. She took the jala scarf and began to tie it around her head as a blindfold.
"I'll set it for a ten-second delay," Ben said somewhere in front of her. "That'll give the doorway time to seal again. I'll yell when I throw them in."
Theri smiled. "Fine, love."
"You'd better get ready then, I'm ready to toss them in."
Theri nodded and straightened up, automatically bowing in the Soritsu-ji way in long-time habit. She relaxed her body, then relaxed into the Force, let the turning spiral in her soul sweep her body and mind and spirit into the endless, inexorable whirling dance. She caught the rhythm of it and felt her self receding, her ego fading as she let go of it all.
"Here they come!" Ben yelled.
Theri's soul expanded with a rush at this, and the self-contained universe inside the cube opened in light and sound as she Saw the energies moving within it. The little bright balls floated in the air in front of her, bobbing slightly, turning in the auto-test sequence. She Saw the glow of the stunners, the shimmer of the walls of the cube. And a curious sort of afterimage around each remote. Then she Saw the afterimages move upwards just a split-second before the remotes themselves moved upwards as well.
Her body moved, slipping and dodging easily around the stun charges, tumbling into somersaults and springing to the side or straight up. She was one with the Force, letting her self fade, getting out of the way of the Force that turned in spiralling loops in her soul. She let it wash through her, it was her own soul and the soul of the universe and the soul of a quark inside an atom inside a molecule.
Ben watched, stunned, as Theri moved like a flickering shadow from one corner of the cube to another, her movements perfectly precise, fluid, too fast to follow. She jumped into kicks like she was weightless. She whirled around in avoidances and blocks with such grace she didn't seem to change direction so much as simply change the laws of physics to allow her body to move that way. Yet she was blindfolded and barehanded. She was fighting remotes without a lightsaber.
Theri seized the chance when it came finally, and dropped into a rolling tumble on the floor just as the two remotes came to hover on a level in front and behind her. The stun charges hit each remote squarely, and they both deactivated and fell to the floor of the saber cube. Theri jumped to her feet and whipped the jala scarf off her head. "Yes! It worked!"
Ben stood on the other side of the force-shield wall, completely amazed. "I'd never have believed it if you told me," he breathed as she laughed and picked up the remotes from the floor of the cube. He glanced down at the remote progammer in his hand, "And still more than a minute to go in the program...."
Theri laughed as he opened the doorway in the cube wall and jumped into his arms to give him a long breathless kiss.
"Torin is never going to believe this," Ben breathed as she pulled away finally. "If he'd known you could do this, he'd have wanted you last night in the cube instead of Master Windu! Think of the odds! He'd have made a killing!"
Theri giggled and hugged him tight.
Kee looked up from his viewer screen and smiled as Theri bounced into their bedroom, her eyes shining and her mind all rainbows and giggles. "It worked! Ben can hardly believe it and he saw it with his own eyes!" She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. He chuckled and pulled her down into his lap for a moment. She latched onto him like a baby monkey and cuddled. "I can hardly believe it myself! It worked! I can fight remotes without a lightsaber!"
"That's incredible, dearheart. Qualara must have been ecstatic," he said, his eyes smiling down into hers. She could feel how proud he was of her, the amazement. "I've never heard of anyone short of Ratashi who would even try to do that, much less manage to do it! Next thing you know, you'll try to deflect the stun charges with your bare hands!" He saw the look of eager challenge on her face then. "Oh no. You're not going to try that, are you?"
Theri giggled at the stunned tone of his voice and rubbed his back with one hand. "Maybe someday, but not right now."
[Is nothing impossible for you, beloved?] he Sent in a whisper as he kissed her. [Is there no limit to what you can do?]
She smiled and tapped his nose with one finger in admonishment. [It's not me. It's the Force. I'm just the container. The Force does all the work. I just give it a shape to move in. You do the same when you're fighting, just like Ben and everyone else. I'm just doing it without a lightsaber, that's all.]
Kee shook his head in amazement, then plucked at her Soritsu-ji uniform. "Best get up and get in the bath, love, we've only got an hour before we have to be down at the hangar."
Theri nodded and tumbled off his lap backwards, flipping to her feet easily. She tugged off her boots and disappeared into the bathroom. Kee smiled, tempted to join her, then sighed and got to his feet as he heard Ben in the kitchen making his fried seaweed. He went out to the main room and went to stand on the balcony, leaning on the railing and lifting his face to the sunlight. The strong breeze blew his hair around him, the calming wash of negative ions generated by the Temple's waterfall touching the faint unease.
A familiar crunching sounded behind him, and Ben joined him at the railing with his bowl of fried seaweed and a huge drink. Ben sat down on the edge of the little fountain on the balcony and looked up at his master. [You're worried about her, aren't you?]
Kee looked over at him steadily for a moment, then looked away. [Yes, Ben. I am worried about her.]
Ben crunched another bit of seaweed, thinking. [Because of the way she's been since she went into the Force? Or something else?]
[Why else would I be worried about her?] Kee Sent, looking out over Coruscant's endless skyline of vitriglass and steel and plascrete.
[Well, we don't know if Maul and Khali survived Chikubsa Beta. Maul may still be out there,] Ben Sent back.
Kee had to concede that point. The wreckage of Maul's black ship had not been found yet, and with Sith and Jedi one did not count them as dead until you had the dead body in front of you. [Sometimes she scares me now, Ben. That's all. If all the Mystics were like this after they went into the Force, it's no wonder the Jedi exiled them. She really did fight the remotes? And won?]
Ben nodded. [She managed to get them to shoot each other. It was eerie. I'd almost swear she was...controlling the remotes somehow. I had them set for three minutes, and the fight lasted one minute thirty-seven.]
Kee closed his eyes and ran one hand over his face. [Two remotes?]
Ben nodded and Sent his agreement. [And they were the new remotes too, two of the ones we used last night for Master Windu. So they were coordinating attacks. They shouldn't have been able to shoot each other like that. That's why I said I think she was controlling the remotes somehow.]
Kee sat down on the fountain's edge too and his eyes were distant and troubled. Ben waited, watching. [Does it seem to you that she's getting farther away from us every day? Like the Theri we love is fading away right in front of us?] Kee Sent, and Ben could feel the dread and anguish behind the thoughts.
Ben sat back against the wall, looked up into the cloudless sky. [Never thought you'd be one who couldn't adapt to change, Master. People change. Theri changed. That's all. Or were you hoping she'd never grow up?]
Kee glanced at him sharply, surprised at the undertones and thoughts he sensed behind Ben's words. Ben merely returned his glance calmly, steadily.
[What are you implying by that?] Kee Sent finally, his mindvoice devoid of inflection.
Ben raised an eyebrow at him. [What do you think I'm implying? You lifemated with a *person*, Master. A living, growing, thinking, person. A girl young enough to be your daughter. A girl not even fully physically mature for her genotype of humanoid. A girl who's the sole surviving member of a Jedi sect that apparently kicked butt where it came to mindpowers and touching the Force. And she's devastatingly intelligent in her own right. You knew that once we got her back here she'd probably absorb everything we taught her at lightspeed, and with her Mystic training she'd use what we taught her differently than we would. It was fear that got the Mystics exiled in the first place. Are you going to allow your fear of what she's capable of ruin what you have together? Possibly let history repeat itself when you decide you can't control her anymore? What makes you think you can control her at all?]
Kee peered at him darkly, the sapphire eyes guarded, the gray-streaked brown hair tossing in the wind.
Ben looked away for a moment, sighed gustily, then relented. He reached out and put a hand on his Master's shoulder. [I'm not meaning to be disrespectful. But she's a human being, Master. A living creature. You have to let her live her own life. You can't make her choices for her. You have to let her be herself. Whatever that turns out to be.]
The Jedi Master continued to stare at him coldly for a moment more, and Ben calmly returned the look. Then Kee looked away and nodded. Ben relaxed and took a deep breath, realizing he'd been tensed up.
[You're right, Ben,] Kee Sent wearily. [It's just so hard watching the two of you grow up.]
Ben snorted. [Well, it's no day at the podraces watching you getting old!]
Kee quirked one eyebrow and grinned lopsidedly at this. [Watch it, wretch. I'm counting on you to take care of Theri when I'm gone!]
Ben looked away, crunching the last of his fried seaweed. [I don't expect I'll have to, Master. I expect neither of you will outlive the other by more than a few minutes.]
They were both silent at that. Kee knew with an iron certainty that Ben was right about that. No matter what each of them wanted, neither he nor Theri would be able to withstand living without the other now. A universe without Theri in it would be a universe he wanted no part of.
Ben shrugged finally, sheepishly, and got up to go back inside the apartment. [Surely you knew she wasn't going to be a little girl forever?]
Kee's fleeting attempt at a grin then. [Of course. Just as I knew you were not going to stay the little hellion you've been all these years, impudent wretch.]
Ben grinned then and went inside.
"Me?" Theri said, staring at Kee blankly. "You want me to fly the ship?"
"Yes, you," Kee said, gesturing at the pilot's chair. "I'll show you how."
Theri backed away automatically, trying to walk backwards out of the cockpit. "Oh no! I haven't the faintest idea how to fly one of these things--" she stopped as she bumped up against Ben who was blocking the doorway behind her, turned to look up at him. He was grinning, holding his arms across the doorway so she couldn't get past him.
Kee took off his cloak and tossed it into the comm officer's chair and sat down in the navigator's chair. He pointed to the pilot's chair again. "Now, trainee. It's time to learn. Besides, you know you can do this, all you need to do is ask the Force and you'll know. But I'd rather you learn this the hard way."
"But I'll crash it, I'll hurt people, there's an entire Temple full of people on top of this hangar--"
Ben pushed her forward. "Sit! Now!"
Theri slumped and slowly took off her gray cloak, meekly tossing it into the weapons' officer chair behind the pilot's chair, and sat down silently. Kee almost laughed aloud at the uneasy, wary way she was peering sideways at the controls. Then she straightened up and Kee could sense she was impatiently dismissing her fears. "All right then, what do I do?" she said, and there was now only determination in her voice. Kee fought down a grin.
"First we have to do the preflight checks and warm up the engines. That screen there on the left shows the status readouts for every system. Go through every system one at a time, I'll tell you what to do."
Theri bit her lip, squashed her fears back down again, and did as Kee told her. Moments later, she had the little shuttle moving in a hover out of the Temple hangar, and she was practically twitching with nervousness. Then she looked up through the canopy at the endless streams of traffic cris-crossing Coruscant's sky, and went pale as her guts seemed to freeze to her spine.
[Droidphobic and spacephobic?] Ben Sent to Kee in amusement.
[No. Droidphobic, yes, somewhat, but she's just never had to learn how to fly or drive anything before. Her family are country folk, really. It's only in the cities in Delia that they have even speeders. Her Apa's fishing boats are probably petrochemical or electolytic drive. Since the revolts they've been moving more toward non-polluting enginery and energy sources.]
"All right, hit that switch there, the blue one next to the comm screen. That's for the CorCom autopilot, that will take us up through the traffic and into orbit. You don't have to use that, you can fly it manually, but that's the safest way off the planet," Kee continued to Theri, one hand on her shoulder. He could feel her trembling with nervousness under his hand, could feel the fear in her mind she was trying her best to keep under control. [Relax, dearheart, I'm right here, I won't let you make any fatal mistakes!] he Sent to her on a narrow line as soothingly as he could.
[Fatal. Wonderful choice of words,] she snapped back at him. He grinned and she felt his amusement. [It's not funny! This is damned dangerous!]
[You need to learn it,] he Sent calmly, implacably. [Ben and I can't hold your hand all your life, you know. You have to learn these things for yourself.]
The autopilot lifted the ship out of the traffic pattern smoothly, and Theri snatched her hands back from the controls as they moved by themselves. A moment later and the ship was nosing over into high orbit, and the autopilot beeped as it disengaged, leaving the ship swinging about the planet in the grip of Coruscant's gravity.
"Now then. We need to have the computer plot the hyperspace jump," Kee said, turning her chair around toward him and pulled her up and into his lap. He turned them both toward the navigator's console again. "Here, the keyboard. We need to look it up first for the coordinates. Zanniah Epsilon. We need the star first, the navicomputer will compute the ecliptic orbit, and then we fly in straight from there on sublight, just like we did when we came home to Coruscant."
Ben flopped down in the weapons' officer chair, watching them, smiling faintly. [Can I go to sleep now?]
[Don't you dare!] Kee flashed back instantly. Ben snorted and Theri giggled.
"All right, now, there's the coordinates. Send it to the navicomputer," Kee said, pointing to the "compute course" button on the touch-sensitive screen. Theri touched it and the screen blanked. A second later the navicomputer status screen came back up and showed "Computing hyperspace jump to Zanniah Epsilon -- System Ecliptic Parabolic Orbit". Kee kissed her neck and turned them back toward the pilot's chair again and tickled her a little. "Better get back in the chair, dearheart, Thretketh isn't that far away so it'll only take a minute to plot the jump. If I remember correctly, it's only two or three hours through hyperspace."
Sure enough, Theri had barely enough time to get settled again before the navicomputer beeped and the screen showed "Hyperspace Jump calculations complete. Course computed to Zanniah Epsilon -- System Ecliptic Parabolic Orbit".
Kee pointed to the double set of slide-bar switches to the right of the steering yoke. Theri peered at them, trying to keep herself from squirming. Kee crossed his arms on his chest and gave her a stern look. Ben kicked the back of the pilot's chair. Theri sighed and reached forward to push the slide-bars up, and the motionless field of stars outside the canopy shivered, shifted up from white to blue to violet, then became endless streaks of light as the shuttle jumped into hyperspace.
"There! See? Nothing to it!" Kee said, turning the pilot's chair toward him again. Theri still had her eyes scrunched closed and he grinned and kissed her forehead. "Silly minx!" He turned and gave Ben's knee a shake. "All right, wretch, now you can go to sleep."
"Finally!" Ben said, pulling his cloak hood over his head, leaning back, and pretending to snore. Theri giggled and tried to tickle him and he caught her hands and pulled her into his arms to tickle her back. Kee watched them with a contented smile, letting them play for a moment, then reached over to tickle the back of Theri's leg. [All right, you two, we have work to do during the jump, remember?]
Ben tugged his hood off. "He's right, we do. Come one, love, time for the lecture."
They went back into the passenger cabin and Ben retrieved his small backpack from one of the chairs and tugged his lightsaber off his belt. He unzipped the backpack and began taking things out as Kee wrapped his cloak about him once more and sat down in one of the nearby blast couches. Theri sat down on the edge of the blast couch beside him, watching Ben.
"You already know the basic design of a lightsaber. Powercel, crystals, switches, something to make a handle, some wiring. It's funny how simple they are, really. Blasters and slug-throwers are more complicated. You'd figure some dork would set up a droid-line to mass produce them and everyone would be carrying one, just like blasters. The main reason people don't is that it's the Jedi weapon, I guess. Most of the galaxy either wouldn't bother with something so archaic or else they have some idea we'll come haunt them or something. Whatever the reason, Jedi and Sith are the only ones who carry them and use them. And I guess we're the only ones who make such an art and a science out of using a weapon." Ben grinned down at his own lightsaber where it now rested on the hologame table in front of him and picked it up again. "Remember when we met, on Tatooine? You scared the hell out of me, stealing my lightsaber!"
They smiled at each other, and he tossed it to her. She caught it automatically and just looked at it. Ben snorted a laugh. "Well? What are you waiting for?"
Theri looked up at him in confusion.
Kee quirked one eyebrow upwards, reached over, moved her hand so the lightsaber was pointing away from anything important, and thumbed the power switch.
Theri squeaked as the blue-white blade extended and solidified, the familiar droning hum filling the air around her. The blade seemed to be alive, when she tilted her hand a little it wanted to continue the movement, it felt like the blade was trying to move itself. She gulped and looked up at Ben with wide frightened eyes.
"Funny to see it in someone else's hand," he said with a faint lopsided grin. "Did you feel that way when you were first teaching me the saber, Master?"
Kee smiled slowly, his eyes on the blue blade. "It's always strange seeing your own lightsaber in someone else's hands. Your lightsaber is part of you, you built it, you found the crystals for it, you've practiced with it and fought with it constantly. You put a lot of yourself into it, a lot of your personality. Think of Shosin-ka's lightsaber, she's spent hundreds of hours just shaping the gemstones for the grip and pommel. The Kaivanin are an intensely artistic people, and that work of art of hers shows it. Or Torin's lightsaber. He got his brother to send him a barrel from the missile rack of an old mechanized armor suit that belonged to their family, and that became the shell for the grip of his lightsaber, and he used some of the laser crystals from it too. My friend Prince Doran picked out his crystals from the crown jewels of Naboo, he chose a green sapphire. And had his family's artisans make the shell out of gold and silver. Well, he never expected he'd actually have to fight much, so he could afford to make it flashy." He pulled his own lightsaber off his belt and held it up, looking at it fondly. "Thirty-two years since I built it, and I wouldn't trade it for a planet's worth of gold or gems."
Theri swallowed, still holding Ben's lightsaber, feeling the power in the blade, the way it tugged at her hand, the almost living presence in it. She shivered and turned it off. "It doesn't put out any heat," she said after a moment.
"No, that's because of the way we facet the focussing crystals," Ben said as she handed it back to him. "When you go to your grandmother's water-beryl mines, I want you to get lots of crystals, as many as you can. You're going to need a bunch to choose from. You need perfect, unflawed crystals, as big as you can find. When we get home to Coruscant we'll go through the ones you bring back and find the unflawed ones and I'll run them through the facetter for you. You need two in your lightsaber, because with two crystals we can give it a variable-length blade. And you'll need that. Your blade has to be two-thirds of your height, and I think the standard single-crystal meter-and-a-third is going to be a little too long for you." He grinned mischievously and gestured at Kee. "Right, oh Master Giant?"
Kee snorted a laugh. "Impudent wretch."
Ben grinned and continued. "Anyway, love, your lightsaber blade will probably be only a meter long. And no, that won't be too short. We've found that two-thirds of your height is the best ratio for it." He slid his lightsaber onto his belt absently and picked up a scanner he'd taken from his pack and handed it to her. "Here. You'll want to take this with you when you go to the mines. It's a microscanner. You'll need to scan each crystal you find for internal flaws and chemical consistency. I'm not familiar with water-beryls, so I don't know the atomic structure, but almost any crystalline substance as hard or harder than beryls can be used."
Theri smiled faintly. "Water-beryls form in caves, Ben, they sort of grow out from the walls. They look like drops of water. Not ice, water! They're sort of a light blue color with purple shadows in them, and the rarest ones have green or orange shadows too. When I left home, my Uncle Kathor was running the two mines we were still using. The ones I'll be going to are some old played-out mines that my brothers and sisters and I used to play in when we were little. They still have crystals in them, you just have to go way far into the cave system. We stopped working those mines because it was getting dangerous to go so far into the caves."
Kee stirred at this and put out a hand to rub her back. "Dangerous? You didn't tell me this was going to be dangerous."
Theri shrugged. "Living is dangerous, beloved. Being in this ship in hyperspace is dangerous." She looked over at him and reached out to caress his cheek. "My family has maps of the caves. And the children probably still run about in those caves just as we did when I was little. And it's a five mile run to the mines too, in my Uncle Kathor's holdland."
Kee could sense she was avoiding his question. "What about cave-ins?"
Theri looked away. "It's always possible," she said quietly. "But I'm not going to worry about it too much. Isn't finding the crystals as much a part of the lightsaber thing as building it?"
"Sometimes," Kee said. "Sometimes a master will require his students to go into some sort of dangerous situation to get their crystals. But I'm not asking that of you."
Ben quirked one eyebrow up at this and Sent only to Kee, [Master! She has to make her own choices. You knew she wouldn't take an easy way out.]
Kee grimaced at him darkly, but relented.
"But I want to take the risks, beloved. Nothing worth doing was ever easy," Theri said. She'd been aware they were Sending, but they'd shielded her out of it. "Besides, it's not like I'm trying to steal the Avior Diamond on Korolis. It's my own clanhold lands, my family's mines. And I'll have maps too."
Kee sighed and nodded.
Ben took the scanner back from her. "Remember Serala saying she thought she had a crack in one of her crystals? She did. You have to be careful about getting cracks in the crystals after you've put them in the saber. If you get even hairline fractures or even chips on the surface it can cause the saber to explode. Internal flaws in the crystals do the same thing. The atomic structure has to be perfect, the facetting has to be perfect, or you'll get refractions and resonances in the crystals that will cause the blade to generate heat and cause energy bleed-off. You remember how Seri's saber looked like it was sort of unfocussed? Like the blade was starting to lose shape? That's energy bleed-off. One of the crystals had a warp in the atomic structure, and it would have become an internal flaw in a few days if I hadn't facetted a new crystal for her." He dug out a small leather bag from his pack and opened it, spilling out a handful of glittering stones into his hand. "Black diamonds from Tatooine. These are my spares."
Theri picked one up to look at it. Half-spheres of intricately facetted, dark blue diamond, some that were round flat lenticular shapes. The stones glowed with purplish overtones in the blue-white lighting of the shuttle's passenger cabin. Each was a couple centimeters in diameter. The cynical streetwise part of her thought, Ben's spare lightsaber crystals could probably buy my Apa's entire clanhold and the fishing boats too. It was a strange thought.
[Part of the test, dearheart,] Kee Sent as he heard this thought in her mind. [Why do you think we've never worried about Torin, with that family of his? Or with the gambling ring? It was plain where his heart and soul was, when he chose a simple set of white diamonds from an old laser for his lightsaber crystals. Why do you think we let Shosin-ka put all those gems on her lightsaber? Because we knew greed had no part in it for her. Why do you think we're using a shuttle to take you home to Thretketh to do this? Because it isn't greed that's motivating you. Neither is it the simple need for a lightsaber.]
Theri looked at him for a long moment, considering. [It's more than that?]
Kee nodded. [What do swords symbolize? And lightsabers in particular? And seekings, quests?]
Theri's eyes went distant for a moment as she thought about it and she automatically started to relax into the Force to find the answer. Kee took her hand to distract her.
[No, dearheart. Don't ask the Force for the answers. Think about it yourself. Remember? We agreed you'd only ask the Force for answers if there was no other way to get the answer. Go sit and think about it for a little. You know enough about symbolism and philosophy to be able to figure this out for yourself.] Kee picked up her hand and kissed it, then pointed up toward the cockpit. [Go meditate.]
She nodded and slid down off the blast couch.
Ben watched her go with a faint smile as he fit one of his spare lightsaber crystals into the scanner to check it for flaws. "I'll bet she gets it a lot sooner than I did."
Kee pulled his cloak around him and leaned back into the gelfoam, closing his eyes. But Ben sensed he too was meditating.
Two hours later, the navicomputer began beeping, and Theri focussed her eyes again to look over at the status screens. She swung around to look at the navigator's screens across the console. "Reversion to sublight -- five minutes" the screen said, and she blinked. [Beloved? I think we're almost to Thretketh.]
Kee came into the cockpit behind her, nodded, sat down in the navigator's chair. Ben hurriedly sat down in the weapons officer chair behind Theri.
They watched the countdown to reversion tick by on the status screen until it got down to one minute. "All right, we'll need the shields up. Never ever come out of hyperspace without the shields up," he told her sternly, holding her eyes steadily. "Turn around there, toward Ben. Those orange buttons there, punch all six. You never know what may be in your way when you come out of hyperspace. So always have your shields up, just in case."
The endless white streaks of light filling the canopy became dashes, then resolved into motionless points of diamond brilliance. Yellow-orange sunlight lanced into their eyes from the left, and Theri turned to look. Zanniah Epsilon. Far above and ahead, the gas giant planet Sabikai hovered menacingly, glowering red-brown and yellow.
"Where's Thretketh?" she asked. "That's Sabikai, Thretketh should be the next one in. Where is it?"
Kee smiled and put a hand on her shoulder, pointing to the right. "There, love."
Theri saw it then, an impossibly tiny glittering silver-white gemstone in the darkness. She turned the shuttle toward it and watched the gemstone brilliance resolve into a recognizable globe. Then colors began appearing from the brightness as they flew steadily nearer. Theri simply stared at it, trying to absorb it all, the sapphire of the oceans, the curdled clouds in rags and tatters moving serenely across the terminator from night to day, the myriad variety of browns and tans and greens of the land, the frosting of the snows on the mountains, the ice-white of glaciers at the polar regions.
"You've never seen Thretketh from space, have you?" Kee asked softly.
Theri shook her head, unable to take her eyes from the planet. "There's...Delia. I remember seeing maps, hologlobes, when I was little...When my Master kidnapped me he didn't let go of my mind until the ship we were on went into hyperspace. So I didn't get to see it."
"Put us in orbit first, then you can look all you want," Kee said, sitting back in the navigator's chair to look over at the screens. "High orbit for Thretketh is six hundred fifty kilometers. We'll want a transpolar orbit to take us down past the equator to get to Pthora. Watch the altimeter and the magnetometer. The magnetic field of the planet will pull the ship out of orbit."
With that warning, Theri watched the orbital display on the status screen, inching the shuttle closer to the orbital trajectory she needed. Finally the little triangle icon merged with the blinking red dot on the display and she took a deep breath.
"Now hit the autopilot," Kee said. "That'll keep the ship in orbit."
Theri flipped the switch next to the hyperdrive slide-bars and the shuttle slowly turned itself over to fly upside down over the planet. She was totally disoriented for a moment, then her brain switched perspective and they were flying over the curve of the planet in the full light of Thretketh's day.
The little Jedi shuttle flew in from over the ocean across the long curve of the Bay of Selanis, through the high feathery clouds in the late afternoon sky. The granite-fanged coast of Pthora flickered by below, the surf throwing up spray halfway up the jagged cliff faces and into the caves that dotted the coast.
Theri chewed her lip nervously, her eyes trying to search the coast for something, anything, familiar. Behind her, Kee was trying to argue with Thretketh Control in his rusty Thretkethan. Theri grinned. Clan Vaitra was Thretketh Control, they'd inherited the job and the upkeep of Thretketh's tiny starfleet after the revolts. She heard the irritation in the traffic controller's voice. "Ben, could you fly this thing for a minute, so I can argue with Thretketh Control?"
Ben nodded and took hold of the duplicate controls where he sat at the navigator's console now. "Just keep going east?"
"Yeah. If you see a big house made out of gray rock, tell me." She swung around toward the comm boards and put up a hand to tell Kee to stop trying, then switched to Thretkethan herself. "Thretketh Control, I am Theriyah bel Kaitryn. I have come home to visit my family. Would it be permissible to land at my family's clanhold?"
The voice of the controller seemd much less irritated at this turn of events. "Kaitryn? You wish to land at the Kaitryn clanhold?
"Yes. On our clanhold lands on the north Pthora coast."
There was silence on the line for a moment, then, "There is a warrant for the arrest of Tharkitsa bel Kaitryn in Morosala."
Theri rolled her eyes and was grateful it was only a radio link and not video as well. [My brother Tharki. The dork. Wonder what he did this time?] she Sent to Kee, then continued to the controller. "I will tell my father of this. May we land?"
"You may land."
"My thanks, Thretketh Control." Theri hurriedly cut off the channel before the controller could say anything more.
"Theri? Is that it?" Ben asked behind her. She swung herself around to look.
The cliffs rose in front of them, approaching swiftly, gray and black granite striated and torn and tumbled. She knew those rocks! She looked up at the top of the cliff and there was the clanhold, built partially into the cliffs themselves and partially sprawling over the land above. It seemed to cling like a barnacle on one of her father's boats, staircases and ramps cut out of the stone down to the beach and the dock, terraces and balconies shadowed by awnings in bright colors. Home!
"That's it! We're here!" she almost yelled. Kee heard the excitement in her voice and mind and reached over to put a calming hand on her shoulder.
"Ben? Theri has to land the ship," he said, and Theri gulped and took hold of the controls again as Ben sat back in his chair. She pulled the ship up to clear the cliffs, turned in a wide arc to bring the shuttle back around to face out to sea, and searched for a place to land. She saw the road leading through the woods to the alga farm, the small meadow between road and trees. That would work. She swallowed, touched the Force and let her fear and nervousness go. Tension evaporated, the silent tide of calmness washed over her, and she brought the little ship down carefully into the blue-green masses of goro vines that carpetted the meadow floor.
"Shut down the engines," Kee said to Theri. "Ben, you get the navigational array there and set the comm system. Lock down everything but the comm system." The sensor array chimed quietly and Theri looked up and around to Kee at the sound. "Looks like company." He chuckled and smiled up at her.
Her eyes flew to look out the canopy at the figures approaching cautiously from the clanhold, blaster rifles and spearguns held at the ready.
"Apa!" she yelled, and whirled to run out, but Kee caught her with a grin and scooped her cloak from the chair where she'd left it, shook it out and put it around her shoulders, pulled the hood up to shadow her face. He and Ben pulled their hoods up simultaneously and they headed for the door of the little shuttle in Theri's wake.
Theri flew out the shuttle doorway, barely even touching the rampway, and ran straight at the short, barrel-chested man with the blaster rifle. "Apa! Apa, it's me! I'm home! I came back!" Theri yelled in Thretkethan as she rushed right up to the figure in faded Thretkethan military camoflage and flung her arms around him.
Behind her, Ben shook his head and groaned softly. [She just ran right up to a man holding a gun pointed at her,] he Sent to his Master.
Kee Sent his angry agreement. [I know. We'll have a talk with her later. A very long talk.]
But by now Dorovan bel Kaitryn realized it was his long-lost third child who was chattering at him in a word-tumbling jumble and hugging him ecstatically, and stunned amazement turned to joy as they realized the lost had returned home. Theri's oldest brother Dodiya slung his blaster rifle over his shoulder and swung his little sister up into his arms with a happy yell. Shas and Corval, two of her younger brothers, dropped their spearguns and crowded close to hug her as Dodiya set her carefully on her feet. Kee and Ben saw her look around to see who else was about, and freeze for a moment when she saw the one person who had not come crowding close to hug her. Kee felt the sudden tension and fear in her mind, but then it was gone and he couldn't trace the vague images that had flickered past his mind's eye. Theri was now nodding to the man who came forward holding out his hands to her, but both Kee and Ben could see the way she was carefully controlling her voice and the expression on her face. They could tell she was making herself be civil to him. Kee tagged this mystery to be resolved before they left Thretketh.
"Who is this you've brought home, daughter?" Theri's father said as she hugged him again. He was a small, compact man, well-muscled from a life spent hauling nets full of fish and ten years of military service in his youth. He had an open face, square-jawed, short black hair the same shade as Theri's, and light blue-green eyes. He spoke in Standard now, realizing that his daughter had brought offworlders home with her.
Theri smiled and pulled her father forward toward the two Jedi, and her brothers and cousin followed. "Apa, these are my new teachers, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. Kee, Ben, this is my father, Dorovan bel Kaitryn, and my brothers Dodiya, Shas and Corval. And this is my brother-cousin, Dalryn."
Kee and Ben both smiled faintly and put up hands to put their cloak hoods back, and Kee spoke. "Clanholder Kaitryn, I have the honor to be your daughter's teacher. She is a most remarkable young lady."
"That she is, sir. You are Jedi? Well, now, Theri, what have you gotten yourself into?" Dorovan said, hugging his daughter with one arm as he held out the other hand to the tall Jedi Master to shake hands. "I hope she's not been too much trouble to you, sir."
Kee felt Ben's amusement. "Not at all, Clanholder. Theri is the sort of student a teacher prays for. I barely manage to keep up with her."
Dorovan laughed and nodded. "You'll not be the first to say that, Jedi. But come now, let's all go back inside. Sorry for the guns and all, but we're a cautious lot. We didn't know who you were. You're Jedi Knights? Even you, youngster? Well now! Theri, you have a long story to tell me!"
Theri leaned into her father's shoulder. "Oh, Apa, it's too long to tell!"
They all turned back down the road toward the clanhold, Theri's younger brothers Shas and Corval trying to chatter at her simultaneously in Thretkethan and she laughing and answering them with hands held up in warning. Kee noticed the oldest brother, Dodiya, kept himself always between the mysterious brother-cousin Dalryn and Theri herself. To Kee, it looked as if Dodiya was standing protective guard over his sister.
[Are you catching what's going on here, with that brother-cousin of hers?] he Sent to Ben.
[I've never known Theri to be cold to anyone. Why would she be afraid of someone in her family?] Ben Sent back.
[Afraid? You think she's afraid of him?] Kee Sent.
[I'm not certain. But definitely she doesn't like him,] Ben Sent, his eyes straight ahead down the road. Kee knew he was surreptitiously studying Dalryn out of the corner of his eye. [What does brother-cousin mean, anyway?]
[He's probably one of her Ama's children by her Uncle Kathor,] Kee Sent quickly. They came to the clanhold's main gate now, a massive set of double doors made from what looked like the hull plating of a starship.
[Did you notice she very carefully avoided saying you were her Master?] Ben Sent, amusement in his mindvoice.
[Hmm. Yes. Probably it would be a good idea if you called me just Kee while we're here and not Master. We don't know who in her family speaks Standard, and they might get the wrong idea.] Kee grinned faintly in the half-light of the entry hallway as a handful of children came rushing up to the little group, all of them chattering in breathless excitement in Thretkethan.
Dorovan shooed them all away and Kee caught his words, that he would tell everyone everything later. "My youngest," Dorovan explained as the children ran off again. "I've ten children in all, Jedi, so if Theri's found a home with you I am eternally grateful."
Kee smiled and nodded. "She has indeed, Clanholder."
They were passing into a large room now, the clanhold's main gathering room, two stories up to the ceiling, a steep gabled roof rising to a sharp point, massive beams of wood cris-crossing the gables. The floor of the room was on several levels, some areas sinking into round pits upholstered with pillows and matting to form conversation nooks, one filled by a small pool with a bubbling fountain. Large round windows were set into the stone walls around the perimeter of the round room. A balcony ran around the inner walls, with hallways radiating off to other rooms both from the balcony and from the lower floor. Another set of double doors made of wood opened to another room to their right as they came into the gathering room, apparently leading to the kitchen area from the smells of food.
Dorovan called down this hallway now in Thretkethan, and the quiet voices inside the room beyond erupted into startled commotion. A moment later a handful of women came bursting out, and there was another long moment of hugs and laughter and startled Thretkethan. Theri pulled herself away, took the oldest woman by the hand and pulled her out of the group toward Kee and Ben, explaining in Thretkethan that the two Jedi were her teachers.
Toroleri bel Kaitryn sal Srithrai looked up at them and Kee was struck by the intensity and intelligence in the startling light-green eyes. She had a mane of spun-gold hair that fell to her knees, quite a contrast to her three oldest children who all had inherited her mate's black hair. Otherwise, the elfin, almost ethereal beauty of her face spoke of what Theri would look like in time, and no one would ever guess this lady had borne twelve children from the athletic, slim form. She also wore faded Thretkethan military fatigue pants and a loose sleeveless black shirt and very no-nonsense hiking boots. "Be welcome to our hold, and thank you for bringing my daughter home," she said slowly in Standard. "I am Toroleri bel Kaitryn sal Srithrai, Theriyah's mother."
Kee and Ben bowed to her silently. [Your Ama doesn't speak Standard, dearheart?] Kee sent to Theri.
[No. No reason to learn it. We never see offworlders here,] Theri answered as her mother again pulled her into her arms to hug her, then took Theri's face in her hands to give her daughter a long searching look. Theri grinned sheepishly, realizing she was now able to look her formidable mother straight in the eyes without flinching. [She runs an alga farm, a fishing business, two water-beryl mines, and has a huge family to take care of. She has no time to learn a language she's not likely to need. Or so she always says.]
There were more introductions then, two younger sisters, Tarva and Berilan, looking much like younger versions of Theri with strawberry blond hair. And two cousins Chellah and Darli, both black-haired and slim but obviously from the Kaitryn side of the family with oval faces and blue eyes. All four were eyeing Ben and Kee with some interest, which Theri didn't miss at all.
[They're all blood related?] Ben Sent to Kee in amazement. [This isn't a clan, it's a tribe!]
[And that's not all of them,] Kee Sent with a twist of amusement. [There's the ones out on the fishing boats. And even more cousins.]
The Kaitryn children were soon organized and in moments had managed to get everyone sitting down comfortably in the gathering room with drinks for everyone and munchies close to hand. Theri's parents sat together holding hands, peering at their Jedi daughter with some bemusement and faint trepidation, listening while Theri started trying to explain all that had happened after the strange old man Therasslen had kidnapped her. Kee and Ben sat together ostensibly watching her as she talked. But their attention was trained on the brother-cousin Dalryn who sat a few feet away sprawled across the matting of the round sofa with casual disregard for the upholstery, apparently listening to Theri with only half an ear. But Kee was not fooled. Dalryn was absorbing every word Theri said with predatory eagerness, and Kee couldn't make out any thoughts at all from the guarded mind.
It was well into the night before Theri managed to break away for a moment of peace from her family's endless questions to escape out onto the wide steps leading up to the top of the cliffs. She ran up them lightly, silently, her new Jedi cloak rippling around her as she ran along an overgrown pathway toward the forest beside which she'd landed the shuttle. Thretketh had no moon, but the wash of starlight in the cloudless sky was more than enough light to see by. And besides, she could have run down this pathway full tilt blindfolded, using the Force to guide her steps. And too, this was a path she'd walked or run so many times she could run it half-asleep, and had many times.
She burst out of the trees again on the edge of the cliffs where a gigantic granite stone jutted out to hang literally above the tossing surf dozens of meters below. She walked out onto it and looked out over the ocean, the blaze of stars that met the horizon far to the north. She was home. She was truly home. She sank down to kneel on the rock and the warmth of the day radiated up to welcome her.
She didn't feel like crying. It didn't seem a thing for tears. Just a bedrock joy that anchored her soul, like this rock she'd spent too many hours sitting on. She wondered if anyone else of the family came here now to look out over the ocean as she had done, or if the klatchaska blossoms were the only ones that sat on this rock now. You could lay on this rock flat and see nothing but stars or clouds, hear nothing but the surf below or the wind in the trees. The small, quiet, orderly world bounded by the edges of this rock was all she had truly wanted. Until her father had pulled her old Master out of the Eastern Great Current and her world had fallen away in the wash of his words.
A familiar presence moved through the trees behind her, and she smiled and turned toward him.
"So this is the famous cliff over the ocean," Kee said with a smile as he came out from under the trees, a dark shape out of the shadows in his black cloak.
Theri nodded and got to her feet, held out a hand for him, and he came out onto the rock carefully. "I know, it looks like it's about to fall off into the water. It's always looked like that."
Kee put his arms around her and they looked out over the water together, the waves white in the starlight as they folded over themselves, the sounds of gulls wheeling above the water, the myriad scents of fish and salt and trees. They stood for many long moments together, silently, their souls entwined, letting the tensions and strains of this long day fall away into the Force.
"So, Master mine? What do you think?" Theri asked finally with a grin as she turned toward him to slip her arms around him. "I could feel you were nervous about meeting my parents. What, did you think they wouldn't approve of you or something?"
Kee laughed and ruffled her hair. "I hadn't thought they'd caught on yet, about you and me."
Theri shrugged with one shoulder. "I told my mother, earlier. Not that we're lifebonded, but that you and Ben were my mates and my teachers. Oh no, I just remembered, I need to warn my sisters and cousins about Ben!"
"Warn them? How so?" Kee asked with a chuckle.
"I was going to tell them not to climb all over him without asking first! And not to gang up on him!" she said. "There's four of them home right now and you know he's a damned handsome devil, and they'll devour him alive!"
Kee laughed and hugged her. "I think I heard your father saying something to them as I came outside. Ben gave me a look like a Mynock in the headlights when I left."
They both cracked up and held each other while they laughed helplessly.
"Poor Ben," Theri said, still giggling. "It must be so difficult for him, women falling all over themselves over him, getting jumped all the time..."
Kee grinned mischievously. "It's a good thing he's not Sith, he'd have at least half the universe conquered by now."
"We'd never be able to stop him!" Theri giggled, and buried her face against his chest while they laughed again. Then they calmed down and just looked out over the ocean again. She looked up to the stars and relaxed into the Force, letting the silent peace of it flow to him as well as they stood looking up at the stars. "I'll go to the mines tomorrow."
Kee nodded.
Behind them, in the trees of the forest, a fleeting black shape darted into the shadows under the trees in perfect silence, and yellow cat-pupiled eyes glowed in the night as Darth Maul watched the Jedi Master and the Mystic girl turn and make their way back through the trees hand in hand. No. Not yet. The girl would be alone tomorrow and miles away from Jinn and Kenobi. He would wait. He held himself frozen motionless in mind and body as the two walked past him not twenty feet away.
The gathering room was silent the next morning save for the faint sounds from the nearby kitchen, most of the round deep-silled windows open to the fresh sea breeze. Theri grinned as she came into the room, hearing the voices of her sisters and cousins in the kitchen. She was dressed in one of her old black outfits since she was going to be climbing about in the caves today. She ducked into the hallway and into the kitchen.
It was a large, bright, white room, with large windows letting in the sunlight. A huge table dominated the room, where her sisters were busily working to chop up a great mound of mushrooms and goro roots and carrots for the day's meals. The boats would come in today so there would be many more to feed at dinner that night. The rest of the family remaining at home had already eaten, so there was no competition for what remained of breakfast. She got a bowl and was looking in the cooler for fruit for breakfast when her cousins and sisters started giggling behind her.
"What?" she asked in Thretkethan as she turned around to them.
"Are they yours, Theri?" Tarva asked, tossing her braid of reddish hair over her shoulder.
"Who? Ben and Kee?" Theri asked, pretending innocence.
The four giggled at this. "Yes, the Jedi! Who else?" Berilan said, pointing her knife at her sister. "So tell us all about it! Willing to share?"
Theri put the tsalas and gumpta berries she'd retrieved from the cooler onto a corner of the table where they stood and reached for a knife from the block in the middle of the table. "I meant to tell you all this last night, but I forgot. And you tell the others too, while I'm gone today. The older one is mine only! Don't even think about it with him! He's mine, no sharing. The younger one I'm willing to share, but you ask him first in Standard, not in Thretkethan. He doesn't speak Thretketh. And if he says no, it means no, not maybe if you keep trying. And don't gang up on him. Remember he's not Thretketh."
Berilan nodded and dumped the pile of mushrooms she'd chopped into the baking pan in front of her. "Outlanders. Are they all such old rocks? What fun! One person, all your life. Sounds like hell to me."
The others cracked up at this, and Theri had to grin herself.
"Girls. Always with their minds in the gutters," Dodiya said as he came into the kitchen.
"Takes one to know one," Berilan said as he came over and kissed her before heading toward one of the nearby cupboards.
"You planning to be out all day in the caves, Theri?" Dodiya asked, digging through the cupboard searching for something.
"Yes. I'll need the maps," she said. "And the keys to the gates."
Dodiya turned back toward her and smiled, and she was struck by how much he'd changed since she'd been gone. Dodiya had always seemed like a giant to her, much taller than their father, thickly muscled, thick-boned, with black hair and their father's eyes. Some might have assumed he was thick-witted as well, but that was far from the truth. But now he seemed smaller, somehow. Less solid.
She scooped the fruit she'd sliced into the bowl and went to get some of the cheese pastries from the warming oven. Dodiya dumped a handful of objects onto the table next to her. "Alga bars. Ama said you're too skinny and you need the protein."
Theri snorted and picked up the bowls of fruit and pastry. "Ama always says I'm too skinny."
She climbed back up the stairway to the guest room she and Kee and Ben had been given. Her parents hadn't even asked, just given all three of them a room together. Ben and Kee were both awake now and looked up with smiles as she came back into the room.
"Food," she said, putting the bowls of pastry and fruit on the table under the window. "Better show me how to use the scanner, Ben. I need to get going."
Ben bounced up from the deep windowsill where he'd been sitting watching the gulls and reached for his small backpack to get the scanner. Kee sighed and got out of bed to start the day as he listened to Ben explaining the crystal scanner's functions.
By the time he had tied his hair back and slid his lightsaber onto his belt, Theri and Ben were dumping the scanner, vibroblade, handlight, and comlink into the backpack again and she was swinging it up onto her shoulder.
"Be careful," Kee said as she came to him with shining eyes, ready for the day's adventure. "Don't take any risks you don't have to. Watch where you're going. And try not to get lost." He hugged her close for a moment and kissed her.
She smiled lopsidedly and held him close for a moment more, then tossed a grin at Ben and left.
The little hoverlight bobbed just over Theri's head as she carefully climbed down the frozen waterfall of stone to the next level of the cave system. Water dripped all around her now in steady, monotonous plops in the darkness beyond the hoverlight's ten foot circle of illumination. She stopped at the bottom of the fall of stone and swung the backpack off her back to retrieve the map Dodiya had given her.
Two hundred years this mine has been in the family, she thought, I should be able to find my way around just with clan-memory. But it didn't work that way.
She took the handlight from her belt and looked around. Yes. The right-hand tunnel. She looked down at the map again, trying to memorize the next few turns and landmarks, and moved off down the tunnel.
Theri had seen little sign of water-beryls save for some tiny ones chipped by vibroblades long ago. But she was coming to the limits of the map. She'd be in unexplored territory soon. And that meant beryls in quantity, large beryls untouched and unseen by other Thretkethan hands and eyes.
She'd never been this far into the caves. Theri had no idea how far she'd come, no idea of the distance. Time had seemed to stop once she got into territory with which she wasn't immediately familiar. Rock slides and partial cave-ins obscured some tunnels. She'd found the rooms deep inside the caves that had clearly been used as hiding places, and the clan-memory insisted she knew this place, though she'd never yet in this life come so far into the caves. Yet she remembered hiding here, huddling together with others she loved, wanting desperately only to escape the irrational madman who owned them all.
The floor dropped away suddenly in front of her, and she caught herself a split second before she went over the ledge. Her heart thumped as she scooted back to the wall, feeling stones crumbling under her boots.
[Are you all right, dearheart?] Kee asked suddenly in her mind. She could feel his worry. He'd felt her fear as she'd started to go over the ledge.
[Fine. I'm down into the unexplored parts of the caves now. I should be finding the crystals soon,] she Sent back. She played her handlight beam down into the pit in front of her, saw it was perhaps a twenty foot drop down to the uneven, jagged floor. She looked up, shining her handlight around the walls. [Ah ha! Found them! Tell Ben I'm bringing an entire backpack full.]
She felt Kee's amusement. [He's not with me. Your brothers Shas and Corval and your cousin Dalryn managed to get him to go out on one of the fishing boats with them.]
Theri laughed aloud. [You're kidding! Ben on a boat? Will wonders never cease? ]
She felt Kee laugh. [I told your Apa he couldn't swim. Your Apa said he'd keep Ben with him on the bridge.]
[Wait'll he sees Dodiya and Shas swinging about on the boom and the nets. He'll want to do it too,] she Sent back as she looked around for a way to get down to the floor safely. [Hmm. Looks like I'll have to jump down straight. Ah well. Let me think for a minute, love.]
She looked up at the walls for handholds. The tunnel she'd come from just abruptly dropped away into the pit in front of her. She Lifted the hoverlight up to the ceiling of the cavern and the light showed a rough oval cave. Smaller tunnels branched off from the bottom of the pit, one in the floor itself. And water-beryls of all sizes clustered on the walls and floor of the cave like crytalline mushrooms, glittering greeny-blue in the yellow light. She Sent the image to Kee and felt his amazement.
[Green-shadows! These are rare! I'll have to tell Ama when I get home,] she Sent. [I wonder what color these will make my lightsaber be?]
[We can't know that until you build it,] Kee Sent back. [How very interesting! They grow out of the walls, you say?]
[Uh-huh. Takes thousands of years, of course.] She picked a spot on the floor to land and aimed for it, landing lightly and catching herself on a cluster of the crystals. She swung the backpack off and started getting out her vibroblade and the microscanner. [I wonder what's down that hole there?] she Sent, Sending the image of the dark jagged hole in the floor nearby.
She walked carefully through the masses of water-beryls and jagged teeth of rock and stood shining her handlight down into the hole. And then hissed in disbelief. [Orange-shadows! Hundreds of them! The entire hole is full of orange-shadows!] she Sent to Kee.
[Those are the rarest ones, aren't they?] Kee Sent quietly. Theri stopped cold at the lack of inflection in his mindvoice.
A test? she thought. Then she knew. Yes. It was a test.
[Clever. You're just too clever, you sneaky old man,] she Sent with a laugh. She felt him laughing. [I'll tell Ama I found these. The clan can use the money. I don't need it. The green-shadows will do fine. Besides, they're easier to get to.] She turned away from the hole and walked back to the clusters of crystals she'd been looking at before and turned on the scanner.
She was cutting free a huge teardrop shaped crystal when that familiar sense of wrongness scraped across her mind like sudden lightning. She straightened up immediately and whirled to look around--
--just as the blur of black leapt from the ledge behind her, lightsaber blades flashing into existence as Darth Maul fell toward her like a falcon on a mouse.
The Force surged up to take her mind and body as she reached for the spiral in her soul in sudden panic, abandoning her hold on her self instantly. She vanished into her shields even as she leapt straight up and over the rushing figure in black, tumbling over onto the ledge he'd just jumped from and from there back down to the floor behind him, landing amidst the rocks in the first guard position for Soritsu-ji, then flickering sideways as Maul whirled, trying to find her. The dim half-light from the hoverlight made things easier for her, even the telltale shimmer in the air would be hard to see here.
Maul reached into a pouch slung from his shoulder, punched a button on the small device he had retrieved, the threw it up over the ledge and down the tunnelway. There was a flash of blinding white light and a soundless concussion, then a muffled roar as the tunnel collapsed. The Sith whirled again, grinning wolfishly just before he was knocked to the floor by Theri kicking his knees out from under him and landing on his back. Theri bashed him on the back of the head with the rock she'd picked up from the floor, then leapt away as Maul growled, got his arms under him, and pushed them both up from the floor, trying to flip her off of him.
[Beloved!] Kee's mindvoice screamed in her head in sudden terror.
[It's Maul!] she Sent back. [He threw an ion grenade down the tunnel. We're trapped in here!]
Tharki bel Kaitryn stood with head hanging, staring at the weathered rock of the terrace outside his mother's office, hands stuffed in his pockets, his shaggy black hair tossing in the stiff breeze.
"We bought that 'speeder for Dodiya," his Ama was saying, anger in her voice. "Not for you to go tearing around Delia getting in trouble! You've already had two wrecks, and I don't intend to get you out of trouble for this one! You'll deal with it yourself and take the consequences. If you can't --"
Qui-Gon Jinn came rushing up the stairs behind them, leaping three at a time, his eyes wild with fear and anger. He saw them and stopped, trying to speak Thretkethan--"Theri! She's--" His mind went blank on the words in Thretkethan and he switched back to Standard. "Theri's in trouble! I need to get to the caves!"
Tharki's head came up at that and he told his mother what the Jedi had said in Thretkethan. He hadn't yet seen his sister as he'd only been home a couple hours and she'd been gone since breakfast. "You're Theri's mate?" He turned back to his mother and Kee heard him offering to take the Jedi in the family's 'speeder.
Toroleri gave her fourth child a very long, stern look, then snapped off a question in Thretkethan.
Tharki looked back to the Jedi Master. "My Ama wants to know why you say Theri is in trouble?"
Kee straightened up, fighting down the fear and the feel of Theri's Soritsu-ji moves in his mind. "I am Jedi, we can hear each other in our minds. Theri and I are--lifebonded. Permanently mindlinked."
Tharki looked startled at this and hurriedly explained to his mother in Thretkethan. Toroleri looked up at the tall Jedi Master, the fear and anger in his eyes, and looked away again to her son, snapping out another question. Tharki nodded. "Ama says I can take you in the 'speeder, but that she wishes my father to talk to you later about all of this with the mindlinking."
Kee nodded hurriedly. "I'll tell them everything they want to know, but Theri is in grave danger right now and we need to get there! Now!"
Tharki waved the Jedi to follow him as he flew up the stairs toward the top of the cliffs and the clanhold's garage. "You're in luck, Jedi. My brother Dodiya and I and our father are the only ones who know how to drive the 'speeder! And Doda and Apa are out on the boat!"
And Ben, Kee thought. He would have to fight Maul alone.
Tharki skidded the 'speeder around into a bone-jarring halt in front of the entrance to the cave. The iron gate in the entrance was open, the chain used to secure it hanging from the bars of the gate. Tharki and Kee both tumbled out of the 'speeder and ran for the cave entrance.
Kee followed Tharki down the tunnels, feeling Theri fighting in his mind, the sense-shadows of movement and the balanced whirl of the Force in her mind. [We're on our way, beloved, your brother Tharki is with me. Hold on!]
"I don't know which way she went!" Tharki said suddenly in the silence as they slid down a steep rampway of smoothed granite. "The tunnels fork up ahead, several times!"
[Beloved, which tunnels did you take?] Kee asked almost fearfully, not wanting to distract her.
Theri didn't answer him and he sensed she was climbing up one of the cave walls. He felt the sudden spike of fear as Maul's lightsaber blades barely missed her legs as she climbed.
[This way, boy! To the right! She took all right hand turns!]
Kee didn't question the new mindvoice in his head, just turned right and kept going. Tharki followed him down further into the caves, "Yes, she always did take only right turns, she said she wouldn't get lost that way!"
"You go back, Tharki! There's a Dark Jedi down here trying to get Theri, and he'll kill you without thinking twice about it," Kee said, grimacing. The very idea of calling Maul a Jedi rankled, but Tharki wouldn't know what a Sith was, and Jedi was closest. "I'll take care of Theri, just get back up to the 'speeder and call your Apa, tell him to get my apprentice Ben back here as soon as he can!"
"I can do better than that, I'll bring him myself!" Tharki said. "Watch out for sting-worms! They sting you, you'll die. Poisonous!"
Kee nodded and caught the image from Tharki's mind of a white worm that glowed slightly in the darkness of the caves, how it would drop onto the unwary from the ceilings and walls. "Go! Get my apprentice Ben, bring him here as fast as you can!"
Tharki nodded and raced back up the tunnel the way they'd come.
Once the Thretketh was out of sight, Kee turned back, reached for the Force, and began to run down the tunnels, leaping and skittering down tunnels and rockslides, lightsaber in hand, his mind focussed to laser sharpness, allowing everything else to fall away save the feel of Theri's body moving in the controlled spins and dodges of Soritsu-ji. [Ben!] he Sent, reaching his mind out over the miles to touch his apprentice's mind. [Theri's in trouble! Maul's here! He's got them both trapped in a section of the caves and he's trying to kill her!] Ben couldn't reach him at this distance, but he'd hear Kee's Sending with no trouble. [I sent one of Theri's brothers to get you in a 'speeder! You be ready to go the second he gets there! Tell Theri's Apa now so they won't ask questions when Tharki gets there!]
Kee ran on, letting the Force take away the pain and fear, letting the silent calm wash over him, letting it move his body even as he directed it into forward motion, that curious balancing act of mind, body, soul and the Force.
[Watch it, boy! Go to the left here! The Demon didn't know there was another way into the tunnel where they are!]
Again Kee didn't question the mindvoice speaking in his head, it seemed almost like the Force itself was Sending him these words.
Another muffled roar from close ahead of him, and he threw himself to the side instantly as the tunnelway lurched beneath him and the floor shook.
[Well, so much for that idea, now they really are trapped,] the unknown mindvoice said in Kee's mind.
Kee rounded the corner and found a solid wall of rock where the tunnel had been. He turned on his lightsaber and plunged the droning green blade to the hilt in the rock wall, watched the rock sizzle and begin to glow around the blade, beginning to melt. A moment later he pulled it back out and looked down the hole the blade had made. Nothing. The rock wall was more than four feet thick.
[Beloved!] he Sent to the flickering presence in the cave beyond the rock wall. [Keep fighting! Don't give up!]
[Don't worry, boy, I'm with her. There's more than one way to toast a Mynock, y'know.]
[Who are you?] Kee asked at last, thrusting his lightsaber into the rock wall again and letting it begin to melt the rock as he began pulling it through the wall slowly.
[Oh, yeah, sorry. I'm Sowelu Inda. Or, I was Sowelu Inda. Apparently I've been dead for five hundred years, so I'm a little confused.]
Kee grunted a laugh even as he tried to fight down his fear that he wouldn't reach his lifemate in time to save her.
Theri whirled into a high kick, then dropped and dived to the right, tumbling to her feet and scooping up one of the water-beryls she'd cut free from the floor, flung it at Maul's head. The orange blades sliced it into eight neat sections before it connected and the glowing yellow eyes were still focussed on Theri's, drilling laser-like into her mind.
She'd dropped her shields and just fought now, leaping and dodging and avoiding the humming orange blades as Maul tried to back her into corners and against walls where she couldn't get away. But she always managed to jump or tumble out of the way, or managed to get a foot in to kick him. Or at least, try to kick him. After that first head-bash with the rock, she'd not managed to lay more than one hand on him. She'd jump over him trying to get behind him, and the spinning orange lightsaber blades would sweep around in a whirling arc to force her back away from him. Now she could see the neccessity of a lightsaber. Soritsu-ji was a close-in, hand to hand combat system. Essentially useless save for avoidance and getting out of the way.
[The ledge, girl! Jump up on the ledge! When he jumps up after you, kick him!]
Theri obeyed instantly, leaping into a backwards somersault to the ledge above her, then immediately leaping again and whirling into a kick as Maul jumped up after her. Her foot connected this time, and Maul fell back to the floor, narrowly missing a jagged spike of stone. Theri reached out with her mind then while he flipped to his feet, found the powercels of the double lightsaber, and gave one hard tug with the Force. The double lightsaber exploded in Maul's hands and he howled and flung it away from him as the power arc gave him a nasty shock.
[Now, girl! Go for it! Take him apart!]
Theri dived right on top of Maul, knocking him backwards to fall over the spike of stone he'd narrowly missed before, getting her arms around his neck in a choke-hold that she hoped would snap his spine. He struggled to get her off of him, reached up and got his hands around her throat and began to choke her. She drew a deep breath, held it, and bent her head to bite his hand as hard as she could. Maul staggered upright, lurched sideways, and threw her against a cluster of water-beryls, trying to bash her head against the stones. Theri didn't let go, just bit harder, tightened her arms around his neck and kept holding her breath as his fingers dug into her throat.
[Beloved! Ben's coming, I'm cutting through the wall now! Hold on!] Kee Sent in her mind, his voice sharp with his fear and anger. [When I get in there I swear I'll tear him apart with my bare hands if I have to!]
[I'm working on that right now, sweetling] Theri Sent in a dazed, ragged mindvoice.
Maul freed the hand that Theri was not biting to reach for the pouch on his hip again, and Theri caught the thought from his frenzied mind. Damn! How many ion grenades did the dork have? She let go of his neck with one arm and reached to catch the hand digging in the pouch, trying to wrench his arm away. But he was far stronger than she was and caught her wrist, twisted her arm behind her back with a triumphant growl and fell on top of her on the floor. She was trapped beneath him now with one arm wrenched painfully behind her back and he ripped his hand out of her mouth to put his forearm across her throat.
The glowing, fevered yellow eyes met hers, and she felt the spiral of the Force give a convulsive lurch and her heart felt like it skipped several beats.
[Don't let him spook you, girl! You've got him! Rip his heart out!]
That stopped Theri cold and she went silent and still in Maul's grasp. [No. Whoever you are, No. I am not going to give in to my anger and hatred. I will not give in to my fear and let it run my life. I will not play your games!]
"Then you'll die, Mystic whore," Maul said in a sibilant whisper. The voice ripped through her mind and touched something animalistic in her, and lust like the inside of a star flashed through her body. She was suddenly sickeningly aware of the wiry powerful body on top of hers, the predator's mind still racing with battle and the chase, the sadistic hunger that craved the pain he saw in her eyes as she squirmed beneath him.
Theri caught her breath, swallowing against the black-clad arm that held her pinned to the floor, the howling need that wanted this thing that held her down, the imperative demands of her body and mind. She gathered the ragged tatters of her mind, looked up again into the yellow cat-like eyes, and suddenly she Saw it all. She knew this moment for what it was. The will of the Force. It was a test. A test on many, many different levels.
She relaxed again into the spiral of the Force, let it fill her, let the inevitable, inexorable turning twisting spiral into every corner of her soul.
[No. I will not give in,] she Sent, to Maul, to the unknown mindvoice, to Kee, to Ben racing even now into the cave entrance above, to the Force itself. [I will not abandon my Way. You can kill me if you want. But I am not afraid to die and I am not afraid to live and I am not your property. My choices are my own. My life is my own. My soul is my own. My body is my own. And you no longer frighten me, Maul!]
Maul stared down into her eyes in wary disbelief, almost nose to nose with her. She stared right back, feeling nothing but the bright joyful chiming of the Force as it moved through her, and she wasn't afraid of what she saw in those cat's eyes. She truly wasn't afraid. In fact, she almost felt like laughing.
[Heh. Not bad, girl. Not bad at all. Even with old Yellow-Eyes there giving you the willies, you didn't break.]
Theri quirked one eyebrow up at Maul, who was now jerking his head around trying to locate the source of the strange mindvoice. [But if he doesn't get off me soon I just may have to rip his clothes off. Kee and Ben are not going to get any sleep tonight, I can tell you that.]
The unknown mindvoice laughed and Maul stared down at her again with a snake-like grin beginning to spread over his face.
Theri smiled sweetly as the arm across her throat moved away. [Distractions, distractions,] Theri Sent, wrinkling her nose at him, then brought her knee up as hard as she could--
Maul yelped and jumped off her in one lightning move. Theri flipped to her feet again, but saw the look on his face and cracked up laughing. She couldn't help it. She just dropped to her knees again, laughing so hard she could hardly breathe, leaning on a nearby cluster of water-beryls.
"You--you are so damned funny, Maul," she gasped at last, sitting back on her heels as Maul stood with his arms crossed on his chest, peering at her coldly again. "All this damned posturing, the showmanship, the bad-ass attitude. I mean, that double lightsaber, sure it's trick, but really, isn't that a little pretentious? What are you, just a bundle of ego and hate? Must get damned boring, feeling nothing but hate all the time. Bet you haven't heard a good joke or fooled around on the floor with your kids in ages."
Maul merely stared at her silently.
Theri sighed gustily and put up one hand, let the Force ripple across the cavern and the pouch slung over Maul's shoulder convulsed and blue sparks crackled as the detonators of the ion grenades imploded. "Kee's going to blow the powercel in his saber trying to dig us out as it is. Don't need another few hundred tons of rock between us and him." She pulled herself up, retrieved her scattered equipment, and resumed cutting water-beryls free from the cluster she'd started on. "Might as well sit down, it's going to be a while before Ben and Kee can get through, unless my uncle can bring a stonecutter this far into the cave."
Maul continued to stand, watching her silently as she cut free half a dozen of the glittering blue-green stones and scanned them before stuffing them into the backpack and moving to another cluster.
[Beloved?] Kee Sent timidly. [What's going on in there?]
She smiled and Sent him a caress, trying to sooth the fear she felt in his mind. [Nothing, sweetling. Fight's over. I geeked Maul's lightsaber. And he knows he can't hurt me. Well, my body maybe, but not my soul. Predators like him need the prey to be scared and running, and I'm neither now, so he's kind of thrown off stride.]
She felt Kee's uneasiness. [Ben's here now, we're both working on it, we'll be there in a little.]
Theri smiled a little. [Are you going to fight him? I geeked his lightsaber.]
She felt Kee's anger like laser fire in her mind. [I'm going to rip his damned eyes out and shove them down his throat and cut off his head and let your Apa nail it to the mast of his fishing boat. Ben says he's going to carve him up like Maul did your Master.]
Theri gulped. She'd never heard such from Kee before, never felt such roiling hatred and rage and kill-urge in his mind. [No, beloved! No! Is Maul worth even more nightmares than the ones you have already?]
[I swore I'd never let you be in danger like this,] Kee raged in her mind, and she closed her eyes and clutched the rocks around her against the surge of kill-hunger. [He's gone too far this time and I am not going to let him get out of here alive. Neither will Ben! I don't care what it costs me! He's not leaving here in anything but pieces!]
Theri growled a Thretkethan curse and sat down on a patch of floor clear of rocks and reached out to her lifemate's soul on the other side of the tons and tons of rock he was carving his way through. [No, beloved. No! I will not let you do this! Vengeance is not allowed. I will not let you carve up an unarmed man!]
[To hell with the morality of it!] Kee Sent to her, his mindvoice so sharp and edged with hate that she flinched. [He's chased you and tried to kill you and I don't care what you say he's doing right now, he could kill you still! It ends here, now!]
[Qui-Gon Jinn, are you willing to have a cold-blooded murder on your conscience?] she Sent, letting her mindvoice go cold and expressionless. [He failed! I'm still here! He's defenseless! His life is in our hands. He's just as much a part of the Force as you are, he's the other half of the process, he's your opposite number. If you kill him, you kill yourself. But he'll die quick, and you'll suffer for the rest of your life. I thought with vengeance the idea was to make the other guy suffer, not yourself.]
[What would you suggest then, oh great Jedi Master?] Kee Sent sarcastically.
Theri stopped, looked over at the silent figure in black standing in the shadows from the hoverlight. [Leave that to me.]
She felt Kee snort and turn his attention away from her. She sighed and swallowed down the dismay she felt, the fear she'd felt in Kee's mind, the anguish and terror.
[Don't worry, girl, your man's a good egg. He'll forgive you even before he gets through the rocks,] the strange mindvoice said softly.
[I hope so,] she Sent. [By the way, who are you?]
A blue shimmer formed in the air beside her, and sharpened into the image of Sowelu Inda that she'd seen so many times in the little holoprojector's image, the young man in the Jedi field combat uniform, the broad shoulders and dark hair and charming grin. He sat down on the cluster of water-beryls beside her with a lopsided smile and raked his hair out of his eyes casually. [Hey, I've been dead for five hundred years, so I think I deserve to look my best, don't you?]
Theri laughed and looked up at Maul. The Sith was staring at the apparition, his face expressionless, his mind guarded, his body tensed.
"All right, Maul, you want the Mystics, you've got them," Theri said, stretching out her legs and crossing her ankles and leaning back on her hands. "I'm the last living one, and he's the first dead one. So pull up a rock and let's get to work."
[Shall I start or do you want to?] Inda Sent, his smile widening into a mischievous grin.
Theri smiled and began with the first verses of the Book of the Force. "The Dead came back from the Galactic Core, where they found not what they sought. They prayed me let them in and besought my word, and thus I began my teaching. Harken: I begin with nothingness. Nothingness is the same as fullness. In infinity full is no better than empty. Nothingness is both empty and full...."
Twilight was falling as Dodiya, Shas, Corval, and Tharki came stumbling up to the entrance of the cave from the depths of the tunnels, covered in rock dust and burned by melted slag thrown off by the Jedi lightsabers. "We're getting there, Ama," Dodiya said as he staggered up to his mother and father and uncle who were gulping down a hurried bit of dinner before racing back to the cave-in to haul stone away from the screaming laser blade of the stonecutter. "The Jedi said they'll have to stop for a while, though, to let the lightsabers recharge. Can you get Clan Sorvin to loan us some stonecutters, Uncle?"
Kathor bel Srithrai nodded and gulped down the last of his meal before replying to his nephew. "I called them three hours ago. They've not called me back. I told them we had a cave-in and people trapped. We can only wait to see what happens. Meanwhile, we'll keep cutting with the one we do have and thank the stars the Jedi are here."
"We need a seismic scanner," Toroleri said to her mates and children. "We need to know how much rock we need to cut through!"
Dorovan and Kathor both nodded at this.
"Apa, wouldn't your fish finder do it? I mean, it's sonar, isn't it?" Tharki said in the silence. "The seismic scanners are essentially sonar that's pointed down at the ground, so shouldn't the fish finder be able to do the same thing?"
They all blinked at him in astonishment. Tharki shrugged sheepishly at his parents.
"Go! Now! Do it!" Toroleri said to her mates. "Tharki, go help them! Doda, you and the boys get something to eat and then get back to work! " She fitted action to her own words by disappearing back into the cave at a dead run.
"The Serpent is an earthly soul, half daemonic, a spirit, and akin to the spirits of the dead." Theri grinned up at the ghost sitting on the rock at her side. Inda quirked an eyebrow at her and answered her grin with one of his own.
[Kind of appropriate, given the present company,] Inda Sent. [Sometimes it seemed I wrote stuff that just came out of nowhere, unconnected to anything I was doing at the time. Like punchlines to jokes I hadn't told yet.]
Maul blinked where he sat kneeling on the floor in meditation posture, looking from living girl to flickering ghost. [What do you mean?]
"If you modelled yourself on cats and snakes, why not truly take the symbolism to heart?" Theri said, gesturing to him. "In our Way, snakes are not evil. They're the totemic form of one of the two natures of sentient beings. Snakes represent the earthly nature, the lower animalistic nature. The base consciousness, the sexual consciousness, and the conquering consciousness. The white bird represents the three corresponding higher planes, recognizing the will of the Force, love of the Force, and the transcendence into the Force. But the one in the middle between the higher and lower natures is the dragon, the combination of the serpent and the bird. This is where all sentient beings should strive to live, with both the earthly animal nature and the higher spiritual nature combined into one. The balance point. The point where all the opposites are cancelled out."
[And thus, with that cancelling out, to go beyond all such into the true Force beyond Light and Dark,] Inda added. [Y'see, Maul, think about it in the larger sense, even if only for a minute. You and your Sith are from what you and the Jedi call the Dark. The Jedi are, therefore, from the Light. Opposites. But you're just two sides of the same coin. For us in the Way, it isn't one side or another. It's not even a question of whether it's a coin. It's not. There's really nothing here. All this, you, me, this planet, the entire universe, none of it truly exists in any permanent way. All things change, everything is subject to destruction and decay. Nothing ever stays the same, moment to moment, day to day. Don't see the material, dualistic world here with the Light and Dark. Think about what's beyond that Light and Dark. Where did the Light and Dark come from?]
Maul blinked at them both silently.
Theri sat up and rested her chin on one knee, her eyes distant. "You think the big deal is to destroy the Jedi. Sure, if you're willing to stay at that level of things. If you're not willing to grow up spiritually. You gotta ask yourself why you got into all this to begin with. Was it only for material gain, money, power, greed? If that's all you're after, fine, go ahead, more power to you. You'll live a little while and die. You might have loads of money and own half a planet. You might kill lots of Jedi and eventually kill your Master and be a Master yourself. But is that all you want out of life? Are you truly happy? Or just rich and powerful? Money. Big deal. It's not going with you when you die, so how can you say you're truly rich? Your kids will just spend it all on toys when you're dead. There's only one thing that can't be taken away from you and that's what you do with your own mind and soul. And no one can do it for you. It's your show completely. So it's up to you if you want to be truly happy in this life or if you just want to waste time chasing after stuff that you're going to lose when you die anyway."
Inda nodded and quoted another part of the Book of the Force. ['For behold your body--a painted puppet, a toy, jointed and sick and full of false imaginings, a shadow that shifts and fades. How frail it is! Frail and pestilent, it sickens, festers and dies. Like every living thing in the end it sickens and dies. Behold these whitened bones, the hollow shells and husks of a dying summer. And are you laughing?']
Theri glanced up sideways at him and quoted right back, "You are a house of bones, flesh and blood for walls. Pride lives in you, and hypocrisy, decay and death."
[Heh. I think I was in my darker period when I wrote those,] Inda Sent ruefully.
"Anyway, Maul, the Way is not outside yourself, it's not in lightsabers or being one up on the Jedi. It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. The true Master of the Way surrenders every belief, every concept. The true Master confronts every fear and goes through the fear and past it and comes out the other side knowing what it is that's at the center of his soul. No one purifies another. No one makes choices for another. You are your only master. Who else could it be? You stay with Sidious out of fear. Find the roots of that fear. Ask yourself what you're afraid of until you get down to the bottom of it, then confront it and go past it. The greatest fears we have are those we let control us. What are you willing to fight over? What are you afraid to lose? That's where fear lies." Theri leaned back against the rock where Inda was sitting and looked Maul straight in the eyes. The Sith merely stared back at her, expressionless. "But that's your big thing, isn't it? Fear."
They were all silent for a moment, Theri staring off into space, Maul staring at her, and Inda watching them both.
[Well, kids, I think you'll be okay now,] Inda Sent with a grin at Theri. [We've been talking for hours. Can't learn the Way in one day. But I think you've got some of the basic ideas now, Maul. And you, kiddo, are going to be one damned fine teacher one day.] Inda smiled down at Theri. [Damn. Wish I still had a body. I'd hug you both.]
Maul hissed at this and Theri rolled her eyes at him.
[But I think I hear your man coming in the door now, Theri, so I think I'd better exit stage right,] Inda Sent, pointing to the tunnel where they could now hear faint sounds of voices and the hiss of the stonecutter. [Uh, I think you'd better think of some way to stop your man, girl, he's a bit on the distraught side. And don't worry. I'll always be listening in, wherever you are. And tell Yoda I'll talk to him soon.]
And with that, the blue flickering form of Sowelu Inda faded into a cloud of diffuse energy and dissipated.
Theri shook her head, stuffed the water-beryls and scanner into her pack and was reaching for the vibroblade when Maul snatched it out from under her hand. "Hey! What are you doing?"
Maul grabbed her by her long braid of black hair and pulled her roughly in front of him, turned on the vibroblade and held the humming knife across her throat. She could feel him wrapping her braid around his hand, and yelped as he jerked her head back against his chest just as they heard the scream of the stonecutter breaking through the wall of rock. [I will remember all you have said. And I will think on it,] Maul Sent. He shoved her forward toward the glowing line of energy melting the stone to magma in a rough circle. Theri reached out one hand, Lifted the wreckage of Maul's double lightsaber from the floor to her own hand, and reached down to slide it into it's carrying loops on his left leg. He grunted and loosened his hold on her head a little. [I will throw you at him. Be ready,] Maul Sent.
Theri squeaked. [Oh no, he'll have his lightsaber--]
But at that very moment, a familiar green lightsaber blade lanced through the ring of melted stone, and a second later Qui-Gon Jinn was bursting through the glowing hole in the rock, rage written in every line of his face. Theri screamed as Maul threw them both to the side, turned, and flung her bodily at her lifemate. She crashed into Kee from the left side, well away from the neon fire of the lightsaber. Maul was already leaping out the hole in the wall like some giant cat, screaming in pantherine rage at the shocked Thretkethans and diving at Ben who stood like an offended god directly in his path, the blue lightsaber whirling already blocking the tunnelway.
Kee turned, pushed Theri away behind him, and stalked after Maul with deadly purpose, his mind empty of all save hate and rage. Theri stumbled against the rocks, snatched up her backpack, and flung herself after her lifemate. [Beloved! I'm here! I'm all right! There's no need--]
Kee didn't answer. Theri wasn't entirely sure he'd even heard her. She saw her brothers and father and uncle huddled against the wall of the tunnel, trying to stay out of the way of the two maddened Jedi and the odd madman they had trapped between them. Theri gathered up her courage and darted around Kee to put herself between Maul and her lifemate.
[No! Don't you dare do this!] Theri Sent, arrowing her thoughts into the blank void of rage that was all she felt in her lifemate's mind. She had to turn this anger around somehow. Re-direct it elsewhere.... [Qui-Gon Jinn, I am your lifemate, and I say I will not allow you to do this! Do you understand me? Answer me! What are you? A Jedi Master? Or a Sith? The way you're acting you're more Sith than Maul is! Damnit, old man, if you wouldn't let me rip out his spine why should I let you carve him up?]
Kee growled, grabbed her by the shirt and flung her to the side, raising his lightsaber as Ben came walking forward herding Maul before him with the whirling blue blade. Maul crouched in a defensive stance, his eyes darting from one Jedi to the other. Theri clenched her hands and caught up her backpack again, danced around in front of Kee again, and swung the backpack full of rocks and tools straight at Kee's head. Kee caught it in one hand and wrenched it out of her grasp, flinging it aside. [Ben! What's wrong with you?! Help me!] she Sent to Ben, but he was just as enraged as his Master and only waiting for Kee to get the first shot in before he too began his attack.
[Fine then! You want to kill him? You'll have to kill me first!] Theri Sent to the two Jedi. She whirled and flung her arms around Maul and hugged him as tightly as she could, pushing him back against the cave wall so that his back was to the stone and she was between him and the green lightsaber blade. This was it then. So much for her great life as a Mystic. Her crazed lifemate was going to kill her and that would be that. She tightened her arms around Maul as he tried to push her away and hid her face against the black Sith uniform and opened her soul to the Force. The familiar droning howl of Kee's lightsaber got very loud in her ears. [Body, mind, soul and spirit, with you always beyond time, beloved,] Theri Sent softly into the rage of her lifemate's mind.
And there was silence save for the loud humming of the two lightsabers echoing off the tunnel walls.
"No..." said the stunned, agonized voice behind her. She heard the lightsaber directly behind her retracting as he switched it off. "No...oh, no."
Theri let go of Maul slowly, turned to look and instantly was dropping to her knees in front of Kee where he knelt on the floor of the tunnel, his face buried in his hands. She pulled Kee's hands away, wrapped her arms around him and simply held him.
Maul, watching Ben's blue lightsaber blade intently, picked his moment and dived through the windmilling arc of the blade, tumbled in a somersault, jumped to his feet and was off down the tunnel like a wraith. Ben raced after him instantly. his face a mask of anger.
[Ben! No! Come back! I need you here!] Theri Sent after him, but he was far up the tunnel already and Kee was in no shape to help her. She held Kee silently against her as the drone of Ben's lightsaber faded away in the distance.
Maul leaped up the fall of granite in one effortless move, the Dark energizing muscles and bone to inhuman performance. Just behind him, the young Jedi Knight jumped easily to the same ledge, the blue lightsaber slashing at the fleeing form of the Sith. The lightsaber's harsh white light threw their shadows ahead of them as Maul skidded around a bend in the tunnel and into a dead end. Ben rushed in right behind him in deadly silence and stopped when he saw that Maul could run no further.
Ben lifted his lightsaber in both hands and began to bring it down on Maul's horned head--
When another saber, a red one, blocked the cut six inches from the Sith's skull.
Maul began to laugh loudly and the sound echoed in crazed peals in the tunnels.
Ben backpedalled instantly and went into a ready stance, then blinked at the thing facing him.
It had once been Khali, but it wasn't any longer. The body was slimmer, the red-gold hair was gone, and the parts not covered by the black Sith uniform were skeletal black metal. There were no eyes in the grated black mask, just a panel of blackest vitriglass that wrapped around the head to where the ears should have been. And Ben could sense nothing at all from the thing in front of him, not even the presence of a mind inside the armor.
Maul's laughter filled the air around them as Ben lunged forward and began to attack the thing in front of him, calling on every bit of strength and skill he possessed, reaching for the Force and feeling the thing in front of him doing the same. And something clawing at his mind with stealthy fingers of thought, trying to worm it's way into his thoughts. The cyborg fought him with skill equal to his own, the lunges and parries and counterattacks were the same, like fighting a mirror image. When Ben dived sideways, it dived beside him. When he slashed, it parried. When he blocked a cut, it instantly turned the attack around, and he could barely get his saber around in time. He somersaulted away and it followed him, slashing down at the place he had just vacated and then upwards as he jumped to his feet again, trying to slice him up the back. He batted the red saber blade away, tried to hook the red blade out of the thing's hands. The cyborg pulled the saber away a split second before he succeeded and slashed it at his throat, he blocked the slash and kicked at the cyborg body. His foot connected with flesh and the thing staggered backwards, recovered, and dived at him again with a scream of rage.
Maul was still laughing softly, watching the fight with glittering yellow eyes feverish with manic delight. The cyborg Sith and the young Jedi fought heedless of everything else in the universe, every bit of attention taken by the mirror-like enemy in front of them. Maul worked his way around the wall toward the entrance to the tunnel, seized his chance when the cyborg managed to circle around and manuever the Jedi around in front of Maul. The Sith lord leapt forward, grabbed the young Jedi around the neck with one arm and the cyborg screamed a laugh and easily hooked the blue lightsaber out of his hand. In the next second the cyborg was reversing its grip on the red saber and Maul was struggling to hold the writhing Jedi up for the kill. Ben's mind screamed incoherently as he saw the red saber lifting to kill him. [Master! Help!]
And the green lightsaber blade slashed down on the cyborg's arm, slicing through metal and cabling and myomer with a howling hiss, and the cyborg staggered back and turned to face this new threat.
Theri stood there, Kee's lightsaber in her hands, but there was nothing of Theri bel Kaitryn there. The Force moved the lightsaber blade, moved her body. She had given over her body and mind and soul to the Force, and it gave her the skill she needed to save her mate.
Maul hissed and threw the young Jedi Knight at the girl standing with the green saber raised over her head. Theri dodged out of the way and turned the dodge into a sideways dive at the cyborg Lifting it's red saber back to it's remaining hand while the severed arm twitched mindlessly on the floor of the little cave. She moved faster than Ben could follow in a Soritsu-ji cartwheel, ran up the wall of the cave and came down behind the cyborg, plunging the green saber directly through the cyborg's torso and ripping upwards. The cyborg didn't scream at all, just dropped dead to the floor while the powercels inside it arced and exploded and metal and myomer went slack in death.
But Maul had taken his chance and escaped.
Theri nudged the cyborg body with her foot. When it didn't react, she straightened up from guard position and the green lightsaber retracted and disappeared as she turned it off. As she did so the infinite inhuman look in her eyes faded and she took a deep breath and looked up at Ben with an unreadable expression on her face.
"Well. Now we know she survived Chikubsa Beta," Theri said quietly as Ben Lifted his lightsaber back to his hand and switched it off. "At least, parts of her did."
Theri sighed as she walked through the forest near the clanhold the next morning on her way to her rock over the water. She desperately needed to meditate, to let the horrible strains of the day before be sorted out and banished. For the first time since they'd lifemated, Kee had slept apart from her that night. He had shielded her out from his thoughts as well. She and Ben had not gone to search for him. Kee clearly wanted to be alone. In the aftermath of the cave-in and the fighting with Maul and the cyborg Khali, Theri and Ben had had their hands too full with explanations and reassurances, and Kee had quietly absented himself from the chaos.
She stopped in the middle of the pathway in the little forest, closing her eyes and breathing deep of the green-scented wind from the ocean, lifting her face to the orangish light of Zanniah Epsilon, listening to the wind in the trees around her. Nothing ever touched this place. The past was a shadow, the future a dream, both as insubstantial as the wispy clouds above. The seasons turned but there was no time. Pain and fear passed away, just as did joy and hope. But the energy that had formed the universe went on in eternal timelessness. She walked the Way now truly, with every step, the tests and teachings of every moment. She smiled briefly, shook her head at herself, and walked on toward her rock.
Turning the last bend in the pathway, she saw Kee kneeling on the rock in meditation posture, facing the ocean. But the broad shoulders were slumped and the head bowed. She stopped, uncertain whether to turn around and go back or to go forward to be with him. At that moment he sensed her presence behind him and straightened up, and she felt his mindshields redouble. She shrugged and turned to go--
[No. It's all right,] Kee Sent. The weariness in his mindvoice made Theri wince. She walked forward silently and came to kneel beside him, looking down at the waves below.
They were both silent for many minutes as the wind tossed their hair about them, both trying to think of something to say, both trying to put words to the events and feelings of the day before. Then Theri sighed, scooted over to kneel directly in front of him and took his hands in her own. She looked up into the guarded sapphire eyes she loved so much, seeing the darkness there, the tiredness. [You've been up here all night, haven't you?] she Sent.
He looked away and nodded. [Couldn't sleep.]
He couldn't shield her out entirely, especially not when they were touching physically. She caught her breath and nearly burst out crying at what she felt in his mind. [Betrayed you?! How? Why? Because I wouldn't let you and Ben carve up Maul?!]
Kee cursed in Tusken and tried to pull his hands out of hers, but she latched on tight and wouldn't let him.
[Tell me!] Theri Sent desperately. [Please, just tell me.]
Kee took a deep breath, looked out over the ocean again, up at the sky. [You let a Sith escape. You protected him. I could hear your mind in the water-beryl cave the whole time. You and Inda were sitting in there trying to teach Maul about the Way. What was wrong with you? You should have killed him. That was not the time or the place to be sitting there trying to teach anyone anything. You should have killed him. You should have let Ben and me kill him.]
[Why? Because you wanted to? Great reason!] she Sent with a snort. She stopped herself, feeling the anger and cynicism in her thoughts, and concentrated on her breathing for a moment to center herself, to feel the turn of the spiralling Force in her mind. She gathered her thoughts, trying to put words to how she felt, the certainty she'd felt the day before in the cave. [Look, then. Which accomplishes more? The hand of violence?] she Sent, balling up one fist and putting it to his chest as if she was hitting him. [Or the hand of peace?] and she opened her hand again and reached up to caress his cheek. [Hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love and compassion dispels hate. Violence never accomplished anything, beloved. It only destroys. It proves nothing. It changes nothing. It creates nothing. But if I could get him to doubt his beliefs, if I could make him doubt for just one second the things he bases his soul on, then I've won the battle. That doubt will not go away, it will only grow. He can try to deny it or run from it, but you know you can't get away from your own mind. If I've changed his thinking even a little bit, it weakens the whole structure of what he believes about himself. Viruses are some of the tiniest creatures. Yet even the strongest predators die from the sicknesses they bring. Maul's entire way is built around being the strongest Sith, the best swordsman, the most deadly killer. But outside of those things, he's not so strong. So that's where I attacked him.]
Kee grimaced and she felt his anger then. [Then why didn't you let Ben and me kill him once we got through the rock?]
Theri sighed and pulled his hands up to kiss his fingers. [Am I not allowed to protect you as much as you protect me? I was not going to allow you to be hurt anymore, I was not going to allow you to choose the same path you did before. We are one soul, beloved. I think I have somewhat of a right to try to keep you from making mistakes when I can clearly see them as mistakes. And Ben...well, didn't you tell me you were not going to allow him to make the same mistakes you did? In the Book of the Force it says, 'There are no chains like hate.' You know this. Why should we let Ben deal with such too? Haven't you gotten beaten over the head with that lesson enough, beloved?]
Kee sighed and slumped and nodded, and she felt him dropping his shields, and she could feel his mind again, feel the weariness, the tiredness. But also his grief that he had doubted her, grief that he had allowed his own anger to get the better of him the day before. They reached for each other simultaneously and clutched each other wordlessly, desperately.
[The wind cannot move a mountain, beloved,] Theri Sent. [I can't change all the Sith from Demons to angels. You asked me the other day if nothing was impossible for me. I can only teach. I can't make them listen.]
[But why Maul?] Kee asked.
[Why not Maul? He was a captive audience,] she Sent with a sudden flash of amusement.
Kee laughed at this, as she'd intended. [That's very true. Ben and I can always walk away when you get to babbling about all this stuff.]
Theri snorted and thumped him on the back, and he tickled her. [And you call Ben the impudent wretch!]
They sat for another few moments holding each other, letting the thorns that had built up between them in the night fall away. But Theri could feel how tired he was, how strung out and scattered. She pulled away finally, got to her feet, and held out her hands to help him up. [Can you sleep now, love?]
Kee sighed and nodded. [I think so.]
"Just look at all this water," Ben said, gesturing out at the ocean with his free hand. "I still can't believe sometimes that there can be so much water in one place at one time."
Theri smiled and looked out at the tossing surf. There was a storm coming and the water was starting to get rough. "My family has a tradition. When my brothers and sisters and I were born, Apa would take us down to the beach and give us our first bath in the ocean. I'm not sure why my parents do this, but every one of us was in this water less than a day after we were born."
"Black sand. I've never seen black sand," Ben said, looking down and scrunching his bare toes in the wet glop at the edge of the tide. "You'd think Tatooine would have every kind of sand there ever was."
Theri laughed softly at the puzzlement in his voice and brought his hand in hers up to kiss his fingers. "Not every planet is like Tatooine, love."
They kept walking down the beach together silently, happy just to be alone together. Theri had forgotten how much of a trial her family could be, and the endless chattering and questions got on her nerves. She hadn't realized before how much she valued simple silence, or how much she valued sharing that silence with Ben and Kee. There was no reason to say anything when everything was shared.
Yet she knew suddenly that Ben would not be here for her soon. Something, some shadow from the spiral of the Force, crossed the horizon of her mind for a moment and then was gone. Ben. Something was going to happen soon to Ben.
[What?] Ben Sent suddenly. [You feel like you just fell down off something. What?]
She turned and looked up into the sky-blue eyes filled with concern. [Something's going to happen soon with you. I don't know what. But something just went right through my mind and it has to do with you. I think you'll be sent away somewhere soon. Without me and Kee.]
Ben pulled her to a stop and stood looking down at her for a moment, his eyes going distant in thought. [It's possible. I could be given an assignment when we get home.]
Theri clutched his hands and he smiled into her eyes. [But don't you have to stay at the Temple to teach me the lightsaber?] He felt the thoughts behind her Sending, that she was afraid he wouldn't come back.
Ben shrugged. "You've still got to get up to sixth-level in Soritsu-ji first, and that's still going to take a few weeks. And Master can help you build your lightsaber. And later on I can give you sets of the sword-katas to learn while I'm gone and you'll be in the classes with the other kids and Masters. Just like you and Master Kee. He's your Master, but you still go to classes taught by other teachers." He pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead. "Didn't you realize I'd be sent away on assignments?"
"No. I didn't," she said ruefully. "I guess I just thought you'd be with us always."
Ben laughed a little. "How I wish that were true. But I've been confirmed five months now, and it was only a matter of time."
She nodded against his chest and tightened her arms around him. A moment later she sighed and moved away, taking his hand again, and they turned to keep walking down the beach. But the silence was strained now. Theri relaxed into the Force for a moment, seeking solace, and the bright joyful spiral gave her peace. Ben would be fine. He would come back in one piece.
They climbed up and over a jumble of rocks and Theri recognized where she was and grinned to herself. "I remember this place. Come on, you'll like this." She pulled him over the tumbled rocks and he climbed willingly beside her.
The rocks concealed the entrance to one of the myriad caves that dotted the coastline. A half-dozen rock crabs skittered sideways out of their path as they climbed over the rocks into the cave and Ben watched them go warily, prepared to jump out of the way if one of the waving claws got too close to his feet. Theri grinned. Her father had told her that her brothers had jokingly handed Ben a live crab yesterday on the boat, and he hadn't realized they could bite. But now the little pinchers were making tracks away from the two humans who had come to invade their domain.
The low tunnelway opened out into a tiny grotto partially sheltered from the ocean by the rocks. The little lagoon inside was only a few centimeters deep but held all kinds of anemones, starfish, watercrawlers, tiny fish darting in between. The water was calm, warmed by the sun. Ben dropped to kneel beside the little pool to look, and she started telling him what all the different fish and clams and starfish were.
Then they looked up at each other again, and Theri just looked at him for a moment in faint wonderment. Her brothers had loaned him some Thretkethan clothing, the loose trousers and sleeveless shirt they wore to work on the boats, and with the tanned skin and golden hair and eager smile he looked far younger than he was. And utterly irresistable.
She pulled him to his feet and away from the lagoon's edge, to the back of the little grotto where the rocks hung over a patch of deep sand, and they knew nothing but each other until the clouds arrived with the setting of the sun.
Kee stood leaning against the stone railing on the open terrace, wrapped in his Jedi cloak as the strong wind blew salt spray across his face in the dark. His hair tossed into his face and he raked it back impatiently, peering off into the dark down the beach. [Beloved?]
[Here, love,] Theri answered immediately, and down below he could just make out two forms running hand in hand on the beach toward the clanhold. [I didn't think the storm would blow up this fast.]
[Your father says it's a 'whirling storm',] Kee Sent back as the two figures below raced up the first flight of stone steps leading to the top of the cliff.
[Hmm. A hurricane. Figures,] Theri Sent.
Kee blinked in astonishment. [A hurricane?]
Ben and Theri ran up the last flight of stairs and a moment later were bouncing up in front of him. Theri reached out her free hand to him and pulled him inside the door into the clanhold with Ben. "They're usually not that bad here, we're a bit too far east. Probably won't be anything worse than a bad thunderstorm."
It was dark in the hallway as they crowded together toward the light of the gathering room. [I trust you two enjoyed yourselves. You woke me up out of a sound sleep,] Kee Sent with some amusement. Theri and Ben both gave him slightly abashed smiles.
[Don't laugh, you're next,] Theri Sent with a giggle.
Kee quirked an eyebrow at her in the half-light of the hallway and pushed the two toward the door of their room. [Go get cleaned up and get back in uniform. I'm going out to the shuttle to make sure everything's locked down. If there's a hurricane coming I'm going to leave the shields on.]
Ben and Theri nodded and turned toward their room, and Kee headed toward the door of the gathering room to go out to the shuttle.
Theri was braiding Ben's tailbraid for him a few minutes later when she felt Kee's sudden puzzlement. [Beloved? What's wrong?]
Kee didn't answer for a moment, and Theri felt him reach for the Force momentarily. [Did you or Ben code the lock on the shuttle door?]
Theri straightened up and Ben turned to look at her. She leaned against his shoulder and linked with him so he could hear Kee too. [No, we didn't leave the shuttle locked. Was it?]
[Yes. I just had to use the Force to unlock it from the inside,] Kee Sent, and Theri and Ben both felt his sudden wariness.
Ben and Theri looked at each other in surprise, she hurriedly fastened the clutch-beads onto his tailbraid while he Lifted his lightsaber to his hand and slid it onto his belt. They caught up their cloaks from the hooks by the door and were clattering down the stairway in a moment.
The Kaitryn family was beginning to congregate in the gathering room to wait out the storm together, the children already playing together with their toys on the floor. The older children were out helping to secure the fishing boats for the storm. Theri stopped Ben at the bottom of the stairs. [Wait here for a minute, love, I've got to ask my mother something,] Theri Sent as she ducked into the hallway leading to the kitchen and her mother's office. Ben felt a fleeting moment of fearful uneasiness in her Sending.
A moment later she was back and grabbing his hand, and they were heading for the door at a run.
[What was that all about?] he Sent as they ran toward the faint light in the meadow in the wind now blowing over the cliffs with almost gale force.
[I'll tell you later,] she Sent, [When we're not running through a hurricane.]
They ran up the rampway of the shuttle and into the door that opened as they approached, and Kee turned toward them in the pilot's chair, his face filled with anger and fear.
The rampway door whooshed shut behind them and Theri and Ben whirled instantly.
"That's far enough," Dalryn said, holding up a blaster pointed at Ben's head. "Theri, get the lightsaber and give it to me. Now. If you try to use it on me, I'll shoot your man here. And no mindspeaking. You know I can hear it."
Theri reached over, took Ben's lightsaber from his belt slowly and handed it to her brother-cousin, and Ben thought he'd never seen her look so coldly angry before. Not even when Maul had killed her old Master.
"Now then, you, Jedi Master, get in here," Dalryn said, still holding the gun to Ben's head but raising his voice toward Kee in the cockpit. Kee got up slowly from the pilot's chair and came back into the passenger cabin. Theri saw Kee's lightsaber on the hologame table nearby as Dalyrn took a step backward to put Ben's lightsaber with it. "No mind tricks. I can feel them, so don't try it. Theri, come here to me."
Theri didn't move, just stared at Dalryn with a lack of expression on her face that Kee and Ben knew covered icy rage.
Dalryn lifted the gun again and put it to Ben's ear. "Now, Theri. I won't say it again."
Theri walked forward two steps and stopped. "All right, Dal, what's this all about?" she snapped. "I'm not going anywhere."
Dalryn took hold of Ben's arm and roughly shoved him toward Kee, who caught him as he stumbled. The blaster pistol was still aimed at the two Jedi as Dalryn picked up the lightsabers from the hologame table and punched the button to open the rampway door. He tossed the lightsabers down the ramp and they all heard the clatter. "It's about you, me, a buyer and a price."
"What?" Theri said, her voice filled with rage and shock.
The sound of steps on the rampway, and Darth Maul filled the doorway, staring at Theri with his snake's smile.
"Docking bay one twenty-four, Morosala," Maul said to Dalryn. "The computers are coded to your biometric scan."
Dalryn nodded, the blaster still aimed at the two Jedi. "And the other?"
"Safely stowed in the hold, under the deckplates," Maul said.
"Should we kill them?" Dalryn said, gesturing at the Jedi.
Maul shook his head and took his double lightsaber from its carrying loops. "No. The Jedi Master is mindlinked with the girl. Kill him, she dies too." The Sith turned on one of the blades of his lightsaber. "Leave them here. We will be gone before they can reach Delia." Maul moved swiftly to catch Theri's arm, then pulled her braid of hair out of her cloak and wrapped it around his free hand, put the orange lightsaber blade up across her throat. "Jinn, Kenobi, out. Now."
Theri started trying to struggle, trying to kick or hit Maul, but the Sith jerked her head back against him and the glow of the blade made her eyes start to sting.
[No, beloved, don't fight!] Kee Sent swiftly. Maul hissed and Dalryn grabbed Ben again and pushed him roughly out the door of the shuttle, then whirled to grab the Jedi Master. But Kee was already moving, dodging out of the blaster's line of fire and ducking around to grab the blaster pistol out of the Thretkethan's hand. They struggled for a moment while Maul shoved Theri toward the cockpit, threw her inside and closed the door, running his lightsaber blade through the lock mechanism, melting it to slag. The blaster fired, the bolt barely missing Kee's shoulder, sizzling into the wall behind them. Kee could feel the younger man's strength was greater than his own, knew he hadn't much time if he wanted to win this fight.
[Beloved!] Theri screamed in his mind, and he felt her Sending him the sense-memory of a Soritsu-ji move. He obeyed her instantly, dropping suddenly, pulling Dalryn down to throw him against the floor with the momentum of the fall and his own strength, wrenching the blaster out of his hand as the Thretkethan fell. He rolled to his feet with the blaster in hand and lunged to the side as Maul's lightsaber blade sliced through his cloak.
And then Ben was leaping through the rampway door, lightsaber in hand, diving at Maul, and the Sith hissed and ignited the second blade of his lightsaber to parry Ben's slash at his chest. Ben didn't let up, started attacking with such swift ferocity that Maul had to abandon finesse and simply try to keep the blue lightsaber from connecting anything important. Kee didn't even try to Send to his apprentice, just fell upon Dalryn with equal fervor with his bare hands, bashing the Thretkethan's head against the floor until he stopped moving. He got to his feet, reached out a hand, and Lifted Maul as hard as he could against the wall of the shuttle. The Sith hit the wall, growled, recovered with a shake of his horned head, and dodged aside as Ben rushed toward him. But not fast enough! The blue lightsaber connected, stabbing to the hilt through Maul's left shoulder and nearly severing his arm. Maul didn't scream, just hissed slightly and staggered back as Ben pulled his lightsaber out and raised it for the killing blow, but Maul whirled his double saber at him one-handed and Ben had to jump out of the way. Maul's left arm hung useless and dangling as he edged toward the rampway door, but Kee stood in the door with the blaster pistol aimed at him. Maul growled at the Jedi Master, the orange blades spun and darted in fluid swiftness, and the blaster fell in three charred pieces from Kee's hands. Kee flipped himself out of the way as Maul tried to stab him, tumbling down the rampway into the howling wind. He jumped to his feet as the Sith raced down the ramp, his eyes darting around to locate his lightsaber.
A small hatch opened on the underside of the shuttle, and a quad-mounted laser cannon descended, swivelled around, and aimed unerringly at Maul. Kee saw the gleam of dark silver to his left and Lifted his lightsaber to his hand. He'd never been so glad to see the neon green fire.
Ben rushed down the ramp, and Kee lifted his saber blade, and they set upon Maul together. The Sith fought almost as well one-handed as he did two-handed, but the strain of the hole burned through his shoulder was beginning to show. And the two Jedi were relatively fresh. The Jedi knew the outcome was a foregone conclusion.
But Maul didn't give up, he kept fighting with malevolent strength and endurance, and the Jedi could feel him drawing on the Dark. The Sith lord was strong and healthy in his own right. Add to that the twining, twisting, devouring power of the Dark and he was inhuman.
[Beloved!] Theri Sent, and Kee felt her mind steadying his, anchoring him, calming him. He felt her mind reach out to Maul's, and the Sith's whirling saber blades faltered and slowed. The Sith stopped abruptly, stumbling sideways, growling, shaking his head violently, then dropping to kneel in the goro vines covering the meadow. The double lightsaber blades retracted and disappeared and the Sith howled and clawed at his head with the hand that still worked. Then the howl cut off abruptly and he tumbled over bonelessly into the vines, unconscious.
Kee walked forward cautiously and nudged the Sith with his foot, but Maul didn't move. He and Ben turned off their lightsabers simultaneously.
[What did you do, beloved?] Kee Sent to Theri, looking up at the windows of the cockpit. He could see Theri's face peering down at him.
[You don't want to know,] she Sent back, and he felt the guilt and revulsion in her mind. The wind nearly knocked him off his feet and he and Ben rushed back inside the shuttle to cut the cockpit door open.
Theri was flipping switches on the weapons board to retract the laser cannon as the green lightsaber blade sliced through the door, and a moment later she was jumping into Kee's arms. He held her for a long moment, gave her a swift kiss, then pushed her over to Ben who swept her into his arms and held her tight for another long moment. Kee reached over the pilot's chair to take a small remote control from the console and began keying in commands to the shuttle's onboard computer.
[What should we do with Dalryn, beloved?] Kee asked as Ben sat down at the comm console and began calling up the comm logs.
[Throw him off the edge of the cliff would be nice,] she Sent with a snap of vindictiveness in her mindvoice that made Kee glance over at her with surprise on his face. She snorted and banged her fist on the back of the pilot's chair. [Don't you realize what he was doing? He--he--that slimbag sold me to Maul! He sold me! I heard it in his mind! He sold me for a Sith scout-class starship and fifty kilos of Dreamweaver!]
Ben and Kee both stared at her stunned for several seconds. Theri closed her eyes, tried to concentrate on her breathing, tried to calm down, but she couldn't. The rage was too strong. Every instinct rebelled at the thought of what Dalryn had done. The clan-memory came roaring up in her mind in response, and she could feel being torn out of her mates' arms, she could hear her children screaming for their mother, she could feel the touch of the Master clansmen as their eyes raked across her red-blond hair and willowy form with greedy possessiveness. She could feel the toloro knife at her back and hear the speeder engine scream as the coastline receded behind the horizon, taking her away from all she cared for, forever.
[Beloved?] Kee's mindvoice broke her out of her trance and she looked up again into his eyes. Then she flickered out her hand and Lifted his lightsaber from the console and whirled back through the door. Kee lunged after her as she turned the blade on and raised it over her head over Dalryn's unconscious body.
Kee didn't think, just seized her mind with his own. [No! Turn off the saber! Now!] he Sent as loud as he could into her mind. [Now, trainee! Turn off the saber!]
Theri stopped, clutched the lightsaber hard in her hands and stood hunched in front of him. He felt her gathering her own mindpowers.
[Turn off the lightsaber! Now!] Kee growled into her mind, his mindvoice sharp as razorwire, the steel of his will holding her thoughts immobile.
The green blade retracted and disappeared, and she flung it away from her, then he felt her gathering the Force around her and reach to focus on Dalryn's prone form, the claws of the Force fastening around Dalryn's spine. He fumbled to redirect his own mind to counter this, realized he had no counter for it, grabbed Theri's arms and whirled her around to face him. [No! Not that either! Stand down, trainee! Now!]
Theri's green eyes bored into his and he was stunned at the depth of hate he saw there, the inhumanity. The Dark.
[You cannot win against me,] Kee Sent into that Darkness. [My will is stronger. You may have gone to the Force and back, but you cannot stand against me. You can't fight me. You can't hurt me. You made yourself mine willingly, and I order you to stand down, Kaitryn. Now!]
Theri's mind squirmed under the weight of his will as he continued to hold her immobile in body and mind. She held out for one moment more, then her resistance and will crumbled and she slumped and dropped her eyes from his. He held her away from him for a moment to be sure she wouldn't try anything, then pulled her into his arms with a deep shuddering breath. Ben came up silently and Lifted Kee's lightsaber to his hand, gave it to his Master and reached out to put a hand on Theri's back with a very worried expression on his face.
[She's never going to forgive you for that,] Ben Sent softly to his Master.
Kee nodded. [What have I done, Ben?]
Ben shrugged. [What you had to.]
Kee sat on the edge of one of the blast couches, staring down at Dalryn and Maul. Lightsaber burns cauterized instantly, so Maul was in no danger of bleeding to death. But the black and red tattooed face was contorted in pain even though he was unconscious. And Theri refused to tell him what she'd done to Maul. Refused to speak to him at all. Refused even to look him in the eyes. But the hurricane outside was hitting with full force now, and they couldn't walk back to the clanhold. They were all stuck in the shuttle with the shields on full strength until the eye of the hurricane passed over them and brought a momentary lull when they could run back to the clanhold.
[Ben? Can you look up where the Justice is right now?] he Sent to his apprentice sitting in the cockpit with Theri. Ben glanced back through the ruins of the cockpit door and nodded at him, turned to key in the query in the comm console. Theri sat silently in the pilot's chair, unmoving, so tightly mindshielded she felt psionically inert. What could he say to her? "I was only doing for you what you did for me" would sound impossibly hollow when she already equated their lifemating with being enslaved to him. But it was the only thing he could think of at the time to stop her, to throw back in her own face the fact that she'd been the one who initiated their lifemating, and not Kee himself. Nevermind it was the bravest thing he'd ever seen anyone do, knowing her as he did, knowing how difficult it was to overcome hundreds of years of racial memories, knowing her hunger to be independent. Nevermind it was in fact the other way around, and that he was the one totally enslaved to her, and that he would be totally and completely besotted with her even after he died. "Willing slave" was about the vilest thing one could call a Thretkethan. Realizing you were such was unbearable. He ran a hand over his face and sighed, trying to think what to do.
[Master? The Justice is on it's way to Droma. She's been called back to Coruscant.] Ben looked up at him with troubled eyes. [And there's a message from Master Windu for you.]
Kee straightened up, turned to the computer console beside him and brought up the message. "Trouble. Come home at once. Ben needed here for assignment," the message said. Atypical for Windu. The terse, unelaborative message was not at all like his old partner.
[How long before the eye gets here?] he Sent to Ben.
Ben glanced over at the sensor screens and shrugged. [An hour, maybe. The winds are up to one hundred ten nautical miles an hour, but the shields can handle it easily. We could leave now, if you want.]
[No. We came here to get Theri's lightsaber crystals. After all that's happened, I'm not leaving without them.] Kee looked up at the small form in the pilot's chair, but she didn't react. [Send a message to the Justice, tell them we'll meet them at Droma, and that we've captured Darth Maul. They've got security cubes, they can hold him for the Council to decide what to do.]
[What about Dalryn?] Ben asked, grimacing at the Thretkethan they'd wrapped up in enough spacer's tape to repair a hull breach.
[I don't know. We need to call the Thretketh law enforcement, I guess. Though I wouldn't be surprised if their punishment for trying to sell someone as a slave is about what Theri had in mind for him.] Theri still didn't react even to this. [This is a local crime, really. We have no jurisdiction here.] He swallowed and steeled himself, then reached out to Theri's mind as gently as he could. [Beloved? Do you know who to call here on Thretketh to take care of this? And would you call them now?]
[Don't call me that. Don't ever call me that again,] Theri Sent coldly.
Kee felt like he'd taken a lightsaber stab in the stomach. But he looked down and nodded, swallowing convulsively. Ben flinched. [Theri! How can you--You take that back!] Ben Sent angrily to her.
The look she gave him would have frozen plasma fire.
[It's all right, Ben,] Kee Sent.
"No it's not!" Ben said, swinging around, grabbing the pilot's chair and turning Theri toward him. He pointed to Kee. "You go right now and apologize to him! Right now! No matter what you may think of him at the moment, he's your lifemate and he loves you! And you love him! Don't look at me like that! I've been in your mind too, and I know how you both feel for each other, and damnit Theri you're being stupid!"
Kee wondered if he should go yank Ben out of the navigator's chair before Theri ripped his spine out.
Ben crossed his arms on his chest and looked her straight in the eye. "All this great lofty philosophy of yours, and you can't get it through your head that being in love is about the most paradoxical thing of all! It never makes sense! That's why I don't want anything more than what you and I have together! You think love is about freedom. That's a laugh! But can't you see it's about being free and being chained at the same time?" He reached forward before she could stop him and took her hands. "Theri. You've got to face that fear. You've got to go through it. You've got to do what you think you can't do. You are his lifemate. That means here and now, and it means forever. I could never let you into my soul the way Master has. You've done it already! Accept it. Please, just accept it."
Kee couldn't look up to meet her eyes, but he felt her looking at him. [I don't expect you to forgive me,] he Sent tentatively only to her.
She snorted. [If I don't, we'll both suffer for it. We're one soul, aren't we?] She got up in one quick move and came over to him where he sat looking at the floor. He felt her shielding Ben out from their Sendings. [I'm sorry. Really. Ben's right. I'm being stupid. I love you, Kee. And I need you to help me understand all this, because I can't make heads or tails of it. And truth to tell...I did willingly give myself to you when we lifemated. Ben's right about that too. There is no going back now. And I wouldn't change it if I could.]
And they were in each other's arms again, Kee burying his face in her hair while she clutched him and he felt her tears on his neck.
Ben smiled at them and relaxed. Disaster averted. Again.
The eerie, ten-mile-wide circle of absolutely clear sky at the eye of the hurricane reached them less than an hour later, and Theri and Kee carefully opened the shuttle's hatch and peered out at the sudden calmness.
The meadow was a morass of mud and torn-up vegetation and sand, and there were long streamers of seaweed that had been torn up from the ocean and now splattered across the shuttle's upper hull, sizzling on the invisible force-shields. The goro vines around the shuttle were writhing slowly, growing as they watched, absorbing the rainwater into the cellular structure in a matter of moments and converting it all into explosive growth. The stars blazed in the circle of clear sky above, while around them on the horizon they could see the spinning of the storm. Save for the stars above and the feeble yellow lights of the clanhold, it was absolutely dark. Thunder rumbled around them constantly, and lightning flashed within the walls of the storm.
Kee and Theri walked down the rampway and Kee looked down at the writhing vines warily. "Is it safe to walk on those?"
"Oh, yeah, they only eat stuff smaller than we are," Theri said flippantly. Kee snorted a laugh. She took his hand and they started running toward the clanhold.
The main doors creaked open as they approached, and Theri's father beckoned them inside hurriedly. "Jedi, we have a problem, my oldest nephew-son is missing--"
"Dalryn. He is in our shuttle. And we need to talk of this, Clanholder." Kee nodded to Toroleri and Kathor as they crowded into the entranceway too. "And your mate and Clanholder Kathor as well."
Toroleri listened as Dorovan explained what the Jedi had said, then nodded and gestured for them all to follow her. Kee and Theri could see the rest of her clan gathered in the main room around the mass of quartz that provided gentle yellow light and warmth in the darkened room. The children huddled together asleep now under blankets, but the murmuring voices and spikes of emotions of the older children and adults didn't need elaboration. Theri sighed and Kee could feel her annoyance. [I'd wanted to have at least one night to play here with you. This trip home hasn't been the rest I thought it would be.]
[I know, dearheart. I'm sorry,] Kee Sent back as they followed her parents into her mother's private solar. [This wasn't one of my better ideas.]
She squeezed his hand and leaned into his arm around her for a moment, and he hugged her to him. [We'll live, sweetling. But I'll be glad to go back to the Temple.]
The little solar was dark, but Toroleri passed her hand over a water-beryl crystal set in the wall beside the door and other beryls around the room began to glow with ethereal purple and blue-green light. It was very much a working room, with large tables filled with communications equipment, computers, and fileboxes of textreader cards. Shelves built into the walls held tools and family keepsakes and holoportraits of children. There were several chairs and sofas against the walls, and the wall across from the desk opened out onto a field-shielded terrace walkway, the awning over the terrace flapping in the breeze. The cold wash of ion-charged air swept into the little solar, chilling them all. Toroleri picked up a controller from her desk, pushed a few buttons, and the wind was cut off as the window baffles closed.
Toroleri sat down at her desk and her mate Dorovan leaned against the desk beside her, his arms crossed on his chest, his face strained with worry. Toroleri showed only calmness save for the fingers drumming on the arms of her chair. Kathor, Toroleri's other mate and Dalryn's father, stood leaning against the wall beside the desk. Kee straightened up, pulled Theri over to stand in front of him so he could put his hands on her shoulders. "Clanholder Kaitryn, there is no easy way to say this. I know somewhat of the history of the Thretkethan people. I was assigned here for three months when I was first confirmed as a Jedi, the very year Theriyah was born in fact. I know very well indeed that no one, man or woman or alien, would ever be allowed to claim ownership of any Thretkethan. But your nephew-son Dalryn attempted to sell Theriyah to Darth Maul tonight, in our shuttle. And almost succeeded."
The three exploded into disbelieving bursts of angry Thretkethan, and Theri closed her eyes and turned into Kee's arms. He held her, running his hand through her hair to comfort her, but his attention was on her parents. Kathor's angry voice shouted above Toroleri's and Dorovan's as they both turned to him accusingly, and he raised a clenched fist toward the Jedi. Kee stood impassively and let them argue. The angry words were going by too fast for him to understand anyway with his rusty Thretkethan.
Finally Dorovan held up his hands at his mates and they quieted reluctantly. The clanholder turned back to the Jedi again and spoke in Standard. "Theri, how did this happen? Tell us! In the Tongue, so we can understand best."
Theri swallowed, turned toward her parents and uncle, and started telling what had happened. Kee could follow it as he heard her verbalizing to him in her mind what she was saying in Thretkethan. She didn't elaborate on the fighting, nor did she tell about herself trying to kill Dalryn. Just told about Dalryn trying to sell her to Maul for the starship and the drugs. Kee didn't blame her for the editting. He would have too.
[My Uncle Kathor is very angry at you for accusing Dalryn,] she Sent to him timidly.
[I can understand that. Dalryn was first-born of you children, wasn't he? Even before Dodiya?] Kee Sent back.
[Yes. But it's not just that. Anything that makes Dalryn look bad makes my Uncle look bad, and he doesn't want that. My Ama and he haven't been really close for a long time, and Uncle's afraid to lose his place here. It's only because my Ama needed someone she could trust to run the beryl mines that he got the job at all. The beryl mines belong to my Apa really, from my grandmother. If my Ama told him and Dalryn to leave, they'd have to go try to find work somewhere else, or go back to Clan Srithrai. Srithrai are one of the poorest clans, they only have some farms up in Delia. Kaitryn's sort of a step up for him. And he doesn't want to believe Dalryn is a drug dealer or a...slave dealer. Dalryn's been the golden child here, and Uncle is the last one to believe he'd ever do something wrong.]
Kee took a leap of logic then. [But you and Doda always knew there was something wrong with Dalryn, didn't you?]
Theri looked up at him with a guarded look on her face and didn't answer him.
Her parents were looking at each other worriedly as Kathor raged again at the Jedi and Theri pulled herself out of Kee's arms and spoke directly to him angrily, something about being Jedi and asking if Kathor didn't trust Jedi or didn't trust Theri herself. Then she turned back to her father and asked him who should be called to come take Dalryn away, since there were two Jedi as witnesses and who would question the word of Jedi? The Jedi had helped Thretketh free itself from the Master clans in the first place. There were no other outlanders they could trust. Kathor shot back at her with something about the outlanders not knowing Thretketh ways and judging Thretketh by outlander ways which shouldn't apply to Thretketh. Theri shot right back at him that Teacher Jinn was more Thretketh than any outlander she'd ever known, he understood Thretketh ways and some of the language, he accepted her other mate Ben without being jealous just as any Thretketh man would. Kee quirked an eyebrow at this but said nothing to her, but he could feel her answering flash of amusement. Theri kept right on arguing, saying that she had learned in her travels that slavery was wrong anywhere, that the Jedi fought to end such wherever they found it without exception, not just on Thretketh. Kathor gestured angrily at her again, saying she was tainted by these Jedi and their mindpowers, that she was chained to them in the mind and merely saying what the Jedi wanted her to say. Theri laughed mirthlessly, saying her own mindpowers were greater than Teacher Jinn's and Ben's and it was the other way around, they were in fact saying what she wanted them to say. Her parents laughed at this, but Kathor scowled at her darkly and asked her what of the famous Jedi impartiality, why was she accusing his son and not taking Tharki in for the arrest warrant sworn out on him in Morosala. Theri replied her Apa was going to do that and she didn't need to. But that Dalryn's was a much greater transgression than running the family speeder through Morosala's residential sections at twice the posted speed limit. Kathor couldn't argue with that, only say that it was not yet proved his son had tried to sell her to the Dark Jedi. Theri merely gestured up at Kee silently to indicate they were back where they'd started in the argument. Kee could see Dorovan trying his best not to grin and Toroleri was looking at her daughter thoughtfully.
[Does Ben know you think of him as your mate too?] he asked Theri quietly, laughter bubbling in his mindvoice.
[Yes. Since the day you brought me home to the Temple,] she Sent hurriedly. [I dunno if it's mutual, other than that he says he loves me.]
Toroleri sat up slowly from the comfortable slump she'd sunk into, looked from one to another of her mates, then at the Jedi Master, then at her daughter. She asked a question of Theri and Theri looked up at Kee and spoke verbally. "Ama wants to know if you and Ben would speak to the lawspeakers in Morosala."
"If they will accept a hologram transmission, yes. We have to leave as soon as possible to go back to the Temple," Kee said. "We've been called back, Ben has been given an assignment and we need to drop Maul off to the Justice before we head for Coruscant. So if they will accept my statement by hologram, yes."
"They would, Jedi. They have before, in cases involving outlanders," Dorovan said. He explained to his mate and Toroleri nodded. "Bring Dalryn back here to the clanhold. We will keep him here til the storm blows over, then we'll take him to Morosala. We'll have the lawspeakers contact you."
Kee nodded to the clanholder and squeezed Theri's shoulders under his hands in reassurance. "We will take Darth Maul back with us. He is Sith and so comes under our jurisdiction, so we will take him with us. Your prisons here could not hold him in any case."
Dorovan nodded and explained to his mate. Toroleri sighed and grimaced, and Kee caught a fleeting impression from her mind that she would have preferred the Dark Jedi to be tried along with her oldest child for trying to buy her first-born daughter. It was clear from the brief surge of anger where Theri had gotten at least some of her temper. But as the Jedi Teacher had said, Thretkethan prisons could not hold such for long...
"We must go now," Kee said. [I'll go get our packs, dearheart. Best say goodbye to the clan now. The eye of the storm won't be over the clanhold forever, and we need to get going now.]
He bowed to the Thretkethans and left silently, and Theri could feel him taking the stairs three at a time up to their room.
"We have to go, Apa," she said, holding out a hand to her father. "Something's happened at the Temple, and we need to go back right away."
Toroleri got up from her chair and came around the desk to hug her daughter for a long moment. Dorovan did the same, then held her face in his hands to search the green eyes intensely for a moment. "You take our hopes and dreams with you. We always knew this place would never hold you. It is the best possible road you follow now, the best we could have hoped for. We can't understand it ourselves, but we know it's the only way for you. And to be a Jedi! You make us proud!"
Theri nodded, swallowed the lump in her throat, hugged her parents for one last long moment, and raced to help Kee.
Part 5
Archive