The Way of the Mystics
by Tilt
(continued from Part 5)
Ben emerged from the little underground room where the leader of the Teravan militia was explaining to a new group of angry refugees how to sneak up on mechanoids. It was a dangerous prospect even for a Jedi. When twenty to a hundred tons of metal and myomer turned to point a weapon at you, how could you be expected to run right up to it and shove an ion grenade into an exhaust port? Yet the normally peaceful, artistic Teravans were proving they had the backbone to do so. They'd done it five times already. Much to the bemusement of the Jedi who ran interference for them. Ben only prayed the Trade Federation would not decide to escalate the conflict, or send another group of mercenaries.
Not that he'd managed to prove they had this time. Yes, there were Federation ships in orbit around Teravin, they'd been there for months. Some were simple transports that continued to carry out the business of trading and transport. Others were administrative ships, observing the goings-on on Teravin, occassionally sending down messages full of solitious, saccharine inquiries asking if the Teravans wanted help dealing with the "invaders". The Tiano's Falcons dropship had simply come out of hyperspace in the Teravin system nearly two months ago, went into orbit, and began releasing mechs onto the planet. Ben had not been able to find a connection yet. The Falcons pilots they'd captured obviously had been prepared for the possibility of telepathic scanning. They all were quite adept at shielding even though they were all psi-null. Of course, that could just be standard procedure for mercenaries. Ben didn't know that either. But Uloa, the strongest telepath in his team, had not been able to winkle anything out or even overhear anything useful.
Uloa herself appeared at his side as he walked down the pathway they'd worn into the pine-needle covered forest floor, burbling a laugh up at him as she latched one small hand onto his belt. He laughed and put an arm around her shoulders. It was a cloudless late winter day, the air practically crackling it was so fresh with the smells of snow in the mountains nearby. The little Orafai had been spending her time with Torin, helping him make what repairs they could on Thumper, helping to teach the refugess about mechs. She herself could not fly a mech. It required optical nerves she had been born lacking. But she loved climbing all over the metal beast, poking into wiring, tightening myomer and repacking the bearings in the actuators. More often than not she came back to camp at the end of the day with layers of grease and coolant and who knew what else caked in her fur. And Ben would have to help her scrub it all out at the freezing cold little lake nearby. He suspected the little Orafai had a crush on him. She seemed to prefer his company over Jagoe's, at any rate.
[Stupid Corellians,] she complained to him. [Heads hard as rocks.]
Ben grinned. [What about the Rthikin?]
Uloa gave a little jump and wriggled in distaste. [Uck! Mind smells bad, like Sith! Enjoys hurting people. Bad news.]
Ben hugged her a little. [I know. Some people are like that.] He stopped her, turned her toward him and knelt in front of her to be on a level with her, took the furry little face in his hands. ['Lo. Now you be careful when you try to touch these pilots' minds, okay? Try not to let them know you're doing it. And don't go past the surface unless I tell you, okay?]
Uloa's white eyes couldn't see him, but he knew she saw him well enough with the Force. She nodded, squeezed his wrists. [Know that! Mistress Yaddle says this since I was little. Don't go past surface mind unless you ask first. I know. Same old story.]
Ben quirked an eyebrow at her aggrieved tone. [It's lonely for you, isn't it? Without other Orafai at the Temple.]
Uloa shrugged, squeezed his wrists again. [I have friends. Shosin. Seri. You. And Mistress Yaddle and Master Yoda.]
[That's not what I meant,] he Sent.
Uloa nodded. [I know what you meant. And I still have friends. You forget, you giant sandslug, I'm just as old as Seri. I know what you meant. And it changes nothing. I still have friends. Good friends. Sometimes deep-mind-friends. Most times not. But all Jedi mind-friends, yes?]
Ben pulled her into his arms for a moment. [Always, 'Lo.]
She burbled and hugged him back for a moment, then wriggled to get away. [Seri says go see Torin. Sent me to come get you.]
[What for?] he asked as she took his hand to tug him after her.
[Seri says talk to Torin. She's worried about him again.] The little Orafai was pulling him down the pathway to the clearing where Thumper was kept when Torin wasn't flying the mech.
The huge pine trees thinned as they came to the little meadow with the huge rock where the Dervish sat looking down the mountainside toward the city a few miles away. The little sensor dish mounted on the mech's head whirled constantly, scanning for vehicles or other mechs and monitoring the comm channels. A cable ran from the open hatchway on the head down to the tent under the trees nearby, to the bank of comm equipment they had patched into the mech's sensors. Mechanoids were really antiques by the current standards of warfare, and the Dervish's comm equipment was not capable of the detailed context-based scanning they needed, nor could it crack the fractal-based encryption the Federation was using up above in orbit. But with newer equipment patched in, the sensors on the old mech were quite adequate to pick up every broadcast on this side of the planet.
Uloa crackled a little at him as she jumped up the mech's leg to catch the handholds in the armor plating, swinging up the leg with practiced ease. Ben followed her more slowly up the leg to the top of the giant rock where he felt Torin's presence. Seri met him at the mech's side, leaning against the hip actuator, her eyes as she looked up at him shadowed with worry. She looked away, then held out a hand silently to Uloa and they climbed back down the mech's leg again and headed for the forest. Ben walked around to get behind the mech, heading for the ladder.
Torin was half-buried inside the mech's innards, the armor plating opened down the back to reveal the missile feed system, mumbling to himself as he tried to trace the power leads through the cable harnesses leading to the mech's head.
[Need some help?] Ben Sent.
[Nah. Just checking. I've been wondering if this one was one of the mechs that had that wiring problem that would sometimes explode missiles in the racks, but it looks like it's been fixed several times so probably not.] Torin wriggled out of the mech's innards and stood looking up at the giant metal beast for a moment before latching the armor plating closed again.
Ben watched his friend dealing with the mech and tried to keep his own worry from being too obvious. He'd never known Torin to be so calm or focussed, so much at peace with the world, as he'd been the last few weeks. Since acquiring Thumper he'd almost become another person. The Torin Ghanbari he'd grown up with was a jokester and a flirt, an edgy intense sort who had trouble sitting still to meditate. Ben well remembered Master Windu saying many times that he thought Torin must have some sort of neurological disorder that made him unable to concentrate unless he was moving or talking. Nearly twenty years of Jedi training had brought some sort of balance to Torin's mind, especially after he'd started learning Soritsu-ji and later the lightsaber. But he'd always been the sort who could be laughing one minute and yelling at you the next.
All that was changed now. He'd found his center and was living out of that center in every moment, as peaceful and rock-solid steady as a Jedi confirmed for twenty years, not five weeks. Ben thanked the Force for that everytime he saw the bone-deep contentment in his friend's eyes. But would that peace last, when they eventually had to leave Teravin and Thumper behind?
[You don't have to give me that hooded cavebat look, y'know,] Torin Sent with faint amusement in his mindvoice. [You could just ask straight out.]
[All right then, what are you going to do when it's time to go home to the Temple? You can't take Thumper with you.] There. It was said. Ben took a deep breath and let it out again.
Torin looked over at him for a moment, the brown eyes thoughtful. Then he gestured at the ladder on the mech's back. [Come on, let's go up. Bit more private up there.] He swung up onto the ladder and Ben followed him. In a moment they were settling next to the mech's open hatchway, looking out over the trees toward the little city below. The wind coming up the mountain blew Ben's tailbraid into his face and he flipped it back impatiently.
[Well. What do I intend to do. Fair enough.] Torin leaned back on his hands and looked out over the trees. [I've been thinking a lot. And the honest answer is, I don't know yet. It's not really been an issue for me. I've been happy just to live every day for the day itself. I haven't been thinking of the future. Well, not so far as Thumper is concerned, at any rate.]
Ben glanced over at him in surprise, but Torin's eyes were still focussed out over the trees. [What, then?]
Torin looked at him for a moment, then away again. [Do you think the Federation will just give up and go home if we win here? Once we're gone they'll just bring in more mercs or droids or someone else to do their dirty work for them. The Teravans are artists, merchants, farmers. They don't have a standing army, they're a pacifistic culture. Either they'll have to learn really quick or they'll have to have permanent help.]
[You. You want to stay,] Ben Sent.
Torin shrugged. [I'd thought about it. I'd wondered if I could get one of the mech designers to locate a factory here, maybe arrange it so there'd be a training school here. Give them land and power resources in exchange for full supply of a planetary mech force. The Temple could send kids here for mech-pilot training. And Teravin wouldn't be an easy target anymore.]
Ben blinked. Torin had obviously thought this through already. With the trust of the Teravans already established with the Jedi, it would be fairly easy to promise such things and keep those promises. And he'd still have Thumper, or any other mech he wished to fly. [But you're a Jedi.]
[Sure. I've never felt the Force so strongly as when I'm jacked into this mech,] Torin Sent with a smile. [I feel like I'm actually doing some good when I'm flying. Like I've got all the power I need to do whatever the Force tells me to do. Funny that the only place I've ever really felt at peace is in a machine built for war.]
Ben sighed. [What about Seri?]
Torin shrugged again, but Ben didn't miss the sudden tension. [What about her?]
[She told me already,] Ben Sent bluntly. [It must have happened that first night you had Thumper. She didn't come back to the campfire that night. And it can't have happened at home at the Temple or Master Mundi wouldn't have let her come on the mission. Hell, I should get Shosin to take her home, but we need her too badly here and I've been careful not to let her go hog-wild chasing destroyer droids. But another couple months and she'll start showing, won't she? So you'd have to make some sort of decision soon, before it becomes obvious.] Ben reached over and put a hand on Torin's shoulder. [But I know you too well. You're about to be a father and you think that means settling down. But we're Jedi. Your child will undoubtedly be Force-talented. The Temple will always take care of us. You don't have to give up racing around the galaxy rescuing people.]
Torin nodded reluctantly.
Ben sat back again and thought for a moment. [It's your choice. You can stay here on Teravin and build your mech factory and pilot's academy and spend a very happy, fulfilling life protecting them. It's a beautiful little planet here, the people are certainly worth helping, they'd be more than happy to have you stay. You're already a hero here. You could settle down with Seri and raise kids and be perfectly content. Or you could let go of the dream and go on with the life you've trained for. A life that has little reward, little time for yourself, no guarantees, and where your lady and your friends could get killed at any moment. The only redeeming thing about the life of the Jedi is that you have the means and the powers to right wrongs and to protect those that need protecting. The only thing we ever really get out of it for ourselves is that we know who we are. So you have a choice here. Which serves the greater good? What do you care most about? The smaller view? Or the greater?]
Torin looked over at him for another long moment. [I need to think some about that.]
Ben nodded. [I'll be with Jagoe and Shosin. Send for me if you need me.] He scooted carefully over to the ladder and started down the mech's torso, hoping he'd said the right things and wishing for the thousandth time that Master Kee was here with him.
Twilight was falling as Torin climbed wearily up to Thumper's hatchway again, the purple haze on the western horizon beginning to flicker with meteorite streaks. The Teravin system was full of meteorites, space slag, cometaries. Every night brought an almost magical lightshow. The huge moon hung just above the horizon. He'd have to go out on patrol soon, take Thumper down the mountain to the city and pound on other mechs all night. Hopefully he'd be able to avoid that Warhammer again tonight. Though it was getting harder and harder to keep out of the largest mech's gunsights. That pilot must be desperate to pound old Thumper into scrap. Ten mechs came to Teravin. Six were now destroyed and Thumper now had the Jedi triskele carved onto her armor. The three largest mechs on Teravin remained.
He'd worked all day with the Teravans, showing the new group of refugees where the weak points were on mechs. Exhaust ports. Heat sinks. Actuators. Exposed power cables. Hatchways and access panels. He'd learned in Tactics that you could take out even a Warhammer with only a half-dozen ion grenades and a mob of lunatics. Which was about what they were fighting with on Teravin. But he liked it here. The planet was like one big artists' colony. They were all crazy but in fun and creative ways. Seri would like living here.
But he needed information. He couldn't make such a decision without knowing the consequences. He couldn't ask Serala to throw away her life as a Jedi without knowing what kind of life he'd be giving her. He loved her, but that wasn't enough to make up for destroying her dreams so he could chase his own.
He dropped into Thumper's cockpit and unplugged the cable that ran to the comm equipment below, threw it off to the side, then pulled the hatchway closed and locked it. He slid down into the pilot's chair and looked at the controls, the few blinking status lights and flickering guages of a sleeping mech.
The Jedi are the guardians of peace and justice, he thought. But it's up to us to decide what serves peace and justice best for the galaxy and for ourselves.
He took his lightsaber from his belt, looked at it for a moment, then wriggled a little to settle himself and closed his eyes, beginning to concentrate on his breathing and turning his inner eyes inward.
Psychometric precognition, Master Windu called it. He could look into the future of unliving objects, seeing it in his mind in flashing images, snatches of conversation, sounds, feelings. He didn't really like to do it. Master Windu had found him on Ramos because his father had made him use that precognitive talent to guess the winners of the podraces and speeder races by Reading the future of the marker posts at the Finish line. He'd never been wrong. But he couldn't read living things. Only inanimate, unliving objects. So he'd learned that if he wanted to see his own future, he had to read the future of his lightsaber. It always shook him now, seeing the future, knowing that what he was seeing was the future. He was always afraid he'd see someone he cared for dying. One reason he went through life treating it as one big cosmic joke.
The trance came down on him like nightfall, and he was once again in that small dark place that echoed with voices and flashes of vision.
Serala's voice, whispering in his ears, but echoing so that he couldn't make out the words, only the soft contented tone. The feeling of paths diverging into three possible threads. "You've had your dream. Now it's time to let it go. Our dreams are as much an obstacle as our fears. They keep us from going on with our lives."
The small, close darkness was swept aside in a blast of blue-white light and suddenly he was jacked into Thumper, sweat pouring down his face, fire in the cockpit, the controls under his hands jumping as he fired off the one remaining set of LRM10s at point-blank range, straight into the armor-plated chest of the Warhammer that had backed him up against the twisted wall of plascrete. The fire was spreading too fast, the pure oxygen environment from the old air tank jammed behind his chair--His hands trying to twist the lockwheel of the hatchway above his head--
--he made it out, his lungs seared by breathing the fiery air, ducking his head in his arms as he tumbled out of Thumper's hatchway, falling off the mech's head as the Warhammer raised it's particle cannons to fire again into the old Dervish's battered remains. Feeling Seri screaming out his name as she and Ben linked to Lift him free of the mech, catching him before he became a squashed bug on the street--
--the fire overwhelmed him, flashing like plasma fire in the oxygen from the old air tank, turning the universe into fire, his hands blackened as he reached up for the lockwheel, barely managing to get it open, somehow hauling himself out of the hatchway, little more than a moving corpse, too much pain even to scream as the Warhammer's final blast jerked Thumper out from under him and he fell off the mech's ladder, Ben and Seri Lifting him as he fell--
--fire and searing pain and the universe turning into the fusion-bright center of a star as the Warhammer's dual particle cannons flashed simultaneously, scoring direct hits on Thumper's head, searing through armor and vitriglass and flesh and bone--and then nothing but white blankness--
--time passing. Voices. Serala, sounding much older, "She's all I have left of him. I'll do anything I must to keep her from becoming a Jedi. I won't lose her the way I did him." Master Windu's voice, "She is very strong in the Force. What if the Sith find her? How would you protect her?"
--a little girl, black-haired and blue-eyed, rushing up to Master Windu giggling, and Master swinging her up in his arms to kiss her forehead as she flung her arms around his neck.
--his own voice, older, laughing, "She's getting too big for you to do that, what about your bad back?"
"I think I can handle another generation of Ghanbaris, if you'll have me here."
"Can't think of anyone I'd want here more. Cori's old enough now to begin her training."
--the same little girl, grown up to a teenager, with Serala's beautiful eyes and his stubborn goat-headed determination. "Your father would want you to have this. You're not fully trained yet, but with the losses we've taken you're needed far more with a lightsaber than at the controls of your Wasp. Teravin isn't safe anymore. And I can't protect you from the Sith."
--a long time of peace and contentment, yet feeling it wasn't enough, like he was trapped in a cage. Mechs walking past him, shining in Teravin's morning sun, shaking the ground beneath him, actuators whirring and armor plating glinting with new paint and chrome. "We can build one unit a month, from duralanium stock to finished mechs ready to fly. And our pilot's academy is one of the best in the quadrant, on a par with the War College on Corellia."
--"She's a natural, Seri. She jumped her Wasp right over Thumper's head and hit the ground running. I chased her, but she'd a good two-mile lead on me. I've never seen anyone fly a mech like that, much less a seven-year-old. I think it's time to call Master Windu. We can't keep her caged up here like a peko on a leash. She's meant for bigger things."
--scattershot images of lightsabers flashing, Ben fighting beside him, the blackness of space, the Justice , destroyer droids, Master Kee turning to Lift a squad of battledroids to clatter against a starship corridor wall, Seri holding up her hand to him outside the leaded glass of a radiation treatment cylinder, the red and black tattooed face of Darth Maul peering coldly at him across the length of his lightsaber, the Temple laced with laserfire, people running and screaming, Sith starfighters diving on the Temple, Master Windu running toward him across the Temple hangar and being thrown off his feet as a scout ship exploded behind him, dead before he hit the floor. "Torin! We've got to get Master Yoda out of here before the Sith find him, he's the last hope for the Jedi to survive this!" "Damnit, Seri, I'm no fighter pilot, I'm a mech driver!" "We don't have a choice anymore, love. We're the only ones left."
--the white silent void again, and the hum of the Force.
Torin jerked up out of the trance with a yell, his hands shaking where they clutched his lightsaber in white-knuckled desperation, his heart pounding in fear and anguish. He looked down at the controls of his mech and for a moment didn't know where he was or even when he was, past, present or future. Or even which future. He'd never had such jumbled, divergent visions before, he'd never gone so far forward before. Years and years forward. Slowly the different timelines sorted themselves out in his mind.
He looked out over the gathering blue darkness of Teravin through the vitriglass ports of Thumper's head and felt the fear take hold of him. He hated this damned precognition of his. He'd much rather not have seen any of this. But he had. And now he still had that decision to make.
Like Ben had said, which meant more? The greater good? Or his own happiness and dreams? The will of the Force? Or his own wishes? Either way didn't look to be a joyride. There were dark times coming, and no matter what he did those dark times would roll over the Jedi like a hurricane tide.
He slowly put his lightsaber back on his belt and began flipping switches to bring Thumper to life around him. Whatever he may have learned, it was night now and time to begin his patrol. For the moment he could escape into the rightness of the Force and Thumper's lurching run. He could put off the decision for another few hours. But he knew he couldn't run from it forever.
Kee stood looking down over Coruscant from the huge windows of the small conference room, wrapped in his cloak, listening to Ben's voice from the hologram message behind him, hearing the strain in his apprentice's voice.
"We've not yet been able to find absolute proof of the Federation's connection with Tiano's Falcons. We've been monitoring the comm channels for several weeks now, but there's been nothing on the channels we've been able to scan that indicates any connection. We've destroyed six mechs and captured one. There are three left, but they're all larger than the fifty-five ton mech we currently have. The Falcons commander's mech is the worst, it's a Warhammer, and it masses almost twice as large as Jedi Ghanbari's mech. And the three remaining mechs tend to patrol together now. The city is almost deserted, and the great majority of the refugees have fled to the plains in the east. We have about a thousand refugees here with us, mostly artisans and craftsmen who have skills useful to us and who aren't afraid to fight. We've been making weapons and setting traps in the forests here for the other mechs, but they never leave the city. Jedi Ghanbari takes his mech into the city every night to fight with the remaining Falcons mechs, and our refugee militia sends strike-and-run squads as well. Jedi Ghanbari's standard tactics are to distract the mechs so that the militia squads can plant explosives into an enemy mech's weak points, then to scatter and regroup and repeat the process until the enemy mech is destroyed. This has worked six times already with some success, but the remaining mechs are wary of such tactics now and tend to start shooting at Jedi Ghanbari on sight."
Kee faintly felt Windu's worry at this, and shared it. Torin was taking far too many risks, playing target as he was with a battered old mech he couldn't even repair, with only four lasers and one set of LRM missiles.
"The Falcons pilots we have captured consider themselves prisoners of war and have refused to tell us who they are currently working for. Trainee Uloa has not been able to gather any information telepathically from their surface thoughts. The pilots have apparently been trained in shielding against telepathic scanning. Trainee Uloa tells me she could easily overcome those shields, but I shall not have her do this unless I am given specific orders from Operations Control to do so." Ben paused for a moment, and Kee turned around to look at the hologram, smiled faintly as he saw Ben nervously raking his lengthening hair out of his eyes before continuing. "I sent Trainee Shosin-ka to check on our drop ship two days ago, and she radioed back this morning that we have barely enough fuel to make low orbit. One of the three engines is non-functioning, and one wing is badly damaged. But Trainee Shosin-ka assures me we can make low orbit."
Kee quirked an eyebrow at Ben's image, still smiling faintly. Ben was hiding something. He could tell it in the nervousness and the way Ben leaned forward in the mech's pilot's chair. Ben would never be nervous about making a simple report. So it had to be something he thought he'd get in trouble for. Torin? Probably. Or something else?
The hologram flickered and faded out as Ben finished his report, and Kee turned back to the window again in the silence. The other Master Jedi behind him kept their thoughts to themselves for a moment before Kee heard Master Yoda sigh heavily. "Obi-Wan hides something from us."
Kee nodded at his old Master's words.
"We did give him command of this mission. We must trust his judgment," Kee said quietly. "If it were something that absolutely pertained to the success of the mission he would tell us, no matter what it was or how much trouble he'd get into from it. He would not hide something that would put his friends in danger."
Windu straightened up in his chair, his dark face grim. "Torin is taking too many chances."
"And Jagoe as well," Master Yensho said.
Master Mundi looked over at Yoda consideringly. "He did not mention Serala."
Kee turned around at that and sat down in his chair next to Master Yoda, looked over at his Master inquiringly. Yoda returned his look serenely, the huge blue eyes half-closed. [Is this important enough that I should ask Theri to ask the Force about it?] Kee Sent on a narrow line to his Master. Yoda shook his head slightly in answer. Kee looked around at the other Masters present and sat back in his chair. "Maybe we're all getting old and over-cautious. We all did some pretty wild and crazy things back when we were kids. And we usually came out of it in one piece. Maybe it's nothing more than the usual recklessness, some crazy stunts that Ben thinks we'll yell at him for. He has told us in previous reports that Serala and Jagoe have been going into the city to hunt destroyer droids almost every night. Perhaps Ben didn't think it was worth mentioning again."
Yoda closed his eyes for a moment. "Too many questions. And no change in the mission."
Windu nodded. "Five weeks. They should have been home in three. And now it's a guerilla war as well. We have to find a way to send them more weapons, something more than a few cases of ion grenades."
Kee shrugged a little. "Ben knew he'd be on his own, so did Torin. They've not asked for anything."
Windu gave him a very hard look. "There's no blockade, the Falcons' jumpship can be avoided. We could send them anything we wanted. The Federation doesn't own Teravin. They can't prevent us from sending reinforcements or supplies."
"No. This is supposed to be a covert operation. We cannot be seen to be directly involved," Mundi said.
Kee grinned a little. "I think Torin forgot that when he carved that triskele on Thumper's armor. Kind of hard to deny we're involved when that Warhammer probably has video footage of that Dervish wearing a Jedi triskele."
Windu shook his head in exasperation. [I'm going to strangle him when he gets home,] Windu Sent to Kee. Kee grinned at him fleetingly. "So why can't we send them weapons and supplies now? Koon could take a squadron and airdrop anything they'd need."
Yaddle stirred in her chair next to Yoda. "It is a test of the young ones. To take what they are given and to succeed despite the odds. To trust in their own abilities. To prove themselves to themselves. To make difficult choices. If we send weapons and supplies, they will not rely on themselves. They would continue to be dependent on us. They must learn and grow."
Windu nodded unhappily, as did Mundi and Yensho. Kee sat back again, his eyes distant.
[What think you?] Yoda asked suddenly in his mind.
Kee glanced at his Master briefly then away, then flashed him an image of Ben as a chattering ten-year-old, all excitement and energy tumbling over into words and Sending images. [Just yesterday I was teaching him to touch the Force, I turn around and here he is lightyears away fighting a guerilla war.]
"There are only three mechs left," Mundi said quietly. "And young Ghanbari seems to be dealing with them in the only effective way they have available to them. It is only a matter of time before they succeed."
Kee nodded. "We must find some way to prevent the Federation from sending in reinforcements of their own. There's not much Torin or Ben or anyone could do if the Federation sends in another unit of mechs or starfighters."
Yoda held up a hand. "Yes. Send ships to Teravin. But send no supplies or weapons to Obi-Wan. Tell the Federation ships Jedi come to watch only. But monitor comm channels. If Federation calls for reinforcements, then defend Teravin."
Kee nodded and Windu looked much happier with this turn of events. "I will see to it, Master."
Yoda waved him away. "Go now."
Kee got to his feet, bowed to his Master and went to go command the Justice to go back to Teravin. With the watchful looming presence of the giant Jedi flagship within sight in orbit above them, the Federation would be forced to allow the conflict on Teravin to play itself out without further escalation.
Theri dug through the box of switches, wire, diodes and other assorted parts she'd found on Ben's worktable until she came up with the two she wanted, a rocker switch and a dial-switch. They were old and stiff. Perfect. She'd not want the blade suddenly jumping from a meter to a half-meter in the middle of a fight after all. That would be just too embarrassing. But the image it brought to mind was kind of funny. She could see Maul laughing his horned head off if it happened in front of him. And she probably would laugh with him.
The internal parts of her lightsaber were nearly finished now. Over the last few weeks Kee had helped her set the sphere of water-beryl into the pommel and solder the internal parts together. She'd coated the deep rounded grooves in the shell with the rubber grip material. She'd drilled out the holes for the switches, machined the guard with the laser lathe, drilled the small holes in the pommel and set the metal ring in it so she could wear it on her belt. Now all that remained was to attach the switches, stuff all the parts in the shell, put the crystals in, and see if it worked.
Kee had told her not to go to classes today, and she'd faintly felt his mind touching hers all morning worriedly. She felt out of sorts. She didn't know what to do with herself, she was used to being in class at this time of day. Instead, she was finishing her lightsaber. True, she'd meant to finish it for some time, but there wasn't any hurry. Ben was still gone. So she'd caught up on her classwork, did her morning katas, and settled down at Ben's worktable to finish her lightsaber.
The lightsaber crystal necklace fell out of her uniform tunic as she leaned forward again and she stopped and caught it, looking again at the three interlocked circles of the symbol carved inside the crystal. She'd looked it up that morning in the Temple's library database. It wasn't the symbol of the Sith as she'd expected it to be. It was Maul's personal sigil. Inside one of his lightsaber crystals on a cord around her neck. She wondered at what he'd said about signs of ownership. Well, he *had* tried to buy her from Dalryn. She almost tore the crystal from around her neck in the sudden surge of blind rage.
[So that's what you've been hiding all night,] Kee Sent softly to her. [Did Maul give you that?]
Theri sighed. She shouldn't have tried to hide it from him. They had enough problems at the moment. [Yes. Last night at the Galleria. He asked me if this new green streak in my hair was a sign of ownership. Meaning you, your lightsaber's green. Then he gives me this. His own personal sigil inside one of his own lightsaber crystals. I guess he figures if he marks me as his property I'll have to give myself to him or something.]
Kee Sent a wave of love and understanding at this. He could feel the strange mix of emotions that had replaced her normally calm, sunny thoughts, he could feel how shaken the entire encounter with Maul the night before had left her. [I'll be out of this meeting soon. Ben sent us a report from Teravin. No message for us this time, but his hair's still getting longer.] This last was Sent with a twist of amusement, and Theri smiled at the image of Ben he projected to her.
Theri looked around at the familiar jumble on Ben's worktable and the holoprints on the walls, the sunlight slanting through the big window. [It feels like he could come walking in the door any moment, that he'll just walk in and he'll be here and I'll feel silly for missing him so much.] She turned back to her lightsaber parts, swallowing the sudden lump in her throat. She wanted so much to be curled up on Ben's bed with him, giggling, talking, being with him again. [I thought this would get easier the longer he's away.]
[Yeah,] Kee agreed. [So did I. You stay put, I'll be home in a few minutes.]
Theri Sent her agreement and turned back to her lightsaber, stuffing Maul's crystal back inside her uniform.
What did she owe Maul anyway? Nothing. He'd done nothing but try to capture her and hurt her for more than six years now. He'd killed her Master. He'd tried to kill her. All she owed him was her lightsaber blade down his throat.
[What's next, kid, you gonna go dye all your uniforms black and start killing Jedi?] Inda's voice said suddenly in her head.
The soldering gun slipped as she startled at the suddenness of Inda's voice, and she cursed as the burning hot solder dripped off onto her fingers. [Damnit! Stop doing that, old man!]
Inda's chuckle was just a hair short of malicious. [You need a little shaking up now and then, when you get to thinking one side against another.]
[What are you talking about?] Theri snapped. [I'm a Mystic, what I do is my business and not dictated by the morality of the Jedi or the hatred of the Sith.]
[Oh, great, blame me for your higher nature getting stuck under those carbonated hormones of yours! Is your loyalty to the Way or just to whichever man is between your legs?]
Theri very carefully put the soldering gun back on it's holder, moved away from Ben's worktable before she exploded and started throwing things. She was incoherent with rage, so angry she couldn't think straight enough to Send anything at all, too angry to focus enough to Send even if she could think of anything. Her hands clenched so hard her fingernails broke the skin and left blood in her hands.
[See? What did I tell you?] Inda continued. [Look at yourself. So angry you can't focus. Here's your breaking point then. Materialism, power, pride, ego, those things you got covered. But the Demon fiddles with your hair and you turn into a puddle of goo even though you've got Jinn wrapped around you every night and that boy Kenobi following you around like a lovesick peko. Hell, girl, what do I got to do, weld your ankles together?]
[You have no right to talk to me this way,] Theri managed to Send stiffly.
[Like hell I got no right. I've got every right. You're the one who's gonna be teaching my Way. You're the only one of my people left alive. If the Way is going to survive you've got to be as strong as you can be. That means there can be no weaknesses. And sex is your weakness. Now you either face it and deal with it, or you run from it and let it take over your life. Which will it be, girl?]
Theri forced herself to unclench her hands, forced herself to relax, forced her jaws to stop clenching, wrenched her attention back to her breathing and forced the cold lump of rage in her middle to begin to dissipate. Inda was right. She had to face it and deal with it. The spirit stayed silent while she got herself back under control. [All right, then, Master Inda, how do I deal with it?]
Inda was silent for a long moment. [Figure out how to use it to your advantage. Figure out how to turn it into a strength, not a weakness. It does no good trying to get rid of the urges completely. Even the Jedi know that doesn't work half as well as everyone seems to think. Suppress the sex drives long enough and it turns into psychosis. The idea is to control it, to focus it, channel the energy in other ways. Hell, Maul probably knows all kinds of stuff about all this. Jedi training is all about free movement and flowing. Sith training is about obstacles and repression and fear. A lightsaber crystal is an obstruction in the path of the energy, but it's an obstruction that focuses the energy into the blade. That's what I'm getting at here. You need to find a way to focus that energy elsewhere.]
Theri tugged Maul's lightsaber crystal up into her hand again. [All that energy is just fine right where it's going, thank you. Straight to Kee and Ben. I'm not Maul's property.]
[Hrmph. Okay, fine, figure it out for yourself then. Don't come yelling for help to me when you wake up being raped by the Demon.] Inda's mindvoice suddenly vanished and the feeling of emptiness indicated the spirit had gone elsewhere.
She sat in silence for a moment, saddened. She was even arguing with Inda now. Great.
[Beloved?]
She heard the door of the apartment opening outside Ben's room, and a moment later Kee was at the door smiling faintly at her. She looked up at him forlornly before turning back to the worktable and her lightsaber. Kee came into the room, took her hands gently and turned her around to face him and pulled her up into his arms.
Theri felt his soul enfolding hers, the wordless complete trust and sharing, the pride and amazement he always had in her. It caught her off guard. The tears sprang to her eyes instantly and she was sniffling and burying her face in his cloak before she knew it. He pulled her over to Ben's bed and sat down with her, gathered her up into his arms and let her cry.
[I know, beloved. I'm sorry. I've been neglecting you. You're my apprentice and my lifemate and I've been neglecting you because I took our lifebond for granted. But we'll find a way to make it right again.]
Theri shook her head against his chest. [No you haven't, you've just been busy. That's not neglecting me.]
[Yes it is, love. I've been spending all my time in Operations. And I've let you take on too much without being there to help you deal with it. I talked to Qualara and told him I don't want you teaching the younger kids. He's got other fifth-level students. You and I are going to have first bell together every day, then we'll go to see Master Yoda together for second bell, then lunch together. After that, I'll go up to Operations and you'll go to the rest of your classes. And I've decided I don't want you to go up to Ratashi level in Soritsu-ji. That can wait. Once you make sixth level, you're going on to lightsaber training. I told Yoda I wouldn't let you run yourself ragged, and that's exactly what's happened.] He tucked her head against his shoulder and kissed her hair.
Theri sighed in relief and relaxed into the Force for a moment, let the calm silence sweep through her soul and mind, letting the wrongness and discontentment she'd felt building up inside slide away into the eternal spinning spiral. Kee nodded, linking with her, catching the flow of the Force from her mind. They sat together for a long time until Kee smiled mischievously and kissed her hair again. [Come on, now, you're almost finished with your lightsaber. Get those switches put in and put it together and let's see what color the water-beryls make the blade.]
She nodded and he kissed her, then set her on her feet with a smile. She sat down at the worktable again as he went to go make them something to eat for lunch.
A few minutes later she was carefully attaching the power leads to the powercel and sliding the powercel into the shell and screwing the pommel on. She snapped the two crystals into the focussing assembly, the half-sphere below the lenticular one, clicked the dial-switch a few times while she watched to be sure the crystals were actually moving in the assembly. Then she screwed the emitter and guard onto the shell.
And was sitting there suddenly holding her completed lightsaber in her own two hands.
For a few stunned seconds she just sat there looking at it in her hands. The black metal handle with the deep rounded grooves, her fingers already fitting into the grooves like she'd had this saber in her hands forever. The water-beryl in the pommel caught a beam of the light from the window and blazed with sudden green fire. Both her hands fit on the grip with room to spare. The dial-switch and power switch recessed into the grip so she wouldn't inadvertantly bump them during a fight. This wasn't Kee's lightsaber. It wasn't Ben's. It was hers.
And it was her choice how she used it, too. And who she used it on.
[Well? Going to sit in there staring at it until dinner? Or are you going to come out here and show me?] Kee Sent softly, a gentle laugh in his mindvoice. She shook herself and went out to the main room.
Kee sat in one of the chairs now and gave her a lopsided smile as she came out of Ben's room. "Shouldn't we--I dunno, go out to one of the terraces or something? Aren't you afraid I'll slice something in half in here?"
"No. Just don't point it at me," he said mischievously.
Theri snorted a laugh, then took a deep breath and pushed the power button.
The familiar droning hum, and a blaze of bright yellow-orange extended from the grip, throwing off a red aura and orange afterimages in the air. The blade blazed like a solar flare. Theri's heart skipped a beat and her soul rocketted up in joy. She tore her eyes away from this beautiful fireflaw in her hands and looked over at Kee with wide shining eyes.
Kee's smile answered hers, and he Sent a swift caress. [Looks a bit too long. Click it down one notch.]
Theri did so, watching as the blade retracted about ten centimeters. Yes. That did it. The saber didn't seem to want to pull her hands down now. It was balanced now, her hands moved it as much as the saber moved her hands. It felt alive. It felt like lightning and plasma fire. It felt like the ragged edge of possibility and chance. It felt deadly dangerous.
[Well, I'll have no trouble following your blade in a fight,] Kee Sent. [No one will. It's brighter than mine. And yellow-orange isn't a color one sees a lot in lightsabers. Interesting. I wonder what color the orange-shadow beryls would make?]
[I don't care. This one's mine,] Theri answered. He chuckled at the possessiveness in her mindvoice. She was waving it a little in the air, feeling the way the blade moved, fascinated by the electric hum and the raw power of it, her eyes filled with the star-bright glow.
[Enough. Turn it off and come eat. We'll take a couple of Ben's remotes down to the saber cubes after lunch and see what you can do with it.] He nodded as she reluctantly thumbed the power off and watched the blade retract and disappear. [It looks wonderful, dearheart. You've done well in building it. Ben will be proud of you, I think. And you know he's wanted to practice with you since we brought you home with us on Tatooine.]
Theri nodded as she sat down next to him and started eating. [I thought Ben was supposed to teach me with the lightsaber, not you.]
Kee shrugged. [I won't be teaching you, I'll be watching you getting zapped. Besides, you already know what it feels like to have the Force move your body in a fight, you've figured it out already. Ben will be teaching you the formal lightsaber training, the sword-katas and the forms and all that. At this point in time, getting chased around the cube by a remote is a game and nothing more. Sometimes you can learn more by playing games than by the formal training, anyway.]
Theri nodded, remembering the hours she'd spent guessing which coin her old Master was holding, Sending lines then circles then triangles then squares and on up. She had certainly learned more than she suspected from those games of her Master's.
An hour later Theri was not so sure about playing with the remotes. Her left leg was starting to get the feeling back in it, and now it ached horribly. Her shoulders were numb now too, and she couldn't even feel her saber in her hand. Kee gave her a mischievous grin from outside the amber wall of the saber cube as he reached for the cube controller to open the door.
[You better make up for this in some creative ways,] she Sent in a growl to him.
[Why? One doesn't learn without pain of some sort. You'll just have to learn that you can't block stun charges with anything but your lightsaber. You move pretty quick in Soritsu-ji, but the lightsaber is a totally different way of moving.] The door in the cube wall opened and he came around behind her to take the still-activated saber from her numb hand and turned it off. He turned her toward him, flipped her long braid of hair back over her shoulder and kissed her forehead. [It's almost time for your Ethics class.]
She nodded and turned to go, reaching for her lightsaber in his hand, but he stopped her. She looked up at him inquiringly.
[I can't let you carry it around yet, dearheart, not til Ben comes back and starts your formal training. Don't worry. It'll be on the top shelf over my desk.]
Theri scowled a little at this. She'd wanted to wear it now that she had it. But rules were rules. She nodded up at him, disappointed. [Well, aside from being half-numb, it's a lot of fun.]
Kee gave her a hug with one arm as he deactivated the saber cube around them. [Wait 'til you and Ben start chasing each other around. You think Soritsu-ji is demanding, you've never seen Ben run around the cube for four hours straight. He'll run you into the ground.]
[Well, I only have to beat him once,] she Sent flippantly with a grin. Kee laughed and agreed.
Ben hooked one knee down into the open hatchway on top of Thumper's head and scanned with the macrobinoculars as Torin walked the mech up the hill four stories below. He leaned back against the hatch cover and tried to steady the macros, but gave it up after a moment. Too much movement. He'd never get a clear scan. He smiled faintly in amusement. Here he was riding on top of a mech's head like it was a bantha, and he was worried about getting a clear scan.
The endless sea of waving brown grass below them rippled in the strong steady wind, seedpods and lace-moths drifting around Thumper's shuffling gigantic feet in white clouds. The mech walked easily despite the damaged actuator in the left knee. Ben felt the Force infusing the metal beast, the flow of power from Torin to the mech and back again. Like the mech's fusion plant burned the Force as well as plutonium. The old mech moved fluidly, much more so than he'd expected any mech to move. He wondered if the Dervish's designers had ever thought their creation would move as gracefully as a human.
All around Thumper now stretched the plains far to the east of the mountains and the city where they'd been carrying on the fight for Teravin. The last jagged boulders from the mountains had passed below the horizon of grass several minutes ago. Now there was nothing but grass and clouds of bugs in all directions, endless, timeless. It reminded Ben of Tatooine, the way the winds would blow veils of sand across the dunes rippling like silk. Only this was a wash of walnut-brown grass drying out in Teravin's winter sunlight.
Thumper slowed and stopped, the mech's arms falling to it's sides and the noises of actuators moving and armor clanking going quiet. Below him in the cockpit, Torin pulled off the neurohelmet and unclipped the safety harness, pulled himself up out of the hatch to sit beside Ben. "I set the sensors to scan for other mechs or vehicles. Shosin just told me the other mechs are in the city as usual, but a fast speeder could make it here in fifteen minutes. And Thumper can only run so fast and jump so far."
Ben smiled and shook his head. "I can't believe how good you've gotten at driving this thing. I never thought I'd feel safe riding up here, but it's no more difficult than riding on a bantha's head."
Torin took a deep breath and smiled, nodding silently, looking out over the waving grasses of the plains, Teravin's blue-green sky, the stacks of clouds moving slowly eastward. He waved a hand out at the plains. "Think of it. Mechs walking on these plains, running, jumping. Whole lances of Wasps running in lines. I can see Atlases and Archers and Longbows walking these plains. I can see Shadowhawks and Phoenixhawks and Stingers. Like the old days again, back when mechs were state of the art in war machines. Back when war wasn't just starfighters. Back when war really meant dying, not just casualties and ships destroyed. Maybe people wouldn't want to fight anymore when they realize people really do get hurt and killed."
Ben looked away from his friend's glowing face and shining eyes. "You've decided, then?" he asked in a choked voice.
Torin shook his head. "No. Not yet. But I...Ben, I looked forward yesterday, you know, I...I Read my lightsaber. And I still don't know what to do. I just know that whichever way I decide there's going to be some times of things going good but then things will go bad. Very bad. Seri and I talked it over, I told her everything I Read. We've decided we'll decide together." Torin's sudden sheepish grin made Ben chuckle. "Sorry. I guess she has a mind of her own. Hell, I always thought it was you she wanted, not me."
Ben shrugged equably. "Don't worry about it. I think it's great, actually. Outside of Master Windu, she's the only person I can think of who could keep you out of trouble. And I have Theri."
Torin nodded. "And Master Kee doesn't mind?"
Ben smiled faintly. "Theri's from Thretketh, remember? They always have multiple mates. And Master Kee's glad it's turned out this way. I can't explain it, how it all worked out so well. There's no one else in the universe I'd be willing to share Theri with except Master Kee. We're her mates, she's our apprentice, Theri and I are his students and children." He looked out over the grass and felt the wind blowing his hair around, closing his eyes. "I've missed her practically every moment we've been here on Teravin. Probably Theri and I will end up being lifemates too, eventually. But it's going to take a while."
Torin nodded. "You're not going to get married?"
Ben shook his head. "No. No need to. Theri's people don't get married. And what could be more of a bond than lifemating?" He leaned back against the hatch cover and raked his hair out of his eyes. "Kind of strange, I know. But we're Jedi. We don't have to stick to the ways of our homeworlds. The only reason the Temple is on Coruscant is because that's where the Galactic Senate is. Otherwise, we'd be ship-gypsies. Jedi have no homeworld and we're a culture of our own. We can live whatever way we feel is right for us."
Torin's eyes went back out to the plains. "Could there be--I dunno, some way I could do both? Have Teravin and the mech factory and the academy, and still go out on assignments as a Jedi? We have our own starfighter squadrons. Could we have our own mech force too?" He stopped, and his eyes went unfocussed for a moment and he swayed where he sat. Ben reached over and grabbed him before he fell over, and as soon as he touched Torin's shoulder he Saw what Torin was Seeing. The Warhammer outside Thumper's viewports, fire, the blast of the Warhammer's particle cannons, trying to get out.
Ben let out a yell and came back to himself instantly. Torin was looking up at him and Ben felt his fear. Torin looked down and nodded.
[Three possible timelines, Ben. At least, for the immediate future here on Teravin. I'm going to fight that Warhammer, that's certain. And I'll either make it out alive in one piece, or I'll be burnt to a crisp but make it out, or the Warhammer will kill me. And from the way it feels...I've got less than three days til the fight. If I make it out, if I live, there's lots more stuff that's possible.] He tried to grin but couldn't, reaching over to bang on Thumper's hatchway lightly with one fist. [Well, that about takes the cake. I just Read old Thumper without meaning to. But it's the same thing as yesterday when I Read my lightsaber. I'll have both with me during the fight anyhow, so it wouldn't be that different.]
[We've got to call Master Windu and Master Kee about this,] Ben Sent desperately. [I'm not going to let you get into this kind of trouble! We know it's going to happen, we can avoid it! I'll have Shosin take you and Seri home tonight! The Justice is in orbit now, Shosin can have you there in an hour once you get back to the drop ship!]
Torin shook his head emphatically. [No! No, Ben. I want to do this. I have to do this. Who knows what might happen if I don't? If I don't fight that Warhammer, think of all the people that might die. If I don't fight that mech, those three nits may decide to go hunting the refugees, or they might go west to the herbal farms and start shooting stuff up, and you know that herbal stuff is the only treatment for Galagian's Syndrome. It's not just the people here on Teravin. It's all those other people who are sick with Galagian's. I'm a Jedi. I can't just let people die, I can't just turn away and not fight that Warhammer because I'm scared I'm going to die. What's one life, any life, compared to all that?]
Ben closed his eyes and tried to swallow down the lump in his throat, remembering long ago times, when Master Kee had first taken him as his apprentice, Master had said, "Do what you think you cannot do." He couldn't let Torin do this. But he had to. Torin was right. And here he'd been worried Torin would chase his own dreams and turn away from his responsibilities as a Jedi.
[Just promise me one thing, Ben. That if I don't make it out, you'll tell Master Windu that he has to convince Seri to let him train our daughter. That no matter what happens, he'll not let Seri keep my kid caged up here. That he'll make Seri let my kid make her own choices. I Read several different possibilities yesterday. And in one of them, Seri refused to let Master Windu train my daughter. That can't happen. Cori has to make her own choices, no matter what. And if Master Windu trains her, she'll be able to make those choices with full knowledge of what she's choosing.]
Ben felt like he'd taken a lightsaber stab in the guts, but he nodded.
They sat in silence then, the wind sweeping over the plains cold now. whistling through the various cables on Thumper's arms and torso. Ben pried his eyes open at last and looked over at Torin. [You come out of that fight alive and I swear to you, you'll have your mech factory and your academy if I have to build them with my own two hands.]
Torin chuckled and grinned. [Maybe. Seri and I haven't decided on that yet.] He straightened up then, pointed down below them. [There's something--someone--in the grass!]
Ben cursed in Tusken and jumped up, jerking his lightsaber off his belt and turning it on as Torin did the same, then they both stopped in surprise.
Figures began rising out of the grass now all around the mech, dozens of people, tall willowy humanoid forms. Teravans, Ben saw, but with darkly tanned olive-gold skin browned by generations of sun and wind. They wore brown leather clothing the same shades as the grass of the plains, fringed and decorated with wooden beads. White-blond hair mottled with dye into patterns of rings and spots and stripes. Some carried old blasters or stunners, and all had metal swords in brown leather scabbards strapped on their backs.
One of them stepped forward, holding up empty hands, calling out a warbling yell to the rest of his people. The blasters and stunners lowered instantly. It was an old man, his face wrinkled with years and weathering but clearly as strong and healthy as anyone twenty or thirty years younger. He pointed to the mech's torso and the Jedi triskele carved onto Thumper's missile hatch, calling out to his people briefly in their own language before looking up at the two young Jedi on the mech's head.
[I think these are the people we're supposed to meet,] Ben Sent to Torin. ['Lo said she'd Sent them an image of the triskele, so they'd know it was us.]
[Indeed, warriors, the voice granted me the vision of the three-pointed star as a sign this metal monster was friendly to us.] The old man nodded up to them. [We are the Viratyas. If you come to us in peace, we will meet you in peace. If you come to our lands in war, you will not leave them alive.]
Ben blinked at the threat and the feeling of absolute conviction backed up by experience in the old man's mindvoice. He and Torin turned off their lightsabers and began climbing down Thumper's ladder to meet the nomads below.
It took all Torin's skill as a mech pilot and almost fifteen minutes to get Thumper down flat on her face in the grass so that the Viratyas could cover the mech over with camoflage netting and grass. They worked amazingly swiftly and when they were done the mech looked like an irregular patch of boulders and grass. At least, from a distance. Certainly anyone scanning for metal structures or heat traces out on the plains would be able to find the mech instantly. But simple visual scanning with macrobinoculars would show nothing amiss.
"Well, how *do* you hide fifty-five tons of metal and myomer out on a flat featureless plain?" Torin muttered at one point as they scattered grass over the mech's legs.
"The same way you hide an Atlas behind a tree. You don't," Ben laughed back.
The old man Rao was the elder of this tribe of the Viratyas, the Rajai. The Viratya tribes wandered over Teravin's plains ceaselessly, it was said they never stayed in the same place more than two nights in a row. They owned nothing they could not carry on their backs. They lived by following and hunting among the herds of kirimana, a grass-eating animal that ran like the wind and stood as tall as an adult human at the shoulder. The Viratyas had wandered the plains of Teravin for thousands of years. They knew every square hectare intimately, knew the ways to find water and food among the endless sea of grass, knew where to find rocks to shelter in, knew the towns and settlements near the edges of the plains. They rarely came into contact with the townspeople of Teravin, preferring to live their lives isolated on the plains. Their only real contact with civilization was to deal with the townspeople for weaponry. And those meetings invariably were laced with tension due to the very nature of the transaction. Neither the Viratyas nor the townsfolk really knew anything about each other, so there was always fear and mistrust and misunderstanding.
The elder Rao came around the mech's shoulder, looking up at the massive metal beast with a bemused and worried expression on his face. "Even when it lays down it is bigger than anything in our land."
Torin grinned lopsidedly. "There's one almost twice as big in Zeanankh. I chase it around every night."
Rao shook his head in faint disbelief. "We may not be of the towns, but we are aware of such things. That is why I called your Dreamspeaker. We have found something out in our land, to the south and east."
Ben and Torin glanced at each other for a moment. "What have you found, sir?" Ben asked.
The elder shrugged. "I am not certain. For one, the flying machines, the...starfighters? I think that's what they're called. We have found three hands of those, left out on the plains. They cannot be seen until you are almost touching them, but they are there. And three nights ago one of the larger ships came over our camp. One of my sons saw it dropping boxes out near the ships left on the plains."
Torin cursed in Ramosian while Ben banged his fist against Thumper's armor plating.
"Shielded ships, elder," Ben explained to Rao. "Those fighters you found are cloaked, shielded. That's why you can't see them until you're almost close enough to touch them. Did any of your people open the boxes?"
The old man shook his head. "Not yet. We know there could be dangerous things inside. We have been aware of the fighting in the city. We had hoped such would not touch the Rajai or any other of the tribes, but that is not to be."
Ben leaned back against Thumper's armor for a moment, trying to think. "Okay. Cloaked ships parked out here on the plains. Rao, did your people see the ships land, the smaller ships?"
Rao shook his head, the wooden beads in his hair clicking softly. "No. We have been in the north for the last few weeks, just came south a few days ago. And we are the only tribe in this part of the plains. We've been away from this area since before the fighting started."
"So we don't know how long they've been here," Torin said. "Could be weeks, even before we got here to Teravin."
Ben nodded. "And the boxes. Could be supplies, could be ammunition, could be fuel. Could be missiles for the mechs. For that matter, they could be bombs or chemical warfare agents or biologicals or mutagenics. Your people were wise not to open the boxes, Rao."
The elder nodded acknowledgement. "We will take you there. It is not far."
Ben punched Torin on the arm lightly. "I'd better call the Justice and have them relay for me to the Temple."
"But we don't know what those boxes are yet," Torin said with a shrug. "For all we know it may just be food or medicine."
Ben quirked an eyebrow at him. "You and the militia have been destroying mechs right and left. Do you honestly think it's food or medicine? Especially with a squad of starfighters sitting out there ready to fly?"
Torin chuckled.
Kee groaned, tightened his arms around Theri and turned his face further into the cloud of green-streaked black hair, trying to escape from R2-D2's excited whistles and chirps. The little droid rolled into their bedroom, bumping the door open and beeping a storm at them.
Theri whimpered, freed one arm from under her head, caught up one of the stray pillows and flung it at R2 irritably. Fortunately it missed. "R2! Can't it wait til daylight?"
The little blue and white droid rocked from one leg to the other, letting out a long stream of beeps and whistles in explanation.
Theri raked her hair out of her eyes, turned in Kee's arms, suddenly awake. "Operations? Kee, wake up! They need you up in Operations! It's a message from Ben!"
Kee was awake now, blinking at the droid sleepily as R2 turned, rolled over to the desk, and began sending information to the viewscreen there via infrared. The screen came to life and printed out the same message Theri had just told him. Kee blinked again and looked at Theri questioningly. "You can understand R2? When did that happen?"
Theri blushed. "When I went into the Force. When I came back, I could understand him."
R2 chirped contentedly at this.
Kee shook his head and pushed her back down gently onto the bed, kissed her neck then her lips. "You go back to sleep. I don't know how long I'll be."
She curled up under the blankets again, watching him get dressed in the dimness of the night, the only light from the ships and buildings outside. [I wonder what's happened. It's not time for his usual report, is it?]
[No. But I'll know soon enough,] Kee Sent as he tied back his hair. He took his lightsaber from the bedside table and leaned down to kiss her again, then grabbed his cloak from the hook in the closet and she heard the apartment door close behind him.
Windu nodded to Kee as the turbolift door opened on Level 45, and they fell into step together as they headed for the double doors at the end of the short hallway. [What's the word?] Kee Sent to his old partner.
Windu shook his head. [I don't know, Yoda didn't say when he called me.]
They put their hands to the palmscanners at the door and the doors slid open silently onto Operations.
This high level of the Temple was comparatively small and low-ceilinged. Three of the four sides of the huge room were leaded and shielded vitriglass. The fourth wall was panelled in viewscreens. Holoprojectors displayed maps and system diagrams and star charts. Computers constantly sifted information gathered from satellites and droids and scout ships. A large holoprojector in front of the wall of viewscreens displayed a galactic map, the flattened spheroid shape of the known galaxy, each bright white dot a star. A third of those white dots were accompanied by blue dots, indicating the known presence of Jedi. Far fewer but causing trouble disproportionate to their numbers were the red dots indicating the Sith. Outnumbering both together were the purple dots of invasions, civil wars, those planets fighting for their freedom from repressive rulers, planets that maintained slave populations, planetary disasters. The Great Temple maintained a galactic monitoring network that rivalled that of the Galactic Senate for detail and accuracy of information.
Windu and Kee headed for the conference room door beside the wall of screens, found Mundi and Yensho waiting there already. Kee and Windu nodded to them as they sat down. Kee turned in his chair to look out the window behind him, concentrated on his breathing for a moment to still the nervousness and worry, reached gently to touch Theri's sleeping mind. But she slept lightly with worry and he felt her waken at the touch of his mind.
[What's happened to Ben?] she Sent sleepily.
[I don't know yet, beloved. Sleep now.] He smiled faintly, Sending a caress as the door opened behind him again and he turned to see Yaddle and Yoda hobbling into the room. Yoda climbed up onto his usual chair wearily as Yaddle hopped up into her chair next to Yensho. [Are you all right, Master?] Kee Sent worriedly, seeing Yoda wince briefly as he settled into his chair.
Yoda glanced at him briefly. [When eight-hundred thirty-five years you reach, sleep is a precious thing.]
Kee grinned. [When I am eight-hundred thirty-five, I will not be half as strong as you are, Master.]
Yoda's brief answering grin then turned somber. [You will not live to be so old, my son.]
Kee nodded silently.
Yoda waved a hand at Kee to begin the hologram message and they all straightened up as the holoprojector in the table began to send out the lines of light that converged into the now-familiar image of Ben Kenobi sitting in the pilot's chair of the Dervish mechanoid. But this time the link was real-time and two-way, relayed and boosted by the Justice in orbit around Teravin.
Ben was strapped into the mech's safety harness and had his feet jacked up against the console in front of him. He nodded to them as the transmission began. "Master Yoda, Master Kee. I think the situation has gotten worse. One of the nomad tribes here on Teravin, the Rajai, they've found fifteen starfighters parked out here on the plains under cloaking fields. And three days ago they say they saw another ship airdrop several dozen boxes near the starfighter squad."
"How long have those fighters been there?" Windu said.
Ben shrugged. "We don't know for certain, Master Windu. It could be several weeks. The Rajai are true nomads, they never spend more than a night or two in one spot. Their elder, Rao, tells me that they haven't been in this part of the plains for several weeks, since before the fighting started. They just returned here a few days ago and found the ships and saw the airdrop. We don't yet know what's in the boxes for certain, the Rajai are taking us to the starfighter squad in a few minutes."
"Who's 'us', Ben?" Kee asked.
Ben smiled at him briefly, and Kee nodded. "Torin and me, Master. Where Thumper goes, Torin goes. But we're not taking Thumper on this. Thirty-foot wide footprints pounded into the grass are kind of hard to hide. The Rajai are taking us on foot. We're leaving Thumper here under camoflage nets and grass. That's why I'm sitting this way, with the harness on and my feet up on the console. Thumper's face down on the ground right now, buried under the nets and grass."
"Where are the others?" Mundi asked quietly.
Ben looked down briefly, then back up at the camera. "They're back at our camp, Master Mundi, with our refugee militia. Torin and I came out here alone with Thumper."
Kee sat back in his chair, pulled his cloak around him. "Ben," he said warningly. "Spill it. What have you been hiding from us?"
Ben looked away, squirmed a little. Then he sighed and looked back up at the holocamera. "Serala is pregnant. Torin is the father."
"What?" Mundi and Windu said simultaneously.
Ben scowled at the camera. "Seri is pregnant. Torin is the father. We figure it happened about two days after we got here, so she's seven weeks or so."
Kee caught himself trying to Send to Ben automatically and squashed it back down. It was a hologram, Ben was lightyears away. "Are you certain it's not you who's the father?" Kee asked.
Ben nodded emphatically, then looked over his head at something out of camera range and looked even guiltier. Torin's face poked into the camera range upside-down. "Uh, hi, Master, did we wake you up?"
"You're a dead man, Ghanbari," Windu growled at him.
"Heh. Right. Uhm. Well. I'll let Ben get on with his report," Torin said and vanished.
Ben slumped. "Great. Now everyone's going to be mad at me." He shook his head and looked back up at the camera. "Anyway. Yes, Seri is pregnant. But I've been really careful about letting her go out to fight with the militia. I thought about having Shosin take her and Torin up to the Justice , but we know the Falcons have at least two of their original starfighter group left here, and now these fifteen out on the plains. And our dropship is damaged anyway. So unless Master Koon wants to come down here with another dropship and a squadron for escort, we're stuck down here until we win." Ben paused, looked up over his head again, then reached up to haul the hatchway closed and lock it. He reached forward and flipped a switch on the console and an interior light came on in the cockpit. "But there are other considerations too. Torin used his precognition on his lightsaber yesterday, and he says that sometime in the next three days he's going to fight that Warhammer. And he says there's three possibilities, he'll either come out of it alive, or badly injured, or he'll die. But he's not going to run from the fight even now that he knows there's a very good chance he'll die."
Windu looked like someone had stabbed him through the heart.
Ben shrugged helplessly. "He says there are too many people who might die if those other three mechs continue to run around Teravin killing people. And if they go out to the herbal farms and start destroying things, how many people could die who have Galagian's Syndrome?" Ben shook his head sadly. "And I can't argue with him about that. He's right."
Kee almost heard the thought going through his apprentice's mind, I'm about to lose my best friend and I can't do anything to stop it. He clenched his fists in the concealment of his cloak and closed his eyes.
[Obi-Wan is strong,] Yoda's mindvoice said gently. [And Torin. Always in motion is the future.]
Kee nodded and opened his eyes again.
"Anyway. What should I do, Master Yoda?" Ben said slowly, bleakly.
Yoda sighed heavily and sat back in his chair, thinking. "Little Serala. She is healthy?"
"Yes, Master Yoda. She hasn't started throwing up or anything yet," Ben said with a shrug. "She gets kind of snappish at me if I don't let her go out with the droid squads at night, though."
Mundi chuckled at this. "She would wish to complete the mission. Serala detests leaving anything assigned to her unfinished."
Yoda nodded and Kee sensed his Master was looking forward himself into the cloudly future, looking for clues.
"Ben, climb out and get Torin in to talk to us," Windu said. "I want details, everything he Read from his lightsaber."
Ben swallowed and nodded and began to unclip the safety harness. "I'll get him, sir, but you know he doesn't really like to talk about the stuff he Sees."
"He'll learn to like it," Windu snapped and glanced around at the other Masters.
Kee nodded toward the door, [The other conference room. More private. He might tell you more if he doesn't have an audience.]
Windu got to his feet and headed out the door as Ben climbed out of Thumper's cockpit awkwardly.
Mace Windu and Qui-Gon Jinn were almost carbon copies of their apprentices as far as personalities went, but in mirror image. When they had been newly-confirmed, it had been Kee who was the jokester and Windu who was the serious, ambitious one. Windu had always known he wanted to be an Intelligence specialist. Kee had been happy just to drift through life like some sort of Jedi dandelion seed, letting the Force lead him around on some grand cosmic ride. For them, the transforming crisis had been Thretketh. Kee had come very very close to going over to the Dark, and Windu could do nothing but watch and stand by his lifelong friend. The experience had changed Kee in some soul-wrenching ways, making him question everything he believed about himself and about the Force. For Windu, it had done the same. And while Kee found his way to the will to fight the Dark, Windu had lost his will to get involved at all. He'd become cynical, bitter, and for a long time had kept to the cold, abstract world of Operations and Intelligence. It was easy to pretend to care when all you dealt with were statistics and scout reports.
Until twenty years ago, when Yoda had sent him on a diplomatic mission to Ramos to negotiate a settlement in a territory argument that could well have become a war between Ramos and Voravia.
The Ramosian government officially frowned on the podraces, but they didn't try very hard to stop them. Windu had spent an idle afternoon wandering through the ranks of home-built pods and scavenged starfighter engines...until he'd felt a twist in the Force so strong it gave him a headache. He'd traced the pull to the Finish line of the race course and the small, stocky, brown-eyed boy who stood in a trance with one grubby hand on the Finish line marker post.
The Ghanbari family didn't want to give up the boy, of course. Especially not to a Jedi. They had a sure bet here with one of the family who could see into the future, they'd make millions! Trying to appeal to their sense of moral duty had absolutely no effect. The Ghanbaris had no sense of moral duty to anyone outside the family. And even within the family things could sometimes get a little questionable when someone crossed someone else, or when large amounts of cash were involved.
But Torin, as usual, was simply a law unto himself. "Can you get rid of this power I got, so I don't see into the future no more?" he'd asked in the deplorable Ramosian pidgin-Standard.
"No. But I can teach you how to control it and how to use it to help others."
The knowing, measuring look in the boy's eyes had surprised him. If he had expected innocence from this boy, he was never going to see it. Torin Ghanbari, even at the age of eight years, had seen more executions and torture than many hardened criminals saw in a lifetime. Compassion and empathy were unknown to the gangster families of Ramos. But Torin had grabbed hold of Windu's lightsaber and gone into trance, and when he'd come out of it he'd looked up at the Jedi with absolute conviction in his eyes. "I got to go with you. When I get big, I'm to be a Jedi. I See you and me play-fighting with the lazerswords, and a great big ring made out of metal hanging up high."
Two weeks later, Torin had stood looking up at the bell in the dome of the Great Hall at the Temple and pointed to it with a yell. "That's the one! That's the big metal ring I saw!"
And Windu had found in this streetwise little boy a reason to get involved again.
Windu sighed, remembering that moment twenty years ago when he'd brought Torin home. It all seemed a blur now, like some long bright summer, not twenty years.
He keyed the doorpanel of the tiny conference room to lock the door, then turned to the holoprojector in the table and patched into the transmission from Teravin.
The hologram sprang to life, resolved into the image of Torin Ghanbari strapped into his pilot's chair with his feet jacked up on the console, his eyes distant and his face shadowed. They sat looking at each other silently for almost half a minute.
"Tell me," Windu said at last. "Everything."
Torin took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and started talking.
Kee slid into bed beside Theri and gathered her into his arms, sighing wearily as he curled up around her. She woke up instantly and wriggled back against him.
"Watch it, you," he said softly in her ear. "Or I'll have my evil way with you."
She laughed and rolled over to kiss him. [Do I have to beg?]
Kee chuckled and pulled her over on top of him as he rolled over. [Ben's all right. But things have gotten somewhat more dangerous for them. And Torin may not be coming home.] He ran one hand through her green and silver streak of hair in the faint dawn light, twining it around his hand as she started tugging at his belt trying to get him undressed. [And Serala is pregnant.]
Theri jerked up at this to look down at him. [Seri?! Pregnant?!]
[And Torin is the father,] Kee Sent with a twist of amusement in his mindvoice.
Theri blinked. [Not Ben?]
[No. Not Ben. Thank the Force,] Kee Sent, quirking one eyebrow up at her. [It's a difficult situation, dearheart, and I can't tell you anything else. Sorry. But they're all still stuck on Teravin for a while. But that may change in a few days.]
Theri stopped for a moment, then rolled off of him to snuggle close. [Oh. I forgot. Seri's a normal human. She's been able to have kids for a long time.]
Kee nodded and ran a hand down her back in a caress. [Uh-huh. Thretketh live to be about twice as old as normal humans, so the stages of your lives are twice as long too. In normal human years, you're about the equivalent of a thirteen-year-old. In Thretketh years, Seri would be about fifty-four. Think back. How old was your Ama when she had Dalryn?]
Theri tried to remember--[Uhm. Forty-eight, I think. Ama had me when she was fifty-seven.]
[There, see?] Kee asked, yawning. [So if Seri would be about fifty-four in Thretketh years, it's not unusual, is it?]
Theri shook her head. [No. I guess not.]
They were silent then, snuggled together watching the dawnlight brightening outside the windows, watching the solar arrays on nearby rooftops turning slowly to catch the first rays of Coruscant Alpha when it burst over the horizon. Just before the first lancing orange rays appeared the windows darkened automatically to tame the glare so that the room would remain in shadow.
Kee sighed and ran a hand through her hair. [I guess it's kind of stupid to go back to sleep now that it's time to get up anyway.]
Theri shrugged slightly. [What are we going to do for first bell today?]
She felt his amusement. [I was planning to make you run laps around the training level. Endurance training.]
Theri snorted a laugh and goosed him in the ribs. [Endurance training? I'm not the one who falls asleep--]
She would have finished the thought, but he growled and started tickling her, and she was soon too busy just trying to breathe through her laughter to tease him any more.
[Endurance training,] Kee Sent again at last when he finally stopped tickling her long enough to let her breathe. [Get dressed, minx. Your Soritsu-ji uniform.]
Theri nodded, kissed him for a long moment, then slid out of bed with a sigh. When Kee was in teaching mode there as no arguing with him or distracting him. She could tell now when he was diverting her and redirecting her when what she wanted to do didn't coincide with his teaching intentions. He'd cuddled her and told her what was going on with Ben and Torin and Seri, but started tickling her when she would have started making love to him. It was frustrating because it happened far too often, at least from her point of view. Once a night was not enough. She had to be honest with herself, as usual in the Way. At least half of her wistful longing for Ben was lust. Though she suspected Kee had probably told Ben not to let her rape him more than once a night too.
[Very true, dearheart,] Kee Sent, hearing these thoughts. [I made Ben promise me he wouldn't let you have your way with him more than twice a week.]
Theri scowled at herself in the mirror as she combed out her hair, separating her green and silver streak and beginning to braid it. [But why? I'm Thretketh. It's not like I'm going to get tired out. I could have you both all night and it wouldn't tire me out. Especially if I go into trance like I used to do on Korolis. I'd only need three hours sleep a night if I did that.]
Kee smiled at her in the mirror as he came up behind her, gathered up the rest of her hair and started brushing it out. [It's not just physical energy you use when we're making love, beloved. It's psi-energy and emotional energy too. Training to be a Jedi or a Mystic requires a lot of mental energy as well as physical energy. You're using up more than you think when we're making love. I'm very well aware you could have half a dozen lovers every night and not get worn out. I'm very well aware you want me more than I'm letting you have me. And Ben too. But you have to learn to control it. When you can control it, all that energy can be put to better use than if you just flung it about whenever the need moves you.] He divided up her hair and started braiding it for her as she tied the end of her braided green streak with a clutch-bead. [Think about it. What are the most effective ways to move in Soritsu-ji?]
That jerked her mind sideways and she had to think a minute. [When you use your opponent's attack against him.]
Kee nodded. [Because you've taken in the energy your opponent put into attacking you and putting it under your control. You're using the opponent's energy against him.]
Theri stood there thinking while he tied off the end of her braid with a bit of string and pulled her back against him in a hug. [That sounds like something Inda said last time I heard him,] she Sent slowly. She looked down again and shrugged. [It's been two weeks since I've heard him. He's mad at me. He said if I don't learn to control the lust when I'm around Maul I'm going to wake up one morning with Maul raping me. Inda says sex is my weakness, and that I have to learn to deal with it so that it turns into a strength. But I haven't been able to figure out how to do it yet.]
Kee nodded. [It's the same thing, dearheart. Inda will speak to you again, don't worry. You know he talks to Master Yoda too. But you have to do all this yourself, you know. Inda can't do it for you. Nor can I.] He tightened his arms around her and let his soul join with hers for a moment. [And I will always love you. Forever together beyond time. But that bond is far more than simply sleeping together.]
[I know that!] she Sent indignantly. [It's just--difficult.]
Kee laughed and kissed her hair. [Now that's the understatement of the year, beloved! Come on, now. Let's go.]
Theri skidded around the corner on the second floor of the Temple toward her new class, praying fifth bell wouldn't sound until she got into the room. She glanced up at the patterns of dots at each door she passed, where was two-two-five?! Finally she saw it, and of course it was the last one on that level! She slid into the open doorway just as the great bell began ringing for fifth bell, and dived down into the first empty chair she saw.
A laugh from the front of the room, and she looked up while she wormed one hand into her pack for her textreader.
"You must be Theri bel Kaitryn, the new student. I can't imagine why anyone would be rushing to get to this class elseways."
Theri felt her heart give a convulsive jump as she looked up at the young Jedi Knight leaning casually against the edge of the table at the front of the room. He was slim, wiry, graceful with the easy fluidity of a born swordsman. He wore a cloud-white Jedi uniform with silver edging the tunic and vest. Long wavy black hair fell past his waist, some of it in thin braids. The face was triangular, thin, with a pair of almost mesmerizing silvery-blue eyes dancing at the moment with laughter. He had his arms crossed on his chest and a rueful expression on his face. A black-metal and silver lightsaber hung on his belt. He reminded Theri so strongly of Inda that she had to squash down the inevitable thought that Inda had somehow managed to acquire his body again. The Jedi came forward holding out a hand in greeting to her, and she put up a hand to touch his tentatively.
"I'm Kylan Hellstorm," he said with a one-sided grin. "Welcome to the most boring class in the Temple, Religious Symbolism."
Theri grinned back at him. "I thought Ethics and Philosophy was the most boring class."
"Only if you've never heard Kylan's lecture on the symbolic and cultural significance of mountains and rivers," groaned another trainee a few chairs away, a Corellian girl with short reddish hair.
The Jedi Knight chuckled. "How many times have you sat through that one now, Tas? Half a dozen?"
The Corellian girl rolled her eyes. "Four times, clown. I keep hoping I can get through all of it without falling asleep, but I haven't managed it yet." The girl turned to Theri and smiled. "I'm Taslimi Choi. I've seen you before, with Master Qualara, but I haven't gotten the chance to say hello."
A Wookie sat near the girl, a young one from the look of him, easily six feet tall, with black and golden fur and contented, smiling green-yellow eyes. He held up a huge furry hand and waggled his fingers at Theri, and she felt a mindtouch reach out from the Wookie hesitantly. [Rhyonluppa, my name is. Of Kashyyyk. Mistress Goza is my teacher.]
[Hello, Rhyonluppa. I am Theri bel Kaitryn of Thretketh. My Master is Master Qui-Gon Jinn,] Theri answered the same way. [I can see where you would have trouble talking to us if you could not Send. Wookie-tongue is hard to learn and harder to speak for humans.]
The Wookie youngster chuffled a laugh at her and Taslimi grinned and reached over to ruffle his furry head affectionately. "Rhyon and I are both apprentices of Mistress Goza, actually. He needs someone to help him keep his fur from taking over our room when he sheds!"
The young Wookie gave a rough bark at this and reached over to poke the girl's arm with a furry hand. [Fur good on field-trial trips! Went to Hoth! Was only one warm! Tas shivers, Tas complains, Tas sneaks into blanket at night, 'Oh Rhyon, keep me warm!']
Taslimi snorted. "Next time we go home to Kashyyyk, I'm telling your family you wanted to get your fur dyed orange and blue."
"Be that as it may," Kylan said, breaking in as if he had to do so all the time, "We have a class to begin. Since we have only three students so far, we can be as informal as we like, but I'd prefer it if we could actually get some work done. So. Yes, this is Religious Symbolism. It's a subject that covers philosophies and religions and cults throughout the Republic, and if I can manage it outside the bounds of the Republic as well. It combines Cultural Anthropology, psychology, mythology, philosophy, geography, sociology, and even mathematics and physics. Everything that can be named is a symbol. Words are simply verbal symbols for the thing they're referring to. And the thing itself is only a symbol for the energies and forces that make that thing possible, and ultimately back to the Force itself. I believe that if you can learn a culture's symbolism, you can understand that culture. And understanding the culture of a given planet or species can go a long, long way toward bringing them to peaceful resolution of conflict. And that, after all, is what the Jedi are all about." Kylan turned and picked up an object from the table he'd been leaning against and handed it to Theri. "For instance, do you know what this is?"
Theri looked down at the square of metal he had given her, the dizzying series of interlocked triangles intersecting like echoes or ripples in a pond. It was familiar--"It's a representation of the energy of the true Force refracting through time into the manifestation of the universe," she said with a faint smile.
Kylan lost his casualness at this, straightened up with a jerk to look at her with disbelieving surprise in his eyes. "How did you know that?"
Theri shrugged. "I'm not really a Jedi trainee. I'm the last of an exiled sect of the Jedi called the Mystics. My old Master Therasslen had this symbol in one of our teachings--"
"A Mystic! You have teachings? Where?!" Kylan said desperately, "I thought all the Mystics were dead, that the teachings were lost, I've been to Cae-Tauvon and the old Temple there is in ruins, nothing left! I've been tracing the Mystics for years!"
Theri looked up at him for a long moment, the desperate longing in the silvery-blue eyes, the hunger for knowledge.
--And something chimed in the spiral of the Force in her soul, a feeling of a piece snapping into place in a puzzle, a corner of the pattern that had been neatly tied off now a starting point for a pattern--
Theri handed him back the small symbol-disk silently and Sent on a very narrow line only to him. [Yes, I'm the last of the Mystics. I have what teachings have survived on about two hundred old textreader cards which are being translated and recovered by the Temple translator-computers. My old Master died before I could finish my training. But if you'll help me, I will teach you everything I know and help you to find the rest. And if we have to, to re-invent what is needed. I would be honored to teach you my Way. But I warn you. It is by no means an easy Way to walk. In many ways it is a more difficult path than that of the Jedi.]
[I don't care,] Kylan Sent back to her narrowly. [It's the only true way to walk in the Force. I've been certain of that from the moment I read the first fragment of the Book of the Force I ever found. Teach me what you know. I must know before I die what the Force truly is beyond the Light and Dark. I have to know. Even if it takes the rest of my life.]
Taslimi and Rhyonluppa looked from one to the other of them questioningly, feeling they were Sending but unable to hear it as the two had shielded them out. After a moment both Theri and Kylan broke out of their Sending and grinned at the Wookie and the girl.
"Well," Kylan said with another grin. "This is one of those moments when you realize you've just found a fire-opal in a box full of citrines."
Taslimi looked at Theri with some amazement. "You're really one of these Mystic Jedi that Kylan's been chasing all these years? You're kidding! You're all supposed to be dead!" Beside her, Rhyonluppa whuffled a little in agreement.
Theri shrugged a little. "Well, we are all dead, except for me. My old Master was the only fully-trained Mystic master left when he mindcalled Master Kee to come take me away. Mystics have always been a target for the Sith. The Demons want us for all the tricks we can do, our greater mindpowers, things like that. And the...the Corrupted, the Jedi, usually if the Jedi come looking for us they'll learn for a while then it's like they can only accept so much of our teachings before they start rejecting it violently. It's not an easy way to live. It's downright unpleasant at times. But there's no greater way to live." She gestured up at Kylan helplessly. "You're the first Jedi outside of Master Yoda who even knew what a Mystic was, much less had a symbol-disk of the Sra Yandra. Or knew about our Temple on Cae-Tauvon or any of it."
Taslimi and Kylan both snorted at this. "He's been digging through the Archives and down in the Sublevels since before he confirmed!"
Kylan nodded with a sheepish grin. "I've been assigned to the diplomatic corps since I confirmed, five years now, and in between assignments I teach this Religious Symbolism class and sometimes Cultural Anthro or Sociology. This whole area is my passion in life. And trying to find out about the Mystics has been one of the great mysteries I wanted to solve."
[It's more than that, I hope,] Theri Sent quickly. [The Way is nothing to try to do part-time.]
[I'm toning it down for Tas and Rhyon. Don't worry, I'm ready to commit to this Way of yours here and now. But I'm keeping in mind what happed to Sowelu Inda and his people. I don't want that to happen again anymore than you would.]
Theri Sent her wholehearted agreement.
"Gods!" Kylan said five hours later, leaning back in his chair to look up at the sunsplitter sculpture above the waterfall on the first floor of the Temple. "Six years running from the Sith! With a frail old man to take care of, too!"
Theri shrugged equably. "Well, it was no day at the podraces, I'll grant you that. But I still learned the Way. A tribute to my old Master's abilities as a teacher, I'd say."
Kylan nodded emphatically. "He must have been truly formidable in his younger days to have survived as he did for so long. I've been assigned to negotiate in situations where the Sith have been escalating the violence, playing the sides off against each other, selling them weapons and ammunition. I've had to fight a few of them when they were trying to eliminate the children who were the heirs of kings and queens the Sith had already managed to kill. They're utterly ruthless and heartless."
Theri nodded. "Yeah. You could say that. Sneaky too, some of them." She didn't allow even the image of Maul's red and black gargoyle's face to cross her mind. She was acutely aware suddenly of the lightsaber crystal on the cord around her neck, the stone and auralanium warm against her chest. "Tell me about those symbols you found on Cae-Tauvon again! They sould like the pictograph forms of something I read in one of the teachings we've just got back from the translator!"
Kylan pulled out a graphicspad from the pile of textreaders he carried in an old leather satchel, turned it on and flipped through the images recorded on the reader's optical storage disk. "These were superimposed on a rough humanoid figure, down the vertical axis of the body. I couldn't get close enough to make out some of the details." He handed her the graphicspad and started digging through his satchel again for something else.
Theri couldn't escape the feeling she'd seen this somewhere before, or heard of it from her old Master or something. Seven symbols on various places on the body--it was so familiar! The tree of life! That's what it was! The symbols were the stages of the tree of life, and each corresponded to certain spots on the body that were symbolically indicative of the levels of consciousness! She touched the spiral of the Force in her soul and the answering rush of rightness she felt confirmed this. Yes. Like she'd told Maul in the cave on Thretketh, there were seven levels of consciousness, and the ideal was to get to the top then come back down to live at the dragon-point, the point where the spiritual self and the physical self melded into one whole.
She felt Kee's mindtouch before he came into view far down the hallway past the meditation rooms. [Beloved? Why haven't you come home?]
[Because I've found my first Mystic student,] Theri Sent back, her mindvoice wobbly with excitement and disbelief and a shining happiness. [I'm not alone anymore! He's been digging for the Mystics in the Archives and the Sublevels and following Inda's trail for years, since before he confirmed!]
She felt Kee's amazement at this, and faint worry. So it's begun, he thought, carefully keeping it from crossing over to her mind. She can't pretend anymore to be a Jedi. [Who is it, dearheart?]
Theri smiled up at him as he wove through the knots of Jedi and trainees talking and laughing below the waterfall's bubbling terraces. [Oops, sorry. Feels like I've known him forever and it's only been...]
[Five hours,] Kee surmised. [You should have been home three hours ago.]
"Kylan, this is my Master, Qui-Gon Jinn--" Theri began, but Kylan was already standing up to clasp forearms with Kee.
"Master Jinn! Good to see you again, sir!" Kylan was saying.
"Hellstorm? It's you who's been monopolizing my lifemate's time tonight?" Kee laughed. "She's bad about forgetting to eat and sleep, gets involved in something and you have to pry her away from it."
Kylan laughed too and glanced down at Theri with a smile. "Lifemates? You finally found someone, Master Kee? And it's Theri?"
Kee smiled and settled onto the edge of the wall surrounding the waterfall next to Theri. "Indeed, yes, we've been together five months now. You hadn't told him, beloved?"
Theri shook her head. "I thought you wanted it kept secret."
[Never!] Kee Sent instantly. [If I could I'd have it engraved on the walls of the Great Hall so everyone would know.]
[I know that, silly,] she Sent, squeezing his hand as he pulled her up from her chair to hug her. He turned her around to face Kylan again and settled her back against him with his arms around her. "Kee's right, though, we forgot to look at the time!"
Kylan glanced around, noticing the usual crowd of Jedi and trainees around the fountain and in the nearby hallways had thinned. "Yes, it seems I tend to do that when I'm involved in looking for the Way."
Theri yawned then and Kee smiled, kissed her hair. "Yeah, time to go home. See you tomorrow?"
"Fifth bell," Kylan said, tossing his hair back over his shoulders and shoving his textreaders and graphicspad into his satchel. Kee picked up Theri's pack and they walked hand in hand toward the hallway and the lifts.
Kee sensed the whirling thoughts and rushing excitement in her mind, the nervousness and wonder. And above all, the overwhelming sense of relief. She wasn't alone anymore. But at the same time, she had a new and frightening responsibility. She had to be a teacher now. And she didn't know where to start. Kee watched her worriedly, wondered if he should intervene and tell Hellstorm not to come to Theri looking for teaching. She was far too young for this, she was not settled sufficiently in her Way to be able to teach others yet. She needed time to consolidate things for herself before she had the responsibilities of a teacher. And she still had so much to learn herself.
Theri came back to herself to punch in the code at their apartment door, let Kee give her a push toward one of the chairs in the main room, tossing her pack onto the floor next to her. He tugged off his cloak and tossed it over the back of the chair, then went to get her something to eat, returning a moment later with a large bowl full of gumpta berry bread and another of Thretkethan lixee nuts. When she just sat there looking at the food blankly he sighed and began popping lixee nuts into her mouth himself.
[Eat, silly. The world isn't going to stop just because you have a student now. It didn't stop for Maul, it won't stop for Kylan,] Kee Sent in admonishment. Theri grinned faintly and started paying attention again, reaching for the gumpta bread.
[How long have you known Kylan?] she asked as he sat back nibbling on a chunk of the gumpta bread.
[Oh, I don't know. Probably about seven or eight years. His Master was one of those reclusive types. They lived on Aldhara for most of his training, but his Master was killed by Darth Izar and he was brought back here to the Temple. He didn't have a Master for the last two years of his training, we all sort of pitched in when we could. He fought me for his second confirmation fight. He's always seemed a strange sort, not quite all there if you take my meaning.] Kee quirked one eyebrow at her in amusement. [I have a feeling you're going to be collecting strays and strange sorts for your students, dearheart.]
She nodded and leaned back against him. [I don't know what to think. I don't know what to do. Inda told me once that he felt the Force had brought his first student to him. I think I feel that way too. I mean, here I am, my Anthro class ends just as Kylan is coming back from Yon-Tyo, and for some odd reason he just happens to have been tracing the Mystics for the last ten years. That just seems like too much coincidence for me. Surely there are other Jedi who could teach the Religious Symbolism class!]
[Certainly. Maybe you're right about that, beloved. Maybe it is the will of the Force.] But it doesn't make it right in my mind, Kee continued to himself.
Theri sighed and crunched another lixee nut as he handed her a glass of tsala juice. [You're not really happy this has happened, are you?] she Sent reluctantly.
[To be honest, no, I'm not. You already have a full slate of classes and you haven't finished your training. Ben hasn't come home yet and you haven't even started training with your lightsaber. You don't have time for this, nor do you have the life experience to be a good teacher. That doesn't mean you're not capable of it!] Kee held up a hand as she started to protest. [For myself, I think you'll make a very good teacher when the time comes for it. But if it were up to me, you wouldn't even be considered ready to teach for at least another ten years. At least not until after you're done with your own training!]
Theri slumped against him, and he felt her sudden dejection that this really wasn't going to work out. [What should I do then?] she Sent softly. The defeat in her mindvoice tore at him.
[We'll talk to Yoda about it tomorrow,] Kee promised. [Maybe he can nag Inda into speaking to you again. You need Inda's counsel on this. Surely the old goat will see that.]
She nodded absently. Her appetite for dinner had vanished completely, but she kept eating anyway. She needed the food for fuel if nothing else.
Kee carefully kept his thoughts and feelings to himself, but the murky grayness of her mind was heartbreaking. Inda not speaking to her, Ben gone on Teravin, and now this dazzling new prospect of someone to walk the Way with her that she had to pass up simply because of circumstances and youth. And even her lifemate disagreeing with her about her abilities and her convictions. If their places had been reversed he'd have been depressed too.
Torin woke up in the dimness of the little shelter he'd built himself at the edge of the clearing where Thumper was kept just as the forest began to be more shadow than sunlight. He rolled over, batting his cloak away absently, and peered out the half-open door. The reassuring sight of the battered old Dervish's torso and head was framed there, the little sensor dish atop the mech's head whirling. He yawned, rubbed his eyes, and wondered where Seri was. She usually woke him up in time to get ready to go into the city for the night's chase-and-hide. The imprint where she'd slept curled against his back was still in the nest of blankets, so she hadn't been gone long.
It was stingingly cold and he hastily tugged on his boots and cloak and looked around for a uniform to change into after he washed that wasn't already completely grungy. They'd not had much time to take care of the mundane things in life lately like washing uniforms. All the young Jedi were just as disheveled as any of their refugee friends. And Seri and Shosin had had to share uniforms as Shosin hadn't been intended to come down to Teravin with them.
[I'm getting one of your uniforms washed now,] Seri Sent to him as he was going through the pile of wrinkled and grungy black-white-gray camoflage. [Go on up to the lake, I'll bring it to you there.]
He Sent back a swift mental hug in acknowledgement and climbed up out of the little shelter to head down the faint trail to the little mountain lake a few hundred yards away.
It took a great deal of nerve to force yourself to dive into that freezing cold pond they jokingly called a lake. Ben still couldn't really bring himself to do it as he was firmly of the opinion that he couldn't float but would sink straight to the bottom of any body of water deeper than he was tall. Torin suspected it was partially Ben's desert rat childhood and partially fear of the icy cold. Two things Tatooine would never be was watery and cold. Shosin would have avoided the water altogether if she could have. Jagoe and Uloa didn't seem to have problems with it. But it was a true test of courage for the rest of them.
Seri appeared at the bend in the pathway as he was finally beginning to convince himself that he wasn't really having a heart attack or going into shock from the cold. Maybe it was just that his skin was all numb now so he didn't feel it anymore. Her hands were filled with one of his normal Jedi uniforms, the light tan tunics and gray vest and gray pants. She put the uniform over a nearby tree branch and smiled over at him wistfully. She too was wearing one of her normal everyday sand-colored Jedi uniforms.
[We're not wearing the camoflage anymore?] he Sent as she sat down on a fallen log.
[These are warmer,] she Sent back. [But it's warm inside Thumper anyhow, isn't it?]
[Yeah. I can route some of the heat from the fusion plant into the cockpit.]
Serala looked out over the water of the little lake, the shadows of fading daylight and the branches of the overhanging trees beginning to show the green dots of new leaves. She was silent for a long time. Then-- [It's tonight, isn't it?]
Torin didn't answer for a minute. He didn't want to answer. But he loved her. [Yes. I think it will be.]
Serala huddled up where she sat, hugging herself. [No. Don't go out tonight. Stay here! If you don't go--]
[Seri. If I don't go, something worse may happen.] He sighed and started up out of the lake. She tossed him his towel. [We've gone over and over all of this.]
[Is your damned macho Jedi pride worth your life?] she Sent searingly. [Is it worth leaving me and your child here without you?]
[If it was just 'damned macho Jedi pride' Thumper and I would be halfway across the plains by now,] he Sent back with a snap. He was shivering so much now from the cold that he could barely get the Sending out straight. [Cold. Damn it's cold. Why'd the damned Federation have to pick winter to do this? There's parts of me trying to crawl up my throat from the inside.]
Seri stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing at the image he Sent with the words. He grinned as he shivered into his uniform and started trying to get his hair dry.
[Oh, silly! Come on, up to the command tent! It's warm in there!] she Sent, putting his cloak around him.
He stopped her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her for a long moment. [Seri. I love you. If you ever for even one minute think I'm going out there tonight to deliberately get myself killed, you just think again! I've got too much to live for and too much to do, and I'll be damned if I'm going to just lay down and die!]
Serala looked at him for a moment, her eyes and mind filled with a strange mix of fear and pride and love. [You just better come back to me, Ghanbari! You better not leave me here to change all those diapers myself!]
Torin grinned. [Uh, right. On second thought, maybe I hope that Warhammer cleans my clock tonight.]
Serala sqeaked a protest and tried to goose him, but he danced away from her laughing and started running up the path toward the command tent. In a moment she was beside him and they were running together hand in hand.
Droid-squad leaders were climbing up the steep part of the pathway too, called out to the two in greetings as they passed by. Then Torin was pulling open the command tent door, took one look inside and stopped.
Ben looked up at him with a smile full of pride from where he sat at the map table and stood up. Jagoe, Uloa, and Shosin-ka did the same. They were all wearing their normal Jedi uniforms. The militia leaders stood up too. Serala pushed him from behind and he walked into the tent, looking around with wide eyes in the sudden respectful silence.
"We're all going out with you tonight," Ben said, coming around the table to pull Torin into the warmth of the room. "It's time to stop hiding. It's time this fight was done with. Every droid-squad and every hit-and-run squad is going out with you and Thumper tonight. And all of us Jedi too. If you've got to go out and do this, we're all going with you."
"And the Rajai as well," Rao said from the doorway. The elder came into the tent on silent feet, and there was a low murmur of surprised comments from the other Teravans. "This is our world too. We will fight with you, Jedi. As much as we're able."
[We'll all do this together,] Ben Sent to Torin narrowly. [If you must do this, we'll stand with you in it. And we'll be there to catch you if you fall.]
Steam was rising from Thumper's heatsinks an hour later as Torin swung up the giant leg and then caught the handhold on the Dervish's torso armor and pulled himself up to unlatch the missile hatches. He stopped for a moment as he was about to drop down again, putting one hand to the Jedi triskele he'd carved into the missile hatch with his lightsaber. Remembering the first time he'd ever seen that symbol, on Master Windu's starfighter when he'd eluded his uncles and managed to get to the docking bay on Ramos, nearly twenty years ago.
The faint rumble of Thumper's idling engines brought him back to the present and he grinned at his mech. "Well, at least someone's eager for this fight," he said to the metal beast affectionately. "Even if you won't survive it, Junkpile, you're always ready to fight, aren't you?"
He dropped down to the leg again and looked down at his friends. Ben looked up at him with a faint smile, his hands hidden in the sleeves of his cloak. Shosin and Jagoe nodded up at him, the Baradan's face unreadable and Shosin's worried. Uloa stood holding onto Ben's cloak, her blind eyes staring off into space but she was smiling and hopping a little with excitement. And Serala, wrapped in Torin's cloak, looking up at him with so many emotions playing over her face. He climbed down the mech's leg and walked slowly over to them silently, not knowing what to say.
Ben and Serala just looked at him for a long moment, then grabbed him in a fierce hug. The others did the same, all of them crowding close around. [We'll be right there with you the whole night,] Ben Sent quietly, and Torin felt the others Sending their agreement to this.
Torin swallowed down the sudden lump in his throat. [I'll be all right, y'know.] He turned in Serala's arms to look up at his mech, the battered armor plating and the hydraulics hissing and the steam rising from the heatsink vents. [I've found my way to the Force. I've found the center Master Windu always was telling me about, I've found that spot inside me where I'm just being there with nothing moving me at all. I'm not afraid, Ben. We're just here, we've got a job to do, and now it's time to do it. The future will take care of itself.]
The calm centeredness of Torin's mind surprised them all except for Ben, who nodded his understanding. [The Force will be with you, then,] Ben Sent, and he stepped away. The others moved away too, but Torin held onto Serala for a moment more.
[Seri. Remember. Her name is supposed to be Coria,] Torin Sent narrowly to her as he kissed her. [And remember I want her trained as a Jedi. And remember that I love you.]
[Stop that, you nit!] Serala Sent back angrily. [Don't talk like that! You'll name her yourself and you'll train her yourself, and you'll wake up every morning to tell me you love me yourself!]
[If the Force allows,] Torin Sent. He hugged her again and turned to climb up to the Dervish's cockpit as Teravin's sun sank below the distant western horizon.
"You in, old man?" Ben's voice said with a laugh in his headphones a few minutes later as Torin hurriedly flipped switches and muttered to himself.
"Yeah, I'm in. I've got some power fluctuations here, I'm fiddling with the damned fusion plant," Torin said absently into his mic. The gauges flickered barely above minimal, then spiked again to the overload zone for a moment, then fell again to minimal. He switched the power over to the batteries for a moment, waited as the lights and dials and guages flickered as the power switched over. The fusion plant guage rose to it's normal range and stayed there as if glued down. "That's weird. I switched her over to the batteries and the fusion plant settled down. 'Lo? You hear me?"
The little Orafai's speaking voice whispered in his ears. "Yes, I hear you. Did you put something new in? Sounds like a power drain somewhere, connected to the fusion plant but not the batteries. The batteries are a separate system."
"No. A power drain? I checked all the wiring just yesterday." He shook his head and flipped more switches to connect the fusion plant to the batteries directly. A burst of radio static sounded in his ears and he winced.
"Wow! She just spit out sparks from the fusion plant heatsink!" Ben said in surprise. "What did you do? Dump coolant or something?"
"No, I patched the batteries into the fusion plant directly," Torin said. "That is definitely weird. Doesn't matter, though, I've got the power readings I need. Everyone stand back now, I'm jacking in."
He sat back in his harness, took three deep breaths, and reached for the Force. And suddenly the feeling of heaviness and slowness that was Thumper's body evaporated, and it was his own body that rumbled with power. The great four-story tall, fifty-five ton mechanoid rose slowly from it's perch and swayed for a moment as it got to it's feet, the arms rose to balance and the spherical head turned right then left then straight ahead. The laser emitters cycled open with a whir of servomotors, the missile hatches slid open then closed again, armor clanked and actuators hummed. Inside the mech's head, Torin smiled briefly as his soul relaxed into Thumper and the Force together.
"All right, everyone pile on," he said to his friends who waited below. He heard Ben giving orders to the militia's motley collection of speeders and hovercars to head for the city as the Jedi clambered up the mech's leg and back to settle on the armored shoulders for the ride into town. He was waiting for Ben's go-ahead when he heard something...radio hiss? No. The sound continued when he cut the radio off for a moment. No coolant leaks. No hydraulic leaks. He didn't yet have the heaters on inside the cockpit so it wasn't coming from the fusion plant. He turned his head, trying to localize the sound, then unlatched his harness and pulled himself up out of his chair to turn around to look--
--and saw the old air tank jammed behind his pilot's chair, a length of tubing that had been running from the tank to a breather for the neurohelmet showing a leak where someone had pricked a few pinholes down one side, and the oxygen spraying from it. The tank was fairly large. No doubt the leak would continue for most of the night.
So. Sabotage. Probably the Dervish's former pilot, the Corellian. Or the Rthikin, the one who'd flown the Phoenixhawk? And he was willing to bet this new problem with the fusion plant wasn't just Thumper being ornery and old.
It didn't matter. He almost laughed about it. He'd already accepted whatever outcome this night would bring. The actual means were immaterial. The Corellian or the Rthikin probably hoped the oxygen would screw with his brain so that he couldn't fly the mech. And if that didn't work, well, a few minor adjustments to the fusion plant would take care of things nicely. A lucky torso shot might take him out. Or if he got careless the strain on the batteries would cause the mech to shut down in the middle of a fight. And it would all look perfectly innocent. Untraceable. An old Dervish like this was always having problems...
"All right, we're latched," Ben said suddenly in his ears. He turned again, locked his harness back around him again. A moment later Thumper was walking smoothly through the trees of the forest like a child through the grass of the plains.
Ben leaped over the crumbled wall, his blue-white lightsaber sinking into the destroyer droid's chassis and slicing downwards. The droid sparked and the powercel exploded violently, spraying parts every which way.
[No finesse. None at all,] Uloa Sent mischievously from behind him. She peeked over the wall, sighted her target, then jumped straight up over his head to land behind another droid just now walking past them on the ruined street, it's blasters firing in sequence at Serala who was deflecting the bolts away easily. Uloa's blue-green lightsaber flashed into life as she landed and she ducked into a Soritsu-ji tumble to roll right up to the droid before she swept her lightsaber at the droid's armored legs, then up through the chassis. She jumped away with a giggle and raced back to Ben's side.
[You're as bad as Seri about running right up to those things,] Ben Sent to her as she started looking for another target. [They *are* dangerous, y'know.]
Stun bolts raced at them, and they reacted simultaneously, deflecting the bolts back at the attacker, a wheeled droid that bumbled along the street on baloon tires. The machine sparked and smoke began pouring from the overloaded innards.
Jagoe and Shosin-ka appeared at the end of the street, running together easily over the masses of crumbled stone and plascrete that blocked the intersection a hundred yards away. [There's more droids walking down the street toward us,] Shosin Sent to Ben as she ran up to him. [And--feel that? One of the other mechs, not the Warhammer though.]
They all felt it then, the tread of massive metallic feet shaking the ground beneath them.
"It's the Shadowhawk," Torin said in Ben's earphone. "I just saw the head of it pass by ahead of us. Droid swarm."
Ben nodded as the Dervish walked from behind the building behind him to aim it's arm lasers over their heads at the approaching swarm of destroyer droids that were intended to cut a swath through the militia squads that jumped out of hiding. Twin flashes of yellow light lanced over their heads and the droid parts that came raining down a moment later told them he'd hit at least a dozen. Four of the militia squads jumped from their positions to run over the pile of rubble in the street to continue the fight.
[Seri, 'Lo, let's go,] Ben Sent to the two, grabbing Uloa's free hand.
The Dervish fired again with one laser, and more droid parts rained down around them as they made their way to their companions. Jagoe and Shosin nodded to them as they topped the rubble pile.
The beat of gigantic metal feet was very strong now. Thumper came up behind them slowly, and walked right over the top of them into the broad square that opened before them. Once this was the market square of Zeanankh, a large flat space surrounded by colorful buildings in Teravin's strange, almost organic architecture. There were destroyer droids and stunner droids everywhere, firing on the militia squads, barrelling around like mad rolling weasels. At Thumper's approach the destroyer droids all rolled toward the Dervish or turned to run at the old mech, blaster cannons firing in sequence, shields springing up to protect them. But Thumper had four lasers and was taking out half a dozen droids for every shot while the droid squads ranged out to get the strays with slug-throwers and plasma-grenades.
"Come on, let's go!" Serala yelled, running after the Dervish. Ben hurried to catch up with her.
"Seri, wait!" Shosin said, rushing up to catch her friend. "Feel that? The other mech!"
The regular slow beat of massive feet, a beat out of time with Thumper's shuffling walk. And suddenly, across the square, the Shadowhawk mechanoid appeared, one arm lifted, the laser crystals glowing already as it pointed the large laser at the Dervish.
The blast rocked the old mech for a moment as it took the blast in the shoulder. They all heard Torin's muffled grunt of pain over the radio link.
"Ouch. That was not fun," Torin said.
"Tell me about it, old man," Ben said into his radio, hustling the others over to take cover behind a half-crumbled wall nearby. "You all right?"
"Yeah. I'm all right," Torin said. Ben could hear the strain in his voice. "Tell the grenade squads to get ready."
Ben looked over at one of the squads a few yards away, the dozen or so refugees already looking to him for their orders. He nodded and the men all got ready to run from cover, taking out ion-grenades from the pouches and packs they wore, hefting blasters.
The Dervish straightened up, then leaned forward and suddenly shot into the air on the jump jets. Thumper landed just in front of the Shadowhawk mech, reached up and punched the taller mech in the head, then kicked with one foot. The Shadowhawk swayed for a moment, actuators grinding as it reached up with both hands to push Thumper. The Dervish braced it's feet and brought up one arm, the laser crystals beginning to glow.
Below the titanic battle like ants scurrying, the grenade squads crept forward slowly, shooting droids as they went.
"All right, let's go," Ben said to his team, and they all ran out to join the squads.
The young Jedi had gotten far too much practice lately with deflecting blaster bolts from the destroyer droids. They ran ahead of the squads running toward the mech fight, and not even one blaster bolt got through the wall of whirling lightsaber blades. Even Shosin-ka managed not to miss one, and she was nowhere near as experienced with her lightsaber as the others were. The grenade squad reached the mechanoids, raced between the Dervish's legs to clamber up the Shadowhawk's legs toward the fusion plant heat sinks on the bigger mech's torso. Thumper caught hold of one of the Shadowhawk's arms, the one with the laser cannon, and with the other aimed a laser of it's own at the larger mech's head. The Shadowhawk leaned forward, trying to overbalance Thumper, but Torin had the old mech braced well and didn't go toppling over.
"Tell them to hurry, Ben," Torin said with a grunt. "I don't know how long I can keep this guy occupied."
"Not long enough, boy!" said a new voice over the radio link, a rough male voice filled with hate.
A bolt of red fire flashed overhead at the old Dervish's back, and Torin cried out in pain.
Behind them, just coming into view far down the street, the Warhammer stalked forward, the twin particle cannons it had instead of arms aimed directly at Thumper.
At that moment, the grenade squad dropped down off the Shadowhawk's legs and scurried away to scatter, racing for cover. Ben and his team covered them, and when they were safe raced forward toward the destroyer droids, lightsaber blades stabbing down through shields and metal and circuitry. Then they whirled and scattered themselves, Ben grabbing Serala by the hand to pull her with him behind a crumpled and burned-out speeder. They were barely under cover before the ion grenades went off, an even dozen of them, flashing silent blue fire inside the Shadowhawk's torso. The fusion plant blew then, and the Shadowhawk staggered backwards to fall against the remains of a building behind it. The explosion of the fusion plant inside it illuminated the entire square, the short-range missiles in it's racks exploding with muffled whumps. Thumper walked backwards quickly away from it, turned slowly to face the Warhammer as the huge monstrous mech came forward, the particle cannons beginning to hum as they charged up to full power.
This is it, Ben thought. He pulled Serala into his arms and they clutched each other, unable to take their eyes away.
But the Force was definitely with Torin Ghanbari that night. An instant before the particle cannons fired Thumper's jump jets fired, and the old mech shot into the air, turning in the air to come down behind the Warhammer and facing the larger mech's back. Two of the four lasers fired as Thumper landed, scoring direct hits on the Warhammer's torso. The larger mech's torso actuators began to whine as it turned toward the Dervish, but Thumper was already moving again, bringing up one hand to grab hold of the Warhammer's torso armor and pushing the mech in the direction it was turning. The Warhammer tottered a little, the torso actuators screaming with the strain.
[He's trying to do Soritsu-ji,] Serala Sent to Ben in disbelief. [He's trying to flip the damned thing over onto it's back!]
The Warhammer's torso could only turn so far around. It reached the limit of the arc the actuators permitted and still Torin kept pushing. A hatchway cycled open on the Warhammer's shoulder and a machine gun began spitting out slug-thrower shot at the Dervish. The small violent explosions of incendiary rounds splattered against Thumper's torso. Ben and Serala choked as Torin cried out again in their earphones.
[Damn...this hurts,] Torin Sent raggedly to them. [Damned bastard. Hell with the heat exchangers!]
The Dervish straightened up, brought up it's arms, and all four lasers fired simultaneously. The Warhammer staggered, and the militia squads below cheered, some scurrying forward.
"Ben...tell the squads not to go after this one...the fire..."
Ben hastily switched his comlink over to the frequency the militia squads were using, swiftly giving the order to fall back and let the Dervish fight alone. A moment later he saw the squads moving away, running from one hiding place to another as they retreated. The remaining few destroyer droids began stalking the squads they could get a fix on, firing into the darkness. The light from the burning Shadowhawk threw orange-yellow light over the entire battle, picking out every ragged welding seam on Thumper's patchwork armor. The Warhammer was painted black and gray and looked like it had been cared for very well. Probably the commanders' mechs were the best-cared-for mechs in the unit. While Thumper had been just another mech in the company, repaired when the money and parts were available but otherwise not given any special attention. And Thumper looked decidedly small compared to the seven-story tall, ninety-five ton mechanoid that faced her. Too small.
The Warhammer fired it's particle cannons again, and one blast hit the old Dervish in the arm. Serala choked as Torin screamed in their earphones. Ben held her against him and felt her trembling like a leaf.
"That arm's....gone...elbow actuator gone, the laser's fried..." Torin gasped. Thumper turned to the Warhammer slowly, brought up the undamaged arm and the remaining three lasers fired at the other mech again. One of the laser shots sparked off a minor lightning storm in the Warhammer's torso heatsinks and sparks flew from the torso actuators. Another shot hit the Warhammer's head, sizzling on the armor. The machine-gun began chattering again, and Thumper's damaged arm fell completely off, falling to the paving-stones below with a crash. "That's weird..." Torin gasped in their ears raggedly. "When you get something shot off your own arm goes--goes numb. Like being shot by a remote...at least it doesn't hurt anymore..."
Ben closed his eyes in sympathetic pain.
The Dervish's movements were slowing down now, the actuators straining and rasping as the old mech moved, the Jedi triskele on the missile hatch scorched and seamed with dents from the machine-gun fire. "Ben..." Torin gasped out to them. "I think...I think this is it. The batteries can't take much more of this, not enough time between shots to recharge...I got to do something stupid..."
"Torin!" Serala screamed. She started struggling up out of Ben's arms as the Dervish turned to face the Warhammer, bringing up the undamaged arm, the missile hatch over the one set of LRM10s remaining in Thumper's racks snapping open. The Warhammer's particle cannons lifted to point at Thumper's head, humming as they reached full charge. The Dervish fired all three remaining lasers and the LRM missiles exploded out of their racks at point-blank range as the Warhammer fired both particle cannons at Thumper's head.
The explosions were deafening, the shockwaves jerked the ground beneath them, the Dervish staggered backwards, a massive glowing hole ripped through the torso. The fusion plant was going critical, the batteries sparking and exploding with loud crackles. The whirling gyros inside began flying apart, the metal disks fragmenting from the disruption and flinging razor-edged titanium shards into the Warhammer's damaged torso armor. And Serala struggled to get away from Ben as she cried out Torin's name, pointing up to the Dervish's head. There was a gaping hole in Thumper's shoulder where the head met the torso, and flames were visible in the old mech's viewports.
The Warhammer stood for a moment completely still, then began trying to back up slowly, then toppled over onto it's back, and it's own gyros began shredding it's chest armor from the inside out, and a moment later the fusion plant began going critical. The remaining incendiary rounds in the machine-gun magazines began exploding inside the mech's torso.
"Get the pilot! We need him alive!" Ben yelled into his mic, and the militia responded instantly, running toward the downed Warhammer's head with blasters drawn.
Serala grabbed Ben's hand, pointed up to the top of Thumper's head, her face streaked with tears.
Movement at the hatch. It popped open, and a blackened figure hauled itself slowly out of the hatch as Thumper began to topple forward.
Ben yelled, jumped to his feet, felt Serala's mind link with his as they both raised their hands, reaching for the falling figure, Lifting with all the strength they had between them--
--catching Torin as his mech exploded behind him in a final apocalyptic blast of flames and concussion.
The scene burned itself into Ben's mind. Decades later he would remember that night in his dreams in every detail. The burning and exploding mechanoids sending flames and radiation into the air, the acrid smells of burning circuitry and coolant and hydraulic fluid, the heat from the fires. The droid squads gathered seven deep around the lone Warhammer pilot, all of them pointing blasters at him ready to shoot if he so much as sneered at them, praying he'd be stupid enough to do so. The faces of his friends, his team, horrified, disbelieving, at the destruction. Serala's tears streaking the grime on her face as she ran forward sobbing toward Torin's unmoving form, her mind incoherent with fear and heartwrenching pain. And his own cold numbness, that strange disconnected distant feeling, the Force far away and small and silent.
Serala and Ben reached the blackened form a moment before the others did, and Serala was reaching to turn Torin over. Then she choked and quavered out an incoherent denial, and Shosin-ka trilled worriedly and caught her as she started to sway where she knelt. Ben knelt hurriedly and turned Torin over onto his back.
Torin's face was burned down one side, the skin blackened and blistered. His hands also were burned but not quite as badly, only a few of his fingers where he must have burnt them on the lockwheel of Thumper's hatch as he escaped. But his hands were blistered very badly where they weren't black. His uniform was a mess, singed, burnt...but apparently the several layers of silk and linen and his leather boots had protected him for those few seconds he needed to get the hatch open and get out.
[Seri!] Ben Sent into the chaos of pain and denial of her mind, reaching over Torin's unconscious body to shake her by the shoulders. He took her hand and put it beside his own to feel the steady pulse at Torin's throat. [He's alive! Don't panic! Come on, we've got to get him to the medics!]
Ben staggered up the last few steps in the faint light before dawn, exhausted, pulling his cloak around him in the cold. Frost whitened the stone steps in front of the Council building, one of the few structures in Zeanankh to escape damage. He wanted so much to just sit down here on the steps and rest for a few minutes, but he knew the minute he did he'd fall over asleep.
He looked up as he got to the top, and some of the Rajai nodded to him silently, their auralanium swords gleaming like white gold in the first light of dawn. "This place is empty of people, warrior," one of the Rajai said to him quietly, gesturing up at the Council building with the point of her sword. "But we think we have found what you were looking for."
Ben nodded. "Where?"
The Rajai led him inside the Council, a fairly large but airy building with rows of gracefully curving stone sculpture-columns ascending to the vaulted ceiling. They led him to a large round disk of metal set into the floor at one end of the huge open room, and one of the Rajai reached out with one foot to tap on one of the symbols in the ring of pictographs around the disk.
It was a holoprojector, Ben saw. The line of light lanced from far above to unfold on the metal disk, and when it did--
A Neimoidian, in the usual elaborate headress and robes of his species, frog-like eyes flickering as the internal eyelids blinked, the greenish skin and webbed hands. "Commander Itani. Here are your orders from Viceroy Gunray. You are to order your mechanoid force to the plains to the east of Zeanankh. The supplies you have requested are now enroute to the coordinates you specified in your previous communication. Fifteen starfighters have also been sent to assist you, but do not use these ships during daylight hours. Federation starfighters must not be identified as assisting you in this venture.---"
Ben closed his eyes and nearly fell over, his relief so great he could have fallen over right then and there.
We've done it, he thought. This is the proof we needed. Now we can go home.
Torin woke up some unknown time later, aching in every joint and limb, his hands hurting and bandaged, his face stiff and sore and bandaged. It was hard to breathe.
Something stirred beside him, and Serala lifted her head from where she'd been asleep sitting at his bedside. The room was dim, only one tiny hoverlight over the door across the room.
"Where am I?" he croaked unsteadily and coughed.
[Shh. You're safe, love. That's all that matters,] Serala Sent softly. [And you'll be fine in a few days.]
"Thumper," he said, swallowed against the searing in his throat and switched to Sending. [What happened to Thumper? The Warhammer?]
Serala's smile trembled and tears started down her cheeks again. [Thumper's...destroyed, love. But so is the Warhammer. You did it. You got him. Everyone's safe now.]
Thumper destroyed. The thought crashed through his mind like the last blast from the Warhammer's particle cannons. But then he reached to touch the Force and the steadying silence washed through him, easing the pain with a tide of understanding. [It was time to let go, wasn't it? If I'd stayed jacked in for one more hit on the Warhammer--]
Serala put a hand to his unburnt cheek, and nodded. [You would have died.]
He closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath but couldn't. He could hardly breathe. But he was alive.
But his mech, his life, was gone.
His daughter would never jump her Wasp over Thumper's head. He'd never again have to compensate for that busted left knee actuator. His mech was gone.
[You've had your dream. Now it's time to let it go. Our dreams are as much an obstacle as our fears. They keep us from going on with our lives,] Serala Sent softly. [We'll be leaving tomorrow to go back up to the Justice. The Rajai found the proof Ben needed. We can go home.]
Part 7
Archive