The Way of the Mystics
by Tilt
(continued from Part 7)
The first thing Theri became aware of was the sound of her own heartbeat, because it was the only sound in the universe.
There was nothing to see, even when she opened her eyes. Just absolute blackness. No smells. No sensations of textures on her skin. Not even gravity, no sensation of being pressed down on anything.
She stretched her arms out as far as she could in every direction and did not touch anything. She felt about with her feet, but it was the same, nothing.
She tried to reach out with her mind, but felt a painful electric sizzle around her mind when she did so. A psi-static field. She couldn't Send, nor feel anyone Sending to her.
But she still felt the spiral of the Force, bright as ever, whirling slowly and silently in the eternal dance. And entwined in the Force, the feeling of Kee still with her, his soul, so very faint she almost couldn't feel it. Faint and tiny, a forlorn streamer of rainbow brilliance. She clung to it, rejoiced that she could feel even this. They were really still together in the Force! What Ben had said a year ago on Tatooine had at last come true! She and Kee could never be kept apart even by everything Maul or Sidious could do to them! She dove into that little rainbow of Kee's presence and willed her strength to him with all her heart.
Some timeless time later she was pulled from the dance of the Force by voices somewhere outside of the dark little world her body inhabited. Reluctantly she pulled her soul away from Kee's, her mind filling with questions that a moment ago had seemed irrelevant in the silent world of the Force.
Then suddenly sound and light came roaring around her again as someone took something from around her head, and she was cringing in the onslaught of it, trying to block it out with her arms. Hands took hold of her arms and wrenched them down roughly, and she was looking into the glowing yellow eyes of Darth Maul.
"Maul?" she asked weakly. "What--what's happening...?"
Dizziness rose up in a wave as she tried to move, her head spun like a top, like being tossed about in the rough surf before a hurricane. Lights wove before her eyes and she immediately closed them with a sick groan. Maul pulled her up to a sitting position and leaned her against something cold and metallic behind her. She fought to keep herself from throwing up, began doing the mindfulness trick Kee had taught her, focussing her will on keeping herself from retching.
When she felt she had managed to get through the nausea, she opened her eyes again slowly and sighed in relief when sight didn't make her head spin.
A ship's cabin. Black gelfoam on the blastcouches, black mirror-like floor plates on the deck. Dark gray metal of the walls, very industrial looking. Terribly functional. Niches in the walls held equipment, weapons, tools. A power droid stood immobile beside the door into the corridor. A comscreen on one wall across from her, silent and dark. A computer console to her right, lights blinking on the various controls. She was sitting on a narrow gelfoam bunk in a large niche in the wall. Some kind of black blanket had been covering her, and she picked at it idly. Then she realized it was Maul's black cloak. A memory flash. Another awakening, a year ago on Tatooine, when she'd sat up and batted away another black cloak. Kee's cloak. The sudden lump in her throat was half remembered joy and half present fear.
Maul was nowhere in sight in the small cabin, but the door into the corridor was open. She slid carefully off the bunk, held herself upright while her blood roared in her ears momentarily, then settled. Well, she was still dressed in her Mystic Jedi uniform, he hadn't so much as taken off her boots. But her lightsaber was gone, of course. She straightened her uniform tunic and only then noticed the pain across her back. Maul had slashed her across the back during the fight. Wonderful. Kee would go orbital. Ben hadn't so much as nicked her across the nose in all the time he'd been teaching her. She sighed and walked slowly into the corridor toward the faint sound of voices.
The voices got louder as she approached an airlock door in the curving dark corridor, and she stopped and flattened herself against the wall beside the door.
"--to Mensae first. Have her kill Ylaren. The woman stands in my way. I want her eliminated."
Theri shivered at the cold implacability of the voice, the way the voice sounded as deadly as the roar of an approaching tornado. Fortunately it sounded like a transmission, a radio signal. Whoever it was, they wanted Darth Ylaren dead.
"I will try, Master, but I do not promise anything."
Maul's husky sibilance. She swayed where she stood as the lust suddenly flashed through her, a dagger of icy hunger. Then she realized he'd said "Master". Was he talking to Darth Sidious?
"Ylaren threatens us with this new mechanoid force she has acquired," the other voice said coldly. "Her pet Rthikin commands this new mechanoid unit. We will need starfighters to defeat this kind of strength, or mechanoids of our own. And that is a waste of resources and time. The conflict would continue. Therefore, eliminate the woman and the mech force will be without it's source of supply and money. And the threat is ended. Have the girl kill Ylaren."
"It may take me some time to wear down her resistance," Maul said. "I do not know how much Jinn has taught her of the bio-controls. And it has been some months since I began. What should I do if I cannot bend her to my will?"
The transmission seemed to crackle with static for a moment, then the voice shifted harmonics down in tone, sounding sepulchral and even more deadly. "Capture Jinn. Pain dealt to Jinn will have a three-fold effect on the girl, psychological, mental and spiritual. She is a child. That should be enough."
"As you command, Master."
Silence then, and Theri guessed Sidious had broken off the transmission. She bit her lip and began edging down the corridor back the way she came, bringing up her full shields to make herself silent and unseen.
Maul appeared at the doorway she'd been hiding beside, looked down the corridor as if he saw her. She froze, knowing if she didn't move he couldn't see her at all. She and Ben had discovered that so long as she didn't move the tell-tale shimmer in the air wasn't visible even in bright direct light.
[I know you're there. I could feel you listening.]
Theri cursed inwardly but didn't drop her shields and didn't move.
Maul lunged forward in one quick move and caught her uniform tunic. Theri squeaked as his hands blindly felt of her uniform, then unerringly swept up to grab her head.
[Unshield. Now.] Maul Sent as he tugged free her coiled braids of hair loose from where she had wrapped them around her head, the small silver pins falling to the floor.
Theri gulped, feeling her insides going numb under the wave of fierce need. But she held onto her shields, sending her focus deep into herself, to that little sparkle in the spiral of the Force that was her lifemate's soul joined to hers.
[I know every centimeter of this ship,] Maul Sent as he pushed her against the corridor wall. [You cannot hide from me. You have no way to escape. The ship's controls are coded to my biometric scan. As are the escape pods. We are in the Rifts. The Jedi cannot find us here, and your telepathic powers cannot reach any world inhabited by an intelligent species. We will not be found. We will not return to the Rim worlds until I take us there.]
Theri closed her eyes, the lust sharpening every sense, feeling the warmth and wiry strength of Maul's body pressed to hers, the black Sith uniform like a piece of night itself in the dimness of the corridor. No, she thought to herself, reaching inwardly to the Force, letting the spiral sweep through her, steadying, anchoring. No, I will not give in to it. My body is my own. I choose only to share it with Kee and Ben. No one else, least of all Darth Maul.
[Unshield. Resisting is not an option,] Maul Sent with menace frosting his mindvoice.
The hell it isn't, Theri thought to herself.
But the spiral of the Force shivered in her mind in reaction to this thought. What should I do? she thought, and after an almost unbearable moment of feeling the icy fire of lust ripping like icicles in her soul, the answer came on a slow tide.
And the answer was, essentially, Give In. Let it happen. Let the monster out.
Theri squeaked as she felt this, caught her breath for a long moment as Maul took hold of her vest and pulled her down the corridor. No, she thought. No. Not even here in the Rifts, not even when I've no hope of ever escaping. I will not give in to this. She stumbled as Maul pushed her through a doorway further down the corridor wall. He caught her only to shove her down onto the low bed in the corner roughly, then he was on top of her and her shields collapsed and her mind scattered like sand in the wind. In only a bare few moments they were writhing together on the bed, tearing at each other's clothes, and there was no more thought of holding anything back.
There was nothing of love in it, and she hadn't expected there would be. There was only hate and lust, a twisting Darkness, the need only to overpower the other. It was combat, pure and simple, as much so as the lightsaber fight that had brought her here. There was no Sending, no sense of what Maul was feeling, he had completely shielded her out. And that was probably the worst thing of all. It was like having sex with a hologram, the unconscious reaching out to the other meeting with a steel wall. Quite literally it felt as if there was nothing there but Maul's body on top of hers in the dimness of the room, while her own body moved in the frenzy of it's own will. But there was no mind there, no presence touching hers, and even in the white fire of the lust she began to instinctively reject this thing on top of her, the animal that had stalked her for seven years. There was nothing here. There never had been. And the absolute void of presence, that refusal to even share the surface thoughts and feelings, began to trickle terror into her soul.
But it didn't matter, she realized. She was here to go through this test, to let her shadow side take over for a while and to accept it. When Mistress Yaddle had gently reversed Inda's rough subliminal, she had seen again what she had to do. Yaddle had caught her breath and quavered a little in worry, resting her little clawed green hand on Theri's hair with infinite sympathy.
This is it, then, she thought. This is the Way, whatever it may turn out to be.
She banished her thoughts, stopped thinking, and let the lust take over.
Twelve hours later, Maul finally rolled away from her for the last time. Theri had just enough strength left to curl up into a ball, too exhausted even to cry. In the faint light from the corridor she saw him sit up and reach for something in the wall niche over the bed. He tossed the blanket over her and began to pull on his clothes silently, then left her alone with her thoughts.
For a long time she just lay there in too much pain to move or think. Everything hurt. She'd never hurt from sex before, even when she'd been younger at home on Thretketh. Muscles trained in two hours of Soritsu-ji and two hours of lightsaber practice a day now were weak as water and refused to move. But worse was the fear that crept through her mind. Maul wasn't as she had thought he was. What she'd thought she'd seen on Thretketh was an illusion she'd made up in her own mind. And now she was truly in the hands of the enemy. He knew her weaknesses. She was a peko trapped in a cage while a cavecat prowled outside batting at the bars with one paw, waiting to tear into her with teeth and claws.
And her own concept of herself was now irrevocably shattered.
She wasn't some sweet little girl anymore, she wasn't the woman she'd thought, the base of her soul wasn't all goodness and rainbows and giggles. It wasn't so clean-cut as that. She'd had glimpses of it on Korolis, but she had shied away from those glimpses. Beneath the civilized Mystic philosopher was the street-fighter who'd killed with whatever weapons were at hand. She'd always thought that was merely a part she'd played, like an actor in a holovid. Not truly part of her, not a true side of herself. She'd been wrong. What powered the street-fighter was the same energy that powered the Thretkethan lust. An anger and hatred so deep it no longer reached the surface of the mind. The instinctual Thretkethan hatred of being caged had sublimated into the spiritual equivalent of a fission reactor. The lust was the outward manifestation of a fury hundreds of years in the making and passed down through the clan-memory into the future.
[There's another side to that, y'know,] Inda's mindvoice said softly in the echoing silence of her mind. [There's always two sides to everything in this world.]
Theri whimpered and the helpless tears began seeping out of her eyes. [Inda. Tell Kee...I'm sorry.]
[Silly nit,] Inda Sent with a gentle laugh. [What for? You've done nothing wrong. Trying to fight Maul was maybe not the smartest move, but he would have taken you anyway no matter what you did. It was the will of the Force.]
[I know. That's why I'm sorry, because the Force told me to do this,] she quavered. She was having a hard time finding the energy to Send. [We were wrong about Maul. There's nothing there. And now I may end up dead or Dark. I never should have left Kee alone yesterday. I should have stayed right there with him. Tell him to watch out and don't leave the Temple. I heard Sidious tell Maul to capture him and use him to make me behave. Tell him...I'll try to come home someday. And that I'm still with him in the Force. Ben was right.]
The memories came to her then, the bright hot dustiness of Tatooine, the peace and focus of the Temple. For a year now she had shared her life with Qui-Gon Jinn. The memories crowded together all at once, so many mornings she'd opened her eyes to see him asleep beside her in the dawn's faint light, the tumbled gray-streaked dark hair and the impossibly handsome face. How she'd watched him as he woke up, feeling his mind reaching to hers instinctively. Even now, after a year together, they were still as madly in love as they'd been the moment they lifemated.
[Kid, while you're laying there thinking you'll never see your man again, think about this. That same power that's behind the lust is just that, power. Power is neither good nor bad, that's a judgment on how you use that power. So what is it that's keeping you and Jinn attached at the wrists and ankles? The lifebonding is just a mindlink. You don't absolutely have to love him. So why do you still wake up every morning and sit there for twenty minutes watching him sleep? If it was just simple love it might have faded by now to a comfortable friendship, or you might have gotten married and settled down and gotten bored with each other. Yet you're still so syrupy sweet to each other it makes my teeth ache. Or it would if I still had a body. So where's all that sweetness and light coming from?]
[I don't know,] Theri Sent in a sleepy mumble. [The Force?]
[Maybe.] She felt Inda's shrug. [Think about it when you've got the time. Right now, you'd better get some sleep. You can barely think past your nose right now.]
Theri nodded absently as her eyes closed, unable to keep awake any longer.
A few moments later, Maul came to peer in the doorway at her, and stopped in surprise. Sowelu Inda's blue-flickering ghostly form sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed, one of the spirit's hands holding his lightsaber casually. The silent stare of black threat he gave Maul would have frozen a flame.
[Do not ever again presume that she is your property,] the spirit growled in Maul's mind. [This is your only warning.]
Maul hissed, very softly, but turned to go.
Theri had no idea how long she slept, but she was still horribly stiff and sore when she finally awoke.
Maul slept beside her, turned away from her and curled up so tightly on himself that she was certain he'd wake up as stiff as she was. Faint blue lights had begun glowing in the room near the ceiling, indicating the approach of morning on whatever planet the ship's clocks were set to emulate. In the phosphor glow she could faintly see the webwork of scars that patterned the blackened skin of his back, the double line of small sharp spikes that ran down his spine like those on his head. Many more scars than the few Kee had. She grimaced and started trying to sit up with a faint squeak of pain.
Maul awoke instantly and his hand shot out to the double lightsaber on the shelf above his head.
[Oh, come on, Maul, give it a rest, willya?] Theri Sent, annoyed. [Where's my clothes?]
Maul hissed softly, then slid out from under the blanket and padded silently to a door in the wall nearby and disappeared inside it. Theri watched him go and humphed softly to herself in annoyance. But a moment later the door opened again and he tossed something across the bed, then disappeared again inside the door. She heard water running behind him, and guessed that must be the bathroom.
"No, Maul, you go ahead and take your shower first," she quipped to herself.
[Heh. Not one for breakfast in bed the morning after, is he, kid?] Inda chuckled in her head.
Theri felt tears threaten as another memory flashed into her mind. Kee and Ben, one morning not long ago, waking her up with kisses and caresses and laughingly feeding her bits of gumpta berry bread and tsala juice before Ben told her he'd be turning the power up on the remotes that morning so that when the remotes shot her it would truly hurt. The remembered warmth of Coruscant Alpha streaming in the windows, Kee and Ben holding her entwined in their arms, the laughter and joy.
[Don't you give up on it yet, kid. There's always more than one way to toast a Mynock.]
[Is Kee...is Kee all right?] she asked the spirit softly.
[Asleep right now, with a regen unit behind his ear. He gave himself a backlash headache last night, he keeps forgetting you're not there and keeps trying to reach for you with his mind. Your boy Kenobi is watching him.]
Theri sighed and picked up the things Maul had tossed onto the bed. It was one of Maul's black silk Sith outfits, almost like a Jedi uniform but a bit too big for her. Still, it was better than going around naked, and her own uniform was nowhere in sight except for her boots and her belt hanging over the back of a chair a few feet away.
Well, just because she was captured by Darth Maul didn't mean she was excused from her katas or the rituals she and Kee carried out every morning now. She got up with a groan and began doing her Soritsu-ji katas stiffly, hoping the familiar movements would take away some of the soreness. Maul emerged from the bathroom a few moments later, washed up and dressed, and edged around her to retrieve his lightsaber, not even looking her in the eye as he passed her silently on his way out the bedroom door.
Theri humphed and finished her katas, letting the routine bring her some kind of peace and balance, bringing her mind back into more positive tracks of thought. She'd faced a situation much more threatening when Yoda had left her inside the nebula to do her questing. And Kee had been in a coma for several days. Things were far from hopeless. She knelt in meditation posture and began concentrating on her breathing, sending her mind into the peace of the Force. She felt Inda's silent presence join hers as she opened herself to the spiral.
The peace of the Force was so comforting she didn't want to leave it, but when her time sense told her she'd spent half an hour meditating she reluctantly turned her attention outward again and began reciting the Jedi Precepts, then her own favorite passages from the Book of the Force, Inda's faint amusement as his mindvoice shadowed hers. Then she jumped to her feet again, scooped up the clothes Maul had given her, and went to get cleaned up.
Theri flopped down into the navigator's chair beside Maul and sat for a moment twining her green and silver streak of hair around her hand. "Where's my lightsaber?"
Maul gave her a faintly contemptuous glance before turning his eyes once more out the canopy windows to the empty blackness of the Rifts outside the ship.
"Fine. You had your chance," she said, and sat back in the chair. She wormed one hand inside the black silk tunic and brought her lightsaber out into her hand. Maul hissed loudly and she snatched her hand back as he tried to jerk her lightsaber out of her hand. "Did you honestly think you could hide it from me? I built the damned thing, Maul! I could Find this lightsaber anywhere!" She shook her head at him and slid her saber onto the ring on her belt. "Kee made sure of that. He hid it in various places around the Temple and made me go Find it everyday before we started practice. Then he had Ben go hide it in the Galleria, and I found it there too! So unless you want me to go diving out the airlock after it, there's no use in trying to hide it from me, because there's nowhere you could hide it on this little bitty ship that I couldn't Find it."
Maul didn't shift his attention from the blackness outside. Theri grimaced a little and swung around to look out the canopy herself, shivering a little in atavistic dread at the sight of the nothingness beyond the Rim of the galaxy. There actually were other galaxies in that blackness, but it required telescopes and very sensitive sensor equipment to detect them. They were so far away that they could not be seen with humanoid eyes. Even in hyperspace it would take thousands of years to get to these other galaxies. Those who had thought to try had been swiftly relegated to the category of megalomaniacs and madmen.
"Sidious wants me to kill Darth Ylaren, doesn't he?" Theri asked in the silence.
Maul peered over at her darkly for a moment, his eyes glowing in the peripheral light of the control consoles. "Yes."
Theri sighed and folded her legs up in the lotus position. "Why? The galaxy not big enough for the both of them or something?"
Another dark look from Maul, then, "You do not need to know why. All that is required is that you do what you are told."
Theri snorted a mirthless laugh. "I'm not going to do it. I will not kill anyone save only in self-defense or in defense of someone who is helpless. Even Sith."
Maul turned and stared at her coldly for almost a full minute. She returned the look calmly. Then he turned to look back out the canopy again at the black blankness of the Rifts. "You will do what you're told. If you do not, I will capture Jinn. You know you will have no choice but to obey me then."
"I've already warned him of that," Theri said. "I told Inda, and Inda told Kee. So he knows of your plans already."
Maul grinned a little at this and pulled himself up to the pilot's console, his hands darting swiftly over the keyboard as the screen in front of him switched to the navicomputer status screen.
"Where are you taking us?" Theri asked as the screen switched over to systems status and the computer began running through a pre-flight check.
Maul growled at her abruptly. "Out! Now!" He turned her chair around toward him, grabbed her arm and hauled her roughly out of the chair, shoving her out into the corridor and locking the cockpit door behind her.
Theri snorted a laugh. [Do you think that's going to stop me from knowing what you're doing?] she Sent to him. She reached out to his mind on the other side of the door, focussed her thoughts into claws and began tearing at his mindshields.
Maul grunted and grabbed his head as her telepathic strength began to build around him, threw himself into his pilot's chair and began swiftly keying in coordinates. The navicomputer acknowledged and began plotting the hyperspace jump. The wrenching pain in his head twisted his thoughts and brought out a growl, but the worse the pain the more fiercely he held to his shields.
[Maul, give it up. You know I'm a much stronger telepath than you are. Where are we going?]
Maul hissed but said nothing. Then he heard the comm computer chime as a link request came in, and a small hologram began to unfold on the console in front of him. "Lord Maul, what progress have you made with the girl?" his Master Sidious said without preamble, the black cloak enfolding the figure so that even the face was shadowed.
Maul drew himself up and forced his voice to be calm and steady despite the ripping pain of Theri's telepathic assault. "I shall do as you commanded, Master, and capture Jinn. I am returning to Coruscant to use her as bait to draw him out of the Temple."
The wrenching pain in his head was suddenly gone, as was the hologram of his Master, and outside the cockpit door he heard the girl laughing. He slapped at the door release and saw her leaning against the corridor wall as she laughed.
[Heh. Sucker,] Inda Sent to Maul, his mindvoice bubbling with laughter as the girl's giggles increased.
"It was--a subliminal--" Theri gasped out around her giggles. "And you fell for it!"
Maul growled then turned back into the cockpit to throw himself into his pilot's chair again and turn away to look back out into the Rifts as the computers continued their pre-flight checks.
Theri hopped back into the navigator's chair grinning still. All the time she'd spent in the Temple concentrating on her classes and Soritsu-ji and her lightsaber had made her forget what she was already capable of doing. But she had remembered her time on Korolis the night before, and the skills she had used there to keep herself alive and prospering had resurfaced. "You can't scare me, Maul. I can fight you, in some areas I can beat you. You can't own what you can't control, and you can't control what you don't own. And with Inda on my side, you can't go anywhere or do anything that I can't relay to Kee and Ben and Yoda instantly. We will all fight you, every one of us. And sooner or later, we will win."
Maul sat looking at her with his eyes blazing in anger for a moment, then he looked out at the emptiness of the Rifts again and said quietly, "But it is not your fight. Why fight at all? You are a Mystic, not a Jedi."
The soft husky voice sent a shiver down her spine, but she told her insides to behave. "I'm more like Inda than I am my old Master Therasslen. Just because I'm a Mystic doesn't mean I'm blind to right and wrong. It doesn't mean I'm absolved of responsibility for my actions or inactions. It only means that I don't follow the ethical and moral codes of either the Sith or the Jedi. It means I have to determine my own path and the things I believe in personally, the things I've determined are worth fighting against on a person-to-person level, not on a galactic level like the Jedi. I've decided I will fight only to defend myself and those who truly need protection. I've got my own boundaries as to what I consider a situation calling for action. Sure, you can fly me all over the galaxy, you can dangle me over the Temple, you can do whatever you like. But when you try to hurt someone else, I'll fight you with every skill and talent I have." She leaned back in her chair. "Besides, if Sidious wants Ylaren dead why don't you do it? This is a Sith fight, it has nothing to do with me."
Maul snorted. "Sith can feel each other's presence, just like we feel Jedi and Jedi feel each other. She would know I was there long before I could get close enough to do any harm. I could defeat her, I could kill her. But she is not stupid, and she has herself surrounded by defenses at all times."
"Oh. Sidious wants me to kill Ylaren because none of you can feel me coming," Theri said cynically. "Has it ever occurred to your Master that that applies to him as well? That if I wanted to go after him he wouldn't be able to scan me in time to stop me?"
Maul's eyes glowed with feral delight. "He knows where you are at all times. He hides himself very very well. What Yoda is to the Jedi, Sidious is to the Sith. You would never find him. Even the Jedi cannot find him."
"But I am not Jedi," Theri said with a smirk. "As you have said yourself."
[Checkmate!] Inda Sent cheerfully.
Maul hissed and Theri laughed a little. "Face it, Maul. I'm not your prisoner. I'm not your property. I'm your equal." She turned, got to her feet, and left him alone.
Maul sat looking at the controls for a long moment before the navicomputer screen began blinking, indicating it had finished the jump calculations to Coruscant. But still he sat watching the nothingness outside his ship for a long time before reaching over to cancel the calculations out of the computer with a soft hiss.
Kee rubbed his eyes yet again as Yoda chuckled softly in front of him. "Little One leaves a hole in you big enough to fly the Justice through."
Kee tried to laugh at this but couldn't. It was far too true. "I must go on, Master. The galaxy cannot stop turning because my lifemate has chosen to remain with Maul. I have work to do, and I trust her to come home eventually."
Beside him, Ben nodded slightly, forlornly, his eyes distant and worried. "The moment that bastard lands somewhere, Kylan and I are out of here after him!"
Yoda gave him a sharp look, and Ben looked away. "Anger! Always anger has been a problem with you, Obi-Wan! Anger for those you love is still anger! And it will not serve the purpose. Wasted energy, it is."
Ben nodded, but Kee reached over to squeeze his shoulder in sympathy. [Master is right, Ben. I know it's hard to just wait like this. But until Maul lands somewhere, it's all we can do. And Inda tells us Theri's all right, that all he's done is slash her across the back during the fight. All we can do is wait and watch and be ready to go at a moment's notice.]
Yoda nodded and closed his eyes, leaning back in his nest of pillows as the flickering light from the stained glass windows shifted and the patterns rippled like water through the air around them. "Studied Maul, you have? Made list of possible places he would go? Recognition data on new ship?"
Ben and Kee both nodded. "A distressingly long list of places, Master," Kee said. "And not all friendly to the Republic or to Jedi."
Yoda shrugged. "Hard it is to please everyone." The little Jedi Master reached over with his walking stick to poke Ben's leg. "Take one of the unmarked ships, you will, Obi-Wan? Freighter or courier ship?"
"We'll take the courier ship," Ben said. "The freighter is too big and we'll need to move fast."
Yoda nodded. "A shame, that young Ghanbari is not here to go with you."
Ben shrugged. "We didn't expect we'd always be together, Master."
Kee winced, and both Yoda and Ben looked up at him but he shook his head. "I'm all right. Just that sometimes it feels like Theri's reaching for me, and I reach back and there's nothing there. I can't figure out what's going on here."
Yoda peered up at his apprentice for a moment. "Stay here, you will, Qui-Gon! Leave the Temple you will not! Obi-Wan will find Little One and bring home. If Sith capture you, both of you are in danger! Little One is stronger telepath, and Sidious will not hesitate to use her against you!"
Kee closed his eyes in pain. "I know, Master. I know."
"Now!" Yoda continued briskly. "Obi-Wan. Go first to Korolis. Then to Syharath. Little bird says Maul will be going these places."
"Little bird?" Ben asked.
Kee grinned wanly. "A little bird with an odd sense of humor who shall remain nameless but who's initials are Sowelu Inda."
Yoda chuckled. "Go now, Obi-Wan. Call Kylan, and go."
Ben nodded, reached over to hug his Master for a long moment, then jumped to his feet and hurried out the door.
Kee watched Ben go with hope and fear both in his eyes, then closed his eyes and rubbed under his ears, trying to banish the ache. Yoda put out a hand silently, and Kee scooted over so that the small green hand could rest on his head gently, then sighed as his Master's mindpowers began numbing the strain.
[Peace, my son. She will return to you. The Force would not be so cruel.]
"Korolis, huh?" Kylan asked as he and Ben rushed together up the ramp of the little beat-up courier ship in the Temple's hangar a few minutes later. Fortunately, the little ship was in perfect mechanical condition, maintained by the Temple's technicians. It was simply an "undercover" ship, an unmarked, unremarkable little ship, meant to blend in. "Theri spent over a year there, didn't she? When she was with Therasslen?"
"Uh-huh," Ben replied distractedly as they tossed their packs onto blastcouches in the cramped main cabin of the little ship. "Korolis is pretty rough, it was originally a mining planet but after LyraTech put their design division there it started attracting hackers by the shipload. Nothing like a droid factory to attract hackers. Worse than sandflies to bantha meat. And then the hackers needed drugs, so drug dealers and drug factories, and suddenly Korolis is second only to Coruscant for crime and corruption. It must have scared Theri half out of her mind."
Kylan shrugged a little and tossed his hair back as he settled into the navigator's chair and Ben began powering up the ship's systems and doing pre-flight checks. "Theri is tougher than that, Ben," he said. "Once she adapts to something, it doesn't scare her anymore. She's not afraid of Maul and he's got the rest of the Jedi screaming and running for the hills."
Ben stopped and turned to give the other Jedi a troubled look. "You're not afraid of Maul either?"
Kylan turned to check the comm systems before answering. "Maul doesn't scare me as a fighter, Ben. Not that I'm anywhere near as good with my saber as Maul is, or even you. It's a different sort of fear." He kept looking down at his controls, keyed in the request into the computer to look up the coordinates for Korolis and begin plotting the hyperspace jump. "Theri would understand what I'm talking about. Don't worry. I'll have no problems fighting Maul. But I think you'll find Theri has another side to her that can handle anything anyone can throw at her. Maybe Master Kee was right. Maybe you two are too close to her to see her as she truly is."
Ben stared at him silently again for a moment, and Kylan returned his look steadily. Then Ben shook himself and turned to finish the pre-flight checks, and a few moments later he was pulling the little ship up into Coruscant's endless ship traffic and out into the cold vastness of space.
"You are a lot like her, you know," Ben said tentatively when the silence had grown too long. "I wonder if someone can be a Mystic by nature and not just by training? You're from--where?"
"Kaitos," Kylan replied as the navicomputer began blinking to indicate it had completed the hyperspace calculations. "Originally, that is. My father is an archaeologist and my mother is a xenopaleontologist, so we moved around constantly. And they still do, actually, with my sister in tow now that she's a xenoanthropologist. I'm one of a set of twins, and my sister is much better looking, I assure you."
Ben grinned lopsidedly. "You have Theri's way of thinking already. And that way of putting a loaded comment where it'll do the most good."
Kylan smiled as Ben pulled the little ship away from orbit and slid the hyperspace controls forward. The starfield outside the little ship elongated into dashes, then into endless, beginningless streaks, shifting from white to blue to purple and then back to white again. "I suppose that makes me just as much a target for the label of 'heretic' as Theri then. But I can't help but question everything I assume about the world, Ben. If that's being a Mystic, I'm happy to be one." He sat back, looking out at hyperspace with a distant searching look. "But it's a dangerous road, yes. But life is like that if you really want to live it."
Ben nodded. "I wonder how Master Yoda expects us to find Theri once we get there. It's almost as bad as Coruscant, and I don't expect Maul will be poking his horned head out where he'll be tagged by security droids. Or that he'll be using chipcards that have his real name and biodata on them. And there will undoubtedly be other Sith there, and people with latent Force-talent. If he wanted a good place to hide, Korolis is as good as Coruscant."
[I don't know yet, boy,] Inda's mindvoice said suddenly. [I'm working on pinpointing where they'll end up. But there's so many possibilities in the spiral...it's difficult trying to figure out which ones may actually happen.]
Ben looked puzzled at this. [You're looking forward, Inda?]
[Because he's part of the Force itself,] Kylan Sent with a faint smile. [Master Inda *is* the Force now, Ben.]
[Uh, yeah, kid,] Inda Sent, his mindvoice sounding slightly embarrassed. [This set of memories and personality disorders you call Sowelu Inda is like...like a wave on an ocean. It's still one with the rest of the ocean, it's just sort of a bump that's reached out from the water. So I can see the future, but there's so much to see it's hard to isolate any one timeline. It's a good thing there's only one Mystic in the galaxy or it'd be impossible.]
"For the moment," Kylan said with a mischievous grin.
[Heh. Very true. You boys hang tight, I'm gonna go be a fly on the wall.]
"My Master commands us to Korolis," Maul said quietly into the darkness. "Ylaren has gone there."
Theri snorted a laugh and looked over at him where he leaned against the wall just inside the main cabin. He'd turned all the lights in the ship off. She wasn't certain if this was intended to frighten her or if he just liked being in the dark. Probably both. But she couldn't tell. She still could pick up nothing from his mind at all. "Good for her. I'm still not going to kill her."
Maul was silent at this.
Theri sighed and relaxed again into the gelfoam of the narrow bunk and let her annoyance with him creep into her voice. "Don't just stand there staring at me, Maul. What is it with you, anyway? Are you Sidious' errand boy? Or a Sith Lord? Are you going to hang around hesitating every time he gives you an order? Or are you going to get on with it?"
The yellow eyes locked with hers. Undoubtedly he could see her perfectly well in the dark.
"Well?" she asked. "If you're not serious about all this, then take me home. Stop warning me and telling me what you're going to do and just do it. Otherwise, I suggest you go lock yourself in your room and figure out who and what you are, because you obviously have no idea." She pushed herself off the bunk and started past him toward the cockpit. He caught her arm as she passed, and she wrenched his hand away and flung it off.
Lucky I didn't break your hand, she thought.
She flopped down into the navigator's chair and curled her legs up under her as Maul sank down into the pilot's chair beside her. She watched glumly while he began flipping switches and setting the computer to do the pre-flight checks, then keying in the request for Korolis into the navicomputer. Theri had gotten fed up with the whole thing now. They'd been sitting out here in the Rifts for almost a full day. She was sore, tired, hungry, and her head was beginning to hurt from the strain of trying to reach for Kee with her mind. And Maul wouldn't leave her alone for more than a few minutes, so she couldn't really get any thinking done. Kee and Ben at least knew when to leave her alone.
Korolis. What could she do on Korolis to get away?
Memories flashed in her mind. If Coruscant could have an evil twin, Korolis would be it. Coruscant had mandated the use of energy-efficient, non-polluting technologies for several hundred years. Korolis had not. There were still fission reactors on Korolis, and most of the personal transports were petrochemical drive. The planet was owned by LyraTech, a droid design and manufacturing conglomerate. And as such, Korolis was a hacker's paradise, a wonderland of information waiting to be stolen, swiped, copied, pirated. Where there was money involved, there would be thieves, and those thieves needed protection from each other, so the hackers had soon learned to band together with street-fighters to watch over them and keep stray blaster bolts and slugs from connecting with their heads. Soon these partnerships had evolved to include techs, dealers, and finders, and the gang culture came out of these bands. Theri herself had been part of this, when she and her old Master had lived on Korolis. She'd played the part of a drug dealer, planting impulsion loops in the minds of drug junkies who came to her wanting to buy Dreamweaver. And there were some she'd managed to help get off the drugs completely, using the same techniques.
The navicomputer began blinking, indicating it had completed the hyperspace calculations. They had a split-second to see the white blaze of the galaxy above them as the ship turned itself into position, then Maul slid the hyperspace controls forward and the stars became white streaks as the ship jumped into hyperspace.
Theri humphed softly and turned away from the yellow eyes seeking hers. Well, at least it would be good to be on Korolis again, no matter the circumstances. She had to smile at that. How could anyone be glad to go to Korolis? Except maybe people like Maul and the hackers who thought it was one step below heaven itself. Law and order were nonexistant on Korolis. There was only corporate security and the law of the streets that whoever had the biggest guns and the hottest software made the law.
That feeling of eyes on the back of her neck.
She swung around abruptly to look him in the eyes. "What?! Just say it straight out, Maul, quit staring at me or so help me I'll shove my lightsaber straight down your throat!"
The look of surprise was genuine, fleeting though it was. Then the Sith grinned wolfishly at her. "Anger, aggressiveness. What would your precious Jedi lover think of that?"
Theri jumped to her feet, her hands itching to jerk her lightsaber from her belt and slice his head clean off, but she clenched her hands and turned to stomp out of the cockpit. Kee. Kee would have told her to calm down, that anger solved nothing. Kee would have turned her toward him and looked down into her eyes and--
Oh beloved, she thought, desperately reaching her soul to the tiny little rainbow sparkle in the spiral of the Force as she flopped down on the bunk in the main cabin again. She wriggled a little and focussed on her breathing, willing calmness into her soul, reaching to that little sparkle of her lifemate's soul. The other half of her own soul. All well and good and wonderful, but at the moment what she really wanted was Kee's arms around her and his voice whispering in her ear.
Kee sighed heavily and closed his eyes, trying yet again to rub the ache away. He'd be spending every night with a regen unit if this kept up. The viewscreen in front of him cleared then filled with another file, and he opened his eyes and tried to focus on what he was doing. Behind him, the windows of the bedroom were dim with night, the running lights of the passing ships stitching across the sky, the nearby buildings sending up yellow glow into the clouds. He couldn't sleep, and most especially he couldn't sleep without Theri's solid warmth in his arms. The thoughts whirling around in his head refused to be banished. What was she doing, what was Maul doing to her, what was she thinking and feeling. Where was she. When would she come home. Would she come home at all.
[Good grief. You two resonate like two piezocrystals. She's sitting there in Maul's ship thinking the same things at the same time. Well, that's lifemating for you.]
[Inda. You were the sort who sat at the hoverboard matches yelling for blood, weren't you?] Kee Sent with a mirthless laugh.
He heard the spirit chuckle. [Well, I *do* have a different perspective on things now, you must admit.]
Kee nodded. [Is she all right?]
[Getting fed up with Maul. She just threatened to shove her lightsaber down his throat. You know that old trick where you stare at someone until they go bug-nuts? He's doing that to her and it's driving her out of her mind. It doesn't help he's been totally shielding her out, either. But I'm having a hard time figuring him out too. One moment it's like he's wanting to talk to her or reach out to her, the next he turns on her or goes completely cold. Theri can't figure out if he's trying to manipulate her with this or if he's just being monumentally indecisive.]
[That's not like Maul,] Kee Sent worriedly. [He's usually the most decisive of the Sith Lords, aside from Sidious.]
[Well, I have a few theories, but I'm waiting to see what happens. The future is just as much a surprise for me as it is for you live ones, even if I can see what's coming in a vague sort of way. But I think that once the Demon gives her something to eat and lets her alone for a few minutes she'll get herself calmed down and figure a way to get more of an idea about what's going on in the nit's head. I just have a sneaking feeling he's going to have nothing to eat on his ship except meat, and you know Theri would rather starve than eat meat of any sort.]
[If that happens, you tell her I said to eat whatever he gives her to eat so long as it won't make her physically ill. She ate fish and animal meat until she was ten years old, and she can again. Principle must take second place to survival, and she needs her strength.] Kee rubbed his neck absently, got to his feet and went out into the dark main room of the apartment. Ben and Theri both gone. He hadn't felt so alone since before Yoda gave Ben to him thirteen years ago. Ben wasn't just over there in his room working late on a remote or a crawler-droid. Theri wasn't curled up asleep in the bed behind him. For the first time in a long long time, he was completely alone.
[Y'know, Jinn, I hadn't wanted to say anything before, but I think you need to start thinking about who you are on your own. Seems to me like your whole life and mind is defined by the kids, and outside of them you have no life. You're Theri's lifemate and Kenobi's teacher and Yoda's apprentice. Everything you are is being something attached to someone else. Who's the real Qui-Gon Jinn in all that?]
Kee grinned slightly as he headed out to the balcony to look out over the night skyline of Coruscant. [You've been talking about me to Master, haven't you? That's something he might have said to me himself.]
[Well, of course! We're both his Padawans! But if we're going to be technical and pull rank, I'm the elder. But he was only three hundred and something when I was with him. The Master who raised you has five hundred more years under his wrinkly green skin. But he taught us both to think. So, think, boy! Ask yourself who you are, make a list if you have to. If the answers are in terms of being something to someone else, it's not really you, it's something you do not something you are. Whatever's left when you get done is who you really are, good or bad.]
Kee closed his eyes in the fresh watery breeze from the waterfall coursing down the walls of the Temple below and nodded. [I'm a teacher, Inda. Just like Master. It's my life. A teacher without students is incomplete, that's all. And I'm Theri's lifemate, and without her I'm literally incomplete. And I'm a Jedi. Theri amazes me with her devotion to the Way, the insights she's gained into herself, the things she can do. She comes up with a new trick every day, it seems. I understand a lot of what you both believe in, and sometimes even agree with it myself. But I am a Jedi. I fight the Dark by teaching Ben the ways of the Force so that he'll know the Dark when he sees it, so he can avoid it or fight it as he wishes. I teach Theri the same, as much as I can. But she's a Mystic, and she has to follow her own way over whatever I may have taught her. But when I've taught all I can, then what happens to the teacher? I'll go down to the dayschool on Level Four and pick out a new apprentice and start again.]
[Sure you will,] Inda Sent sourly. [Push Kenobi out on his own, clean out his room, and put another boy in his place. Do you honestly think you can do that, Jinn?]
Kee shook his head. [No. I don't. Ben's too much my son to allow room for another. Except for the children Theri and I may have one day, of course.]
Inda was silent for a long moment. [Why do you need others to define who you are?] the spirit Sent finally. [After all these years, why can't you figure it out on your own?]
[Maybe I do know who I am, Inda,] Kee Sent, turning back to the darkened apartment behind him. [And maybe I don't want to be that person. Maybe I'm trying to live as I would want to live, not as life has taught me. Maybe I would rather live out of the good I am capable of than out of the evil. Maybe I would rather love than hate. I don't see that as being defined by others. I see it as serving others. Isn't that what Jedi do? Serve others?]
Inda was quiet again then. [You're right. I'm sorry, Jinn. I underestimated you.]
Kee smiled a little as he came back into his bedroom, feeling the dull ache of Theri's absence in his mind. [Go pester Theri, Inda. She needs you more than I do. And you're forgiven.] He felt the spirit's presence fade as he sat down again at the viewscreen and tried once more to concentrate.
[Boy? You awake?]
Ben grunted and pulled himself upright again in the pilot's chair, and the sudden sharp pain in his neck brought a scowl to his face. The smaller of Korolis' moons turned below the little ship serenely as they flew in orbit. Damn. He'd fallen asleep again. That old childhood response to spaceflight. [I'm here, Inda,] he Sent blearily to the spirit.
[Heh. Fell asleep? I used to do that too. My apprentice Jyp used to kid me no end about it. Anyway, Maul and Theri will be coming out of hyperspace in a little while on the other side of the system ecliptic. They'll be landing at Eastern Five spaceport. Seems Darth Ylaren and Darth Tahkra are meeting up here as well. And Sidious has ordered Maul to get Theri to kill Ylaren.]
"Ylaren?" Ben said, rubbing his neck to try to get the stiffness out. "Kylan?" he called back into the main cabin of the little courier ship.
Kylan came back into the cockpit, and Ben blinked in mild surprise. They'd decided to wear civilian clothes while on Korolis, as the appearance of two Jedi in full uniforms and cloaks would shout their presence to the Sith. Kylan had changed into his outfit while Ben had been asleep. Black leather pants, black silk wrap-around shirt, black leather jacket, low black suede boots. He'd brushed out his long hair and braided tiny silver chains into it, small crystals chiming together at the ends of the chains. The outfit suited his willowy body perfectly, his pale skin almost glowed in the black silk and leather.
"I hope Theri sees you in that," Ben said with a grin as he faced front again, watching the terrain of Korolis' smaller moon slide by below them.
"Are you kidding? She picked this out for me!" Kylan said with a mischievous grin. "Last time we went to the Galleria. Said if I was straight she'd be all over me like a rabid peko. So I bought it."
Ben grinned at him and shook his head. "You two are incorrigible." He swung around to go back into the cabin. "Mind the shop for a minute. Inda just told me Maul's ship will be coming out of hyperspace in a little while, and they'll be heading for Eastern Five spaceport." He tilted his head at the other Jedi for a moment as Kylan took his lightsaber from the console and tucked it carefully into the inner pocket of his jacket. "Actually you look like a hacker, and that's the best camoflage you could have on Korolis. I think it's the largest population segment."
The sleek black ship swept down into the traffic patterns leading to Eastern Five spaceport, looking decidedly out of place among the beat-up transports, freighters, and shuttles around it. Theri grinned to herself. One day this ship would be Maul's undoing. It was far too distinctive, it simply screamed Sith with the black hull and the winged-dagger shape. No one who saw it once would forget it, and that was a liability.
Korolis again. It hadn't changed, not at all.
Where Coruscant was bright and clean and orderly, Korolis was rough and dirty and dark. Hundreds of years of petrochemical smog and radiation from old fission reactors had destroyed all native animal life save for a huge rat-like creature and a mutant lizard species. That same smog had poisoned the air so that it was unbreathable by most humanoids, requiring breathing masks. When it rained here, the rain was a black oily acid rain that ate through metals and plascrete and vitriglass with amazing swiftness. Newer buildings were covered with a frictionless skin so that this acid rain slid off without pooling, and older buildings were equipped with electrostatic fields that vaporized the rain back into the atmosphere. No one willingly spent much time outside. There were people who had lived their entire lives on Korolis without ever setting foot on the planet's surface, living all their lives inside, moving from place to place via the maglev trains and the walkway tunnels. The two major landmasses were known simply as Western and Eastern, both completely covered by one giant metroplex each. The dead oceans between were chemical soups the reddish-brown color of rust that glowed softly at night. You could see this glow even from orbit. The ocean was a popular place to dispose of enemies as anything that was dropped into it dissolved in a matter of minutes.
Giant residential complexes radiated like starbursts from the dome structures of malls and factories and office districts, connecting together into a hexagonal grid. The spaces between the spokes of this grid were filled with the ramshackle construction of the Tween, where the "betweeners" lived. This was where the gangs lived and worked and schemed, where poverty and greed and desperation came together. The career hackers lived in the Tween, for the most part, along with their bands of techs, finders, dealers, and fighters. It was an uncharted land. With the planet's telecomm system it wasn't neccessary to go anywhere outside the local Tween area to carry out their work. The virtual electronic world of Korolis overlaid and transcended the harsh, cramped, dangerous reality of the Tween, and there the hacker could be a god. If they had to go outside the Tween in pursuit of their objectives, corporate security rarely pursued the gangs into the Tween areas when it came to physical combat. They knew that once the gangs made it to the Tween the odds would not be on their side.
It was night on Korolis as the black ship descended to the glowing gridded circle of the landing zone at Eastern Five. Maul brought the ship into a hover and landed without a bump. A transparisteel dome began cycling closed over the black ship, blocking out the brownish glow of the night sky above them, and a droid-brained transport was trundling up to the black ship already. Maul finished shutting down the ship's systems, then turned toward her and his hand shot out to latch on to her wrist. He hauled her to her feet and dragged her back to the main cabin.
Theri tried to pull her arm out of his grasp, but he growled at her warningly. "What are you doing?" she asked, struggling to get away as he opened one of the storage containers built into the wall of the cabin and searched for something inside. He jerked her back beside him with another growl. Theri responded by kicking him in the back of the knee trying to knock him to the floor, but he kept his feet and tightened his hold on her wrist until she gasped in pain. Despite her struggles, he found what he was looking for and turned toward her, grinning snake-like at her. He pushed her face-first against the wall, pulled her hair away from her neck, and a needle-like pain shot through her head. She gasped and tried to reach back to get rid of whatever he'd done to her, but he hissed softly and caught hold of her hands, holding her immobile as she tried to struggle to get away. "What did you do to me?" she said in a small voice as the pain began to subside in her head.
"A tracking device. Nothing more." The husky voice in her ear lanced through her like a stun bolt. "Do not try to remove it. It is imbedded in the bone of your skull near your spine. It will not interfere with your mindpowers."
"A tracker?" she said. "You put a tracker on me?" She stiffened in his arms as the rage flared.
Theri could all but feel Maul's wolfish grin behind her. "You will not escape me here. You belong to me now."
Theri's sight went red, and with the energy of that rage she wrenched his arms from where they were locked around her and flung him against the wall. In the next moment, she jerked her lightsaber from her belt and the star-like blade sprang to life in her hand as she jumped at him with a yell. Maul laughed, ducking easily out of the way of the yellow-orange blade as it swept toward him, one blade of his own lightsaber extending as he tumbled out of the way. Theri was right behind him, her saber a droning howl in her hand, the rage blocking out every other thought as she reached for the Force. But the spiral didn't fill her with it's power, it didn't take her body and give her the skill she needed. It continued to turn on in silent inexorable circles.
Maul grinned at her as he batted her saber blade away as she hesitated. "What's wrong? The anger keeping you from the Force? The rage keeping you from your center?" His orange saber held her blade away as he reached over to try to take it out of her hand. She backed away and turned her lightsaber off, sank down against the wall with it clutched in her hands, staring at him half in fear, half in hate.
"You didn't do anything to my mindpowers, you bastard," Theri growled, and reached out with the claws of her mind.
Maul stiffened in pain, then dropped to his knees in front of her, hissing at the pain in his head that built like a reactor going critical, holding to his shields with every ounce of power he possessed.
[Do you honestly think I can't incinerate your mind?] Theri Sent to him coldly. [Do you honestly think I won't?]
Maul growled and forced himself upright against the searing ripping pain in his skull that grayed his sight. "I think your Jedi lover would not approve," he gasped out tauntingly.
[My Jedi lover would have beheaded you already,] Theri Sent icily. [He would have sent you back to Sidious in five separate bloody packages. But I am not so ethical and merciful as my lifemate. I want you to suffer.]
[No, Theri!] Inda's mindvoice suddenly said warningly, with more command than she'd ever heard from him. Inda's blue ghostly form began to coalesce beside her, the spirit's hand fell on her shoulder and she gasped as the Force once more swept through her, clearing away the rage on a cold clean wind of clear light. [That is not the Way.]
[He put a tracker on me,] Theri Sent to him.
[I know, dear,] Inda Sent. The spirit's eyes were locked on Maul as the Sith straightened up. Inda's appearance had broken Theri's concentration and she had released him. [I warned you, Maul,] Inda growled at him.
Maul blinked once, then stiffened again, his hands clawing at the air as Inda's mindpowers invaded his mind right through his shields, forcing a complex series of impulsion loops and subliminals into the Sith's subconcious with dagger-like precision. A moment later Maul's shields collapsed, and Theri caught her breath as she suddenly felt and Saw what was in his mind.
A wave of raw, extreme, conflicting emotions swamped her, such a confused mass of opposites that she wondered how he managed to decide what to do at all. Predominantly hate and an insatiable need to control others, to manipulate and use others. Not just for his own material gain, but simply to dominate another. The twisted dark joy he felt when he saw the fear in a strong enemy's eyes, knowing that once he saw that fear he was only a heartbeat away from winning the battle. He'd killed her old Master Therasslen in the most gruesome and painful way he could think of, knowing Theri would feel it too, the exultant triumph knowing he'd be causing such pain to both of them. All he did he did to cause fear and hate and pain, because it fed him and strengthened him far more than anything else in the galaxy. He did not acknowledge any power greater than himself save for his Master Sidious, and one day when all was in readiness he would kill his Master as well. Even the Force he bent in the iron claws of his will, drawing on the power only when needed, refusing to listen to his Master's insistence that he should open himself to the Dark at all times. Maul controlled his own actions and destiny. He would never allow the Force to move him like a pawn in a hologame.
But deeper down than this, beneath the inner wall of his mind, another Darth Maul watched the world move around him and watched his own actions. In the inner lands of his mind, he was far from sane. Theri saw the child he had been once, a forgotten nameless refugee from a war that ravaged his now-destroyed homeworld, a starving orphan living like a humanoid rat in the wake of an alien army that swept through the villages smashing and burning everything they encountered. The huge reptiloid alien warrior who had found him rootling through a crate of supplies searching for food, jerking him up by the neck and roaring to his companions. And at that moment, reaching his terrified child's soul to the power he'd sensed in everything around him, desperately reaching for whatever could save him...and miraculously the alien guard had howled in pain and dropped him. He'd scrambled away as quickly as he could, but not quick enough to evade the mindpowers of the man who emerged from the command pod in response to the ripple in the Force he'd inadvertantly caused. Three nights later, as he huddled hugging himself in the cold of a freezing rain, he felt the tug of someone calling him in his mind, urging him to come out of his hiding place, promising food and warmth. He'd crept out, wondering what this thing was that called him without a voice. The human man who stood there below had seized his mind in a grip of steel, crushing the child's mind with such swiftness that the boy couldn't even scream.
Sidious rebuilt him, remade him, trained him to fight with every weapon he could find, trained his mind to laser sharpness. But always there was fear in it, fear of Sidious, fear to fail, fear of what Sidious would do to him if he failed. And always knowing that Sidious would never teach him everything, that always Sidious would be far more powerful than Maul could ever hope to defeat. The only hope Maul had was to make himself as powerful and deadly as he could and hope that one day he would catch his Master at a moment of weakness. But he must be prepared. So he pushed himself even harder, never allowing himself a moment's rest, eliminating everything from his life and mind that did not make him stronger, driving himself with obsessive, fanatical discipline. When his body would not do what he asked of it, he pushed harder until it did. When his mindpowers were not strong enough, he worked so hard at extending his range and telepathic strength that he gave himself neural damage from the constant headaches. Sidious could not have pushed him any harder than he pushed himself. He refused to accept failure from himself. If he ever hoped to defeat his Master, if he ever wanted to be the most powerful Sith Lord ever to rule in this galaxy, there could be absolutely no weaknesses, only overwhelming strength.
Years spent in conquest, fighting Darth Tahkra and Darth Izar and the others, fighting to dominate, fighting for wealth or power. And fighting and killing Jedi, watching them fall under his lightsaber blades like the moon-eyed cattle they were, watching them hesistate in fear and uncertainty when he lunged at them like some black pantherine ghost. Only a few truly had no fear of him. The intelligence specialist Windu. The Vaikerian pilot Koon. The teacher Jinn. But they had attachments, connections, to their apprentices. This was a weakness Maul itched to exploit, to capture these children and kill them simply to make the teachers suffer. And a year ago he'd sensed the Force moving on the trail he'd followed sporadically for several years, the trail of the old man Therasslen and the apprentice he'd finally taken on Thretketh. A young girl, so powerful with the Force that he'd wondered the Jedi hadn't already snatched her up long before. The nexus of the Force he'd sensed around the girl had happened at that cave in the desert of Tatooine, the moment Jinn had first laid eyes on the girl. Maul had rejected the knowledge of this nexus, had refused to look forward at his Master's prompting. He knew without having to look forward that the girl would play a part in his future.
Thretketh. When Therasslen had kidnapped the girl, Maul had looked into her background. Dalryn bel Srithrai had tested psi-sensitive, and his brother Korvin had been hurried off to the SpaceCorp training academy after being treated for a stab wound in the stomach that the reports said had been a fishing accident. Maul had contacted the boy soon after Theri had been kidnapped. A deal had been made. Dalryn wanted off Thretketh. Maul wanted Theri. When and if she ever returned home, all Dalryn had to do was send a message to a certain comm number. When the call had come at last, Maul had felt the Force moving in the path of time.
The cave-in on Thretketh had trapped him inside a cave with a woman who refused to be afraid of him and refused to be dominated by him. She had called a ghost to her side and begun reciting the teachings of the Mystics to him from memory. She had sat there calmly in front of him, unafraid, fiercely independent, centered...very young, very attractive, with the liquid grace and strength gained from hours of Soritsu-ji. Maul did not know how to react save to hide the fact that he didn't know how to react. The Mystic teachings jangled through his mind like a discordant melody, parts of it making sense, other parts total nonsense. The direct green gaze of the girl bored into his soul. The challenge of her defiance was something he couldn't turn away from, and the chase took on another dimension. Over the months since then the need to possess this paradoxical child had become obsessive, even in despite of his Master's command to break off the chase. He had set probe droids to monitor the Great Temple on a round-the-clock basis, with orders that if the Mystic girl left the Temple to contact him instantly. He had acquired rooms at a building near the Temple, psi-shielded these rooms so Theri would not sense him telepathically, and sat for hours watching Jinn's apartment balcony, waiting for a glimpse of her. He had watched her at lightsaber practice on the terraces of the Temple, the boy Kenobi teaching her, Jinn watching protectively over them both like some tireless sandlion. He had trained remote microphones on her, letting the sound of her laughter lull him to sleep at night as she and Jinn and Kenobi lived their lives together in a loving harmony he had never known himself. She haunted him night and day. But always the fear that his Master Sidious would find out that he was obsessed with the girl, always squashing the overwhelming animalistic need back down into the chaotic frenzy of his mind, letting the glacial calm of years of iron-willed control hide every emotion and thought. If Sidious found out he was so obsessed, he'd have Tahkra terminate him. And those moments when he was close to the girl herself were sheer terror. He knew exactly how powerful a telepath she was, he knew exactly what she could do as a Mystic. The girl Khali had given him the complete files on Theri bel Kaitryn made when the girl had been given to Jinn as his apprentice. She literally could burn out his mind without even trying. And the very danger of stalking that kind of power made the girl all that much more entrancing.
Theri wrenched her mind out of the rapport and found herself staring down at her hands where they clutched her lightsaber, shaking with reactions she couldn't define, her mind screaming incoherently without direction. She was a bare heartbeat away from being pulled into Maul's chaotic madness, the contained explosion of a broken mind inside the steel walls of his will. For a split-second she didn't understand why she wasn't holding the double lightsaber sitting on the floor a few feet away, why was she holding the girl's lightsaber...? Why was his body there when he was here...?
[Easy, kiddo,] the ghost Sent softly. [Remember who you are. You're Theri bel Kaitryn, you're the last Mystic, you're Kee Jinn's lifemate. That's your own lightsaber there in your hands. Do you remember building it? Do you remember finding those switches in that box of spare parts in that jumble on Ben's desk? Do you remember that day?]
Theri blinked, looked up at Inda's worried, blue-glowing face, the fearful intense look. The lightsaber switches. Ben's worktable. Ben's room, the crawler droids in the net above her head, the holoprints of mechs and the map of Tatooine. The apartment. The Temple. Kee's sapphire eyes and the gray in his beautiful long hair, the strength of his arms around her, his deep voice in her ears, the feel of his soul enfolding hers. And her mind snapped back to her own reality, and she choked and looked over at Maul.
Maul was curled up on the floor in a ball, his shields completely gone, his mind so disconnected and formless with shock that she sensed no vestige of his personality at all. The yellow eyes stared vacantly at the wall, and Theri shuddered. It was like looking into the blank nothingness of the Rifts.
[He couldn't take a good, hard, honest look at himself,] Inda Sent softly. [Sith rarely can.] The spirit gestured at the hatchway. [Come on, kiddo. Time to go.]
Theri swallowed, still trembling, stumbled to her feet, and punched the rampway switch. Miraculously, it opened, and she walked slowly down the ramp to the airlock in the dome's wall and into the little droid-trundler transport.
Kylan straightened up where he stood by the spaceport terminal's broad vitriglass windows, looking up at the traffic patterns swirling around the port. A piece of the night itself seemed to fall from out of the traffic above, a ship, a black ship, the wedge-shaped main fuselage, the spherical command pod, the sharply-pointed wings on each side. Maul's ship! He turned with a soft jingle of the crystals in his hair to look over at the figure some hundred yards away watching out another window on the opposite side of the terminal. Ben had hiked himself up into the deep windowsill, looking much younger than he really was in his frayed city camos, his shoulder-length hair disheveled, the old faded olive-drab army jacket. [They're here,] he Sent to Ben, and the younger Jedi nodded, jumped down from his perch and started toward him.
Ben's eyes were filled with worry and tension as he joined Kylan at the window, raking his hair back from his eyes and shoving his hands in the pockets of his old army jacket. Kylan crossed his arms across his chest, trying to hide his own worry. The landing dome had closed over Maul's ship, and the droid-transport was already rolling slowly out to the dome. Kylan glanced up at the displays over the terminal walkway behind him. The transport would link three airlocks away from where they now stood, some fifty yards. [Before things get too hectic, I should tell you that olive drab does *not* go with urban camo.]
Ben glanced up at Kylan in confusion, then snorted a laugh. [Understood, Senior. If we survive this I'll have Theri go through my wardrobe and give me a makeover.]
Kylan grinned. [See that you do.] He looked out the window again at the distant dome covering Maul's ship, and Ben could all but feel him twitching with tension. [What's going on out there? Why hasn't the transport started back?]
Ben shook his head. [Can you hear her?]
Kylan frowned, and Ben could feel him scanning for Theri. [No. But I've got extra shielding up, all the people around here, and we know Tahkra and Ylaren are here on Korolis.]
[She doesn't know you're here, boys,] Inda Sent quietly. [I haven't told her. I didn't want the Demon to pick it up from her mind, so I didn't tell her.]
Kylan nodded, his face going expressionless as they saw the transport begin to trundle back to the spaceport terminal. [Well, we'll know in a few minutes. Here they come.]
[Not 'they', kid. Just Theri.]
[What?] Ben Sent in a stunned mindvoice. [Just Theri?]
[Yup. But you'd better get over to the airlock now, Kenobi. She's in a bad way.] The spirit's mindvoice held such sadness that he sounded a thousand years old. Ben and Kylan were moving instantly at his words. [Ah well. Love conquers all, or so I'm told.]
The airlock door opened to the transport just as they got there, and for a moment no one emerged from the grungy interior. Then Theri peered around the airlock frame fearfully, her face white with shock, one hand clutching her lightsaber, her hair tangled and disheveled, the green and silver streak shockingly bright against the black Sith uniform.
Ben smiled and held out his arms to her. [Sweetling! It's me!]
She blinked at him for a moment in confusion, the green eyes clouded. Then intelligence flickered in her eyes as she realized who it was, and she raced forward to him and straight into his arms. Ben held her for a long moment as she collapsed against him, and he gently took her lightsaber from her hand. [How did you get here? How are you here? Take me home, Ben, please! Now! I want to go home!]
Ben chuckled softly then kissed her swiftly as Kylan's eyes darted around protectively. [We're going! Where's Maul?]
Theri shuddered in his arms. [He's in no shape to follow us right now. He's still in his ship.]
Kylan nodded. [I don't sense anyone threatening. Nor anything Dark. I think we're safe for the moment. Let's get going. Tahkra and Ylaren undoubtedly have contacts at the spaceports to tell them when another Sith happens to show up. So let's go. They won't be slow to send someone after him, and Mystics are a hot commodity.] He smiled down at Theri briefly, took one of her hands as Ben let her go and they started down the concourse. [It's good to have you back, teacher mine.]
Theri snorted and squeezed his hand. [Just take me home, love. We'll argue about whether I actually know anything to teach you later.]
Ben took her other hand. [Silly! Of course you do!]
Theri closed her eyes briefly and Ben felt how shaky her mind was as she reached out to him half-fearfully. [I know nothing, Ben. Nothing at all,] she Sent narrowly to him, her mindvoice choked. He barely sensed her words.
Kee let out a long sigh as he read the textmessage from Ben, sent just before the little courier ship went into hyperspace. They'd found Theri. They were coming home. His hand that held the datapad dropped to his knee where he sat with his Master in the conference room in Operations, and he closed his eyes against the aching pain behind his ears. Yoda chuckled softly.
"Meet up with the Justice , they will," Yoda said as he opened his eyes again. "Little One goes to medics first, to make sure nothing wrong. Then to Droma, then to Coruscant. Then to you."
Kee nodded. In a matter of hours Theri would be in his arms again.
Yoda's ears lifted as he grinned up at his apprentice. "Now. Tahkra and Ylaren. Tell me, Qui-Gon. Little One old news now. Tell me of this."
Kee gave his Master a brief wan smile and turned to punch up the hologram display from the satellite probe. "We've known for several months Tahkra was beginning to assemble a fleet of his own, or at least he was making arrangements and acquiring ships and crew. But it's been only in the last few days that the ships have been actually assembling as a fleet. It's taken him so long because of that disaster over Srotona when Koon and his squadron destroyed a good two-thirds of Tahkra's destroyer-class ships and two of his juggernauts. He's had to scramble to find the money to resupply and replace those ships he lost. Windu says Tahkra's agents have been making sweeps through the Rim territories, offering long-term contracts to every out-of-work pilot they could find. It seems he's going after numbers, so we must assume he's acquired some new starfighters, possibly several squadrons, but he doesn't have the pilots to fly them. Windu is still trying to find reliable information about this, but we think now that Tahkra sold his one remaining juggernaut and bought starfighters and used the remaining money to hire pilots. The satellite scan shows no juggernaut-class ships in the fleet that's assembling over Kitaba."
Yoda nodded, shifted a little in his chair. "Ghanbari. With Ylaren's mech force still, he is?"
Kee sighed and sat back in his chair. "We don't precisely know, Master. In his last message he said he'd convinced one of the Falcons' veterans to leave the company and that the other pilots of that veteran's lance decided to go with him. That was three days ago, and we've heard nothing from Torin since. Windu has probe droids and satellites and long-range sensors all focussed on Mensae. We've seen Torin's mech walking across the desert there, along with several others of the company. Nothing appears unusual or amiss. So we have no information on the exact situation with him."
Yoda humphed softly. "Learn when to let go, he must. Learn when not to push his luck, he must."
Kee grinned a little. "If he can manage to convince one of the dropship pilots to go with them, they could bring not only the pilots but that entire lance of mechs as well. And Torin's Dervish. "
The old Jedi Master shrugged. "Pilots enough. Ylaren can replace mechanoids. But good mech pilots harder to find! Old way of fighting, it is, and younglings would rather be starfighter pilots now. More glamorous, more fun, to be starfighter pilot." The old one's annoyance with the shallowness of youth flashed at Kee, and he smiled slightly. "Ylaren and Tahkra. If form alliance they do, what think you they will do?"
Kee shrugged, turned his chair to look out the window. He reached to touch the Force, let his mind relax and go blank. "They intend to attack Sidious," he heard himself saying. The bright afternoon sun streaking in the windows warmed him, the steady calmness of the Force sang softly in his mind, the little sparkling star that was Theri's soul in his. "It's Ylaren's plan, and she's been considering Izar and Tahkra both for it for months, but Izar is busy dealing with his slave revolts now and Tahkra was always more powerful. Niharn has vanished for several months, so his ground forces were scattered without him. Maul was automatically out, because he's Sidious' apprentice, and he has no personal power base of his own yet. I think Ylaren and Tahkra are both planning to double-cross each other if they do manage to defeat Sidious, presumably directly after the battle with Sidious when they'll be at their weakest. Whoever wins would take over the remaining forces of the other and claim the leadership of the Sith."
Yoda nodded and Sent a gentle mindtouch, and Kee startled and turned back toward him. "In trance you were. Little One's Mystic teachings coming over lifebond, increasing your mindpowers. Better at it, you are getting. Always learning."
Kee nodded and smiled briefly.
They both felt Windu's presence approaching the closed door of the conference room, and a moment later Yoda lifted his hand and the door opened as the Force rippled across the room to the doorpanel. Windu quirked one eyebrow up at the old one as he entered, then silently punched in a request into the holoprojector at the table.
The hologram message sprang to life, a two-way link. Torin's sweaty face grinned at them all from under his neurohelmet, his hands on the controls of his mech, the hologram jouncing and occassionally interrupted by static. "Sorry for the bad connection, but we're on the move," he began. "I've managed to convince the C Unit to come with me! That's a dozen mechs, a half dozen light recon fighters, a dozen scout cars, and about a hundred techs. And our unit's dropship too."
Kee echoed Windu's proud grin, and Yoda's ears lifted in surprise as Torin continued.
"Now the bad news. We're on the run from the rest of the Falcons. They're chasing us, trying to keep us from getting to our dropship. They know once we get there we'll be outta here safe."
"Is the dropship hyperspace-capable?" Kee asked immediately.
Torin freed one hand from his controls to scrub the sweat out of his eyes before answering. "Yes, Master Kee. She's slow in the atmosphere, though. Flies like a koruada whale."
Windu snorted a laugh, and Torin's grin flashed again.
The transmission broke up briefly, and next they saw Torin flipping switches and his eyes flickering from screen to screen. "--armored like a juggernaut and has enough firepower to make the nits back off while we get away. Tell Seri I'm on my way home. I've got to go, there's a Wasp on my butt and I've got to squish him. See you all soon!" The transmission broke up again, then cut out.
Yoda lifted a hand to Kee. "Call the Justice . Priority urgent message. Go to Mensae, defend Ghanbari's dropship! On Korolis, Ylaren is! Command she cannot!"
Windu and Kee both lunged up out of their chairs and headed for the door. Yoda sat back in his chair and turned to look out the window at the passing ships and the endless bright afternoon sunlit skyline of Coruscant.
Torin ran his Dervish right up to the gigantic, ten-story tall doorway of the dropship Carina, barely managing to skid to a walk again before he collided with the Shadowhawk in front of him. "Hey, watch it, kid!" the pilot of the Shadowhawk said in his headphones irritably. "I've got damage back there! Damned SRMs! Who the hell gave those little recon mechs missiles anyway? Like giving a ten-year-old a vibroblade, you can't trust them with it!"
Torin laughed a little. "Copy that. I'm not one to talk. I've got twenty rounds of LRMs in my racks!"
"You're different. You're a mech driver."
Torin grinned and switched the comm over to the dropship's frequency. "All right, everyone's in! Go, Toru!"
"Understood! Everyone get to the cradles and latch it right now, we lift in fifteen seconds!" the pilot of the Carina said, his normally cool voice shaking with excitement and stress.
Torin switched the comm back to all-call again. "You heard the man! Move it!" He was walking his mech as fast as it would go toward the structure of duralanium supports that held the Dervish upright and immobile when the ship was in flight. The other mechs of the company were turning around into their own cradles as the scout cars scrambled by between and beneath the shuffling enormous metal feet. The recon ships swept by above them to their own launch cradles further down the vast hangar bay, coming to a hover and dropping lightly to rest as their landing gear latched securely into niches in the floor. Each mech turned gracefully into it's cradle, backed up against the scaffolding as it extended from the dropship's interior walls slowly around them, the arms of each mech locking into the supports, missile hatches closing and locking down, laser lenses irising closed beneath the protective covers, engines humming down to idle then whirring softly to shutdown. The deck lurched beneath the Dervish's wide feet as Torin was turning into his own cradle, and he would have fallen if his link to the Force hadn't steadied him just in time. The dropship was lifting in an unholy thunder of massive ion engines, surging upwards on the blue fire while the ship's lasers and particle cannons swivelled around to deal with the rest of Tiano's Falcons just now coming into the valley where the dropship had landed only an hour before.
"Two minutes to hyperjump!" Toru said as the dropship shuddered up into the atmosphere. Torin nodded, flipping switches to shut his Dervish down as four stories below him the ship's droids began plugging in the power and coolant exchanger feeds into the Dervish's feet. "Everyone stay strapped in til I give the word---great good gods, what the hell is that?!"
"What?!" Torin yelled into his mic as the other mech pilots did the same. He punched for the dropship video feed, and his main screen came to life to show the view above the Carina as the ship plowed upward.
A familiar, elongated rounded-triangle shape hovered in orbit directly above them, a huge silvery-white ship that glittered like ice in the light of Mensae's primary, the spherical bulges of ion cannons on the dorsal hull of the massive ship swivelling downwards seemingly to track the Carina . As the dropship drove upwards into orbit, small white sparks burst from a launch bay on the silver-white ship's underside, and a moment later the racing red crescent-shapes of Jedi starfighters fell past the Carina in full-power head-first dive.
"Dropship Carina , I am Jedi Master Plo Koon," the deep growling voice said over the ship's commlink. "We have come to defend one of our own."
Torin groaned and banged his helmetted head against the headrest of his pilot's chair as the other mech drivers suddenly erupted into questions over the commlink. He slapped at the ship-to-ship link button angrily. "Thanks a lot, Koon, you just blew five months worth of undercover work!"
He heard the Vaikerian's growling chuckle interspersed with static as the Jedi starfighters swept into the comm blackout of atmospheric reentry.
"You--you--Ghanbari--you're a Jedi?" the dropship's pilot said in the sudden silence over the comm.
Torin ran a hand over his face. Oh well, it didn't much matter now, the mission was all but over. "Yeah. I'm a Jedi Knight."
"You mean to tell me I got snookered out of the Falcons by a Jedi Knight?" Jovino said, his rough voice raised in disbelief.
"Yeah, Jo, you got snookered out of the Falcons by a Jedi Knight," Torin answered. "But does it matter? C Unit left the Falcons because it was a rotten deal, pounding defenseless people for no good reason. Hell, guys, I was on Teravin! I fought B Unit there! I volunteered for this mission to try to stop Ylaren! And you guys know good and well if we didn't leave we'd have gotten into a whole lot deeper shit than any of us could handle! It didn't matter who it was talked you into leaving, so long as you left! You know the Falcons won't be even a quarter as effective without you vets! You want Ylaren to have a kick-butt mech team to go around abusing people? Or you want to get all paranoid that a Jedi infiltrated your unit?"
Silence from the whole unit then. Jovino was the leader, the oldest veteran, he'd been a mech pilot since long before Torin had been born, he flew his Shadowhawk like he was born there. "Not like we can go back now," the old pilot growled in Torin's headphones. Torin tugged the straps of his harness loose around him and keyed his screen to give him a visual to Jovino's mech. The grizzled old pilot's face was lined with a frown.
"Jo, it's better to be an honest mercenary than a criminal, isn't that what you told me last week?" Torin asked.
The old Shadowhawk pilot peered at him for a moment, the neurohelmet's polarized sunshields giving him a slightly insectoid appearance. "Yeah. We all agreed to come on this joyride with you, Ghanbari. The reasons we left haven't changed. We'll get on with it, won't we boys?"
A chorus of affirmatives from the rest of C Unit then, and Torin smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. In the last five months he'd become close friends with all of C Unit, the techs who kept his Dervish running smooth, the other pilots who had taught him so much about the art of flying a mech. But especially the old Shadowhawk pilot. He hadn't liked deceiving them all.
"But I want the full story once we're out of here, Ghanbari," Jovino said warningly.
"You'll have it, Jo," he promised. "And then some."
"Uhm, guys?" Toru said in their headphones. "Uhm, Ghanbari, these friends of yours--"
Torin chuckled a little and hit the ship-to-ship. " Justice , this is Jedi Ghanbari, are we cleared for hyperspace?"
"Affirmative, Jedi Ghanbari, all clear. Master Windu requests your dropship proceed directly to Droma. We will meet you there."
"Toru," Torin said then, switching back to the dropship link. "We've got our travelling orders. Plot a course for Droma. The Justice will follow us there."
"Damn," Jovino said, his voice filled with impressed surprise. "The Jedi flagship. You got friends in high places, Ghanbari, I'll give you that."
Four hours later, after a two-hour hyperspace jump and a hurried conference over the commlink with the captain of the Justice , five of the flagship's large shuttles drifted over to the mechanoid dropship as they both hovered in orbit over Droma. Fifteen minutes later the shuttles reappeared from the dropship's fighter launch bay for the brief flight back to the flagship.
The mechanoid company at least was presentable, they'd all taken the time to get washed up and change into clean camos. Twelve mech pilots, twelve fighter pilots, twelve scout car drivers and a hundred technicians had broken away from Tiano's Falcons. It took all five shuttles to transport them all to the Justice , save for Toru and his navigator who had decided to stay on the Carina as skeleton crew. The dropship was huge but in all other respects she was as simple to fly as a freighter, and Toru already had assured Jovino he would go along with whatever the company wanted to do. So now they all sat in uncomfortable silence in the state-of-the-art shuttle.
Torin ducked out of the cockpit where he'd been talking to the pilot of the shuttle and grinned at his friends. "What, do you all think you're going to screw up the upholstery or something? Relax!"
Jovino snorted a laugh, as did several of the pilots and techs. "We're mech drivers, Ghanbari. But all this--" he gestured around at the interior of the shuttle.
Torin shrugged a little. "It's just a ship, Jo. Like every other ship. Just like a passenger ship, really."
The old pilot looked around at his company. "We're mech drivers. We're not used to this kind of stuff. We're used to oil and coolant getting all over everything. Not leather and gelfoam and all the rest of it. We never have to worry about the upholstery on the Carina !"
Torin shrugged again. "Well, we'll be at the Justice soon."
"Any idea what's up for us?" one of the other mech pilots asked, another older man who went by the unlikely name of Pox. "We need to start figuring what we're going to do, Jo."
Jovino looked over at him and his eyes went distant in thought. "I dunno, Pox. I haven't thought that far ahead yet."
Silence again as the shuttle turned onto an approach path to the landing bay on the Justice . Then Torin slumped into a chair beside the two. "If you guys can still trust me, I've got an idea for where you can go from here. But I've got to check with my people first about it."
Jovino gave him a very direct look, and Torin returned the look calmly. "If it's honest work, we'll consider it fairly. That's all I can say."
Torin nodded. "If I can swing it, Jo, it's better than honest work."
"Hey! Ghanbari!"
Torin turned at the sound of a familiar voice yelling his name, then gave a yell himself and rushed forward to hug Ben ecstatically. "What are you doing here, Ben? Look at you, you're getting all scruffy with all this long hair! What's going on?"
Ben laughed and snatched Torin's floppy old camo hat off his head. "Scruffy? Look who's scruffy, this ancient old hat of yours, I wouldn't trust you any further than I could throw you! You look like a terrorist!" They were both laughing now, Torin trying to get his hat back as Ben evaded every grab at it. Finally Ben relented and Torin grabbed the hat back and jammed it on his head again, peering up at Ben mock-threateningly, then smiling and pulling his friend over to the mechanoid pilots lining up on the hangar floor of the Justice 's landing bay.
"Jo," he said as he came over to the Shadowhawk pilot, "Jovino Berengel, this is Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. He was my commander when I was on Teravin."
The two shook hands, and the old pilot gave the young Jedi a very measuring look. "It's like finding out some guy you work with is some long lost prince of Corellia, this thing with Ghanbari being a Jedi," the pilot said. "But I guess it's true, since we're here."
"We're anything but royalty, sir," Ben said with a lopsided grin. "Torin least of all."
Torin punched him in the arm. Ben grunted with the impact and grinned.
"But why aren't you in uniform?" Torin asked as Ben nodded to the other pilots and techs. He gave a tug on Ben's old army jacket. "What's happened?"
"A long story," Ben said with a sigh. "And it can wait, since you're going home now. Yes, you're going home! And you're staying there until your daughter is born! If you even think about running out on another mission Seri will probably have your guts knitted into knotwork! You've missed five months of complaints, and it's time you took your fair share!"
Torin nodded with a wistful smile and his eyes went distant for a moment. [How is she? Mad at me?]
Ben looked down and gave his friend a sideways look out of the corner of his eye. [She's fine. Eating like there's no tomorrow. Complaining that the baby keeps her up half the night kicking her from the inside. She misses you. She doesn't say anything, but you can kind of see it in her eyes.]
Torin winced a little, then shook his head and looked back up at the mech pilots and techs surrounding him. "Ben, where's Master Koon? We need to get this show on the road here, I need to call Master Windu and Master Yoda about something."
Ben nodded toward one of the airlock doors nearby, where the Vaikerian Jedi Master was stalking silently toward them. Several of the techs began muttering at the sight of the Vaikerian, and Torin looked over at them questioningly. Then Jovino grunted and leaned toward the two young Jedi.
"Is that the one who's in with Ylaren?" Jovino asked in an undertone. "Looks like him."
"What do you mean, Jo?" Torin asked.
"Tahkra!" Ben said in sudden comprehension. "Darth Tahkra is Vaikerian too!"
Torin blinked blankly in surprise. "Darth Tahkra? What's he got to do with anything?"
"I guess you wouldn't have known, since you're not a unit commander," Jovino said. "Ylaren was in cahoots with some big Vaikerian, he had some kind of starfleet he was getting together to fly with the Falcons. A starfleet wing to take care of things from space while we were down below pounding on things dirtside. The techs told me he'd come down through the shop poking into things, getting in the way, then growl and threaten to kill them all if they even so much as looked at him sideways. A couple of the guys in A Unit were found with holes burned right through their chests. They were seen arguing with the big Vaikerian a couple hours before they were found dead."
Ben nodded. "Lightsaber burns. Sounds just like Tahkra. But this Vaikerian is as far from being Darth Tahkra as you could ever get. That's Master Koon," he said as the Vaikerian stopped before the company now assembled in front of the line of shuttles.
Jovino grunted. "Looks smaller than the other guy, anyway." He turned to his company and called them to order, and they began sifting into squads and lances.
Torin watched them for a moment, then looked up at Ben with a sheepish lopsided grin. "Divided loyalties. Don't know whether I should go stand with my lance or with Koon."
Ben chuckled and pushed him toward the Vaikerian. "With Koon, nitwit! Go on, get your work done! I've got to go, I'll see you later."
Torin watched his friend walk away toward the corridor leading to the lifts and the interior of the ship, then shook himself and turned around toward Master Koon as the Vaikerian began to lead the mech unit to another corridor that led to the flagship's several ready rooms.
Theri watched the little planetoid Droma turn slowly below the great flagship, trying to lose herself in the myriad craters of the meteor-torn little world. She had asked Kylan if there was anyplace on the Justice where she could sit and think, and he had brought her here. It was a small room, a meditation room, empty save for several meditation benches, on the outer rim of the flagship's lower hull. The entire outer wall of the room was nothing but polarized vitriglass and duralanium bulkheads, while the inner wall was panelled in dark brown acoustic spongetiles. Kylan had told her there were bigger, nicer meditation rooms on the ship, but that he'd found this one once when he'd spent several days on the Justice waiting for his official status as the Jedi Council liaison to Yon-Tyo to be confirmed. He'd brought her here without a word, kissed her forehead, hugged her, and left her alone.
Now, she sat on the floor in front of the icy cold vitriglass and tried her best to let her mind wander. And was totally unable to.
Wisps of blue light began to appear beside her, swirled brighter for a moment, then coalesced into Inda sitting cross-legged beside her. He had chosen to appear this time as his older self, the old man in the tattered robe and Jedi cloak, far too thin from a life of asceticism and worries, but the eyes the same intense laser-like fire.
[You look like my old Master,] Theri Sent softly. [Exept your hair is dark.]
Inda grinned briefly, but it disappeared all to soon.
Theri swallowed against the lump that was beginning to form in her throat. Her Master. A year now since he'd been killed by Maul. Cut up with a lightsaber simply for the joy of causing pain. [Is that what the real world is really like, Inda? Have I been so naive I never saw it happening all around me?]
Inda shrugged slightly. [There are good people and bad people. Or rather, there are people, the things they choose to do may be good or bad according to our point of view. There are things that happen to people that we may see as bad or good, also according to our point of view. There are at least two sides to everything. And with the Light and Dark, always a balance. For us, all this we see here in the so-called real world is like a giant holovid, where everyone is an actor and everything is a prop and none of it is truly real. It's all time and space and matter, the endless circles and processes involved in a world that is only the myriad manifestation of the Force. If you concentrate on these little bits of the Force here in time and space, you can't see that the Force is beyond all that. If you get caught up in the mundane you never look beyond to the trancendent.]
[Sometimes all that sounds so arrogant,] she Sent. [Thinking this world isn't real at all. Even when I know it's true it still sounds arrogant and obnoxious.]
Inda quirked an eyebrow at her. [Why do you think it sounds arrogant and obnoxious?]
Theri shrugged, watching a starfighter sweep by below the windows outside. [Because that's what the rest of the world says. It's a given that reality is just that, reality. Unquestionable, authentic reality.]
[So we're crazy to question it?] Inda Sent with a grin. [Or is everyone else crazy for believing in it?]
Theri peered over at him for a moment. [Why does it have to be us against them?]
Inda shrugged. [It doesn't have to be us against them. What are you fighting about in this 'us against them' thing? You're fighting over opinion. Nothing more. Everyone has their own view of the world, no one can truly share it. Think about it. You and Jinn are about as close as two people can be, but you still argue about ethics. Why? Because Jinn was raised in the Temple where things were black and white, and you were raised on Thretketh and had to run for six years with Therasslen. Neither one of you is wrong. Wrong and right are concepts. Opinions are concepts. It's a waste of time and energy to try to change other peoples' opinions. They won't change until they want to change, until they have a reason to change. Give them a reason to change and they will. The key to it all is choice.]
Theri shifted, absently pulling her legs up into the lotus position, thinking. [Choice again. Somehow it all comes down to that.]
Inda nodded. [Yup. Always. It's what sets us apart from animals. And make no mistake, there are some sentient beings who are still animals because they only react to things, they never stop to think what they're doing. They never consciously make a choice to be other than what they are.]
Theri shuddered and fear lanced through her, chilling her insides. [Maul.]
Inda's face went somber, his eyes distant. [Yeah, kid. He'll never get any higher than the will to conquer. He'll never be a truly spiritual person. He doesn't know it, but that's what he's going bug-nuts about with you. He saw that shine on you from the Force, and he's been craving that. Sidious taught him nothing of the spiritual side of the Force. Sidious only taught him how to fight.]
Theri sighed and nodded. [Is that what I love about Kee?]
She felt Inda's amusement. [Depends on what he's doing to you at the time, doesn't it? I mean, you have a really difficult time being spiritual when he's--]
[Inda!] Theri Sent in a squeak, her face turning red. She could hear the spirit laughing.
[On the other hand,] Inda continued after a moment, still grinning at her. [You love Kylan pretty intensely too. And that's almost entirely spiritual love. You two have never wanted each other physically, and you never will. So if you weren't operating on the level of spiritual, non-physical love, there'd be nothing there. Sure, you've wanted him occassionally. Don't argue, I'm in your head most of the time and I felt it! But you two have always known your relationship was bigger than that. Just as you and Jinn know your lifebonding is more than molesting each other every night. And with Kenobi, where you just love each other. All three of them are pulling you toward the spiritual side of love. What Maul was about was simply the physical side, simply sex without love in it at all. There's nothing there with Maul but the body. And you've never dealt with someone who was just a body. That's what scared you about him.]
Theri had to hold back tears then. [Even Dodiya was more than just a body.]
Inda nodded. [Why do you think you went to Dodiya when you were a kid? Because you were both latent telepaths. If you'd gone to Korvin or Tharki, you'd have felt the same thing you did with Maul.]
Theri flopped over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling for a moment. [Yoda asked me once if I saw the Force in Kee. I didn't really realize what he meant until I was watching Kee sleeping one morning. Sure, he's got gray hair, he's getting old, he's getting wrinkles. But he's still perfect just the way he is. As that part of the Force that chose to manifest as Qui-Gon Jinn, he's perfect just the way he is. The physical body is secondary, it's his soul and his mind I love. But knowing that he was a conscious, living, sentient part of the Force...that somehow made him the handsomest man I've ever seen.]
Inda rolled his eyes. [Lifemates. Geez. I'm going into diabetic shock here.]
Theri laughed.
[Now. I didn't come here to play relationship counselor,] Inda Sent. [We need to talk, kiddo. Make plans.]
[What do you mean?] she asked. [Plans for what?]
[It's time you started teaching full-time,] Inda Sent firmly.
Theri blinked in surprise.
Inda nodded. [Yes. It's time. No more hanging around waiting. It's time. So I want you to think about it. The objective is to acquire the means to teach Kylan and the other students you'll soon have. What is needed, what needs to be done, and how are you going to arrange matters so that the Mystics won't get exiled again? Now. I'm big on lists of stuff, so start by making a list of what you think you should teach for the first few months and what you'll need to do that. Assume you've got three students to begin with. And make the list the barest essentials needed. The less you need, the less you'll have to scramble for. Yell for me when you get done.] The spirit grinned at her again, then began to dissipate into energy and fade away.
Theri sat there blinking for several seconds in silence, then pulled herself to her feet and went to the meditation benches. It was always easier for her to think while meditating, and now she had even more to think about. She settled down, let her soul relax into the spiral of the Force, and let the calm silence fill her mind and soul.
The big ready room was filled almost to capacity as Torin squeezed through the crowd by the door and began carefully picking his way down the steps. The room was arranged as an auditorium in concentric tiers of padded benches leading down to a large holoprojector in the center of the room. Master Koon stood beside the controls of this holoprojector, calmly watching the chattering pilots and technicians. Torin joined him at the holoprojector with a faint grin up at the Vaikerian. The black-metal breathing mask and eyeshields could not convey emotion, but Torin felt the Vaikerian's approval.
Torin nodded up at Master Koon, and the Vaikerian began keying in the link to the flagship's communications relay. Torin turned to the company and held up his hands, "Hey, people, it's showtime! Quiet down for a minute!"
The noise died down as every member of C Unit turned their attention to him in anticipation. Torin grinned a little as the holoprojector buzzed and the line of light it projected unfolded into an image of Teravin, spinning slowly before them.
Torin turned again and began to speak. "This is Teravin, folks. The planet that B Unit got sent to pound on eight months ago. But as you all know, B Unit was almost completely destroyed by a citizen militia with the help of a half-dozen Jedi. I was the Jedi that stole that old Dervish and played decoy and distraction for the militia."
"And destroyed Itani's Warhammer. With a damaged Dervish," Jovino added. "You either got damned lucky or you're crazy, Ghanbari. Fighting a fully-armed, intact Warhammer with a damaged Dervish...."
The mech pilots gathered around him nodded in agreement and faint disbelief.
Torin shrugged slightly and looked away with a sheepish grin. "Yeah, well, it was a pretty damn-fool thing to do..."
Beside him, Master Koon gave a soft growling laugh.
Torin shook his head and got back to work. "Well, anyway, while we were on Teravin I got an idea. Teravin is one of those little out-of-the-way places that's happy to be left alone to live their lives, but there's this little problem. Teravin is the only known source in the galaxy of a treatment for Galagian's Syndrome. And as such, the Federation wants to control as much of the traffic of this herbal stuff as they can. Sure, we got them off Teravin for the moment. But with something that lucrative, the Federation would be crazy to leave them alone. They'll be back, they'll keep coming back until they've got Teravin under their control." He turned to look up at the hologram for a moment, then turned back to face Jovino. "So I got this idea. I figured, why not ask Davion Industries to build a mech factory on Teravin and build a mech pilot academy there? There's lots of advantages to this for every side. What I'd like to do is make a deal between Teravin and Davion Industries. Teravin gives them land and power resources for the mech factory and academy, and in return Davion gives them a planetary defense force of mechs and the techs and parts to keep them running. I'd run the academy and be military advisor for Teravin, y'know, sort of a liaison thing. Five months ago I put this idea before the Jedi Council. They agreed it would be a good idea, but they didn't give me any definite answer about it at the time. Instead, Master Yoda sent me to the Falcons to make sure Ylaren's party got crashed. And now here we are." He looked up at Master Koon, and the Vaikerian nodded once. He turned back to Jovino, then looked around at the rest of the company. "Guys, I'll be plain about it. I'd like C Unit to come to Teravin to be teachers in my mech academy. I just got done talking to my Master and Master Yoda. I've got to go back home anyhow, my...my girlfriend is seven months pregnant and I've got to go take my fair share of complaining until our kid is born. But when I get home to Coruscant, I'm going to go before the Council again and ask that you guys be the core of my academy." He looked around at the entire company again in the sudden silence. "That is, if you'd like to do this."
There was strained silence again for another moment, then Jovino straightened up slowly. "You'd want us to settle down and be teachers, Ghanbari?"
Torin nodded. "Yeah, Jo. You guys all know mech drivers aren't exactly thick on the ground. But mechs are still used for planetside combat. The pilots have to come from somewhere, don't they?"
"A recon air wing too?" asked one of the recon pilots.
"Don't see why not," Torin answered. He gestured up at Master Koon. "Master Koon is the best pilot the Jedi have, but there's only one of him. We'd be training Jedi trainees too, by the way."
"My apprentice Shosin-ka could assist, once she is confirmed as a Jedi," Koon said quietly. "It would be a good thing, to learn of atmospheric flight in this way. Much different from spaceflight."
The pilots nodded agreement.
"And the techs could take care of your mechs just like always, or teach if they want," Torin said, grinning over at the technicians. "Teravin is a good place to live, guys. Especially if you're tired of fighting. And the plains and the mountains are big enough that we could have a few hundred square miles and it wouldn't crowd out the Viratyas, the nomads. You wouldn't have to worry anymore about where you'll be in six months, or worry that you won't have the money to repair and resupply. You'd have steady jobs, you'd be dirtside, and you'd still be flying your mechs and all the rest of it. And when the Federation makes a try for Teravin again, there'd be fully-armed and armored mechs there ready to fight."
Jovino gave him a very direct, measuring look, and Torin tried to grin at the old pilot. Then he looked around at his company. Most were obviously giving the idea serious consideration. Then the old pilot looked back at Torin. "You say you have to go to the Jedi Council to ask about this again, Ghanbari? So we're to follow you to Coruscant?"
"Yeah, Jo."
"So we've got some time to think about this, huh?" Jovino asked.
"Sure," Torin said with a grin. "We're waiting here for a courier ship which should be here in about an hour, then it's another two-hour hyperspace jump to Coruscant. So you've got three hours." He laughed a little at the look on the veteran's face, then relented. "No, really, Jo, you've got a couple days. I won't go to the Council until day after tomorrow. So you can go back to the Carina and talk it over til the Core freezes over."
"If you don't mind, I think we'll do that," Jovino said, then looked around at his people again and stood up slowly. "I will say it's an interesting offer."
Murmurs of agreement from the others of the unit.
"We'll send you back to the Carina then," Torin said. "I've got to stay here for a while and catch up on business."
Jovino nodded. "Understood. We won't repaint your Dervish yet, though. You're part of this unit, Ghanbari, and you're a damned good pilot for a kid so young."
Torin grinned and nodded a little as the pilots and techs began heading for the door of the ready room, already discussing the possible deal. Master Koon followed them out silently, and Torin was left alone by the holoprojector, looking up at the holo of Teravin spinning slowly in orbit.
[That was quite a compliment your commander just gave you, I suspect,] Ben's mindvoice said softly. Torin turned to see Ben leaning against the wall by the door, his arms crossed over his chest, looking down at him silently.
[He was flying mechs before we were born,] Torin Sent back. [He's been sort of like another Master for me, these last few months.]
Ben came down the steps to stand beside him, looking up at the holgram of Teravin. [You're making it happen, old man. Things are falling into place. It must be the will of the Force.]
Torin looked up at him and then back at the hologram. [Lots of stuff happened with me, Ben. I watched a guy in our unit get killed right in front of me. One of the Wasp pilots. A starfighter with a particle cannon got his mech right in the head. I got in a couple bar fights and broke some guy's arm before I realized I'd done it. And all the rest of it, hiding from Ylaren, getting Jo and the others to trust me. Missing Seri and you and Master Windu and everyone else. I'm ready to go home for a while. But I've got to think about the future, not just for me and Seri but for C Unit. And Teravin.]
Ben quirked a grin briefly, and punched him in the arm lightly. [Alert the media, Torin Ghanbari finally grew up and got a life!]
Torin snorted a laugh and pushed him away. "Come on, you juvenile delinquent, let's go get something to eat, I'm starving!"
Ben sighed as the shuttle from the Justice descended into the traffic pattern leading eastwards, the darkness of a rainy night outside the windows of the shuttle. The sea of light that was Coruscant at night swept by below, the lines of maglev trains snaking along. The circled-cross of lights on the roof of the Galactic Senate slid past on the left. They'd be home soon. He tightened his arm around Theri, rearranging his cloak around them both. She was half-asleep, leaning against his shoulder. [Sweetling? We're almost home.]
Theri stirred, straightened up, and raked her hair out of her face slowly. Ben smiled faintly as she leaned over to kiss him. They were both back in uniform, as was Kylan who grinned over at her faintly from the seats across from them. Theri had picked out all dark charcoal gray, darker than her old uniforms. Ben wondered at this. Only the Sith wore black, and save for Master Koon, Jedi tended to wear light colors to contrast themselves from the Sith. Theri's old uniforms were a sort of dove-gray. But now she'd chosen a much darker shade. He wondered if it signified something deeper than a simple change of heart where color was concerned. The Force help them if Koon and Tahkra ever got in a lightsaber fight in anything but bright direct light, they'd never be able to tell them apart...
Theri leaned over to look out the window, but there wasn't much to see in the dark. Ben felt her reaching for the Force, and he took her hand and linked with her, then reached for the Force himself. They felt Kylan do the same, then Torin and Koon behind them. Then the other Jedi in the shuttle joined in. The symphony of angels that was the Great Temple of the Jedi sang to them from over the horizon, and a moment later the great stepped pyramid shape came into view. Theri and Ben closed their eyes and let the glorious multi-voiced howl of it fill their minds and souls. Kylan watched them with a faint smile for a moment, then did the same, reaching tentatively to Theri with his mind.
[I wonder if our Temple felt like this,] Kylan Sent to her softly. [On Cae-Tauvon.]
[In my later days, yes, but different,] Inda Sent just as softly. [It was hard to leave it, and felt like diving into plasma-fire when you came home.]
Theri smiled and opened her eyes. [Maybe one day it will again.]
Kylan raised an eyebrow at her questioningly, but she only waggled a finger at him in admonishment. [Patience! Who's the Master here?]
Kylan grinned a little. [You, oh Teacher Mine.]
Theri caught her breath then, as she felt Kee's presence suddenly explode in her awareness. [Beloved!]
[I'm here, love,] she Sent immediately, clutching Ben's hand in excitement. [Everything's all right, I'm here! Ben's here! We're here!]
She had to swallow down the tears then as the sense-shadows once more flickered through her mind, the rush of emotions and thoughts that she felt once more from his mind. She knew Kee could feel her hand in Ben's, the warmth where Ben's cloak still covered her.
[Thank the Force! I won't be having headaches anymore!] Kee Sent, his mindvoice bubbling with relief and laughter and joy.
[Oh, no, not you too?] she Sent with a giggle and a mental caress. [Not a very convenient thing for us, beloved! I guess it's a good thing I'm your apprentice, so I can go with you everywhere!]
[You are my soul and my life,] he Sent. [How could I go anywhere or do anything without you?]
Ben grinned. [With a regen unit permanently embedded in your head, Master.]
[Impudent wretch!]
Theri and Ben laughed.
The shuttle was turning now and descending to the Temple hangar on repulsorlift, moving slowly to the landing square near the hangar's massive force-shielded entrance. Torin laughed behind them suddenly. [There's Seri! And Master Windu!] he Sent excitedly to Ben and Theri. [Oh gods. She really *is* pregnant,] Torin Sent then in a stunned mindvoice.
[Uh-oh. Reality just smacked him in the face,] Ben Sent softly to Theri. She giggled and goosed him in the ribs.
The shuttle settled to the landing square with a hiss of hydraulics and the rampway extended. Torin jumped up behind them, once more in his normal tan and gray Jedi uniform. [Wake up, you two, we're home!] he Sent, tugging Ben's cloak hood up over his head before laughing and hurrying toward the ramp.
Ben sighed from under his cloak hood. "Some things never change," he said in a growl. Theri laughed, pulled his hood off and kissed him.
A moment later they were following Master Koon toward the door, and Theri ran to jump into Kee's arms where he stood at the foot of the rampway.
Theri gasped as Kee nearly crushed her in his arms, the overwhelming sensation of something broken deep within them both suddenly snapping back together. Kee pulled her over to the side out of the way as Ben and Kylan came down the ramp too, and then Ben was hugging them both. They stood together for one impossible endless moment, just holding each other. Then Kee pulled away slightly to look down into her eyes searchingly, his hands smoothing her hair back.
[Something's wrong still, isn't it?] he Sent softly to her. [What, beloved? Tell me.]
Theri closed her eyes and leaned forward to bury her face against his chest, the warm ivory silk and linen of his uniform. [Later. Just hold me now. That's all I ask.]
[Always, beloved,] he Sent back, but she could feel his worry even as his arms closed around her again.
It was far into the night before Kee and Theri managed to escape from the myriad questions from Windu and Ben and Kylan. Certainly they all meant well, and certainly Windu needed a full report and explanation of what had happened with Maul, and certainly they couldn't refuse the story to Ben and Kylan. But enough was enough.
[I wonder how long it will take Windu to realize you shielded us both,] Kee Sent with a soft chuckle as he led her down a side corridor on Level 17.
[Hmm. Unknown, since I slipped a impulsion-loop in his mind.] She wrinkled her nose at him mischievously.
[And what is involved in that loop?] Kee asked.
[Essentially that if he thinks of another question he wants to ask you or me, he'll think, 'That can wait for tomorrow' and he'll forget about it.] She squeezed his hand. [I wouldn't do anything bad or harmful, beloved. Not to Windu or any other Jedi. But I think we've told him the whole story at least twice. That's enough for one night. Kylan might have seen us go, but he won't say anything.]
Kee nodded as he stopped by a narrow door halfway down the corridor, looked up and down the corridor to make sure no one saw them, then punched in a code at the keypad there. The door opened slowly and he tugged Theri into the cramped darkness within. It was one of the service droid rooms, dark and claustrophobic, robot arms with various hoses and attachments folded against the walls. Kee tugged her behind him to the back wall of the small space and Theri heard something move with a scrape. A faint light began to shine there, and Theri realized he had opened some sort of door. Kee bent down and went through this door, pulling Theri behind him, putting a hand up to protect her head in the tight space of the short tunnelway. Then they were through the tunnelway, and the fresh water-scented breeze swept over them as they emerged.
Above their heads stretched a broad archway of the same white marble as the rest of the Temple, and on top of this archway thundered the water of the Temple's waterfall. Below the archway and fed from a hole in the archway above was a small pool of water contained in a ring of water-smoothed boulders. Around the pool was a profusion of plants and mosses springing around other boulders, and lacemoths fluttered in the relatively calmer air away from the turbulence of the waterfall above, glowing white in the comforting darkness.
Kee pulled Theri over to one of these larger boulders at the edge of the pool and pulled her down into his arms as he sat down. Theri sighed and kissed him, and they held each other for a long silent moment before she rearranged herself to sit beside him. Kee held her against him with one arm, wrapping his cloak around her to keep her wam.
[It's getting cool at nights now,] Kee Sent with a smile. [Maybe an autumn on Naboo wouldn't be so bad.]
[Hmm?] Theri Sent.
[My friend Prince Doran has asked that we come to Naboo for the autumn there. He wants my help with some things with his security forces.]
Theri grinned and tightened her arms around him. [House Jinn is turning into a travelling circus. You, me, Ben, Kylan.]
[And young Taslimi and Rhyonluppa,] Kee added. [They came to see me while you were gone. They're both quite taken with you, beloved. In fact, I think you have two more students there.]
Theri pulled away and looked up at him in surprise. [Tas and Rhyon? My students? But they're not, they've got Mistress Goza--]
[--who is far more involved in her work in the Senate to have much time for Tas and Rhyon,] Kee Sent. [Don't go repeating this, dearheart, but there are many of us Masters who feel she should never have taken Tas and Rhyon as apprentices. She's essentially left them for the rest of us to train. And they are quite interested in your Mystic teachings.]
Theri blinked in surprise. [Kylan's already confirmed, so he can do what he wants. But Tas and Rhyon--this is one of the problems Inda and I knew we'd have. They're already apprentices. And if they decide to be Mystics, it would cause a real stink. Hell, if I took kids from the dayschool it would cause a stink! I'm not a Master, I'm just some meddling exile--]
[Hey, none of that,] Kee interrupted. [Darling my dearest, you are the last Mystic. Your students have to come from somewhere. If they come to you, all the better, I'd say. It should be their choice. Freely chosen, freely accepted. If the motivation is there to learn, you will all find a way to get past the obstacles.]
Theri nodded. [Did Inda tell you he wants me to start teaching full-time?]
Kee sighed, and Theri felt his reluctance. [Yes. While you and Ben were coming home from the Justice . I don't agree with it, but there it is.] He took her hand and kissed her fingers. [By normal human standards you are a full adult, beloved. I know you think of yourself as such. So it is your decision. Ben will continue to teach you the lightsaber, of course, because neither of us are going to leave you half-trained. And I will help you all I can.] He looked down at the water of the pool rippling. [I can only trust the Force to guide you, beloved. I don't exactly trust Inda to keep you out of trouble, since trouble is all he ever gets you into.]
[Hey! I resemble that remark!] Inda's mindvoice said with a twist of amusement.
[Can't I get a moment alone with my lifemate?] Theri Sent to the spirit. [Even just one moment without half the Temple listening in?]
[Hmph. 'Trouble' am I? You think this is trouble? You should have seen the stuff we got up to in my day. Now *that* was trouble!]
Theri grinned. [I'm sure of that, since you're incorrigible, you old trickster.]
[Sheesh. You two are being lumps on a log tonight. I'm going to go talk to Yoda, at least he's usually glad to see me.] And they felt the spirit's presence fade as he went elsewhere.
Kee laughed softly. [Can you imagine what he must have been like when he was alive? No wonder they got exiled!]
Theri giggled and tried to tickle him. Then just as quickly the laughter faded and she turned serious again. [Inda told me to think about what I'd want to do for teaching, so I thought about what my old Master and I did. And it seemed to me that except for Korolis we tended to end up in places where we could be alone to concentrate on our meditation and the teachings. We lived in a nature preserve on Zharvan, near the city so I could go to Ratashi Corwilin. We lived in the middle of a big forest, the nearest neighbor was three miles away. And our cave on Tatooine, out in the middle of the Jundland Wastes. Master was practically a recluse on Korolis, he almost never left the rooms we had in the Tween. And I can see it's neccessary to be so isolated, so we can truly concentrate.]
Kee nodded. [That's why Ben and I go to Tatooine sometimes, because things here get too hectic. Or maybe it's just the sand in our blood.] He looked up at the lacemoths fluttering around them, and Theri leaned into his arm around her as she felt his faint sadness. [I--I never knew my real family on Tatooine. Master told me I was found nearly dead in one of the sandwalkers' shelters, and there was no sign that anyone had been there for days. I don't remember anything, of course, I was only a baby. Two years old, I think. Ben remembers his family, he goes to see them when we go home. I've met his...real father. His biological father. Good people, honest people. Still. I don't think of it often. But sometimes...]
Theri rubbed his back under his cloak. [You wonder who you really are. Who named you? Master Yoda?]
Kee looked down at her for a moment and nodded. [He must have done some research before he named me, because 'Qui-Gon Jinn' is a thoroughly Tusken name. And he had me raised by a Jedi family on Tatooine until I was six, so I learned Tusken and grew up as a Tatooine native til it was time for Yoda to take me. But I've always known I was an orphan.]
The sadness in his mindvoice tore at Theri. [Beloved. Just think for a moment. If that Jedi hadn't found you, you'd have died. Whoever your parents were, they obviously could never have given you a decent life. Certainly nothing like the life you've lived here at the Temple. You had Yoda, who obviously loves you very very deeply. You grew up here in the Temple where you were loved and wanted. That's a whole lot more than millions of other children, if not billions, who grow up in horrible circumstances. And you have Ben. You have a good life now, you're doing exactly what you want to be doing. I'm certain that if your biological parents could see what you've become, they'd be amazed and proud. And grateful that you've had such a good life.]
Kee's face in the peripheral light of Coruscant was thoughtful, his hair blowing in the slight breeze from the waterfall. Then he smiled faintly. [Well, it's far away in the past now, at any rate. And I have you and Ben. I may never know the family that engendered me, but I have the present and the future.]
Theri smiled and reached up to caress his cheek. [One day, I promise you, we'll have a family of our own.]
Kee nodded slightly. [In time, beloved.] He twined a lock of her hair around his hand meditatively, then leaned over to kiss her. [So what else have you thought about teaching your students?]
Theri shrugged a little. [Not much, actually. It won't be set classes, of course. There will be set things we'll do, though. The Book of the Force, naturally. And the other teachings. Probably Soritsu-ji. I don't know about the lightsabers, though. I mean, Mystics aren't really supposed to fight. Fighting is...well...fighting just seems wrong. An arrogant thing to do. I'm probably not making any sense here. Defending someone, yes, I can see that. But usually people fight to prove a point, or to make someone change their mind about something. And that just seems wrong to me. Why fight over concepts and opinions? And why fight to change someone's mind? We all have to make our own choices in life, and it's wrong to try to make someone change their mind by violence like that.]
Kee smiled and hugged her. [Very true, dearheart. You're learning. Jedi ultimately don't fight just to fight. When we were on Thretketh, when Maul trapped you both in the cave, Ben and I were wrong to want to go after him once we got you out of the cave. We were both letting our anger control us. And that was wrong. Don't ever forget that, beloved. A Jedi should never use the Force to attack, only for knowledge and defense. Well, we screwed up that day, both of us. It's the same kind of thing, though. If we attack someone in anger, what are we trying to do? Beat someone senseless? For what? To satisfy our anger, most likely, because it's not going to change anyone's mind to slice them to ribbons. People only change when they want to change, and that's not the way to make them want to change. And what works for me may not work for you, so why try so hard to shove your own views down someone else's throat?] He shrugged a little and scritched her back and she smiled and wriggled to get him to continue, which he did with a faint grin. [But Jedi will do whatever they can to defend and encourage life, no matter the form. You need to decide for the Mystics which things you *will* fight for, though. What's the old saying? 'If you don't stand up for something, you'll fall for anything.']
Theri snorted a laugh, then went quiet beside him, watching the water ripple in the waterfall pool. [I'm not entirely certain who and what I am anymore, beloved. Not after Maul. Not after what I felt with him,] she Sent in a small mindvoice.
Kee winced a little. [Did he hurt you, beloved?] he asked in as neutral a tone as he could manage.
Theri turned to look up at him for a long moment. [No...maybe. I don't know. I mean, we--he--you know. I wouldn't call it making love by any stretch of the imagination. He doesn't know the meaning of the word 'love'. He's an animal, a humanoid animal. An insane one, at that. He'll never be a spiritual person at all, for all he can touch the Force.]
[Did he hurt you?] Kee repeated quietly.
Theri shrugged. [Not like you mean, no. He didn't rape me. I do know what rape is, and he didn't rape me. I don't think it's even possible to rape a Thretkethan, not with the lust. ]
[Rape has nothing to do with lust, love, or anything but dominance and power over another sentient being,] Kee Sent softly.
[Maybe he did, then, I don't know!] Theri Sent with a snap in her mindvoice. [I can't tell! We had sex, very rough sex, and he was totally shielding me out of his mind. There was nothing there but a body on top of me, I'd hardly call him even a sentient being. And I used to think Thretketh were mindless in the lust, hell, Maul's got us beat all around for mindlessness!] She looked away for a moment, then back up at him. [It wasn't the sex that got to me. It was when Inda got into his mind and made him drop his shields. Maul's been stalking me for months, watching us. He's been so consumed with watching me that it gives me the creeps. Like an addict chasing the next fix. And that fix is me.] She shuddered and he tightened his arm around her instantly. [I don't think I'm going to be able to go out on the balcony in our apartment ever again. And I don't want Ben to make me practice out on the terraces anymore. I want to be inside where Maul can't see me or hear me. Just the thought that someone's watching me--]
[Oh beloved,] Kee Sent, feeling the bone-deep shudder that ran through her as these last few words came into his mind. He turned toward her, gathered her into his arms. [Is it scaring you to be out here? We'll go back inside--]
Theri pointed up to the archway that sheltered them. [It blocks people from seeing us.] She let out a sigh and shook her head wearily. [And...what I realized about my shadow side has me kind of shaken up too.]
Kee gently lifted her head so he could look into her eyes, but it was too dark to see into the green depths. [What? Tell me, beloved. You wouldn't have said even this much if you didn't want me to know.]
Theri tried to shrug out of his arms, but he wouldn't let her. He could feel how knotted up she was inside, the fears that she was carefully keeping under control. [Since Ben and Kylan came to get me, I've been--well, thinking a lot. Going over what happened. And--I realized I--well, you know, you and Ben won't let me have my way with you as much as I'd like, I know you have good reasons, but--I--]
[You enjoyed yourself with Maul, despite the fact it was like having sex with an animal,] Kee guessed.
Theri slumped in his arms and nodded a little, her mind going dark with shame and confusion. [I'm not proud of it, but there it is,] she Sent softly. [I feel like I'll never be able to look myself in the eye in the mirror ever again, much less you or Ben. I wouldn't blame you if you're--if you don't want me around you anymore--]
Kee sighed and held her tight. [Silly, silly girl. You're my lifemate, you're my soul and my life.] He smiled and raked her hair away from his face as the wind blew it around. [Listen to me, beloved. I'm much older than you, I've been much less sheltered than you have. There's nothing you could do that could scare me away. Now. I knew and expected that you'd resent me and Ben for not letting you climb all over us at every opportunity. I know, I know! You don't resent us, you know the reasons why, all that.] He put up a hand to forestall her immediate denial, kissed her forehead before continuing. [Knowing and feeling are two separate things, though. Knowing the reasons for something doesn't amount to much if your feelings are against it. And because you love us, you buried those feelings of resentment. But they didn't go away. And neither did the Thretkethan lust. I wanted to teach you to take that energy and put it to other uses. And I'm going to continue to do so. Your old Master told me you Mystics turn your willpower to the inner pathways of your souls. So how do you do that? If you could do it with your will and the Force, couldn't you do it with the lust?]
Theri straightened up suddenly in his arms, the feeling of connections being made in her mind, a memory flashing into her mind's eye. Inda, Maul' ship, "That same power that's behind the lust is just that, power. Power is neither good nor bad, that's a judgment on how you use that power." She looked up at Kee, and he nodded a little. He'd seen the memory in her mind.
[Inda was right about that,] he Sent. [And since all things are the Force for you two, that power that's behind the lust is ultimately the Force in another form, isn't it?]
Theri stared up at him for a long moment, and something began shifting in her mind, in her soul, in her body, like the movement of rock deep underground that brought earthquakes. She caught her breath as the shifting slid new connections into place in her mind, and suddenly she was filled to bursting with some unknown power that surged through her whole body and burned like plasma fire. Kee clutched her suddenly, feeling this new power moving through her body, tingling in every nerve, before he too gasped as the power began to move through their lifebond. They held each other desperately as the power howled through them both.
[Control it--beloved, control--]
[How?!] she Sent desperately, her mindvoice amplified by sudden fear.
Kee gulped and scrunched his eyes shut, certain he was hallucinating now. Had he just seen a sort of purple-white glow around her body? He raised shaking hands to bury them in her hair, pulled her head against his chest. [The mindfulness trick I taught you,] he Sent. [Together! Now!]
[Kid! You okay?! Oh, man, look at you! You're glowing! Geez!] Inda's mindvoice suddenly burst into their linked minds, sounding startled and rattled. [Oh, geez, yeah, do that meditation trick! Focus!]
[I will--If you'll let me alone--] Theri Sent brokenly.
[Oops,] Inda Sent, chagrined. [Oh man, oh geez, I got to get Master! You two keep breathing! Hold on!] And they felt the spirit's presence fade again as abruptly as he had arrived.
They sat there trembling together, breathing together, their linked minds focussed only on the sensations of muscles moving to draw breath and release it again, steadfastly concentrating with every ounce of will on the simple act of breathing. The glow from Theri's body gradually spread to surround Kee too, the unknown power flickering and shifting in jagged patterns around them, lancing through their minds and souls, threatening to break loose at any moment. What this new wild power would do was unknown, but it was so strong it couldn't possibly be good to let it out! Kee's experienced mind kept them grounded while Theri's will kept the power from going wild, both of them holding to each other with equal strength.
They were locked together in the surge of it, holding tight to each other, when another presence joined them. [Children,] Yoda's mindvoice said quietly. [I am here. Here is what you must do--]
A Sending without words then, as Yoda's ancient and powerful mind linked with Theri and Kee. Yoda led them both into the depths of Theri's mind, down to the deepest levels, far inside the walls she kept around her inner mind, to the point where mind and body met. Where the lifebond glowed with rainbow light, the purple-white energy flaring like plasma fire. They felt Yoda guiding them to build new connections, new links, and guiding them to reach for the spiral of the Force and to create new links to it. As they did so, the power slowly stopped flaring, then decreased to a stable glow in the midst of the lifebond. And now instead of straining minds and souls, it strengthened and empowered. Instead of burning, it warmed and heartened.
Relief flooded all three minds as the bonds stabilized and the power came under control. [No more headaches when you are apart now,] Yoda Sent quietly. [Though you will always feel empty when apart, now you can be apart without physical strain. But also, will know always what the other is thinking and feeling unless shielding, no matter distance. Across galaxy, across room, will always know.]
Kee and Theri opened their eyes to see the little Jedi Master standing beside them, one hand on Theri's knee. The old one looked up at them serenely, his ears quivering in the slight breeze. Behind him, Inda sat on a nearby boulder, the ghost's hands clenched in his lap, his whole image conveying intense worry. Yoda turned slightly and nodded to the ghost, and Inda slumped in relief.
[Thank the Force you two are all right.] Inda's mindvoice was barely a whisper. [I knew you'd find that little fusion reactor in your mind someday, kiddo.]
Theri and Kee swayed together as the adrenaline began to wear off. "I feel like I've been kicked across half Coruscant," Kee said woozily.
Yoda chuckled a little at this. "Trouble follows trouble," he said, looking sideways over at Inda.
[Hey! I didn't do anything!] the ghost protested.
Yoda humphed softly as he started hobbling back toward the passageway leading inside the Temple. "Qui-Gon, come with Little One to me tomorrow. For now, sleep you will, both."
Kee nodded slowly, holding Theri still as she yawned hugely. [Come on, beloved, it's--]
[--very late, and we deserve a good night's sleep,] Theri finished for him. She squeaked a little as she got to her feet and pulled him up beside her. [Why can't we just have a few moments alone without a crisis? Or people pestering us?]
Inda looked guilty at this, and before she could say anything his ghostly form began to dissipate into wisps of energy and fade away, his presence once more fading from their minds.
[I didn't mean you,] Theri Sent wearily to the spirit.
[Yes you did. I get the message. Yell if you need me,] came the faint words from the spirit.
Theri sighed as she and Kee made their way back into the Temple. "Damned if you say anything and damned if you don't," she muttered to him.
Kee nodded, too weary to speak.
Ben backed away from Theri, bumping into the wall of the lightsaber cube as he lowered the point of his lightsaber and held up a hand to her.
[What happened to you two last night, love?] he Sent to her, looking through the glowing amber walls of the cube to his Master. [Master? Why is Theri suddenly able to do lightsaber moves I haven't taught her yet?]
Theri snorted a mirthless laugh. [Long story, Ben. Let's just say I'm slightly fed up with the whole self-discovery thing right now.]
Ben raised an eyebrow at the bitter, cynical tone of her mindvoice.
Theri sighed for a moment, batted a little playfully with her lightsaber at his blue-white blade, trying to lighten her mood. [I need a good fight, that's all. What do you say, love? A good all-out thrashing ought to cheer me up, shouldn't it?]
Ben looked over at Kee again, but his Master only shrugged silently, busy fitting a new set of crystals in his own lightsaber. The strange listless crankiness of the lifemated pair puzzled him. They weren't angry with each other, more like they were angry at some as yet untold event that must have happened after the two disappeared from Master Windu's rooms last night. Angry but not letting it really interfere with anything beyond being in a foul mood. Ben looked from one to the other and shook his head. Theri continued to nudge his lightsaber blade with her own yellow-orange blade, the two humming energy weapons rasping together each time her blade touched his. He frowned a little and batted her blade away.
[I haven't yet taught you the reverse katas,] Ben Sent to her. [So how'd you know that backhand block you just did?]
Theri shrugged silently and peered over at Kee for a moment. [Can we just keep practicing, love?]
Ben turned off his lightsaber and crossed his arms over his chest, tossing his tailbraid to his back. He gave her a very direct, level look, waiting for an answer.
Theri watched him for a moment, then turned her own saber off. [We don't want to talk about it,] Theri Sent to him firmly. [Let's just keep practicing, Ben. Please?]
[Did you two have a fight or something?] Ben asked.
"No," Kee said from outside the cube, his voice slightly distorted by the energy walls.
Ben looked at them both again for a minute, then shrugged and turned his lightsaber on, dropping back into guard position as Theri's blade once more sprang to life in her hand. From the first lunge forward that brought her saber rasping loudly against his own, he realized her usual careful hesitation was gone.
Theri linked with the spiral of the Force, drawing herself into the dance of it, letting it fully into her hands, letting it move her. She'd never truly let the Force move her while she had her saber in her hands. Some trace of fear had kept her from it, some buried worry that she'd hurt Ben inadvertantly had kept her from truly progressing in her lessons or truly putting her heart into those lessons. All that changed now in a single moment. Now she knew what she was doing, now she moved with a sureness that had Ben going on the defensive almost immediately. She was his equal in quickness, but she'd never truly used that quickness until now. The yellow-orange blade darted and flew easily, fluidly, slashing with such swiftness that Ben's reflexes reacted much quicker than his mind did to counter her attacks. After the third time the point of the star-like blade zinged past his throat, Ben realized she had finally learned the focussed balance of the Force and her own mind he had been trying to teach her for the last several months. She had him backed into a corner of the cube before he knew she'd done it. And then the yellow-orange blade zipped across, down, and up...and Ben's lightsaber went spinning out of his hand to clatter against the far wall of the lightsaber cube.
[Beloved! Hold!] Kee Sent suddenly, stridently, from outside the cube. He was scooping the cube controller from the bench beside him and punching to open the door in the cube wall as Ben gulped, staring up the meter-long yellow-orange blade to Theri's bright dancing eyes.
And then Kee was pulling her away carefully, and Ben reached for his lightsaber, Lifting it back to his hand. He looked at the two in some bemusement for a moment as Theri turned to look up at Kee, and Benf felt them Sending but couldn't hear what they Sent.
[Don't try to tell me you remember that disarm because Master and I were working on it on Tatooine,] Ben Sent to the two. [That was more than a year ago and you couldn't get that move without a lot of practice. So give, you two. What happened?]
The two stood silent for a moment, then Theri nodded and turned her lightsaber off. [She's picking up stuff from my memories, Ben,] Kee Sent to his apprentice.
[Through the lifebond? I thought you two couldn't do that,] Ben Sent back. [Not without deliberately Sending memories to each other. And you weren't.]
Kee and Theri both sighed and nodded simultaneously, then grinned at each other briefly.
[Our link is a lot stronger now, Ben,] Theri Sent in explanation. [We're linking on many more levels now, so we've started sharing memories.]
[I thought you two didn't want to do stuff like that,] Ben Sent, looking up at his Master.
[We didn't,] Kee answered ruefully. [But now we are.]
Ben looked from one to another again, faintly frustrated with the way they were closing him out. "Fine then, be that way," he grumbled at them, turning to the door of the cube. "Should I put six remotes in the cube today, Theri? Or do you want to put your name on the list to be confirmed?"
Silence from the two behind him. He jerked his pack up from under the bench outside the cube and began digging out the remotes.
A small hand on his shoulder, and Theri's mind touched his gently. Her arms went around him and he felt her leaning on his shoulder. [I'm sorry, love. Kee and I are being dorks. We're angry because we didn't have much choice in the matter. But no bad without some good, I guess, since now Kee and I won't have even headaches when we're apart physically. Even if one of us goes through hyperspace, we won't have headaches or go into comas.]
Ben turned toward her at this. "Well, that's good, I guess."
Theri smiled a little at his tentative tone as Kee came to stand with them again. "Yes. It means Kee can be sent out on assignments now. We still won't feel quite right when we're apart, but we can handle it." She sighed and hugged him, nuzzled his neck a little. "And not a moment too soon, as Inda wants me to start teaching full time."
Ben frowned at this. "What about your own lessons here with me?"
Theri caught his tailbraid and tried to tickle his nose with it playfully, but he scowled at her. "I shall be here every morning at first bell. I'm not wiggling out of it. I do need to learn this, Ben. It's essential, and I know it. And even if I can pick up stuff from Kee's memories, I still need the practice."
"Damn straight," Ben grumbled. "Since when did Inda start ordering you around? He's not your Master."
"In case you hadn't noticed, sweetling, I have four different Masters, you, Kee, Yoda and Inda," Theri said, pulling out of his arms. "I just say 'yes' to everything everyone says to me. It's easier than trying to argue, since I won't get any peace no matter what I do." The snap in her voice surprised Kee and Ben both. Theri looked up at the chrono on the wall nearby and pretended not to see the looks on their faces. "Look, you two, none of us are in a good mood. Kee, we've got an hour til we have to be up at Master Yoda's, so why don't we just split up for a little? Get a little time alone to try to calm down so Yoda doesn't lecture us." Before they could answer, she scooped up her pack and slid her lightsaber onto the ring on her belt, and without another word she headed off to get cleaned up.
Kee sighed wearily and sat down on the bench as she walked away, picked up his lightsaber and began unscrewing the emitter assembly. Ben sat down beside him silently. After a moment, Kee looked up at him and then back down at his lightsaber, idly moving the dial on the emitter assembly to watch the crystals within moving. [It would be funny if she didn't take it so seriously,] Kee Sent at last. [But she's right, everyone orders her around. And she hates it.]
Ben had rarely heard his Master's mindvoice sounding so small and almost defeated. He took the lightsaber parts from his Master's hands gently and reassembled the lightsaber, clicked the assembly dials until the marks scratched into the grip and dials realigned, and put the lightsaber back in his Master's hands. Kee didn't look at him, just sat there silently. [She's changing again, Master. That's all. And...she does have a lot of pressure on her, and a lot has happened to her in the last year. Small wonder she's snapping at us. I'd be fed up with it all too.]
Kee nodded, then straightened up and took a deep breath, and Ben felt him shoving away the negativity and gloom from his mind. "Well. Our apprentice may have abandoned us, Padawan, but we still have each other. And I haven't given you a good chase around a cube for quite a while. Move, trainee."
Ben smiled and got to his feet. "You sure you can still keep up with me, old man?"
"We'll see about that, impudent wretch," Kee growled as they walked forward into the saber cube.
[I thought I might find you up here,] Kylan Sent quietly as he straightened up from the low passageway. Theri turned to look over at him as he came forward, straightening the gray overtunic and smiling at her lopsidedly.
Theri grinned a little as the wind blew the stray loose strands of her hair into her face. She was sitting on the edge of the waterfall pool, watching the sunlit water from above bubbling over the rocks. Kylan came over and sat down beside her, reached over and hugged her briefly. She sighed and hugged him back, and felt his surprise as she kissed his cheek swiftly.
[Silly! You know I'd never try anything with you!] she Sent wearily. [You'd probably wear me out.]
Kylan's goofy grin flashed then. [So, teacher mine, you wished to see me, your humble and adoring student?]
Theri smiled and thumped him lightly on the knee. [We need to talk. I've been given my orders by our honored founder. I'm to start teaching you full-time, except for my own lightsaber lessons with Ben.]
Kylan's silver-blue eyes lit up at this. [And Master Kee and Master Yoda are allowing it?]
Theri humphed softly. [They don't have much choice in the matter, now do they? But Inda's right. And you know, love...I think I'm ready too.] She grinned up at him a little. [I've been so much under everyone else's thumb that I'm afraid to do much of anything without getting everyone's approval. And that's just plain silly. I'm an adult, I've done my questing, so by Mystic standards I am qualified to teach you. And since I'm the only Mystic currently alive who's done my questing, I'm the *only* one who can teach you. We have Inda, of course, but you and I are the ones who can actually live this life now. For all his jokes and wisdom, Inda is a ghost. He can't live our lives for us. He can't hold our hands and drag us along the Way with him. We have to find it ourselves.] She looked down a little guiltily. [And besides, I think I hurt his feelings last night. I snapped at him, and he hasn't spoken to me yet today.]
[I wasn't planning on it today either,] the soft directionless mindvoice said to them both. [But everyone's plans are getting screwed, so why not mine too. How you feeling, kiddo?]
Theri sighed as she and Kylan felt Inda's presence around them, but the spirit didn't appear in form. [I'm all right,] she Sent to Inda. [I'm sorry I snapped at you last night.]
Inda chuckled softly. [You're forgiven. Always. And you're right. I can't live your lives for you, children. Much as I'd like to be there with you in the flesh, I can't now. There are some things I *can't* do, y'know, for all my wishing and wanting.]
[I think I prefer you as a ghost,] Kylan ventured with a grin at Theri. [I should think your ideas of discipline for your students were painful and innovative, and I would not want to be the one on the receiving end of a kick in the butt.]
[Heh. No, actually, physical discipline never works. Same as violence of any kind. And my students were never a problem. Usually it was the other way around, they were the ones getting on to me and making me behave.] The spirit's amusement flickered at them from long-ago memories. [I was the obsessive type. I'm afraid I was the one who brought in the asceticism thing into the Mystics from the start. But there's good reasons for it.]
[It's a kind of purification,] Kylan Sent tentatively. [At least, that's how I've always seen it. Focussing on only one thing in meditation makes you eliminate everything else from your awareness, so it's a sort of cleansing isn't it?]
[Yeah, kid. Very true. But it can get to be extreme, and then you end up doing yourself harm. You two are going to have to watch out for each other that way.]
Kylan grinned at Theri. [Eating and sleeping are not optional.]
[Heh. Y'know, kid, you're pretty sharp for a Jedi,] Inda Sent with a twist of amusement. [So. Keep going, Theri. What else have you been thinking?]
Theri nodded. [That we need to be as independent of the Jedi as possible. I was thinking we need someplace to go to get away from the Temple so we can concentrate. We need mobility. We need our own resources. We need our own place, a home base from which to work.] She gestured up at the Temple around them. [This Temple is just too frenetic, too distracting. We have far too much here turning us away from the Way. Before I came here, I used to meditate six and seven hours a day, I used to run in the desert two and three hours a night. I've come to realize I made a lot of progress with my Master because we lived a simple life with very few distractions. When we were on Korolis I could only concentrate on keeping us alive, and I made very little progress that year spiritually. But when we got to Tatooine I got a lot of stuff done on myself. So I think we need someplace to go where we can truly concentrate on stuff.]
Kylan nodded. [I'm game if you are, teachers mine.]
Theri closed her eyes and took a deep breath, feeling the rightness of her decision in the spiral of the Force. For all the trepidation she felt for going against the wishes of the people she loved, when destiny called she knew she couldn't turn away. Kee couldn't live her life for her, and ultimately he had no say in how she lived her life. They were each responsible for themselves. Refusing to accept that responsibility meant she refused to grow up. But all things in this manifested universe grew and changed by the will of the Force. She had been given a task by the Force. It was time to begin.
They both heard Inda's contented sigh then as the spirit relaxed. ['It will be a hard life,'] Inda began, ['Without reward, without remorse, without regret. A path will be placed before you. The choice is yours alone. Do what you think you cannot do. It will be a hard life. But you will find out who you are.']
Theri looked down, feeling tears springing to her eyes suddenly with the import of the words. Kylan swallowed and looked down too. [The Padawan ceremony,] Kylan Sent to Theri. [I first heard those words when I was nine years old, when my Master said them to me on Aldhara.]
[Yoda said them to me here in the Great Hall down below,] Inda Sent softly. [Five hundred and sixty-nine years ago. And I said them to my apprentice Jyp, and he said them to his apprentice Qapali, and she to her apprentices long after I was gone. The Force within us never dies, children. And as such, I will never leave you to face whatever happens alone.]
Theri choked at this and Kylan grabbed her in a hug, and suddenly they were both snuffling and crying in sadness and joy combined. Sadness for the life each now left behind, and joy for the life they now began together by their own choice.
Part 9
Archive