Tatooine

[Leena Kil]

The derelict speeder choked and sputtered as Leena slowed the antiquated vehicle amongst the dunes. Out here, there was nothing. Nothing but sand. She had left Mos Eisley beyond the horizon.
 

The twin suns beat down hard. The wind blowed like a heater sucking the moisture from the Mon Cal’s skin. This was true desolation.

 

The speeder coasted to a stop. Its grating idle echoing off the surrounding dunes until Leena turned the key killing the engine. Deep in her mind she hoped it would start again later.

 

Hopping out of the open cockpit, Leena’s booted feet kicked up the coarse sand. Reaching to her belt, the Jedi carefully removed the bag of healing crystals and booby trapped lightsabers. Hiking up the dune, the suns reflected off her white healer’s robes. They shone like beacons across the sand.

 

Atop the dune, Leena paused and stared out across the vast desert. It was truly endless, an ancient world devastated by greed, corruption, and the dark side. This was what was left in the wake of unchecked selfish ambition. She exhaled heavily. It was a stark realization and one that weighed heavily on her soul. Their foray into the dark world of Byss had given the Jedi pause.

 

The girl was a healer, sworn to protect life. She had lost her lightsaber on Lehon and was in no hurry to replace it. She had not even been sure she would replace it, for what was a saber but a weapon of destruction? And yet on Byss, Leena had only survived but for the actions of those willing to engage in violence. The tree had been a manifestation of evil, poisoned before conception and brought up in the soils of sin and corruption, an irredeemable choking vine that would kill anything it overtook. She was a Jedi Healer and a Jedi Master. It was her responsibility to defend life as well, not to leave such a task to others. She had failed her oath on Byss and had it not been for the others, she would have paid for it with her life.

 

Slowly, Leena lowered herself to a meditative seat atop the dune. Closing her eyes, she reached out on the hot midday air, letting the force flow over her, refreshing her spirit as the hot wind licked at her moist skin. 
 

Without opening her eyes, Leena reached into her satchel and carefully removed each glowing healing crystal. She nestled each into the sand in a circle that spread out from her sides and in front of her. The force seemed to glow with life-giving positive energy within the circle. Next, Leena gingerly removed each of the ten saber hilts and set them side by side in the circle. They seemed to radiate with grim warning, each containing a nefarious and deadly trap, explosive, poisonous, and other yet unknown lethal snares.

 

With the scene set, Leena settled her wrists atop her criss-crossed knees, palms up. She inhaled and exhaled deeply allowing the force to sustain her against the barren life-sucking landscape. She opened her mind to the force, the deepest recesses of hidden secrets and pains and allowed it to wash over them, soothing her pains and cleansing her sins.

[Leena Kil]

The force flowed like a cool stream cutting through the hot desert. The hot winds beneath the desert suns ceased as the temperatures about the focal point dropped to a temperate coolness invigorating the Jedi as she was filled to the brim with life-giving energies. The Mon Cal’s bulbous eyes flickered open as she stared beyond the physical world before her. The first hilt that she had claimed from the Sith lair rose upwards in the midst of the circle. It’s inner core vibrated as it shook the darkness that clung to it’s core free. Black inky darkness, the dark side solidified into a corporeal toxic spore designed to quickly drive any who activated the weapon to madness, hung in the air. It was only for a moment though. Like flecks of algae broken free in the rush of purifying floodwaters, the darkness was washed away, overwhelmed and diluted by the overpowering natural light side of the force. In moments, the dark snare that clung within the barreled hilt was gone, replaced by an energized purity of purpose.

 

Reaching up, Leena slowly grasped the purified weapon as it was released from the grasp of the force. Gently she placed it in the sands of the circle; yet another focal point for the light.

 

Inmediately a pair of shotos rose upwards into the air, higher than the last. Electric energy crackled between the weapons, purple sparks of darkness lashing out against the embrace of truth. Leena furrowed her elongated brow as she turned her focus onto the pair of weapons as they resisted the purifying flow of the force. Drawing on the invisible life that was all about them, Leena renewed her cleansing assault of the shadowy grasp on the blades. Healing life force exponentially grew as it was channeled through the woman’s suckered hands flowing through the charged air to probe the evil within the shimmering weapons. Within the blades a dark presence lurked, a soul shorn in two and bound unnaturally half in the left and half in the right. To activate either would be to release half a tormented soul that would seek to overpower and destroy it’s would be savior. To activate both, a force-bound tortured beast of long ago, a wraith of myth and legend.

 

Within the sabers the soul’s defenses were seamless. As much as she prod them in the force, Leena could not find a weakness. The soul shards desired a release, to seek an end to their torture. They were the spirit of a tortured and failed Sith prince, destroyed and desiccated beyond recognition. Fortunately, Leena knew she was not alone. Here in the vast wastelands of this desert world, she and her ally would face off against whatever monstrosity was born within with little worry for the devastation of livelihoods and lives beyond their own.

Calling upon the force, Leena extended her hands outward. A surge of force energy rippled the sands as it took the encircling the focus of the healing crystals and sent them flying outwards to the edges of the flowing dunes.

 

The hilts tumbled to the sands as Leena stood. She turned to Ruin. “Are you prepared to do battle with the Sith friend? A terrible beast has accompanied us from the bowels of Byss only to be purged here, in the sands of Tatooine.” Stooping, Leena grasped the hilts and lifted them. She could feel the faint tickles of the dark tortured souls as they bounced within in their agitated state. Her fingers moved to the activator switches, all she awaited was a sign that the Jedi-reborn guardian of steel was ready to do battle.

 

@TerrorBot

 

 

[Leena Kil]

There it was. In those five words, Leena knew the hulking brute of a machine was ready. It seemed to have a preoccupation with killing the Sith, no doubt a side effect of his programming. Simple and to the point. She had seen on Byss what he was capable of and was counting on that now with whatever they might be about to face.

 

With a nod she whispered, “Blasting and bashing is right. At least I hope so. whatever’s in here is long past it’s expiration date.”  With a focused sigh, Leena attuned herself to the still strong buzz of the force and flicked the activators on both weapons. A pair of crimson beams erupted with an evil hiss from each hilt. As the blades materialized though, the hiss it did not stop, it grew louder. Plumes of red gasses billowed out around the pulsating arcing blades covering the area in dense red shadows. Within moments the twin subs were all but blotted out as the dunes were engulfed by a pair of twisted evil-half lived presences. Deep wicked stereophonic laughter seemed to echo from the smokey air and dunes themselves.

 

Instantly, Leena winced, her hands tightening instinctively to the weapons as her aura was assaulted by the overwhelming ambiguous clouds, wraiths of the netherworld bound unnaturally to this world, to the weapons in the Jedi Master’s hands.

 

From within the smoke two pairs of glowing orange-red eyes seemed to materialize and vanish only to appear elsewhere before diving with screams of pain and anger towards the Jedi and droids. Even if they lacked a corporeal form, they could touch the physical world; their touch incapable of anything but destruction, suffering and death.

 

Leena doubled over wrapping her left arm about her stomach as she clasped at her elongated forehead with the other as the spirit drove through her and vanishing into the smoke upon impact. The Jedi master cried out in pain.

 

The cleft soul, hewn in two attacked relentlessly. Anyone or thing within the smoke they would seek to reduce to burning ash.

[Leena Kil]

Leena was doubled over as pain wracked her body. The spirit screamed through her core, the billowing swirls of darkness erupting as they passed before vanishing into the growing plumes of purple smoke. Ruin’s gun thundered nearby, it’s retort echoing the  very sands. Yet the spirit surged unaffected, enraged and drunk on the mere taste of freedom. 
 

As the spirit whirled about for another pass, Ruin wrenched Leena to her feet, both sabers tumbling to the ground. Even as they lay deactivated in the sand. The spirit raged, it’s two cleft souls pluming together in a whirlwind deep within the desert.

 

As her small form was hauled unceremoniously upwards by the steeled muscle of the assault droid, his words pierced the fog of the spirit that even now ravaged within the Jedi’s mind as it did about them. Opening her eyes, Leena called forth the deepest reserves of the force, a blast of light that erupted from hidden reserves to burn away the dark clouds that clawed at her heart and mind, blasting forth in righteous white light from her eyes and palms. It reflected off the billows of smoke as it cleft a hole in the hurricane that stormed about them. In the sky and the sand, on all sides, they were surrounded. 

[Leena Kil]

Leena’s face wilted even as she strained under the flow of the force that surged through her and against the billows of rage and suppressed destructive power. Beneath the heated surge of blackened clouds the blown sand began to crystalize into glass. 
 

The Jedi had never seen a droid hesitate. Ruin might be singular in focus, but on Byss she never saw him falter. The mere fact that the droid did not charge into the melee woth his hammer would have given Leena hope, had she not been counting on his steeled singular focus to carry the day.
 

The light continued to erupt from the Jedi. She buckled to her knees under the onslaught. “The sabers.” She cried out, exhaustion obvious in her strained voice. “Ruin. Smash!”

 

 

[Leena Kil]

With explosive concussions that rippled the very air about them, Ruin brought his hammer down. It was an uncivilized weapon from a less civilized age, but it was just the ticket to solve the ever-expanding cloud of dark evil. Anything lesser may have fallen to the wiles of the broken and enraged spirit.

 

As the spirit shrieked, drawn as if by an otherworldly force beyond the dimensions of this time and place, the wind howled as if caught in a vacuum. The hot winds grew cold in the moment as the very air was torn from Leena’s mouth. Even the remaining sabers that lay within the now scattered circle of healing light side energy had their dark taints swept away as if purged in a cleansing sandstorm. Everything, light, life, dark, and death were drawn into the maw of eternity beyond.

 

And then suddenly, it was over. The warm still air of the desert hanging heavy over them all. An awkward natural silence stretching from horizon to horizon. 
 

A smile creased Leena’s worn face as Ruin spoke to her. “Still in one piece brother Ruin. Thanks to you and that Byssian hammer. Kinda glad you snagged that thing.”

 

Leena looked up, her attention drawn to the battered woman on the approaching dune. What were the chances of someone else stumbling across them all the way out here, so far from civilization? And not a fabled Tusken or scrambling Jawa at that. Maybe a moisture farmer? She didn’t look like it though. 
 

She did not feel like it either. Leena reached out on the force to probe, gently caressing the aura of the woman before them. She put up no defenses, innate or intentional, all of her mind lay bare. Leena was a healer and the icy suffering and pain of the tortured twi’lek’s being, body, and soul were frigid beacons against the scorching backdrop of Tatooine. The Master Healer saw her pain, felt her wounds and scars. What she did not feel was the  tortured festering darkness of the dark side gnawing with hunger at whatever it could grasp.

 

The woman spoke and as she did, Leena drew in a sharp breath. A Sith? She said it. Even if she did not feel like one, even before she said so. A tortured soul; another victim of the Sith’s machinations for power, for their corrupt ideal of freedom at the suppression of others, desire at the expense of the weak. 
 

Still, she had said she was a Sith. Leena’s eyes leapt from the haggard girl to Ruin. She might not know who this woman was, but she knew her companion. He was singular in his focus. Their entire time

together, he had yearned to follow his primary directive. Now, here, for the first time, he had a potential Sith in the crosshairs. She had a pretty good idea what he would do. Current or former Sith, could he tell the difference without feeing the change about her in the force.

 

With a force-fueled lunge, Leena rolled from her kneeling position forward. She called one of the cleansed sabers to her and stood, igniting it’s sunny yellow blade in a singular motion holding it out st shoulder height and arm’s distance directly in from of Ruin, between the droid and the stranger. “She isn’t a Sith, Ruin. I don’t know what she is, but she needs our help.”

 

Leena’s eyes drifted from Ruin to Keenava. “Are you armed? Do you need help?”

[Leena Kil]

Leena stood like a sentinel even as Ruin growled his mechanized assessment of the situation. His assessment was not entirely off, repent or die. Even as the Jedi reached out on the force, she could not tell entirely who or what this being was. Vestibule traces of darkness, like smoke that lingered after a forest fire, seemed to waft from the twi’lek; and yet, her presence was not marked by that of a true dark sider.
 

Was it a ruse? She had seen the Sith do such a thing before.

 

Was this woman alone, so far away from everything? Logic seemed to indicate that was improbable in and of itself. Still, she did not feel anything or anyone else as her senses reached out beyond the dunes, attuned to any sign of life.

 

Leena could see, moreover feel, the wounds inflicted on the young woman’s body, the ravages upon her mind. It called to her, for Leena was not just a Jedi. She was a healer, the antithesis to all that the Sith seemed to stand for. Where the Sith destroyed life, the Jedi preserved. She chanced a glance at Ruin and Fera; and yet, she had learned the hard way, sometimes a portion needed to be severed to preserve the whole.

 

They stood for a moment. It was a moment that seemed to last for an eternity, but was mere seconds at most. Leena watched, assessing the situation and awaiting a reply. None came. The stranger seemed to be trying to access the force, and failing? Or was it the shadows of a cleverly laid snare?
 

Suddenly the woman’s eyes seemed to roll and she waived, collapsing to the sandy dune before them in a heap. The woman twitched and spasmed there on the sand. Still Leena did not move but to lower the saber, pointing it to the ground in front of her, grasping it in both of her hands, sensing something amiss about the whole situation.

 

And finally, as the twi’leki stranger’s body stopped spasming and Leena felt her consciousness release from the pangs of her own trapped mind into the sweet release of nothingness, she acted. She shot a glance towards Ruin, acknowledging that he had been crested by the Jedi, with a purpose, a noble albeit violent one, and she would be wise to heed it. “Fera,” she called to the smaller of the mechanical duo, “please go and collect our belongings. We ought to get out of the hot sands as soon as possible.”

 

With a hiss, Leena deactivated her saber and hung it on her earth-toned belt. “Brother Ruin, I do not know what trickery may be afoot. Keep a watchful eye. I am trusting you to protect me should things go awry. Whoever and whatever this is, unless it is a clever trap, needs our help. Maybe even in spite of this being s trap. That lady needs our help. Watch AND hunt my friend.” 
 

Cautiously, Leena moved forward, toward the downed stranger. She drew on the living force. Across the miles, she could feel the life forces of the tough hidden lives that called this world home, moisture farmers, men and women of fortune, native tribesmen, flora and fauna. She drew from them, her life strengthened by their own and in turn offering refreshment of the body and soul in this parched land. The force itself seemed to hum about the young Jedi Master as she knelt in the sands alongside the fallen Twi’lek. Gingerly she rolled the woman over, pulling her face from the sand to make sure she was still breathing. Seeing that she was, Leena set to work.

 

Outside a surgical suite, and with only the barest of medical supplies at her aid, Leena relied heavily on the force. Using her teeth to tear open a bacta patch, Leena reached out with her free hand, running it inches above the fallen woman’s form. She was feeing and assessing injuries with skill beyond the greatest diagnostic equipment in the galaxy. As her hand moved, healing energy seemed to radiate with a glow as it purified the wounds, driving infection and foreign material away. Chunks of sand and necropsied flesh fell to the ground as healing energies already began to take hold, nurturing and encouraging the woman’s own body to begin healing. She offered energy beyond the girl’s own to jumpstart the healing process. Already smaller wounds began to close as the bleeding ceased and the healing began. Finding the deepest laceration, Leena applied the largest of the patches, before tearing open a second, third and final patch, applying them with skill and knowledge. “What sort of torture chamber did you find yourself in? Were you a true Sith or just a pawn to advance the cause of someone who lied to you?”

 

Looking up from the unconscious body, she called out to Ruin. “Bring the speeder around.” This woman would require more help than Leena could offer here, in the moment, with the twin suns bearing down overhead. Even now, Leena felt drained; the battle with the dark side spirit and snared sabers had siphoned her own energy. Leena was an aquatic being, to even survive in this harsh world, she relied on the force. “It is hot out here. We need to find some shelter or even better, a medbay.” She could feel her own flesh baking and beginning to dry and crack. They all needed to find shelter and soon.
 

“A bacta bath; heck a regular bath would be great!” She added with a whisper as she worked to wrap the wounded form of the woman, securing her wounds and shrouding her from the hot sun.

[Leena Kil]

The unconscious form of @Keenava Ootunavi was carefully placed atop a stone table that jutted naturally from the rocky hovel that made up the outcropping of the desolate fort. A short and rather hotly contested debate between Leena and the scurrying trader’s caravan ended quickly when @TerrorBot materialized. In no time Leena had what she needed, several rolls of medicated bandages, a pair of scavenged first aid kits that were, to everyone’s surprise, still stocked, and at least two days worth of water. The water in the attached refresher unit was welcome, but it’s brown grainy texture was questionable at best. Not something Leena would be encouraging anyone to drink unless absolutely necessary.

 

For the next several hours Leena poured over the downed woman, bandaging her wounds and drawing forth infection and foreign masses wherever they were found. She poured forth life-giving energies to encourage the natural healing possessed by all organic lifeforms. Before her very eyes, she watched as the woman healed. She could feel her patient’s body knitting itself back together beneath her guidance. Within a protective aura of soothing calm, Leena simultaneously sought to buffer the afflicted woman’s mind, to carry her consciousness back towards the light in a protective healing embrace. Mental trauma was often much more complex and deeply damaging than all but the most deadly physical wounds and infections; but with the help of the force, even the most fractured mind could be made whole once again.

 

About the time that the woman’s eyes began to flutter open, Leena stopped her gentle babbling talk and smiled warmly down at the lost vagabond. At the same time, a burst of wind slammed the dry wooden door shut on it’s hinges, the herald of the sandstorm that was upon them as the subs set on the horizon.

 

Leena hoped that the droids were alright outside and would return soon, scavenged supplies in hand.

[Leena Kil]

Leena smiled as she helped their newfound associate slowly sit up listening quietly as the woman explained her situation. From behind the woman, Leena scowled. Straight from the heart of the Sith Empire to the sands of Tatooine…

 

The woman was hungry. They’d continue to investigate this strange situation, but the mention of food made Leena realize how famished she too was. Turning to her pack, Leena dug out several ration packs, but as she turned, Ruin and Fera entered, the door slamming behind them against the billowing maelstrom that passed outside, bits of grit sneaking in wherever a crack might be found.

Observing the carcasses, Leena smiled. She appreciated Ruin’s thoughtfulness. She offered a slight bow to the pair of droids, “Many thanks brothers, for not only thinking of our nourishment but for ensuring that these predators did not set upon us while trapped within the storm.” Truth be told, butchering an animal was not a skill Leena possessed in the least. As a healer and surgeon, Leena was intimately familiar with the bodily construct of the majority of the galaxy’s overall physiology. She could probably figure it out. She had long since forgone the consumption of flesh, in part due tk her oath as a healer, in part in her dedication to the Jedi way of life. She looked from the bodies to the Sithly woman. He did not know ablut her though. “I do not suppose either of your programming includes an idea how to butcher these uh things?” She asked the droids earnestly. “Our friend could use more nourishment than offered by these measly military ration packs.” 
 

Hearing the droid’s words and thoroughly not understanding the binary beeping of Fera, Leena thought she got the gist of Ruin’s rumblings. To hunt the slavers would save lives and in saving lives they might discover the link to the Sith that had brought the Twi’lek to them. A clever assessment to one’s primary programming. All that remained was the stranger. Turning to the woman, Leena spoke again in response to her pondering. “As for what to do, I believe you are stuck with us until this storm abates. Perhaps in that time we can eat and you can decide where you wish to go after. My associates would be interested in locating the slavers you seemed to have escaped from; but if you desire to be free of this life, we can arrange transport for you away from this place to a place where you can continue to heal in mind and body. Perhaps, one day, you will even remember  the circumstances that led you here. Really, it is up to you.” Leena shot a knowing glance to Ruin. They both knew that there was danger present in this girl, whoever she was. They would need to be on their guard. They would help her as they could, but if she gave indications of betraying them to to Sith or of returning to their way of life Leena knew she could not stop Ruin; nor would she try.

[Leena Kil]

As the girl began to ramble, Leena managed to scrounge what amoubted to little more than a baggy poncho-esque robe and an emergency blanket from their immediate area. Both she offered to their newfound associate. After that, the Jedi was content to cautiously lean her shoulder against the wall and observe, a calming aura of healing and peace exuding from her every pore to fill the room as the Twi’lek continued to speak and work at preparing the meat. Leena contented herself with tearing into one of the crumbling ration bars and chewing heavily on the gritty contents. She paused at the mention of the girl coming back to life, but did not interrupt or speak until she was asked her and the droid’s business on such a world.

 

Leena smiled. Everyone had heard the ubiquitous phrase ‘Jedi business’ thrown out almost like that was a standard line taught at the Academy. It would be a simple enough and 100% truthful answer that did little to answer anything. Still, what were they doing in Tatooine? Well, it was pretty simple, their ride had deposited them here, their agreement complete. What were they doing in the middle of the desert? Purifying dark side booby-trapped lightsabers. Why and where did they come from? Which in turn would lead to questions about Byss, the dark side, maybe even more Sith tie ins. A dizzying potential of conversation played out at the thought of how they might answer their new associate’s seemingly simple query. 
 

So with a tired smile, Leena looked at the girl and answered simply. “Jedi business. The force brought us here, to you even. Once this sand storm subsides perhaps our friend Fera can arrange for a ride off world,” she winked at the droids adding, “let the Council know we picked up another friend.” And by friend, clearly she hoped Fera might be able to convey the  curiousness of their predicament. Such a story seemed all too well to be completely palatable, bit still the force worked in mysterious ways. As they waited for the food to cook, Leena turned the conversation back towards the Twi’lek. “What did you say your name was again? You have quite the remarkable story of survival and you seem to recognize the lies that you have been force fed. Do you remember anything about when you died or came back to life? If there is someone here on Tatooine with the power to resurrect the dead, I am sure that Ruin and I ought to meet them. Their help could be of great use in the war against the darkness.”

[Leena Kil]

Leena was not sure what the little bleeping droid was saying. Ruin offered no clarification to it. She could only assume that the duo would be able to help get them off this world before they rusted solid. She was confident they could. The pair had shown a tenacity and resourcefulness she was unaccustomed to in regular droids within a medbay.

 

As Keeneva spoke, Leena did her best to hide her disappointment. Another cloning facility, another cloner, nothing more. She sat silently as the girl offered her. They were hardly based in scientific fact, but Leena offered no correction knowing full well the benefit of such a belief in such gray waters. Yet the girl spoke some of her past, even without emotional connection, she acknowledged them. It was hopeful that their new associate could see through the lies of the Sith. Still, it would do them well to get off planet sooner than later for all of their sakes. The deserts of Tatooine were not for the untried and untested.

 

When asked, Leena offered her name, making by sure to leave her position of Master Healer and member of the Jedi Council. As the sandstorm blew itself out, Leena happily offered bits of wisdom and conversation. She felt a fondness for the girl. She needed help and Leena could offer it. She did not have a comlink and was relying on the droids to find them passage offworld, assured that they had access to authorization codes and financial backing if needed. She had had enough of unknown smugglers for the time being; and where they were going, trusted, authorized, transport was a must.

 

Once the storm had subsided, the group managed to reacquire their craft, some of which had taken to drifting and dune-ing during the storm. They took a bit of digging to get back.

 

Heading into Mos Eisley, the group was easily able to bool passage coreward, Ylesia it seemed was quite happening these days. Leena grimaced, sure that Ruin would be disappointed having missed some sort of climactic battle with the armies of the Sith Empire. In truth, she was sad for him. He might have saved countless lives.

 

Aboard the aged Nubian freighter the group blasted skyward and away from the burning sands of the most popular non-vacation destination in the galaxy.