Felucia - Jedi Temple

[ObliviousKnight]

A friendly spar: Frond vs. Kel Koon (karyu128)

 

Firstly, well done to both of you. It’s been a while since I’ve read a friendly spar between two Jedi, and it’s a lot of fun reading these.

 

This was a surprisingly aggressive spar. Frond opened up aggressively by attempting to close the distance with Kel Koon and using his superior strength and reach to his advantage, whereas Kel Koon, recognizing that he would be at a significant disadvantage, attempted to outmaneuver his sparring partner. Throughout the entire match, I enjoyed how Frond described how contacting the Force felt to him through the perspective of a sapient tree-creature. Both karyu and Frond did well in describing their attacks, though I would have enjoyed a description of how contacting the Force during a friendly spar would have felt to Kel Koon as a new apprentice to the Jedi.

 

Both duelists acknowledged and dealt with the results of successful and parried attacks on each other. Towards the end, the match got a bit nasty. Frond successfully grappled with Kel Koon, who failed to make a significant attempt to escape or capitalize on the fact that one of Frond’s limbs was completely occupied with pinning down his opponent. Kel Koon simply dropping his lightsaber and continuing the fight with his off-hand was a good move, however.

 

Ultimately, the failure to do much about the grapple and allow what would have been a mortal wound is what called the match for me. Overall, this was a very good showing from both writers for their first moderated duel.

 

Frond is the victor of the sparring match, and has the next post.

[ObliviousKnight]

It was a long, uneventful hyperspace journey that separated Borleias and Felucia. While still recovering from uncounted unethical surgeries, Armiena had been strongly advised against strenuous physical activity--not that the cramped confines of a Lambda-class shuttle afforded space for more than active stretching exercises. The shuttle was crammed to the gills with medical personnel, all of whom were expressing an obnoxious degree of concern for her wellbeing and her superhuman appetite, and the veteran Jedi kept to herself in the cockpit in an attempt to avoid their prying. Not having anything more to do than watch the swirling display of faster-than-light travel and read up on the degeneration of the Galactic Alliance into proto-fascism, Armiena eventually dozed off.

 

Upon hearing an alarm cry out an alert signifying their iminent reentry from hyperspace, Armiena woke up with a start and glanced about groggily, seeing that her Miraluka mother was momentarily in command of the medical shuttle from the copilot’s station. She groaned as she stretched in the pilot’s seat, disused limbs grumbling at the last several hours of inactivity.

 

“I didn’t have the heart to wake you,” Misal murmured sleepily at her daughter’s exclamation at seeing how imminent their arrival was. In seconds, the brilliant tunnel of hyperspace came to a swirled to a halt and the emerald jewel of Felucia filled the shuttle’s canopy. The Gotal Healer barged into the cockpit, muttering something about needing to input a landing code for clearance to the Jedi Temple whilst punching in a lengthy code into the shuttle’s central console. Armiena just glanced over the Gloth’s headcones with raised eyebrows. At last, it seemed, another Grandmaster had come to appreciate establishing proper security protocols.

 

The former Grandmaster’s mood was only lifted as the stark white craft descended through the jungle world’s atmosphere and the craft was dragged through a precipitous, tree-lined canyon by a series of automated tractor emplacements. No doubt there were other fortifications that were fixed into the walls of the canyon to deter invaders, Armiena decided as her eyes analyzed the formation for potential holdouts, likely quad lasers or similar anti-starfighter emplacements. Eventually, the shuttle was led into a hangar built into the base of the canyon and stiflingly humid air rushed into the cockpit as the boarding ramp lowered.

 

After disembarking, Armiena surveyed the slope up the canyon with displeasure. Already, it seemed as though she was beginning to sweat through the baggy brown robes that were the only spare clothing that she could scrounge from the shuttle. “You’ve got to be kidding me--no, don’t even think about it, I’ll manage.” Armiena groaned when a repulsorchair was produced from the shuttle. No matter how much time it would take to traverse the trail up the walls of the canyon, the prideful Alderaanian was never going to allow herself to be carted up the slope like a piece of cargo. Loosening the collar of her robes against the warm, moisture-laden air of the jungle, she set out on the muddy trail.

 

Within minutes, she was panting along the side of the trail, soaked to the skin by an brief shower and mustering her screaming muscles for another spastic burst of activity up the slope.

[ObliviousKnight]

Nearly an hour later, Armiena Draygo managed to climb, crawl, and drag her body up the trail to the entrance to the Jedi Temple and collapsed by the controls to the elevator. Only halfway into the trek up the canyon wall, Armiena’s thigh muscles had given way and she was forced to pause by the swide of the trail, waving off an offer of a replsuorchair when Master Gloth’s medical stafff overtook them. Shortly afterwards, a warm drizzle began to fall upon the valley and mist began to waft up the wooded walls of the canyon. Within minutes, the veteran Jedi had been drenched in warm mist, and the previously-pristine robes that she had borrowed were laden with a mixture of mud, sweat, and rain.

 

Every jungle, it seemed, was determined to make Draygo as oppressively uncomfortable as possible.

 

But she had made it, and even if all she could do was stretch out the overuse of her thighs and reach out to the Force for rejuvenation, Armiena had proven to herself that she could still tolerate physical exhaustion. After a few minutes of oppressive humidity in the turbolift to the underground Temple, the climate control kicked in and the warmth was blasted away by wonderful, blessed air conditioning. A very different type of warmth flooded her cheeks moments later when an unfamiliar mind touched hers and shared a foreign memory of a beach on a distant world, of skipping rocks along a sun-blasted ocean by the shoulders of arboreal giants… of a girlish rush of exhilaration upon seeing her own son.

 

“What in the blazes…” Armiena would have jolted to her feet and paced the turbolift, but her legs didn’t seem to be motivated to obey her commands at the moment. She hadn’t felt that ridiculous, giggly, bashful, irrational rush since she was a teenager. This girl had recently seen Aidan, and it seems had developed something of an infatuation for him.

 

“Mum, who is this girl who's crushing on my son?”

 

The old Miraluka cackled and rubbed her hands together. Fitted with a temporary prosthetic, she was leaning against the wall of the turbolift. “That will be Knight Sandy Senya. Oh, oh-ho, that girl took quite a fancy to Aidan. This will be entertaining. You'll know her when you see her--she has some rather… prominent scars. Oh, I wish I could be there when you meet her, but duty calls.”

 

“It's that bad?” The younger Draygo buried her face in her hands.

 

“The child can't possibly be older than seventeen.”

 

Armiena’s groan of dismay was cut short by an obnoxiously upbeat chime that sounded when the turbolift reached the first level of the Jedi Temple. She climbed to her feet, helped reluctantly by an offered hand from her geriatric mother. Her legs felt like leaden stilts as she staggered through the open-air lobby of the Temple. As expected, the usual smattering of eyes followed their passage, but Armiena realized with a pang that few of the eyes were directed towards her. Her mother had forgone the traditional veils or even the more modern eyebands that her species tended to wear in public, instead electing to openly bare her eyeless gaze--a rare sight in the galaxy. The former Grandmaster, for her part, had not been sighted by the Jedi in nearly five years and she had lost so much weight that she was difficult to recognize.

 

Having been strangers to the Jedi for years, the voice of a pimply Padawan cried out when the two bypassed the lobby and instead wandered deeper into the Temple.

 

“Excuse me, Masters, but can I help the two of you find… um… miss?” The boy’s voice drifted away when the two halted.

 

“Do you want to do it or shall I?” Armiena smirked at her mother.

 

“Ma’am?”

 

Armiena turned away and waved the Twi’lek boy off. “Just call me Draygo.”

 

____

 

Several minutes later, Armiena had finally limped towards the Temple’s cafeteria. A current of cold air wafted through her damp brown robes, causing the veteran Jedi to shiver and shove a thin cloth cap onto her bald forehead. She spotted Senya almost immediately on her way to the cafeteria line; the young Jedi Knight barely more than a child, slight of build and almost diminutive in height. Senya would have appeared frail if the facial scars didn’t hint at her surviving some past ordeal, possibly an unexpected encounter with an explosive device. Her company was just as distinctive: a strange, plantlike creature that appeared to have more resemblance to something that hailed from Kashyyyk than any sapient species that she had ever encountered--and Armiena was positive that she’d never encountered one of his kind; and a Kel Dor, a species that she had absolutely no skill at reading, but the crimson sash that he wore on one shoulder suggested an attachment to an unknown society or tradition.

 

Lost in thought, Armiena mumbled instructions only occasionally and somehow managed to come away from the cafeteria line with a flatbread sandwich that had been overstuffed with some unidentifiable meat and sauce-sodden vegetables. She sat down heavily on an unoccupied bench that faced the entrance to the cafeteria. Her comlink chimed once as she pondered over a cup of synth caf--as usual for Jedi rations, overroasted and unpleasantly bitter, but it was at least caffeinated and so excessively hot that one barely noticed the flavor.

 

Her comlink chimed once. She withdrew a capsule from her belt and downed a pill with the assistance of the caf.

 

Armiena stared into the ceramic mug, the forms of the young Jedi Knight and her cadets unfocused in the background. The sandwich lay forgotten and gradually oozed an orange-red sauce as it cooled.

 

She was going to need a lot of caf for this conversation.

[ObliviousKnight]

Armiena didn’t rise when the young Jedi Knight approached. At the moment, she wasn’t entirely certain that she would have been able to move, her legs having decided to take advantage of the brief respite to succumb to overexertion and fall asleep on their master. Her eyes flickered over the teenagers arms and noted the scars--Senya obviously still had all of her natural limbs, so the cause likely wasn’t an unwanted encounter with an explosive device. Some of them, however, were long and narrow, the wounds obviously inflicted to be as horrifying as they were painful. The poor girl had probably been tortured at some point in her life.

 

“That was one of the more confusing things that I’ve experienced.” Armiena took a sip from her coffee, a grin beginning to spread across her lips. The baggy sleeves of her robes slipped past her wrists and exposed her emaciated forearms. “Mooning over my own son like… you know.”

 

That smile quickly faded. “You clearly know who I am, and my mother told me about you. Sandy, it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen my son. I’m fairly starved for details. If you could tell me… anything, about how he’s been, what he’s been up to, I’d be grateful for anything.”

[ObliviousKnight]

Despite her success at ending the Empire’s use of slavery, Armiena had never been able to touch the Sith and Hutt cartels. The former continued the degenerate practice out of absurd and hypocritical ideological reasons, and the Hutt cartel managed to thrive wherever authority was absent. Not entirely unlike a lot of parasites. She would have been proud to have served at Y’Toub and smash the Hutt cartel, even if it had meant temporarily allying with the Imperial Remnant and these militant forces of the Imperial Knights. However, she never wanted that kind of life for Aidan--her son was supposed to have a chance at a normal life… whatever that meant.

 

For a moment, Armiena looked like she was about to cry.

 

She set down the mug of caf and pushed it to the side with a flick of her fingertips. Even that took more effort than she would have liked. “Sandy, please, I need to see my son. Not… I mean, not a holocomm or going through his chain of command, I need to find him and make sure that he's alright. Make sure that he hasn't done anything too radical. Do you know anything about where else they've deployed, where I might be able to find him?”

[ObliviousKnight]

“Minus the executions, you mean.” The corners of Armiena’s lips turned downwards and her expression grew stern. Her face as thin as it was, the expression gave her a passing resemblance to an overgrown bird-of-prey, albeit one wearing a bright blue cotton cap.

 

Armiena could understand if Aidan was frustrated with the Jedi Order; the mysticism of the ancient sect had long been a source of frustration for her, and she had served as its Grandmaster. She’d never had any spirit for “maintaining the balance of the Force” or “listening to the will of the Force”. The vagaries of the Force were and continued to be a mystery to her; Armiena had only seen herself as a woman trying to guide the galaxy through a traumatic period, even nevermind whether she had to cajole, beg, politick, or kill to clear a path for the galaxy. Fitt, Kirlocca, and Trevelian were a significant departure from her more pragmatic approach.

 

The former Grandmaster could understand her son’s disillusionment with the Jedi, but she wasn’t about to allow his sense of morality to be dictated by the heirs of Tarkin and Palpatine.

 

“There are always ways around security measures.” No matter how stringent the security precautions, there was always a vulnerability, especially around a planet as teeming with activity as Kuat. Armiena just became aware of a vague ripple in the Force and the absence of the blond girl’s apprentices. Certainly, it was impossible to miss the walking tree. “I’ll worry about the Imperials. I don’t even have a lightsaber at the moment. Thank y… say, where are the Kel Dor and the, uh, foliage?”

 

Armiena knew nothing of the dangers of Felucia's jungles, but given her experiences with the infamously hazardous Haruun Kal, she could guess that an unfamiliar pioneer could quickly find themselves infected, ensnared, stranded, or preyed upon by beasts. These environments were notoriously capricious and Padawans at an early stage of their training could be dangerously foolhardy.

[ObliviousKnight]

Armiena had hoped to pump Senya for more information regarding her son, but only moments after her poorly-worded comment about the sapient tree, the teenaged Jedi Knight had departed. Perhaps she had spoken poorly, had irritated the young Jedi by either her skepticism towards the Imperial Knights or the rather speciesist remark about her apprentice. It couldn't be helped; Armiena had seen far too much killing over the course of her life and there was little indication that any of it had actually accomplished anything. At least she now had a name to work with--an Eleison--and a destination. She glanced downwards at her plate, at the wrap that continued to ooze red-orange spiced goop from its innards, and consumed it with gusto. The sauce was heavily-spiced, probably to disguise the fact that it was processed almost to the point of sterility, but this was the first "freshly" prepared meal that Armiena had eaten in nearly five years. The obscene display with which she disappeared the wrap would have to be forgiven, even if her lips and fingers were stained by the dripping sauce.

 

As she finished and considered her next actions, I reached out and tapped my character on her right shoulder. Startled by the invasion of her personal space in what she had previously thought to be a mostly-empty cafeteria, she whirled around and stared back through the fourth wall. Her eyes narrowed and her jaw worked, ready to spit out a curse.

 

"Really?" The Alderaanian hissed back at me. "That's how it's going to be? After all the trauma that you put me through, after the war, losing my husband, losing five years of my life, you're seriously going to ask me to do this again?"

 

I cringed--certainly, I'd put Armiena through hell. The poor woman deserved a few years of quiet, an opportunity to try to reconnect with the few people from her increasingly small web of friends of family. However, the RP still needed new characters and fresh faces, new plotlines and grudges, younger Jedi whose idealism hadn't been spoilt by the war and were unafraid to dedicate their lives to the Good Fight. The RP needed experienced heroes, even if they were scarred and traumatized by the war, to look after these young idealists. The RP still needed Armiena Draygo, even if she would have preferred a quiet hut in the Agamarian badlands or a tenure-track position at Coronet Polytechnic (go sandpanthers!).

 

"At least let me contact Aidan, let him know that I'm safe." Her hands still stained by the heavily-spiced, reddish-orange sauce that had leaked from her wrap, she rose and walked threateningly towards me. Her balled fists held a promise of violence.

 

That seemed reasonable enough. I might have been the narrator of Armiena's world, but if that woman--or worse, her mother--somehow managed to crack the fourth wall...

 

"I'm sorry, Master Draygo, but is everything alright?" One of the grease-monkeys of Felucia, a veteran of the Praxeum on Gala and familiar with the veteran Jedi's eccentricities had been watching this display and was quite concerned by the sight of an old friend conversing with the doorway to the commissary.

 

Armiena blinked hard. "I... sorry about that, Celchu. Healer Gloth put me on a new medication. I probably need to have the dosage adjusted. By the way--" Her eyes glanced downward and caught sight of an unfamiliar glint of polished metal on the mechanic's left hand. She grinned. "Please give my congratulations to To'parwa."

 

At this point, somewhat resembling a chase scene from a classic cartoon, a piratical teenager raced by and was closely followed by an R3 unit. A pair of arbiters with armed stun batons followed by only a minute later.

 

"Terribly sorry, gentlemen, but the, uh, child climbed into the ceiling ducts." It was a blatant misdirection, but Armiena gently grasped a grating in the ceiling and shifted it loose with the Force. Following the level of her pale-green eyes, the two arbiters noticed the shifted ceiling tiles and groaned in disbelief. Profanity-laden comments regarding their misfortune at losing a prisoner and how difficult it must have been for the child to worm his body into the ceiling crawlspaces followed.

 

She just shrugged. "I know--I told him that it wasn't going to work--I mean, the kid's got maybe fourty centimeters of space to work with up there, but... I'm actually rather impressed. Lemme go ahead and see if I can home in on him for you."

 

____

 

A few minutes later, a lone woman, practically swallowed up in brown robes that were far too large for her emaciated form, stood directly between the piratical young man and the unknown destination that he was running towards. She wore a pale blue cotton cap on her head, which looked faintly ridiculous against the formality of the Jedi robes. Perhaps Stormhelm didn't quite appreciate this fact yet, but this Jedi Temple was primarily subterranean, and barring his locating a turbolift that wasn't being guarded or an unsecured ventilation shaft, escape was quite impossible. Armiena nodded in a friendly manner towards the fleeing teenager--the boy, delinquent or not, was obviously sensitive to the Force. As the boy raced by, Armiena stepped towards his blind right eye. With a tangle of feet, an impact of her left hip against Stormhelm's right, and a guiding hand placed directly under his shoulder, the burglar found himself momentarily airborne and the ceiling and floor began to argue over which direction was up.

 

Armiena placed her left hand directly under his head to protect him from a potentially-discombobulating landing on a hard stone floor. Her left hip ached in protest as she knelt down to protect her head, but her smile lost none of its friendliness. "Sorry about that. I'm a little bit slower than I used to be, gave you a rather rough landing. Would you care to tell me what you're running from?"

[ObliviousKnight]

Armiena groaned as she straightened. The Gotal Healer had given it his best attempt and had succeeded in even obliterating the scars from her back and hips, but there was nothing that even a Master Healer could do to reverse months of atrophy from disused muscles. She stepped over towards the young man as he crawled away and followed the movement of the little pouch towards a deactivated R3 unit.

 

The Jedi Ace smirked when she spotted a circular burn mark on the cylindrical torso of the little astromech droid. Someone must have attempted to affix a restraining bolt to the R3 unit and botched the weld. This was exceptionally sloppy, rushed work--the astromech must have wedged the bolt free from its torso without the use of tools or human assistance. She could begin to make a guess about the circumstances that had led the delinquent young man to her.

 

"That's probably for the best. But when those two temple guards realize that I've lied to them and catch up, what do you plan on doing then? I mean, I made some dumb decisions when I was your age, but I never had to spend time in lock-up for more than a night."

[ObliviousKnight]

A turquoise light began to glimmer behind Armiena’s shoulder and a tremor began to build in the Force. Cursing, the veteran Jedi whirled to face the shimmering burden that rested in the juvenile’s satchel. The boy collapsed to the polished floor and clutched his head in agony.

 

Armiena lurched towards the glowing satchel and seized the cloth-covered crystals in a talon-like hand. A shattering crack echoed down the hall and the orb within fractured. Almost immediately, a migraine began to throb in her forehead—she sank to her knees and began to work the boot off of her right foot, believing, absurdly, that a thin layer of leather would be sufficient to protect her from the influence of the pilfered artifact. That blinding headache thrummed with increasing ferocity and she clenched her eyes shut, baring her teeth at the ground in a silent howl of pain.

 

A sea of grain shifted idly in the waves of wind. Two figures far in the distance fled towards her, pursued by a pair of canine predators--kath hounds, she recognized their outlines. She had been to Dantooine numerous times in the past but had never been had a dangerous encounter with any of the pack predators of the agrarian world. Her last apprentice, Arlan Vass, had hailed from this world--She called a vibroblade to her hand and charged, knowing what was about to happen.

 

She rested with her back to a domed astromech droid and enjoyed the warmth of its power cells recharging against the cold of a rural night. Her hair was touseled as the R3 unit awoke with a bleep of surprise and surveyed its surroundings…

 

A heavy hand fell upon Armiena’s shoulder. A blunt pole jammed into her spine and she braced herself for the disorientation of a stun prod discharging into her back...

 

Her vision cleared. Armiena wiped at her eyes and the hand came away wet. A talon-like hand grasped out and shoved the burlap sack into her boot, the dwindling glimmer swallowed up by the hollow. It was doubtful that the thin layer of leather would offer any protection against an unknown Jedi artifact, but at least she wouldn’t have to worry about handling the crystals with her bare hands. She turned and offered the young burglar a helping hand to his feet. “Clearly, it’s something that needed protection. You’d better come with me.”

 

Where to? What standing she still had with the Jedi Order was a mystery to her, her few remaining friends in the Order notwithstanding. Those two sentries stood little chance against her even if they managed to catch up with the burglar, though humiliating a string of law enforcement officers was unlikely to improve her relationship with the Jedi. She’d have to manage. But Armiena had no idea what to do with a teenager, having missed most of her son’s adolescence… although, teenagers were supposed to constantly be hungry. Whether or not that was actually the case, the commissary was the only publicly accessible location within a minute of walking that Draygo was familiar with.

 

The veteran Jedi sat the auburn-haired youth down into one of the tables deeper in the commissary and took up a position where she could keep an eye on the entrances.

 

“Call me Draygo. Everyone mispronounces my name anyway,” Armiena’s lips twitched as though she found something amusing about that remark. “You should probably tell me where you found…” She jostled her right boot, which was resting on the table. “This. I don’t particularly care where or how you came across it--I just want to make sure it’s not from… say… Korriban.”

 

Truth be told, Armiena couldn’t be bothered to care what the crystal was or where it had come from--and the artifact’s gentle thrum in the Force suggested that it hadn’t known the craftsmanship of the Sith. She cared more for the living, and for this Force-sensitive youth who hadn’t seen a sympathetic glance in weeks.

[ObliviousKnight]

“But you didn’t know. You’re a kid, you were alone and… you did what you thought was necessary to survive. You just didn’t expect that this,” Armiena shook her boot and the crystals rattled about in the hollow space. “...was something worth hauling a child halfway across the galaxy for.”

 

Draygo decided to take a risk and upended the boot onto the table, the crystals rattling as they spilled out of the meager protection of the burlap bag. Absurdly, she stuck her hand into the boot as though a few millimeters of leather was going to offer protection from their influence as she gathered the gems between them. Unpolished and cut only to facilitate their removal from a rocky outcropping, the aqua crystals reflected dimly in the overhead light of the commissary. Now, there was nothing to suggest anything extraordinary about their character.

 

“Pretty… though I have no idea what this might be. I was always better with mechanics.” She clumsily rotated the gems about in the light. Draygo pulled her hand out of the boot and sighed. There was no easy way to broach the topic that needed to be discussed. “I'm about to ask a very personal question, so you don't need to answer. I had a vision right after our mutual migraine episode. I was on a farm, and I was running at a pair of kath hounds with a vibroblade in my hand. Was that... home?”

 

Her pale-green eyes searched the young man's expression. What she had seen was almost certainly the death of a younger man's parents, a terrible tragedy for a teenager to endure, and likely the reason for the burglar's struggle to just survive.

[ObliviousKnight]

“For what very little it’s worth, I’m sorry. That’s a terrible hand to be dealt.” That same sympathetic expression remained, but Draygo’s jaw set. No doubt this child had encountered many a sympathetic glance trying to survive on his own--maybe some of those well-meaning strangers had even offered the teenager more than spare change or a guilty, murmured apology in passing--but none of them had the capacity to help in the way that Armiena had just resolved. Healing the galaxy was beyond her capabilities, but helping a single Force-Sensitive teenager to escape a life of bitter deprivation and helping him to grow into his abilities? That was something that she could help with.

 

Then the teenager decided to rip out her heart and remind her of a very dire situation that she had only escaped from. She lips turned downward as she glanced at the twin crystals between them, no doubt the cause of their unexpected confidence. Armiena swept them into the hollow of her boot with the blade of her hand.

 

Yeah, that was me. Some people found me in a rather vulnerable state, incapacitated me, and ran experiments on me for months. The Jedi only just found me and got me out of their labs. Hence… all of this.” The veteran Jedi indicated the ridiculous blue cap over her bald head. “The part that really rankles me is… the apathy, I guess. Those… people… knew exactly what they were doing, been working on me for months, knew perfectly well how profoundly unethical what they were doing was, but they treated me like a natural resource--like an item to be used for material gain.” Armiena snorted mirthlessly. “There’s nanites in them thar hills.”

 

She took a deep breath and wiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry, you didn’t need to hear that. It was an unfortunate situation, but it’s over. For all that those crystals decided to share between us, it couldn’t have bothered to share our names…”

[ObliviousKnight]

“Something like Persuasion? No, I wouldn’t have done anything like that. I mean, it’s certainly possible to share a memory using the Force, but doing that involuntarily would have been… just… profoundly unethical. I wouldn’t have done that to you.”

 

Her eyes flitted towards her boot, still resting on the table between them. It wasn’t completely unheard of for a creation of the Jedi or another Force sect to impose a connection between two Force-Sensitive individuals. Holocrons could interface with their user through the Force, though they functioned primarily as archival devices; the Rakatans had scattered Force-Interfacing maps all over the galaxy that interfaced with their users with the Force; some of the more megalomaniacal Sith Masters had left behind remnants that gifted those they deemed worthy with knowledge in the form of visions.

 

Hopefully this stone wasn’t anything so sinister, not if it was deemed harmless enough that it had been assigned so light a vigil that a teenaged orphan was able to pocket it.

 

“It had to have been the stone. It’s not uncommon for items developed by the Jedi to detect the potential of those trying to use them, even for the sake of protecting them from knowledge that they simply aren’t ready for… though I’ve never encountered one that shared memories between two complete strangers. Who developed it, or why… unfortunately, that’s quite beyond my area of expertise.” Armiena smiled. This was probably not the probably not the best method to divulge this sort of news to a young man who likely only suspected that he might have certain advantages over his peers. “Did you know that you’re Force-Sensitive?”

[ObliviousKnight]

“You too?” A huge grin sprouted on Armiena’s face at Genesis’ mention of his ancestry. She'd never met another half-Miraluka hybrid. From what her mother had told her, her species was rather uncommon in the Core Worlds and certain genetic mismatches with humans made the pairing somewhat difficult. Only seconds after the veteran Jedi let out a restrained bark of laughter, an elderly Miraluka clad in simple robes of faded black, donning no headgear or even an eyeband, limped into the commissary. She made a rather humanlike show of gazing about the hall as though searching for someone, then slowly moved to pour herself a mug of tea. A faint hint of a smile remained on her lips as she watched and waited.

 

“My mother,” Armiena explained, jerking her head towards the time-weathered seer. She leaned forward to stop her fellow half-breed from retrieving the crystals from her boot, but it was too late; he was already turning the stones over in his hands and peering at them intently. This time, fortunately, it seemed that the cleaved crystals remained inert, perhaps perceiving that their task had been completed.

 

“All I can say is… it’s possible that you were guided here by the Force. It was certainly a convoluted string of events that led you here. ” Armiena looked down sheepishly. She was no great philosopher or counselor; her understanding of the Force had always been somewhat secular. “Destiny, if it exists, is a complicated thing. The Jedi like to say that the future is always in motion, but that’s perhaps a kinder way to advise you to not think about it too much… or too not let the idea of destiny go to your head. The way I see it, all that we can manage is to try to do what we think is right, every step of the way.”

 

Armiena took a deep breath. She had never expected to teach another pupil after the death of her last apprentice. The thought of being responsible for the future of another young man when she had failed Arlan and had been absent from her own son's childhood seemed impossible. She pushed her cloth cap backwards, revealing a scalp that was covered with only a pittance of black stubble.

 

“Which is why I would like to teach you to use the Force.” The offer was made; Armiena’s eyes carefully watched Genesis’ expression. “I won't try to deceive you. This will probably be one of the most difficult things you will ever do. We'll be traveling regularly, and it will occasionally be quite dangerous. But you deserve a chance to develop your gifts.”

[ObliviousKnight]

As Armiena made her offer to the half-Miraluka, she sensed another presence enter the commissary and stare directly at her. It buzzed steadily with hyperalertness and electronic activity: a droid, probably one configured for combat or security. She refused to be distracted as Genesis considered the prospect of training to use the Force, instead keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the young man’s expression and her attention on the thrum of introspection and disbelief that surrounded Genesis. It wasn't only the brush of cold air over her scalp that made Armiena suppress a shiver and the fine hairs in her arms to stand to attention when he accepted, however. She had known enough martyrs to last several lifetimes, and the last thing she wanted was for another apprentice to wind up as another dead hero.

 

“I hope that things won't come to that. The galaxy has enough dead heroes. If anything, promise to work for a greater good--yes?”

 

The old Miraluka had just limped up to the two and pressed a comlink into the younger Draygo’s hands. Armiena spared a moment to glance at the markings on the device before receiving the transmission--a Jedi model, probably lifted from a quartermaster’s office somewhere. Sighing, she listened and her face turned ghostly upon learning of the disaster looming over Coruscant.

 

“Speaking of traveling,” Armiena began, closing up the comlink and leaving it on the table between them. “We need to leave right away. There's an emergency developing on Coruscant that Darex--the Grandmaster--needs as many as possible to respond to. I'm not exaggerating when I say that potentially trillions of lives are at stake. You'd better eat something while I arrange for some transport--”

 

“Already arranged. A welcome-back gift.” The old Miraluka’s lips twitched as she pressed a datachit into her daughter's hands. “She’s a bit ugly, but she has a class-oh-point-nine hyperdrive.”

 

Armiena turned to her apprentice. “Alright, you have five minutes to nick as much hot food from the galley as you can manage. There's something I need to take care of before we leave.”

 

She returned to the electronic presence at the mouth of the commisary. Rising from her seat and turning to face the mechanical being, she took quick strides to confront it before it could intrude much further. The droid, assuming that it wasn't simply equipped with a clamshell re-skin by an owner with more money than brains, was one of the old MagnaGuards, a model used by the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone War. Armiena had never seen one of the droids in the steel, but she knew of their reputation as fiendishly dogged close-quarters combatants, with redundancy after redundancy built into their chassis. It seemed ludicrously unlikely that the Jedi sentries would have consciously allowed a potential threat into the Temple, but she nonetheless found the battle droid and its unblinking array of photoreceptors slightly intimidating...

 

...especially with another youth under her protection.

 

Armiena stared upwards into eyes even though she knew that it was equipped with secondary photoreceptors all over its chassis. “This is the second time that you have been watching me and my apprentice,” she began, reflexively reaching for the Force. She was being hypervigilant, perhaps, but the veteran Jedi suspected that she might about to have an opportunity to stretch out some of the soreness from the climb into the temple. “Can I help you?”

[ObliviousKnight]

The hesitation was writ on Armiena’s face before he offered her hand to the combat droid in greetings. This particular model of combat droid was supposedly a Jedi-hunter, nearly as deadly unarmed as with a electrostaff or blaster. More than that, if the droid was a genuine production of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, it was older than Genesis by a considerable margin; it was probably older than the Empire. A Her eyes focused subtly away from the droid’s photoreceptors as she reached for the Force. Not sensing imminent peril or lethal intent from Alem’Chee’s electric presence, the veteran Jedi took a step forward and offered her hand, clasping the MagnaGuard’s unyielding steel hand with a grip that was deceptively firm for a hand so gaunt. “Call me Draygo. My apprentice and I were about to leave the planet on a mission that cannot be delayed, but we can at least speak on our way.”

 

A cramp threatened in her thigh as Armiena led the droid into the commissary. She limped along and massaged at the complaining muscle, scanning the room for her apprentice. “We had just started to leave when you showed up,” she offered , jerking her thumb towards the entrance of the hall. “Genesis, Alem’Chee. The droid says he needs to speak to you,” she explained, taking just a moment to retrieve her boots before they left. Somewhat clumsily as she worked the boots back onto her feet, Armiena led them back to the turbolift at the entrance of the Temple and carefully monitored the two while they spoke.

 

Her mother was already waiting for the party, her legs elevated on the passenger bed of a personnel carrier. Armiena couldn’t see a set of keys in the crew station; the old Miraluka must have hotwired the repulsorcraft. “Walk if you like,” the perpetual delinquent explained defiantly, her jaw thrust out defiantly. “But I’d rather not tackle four hundred meters of mud and slopes in the rain.”

 

The younger Draygo sighed and climbed onto the bench of the carryall. Her legs had been burning from the hike up to the Temple.

 

In the few hours since Armiena had arrived at the Jedi Temple, a small rainstorm had gathered and broke along the walls of the valley. The rapping of the rain soon became audible along the sides of the turbolift and the party was soon drenched by the warm downpour. The Jedi veteran looked up and frowned; taking a deep breath, she gathered the Force around them and summoned a Force barrier over the roof of the personnel carrier. The rain immediately began to patter against the unseen shield and drip down to the sides of the vehicle.

 

“Just drive, please.” Her brow furrowed in concentration, Armiena’s lips twitched. “I don’t know how long I can maintain this barrier.”

[ObliviousKnight]

“This is a petty little abuse of the Force. My old Master would not be amused.” Not desiring to get soaked by the warm downpour, Armiena sank into herself and focused her attention into maintaining the barrier above them. The water continued to sluice over the sides of the open-air man-transport and mud splashed around her boots, but she otherwise managed to stay dry. She remained silent and stared towards a point some kilometers into the storm-shrouded distance while the transport drifted towards the hangars, trying to decide how she was going to prepare Genesis for what might be a dangerous mission. If Faust was on Coruscant, it would be impossible to guarantee his safety. That was a dangerous enough event for a mostly-trained apprentice on the verge of his trials, but for a neophyte…

 

Their Miraluka driver cast an unseeing glance backwards. “Misal Draygo.” The Miraluka tilted her head quizzically at the young man, yet another habit that she had learned from living amongst humans. “If you don't mind my asking, was it on your mother’s side or your father’s side? Your gifts, I mean.” From the knowing smile that graced her age-weathered face, she wasn’t speaking merely of his Force-Sensitivity.

 

While the young man and the septuagenarian spoke, the open-air transport entered the shelter of the Jedi Temple’s hangar, a cavernous chamber stocked with numerous starfighters, shuttles, and freighters. One of them, an old Medium Transport that was clearly of Corellian design, was being swarmed over a panel of dockworkers who were set about loading a small, one-man starfighter into its cargo hold. Armiena held out a hand and felt a set of time-weathered code cylinders fall into her palm.

 

Armiena’s eyes swept overthe forty-plus meter-long freighter, recognizing the lines of the hull as a Barloz-class Medium Freighter, one of the older vessels manufactured by the Corellian Engineering Corporation prior to the spectacular success of the YT-series. Though the white paint job was accented tastefully with maroon edges, the hull was scoured by various scrapes and dents from impacts with unknown objects. A pair of flimsy-looking manipulator arms were tucked along either side of the cockpit, their limbs terminating in series of sinister probes and tools. The layout of the meager weapons suite was unusual as well, with a keel-mounted quad laser turret and a bow-mounted launcher. At least two sensor dishes had been added to the hull; an upgrade? Nevertheless, Armiena covered her eyes in utter dismay when she managed to make out the name of the freighter, painted by the side of the cockpit in large black characters:

 

Shippy McShipface.

 

“It’s the ugliest ship I’ve seen in my life,” Armiena remarked. That included some actual Uglies; that catch-all term for ships that are the product of mating together the hulls of ships that were never intended to be combined, usually with disastrous consequences for the ship and pilot. “It’ll suffice.”

 

Armiena dismounted and took her party into the shelter of the ship’s massive cargohold. In the background, a set of teamsters and loading droids were guiding a starfighter into a set of docking clamps. Amidst the chatter of machinary and curses as the dockworkers struggled with the ancient docking clamps, she explained. “Genesis, Alem’Chee, we’re going to Coruscant. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said that potentially trillions of lives are at stake. Vladimir Faust… did something to pull the planet's moon out of orbit. The Galactic Alliance won't be able to do anything to stop it in time, so it’s on the Jedi.”

 

She took a deep breath and addressed her apprentice directly. “I'm going to be blunt. Faust and I have tangled with each other for years, mostly to my detriment. We have a… a... personal grudge. He killed my last apprentice.” She let those last words drop like a tonne of durasteel ingots. “I completely understand if you'd rather wait to begin your training until after I return, but I'm going. I'm not going to let Darex down. Chocks away in five.”

 

True to her word, Draygo managed to make good on her estimation of five minutes. Joining the dockworkers in their frustrating task of heaving the wings of a brand-new starfighter into the docking clamps of an obsolete vessel, she sweated, cursed, and got her hands filthy with grease. When the teamsters weren't looking, however, Armiena pressed her grease-stained hand against the steel and gave the clamp an irritated slap. Something in the time-stuck mechanisms must have yielded to her Force-imbued touch, as the wing of the one-man fighter slid easily into the clamp and was securely locked. Grease-stained high-fives were exchanged, then Armiena was able to retreat to the cockpit in the upper deck and take off from Felucia. A short time later, the freighter leaped into hyperspace.

 

((To space, then Upper Levels.))

[ObliviousKnight]

A GR-75 medium transport popped out of hyperspace within the vicinity of Felucia, escorted by a pair of obsolete Y-Wings that kept a generous distance from the ship. The transport broadcast an automated signal as it descended towards the planet, repeating on an exact sequence its callsign and a request to land at the Jedi Temple. More heavily encrypted information followed in this sequence, clarifying that it had been sent from Nar Shaddaa on an express courier mission from Grandmaster Draygo, and that it carried a cargo of medical supplies and droids. Judging from the perfect frequency at which the sequence repeated, it would soon become clear to the Temple’s traffic control that the transport was piloted solely by computer--not a single living sapient was aboard the ship.

 

After it was granted permission to land, a second automated message was transmitted by the ship as the clamshelled transport descended through the atmosphere. 

 

“Apologies, Sarna, this was the best I could do on short notice. The ship’s main cargo is medical supplies--mix of everything, the initial reports were rather confused from a technical standpoint. Also, just shy of two thousand droids. They’re not too talkative, but I’m told that they have basic lifesaving protocols and they’ll at least make decent scouts.”

 

A brief technical summary was attached to the ship’s manifesto, making clear to note several times in large red characters that, despite the reinforced chassis and sunken faceplate of the Sentinels clearly implicated them as being designed as battle droids, they were utterly incapable of taking offensive action. Their built-in comlinks, however, recommended them for service as scouts to make first contact with settlements potentially afflicted by the plague.

 

Once the GR-75 transport settled with the painstaking slowness indicative of a droid pilot, a dozen of the droids disembarked. Their glowing yellow slats scanned down the length of the ship, before quietly plodding along its flanks to lend their strength in unloading its cargo. Indeed, they were far from talkative: when the organic deck crews interrogated the plastoid brutes of their purpose, they merely responded with an electronic beep and a terse, rumbling, “Assist disembark. Alternate directive?”

Edited March 4, 2021 by ObliviousKnight

[ObliviousKnight]

Several hours later, Shippy McShipface popped out of hyperspace.

 

On board the old Barloz-class freighter’s bridge, Armiena stared blearily at her sensor readouts over a mug of caf, anxiety carved into every wrinkle of her war-lined face. Of all the nightmares that could have plagued her future, a potential resurgence of the Chaos Gods was one of the most unwelcome. A Sith or even an Arach’tar was still a living creature, a being that could be communicated with and killed if necessary. A Chaos God, on the other hand… it was difficult to say what they even were, or even what matter composed their flesh.

 

Hence the ysalamir that was dozing in the ship’s cargo hold. Even if she couldn’t slay one of those creatures, presumably even they were present within The Force and were influenced by the vile lizards just like any other Force-User.

 

Already, a half squadron of her Wolf Spiders had arrived in system and were drifting in their pyramidal landing craft. Two more were on the way, having been forced to relocate from more distant systems. If the Chaos Gods were involved--worst case, Nurgle, who had taken a fiendish delight in bestowing gifts to the most malignant of the Sith--it was possible that a system-wide quarantine would need to be established. Their numbers would be entirely insufficient to enforce such a blockade--and their talents laid primarily in destroying targets, rather than intercepting them and convincing them to land.

 

“Go idle around the Leth-points. No shooting unless by my order,” she commanded the battle droids, receiving six cheerful acknowledgements in return. During the entire descent to the planet, Armiena kept her eyes closed and tried to calm her mind. It was entirely possible that she had overreacted. It was also entirely possible that sitting at the furthest periphery of an ysalamir’s influence had set her on edge.

 

Even still, when her ship touched the planet’s surface and rocked forward on the hangar complex just outside the Jedi Temple, Armiena observed over the nose of her clunky old freighter that there were few organic beings manning the hangar deck. Most of the external duties, it seemed, had been taken over by droids.

 

[ObliviousKnight]

Shippy McShipface was not what most spacers would call a “happy ship.” A happy ship would have been fled with little momentos, a copilot or astromech droid, perhaps an argument echoing from its cockpit, and clutter all throughout the common areas and a vrelt’s nest of crosswiring in the walls. McShipface boasted a small armory, a mutilated battle droid that hung like a macabre scarecrow in her workshop, and an entire wing of the ship that had been vented to vacuum and was unfit for sapient habitation. She was a silent ship in hyperspace.

 

For a moment, however, Draygo could have sworn that she sensed a stowaway on her ship. That was not quite the right word--Armiena had yet to play host to an uncontracted passenger, but she understood that those wayward souls were more desperate than dangerous. More dangerous to themselves than their hosts, certainly. But for a second, the veteran Jedi experienced an unsettling instinct that someone--or something--was watching her.

 

“It’s alright! I’m a Jedi, you don’t need to be afraid!” Draygo heard herself shouting towards the cargo hold even as she donned the reassuring weight of two lightsabers and a light blaster pistol. An altogether unpleasant memory of nearly shooting her own mother forced her hand from that weapon, however. The Jedi stalked the ship’s corridors for a few minutes, shouting similar reassurances to a potentially terrified passenger. After two similar reassurances, the pervading sense that something altogether wrong was watching her with amusement caused the veteran Jedi to retreat to the cargo hold and haul an ysalamir onto her shoulders. A faint sensation of claustrophobia immediately befell her like a leaden brick in her stomach, but if one of them was exerting some influence on this world…

 

A personnel carrier waited for her use at the base of her freighter, manned by one of the hulking Sentinel droids. The little vehicle was nearly required to reach the Jedi Temple on Felucia, which was a highly inconvenient location to reach. The underground facility was situated nearly two kilometers away from its hangars, and those two klicks were an uphill hike through unpaved jungle on a terminally humid world. Even as the pervading burden of claustrophobia was causing her to make small talk with its taciturn pilot, Armiena soon doffed her robe and was tugging uncomfortably at a sweaty collar. The carrier’s pilot answered only in monosyllables, and the Grandmaster soon closed her eyes and hoped that the brick of nausea in her stomach would subside after setting foot within the Temple.

 

“Oh! Grandmaster! Oh! Ah. Thank you, I appreciate it.” Cried an verbose Miraluka just within the subterranean lobby, who observed that Draygo was studiously maintaining ten meters of distance from him. “Master Sarna sent word that you might be coming. She’s on the second level, in the sparring halls. All the way in, turbolifts on the right, take the right walls, left… and--”

 

“--Thank you, I know it. Listen, I need a briefing on the contagion that’s hit Felucia--if you wouldn’t mind…”

 

Crestfallen but not in a position to deny the Jedi Grandmaster vital information, the blinded Miraluka clutched to Armiena’s forearm and recounted all of the symptoms observed and quarantine procedures that the Felucians had attempted. Airborne transmission seemed certain--the casualty rate in many communities exceeded ninety percent. It often started with a cough and febrile shivers, sores and focal swelling, blood in sputum and vomit, hemorrhages from the mucus membranes, pulmonary collapse… and most spectacularly, its victims attracted vermin and insects. 

 

“Thank you. Just--about face and go forward about ten paces.” The pallor in the Grandmaster’s face had begun to turn sickly. She stood just within the sparring hall, within sight but well out of the ysalamir's range of the two dueling Jedi.

__________

 

A Wolf Spider battle droid was capable of engaging fourteen targets at any given moment. Every six seconds, it could launch two semi-armor piercing rounds at supersonic velocities, each capable of knocking out the shields of an assault shuttle and punching clean through the armor of a corvette. With multiple rounds in flight at any given moment, each droid was in effect a no-fly zone for any spacecraft larger than a starfighter. On the ground, it was eight-legged death on the slower Imperial walkers and a terror to infantry. In the orbital bombardment role, it struck like the hammerblow of a god--albeit a minor one, and perhaps one after having enjoyed a bit too much mead the previous night.

 

It was not, however, equipped with programming to conduct aerospace traffic control.

 

One of the six Wolf Spiders orbiting Felucia had detected the descending shuttlecraft. Mildly perturbed at having encountered a target for which it had not been programmed with relevant rules of engagement to interact with, the droid then consulted with its brethren over a radionics channel concerning the proper course of action. Those other five droids had similarly limited civilian experience within their memory banks--the only sitrep concerning a scenario that even remotely approached this dilemma was when one of their brethren had spent four years drifting in the debris field resulting from the battle for Centerpoint Station. There, a half-functioning Wolf Spider had used the last of its batteries to calculate and transmit a safe course for a crippled Y-Wing. Even this was not quite applicable to the spacelanes of a remote world where a viral contagion was in effect.

 

The next node on what they collectively agreed to be their proper chain of command was the central computer of the Jedi Temple. The kilometers of processors at the core of the temple possessed a trim, businesslike personality, breezily waving aside the electronic bellows and demands for proper rules of engagement against an unknown vessel in this system. It frankly believed that directing combat operations at this moment was a bit of a waste of its valuable computing time, as the next thirty seconds of its busy schedule were entirely occupied by calculating protein simulations in search of a potential vaccine against the contagion. It transmitted its brief instructions to the six battle droids, who followed them to the final exacting bit.

 

One of the droids transmitted an unencrypted series of instructions to the descending shuttle craft, advising its pilot of a number of precautions that they would be able to take against the disease. Those instructions were entirely in text, all the better for the transmission to penetrate the planet’s atmosphere and reach its target without loss of potentially critical data.

 

Caution: viral contagion in effect.

Reported casualties exceed ninety percent in some localities. Repeat: in excess of ninety percent.

Airborne transmission is probable. Transmission by fluid exposure and aerosolized droplets confirmed. Recommend patient contact only with droids and personnel with vacuum-tight suits.

Symptoms include fever, chills, shivers, cough, swelling and sores in particular in the vicinity of major blood vessels, difficulty breathing, hemorrhagic fever,  cardiac arrhythmia, loss of renal function, blood in sputum, vomit, feces, urine, nesting by vermin, auditory and visual hallucinations, short-term memory loss (this list went for somewhat longer). Death typically is the result of loss of pulmonary and cardiac function.

Recommend ten day quarantine of all personnel who experience unprotected contact with patients or contaminated fluid.

Have a nice day.

 

That last touch had been debated on for nearly two seconds by the battle droids--it had not been specified by the central processor of the Jedi Temple--but they eventually agreed, despite the predilections of their personality matrices, that they were functioning as personnel of the Jedi Order at the moment. A trace of courtesy was required for optimal performance.

[ObliviousKnight]

Joy was not typically a reaction that accompanied the arrival of an ysalamir--not even in amongst the Force-blind, certainly not in the presence of Jedi Knights.

 

“A favor, Janen,” Armiena muttered to the withdrawing Jedi cleric, whose gait paused with some degree of trepidation.

 

“Please, Grandmaster, can’t you get one of the droids--”

 

“Take this thing up to surface level and keep an eye on it. I’ll probably need it later.”

 

The Miraluka’s head lowered a millimeter and exhaled a long sigh. “....as you wish, Grandmaster.”

 

No longer burdened by the Force-deadening beast on her back, the pallor withdrew from Draygo’s face and her normal spacer-pale complexion replaced the faint shade of nausea green. The Miraluka cleric who had updated her briefing took up the harness and blindly walked away, one gloved hand groping along the wall until one of the hulking Sentinel droids took pity on the stumbling Jedi and guided him away.

 

For a moment, Armiena’s pale-green eyes took on a distant look as she instinctively stilled her racing mind in an attempt to detect that watchful presence. Perhaps unexpectedly, that stalking sapient had withdrawn its attention from her and had taken shelter in the roiling of a suffering world. All she sensed were Jedi--exhausted healers and peacemakers who had exercised their talents almost to the breaking point, but Jedi nonetheless. Very distantly, there was a vague presence of a Force Sensitive in the great distance. It was no Jedi--not any being that Draygo had encountered at the very least--but the Order had certainly not deployed this creature. She would have to investigate, but for now there were other matters to attend to.

 

The Jedi Grandmaster handed a small comlink to the Zabrak Jedi. Although perfectly ordinary from a technical standpoint, it bore her identity codes and would tend to catapult Slain to the top of any Rebel communication officer’s list of priorities. It also had been preprogrammed with contact frequencies for a number of her assets, some of whom were in orbit, wielded large-caliber mass drivers, and would have been enthusiastic participants in any fire support mission. Perhaps putting a junior Jedi Knight in direct contact with the Wolf Spiders had the potential to result in significant collateral damage--but at least the young Jedi would not be venturing to face an unknown threat alone. Besides, the battle droids probably could be counted on to not accept a fire mission from anyone but her, or so she hoped.

 

“Go, Selon,” Armiena mispronounced the Zabrak’s name as she clapped the comlink into the her palm. “I mean Silan. Be in touch if you find anything unusual.”

 

Now to Sarna. Under less urgent circumstances, Armiena might have taken a moment to razz the Jedi Master regarding recent events on Ossus, where the entire praxeum had been set alight with gossip concerning her relationship with Aidan. But minutes were now precious beyond measure and objectives took priority. She clasped hands with the shorter woman and muttered into her pointed ear: “Dig up the reports. I’ll tell you everything that I know. I hope that it’s not relevant to this situation.”

 

And lastly, the Mon Calamari Healer. Decades ago, Draygo probably would have dispatched a Master Healer to combat this plague directly--that almost certainly would have been Skye Organa, a Jedi who had retrieved her from within the gates of death on a number of occasions. Organa could always have been relied upon to exercise the discretion and the expertise needed to resolve the scenario--as well as possessing the natural authority to command local resources and foresight to maintain an extensive archive of potentially valuable samples. There was no similar corps of Healers in these more meager days… an oversight that needed to be rectified.

 

Armiena stood before the Master Healer and regarded the Mon Calamari with a critical eye. Despite being somewhat shorter than the Jedi Knight, age and ease in authority lent to her a potent presence. She spoke sternly, mirth completely absent from her war-lined face. “A moment, Kil. There is a matter of minor importance that requires resolution before you depart. A matter of the organization of our Council, specifically. You see, for as long as our… incomplete records can determine, the Jedi Council has always existed as a collaboration of peers. They were almost never of like minds, backgrounds, species… or other factors… but all members sitting on the Council held each other in esteem for their wisdom, power, and service to the galaxy. As of yet, we have yet to emulate this example. This matter must be resolved immediately.”

 

Draygo held her stern expression for as long as possible, privately enjoying the rare opportunity to cause a younger woman to wilt and doubt before harshly spoken words. Mirth eventually wore away at discipline, resulting in a twitch of her upper lip and a smile in her pale-green eyes.

“In my personal experience, Jedi Master is not something you become. It is something that you do. Keep doing well, Master Kil.”

[ObliviousKnight]

For a second, Draygo indulged in a moment of bittersweetness. It was difficult for her to not remember the day that she had been declared a Jedi Master--she and Aryian had escaped to Yavin for a brief period. It was either an unusual phenomenon in The Force--perhaps some lingering trace of Exar Kun’s downfall--or mildly toxic fumes that caused her to experience a highly lucid vision or hallucination. It had given the veteran Jedi an appreciation of the kind of woman that she had the potential to become… and perhaps, had walked away from. 

 

But that moment had to be pushed away. There was an investigation that needed to resolved, and--

 

--a roar of defiance, a confused outburst of violence, hands groping for rifles and punching against plastoid armor--

 

--and then screaming and fire--

 

A stab of pain radiated just behind her eyes like the beginning of a punishing headache. She squinted at Sarna and waved for the younger Jedi Master to follow. She led the Jedi towards the surface level. With every step, a palpable sense of dread began to grow… and then a cold shiver ran down her spine. As the two Jedi entered a turbolift to the surface level, the overhead lights flickered and the shrill, haunting howl of a directional siren began to blare. After two keening revolutions, the siren was accompanied by the painful shriek of an internal alarm. A second later, the turbolift doors slid open and her comlink began buzzing for attention.

“Draygo. What’s happening?”

 

“Uh, it looks like a gorram invasion out here, Grandmaster!” The heavily accented--and frightened--voice of a Bothan filled the confines of the turbolift. “Multiple Sith fleet elements, sensor and sunlight emissions look like troop transports. What should we do?”

 

That younger Draygo that the Grandmaster had wistfully recalled might have displayed a talent for flair, a need to inspire or deploy drama as a weapon in the slaughter that she knew was going to be necessary to protect this planet. It was a much more hardbitten woman who set her shoulders and subconsciously swung her hips on the next two steps, confirming against her legs the familiar weight of her two lightsabers and blaster pistol. Those were thoroughly insufficient armaments, she reflected--more would need to be procured en route. A dozen pilots of a dozen species jogged past in their orange jumpsuits, reminding her of the more potent weaponry that the Jedi Temple had prepared for deployment.

 

Draygo spoke in a flat monotone to relay her orders.

 

“Fire up the ion cannon. Priority targets are the transports in upper atmosphere. Get the starfighter pilots to their stations. Launch one X-Wing squadron--just one. Limited engagement, grab their attention and see if they’ll chase. Everyone else to stand by and warm up their engines. I’ll be there at the docking pad shortly. Have my Ace prepped and ready for take-off.”

 

“Yes, Grandmaster--but… the planetary shield?”  Shouldn’t we…”

 

“You will not activate it unless by my signal alone. Confirm these orders.”

 

The nervous air traffic controller speaked the instructions, only going into unnecessary detail regarding interception vectors and firing arcs and power integrals. 

 

“Sarna. I’m going up in the air. I’ll tell you everything that I know about the Chaos Gods once this is done. Assuming that we’re both alive at the end of this day, of course.”

 

____

 

As the transports descended, it almost appeared as though the invasion of Felucia would proceed uncontested, that any assets that the Jedi might have been maintaining were mere listening posts--or perhaps a temporary hospital raised in the present emergency to combat the sudden epidemic.

 

Then, aboard several of the troop transports, early warning systems would begin shrieking warning tones to their bridge crews--not only had their ships been pinged by a long-distance sensor array, this array was linked to a heavy planetary ion cannon. Quick evasive action would have been able to save their ships from disability and destruction after several minutes of falling through Felucia’s humid atmosphere, of course--the weapon was optimized for engaging lumbering capital ships in orbit, for trading salvos against orbital bombardment. However, those first several blasts were likely to come as a shock, not only to the crews of those targeted ships but also to their hulls.

 

Shortly after, a dozen immaculately-white X-Wings with dark maroon dashes raced up to meet the Sith transports, mist spraying from their shields began to boil off a recent shower. Six more transports would register their attempts at locking on with missiles…

 

…and then the first lethal shots of the Battle of Felucia would be fired.

 

[ObliviousKnight]

Sarna had excused herself at the ground level of the Jedi Temple, racing towards the hangars at the base of their valley. Upon entering the warm, humid air of the exterior, Draygo paused at a small convoy of personnel carriers that had been delayed in their evacuation. A throng of eyes flickered away from a Gotal at the head of the convoy and towards the Jedi Grandmaster, nervous faces meeting the stony expression of a veteran fighter.

 

Some of these nervous sapients were young Hopefuls--the next generation of the Jedi Order, so early in their training that they had not even been selected by a young Knight and Master for individual training. Most of them were noncombatants: visiting scholars who were guarding suspicious, tome-shaped bulges under their clothing; teachers and scientists clutching storage devices to their bodies. Among them were a medical ward’s worth of doctors and surgeons, patients and refugees. A pair of them were almost too ill to be moved and were transported in portable bacta tanks, some with broken bones that were being eyed nervously by their caretakers, and one dehydrated, half-demented fool of a refugee who had gotten himself lost in the jungle and had been bitten by a venomous viper. Still coming down from the delirium of a powerful cocktail of drugs, that patient was cheerfully babbling nonsense even as the medtechs were attempting to secure patients to personnel carriers and flatbed cargo dollies. More stimulated than terrified by the sirens, the Selkath happily rose from his seat to try and make small-talk with a passing flight of E-Wing pilots.

 

“Oh, hello! Everyone’s very excited over something.” The Selkath smiled benignly at a misty sky that threatened rain. “The sun must be trying to come out there. It promises to be a lovely day.”

 

At the moment, the cause of the excitement was the fact that his gesticulations had nearly upset a healing femur--and a significant bottleneck in the evacuation. As the lead Healer of the Felucian Temple, one Master Gloth, was explaining to the Jedi Grandmaster, there were simply too many patients to be evacuated, too few ships, and not enough airspace to accommodate them all.

 

At the moment, that patient was causing some consternation due to the fact that his gesticulations had nearly upset a healing femur--that patient was eyeing the Selkath nervously. More importantly, there was a significant bottleneck in the evacuation. Jogging over to the anxious mob, Armiena spotted the Gotal Master Gloth, a Healer who had attended her wounds on a number of occasions. As the lead Master Healer of the Felucian described it, there were simply too many patients to be evacuated, too few ships, and too little airspace to accommodate them all.

 

“Take my ship. Shippy McShipface--it’s an old Barloz freighter, maroon striping, you can’t miss it. Just keep your patients out of the armory.”

 

The name of that rugged old freighter caught the ear of their delirium patient, who promptly fixed alkaloid-addled eyes on the Jedi Grandmaster and cried out loud with excitement. “Wonderful! I loved watching that show as a podling! Will we be able to meet Professor Pulsar?”

 

“Yes,” promptly replied the Jedi Grandmaster, who had never watched the holodocs and had never met the so-called Professor Pulsar. “He’s a fine gentleman. He loves his fans. In fact, there’s nothing he loves more than to put on tea and talk stars with them. Now don’t keep him waiting. Get out of here, Master Gloth.”

 

Those were blatant lies told with a blank face--the previous owner of the ship was dead--but the stubborn delirium case was convinced to take his seat without sedation, happily folding his hands into his lap. heT patients finally secure, Master Gloth and the invalid patients were able to hover their way towards the landing pads, with the Jedi Grandmaster jogging alongside one of the overloaded personnel carriers until the convoy reached the tarmac. The Gloth exchanged a brisk wave as the grey-maned Gotal disappeared up the boarding ramp of Armiena’s freighter, leaving the Jedi Grandmaster to clamber onto the wing of her starfighter

 

The Jedi Ace was indeed fully prepped. A cursory check down the dashboards confirmed that the shields had been retuned, ion cannons charged and warheads loaded, life-support maximized, inertial dampener calibrated just a little below spec--Draygo preferred to strain against her maneuvers rather than fly in a bubble--and… that sublights functioning at 106% efficiency. Some engineer must have gotten ambitious with this twenty-year old starfighter, Draygo reflected with a shrug. There was one final change that needed to be made: punching in a command on the dashboards, the veteran Jedi altered the designation of her starfighter from an anonymous squadron callsign to Dark Fire.

 

That would be sure to attract the attention of any simmering Sith that was thirsting for retribution.

 

“Felucia, Dark Fire, joining Twin Suns Squadron out there. May The Force be with you.”

 

Draygo didn’t listen to the response from the Temple’s ground control. Donning the helmet and oxygen mask, the veteran Jedi pulled back on the controls and caused the tiny starfighter to rocket into the humid air. Mist spilling from the fighter’s wings, Armiena glanced from side to side to watch the glow of descending sublight engines--troop transports. The Jedi Grandmaster closed her eyes and ignored the tones of sensor lock warnings and comm chatter, just trying to listen to The Force and any guidance that it might offer.

 

There was none. The only sensation was a pit that dropped into her stomach after the starfighter broke through a developing storm cell.

 

“Fine,” Draygo muttered to herself and thumbed a control on the comms board. “Wolf Spiders, deploy as planned. I need you here on the surface.”

 

Confirmations of her orders received, the Jedi Grandmaster sent the fighter into a gentle turn that would cause it to intercept one of the larger Sith transports. It was a graceless, broad-winged, bulky craft that was trailing red-black pennants from its keel despite descending from upper atmosphere. More importantly, it was being harassed by two maroon X-Wings, both of which were exchanging turns taking potshots from afar and forcing the transport to veer off course by threatening to collide with its bow...

 

[ObliviousKnight]

Breathe in: fight. Breathe out: fight. Such was the technique of Draygo’s piloting. Scarcely varying in her breath, the Jedi Grandmaster appeared preternaturally calm even as her Jedi Ace dove through a sheet of laser cannon fire to strafe the keel of one of the larger Sith transports. Ion fire splashed against its shields and arced across its hull, dousing running lights and repulsorlift arrays--the leading edge of her port wing sliced through the base of that absurd crimson pennant. An aggressive immelmann turn caused the welds in the little starfighter to creak in protest and the vision to fade from her eyes, and the strafing run repeated itself, this time splashing just behind the transport’s bridge, along its spine, and into the nacelles of its sublight engines. The glare of sunlight engines went dull and the ship began to descend.

 

Draygo didn’t spare the faltering transport a glance. There were dozens of transports that were attempting to escape the planet. Some of them would fall to the ion cannon, but those hulls would be carrying thousands of Sith marines, their weapons, and their intelligence.

 

Draygo pointed the nose of the starfighter into orbit and triggered its SLAM engines. The acceleration punching her in the back like a physical blow, the starfighter propelled itself into the upper atmosphere and split the clouds with a speed that even a TIE Interceptor would envy. The glow of Felucia’s atmosphere darkened to a starfield, marred only by the occasional ion bolt racing from the surface batteries and the glow of sunlight engines. Some of those pinpricks of light disappeared as the transports escaped into hyperspace. The Jedi Grandmaster frowned underneath her oxygen mask and punched the comms unit to transmit into an unencrypted channel.

 

“Good news, Sith transports. I am happy to accept your surrender. Ponder that while you’re trying to get your systems back online and our marines are on the way.”

 

A second trigger of the SLAM booster propelled Dark Fire past the initial burst of self-defense fire and into hull-scraping distance with a second transport. This time, Draygo held her fire and broke away from its hull in a climb that would place her in the middle of six transports that had grouped to support each other. A flick of her thumb dropped the starfighter’s EMP mine in the middle of the troop transports. Five seconds later, without sound or even evidence of an explosion, its core detonated, wracking each of the transports with an electromagnetic pulse that wrought havoc on every system more complicated than the refresher station.

 

“Felucia Control, Draygo. Six transports drifting. I need marines up here to take prisoners and intel. Bring up a portable magcon and I’ll support as needed.”

 

Until those marine transports arrived, there was nothing to do but wait and watch for any signs of activity from the transports. The veteran Jedi unclasped her oxygen mask and gave a little sigh of satisfaction as she stretched out in the tiny cockpit...

 

[ObliviousKnight]

A few minutes later, a pair of LAAT/i gunships began to approach the drifting ships and hailed the Jedi Grandmaster’s interceptor.

 

“‘Pologies, Dark Fire. Grandmaster, sorry. Got a bit held up dirtside. We’re setting up our magcon. Be a couple of minutes. While we’re waiting, swing to the front of them and transmit in blink-code: assemble their weapons in piles at the airlock, officers to present themselves, please don’t destroy intelligence. Be nice.”
 

“Copy, Stevos,” Draygo laughed as a light hand on the lateral thrusters sent the dagger-nosed interceptor towards the head of the drifting transports. A twitch on the attitude thrusters rotated her to view the stranded ships. A gray-clad pilot in the cockpit of one of the opposing transports glanced up from the control boards towards her, his arms still elbow-deep in a nest of wires. “I’ll be very polite.”

 

The strobes at the wingtips of the interceptors blinked in a galactically-recognized rhythm: that of Mon Calamari blink-code. The message carried standard terms of surrender: acknowledgement that their ships were helpless and that, according to the Ruusan Accords, Draygo was obliged to provide for their billet and rations until the war was either over or the crew could be repatriated to their homes. Those laws were invalid if the crew offered resistance once the Jedi Rangers boarded, however. As the ships were unpowered and drifting in space, no signal was received in acknowledgement: not even a spot-luma from the interior of one of the cockpits. One of the pilots of the shuttles retreated from the controls, presumably seeking an officer to report to.

 

“Message received, Stevos. Let’s go say hello.”

 

A pair of rangers came floating up to either side of the interceptor’s canopy, slowly rotating around a steel frame that housed the portable magcon. One of the soldiers pounded on the transparisteel canopy of the starfighter--a shift of her elbow unlatched the canopy, allowing the cold of vacuum to rush in even as the magcon prevented the venting of atmosphere. Draygo pushed away from the cockpit and was grasped by both elbows by the rangers, who gently guided her towards one of the transports with microbursts from their jetpacks as though delivering a potent warhead.

 

“Five of ‘em gave up right away. We’re tractoring ‘em back dirtside,” said the ranger on her left in a thick Corellian accent. “We picked up faint power traces in the last. Thinking they might try to put up a fight. We’re hoping you can discourage them.”

 

Drifting towards the final transport at the breakneck pace of two knots, Draygo held out both hands to soften her impact with the gunship’s airlock. The Grandmaster ignited her lightsaber, slowly dragging the tip of the blade across the seams in the armored portal. Once the molten metal had rendered its seals to slag and the airlock began to sag under its own weight, Draygo reached out to The Force, perceived the great mass of the portal, and bent the airlock inwards as though opening an old-fashioned door on its hinges. A gentle push at the small of her back thrusted her into the interior of the shuttle, where she landed with a wobble under the restoration of artificial gravity.

 

Two chrome-plated Sith troopers--with helmets removed--greeted her with stun batons. Armenia doused the bronze blade of her lightsaber and smiled pleasantly at the two soldiers.

 

“Hello. I am Grandmaster Armiena Draygo,” she said happily as she reversed her grip on the hilt. “Your ship is stranded and under our guns. You cannot possibly offer further resistance. I insist that the crew of this ship and its passengers offer their surrender in accordance with the laws of warfare. The alternative will be....”

 

Two more armored soldiers came stomping up. These two wielded depowered vibroblades. Then three with more stun batons. Another with a pair of deadened vibroknuckles. An officer with his sidearm in a reversed grip. Another with a bottle of liquor. And a pair of pilots with nothing more than a hydrospanner and a plasma torch.

 

“Delightful!”

 

____

 

Thirty minutes later, the Jedi Ace interceptor descended towards the Temple’s landing pads, flanked on either side by a pair of escorting shuttles. It wobbled dangerously under the valley’s swirling crosswinds--almost drunkenly so, as though its pilot was manning the vessel with one hand, and her off-hand at that. It managed to touch down without touching off sparks, and its pilot came clambering out of the cockpit and sat on its wing. Armiena’s haggard appearance explained her amateurish descent: her right arm was slung around her neck with a protective sling, and the sleeve of her robe had been torn off to reveal a large bandage around her shoulder. Her left eye socket had been bruised purple and the knuckles of both hands were scraped and bloody. She smelled faintly of a plasma fire--plasma fire and inexpensive tihaar. In spite of her battering, a distinct air of satisfaction lingered about the Jedi. She was almost smiling.

 

“Sarna, Kil--if you’re still alive out there,” she spoke into a comlink. “I’ll see you at your convenience.”

 

[ObliviousKnight]

With the final ebbs of adrenaline beginning to flush from her blood, the mild giddiness that resulted from close combat began to subside, and the warm and humid reality of Felucia began to assert itself. True--those six fleeing transports might yield valuable intelligence, perhaps even in the form of intact combats--it was also true that no less than twenty shock troopers had attempted to jump their captor and succeeded in little more than slashing her arm and embarrassing themselves. However, the humid, warm reality was that the majority of the Temple’s personnel had been evacuated 

 

With the final ebbs of adrenaline beginning to flush from her blood, the mild giddiness that accompanied close combat began to subside and the warm and humid reality of Felucia began to assert itself. It was true that the stranded transports might yield valuable intelligence, perhaps even in the form of intact computers--it was also true that twenty shock troopers had attempted to jump their captor and only succeeded in slashing her arm and embarrassing themselves. However, the uncomfortable reality was that much of the Temple’s noncombatant personnel, including its medical corps, had just been evacuated on the clamshell-like medium transports. Those transports could be recalled, but at cost of valuable time and lost lives.

 

Armiena glanced up towards the sky and tracked the hull of her own freighter as it disappeared into a raining cloudbank.

 

Spotting a familiar trail of shockingly blonde hair and a Padawan braid in the distance, Draygo began to jog towards her fellow Jedi Master. Crouching under the hull of one of the late-departing transports, she shouted out towards a familiar Miraluka cleric waiting at its boarding ramp. “Janen--I need a complete manifest and casualty report in my hands, within the hour.” 

 

The younger Jedi startled in his dark robe and opened his mouth to point out the impossibility of that act. There were only three minutes left in the hour… but Draygo had already jogged away and was out of earshot.

 

_______

 

“Sarna. Glad to see you unscathed,” Draygo announced herself at the edge of the land pads. The younger Jedi Master seemed uninjured, but there was clearly something more than immediate tactical considerations on her mind. “Very unusual decisions by the Sith today. I would almost expect that this was all a feint, to force us to concentrate resources in a defense. Or confusion in their higher ranks, perhaps.

 

“I promised you a briefing on the entities that might have triggered the outbreak here. I had hoped that Kil would have made it at the same time. She may need to know this information. If this plague was actually triggered by one of the creatures known as the Chaos gods, then... we are in for a very difficult time. The last time they were active in our galaxy was decades ago, back during the Master Kaipi's leadership. Those were a few very turbulent years.

 

There are four that I know of: Khorne, Nurgle, Tz... Zeentch, and Slaanesh. All very powerful, to the point that I found their capabilities and motivations very difficult to ascertain. Extraordinarily powerful with The Force, potent warriors... and unfortunately, their motivations were utterly impenetrable. It might have been that they amused themselves with lesser species, as though we were pieces in a game of theirs, or they might have craved attention from us... or perhaps they simply enjoyed exercising their powers for the sake of exercising them. Tzeentch and Slaanesh seemed at least ambivalent or occasionally beneficient towards galactic civilization, but Nurgle and Khorne seemed firmly sided with the Sith Order. What became clear was that the four all had clear predilections in their methods: Khorne being a bit of an unsubtle bruiser, Nurgle... pestilence. Disease. Very unpleasant. Tz--zeentch, sorcery. Slaanesh... irrationality."

 

Armiena's gaze turned inward as she reflected on mistakes that she had committed in previous decades. "They called themselves gods, but they quickly proved to be self-serving and manipulative. My suspicion is that they are sapients who are merely immeasurably powerful with The Force. The most likely party behind this plague--if one of them was responsible--will have been Nurgle. My hope is that they have remained inactive and that some other being is responsible, however.”

 

[ObliviousKnight]

Something dark crossed Draygo’s pale-green eyes; her gaze flickered away and a ghost of fear lurked in her expression. “Yes. There were several worlds where they seemed to hold an unusual degree of influence. Yavin Four held some interest for Tzeentch. As for Slaanesh, I made contact with that creature on Vernza-Torrah. It’s an insignificant world in the Outer Rim, but he made that planet a home for him and his acolytes. It may still be populated. As for Khorne and Nurgle… my knowledge is limited. I never had the pleasure of making face-to-face contact with those two.”

 

Indeed, those two creatures seemed diametrically opposed the goals of the Jedi Order. Not only had they bestowed their attentions to the Sith Order, but several plagues had wracked the galaxy that seemed suspicious in hindsight. It was with some small amount of pleasure that Draygo reflected that her associates had been so effective in combating those outbreaks.

 

Risking a confrontation with Slaanesh was an unnerving prospect, and even the hopeful inquiry into her son only succeeded in bringing a forced smile to her lips. “No. None. He’s become somewhat withdrawn over the course of the war. I can’t blame him… but the last I heard was that he was on Ossus. I heard that from many Jedi. Various stories, all of which seemed successively improbable. Which are reminds me, if you weren’t already aware, Jedi can be the worst gossips that you can imagine.”

[ObliviousKnight]

“Sarna.” Draygo finally allowed her amusement to break and her lips twitched in a small smile. “Between you and me, I am happy as long as the two of you are good for each other. The Order can amuse itself with their gossip, but I am firmly of the opinion that romance is generally a good thing. Besides, if you ever have the privilege of speaking to a group of combat veterans and have the opportunity to ask them what kept them motivated when things got really difficult… their answer probably won’t have anything to do with ideals. It’ll probably be something more… tangible. The people back home. Friends, a lover. A lot of them will tell you that it was the people next to them. Their buddies--or just the person they had the misfortune of sharing a trench with. So have fun when you can. Just keep in mind that a relationship should be a source of solace. Profoundly intense experiences tend to not make a lasting foundation.”

 

Armiena fell silent for a few seconds and glanced downward. She had perhaps overstepped her boundaries, but it would have done nothing positive for another Jedi Master--and the young woman that her son was seeing--to live in terror of her.

 

“Keep your wits about you on Vernza-Torrah. I suspect that there is something… off about the world. I visited it only once, and I behaved in a manner that I’m frankly ashamed of. I’ll be glad to have you back when you return.”

 

In the distance, a black robed Miraluka could be seen running towards the two Jedi Masters, clutching a stack of dataslates to his chest and sprinting in desperation to not be late with the reports that the Jedi Grandmaster had demanded.

[ObliviousKnight]

“Janen--walk with me.” Draygo began to prowl the perimeter of the landing pads and watched as the garrison, muddy, exhausted--but mostly alive and unwounded--returned to the valley and began to set up their bivouac. Collapsible, temporary tents were beginning to pop up all over the jungle floor. “What do you have for me?”

 

“First, this, from the Healers with Master Kil’s compliments.” The Miraluka held a small cryogenically-sealed cylinder in his hands. He was clutching the freezer unit as though it was a bomb that might detonate at the first careless handling. “She understood that you required samples of the contagion for safekeeping… and… presumably studying. For neutralization, of course. Please?”

 

“Yes,” Draygo murmured, holding her left hand out and accepting the burden. It was surprisingly heavy, considering that the cylinder was barely larger than the average soldier’s canteen. The external metal, painted on all sides with black and yellow chevrons to indicate its biohazardous nature, was warm to the touch--exactly the same temperature as Felucia’s balmy weather. That was a good sign, as this indicated that its hermetic seals were functioning. In theory, a containment chamber could survive atmospheric re-entry from orbit--the metal would be a little bit toasted and dented upon impact, but its contents would remain enact. Even the freezer unit would remain functional. “They go on the first ship to Chandrila. The Survivor’s Foundation has a semi-permanent outpost just outside Hanna City. Now, our people.”

 

“Few casualties, thank The Force. Some heat stroke cases, some of the weaker patients… did not survive transportation. All sections reporting in, thirteen dead, eighty wounded or infirm, twenty-two haven’t reported in yet.”

 

“Dispatch Sentinels into the jungle to look for them.”

 

“Unfortunately…”

 

“It should have been much worse.”

 

“Yes. But the evacuation protocols were very confused. The transports were scattered in their exit routes. Some managed to make their coordinates for Nar Shaddaa, the others to Ossus, and… a large portion to Lehon. What’s there?”

 

“It’s a pleasant world. Lovely beaches, minor outpost, some strange sensor anomalies in orbit.” Draygo pinched the bridge of her nose and squinted in frustration. Some of the evacuation pilots had likely panicked in the crowded airspace and escaped by any available hyperspace vector, no matter how impractical. Someone was going to need to corral all of those noncombatants to a world where they would be useful. She blinked hard….

 

A storm. No, a hurricane, with heavy rains and winds so powerful that the rain came in almost at the horizontal. She was shivering, despite the balmy weather--soaked from her hair to the inside of her boots. Lightning was forking down from the clouds and rendering sand to glass mere meters from her boots. A smile twisted her lips…

 

“Grandmaster?”

 

“I… think I need to go to Lehon. I don’t have time to explain. Jaden, I need you to get our people back to Ossus and Felucia as soon as possible. You have my authority on this matter. Beg, bully, threaten to sic the Grandmaster on anyone who complains. Now, I need to go, right now.” Leaving a somewhat gobstopped Miraluka behind, Draygo jogged across the slick landing pad towards her starfighter. Tossing her portable comms unit onto the control boards, she began to don the oxygen mask and began to record a message for her former Padawan.”

 

“Genesis, it’s me.” That would be obvious; Armiena was staring directly into one of the unit’s hololenses. “The contact that asked you to meet was deployed to Naboo and is bogged down. I’m dispatching reinforcements your way. I need this to be perfectly clear: the Bothans know exactly what is coming for them if the Sith manage to occupy their world. Genocide. Pogroms. An utter rape of their planet and its resources. They are facing the kinds of horrors that you typically read about in history lessons. They know them already. They will be motivated to defend themselves. Defend the cities if you can, but be ready to wage a guerrilla war if necessary. I cannot stress this enough: the Sith must be halted at Bothawui for as long as possible.” Draygo let out a long sigh and took a couple of deep breaths to allow her tension to dissipate. It was very likely that she had just ordered her Padawan to sell his life on Bothawui.

 

“I’m glad to hear that you’ve found a potential student. Indeed, he sounds nothing like the child that I met on Felucia, who had gotten himself into a world of trouble because he stole a priceless pontite crystal from our facility on Dantooine.” She allowed the fond smile that teased at her lips to make its appearance.
“Let me offer you some advice, Jedi to Jedi. Master to… potential Master. There will never be a good time to take on an apprentice. You will never be ready for the challenges that every student will offer you. But it is absolutely essential that we take every opportunity that we are given to pass on everything that we’ve learned--not just about The Force, but about being alive, being a good man. I think that you have some very interesting experiences that you can offer that will help this young man.

 

“May The Force be with you. I hope that I will be able to meet you there. Draygo out.”

 

Armiena pushed sweaty hair out of her eyes and blinked hard. Hopefully, she hadn’t just ordered her former Padawan to die. A second manipulation of her comms unit dispatched a transmission to several reserve units throughout the galaxy, sending orders to reinforce the garrisons at Bothawui--as well as to any Jedi who were not otherwise deployed. Six of her Wolf Spiders were similarly in range and acknowledged the redeployment. That, for the moment, was all that could be done.

 

By the time that the messages had been sent out, the whine of her starfighter’s sublights reached an urgent whine and a heat haze began to rise from their nacelles. Lifting off from the duracrete pads with one-handed awkwardness, Draygo’s ship soon left the system and began to race towards whatever purpose The Force had waiting for the veteran Jedi.

[ObliviousKnight]

The comlink that the Jedi Grandmaster had loaned Kadi Silan chirped as the Jedi Knight dozed, alerting him of a brief message that had been dispatched to him.

Spoiler

 “Silan, redeploy to Lehon. Half our meds on Felucia evacd here. Just have a feeling that something is about to hit.”