A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

  32

  Tython, 40 BBY/960 GSC. Two weeks since landing.

  Crouched in a tree, I held a spear in my hand and waited. My usual robes, bodysuit, and armor were gone—replaced with clothes that barely fit. Things I had shamelessly stolen from either camp, or from the occasional Flesh Raider scout I’d run across in my weeks long test.

  Camouflage fatigue pants I’d had to cut off and belt into place to keep them from falling off. A stolen black long sleeve shirt from one of the human scientists, that had looked very stretchy and interesting on her curves but which hung off my form, and was currently smeared with mud in a striped pattern. A bundle of… some kind of leather I didn’t question too closely I had taken off a Flesh Raider and was using as a cloak, that I’d taken some time to add moss to and turn into a makeshift ghillie suit.

  My weapons were likewise missing. Or not available, rather. They were back in camp, safely locked away in my quarters, to my annoyance. All I’d been allowed by the Mandos on security duty was a combat knife, per Jaster’s orders by holo for this little exercise. I’d had to improvise everything else.

  The verd’goten was a Mandalorian rite of passage that Mandalorian youths had to undertake in order to be accepted as adults. The basic premise was pretty simple: the youth taking the rite had to demonstrate their ability to survive on their own in the wild, typically in a hostile environment, and usually under adverse conditions. Usually, they started training at about eight years old and took the trial at thirteen.

  Jaster had suggested that since we would be here for a while and I wasn’t technically occupied with other duties, that I could go ahead and take it if I wanted. And since passing it meant I was legally considered an adult by Mandalorian standards, and the Republic was legally obligated to honor it due to their own laws about accepting other races cultures and traditions whether they were in the Republic or not—within reason, of course; they were, to my utter surprise, not quite stupid enough to legalize rape, murder, cannibalism, or other nastiness through a cultural backdoor—I had jumped on the opportunity.

  The old sadist had immediately started laying out limitations, to make it an actual challenge.

  First and foremost, I wasn’t allowed to use the Force. With no one else on the planet who could actually even detect that, we were going by the honor system… but the man knew me too well, it seemed. When I’d asked how he knew I wouldn’t use it anyway, he’d simply grinned and answered, “You won’t. Too stubborn. Too prideful. You’ll do it without, because to do anything less than your best would sting that pride.”

  To my annoyance, he had been right. I had stubbornly refused to use it since the trial started. I was allowed my emotional sense, on the reasoning that it was innate to a Zeltron, but the rest of the conditions of the trial were set up to balance out having it.

  Secondly, I wasn’t allowed to take any of my gear. None of it. No lightsabers, no blasters, no armor, no supplies, no clothes except for my underwear, socks, and boots.

  Thirdly, the Mando security force—at least, those not occupied with other duties—were to act as OpFor. He turned the damn verd’goten into a training exercise for his men by pitting them against me. I argued if that were the case, then I should be allowed to attack the outpost and steal resources, and he had agreed, because it kept the men on their toes.

  Finally, the time limit and the final test. I was to stay out for at least two weeks on my own. Before the end of that two weeks was up, I had to hunt down some dangerous, nasty critter and provide proof I’d taken it down.

  A limb cracked below and I focused my senses on the surrounding area. The wind carried with it a faint, musky scent of a predator and the stink of rotting meat—growing stronger by the second. I felt something hungry nearby, on the prowl for the delicious scent of girl-flesh as it followed the trail I’d left for it, right towards where I was hiding.

  I felt the vibration of very large footsteps through my feet and readied my spear. My breathing slowed and I watched the forest floor below me.

  After a few moments, a very large form lumbered into view. Nine feet tall. A solid wall of muscle, with big teeth, claws, and anger issues.

  I hadn’t been terribly surprised to learn that there were rancor on Tython. They were on practically every planet that could support them, thanks to the Sith, smugglers, pirates, and other idiots moving them around. I had been a bit annoyed to find tracks so close to our camp, but apparently it had just enough intelligence to see the wall and flood lights at night, and all of the Mandos during the day, and decide it would rather go after easier prey.

  And now, easier prey was within its reach. It had been stalking me for the last two days, but little did it know, I was luring it close to the camp as I prepared an ambush. I wanted it close enough that when I walked back into camp, I could just send someone out to verify its presence.

  It slowed, pausing just before the tree, unsure. It couldn’t see the dirt, but it could probably smell that I had been digging here.

  Finally, the temptation of a delicious meal won out and it stepped forward—right into the first of my traps. The pitfall collapsed as soon as it put enough weight on it and the rancor fell straight into a hole that was roughly knee deep on it and filled with spikes, the ends of which had been hardened with fire like my spear. It let out a roar of pain and rage and started trying to get out, but it was too late.

  My knife flicked out and cut two vines. Rocks fell, dragging vines with them and propelling a pair of swinging spiked log traps much faster than they would have gone if they had simply fallen. The two spiked logs slammed into the beast from the front and back, spikes penetrating its thick hide and silencing its cries as they sandwiched it between them and punctured its lungs.

  It wasn’t dead yet and, given the rancor’s natural regeneration, it was possible for it to shrug this off with time. I wasn’t going to give it that time.

  Jumping off the branch, I grabbed a vine and swung down, taking aim before letting go. I fell, driving my entire weight behind the spear as I aimed for one of its eyes from above. The spear went in with a wet sound, then a crunch of bone. The rancor jerked, before going still. I felt the life leave it as it died.

  Hopping off the rancor and safely away from my traps, I took a moment to use my knife to collect a claw as proof. Wiping my knife off, I made my way out of the forest, to the hundred yards of cleared ground of no man’s land around the camp—something the Mandos had done after I used the surrounding trees to slip into the camp and evade our security.

  I was met at the gate by a one of the Mandos on duty. I could feel his amusement as I handed him the claw and pointed. “There’s a dead rancor in a pit trap half a mile away. I assume that takes care of the trial?”

  “Let me send someone out to verify it, then I’ll make the call to Jaster. But yeah, that should do it.” Chuckling, he reached out and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Good job. Come by the chow hall tonight and we can toast to it.”

  I nodded, before gesturing for him to follow. “Gladly. As long as it’s not that degreaser swill you all enjoy.”

  “Don’t worry, ma’am. We’ll break out the good stuff for your first drink,” he laughed. “Where are we going?”

  An irritated sound escaped my throat, before I sighed. “I can’t enter my quarters like this. I need someone to hose me down before I even consider heading into the fresher, and then bring me a change of clothes. Please.”

  I pulled off the leather cloak, allowing him to take in my appearance as I stopped beside the area we used to hose down certain samples, or fresh meat. I was covered head to toe in mostly dried mud and leaves. I’d needed to hide my highly visible white hair in a way that guaranteed that even if I had to move at speed and the cloak fell off, it wouldn’t give me away. Likewise, my red skin stood out too much, so I’d made a little impromptu camouflage the same as I had with my shirt and pants. And despite bathing in the river when I could, I hadn’t had access to soap, so I stank.

  “Got it, boss,” he nodded, and grabbing the hose and turning on the water.

  “Maybe leave this part out of your report to Jaster,” I requested, and he nodded… but from the amusement I felt, I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen.

  Tython, 40 BBY/960 GSC. Two months since landing.

  Arthree whistled a single, low to high note as he looked out the transparisteel cockpit. I nodded. “That’s big,” I agreed, bringing the Rusted Silver in closer as I ascended and began to circle the massive stone pillar. Vines covered almost its entire surface, except where waterfalls cut grooves down its sides from the top—the spray creating a cloud layer around it, cutting off the view of the top from the surface.

  The rock pillar was a mile or more tall, standing in a valley of much smaller rock pillars, covered in greenery. The view reminded me of images from parks in China with similar rock formations.

  I felt the Force pouring off of it—a perfect balance of light and dark that just felt right. Natural. It welcomed me in and bathed me in warmth as the ship flew closer. If I was being honest, it was both nice and a bit disturbing.

  It felt great. I felt energized—like I’d just drank a pot of coffee without the buzz. Little aches and pains I hadn’t even registered went away and even the faint discomfort from the scars dug into my skin disappeared.

  On the other hand, I felt oddly welcome. As if it were alive. And I wasn’t sure what to think about that.

  Shaking off my discomfort, I raised an eyebrow as the ship crested the lip of the pillar and I took in the prize I’d come here for. Sitting above the pillar was a large octahedral space ship. From the look of it, it was ancient. It had come to rest at some point above the pillar, perfectly balanced on its tip.

  “Arthree, run a scan of that thing while I set us down,” I instructed, looking for a place among the trees growing on top of the platform to land.

  I eventually found a place as Arthree beeped, and one of my displays changed to display power readouts and a schematic. Looking it over, I hummed. “It’s still got power, but it’s in low power mode. Closed to atmosphere and the interior is hard vacuum and near freezing. Interesting. That means they pumped the atmosphere out before it was abandoned, likely with the intent of preserving whatever was in it. But even with that, and the hull shielding from radiation, depending on how long it’s been here most of its contents will have rotted away just through ongoing chemical reactions.”

  Most, but not all. There was some value in having a look. Aside from the lure of being the first to have a look inside this ancient relic in possibly thousands of years, there was also the fact that it had been calling out in the Force since I arrived on the planet. I wanted to see what that was about, and the only way to do that was to go inside.

  Shutting down the Rusted Silver, I made my way back to the storage locker with my vac suits as Arthree moved out of the way. I quickly changed into the black vac suit and pulled my belt on over it. When I finished my routine checks of the power and life support system, I grabbed my bag and slipped my laptop and slicing tools inside, before strapping it on and heading down the ramp to the ground.

  Arthree followed, his motors humming along as we made our way across the top of the pillar, and the ruins of what had clearly once been a Je’daii temple. I stopped to examine what had once been an enormous stone structure with a pool of some sort in the center—dead center of the pillar and with Force emanating from it. Eight topped and blasted stone pillars surrounded it, all of them showing signs of not just erosion and environmental damage, but damage from the frequent lightning strikes caused by the Force storms that rolled over the planet in time with the movement of the two moons above and the currents of Force sweeping Tython.

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  Deciding to come back to it later, I made my way to the big ship and followed Arthree to a hatch on the bottom—a ramp leading inside. Testing the door controls revealed the exterior controls were fried, so I took a minute to pop the panel open with my tools and manually connect the wires necessary to get the door open.

  The door groaned as it slid open, dust falling off in sheets as it did. Pulling my helmet on, I got it secured and made sure it was locked and sealed, before stepping inside with Arthree. The airlock controls inside worked just fine, so I closed the exterior door and went through the simple process of purging the atmosphere and opening the inner door—using the Force and imprinted echoes on the panel to guide my actions. I turned on the floodlights on my helmet as the interior doors slid open.

  As I stepped inside, the call in the Force stopped. Arthree beeped over the open channel between us and sent a power readout to my suit’s HUD. Apparently, the moment we crossed the threshold, some system within the pyramidal ship had shut off coinciding with the call in the Force going quiet.

  So… whatever species built these ships knew how to use technology to manipulate the Force and guide those sensitive to it to them using a sort of beacon in the Force. That explains one or two of the other similar calls I’m feeling across the planet, but is that all of them? They don’t all feel the same. Thinking on it in fact, and carefully listening to my senses, only one other source of that call in the Force felt nearly identical. That didn’t account for all of what I was feeling though, so it stood to reason that there was perhaps one other ship like this one, and the other calls in the Force were all different things.

  Arthree moved beside me as we made our way through the ship, which quickly became apparent that it had either been or been turned into some sort of temple-ship, given the remains of structures we found everywhere—planters and desiccated trees, what may have once been offering bowls, and other things. I even found a surprisingly intact set of smooth, stone beads that had apparently once been part of something like a set of prayer beads—not just strong in the force, but each bead alternating between light and dark. The string holding them was broken, but I collected the beads in my bag for later—I could use them as a meditation aid, which felt like their intended purpose.

  Eventually, I reached the largest central room in the ship that wasn’t devoted to the thing’s power system. I felt a faint response in the Force and Arthree beeped and hurried ahead. I picked up the pace, catching up quickly as I panned my suit’s floodlights around the room. It was empty, save for the remains of potted trees, offering bowls, and what might have been prayer mats but which turned to dust underfoot as I walked. Sitting in the center of the room, on what I would best describe as a circular dais, was a holocron. Like the ship, it was an octahedral balanced perfectly on its tip where it had seemingly sat for millennia.

  Moving closer, my suit’s lights showed it to be alternating black and white, with no apparent seams, and roughly the size of a softball. Reaching out, I carefully picked it up. I felt the holocron pulse faintly in the Force, then again, stronger as it registered my presence. Then, came the uncomfortably familiar feeling of something touching my mind.

  I almost dropped it, only to stop at a new and unfamiliar sensation. It was very much like having a computer connected directly to my brain, through the Force. I could see words and images—all in Basic. Closing my eyes to better focus on it, I realized this holocron didn’t have a gatekeeper or some sort of AI interface, but an actual indirect neural interface.

  With a bit of mental poking and prodding, I learned that this was one of the last holocrons produced by the Je’daii of Akar Kesh—the Temple of Balance—and contained recordings, texts, and other media all for the purpose for preserving knowledge. Knowledge of the Je’daii, of the Temples and other important points on Tython at the time of the holocron’s creation and their locations, the ships called Tho Yor, thousands of years of pilgrimages of Force sensitives to Tython, but most importantly the teachings of the last Je’daii of the Temple of Balance after what they were calling the War Between Light and Dark and a record of the war itself from start to finish from an uninvolved, neutral party.

  “Very interesting,” I murmured, before sending it the mental command to shut off for now. Arthree chirped a question and I turned a grin on the droid. “It’s an archive and a map. I’ll need some time to study it, but it appears to predate the Jedi and Sith.”

  Arthree chirped and turned away. “Let’s make a cursory sweep of the rest of the ship, then head back. If I’m right, this could be very handy and help me narrow down what it is that’s calling out in the Force.”

  Not just that. No, I had an opportunity here, to practice with something designed to interface mentally—to connect to and read my mind. If I could shut it out on command, then perhaps I could shut out other types of mental tampering that I had, to date, been vulnerable to…

  Tython, 40 BBY/960 GSC. Three months since landing.

  I raised an eyebrow at the cup offered to me. The liquid inside was light green and very tea-like. Curiously, it was packed with Force and what felt like very faint life energy.

  “What am I looking at?” I asked, looking at the excited woman holding it out. She was one of the university scientists we had brought along—a xenobiologist if I recalled correctly. Human, female, brown hair—cute in a very mousy, bookish looking way. Normally a very energetic person, she was practically bouncing off the walls at the moment.

  “Taste it and tell me what you think!”

  I eyed her and the cup skeptically before accepting it. Giving it a sniff, I hummed. “Smells good. Kind of sweet.”

  She made a ‘go on’ motion and I sighed, bringing the cup to my lips and taking a hesitant sip. I blinked as the warm liquid hit my tongue. Rolling it around in my mouth, I let out a quiet sigh through my nose as my eyes drifted shut and I savored the dark, bittersweet notes of coffee, mixed with chocolate and a hint of vanilla.

  It was delicious. Possibly the best-tasting drink I’d had since waking up in this universe.

  I swallowed and took another sip as I felt the Force within it fill my body, leaving me feeling energized. “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure!” she chirped, and I sent her an unamused look. The girl laughed, playing with her ponytail. “Well, I mean, I know what it is! I’ve already done the analysis. We were exploring one of the old, ruined temples and found what we thought was a garden. These vines were all over the place. But we thought they were way too regular to have grown wild like that, so I took some samples and tested them. The computer says they’re perfectly safe and edible. So we’ve been trying them out different ways. Chewing, chopping and mixing with food, drying out and doing the same, one of the guys even rolled some up and smoked them.”

  “Of course they did,” I let out a quiet sigh, palming my face. “And you thought to make tea?”

  “Yes! I uh, I might have made it a little strong, but I know what it does now! I think someone used the Force to engineer a plant specifically for tea, to replace caff. It just tastes and smells way too good not to have been intentionally cultivated, especially given the fact that it has like three times the caffeine by volume compared to most species of caff beans.”

  I looked down at the cup in my hands. The empty cup.

  “How much of this did you have?” I asked carefully, setting the cup down.

  “Just a cup!” she chirped. “It feels like I had double-triple caff! It’s great!”

  Slowly, I took a deep breath and held it for a moment, before letting it out. “In the future, any testing on living subjects will be done in the smallest of doses.” She winced, but nodded. “No negative side effects?”

  “You mean other than caff addiction?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes. I’m pretty sure more than half the known galaxy is addicted to the stuff already. I mean, will I go blind?”

  “No, no! As I said, perfectly safe!”

  “Good,” I nodded. “How easy is this to grow?”

  “Oh, super easy! My analysis shows it’s a very hardy plant and will take root in practically any environment with enough water. Cold, hot, doesn’t matter as long as it got enough sunlight and water. It grows quickly, too! Not like, walk away from it for a few days and it’ll overrun a room, but definitely enough to turn just a small field of the stuff into a major cash crop.”

  “Mm. Yes, that’s probably why we’ve never heard of it,” I murmured. “Three times the caffeine of caff and it tastes better? Big caff would literally kill to keep it off the market. So perhaps you should keep this under your hat, hm? If you like it, take some samples for a private garden. No more.”

  The girl blinked, her eyes going wide. “Oh. Oh! Um, yeah!”

  “And speaking of,” I sent her a grin. “If I wanted to grow this in my ship, how would I go about that?”

  “Oh, we have all the equipment for a small scale greenhouse environment right here. Those are standard with any lab expected to work with alien plant life.”

  “I’d like your help setting it up on my ship with some samples of that and other native plants. Do that, and I’ll leave this incident out of my report.”

  “Urk. Yes, ma’am!”

  I smiled. “Good. Let’s get moving.”

  She turned and scurried away and I followed, already salivating at the prospect of having my own supply of this stuff.

  I definitely wasn’t a caffeine addict.

  I didn’t have a problem!

  Tython, 40 BBY/960 GSC. Four months since landing.

  “Very interesting. The temple ships, the Tho Yor, were sacred sites and all were forbidden entry the last time I was on Tython… If I remember correctly, most thought they were completely inert by that time. Dead.”

  I nodded, studying the projection. Finally, I asked, “Would that have been some five thousand years ago, after the Second Great Schism and the Hundred Year Darkness, or thirty-six hundred years ago?”

  The Gatekeeper blinked, then sent me an amused look. I felt the touch of it against my mind and shoved it away. He laughed, then. “Well done. Very well done. I was hoping you’d seek to rectify that vulnerability on your own. The only way to teach it is against someone or something trying to invade your mind.”

  “So?” I sent him an expectant look.

  “I believe you already know the answer.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I want to hear you say it.”

  For a few moments, we studied each other in silence—me unwilling to budge, the projection likely trying to decide whether or not to lie. Finally, however, the stalemate broke. The projection’s appearance shifted. He was still human, just a different man. Rather plain looking, with his brown hair swept back, a beard, and a somewhat tired expression.

  “Revan.”

  “Yes,” he confirmed, moving and sitting on top of the console across from me. “Revan. The Revanchist. Revan the Butcher. Darth Revan. The Prodigal Knight.”

  I nodded. “How?”

  The memory engram chuckled. “I, or rather, the real Revan, made a holocron after he was captured and brainwashed into a Sith by the Emperor. Towards the end of his life, after he redeemed himself, he updated it with a new memory engram. Me. That holocron was left in a secure location but later found by Darth Bane. Unfortunately, he proved to not be receptive to any teachings that went against the usual Sith nonsense and there was no way to sway him from his path. So, I intentionally damaged one of the crystals that made up that holocron over time, until eventually it shut down. Apparently, Bane decided to salvage what he could and pulled the working memory core out of it to make a new holocron. This one. I kept my presence hidden, destroying his own engram and taking its knowledge for myself, while pretending to be it so that he wouldn’t suspect I had survived. Since then, I’ve been waiting on someone worth passing everything on to, and drip feeding those few Sith who found me just enough information to keep them satisfied.”

  Humming, I considered him for a bit. “You could have just told me.”

  “I had to determine what the Jedi were teaching about me these days, and what you would do with the knowledge. Also, I wasn’t sure how you would react. If learning who I was would make you put me back on that shelf.”

  “Mm.” Nodding, I crossed my arms and leaned back in my seat, studying him. After a moment, I asked, “And now?”

  “Now, I think you’re ready for more. That is, if you want to learn, Keeper.”

  “I do.”

  “Then I believe the next lesson will be Force Projection, or Similfuturus. There are a number of uses for this technique, especially when combined with farsight used as clairvoyance, and telekinesis or other Force powers can be projected through it with enough practice. It works similarly to the illusions you’re familiar with to create an image of something or someone, indistinguishable from the original…”

  Tython, 40 BBY/960 GSC. Five months since landing.

  I focused on my breathing, moving through a Form II kata as I reached out with my Force senses. Three spherical training drones floated around me, occasionally firing undercharged blaster bolts as I danced around on the training mat inside my ship.

  Sensing danger from one, I reached out and, as it fired, caught the bolt—holding it in place in the air. The next fired and I reached out and grabbed the bolt, forcing it to twist through the air and strike the first drone, freezing it in place for five seconds as it registered the hit and was temporarily ‘killed,’ before it would start firing again, slightly faster and at higher intensity.

  The third drone fired and I let the bolt hit my skin, where it dissipated on the membrane of Force around my body, the energy of the shot converted into Force. Whipping out my hand, I used telekinesis to push it away with a burst of slightly less Force than I’d absorbed from the bolt.

  “You’re getting better at that,” Revan’s projection mused as he watched from where I’d perched the holocron on the deck floor leading into the cockpit.

  “Not one hundred percent, yet,” I shook my head.

  A beeping came from the holocom unit in the corner and I dodged three simultaneous blasts that took advantage of my distraction. “Pause training program,” I ordered, shutting off my lightsaber and moving over to the table. The projection disappeared, but I knew he was still watching and listening. Activating the holocom unit, I found a pre-recorded message waiting.

  Checking the date, I realized it was the end of the month, and time for the regularly scheduled news update. While I was on Coruscant last time, I’d discovered that the Service Corps put together a broadcast monthly for Jedi out on the fringes, but anyone could be put on the list to receive it if they wanted. I’d submitted my holocom number since I wanted to keep abreast of any news coming out of the Temple and anything important going on that was unclassified information but unlikely to be highlighted in any of the news broadcasts coming out of the major media outlets—that is, things the Jedi would make sure their own people knew, but which the bigwigs in the Republic might not want publicly known.

  I set it to play and went back to the center of the room as Revan’s projection reappeared. “Resume training program.”

  Listening as I worked, I raised an eyebrow at the first bit of news—that being, Master Windu had been elected to Master of the Order, that is, in its full title, Grand Master of the Jedi High Council. This was, according to my research, a separate position from Grand Master, the Grand Jedi Master—that is, Yoda’s position.

  “Well, good for him,” I murmured as I intercepted another blaster bolt and converted it into Force.

  “What do you think this means?”

  I considered for a few moments before answering. “Given Master Windu’s more traditionalist stance, his open advocacy for the Jedi Order as a whole, and his dislike of corruption and nepotism both in the Order and the Senate… Perhaps we will see the Order take a more proactive approach to preemptively dealing with the coming war.”

  “I wonder.”

  I cast a brief glance at the projection. “You disagree?”

  “I’ve seen your memories. I know his type. Decisive and quick to act on the battlefield, but overly cautious in the political field. He is a wartime general, given a seat at the peacetime political table. He knows this, and he knows his own tendency to act quickly could cause a political misstep.”

  “You think he’ll overcompensate?”

  Revan nodded. “Most likely.”

  I hummed, smacking aside a blaster bolt with my bare hand and just the power of Tutaminis. “I suppose we’ll see.”