A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

  06

  Ilum, 43 BBY.

  Pain welled up from somewhere below, and with it the certainty that someone close to her was in danger. Obi-wan snapped out of her meditation and shot up, leaving the warmth of the transport ship. She found master Qui-Gon standing inside the temple, a concerned look on his face as he concentrated his senses downwards.

  “Master,” she began, and he nodded.

  “I’m aware. Another of the initiates is hurt.”

  “It’s Tanya.” When he simply nodded, she frowned. “I’ll go retrieve them—”

  “No, Obi-wan. Stay,” the master shook his head.

  “But master—!”

  The older man sent her a small smile. “Have faith, apprentice. In your friend and in the Force.” He turned away and a discontented noise escaped her lips. “Sometimes, it is only true adversity which reveals our strength.”

  Obi-wan frowned, biting her bottom lip. “I don’t like it.”

  “Mm. Perhaps, instead of wasting your time fretting in here, you should do something useful. Such as preparing the first aid supplies for when they return.” A smile pulled at his lips as he turned a teasing look on her. “If you want to fret over her, you can do so then.”

  “Nn.” Making a frustrated face, Obi-wan turned and hurried for the ship. Behind her, she heard her master chuckle, which only increased her frustration.

  “Nnn~ fuuuck.”

  I don’t normally curse. I consider it a sign of a lazy mind unable to properly convey how they feel or what they think without relying on expletives to either add emphasis or fill dead air—the equivalent to ‘ah’ or ‘um’ in someone’s speech, as their mind has to take a moment to catch up to their mouth. It takes exceptional circumstances to bring me to that point. As it turns out, most of those exceptional circumstances tend to be life or death situations, or the immediate aftermath.

  Case in point: two cracked ribs, one dislocated shoulder, one cracked arm. The only spots of good news was that they were all on the left side, so all of the pain was concentrated to one area, I didn’t appear to have punctured a lung and none of the bones were poking out of my skin, and I had gotten cold enough to have gone mostly numb to it.

  The bad news? I was lost. Underground, in the dark, in an ice cave, soaking wet and approaching hypothermia.

  I felt that my current situation warranted it.

  Taking a shallow breath, I forced myself to sit up, painfully unsticking my frozen and possibly frostbitten skin from the ice. Closing my eyes, I centered my mind using meditation exercises taught to me as a mage in my second life. Then, once I was calm, I reached out with the Force. First, I felt within myself, confirming my state.

  I was happy to note that only one of those ribs was cracked and the other was just severely bruised and even a bit dented. The arm break was a hairline fracture. Neither were nothing that a stim pack, some bacta gel, and a bit of rest wouldn’t see me walking off in a day. Those stim packs and the bacta gel were both back on the ship, in the first aid kit. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any on me.

  Note to self: make a first aid kit. It wouldn’t even have to be big. A can of bacta spray, stim pack, compression bandage, and a knife. Won’t help me right now. So… Looks like I’m going to have to wing it. Again.

  Shifting my focus away from my wounds, I checked my energy reserve and sighed. I was running on fumes. The Force, for all my problems adapting formulas to it, worked surprisingly similarly to mana. The body generated it naturally, typically regenerating with food and rest. I’d had a short little blackout, but no actual rest. Nor did I have so much as a protein bar—another thing I’d have to add to any emergency kit. I would not be caught unprepared again.

  Still, being unable to regenerate my energy supply internally at the moment didn’t mean I was out of options. Much as with mana, it was possible to draw the Force in from the environment—and at the moment, I was sitting in the heart of some kind of nexus, wellspring, or meeting of ley lines of the Force. The stuff was all around me. So, I reached out and began pulling it to me.

  The Force jumped, rushing into my body like I’d stuck my mouth onto a tap and opened it up all the way. For a moment, I nearly choked at the sheer volume, but I managed to get it under control. I felt my energy reserves rapidly refilling and sighed quietly with relief.

  Once I was close to what felt like topped up, I spun up that warmth formula again and groaned as heat spread through my body. This was both a blessing and a curse, because the pain came back as I thawed out. Gritting my teeth, I got to the ‘winging it’ part I had been dreading.

  Alright. I think I know what happened with the flight formula, I mused, mentally going back over those last few chaotic seconds. There at the end, I had stopped trying to force it, trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Instead, I had Forced it—that is, let the Force itself guide me towards something that would work. And it had! The problem was that the flight formula was fairly mana intensive to begin with, which meant it was going to drink down the Force similarly. I hadn’t had enough to give, while also sparing enough for a mage blade to open a path in the wall, and the mental strain of juggling both formulas.

  Sure, I could mentally juggle three without a computation orb normally—back in the Empire, anyway. And as long as they were simple things I had practiced and drilled to the point of being able to use them reflexively. Flight, mage blade, and a few others such as the shield and explosive formula were on that list. But since I was having to convert from mana to Force, I wasn’t quite there on the reflex part yet. It wasn’t second nature.

  But I think I have a way to bridge the gap with more formulas. At least, I hoped I did.

  Calling to mind one of those I could run as second nature, and typically did in combat, I opened myself up a bit wider to the Force and tried to guide it into working. After a few moments, the math changed and resolved itself, old variables and pieces of the equation falling off as new ones took their place, while the underlying principle and effects remained unchanged.

  My eyes fluttered and a grin spread across my lips as the heady mixture of anesthetic and stimulant kicked in. Pain faded away and the slowly growing siren song of sleep was banished.

  Ahh, magical methe~! The most useful formula! Instant acting, low mana cost, and one hundred percent non-addictive. How could I ever live without you?

  Opening my eyes, I spun up a third formula, the extra focus granted by the combat stimulant allowing me to ignore the strain for now. Light filled the area I’d found myself in and I looked around. It was another tunnel, of course. I was lucky I hadn’t tried to stand, or I’d have likely slipped and gone sliding down.

  Although… that sounds kind of fun. And it would be faster. I’m already this far in. I’m not going to stop until I get what I’ve come here for. I can find my way out after I get the magic rock I need to make the glowy sword go vroom.

  Shaking my head, I checked my Force reserves before continuing. I was still sipping at the Force all around me, so even with the drain of three active low to medium intensity formulas, I could pull in more than I was losing. I was fine on that for now.

  In the future though, what if I’m stuck somewhere that isn’t a Force tap? I need some way to store more for later. A thought occurred and I blinked. No, some way to fix it. For all its faults, the Type 95 was so far ahead of its time as to be a miracle. Being able to store infinite mana to save for a rainy day was more useful than having four cores and more spell slots than any four mages on the field outside of my own. I remember what it felt like… Can I duplicate it?

  Giving it some thought, then sending the thought towards the Force itself and not getting a definitive no, I decided to try it. Later. Not now. No, now I needed to see, not freeze, and above all else not feel pain. I could play around with storing Force later.

  What I wouldn’t give for a computation orb. Even the crappiest single core orb in existence. With that, I could just have it store mana, or Force, for me. Automatically. Then do any spells I wanted manually. How hard would it even be to make one? I had to field strip enough of them for maintenance—even that damned compulsion orb. They were all just fancy watches with some extra gearing and special material. Elinium, for mana channeling—and in the Type 95’s case, storage. Maybe there’s some kind of material that naturally absorbs and channels the Force that could substitute for it? I could just make my own…

  Cold water dripped on my head and I blinked, looking up. Shaking my head, I fought to focus my thoughts on the here and now. As I did, I remembered there was some reason I didn’t like relying on the combat stimulant formula. I seemed to recall that it was partly because it made my mind wander a bit—my mind became so fast that I couldn’t contain all of my thoughts. But there something else. Some other reason…

  Well, if it’s important, I’ll surely remember it.

  Shrugging—mentally, not with my shoulder—I carefully stood and braced myself against an ice pillar. Looking down the dark slope, I grinned and pushed off, using the Force to guide my body to keep me from colliding with something as I slid further down into the dark.

  I checked my chronometer and frowned as it confirmed what my stomach already knew. It was late and I was getting hungry and thirsty. Thankfully, the Force was being extra helpful at the moment. When I put the question to it about food and water, it kept pointing in the same direction as the mysterious crystal it was leaning me towards.

  Soon enough, I heard rushing water again. More than that though, I felt a subtle change underfoot coinciding with a darkening of the walls. Looking carefully, I saw that the ice was getting thinner the deeper I went and, in fact, it seemed that I was heading into an area that was made entirely of stone.

  Something clicked and clacked on the stone up ahead and I frowned, feeling a faint undercurrent of danger in the Force. Shifting the ball of light to a directed beam, I spotted several large creatures that looked like crabs the size of large dogs huddled around a large pool of water, fed by water dripping from the ceiling, and running off in a stream across the room and into a crack in the floor. A thought to the Force towards food and I grinned as they scuttled towards me, waving their big pincers.

  “Well, hello there~!” I murmured, licking my lips. “You want to eat me, I want to eat you. No one has any room to complain about what happens next. Ah, just wish I’d packed butter.”

  I couldn’t juggle enough formulas, so I dropped the one keeping me warm for the moment. The crabs approached warily and I waited. When one got close enough, I flicked out my hand and summoned a mage blade. Just for a moment. Just long enough to slice through its shell and head area. It dropped dead and I dodged back from a snapping claw from the other one, another mage blade taking the claw off at the joint for its attack, before I came in and stabbed it in the head as well. The third one turned and began fleeing towards the water, but I leapt after it, landing on top of its shell and stabbing down before cutting the formula.

  The last crab collapsed and I breathed, allowing my adrenaline settle a bit. Finally, I got moving.

  With the guidance of the Force, I separated off the claws and kicked the rest of them towards the edge of the room. Opening up a claw with a mage blade, I began separating out meat. “Been a while since I last had sushi,” I murmured, studying the meat.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The Force told me it was safe to eat, so cut off a slice and dug in. To my surprise, while chewy, it was amazingly savory. Making a happy noise, I began stuffing my face. When I had my fill of crab, I filled up on water as well. Grabbing the last un-cracked claw, I turned my warming formula back on and continued on my way with a full stomach and enough leftovers to hopefully tide me over until I could make it back to the surface.

  “Master.”

  Master Qui-Gon looked up from his plate as Obi stared at him, her own meal untouched. Further in the ship, they could hear the younglings talking excitedly about their adventures, and their crystals. All of them had returned well before sundown—even the Twi’lek girl who had been injured. All but one, that is.

  “Night has fallen,” Obi pointed out, a bit of her worry seeping into her words.

  “It has,” Qui-Gon nodded, taking a sip of his tea. “We should turn in soon.”

  “Master.”

  “Obi-wan.” The girl fell silent at his gentle but stern voice. Looking into her eyes, he sighed and shook his head. “Reach out with the Force. What do you feel?”

  “She feels strange, as she has since she woke up. Completely open, still.” He looked at her expectantly and she focused harder. “She’s… satisfied? Not hungry anymore.”

  “Does it feel like she’s in danger?”

  Obi extended her senses a bit and slowly shook her head. “No. But it feels like she’s going deeper. Much further and she’ll be too hard for me to pick out from the Force in and around the temple.”

  Qui-Gon nodded. “Be at ease. I can still sense her clearly and will for some time.”

  Sighing, Obi grumbled, “How much deeper is she intending to go? I wasn’t even aware the temple extended that far. How is she even going to make it back up to the surface?”

  “Before the temple was built here, it was a holy site. I’m sure there are structures deeper below ground than anyone has visited in millennia—and secret, hidden, or partially collapsed exits leading back to the surface. If your young friend is resourceful, she will be able to find her way back.”

  “And if not?”

  Meeting her eyes, the other Jedi shook his head. “I am not allowed to intervene. It is her trial. Fate must decide.” Obi felt her fists clench at her side as frustration mounted within her. Turning away, Qui-Gon murmured, “Of course, I’ve never been a stickler for the rules. And I’m sure by now my apprentice has picked up some of my bad habits. I wouldn’t be surprised if she ran off to rescue her friend the moment I turned my back. Perhaps one could even argue that inspiring such loyalty among friends is one way to pass the trial…”

  Obi-wan turned towards the door, only to pause as her master turned back. “But let’s give her a little more time to work it out for herself, hm?”

  Obi deflated. Now that she had been given the okay to go, but told to wait a bit longer, she felt like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. She could act, but… Tanya didn’t feel like she was in any danger at the moment. It wouldn’t hurt to give her some more time, would it?

  Letting out a quiet sigh, she turned and hurried for her quarters, locking the door behind her and tossing herself onto the bed. Grabbing her pillow, she turned onto her side and wrapped herself around it, closing her eyes as she tried to get some rest.

  I had noticed it for a while now, but the moisture on the walls now confirmed it. The air was getting warmer. It was possible that this site was chosen specifically for its proximity to geothermal vents or the like, and those that built the temple had simply forgotten they were down here—or stupidly decided not to tap into the natural heat from below to warm the temple.

  They’re Jedi. Monks. I give it even odds that they thought, ‘nah, it’ll be good character development to freeze our bits off.’

  Rolling my eyes, I dropped my warming formula as the air grew warmer around me. Eventually, I spotted a corner and frowned as I thought I saw the play of light and shadows. Temporarily killing the output from my light formula, I confirmed my suspicions—green, blue, purple, and a few other shades of light danced off of the wall ahead, along with the familiar ripple of the play of light off of water.

  I hurried ahead, rounding the corner, then stopped as the passage opened up before me. I shut off the light formula as I didn’t need it. Crystal formations filled the room, lighting it with a multitude of colors. They hung from the ceiling, stretched up from the floor, and covered the walls. The room was filled with pools of water, some of them bubbling, others just steaming, as water ebbed and flowed from below, rising and falling slowly even as I watched. Off to the edges of the room, there appeared to be cooler pools of water, where I caught the occasional glimpse of fish flitting about—from the size of my finger to the size of my arm.

  Good thing, too. I’m starting to get hungry again and I’m out of crab.

  The lure of food wasn’t enough to distract me from my prize, however. My eyes were pulled towards the center of the room, and the crystal pillars there. Every other crystal within the room was either blue, green, or purple—or some shade of one of those. But in the center? Yellow, orange, gold… but those weren’t what caught my eye. No, I knew mine the moment I saw it.

  Hurrying over, I approached a pillar that reached from floor to ceiling like many of the others. The light coming off of it was a bright white, like the reflection off of a piece of silver polished to a shine.

  Reaching out with the force, I felt a piece resonate with me, before breaking off. Carefully catching it, I pulled it to myself. A chunk the size of my fist landed in my palm. One of the protruding crystals broke off and I realized that the smaller one was about the size I would need for a lightsaber. The larger one, I didn’t know exactly what to do with at the moment, but having a backup source of crystal would be handy.

  I tucked the big crystal away in my robe and reached out to the rest of the room, probing it with the Force. Feeling that everything here felt safe aside from the bubbling pools, which were obviously too hot, I decided to take some time to rest.

  It was late into my second day down here and I was getting tired even with the combat stimulant formula, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t allow myself to sleep. If I went to sleep, I wouldn’t be able to keep the formula dulling the pain up, which would mean wouldn’t be able to sleep because of the pain anyway.

  Taking a few moments to snag a big fish out of one of the cool pools, I ate another meal of fresh sushi and tossed the remains back into the pool for the other fish to eat. Then, I undressed and began dipping my fingers in the various hot pools. Finding one to my liking, I settled in up to my neck and closed my eyes.

  Turning my focus inwards, I drew in and circulated the Force within me the same way I would when practicing mana control exercises. As I did, I idly sent more of the energy towards my arm and ribs, hoping to perhaps speed up the healing process. Then, I let my mind drift, falling into a meditative state as I rested.

  Eventually, after long enough that I started getting hungry again, I climbed out of the water and got dressed. My arm and ribs felt a little better, but I wasn’t sure if that was the warm mineral water or the Force, or maybe my mind playing tricks on me. I took a few minutes to catch and eat another fish before setting out again, once more following the Force as it guided me across the cavern to an exit—this one with actual stairs carved out, albeit rough. But it was a good sign. It meant that people had once come down here and this was likely a path back to the surface.

  Taking my new crystal in hand, I fed it a bit of the Force, playing with it as I went. I quickly discovered that it produced more light the more Force I gave it, so I didn’t need my light formula going forward. Instead, I practiced my telekinesis using the Force by holding the smaller of the two crystals in place above me and feeding it enough energy to light the way, while I held the bigger chunk in my hand and felt it out.

  What am I going to do with you? Make an armory of lightsabers? Maybe stick one in a blaster? Or maybe… I could try out that idea I had.

  Daylight! Finally!

  I picked up the pace as I hurried through the cave. Ahead, I could hear wind, but that was fine. I’d be out of the damned cave system and could find my back to the ship from wherever I was.

  Slipping my crystals back into my robes, I frowned as a smell assaulted my nose. It was… moist and warm. Kind of like wet dog, but rank. Along with that was the stink of rotting meat.

  Just my luck that I come out in some predator’s den. Well, let’s hope no one’s home and it’s out hunting lunch.

  Making my way forward, I found myself coming out in a wider cave. A pile of rotten, half-eaten meat lay off to one side and I wrinkled my nose at the stench. Shed fur and what looked like scales covered the floor of the cave as I hurried through, not seeing any actual living animals. Finally, I was outside and in the cold Ilum wind, thankfully whipping away the stench of the cave.

  Casting a shield formula, I put it between me and the wind and looked around, surveying the landscape. It didn’t take long to spot the Jedi temple. It was perhaps two miles to my west, given the position of the sun and what I knew of the planet and our location on it, along with the time of day. Taking a breath, I started walking.

  It wasn’t long before danger blared at me in the Force and I turned to look as something came barreling at me through the lightly falling snow, whipped along by the wind. It was big. Roughly the size and shape of a gorilla. Covered in fur save for its face and belly, which were covered in scales. It opened its mouth and roared, exposing three rows of very sharp looking teeth.

  It seems I’ve found the resident of the cave, I mused as a smile pulled at my lips and I turned to face it. There was no point to running. The damned thing was fast and I was in no state to go running across the ice, and potentially risk falling into a fissure. It would run me down before I got twenty feet. No, I’d just have to face it head on.

  A laugh escaped as I stalked towards it. The big beast slowed its approach and began to warily circle me, apparently reevaluating its approach given that I wasn’t trying to run.

  “What’s the matter? I thought you wanted to eat me. Not scared, are you? I’m just a tiny, harmless little girl. Come on~! Seventy pounds of lean meat, right here!”

  Finally, it got over whatever instinct had given it pause and charged, spreading its arms like it intended to tackle me. “Give us a hug~!” I laughed, and swung my good arm straight up. A mage blade hummed to life, the only sign of the invisible blade’s passing the disturbed snow in the air and a trail of blood that bisected the beast. Momentum carried it forward and the two halves split as I grabbed them with the Force and yanked, sending them spinning to either side of me. Hot blood rolled over me, soaking me from head to toe, and I grunted as I remembered the shield just a moment too late to actually do anything with it.

  For some reason, I found it absolutely hilarious. I couldn’t help myself as I started laughing.

  The look on that stupid thing’s face when it realized it was dead~! Ahh~, that’s what you get! Maybe I should go looking for more of them? Cull the local population a bit! They’re a threat to travelers. Surely no one would complain if I just… took care of the problem.

  The wind shifted a bit and the cold air brought me back to my senses, reminding me that I needed to get to the ship to get treatment. Maybe do a little alien lizard gorilla genocide after I fix my arm. Oh! I could test my new lightsaber on them! They would make marvelous test subjects! Wunderbar~. What a great idea! Sometimes, I even amaze myself. But first, get out of the cold. And get a shower. I can already feel it sticking. Yuck.

  Blowing out an annoyed breath, I turned and started walking for the temple. I didn’t have to go long before I heard a new noise rapidly approaching—a kind of high pitched, constant whine. Frowning, I prepared myself to use another mage blade, when I spotted something coming on fast through the snow. A speeder bike slid to a stop in the air as the brown robed form of Obi leapt off and landed practically on top of me. The emotions rolling off of her nearly knocked me off my feet—panic, concern, worry, leftover frustration, discontent, and anger.

  “What happened?! Are you hurt? You’re covered in blood!”

  I sighed as she began poking and prodding me, with her fingers and the Force. I carefully kept my arm and ribs away from her questing fingers but otherwise endured her fretting.

  “I’m fine, mostly. The blood isn’t mine. It came from some big creature that attacked me. I could use a medkit though. I’ve got a broken arm and rib,” I reported, and she nodded.

  “Come on, let’s get you back to the ship,” the girl hurried me over to the speeder as she began to calm after seeing that I seemed to be mostly okay. Pulling off her brown over robe, she wrapped me up in it before carefully hefting me up onto the seat and climbing on behind me.

  I sighed and relaxed back into the larger girl’s warm embrace as she took off, angling my shield to keep the wind off of us as we went. Looking over the bike, I hummed, a grin pulling at my lips. “You’re going to have to teach me how to ride one of these.”

  “Sure. Later. When we get back,” she agreed easily.

  The ride back was quick, with Obi flying us right up the rear ramp where she parked the speeder, before dragging me towards the one washroom. Obi called towards the front of the ship as she shoved me into the bathroom. “Master! She’s back, we’re ready for takeoff!”

  A moment later, she squeezed in with me and I found myself assaulted as she quickly stripped me out of my robes and pushed me into the shower, before joining me. “I can do it myself,” I protested, only for the girl to glare.

  “Quiet. You’re down an arm and you’re filthy. I’ll clean you up first, then we’ll treat the arm and the ribs. Then, you need sleep!”

  Rolling my eyes, I sighed and endured as she proceeded to scrub then thoroughly examine me to check for any injuries she had missed. I closed my eyes and drifted for a few moments under the hot spray and the feeling of hands scrubbing my hair. I must have drifted because I suddenly jerked and nearly slipped and fell a few moments later.

  Obi pulled me out of the shower after that and helped me dry off, before grabbing me a change of clothes out of her room. Once I was dressed, she gathered our dirty clothes and threw them into the ship’s cleaner, after pulling out my crystals. Then, she deposited me on her bed with my crystals and opened up the first aid kit. Soon enough, I had a bacta wrap around my arm and over the ribs and she hit me with some kind of hypo spray type injector that left me pleasantly numb.

  With a sigh, I finally dropped the combat stimulant/anesthetic formula. Immediately, I collapsed backwards onto the bed as my vision swam. Everything came flooding back as the stimulants wore off within seconds.

  Ah. Right. I remember now. The reason why I disliked using that formula. ‘Methe Tanya’ is a little… extra sometimes.

  “Sleep,” the older girl ordered, arranging me on the bed and throwing the covers over me as she sat up at my side, pulling one knee up and resting her chin on it, blue eyes studying me where I lay. “You need to rest. Give the bacta time to work.”

  Yawning, I closed my eyes and shifted a bit to get comfortable. Considering the now much happier emotions radiating off of the girl, I cracked an eye open and studied her.

  “What?”

  Considering how to ask what I wanted to know, I eventually gave a mental shrug and decided to just be blunt. “We barely know each other, but you’ve been all in since the moment we met. Why?”

  The girl hummed quietly, thinking about it. Finally, she smiled. “You’re too cute to wear such a serious face all the time. That’s what made me come over in the first place. Something about that cute face and that too serious attitude makes me want to find ways to make you loosen up.”

  “Ah yes, of course. How could I forget? It’s a law of the universe. Cute is justice.”

  Obi giggled. “Heh! I like that!” After a moment, her smile dipped a bit and she looked away. “Also, I felt like if I didn’t, you’d be perfectly happy burying yourself in training, studying, and whatever else and only making acquaintances, never friends. You seem like the kind of person who needs someone to look after them and make sure they don’t focus entirely on work. Which is really weird for a kid, you know! Everyone else was too busy giggling about stupid things to see it, so I did it myself.”

  She hadn’t done it to gain anything, or leverage any connection in the future. She had just reached out because I looked too serious and alone. Because she felt like it was the right thing to do, and because she genuinely cared. That much was obvious, by the way she felt. Obi didn’t exactly conceal her feelings most of the time and I couldn’t detect a hint of deception or ulterior motive.

  It left me floored, if I’m being honest. Viktoriya was the closest I had come to a friend in the years since my forced reincarnation, and that relationship was burdened by the distance of rank. I didn’t know what to say, except perhaps, “Thanks.”

  Chuckling, Obi shifted under the covers and, minding my arm and ribs, carefully wrapped herself around me like a human dakimakura. “You’re even cuter when you’re all embarrassed and don’t know what to say. It kind of makes me want to embarrass you more, just to see that cute face!”

  “Isn’t bullying against the Jedi code somewhere? Something, something, bullying is the path to the dark side,” I grumbled, closing my eyes as Obi giggled.