STAR WARS: Bloodlines

Book one: The Guardian

Prologue

Just below the Alderaan's atmosphere, a shuttle was moving across the deep blue sky, streaked with white clouds. The small shuttle made its way over the trees in the forest mountain, the terrain lush with vegetation. The shuttle found a small clearing, in which stood a small, wooden house. The shuttle, small enough to fit in the clearing, started to make it's landing. Slowly, the shuttle made it's descent as it extended it's landing gear. At last, the shuttle touched the ground, and let down the loading ramp. Out of this ramp stepped two beings, a Kel Dor and an Ithorian, both clad in simple brown robes, the standard garments of the jedi. The Kel Dor's name was Durin Kah, and the Ithorian's name was Amwah Mal.

The two walked onto the grass and looked towards the domicile at the other end of the clearing. The place looked humble small, but comfortable. The Ithorian looked over at the Kel Dor standing next to him.

"Is this it, master?" The Ithorian asked his counterpart in his native tongue, Ithorese.

"Yes, Amwah. This is it," said the Kel Dor, also in his native language of Kel Dorian.

"What's the child's information again? Just to make sure I have it right."

"Name: Aden Shan. Age: three standard years old. Species: Human. Gender: male."

The two set off down the clearing, making their way to the doorstep. The Kel Dor felt nervous, apprehensive. This part of his job was always the most difficult. As a jedi recruiter, it was his job to convince parents all around the galaxy to give up their force-sensitive children to the jedi order, and then take those children from their homes, to the temple to be raised as jedi. But not all parents were welcome to this, understandably. Some even tried to assault him and his past padawans at the mere mention of taking their children away from them.

The parents of the child he was about to take were certainly reluctant to give up their son, in fact the woman cried hysterically several times during their many meetings, even the father shed tears as they agreed to give their boy to the Jedi. Maybe it was because they knew it would be best for their force-sensitive son to be raised around those with the same power, ones that could teach him to control it, and use it for good. Maybe it was because the boy was a direct descendant of many powerful Jedi, such as his great-great-grandmother Satele Shan, a past Grand Master of the order, and his Ancestor the great Jedi Revan, savior of the galaxy. Perhaps looking on his lineage, they felt it was his destiny to be a Jedi. Whatever their reasons, they agreed. And a good thing too, even in the boy's youth, Durin Kah could sense how strong the boy was in the force, and a person that powerful would have to be raised with the wisdom of the jedi to guide them. But even still, Durin could tell that even though she had caved in and agreed, she still didn't want to give her son to the order. She still had many unresolved fights going on in her mind over this, and that made him feel uneasy about how things might proceed.

As he stepped up to the house, he reached out and knocked on the wooden door, and waited. They heard footsteps and the sound of voices inside, mostly of children. The door opened and they were greeted with a woman with jet black hair, who seemed to be in her late thirties, and from the smell they could tell she had just been cooking an Alderaanian meal. She had been smiling as she opened the door, but as soon as she saw who stood before her, the smile drained from her face almost as fast as the color. The Kel Dor could sense the dread that was now coursing through her. He was a jedi, after all, as was the Ithorian standing next to him.

"Oh….you're….you're here." Said the woman, her eyes showing fear, sadness, and….something else. Anger? Behind the woman there were two young children in the main room, a boy of about six standard years old, and a baby girl, looking into a holo program. "What is it mother?" Asked the boy, looking over at the two aliens standing at the door with curiosity. "It's nothing, son," said the woman, her voice cracking.

"Yes ma'am. At the time scheduled," replied the Kel Dor, this time in Galactic Basic. He knew that she hoped that somehow, some way they wouldn't come. That for some reason the whole thing would be called off. But it wasn't, and they were here.

Tears immediately welled up in the woman's eyes, and she turned away, unable to face them. The Kel Dor felt terrible for the woman, he could feel the agony building up inside her.

Into the main room walked a man with dark brown hair and a trimmed beard. As his eyes found the two standing in his doorway, he stopped right in his tracks. The color drainined from his face, just like the woman, as did every ounce of joy. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but closed it after a silent pause. He then nodded his understanding, and walked out of the room. The woman then walked over to her son, bent over so that her face was level in his ears and whispered something in his ear. The boy jumped up from the furniture, his eyes wide, going from his mother to the jedi at a rapid pace. "Already?! No, no not yet!" yelled the boy, his eyes alive with anger. The woman started sobbing in earnest now. "Sweetie, this is what's best….it's what we-we've decided to do." She said through her tears, all effort going into keeping her voice steady.

The man walked in, now carrying a small boy, younger than the other boy, but older than the baby girl. His hair, reaching halfway down his neck, was as dark as his mother's. He was sleeping soundly in his father's arms, not a care in the world. The woman went to the child immediately, covering him in her arms and kissing his head.

"Goodbye, my son," she said quietly. She took the boy into her arms, and with more pain in her eyes than words could describe, handed the boy over to Amwah. The Ithorian looked startled at being handed the human child, and looked over to Durin Kah curiously. The Kel Dor gave a quick nod of his head, and the Ithorian strode across the room, exited out the door and headed for the shuttle.

The Kel Dor looked upon the parents with pity. The woman was sobbing into her husbands shoulder while he did what he could to comfort her. Durin gave the woman on pat on the shoulder, and walked out to join Amwah and the boy.

Durin was halfway to the shuttle, his padawan less than a meter away from the loading ramp with the boy when the heard shouts from inside. Durin looked at the house in alarm, he felt a disturbance, and great surge of rage coming from inside.

They heard voices, the man had shouted; "Lya! Lya no!" and a split second later the door burst open with a bang, flying back and ricocheting off the wall. The boy's mother stormed out, her face contorted with desperate rage. Her eyes were wild, almost inhuman. Her appearance was so alarming, Durin almost didn't notice the blaster at her side.

"I don't want this! Give me my son! Give him to me now!"

The woman was screaming at them, her voice dripping with hate, and echoing all around the forest.

"Amwah, get the child inside, now!" Durin yelled at the Ithorian, and picking up pace, his padawan obeyed.

Her boy now in the shuttle, the woman screamed in fury, and raised the blaster level with Durin's chest, and fired.

In that small instant, all Durin Kah could do was react. With blinding speed he ignited his lightsaber, the yellow blade slicing through the air, and deflected the blaster bolt that would have killed him.

There was a pause between the two, the Kel Dor male and human female. This pause seemed to last an eternity, however in reality it was only one second. After that second was over, the woman's face softened, both of them knew what had happened. She then sank to her knees, her hands clutching at her chest, from which blood was seeping through her shirt. With one last look of desperation she fell over.

"Nooooooo!"

The man's cry was desperate, filled with pain. Right as he got to the doorway, he saw his wife fire at the jedi, who ignited his lightsaber and deflected the bolt. But the bolt went back, rebounding on his lightsaber and went through her chest, through her heart. He ran to her, but it was too late. He crashed to the ground beside her, rolled her corpse over, and held her body as tightly as he could to his, as if he could give her his own life force if he clutched her hard enough. He wished he could.

"No…." The Kel Dor whispered into the air. He hadn't meant for this to happen. He merely wanted to stop the bolt from hitting him, he didn't want to kill her. He ran across the clearing, about fifteen meters to where she once stood, and knelt down beside her husband, who was now sobbing over her body. The Kel Dor didn't know what to say, how could you apologize for something like this? But should he apologize? He only acted in self defense, she was the one who fired at him, after all. However, a Jedi's job is to protect and preserve all life wherever and whenever possible. His species were known for seeing morality in black and white. He was a rare exception.

"Just….just go," the man said, still clutching his wife. "Leave….please," and his sobs continued.

Durin didn't know what else he could do, and so he retreated slowly back to the shuttle.

The Ithorian set the boy down in one of the shuttle's empty seats. It was small, empty except for the boy, himself, and the two pilots. His heart was racing. Amwah heard the blaster shot, and felt the death of the woman a second later. She must have fired a shot at his master, who would have ignited his lightsaber and deflected the shot, probably back towards the woman. He wouldn't have done so on purpose, but nevertheless the woman was now dead. Amwah wasn't sure what to do, he was only a padawan. Now the child had woken up, and instantly started crying, the sound echoing loudly around the interior of the shuttle. He didn't know what to do with a crying human child, so he set the boy in one of the shuttle seats, sat down across from him and waited. His Kel Dor master took a surprisingly short amount of time to come back. He came up slowly through the loading ramp, his face blank with shock at what had just transpired. The sound of the child's cries seemed to snap him back to reality. He walked over and stared at the boy. He felt pain emanating from him, carried by waves of anguished anger. This alarmed Durin more than anything that had happened so far, and that said a lot. What he felt coming from the child was disturbing.

The Kel Dor looked at the boy and knew what it was that had woken the boy up.

He had felt the death of his mother.