Catching Jedi
Book Two of The Force Games
By Sivad Ttarp
Part One:
The Spark
Chapter One:
Music wakes me up. Something all orchestral and heroic, the kind of piece that's intended to fill little boys mind's with visions of swordplay, monsters and busty women with slits in their gowns.
I reach out and slam down my fist on the button before I even open my eyes. My alarm turns off.
I roll over, and snap fully alert in an instant when I feel something soft and warm. I get up on my hands and knees, cast off my sheets, run my hand across the smooth abdominal musculature, rising and falling with even breath. Yeah, he's just where I left him.
I hop over him and off the bed, landing neatly on the balls of my feet. Morning light trickles across my bedroom floor, issuing between the blinds across my picture window. I go to it and yank it all the way open. The city is alive. Speeders and ships zoom past my window, and sunlight gleams off the silvery skyscrapers surrounding my apartment building. Another day on Coruscant.
I take a shower, just long enough to soap myself down and wash my hair. My pendant hangs down between my breasts, cold against my skin. The symbol of the Jayze. I've waterproofed the wood and cord, so I can wear it always. Reminds me of where I came from. Occasionally it reminds me of Galen. I hope he's leading the gang well in my absence.
Dabbing at my face with a towel, I pad back into the room. He's awake now, the boy. Sitting up on the bed, still naked, blinking stupidly in the light.
He looks the same as the last one. About the same as the last dozen actually. I do that on purpose. Seems the thing to do. He's about a year older than me, making him eighteen. Human, slim strong build, blonde hair, blue eyes, and sloppy with his hands. I can compensate for the last one though.
"So…" he says. "Morning."
"Yeah," I say, and I go to my closet. My clothes from last night are strewn over the floor, but I go for the clean ones. I put on undergarments, and pull on a gray long sleeved shirt.
He looks just a bit disappointed that I'm getting dressed. "So, I was wondering; if you're doing anything today, if you wanted, we could do something. I could stick around."
"I have class," I say. "All day. I'm kind of busy."
"Oh…" he says.
I pull on black pants, black socks, and black boots. He watches my bare legs disappear from view. It's like he's a droid who's been activated, but hasn't been given any job to do.
"Look," I finally take pity on him. "There's a shower, there's food in the cupboards, and your clothes are still right there where you left them." I gesture at the floor. "I've got to run. Make sure and lock up on the way out."
"I'll see you again right?" he asks.
"Yeah," I lie, "I'll call you tonight." I'm out the door before he can even try to kiss me again.
I leave my apartment complex, and make for the shuttle that'll take me to the campus. Finis Valorum University, that's where I go to school. Like my apartment, my education is bought and paid for by my social status, courtesy of the Empire. There are a few people Palpatine makes sure his officers take care of. Victors of the Force Games fill that list. I'm one of those. Kara Evenstern of Tatooine, Victor of the 74th Force Games. They gave me an animal skin jacket that said just that on the back. It collects dust in my closet.
I lied about having to leave so quickly. I have time to buy a juice and a sweet roll from a machine and sit and wait for my shuttle. The boy will follow my instructions, won't do anything dishonest. I read him well enough to tell.
I wonder what he'll do. How he'll feel, what thoughts he'll have. I won't call him back. Not only that, I'll never visit the diner where I found him ever again.
I used to follow up, date again and again. Never felt right, wasn't the same. It was only the first time that mattered. Everything else was a rerun. It was the first action, the decisive change in a person's state of being. Being that catalyst of that switch, it nearly made me feel something. Only taking someone's life made me feel more powerful than I did taking their virginity. And killing anyone around here was liable to get me prosecuted and shot in the head. This wasn't Tatooine, this was Imperial central, and they didn't turn nearly as blind an eye. Even the deepest levels were filled with surveillance equipment and patrols.
So after a while, I'd stopped calling the boys back. There was no shortage of virgins, of any species, age or gender. All I had to do tell them my story, my title, even my name and give them a wink to go ahead, and they'd be ripping their pants open.
So I went for a series of one-night stands and speedy seductions. Each one was almost identical, each one looked like him. I called them each Perrin in my head. Seemed only right. He was my first. Not the first male I had sex with, but the first one I really changed, the first innocence I blotted out.
Like I said, there was nothing like it. Other than killing.
My shuttle arrives. I take a seat by the window, pull my knees up so my boots are on the plush of the booth seat, and check the news on my datapad as the public transportation eases into the sky lane. The headline reads of an explosion at one of the Empire's shipyards. Three workers were killed. A full enquiry is being made. I yawn.
The shuttle is filled with other passengers, fine, well-dressed upstanding citizens, all minor politicians and doctors and such, heading out for another day at work serving the galaxy. Nonthreatening, nonsocial, boring. What I get for living in a high-class neighborhood. Nobody approaches or talks to me.
I wonder how many of them recognize me. Winning the Games made me a minor celebrity overnight. I'm still approached on the street to pose of images and sign touch screens. I appear in the occasional society piece on the news as well, where they'll talk about my latest outfit (generally something utilitarian and non-fashionable) or what shows I'm following (none, fiction rarely interests me). The attention does not bother me, as long as it doesn't interfere with anything I'm trying to accomplish. Since I've mainly been trying to seem normal and not get arrested by not stealing or smoking anything illegal, they usually haven't bothered me.
Besides, Perrins are better than drugs anyway. They don't leave you feeling lesser when the effects wear off.
Once we're in the air, the shuttle ride takes less than ten minutes.
The campus is a built on a square of black metal high in the air, high in the air, classrooms, cafes and student housing, each are housed in unlabeled square rectangular buildings.
I enter one of the classroom blocks, hurry down the stairs and slip into a seat in the back of my class just before the professor enters. It's an auditorium shaped room, with the rows of desks decorating a slanted floor down to a stage area where the man in the crisp robe begins to pace. The room is decorated in blacks and greys with some red highlights; an obligatory Imperial insignia hangs on the wall above our heads.
"Welcome to Imperial history," says the teacher. "Actually, no need to greet you, you've been here all semester. As you know, the semester is ending, and before your little break from duty and work, final evaluations will begin. The first of this series of test begins today, right here and now in my class.
"Get out your datapads. Each of you will write me an essay outlining the story of the Stark Hyperspace War. Five thousand words is the minimum length. Any use of your notes will be, of course, prohibited. Begin."
Once more, my fight for survival begins.
…
After I won the Force Games, I really had no idea what came next. There were the obligatory interviews and appearances, but beyond that I had no idea what to expect.
The answer was school.
I knew every surviving victor worked for the Imperial government in some undisclosed office or position, but it turned out the Empire wasn't interested in promoting a sixteen year old girl fresh off the streets of Mos Espa to a management position. School came first. I was enrolled, and set up with an apartment, routine and schedule before I even knew what was happening.
It was a huge adjustment, but at the same time it was easy compared to killing forty-nine other teenagers on a forest moon. I knew how to read and right and conduct basic arithmetic, but I was also far behind most of my fellow students. I made up for it by being smarter than them. It turns out I had a mind for facts, I could remember historical events well, remember scientific formulas even better, and run more complex equations out of my head than any of my teachers. The arts were where I struggled, I could regurgitate facts, but creativity with words and sculpture didn't come easily to me. Fortunately, the Empire didn't place much worth on those topics anyway.
There were a few specialty classes as well, just what the Empire ordered. I was taught how to fly a ship and shoot a blaster. I'd known a bit about both before, but my knowledge had been full of holes, and I had a distinct feeling these skills were far more important than any biology or arithmetic course. After all, the Empire would want me to serve them in some way eventually, and there was really one thing I was known for. Killing people.
It had been almost a year since the games, but it didn't feel like it. Life in the Jayze had always been changing, always in flux. As a student, every day was very similar.
Someday I would return to Tatooine. See my Mother, Miram Evenstern, and my sister Primith again. But it hadn't happened yet. The Empire had been good on their word. I'd spoken to my family a few times via the holonet. They had a big house now, with all the luxuries and money they could want. Primith was already looking healthier, better fed, and had the best tutors on Tatooine to further her education. They were safe, they were secure.
Providing for my family had been an ongoing process, back before the Games. Now that was no longer the case. My task is complete. Survival had been my life long struggle, I still want nothing more than to continue to live, but I no longer met every day with the likelihood of a violent death looming over me.
I no longer have an immediate task. No ongoing meaning to my life.
So for the moment, I focus on school. Education is a tool, and I want every tool I can get. You never know what you might need to be prepared for.
My last class of the day is complete. I'm sure I did well on my mathematics final, if nothing else. I flick through my comlink, see her message. I have no plans. Most students are studying for finals, but I find studying doesn't help me much. I simply remember what I'm told. I respond in text with an affirmative.
Yes, I'll meet you for dinner.
I jumped switched shuttles once, and arrived on a wide thoroughfare, several miles below. Club Belloq was on the far corner, housed in a drab square building, illuminated only by colorful lights extending around the circular doorway, drawing patrons and their credits in like an elaborate flytrap.
Osca Trentiss meets me outside, gives me a quick hug. We flash our IDs and enter without problem. I'd probably be underage if I wasn't a tribute. If you're old enough to butcher other kids in the arena, they figure you're old enough to get wasted too. The bouncer, a portly Gamorrean, even recognizes me from the Games, and gleefully receives the autograph he asks me for.
Before I won the Games, my relationships were always symbiotic. My mother had helped me to survive, and in turn I began to help her to survive. She and Primith needed me. The Jayze needed me, we were friends out of necessity; we needed to work together. Galen and I played of each other's strengths, watched each other's backs, and got things done. Not so different from my alliances within the Games themselves. Even whenever things got sexual, it was always to gain someone's trust or sweeten some drug deal or gangland alliance.
After I won, life suddenly became a lot less dangerous. Hanging out with people was no longer based entirely on necessity. I hadn't seen or heard from Chrona (my stylist) or Vaynich (my mentor) since the post-Games hype. But Osca, the Tatooine PR representative, kept in touch. She'd taken a liking to me. She wasn't much older than me and just as socially awkward in her own way. She thought my deadpan commentary was funny and ironic. I also can fake being a good listener like nobody's business.
With Osca, I've had the chance to practice being what people call friendship, or at least I think that's what it is. There's no constant peril, no symbiotic financial relationship. We just casually experience each other's company in our downtime. We mostly just go to different clubs, try different foods, talk about boys and politics, and get thoroughly drunk.
It's early yet, it's still light outside. There are certainly patrons, but the nightclub is not very busy. A balcony wends around the room above us, dotted with betting tables and giant veiwscreens showing sporting events, podraces and droid gladiatorial games. I even glimpse a clip of a Force Games rerun.
Techno music bleeds out over a mostly deserted dance floor. Osca's eyes light up when she sees the colorful bar, an extensive booth decorated with vials and tubes of psychedelic colored liquids. We talk with the robot, exchange credits, and take our narrow glasses of blue ale back to a table sequestered behind a pillar, where we sit opposite each other. We order our food from another droid who wanders too our table
"Someday," Osca looks me up and down, "I'm really going to have to teach you how to dress for these places. You look like you just got out of class."
"I did just get out of class," I say. I'm still wearing my gray shirt and black pants. "What'd you just get out of, a Twi'lek brothel?" Osca's blonde hair is done up in ringlets, and there are sparkling dust around her eyes. Her shoes are heels, constructed of leather straps binding her legs right up to the hem of her short black skirt. Her shirt reminds me of flames, its dull orange with yellow, red and black. It has full-length airy sleeves, but such a V-neck in the front it seems as though her breasts are about to make a full appearance.
She chuckles and makes a face. "Oh, they wish they had me. All the other Twi'lek girls would be out of work. But, in all seriousness, it's the culture of the thing, of places like this. You've got to get into it. Otherwise, what's the point?"
"To watch other people getting into it," I say. "Or…just watch holofeeds."
"So, how are you? What's up with your life?" Osca asks, putting her chin on her hands and her elbows on the table.
I sip my blue drink. It's alright, but I like my alcohol with less artificial sweetener. "I'm…fine," I say. "Just school. I've already told you everything about school. What about you?"
"Same old," she chuckles, "Barely anything. Today I slept till noon, and got my nails done at a place. I'm glad I'm not in school anymore." She flashed her nails, which glimmer and glitter in the light, sharpened to little points.
Osca has an incredibly easy life, for most of the year. She's an official PR person for the Games, an operative who works with the team from a planet throughout the Games process. Between Games, her services are unneeded, so she basically has an extended vacation, living off the hefty wage she receives every year. Osca mostly does whatever she wants. She enjoys the relaxation, but gets a little bored on occasion. That's where I come in, I think. It's a pretty sweet job, at least that part is. Once the Games come around, she is genuinely good at what she does. I think she can thank her Grand Moff aunt for landing her the position, though she never talks about her family.
"You nervous?" she asks. "It's back to work for both of us in just a few weeks. The Victory tour."
It had slipped my mind. The Victory Tour is where the Victor visits each of the twenty-five planets participating in the prior Force Games, ending with their own, where there's a another huge finale, party thing. It'll be my first time back on Tatooine since the Games.
"After the Games, I doubt a silly thing like that would make me nervous," I say.
She laughs, "Yeah, I can't imagine what the Games must have been like for you. And believe me, I've tried. At least at the end of the tour you'll get to see your family again. I can meet them."
"That's something," I say, "That's about it actually. I like this planet better. Less sand, more showers." Less gang violence too, but nowhere is perfect.
Osca laughs, "Oh, you're family got a new richy house, remember? You can shower to your heart's content."
"Right," I say.
"They might announce the Quell at the after party," she says, conspiratorially.
"The which?"
"You don't know," she seems mildly scandalized.
"I had more important things to worry about back home, remember," I said. "Like eating every couple days."
"Well," she sniffs. "The Quarter Quell every twenty-five years they do a special Games where they shake things up. This'll be the 75th Force Games, and hence, the Quell. It's always something different. Last time they put twice as many kids in the arena."
I almost choke on my drink. "A hundred tributes. Hell, I could barely kill a dozen."
"Yeah," says Osca, wistfully. "Anyway, we'll see what they do. You might even mentor this year. Tatooine will have a choice between you and Vaynich."
"If Tatooine is even chosen," I say. Only twenty-five planets are selected, to send their tributes to the Games
"True," says Osca, "But when a planet has a victor, that planet is almost always chosen to be reaped the next Games."
"I guess," I said. "I don't know. I hope I don't, I'm not sure how to mentor."
"You couldn't be much more useless than Vaynich," Osca pointed out.
"True," I shrugged. "I guess I'd say...run and hide. Let other people kill each other. Strike when the time is right. Make alliances, but only when you can't go it alone. And…wear sunscreen."
Osca laughed at the last part. "I'm not kidding," I say, "Some of those tributes got really red. Not me of course, I'm used to it."
We lapse into silence. "Do you miss him?" Osca asked. "Like…constantly."
"Who? Oh, Perrin. Of course I miss," I lie.
"Is that part of why I don't see you usually, you know, getting with many guys? You could have any you wanted you know."
"I know," I say. "It's not the same." It really isn't, not the same as seducing one now and then. Long-range formative relationships seem just…like too much work. Maybe I should try one sometime though, test out that style of interaction. "How about you," I ask. "Job like yours, shirt like that," I gestured at her chest.
"I have…yeah," she shrugged.
Our food arrives. I jab it with my knife and fork. Some kind of meat strip with seasoning and white sauce, fish maybe?
"I'll tell you what," says Osca, after swallowing her first bite. "Next time, maybe in two or three days, I'm taking you out to the local shopping district and you are getting flashy clothing, cultural clothing, clubbing clothing. I'll help you choose. You'll look actually recognizable, so people can tell who you are."
"Okay," I said. "But I do feel fine the way I am."
"But…" she presses.
"But," I say, "That would be lovely."
…
Dinner is filling. The flavors blend well, but the overall dish is over hyped. Food is food. It's how much it helps you live that matters.
Osca and I have a few more drinks, as we watch a huttball game played by bulky antique battle droids. I hope never to meet one of those. If Ewoks alone were almost enough to kill me, these droids would kick my ass.
As the evening wears on, the music gets louder and less obscure as the club fills. We chat more about trivial things, school and entertainment and such. I sense Osca is slightly nervous. Perhaps she's worried that bringing up Perrin has left me emotionally distressed. I decide not to mind, I prefer her lower maintenance questions. Eventually we say our goodbyes, clasp hands, and depart.
I take the shuttle back to my apartment. I could get my own speeder if I wanted, I have the credits, but so far I haven't found in necessary. Besides, I see how people act in the traffic lanes. I don't want to be a part of that.
I key in my security code and enter my apartment. I'm surprised to see that the lights from the living room area are on. I'm usually pretty good at keeping those off then I leave. On Tatooine, we didn't waste power. Also, I'd set to motion activation, which makes it even odder.
I feel for the knife in my boot as I head in to the lightened room. It wasn't easy to get, not like on Tatooine where there are knives, and even blasters, all over the place. In any case, I didn't feel safe without carrying some kind of weapon. This knife was particularly good, made from a blend of alloys that made it imperceptible to most metal detectors. Fortunate, as there were so many such detectors and weapon-free zones all over the Imperial capital. You might think a government that prided itself on military superiority above almost all else would have the balls to let a girl carry a blaster into a restaurant.
"Hello Kara," says one of the last people I'd expect to find in my apartment without notice. "Please put your toy away. You won't need it."
Unashamedly, I slip the knife back into my boot.
Grand Moff Frea Trentiss eyes me, and leans back in my armchair, taking a shallow sip from her wineglass. My wineglass, I realize, filled with my own wine. The bottle is out on the table.
"Have a drink," she suggests. "It may help."
"No thank you," I say. I've had enough already. My head is just a little buzzy. "Is this a social call?"
"No, I have business," says Trentiss. "But do know that you'll not repeat anything I say here. I come as a friend, not a Grand Moff."
I'd met Osca's aunt before my Force Games; she regularly presided over the reaping in that sector of space. Her star destroyer had delivered Perrin and I back to Coruscant. If there was one thing I'd say she thought of me as, it wouldn't be a friend. More like a nuisance. A chore, maybe.
I pull up a stool from the kitchenette. The seat could double as a weapon in a pinch. "What's on your mind?"
"The Force Games," she says. "I imagine you haven't forgotten them. Most victors tell me they're continually reliving their experiences."
"That's not so far off," I say cryptically.
"Well," Trentiss continues, sipping at the wine. "The seventy-fourth Force Games were quite the success in many ways. The arena was abnormally well constructed, and the pre-games hype and training were surprisingly well conducted. The Games themselves were an entertainment spectacular, which made the audience laugh and cry and leap from their seats in excitement."
"You're welcome," I say.
"No, I'm not thanking you," said Trentiss. "There's a delicate thing about the Games, and what they're supposed to represent. They give hope. But just enough hope to pacify, not too much so the people rebel, not too little so they lay down and die. Just enough positive emotion and you upset that balance. I wasn't sure, not at the time, but I am now. I've seen the protests, heard the complaints. You're in trouble."
"Why?" I ask.
"You introduced an element people aren't used to seeing," she said. "Love. Young love, with just the right dose of scandal and sensuality to send housewives across the galaxy into a frenzy. Then it was taken away from you."
"It was another tribute, I can't change that," I said. In fact, I'd killed Perrin, pulled him into the way of that arrow, but for all intents and purposes he'd sacrificed himself for me.
"That's not the point," said Trentiss. "You reminded them of the Empire's tyranny, reminded them of the true shock and awe of what we do every year, what it really means, and that people are really dying."
"Well if you didn't want us to team up, why issue the rule change," I ask. "Why say two tributes could win?"
"The Force Games are a business," says Trentiss. "A local governor agreed to step down, if we'd save his daughter from the Games. A little Zabrak girl. We thought Fen would win, and that this might be the most efficient way to save her without creating the need to save face. You and Perrin were entirely unforeseen."
I nod. I'd been wondering about their reasoning since before the end of the Games.
"It was your pendant that did it," says Trentiss. I'm suddenly glad I'm wearing it beneath your shirt, out of sight. "That was the last straw. I've seen your press conference, where you explain where it came from, that it was no Rebel Alliance symbol. It's good acting on your part, but not convincing enough. You showed them how the Empire took your love away, and then, finally, in the last few minutes, your necklace showed them what they could do about it."
I remembered the shot, the close-up on my pendent, red with Fen's blood. It had been removed in subsequent editions of the Games's final cut. Gamesmaster Sorin Crang had also apologized, said he didn't mean anything by it, and publicly denounced his lack of historical knowledge. This was shortly after he suffered a near fatal speeder accident that left him with a new cybertronic right eye.
"You think I've started a Rebellion?"
"Not yet," Trentiss finishes her wine, and sets the glass down on the arm of the chair. "That's what we're trying to prevent. Rebels without a cause are psychopaths. Rebels with a cause, with lost loves and role models, are heroes. And heroes just get people killed."
"Where are you going with this," I fake a yawn. It's convincing enough for her.
"We need you to act," she says. "The Victory Tour is almost upon us. It'll be the best performance of your life. You are going to show them that you are one of us. That you belong to us and that you are Imperial through and through. Do that, and that'll be the end of it. You'll be no hero and your lover no martyr. You'll show them how we are kind and good and merciful. That will be that."
There is a long pause. "I'm guessing you didn't just come here as a friend," I say.
"It was an order," she admits. "They thought you might listen more to me than someone you've never met. I thought they were right. You have good taste in wine, for a seventeen-year girl."
"What if I refuse," I say, "Not that I will. Or what if I'm not convincing, which is much more likely."
"You won't be," she says.
"How do you know?" I asked.
Trentiss stands. She's said her piece. "Watching the Games taught me one thing about you. One thing that makes me think you'll want to do what I suggest."
"What?" I ask, feeling like she's always a couple answers ahead of my questions.
"You want to live," says Trentiss. She shows herself out.