Tengu's POV

Chapter 1

Fire and explosions all around me. There was no escape from it. Another grenade detonated on the other side of the wall of the half-demolished building I was hiding behind.

Being a Skonian, I was mentally vastly more mature at five years of age than children of other species. So, I knew I couldn't stay here forever, hoping it would all go away. I ran.

Moments after I had started my flee, a Jem'hadar spotted me and gave chase. I couldn't outrun the soldier of the Dominion, so I turned to face the invader.

I had always been different from everyone else. I had special powers. I could control things with my mind and I had visions. I knew my attack wouldn't stop the Jem'hadar soldier, but it would slow him down.

I outstretched my arm and focused on pushing him away from me. He was thrown backwards a good distance. Satisfied for the moment, I turned and continued running. Where, I wasn't certain.

I turned a corner and found myself surrounded by three Jem'hadar. My powers weren't developed enough to work against all of them at the same time. Then the one who had chased me arrived on the scene. The leader of the group lifted me up to his eye level by my tattered tunic collar. I'd never wished that the retractable claws between my knuckles were developed enough to cause some damage before now. The second he touched me, I had a quick vision of him being killed by a sword of green light. I tried to look around for the possible source of the sword.

The Jem'hadar roughly shook me to get my attention. "No help is coming for you," he said.

"Please, don't hurt me," I begged.

"Your people refused to accept Dominion rule. We have our orders."

"Don't you think that's a little unfair?" asked a voice from above.

We all looked at the top of a half-demolished wall. Standing there was a man with long grey hair tied back into a ponytail wearing a simple tunic, trousers, and a brown hooded robe.

"Why do you care what happens to this girl?" the Jem'hadar leader asked the stranger.

"It is wrong to harm children."

"And what are you going to do about it?" The Jem'hadar took out his phaser.

The man didn't answer, just did a somersault off the wall. As he fell, he outstretched his hand and the four Jem'hadar were thrown backwards. I was released from the soldier's grasp and landed on my feet. The man had my powers.

He took out a metal cylinder and pressed a button set into it. With a snap-hiss sound, a blade made of green light came out. He stepped between me and the soldiers.

"Get him," ordered their leader.

The soldiers charged. The man met them head-on. His lightblade caused instant devastation. Within a moment, the four Jem'hadar were dead on the ground. Then the man put away his weapon and took out a communication device.

"T'ra, tell Kit and Aayla to meet at the ship," he said into the device.

There was an unheard reply and the man put the device away, then turned to me. "Come on, it's not safe here." He crouched down and motioned for me to get onto his back. I quickly did so.

"Where are we going?" I asked as he hurried away from the dead soldiers.

"We're going to meet my friends, then hopefully get off this planet. What's your name?"

"Tengu."

"Nice to meet you, Tengu. I'm Tholme."

"Tholme, you have the same powers as me. Why?"

"My three friends and I come from a place far away from here. We're called Jedi." "There are only four Jedi?"

"Oh, no. There are thousands of us."

"Where do you all live?"

"The Jedi Temple on Coruscant."

"Can I live there too?"

"It's not up to me, but you do have the potential to be a Jedi."

"I do?"

"Of course, with training, you'll get better at using your powers. By the way, where are your parents?"

"The Dominion took them seven months ago. I've been on my own since."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I'm alright."

As we were about to turn a corner, I shifted my position on Tholme's back. The shift brought on a quick vision. "Wait," I quietly said. "If we turn the corner, we'll get shot."

"How do you know?" The Jedi asked after he stopped walking.

"I saw it."

Tholme turned his head to look at me. He wanted an explanation.

"I… see things. I touch people or things and have visions about what happened or will happen."

"Interesting. We'll go another way then."

Almost twenty minutes later, we came to the city's main hangar. It had also been bombed. Tholme put me down behind a half-demolished wall only four-and-a-half feet high. He looked over the wall for a moment, then shook his head, sighed, and slid down the wall next to me.

"We no longer have a ship," he said.

"So we've noticed," replied a new voice.

Three people quickly made their way over to us and sat down. All of them were of species I'd never seen before.

"Tengu, this is T'ra Saa," he indicated the light-brown skinned woman with what looked like vines for hair. "Aayla Secura." The blue-skinned woman with two headtails. "And Kit Fisto." The green-skinned man with black eyes and several headtails.

"You three are the other Jedi?" I asked.

"Yes, Tengu," T'ra replied in a kind voice.

"We still need a ship," said Kit.

"We could steal a Jem'hadar ship," Aayla suggested.

I reached over and touched her arm. I had a vision of us in a Jem'hadar ship, then being surrounded with no chance of escape.

"Not a good idea," I told her, taking my hand from her arm.

"How do you know?"

"She sees things," Tholme answered. "Tengu, are there any towns or cities the Jem'hadar wouldn't destroy?"

"There is a mostly non-Skonian settlement. I remember going there with my parents."

"Do you remember the way there?" asked Kit.

"Every time we went, we took a speeder. We surely didn't walk."

"Do you remember any landmarks?" Aayla asked.

I nodded. "This hangar is a landmark. Then we would go through a forest."

"And the forest is…" Tholme prompted.

I stood up and looked up and around. "That way," I told them after a moment, pointing over the wall they were sitting against.

"Okay. Let's go," T'ra said.

"Tengu, we're going to have to move fast," said Tholme, crouching down. "You don't mind if I carry you?"

I shook my head and climbed onto his back.

We started our flight to the forest, dodging any Jem'hadar eyes. We made it to the forest's edge by nightfall. We found a speeder path and followed. We went parallel to it, far enough away so that anyone on the path wouldn't see us.

After an hour of running through the forest, we stopped and Tholme put me down.

"We shouldn't stay long. Jem'hadar don't eat or sleep," I told them.

Kit grunted a reply. Within a few minutes, I was on Tholme's back again and on the move.

I yawned a couple hours later. Tholme noticed this and asked if I was tired. I said that I was. He slowed his pace a little to let T'ra, who was bringing up the rear, catch up. She matched his pace and asked what was wrong.

"Nothing's wrong," Tholme told her. "Tengu is tired, and there's no way she's going to fall asleep on her own."

T'ra nodded, then placed her hand on my hand. Seconds after, my eyelids fluttered closed.

I woke up the next morning to find that we were still running. I didn't have to ask to know we'd been running all night. We finally stopped that evening.

"No one's followed us," Aayla reported.

"We won't make a fire, just in case," replied Tholme, sitting down beside me.

"I'll take first watch," Kit said.

Tholme nodded in reply before lying down on the ground. T'ra and Aayla lied down nearby. I just sat there shivering.

After a moment, Tholme asked from the darkness, "Tengu, are you cold?"

I answered, "Yes."

"Come here," the Jedi said.

I lied down next to him. Then he told me to come closer. I refused.

"Are you frightened of me?" Tholme asked.

I shook my head.

"Good, because you have nothing to fear from me. Come here."

I got close enough for him to cover me with some of his volumous brown robe. My shivering stopped after a moment. I snuggled closer to Tholme and tightly held onto his tunic. As he wrapped his arm around me, I closed my eyes.

The next two weeks were spent traveling by foot. We had to skip over the first two towns because there were too many Jem'hadar soldiers for us to slip by.

Over those two weeks, the four Jedi taught me about the Force (what they believed our power was). Tholme was the one who I bonded with. He said he started to think of me as his "Padawan"-his apprentice.

We came to a city that didn't look to be as occupied with soldiers as the previous two settlements. The plan was for Tholme and me to go in and look for an available ship while the other three Jedi would stay hidden in the hills.

Our search for a ship was fruitless. We decided to try again tomorrow. The second I grabbed Tholme's hand on the way back to the hills, a vision came. In it, T'ra, Aayla, and Kit were on the ground, dead or unconscious. A group of Jem'hadar were beating Tholme on the grassy ground. Two soldiers were restraining me and two others flanked a female Changling. Then the vision ended as sudden as it had come.

Tholme sensed something was amiss and asked, "Are you alright?"

I shook my head. "A group of Jem'hadar soldiers are going to find our friends," I whispered urgently.

"Come on," was his reply as he took tight hold of my hand and ran.

Even though we ran as fast as we could, we were too late. T'ra, Kit, and Aayla were in the exact same position they had been in my vision. I could feel through the Force that they weren't dead.

"Tholme, we need to get out of here," I told the Jedi, my voice wavering from fear.

"It's too late for that," he responded.

I wrapped my arms around Tholme's waist. He placed his hand on my shoulder and held me close.

"Show yourselves!" Tholme shouted to the seemingly empty hills. "We know you're still here."

A moment later, we were surrounded by Jem'hadar soldiers. Then, the leader of the Dominion, the Female Changeling, separated from a tree trunk. She nodded her head to a Jem'hadar behind Tholme and me.

I heard a phaser shot and Tholme cried out and sank to his knees as the shot hit the back of his leg. I kept my hold on the Jedi, even when the Female Founder started to question him.

"What is your purpose for being on this planet?" she asked.

"To help those who need it," answered Tholme through clenched teeth. "What group do you and your comrades belong to?"

"Jedi."

"I've never heard of Jedi before. What planet are you Jedi from?"

I will not tell you that."

I felt the Founder's flare of anger, although her face remained unchanged. "Very well." She turned to two of the soldiers. "Sixth, Seventh, restrain the girl."

They pulled me from Tholme.

"First," the Changeling addressed the leader of the troop. "I want him to answer my questions."

"Yes, Founder," First responded before taking out his phaser rifle and menacingly approaching the kneeling Jedi.

Tholme was the model of calm as he unfearingly looked into First's eyes. I didn't look away. I knew that what had happened in my most recent vision was going to start happening now.

First served a powerful blow to the side of Tholme's face with the butt of his phaser rifle. The ugly sound of metal striking flesh shortly echoed in the wilderness. Tholme didn't flinch or make a noise.

"No matter what you do to me, I will not answer your questions," the Jedi stated.

First turned to face the Founder and asked her, "Permission to use more force?"

"You have my permission," the female Changeling agreed.

First gestured for the five unoccupied Jem'hadar to join him in the interrogation. "Where do the Jedi live?" First asked Tholme.

"I will not tell you," my Jedi friend calmly said.

That was the cue for the soldiers to start the punishment. Tholme disappeared under a flurry of punches, kicks, and phaser butt strikes. After long moments of hearing Tholme's grunts and cries of pain, I couldn't take it anymore.

"Stop!" I shouted. "Leave him alone!" the soldier's didn't cease. I shouted "Leave him alone!" while reaching out to the Force. In a second, all the soldiers and the Founder were sprawled on the ground, dazed.

I ran to Tholme's side and dropped to my knees, my hands on his shoulders. The second I touched him, a vision of his future presented itself to me. This time, Tholme was in a room, tied to a table, screaming as he was tortured with various instruments. The vision ended when Tholme grabbed my hand and slowly sat up.

We stared into eachother's eyes.

"Such power," we heard the Changeling say. Then she said to the soldiers, "Let them have a few minutes."

"I saw what they're going to do to you," I told Tholme. Then I started crying.

"Oh, Tengu," Tholme whispered as he held me in a tight embrace. "Don't cry. Be strong."

"I don't want to leave you."

"But you must."

"Why?"

"Because it is the will of the Force. You are meant to do great things. To do so, you must not resist the Dominion. At least, not yet."

"Then how can I do good?"

"When the time comes, you'll know. Here, take this." Tholme presses something into my hand. "It's my armband. My Jedi master gave it to me. Now I'm giving it to you. Just don't let them see it."

I nodded. I noticed the tears welling in the Jedi's eyes.

"Now, good-bye, Tengu," his voice cracked. "I love you."

"I love you, too," my voice cracked as well.

Then, a stun bolt was fired into Tholme's back. His weight sagged forward onto me. I gently lowered him to the ground, then wiped away the tears on my face.

"Now, girl, the choice is yours," the female Changeling said to me.

I turned to face her. I took a deep breath before answering with, "I will join you."