Hello there everyone, this is the Chapter 1.1 of a long story I am writing. It's set 8 months before the fall of the Jedi Order, just for some context. It's been very fun to write and I have a lot to publish. Please feel free to PM me. I'll be uploading every day, so if you like it, check back often! I'll try and have a consistent upload schedule. This story will follow the lead, Dawsen, for a number of years, as he grows up.
I hope you enjoy!
Dawsen looked from the edge of the starship and down, toward the very edge of the planet's rim just below him, tucked behind the wings. Volcanic shifting could be seen, the violent light of magma oceans and rivers below, churning around black soil and choked, poisoned air. His Master, Jedi Knight Torsin Oren, had called the planet Mustafar, in the Mustafar system. The glint of the sun just to the very rim of the planet made it seem to glow from within, as if the planet was alive in some horrid, sinister way.
Master and Padawan were on a research mission, seeking information that Oren had mostly been quiet about. He hadn't confided in Dawsen as he usually did, which, while it bothered the boy, also gave him a sense of the stakes. They had been blasting from system to system, trying to figure out, in the beginning, the location of a missing engineer, which had taken them from place to place until now here they were, in orbit over this dreadful looking planet.
Knight Oren and Dawsen traveled with a compliment of Clone Troops, some from the 501st Legion, which had initially shocked Dawsen. He had heard of their exploits, hushed whispers, of course, within the halls of the Jedi Temple, mostly gossip from the other boys, but, having traveled with them for a few weeks now, he was sure that the stories were true. Although Dawsen was fourteen he had never quite abandoned his childlike excitement for the war stories he had heard.
He even at fourteen was short and stout, thin across the measure of him but muscled from his training. He was neither the best nor the worst student, and he knew there would be no tales sung of his adventures and exploits. He had a feeling that the war would be over before he even really got to fight in it, but that was fine with him. He had skill with his lightsaber, once again not the best or the worst, but he had a sort of deepest respect for and love of his weapon that he often held it just to be sure of its existence.
There was a scar on his forehead from a fight he had been in when he was ten. His eyes were green and hair reddish blonde. He had soft lips that were often seen smiling while he was training, seeming to revel in the fury of battle, and he had to be coached more than once by whoever was preceding over his training to calm himself, to settle his feelings lest they overcome him.
He looked up to Knight Oren with a sort of admiration that few men got. It was a youthful respect as well as a desire to have a surrogate father. He hadn't known his parents, living as neither a slave nor as a wealthy citizen before he had been taken in by the Jedi. He had thrown everything into his training, on a constant level, always wanting to exceed only himself. With his Master he was slowly achieving that goal, and his satisfaction was smooth and calming.
They had been in space for a few weeks while they had been traveling, stopping at a few ports but never straying off the main hyperspace lanes, never going into deeper space or off their intended goals. They were in a Corillian ship, he didn't know the model, but it was enough for them to travel and train with their Clone soldiers, each to their own section of the ship. As they closed toward Mustafar, however, Knight Oren touched his shoulder and gestured to him.
Master and student walked back to the rear of the ship, where Owen's gaze went from tranquil to somewhat disturbed. Dawsen asked, "Whatever is troubling you shouldn't be kept hidden, Master, tell me, please."
"Have you noticed that they have been receiving messages on a coded frequency?"
"No, I have not. What does that mean for us? What do they want to hide?"
"Commonly, as you may well know, the information reviewed would be broadcast to any receiver that is turned to the ship's hyperspace radio unit. Well, I have," he tapped a small unit on his ear, "been monitoring their communications traffic. One message a day has been coded. It's not on a military frequency or one that the Jedi use. I had seen you wearing your receiver, which is why I asked you if you noticed it too."
"I just listen to battle progress where I can hear it. What does the coded signal mean for us?"
The man glanced furtively at the door. "That we may be in danger. In fact, even us coming back here has caused suspicions."
Dawsen could sense it too. "What should we do? You can pilot us back."
"Here." Oren pushed a data chip into his hand. "If there is anything the matter, tell the Council to review this. That will explain it all!"
"What is on it? You haven't told me a word of what we're doing!"
"Because I didn't want to arouse suspicion. I hope that my feelings now are wrong. I'm going to go out there and speak to them. If you hear anything out of the ordinary, get into the escape pod and jettison yourself. They won't follow you, I shouldn't think." He patted the back of Dawsen's hand. "I packed a bag with supplies. Use your feelings, listen. It will be too late for me. I know they are suspicious." He seemed to strongly consider something. He grabbed the boy by his shoulder and started to push, no matter that Dawsen protested, making him go toward the escape pod and shoving him in. "You will survive, with that message intact, and you will see it to the Order. Promise me this!" His eyes were hard and sharp and very powerful as they stared at the boy. "Say it."
Dawsen didn't want to, but he seemed to understand that Oren had something that would be the death of them either way. If the Clones were suspicious and it led to battle, then both of them would die, and the message would be lost. If they went to the planet together, there would be Legions sent after them. Oren was what was considered as a, 'Gray,' Jedi already. It would take no convincing for the Council to see that he was turned to the Dark Side. As Master and Student looked at one another, they both understood that Oren needed to die if this information was to get home. The boy said, in a firm, low voice, looking up into Knight Oren's eyes, "I will survive, at all costs."
The man nodded. "May the Force be with you, always." He stepped back and pulled the lock for the escape pod, pressing a button sequence and, after he set his hand on the window, he pulled his lightsaber out and started to walk. The last Dawsen saw, as there was a rush of air and a sound of pressure releasing, was blaster fire, and muffled screams, and he shot out into space, watching the ship racing off away from him. The door was wrenched open after a few seconds, and blaster fire came shooting out, flying harmlessly past him, but, with a shock that made the entire escape pod shake, it was hit once, twice, and a third time.
There were lights flashing then, a warning about hull damage, nothing that he could fix. He was spinning now, around and around in the orbit over Mustafar, his breathing going from steady to panicked, no matter that he tried to settle himself, to focus on his training. Oren was dead and they would probably come down and search for him. He was falling toward a volcanic planet in a system he had never heard of. Nothing about this was good.
In his sweaty hand he felt the data chip's sharp edge, digging into his skin, pushing a deep imprint against his palm. It was almost comforting, the only thing he had to settle himself as the escape pod started to rumble and shake, the spinning turning to a lazy roll and settling as fire started to blaze out all around the escape pod. He pushed his head back against the wall, eyes closed, focusing only on what he had to do, that he had to survive, that he would make it out of this, no matter what it took.
He felt out, with the Force, trying to help the escape pod toward the surface. Intense fear raced through his mind as everything tumbled and he saw the massive arterial flows of lava below him, pulsing and violent. If he landed in one of them then he wouldn't make it, and Oren would have died for nothing.
The escape pod rolled again, and he went with it, slamming against the wall with a low cry. There was nothing he could do against the action it took, no change he could exert through his power. Maybe if he was Master Yoda, but not as he was now. He tried to tell himself, as he fell, that he was just psyching himself up, that he was wasting time, and, as the escape pod rolled back over again, and he was able to see the surface, he knew he was probably going to die.
All he could see below was a sea of magma, swirling and violent. He knew he might feel it for a moment, but there were no shields that could save him, at least none that this escape pod was equipped with. In his panic, he considered sending the company that made the escape pod a message, to request better shielding.
He was pressed against the window, hands on either side of it, watching the escape pod about to tumble again, watching the lava. Another twenty seconds and he would land, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He set everything he had in his focus to straighten the escape pod out, putting it toward the sky, and fumbled with the controls, trying to see if it had booster jets or something for a better landing. Just outside, he saw the lava sea end, as if some prayer had been answered grabbed the bag, and jammed door handle down. It blasted off and out, ripping away from the main body of the escape pod. He felt the hot air and the ripping wind and watched as the ground raced at him, leaping out as hard and strong as he could, rolling in air to set his feet toward the ground and focusing all on landing safely.
A second before he landed he watched the escape pod smash into the tip of a hill, ripping right down the center, flying into some five pieces from the sheer force of the impact. He slammed into the ground, gasping with pain, realizing too late that he hadn't been focusing completely, but he was mostly fine, slumping forward and crying out, gasping in air, screaming in panic as it washed over him that he had survived, somehow.
He spent a half minute breathing and checking his legs gingerly for damage before he forced himself to stand and looked about the blackened, ruined wasteland that surrounded him. He looked up, into the cloud choked atmosphere, seeing nothing that looked like the Clone's ship, and, either way, he knew that he had to get away from the crash site and to a cave or somewhere that he could survive at least for a small amount of time.
He pushed the data chip into the bag, after he checked the contents of the bag. Food, a set of cloaks for blankets and weather protection, water, a rebreather for water and poison air survival, a small blaster that had clearly been taken from the Clones, and other small trinkets and accessories. He looked to the sky again, blessing Oren, wishing they had just gone together, but he had the feeling that the Clones would have hunted them down either way, sending Legion after Legion until they were dead. Oren had made it sound like his information was important, and, if he was right about the Clones recieving coded transmissions, then Dawsen doubted that they would stop at all.
The air was twisted and hot, swirling and racing along the volcanic bed of the lava ocean to the West of him. He went to the small hill where the escape pod had been shattered and picked through its remains to try and find pieces he might be able to use. When it was clear he couldn't, he donned the set of traveling robes he had to protect him from the floating sparks and cinders that were falling from the sky and looked about, using his feelings to determine where he was to go from here.
He could sense that there were lifeforms here, probably just locals, humanoids or something of that quality, probably nothing that could help him off world. He looked around for buildings, trying to consider in his mind how he would get out of this mess.
Intuition said to go North, so he followed it. He left the shattered escape pod behind and started to walk, setting his hood on his head to try and mitigate some of the hot wind, but it didn't help. It kept the ash and cinders from his eyes, so there was that. There were no goggles in his bag, and he would have traded some of his food for some. The wind made it hard to look around, hard to see, blurring his vision, making him sweat and shake uncontrollably.
He trudged along, touching his hand against his lightsaber, turning it on quickly to be absolutely sure that it was fine, that the crystal inside wasn't offset or whatever. He watched the blade for a moment, moving it this way and that, listening to that familiar hum, feeling comforted by its presence. It was yellow in color, and he loved the look of it. He reset it on his belt after he turned the blade off.
In his heart he could feel a set of uncomfortable pain, clenching as he walked, something he might have equated to guilt of he had been thinking about it clearly. However, he wasn't thinking, just feeling, and, from that, he felt something surging from out of him, grief, an unreal sort of power he had never encountered before. There was a charge, and sparks shot from his right hand, then small gouts of electricity, little jets and bursts of lightning. Instead of shocking him he only felt heat, and the heat was beautiful, filling his angry heart with a strange pleasure that sickened him, even as he wanted to cry.
Heat swirled from the edges of the lava rivers all across the horizon, making the atmosphere seem hazy and yet lurid, twisted and unreal. He drew the edges of the cloak against himself. The ground was hard and sharp and very brittle, depending on where he put his feet. Some sections burst with steam when he stepped on them, and he had to put his focus on his feet to be sure he didn't step over an underground lava flow.
He reached a magma river after an hour. It was seventy feet wide and swirling and horribly hot, radiating heat and steam and making the very air he breathed searing and terrifying to him. Across the way was a cliff, and beside him some small rises that he could get some purchase from. He had leapt farther than seventy feet before, and in fact was quite good at applying the Force in that manner, as he could go fast, but he was worried that the heat would damage him. Master Yoda's voice said, in his memory, something about worry being a path to fear, but he shoo'd the idea out of his head.
He checked his things, sat some thirty feet back from the edge of the magma flow, and meditated for a couple of minutes, breathing deep the heated air, trying to focus and settle his anguished mind. After five minutes had passed he opened his eyes to look ahead, over the superheated, hazy air, toward the other side of the river. He stood in one smooth motion, understanding that there was but one path, that his intuition and knowledge of the Force was all that would lead him to the exit of this horrible place.
He set all his energies on his feet, shifting the bag, tightening it, adjusting too his lightsaber to be sure of it, and, after he breathed out a sigh, he burst forward, ripping across the hardened rock at an immense speed and setting everything into his jump, slamming into the air, shouting with joy as he went sailing over the massive lava river, his arms churning and swirling. He had overshot the jump, and landed almost fifty feet up the cliff, crashing feet and hands first and clinging to it, settling himself, looking down to the lava below.
The heat radiated up, intense even at this height. He climbed, up fifteen feet or so, until he could pull his body onto the edge of the shelf and, after he checked his equipment, lean back, sighing with relief. He felt immensely glad he had bothered to overtrain his ability to move faster and jump higher, having always had a fascination with those abilities, especially now that he had to utilize them to survive.
Some minutes later, time spent with him meditating to gather his energies again, he looked across the horizon, so far as he could see it, that is, to see if the Clones were looking for him. He had a feeling that they had moved on completely. The question of what was on the data chip burned in him, making him hunger to know what would cause his Master to willingly die. He knew that Oren had been training as hard as he could to understand the immortal Force, and wondered now, as he sprawled at the top of the cliff, if the man had succeeded.
There was no voice on the wind, no spry figure to help him from his perdiciment, and he knew that he had no other way of survival save the path he carved for himself, so he forced himself to stand and kept climbing, setting hands and feet against the rock and going up, hanging out over the lava now, aware of the heat but focusing all his energy on making sure that he didn't get hurt by it.
At the top of the cliff structure, some two hundred feet above the lava flow, he saw that the river went down to a lava fall, and that there was a massive valley maybe a mile away, to the East. He had enough of a view that he could surmise that there were no habitable buildings there, nothing he could use to set himself toward. He still felt the presence of others here, some intelligent life, and nothing sinister. Well, there was a feeling, Dark energy, but it wasn't manifested in any sort of power that could hurt him.
As he was focusing, he felt a thought, a sort of question, rather, on the hot wind of the planet. Someone had seen the escape pod crash, either with their eyes or with machinary. He looked to the sky, all about, on one knee by the top of the cliff, trying to see probes or drones that could lead him to salvation, or, conversely, death. Either option was welcome. Better a fight than dying of starvation or from falling into lava.
The idea of what he had felt lasted even when the feeling itself vanished. Hope set itself in him, however, and he knew, without a doubt, that there was someone here for him, someone that could help him, and would help him. All he had to do was hang on, survive, and struggle forth.
