Eldevon
REJECTED
"Well" I thought to myself as my eyes attempted to adjust to the darkness, "this sucks." Of course we couldn't get a nice transport, a decent ship with a comfortable interior, no we were stuck with this heap. The first thing you noticed when you walked onboard was the smell. A hideous odor that wasn't overly bad but so overpowering you wondered if you would ever be rid of the stench. The ship itself was small and dimly lit; don't mistake it for a "homely" sort of atmosphere, if you wanted to call it anything it would be more of a journey into the internals of a trash compactor. The floor was littered with trash and looked as though the owner of the vessel either lacked any form of domestic ability or was blind and without a nose.
I settled down into what I believed to be a seat and glanced around the interior. The passenger bay was simply an empty compartment with fold out seats along the walls. The whole interior was a disgusting rust orange whether from paint or from actual rust who could tell?
Jais entered the ship after me, she refused to be the first one in, a look of shock and disgust covered her face, had I not been so appalled myself I might have found it funny. She fiddled unconsciously with her pony tail as she looked around the ship, running her fingers through her dark hair. Gron walked in behind Jais, his large, heavy figure filling most of the narrow entry way. He glanced around casually and plopped down in the seat across from me, happily munching on something. Jais managed to get over her shock and sat down beside me, which I did not oppose. The rest of the team piled in, some of them I knew: Kren an incredible duelist who rarely did his homework, Haron the youngest of the bunch, and Shain the only other girl, the rest I didn't recognize. Ten in all, no one said a word.
The ships engines started, believe me we were all aware of it when they did. The noise was deafening. The whole ship rattled as it rose from the platform into the skies of Coruscant. As soon as we cleared the atmosphere the noise from the engines dimmed down. People glanced around the room but still no one spoke. There were only two windows and the room was rather cramped. The silence made the room seem that much smaller, I wanted nothing but to be out of there. Out of the windows I could barely make out the engines of the other ships in our convoy. Four ships in all, my guess: everyone on board the other ships felt exactly like we did, and they all sat in stone cold silence.
It was unnerving. A deafening silence, though no spoke you could sense everyone screaming inside. Everyone one feeling the same chill, the same disappointment, the same bitterness. All I could her was Jais' steady breathing beside me. The sound started soft and gentle but soon it seemed to fill my head. It was like someone was pounding on my head with a hammer. I tried to clear my head, meditate like the masters had taught us to. I had to calm down or I was going to rip myself apart.
As the ship made the jump to hyperspace the lights began to flicker, then died. Apparently the ship couldn't run the lights and the hyperspace drive at the same time. I had heard it was a common problem before Ion drives had become standard. That placed the ship somewhere between archaic and ancient. All I could see were the trails of stars as they passed by my window. Eventually you could hear snoring, it had to be Gron, and some other random ruffles as kids tried to get to sleep. Jais' breathing slowed as she drifted off into sleep. But sleep was the last thing I could do.
My head was exploding with thoughts, "how could they do this? Why me? Why? Why? Why?" What had I done wrong? The Jedi temple had a rule, we all knew it, but at the same time we never thought about it until it got down to the last minute. Padawans came in as infants and trained with a lightsaber as a normal child would be trained to walk, the order was their life, literally. All the students knew though, if a Jedi master didn't pick you as their padawan by your twelfth birthday then you were too old. You would be cast out from the temple and sent to farming planets. Someone discovered that force powers could grow crops and they had not let that discovery go unnoticed. These rejects served out the rest of their lives growing wheat and corn when they could have been out crossing sabers with the infamous Sith. No one wanted it to happen to them, and no one believed it would. But somehow, here we all were, four ships full of rejects. It hurt to think it and it sickened you to say the word aloud, in fact I hadn't managed to muster up the strength to speak it yet, but regardless that's what we were: rejects.
The Jedi masters assured us that it was still honorable. We were valuable and would still serve the republic. But growing crops was not what we envisioned as true service. We wanted to tour the galaxy; I wanted to tour the galaxy.
What had I done wrong? As far as I could tell I was a good student. I never broke the rules and I always studied. Sure I was called a nerd sometimes, but always knowing the answer is an acceptable trade-off for a few jokes. Sure I wasn't perfect, I always past my classes, but that didn't mean all of them I passed with flying colors. I hated biology, I didn't care what I was made of, as long as it was there and it was working I was fine. I practiced in the dueling ring as often as anyone else, sure I wasn't the top of the charts but I could hold my own against all but the elite. My saber skills were weak but what I lacked in that I made up for in force powers. Who needed to swing a lightsaber when you could swing a wall? Master Windu had said that to me early on, I took it to heart. I tried as hard as I could to better myself, training, studying, training, studying, I worked endlessly. As far as I could tell I had done everything right, so why was I rejected?
Thoughts swarmed inside my head. I reached out to the force as best I could. Tried to center myself, to calm myself down. Images of the temple flashed in my head, the 1000 fountains, the map room, the arena. All these places had brought me peace but now the though of never being there again only hurt more. My thoughts wandered, I was walking through the temple hallways, sitting in the cafeteria eating with my friends… I had to stop, it hurt to much to think about it.
I felt a gentle breath on my shoulder, Jais was still fast asleep. I hated to think that she had been rejected as well but, at the same time, I was glad she was here. Even though she wasn't conscious her presence seemed to bring me some comfort. Her unique force signature radiated warmth and peace. My stomach started to stop turning. Slowly I began to drift into sleep.
My half-closed eyes snapped wide open. Something was wrong, a ripple in the force. Something bad was about to happen. BOOM! Before I could finish my thought our ship came to an instant stop as it was yanked violently out of hyperspace. The whole room was turned on its end as the ship jerked and rolled. Everyone was held in their seats by their restraining harnesses but you'd be amazed at how much moving you can do even when you're tied down. I reached out in the force. It was like drawing a picture in your mind, granted the best you can get were blurry shapes. In the center were four glowing masses, all the padawans were alert now and probably all doing exactly what I was doing sending out huge and very visible waves of force energy. Small dark shapes swarmed the larger ones. I tried to focus on the small ships but something was different about them, they were there, but at the same time they weren't. They had no force signature but instead they seemed to be an emptiness, a vacuum, a hole in the force. I had never felt anything like that, everyone had a unique force signature, me, Jais, Gron, Master Windu, everyone. But these… these were something else.
Everyone around the small compartment began to tighten their harnesses, check for emergency gear, and strain to look out of the two small windows. Everyone asked the same questions, "What's going on?" "What are those ships?" and "did they just shoot at us". Well as blaster bolts and cannon rounds flashed past the windows the last question became painfully answerable, while the previous two remained a mystery. As bolts passed the window the cabin would be illuminated for a split second with red or green light. The ship jerked and shook with every round that hit the hull. White lights zipped all around outside as our ships returned fire. It was an incredible display both through the window and in the force image. I had never been in a starfight before. And yes, I have to admit it, I was scared.
Soon enough the question was asked, I was sure everyone was thinking it but it was Shain who finally vocalized it, "Are they pirates?" Usually when Padawans traveled the galaxy they traveled with Jedi masters who knew how to evade space pirates so I had never actually seen a pirate ship. Space pirates scoured the galaxy for unsuspecting vessels that hopefully carried valuable cargo. Some gangs even attacked ships for simply crossing their "turf".
No one could answer Shain, no one knew. Some of the faces were scared, some maintained the serenity Jedi were supposed to keep. Jais was one of them. But underneath, in the force they were just as scared as everyone else. A ship's wing passed by the window, a sleek, armed wing. I knew a little about ships, enough to recognize that this ship could enter a planets atmosphere and to know that this was a fighter. Oddly there were no scorch marks or blaster holes; the wing was clean and new. I expected a pirate vessel to be a little more torn up.
On the wing was a marking, it was shaped like a flame. As soon as I looked at it, it wasn't like I was just seeing it; I could almost feel it imbedding itself in my mind, the image burning into the tissue. It felt so odd it sent chills down my spine. The image was locked in my mind, I couldn't shake it off.
"Kadrin? Kadrin, are you alright?" The image shattered as Jais' voice brought me back to attention.
"Yeah… yeah I'm ok…."
Suddenly an incredibly bright flash blocked out the entire scene in both windows. I couldn't see anything now, just white. I focused again on the images in the force. Those dark shapes were now all around us and we were moving away from the other ships. The three remaining ships weren't moving just staying there. Then they turned, and they were gone.