Author's note: I'm not as confident about this chapter, so I'd particularly appreciate feedback here. I intend to re-touch the entire story after I've finished it, so please feel free to critique this as a draft.
Andy flicked her braid over her shoulder. A minute later she pulled it back in front of her collarbone, running it through her fingers.
'Is it the braid that feels strange, or the thought of leaving the Temple?'
She looked up.
'You will be used to it soon enough. But we won't be leaving yet: you have one more lesson first.'
Andy looked questioningly at her master, and then her face lit up. 'My lightsabre!'
Kaitos nodded. 'You have crystals?'
'I got them almost a year ago.' She fumbled inside the collar of her robe and drew out a small cloth bundle tied with a cord that held it around her neck. Unwrapping it, she spilled three pale blue shards into her hand. With a slight hesitation, she held them out.
Kaitos eased himself onto the bench where she sat, and took the crystals from her with careful hands. He turned them over in his palm, and held one up to the light.
'From Ilum?'
'Where else?'
'Adega, Dantooine. Other places.' He touched the hilt of his own sabre, 'I have an Adegan crystal from my homeworld. But Ilum crystals are usual.' He handed them back. 'These are good. I think this one,' touching the largest and most round with one finger, 'will be your main crystal, and the other two for focussing.'
'Will you show me how to prepare them? I didn't dare to do anything to them on my own and I couldn't ask anyone.'
Kaitos looked up in mild surprise, 'You have constructed a hilt already?'
Andy's eyes flickered from side to side. She sat up straighter, 'They never told me not to.'
'Because you concealed it?' Kaitos shook his head, but with a smile, 'Fetch it, then.'
Andy knelt to retrieve a second cloth-wrapped bundle from under her mattress. Returning, she spread it out on the bench between the two of them and laid out the pieces. Kaitos picked up the shell of the lightsabre hilt and fitted the smaller components into place. He turned it over, and gripped it as if wielding it.
He nodded as he laid it down again. 'You made this without any guidance?'
'I found some schematics. I like building machines and devices.'
'This looks good. The design is a little unorthodox, but I think it will suit your style. And it is nicely balanced. You have done well.' Andy flushed with pride, but Kaitos held up a hand. 'It was not very honest or obedient to conceal your making it because you expected to be stopped.
'But now you must insert the crystals. You were wise not to try to do that without help. I will show you what to do.'
'Master Kaitos!' Andy hurried to her master's side, her completed lightsabre in her hands. He turned to see her,
'It is finished?'
Andy nodded, smiling broadly.
'You know that ordinarily you should never ignite your sabre unless you intend to use it. But we can make an exception just now, to see how it works.' He looked around them, 'There is enough space here.'
Andy gripped the weapon, raised it over her head in the one-handed Juyo guard, and activated it. A strong beam of cobalt extended almost a full metre and a half, with very little sound. Kaitos stepped back several paces.
She gave the new blade an experimental swing, followed by a quick series of strokes. The beam flickered only once, when she released the hilt momentarily as she transferred it to her left hand, and performed a few manoeuvres a little less gracefully.
She deactivated the weapon. 'It feels good. And there's no heat.'
'You have done well, Andiana. It is also good that you have finished it: I have been speaking to the Council, they have an assignment for me, one that will most probably end in combat.'
Andy stood up straighter, hooking the lightsabre onto her belt. Her eyes gleamed yellow.
'I'm ordered to Cheravh – with you if I consider you ready – in the Mandalore Sector. A rogue clan has been causing too much trouble for the Mandalorians to handle. Their leader refused to abandon the old ways after the Reform, and turned to banditry with such of his people as didn't choose to join the New Mandalorians.
'Tell me what you know about Mandalorians.'
'They're known for their construction of buildings and devices,' Andy said without hesitation. After chewing her lip for a moment, she went on, 'The original Mandalorians were Taung, but now many species are represented. They refused to be part of the Republic but we've been at peace with them for forty years.'
Kaitos nodded. 'All correct. But that is the New Mandalorians, who the man we are going to find would term Faithless. We will not find the Republic, or our Order, respected or tolerated by him and his. Yet though they claim to follow their traditional warrior ways, this group have largely forgotten their forebears' ideas of honour in favour of making a living by theft, murder, and slavery.'
At the largest landing platform in Cheravh's only sizeable city, Kaitos kept them both inside their ship until the sun hung low in the sky. Andy unstrapped herself from her seat and turned her head to manoeuvre the span of her horns through the narrow hatchway to the compartment behind the cockpit. There were no passengers strapped into the handful of seats that could pull down from the sides, and only a few crates of essential supplies, so there was not much in her way, but she was still not far removed from turning around on the spot as she paced around the confined space.
She paused in her path and lowered her horns at the only fully vertical wall, the bulkhead dividing her from the cockpit. But hearing a sound of movement, she looked up again without making a move, to see her master framed in the narrow hatchway.
'Tell me, young one, are you excited about what we are here to do?'
Andy shut her eyes. Finally, 'Yes.'
'Well done.' Kaitos nodded, and Andy relaxed. 'It would be strange if you felt nothing at the prospect of doing, for the first time, what you have been trained for most of your life for. And if we succeed, doing the people of this sector no inconsiderable good, which is something to be pleased about even if it comes to violence, perhaps even death, to achieve it.
'I can hardly say I am without a sense of anticipation myself, to see how my young padawan undertakes her first Jedi task.' He smiled, 'but we should try not to go into battle in excitement, when we have the chance to prepare our minds as well as our plans. There is plenty of time, if we need it, to meditate, or whatever way you find best to clear your head and calm yourself.'
Andy touched the metal side of the ship with a wry smile. Seeing it, Kaitos got to his feet and placed
himself in front of the hatchway to the cockpit. 'There's no need to share your feelings with a wall, Andiana.' He lifted his hands, palms out, to around her head height, 'I think perhaps not my head, though.'
'You're zayifka,' Andy shook her head, awkwardly in the cramped confines. 'It's forbidden. I'd kill you. Or even without hitting your head, hurt you badly.'
'Andiana,' the old man said softly, 'I know what to expect. I am not putting myself in danger, I do promise you.'
Andy stared at him, then lowered her head. She hesitated, looking up again.
'Andiana, do you not trust me?' Her horns dipped once more, and this time she backed off as far as the space would allow and aimed her armoured forehead straight at her master. The shock of impact came a fraction of a second earlier than she had expected, but it was the force of the blow that shocked her, just as much power as she had in her charge, for the first time she could clearly remember, met her squarely on the skullcap of horn. She took two paces back to absorb the blow, and realised that her opposer's slight frame had moved even less.
Raising her head, she met his eyes again, and then, understanding, burst out laughing. Kaitos' laughter, deep but quiet, joined her. Then he fell silent, and she shut her eyes for a moment as she controlled her breathing.
'Ready?' Andy nodded. 'Then it's time to go.'
'I think, a glass of blue milk, if you have it.' The bartender raised his eyebrows, but fetched some milk.
Andy scowled as he made to fill a second glass, 'Not for me. Water.' She followed Kaitos to a table he selected, which gave them a good view of the large room. The bar was busy, so the two Jedi attracted little attention as they sipped their drinks.
She listened intently, with all her senses, trying to find something in dozens of conversations and minds around them that suggested information about Mandalorian bandits. She could tell that Kaitos was also scanning the room, yet he kept up a quiet conversation with her all the time.
'Speak under the other voices you can hear, and we won't be overheard in so much noise, unless anyone is especially listening to us, and we would sense that if we are on our guard. If we are talking and drinking, most likely no-one will take a second look.'
Andy nodded assent, but did not say anything.
'You don't like milk?' her master drew the conversation to casual subjects.
'Bantha milk is for Bantha calves; it makes me sick. Belletani don't drink milk after babies are weaned. And in the desert, nothing is as good as water when it's cold and fresh. '
Kaitos appeared to be lost in thought, but as he changed the position of his hands on the table, he pointed for an instant to a group on the other side of the room. Andy looked out of the corner of her eye.
'Not Darman - I don't imagine he drinks casually in bars very often, but watch them.' The three of them all wore armour, and one dour-faced man had laid a helmet with a T-shaped slit for a visor beside him on the table. 'Tell me, what do you remember of your homeworld? You must have been very young.' Kaitos went on in just the same tone, as though he had never stopped making simple conversation.
'I was nearly three when they tested me, and you grow up fast in the desert, so I wasn't a baby. I only have a few real memories of things that happened, but I didn't forget all of what I'd learned.' She fell silent, closing her eyes for a few moments. 'I remember my big brother.'
She stiffened and looked around suddenly. Kaitos laid a hand on her forearm, 'Careful now. Don't show that you're watching them. Yes, they're leaving. Finish your drink. Don't hurry.' He drained his own glass and looked around with every appearance of casual semi-interest. 'We'll follow them.' Andy put down her empty glass, but her master still motioned to her to stay seated, until he finally got up himself, slowly.
The Mandalorians were well away, but Kaitos seemed unconcerned as he led the way to the door, nodding polite thanks to a young Twi-lek who stood aside for the old man as they left.
He turned left without hesitation, Andy following him. She could not see their quarry but reached out with her mind, as Kaitos must have been doing since they left the bar, until she found their presence in the Force.
'Tell me, Andiana, what are we here to do?'
'To bring Kiran Darman to justice,' Andy answered quickly. 'Peacefully if possible. But with force if we have to, or even kill him if there is no other way to stop him.'
Kaitos did not reply immediately. Andy chewed her lip, trying to analyse her own answer, until her master at last said 'Not quite correct. Ours is a mission of peace and if we have to resort to fighting, we have not truly succeeded.'
'But you said that you expected us to have to fight.'
'I do expect it. But that does not make it a desirable outcome, young vornskr. Mandalorians like Darman are warriors, but we are not, even if we are prepared to fight when we have to. Our aim is to peacefully bring him back. We should not expect to succeed, because a man like him will be willing to fight, even against heavy odds, and unwilling to submit, but we will try.'
Andy nodded. 'We keep trying even when we think we're going to fail. I can do that.'
'Only after we have failed in our true mission, will subduing him by force be our aim. And only if it becomes impossible to do that - if we fail again - will we seek to kill him. That is still less of a failure than leaving him to continue his crimes.'
One of the three Mandalorians, the sour man with the helmet, had turned aside from the main street. The younger man and the woman continued on course.
'Follow the lone one,' Kaitos said softly. 'He has more purpose, it is more likely that he is returning to his leader than the other two.'
They began to climb uphill, through narrower streets. There were fewer shops or street traders here. The sky was deepening in colour. The two of them talked a lot less.
At last, their unwitting guide brought them to what appeared to be another tavern, but he entered through a side door, and disappeared into the innards of the building. Kaitos stopped them in the shadows of a side alley on the other side of the street.
'Is this where we'll find him?'
'It may well be,' Kaitos replied. 'If we are lucky, Darman will come out, or we will be able to get in through the side and find him alone.
'When we confront him, you should watch, and learn all you can. I will take the lead. Don't speak unless you are addressed, don't act unless I tell you to.' Seeing Andy crestfallen, he went on, 'That doesn't mean you won't be a help to me. In the first place, you are another set of eyes – this will be no training bout, Darman's followers will not simply watch if any of them are present. In the second, I may need your aid in a fight, especially if we find ourselves outnumbered. But wait for my instructions.'
'Yes, Master.'
'One more thing. Do you know what beskar is?'
'Mandalorian iron? Lightsabres can't cut it. I would have liked to use it building my sabre, but I didn't know where I'd get any. Will he use that?'
'He may do. He will be wearing armour, and he will have a sword – a beskad. Either or both may be made of the stuff, though they aren't always. So if it comes to battle, we must be ready for our weapons to be less effective than usual. He may well also have a blaster or other weapons.'
People of all kinds had been coming and going through the front door of Darman's hideout, but now a shaft of yellow light lit the darkness of the alley where the helmeted Mandalorian had gone in. Quickly, it broadened into a rectangle, which was split by the silhouette of a tall man stepping through the opened door.
Kaitos laid a hand on Andy's shoulder, and she stayed absolutely still while the figure advanced to the edge of the better-lit street. It was bulky with armour, its head concealed by a helmet. A short sword hung at its left hip. The bulging outline at the other looked like a blaster. When it had emerged far enough from the shadows for more detail to be seen, Kaitos released his restraining grip and whispered, 'Behind me.'
Andy obeyed as they moved out into the street as well. The Mandalorian looked up immediately, and turned to face them.
'Kiran Darman?'
The fighter immediately reached for his blaster.
