Chapter Four:

On route to Dantoine aboard the Unforgivable:

Meetra awoke with a slight headache. She grabed her clothes and a towel and headed towards the showers. Four days had passed since their departure from Coruscant. They had stopped at Ord Mantell for a few hours to run diagnostics at the hyperdrive and all that was left was a straight route towards Dantooine. The masters were spending most of their time at the bridge with the adrmiral and the commander so she found herself spending hers mostly amongst the ship's marines.

The showering compartments were empty when she entered them. It seemed that she had woken up little after the third shift had started so everyone were at their stations already. Undressing she positioned herself under one of the sonic showers. The feeling wasn't as satisfying like that of a normal water shower but the results were just as good, or even better.

She heard a whistle behind her and turned. There was a tall well build human man behind her heading towards a shower on the other side of the compartment.

-"Nice body you've got there lady. Do you train a lot to get such forms?" -he asked with a smug expression on his face probably trying to embarass her.

-"Regulary!" -she answered him without feeling uncomfortable even a bit. But the man had no intention of giving up easily.

-"How about we do some private sparring in my cabin?"

-"I'm sorry but I am afraid you won't be able to handle me." -she said, turned her shower off and started dressing herself.

-"Oh I can bet that I will surprise you!" -he said but she wasn't paying him any attention anymore.

Meetra heard one last not so civilized remark towards her before she headed for the caffeteria where she was supposed to meet with Atris.

She went to her cabin to put on her jedi clothes and after that headed towards the caffeteria. When she reached her destination she spotted her friend quite fast. Mainly because she was the only person on the whole ship that wore white clothes.

Her friend was, like always, reading from her datapads near the large window in the room. Meetra took a seat infront of her but didn't say anything to her. She took a look outside in to the hyperspace. She always found the constant blue light relaxing for some reason.

Atris looked up and saw that the younger jedi was deep in thought. She never understood how she can look so much like the masters in the temple in moments like this. Meetra was constantly emitting great confidence in everythign she did. She never broke her given word at anything. And when it came to serious matters she acted almsot like the old masters in the order. In the three years they knew each other she had complained only two times for her failings while studiyng the force . She knew that Meetra was always trying to give her best in accomplishing her tasks and goals. Of corse at moments she acted childlish but it was understandable. After all she was only fifteen even if she was a jedi.

-"What have you planned doing for today?" -asked Meetra while turning her head towards the knight.

-"Nothing in particular. I will probaly read." -the padawan rolled her eyes faking boredom.

-"I wonder if I should ask someone in the gym to spar with me. I am bored from training alone. And you never want to fight with me. I have been practicing my force techniques harder lately but didn't have much of a chance to use them in a fight. In my last duel I was experimenting with the Juyo and the duel finished qute fast for my liking." -She had been practicing alone for the past four days. Meetra looked at Atris with displeasure.

-"After that beating I had to suffer last year? No thank you! I prefer to stick to my datapads." -said the knight. She hadn't belived the rummors the other knights were spreading for her friend and had tried defeating her herself. Only to find out that even thought Meetra was only a padawan she far exeeded her at saber combat. If they had used the force freely Atris knew that she would have won and Meetra knew it too. But their match was stricktly saber to saber and hand to hand and she had payed with many very painful bruses for her presumptions. The young jedi stood up, grabbed a snack from the cook and strode off leaving Atris to her reading.

The ship was buzzing with life. Engineers, soldiers and officers were constantly moving from one post to another. She almost bumped into severaw people while on her way towards the gym. It was a good thing she sensed the collisions at the last moment and avoided them making strange dance-like movements earning herself some very odd looks from the crew. Atris was right. The ship was like a damned labirynth. Even though she knew her way around it took her near fifteen minutes to reach the training compartments. She went near the door and entered the security key to open the door. When she entered it she saw that the compartment was almost full. There were many more troopers in armor than the days before and the rings were quite lively. "Probably the sergeants are drilling them harded because we are nearing the outer rim space borders." -she thought to herself. She noticed that one of the rings had quite the large crowd around it and headed that way to check it out.

After making her way trough the whistling mob of soldiers she saw what the commotion was all about. The major of the commandos unit was fighting the man that had tried to irritate her in the showers. They were both wearing light jedi-like black clothes(like kimonos) unlike the rest of the soldiers which were wearing standart red unofficial uniforms.

The two fighters were currently circling around each other. Suddenly the man jumped at her with a kick directed at her jaw. The major countered him with a kick of her own knocking his leg down followed by a side kick of her own directed at his chest. Her opponent ducked and evaded the kick. Then he close on her with a series of quick jabs and low kicks. The woman pulled her arms in a block and prevented him from doing any major damage to her body. The major then grabbed his right arm and while pulling him towards her she shot her right leg past his shoulder and sidekicked him in the back of the head forcing him on the ground. A roar of approval arised from the gathered crowd and the soldiers began exchanging credits.

-"Damn it! I thought that he would last atlest ten minutes this time!" -said one of the soldiers near her. The defeated combatant stood up shaking his head lightly probably trying to fixate his vision after the strong knockout. He turned towards the woman:

-"Damn it Major! I always fail to block that move. There won't be a next time from now on I swear it!" -he said agitated. The woman turned towards him and laughed:

-"Yes yes LC (leutenant commander)! We all know the drill!" -she said that second sence sarcastically and looked at the other soldiers and they shared a laugh.

Meetra decided that this was her chance for a nice sparring match.

-"Hey leutenant-commander! How did you think you could spar with me with such lousy skills!" -she shouted out and the crowd went silent. The LC took a qurious look at her and his eyes widened in surprise.

-"What in the ...?" -and then he saw her garment. -"Blast me! You were a jedi? Hey look! About what happened in the showers! It was a miunderstanding alright? I am sorry!?" -he almost sounded sincere but she felt that he wasn't. The soldiers were giving them questioning looks. They felt that there were going to be interesting events happening and were all too happy to see them.

-"Oh come on now! You promised me a private sparring match remember?" -she said trying to bait him. -"Or are you scared of a little girl?" -that made a few of the soldiers which were dressed like the major and the man in question to shout:

-"Come on now Fias! You aren't just going to take that are you?" -said one.

-"Yea show this jedi chick(as in a little chicken) what our unit is capable of!" -it seemed that they were his comrades from the commando unit the corporal had spoken of a few days ago.

"Nice! A commandos! Finaly a chance for a challenge!"- she thought. Commandos were special units of soldiers that executed black ops operations like attacking objectives behind enemy lines, heavy reconnaissance and even assasinations from time to time. They were all elite units with an elite combat training.

The soldier looked at her:

-"Look missy I ain't scared of anything. You want to fight? Lets see what you've got." -then he turned towards his commanding officer: -"Major if you will?" -the woman nodded and headed towards the end of the ring jumping down and taking a seat on a nearby bench. It seemed she also wanted to see what was going to happen.

Meetra decided to do a little play so she used the force to jump over the crowd landing exactly beside her opponent grining in his startled face. She took a look around and saw that everyone in the room had their eyes on them and turned at Fias again. Then took two stepes back taking her battle stance. Taking a squatting position with her left foot and arm extended towards her opponent while her right arm was standing still near her shoulder prepared for a counter. She didn't know what martial art she was using but when she had joined the order she had found a datapad with its content without the name and she had never lost a hand to hand fight when she fianly mastered it last year.

Te soldier attacked her with a straight jab which she blocked with her left hand. He followed with an elbow hit and tried to overpower her with his weight. Meetra pulled her head away from his arm and went for a low kick at his legs. The man had anticipated that attack and countered it fast. Then he spun around for a sidekick aimed at her throat followed by a quick jab at her chest. The jedi blocked his kick with her right leg, took a hold of his arm twisting it and landed him a few knee kicks in the kidneys. He grunted painfully but managed to free his arm and landed a strong kick at her ribs in return. "Damn that felt like a blaster shot" -she thought pantng. She pulled back a litle and took her stance again. Meetra closed her eyes and exhaled. "Let the force guide my moves." -she thought about her training with the TrĂ¡kata and the last two weeks when she was trying the basics of Juyo. The sith holocron she had studied was telling her to surrender to her passion but she thought that the sith who made it didn't know the infamous Ajunta-Pall personaly. Because a person who surrendered to his feelings was bound to become a slave to them and they could cloud his judgement. Meetra didn't belive that this Ajunta-Pall who was feared as the deadliest Sith with a saber that ever lived has been a slave to his feelings. She belived exactly the opposite - that he was a master of his passion and anger and channeled them in a pure stream of power and strength. Both physical and in the force. Meetra concentrated just like the masters had tought her. Clearing her mind of all distractions turning her opponent infront of her the only living and breathing thing in the room. She took another deep breath and exhaled again opening her eyes. And then she saw her enemy's strike before he had even begun executing it. A low kick aimed at her knees followed by a high kick towards her neck. Like a lightning she executed her own kicks blocking him just as he had started and followed with powerful side-kicks in his chest and head. Then again she saw like in slow motion how he would try to grab her leg next time she kicked him. She started a feint kick and when his arms shot out she jumped over him and landed a sidekick on his left temple knocking him out cold. Meetra was breathing heavily. The use of the force always exausted her but she was happy because that was the first time she managed to accomplish this feat at her own free will. When she was training blindfolded with practice lightsabers she only managed to hit or reflect something when she got realy angry or furstrated. But this time she managed it without being either of the previos two.

-"You are good, jedi girl!" -she heard a voice from behind her and turned to see the major standing behind her. Now she saw the two small horns on her head. -"I belive it wasn't necessary to kick him so hard in the head but things like that happen in fights." -she commented and waved at two soldiers from her unit to take care of their comrade. -"Your fight wasn't very impresive, but those moves at the end... it's like you knew exactly what he was going to do. It reminded me of an very painful memory. But I had to expected that! After all you are a jedi." -she said with strange expression on her face.

-"Is it true that you have crossed blades with Ulic Quel'Droma?" -Meetra asked her. The officer blinked like in a shock but retained her composure.

-"Did someone from the marines tell you that?" -she asked with a calm voice. Meetra nodded:

-"Yes. They told me that it is said that you fought with him a few minutes before a master took your place. What was he like in a battle?" -the padawan was qurious. The major looked at her with a cold stare:

-"It wasn't a fight! It was a joke to him. He predicted every single one of my moves with enough time to show me few varieties of the very same move I had planned to do. He was toying with my life. And don't try to spare my feelings. I know that they say a jedi master saved my life not that he took my place. It was true. A jedi master indeed saved my life and I watched him getting slaughtered just a few seconds after I had activated my jetpack." -finished the officer. -"That's when I understood that I was alive just because for some reason he felt like playing his litle game with me!" -Meetra nodded silently understandingly.

She had read many materials about Exar Kun and Ulic Quel'Droma and their mandalorian army. Both of the Sith Lords were extrodanary jedis before they turned to the dark side of the Force. And both were masters at their crafts. Ulic had been captured because his own cult had betrayed him and Exar Kun was blasted from the republican orbital bombardment which had annahilated most of Yavin 4's surface. The major's expression softened and she said:

-"Maybe sometime the both of us could do a match against each other?"

-"I would be delighted but not now. I have a litle problem concerning the Force and I am exausted right now. I belive I will go and take a rest." -said the padawan and the major nodded. Then Meetra turned her back on her and left for her bunk. The officer's eyes didn't leave her back untill she had dissappeared. "This girl has a very unique presence about her." -she thought and went back on to her business.

The Unforgivable seventeen hours later:

The battleship jumped out of lightspeed. Meetra watched trough the window how it closed in on a brown planet covered with few oceans. Then her holocomunicator beeped and she pulled it out. She activated it and master Kavar appeared on it:

-"Padawan! We are going to be departing in a few minutes. Gather your stuff and meet us on dock 5." -he said and disconnected.

Meetra immediately started packing her things up. After she packed everything she headed towards the dockign bay at the top of the ship. The same one on which they had arrived five days ago. Along her way she passed by few crew members she had familiarized herself with and they bid her their goodbyes. Atris met her at the tunnel leading to the dock and they both entered it along with few officers. The masters were already there and were speaking with the admiral and Meetra noticed that Commander Dodonna wasn't present. It seemed that they would be departing in the same orbital jumper this time too. The two jedis aproached the masters and the admiral. Zhar looked at them and smiled faintly:

-"Ah! Knight Atris! Padawan Surik!" -he greeted them with curteous bows and they replied with the same. -"You can go and take your seats. We have to discuss just a few more things with the admiral which won't take more than one or two minutes." -he said and rejoined the coversation with the other masters.

Meetra looked at Atris and she nodded at her making her way into the shuttle. They took their previous places and awaited their departure. After a couple of minutes the masters also boarded and the pilots started the shuttle's engines.

-"Masters I am not quite familliar with the enclave in which I will be training from now on. I tried to look it up in the evening when you told me about my relocation. There was only basic information about it. Most of the data was encrypted." -she said turning towards Kavar. He looked at her and waved with his hand at the pilots. Meetra felt that he used the Force:

-"The enclave on Dantooine is only known to those that live there, the jedi council and masters and a few families which live close by it. It is an academy where we send out most promising and talented apprantices and padawans to train. With Me, Zhar and Master Lamar there will be four council members present on the planet. As knight Atris probably already knows the dantooininan archive is only rivaled by the one in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. The planet is peacefull, mostly populated by farmers but at the same time the wildlife can be very hazardous and it gives the perfect opportunity for the making of countless trials and training opportunities." -he explained to her and she understood that he must have used somekind of a force technique so the pilots wouldn't hear them.

The shuttle left the ship's dock and in a few seconds was already entering the planet's orbit. The co-pilot activated the ships communications:

-"This is Orbital Jumper 468-432 to ground control! We are requesting docking permission -sending clearance codes .. now!" -the young padawan watched as the battleship entered hyperspace in the distant space.

-"This is dantooininan spaceport-controller three. Your clearance codes have been confirmed. You are free to land in docking-bay seven - over!" -replied a mechanical voice and the co-pilot closed the transmission. The shuttle gathered speed and passed the atmospheric barrier revealing to Meetra enormous green landscapes in every direction she could see. There were just few mountain ranges in the far distance.

Below them she saw the spacedock which wasn't very spacious. There was a small setlement not far from it and she also noticed many scattered farms along the plains.

When they left the docks two jedis approached them. A zabrak male and a zeltron female padawan with long hair which was older than Meetra - she estimated by her looks. They bowed to the masters:

-"Greetings Masters! Master Vandar send us to greet you and provide transportation to the enclave. Please this way!" -said the zeltron jedi. And the group followed them. There were two landspeeders waiting for them outside the spaceport.

The masters and the zabrak got all together in one of the speeders leaving the second for the padawans and Atris. Meetra pulled her backpack down and jumped in the front seat next to the driver's. The knight stationed with the help of the force her luggage at the back-seat and seated herself behind Meetra. The zelton girl took the pilot seat and starting the engine she followed the speeder of the masters. The surroundings quickly became a blurr in Meetra's eyes and she decided to look only straight forward. It was long past midday on the planet and soon the sun began to fade.

After a good hour and a half or probably even two, she saw the outlining of a building in the distance.

-"So what's your name?" -she asked the girl next ot her trying to make small talk. The padawan threw her a quick glance:

-"Carrie!" -she choked a little and after a few coughs she corrected herself; -"I-I mean padawan Carrie Retwin." -she seemed slightly embarrassed.

-"This is knight Atris..." -Meetra pointed at her friend: -"..and I am.." -she couldn't finish.

-"Padawan Meetra Surik. I know!" -said the girl and Meetra gave her quite the startled look. Padawan Retwin probably flushed but she couldn't say because of her pink skin.

-"How do you know me?" -she asked her. The girl threw her another quick glance:

-"Actualy it's quite the news here. You are master Kavar's new apprentice and these news travel fast. It is a well known fact that master Kavar has never taken a padawan before. Years ago he was taking students for very brief periods of time but he stoped doing even that saying that the padawans didn't have the attributes he was looking for and they would waste their time with him. You must be quite the something!?" -she said in one breath. -"So almost everyone in the academy here knows your name." -finished the padawan.

Meetra heard a quiet "Hm!" froom behind her and a large smile appeared on her face. It was geting dark at the time they finaly reached the jedi enclave. The building was quite large. It's diameter was probably a few kilometers at-least. The speeders stoped in-front of a small fountain and she jumped out on the stone ground. Two figures were waiting for them a few dozen meters away. An old human and a small green alien which race's name she never found out. The small alien spoke.

-"Awaiting for your return we have been!" -he said looking at master Lamar and Zhar. Then he saw Kavar: -"Ah master Kavar! Good to see you again it is!" -he made a small bow.

-"It is good to see you again too, Master Vandar!" -bowed in retun Kavar. Vandar's eyes turned towards Meetra and Atris:

-"Ah! Knight Atris and Padawan Surik I presume?" -he said with a calm tone almost like Zhar usually spoke. The two girls bowed answering at the same time:

-"Yes Master!"

-"This is Master Vandar! A member of the jedi council!" -introduced him Kavar.

-"Appreciated the introducition is, Master Kavar!" -said the alien with a warm smile on his face and a bit sarcasticaly. Meetra could have sworn that Kavar had rolled his eyes. -"Now come! To your rooms Knight Neemo will escort you!" -finished the master and opened the gate behind him with a wave of his hand.

The group proceeded into the depths of the jedi enclave. After a while they entered into a garden atlest a hundred and fifty meters in diameter with a giant tree in the center. Kavar waved a hand towards Meetra and she stoped beside him:

-"Tomorrow morning around seven o'clock I will wait for you near the tree. We will begin your training and it won't be easy so rest as much as you can! They days here are longer than Coruscant. Good night!" -he said and headed towards a corridor on the other side of the garden with the rest of the masters. Meetra noticed that the jedi named Neemo was calling for her and ran towards him and Atris. He led them in a corridor full with door and she thought that this was one of the sleeping compartments. He stopped infront of a door:

-"This will be your room padawan Surik. Now if you excuse me I must show knight Atris hers! Good night!" -he said and left with her friend.

Meetra pulled the door open with her mind and entered it. The room was larger than the one she had on Coruscant. "Hmm!That is a rather nice change!" -she had a table, a large wardrobe, a full human sized mirror and even a terminal with a comfortable chair infront of it. She unpacked her things quickly and jumped on the bed falling asleep almost instantly.