Chapter 10: Base Control
The warmth spread slowly, like the roots of a plant through his body. Feeling returned to his arms and legs slowly. His wound also began to heal, skin and flesh repairing themselves faster than natural repair systems could. His mind that had almost totally died began to work again, and thoughts ran through his head as he relived his own life.
First he was back on Earth, with his family. A baby, no more than two years old. Life was carefree and rich. He grew in body and mind as he got older, until that one day.
His potential had been revealed to all, and as the shockwave of his effects flew across the galaxy, the two sides had become engaged in a fierce race to find him first.
And then, nothing. Time skipped a whole year, and his memory resumed when he was on Base, training. The first year as he became more adept at the force, as he flew his first Starfighter...
...his first encounter with the enemy. He had almost died, and would have had he not been saved by Dracina.
Since then, he and Dracina had been very close, his debt to her for saving his life. They had fought as one in lightsaber combat and starfighter battles, and had triumphed together.
Then came the recent battle for Earth, heading to base, the conflict with Lokaryo was but a frame in his reel of life before it had blinked out of existence.
Yet...
John opened his eyes. The room was blurred and hazy, and his head rang with a large headache. His limbs were stiff, and there was a dull ache in his chest.
Raising his arms, he covered his face and groaned, rubbing his eyes as he did so. When he opened them again, he could see.
Standing above him, arm outstretched to help him up, stood the blue furred form of Lokaryo. His red eyes that were previously hard and unfeeling were now soft and filled with warmth, his smile no longer malicious but triumphant mixed with sympathy. His black ears were now slanted back slightly, instead of the straight upwards positions showing alertness.
John smiled, and grasped the outstretched arm, pulling himself up. Lokaryo was about the same height as him, if a tiny bit shorter. In the background, he could hear the feminine voice of Base's main computer system utter two words.
"Simulation Over"
The walls, floor and everything else in the room apart from the turbolift entrance seemed to turn to sand and began to fly off into an unseen wind as the hard-light holograms cancelled, revealing a much bigger, brightly lit room of a similar size, yet the walls were now a metallic grey along with the floor.
"It's kind of a cheat, isn't it?" asked Dracina, who walked over to the two of them. "I mean, it's not even real combat. You fight, you die, then the whole thing ends and you come back to life."
"It's meant to train us for when we need it" Lokaryo replied. His voice was as soft as his eyes now, kind and light-hearted.
"It's better this than dead on a battlefield somewhere" John added.
"That doesn't mean I have to find it beneficial." Dracina replied, returning her lightsaber to her leather sashes that crossed her chest. "When in battle, you will feel fear. Here...you know that there is no punishment, no consequence for failure"
"Apart from an attack on the pride of the loser" Lokaryo added.
"And you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" Dracina smiled, and stood next to him. "From what Vorzahk has told us, you are a proud creature aren't you?"
"It's in my nature" Lokaryo replied. "And I have reason. I just managed to win a fight against two other Jedi, and I used nothing but my own abilities to my advantage"
"Whatever" said John. He thought he should feel bad about losing, but for some reason he had taken a shine to this Jackal-like Jedi. He had been found after an incident had led the Great Fox to stray into range of an enemy cannon. John had ordered it to retreat, but the commander had refused and managed to not only protect John from the numerous blasts, but also managed to rescue a highly damaged Angler-class corvette from certain destruction and get out of there, without a single casualty.
Afterwards, Vorzahk had looked for the commander, but instead found Lokaryo, standing in the Flagship's hangar bay directing support for the corvette grasped in the Stasis Field of the Great Fox. Prior to the battle, he had boarded the Great Fox and assumed control, using his already trained force powers to not only persuade the crew to follow him, but to keep the ship safe.
Upon realising his potential, Lokaryo had been taken into the training for becoming the fifth member of Redemption Flight. Since then, his force abilities had only gotten better, a point proven in the recent fight. When he was asked where he obtained these abilities, he would avoid the question. It was futile to get him to talk about his past, making him a source of mystery.
"I trust there was a particular reason for coming to Base?" Lokaryo asked. Unlike what his gleeful expression showed, Lokaryo seemed to be very serious.
"I was just coming to check out Vorzahk and how Base is running"
"Speaking of which" Dracina interrupted, "Why did we suddenly change direction and arrive here? The turbolift was set t take us straight to Vorzahk."
Lokaryo remained silent, but his mouth curved up a bit at the side.
"You" John asked, incredulous.
"It was simple" Lokaryo replied.
"Simple? How?" Dracina replied. "The force power needed to move two Jedi in a large mass of durasteel, powered along by repulsor generators and ion flows, against the direction of the current movement that's powered by the said drives, without the computer being able to activate override or a noticeable change in direction, or shorting out the systems, is immense." She folded her arms, and twin puffs of smoke emerged from her nostrils. "I know Vorzahk spoke highly of you when it came to the Force, but I don't think you have that much ability."
"I don't" Lokaryo replied simply. Dracina did not move. "I simply used the Force to make the electronics send strategically placed bursts of energy to the various systems, similar to the ones that would make it change direction, and manoeuvred the turbolift here." This time, he didn't even smile. Dracina remained silent, but John could feel through their telepathic link that inside she wasn't as unresponsive.
Feeling their conversation was at an end, Lokaryo gave a brief smile and headed through the now-open turbolift doors. They slid shut behind him and a brief sound was heard as it powered away.
Dracina continued to stand where she was, her arms still folded at her chest, glaring angrily at the closed doors. John looked at her for a few moments, and then retrieved his lightsabers from the floor where he dropped them. There were no scars or scratches on them; the simulation field encompassed everything in the room.
John walked past Dracina and pressed a button to the side of the doors. He waited patiently for a few seconds as another turbolift arrived, and then stepped across the threshold, holding the doors open with the Force as he turned to face Dracina, who had still not moved.
"Dracina, you coming?" John asked.
There was a pause. "I'm going to get that jackal" she said finally, and followed him in.
***
Wherever Lokaryo had gone, it wasn't the Control room. John and Dracina stepped through the turbolift doors into a large, trapezium-shaped room, with the three smaller walls adorned with countless displays, security feeds, readouts and schematics. And, facing a main holoprojector in front of far wall, with their back to them, sat Vorzahk.
John was about to take a step forwards, when Vorzahk span in his chair. "Hello" he said simply. "You came here quickly."
John froze. How could he have known? Vorzahk seemed to anticipate John's thought though, and gestured slightly with his scarlet head towards the holoprojector behind him. Looking over the chair, John realised that he was seeing a large transparent hologram of Base, with the many turbolift paths shown in white, and the one they had just travelled along highlighted in orange.
Dracina walked over past Vorzahk, and began to examine the projection in more detail. John stayed where he was. "How long have you been watching us?" John asked.
"Ever since you arrived. Remember, down in here I have complete access to anything I want – it's not called the Control room for nothing you know."
"You know about Lokaryo then?"
"Know about him?" Vorzahk gave his metallic chuckle. "I was monitoring your movement towards him. In fact, he told me he was setting the trap."
Dracina had looked away from the projection, and was looking from Vorzahk to John with a look of grim expectation.
"Which means..." Vorzahk reached out to his right and pressed part of a holoscreen, and a port spat out a small but durable disk. "...I've got the entire fight stored solely on here"
"Give me that" snapped Dracina, and snatched the disk from his grasp. Vorzahk watched with no hint of an expression as she walked back towards John, slipping the disk into a small pocket on one of her sashes.
"Lokaryo went down to the Force Training grounds." Vorzahk continued. "He said he would before he turned in for the night."
John checked a wall-mounted chronometer. Base was much closer to the sun than Earth and also span quicker, so its days were significantly shorter, only fourteen hours. John knew from experience that his human body couldn't cope with frequent changes to his internal body clock. Because of that, he made a point of staying at least a week in a single place. Any more frequent would be unhealthy, let alone confusing.
"You're not going to ask why we came then?" John asked.
"It's obvious; you wanted to see how I was doing, and to see Lokaryo as well, to help him train."
"I'm that transparent?"
"No, it's just that there's not much else to do on this planet, that's all. Nothing you'd use, anyway, apart from the rest of the simulators." He turned back to the banks of holoscreens. "And I should know, being here all day everyday"
"It's not like you have to" John replied, "You deserve a break anyway. Dracina and I could run the planet while you stay on a nice beach somewhere a few lightyears away."
Vorzahk shook his head. "Won't happen. I don't need rest John, and no offense to either Dracina or you, but you couldn't run this place. I have loads of work to do to catch up, even from only being on the Interdictor Death for number of standard hours."
"Well, if you're happy." John replied.
"Happy doesn't enter into it, it needs to be done. There's rarely any time for games/"
"It sounds like you're bitter about it."
"Hardly."
John waited for anything else, and when he realised none would come, he entered the turbolift behind him. Dracina followed, but as the doors were sliding shut John noticed the Holoprojector switch from its three-dimensional map of the base to the recent lightsaber fight with Lokaryo, showing that the only copy of the fight wasn't on the disk.
It turned out there was time for games after all.