Chapter 10

Obtaining Understanding

"We can't give you clearance to land." The small voice of the docking bay official said. "Bespin is not allowed to let anyone enter while the Yuuzhan Vong are attacking. I'm sorry."

Jaina's patience was wearing out. They'd been trying to gain entrance for ten minutes now and the really irritating part was that they were the ones who had the weapons to give the military of Bespin reinforcements.

"Look, we've got a cargo ship to deliver weapons you guys ordered and we're not taking it back with us, so why don't you just take it and save us both some trouble?" Jaina's voice was now on the verge of snapping. Zekk was the only one who seemed to find the whole situation amusing because he suddenly started to laugh.

Jaina glared at him and Zekk shrugged innocently. " What? You're handling it beautifully."

"You shut up." She turned back to the comlink, "Listen, we're coming down there whether you like it or not, so get ready." Jaina signed off and clipped her lightsaber to her belt.

"Let's go." She snapped and strode past Tenel Ka and Zekk, who shrugged at the Dathomirian warrior girl. Tenel Ka said nothing.

The ship came down to the nearest landing pad and as soon as they came down, ten soldiers ran to the ship and aimed their guns at the ramp. Jaina strode without hesitation down the ramp without stopping.

"Ma'am, you can't just come through here." One of the soldiers said, holding up his gloved hand.

"Watch me." Jaina waved a blaster in his face and the soldier stepped back Then a hearty laugh came from the door of Cloud City's base. Lando Calrissian approached with his assistant, Lybot.

"You're just like your mother, Jaina, a lot of spunk and fearlessness." He held out his hand and the only one who shook it was Tenel Ka. Jacen remained in the background.

"What's the matter? You're all so quiet." Lando observed, looking from Jacen to Jaina. "I've never seen such low energy in all of you before."

Jaina glanced back at her brother who was looking worse for wear, he was barely able to keep his eyes open since he'd spent so much time fighting the Yuuzhan Vong and no time sleeping. Tenel Ka was also more serious and friendly than usual. Even though being friendly was something she did formally, right now she wasn't making the effort. Only Zekk seemed to be in somewhat of an upbeat mood.

"We had a loss." Jaina said, she wasn't going to go into detail. Lando nodded, his expression soft and empathetic.

"I'm sorry to hear that." He didn't want to press since it seemed like everyone was taking this loss, whoever it was, hard. "Well, let's see the supplies you brought. Because if our patrol radars are correct, the Yuuzhan Vong should be right behind you."

Kirk shifted slightly to the right to twist two of the wires together that he had been trying for the past hour to fix. His deep concentration was the reason he didn't notice when someone had entered his ship and was standing directly behind him.

"Need a hand, Kirk?"

Kirk muttered a stream of curses as he twisted the wires the wrong way and a spark made him drop what he was doing.

"Blazing biths, Kam, can't a guy get any work done around here?" Kirk said, wiping his hands on his coveralls. Then he clapped Kam on the back.

"It's good to see you're doing alright." Kirk smiled and went to wash his hands in the sink in his ship's bathroom. "So what brings you to my ship?"

Although Kirk couldn't see it, Kam's face contorted but Kirk, being a Jedi could feel Kam's strain.

"It's Tahiri, isn't it?" Kirk asked. Kam nodded, rubbing his temples.

"You can imagine how Tionne feels about Tahiri being so quiet and spending her free time by herself. She even missed a class today."

"Which one?"

"I- what?" Kam gave his old friend a perplexed look.

"Which class?"

"Force in relation to mathematics, I think." Kam still remained confused. Kirk nodded.

"I would have skipped that class too."

"Kirk." Kam groaned. Kirk laughed. He handed Kam a beer can and popped open his own beer, taking a swig.

"Don't worry about Tahiri. She'll work it out." Kirk knew he probably sounded more confident than he actually was about Tahiri moving on. People, especially younger children and teens, tended to take longer to move on because deaths weren't as common early in life unless your life was that of a Jedi, even then it was difficult when the person who died was closer to you than family.

"I didn't know that you still drank." Kam took a sip of his own beer and glanced sideways at Kirk.

"Well, I decided since I'm a scoundrel now I'd better not be sober."

"That's a strange reason." Kam rolled his eyes.

"To each his own." Kirk replied with a shrug. "Cheers." He held out his can and clinked it against Kam's. The two sat for while, exchanging occasional comments about the quality of the beer, Kirk's ship, then Kam broke in with his prominent question.

"What do you think Tahiri needs?" Kam asked.

"You think I would know?" Kirk seemed surprised that anyone would want to consult him on anything.

"You're good at these kinds of things. I haven't been a father very long, Kirk."

"Mmm," Kirk sipped his beer thoughtfully. "You want my advice?"

"Yes."

"Treat it like a hangover." Kam nearly choked on his beer.

"What?!" Kam coughed and turned red.

"It takes time, there's not much you can do until it goes away. Even then your head still feels as heavy as a Death- Star. But in the end, you're not drunk any more and you're level headed again."

"Now I get why you said that. But it's still strange."

"You don't have to use logical analogies." Kirk said, downing the rest of his beer. "As long as you get your point across you can compare Yoda to a Yuuzhan Vong for all that matters."

Kirk had his own way of making people understand him and seeing his own way of handling tough situations. At the end of the day, he was really the go to person for advice, which is why Kirk was a Jedi Master. He'd left as a Knight and became a master over a long period of time because he'd trained for so long. Kam often wondered what kept Kirk going all those years since the young Jedi Master had never really bonded or connected with anyone, no Jedi, nobody. The last time they'd seen each other was at Kirk's father's funeral. Kam had told Kirk that he was welcome to stay at their house but Kirk refused. At the time he had another place to go, but now Kam knew as well as anyone that Kirk was completely alone with his ship as his living quarters if one could actually call it that.

"Are you staying here?"

Kirk crumpled his can and tossed it into the trash. "Not very long if Luke's going to keep giving me missions."

"We could use your help, Kirk." Kam pointed out. Kirk took a towel and wiped the dirt off his face.

"I'm going to shower. I'll see you, Kam. Tell Tionne I said hello." Then Kirk was gone into the bathroom on his ship. Kam stood up and threw out his beer. He hadn't drunk much of it. He'd only taken the beer because Kirk offered it. If anyone knew why Kirk was drinking again, it was either Kam or Luke Skywalker and Kam wasn't entirely sure where to begin analyzing the friend he hadn't seen in a decade or for that matter, finding out what was bothering him.

Kam wondered how many times Kirk thought about his past, and whether it was a good idea to slip out of the lives of all his friends at the Academy and then show up only to go back to being the kind of person he'd been before he left: an avid drinker and often overly upbeat or a good friend to talk to, other times he was just a solitary person who didn't go anywhere except his ship. Kam couldn't remember the last time Kirk had really smiled or laughed. Now it was more out of habit than anything else, and Kam would know.

Kam only hoped that Kirk wouldn't lose himself by following the same path of grief he'd gone down ten years ago. Even a strong Jedi Master like Kirk was no match for the pain of memories.

Once again, James found it amazing how quickly he could get into a fight with just about anyone around the Academy. It seemed like everyone had a fuse just waiting to explode. That he managed to set even the most calm people off made him think that he had a strange knack for pissing off Jedi, who were supposed to be the most composed of all kinds of warriors. A talent that had earned him a direct punch in the face from one of the other students that he'd pointed out had bad sparring skills with a lightsaber. James considered himself lucky to have gotten a fist and not the lightsaber itself.

His eye was now black and blue. Maybe the student didn't have any lightsaber skills, but he could pack a punch. James didn't want to explain why he had gotten punched to Cilghal, the doctor at the Academy, so he decided to just ride out the pain at least until he got to the waterfall he'd seen Tahiri at a few times. He climbed down the rocks and splashed the cold water on his sore face.

"That's not going to help, you know."

James turned to see Tahiri watching him from above with her arms folded across her chest. James wondered if that was a standard position for her to assume when talking to someone or it was just because she didn't like him very much.

"Really? I'd like to see you try to treat this."

"It might help if you sucked in your pride and apologized then you could get an ice pack from Cilghal."

James wiped his face with the towel he'd borrowed from his room. "No thanks."

Tahiri shrugged, "Suit yourself. When your face swells up like a balloon I'll be the first person to laugh at you."

"Much appreciated." James muttered. He wasn't really sure why whenever they were around each other, they could only talk in arguments. Did she talk to everyone like that or was it just him? He had a feeling was the latter. Because Tahiri certainly seemed to be on good terms with Kirk, Luke Skywalker, and a lot of other people and races at the Academy but she didn't seem to feel the need to get along with James. Though James knew had something to do with that, he wasn't going to admit it.

Tahiri hopped down the rocks and held out her hand, "Here, give me the towel." James obliged and watched as she soaked the small towel in the water. She wrung the water out and handed him the wet towel.

"Put it on your face." She commanded and then sat down, dipping her feet in the water, kicking them across the surface. James sat down and pressed the towel to his face, noticing how nice and cool it felt against his eye, which burned from the swelling.

"It's better." He said quietly, "Thanks."

She didn't look at him but replied flatly, "You're welcome."

James knew he'd been a jerk earlier as Kirk and Tahiri had verbally slapped him across the face with the fact. Still, he didn't see why he had to apologize when Tahiri was the one who had yelled at him.

"You can talk to me, you know." Tahiri looked at him seriously.

"So you can yell at me again?" He snorted, "I think I'll pass."

Tahiri shrugged wordlessly. She started to play with the water, sprinkling the droplets over her toes. There was nothing that felt better and cooler on a hot day than cold water. Except maybe swimming, which she did not feel much like doing at the moment.

"Look, I'm sorry I was insensitive earlier."

She raised an eyebrow, turning her head to glance at him before going back to sprinkling water on her toes. "Guilty conscience?"

"No, Kirk." James grumbled. Tahiri laughed and kicked water at James.

"Lighten up. He's probably right, you know."

"He was defending you, so of course you'd side with him." James said bitterly.

Tahiri swung her legs back and forth. "Do you think that was the only reason?"

"I don't know." James replied. Which was true. He really didn't know what Kirk Dekim's real intentions were behind telling him about not assuming that you could understand everyone's loss just because you'd lost someone yourself in certain situations. Then he sighed.

"Tahiri, what happened to your parents?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. Tahiri didn't look at him.

"I told you, they died."

"I know, I heard. I mean, how did they die?" James couldn't look at her, which was fine since Tahiri wasn't looking at him either. She tossed a stone into the water.

"Tusken Raiders killed them."

"Oh." Was all James managed to say. He felt stupid. Because his parents weren't the only ones who were probably killed in a brutal way.

To his surprise, Tahiri continued, "They were killed because they had taken in an injured Tusken Raider whose tribe was still looking for him. They thought their friend was in danger so they killed my parents. Then the Tusken Raider who had been taken in by my parents decided to adopt me into the tribe." She fingered the necklace around her neck where the stones with her parents' prints and Sliven's prints hung. She didn't want to look at James now because the memory of seeing her parents killed and then of Sliven protecting her brought up old scars, old memories of when she and Anakin had gone to Tatooine to complete the quest in order to find out how her parents died.

She didn't want to go down that path again. Not right now. Yet she'd told James the story and he wasn't saying anything. He probably pitied her.

Instead he said, "I can see why you're so tough all the time." She could tell it wasn't an insult or compliment, merely an observation. "Raised by Tusken Raiders, you're probably pretty familiar with the desert."

"Yeah, it's my second home." Tahiri's mind suddenly stopped on that thought. Tatooine. That was where she'd felt at home before coming to the Academy, that was where she could get away from everyone here at the Academy and think clearly. Tahiri knew that was what she had to do. She had to go to the first home she'd ever known.