Obi-Wan sat quietly, his hands clasped over his navel. Taking deep, even breaths, he let himself be washed away by the Force. He was one with his surroundings—he could pinpoint the exact location of every table, chair, cup, and forgotten credit chip in the cabin without opening his eyes. He had been in that same posture for well over an hour, and had noted without stirring the coming and going of several individuals—Master Yoda observing his meditation, crew members scurrying about their duties, a gizka chewing on some exposed wiring.

He and his two teachers had boarded a ship headed for the Adega system, so that Obi-Wan would be able to find a crystal suitable for powering his lightsaber. He had already constructed the hilt under Master Jinn's watchful eye, crafting a design which left much of the interior exposed. He had been nervous about that at first, until Master Jinn had proven the weapon's durability by using it to hammer a rock. The rock had chipped, and the hilt hadn't even been scratched. He had explained later that each of the components had been coated in a thin layer of bronzium, making the internal parts just as durable as the hilt's plating.

A single chime sounded, signaling that his meditation was over. He opened his eyes and stood up, stretching his arms and rubbing his legs back awake. They were still tingling when he walked out of the rec room and toward his cabinet. He gathered up the few things he was bringing with him: his lightsaber, a change of clothes, and a handheld mining laser he had purchased from another passenger. He had been told to meditate until planetfall, and to be ready as soon as the shuttle landed. They were guests on this ship, and wanted to waste no more of the crew's time than necessary.

He met Masters Yoda and Jinn by the airlock, trying to stay out of the way while the crew bustled about, preparing to land. The other passengers, recruits of Adega Mining Incorporated, were all funneling toward the cargo hold to gather their equipment. There was a surprising amount of turbulence for such a large craft—the stabilizers must have been in need of repair.

The ship stopped shuddering, and the engine fell silent. Obi-Wan felt the captain approaching before he saw her. She was a tall, fair-haired cathar who had let her claws grow almost a full decimeter out. Obi-Wan had asked one of the crewmen why she didn't trim them, and had been told that the captain didn't care much for pirates. No further detail had been given, although his imagination had been able to fill in the gaps quite nicely.

Her long claws didn't hamper her dexterity any, which she proved by rapidly punching the air lock's access code into the computer terminal. The lock hissed open behind Obi-Wan, and he turned to take in a new world. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the captain sneering at him as he stared.

The sight before him was of an empty, barren land. The ground was dry and rocky, forming a flat plane of stone. There were a handful of dried-out, dusty shrubs growing out of cracks in the ground. It looked as if someone had come along and sucked the life right out of the planet.

"What happened here?"

"Millennia ago, there was a terrible war between the Jedi and our mortal enemies, the Sith. This planet was one of the casualties." Master Jinn wore a pained expression as he spoke.

"Ossus was once full of life—covered in lush forests and home to innumerable creatures. For a time, it was home to the Jedi order. It was an oasis of peace and a storehouse of knowledge without rival. It fell under attack, however, and we were forced to flee. The Sith detonated a nearby star cluster, obliterating the planet's ecosystem and transforming it into what you see now."

The grunts of miners struggling under the weight of their equipment cued the three Jedi to unboard and step aside. When the ship's cargo had been unloaded, Master Yoda handed the captain a credit chip worth far more than their ride should have cost. She grinned ferally as she accepted the payment, and Yoda smiled back in kind. A few minutes later, the shuttle was rising away from the planet's surface with its engines screaming deafeningly. Obi-Wan turned to Yoda indignantly.

"You paid her enough to buy another ship!"

"Master Yoda has his reasons," Jinn assured him.

"What reasons?"

"Wanted for murder, the captain was."

Oh. Because that made sense.

"So you paid her for being a murderer? We're Jedi—we should have arrested her!"

"And where would you have held her, Obi-Wan? On her own ship? No prisons are there, on this planet. And what of the crew? Innocent, they are. Would you hold them here, as well?"

"But she's flying away! What if she kills again?"

"Rest assured, Obi-Wan. Kill again, she will not."

"How do you know?"

"Outfitted with transmitters, are the credits I gave her. Already alerted of her position, local authorities are. Tired from her journey, and leading an unseasoned crew, she is. She will not resist them."

Obi-Wan nodded, knowing that he had no hope of arguing against his master. Not that it would have made a difference—the shuttle was too far away to even be visible to them now. Master Jinn led the way to a small cave that appeared to be a long-abandoned mining shaft. Obi-Wan set his things down in a corner, but master Yoda shook his head.

"Stay here, you will not. Live off the land until you find your crystal, you must."

"But there's nothing here to live off of." The image of the desolate plane outside was fresh in his mind.

"Dead it may seem, but alive in the Force, this planet is. Follow its guidance, and you will find what you need."

Master Jinn clapped him on the shoulder, steering him out into the open.

"Trust your instincts. You're strong in the Force, so they'll rarely be wrong. And when they are wrong, I've taught you well enough that you should be able to handle any trouble that comes your way."

With that, he was thrust out into the harsh light of the planet's twin suns, one to the East, and one to the West. Ossus' day and night changed radically throughout the year, and now was the time when the days were longest. Over twenty hours of sunlight, at a good 40-plus degrees standard—hot enough to be considered a desert planet. Obi-Wan gazed out to the horizon, already feeling thirst's claws scratching at his throat.