Jedi Outpost, Dantooine
"The following students have been paired together for the exercise," spoke Master Flagg, his voice crisp and clear despite its inherently hushed nature. The high, rounded ceiling managed to grab even the old Corellian Master's voice and amplify it loudly into the eardrums of every student, making sure that, unless they were making a strong effort to ignore the old Jedi, they would hear every word he was saying. "As I call your name, please step forward and pick up the gear labeled with the appropriate group name."
Bide allowed himself a long, disgusted sigh. Training exercises that "attempt to recreate situations Jedi might find themselves in should a mission go wrong," as Master Flagg so eloquently put it, struck him as absurdly juvenile. All of the students in the room were well into their teenage years, at the youngest. Why not simply send them on an actual mission? If it happened to go wrong, they would gain invaluable experience; if it went smoothly, then there would still be experience to be gained.
"Oh," he said, not intending to speak out loud, but in doing so attracting the curious glances of several nearby students. Why did he care how the Jedi trained their students? He wasn't here to receive training, he was here to gather intelligence. Monitor the movements of his sworn enemy. But the icy repugnance for the Jedi ingrained in him by his Sith Master, the trained hatred that caused him to regard the clueless students sitting cross-legged around him as his enemy, to take on this very mission, warmed slightly as he caught the gaze of the beautiful Ache Grace. When she noticed that he was staring at her, she smiled and tilted her head ever so slightly to the side, a habit that Bide found would unfailingly cause him to blush and turn away.
"Well, Jedi Shriek? Are you planning on stepping forward any time soon?"
Bide looked up at the time-ravaged face of Master Flagg, now regarding Bide with perked eyebrows and an impatient frown.
"Oh. Yeah, sorry," he replied absently, noticing as he approached the front of the room that he was the first of his three-person team to be called.
"Thank you for your punctuality, Jedi Shriek. Surely, I won't regret my decision to appoint you the team captain. Now, the remaining two members of your group will be Trem Leem and Ache Grace." Bide's heart sank and rose simultaneously. He couldn't stand the self-absorbed Teevan with an overly-inflated ego. But then there was Ache. "Pick up the gear labeledTeam Mynock and head to the hangar. A pilot will drop you off at your assigned location, where you will find instructions describing your mission objectives. You have twenty-four hours to complete the mission and find your way back here."
Trem and Ache, now at the front of the room with Bide, nodded and bowed to Master Flagg. Bide, noticing this, grumbled and bowed awkwardly to the aging Master before turning his attention to the three bulky travel bags labeled Team Mynock. They all looked the same, so he reached for the one closest to him-and found his hand slapped aside by a smaller, paler hand.
"That would be my bag, Shriek," spat Trem, lifting and shouldering the bag in one smooth motion. He locked gazes with Bide for only a brief moment before chuckling and walking towards the hangar. Bide clenched his jaw, resisting the fiery desire to bombard the Teevan with lightning burgeoning within him. The familiar, gentle touch on his shoulder squelched whatever remnants of this desire were left.
"Just ignore him, Bide," said the soft, angelic voice of Ache Grace. "Don't let him get to you. This exercise affects my grade, too, remember?" There was that smile again. Bide couldn't help but nod and return the smile.
"You're right. Sorry, Ache."
"You have nothing to be sorry about, Bide. Well, not yet anyway. But if you mess up my grade I'll have to beat you up, okay?" She winked at him, lifting her pack onto her shoulder and following Trem into the hangar.
Team Mynock LZ, Dantooine
"Good luck, kids!" shouted the pilot as the Raptor-class transport, armed with a rather intimidating array of missile tubes and assault cannons, lifted from the clearing and blasted off into the distance. The trio watched it fade into the distance until not even Bide's trained eyes could pick it out of the overcast sky.
The landing zone was unremarkable, a small, circular clearing of trees amidst the vast forested surface of Dantooine. In the center was a single durasteel crate, atop which sat a faintly glowing lantern. The trees cast long shadows which enveloped the entire clearing, and Bide could tell from the look of the lantern that it was running low on energy. He strode over and clicked the power switch, shutting down the lantern. He turned to Ache.
"Doesn't give off much light, but we might as well conserve what power it has. You never know when you might need some light," he stated matter-of-factly. He unstrapped his pack from his shoulders, dropping it to the ground. When it made contact with the ground, an odd sound like a handful of marbles striking a wooden floor resounded. Out of the corner of his eye Bide could see Ache and even Trem, who up until this point had been staring absently at the spot in the sky where the transport had disappeared, turn their attention to him.
"What was that?" asked Ache curiously.
Bide was fairly certain he knew what to expect when he opened his pack, but he had to be sure. He unbuckled the strap that covered the opening in the pack's top and looked inside.
"What's in there?" Trem asked cautiously. It seemed to occur to all three of them at once that they had not even bothered to look inside their supply packs before departing.
Bide did not reply. Instead he lifted the mesh drawstring bag out of his pack and dropped it onto the floor. The same sound resounded as the bag of rocks struck the floor.
"Great. Just kriffing great," swore Trem, as he removed an identical mesh bag from his supply pack. He and Bide turned to look Ache as she unbuckled her pack and peered at its contents.
"Well," she said hesitantly, "at least we have each other?" She removed a third useless mesh bag of rocks and dropped it onto the ground.
"Oh, yeah, that's just wonderful. Because I would rather have you two and three bags of rocks than food and supplies," retorted Trem. He was about to continue his rant when Bide interrupted.
"Watch it, Trem. We all forgot to check our supply packs before we left, don't take it out on her." He paused a moment before adding, "Besides, we're not exactly jumping with joy because we were paired with you."
Trem snorted in amusement. "Oh, gee, sorry captain. I'll be sure to think before I insult your girlfriend over here."
Bide's knuckles began to turn white as he clenched his fists. The only thing preventing him from ending the Teevan's miserable life there and then was Ache's admonishing stare. Trem smirked at Bide's inaction, and turned on his heel and walked towards the southern end of the clearing. "While you stay here and perform your captainly duties, I'll be doing something useful like scouting the area."
Bide waited until Trem was well out of earshot before letting out the breath he had been holding in. He was so consumed by the thought of wringing the life out of the Teevan that he almost didn't hear the faint and familiar click of the safety being released on a blaster rifle. He leapt towards Ache with speed that took her off-guard and tackled her to the ground just as a beam of energy seared the spot where she stood just a heartbeat earlier. Bide was already on his feet, scarlet lightsaber humming his hands, guarding the shaken Ache from the follow-up attack he was sure would come.
But it never did. Bide stood there for what seemed like an eternity before assuring himself it was safe. He shut off his lightsaber and clipped it to his belt.
"Are you okay, Ache?" he asked, voice full of concern. The attractive Kiffar still lay on the ground, formerly pristine tan robes now stained with dirt and grass, her blue eyes wide with fear.
"Ache?" he repeated when she did not answer.
Her eyes re-focused, and she shifted her gaze towards Bide. Her lips trembled as she attempted to speak. "I-I... y-yeah, I think so. Thanks, Bide." She took a deep breath before speaking again. "What was that?"
"Blaster rifle. The blast was pretty accurate, so if I had to guess I'd say our assailant was a professional."
"Like... a bounty hunter?" she asked timidly.
"Could be. Don't forget, Ache, that not everyone out there likes what yo-er, we do. For a lot of people, we qualify as "bad for business"."
Ache nodded, though Bide wasn't entirely sure that she was focused on what he was saying. She was staring at the blaster burn in the tree at the end of the clearing. Bide knelt down beside her and gently placed his hand on her shoulder. "Don't be afraid, Ache. Remember, "There is no emotion, there is peace," right?"
The words were like poison on Bide's tongue, and he had to resist the urge to throw up. Had he really just said that? Quickly, he added: "And besides, I'm right here with you. I won't let anything happen to you." Bide wasn't sure which remark solicited the reaction, but Ache turned and smiled at him.
"R-right. I'm sorry, I've just never been shot at before-not like this, anyway."
Bide extended a hand a helped Ache to her feet. "Don't worry about it. Now, let's open this thing up and figure out what we have to do," he said, running his hand along the top of the durasteel crate. He hit the release panel, and with a hiss of air the lid of the crate slid open.
Ache stood behind Bide hesitantly. "Not more rocks, is it?"
Bide shook his head as he reached into the crate. "Not much more useful, though," he said, removing a datapad, the crate's only contents, and waving it in front of Ache. "I guess they really want to stress the whole, 'check your pack before you leave' deal, huh?"
"Guess so. What's it say?"
The datapad flickered to life as Bide depressed the power button. An image of Master Flagg appeared on the screen. It must have been recorded years earlier for the same exercise, because Bide could make out streaks of black in his now gray now.
"Greetings, young Jedi. At this point, I expect that you have taken inventory of what supplies you now have at your disposal. For the more forgetful among you, that is not very much at all. Though I must say that in my experience I have found that a bag of rocks can come in handy when you least expect it. Anyway, your mission is one that we, as Jedi, receive quite often. You will make your way to the coordinates provided at the end of this message. There, you will find your charge-someone you must protect. You must escort and protect them as they complete their own objective, and then return them safely to the outpost. Good luck."
A string of coordinates flashed across the screen, and Bide committed them to memory immediately. He checked his watch and quickly estimated that the pick-up point was about a two hour trek from this location-if he moved at their speed, that is. He was about to relay this information to Ache when a bloodcurdling scream erupted in the forest. The source of the scream was unmistakable.
"Trem," Ache gasped and bolted into the forest.