On Distant Shores (XIV)
Peace? Even those who say they love peace above all else have a limit. There is not a being alive in this galaxy who will not fight to the death for something. – Pre Vizsla, on the hypocrisy of pacifism.
What little meat remained on the empty frames of the dead carrpi had been picked clean and roasted as food for the villagers, who could not fish. The smaller bits of torn flesh and broken shell had been set to burn, and the larger sections of carapace carved into rudimentary shields or protective panels for the defensive wall. Obi Wan directed the band of Nautolan warriors in the hard work, supervising the construction of new defenses and the disposal of the battle's reeking detritus. Bitter smoke and the scent of burning seafood filled the morning air when the solemn party rested from labors started before dawn. None of them had slept, and yet none wished to yet; the hyper-alertness of war still held them all in its nerve-racking grip.
Qui Gon found his Padawan at the shoreline, where thousands of carrpi eggs littered the beach, gleaming like a legendary draigon's hoard of jewels.
"We should burn these, I suppose," the young Jedi said, without much enthusiasm. He stared at the soft round ovals in mild revulsion. "But, master, I can't quite…"
"I know." Qui Gon handed him a giant kelp-bladder drinking skin. "That is not the Jedi way. To massacre one species in order to save another: does it seem wrong to you?"
Obi Wan drained the skin and weighed it in his hand thoughtfully. "Perhaps. Though common antibiotics do the same, really. It depends on your perspective."
"We have no choice if we intend to save these Nautolans," Qui Gon reminded him. "And even then, I doubt we can repeat a battle like that of last night many times. We need a new strategy."
The Padawan turned the drinking bladder over in his hands. "Do the Nautolans have many of these?' he asked.
The older man's eyebrows rose. "Undoubtedly. And there is kelp drying in the work-yards behind the houses. Why?"
The young Jedi's face hardened, and a fierce, cunning light shone in his eyes. "Because there is full cargo crate of themane fuel in our ship's hold."
Qui Gon's face registered grudging respect and a grim approval of the plan. "You never cease to amaze me. But you had better gather your men and get a move on. I would advise being finished with the project before the Duchess returns to the village for supplies. I do no think she would approve."
"I'm sure she won't," Obi Wan grinned.
"In fact," Qui Gon continued after a pause, "You have inspired me. I think I know of a way to free the whaladons from the polar regions."
"The whaladons, master? How?"
The tall Jedi smiled and hooked two thumbs through his belt. "It is a simple matter of proportion," he said smugly. "I shall apply your principle on a larger scale."
His apprentice now shook his head in amused admiration. "The Duchess will certainly not approve of that," he observed.
"Then I shall go now, before there is time to submit an objection," Qui Gon answered lightly. "Po Tikkoro! Thana! I need your help!" He strode away to the village's center, summoning his trusted crew of Nautolans to his side.
Satine returned to the village in the late afternoon. She hurried down the narrow footpath, driven by a strange urgency. Runners had brought her camp news of the night's victory; had reported that there had been no new injuries of deaths, thanks to the valor of the Jedi; had described in gruesome detail the destruction of the ravenous invaders and the fabulous skill of the warriors who had slain them. And yet these words only spurred her impatience to greater heights. She must see for herself that the village stood, that its occupants were safe, that the fires which stained the clear sky with reeking dark smoke heralded nothing sinister. She must see for herself that…
He was there, alive and well, in the center of the square. Relief flooded her with warmth and she slowed her pace. The handful of Nautolan youths caught up to her, overtook her now faltering steps.
"Gather what medical supplies you can from the long house," she instructed them. "And we will need baskets to carry food up to the camp again."
They scattered to obey her orders and to eagerly question their elders about the battle – the first act of warfare this community had ever endured, ever seen or remembered. She watched, mesmerized, as the men who had survived the battle last night solemnly confirmed the news, and retold the story in their own words. She did not miss the straightness of their backs, their proud bearing, that calm which marked a new-blooded warrior. Her own people had rituals and observances of these vile rites; her men, her fathers and grandfathers, had told their sons of just such feats, with the same grave pride, the same shimmering, impalpable…pleasure.
This was the Jedi's doing. These Nautolans had been peace-loving, peaceful, children of peace. And now they were dyed in the stain of war. Pierced with its venomous, seductive sting. Trapped and lured and transformed. The scales fell off her eyes and she saw Yervei Adah's meaning: balance and peace had here been destroyed, by these two hubristic men who carried the lightsaber. They called themselves peacekeepers but they brought only sorrow and pain and the invisible lingering corruption of spirit. They were destroyers of innocence.
Obi Wan was looking at her now, blue eyes narrowed for a confrontation. Let him see her thoughts! What did she care? Let him feel her outrage like a slap across his arrogant, comely face. He deserved it.
One of his eyebrows lifted, mocking her bold sentiment, and he approached until they stood toe to toe. He was not very, very much taller than she was; and yet his warm shadow seemed to veil and outshine sun, sky and Nautolan villagers alike. The universe coiled inward until they stood cocooned in its heart, resentment like hot fire licking the edges of the unexpressed, setting it to a slow smouldering burn.
"You have taught these people to enjoy killing," she hissed. His tunic was damp with sweat and grime. It clung to his skin, here…and there…
"We have taught these people to defend themselves. Their families. Their children," he countered. "…your ladyship."
The word seared through her, stealing breath, twisting her belly into a hard knot of rage. "Killing! Violence! Bloodshed! Is that your solution to every difficulty?"
"Not every difficulty," he answered, leaning closer.
They struggled, balanced over the abyss. She broke away first, wrenching her eyes from his and glancing down. The lightsaber's hilt glinted silver, cold. It rested against his thigh, against cream cloth stained with ugly dark gore. She tore her gaze upward again, past his searching face, over his shoulder. There she found an assembly line of sorts, arranged with military efficiency along one side of the square. Nautolan men were loading drinking skins with liquid themane from the cargo box salvaged from the asteroid field. Others bound the bladders shut with primitive stoppers, tarring the seals. Yet others cautiously stacked the projectiles in hammocks erected near strategic points around the perimeter.
"Explain yourself!" she gasped, raising her chin and once more meeting his unyielding gaze. "What are you doing ?"
"Shoring up our defenses."
Her hands went to her hips, balling into fists. She watched the Nautolans manufacture the deadly fire bombs. "Those are not defensive measures," she scoffed. "Those are weapons. And one of them is bound to ignite by accident. How can you be so cavalier with these people's lives?"
He stared down at her, disbelieving. "I will launch them all myself," he said flatly. "Nobody will be endangered."
She stamped her foot. "You will!"
It was a mistake, a perilous slip, bringing them far too close to the waiting chasm. With those words she had nearly uttered the unsaid, unleashing it upon them here, now – when there were other foes to combat, other tasks to be completed. She reeled backward, appalled by her own lack of control, her ungainly slip of the tongue. If he replied, if his gaze so much as softened, all would be lost.
But he didn't notice. Damnable Jedi, he had no self to think of. She might as well have said the ocean was dry. He merely shrugged and turned his back, striding over to the assembly line and the busily laboring Nautolans.
"Where is Master Jinn?" she demanded of his retreating back.
A polite pause, and a half-turn. "He has gone to fetch more fuel from the asteroid belt. We have a chance at freeing the whaladons. It's the only way to insure that this siege will ever end, that it will not be repeated in perpetuity."
"He cannot melt an entire planet's ice cap," she stammered, at a loss.
Obi Wan came back, a few paces toward her, stopping at arm's length, a compromise between cold distance and dangerous proximity. "He doesn't need to, if he can blow a passage through the worst of the ice. The whaladons are wise; they will find a way out of their predicament."
She shuddered, all too aware of the double meaning. His voice was gentle, much softer than his eyes and the hard line of his mouth. His hand rested lightly on the saber's pommel. Another thought surfaced. "Master Adah will be infuriated with you," she told him.
The softness fled. "Master Adah has yet to truly make my acquaintance."
Satine took a step backward, wary of his mood. She picked up her basket and wheeled about, leaving him to his wicked ways.
Qui Gon dove down through the atmosphere again, another box of salvaged fuel safely stowed in the cargo hold. His chosen companions, Po Tikkoro and his cousin Thana, sat beside him in the cockpit, thrumming with excitement and tension.
"There are the ice lands, Ke Gon." Po Tikkoro pointed out the viewport.
"I see them. Now – look at the holomap. Where is the best place to blast a hole in the ice? We must leave the whaladons a clear passage."
The Nautolans consulted the flickering image, pointing to its transparent contours and arguing over their import. "We see the places, Ke Gon. One is very close to here."
Qui Gon smiled. "The map is on a small scale, Po," he reminded the eager Nautolan. "Close may not be what you think it is."
"Oh." Thana laughed at his cousin's mistake and received an affectionate punch in return. Qui Gon chuckled. It was like taking a group of Jedi younglings on their first navigation exercise. The fun almost outweighed the gravity of their task.
At last they located the isthmus where creeping ice blocked off a canyon of cobalt water. Qui Gon brought the shuttle over the dip in a swooping motion. Whaladons surfaced and blew jets of steam only klicks away, as though they sensed the impending shift in the landscape. The Jedi dropped altitude and made a long run, opening the cargo bay hatch at just the right moment. The box of themane tumbled, roling in midair, until it impacted on the glacier wall below…
The Nautolans shouted in terror and delight as the volatile liquid exploded, sending up a vibrant fountain of fire and white shards, rending a terrible crack in the white ice. The dark water frothed and churned, and chunks of frozen glacier avalanched into the widening channel.
"How did you do that, Ke Gon?" Po Tikkoro yelled hoarsely. "You have made the ice burn!"
Qui Gon's mouth twitched.. "Not me. Just chemistry."
"Ke Mistri," the Nautolan repeated reverently. "Who is this?"
The Jedi master roared with laughter, and turned the shuttle back, ascending rapidly back into orbit. It was time to fetch another load of ammunition. By the time the planet had completed another rotation, he would have freed the captive whaladons, and turned the tide of the long-term war against the carrpi. The more immediate problem of the village's safety he could trust to Obi Wan. The battle was nearly over.
Not long after nightfall, the first explosion could be heard, echoing up the forest hills from the direction of the beach. Many of those who sat huddled in the camp at the summit hurried to its ridge and stared at the surf's edge with wide, gleaming opal eyes. Satine watched with them, straining through the darkness to catch a glimpse of the chaos unfolding below. All that could be seen were sudden flares of light as the home-made bombs ignited in the midst of the oncoming carrpi.
The noise was deafening; and the sky was soon bedecked with crawling ribbons of smoke and a foul stink, acrid and burning. The moons hung forlornly in the sky, waning in unison, seeming to turn their mouths down at the gruesome war being waged on this once tranquil paradise. Flocks of disturbed sea birds, driven from their roosting places by the furious thunder of the shore, streamed shrieking across the sky. Their ugly voices blared counterpoint to the drum of the explosions below.
The Duchess had just returned from this high vantage point to make another round among the camp's occupants, giving comfort and aid where possible, when the tall thin figure of Yervei Adah blocked her path. Like a ghostly apparition, he seemed to appear out of the night's darkness, out of thin air. The old Jedi glared down at her from beneath the brim of his ragged conical hat. He leaned on his staff like an old man, but even she – bereft of Jedi powers as she was – could sense that the appearance of frailty was a deception.
"What are these people doing here?" he thundered. "What are you doing here? I thought I told you to leave and never return."
The Duchess faced him squarely, while the Nautolans to either side murmured and parted like reeds in the wind, visibly bowed by the old Jedi's wrathful presence. "We have returned to render aid to these people, whom you have abandoned in their hour of need."
Adah swept his silver head side to side, a deep scowl carving his harsh features deeper. "Where are the other Jedi?"
"At the Kumaji village."
Adah's hand tightened about the haft of his stick, making his knuckles whiten. "They have pushed their audacity beyond the bounds of reason," he growled. "These people are under my protection, not theirs. How dare they interfere? They have found a new meaning for arrogance."
Tip Haaleh thrust his way through the terrified crowd of silent villagers. "No!" he shouted at the towering figure. "No, Ke Adah! You are the arrogant one! You are a liar and a tyrant! You have kept us in ignorance like pet chatter-birds! We are a free people, the Kumaji! And if you will not help us to fight these carrpi, then you are no guide, but our enemy!" The furious youth launched himself, trembling, at Adah, but his gangly body seemed to hit a wall in midair. He crumpled to the ground, gasping.
Adah extended a hand. "Hear me, Kumaji!" he roared. "The Jedi follow a path of destruction and imbalance. I have taught you acceptance and balance. This world now favors the carrpi. It is their time. It is madness to defy the order of the universe. If you stand with the Jedi in opposing your destiny, then all my teachings have been in vain. You become creatures given over to the darkness of self, like the Jedi. Your arrogance is like unto theirs!"
Tip gasped and writhed, hands working at his throat as he feebly strove to draw in a breath.
A child whimpered. "Ke Sati! Stop him! Stop him!"
Satine dropped to her knees beside Tip. "Please!" she shouted at Adah. "Release him! How dare you call yourself a Jedi!"
Tip sucked in a desperate breath of relief. Blood seeped from a corner of his mouth. Satine stroked his forehead tenderly.
"You." Adah growled. "You, beauty of Mandalore, know nothing of the Jedi, if you think they practice compassion. Heed my words: before you are done with them, you will know great suffering at their hands."
She stood, suppressing the shiver of cold foresight. The Nautolans clustered about her, behind her, as though she could shield them from this maddened old wizard. Her heart clenched. "Yervei Adah," she said, voice ringing with a clear strength not entirely her own. "You are a useless coward who does nothing while the innocent suffer. How dare you judge those who surpass you in worth?"
Adah's hand reached beneath his robe, and he withdrew a gleaming silver cylinder. Satine's breath stopped. A lightsaber. Would he cut her down here on the spot? The ancient warrior's eyes were like two fiery brands.
"I am the protector of this world, I keep its balance. It is my presence here and my contemplation of the Force that maintains its harmony. Ocean, plant, animal, people: they are all under my care. And you – you and those reckless, impudent intruders you brought with you – try now to destroy the balance of my domain. I will stop this destruction now."
Adah was a madman. He must be stopped. "You are too late," she cried out, fear choking away her voice.
"No," he corrected her, hefting the saber's hilt in one hand. "I must amend my error. This whole line of events was put in motion by my misjudgment. That young whelp of a Jedi should have died when you first arrived. In my folly, I healed him. I allowed him to live, in violation of the Force's decree, and because of that he has wrought havoc on this world. It is my duty to undo my own mistake." He took three paces forward.
Satine threw herself in his path, trying to wrest the weapon from his grasp, but he struck her with his open palm, across the face, driving her onto the soft jungle floor. Then he strode past, heedless of the Nautolans' outraged and despairing cries, and descended the hill like a hurricane about to unleash itself upon a distant shore.