New chapter up! Enjoy. And to those celebrating Thanksgiving...have a wonderful holiday!
Kaedan POV
I hadn't been prepared for Zanthia to physically charge me and push both of us into the forcefield. It took several minutes for me to recover from the jolt. Zanthia lay next to me, also doing her best to breath. By then it was too late to stop the ship, but it was also too late for Zanthia. Several soldiers had managed to get into the hangar and were surrounding us. Admiral Hooritha helped me to my feet.
"What the hell happened?"
"Jailbreak." I replied, finally getting in enough air to talk, though my lungs were still burning from lack of oxygen.
The admiral looked down at Zanthia, who was still on her knees. "And this?"
"She's a former Jedi. She led the jailbreak. The others got away."
I moved towards Zanthia, but she moved, faster than I could have at that point, and stood at the far end of the hangar, lightsabers ignited. I could feel her fear. Her eyes weren't glowing as brightly has they had been when our confrontation started.
"Put those away and surrender. There's nowhere for you to go." I said, retrieving my weapon from the floor, but not igniting it. She was cornered but she was smart enough not to attack. At least I hoped she was. I didn't want to have to tell Bela I was forced to kill her former padawan. I honestly didn't want her blood on my hands. Zanthia had always been a particularly attentive student and I didn't want to kill her. Her death would be a terrible tragedy, even if she was no longer a Jedi with the Order.
I could feel as Zanthia began to calm herself. She was surrendering. I allowed myself to relax, but then I felt something else. She began to get too calm. I could feel her heart slowing down and her consciousness slipping. Her weapons fell to the floor, followed closely by their owner. I made it to her before she fell completely, laying her gently on the ground.
"What happened?" The Admiral asked, joining me by her side.
"I have no idea." I replied, cradling the now unconscious woman. She was still alive, but if I hadn't been a Force user, I would have sworn she was dead.
Kiwiiks POV
"I don't know what happened. She went from terrified, to calm, to unconscious in a matter of seconds. I've honestly never seen anything like it." Master Kaedan explain to us as we stood in the council chambers on Tython. "She must have taken some kind of sedative or poison."
"Zanthia in being looked over by Master Benzel. She'll discover the root cause of her comatose state." Master Satele said. "What worries me more is the reason behind her assault on the station. She said she was rescuing her people from being falsely imprisoned?"
"So she claimed. And she wasn't deceiving me, so she honestly believed what she said." Kaedan said.
"I'll speak to the Chancellor, see if we can get a formal investigation on the circumstances behind the arrest of the chiss. In the meantime…" Satele said, but was interrupted as Master Benzel entered. She was a young Miraluka, with long blonde hair, a pale complexion and wore a red cloth around the area where a human's eyes would normally be located.
"Sorry to interrupt, Masters, but I figured out what happened to Zanthia." She looked down at the data pad, then back up at us. "She's in a Force trance. An extremely deep one. I've heard of them, but have never seen one in person." She looked at Kaedan. "You said she entered this state over a matter of seconds?"
Kaedan nodded.
"Well, a trance of this caliber should have taken several minutes to induce. Fifteen, maybe ten minutes at the least and she should have been in a deep meditation during those minutes. I had no idea Zanthia was powerful enough to do something like this." Benzel said. The healer had been studying the Force around the same time as Zanthia. They had been around the same level when she had disappeared.
"Very few Jedi are." Satele replied. "She obviously hasn't abandoned her training and she's far more powerful than any of us would have guessed."
A young padawan rushed into the chamber. "Master Satele? A recorded message just came in from the orbital station. It's addressed to the council." The padawan handed over a datapad, bowed, then left the chamber.
Master Satele looked at the pad. "Hmm, interesting. No origin, nothing useful to trace the message. Let's see what it says." She linked the message to the general holo display table. An image of a male chiss appeared before them. We was dressed in an official military uniform, but it wasn't Imperial and he stood at attention like a high ranking officer. His gaze was neutral and calm.
"This message is for the Jedi council. By now you no doubt have a former member of your Order in your custody. She is a member of the Chiss Ascendancy and we wish her returned to us. Though she was captured while trespassing on a Republic station, no permanent harm was done to the facility or your people. The situation behind our people's imprisonment by the Republic is a misunderstanding and we wish to negotiate in order to resolve this matter peacefully. Zanthia has spoken highly of your council and the compassion of the Jedi. It's now time to see if she was being misled. Return her." There was slight pause, but the man's expression didn't change. "Her son needs his mother."
The message ended.
"Mother." I said, shocked.
"It would explain why she left the Order. She wouldn't be the first Jedi to leave because they fell in love. And she's been gone five years. Plenty long enough to have a child." Master Satele said.
"Actually, that was the next bit of news I was going to tell you." Master Benzel chimed in. "Not only does her medical scan show that she has indeed had a child, but she's actually pregnant."
"Pregnant and still goes on a dangerous mission in enemy territory?" Kaedan said.
Bezel shook her head. "I doubt she even knows. She's only a few weeks along. The fetus isn't even big enough to be sensed through the Force yet. My concern is that this trance she's in will harm the baby. It's not like there's any reference material about past Jedi going into a deep trance while pregnant. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to pull her out of it safely. I'm reluctant to even try."
I sighed. "I'll speak with her. If I use the Force to communicate, maybe I can convince her to wake up."
"You have the best shot of any of us." Master Satele replied. "I will speak with the Chancellor about this situation, but I doubt the Republic will be willing to release Zanthia, regardless of her situation. Our priority should be to get her conscious again, before any harm is done to herself or her baby."
I nodded and followed Benzel out of the chamber. I only hoped Zanthia would be able to hear me.
Kaedan POV
"The Republic is not going to just give her back. Regardless of the fact that nothing and noone was harmed during the assault, she still committed an act of war against us." I said, taking a seat next to my fellow council member. "The fact that she's pregnant and also has a child back home won't sway them. She had to work hard to be accepted in the Republic before she left the Order, now she'll be seen as just another Imperial."
Satele nodded. "I know. Unfortunately, the longer we hold Zanthia, the worse this situation is going to get, I fear. The message stated the Chiss Ascendancy wishes to settle this peacefully. My concern is what will happen when she isn't returned. How unpeaceful will this get? There is a frequency to send a reply, but I'm not even certain what to say."
I nodded, but said nothing as Satele dialed up Coruscant to talk with the Supreme Chancellor. We knew next to nothing about the Chiss Ascendancy. Would they become violent if Zanthia wasn't returned? The Jedi always sought peaceful ways of ending conflicts such as this one whenever possible, but the Republic wasn't always so enlightened. I had a bad feeling about this.
To Be Continued...
