"We are to be exiting hyperspace soon," the red-colored 3PO droid reported in her slightly prim voice. "It would be best if you secured yourselves and the child properly within the next five minutes."
"Thanks TeeThree," Lia responded before she leaned over in her crash webbing to inspect Gavin's infant safety seat. Seeing that the baby was perfectly secure in the seat, she turned to her husband. She found him slumped in his crash webbing, fast asleep. "Jorec, wake up. We're almost there."
Jorec yawned as he opened his eyes. He blinked several times to clear the sleep from his eyes. "How long?" Jorec asked.
"We shall be arriving on the planet in four minutes, Master Jorec," TeeThree replied. "Landing shall take approximately twel--"
"That's good enough," Jorec said.
"So, you haven't told me a lot about this Yoda," Lia said. "Have you been keeping secrets from me?"
"No," Jorec chuckled. "It's just that I doubt that you'd believe me after you took one look at him." Master Yoda's diminutive stature had more than likely fooled quite a bit of opponents into misjudging the power of the Jedi Master, and Jorec had little doubt that his wife would be fooled. Jorec himself had been fooled once, and having to give two weeks of dessert to a Twi'lek youngling was his punishment.
"Sure I would," Lia said.
"He's very wise," Jorec began. "Stories of his wisdom and his past experiences were held in the same regards as Odan-Urr."
Odan-Urr?" Lia asked, confused over this piece of Jedi lore that the general public held obscure. It was a piece of information that was once used as the million credit question on a game show before the rise of the Empire.
"He was a Draethos Jedi Master right before the beginning of the Sith War," Jorec explained. "He was also know for his wisdom, and even had a collection of his meditations on the Force."
A few minutes later, the blue hyperspace lanes revert into stars, and a giant planet appeared through the main viewport. At first glance, the planet appeared to be completely void of any settlements, there were no mass concentrations of bright lights that denoted cities. A closer examination by both Jorec and Lia revealed the exact same thing. At first, Jorec's mind began to spin with the thoughts that he, his wife, and his child had been betrayed by Bail Organa, the politician having sent them to an abandoned planet. It was then that he closed his eyes and realized the truth. Yoda was on that planet, and it was a subtle feeling that alerted him to that.
"He's there all right," Jorec said, putting Lia's fears of betrayal to rest as well. "Don't ask me how I know, I just do."
"There's no cities though, what if Gavin gets injured?" Lia asked. "We need additional supplies as well."
"I'd like you to know Mistress Lia," TeeThree piped in. "I have been programmed in emergency medicine as well as basic infant and toddler care. If there any supplies that you may need, I would be most happy to make a few extra supply runs."
"It looks like it's all swamp," Jorec commented on the planet as the droid began the landing cycle.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Lia sighed.
"Don't worry so much," Jorec replied, trying to reassure her, despite feeling a sense of uneasiness in the pit of his stomach that he hoped all parents felt. "I'm sure that nothing bad is going to happen on this planet."
Despite Jorec's best attempts to reassure both his wife and himself, the view of the main viewport was less that helpful. As the ship began to lower itself to the ground, limbs from tall trees brushed against the right side of the viewport. The sounds of the large cargo hold of the Wayfarer-class transport ripping heavy branches from the trees could barely be heard from Jorec's position, but the Jedi knew that outside of the ship the sounds must have been near deafening.
The view was also obscured by a moderately thick fog that rose off of the swampy ground, a fog that occasionally gave the occupants of the transport a vision of leathery flying creatures outside. The sensation of a less than routine landing, the sounds that could be heard outside of the ship, and the relative newness of space travel soon became too much for Gavin to bear. The well-situated infant soon began to let out frightened wails and began flailing his tiny arms and legs, hoping to get this frightening experience to stop.
Jorec and Lia both turned their heads to look at their son, and simultaneously reached their hands towards him. Lia took hold of Gavin's left hand, her fingers closing around the flailing fist and easily stopping it from moving. Jorec moved his hand over his son's head, caressing the brown hair. Both parents softly spoke soothing words in an attempt to settle their son down.
"It's okay, Gavin," Jorec spoke. "It's almost over, and we're all going to be just fine."
"Mama's here, don't worry," Lia added. "No need to be scared."
Seemingly sensing the presence of his parents and being comforted by them, Gavin's fit ended just before the ship set down.
The area in which the Dancer's Dream had landed was soft under Lia's shoes as she ventured out of the ship, the native plant life crunching underneath her feet as she walked around. Jorec had gone on ahead of her, and she could hear him rustling through some tall grass west of her position. A tiny rodent-like creature ventured out of its hiding place. The creature froze upon seeing Lia and soon fled back into the underbrush that it had came from.
The calls of various other wildlife filled the air as the only two adult humans on the planet of Dagobah explored their immediate surroundings. "Where is this Yoda, anyway?" Lia asked. "TeeThree said that he was around this area."
"Within one or two kilometers, she said."
"You'd think with the noise we made landing on the planet, he'd be nearby," Lia said.
"For all we know, he may be watching us right now," Jorec replied. "Trying to see if we're trustworthy or not. Either that or we're supposed to go to him…"
Lia walked a few more meters before seeing the thing. As she brushed a few vines out of her field of vision she found herself face-to-face with a green-colored alien. He was standing on a tall stump, seemingly watching everything that had been happening near the ship. The alien was less than a meter tall, with thinning strips of gray hair hanging from his head. Long ears also dominated his features. "What brings you here?" the alien spoke in what Lia heard as a gruff voice. Startled by the alien's sudden appearance and it speaking to her, Lia took several quick steps backward. She felt her legs hit an upraised tree root that she had previously stepped over, sending her falling towards the ground. She landed in a pile of grass and some soft mud.
Hearing his wife scream, Jorec raced to her location, expecting to find her the victim of some kind of poisonous animal. If that was the case, he had to get her inside of the ship and into the medical care of T-3PO. It was to his thankful relief that he found her sitting up, covered in mud, yet otherwise perfectly all right. He offered her a hand and helped her get back to her feet. "Are you all right?" he asked. "Did you trip on something?"
"This alien startled me and I fell over a tree root," Lia explained pointing towards the green figure that was looking at the couple.
"What alien?" Jorec asked before actually seeing it. "Master Yoda," he said before executing a short bow to the exiled Jedi Master.
"Know me you do?" Yoda asked, not entirely sure on who these two were and why they had come to his planet. He had to admit that the man did look somewhat familiar, and his Force-sensitivity was obvious.
"You may not remember me, Master Yoda," Jorec began, "you weren't the primary teacher for my clan. I'm Jorec Merridon, a fellow survivor. This is my wife, Lia," he added, preparing for the possible scolding that would follow. Jorec had always known Yoda to be an extreme stickler to the rules of a Jedi, and even with the Jedi Order all but extinct for ten years, Jorec assumed that Yoda would have expected the surviving Jedi to still follow the rules and regulations of the Jedi Order.
Yoda paused for a few seconds, trying to remember the youngling version of the now grown man standing next to him. "Remember you I do," Yoda finally said. The aged Jedi Master jumped off of the stump that he had been standing on, and began walking off into the distance. "To meet you, pleased I am," he said to Lia, who was busy attempting to clear some of mud off of her. "For startling you forgive me," he added.
"It's fine," Lia replied. "We're going to have to make a stop at the ship to pick up Gavin from TeeThree," she told Yoda.
"The other Force-sensitive on the planet?" Yoda asked. "Your son he is?"
"Yes he is," Lia replied.
"Sent you here, who did?" Yoda asked. "And for what reason?"
"It was Bail Organa, Master Yoda," Jorec answered. "I've come here to continue with my training."
"Why?" Yoda simply asked as Lia entered the ship to both clean up from her spill and retrieve Gavin.
"For them, mostly," Jorec said as he watched his wife leave. "I want to be able to protect them in case the Empire ever comes looking for us again. I want to be able to make sure that my son grows up in a galaxy in which he isn't hunted down because he is Force-sensitive. And there are others that need protection from the Empire," Jorec added, hoping not to sound too greedy.
"Protect them," Yoda said aloud. "For who? Yourself? Or for them?"
"For them, Master Yoda," Jorec answered, causing Yoda to pause. The Jedi Master meditated on this, seemingly peering into Jorec's mind.
Yoda had once heard something to this effect once before, although not quite so outwardly selfless. There had been grave consequences because of that meeting once before. "Sincere you are," he finally replied. "Slight amount of selfishness in your request there is, but nothing I would call dangerous. Circumstances you spoke of before," Yoda recalled. "What were they?"
"Over a year ago, I was captured by the Empire," Jorec replied. "They tortured me into confessing that I was a Jedi, and then they stuck me on this prison ship to stew for a while. They were trying to turn me to the Dark Side," Jorec added. "The ship I was on crashed, and it took me a while to return to my home. When I was there, Stormtroopers found me out once again and tried to kill both Lia and myself."
"Joined the Empire many of the survivors have," Yoda said as he shook his head slowly. "Some resisted I'm glad to see."
"Have you made a decision?" Jorec asked.
"Train you I will," Yoda replied. "Good practice it will be, eh?" Yoda said, laughing to himself.
Good practice? Jorec thought as he leaned against one of the landing supports. What's that supposed to mean?