Chapter 1 – The Wayward Brother
The forest was quiet except for Sharr's strained grunts of exertion, the clinking of his boots on the long metal staff hanging loosely off his shoulder by its worn leather strap, and the dull scarping of the traveling cloak he was dragging behind him laden with his companion, its light grey fabric now ruined by the rocky ground. No matter how hard he listened Sharr couldn't hear anything he was expecting, no skittering of tiny creatures, no soft song of birds, not even the rustle of the many trees that surrounded them the air was so still. It made him nervous.
"I can't see anything. I think we've lost them." The breathless statement was followed by a loud bout of hacking coughing from behind him. Sharr briefly looked over his shoulder to see his associate doubled over before slumping back, blaster grasped in a limp hand resting in his lap and eyes closed. He spared a quick glance down to his legs, one of which was missing, ragged flesh hung just below his thigh slowly seeping blood into his cloak with the flow thankfully being stemmed by a scrap of cloth being utilized as a makeshift tourniquet.
"Just because you can't see anything doesn't mean we've lost them," he replied, "keep a lookout and be ready with that blaster."
There was no reply, not that he was expecting one from his injured friend. He redoubled his efforts through the wood and brush, drawing into the force to dismiss the fatigue that was creeping into the edge of his conscious. Knocking his wrist against his belt Sharr attempted to activate his batted, mud covered, communicator, grunting in triumph as it lit up green in response.
"R3?" he waited in apprehension for the little droid to respond. Eventually a confirming whistle made its way through the static.
"R3, I need you to activate the Savage's distress beacon." Some more whistles and beeps, this time more urgent but Sharr cut them off. "I am very aware that'll let the pirates know where we are. I don't care. I need you to send a coded distress signal. Protocol four three two." Another confirmatory whistle before the device shut off.
"What's a four three two?" Andros's voice was weak.
Sharr grunted with effort as they began to rise up a hill. The trees had begun to thin out as a clearing became visible in the distance. "Jedi distress codes." He replied curtly, "The four is a Healer's code medical emergency, the three tells them that the patient is a non-Jedi combatant, and the two is the severity of the injury from a scale one to nine. If there's a republic ship within range they should find us."
"Because there's lots of republic ships just hanging around the edge of the outer rim."
"You just concentrate on saving your strength and let me worry about getting us off this rock." He was right, the chances of Sharr's old and battered distress beacon reaching anybody, whether they could help or not, was remote but there really wasn't time for Andros's cynicism. Sharr needed a plan and fast.
With one last push of strength they crested the hill into a large open clearing with two ships landed slightly askew in the centre. The first was an old Savage class Starfighter striped of most of its original paint, exposing the metal below. The engines had been removed and replaced with new less elegant one that incorporated a hyper drive and a panel in front of the cockpit had been crudely replaced with an Astromech dock. Underneath one of the wings sat the docks occupant, a small white Astromech leaning over a battered metallic orb covered in blinking lights. The second was a newer, single person, transport, in a beautiful shade of dark green.
Sharr ran up to large bolder embedded in the ground close to the Savage, about thirty meters away from the treeline. Moving gently as to not hurt him, he rested Andros against the face of the bolder facing his savage. Andros sighed in relief fell back, the tension vanishing from his shoulders and neck.
"You know what, I'm feeling better." His voice was barely audible; his face was ghoulish and covered in a cold sweat. Sharr leaned forward and lightly placed two of his fingers against Andros's neck. His pulse was lightning fast but weak.
"Can you feel your leg?"
"No," he lapsed into a blissful smile, "It's like it never happened."
"Okay. That's not good," he glanced down at the ruined appendage and the slowly growing pool of blood surrounding it, "you're going into the early stages of Shock from blood loss. I need to deal with that before I can try and deal with your leg," he said calmly.
"You don't sound too worried."
"Well, the Shock's going to kill you in about….thirty minutes? Lay back." Sharr placed his thumb and middle finger against Andros's forehead and began to concentrate. He slowed his breathing, centring himself into the moment. He began to reach out into the force looking for life. He could feel Andros, a weak light in the turbulent living force. He focused on him, feeling his heart beating its frantic rhythm. Gently he claimed it back to a more normal rate.
With that done he reached out into the sounding forest, searching through the trees and the brush for their pursuers. He didn't have to search far; twelve beings were lurking the edge of the treeline, creeping slowly around. Their emotions were seeping into the living force around them, anticipation, apprehension, a dark lust for violence that sickened Sharr to his core.
He slipped back into reality. "Well, the good news I have something for the Shock in my ship. The bad news is it's probably not the thing that's going to kill us."
Andros's eyes had completely glazed over now. "I guess they've court up with us. Hahaha." He began to giggle uncontrollably, his pale face contorting into the manic grin of a man who was slowly looing hope.
"Yeah," Sharr set his staff down next to them before shifting to his feet, "and they've found some friends."
Sharr got up, pressing his back against the rough surface of their cover. He needed his kit, the medicine and field surgical tools stored snugly in the rear compartment of his fighter. He readied himself, concentrating on his target. He needed to expose himself for as little time as possible, a quick dash from their hiding place to underneath the wing where R3 was nestled safely.
He readied himself and began to mentally count down.
Three. In the corner of his eye he caught a glace of one of pirates skulking far round the clearing edge.
Two. A flash of steel in sunlight danced in his peripheries.
One. A soft click in the silence echoed cacophonously.
He launched himself, head down, towards his ship just as the lance of ruby light shot across the plane. Sharr realised his mistake a second too late. He missed his step deliberately, instead face plating into the hard ground and flinging his arms over his head as he slid to a stop.
The explosion that followed was deafening. A blistering fireball ballooned outwards, scorching the back of Sharr's hands before disappearing into nothingness. Bits of shrapnel flew everywhere, embedding themselves into the ground around him leaving smoking and smouldering black scorches across the rich green grass. His poor droid and the device it was crouched over were blown back, bouncing along the heard ground for many meters before coming to a skidding stop the light having died from its eyes.
Quickly Sharr came back to his senses and crawled back to the safely of their rock.
"And they've also found a rocket launcher," he said through heavy pants. "Isn't that just brilliant." He glanced over at Andros only to find him slumped lifelessly against his rest, a large red welt tipped with burnt skin growing alarmingly on his forehead. He shook his head in exasperation. "Well friend, today is just getting better and better." He reached over and felt for his pulse again with its weak presence reassuring him that Andros was in fact still alive. Shifting his hands to Andros's temples he slipped his friend into a shallow healing trance. Andros wasn't a Jedi, not even close, but the healing trance might be able to give him a few more minutes of leeway.
There was second shattering explosion as the second much lighter ship was wrenched up into the air from its sitting point before slumping back to the ground in a crumpled heap, shattered like it was tissue paper. Well that confirmed it, they weren't getting off this planet the same way they got on. This had gone too far. He needed to put a stop to it, Sharr realised, before it was too late for Andros and himself. With a small shake of his shoulder his lightsabre slipped down to his hand. Its shaft, pitted and tarnished from extensive use, rested gently in his loose grasp as it hung loosely at his side. He rose to his feet and, after straightening his grime and soot covered white robes,
He strode out with confidence. Walking openly into the centre between the rock that had been providing its invaluable cover and the shadows that consoled his pursuers.
A red bolt shot out from the cover with a streak. Sharr stopped suddenly rising his staff slightly before swatting the shot from the air with an arcing swing but, instead of rebounding, the bolt stopped. The staff rang with a hollow note, with only a scorch mark on the ornamental head to show of the shot's existence.
As he continued forward, a few more scattered shots were aimed his way, each of which was batted away with ease. It was strange, he thought there would have been more of a coordinated attack but they were more optimistic pot shots than anything else. Stopping, he began to prepare to shout his message to their pursuers. The shots stopped, Curious.
"I am Sharr Jorant, Knight Healer of the Jedi Order. I demand you cease hostilities immediately." He shouted, using the force to amplify his voice three fold. It was a useful little trick his Master had taught him years ago. Sometimes being the loudest person did in fact give you some authority. Sometimes.
There was silence for a second as they appeared to contemplate his demand. Then, a rustling from immediately in front of him followed by the emergence a rather large figure limping forward from the brush. She was wearing heavy set leather armour, warn and darkened to almost blackness, creased and curved with age. He face was pitted and scared beyond her years, her eyes well sunken into her face, and with a nose obviously broken and re-broken many times over to the point where it was deformed and squashed up into her face. Her left leg was missing, replaced by a spindly, rusted, artificial replacement with what appeared to be a seized up knee joint, leading to her prominent, loping, limp. Her gun hung by her side, her hand twitching gently toward the trigger.
"Well bless me backwords lads, this chap things he's one o' them Jedi!" Her voice was ruff, as if her throat had been damaged at some point and hadn't healed properly. Her statement solicited a round of laughs from the waiting thugs hidden in the brush. "Well then Master Jedi," she give a mocking bow, needlessly extravagant in its execution, "I am Granda, the ruler of this 'ere fine planet. And I'm afraid I cannot ask my men t' cease their 'ostilities as you have chosen to trespass on my employers land and take 'is property. "
"I'm afraid you're mistaken, this planet is marked as unclaimed in the republic archive." There was no humour in his voice, he needed to have this dealt with quickly for Andros's sake. Besides, he didn't think that he and Granda were going to end up best of friends. "I'm here on Temple business and you are impeding my mission. Now I insist you cease hostilities so I can administer emergency medical attention to my companion whose leg you've blown off with your illegal minefield you have set up back there." He almost shouted the last part. He began to show his breathing, centring himself again. He couldn't afford to lose control here.
"Now Master Jorant, you gotta' see this from my point of view. A mysterious man wanders into my camp, gets 'is friend's leg blown off, then expects me to believe he's a Jedi?" She shrugged awkwardly, "How am I meant t' believe you when you don't even have a lightsabre," she pointed loosely to his staff with her pistol, "all you got is a fancy stick."
Sharr rolled his eyes in frustration. "While I respect that I don't look like you expect, I can assure you I am in fact a member of the Jedi Order." He thumbed the activator on the leather handle of his staff to demonstrate his point. With a hiss a small emerald blade, only about a foot long, emerged out of the golden decretive emitter on top. It spat and crackled, almost like its energy was on the edge of bursting free. "Now you must realise that I don't want to fight you but your actions are putting my patient in severe danger." His eyes began to wander, scanning the tree line for her friends, watching them as they spread out into more advantageous positions. She was stalling, allowing her men to ready a final ambush to take him out as fast as posable. He reached out with the force, silently feeling where each solder stood and holding their presence in his mind
A cruel smile twisted onto Granda's face. "That sounds like a 'you' problem t' me dunt' it lads?" This prompted another round of laughter from the brush.
Sharr began to respond only to be cut off by a high pitch tone. He looked down to his wrist to the surprising sight of his short range communicator blinking at him with a green light.
"What's that?" It also appeared that Granda had noticed too. She gestured at his wrist with her blaster. "I got you surrounded remember so no funny business."
"This," Sharr raised his right arm and pointed at his communicator with his free hand, "is my short range communicator. It's telling me that I've got an incoming transmission on an emergency Jedi frequency."
Granda gave a sharp whistle and a jerking motion with her free hand to an unseen solder behind her. "Spread out and keep a good eye, he's got back up." She never broke eye contact with him the entire time. After the few seconds the shuffling behind her settled down she addressed him again. "How many others are here?" All of the joking bravado that had inhabited her voice before was now gone, replaced by a cold edge to her voice that felt far more natural.
Sharr paused for a second as he considered his options. "It's just me and my friend. I don't know who's trying to contact us, I didn't know there were any more ships in the system." A Jedi didn't lie, or at least he tried not to. And besides her own paranoia might work against her here, make her believe he was lying and she would send some of her men to find the non-existent reinforcements; less for her to use and him to deal with.
"LIER," She roared. She pointed her blaster straight at him. "Answer it. Tell 'em t' back off!"
He activated the communicator. "Sharr here."
A voice he didn't recognise came through the tiny speaker loud and clear. "Knight Jorant, this is Captain Tae of the Derevi. We have your position prepare for immediate emergency pickup." Whoever they were they must have been close his short range communicator was just that short ranged. Sharr considered his options for a second.
"Negative, Situation has escalated to four three one with engaged hostiles."
"Confirmed, prepping payload drop."
"Wait, what?" He stared at the cut coms link as if the silence would answer his questions.
"What's the payload?" Granda's rough voice brought him back to reality.
"Hell if I know?" he shrugged at her, "you heard he same thing I did."
"Ahh screw this, put 'olls in 'im lads." With that she unleashed a plethora of bots towards him.
"No, no, no, no, no." Sharr quickly backpedalled as he struggled to raise his staff in time to block the hastily aimed shots. More began to rain from the tree line. They were poorly aimed and uncoordinated but if he didn't deal with the situation quickly he would be overwhelmed. He drew upon the force, preparing to bound faster than any normal man could towards his aggresses only to find Granda baring down upon him.
She let out a second brace while charging of shots before leaping at his reeling position, brandishing a cruel looking vibroblade before bringing it down hard at his head. He lifted his staff to bock the incoming blade, blinking as a small shower of sparks showed down on him.
He stumbled backward, struggling to bring his staff around despite it's lightness to block the flurry of stabbing motions Granda made towards his midsection. He swatted the blade away after the third strike hard enough to grant him an opening. Swinging the staff around so the humming blade was pointing at her, he then when for his own trio of jabs. She dodged out of the way, showing a nimbleness he wasn't expecting for someone in such heavy set armour.
They broke apart and the rain of fire began again, their shots safe now that their leader had disengaged a little. He took up a defensive position, bringing his staff up to block but not reflect the blasts. He knew he couldn't keep this defence up forever, his saber skills were poor at best and the staff wasn't suited to this this type of combat. He had to reengage Granda, ironically for his safety above anything else.
He leaped high in the air to cover the distance quickly, brandishing his staff and thrusting the blade downwards towards his opponent. She dodged out of the way easily but that was beside the point, the move had the desired effect as the gunfire slowed. He landed funnily, with all his weight on his front foot. Pain shot up his right leg as he stumbled slightly.
Capitalising on this Granda skirted round his back, rising her blaster to take aim at the back of his neck. He caught sight just in time using his free hand to deflect her arm downwards with the force. The bolt missed his shoulder by an inch. Not bothering to turn he levelled his staff and rammed the pummel end into his adversaries face. A sickening crack came from her jaw as her lower face slowly ran with blood. As he retracted the end of his weapon it was clear that she was missing a teeth and the side of her face was already showing signs of swelling.
"You'll pay for that Jedi" she grunted through was clearly a broken jaw.
Suddenly a great raw overtook the battle, easily drowning out the sounds of blaster fire and sparking crackles of Sharr's lightsabre. The air around them began violently vibrating, slowly at first, but building to a point when all of the trees were flailing madly with the wind as a large crimson ship descended, the three huge engines at its rear flaring to keep it air born and stable in the wind above the tree line.
As it descended the large turrets that were embedded in its hull began to swivel to face the tree line. Granda, seeing the writing on the wall, began to back away.
"Scatta you loons!" she spat, tuned, and began to dash towards the treeline where her crew had begun to get out of the way of the turbo lasers. With a deafening screech they blazed to life, blasting entire tree trunks down in the gunners attempts to pick off the scattering pirates. Taking advantage of the interlude where he wasn't the focus of gunfire, Sharr began to limp backwords onto stop at the sounds of thudding behind him.
He spun to see a group of figures jumping out of the lowered embarkation ramp of what was presumably the Derevi. A squad of solders, dressed in the neat grey uniform of the Jedi temple security forces, began to fan out with blasters levelled leasing a controlled volley of fire into the tree line. Behind them was two of the crew, carrying a clearly makeshift stretcher between them.
He waved them towards the bolder, "Over there, Get him some Bacta". They nodded and began to jog off towards the wreckages of the ships.
Finally, striding down the ramp was a Jedi, lightsabre drawn and batting away stray bolts with practiced ease. The man was actually quite handsome, for a Jedi at least, tall and lean but with enough muscle to easily fill his robes. He had pale skin with the only blemish being a large red scar across the left half of his temple. His hair was a light blond and pulled back into a braided ponytail. His face was contorted into a serious expression ill-fitting of his soft features.
"Get the Civilian and the Idiot on board."
Sharr had to laugh. Despite being huge, Knight Sentinel Kir Kyle was still possibly one of the least intimidating people he had ever met. He began to run towards the ramp before pausing and turning towards the wreckage of his ship. A hand on his shoulder stopped him.
"Where do you think you're going?" there was no humour in Kir's voice.
"Perfect, you can help." He grabbed Kir's sleeve and began to drag him towards the smouldering remains if the fighter. It only took a step before he could stop dragging his friend and they were sprinting side by side.
"Sharr what the hell are you doing we need to leave now before they regroup."
The skidded to a stop and Sharr began to franticly look about the wreckage. "Yeah I know give me a second." He quickly searched and, after a few seconds, he found what he was looking for, a soot covered footlocker buried under the debris where his cargo hold used to be. "Here, help me with this"
He reached down to grab one of the two side handles only to recoil from the scorching heat. He steeled himself and, after rapping the sleeve of his traveling robe around his hand as protection, he grabbed the handle. It burned in excruciating pain but he grit and took it. Looking over to Kir to confirm that he and followed his example. They gave each other a small nod of confirmation and then began a controlled sprint back to the ship.
"Objectives secured, all units move back to the Derevi." Kir shouted into his communicator the addressing Sharr "You remember the two prong retreat cover."
"Yes, I'm not completely inept."
"Perfect." They reached the top of the ramp and threw the footlocker as far as they could into the cargo hold and spun, Kir igniting his lightsabre and Sharr simply bringing his staff hilt to bare. In unison they formed a moving wall, defecting all incoming blaster fire to keep the ramp clear as the solders backed up in-between them while giving covering fire to their fellows.
After thirty seconds or so the last of the ground troops were on-board and Kir activated his com again. "Captain, everyone's on board, get us out of here."
"Yes Sir." Came the reply. The ship began to slowly rise into the air, having to get well above the tree line before it could leave the clearing. Kir deactivated his saber and began to turn to his troops, the last few futile bolts being so badly aimed they no longer required their attention. Sharr lingered for just a second, looking down into the open clearing and the chaos that they had left behind. He was about to turn away, but out of the corner of his eye something court his attention, two figures one with a loping gate dragging another behind them. The first figure dragged the second to the centre of the clearing and then began pointing at the open cargo ramp. The other knelt and then brought a large object up to their shoulder.
"KIR!" he grabbed his friend and swung him back round to face the opening just as the ruby shot lit up below them. "Together!" was all he had time to shout. Like a well-oiled machine they grasped each other's shoulders and reached out with opposite hands. Together they reached out and felt for the incoming rocket and, in a blink of an eye, found it and rapped it in the living force.
"Down." Whispered Kir and together they began to push, moving their arms in tandem downwards. The rockets arc flattened out, shooting just under the lowed ramp lip and detonated below them, violently shaking the ship. Cresting the tree line the Derevi's engines flared and quickly the clearing began to shrink rapidly behind them leaving Granda and the foul language she was no doubt throwing their way long behind. They stood and watched until they were well out of sight and the hull doors were closed as they rushed towards the upper atmosphere of the planet.
Sharr slumped backwards onto cold wall of the Derevi's cargo hold, slowly sliding down to the floor to rest his arm on the battered and blackened footlocker. He looked over to Kir who had adopted a similar position opposite. "Have I ever told you have immaculate timing?"
"Really?" He replied in an exasperated tone.
"What?"
"After two years of you wandering about, I find you getting your ass kicked in a fire fight and that's how you chose to greet me?"
"What would you prefer 'Hi, Kir. How are you? Oh and watch they have a rocket launcher.'"
"Given the circumstances, probably."
Sharr let a short laugh. "Well, I can't say how good it is to see you old friend."
Kir rolled his eyes. "You too you big idiot. Now, how about you start by explaining where the hell you have been and why you're on a force forsaken planet in the middle of nowhere getting into fights with pirates and getting civilians blown up."
"Kriff!" Sharr shot up only for his own foot to betray him. It gave in and pain lanced up his leg as he landed flat on his face. He began to scramble back up. "Where's the med bay? Where's Andros?"
With a wave of his hand Kir dismissed the question, "Calm down, he's fine."
"Fine?" Sharr looked at him sceptically.
"Well fine's relative. He's stable in the med bay. The healing trance you put him in has probably saved his life."
Sharr slumped back to the ground, his head slowly slipping into his hands. "Kriff. I screwed up."
"What were you doing here Sharr?" Kir fixed him with a serious look, not an angry one or disapproving, such thing would be unjedi like, just concern.
"The planet was meant to be uninhabited." His voice was muffled by his hands. "All the maps said it was safe. I should have been more prepared."
Kir sighed. "There was no way you could have known they were there, I checked the Jedi archive data as we entered the system, we had it marked as safe as well."
"That's not an excuse."
Kir was about to retort his dismissive remark but a quiet beeping interrupted him. He tapped his com so Sharr could hear. "Master Kyle, we've broken lower atmosphere and are preparing to jump to light speed."
"Excellent work Captain. We'll move to the bridge for the jump." He moved to shut off the device.
"Actually Master we have a communication incoming."
Kir shook his head. "We're in a rush Captain. Take a recording and jump as soon as you can."
"I'm sorry Master but I can't dismiss it."
Kir looked puzzled. "What? Why?"
"It's a priority one, straight from the Temple."
"Shit." Kir shot up in an instant and began dragging Sharr to his. "Make yourself look presentable," he gave him a quick look over only to see Sharr ruined white Jedi robes, "on second thought just follow me." He began to drag him out of the cargo bag and through the tight corridors of the ship.
"Why are you getting priority calls from the Temple?" Sharr shook his head, "No, wait we've missed something." He pulled on Kir's shoulder to stop him and swing him around. "Why are you even this this system? You said it yourself this is the literal middle of nowhere."
Kir smiled at him. "I'm on assignment."
"Here?" he deadpanned, "Really?"
"Yep." He turned and led him into a smallish room, probably converted crew quarters with all the furniture striped out and replaced with a large holographic array.
"The Council needed a Shadow here."
"Well, not just the Council, it was a joint opp."
"With who? To investigate what? There's no reports of Dark Side sympathies in this sector," he paused for a second thinking, "In fact there's no reports of anything in this sector."
"Sharr, for Consular you can be awful dumb sometimes." He pushed the control on the back wall and the array hummed to life.
"Knight Kyle, What's the situation on the ground?"
He froze, his retort dyeing in his throat. The cool female voice gave him chill down his spine. "Master Tarwin," he spun on the spot to face the fully sized hologram of the Bothen Jedi staring at him intensely.
She gave him an unamused look, her long face twisting into a small scowl. Jedi Master Sei Tarwin was a member of the Circle of Healers and the chief of internal medicine in the temple infirmary. The Bothen was widely regarded as one of the best medics in the galaxy. She was terrifying. She was also his old master.
She ignored his outburst and turned her attention to Kir. He gave a small bow before talking. "Master Tarwin the operation has been a success. All of the targets were extracted successfully and the civilian is stable in the Medbay."
"Excellent work Kir. The Derevi has been given priory through Corasont orbital control so just proceed straight to the Halls. The temple guard will meet you at the landing pad."
"Yes Master." He gave another shallow bow.
"Okay I'm confused." Sharr stepped in, "I thought you were on assignment."
Before Kir could respond Sei stepped in. "Knight Jorant, Knight Kyle is on a joint operation between the High Council and the Healers to find a person of mutual interest."
Oh. It suddenly began to dawn on him. He turned to Kir. "You were tracking me aren't you?" Kir gave a small sad nod.
"Knight Kyle could you give us a minute please?" Kir gave a third small bow before excusing himself. "Jedi Knight Sharr Jorant you have officially been recalled, you're ordered to return to the Temple immediately and submit yourself to the Circle of Healers."
"Master, while I appreciate…"
"No, I don't think you do." He stared at her, dumbfounded at her uncharacteristic interjection, "you've been out of contact for two whole years on this escapade! The only reason we've managed to contact you is because you managed to get a civilian injured during your little endeavour."
He shook his head, finding his voice again. "While I do admit it has been a while since I was last at the Temple I hardly feel it necessitates an escorted recall."
She stared at him incredulously. "Where would you like me to start Sharr? Shall we start with the fact that you've missed your mandatory rotation in the Halls of Healing for the past two years? Or would you like me to remind you that ignoring priority one messages from the Circle is both an incredibly severe offence and looks very suspicious. And do I even need to mention the unauthorised requisition of a Jedi Starfighter and enough gear to last...well...two years apparently."
"Ah," Sharr shuck his hands dismissively, "Knights are excluded from rotations while on operations and the Starfighter was only equipped with short range coms so I couldn't receive any messages if I wanted to," He gulped, "which I'm really hoping you don't want back… "
If looks could kill he would have been obliterated by Sei's gaze. "Priority ops. There're excluded while on priority ops. Which are decided upon by the Circle. Collecting seed samples for medical research isn't considered a priority Sharr. And your short range coms didn't stop you contacting your academic friend on Nal Hutta. I'm not even going to ask about the ship."
"That's probably a good idea."
She sighed exasperation. "Look it's not as bad as it seems. Just don't make a fuss and come back with Kir and we'll get this all straightened out with the Circle and the High Counsel."
That made him stop. The Jedi High Council didn't normally get involved with the affairs of the Circle, or Knights for that matter, outside of assigning missions. They definitely didn't step in to enforce missed medical rotations. "Why am I being recalled by the High Council?"
"You've been AWOL for two years, and even when we did know where you were you've repeatedly ignored Order transmissions. They were going to declare you a Dark Side renegade. It took me and Knight Kyle an hour to persuade them that you weren't a threat and to just issue a recall not an arrest warrant."
"That seems a little extreme."
"The high council have been a little on edge since Dooko left," he could hear her voice soften, a little concern seeping in at the edges, "then you just up and went without warning. me, Kir, and the circle all know? That wasn't reason enough to send a Shadow? Just come back and we'll get this sorted out."
It seemed that the list of people that he need to apologise to was rapidly growing. He relented, any sense of defiance in his voice melted away. "I understand Master, I'll be back as soon as possible."
"Good. Now go, rest, and look after the civilian."
He bowed low to avoid the bothans piercing eyes. "Yes Master."
"And Sharr?" he looked up to see a small smile on his Masters face. "It's been too long, it will be nice to have you back in the Halls." The hologram flickered and then died, leaving him in the darkness.
Kir was waiting for him outside. "That didn't sound fun."
"That's a understatement. So you were chasing me for heresy?"
He chuckled slightly. "Heresy is such a strong word, I prefer checking up on a old friend." Sharr fixed him with a sceptical look. "That being said, I do need your lightsaber." Sharr rolled his eyes before handing over his staff. "Now come on, I have a bottle up in my quarters and you look like you could use a drink."
"You know me too well."
He smiled. "That and consider it payment, as you must have one hell of a story and I want to hear it before me make planet fall."
At that point the ship shook, they had broken the upper atmosphere and were about to made the jump to hyperspace. Sharr was on his way back to Corisont, back to his home, whether he was ready for it or not.
AN: Hi guys! Welcome to my first attempt at writing and I hope you enjoyed it! If you did feel free to come along with this silly little dyslexic on this journey. It should be fun at the very least.