Notes: Yeah! I got the Episode I DVD for Christmas!! WOO! Ewan gets shaved in the Duel of the Fates music- oy! My computer doesn't have 'Ewan' in the spellcheck! …IT DOES NOW! HAH! …wean? What the-??
Only five standard time parts after Aquel's conference with Mace, she and her apprentice were on their way to Ryysh. The Shield Dodger streaked elegantly, soundlessly, and untracked through hyperspace, leaving nothing but a holopad notice behind. Aquel and Kal'Take sat within the austere cockpit of the Dodger, both resting in the small but well-padded seats. Aquel had slept many times in her durable little ship, and by now just the soft feel of the leather behind her head was enough to set her drowsing. Kal'Take, on the other hand, was studying the Dodger's controls with great interest. The young Kyri had loved mechanics and anything having to do with building since she'd constructed her own lightsabers. The way circuits and wires fit together amazed her.
"Do you know much about starships?" Aquel, fighting off a yawn, asked her apprentice.
"Well, only what I've read from the Archives," Kal admitted. "That's not much, since most of my studies revolved around combat. I know about basic ship construction and the newest models, but I'm afraid I fall short with the finer details."
"So do I," Aquel replied a bit ruefully. "I can tell you everything there is to know about the N-1 series, and I know quite a bit about the different parts I put into my ship, but otherwise I'm lost."
"Oh, the N-1… I've heard of those. They're Naboo models, right?"
Aquel nodded. "They're the basic starfighter of the Naboo people and have been for quite some time. This used to be a very old model, and it wasn't in great shape. Then I fixed and… well… you see the results around you. Kuat Shipyards remodeled the exterior, and Rathe Seinar installed many of my… special modifications."
Kal looked over the shining bulkheads, admiration evident in her eyes. "I wish I had a starship."
"Do your people specialize in any specific type of ship manufacturing?" Aquel asked curiously.
Kal'Take lowered her eyes for a moment, seemingly reluctant to answer. "They do…" she trailed off, and was silent. Aquel sensed her discomfort and didn't press the issue. That was odd, though, evading such a harmless question… but instead of probing for details, she changed the subject to something quite different. Aquel was a student of many teachers, all of them rebellious. Naturally she wished to pass on her own unique view of the Force to her pupil, and the best way of doing that was by testing all of Kal's ingrained ideas. What better way to change someone than to make them question what they'd been taught?
"Tell me," she asked suddenly, still staring out the viewport at the white streaks of stars, "why must a Jedi never attack?"
"Attack is motivated by anger, and anger leads to the Dark Side," Kal'Take said, rattling off the phrase that every apprentice was taught before they could walk or talk properly.
"Is attack always motivated by anger?"
This question caused Kal to pause. The codes had never been challenged before, and she didn't quite know how to respond. "Not always, I suppose," she said tentatively.
Aquel nodded, a smile creeping onto her face. "Generalizations are the worst enemy of all. Now tell me, when would it be right for a Jedi to attack, then?"
"In circumstances not motivated by fear and hate, I suppose it would be," Kal said slowly. The basic framework of her morality was being undermined, and though it was uncomfortable to say the least, it wasn't entirely a bad thing - though at the moment the confused Kyri wasn't so sure of that.
"More importantly," Aquel said gravely, "when the mission depends on it." The older Jedi fixed Kal'Take with a piercing gaze, as if mentally transmitting the importance of her words to her young apprentice. "If a mission requires the bending of council dogmas to be successful, do so. If you must initiate an attack to win a battle, do not be afraid to act upon that."
Kal tilted her head to one side quizzically. "What are the Council laws in place for, then?"
"They provide a framework to keep the young from delving into the dangers of the Dark Side," Aquel replied. "There are laws which must never be broken, no matter what the circumstances."
"And what are those?"
"A Jedi must not know fear, nor anger, nor hatred," Aquel said solemnly. "More than attack, more than violence, more than greed, more than possession, more than anything else, these things lead to the dark side. If you do not know fear, if you do not know hate, then you will never know the Dark Side."
"What of the third law of the Sith Trinity?" Kal asked cautiously, bringing up the old three-sided mantra that was at the heart of Jedi training.
"What does that law say?" Aquel asked, perfectly aware of what it said, but wanting her young charge to answer in her own words.
"A Jedi must not know love, for it will lead to hate and the Dark Side."
Aquel gave a tight smile. " Listen closely, Kal'Take, for what you will hear from me is very important. My ideals are based on experience. What I tell you know borders on a sort of blasphemy in the eyes of many council members." She paused and looked up thoughtfully. "Tell me, what, exactly, did they tell you love leads to? How does it lead to the Dark Side?"
"Love leads to possession, which leads to jealousy, which leads to anger, hatred, and the Dark Side," Kal recited, her voice full of uncertainty.
"Is this true for all relationships?"
"No..."
Aquel nodded in satisfaction. "Love is one of the most powerful forces in the galaxy. It truly binds us together, penetrates our being, influences us, speaks to us... in short, it almost seems like the embodiment of the Force itself."
"Then why is it banned?" Kal asked, puzzled.
"Love can also corrupt," Aquel said softly. "If we are not careful with love, who we love, just as if we are not careful with the Force, then we will fall to evil. In ages long past, love was a threat to the Jedi order. Rather than risk losing its young pupils to the perceived threat of love, the Council banned it altogether. You must understand, though, that love can also keep the Dark Side at bay. If you love someone deeply, with all your heart, and that love is pure, the mere thought of it can keep you away from the darkness."
Kal'Take nodded thoughtfully, taking all of this in. It made perfect sense now that she really ruminated over it, but what had brought Aquel to challenge such a deeply rooted doctrine? Certainly there was a reason... but at the moment, the Kyri was at a loss as to what that reason was.
~-~-~-
Kal'Take's homeworld of Kyiish wasn't charted on many political maps of the galaxy, nor was it paid much attention by the Republic. It was a small planet, populated only by the Kyri people and numerous varieties of wild creatures. Imported specimens had made their homes there, turning the once-isolated world into a showcase of evolution. Still, no one seemed to care much about the shorthaired Tauntauns that ran wild across the vast open Kyriish planes, nor about the Kyri themselves.
Of course, the beings in question enjoyed their solitude. They didn't care much for other races and were quite happy to keep to themselves. Their primitive lifestyle wasn't conducive to hyperspace travel, so few Kyri ever left their home forest. Those that did rarely stayed away for more than a year or so, as Kyriish seemed to call to its inhabitants, calling them back.
Drayken was one of the few who had never heard this call. A member of the influential family of Rockbeaks and the son of one of the political leaders of Kyriish, he was a very well respected being both on and off his homeworld. Apart from Kal'Take, he was one of the only four Kyri to visit Coruscant since the formation of the New Republic, which was quite a claim. He had dined with Supreme Chancellors, sat in meetings with Senators, and argued politics with some of the highest members of the Republic - but still, Kyriish remained isolated and quite apart from the rest of the civilized galaxy. No one thought to ask Drayken why this was so. After all, a Kyri so embedded in galactic politics must be doing some good for his homeworld, no matter how invisible.
In truth, the well-to-do Kyri of noble birth was negotiating for himself. With his political connections he could get any information he desired, even the most classified documents. Even at this very moment he was well aware of the coup about to occur within the senate; Senator Palpatine himself had told Drayken of his plans to gain the position of Supreme Chancellor. This would place Drayken in a very nice position indeed: Palpatine was one of his closest allies. With this human at the head of the Republic, there would be little standing between Drayken and his eventual goals. Of course, all of Drayken's gains would be useless if the young Kyri Kal'Take reached knighthood. She was the only hitch in his plan…
Drayken pushed these thoughts of failure out of his mind. Kal'Take was young and vulnerable, no threat to him or his master at the moment. He stretched his muscular arms out, yawning widely as the rising sun peered in through his fourth-story window. It reflected off of his savage, hooked beak and glinting black talons and claws, and his white crest feathers glowed in the sunlight like quicksilver. Indeed, the male Kyri was quite an imposing sight, standing a full five feet tall: a towering height for the avian species. His black eye-crests highlighted glittering green eyes flecked with gold, and his brown body feathers were as smooth as silk. Clad as he was in a simple black tunic and deep brown surcoat, he could have passed for a simple politician. Only the silvery cylinder glinting at his waist marked him as something more.
~-~-~-
Ryysh really was a misrable place, Aquel thought as she pulled the Shield Dodger out of hyperspace and into viewing range of the yellow-brown planet. Thick, acrid clouds obscured much of Ryysh's surface, and what little surface that did show was quite uninviting. Great red pools covered much of the middle regions of the planet, and the rest of it was a dull brown. Three bright stars surrounded the planet: a tiny white dwarf and a pair of larger yellow ones. Ryysh was pulled in an odd orbit around the white drawf, between the two yellow stars in a strange ellipse that kept it close to the boiling heat of its suns constantly. During its cool season, when one side of it faced space rather than the neighboring stars, it still circled close enough to the white dwarf to keep it at an average temperature of 100 degrees Fahrenheit. When it passed between the yellow and white stars, the temperature rose to an unbearable 300 degrees at the equator.
Because of this constant searing heat, most of the planet's middle consisted of oceans of molten rock and islands of glassy melted sand. The poles weren't much better: high, sharp rocky walls thrust from the lifeless surface, their pitted sides eroded from billions of years of heat and gravity. During the hot seasons rivers of magma would flow from the tops of these peaks, carving rugged canyons and deep valleys. It was surprising that anything could survive at all in such a harsh place, but life always finds a way. Massive Fire Worms inhabited the equatorial lava oceans, their thick, diamond-hard hides protecting them from the insane heat. They fed off of the mineral-eating Glass Slugs, and the slugs in turn ingested pitiful nutrition from the sand and rock of the glass islands. Broad-winged, flying reptiles soared across the inhospitable landscape, migrating north during the hot seasons.
The Raptyyr themselves weren't native species: Ryysh couldn't support the evolution of a sentient being. The fierce reptiles were conquered on their home planet and exiled to Ryysh in the hopes that they would parish. This occurred so far in the past, and in such an isolated part of the galaxy, that the Raptyyr's original homeworld is long forgotten. Though the reptiles were sent to the surface with nothing, they tenaciously clung to existence and managed to eke out a meager survival in the rocky poles. Through thousands of years of hardening conditions, the Raptyyr became an isolated, rugged, impossible-to-kill race. Because of their dubious past, they resented all other beings and had no interest in the affairs of other worlds. They kept to themselves, and any trespassers to their planet were in grave danger.
Aquel knew all this. She'd read up on the Raptyyr and knew just what sort of danger she was leading her pupil into. They were unlikely to escape unscathed, and even less likely to rescue Kyna. However, she was bound by her code to attempt the rescue… besides, Kal'Take could use an exercise in real-world dueling.
So she lowered her ship to the Planet's surface, unafraid of the future.