Star Wars Infinities: The Warrior
By Christopher W. Blaine (darth_yoshi@yahoo.com)
DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations contained in this story are ©2003 by George Lucas and are used herein without permission for fan-related, non-profit entertainment purposes only. This original work of fiction is ©2003 by Christopher W. Blaine and may not be reproduced in part or as a whole without the express permission of the author.
CHAPTER 21
Chewbacca sniffed the air as Malakie walked by and could almost swear he sensed something evil in the man's scent. True, the man had done nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that should cast suspicion upon his character, but Chewbacca had not become a famed hunter by just looking at the obvious. Chewbacca understood that there was a layer to everything that could not been seen, but only felt.
Many called it the Force; the equivalent word in Wookie was unpronounceable by humans, though Mara made a pretty good try at it. Perhaps all Chewbacca was feeling was jealousy; over the past few weeks he had grown quite fond of her. Mon Mothma had been the one to free Chewbacca from Imperial slavery, but it was Mara who had become his friend.
Malakie turned his head slightly back towards Chewbacca as he walked into the cafeteria and the Wookie could have sworn he saw a smile on the man's face. He wasn't even sure if Malakie was human at all. Both he and Talon Karde had spent many hours searching through databases compiled during the days of the Old Republic, trying to see of they could classify Malakie's species.
Malakie moved through the crowd of rebel soldiers, pilots and technicians to sit down next to Mara. The big Wookie slowly made his way in and took up a position that gave him a clear line of sight with his bowcaster. Mara was becoming too interested in Malakie and her friends were not happy about it. For Chewbacca, Malakie represented an unknown quantity and as head of security for Mara, he had grown not to trust anyone he couldn't read. Malakie's yellow eyes seemed to mock the Wookie every time he beheld them.
Talon Karde, on the other hand, saw Malakie as a competitor for Mara's affections. Chewbacca understood such motivations and he pitied Karde because the smuggler simply did not stir in Mara the emotions required to produce a successful mating. Chewbacca could feel the way the air heated up when she and Malakie were together. They were two of a kind, he suspected, and it brought him some joy when he saw her face light up whenever Malakie came near.
Chewbacca did not understand fully human mating rituals but he had observed over time that unlike Wookie females, human females were less impressed with feats of masculinity than they were with simple openness. When Mara and her suitor were together, it seemed as if they could talk about anything, as if they had a connection beyond the physical and verbal. It was a connection that Talon Karde could not hope to achieve.
"I don't trust him," Karde said as he came up next to Chewbacca. He held a small piece of fruit in his hand but made not move to eat it. Chewbacca thought it more likely that Karde used getting the fruit as an excuse to come walking into the room.
Chewbacca responded with grunts and growls of his language. Karde had a firm grasp of understanding Wookie, but his pronunciation was terrible. Karde listened to Chewbacca and nodded his head. "Yes, I'd like to know exactly what it is he's doing out in the forest as well. Did you know that once he's 100 meters outside the base perimeter, none of our sensors can detect him?"
Chewbacca asked if it were possible that Malakie was some sort of droid. "It is possible," Karde said as he rubbed his goatee. That thought had not crossed his mind. "I understand that Xizor has some stakes in some companies that produce the very best in Life Model Decoys." Chewbacca said that Malakie might be a plant from Black Sun to monitor Xizor's investment in the Rebellion.
"He's too human in my opinion; don't you sense something from him? It's not mechanical, but then I never was the expert on droid design." Chewbacca joked that he could tear Malakie open to see if he really were an artificial being. Karde smiled grimly. "You would not get any objections from me."
Karde watched as Mara laughed at something Malakie whispered into her ear and he felt the pangs of jealousy begin to rise up from the pit of his stomach. Chandrilla had been destroyed and the only thing that made Mara smile was this unidentified alien with the crazy mother. Karde wanted to be the one who made Mara happy and he had been well on the way to that position before Malakie had arrived.
He decided that the alien was up to something and he hoped it was related to something that would get Malakie shot. "The next time he goes into the woods, follow him. I'll assign some of my own people to watch Mara. Get the evidence we need to get rid of him."
Chewbacca responded by saying affairs of the heart had no place in the Rebellion. "Then look at it this way, he very well may be an Imperial spy. If he's doing nothing out of the ordinary in the jungle, then I really won't have any evidence to use against him, shall I?"
Chewbacca considered the logic and finally agreed. He would follow Malakie and discover the man's secrets.
"I can't stay here," Leia said as she emerged from the jungle. Corran came out behind her, though not quite as winded. His time with CorSec had given him a body required for surviving Quinlan Vos's exercise regime. The older Jedi was amused by the challenge Corran represented and when he wasn't engaged in heated discussions with Ferrin or Dash, he was coming up with new calisthenics for his young padawans.
Though Corran had agreed to be trained, to hone his meager Force ability and perhaps increase it if he could, Ferrin had not been pleased. He and Quinlan had argued and shouted about "one master, one apprentice". Ferrin believed that Quinlan lacked the ability to properly train two Jedi and offered to take one of them off his hands.
Quinlan had pointed out Kyp was Ferrin's apprentice, but Ferrin had shook his head. "I can't teach him very much more than what I have. Were there still Jedi trials, he would be ready for them."
Dash had laughed at the whole thing. "There's a battle station out there blowing up planets and you guys are worried about procedure! No wonder the Emperor was able to destroy your order!"
It had been a sobering observation and it finally led to Leia and Corran spending more time together. Their attraction was growing, especially given their close proximity during heavy physical exercise. "Do you want to go down by the spring?" Corran asked, a twinkle in his eye. It was there that they had held hands. Nothing more than that but it had been the springboard for what they were sure would eventually follow.
"No. I mean I can't stay on Dagobah anymore. Deceptra killed my father and slaughtered the members of the royal family. I have an obligation to my home world," she said as she plopped down on a rock. A snake went by her feet but she ignored it, a major change from the way she originally had felt about reptiles.
"That sounds like a need for revenge; Master Vos said that it was a sure-fire way to the Dark Side." Corran took a seat on a rock a few meters away. "You're too important to the galaxy as a whole. We need the Jedi."
"What good is a Jedi that can't meet their obligations?" she asked. "I am a member of the royal house; I can't just ignore that."
"Master Vos said that sometimes Jedi have to do that to serve the Force."
She laughed. "The Force? Where was the Force when my father was killed? Where was the Force when my mother was murdered along with the rest of Chandrilla? Hell, I don't even know if my sister is still alive."
"Mara? I didn't think you were close…"
Kyp fell out of the woods and into the clearing. He was covered in scratches and scrapes, but that wasn't unusual. Kyp's abilities were far more developed and he tended to take his runs through the treetops. He looked at the tow of them and smiled. The three had started becoming fast friends and Kyp seemed to have gotten over his initial crush on Leia.
The truth was that Kyp simply buried his feelings deep. "Did you say 'Mara'? Do you know a Jedi named Mara?"
"She's not a Jedi, she's my sister," Leia responded.
"Oh," Kyp said, getting up. He did it in a way that allowed him to get a good look at Leia's legs as she rubbed her calves. It was frustrating because for the first time in his life he was having to deal with feelings and desires that he had never before experienced.
By the time he had become a teenager, all of the human females of their colony had been taken by the Vong and transformed into slaves. He never even saw another human female until the Millennium Falcon had reentered the galaxy of his father's birth. In his mind, he saw himself using the Force to dominate Leia, bending her to his will. The thoughts both scared and excited him, yet he was too embarrassed to inform his father about them.
"Why?" Corran asked, forcing his way into the conversation.
"I have a half-sister named Mara," Kyp relied as he stood and started stretching. For someone so young, he was incredibly well developed and even Leia had to admit that physically, he was impressive. There was a darkness that surrounded Kyp as well; borne of the horrible lifestyle he had been forced to live for so long. "She was born before me, before my parents left the galaxy."
"What happened to her?"
"My mother would never talk about her and any time I mentioned her, she would cry. My father would just tell me she was safe." Kyp popped his neck and then reached down for his lightsaber. Both Leia and Corran noticed that Kyp had a tendency to keep his hand on the hilt.
"You use that thing often?" Corran asked.
Kyp nodded. "More than a Jedi should have to." He wouldn't say anymore and the three were quiet for a while longer.
Leia looked to Kyp. "What do you think of my wanting to leave?"
The young Jedi look puzzled; he wasn't used to someone asking for his opinion. "I don't know. You're not trained as a Jedi, neither of you. I believe my father when he says that the galaxy will need as many Jedi as possible in the coming years."
"I'm going to talk with Master Vos," Leia said, standing up. She turned and started marching towards the main camp and Corran hurried to catch up with her. Kyp followed behind, watching Leia walk, enjoying the sway of her hips. He didn't understand these sudden new emotions and because they wouldn't stop, it was making him angry.
He knew that his anger would only lead to trouble but he had no way to control it, no positive outlet. Swinging from branches and dropping several meters to the ground was fun, but it did nothing to extinguish the fire burning inside of him. A fire that he was sure only by having Leia could it be put out.
"Fine," Quinlan said when Leia presented her request.
Ferrin nodded. "Yes."
Corran looked at them and then back to the smiling Leia. Dash was leaning against a landing strut for the Outrider, shaking his head. "Just like that, you're going to let her go?"
"She does have an obligation to the people of Alderaan to at least make an appearance," Quinlan explained. Corran countered that Deceptra would pounce on the opportunity to capture Leia because her abilities had to be known to the Emperor's apprentice. "And the Jedi owe a debt to Alderaan that we can never hope to repay."
"Besides, she isn't going alone," Ferrin said. He put a hand on Kyp's shoulder. "Kyp and I will take her."
Dash straightened up. "That's not very sane. Deceptra will tear you guys new ones."
Ferrin only smiled. "I'm sure Kyp and I can handle ourselves just fine."
Corran saw that Dash was not convinced and he started to realize what the true difference between Quinlan and Ferrin was. They were masters of two different philosophies. Quinlan was the pacifist and preferred being subtle; Ferrin was a Jedi warrior who wanted to end the threat of Darth Deceptra once and for all. Deceptra was one of the things blocking the way for a new age of the Jedi, and Ferrin meant to remove her.
"Does that mean Leia is now your apprentice?" Corran asked.
"No," Ferrin replied, shaking his head. "Though I disagree with Master Vos, which I have always had the tendency to do, this is merely a mission. My son and I will protect Princess Leia as she returns to Alderaan to set the government in order."
"A line of succession has to be determined or else Alderaan will fall into chaos. There are too many wealthy families that want to rule," Leia explained.
Corran was not convinced. He wanted to pull Leia away and talk to her about what was really on her mind, but it wasn't his place. Dash seemed to sense what Corran was thinking and slowly shook his head. "Then my mission is done here, too," Dash said finally, trying to ease the tension in the air.
"Where will you go?" Corran asked and from the tone of his question, Dash guessed the younger man was not going with him. Corran had decided his future; he was going to become part of the new Jedi order. A strange choice for a Corellian to be sure.
"Corellia is under blockade and I don't know where Garm Bel Iblis is hiding at now…I guess I'll head back to Tatooine and see what comes up," Dash said in a resigned voice.
"You spoke of a friend…"
Dash smiled and almost smacked his head. "Lando! Thanks, Quinlan! I'll go to Bespin, see what's shaking there, maybe I can find out where a Rebel cell is at!" Dash hurried back into his ship to start the pre-flight check out. It had been several months since the Outrider had been in space and it would take a good full day to go over her completely.
"Then it is decided," Quinlan announced. "The future is open to us and some of must journey down a path of danger. I wish you well my friends; hurry where you go and be twice as fast on your return."
"We will come back," Leia promised. She looked at Corran and could tell his heart was breaking very slowly, as was hers. In the Force, they could touch each other on a level beyond emotional and she tried to pour reasoning and justification into what she was doing.
What she received back was disbelief and worry. He wanted to go with her but knew he couldn't; it wasn't in the mission plan. Then something else slipped out from his mind.
She smiled despite herself and Corran blushed as he realized that he had communicated too much through the contact. Leia wanted to go over and kiss him, but not here and not now. She did manage to send a small tendril into his brain, giving him a picture of her feelings.
Corran had to turn his head and he made some excuse to go help Dash. He couldn't bear to watch her leave and she couldn't bear to say good-bye. Sometime during their weeks of being together, talking over everything from security matters to politics, walking hand in hand next to a jungle spring, the two young Jedi apprentices had fallen in love.
