When his eyes opened, Varus heard thunder. It was low and distant, rolling across the dunes to the South. No rain would come. The world, Sarkuhn, had only dry storms of sand, dust, and lightning. It was a wonder anything lived there at all. The only lifeblood of the planet was a deep cache of water that flowed in caverns far below the surface. Most of civilization was there, underground. When they felt generous, they ran wells up to the top-dwellers in exchange for furs or goods from offworld. All the ports were topside, and there were a few brave settlements in the deep desert. Varus was in neither. He lived with Qei in the middle of a vast sea of sand. Occasionally a wayward stranger would happen upon the school, but he would be gone before sunrise of the next day. Qei did not tolerate visitors.

Varus stretched his arms and craned his neck to take in the view from his solitary window. It was still dark, and dense clouds leaked over the horizon. Another sand storm was coming.

"The time is one hour before sunrise," chimed the automated voice of the room's clock. "Would you like to sleep in, Master Varus?"

"No." The padawan rubbed his eyes and rose, with some effort, from his disorderly bed. "You can switch off for now."

"As you wish, Master Varus."

The thunder grew louder and more violent. It drummed across the stone walls and hammered the panes of the windows with fierce vibrations. The sound was an old acquaintance to Varus. Once, long ago, he had been frightened of the great noise in the sky. Now it was more like the firm hand of a friend stopping by for a visit.

The freedom of a storm, Varus thought. Coming and going as it pleases. Raw and untamed power. What it must be like...He closed his eyes and felt the energy crackle in the sky, felt the tempest surge with electricity. Lightning. It flashed like the gleam in the fangs of some primal beast. Thunder. It roared and shook the world with a black volume, the booming voice of some hallowed god, terrible and wonderful from heavens to earth. Could there be a clearer symbol of freedom, of power?

"Good morning, young padawan." Qei stood outside the doorway, fully alert and impossibly reserved.

"Master, please," Varus sighed. "It's too early. Leave me to meditate."

"On what, the storm? You'll have plenty of opportunities for that. Today we have much to discuss. Get dressed and meet me in the garden." With that, Qei vanished from the hall. How he knew Varus was awake, the padawan could not fathom.

"Another day of philosophy, I'll bet."

The storm began to die outside. There was probably another foot of sand covering everything in sight. Varus shook his head and reached for his robe. But as he did, his hand brushed against something strange and rough. It rose and fell in rhythm, almost like breathing. Curious, Varus froze and concentrated on the strange texture. It felt warm...alive. The padawan turned his head and gasped sharply. A cavern snake slept in his robes.

This was sheer nightmare. The cavern snakes of Sarkuhn were twice as venomous as any serpent the Rim could yield. There was no known antidote for their poison because of their obscurity, and one bite almost certainly meant death. They were like phantom scourges of the desert, stealing lives in the flash of a moonlit night.

The adrenaline was already rushing. Calm yourself, Varus thought. The Force is your guide. A Jedi conquers his instincts. The snake began to move, but Varus did not withdraw his hand. The urge to do so was almost unbearable. Brace yourself. The Force is your shield. A Jedi does not attack. The serpent was wide awake now. It hissed long and slow, and its leathery skin began to tense. Varus closed his eyes. A Jedi does not attack, came the lesson in his mind. But what came next? The snake had bared its fangs, and time was running out. Where is Master Qei when you actually need him?

Suddenly the serpent lunged viciously at the padawan's hand. With the Force fueling his reaction, Varus darted his hand away from the venomous fangs and leapt back. A Jedi does not attack. But then what did a Jedi do? A Jedi does not attack..

"Chaos take the Jedi!" Varus cursed. If he delayed any longer, the cavern snake would surely kill him. It was still too close to flee. He had no physical weapons.

So be it then. Varus stretched his hand out again, but this time he spread his fingers and gnashed his teeth together inside his mouth. A burning fire rushed through his veins as he thought of nothing but the storm. Its power to do what it pleased, it's freedom.

I have that freedom. I am the tempest.

Lightning streamed forth from his fingertips. Pure lightning, not the sparks he had toyed with as a child. It hurt to maintain it at first, but the sensation soon passed within acceptance as the power drained on and on, into the snake, burning it from the inside out and incinerating its fragile body. Smoke rose in a great, stinking cloud and filled the room. When there was nothing left but piles of ash, Varus let the lightning subside.

He was shaking, as if a great warmth had left him, leaving a frigid emptiness it its place. Varus turned to find the door. Qei was standing there, his arms folded across his chest and a blank look on his bearded face.

"Open yourself," he recited. "The Force is your voice. A Jedi soothes the hostile."

Varus didn't speak, but merely nodded sickly. That was what he'd forgotten. He'd failed again. "You'll need a new robe," Qei said, nodding at the ashes. "Come with me."



The dark man, shrouded in black, sat upon a cold seat in the cockpit of a small ship. The vessel was discreet, so black that it cast nothing but a silhouette against the stars. It sailed to a bright sphere in the distance, a world of vast dryness and lightning.

"Master," came the hollow voice. It reached across the still air to the back of the ship, where another dark and brooding presence rested. The latter was silent and menacing, probing the bare space around it with a sinister and piercing stare. "We are close now," the voice continued. "The Jedi will never follow us here. It is too far from the Core, even the Rim."

The other presence spoke, deeper and more wary. "I wonder if your feelings are clear on this, my young apprentice."

For a moment there was silence. Instruments slowly flashed in the cockpit, their pale glare glancing off the crimson helmet of the grim pilot. Then, "They are clear, Master. I have felt no sign of awareness." He gazed out the viewport at the stark world in the distance. "This planet is vast and empty of Republic agents. Here we can stay in peace."

"I hope, for your sake, you are right," the other whispered. A pale, lithe hand drew out of the shadows and rested on the pilot's shoulder. "You will be the first to die if we are discovered."