Disclaimer: I own Del, Kor-Ben and The Man, but not his last name. Lucas owns that, as well as the planets Coruscant and Corellia, the Sith (which he can keep) and the Order of the Jedi. I also own the Centennial Eagle, but owe the inspiration for the name to George Almighty.

Summary: One thousand years before the Empire was even imagined, the Sith were running rampant, trying to take over the entire galaxy. They might have succeeded, if it weren't for one hotheaded Padawan.

/bla/ = italics

~*~*~

Del Myriad, episode I: The Sith wars.

Chapter 4 : Leaving

Del Myriad stormed into her quarters. She slammed open her trunk and took out a tan rucksack, tossing her spare cloak, tunic and trousers in the bottom. She tore the blankets off her bunk and stuffed them in after. She threw her spare boots, followed by her spare utility belt on top of the blankets in the rapidly filling rucksack. She was trying to stuff her lightsaber repair kit down the side of the bag when Kor-Ben stepped into the doorway.

"Del! What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" she replied angrily.

The appearance before the Jedi Council hadn't gone too well and Kor-Ben knew his Padawan had felt slighted and unjustly reprimanded, but he hadn't expected Del's reaction to be this extreme.

"You must learn to control your anger, my young Padawan learner. Anger leads to hate and hate-"

Del interrupted : "-is the way of the dark side I /know/! I'm sick of all these quaint little phrases you spew out at every turn! I'm sick of being told my style of fighting the Sith is unbecoming to a Jedi, even though it's at /least/ ten times more effective than the way they, /you/, tell me to fight. I'm sick of the Sith, I'm sick of what they do, and I'm sick of the Council shackling me when I want to fight back! If they won't let me fight my way, then I'll fight on my own!"

She tried to storm out of the room, but Kor-Ben was blocking the doorway.

"I can't let you."

"And why not!"

"The way you are now, you are open to being seduced by the Dark Side. I can't, /won't/, stand by and see you become an enemy"

"That's not going to happen! The Sith hate me more than anyone else. They'd rather kill me than bring me to the Dark Side."

"If you leave the Order, they /will/ hear about it. No matter where you go in the Galaxy, they will find you and instead of seeing you as an enemy, they will see you as a potential ally and they /will/ seduce you."

"I'd kill them before that happens"

"Don't be so sure. The Sith can be very cunning"

"Then I'll leave the Galaxy." Del muttered. Even though she was mad at the council for their reprimand, she knew deep down inside that she deserved it, but her pride would never allow her to admit it. Besides, Kor-Ben had been like a father to her, and she never really liked arguing with him, even though that's all they seemed to be doing lately. "What was that?" Kor-Ben wasn't sure he had heard properly.

"Look, I've made my decision. I'm leaving the Order. If the only reason you won't let me leave is because you think the Sith'll turn me, then I'll go somewhere they won't find me."

"What about fighting the Sith on your own?" Kor-Ben pointed out. Del was beginning to contradict herself, which meant she was starting to grasp at straws to justify her leaving, and he had no intention of letting that happen.

"The Council seems to think that the rest of the Jedi can handle the Sith on their own. They just as good as said that they don't need the help of a mere Padawan." Del said bitterly, struggling to close her rucksack, which had come open when she had first tried to get past Kor-Ben.

"Is that what this is about? You don't feel needed, so you're leaving? That's preposterous! You're being very selfish. You know as well as I do that the only thing the Council reproaches you of is the branding of the Sith you've killed."

Del 'hmph'ed as she finally got the bag closed. She sighed in frustration when she noticed that a small velvet bag had fallen out of her sack. It had a long drawstring , so she slung it around her neck rather than re-open her sack, and the weight of the key inside it caused it to settle next to her pendant. She hefted the rucksack over her shoulder and tried once more to push past her mentor, who was still blocking the doorway.

"Oh no you don't!"

Kor-Ben tried to grab her to keep her from leaving, but this time Del was ready for him. She force-pushed him through the doorway, slamming him against the opposite wall, then sprinted down the hall. Kor-Ben was a bit dazed, but he still had enough presence of mind to use the force to tear a light fixture from the wall and send it flying after her. It would get to her faster that he would be able to physically, and maybe it would knock some senses into her. Literally. She managed to duck it though, and it went crashing through the window at the end of the hall. Seeing her means of escape, Del dove through the shattered window after it.

Kor-Ben ran to the gaping hole, ready to catch his Padawan with the Force. After all, he didn't want her to die squashed like a fly on a windshield, he only wanted her to admit she was wrong, to show a little humility for once and most importantly of all, remain a part of the Order of the Jedi. Looking out he saw not the brown fluttering robes of his Padawan falling, but a black tear in the air closing about a quarter of a mile down. She had opened a wormhole and fallen through it.

He shook his head in amazement. Opening a wormhole while plummeting through the air is quite a feat. Well, he supposed he'd better go find a wormhole tracker, to see where to she had jumped.

~*~*~

In a spaceport on the other side of the city-planet, a sandy-blonde haired man was on top of his Corellian freighter, and was verbally abusing the space ship's starboard thruster, which had decided to break down at the most inopportune moment. He stopped short when a black tear appeared in the air a few feet above his ship, that by the way looked like it was built out of junkyard scraps. Del fell through the tear, her robes billowing behind her. Picking herself up and dusting herself off, she turned to the man that was staring gape-mouthed at her.

"So, how fast does this piece of junk go?"

The man immediately snapped his mouth shut into a scowl before coming to the defense of his ship.

"Piece of junk! PIECE OF JUNK! For your information, the Centennial Eagle is the fastest ship in the Galaxy. Piece of junk, indeed!"

"In my experience ships that look like they were pieced together from the junkyards of Corellia are the fastest and most efficient ones out there. Their pilots also tend to be the kind that take the money and don't ask questions. Have I been mistaken?"

The man had been muttering something about a piece of junk and I'll show her a piece of junk, but at the mention of money, she had his complete attention.

"What are you looking for?"

"A pilot that's not scared of the Jedi that'll get me off the planet within the hour"

Giving Del a second look, the man decided that there was no way a mere girl would have the kind of money he needed to replace his broken thruster.

"Sorry, kid, can't help you. My thruster's out of whack and I can't fly without it."

Del walked over to the thruster and stretched out her hand towards it, probing it with the force.

"Did you fly through an asteroid belt recently?"

"How did you know?"

A small cloud of asteroid dust and pebbles burst out of the thruster.

"There's why your thruster's out of whack."

She probed it once more before declaring that the thruster was now in whack.

"If you had had that repaired the conventional way, it would have cost you about 10 000 credits. How fast can you get me to the Stellar Rani quadrant?"

"If my thruster was working, 10, maybe 12 standard hours. It's what, 50 parsecs away?"

Del nodded her thanks and, picking up her rucksack, jumped off the top of the ship onto the boarding ramp. She called out over her shoulder "I just fixed it" before entering the ship.

The man took the ladder down and ran after her, demanding that she get off his ship. He tripped over her rucksack that she had dropped in the middle of the corridor, by the doorway into the living quarters. This girl was beyond understanding.

He finally caught up to her in the cockpit, where she was strapped into the co-pilot's seat.

"What do you think you're doing barging onto my ship like you own it!"

Del ignored him and continued flipping the numerous switches on the control panels in front of her. The man's eyes widened as he realized she was programming the navigator and initiating the launch sequence.

"Don't touch! She's a very cantankerous ship!"

He was like a little boy who didn't want to share his toys. Del deadpanned him: "Strap yourself in."

"What! I will not let you hijack my ship!"

"You are carrying a cargo of contraband weapons. The authorities will be here any minute. Strap yourself in." She spoke like a parent ordering a child, even though the man was easily twice her age.

He looked at her, stunned. How could she possibly know that? Anyway, her words were enough to shock him into obeying. The man strapped himself into the pilots seat, momentarily forgetting that his ship couldn't fly.

"They say Corellian pilots are among the best in the galaxy?"

"Among the best? We /are/ the best!"

"Let's see if that's the truth speaking, or if it's just your ego."

Del reached over and flipped the ignition switch.

"Wait! I told you she won't fly because of the thrus-"

The engine revved to life and the Centennial Eagle began to take off

"-ter..."

The man stared a Del in amazement. Who was this girl?

"I told you I fixed it." She said smugly.

Just then a terse voice crackled over the radio.

"Corellian freighter, please land immediately. You have not been authorized for takeoff."

"And there's the authorities."

Del grabbed her piloting yolk and pointed the Eagle to the sky.

"Corellian freighter, land immediately or you will be fired upon."

The man looked slightly alarmed, but you got the sense that he had had run- ins with the authorities before, and had no intention of getting caught.

"You can't let your baby get shot up now, can you?"

He shook his head and took his piloting yolk.

"So show me Corellian pilots live up to their reputation."

She began un-strapping herself.

"Where are you going?"

"The gun turret. Get us out of here, Rambo."

"It's Solo, Nash Solo"

"Del Myriad."

~*~*~

I just LOVE making up people's ancestors! Oh, and all information about the Jedi comes from the starwars.com database. I made up the spaceport, but I imagine there would be several on the city-planet.

By the way, this is going up Saturday, because no one reviewed on the last chapter and I wanted to wait and see if anyone would review, but no one did, so I'm putting this up anyway. If you read, please review. I like to know people are reading my stuff, it's what keeps me going.

On a non- story related note, I SAW THE RETURN OF THE KING LAST WEDNESDAY!!!!!!!!! I went to the local premiere with my sister, and it was AWESOME!!!! I think we annoyed the people sitting next to us, because we were talking a lot throughout the film. We're both HUGE fans of the books, so we were going "Oh, that's that part!" and "That happened so that means this is coming up" and "Oh look, it's that character!" and "Yay it's the sword!" and "They quoted the book!" and at the end, "Is the blond elf behind Elrond Glorfindel it better be Glorfindel because he was supposed to be in the first movie but they replaced him with Arwen and that was so not right" and I think you get the idea. We were in costume, along with a few others, friends of ours, and the theater manager asked to get a picture of all the people that were in costume, which was awesome! I can't wait to get the pictures back. Anyway, all this to say the movie was awesome, so GO SEE IT!!!!!!!!!

Next chapter: Getting Away.