Umbrous - Empire's Shadow
Part 1 - Awakening of Shadow
Chapter 12
"I still think you should give her a chance". Kaan decided to try and convince Bongo to, if not actively court, then at least pretend to consider Savarii's discreet advances.
Bongo looked back at him bewildered, "What do you mean?". Kaan thought carefully about what to say next but supposed that Bongo would trust him enough to go along with it.
"I'm not planning on staying on Ukio much longer, I think you know that. And you are destined to take over your father's shipping company, aren't you?" Bongo nodded, unsure of where Kaan was taking this line of thought.
"Well, do you remember what her parents do?". Bongo, still unsure, replied, "They run… immigration, don't they? Yeah, they decide who gets to enter and leave. Why is that…" His eyes widened as he realised what Kaan was hinting at.
"You're not seriously trying to get me with her, so you can slip off quietly?"
"If you get together with her, maybe help her get a passing grade in the final exams, which let's face it she won't get alone, she might just like you enough to tell her parents. They're likely to remain in office for a while, at least long enough for you to take over the spaceports, meaning you can probably manoeuvre someone you like in to replace them. In the meanwhile, you might just be able to get them to issue me a free travel passport, like the ones issued to Moffs and Governors, meaning I won't have to answer too many questions when I travel."
Bongo's eyes narrowed as he contemplated this, the increased blood flow to his brain turning his head a deep orange. "And what about her? Am I supposed to just pretend to like her, only to then dump her after the exams? That doesn't sound like it'll earn me much favour with her folks."
"You're an Ukian. Most humans here find you repulsive." To another, this might have seemed offensive, but Bongo was well aware of human prejudices, and comfortable with talking about them.
"If you're seen with her in public, she'll be seen as disgusting for it, especially if we encourage certain… ah… rumours. You can dump her the moment you ensure that you're in control of the immigration office. And it doesn't need to be that long; only about a year after the exams." Kaan looked at him squarely.
"You could even get an Ukian in there. Bring them into the Empire like you've always wanted." Kaan was pushing all of Bongo's buttons here, but Bongo knew it, and liked what he was hearing.
"I suppose I could get my dad to promote me to some assistant position. He's been talking about it for a while, but I got him to hold off the decision until after university." He turned to look at Kaan. "Is she still behind us?"
Instead of looking, Kaan tried stretching out with the Force. As he closed his eyes, he felt its currents at once, enveloping him. He could sense Bongo near him, the Force surrounding him. He could sense that Bongo was relatively strong in the Force, though not enough to be Force-sensitive. Behind him, he could sense the life Force of the trees, sense their simple thoughts, and behind them, he sensed a concentration of stronger, more complicated thoughts.
This, he surmised, was not a tree. "Right where we left her. Currently cursing herself for never having learned Ukian." Kaan turned to look at Bongo, who smirked and then spoke in Basic, loudly enough to be overheard by their eavesdropper.
"You know what, you're right. I think I am going to try talking to her. She seems nice enough and is also one of the few humans who doesn't see me as a primitive earthbag." Kaan heard a small gasp from the trees, too faint for Bongo to hear, but enough to make him smile widely, letting Bongo know she'd taken the bait.
Bongo had not been subtle about it, and Savarii would obviously know that it had been a planned announcement, but right now that worked in Kaan's advantage. This would put him in her good books too for facilitating this relationship, and now all he needed to do was steer things in the right direction.
Back at home, Kaan opened another holocron. This one had been made more recently, roughly around the time of the invasion of Naboo. It was a lecture by Jedi Master and lightsaber instructor Cin Drallig on the seven lightsaber forms.
It had come with a prefacing text which warned about the dark side, excessive use of force, all things that Kaan promptly ignored. It was long and extensive, and parts of it were boring or were far too complicated for Kaan to understand or use in practice. He found much more use in another holocron by Master Drallig, this one describing how to use Jedi training equipment.
The Pritcher mansion had some training remotes and training droids, and he decided to start training himself with the former. His rationale was that in this day and age, knowing to fight against another lightsaber-wielding opponent was, while useful given the existence of the Inquisitors, less important than knowing how to defend against blaster fire.
The holocron pointed to a manual which came with training remotes, and he presently found it and opened it to the first page, which described the very basics of blocking and avoiding blasts. He followed the instructions and picked up and activated a remote, on the easiest setting.
It hovered around him, occasionally firing a shot or two, then moving slowly around, before firing another shot, all of which he was fast enough to simply sidestep. Wondering why it was so slow, he remembered that this was equipment used to train Jedi initiates, who would normally have been five to seven years old, and as such he found himself comfortable with two training remotes on the hardest setting.
The remotes would fly around him, and he was easily able to use a yellow training lightsaber to absorb the weak blasts. Occasionally a bolt would slip past his defences and graze his shoulder or leg, but rarely enough that he felt confident in his abilities and moved to the next part.
This one involved all the previous exercises, but this time with a special helmet which, as it turned out, blocked Kaan's vision entirely. The point of this task was clearly to train younglings to see with the Force, instead of their eyes, and indeed there were few helmets suited to the size of Kaan's head.
Finding a particularly large one, he put it on, confident that he would manage just fine.
Kaan had foolishly tried with the two remotes again but was only able to block one bolt before a remote swung behind him and shot at his leg.
He jumped, but not in time to avoid the bolt hitting his feet and sending him sprawling on the floor, knocking the helmet off his head. The remotes, seemingly detecting that he had failed miserably, had automatically gone down a few levels.
Kaan's face burned with humiliation as he felt the remotes flying circles around him, almost judging him. He was grateful to be alone, and after massaging his leg, he wore the helmet and stood up, alert and attentive this time.
Now, he held his blade out in front of him in a two-handed stance and called on the Force to sense the remotes around him. The helmet muffled the sounds, meaning he couldn't use his ears to detect where the remotes were, but he began to sense them as flares of danger, just as they were about to fire.
When they fired, he either moved the blade to intercept, or felt his body move out of the way just in time. He eventually put the remotes back up to the hardest setting, and slowly began to add more and more, until he was able to confidently defend against three remotes with the helmet on, though he hadn't figured out how to deflect the bolts or return them.
By this time, however, he had let enough stray bolts past that his clothes had begun to smoke, and he decided to put it to rest.
Ah, self-learning. Those of us who have been in Kaan's shoes will know the dangers of overestimation, followed by the humiliation of arrogant failure.
He'll get better though, promise.
