At last, it's here! Thank you to all of you readers for being so dadgum patient, I appreciate it. And once again, thanks for reading, but please do the kind thing and review! I would appreciate it all the more.
The title is pretty much self explanatory... Or maybe not. :)
Once again, sorry this took so long.
Lost
Gomika's features were sharp, and they'd always been sharp. Harsh. Mean. Fierce. Gomika was sharp, harsh and fierce, but though she sometimes came off as mean, she wasn't. But it often helped her to look mean. Bullies never picked on Gomika.
Sombal's own features were nigh identical to Gomika's—they were identical twins—but the tiniest differences changed everything. Sombal's face was softer, much softer. Timid. Gentle. Shy. And shy, timid people were the first ones bullies went for.
Sombal never let anyone know, but she often envied Gomika's courage. Or just Gomika's sharp face. That projection of courage.
Gomika's face never betrayed fear.
But now, Sombal saw something on Gomika's face and features that she had never, ever seen there before.
Agony.
She'd seen her sister in pain before, sure, even severe pain—when wild Gomika had broken her leg during a hoverboarding venture during the twins' ninth year, she'd been in deep pain—but now, Gomika was in utter agony.
She trashed about in her tiny bed, moaning and screeching in terror, her face contorted as if she was being tortured.
She was asleep, but wouldn't be for long.
Silently, Sombal slipped back out of Gomika's room and into the hallway, sliding gently on her delicate, typically unshod Nssh feet. The watery world of Sh'nssh'klh'ych trained its inhabiting Nssh to move deftly and fluidly even when removed from the waters, and Nerca Sombal was no exception.
It was the middle of Yavin 4's night and the Great Temple was asleep. Sombal crept onward down the hallway, back towards her own room, grateful that the jungle moon outside never slept.
The sounds of the woolamanders would cover any sounds she might accidentally make.
Ever the cautious one, Sombal reached out to the Force to make sure no one in this hallway was awake…
Oh, by the seas of the Homeworld, go back to your room! she thought at this presence she'd just detected. But it was entirely futile: whoever it was, they just kept right on walking towards Sombal. Oh, Sithspit.
She'd never make it back to her room, as if that would even make a difference. Whomever this was—Sombal strongly suspected it was an instructor—she was going to get in trouble for being out past curfew, even if it was just down the hall.
"Oh, Sithspit," she muttered the curse aloud this time.
She straightened as she came closer to the instructor… And as the hallway's dimmed lights caught the highlights in the teacher's red-gold hair, Sombal identified her.
"Jedi Jade Skywalker!" she whispered, surprised.
The Jedi Knight waved her hand. "Lead on to your room, Sombal. We will discuss your past-curfew whereabouts in private."
Somewhat reluctantly, Sombal continued past a couple more doors before coming to the one that displayed a picture of Sh'nssh'klh'ych, the Sea of Kall'eym in particular, home to the Be'yul clan. Below the picture was scribed "Nerca Sombal Beyul" first in Basic, and then "Ner'ca'somb'al'be'yul"—her name in Nssh—written in the flowing Nssh script. She touched a lightly web-fingered hand to the palm-lock, and the door slowly slid open as the lock confirmed her identity.
As the door slid aside and always-barefoot Sombal slinked her way in, touching a light panel, Mara Jade Skywalker glanced about the moistened small room with barely hidden disgust. Wicked looking algae covered most of the walls and streams of water leaked down between them at uneven intervals.
"Do not worry, Mistress Skywalker," Sombal said over her shoulder. "There is nothing in this room even remotely close to endangering to Human health. It is simply uncomfortable for most of you."
Sombal could still sense the older Jedi's reluctance, but she stepped into the room quickly, allowing the door to slide closed behind her. She followed Sombal in, her boots making slight ripples in the four or so centimeters of water that covered the cubicle's floor.
"So, Sombal," Jade Skywalker began, seating herself on the only dry thing in the room: the cot which came standard-issue to all young potential Jedi with these rooms. "Go ahead and give me your excuse for being out past curfew."
Blinking round, nigh-black eyes, Sombal began her explanation. "I will not lie to you, Jedi Jade Skywalker. I know that I was out past curfew, and I did it consciously."
The Jedi's brows rose. Sombal knew what she was thinking: Sombal the Blameless had willingly broken a rule?
"Yes, Master, I did. However, I strongly believe it was for good. You see, I was out because I went down to Gomika's room, to… spy on her so to speak. You know that I can sense that she's not right, that something is wrong. Since your explorations have been thus-far fruitless, I decided to do some investigating of my own."
Jade let out a shuddering breath. "So, what did you find?"
"Gomika has been having nightmares."
The Jedi Knight looked relieved. "Oh? That's all?"
"Master, do not be so quick to dismiss this problem. By all of the seas that span my Homeworld, do not dismiss the problem. Master, Gomika is strong. Very, very strong. She has never, ever, ever had nightmares before in her entire life. And I don't think that thirteen's exactly the age to start."
Staring at the floor through the four centimeters of water, Jade seemed to digest that for a few minutes, and Sombal left her to her thoughts.
Finally, she spoke. "How bad do you think they are?"
"Oh, they're awful. She shrieks in agony and terror. Master, I have never really seen Gomika afraid of anything. She is afraid of these dreams. I have never seen my sister shriek about anything, yet she shrieks in terror during her sleep!"
Jade sighed, and looked up. "It's really that bad?" At Sombal's nod, she sighed again. "Oh, by the Force, I feel something's about to happen here, Sombal. Something that will change the course of the universe. And it is centered on Gomika. Master Skywalker and the other Knights sense something is moving as well. We need to find out what is causing these nightmares, and stop it."
Sombal hesitated before she replied to the Jedi Knight's statement. She knew something about that… something she'd read from Gomika…
Even as Jade got up to leave, Sombal stopped her with a few words. "I think that Gomika is doing something that is causing the nightmares."
Jade stopped cold in her tracks, turning back to the tall, thin Nssh teenager. "What?"
"Gomika is doing something to cause them," Sombal repeated. "I can tell. She is apprehensive all of the time that someone will figure something out… I think her apprehension may be causing it, maybe something greater. But she is doing something, something that most likely is wrong."
Jade ran a hair through her red-gold curls, blowing out an exasperated breath. "How sure are you?"
"About ninety-seven percent, Master. As sure as I am that the Homeworld's seas' tides will turn according to schedule."
She shook her head. "That changes a lot, Sombal."
"I know, Master."
"You should have mentioned that before."
"I was not sure of it until tonight."
"Sombal, I want you to stay away from your sister as much as possible," Jade informed her. "I don't want anything she's doing to rub off on you."
"Do not worry, I will do everything possible to make sure I don't fall into the same trap. And Jedi Jade Skywalker, I want you to promise me that you will do everything possible to rescue Gomika from whatever she has done to herself."
"I promise," Mara Jade Skywalker said, nodding again. "However, Sombal, one cannot rescue those that do not wish to be freed…"
Gomika woke up in a cold sweat, as she always did after these nightmares. She threw a glance out of her tiny room's window at the gas giant Yavin's great orange circle in Yavin 4's night sky. Judging by the positioning, she'd say it was just past midnight.
Sithspawn! She hadn't even slept the five hours that had been the norm for two months. She'd only managed to get in three and a half…
As her dark side-enhanced Force senses began to awaken, she felt the lingering of a familiar sensation…
Her eyes narrowed as she concentrated on the sensation, pushing out everything else…A scowl leapt to her face and anger gripped her heart as she placed the unique sensation.
Sombal had been here. Recently.
Still scowling as she sat up, Gomika reached out with the Force in the direction of Sombal's room, searching. As she suspected, she brushed against her sister's sappy-sweet presence, awake and alert.
Angered, Gomika flung off her thin, wet coverlets and threw her legs over the edge of the bed, intending to confront Sombal here and now.
Then her awareness brushed across another presence in Sombal's room. It took Gomika a few long moments to decide who it was, and when she did her eyebrows first rose in surprise, then lowered in anger.
Jade!
Her scowl deepened. Before that confrontation with Jade in the Academy cafeteria a few days ago, Gomika had respected the formal Imperial for her strength, spunk and fearlessness. Now, she resented the Knight's go-getter attitude, since it was aimed at Gomika and her secret.
And now, she resented Jade with a stronger hate. She was now preventing Gomika from confronting Sombal, since Gomika certainly couldn't lash out with the choice words she'd picked in front of an instructor…
With a grumble, she slid back into bed. She gingerly pulled the covers back over herself, trying to settle into at least a trance-like state, since she knew she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep after those cursed nightmares…
Yes, she'd just have to confront little sneaky Sombal in the morning.
The next day began bright and early for Sombal Beyul, and she rose somewhat gratefully, glad that today this crisis with Gomika would finally—oh, finally!—be solved. With a bright smile on her face, Sombal slid out of her small bunk and took a quick shower in the 'fresher.
After preparing herself for the day, she scooped up her newly-fashioned lightsaber, and slid a thumb across the recessed activator panel.
The blade sprang forth, and she examined it.
She couldn't be more proud of herself for fashioning such a weapon, and neither could the Be'yul clan back home. It was as close to being a mirror-image as the original Nerca Beyul's as Sombal could manage, having a smooth, rippling handgrip and recessed panels instead of activator and blade-extender studs. She'd even managed to find amethysts to make the blade the same violet hue as her infamous great-aunt's, and she'd even sacrificed gold bracelets from her homeworld to make the golden ringlets that circled it in various places.
With a sigh, she stroked the activator panel again, and the blade vanished back into the hilt. She had done everything possible to mimic the long-dead original, taking on becoming a Jedi, taking on her name, building a mirror image of her lightsaber… All at the request andchoiceof her family, and the Nssh Council. Gomika had done the same.
They were the Nssh race's hope of obtaining an inkling of the glory they'd had when the original Nerca had been in service to the Old Republic.
Sombal and Gomika would become the New Republic's Nssh Jedi.
Often Sombal had wondered if she would have the strength…
She shook her head and put the thoughts to rest. Thoughts of accomplishing or failing to accomplish everyone's hopes and dreams for her were not something to work out before morning classes.
Clipping the lightsaber to her belt, Sombal stroked the door panel and let it slide aside.
And she met face to face with her twin sister's cold, dark stare.
Startled, Sombal nearly jumped.
"Oh, 'morning, Sombal," Gomika hissed in Nssh, her voice abnormally low and dark.
"Good morning to you too, Gomika," Sombal replied in Basic, plastering a smile to her face and burying her thoughts of the night before deep-down.
Gomika's face curled into a nasty expression and she cocked her head to one side as she spread her arms and blocked the doorway with her body. "Did you sleep well, sister?" she continued on in Nssh, hissing the last word out like a curse.
"Oh, quite well."
"Was that before or after you took a visit down to my room?" She let the smooth Nssh words come out low and hard, almost like a veiled threat…
Stifling a gulp, Sombal switched over to Nssh like Gomika, so none of the other students gathering in the hallway could understand. "I don't know what you're talking about, Gomika."
"Oh, but I think you do."
Sombal glanced frantically about over Gomika's shoulders and back into her rooms. This was not supposed to happen this way!
"Uh…Uh…I can explain, Gomika!" Sombal cried out, still in Nssh.
Gomika's face began to pucker up angrily. "Oh, you'd better," she bit out. "Explain all you want, sis, but it's not gonna take back what you did."
Sensing turmoil and knowing that something was wrong, Mara Jade Skywalker and Tionne—the only two Jedi Knights or Masters left at the Academy at the moment—hurried up the Great Temple's winding staircase towards one of the student housing levels. Both Jedi women could tell by the flow of students where to go, and that something was going terribly wrong…
And they could both sense the dark cloud in the Force.
They burst out onto the packed level, pushing students aside as they hurried into the empty middle of the crowd to see just what was going on…
"Jha neek myrato consenales m'vyr'ok toveetsas!" Gomika Beyul snarled in a foreign language angrily at Sombal, whom she was blocking inside the door of a tiny room.
"Perato, be'ng nuun setssna loolikias veiskosoa oplsoeas, Gom'ik'a!" Sombal insisted. "Mara'chak stsolleik myrtoai!"
Tionne leaned towards Mara. "What are they saying? And what language is that?"
"I think it's Nssh," Mara answered, trying to catch what they were saying. In service to the Emperor, she'd learned some of the language. "And I think that Gomika's angry for Sombal invading her room last night."
"Como solceissann Ka'yyem Jaad Skeewalkeer?" Gomika snarled in response. "Kai'ess mararadiso dkosos sloolmb pall spdiosk!"
Mara caught some of that. If she was right, Gomika had said, "And just what about Master Jade Skywalker? I knew she was there too!"
Stang! she thought. Gomika knew I was there…Did I cause all of this?
Worry beginning to flow through her, Mara continued to push—harder now—through the throng of students towards the arguing twin Nssh. She had to stop this, and stop it quickly.
Sombal shrank back under Gomika's fury. She knew that this was becoming terribly wrong and that Gomika thought that Sombal knew whatever it was that she was doing to cause the nightmares… But Sombal also knew that Jade and Tionne were on their way to help, perhaps calm Gomika.
She just had to hold out until then. But her hope of doing that was shrinking further and further away under the constant barrage of Gomika's fury…
"So what did you hope to accomplish, Sombal?" Gomika asked. "To supplant me as the first Nssh Jedi? Did you want all of the glory of being the New Republic's first Beyul Jedi? You know that I'm ahead of you in most classes, and so you figured you'd find something to discredit me?" She shoved Sombal. Hard. "Huh, Sombal? Huh?" She shoved again. "Hmm? What's that, sister?"
Sombal remained silent.
"Gomika!" snapped Jade into the fray. "Stop and step back, now!" Sombal could see an angry fire in the Jedi Knight's brilliant green eyes as she stared at the only slightly shorter Gomika. "Step back!" she repeated.
Gomika turned to her over her shoulderwith an even deeper fire burning in her deep, dark eyes. "Don't you dare tell me what to do, you spineless worm!" she grated in Basic, her voice coming out demonically low. "This does not concern you."
Jade looked shocked, but did not shrink back. "You are a student underneath my jurisdiction! And it does concern me!"
"You abandoned our side of the Force, Mara Jade," Gomika said, finally turning to the redhead Jedi. As she turned, Sombal saw that Gomika's eyes lost all sanity, and she knew that her sister was no longer the Nssh she'd known her as. She saw that Gomika was possessed by…the dark side of the Force. "You turned your back on us and spit on all that you were taught, all that was the true nature of the Force, to follow a false prophet down the despised way of the Light. You were our servant, killing Jedi as your brilliant master decreed. Now you are one of those accursed. You have lost all power over us, Mara Jade, and now you are forever cursed."
Jade's face now openly displayed genuinely shocked surprise, and she glared at Gomika with concern in her eyes. "Gomika, this is not you. This is the dark side speaking!"
An evil smile touched Gomika's face. "You fool. I am the Dark, and Gomika and I are one. She has surrendered herself to me, as you once did."
Jade moved forward to restrain Gomika, slender, silver-haired Tionne following.
Even as they came within an arm's length of Gomika, an utterly demonic satisfaction passed over her face. "Fools," she muttered, a hand flinging out towards them.
Both Jedi Knights flew off of the ground by Gomika's Force shove, flying backward and striking the Great Temple's solid stone wall with a double thud. Both slumped down to the floor, unconscious.
Shocked by Gomika's unnatural display of power, young students shrieked and scrambled to get out of the hallway.
Taking advantage of the distraction and the position to which Gomika had moved, Sombal slinked out of the doorway towards the corridor's winding passageway. As she slid by occupied Gomika, she stole a glance at the curled, unconscious figures of her instructors. How did Gomika gain the power to do that? She knew personally that her sister shouldn't have enough strength in the Force to defeat two Jedi Knights…
But she couldn't afford to think of that now.
As she moved out of Gomika's arm range, she quickened her slink to a full-out run. She had to get out of here…She heard Gomika shout her disapproval behind her, but she kept right on running towards the corridor's beckoning safety. She'd never run so hard in her life.
Regaining some of that elusive control, Gomika smirked at what she'd done. Here she was, young Nssh teenager training to be a Jedi, and she'd managed to foil two Jedi Knights' attempt to apprehend her.
Somewhere in her mind, a voice whispered. You shouldn't have done this, Gomika. They are the instructors that were shaping you, teaching you…
Inwardly, she growled at the voice and it was silenced.
They'd damned themselves by going against her in the first place.
As she silenced the inward conflict, she became aware of her sister slipping down the hallway to her left. The little slink…
Infuriated, Gomika shouted at Sombal as she broke into a flat-out run. But Sombal paid no attention, and Gomika took off after her.
Utilizing that infamous Nssh agility, Sombal slid through the crowd of students clogging the hallway. They slid aside if they could, allowing "Sombal the Gentle" to pass through them quickly and deftly.
However, they parted and scrambled aside as Gomika tore through the crowd after her sprinting sister. They rippled away from her in fear like water as something caresses its surface, their fear rippling back in response.
But as Sombal tore through the back of the crowd and Gomika neared it, a line of students appeared to stand in her way. None of them wavered or moved as the others did, but they stood their ground firmly.
Gomika was forced to stop just outside an arm's length from the line. "Move, weaklings," she grated at them.
"We will not," answered a short, russet-haired girl standing in the middle of the line, right in front of Gomika. After a moment, Gomika identified her as Jaina Solo of Coruscant, Master Skywalker's niece.
"You will, or you will find the depths of my anger," she replied, pouring dark venom into her voice.
Beside Jaina, her twin brother—Jacen, Gomika named after a moment's concentration—spoke up. "We are not afraid of you, Dark Jedi."
Part of Gomika was repelled by being called Dark Jedi, but that was faint behind her anger. Her eyes lit once more with that demonic fire, and she gave them a dark smile. "You should be."
Lightsabers sprang to life in the hands of the students forming the row, varying from purple in the row's center at Jaina Solo, to blue, green, yellow, orange and silver. They all angled towards Gomika.
She snickered at the insolent fools as a durasteel cylinder found its way into her right palm. Her thumb absently stroked the activator panel, and with a snap-hiss, a blood red blade sprang forth, angled towards the line.
She thrust her left palm at half of the line—from Jacen Solo to the tiny student against the left wall—and they all lifted off of their feet and smashed collectively into the wall. Lightsabers dropped uselessly from their unconscious hands and rolled along the floor. The remaining students leapt at Gomika with their sabers, only to meet her singing crimson blade.
Within a single, standard minute, they were all lying on the floor and Gomika was running after Sombal once more.
Sombal burst out of the door and out onto the balcony that stretched all the way around the Great Temple's second floor, knowing and sensing Gomika was not far behind. She was on the verge of panic. Gomika was gone, lost to the dark side now, and out for revenge on Sombal. Sombal had no where left to run, either…
"Stop where you are, smm'bll'yck!" came the all-to-familiar voice behind Sombal.
Slowly and obediently, Sombal stopped and turned around to face Gomika. Deep within, a part of her that wasn't terrified was appalled at being called smm'bll'yck—a Nssh term for weakling, inept, foolish…It never occurred to Sombal that her name sounded remotely like smm'bll'yck, even with the silent B.
In Gomika's hand was the smooth durasteel cylinder of her lightsaber, and she stroked a recessed panel—just like the one on Sombal's lightsaber— using her thumb and with the familiar snap-hiss customary to a lightsaber, a blood-red blade sprang forth. It had always bothered Sombal that her sister had crafted a saber with a blade the exact same hue as the infamous Sith…
"Now, Sombal, you know too much. You've also violated my privacy and done things I cannot excuse." Slowly, Gomika stalked closer. "You have been a thorn in my palm too long, Sombal, and now I'm just going to have to deal with you."
Before Sombal could even blink, Gomika closed the gap between them in a single bound, lightsaber slashing out.
Luckily, Sombal's Force-honed reflexes were quicker than her blink, and her purple blade was out and met the blood red one before it could harm her. Their class had only crafted their lightsabers recently, perhaps a few months ago, and they'd trained with less-dangerous "training sabers" for a few months before that, but Sombal and Gomika had both shown a miraculous adeptness for the art.
Gomika's saber came in for a hard slash at Sombal's left shoulder…The purple blade intercepted it fairly far out.
It continued like this for nigh an hour: Gomika slashed, jabbed and cut, Sombal blocked, dodged, shifted and parried. They were Nssh, agile and thin, and the battle took them all across the balcony and back, and their sabers moved faster than the eyes could track.
Neither tired or slowed.
Then suddenly, Gomika's gaze left her sister's movements and turned skyward. After a moment, Sombal sensed what it was she was looking at.
A cargo freighter carrying the rest of the Jedi Knights was slowly descending to Yavin 4, most likely meaning Gomika was about to get in serious trouble, if she wasn't killed…
"Sithspawn!" Gomika snarled, already running towards the edge of the balcony. She closed down her lightsaber, threw herself into a back handspring and vaulted over the two-story wall backwards, toward the landing pad. Even after she disappeared over the wall's edge, Sombal heard a string of thick Nssh curses follow. "Shef'th! Myrooskso! Haff'meefth!"
It continued like that as Sombal tiredly and helplessly watched her twin sister land safely, cushioned by the Force. She sprinted across the landing field towards the only vehicle left at the Academy…A fully-armed Z-95 Headhunter.
Another strong racial trait of the Nssh: they were all good pilots, especially the Beyul family.
Just as the cargo freighter touched down on the landing field and the landing ramp lowered to the ground, the Headhunter's repulsorlift engines kicked in and it shot skyward…
Numbly, Sombal's thumb stroked the activator panel on her humming lightsaber. Below on the landing field, Master Skywalker hurried out of the freighter, glancing first at the disappearing Headhunter, then at Sombal standing on the balcony.
"What happened, Sombal?" he called.
It took her a minute, but the Nssh student turned to the Jedi Master. "More than I can explain at the moment, Master Skywalker." She shook her head. "But Master Jade Skywalker was injured—not seriously. And Gomika…" She cast a look to the twilight sky, and the tiny shape of the Headhunter disappearing into space. "Gomika is lost."
I've decided that one more short chapter will follow, and then Lure will be over. :)