A/N: this belongs after chapter 7. Sorry about the confusion!
Chapter 8: Agent Training
'Jedi', De'shar reflected, watching the nothingness of hyperspace go by. 'A rare sight, and I've got three of them.'
Jedi, supposed to be great warriors. What De'shar fancied she knew of war made her comfortable enough with it, as long as she had a blaster at her side and the authority of the Republic at her back. Death would bring her to the high plane, her chosen one of all the thousand faiths.
The day training had begun was a chaotic one. Small comfort to the younger De'shar was the other Pho Ph'eahian in the green group, a dark-complexioned male named Zax. He had been forced to the Republic offices by a sinking financial state and a genetic history of fighters. Some said his grandmother and grandfather had served in the Clone Wars.
They bonded, and changed together. Never had it gone into a romantic relationship--he had said it would feel wrong to him, like they were pairing out of convenience in common origin. She was all right with that, agreed actually, once she found out his reasoning.
An anecdote; afternoon at the targeting range. De'shar had been mildly successful with an ion blaster in two hands, shooting shielded remotes out of the air in front of a bluescreen. Zax took aim beside her, braced two elbows and turned to look at her.
"You know it takes something special to kill a man." He stated, in his passive way. "What makes some being able to do it for love or money or homeworld and the next one can't?"
De'shar put her ears back. "Hmm." She had never really thought about it before. "You do what you have to."
"But some beings can't. All of us here, of course, though we stun for our Republic."
"Jedi teach not to kill. Not even to attack." She had wanted to be a Jedi from way back. Could never, of course, but the security career had started from those impossible dreams.
Zax lifted his blasters again. "Jedi, so different. Complicated people, them."
"I always wanted to be a Jedi."
"You want to be the best of everything, 'Shar-cal." It was an affectionate term, friendship labeled in Pho Ph'eahian. He was jovial, unconcerned.
"Yeah," She said. "Who knows what I'd say to a Jedi if I ever met one."
"Show him you're the best." Zax said, and laughed, and turned back to the range.
De'shar slid the safety of her blaster back with her thumbs and used a third to activate the range-droids. She beat Zax that day, in score and jest. He would die eight months later in a jewel heist, victim of a trip mine that scathed the fur from half his face. Coming in afterwards, De'shar had never forgotten it.
And listening to Masters Kell and Horn and Sidi Driss, she knew what she felt now in their other-worldly presence.
Deep jealously.
Even something little, starting with Horn's underhanded trap of the Imperial Remnant agents, had made it maddingly obvious that he for one was in the way of this title of best in the combat forces. And there was always that reminder, a tick in the back of her mind;
If I were Jedi I could have saved Zax.
Yes, the illogical childhood aspirations were gone. De'shar was what she was. But hope rose in her at the prospect of this joint mission. Hope that she could prove herself.
That she could finally be the best, when the Jedi had been taken by their enemies' time machine.
Go ye now to what is listed as chapter 8. Thank you, the management.