Chapter Twenty
oOo
As Sachi had grown into a young woman it had become evident that Ben was more brother than possible suitor which was to the liking of the Pyotr officials, his being an 'off worlder'. They brought many prospects to her attention but none could hold a candle to the Jedi image of manhood she had in her head, so the hunt for a consort for the next Queen was on. Yoda had observed a young man on many of his assignment around Pyotr and made an excuse for him to come to the Court to deliver a message to the Queen for him.
Leith was tall with brown curly hair and brown eyes his complexion was light for a man of activity and he looked like a man of activity. He carried himself as if he had a secret and he was strong enough to make sure it was safe. Sachi knew when he came in that he was the man she would marry, now how was she going to let him catch her was the question.
As he finished his report to the Queen she took action. "Are you part of Master Yoda's staff now?" Sachi asked to her Mother's surprise.
"No, My Lady just a one time messenger." Leith answered trying not to look at the Princess any more than he had to, so as not to get flustered.
"Mother, I think he's an impostor. Maybe you should throw him in the dungeon until Master Yoda returns." Sachi proclaimed to Nya's shock.
'We don't even have a dungeon!' Nya thought.
Leith looked at her and smiled. "I have heard My Lady's tongue was as sharp as her beauty but I never expected to be thrown in the dungeon for ignoring her."
'Oh! That was his offense, two can play this game.' "Yes! I think you are right. Guards into the dungeon with him. Pronto!" Nya announced in her most regal voice to Sachi's surprise.
"No! I was…" Sachi started before Nya waved the guards back and laughed.
"Master Leith, What is your occupation?" Nya asked.
"I am in Head of the Libraries and the Educational Programs for the Southern Continent, Your Majesty." Leith answered boldly.
"Hum… I seam to remember that Master Pantin is considering retiring at the end of the year. Would you like to take his place and be in charge of the Planetary Libraries and Educational Programs, of course that would mean you would have to work closely with my daughter, she is my advisor on Libraries and Educational matters. Would that be a problem?"
"Not as long as I don't end up in the 'mythical' dungeon." Leith grinned and looked squarely at Sachi.
oOo
Nya and Tra Gon were making their annual visit to the mountain country, the lakes there were crystal clear and the forest was beautiful. The twenty-five years of her reign had seamed to pass so quickly, the work had been hard at times yet rewarding. They had taken a planet that was ravaged by greed and turned it into a showplace of how to care for your people. Many worlds had visited Pyotr to see how to set up their own programs to help their own people. Even the drought a few years before had not been a strain on the people because of the programs set up by Nya. Now with the children grown and the government stable, they were taking time to relax. Sachi and Leith were handling much of the day to day running of the government. She loved the pomp and ceremony, more like her aunt than her mother, who fought it to this day.
Moth and Taryn had made a new life on Verrell to live, without his lightsaber, the restraints of the Jedi order but also without their children. Ben had stayed with Sachi, half bodyguard and half big brother, more Jedi than the Council would have liked and Sachi's most trusted advisor. Ben had never formed the same brotherly attachment to Sachi's little sister Quianna and many suspected they would soon marry. Little Moth, now taller than his father and Wynne, as stunning as her mother with long honey colored hair braided down the back and green eyes, had both been chosen as Padawans to Jedi healers. They, like their parents, loved helping people more than the more combative aspects of their training.
Tra Gon was swimming in the lake while Nya dried off after her brief swim then sunbathed. The waterfall nearby was loud enough to block out most of the sounds from the nearby compound. Tra Gon loved to swim for distance and this was the perfect spot for it. The lake was wide enough to present a challenge for a man in his fifties yet shallow enough not to be a danger. He got to the other side and noticed Nya stretched out on her stomach as she had been when he had started. She was still fit for a Queen and still made his heart flutter. Tonight was suppose to be a full moon and he thought about taking her for a walk up to the meadow high on the mountain and building a fire and camping out as they had years ago on their first mission together as Padawans. He knew then that he loved the young girl with the chip on her shoulder, more Jedi than girl. He had loved being a Jedi but it was easy for him to give it up for her. To spend his life protecting her, loving her. He suddenly wanted to be with her and started back before he had finished his resting period. He dove in and swam harder than he had in years thinking of her all the time. The last leg was the hardest because he was starting to tire but he pushed on harder than before. Finally he got close enough to stand and saw she was still lying on her stomach and realized she would be sunburned from the extra time. 'She must have fallen asleep I will have to put something on her back for the burn later, no camping tonight.' Tra Gon thought then called out. "Hey sleepy head. You are going to burn." She didn't answer. He ran out of the water as fast as his tired legs could and called again. "Nya… Nyla… Nyla!" As he got up to her he saw two darts sticking out of her arm and neck and recognized them instantly as the darts used in the Force desensitizing drug so many years ago. He pulled them out and scooped her up and ran to the compound with her, wishing he hadn't gone swimming. The guards, who had stayed back at the compound under Nya's orders, came running out and took her from his arms and carried her to the infirmary. Tra Gon, Gen suddenly felt not like the Consort to the Queen but like a young Jedi trying to save his best friend. "She was shot with two darts, a Force Desensitizing drug used for a while over thirty years ago, please tell me you have the antidote."
"We kept it for a while but it had a short shelf-life so we stopped carrying it, it was too dangerous to produce. Was there another treatment?" The head of the infirmary asked.
"Yes, Yoda flushed her system out with liquids. Call the Jedi Council and have some sent pronto." Gen ordered and saw the assistant run to the holo-link. He put his hands on her face and Force bonded with her telling her to hang on but he could feel her slipping away. The effects of the drug on her from all those years ago and two shots now were too much for her system. She gasped and then went limp. Gen shook his head and screamed. "No!"
oOo
Yoda was at the Temple at Coruscant working with the latest class of younglings when he felt the loss through the Force. The class was startled to see him fold up and groan painfully, then run out of the class. He ran to the Holo-link and called Moth. Moth had just come in from transplanting medicinal plants for Taryn to use in her medicines. "Master Moth, feel it, did you?"
"Master? Feel what?" Moth asked puzzled.
"Killed, Nyla was?" Yoda said sadly.
"How? What?" Moth stammered.
"Not know yet, called you first, I had too." Yoda said.
"I am going to call and see what happened then head to Pyotr." 'Please let it be a mistake.' Moth thought knowing Yoda didn't make mistakes about this kind of thing.
Before he could call the Holo-link beeped and he called up the image of Tra Gon. "Master Moth, she is gone! Someone shot her with that stupid drug, that Force desensitizing drug from back then. I… She… We couldn'…" Finally, he just cut the link and went to his quarters. He had been forced to call his children and tell them so they wouldn't hear it from the Royal grapevine. He wasn't sure which was harder telling them their Mother was dead or telling Master Moth; that he had let her be killed.
oOo
Earlier
Sachi was in the Throne room conducting a meeting with the Trade commission concerning a new variation of the treaty. She felt restless unable to concentrate and noticed Ben was having the same problem. "Gentlemen, I have another commitment to handle, can we finish this tomorrow?" She asked and they graciously agreed.
She watched as they left the room and motioned Ben to come closer. "I don't know what is going on but…" Just then the holo-link beeped and she hit it so hard she almost broke the button. "What!"
When she saw her father's face she knew it was bad. "What happened to Mother?"
"Someone shot her with the dart… the Force desensitizing drug from when she was young. She… I don't think she suffered. She said then it didn… Where is Quianna? I have…"
"I will tell her, Father. Are you bringing her back here?" Sachi asked.
"Yes, I'm leaving as soon as they finish prepar… soon. I have to go…" Her father cut the connection, he couldn't stand to think about it much less explain it to his child.
"We have to go tell Quianna that Mother is… " Sachi couldn't say the words. "Can you come with me?"
"You know I will be there for you in what ever I can." Ben stated and took her arm and assisted her down from the Throne, her legs were still too short for the Throne built for her grandfather so long ago.
"I have to get to her before someone lets it slip, she has to hear this from family." Sachi said strong for her age.
As they entered the hall connecting the Throne room and the Royal suite there was a rush of activity. Several men in palace guard uniforms but unfamiliar to Sachi and Ben rushed up to them and tried to grab Sachi. Ben stepped in front of her and was hit with a blaster in the leg. As he was stumbling and swung a blow towards the other man knocking him out cold. He then heard a familiar sound but he knew for sure there was no Jedi on the planet, at least not ones still in the Order. He turned to see Sachi taking a swipe at the two men, removing the hand that was holding her arm and making a slash across the chest of the other one. "Mess with my Mother will you."
Ben wasn't sure who was the most surprised by her; him or the two would be assassins. Another man came running up to them and pulled a blaster out of this cloak and pointed it at Ben, thinking he could capture her more easily without her guard. She yelled. "Oh! No! You don't!" And removed his arm just above the elbow. Ben had corralled the first handless man and she pushed this one up against the wall with the blade of her lightdagger sizzling the flesh of his neck. "Who is behind the Queen's assassination and my attempted?" She said with a voice so deep it startled Ben and he could see the man quaking in fear.
"I don't kno… anything about the Queen. I… We were suppose to kidnap you and take you to the Waccon estate and hold you for ransom. I know nothin… nothin!"
The door to the Royal Suites opened and Quianna came out shocked to see her older sister holding a lightsaber to the throat of a man in a Palace guards uniform. "Sachi! What are you doing?" Quianna asked looking around at the hands and arms and the guard with a swipe out of his chest strung out over the floor.
"Ben, can you take care of this? I have to talk to my sister." Sachi asked and reluctantly allowed the man to continue to breathe. She couldn't kill him, not an unarmed man, not in front of her little sister. 'Why couldn't she have waited a few more minutes.' Sachi thought in her anger.
The regular guards had come to see what the commotion was all about and took charge of the prisoners and Ben hurried to catch up with Sachi and Quianna, even though he knew she could handle herself.
"Are you going to tell me why you are chopping up the Palace guards, Sachi?" Quianna asked.
"Qui, Father just called someone… killed our Mother…and they were going to…" Sachi stopped when she saw Quianna's reaction. She pulled Sachi and Ben closer and wept bitterly on them both. She turned Sachi loose when someone came in to speak to her but cried in Ben's arms until she cried herself to sleep.
oOo
Moth and Taryn rushed to leave to assist the family, it was a long slow trip or at least it seamed that way in their pain. They also had to wonder if Ben were in danger knowing that he would be in the thick of the battle guarding Sachi, untrained at that. 'Why did I leave…' Moth thought. They arrived just as Yoda's ship was entering the atmosphere and sat down beside it. It as a solemn greeting and a long slow trip to the Palace, Moth and Yoda hadn't seen each other since he had left to go back to Verrell with Taryn.
Ben met them at the steps to the Palace and hugged his parents and bent down and started to pick up Yoda. "Master I am, pick me up, you shouldn't. Dignified, it is not."
"Yes, Master Yoda."
"How handling the loss, is Tra Gon?" Moth asked.
"Not well, the only one that is handling it is Sachi but she took her anger out on three of the men that tried to kidnap her." Ben said, then to Yoda. "That lightdagger you made for her Mot… well she took out three men with it."
"Is that why you are limping, son? I want to see that wound!" Taryn asked then demanded.
"I am all right, there are worse wounds to deal with, not physical, but emotional wounds." Ben added.
Moth, Yoda and Tra Gon all dreaded the meeting, each felt they had let Nyla down, they failed to keep her safe. The lull in violence had made them complacent and now she was dead.
Sachi came up to the group and looked from one to the other and said boldly. "If My Mother was alive she would whip all three of you. You were the three most important men in her life and you did nothing but love and care for her all of your lives together. As she told me on many occasions everyone has to go back to the Force. We should be glad for them, not mourn them, so tell us what is your happiest memory of My Mother?"
"Fighting with four men, they were, Master Moth and Nyla. Master Moth cut belt and man's pants fell. Scolded him, she did. Not want to know that much about opponents, did she. Threatened to space me many times for showing her up in her lessons, she did. Always leery of her temper, I was. If go into battle, want her beside me, I would have." Yoda said.
Tra Gon smiled. "I was a new Padawan and Master Bria and Master Moth were assigned to a planet to guard a new overlord while he was on a pilgrimage. She was so cocky for a girl and could see right through me as I pretended to be tough and eat the local foods. I was sick at my stomach for a week after that just from the sight of it. She stood up and said. "I can't eat that or I will puke." Master Moth scolded her for being blunt but the overlord just laughed and said he did too the first time he ate it and always felt like it to this day."
Leith had come in with Sachi and added his story. "I came into the throne room to deliver a message from Master Yoda and was forced to avoid looking at the Princess because she took my breath away and this offended her. She threatened to have me thrown in the dungeon even though there is no dungeon in the palace. Her Majesty called her bluff and ordered the guards to thrown me in the dungeon pronto, much to the Princess's surprise. She laughed and waved the guards off and gave me a new Job in charge of the Planetary Libraries and Education Programs and asked if I would be able to work with her daughter her adviser." Leith laughed sadly.
"I was working night and day on an illness that was dumbfounding our medical system on Naboo." Delila said. "Administrator Ettoré had sent out a distress call to the Jedi Council for one of their famed healers, which I thought was a bad idea. In came a Jedi Master, a young girl and a little green thing." Delila said smiling at Yoda. "I was assigned to supervise her, we finished each others thought almost instantly and both got a bad case of the giggles when we got to tired. I thought Master Moth was going to sedate us. It still seams strange to tell how I met my twin sister at age twenty."
"I didn't want a female Padawan, too much giggling and girl stuff. I always worried about her more than I ever did my male Padawans. She was more of a daughter than I would have preferred for her sake. I was told who she was and that she had a bounty on her head. She always seamed to be fighting some invisible battle inside herself, I never saw her at ease until she visited Naboo. I suspected you were sisters and tried to dissuade you from visiting each other again but I had been ordered not to tell her who she was so I couldn't tell her why. Finally, I realized you two had to know for your own safety, as soon as I said she had a sister she knew who." Moth added.
Taryn had walked over to Moth took his arm and told her story. "I had just married a Jedi and was half expecting to be drawn and quartered by the Council when Nyla came running up and told Kotn that the Force was vibrating and it had something to do with him. When he introduced me to her, she was dumbfounded and stood with her mouth open. Kotn reached over and closed it and said, "She is happy to meet you." She could only nod in agreement then said. "She was sorry she wasn't accustom to meeting Jedi wives." Then she invited us over for dinner that night. She invited me here to be her healer when she found out I was expecting Ben and Kotn couldn't come to be with me on Verrell. I should have stayed here and maybe Moth…"
"Nonsense!" Sachi announced. "My Mother was a great Jedi Master and if she couldn't stop this, none of you could have either! We would just be burying more of you. Now Yoda, I hear you have a flute and a song you play for these occasions may I hear it."
"Yes, Your Majesty." Yoda said and pulled his flute out of a pocket in his robe and played a melodious tune.
oOo
The legal authorities went in force to the Waccon estate and inquired about the kidnapping attempting and the assassination of the Queen. The Waccon patriarch was one of the men that had attempted to assassinate the Queen the night of her coronation and the families business had failed with the imprisonment of the their owner. His estates had fallen into disrepair and most of the family had moved 'off world'. That is where the son had come in contact with someone who knew about the Queen's former life as a Jedi and how she had been injured by a drug that affected only Jedi. It took many years and two generations but the grandson had finally ask the right person about the Force desensitizing drug.
A dark and mysterious man that scared even the callused grandson was happy to see it used on the former Jedi. He snickered with unexplained pleasure at the plot and gave the grandson a dart gun and six doses, for a price that would have bought a cruise ship on most planets. He asked about Master Moth and seamed disappointed that he was no longer guarding the Queen. He explained that two doses would kill or extremely incapacitate her.
"Can I ask why you want her dead as much as I do?" The young Waccon asked.
"Moth and her …and a little green thing killed someone I knew, along time ago. It isn't still guarding the Queen, is it?" He asked 'menacingly'.
"No, I wouldn't be able to do this if it was." Young Waccon replied.
oOo
Young Waccon had just arrived at the estates and was disappointed to learn the plot against the Princess hadn't worked, before he could escape the authorities arrived. The other four doses of the drug were confiscated and used as evidence at his trial then destroyed. At his trial he said his family was ruined with the return of the monarchy and the new for the people policies that Nya had brought in. He couldn't see it was their fear of change and the first assassination plot that was their downfall not Queen Nya. The estates were confiscated and sold to support widows and orphans and he was imprisoned.
oOo
"Knighted, twins have been, assassins now imprisoned, time for Yoda to fulfill his obligations to the Family. Stand by Yoda at marriage, would you?" Yoda asked.
"I would be honored, my friend." Moth said. "When are you going?"
"Two weeks." Yoda answered.
"I will drop Taryn off at Verrell and meet you there." Moth said.
oOo
As Moth arrived at Dagobah and he seamed to know where to land. He found a meadow and as he landed he saw a group of Yendell coming up. Yoda was leading them holding the hand of the lovely Yessa. He cut the power and headed down the ramp and was met by the group. Yoda reintroduced some of the people. Yara, his mother, Yav, his father Yona and her husband Yin, and then Moth and Myth the infants named after him so long ago, now grown. "Thought you were a myth, I did." The Yendell Moth said to the former Jedi Master.
"That's all right most 'off worlders' think everyone here is a myth. Yoda is very secretive about his home world." Kotn Moth said. "I am happy to meet all of you again and am pleased to be allowed to participate in another Yendell ceremony. I see the lovely Yessa has grown more beautiful since I last saw her."
Yoda beamed with pride and love as he looked at his intended. "Yes, lovely she is. Very lovely."
Moth was escorted to the home of the parents of the lovely Yessa and introduced to them as well. He was welcomed into their home, which had been especially built to accommodate almost comfortably the honored guest of the groom.
The Ceremony of Planting was the next evening. Yoda wore robes the color of rust of a special material he had found on Pyotr, never before had anyone seen that shade of rust on a Yendell. All the leaves were gold, red and rust as if the whole world knew how special this marriage was. A ring of damar blossoms, Yessa wore on her head and a flowing dress of the same material as Yoda's. Her father walked her to the meadow and the wedding song every one sang as we passed. The feast that followed was the greatest in years. Yoda and Yessa dance till morning light. Then retired to their new home in her family's tree. Yoda had said that the new sprout was always conceived on that night and in the spring at the Ceremony of Lights the sprouts were born.
The next day Yoda came to see his former Master off, mellower than Moth had ever seen him. They stood silently for a few minutes trying to think of all the things they needed to say but words wouldn't come. Finally Moth said. "You were right so long ago, a Great Jedi Master you have become. I should have never doubted you."
"Doubted you didn't, kept me with you until the Council changed their minds, you did." Yoda said choking up with emotions.
"I never did find out what you did to change Master Poof's mind. You didn't?" Moth said waving his hand to ask if he had used Jedi Mind tricks in him.
Yoda grinned and shock his head. "Only Master Poof knew and told he did not."
"I left some things with your in-laws for the sprouts, just my contributions to their nursery."
"Thank you." Yoda said proud to think of his coming children.
"Wow! When you come back my children probably won't even be alive and you will just be getting started. Take care of the future for us and look in on my… and Nyla's children occasionally. I'll tell them to look out for little green Jedi." Moth smiled thinking of all the times people had tried to describe Yoda.
"Happy to watch out for them, I will be." Yoda said and smiled at the description.
Moth shook Yoda's hand, stood and walked back to his ship. At the top of the ramp he turned and saw Yessa had joined her husband in waving goodbye. Moth closed the ramp and flew back to Taryn and his life on Verrell an old man's life of puttering around in the garden. One night years latter when he couldn't sleep he sat down and wrote a letter to his grandchildren and Nyla's telling them about Yoda and how they had met, fought and worked together. He included a picture of Yoda that Nyla had drawn and told them to look out for him and when to expect him to arrive. "Tell him Grampa said Hi." Not long after that Moth returned to the Force while he slept beside Taryn and dreamed of training Padawans and accidentally getting married.
The End of the Sprout of Dagobah
Coming soon Yoda, Great Jedi Master
(in one hundred years)
AN: Lesson I learned from writing this story. Be careful Mary Sue-ing your husband and daughter in a story that goes on for nine hundred years since you will have to write their deaths scenes. I had no trouble getting the emotions, just seeing the keyboard and screen while I wrote. (Sorry Mary Sue you got a bad rap always being used as an example.) I appreciate my readers and especially my reviewers and hope you look for the sequel. Let me know if you want me to PM you when I start the next one. Thank you.
Lea-El