Chapter 5: Going Forward
Low guard into kneeling high block. Back leg to forward sweep and rise.
She was there again. He stole a glance at her, noting the watchful and composed presence. There was an inherent peace about her, but a paradoxical urgency hummed in the air around them.
"Good. You are here, time is growing short."
"Wha… ?" He began to pause for a moment to address her face to face.
"Fifth form! Second kata!" She barked.
Zekk obeyed, reversing his peculiar saber to adapt to the form she called for. "Who are you?"
"Who are you?" without waiting for an answer, she continued, "We are running out of time, Zekk. Are you ready?"
Zekk knew that this was what he had been anticipating, dreading. He watched as a door appeared in the wall before him, dark and uninviting, and fought the urge to be suddenly and violently sick. Whatever was beyond that door was nothing he wanted to be part of.
She raised one graceful arm and silently pointed the way.
Zekk remained focused on the door as he used to motion of the kata to move him forward.
"Leave your weapons behind you and do not hesitate."
Dropping his lightsaber-
-he was running as fast as he could but he was too late. He knew this as surely as he knew his own name.
"Mom! Dad!"
Nothing moved, except the carrion birds that had been feasting on the remains of something behind what was left of the house. He wasn't worried, though, he knew where his parents were. No koha bird's razor beak would reach them there. He just hoped he could.
"Mom!" Here. They were here. Somewhere. Zekk sobbed. How would he ever get to them? He hadn't even recognized the shed that had buried them after the groundshake.
He small hands were bruised and bleeding from digging through the wreckage and dragging pieces of wall and roof away. The dirt mixed with his blood to form muddy bandages and seal the splinters in his palms. He couldn't see through his tears but he knew they were here.
Through his blurred vision, he saw what he was looking for. A thin lock of raven hair, gray with dust, lay beneath the flattened power converter that he had just tossed aside.
"Don't leave me!"
Zekk couldn't stop the tears or the fear that stole his breath. The roof had fallen in on her and, in Zekk's mind, all he could see was her smile and kind brown eyes as she let him have a lymon cake before the midday meal they would take to the field. Her glossy hair was tied back and only a few wisps escaped here and there, framing her face like a halo.
He scratched through the dirt and debris like an animal until the mud turned ominously dark and a tang assaulted his nostrils. Looking at his hands, he realized that it was no longer his blood that he was seeing. The mud was dark with it. Stumbling back in horror, Zekk lost his footing and fell. Darkness encompassed him.
Even the recognizable smells of a medical station could not erase the ashen scent of death from his nostrils. People were dead. More were still dying. He wanted desperately to be one of them but it was too late. They had left him behind.
"That's a nasty bump on your head there," the voice filtered into his consciousness and he kept his eyes closed, willing the intruder away.
"Are you awake, Son?"
Zekk bristled. "I am not your son."
"Well then, let's find your parents."
"Why? They left me." Zekk opened his eyes. "I hate them." Though he was staring at the ceiling, he saw the look of pity cross the old man's face and hated him, too.
"Don't worry, we'll find them. They might even be here."
"You don't get it, do you? They are dead." It seemed the old man didn't have much to say to this for a while. Somehow the old man's silence felt like a victory to Zekk.
Protein bars. Again. Zekk fought to swallow past the vile tasting lump in his throat as he stared at his "meal," still unwrapped, and shuffled his way away from the rations line. He swallowed again, if his mother had been here she would have made sure that he had a hot meal and a bath before bed. Zekk wiped his nose on his sleeve before wrinkling it in disgust. A bath smelled like a good idea, too.
In the 3 months that Zekk had been at the Haven for Displaced Children, the food had become scarcer and scarcer. More and more abandoned and orphaned children were found wandering the rubble of Ennth's metro centers, where it was whispered that hunger and disease ran rampant with the exploding rodent populations. It seemed that for every lucky child that was discovered and claimed by surviving family members, there were three more brought in, destitute and haunted. As a result, all of the older, healthier children were on strict rations. Sometimes not everyone got to eat.
"Whad do ya mean you're out?" a small, shrill voice demanded.
Zekk quickly stashed his bar beneath his tunic and began to hurry. It wouldn't be smart to be caught here when it started. Food riots were becoming common place, too. The atmosphere was growing more heated and turbulent by the moment. He risked a look backwards and was shoved violently to the ground as the word began to spread and others began to stampede the rations counter, refusing to believe that there was no food left.
Throwing up his hands in a vain effort to protect himself, he began to rise only to be thrown down again. Pain. In the panic and confusion that followed, he stumbled through following his instincts. Minutes later he was regurgitated into the clear area of the hold. When Zekk realized he had escaped the monster of many heads, he almost collapsed in relief.
Instead, he found himself pushed to the ground again. A girl who was a few years older than him, and a lot bigger, reached her hands out and began to pat him down, pawing at his tunic. Crying out in triumph, she pulled out his protein bar and hungrily ripped it open. Without taking her eyes off of him, she retreated to the outside wall of the cargo hold turned cafeteria and leaned against the ventilation shaft to feast on her prize. Zekk could do nothing but watch as she finished the last of the crumbs.
This proved too much and Zekk began to whimper as he fought the pain in his arm and the gnawing in his stomach.
Brushing herself off after leaning against the dirty wall, she spoke, "Oh Gods! Don't be such a crybaby." Rolling her eyes, she looked at him again.
"Look, kid, it's obvious that you don't know how to be an orphan so I am going to offer you some advice.
Your Mommy isn't here anymore to protect you. If you want something, then you have to take it.
And, kid? That arm looks bad. You should see a medic," she shrugged. "At least you will get some meals guaranteed for a few days.
Better luck next time."
She winked and sauntered off, leaving Zekk to stare after her as he cradled his broken arm.
Zekk found himself kneeling in the "End" position of his kata. Struggling to draw in ragged breaths, he raised his wild eyes to her.
"Why?" he gasped.
"Sometimes, the only way to go forward is back."
"But why this? Why bring this up now?"
She considered for moment before asking, "Who are you?"
Drawing his eyebrows down in confusion and irritation, he answered, "I am Zekk."
"Indeed. And are you any different now than before?"
"No. My past does not define who I am, neither," he glared at her, "do my fears."
"Are you certain of that?"
Zekk stiffened, "I am a Jedi."
"I am a Jedi." Blue eyes mocked. "That has offered many before you less protection than you may claim. Self-knowledge is better than a title. Knowing your fears can make you strong."
"Brakiss once said something similar to me."
She snorted indelicately. "Brakiss. Brakiss was a fool who believed that your fears make you strong in and of themselves. I do not believe that is what I said."
My dreams were more and more frequent, as was this sudden need for more sleep. I sat up and soothed my seedship partner. She was worried about me, apparently something in my dreams this cycle disturbed her but I couldn't get a clear picture of what. These dreams were so… elusive.
Stumbling into the galley for some caff, I asked San-Ah where we were, relative to Kr. Having a living ship definitely has its advantages. I had slept longer than I thought and we were to come out of hyperspace in twenty standard hours, roughly. I still hadn't figured out how I was going to get to Alema through AlemaGorog, though. Or shield my intentions from the Gorog hive mind. Trying to focus on the problem at hand, my mind wandered back to the tantalizing dreams.
I like her.
"What was that?" I could have sworn that San-Ah was becoming more and more articulate through this voyage. It was unsettling and reassuring at the same time. She helped to fill the emptiness inside that was Jaina and Taat. And it is a good thing, too, I might have been driven mad without her companionship in lieu of the others.
She is nice.
"Who is nice, San-Ah?" I was genuinely confused.
The woman you sleep with now.
I sat there dumb founded for a moment as I felt the color slowly rise to my cheeks and stay there, burning. That time I woke up with Jaina beside me in nothing but her smallclothes had been …interesting. The dreams it inspired were somewhat heated.
The fact that Jaina knows of these through our bond is bad enough, but she accepts it with good humor and teases me wickedly while we are alone. I had even caught her dreaming something similar once, though she tried to blame her dreams on my bad influence. Now, to have my voyeuristic seedship peeking into my subconscious and witnessing something as intimate as that… well, I wasn't sure I liked that at all.
San-Ah's laughter tinkled through my mind like the wind chimes Jaina kept outside her room on Yavin during our youth. A gift from me.
Not Jaina! The other one. Still laughing, she drifted away maintaining only the lightest of touches to keep me company and, no doubt, to keep me sane in the emptiness of space.
San-Ah either couldn't, or wouldn't, tell me more about this woman no matter how I bribed, threatened, or cajoled.