33: Calm Before
Chiyo stood on a frozen plain, gazing into a night sky shot through with auroras of indescribable colors. A thousand tiny glittering specks covered it; the mighty Rebel Armada, a sight that should have been inspiring but left her cold. But then, perhaps that was just the hellish, frigid wind that howled over her bundled-up form.
Long ago, before any of this, she had dreamed of this sky.
After long seconds of contemplation, she stripped her thick mask off and drew a deep breath of the frozen air. A sharp pain stabbed through her chest from the change in temperature, but for some reason it felt wonderful. Next to go were goggles; her wide mahogany eyes watered up but the tears froze to her temples almost instantly.
Acting on momentum, she unzipped her enormous coat from the inside and let it slough off into the snow, joining her thick mitts and cap. She stepped out of her heavy boots and snow-pants, wincing as her light shoes chuffed into the snow. Finally, she pulled her sweater over her head and was left standing on the field of ice in just a tank-top and light trousers.
Chiyo drew her lightsaber and ignited it, banishing the auroras and the fleet from her vision. The Force filled her with energy and warmth as she brought the blade in a wide arc over her head, the beginning of a basic saber form. Forgetting the blood-freezing cold, the young Jedi sprang lightly through the steps of her form, weaving a maze of green light through the crisp air.
Over time, the girl vanished from herself and there was only the shrieking wind, the whirling dance and the Force. She was exhilarated and soaring and, for the first time since she had destroyed the Implacable, felt… clean. Flushed and laughing exultantly, Chiyo let the elements scour her away.
Yukari's eyes opened on the ceiling above her huge, soft four-poster. The bed chamber was much smaller and utilitarian than her room in the Imperial Palace, but the bed made up for it. Digital numbers burned by the bedside read 2:32… so why had she awakened? And she'd been sleeping so much easier since that creepy little waif had taken off for Myrkyr…
A violet lightsaber ignited less than two feet from the foot of her bed.
"WAAUGH!" The Empress shot to the head, clutching bedclothes to her chest. "Mito! What the hell are you doing here?"
"I'm back," Ayumu said with an eerie, purple-lit smirk. "Just thought you should know." The room was once more plunged into darkness and the Sithling left silently. After a few minutes and a shot of something illegal to let her heat rate return to normal, the Empress lay back down and started plotting her revenge.
"So then," Miru commented loudly, "This idiot goes capering around down there without any gear and wonders why she's feeling a little under the weather."
"It was w-w-worth it," Chiyo said stubbornly. She was wrapped in a heavy blanket and held a mug of hot chocolate in trembling hands. At least three boxes of tissue stood by around her as she worked with Maya sprawled across her lap, adding another layer of warmth. "I g-guess you h-h-had to be there."
"Are you kidding?" Miru hopped the back of her couch and sat next to her. "It's bloody cold down there!"
"Did you j-just get off duty?"
"Yeah. Yuka'll be free in an hour or so. So these're all the journals you took from Kamineko's place?"
Amid the boxes of tissue there were five battered, aged, handwritten books. Chiyo took one up and nodded. "Yes… he kept journals of all his experiences training… gee, must be thirty, thirty-five Jedi."
"How do you know he wanted you to have them?" Chiyo indicated one of the volumes, which had 'take these, you ungrateful little jerk' written in marker on its cover. "Oh. But isn't it a little early to be thinking about training new Jedi?"
"Well, r-reading these helps to steady me."
"Steady you? You look pretty steady to me…"
Chiyo gave a small smile. "It's working, then."
"Well… I'll leave you to it. Sabbac game with the other powder monkeys in ten minutes." Miru stood. "Want to eat with me and Yuka at six?"
"Sure, I'll s-see you then."
3/9/70
This new student is driving me up the wall! She's so quiet and sensitive, and takes everything so seriously! Just yesterday I had to explain to her that Mace wasn't yelling at her, that's just how he talks. I just can't believe this is Sakaki's kid! I was expecting another brash, fun-loving idiot like Mihama…
Chiyo turned a page of the battered journal with a warm giggle. It was hard to imagine what kind of environment Dagobah must have been with a Master and three full Jedi studying together, wrangling over the instruction of a single student. Poor Sakaki.
3/11/70
Nanashi thinks I'm cute. Where on Dagobah did that come from? "Look," I said to her, "I might have been cute three-hundred years ago, but now you're just insulting me!" She looked so disappointed… what am I going to do with this kid? The talent's there, and she has a damn fine singing voice besides, but as it is, she just doesn't have the drive to become a Master. I'm considering packing her off to Delnor when she's old enough, but I'm not sure…
"First time reporting to the Empress since Nochichi left," Tarvis commented. "Are you nervous, Ayumu?"
"Nah," she replied casually. "After the Dark Lord of the Sith, she ain't nothin'."
"I, uh, I wouldn't say that so loud…" Garus said nervously on her other side.
Tarvis glanced at her oddly; her good cheer seemed forced, but he had learned from Nochichi that personal feelings weren't a good subject to bring up with Sith. ("Are you angry?") The three of them rounded a corner, coming to the huge, tacky double doors that led into the reproduced throne-room.
"Yo," the motionless Imperial Guardsman said when he noticed her.
"Maido," Ayumu greeted, passing him unhesitatingly and pushing aside one of the gilded doors to enter. Yukari stood before her throne, talking to the two Intelligence guys that had taken over since Matsuyama left. "Oh, you're just in time!" the Empress called with an evil glint in her eyes. "I was just explaining to these gentlemen how I wanted them to deal with Kurosawa! Come on up here."
Ayumu approached gamely and stood next to the Empress.
"It's Thyferran stand-up time! Okay, let's say you just caught her, okay? Darth Mito here is Kurosawa."
"I'm Kurosawa."
"Here's what I want you to do…" Yukari withdrew a rolled-up magazine from behind her back, clubbed Ayumu to the ground and then followed her down, bludgeoning away. "You got nothing, Kurosawa! NOTHING! We got you good, you loser! Ha!"
"Waugh! Hey! Ow!" The demonstration turned out to take much longer than was strictly necessary.
"Uh…" Shiro glanced at his partner. "Do we… um, interrogate her at any point?"
Yukari kept flailing with the magazine as she glanced up. "No, a savage beating will do nicely. Well… sure, if you find the time, see what you can find out."
The Intelligence guys looked at each other and shrugged. "As you command, my Empress," Kenichi said formally.
"You'd best," Yukari replied, standing and flattening the magazine against her stomach. "You're dismissed."
As they left, Ayumu rose and took her customary place next to the throne. Then, after a moment of consideration, she hopped up and squatted on its back like a gargoyle. The Empress didn't seem to notice the extra dose of creepiness though. "Yes, Mito," Yukari pontificated, "The day of reckoning between myself and that filthy traitor is at hand! She will bow before Yukari, Empress of the Universe…!"
The younger woman looked up through the crystalline windows, admiring the stars. She fancied that there were martial artists that would envy her ability to unhinge herself from the moment. While the Empress blathered on, her mind wandered free, dwelling on the beauty of the crystal and stars, free of the uncertain future, the horrible past and…
"What do you think, Mito?"
Crap! Ayumu wracked her memory but what Yukari had said not five seconds before just wasn't there. What was an appropriately Sith-y thing to say…? "At last, we will have our revenge," she ventured, in a deep, menacing voice.
Yukari nodded approvingly and looked away. Whew! "By the way, there's a change of plans. Don't kill Mihama- I want to corrupt her to the dark side and have her as a minion!"
"Um, but… you're not…"
"Don't worry! We can pull this off! What better way to show Nochichi we don't need him, eh?"
Ayumu swallowed. Her coming confrontation with the Prodigy was already as frightening as all-get-out, but this was just ridiculous. "Ah'll…" she shook her head. "I'll do my best."
"Yesterday, the 181st Super Valkyrie Wing attacked our holdings over Byss. Before our defenses finally repelled them, they dropped Giant Killers on the Tachikaze, the Van Halen and the Gorgon as well as destroying twenty-three of our Valkyries." Matsuyama slapped his pointer into an open hand and faced the assembled admirals and executives. "This is only the latest in a string of attacks against peripheral elements of the Armada. Since the Armada has started mustering, we've lost eight cruisers and over a hundred fighters."
There was some uneasy shifting in their ranks.
"Further, we've been getting rumblings of mutiny right here over Hoth. People are starting to figure out that the Imperials are bound to be waiting for us. If we don't move quickly, we're going to see a mass revolt of the smugglers and privateers."
"Haven't you dealt with that Mizuhara woman?" an Admiral near the front asked.
"I'm… trying to, yes. It's not as easy, here. In an Imperial fleet, we would have just spaced her and been done with it. And while she was the first, she's not the only one who's causing trouble now. I propose that we surprise the Empire and ignore Endor." More shifting. "With the fleet we have here, and with theirs concentrated around the Death Star, we could take any world we want. Maybe even Coruscant."
"Well now, the idea holds merit."
"Yes, they wouldn't be expecting it."
"Unpredictability is an asset…"
"No." Everybody in the room turned towards Kurosawa where she sat near the front of the lecture hall, straight in her chair, hands folded and expression hard. "The target is Endor. Nothing changes."
"But Professor…" Matsuyama started.
"The Empress herself is there. Now. As we speak." Kurosawa paused to make sure she had everyone's attention. She needn't have; they were hardly daring to breathe. "We have a chance to end this in one stroke. The Death Star might be a trap, but the bait is too good for us to pass up. I have contingency plans in place for whatever Kimura might have in store for us."
"You're, um, not letting a personal vendetta cloud your judgment, are…" at the Professor's look, he quailed.
"But Yomiiii…!" Tomo whined.
"But Yomi what? You're not going to 'But Yomi' me into anything, this time," Yomi growled, stuffing clothes into her duffel. "There's not a single thing you can say that will convince me to stay here with these idiots and fly into a mountain with them! Don't even try to tell me the cause is worth it! We're going."
"Well, I was just going to say that they'll blast you if you try to leave," Tomo said, sprawling across the bed next to Yomi and looking up at her. "Stupid."
"I'll figure it out. What am I supposed to do? It's suicide to stay!"
"You sure don't have a lot of faith in us."
"In us… the Rebels are us now, are they? Since when did we become Rebels, Tomo?"
"Well, I don't know about you…" Tomo rolled away from her and looked out the room's window. (Though they were deep within the ship, the miracle of holography gave them a view of the outside.) "But I think it's worthwhile. Yomi… the Empire is bad."
Yomi chuckled bitterly at her childlike conviction. "No shit. It's so bad that we should fly out and get blasted by them?"
"We have to try!"
"Do we, now? I don't get you, Tomo! How can you be so… so… quixotic?"
"And I don't get you! Why are you so damn cynical?"
"Cynical? It's not cynical to not jump off a cliff because everyone else is! You're such an imbecile! I swear, if not for the life debt…"
Tomo threw her hands in the air. "I release you."
"What?"
"Are you deaf, you half-witted, scrawny freak? I release you! Forget the life-debt! Go your own way if you're too spineless to see this through!" By this point, Tomo was standing on the bed, yelling, red-faced. "It would be just like you! You're always running scared! You were running scared when we met and you're running scared now! Well, this time you can do it without me!"
"Oh, really?" Yomi leaned in close to the smaller woman. "Two things. One, I was indeed running scared when we met… I was running from a five-hundred kilo death machine! If you had even a gram of common sense, you would realize that it was the only natural reaction!"
"That…!"
"And two: was I running scared when I came back with the others to save you from Spince?"
Tomo was stricken. Yomi continued to pack as she groped for words, and was just leaving when she finally managed to speak. "I'm s-sorry! Yomi, I didn't mean…"
"Forget it. You never mean anything you say, Tomo," the Valerian sounded more sad than angry. "I… am thoroughly, thoroughly sick of your crap. Your immaturity, your screechy voice, your selfishness, your… ugh, so you've released me? Awesome. Have a great life."
"Yomi! I-!" The Valerian turned on her heel and left with her bag over her shoulder. "Hey! I'm sorry, okay? Will you…" And the door hissed shut. Tomo stared after her for long seconds, biting her lip. "Fine," she finally said, her thick, strangled voice betraying that it was anything but.
How could you tell if a Sith was distressed? Try as he might to pierce Ayumu's cardboard good cheer, he still had no more idea what was going on with her than before. And really, as the simple Guardsman assigned to her, psychoanalysis wasn't in his job description anyway. In the end, he decided to just roll with it.
"So how was Myrkyr?" Tarvis asked as they disembarked. The deck had been cleaned, but he imagined he could still see the weirdly-shaped scorch marks. A sweet, warm wind rushed through the trees and ruffled their hair.
"It's a nice planet," Ayumu replied dreamily. "No strings."
No… strings? He had honestly expected her to complain about how a planetload of Ysalimir cut her off from the Force. What could she mean by this? Before he could ask, she continued. "And to get the Ysalimir, we worked with this smuggler guy named Talon Karrde."
"Never heard of him."
They mounted the turbolift and started down; Ayumu glanced at it distrustfully, but didn't slow her narrative. "Talon-chan has a great sense of humor. He laughed at all my jokes, and do you know what his flagship is called?"
"What?"
Ayumu giggled. "The Wild Karrde. And his yacht is the Uwanna Buyer."
"Oh, God."
"He was so good to his employees, too… I'd love to join his outfit some day."
"You're the Empress's Hand, though. How would you ever end up working for a guy like him?"
"I can dream, can't I?"
Can you ever, Tarvis thought to himself, but settled for saying, "Sure." After they disembarked at the landing platform's base, it was a short walk through the cluster of bunkers to the appointed area. A dozen men were already waiting around a little-used picnic table, looking doubtfully at their caged Ysalimir. One was poking his with a stick, but stopped before the duo drew near.
Each Ysalimir was a long, sinuous creature with a wooly coat. They clung to nutrient frames in their cages with stubby little legs that ended in barbed claws, looking slowly about with wizened faces that could have been designed by Dr. Seuss. Though they didn't appear to be anything remarkable, to a Force user they could be the most dangerous creatures in God's green galaxy.
Ayumu looked among the assembled stormtroopers, then, not liking the height ratio, hopped up onto the picnic table and raised her hands. "Ahem! Thanks for coming, guys. If you will please listen carefully."
The men stopped what they were doing and listened respectfully.
"Okay. First things, first. To get your Ysalimir off of his nutrient frame, you have to take him by the end of his tail and pull gently." She gestured for them to try it, and they did. After a few seconds, one raised his hand.
"Yeah?"
"I, uh, I think mine's dead."
"Dead…?" Ayumu asked dangerously. She jumped down and walked towards him slowly. "Dead? You didn't pull him off right, did you? You didn't take him by the tail, did you? I said you had to take him off by the tail, didn't I? Didn't I?"
"S…sorry?"
She had reached him by this point, and reached up to grab his lapel. "You, suh, need to learn how to listen when other people talk! Next time you…!" And then all at once she shook her head, shedding her anger instantly. "I can't do anything hideous to you this close to the Ysalimir anyway, can I? Tell ya what, I'll give the little guy a decent burial and we'll get you a new one, okay?"
"Y…yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am."
Ayumu started back towards her table with the dead Ysalimir over her shoulder. "Back, up, willya? They're starting to bug me," she said. The soldiers obediently moved away, still trying to coax their Ysalimir off the frames. Just as the last bubble of Force dampening cleared her, a blaster bolt streaked out of the forest and smacked into her temple.
"Eyyaugh!" She dropped like a sack of potatoes, clutching the side of her head. "Ow! Ow!" A dozen Ysalimir cages clattered to the ground as the men drew their blasters and searched the trees tensely. Tarvis jumped onto the table and crouched between her and whoever was shooting, wishing he'd brought his ablative vest.
Ayumu rose behind him and leaned heavily on his shoulder, still holding a hand over her temple. "That was lucky," she commented lightly.
"Get down!"
"Which one of us is blaster-proof?"
"But you're hurt!"
"Have you ever absorbed a blaster bolt through your forehead?"
"Uh, no…"
"You should try it some time." She stared into the trees and her eyes unfocused, drifting slowly over the foliage. "Ah. There you are."
"I don't see any-"
"Shh…"
Ayumu reached over his other shoulder and a Force Shriek rolled softly out. Before her splayed fingers, branches blasted to splinters, leaves shredded and chunks blew out of boles. The shockwaves weakened as they got farther away, until finally vanishing at about thirty meters.
An undeniably feline yowl of pain and surprise reached their ears, followed by the paff! of a blaster's power cells bursting. Several of the stormtroopers rushed towards the sound, but Ayumu threw her hand out to stop them.
"Let him go. You'll just run into a bunch of their traps if ya chase him. Now, where were we…?" she turned back and noticed the strewn cages with a look of dismay. "Gently, guys! Man…"
Yomi sat alone in the cockpit of the Silver Rose. Her hands hovered over the controls, itching to start their well-practiced routine. She'd calculated that the Rose could manage 1.39 the speed of a Seraph, so the patrols shouldn't be a significant problem. She cared little for the chaos her departure would cause; she just wanted out.
So why didn't she move? Every word she'd said to Tomo was true. It would be suicide to stay. Tomo would be insufferable if she returned.
But… it wasn't just about her and Tomo anymore, was it? There was Chiyo-chan now, and Kagura, and even the Princess. Try as she might, Yomi couldn't convince herself that she didn't owe them more than just cutting out now.
And besides, the thought of blasting off into space and flying for hours alone, in such silence…
"Well, shit," she sighed.
