"I'm taking the trials to pass to Padawan today," Aithne told Bastila at breakfast.
Bastila inclined her head. "I suspected you might soon enough."
"But that would make her, like, the Jedi with the fastest training time ever, right?" Mission asked. When everyone in the hold stared at her, Mission shrugged. "One of the datapads I wheedled off Master Dorak's a book of records," she explained. "I got bored, alright?"
Six weeks from their landing on Dantooine had done a lot for Mission. She'd stopped collapsing into tears at the drop of a hat, and though she still had nightmares and Aithne suspected she always would, they were fewer and farther between. She'd begun fighting Carth and Aithne's attempts to teach her things more often, going out on the plains with Big Z, Carth, and Canderous to explore and serve as peacekeeper to the settlers, which Aithne took to be a good sign. She was less apathetic, returning more to the personality she'd had when they'd first met. Sometimes, Aithne caught the girl staring out into the distance and knew she was flashing back on Taris, or thinking about what Lena had said, of her brother and what information about him might be waiting on Tatooine, but the healing had begun.
"Yes, Mission," Bastila answered, "in reference to your question, if Aithne should pass her trials, she will be the quickest apprentice to have done so. I worry what that may mean for her—" she began, in the tone that Aithne had begun to refer to as Bastila's Tutor Voice inside her head.
She cut off Padawan Shan. "No doubt that my head will swell up like a summer melon and I will fall to the Dark Side," she said sarcastically, trying to forget about how all the Jedi half thought she was bound to do just that. "Bastila, if I promise to be very, very humble all day, can we save the lecture for tomorrow?" she asked. "Or, in honor of the occasion, would you consider letting me deliver it? I'm sure I've got it memorized by now."
"Have you?" Bastila asked. "Very well then: Proceed." She gave a regal wave of her hand and one of her trademark little half-smiles. Although years of Jedi training had done its absolute best to suffocate Bastila's sense of humor, it hadn't completely managed it. Every time the Padawan managed to be a good sport or crack a joke, Aithne did her best to encourage the behavior, especially since she knew she had a tendency to take her own jokes a little too far.
So, accordingly, she sat up very straight, folded her hands primly on the table, and pursed her mouth into an expression halfway between earnest entreaty and disapproval. "Aithne, we must practice constant vigilance against the Dark Side!" she said in her best imitation of Padawan Shan's Core accent. "We must always be wary, for the path to evil can lurk within seemingly harmless feelings—pride in a job well done, a catechism well answered. The warm, fuzzy sensation we feel when seeing baby animals can itself be an insidious lure to attachment—to joy and happiness and everything we shun as Jedi!"
When she'd gone off-book, Mission had sniggered, and now even Canderous was chuckling. Bastila herself was smiling. "You laugh," she said, "but until that nonsense about baby animals, that was a reasonable approximation of what I have been trying to tell you. I only wish you would listen, instead of turning everything into the opportunity for a joke."
"Believe it or not, Bas, it is possible to do both," Aithne told her gently.
"Overconfidence and pride can be some of the biggest pitfalls for a Jedi," Bastila insisted.
"I'm humble!" Aithne cried, irritated. "I'm very, very humble! You would not believe my humility! I'm probably the humblest trainee Jedi in the history of the Jedi Order—" Carth snorted, and Mission was giggling again— "as well as the one with the quickest training time. Can we be done with it? Can we go now?"
Bastila glared, then sighed. "As you wish, then, you impossible, ridiculous, clown of a woman. You enjoy taunting me, don't you?"
"One of the greatest pleasures remaining in my life, since the Jedi Council banned all the really fun ones, like laughing maniacally and stealing candy from babies," Aithne confirmed. "Would you care to accompany me through the trials?"
Bastila's expression hadn't changed when Aithne made the "laughing maniacally" crack, but Aithne still felt the Jedi's shields go up. As Bastila herself had told Aithne—at times the shields were as big of a giveaway as emotions themselves. She didn't need to feel Bastila's anxiety that Vrook's darkest fears were justified, their dreams were prophetic, and Aithne would indeed turn out to be the second coming of the Dark Lord Revan to know that it was there. She kept her own mask firmly in place and thought determinedly of Master Zhar and the coming trials.
"Did you think that I would not?" Bastila asked. "I have gone with you each day to the enclave, have I not?"
Aithne turned to the others. "Anyone else?" Ordo shook his head, and Teethree gave a negative-sounding beep too. Zaalbar roared his excuses. No surprises there—all three of them were decidedly uninterested in the doings of the Jedi and in Aithne's training. Carth and Mission were the only ones who sometimes took an interest. For Onasi, Aithne thought it mostly came down to his orders, though he was more comfortable with the Jedi than any of the rest, but Mission was often genuinely curious. She'd stopped idolizing the Jedi so much over the weeks they'd been on Dantooine, through sharing living quarters with Aithne and Bastila, and through her talks with Master Dorak and some of the Jedi apprentices near her own age, but she still tended to be more impressed with them than not. Today, both Carth and Mission wanted to go to the enclave.
Aithne, Bastila, Carth, and Mission jogged through the enclave to the training room. Zhar stood there waiting, with no trace of the emotion he had had during their conversation yesterday remaining on his face or in his aura. It made Aithne a little sad.
Zhar greeted her ritually, opening the conversation with the beginning of the trials. "Aithne Moran, you have come. Soon your apprenticeship will end, and you will be granted the title of Padawan, the lowest rank of those within the Jedi Order. Yet first you must prove yourself worthy. First, I shall test your knowledge of the Jedi Code. I will speak, and you will complete each sentence."
"I am ready, Master Zhar," said Aithne, bowing. And indeed, she was. She had studied the Jedi Code and meditated on its meaning until she thought her eyeballs would fall out. Debated it with Bastila too.
"Indeed. Begin. There is no emotion—"
"—there is peace." The very first precept of the Code in its current iteration was the one that most drew Aithne to older texts, where the Code was often written and interpreted instead as Emotion, yet peace. The current trend the Jedi had of repressing or dismissing all emotion often seemed to Aithne like a reaction to the Sith—both Exar Kun's and Revan and Malak's, who drew upon emotion to make them stronger. But as she saw it, the Jedi shouldn't react at all—it was a failure in their role within the Force, which was usually to stand firm. The Force did bring peace, and Aithne saw a lot of value in not being moved by emotion, but emotion itself she often thought as much or more a part of the Force as anything else. Fortunately, six weeks ago, she had not expressly agreed to adopt the Jedi religion herself, though she wasn't sure most of the masters realized this. She had agreed only to study the Jedi ways so as to learn to control her strength within the Force and resist the Dark Side. Her passage to Padawan today didn't depend on her agreement with Jedi philosophy, as it was currently practiced or at all, just her understanding of it.
"There is no ignorance—" Zhar continued.
"—there is knowledge," Aithne replied. That particular precept was one she couldn't imagine disagreeing with. She could live her life in pursuit of understanding, except since her discussion with Zhar yesterday, she now wondered if that very pursuit could be a type of greed. Bastila warned her against overconfidence and pride, but to Aithne's mind, Bastila's warnings were more a reflection of failings Bastila perceived in herself than they were of Aithne's own faults. Aithne remembered the way Revan had felt in her latest dream—that hunger for the power and insight each new discovery could bring—and recognized it in herself. She tried to keep her discomfort from Zhar and Bastila.
"There is no passion—" Zhar said.
"—There is serenity." Aithne answered. Less problematic than the denial of emotion, the denial of passion was very consistent with what Aithne saw as the Jedi's role. A Jedi proper didn't allow themselves to be moved by the transient, the passing, the ephemeral. They didn't let their emotions pilot, even noble ones like compassion or generosity. That was what passion was, really: a driving emotion, like Carth's paranoia and the anger he had at the Republic soldiers who had deserted to join the Sith. Driving emotions could be noble and head in noble directions, but they could also distract, go off course, or pickle and ferment into something sour and ugly. It was better to dismiss or work through emotions for serenity before they ever wound up in charge, to let emotions serve as advisors but never pilots.
"There is no chaos—" Zhar intoned.
"—there is harmony." That particular principle was something Jedi training had taught her: that there were patterns to the universe, even if it wasn't always possible to discern them from the ground. The Force ran through everything that lived and everything that happened, and even in the middle of a seeming cacophony, there was rhyme, rhythm, and music to the noise.
"There is no death—" Zhar prompted her, in the last line of the Code.
"There is the Force," Aithne finished. Something about that last line pricked at her. She thought it was the battlefields she had crossed as a scout, something in them that didn't always add up to this understanding of the Force. Since she hadn't visited them since training as a Jedi, she couldn't be sure, but she felt that there were some acts of evil and moral bankruptcy that were absent of the Force, denials or even negations of its presence. She wanted to return to those places she had seen, to see what she felt there now, but she didn't too, because she remembered them being terrible. In a way, the pat last line of the Jedi Code was much more comforting.
Zhar bowed, indicating she'd completed the ritual recitation to satisfaction. "Very good. Now for your next test. The lightsaber is the traditional weapon of our Order. It is a symbol of a Jedi's skill, dedication, and authority, and each lightsaber is as individual as the Jedi who wields it. The blade is made of pure energy, focused by polished crystals in the hilt. As the second test, each Jedi must construct her lightsaber with her own hands. And now it is your time. Go. Speak with Master Dorak, and he will guide you through the choosing of a crystal."
There were records in the archives that said that the choosing of a kyber crystal for a Jedi lightsaber had once been a much more rigorous ordeal for Jedi apprentices. Jedi apprentices had once gone to certain caves strong with the Force and searched for hours and hours through privation and difficulty to find just the right crystals for their lightsabers. However, it hadn't been unusual for apprentices to be injured in these trials, or to fail completely. Now, each apprentice was too precious to the Order at war for the Jedi to waste time testing them to obtain their own crystal. Instead, this part of the ritual was signified only by a conversation with the Jedi Archivist, and each apprentice was given a crystal from an enclave supply. They still had to design and create their own lightsabers, and sometimes the first lightsabers came out a bit wonky, but lightsaber creation in and of itself wasn't a particularly hazardous trial.
Still, Aithne bowed and left Zhar, and Carth, Mission, and Bastila followed her through the halls to the Archives. "Tell me, Aithne," Bastila said as they walked. "Exactly how much of the Jedi Code do you believe, and how much did you just regurgitate to Zhar to complete the trial?"
"I probably believe a lot more of it than you think I do," Aithne said, "but a lot less of it than you want."
"Well," Bastila replied. "At least I can count on your telling the truth to me."
"He didn't ask me if I believe it," Aithne pointed out. "Only what it was."
She walked inside the wide double doors of the Archives. She smiled up at the stacks of datapads, books, and holocrons, six times taller than a human being. There weren't ladders in the Archives; a Jedi had to use the Force to take down records on the highest shelves. Mission bounced up to Master Dorak. The kid liked the Jedi Archivist, and Dorak returned the sentiment, treating her with a lot of warmth for someone who wasn't a part of the Order. "Hey there," she said. "I brought back those datapads you let me borrow a few days ago. And your apprentice for testing."
"Miss Vao, thank you," Dorak said. "We might choose a few more tomes for you later." He turned to Aithne. "You have come, apprentice, at Master Zhar's bidding. He sees great promise in you . . . as do I. The time has come for you to choose the color of your lightsaber. This color also reflects your demeanor and position within the Order."
"Wait, so I have to pick my career when I graduate to Padawan?" Aithne said, affecting horror. "No one told me that! Can I change my mind later? This is a lot of pressure; maybe I should come back later."
Bastila scowled, but Dorak and Mission grinned.
"I am confident the Force will guide you down the correct path," Dorak said. "Would you like to hear your choices?"
Aithne sighed dramatically. "If I must determine the entire trajectory of my destiny within the next two minutes. Shoot."
"The first position within the Order is that of the Jedi Guardian," Dorak answered. "These Jedi traditionally carry blue lightsabers. They are the Jedi warriors, battling against the forces of evil and the Dark Side, and their focus is more upon combat training and the use of the lightsaber.
"There are also Jedi Sentinels, like young Bastila," Dorak continued. "The Jedi travelers and investigators, these Jedi ferret out deceit and injustice, bringing it to light, and they carry yellow lightsabers. Their focus is less upon combat and more upon other skills and abilities.
"Finally, there are the Jedi Consulars, who traditionally carry green lightsabers. They are teachers and scholars who seek to bring balance to the universe. They mediate between other groups, using their powers to end conflict and preserve peace."
Aithne leaned up against one of the study tables in the Archives, thinking. There were aspects of each position that sounded like her, or like who the Jedi wanted her to be. She'd been a traveler and investigator all her life. If she wanted to keep on, being a Sentinel like Bastila might be the best call, but then again, she wasn't particularly drawn to being like Bastila. The Council and Bastila both were very eager that she battle the forces of evil and the Dark Side, both within herself and as represented by Malak and the Dark Side, and while she had vowed that she owed Malak, lightsaber combat and muscling her way through the powers of darkness had never been as interesting to her as more subtle maneuver. She didn't want to set herself up as any kind of leader and open herself up to more accusations of overconfidence and pride, and yet— "I think I'd be a better Consular than anything else," she admitted, quietly.
To her surprise, she felt an immediate wave of shock and relief from Bastila through their Force bond, as though that hadn't at all been the choice she was expecting and dreading Aithne to make. Not Revan, then, Aithne thought, with satisfaction and increased conviction.
Dorak, too, seemed a little taken aback, though she sensed no obvious emotion emanating from him. "Indeed," he said. "We shall see. I will ask you a few questions, apprentice, to see which color and path you tend most toward. Are you ready?"
Aithne shrugged. She wasn't going to change her mind now.
"Begin. A woman and her small child are beset by a desperate gang of thugs. They cry to you for help. What do you do?"
Aithne wondered if Master Dorak had considered that she could answer according to what he had told her of the Jedi positions and reflected he was probably monitoring her through the Force for signs of deceit. It's what I would do. So, she answered honestly. "Stop the altercation and get answers. You said the attackers looked desperate—are they poor? Looking for something? The grammar of your question also leaves it ambiguous as to whether the woman and her child or the attackers are the ones who asked for my help. There may be more going on than's immediately obvious, and at any rate, Jedi are supposed to stop violence where possible, not participate in it, or so I've been told."
Her phrasing made it clear what she thought of both the question and the ideals behind it, and Carth made a noise that could have been disapproval or amusement. But Dorak wasn't fazed. "Indeed. Next question. You are in combat with a Dark Jedi allied with the Sith. There is a pause in the fighting. What do you do?"
"Make the most of it," Aithne replied. "Get the Dark Jedi talking. Everyone has a story. I try and get them to tell me theirs. Best-case scenario, I find out why they became Sith and convince them to change their allegiance. At the least, I distract them, and they're unprepared when I reinitiate the attack, enabling me to achieve a swifter, surer win."
"Manipulative," Carth commented.
"Love and war," Aithne retorted, shortening the common aphorism but keeping her eyes and senses trained on the Jedi. Both Bastila and Dorak seemed somewhat uncomfortable with her answer. The Jedi didn't forbid deception in combat as such; in fact, some of their most celebrated leaders and warriors were masters of deceit and cunning. The Jedi just didn't like it when she got comfortable with deception, which really wasn't fair.
"Next question, then," Dorak said then, after a pause. "There is a locked door, and your goal lies on the other side of it. What do you do?"
"Knock," Aithne said immediately. "Who says what's on the other side is an enemy?"
"I'd pick the lock, personally," Mission said. "No one says there's anybody at all on the other side either. You could wait outside that locked door all day."
"Also true," Aithne admitted, "but still."
Dorak smiled. "I'm beginning to see a pattern here, apprentice. But now, the final question. You are the head of an enclave on a contested world. The Sith have been causing chaos. What do you do?"
Aithne wrinkled her nose. "If the world's contested, I don't necessarily have the authority to take independent action, do I? Instead, I try and work with the planetary government to strengthen our position and build up our alliance. Only when I have their support do I move to stop any Sith acts of sedition or terrorism."
"Strategy," Bastila murmured. "Diplomacy, cunning. A preference for creative problem-solving and bridge-building as opposed to violence. As well as a certain pedantry, ironically manifested in subverting the pedantry and ambiguity of others and a fondness for being the cleverest person in the room."
"Ooh, ouch," Aithne said appreciatively. "Well done, Bastila!"
"It does pretty much sum you up, though, beaut—uh, Aithne," Carth said.
"As well as many Jedi Consulars," Dorak noted, with another smile. He fished a small crystal out of a pocket of his robe and handed it to Aithne. "You have good instincts, apprentice."
Aithne took the crystal, feeling its irregular shape in her hand, the way its facets resonated within the Force. She bowed. "Thank you, Master Dorak."
"You're going to go make your lightsaber now, right?" Mission asked. "Doesn't that involve a lot of meditating and sitting still? Like, hours of it?"
"It can," Aithne confirmed.
"Can I stay here then?" Mission asked. "I want to borrow some more books from Master Dorak. I want to see your lightsaber when you're done with it, but I don't really want to sit there while you make it."
"Fair enough," Aithne said. "Be back before dinner, and don't go out on the plains without a comlink and taking someone else with you."
"Yeah, yeah, I know the drill," Mission said.
"You'll be alright with her?" Aithne asked Dorak.
"Miss Vao is always welcome here," he answered.
They left Mission in the Archives. "So, how does a Jedi design and make their lightsaber?" Carth wanted to know.
"The Jedi keep several blueprints, schema, and components on record," Aithne explained. "But it's up to each individual apprentice to decide the kind of blade that will suit them best—both in regard to their personal fighting style and to resonance within the Force. A curved hilt or a straight one, synthetic or natural materials, designs upon the grip or not. Do they want a short blade, a double saberstaff like Bastila carries, a beam that is more or less stable, or one that has special cutting or burning properties? I've spent a good portion of the last couple of weeks researching it and thinking about it, trying different combat styles in sparring matches with Bastila and the Jedi masters. I've drawn up a few rough plans. I may alter them as I work this morning. The Jedi apprentice has to build their lightsaber with the Force, and in the end, it's gonna come down to what feels right."
"Well, what design are you starting with?" Carth asked.
"Without getting overly technical, I'm starting with a curved hilt design in banded and bonded durasteel and bronze, with a raised leather scrollwork grip. I'll be adding a little weight to the hilt to mimic the balance of a vibroblade but tightening the focus from the standard saber design for something that is faster and more precise."
"An aggressive design," Bastila noted. "Yet you do not often choose aggressive forms while sparring."
"Well, no," Aithne replied, "because I'm usually facing you, and you do. Best counter is to start in Form II, and if that doesn't work, adapt to VI to confuse you or III to wear you down through attrition." Bastila looked disgruntled, but Carth seemed interested. "Mostly, I want my lightsaber to be both fast and versatile," Aithne explained to him. "So I can kill something fast if I need to, but adjust to different combat conditions as they arise."
"How is she developing as a duelist?" Carth asked Bastila, "According to Jedi standards? On Taris, she used a couple different styles."
"She's much the same with the lightsaber. As you might expect, she has a preference for Form VI, which lends itself most easily to dual blades, wielded in tandem, and also, as she has implied, to creativity and adaptability in combat as opposed to any textbook offense or defense. It is something of a bastard style, a mixture of the others, and Aithne uses it as is intended, without any rigid adherence to the form, instead switching fluidly to the other forms as she thinks will work best to her advantage. She is often right, but not always, and her dedication to versatility in combat will, I think, prohibit her from gaining any true mastery as a lightsaber duelist."
"Says the girl who still mostly prefers Form Youngling," Aithne said.
"Better to attain true mastery of the basics than be mediocre in more advanced forms and present sloppily in both attack and defense," Bastila retorted.
"Better a mastery of my opponent than any one lightsaber form," Aithne shot back. "There is no one-size-fits-all fencing style." It was an old argument.
"Huh," Carth noted. "So, which of you is better?"
Aithne hesitated, looking sideways at Bastila. The younger Jedi waited, eyebrows raised. "Bastila's had about fifteen more years' experience with lightsabers than I have," Aithne said finally. "Do you think I'd say I outclass her already and open myself up to her revenge lecture on my pride and all the ways she's let me win, just to build up my confidence in new styles of combat?"
"A careful answer, but an avoidance of the question," Bastila pointed out.
"Funny how that works, isn't it?" Aithne agreed, "Oh, look, we're back in the training room."
She left Carth and Bastila behind to greet Master Zhar again. He welcomed her back solemnly with the materials she'd selected for her design, already laid out upon the training room workbench. Carth and Bastila sat down on the benches at the perimeter of the room, and Aithne put them entirely out of her head as she focused on leather, durasteel, and bronze; electric circuits and focuses and one small, irregular kyber crystal.
She turned the elements of her design over and over in her head, feeling how they interacted in and through the Force. She had drawn out a design of elaborate scrollwork for the grip in her initial plans, but now that the time had come, it felt . . . wrong. The lightsaber was a weapon meant to kill. The purpose of the leather grip she had drawn out raised above the bronze and durasteel circuit casing was sound—she wanted a weapon that wouldn't slip in her hand—but did the grip have to be pretty? Aithne sensed through the Force, feeling out a shape that would be better. She caught hold of it in her mind and attached the bonding material. The casing of the lightsaber took shape. She held it away from the actual circuitry of the saber itself with her mind. Rotating the focusing lens, the emitter matrix, the kyber crystal itself in the air, she viewed them from every angle, making sure all the components aligned exactly. She could feel the strain of it, the weariness that came with concentrating the Force in this way for an extended period of time. Then—the circuits connected. She embedded them within the weighted core she had designed, then within the lightsaber hilt.
Aithne held out her hand. Her finished lightsaber fell with a soft smack into her open palm. Aithne looked at it with a vague feeling of unease. The leather grip of the curved hilt now rose in a much more severe pattern than the one she had initially planned above the ringed and bonded bronze and durasteel, and it was broken right through the middle with a diagonal slash of leather. She felt within the Force it was a symbol of division, of disunity, and of dissonance, both within her past and within herself. The different sides of her life, before and after joining the Jedi, the different perspectives she tried to hold on things, sometimes incompatible with one another, sometimes conflicting. The grip—the lightsaber itself—wasn't pretty . . . but the hilt fit perfectly within her hand.
She ignited the blade. Part of her expected the very disunity of the final design to have corrupted the crystal inside, to see the blade extend Sith red, proving to every Jedi in the enclave who'd ever had doubts about her that they were right to have them. But the blade extended green. On the side of the training room, Carth exclaimed.
"Hey, she's finished!"
She saw Bastila jump a little, as if Padawan Shan had drifted off while Aithne was working with her lightsaber.
"So she has," Master Zhar said, walking over. He extended his own hand. Aithne switched off her blade and handed the hilt to the Twi'lek for inspection. He turned it over in his hand for several moments, examining the design, feeling the alignment of the components within the Force. His index finger traced the diagonal slash on the grip, and he looked up and met Aithne's eyes. "Hmm. You have done extremely well in constructing your lightsaber, apprentice. The crystal seems to have been set perfectly. It is rare indeed for that to happen the first time one constructs their lightsaber. Your lightsaber identifies you as a member of the Jedi Order," he continued. "With such recognition comes honor and respect . . . and the attention of dangerous enemies. The Sith and Dark Jedi will seek to destroy you, apprentice, and you must prove yourself worthy against a foe who also wields a lightsaber. Are you ready to face your final trial?"
Aithne was a little surprised. She'd thought constructing her lightsaber would be the end of the trials. "What, you keep Dark Jedi around in a cage somewhere to test graduating apprentices?" When Zhar didn't laugh, Aithne stared. "Okay," she said. "Hit me with it: what am I doing?"
"For every Jedi, the threat of the Dark Side is always present," Zhar told her. "You must truly understand this before you are accepted into the Order. You must see the corruption of the Dark Side for yourself. Even here on Dantooine there are places where the Dark Side holds sway, twisting and tainting nature itself. The ancient grove once used for deep meditation by the Jedi is now tainted. A wave of darkness perverts the region around it. The kath hounds in the area have become savage and ruthless. They have become a threat to the settlers, a threat the Jedi have promised to stop."
Aithne looked over at Carth. "Yeah, the boys have been out killing kath hounds a lot," she said, referring to Canderous and Zaalbar as well as to Carth. "You want me to go with them?"
Zhar shook his head. "The kath hounds are but a symptom of the true problem. You must journey into the grove and confront the true source of the darkness. That is your task."
Aithne tilted her head. "Confront," she repeated. "Not 'destroy' or even 'defeat,' though this darkness might be wielding its own lightsaber."
But Zhar was done giving her instructions. "I can say no more," he told her. "Some things you must work out for yourself. None of the other Jedi at the academy are permitted to help you in this task. But remember this, my young apprentice," he said, eyes full of meaning. "A Jedi acts with patience and care, and those on the dark path are not always lost forever. As long as the Dark Side taints the ancient grove, your lessons cannot continue. Stop the corruption of the Dark Side. This is your task, apprentice. May the Force be with you."
Aithne turned to her companions. "Guess you can't come with me, Bas, huh?" She had mixed feelings about this; Bastila had been such a constant fixture at her side since she'd first started Jedi training.
"I'm afraid not," Bastila answered. Aithne felt a trace of guilt and another of apprehension over their link before the Padawan's shields came up again and she lost their connection.
"Right then," Aithne said, looking at Carth. "It's getting on in the afternoon. Want to head back to Ebon Hawk for lunch then see who back there might want to take me out on the plains?"
"Canderous will want to go," Carth said. "He's bored stiff of the Jedi, but he's been dying to see what they've been teaching you in combat. Big Z might go too. I will."
Aithne smiled at him. If she had to leave Bastila behind at the enclave in this final trial, at least Carth would still be with her. They left Bastila with Zhar and headed back to Ebon Hawk.
CANDEROUS
Canderous wasn't sure he knew what came next. With the clans destroyed or dispersed, and Davik rotting under a pile of rebar and ash on Taris, there wasn't a whole lot left for him. Sure, he had a ship—Ebon Hawk, one of the fastest freighters in the galaxy. Could set up as a bounty hunter, maybe. She had a reputation in the Exchange. But he'd just got done being cheated by a petty crime lord. He wasn't too keen to take up the job again, only under the Hutts or worse. He was better than serving as lackey and petty thug to all the worst scum in the galaxy. He wanted a war! A fight where there was honor and glory to be had, not a bunch of sniveling debtors and cowards to be crushed. He wasn't about to sign up with the Republic, even if any recruitment office in the galaxy would take him. But . . . had to make credits somehow.
The Wookiee wouldn't have been a bad partner if he hadn't already sworn a lifedebt. Honest, good with a vibrosword. And he didn't talk too much. He came with a Twi'lek dependent, or as much of one as he could considering Moran was the one who'd made the adoption vows for her, or getting pretty close for an aruetii. Vao was young and stupid enough she still thought she didn't need anybody. She idolized Moran by now, sure, but she didn't want her like she wanted the Wookiee, who liked her, who was her friend, but who'd never taken half as much trouble for her, as far as Canderous could see. It was fine. The Twi'lek had her uses too. Good technician and salvager for a girl her age; an expert demolitionist for anybody. She didn't really need all that education Moran and Onasi kept shoving down her throat. She could make her way in the galaxy just fine without it, and make a pretty good living too.
Canderous would've been willing to take both of them on after Telos, and since the girl had half-ownership of that astromech Janice Nall had built, he might've wound up with a droid in the bargain. But the Wookiee and the girl were too bound up in the Jedi now. Zaalbar might've been better off teaming up with Canderous; probably would've had a better time, but his honor wouldn't let him abandon Moran now, even though Canderous needed him and the aruetii didn't. And without Zaalbar, Vao wouldn't be coming, even if Moran—or Onasi, for that matter—let her.
Ebon Hawk was pretty useless without a crew, though. She was too big to fly and man solo, even if Canderous ever had been any pilot. He could hire a new crew for her, maybe, but not on Dantooine, and not with the funds he'd had when they'd landed. So, ever since they'd touched down on this backwater farm planet, Canderous had been effectively grounded, unless he up and abandoned the ship he'd taken all that trouble to steal and booked passage on a shuttle off-world, giving up all the freedom having your own ship was supposed to bring you.
Hah. Nothing was ever all it was cracked up to be.
Canderous had more or less decided to bide his time and see if the Jedi had any use for his skills. Something was up with the Aruetii. They wanted her and Bastila right in the middle of their war with the Sith. And since he was pretty sure Moran at least already trusted him, she was probably his best bet for getting back into a fight worth having.
He hadn't seen Moran much the past six weeks. They'd wanted her for Jedi training, like she could get through everything a Jedi needed to know in a time frame like that. Except apparently the Jedi were more desperate than he'd thought, because they were trying to pass her up to the same rank as Bastila Shan. But there was something she had to do out on the plains first.
She asked for his help heading out there. Shan was forbidden to go by the other Jedi, and everyone knew no one should head out to the plains alone. Not that she would have even without his help; Onasi was going with her. That di'kut had been wound tight over Moran being cooped up in the Jedi enclave for weeks. Now that that looked like it might be over, Canderous would bet a hundred credits Onasi wouldn't leave Moran's tail for five minutes together. Carth thought it was because he was trying to figure her out—he saw something was up with her and the Jedi too, and it was itching at him like a venereal disease, but what was really happening there was a whole lot simpler than that. Not a lot of human aruetiise knew the way families were meant to be run, that a spouse and children were as integral to what a warrior was as anything they did on the battlefield—unless the warrior was a failure and a disgrace to them already. Onasi was the type of man who did, but he'd also been widowed in the wars. Hadn't said, but it was obvious enough he might as well have had it tattooed across his face.
Onasi wanted a woman, and it was obvious as the fact that he was a widower that he hadn't found a woman he'd wanted even a quarter as much as Moran since the Sith had torched Telos, and that much as anything was driving him 'round the bend crazy.
Moran, to her credit, seemed to know Onasi came with enough baggage to stuff Ebon Hawk's cargo hold and so far, she wasn't having it. It hadn't kept her from buying the nice guy act Onasi put on for her, making him her best friend on the crew, deputizing him as coparent to Vao, and letting him follow her around like an overgrown pup, though. Still, at least Moran knew enough to know that a man who'd fought most of his career on starships wasn't the best partner for fighting kath in navel-high grassy terrain.
With Vao on the ship with a bunch of datapad novels she'd got off the Jedi Archivist and Shan bound to the Enclave, that left him, Moran, Onasi, and Zaalbar headed out across the plains. Canderous snuck looks at the Aruetii as they tramped. She carried a single-hilt lightsaber instead of dual vibroblades now, but it was already the type that would work well with a dual wielding style. She just didn't have a second lightsaber yet. She'd ditched the combat suits too, in favor of Jedi work robes, really a tunic and leggings. Some Jedi said they could feel the Force better outside of armor; it'd always seemed stupid to Canderous. Feeling the Force didn't do squat when you were shot in the back by a sniper with a blaster rifle. Revan and Malak's people, and the Sith before Revan and Malak's people had absorbed them, had always had more sense in that regard.
Besides, the saber and robes didn't suit the Aruetii. She looked swallowed up by them. They weren't her natural gear, and you could see it. It was a good thing she'd come out on the plains with the rest of them. Some of the deserting cowards living off the weak settlers on this world liked to pretend they were warriors by ambushing Jedi from the enclave, reliving the glory days—alone, Moran might seem like a good target. Not that she was likely to go down easy; Canderous was willing to bet she could put up a good fight even without her usual gear, but he'd spent enough time trying to keep the Aruetii's ass alive that he wasn't ready to see her get killed yet. She could be a glib, assuming, smug little nuisance, not to mention half-crazy and now a Jetii to boot, but she could fight, and sometimes it was nice to hear Mando'a outside his own head, even from an outsider.
He led her and the others past the pathetic group of supplicants outside the enclave doors—sniveling weaklings begging for scraps from the Jedi because they weren't strong enough to solve their own damn problems. A couple of them tried to waylay Moran to ask for favors; Canderous was able to help her get free of them a little sooner. They all hated him anyway, but he was used to that.
Of course, while Carth and Zaalbar knew the value of staying quiet, the Aruetii was one who liked to chat. As they waded out into the grass beyond the enclave, she looked around, sized all of them up, and seemed to decide he was the best bet for some idle conversation.
"Haven't heard from you in a while, Ordo," she said. "We past 'we will never again speak of this' yet? Want to tell us a little more about your past while we're out here?"
Canderous glanced at her. She wasn't looking at him, scanning the grass instead for hostile kath hounds or other enemies. If he'd thought she was just out for some idle entertainment, he might've shut her down right there. But her back was to Onasi, a little stiff, and so he read her game. She wanted him to talk to Republic, not to her. Trying to build bridges the clans had burned a decade back. It wouldn't work, but if he was going to stick with her and get in on the war, they could all be working together a while, and the sooner she knew that, the better. Besides, he never minded getting under Republic's skin.
"Have it your way," he said. He spotted a horned kath and two of the ordinary variety headed their way. He brought his blaster round and fired. One of the small ones yelped and flew back half a meter, blood spurting from a new cavity in its chest, but because kath were too dumb to know when they should back off, it got right back up and tried to charge. The Wookiee leapt at the big one with the Aruetii while Onasi took on the hound Canderous didn't have covered. In another few seconds, they were free and clear.
Moran shoved some hair back from her face and looked at him like they'd never been interrupted. Canderous almost laughed at her, but he nodded.
"I was one of the best youth warriors in Clan Ordo in my time," he said. "No one before me had mastered the power of our Basilisk war droids as quickly as I had. Except Mandalore himself, of course. In those days we were sweeping across the Outer Rim, destroying all who fought us. Young Mandalores would prove themselves in real combat with unknown opponents above a thousand worlds. Each brought back the story of his achievements."
"Huh. Guess I'm out here doing the same thing for the Jedi today," Moran observed. "They won't tell me what we're up against out in the grove, anyway. What was your story?"
Canderous thought back to the day—fifteen years old, his first real battle. He'd slipped into Mando'a before he thought about it. /I remember it well—orbiting high above a placid world, its defenses just stirring. As was tradition, I would go ahead of the first wave to find enemies in the thickest fighting. I remember sitting there in my armor, linked directly with the Basilisk thrumming beneath me, my heart racing with fear at the coming battle./
Aithne was silent a moment, then she began speaking in Basic—to the Wookiee, he thought. He'd never had confirmation, but he thought the pilot understood Mando'a.
"High above the sleeping planet
Gleaming in the star-rise,
Battle below, warrior's first trial,
The droid and I are one
And yet I fear."
She spoke in a melodic, chanting sing-song, a Basic poetic rendition of the sense of his words in Mando'a. Canderous was silent a moment. The Wookiee made a small sound of appreciation, and Onasi's face had gone blank. After a second, Moran prompted Canderous. "And then?"
Canderous swallowed. /The doors opened in front of me, and the air was sucked out of the drop bay,/ he answered, /scattering crystals of frozen vapor across my path. I can't describe what it feels like to look directly down at a world, falling continuously as you circle it, with barely fifteen centimeters of armor plate protecting you. When the magnetic locks disengaged on my droid, I plunged out of the drop bay towards the battle that waited below./
Moran seemed to think a moment, then she translated in a murmur,
"High enough above a world,
The air can turn to diamonds,
With nothing left to breathe.
Is it the cold? Or my panting breaths?
The ground rolls away beneath me
Magnetic locks disengage.
I fall—an aircraft of one and droid."
Canderous licked his lips, now wanting to phrase his story perfectly, to tell it in a way these outsiders would remember, through Moran's translation. /The exhilaration, the euphoria, I felt as I streaked into the atmosphere, dodging self-guided projectile and beam weapons, was unmatched. An eighty-kilometer plunge through the atmosphere, dodging and weaving, the outside of my armor glowing like the sun with the heat of re-entry. With barely thirty meters to spare, I twisted and skimmed the surface, firing at the giant beam generators that were in my path. The explosion from that sent shockwaves that leveled the entire complex around it. It was the moment of my life./
Moran shot him a glare—he'd given her a bit much for the Wookiee that time. He raised an eyebrow at her; it'd been her choice to try to do a sense translation instead of a literal one. But he had to hand it to her, she didn't back down.
"Like a meteor toward the planet
Glowing, burning, blazing,
I hurtle toward the earth.
Heart in mouth, lives of my brothers in hand.
Enemy defiance screams in my ears
A shot over my shoulder, another near my leg,
But all enemy shots are futile.
Twisting, turning, curving,
There is no cratered Mando today.
I take my shot: an explosion like a nova.
Victory in a single shot:
A boy becomes a man."
Moran finished softly. Canderous grunted. "Pretty clumsy, that last verse," he remarked.
Moran's brown eyes flashed gold with annoyance. "You try translating a foreign language battle chant into Basic in less than two minutes while preserving all the poetry of the original," she retorted.
"I didn't ask you to do that," Canderous pointed out.
"You also didn't bother telling the story so Zaalbar could understand it," Moran shot back, confirming Canderous's suspicions that the pilot would've understood it anyway. "I get composing the tale afterward for the vode and the future Mando'ade is an essential part of a Mandalorian coming-of-age, but if you were going to tell that one, he deserved to know what you were saying, close to the way you said it."
The Wookiee said something then. Moran listened, and reported, "He says you are a brave warrior and a mighty hunter, Canderous, but warring merely for glory and plunder isn't worth the bloodshed. Still, he honors your people's storytelling, and my respect for your traditions."
"Yeah, you people have a talent for romanticizing genocide, I'll give you that," Onasi muttered.
"If their defenses had picked us up in time or their missiles had worked better, it wouldn't have been a genocide now, would it?" Canderous answered. "As exhilarating as total victory can be, it's not as worthy as when someone offers a genuine challenge. Maybe that's why we liked fighting your Republic so much—at least later, when they grew some backbone."
"Now, listen here—"
"It's a compliment, Carth," Moran interjected quietly. "But he also wants you to take it like an insult. Ordo, can we just fight the kath hounds, please?"
"Huh. Onasi'd put up a better fight," Canderous grunted.
"I told him when we first met you he's not allowed to pick a fight and let you kill him," Moran answered. "Anyway, we're done with that war."
"You think he'd kill me?" Onasi demanded.
Moran glanced over the two of them. "I think we're done with that war," she said again, in a voice like ice. It was a commander's voice if Canderous had ever heard one. And even though Moran had next to no rank in the Republic and barely any with the Jedi, Onasi listened.
They fought a couple more groups of kath hounds in silence. Then Canderous asked, "That translation from before. Would you ever write it down?"
"Clumsy last verse and all?" Moran challenged him.
Canderous stomped a hillock of grass out of their path. "Yeah," he admitted.
"If you want," Moran said. "Any other chants or sagas you remember too, whether they're yours, your clan's, or someone else's. I'll work on the translation of that last verse."
"I'll pay," Canderous offered. "When I've got the credits."
Moran shook her head. "It's culturally valuable material, whether the galaxy at large is ready to admit it yet or not. Useful history, from a perspective not a lot of people will hear. The truth is, you could probably get other people to pay you for it. The Jedi Archivists for one, and probably a few Core academics too."
"I'm not gonna sit in some paper-skinned professor's office and recite the history of my people for credits," Canderous told her.
"I wouldn't expect you to," the Aruetii answered, still peering straight ahead. "But if you want me to transcribe and translate some of your battle chants for the dispersed Mando'ade, or so the galaxy remembers you now, I will, and I'm not averse to helping you get paid for it either."
Canderous grunted. "And what do you get out of it?" he demanded.
Moran shrugged. "I could take a cut from the Republic academics if it would make you feel better."
Canderous sighted down on a lone kath hound, saw it was just lying down in the grass, and let it be for now. "I'll think about it," he said.
He wasn't out for friends, just partners, just a way into the war, but the Aruetii made it hard to hold her at a distance. Within four or five run-ins with kath hounds, it was clear she was about as good with that shiny new lightsaber as she had been with vibroblades, or better. He hadn't really noticed she fought like a Jetii before, but now he realized Moran had always had a style like a bastardized version of one of Revan's people back in the war, or the Sith. Worked better now her blade could actually cut most anything. Wondered where she'd picked up the forms, though. She used them too naturally to have learned in just six weeks, but they didn't often leave the Jedi and Sith academies. Against the kath hounds, she looked like one of Revan's people too, storming a line of four or five vode at once. Had the same aggressive, brutal look to her movements. Butchered the dogs like a veteran.
She was a warrior and a woman worthy of respect, and more, she'd shown she understood his people as well as any outsider could. Onasi would be fun to fight. So would the Padawan, Shan. But she'd be the real challenge, Aithne Moran. Decent Mandalorian, too, if she'd been adopted into a clan soon enough. Sometimes he wondered if she had been, and that was where she got it. More likely she'd fought in a lot more of the war than Onasi and them thought. You saw enough action, and your enemies started to seem like friends. Even Onasi hadn't seen that much combat, and Shan was way too young, but Moran . . . there was something about her.
They finally made it to the sacred grove the Jetiise wanted her to purify. She paused as they entered the boundary-line. "Any ideas how one goes about detecting, locating, and stopping corruption?" she asked rhetorically.
"I don't know," Onasi answered. "You could try using those senses the Jedi have been hammering into you for the past six weeks."
Canderous caught sight of the sun on red-painted beskar a few meters out. "We got bigger problems right now," he said, jerking his head at the deserters.
"Oh. Fantastic," Moran muttered, activating an energy shield. The Wookiee roared a challenge.
These scum wore beskar because they'd fled, abandoned the clans before the final battle with Darth Revan. They conquered farmholds now instead of taking worlds because settlers with rusted shotguns and a bevy of children under ten years old were the only enemies they could face. Just looking at them made Canderous sick, and he'd taken positive pleasure in exterminating the rats wherever he'd found them these past six weeks. They'd gotten to know his face.
The former vode and their Duros lackeys let him approach with the others. "So, this is the Ordo," a Mandalorian in red sneered as he drew near. "Preserving the purity of our glorious past as he stands beside a walking throw rug and this piece of Republic osik. And now a Jedi."
"You cowardly cretins," Canderous threw back. "Want some more, do you?"
"You've caused a lot of trouble for a gray-haired has-been, Dar'manda."
Canderous laughed. /Oh, I'm going to enjoy gutting you,/ he said.
"I will pin your hands and feet to the dirt, old-timer. You will watch, alive, and shit your pants as we skin the Wookiee and behead your bitch Jetii, and when I claim her lightsaber as my own, I will gut you upon it."
Blaster fire broke out, but it was Onasi who had fired. Then Moran was in the center of the fray, a whirlwind of limbs and lightsaber, disemboweling the Duros, stabbing at the joins of the deserters' armor. "Here," Canderous said, handing the Wookiee his rifle. Zaalbar saw what he wanted and traded him the vibrosword, and Canderous rushed into battle. This was one enemy he wanted to kill face to face.
He locked blades with the man in red. Dar'manda, he had called Canderous, but he and his kind were the true soulless, the ones who had forgotten what it meant to be Mandalorian. One day Canderous and every vod like him would earn back their armor, and then the galaxy would quake again, but until the day they did that, everyone would know who the real traitors were, the ones who had left their brothers to death in those last years of the war, humiliation by Revan's army. The cowards who'd never looked straight into hell or faced down the Butcher of Malachor, that diminutive Jetii demon who had ripped a hole through the fabric of reality then disappeared without a trace.
The son of a bitch had a helmet to cover his face, but Canderous felt when he started to be afraid. The others had killed all his Duros and traitor companions by then, but they were standing back on Moran's order. Canderous found a break in the coward's defenses and let the Wookiee's sword fall, into a join on Red's right gauntlet. He ripped and tore, tearing the beskar away in a feat of brute strength and rage. Then he slashed, and as the enemy roared in pain and fury, Canderous kicked out with his boot and connected with Red's armored breastplate. Then in another mighty swing, he took off the traitor's head.
Canderous stood there, heaving, watching the corpse spurting blood over the plain. It took the man two seconds to fall completely to the ground. Canderous flared his nostrils and inhaled a fetid stench. "Looks like you're the one who crapped your pants in the end, hut'tuun," he muttered.
/Alright?/ Moran asked after a moment.
Canderous grunted. "Whatever. I'm pretty sure these were the ringleaders for the raiders on this world," he said. "With them dead, maybe those farmers at the enclave will stop their whining for a few days anyway."
"But are you okay?" Moran repeated, in Basic.
"It's all crap," Canderous told her. "Hate those damn deserters worse than any Jedi or Republic I ever met."
"I know," she murmured.
/Excuse me,/ someone said in Huttese. Canderous sighed and turned around to see a Twi'lek male, dressed in Jedi robes. /I have no wish to interrupt./
"Yeah, well, you're putting on a pretty good impression of it," Canderous growled.