CHAPTER TWO

ESCAPE FROM THE COMMAND CENTRE

Some time later, he was watching something occur from their command center, hiding on a grassy outskirt with his macro-binoculars. The Remnant forces had deployed their troops from the command center. Per'l knew they were on the look-out for spies. He couldn't actually hear them, but if he could he would have been privy as the ex-Imperial complained.

"Endi droids," the Remnant Officer sniffed. "Hardly any better than having the local tribe savages track for us, what a backwards planet."

The little droids scuttled out in the brush with surprising speed on their little legs. They wouldn't have any luck.

"They're hunting us with their wolfnauts." Per'l added later. Weird creatures that scavenged in the underbrush, they make effective hounds, able to track human scent across miles, and several more of the more pungent species. He had checked the charter before reaching this world, and got a brief survey on native wild-life, they had been listed among them, and he had memorised the list.

Luke was strange among what he knew of the Jedi. He wasn't afraid of the Sith, or their teachings, but seemed to find them amusing. He wondered sometimes if the master took everything with a sort of cosmic irony.

But the Dark Side, oh boy, did he not take that with equanimity. The look in his eyes was implacable. There was an odd coldness that entered in them at those times, and every student had seen it.

Per'l did not know why those two things seemed distinct with him.

Of course, Per'l had not known any other Jedi. Perhaps it was simply a trait of knights and masters. There were more of those now than there used to be. For seven years, Luke Skywalker had been training them, and had his first true trained graduates only a year or so at this point.

He was gone often, Per'l suspected to assist the New Republic, he didn't know the connection, but Skywalker had often (occasionally noteably) appeared at the side of Princess Leia, and the other members of the High Council responsible for much in diplomatic correspondence in the New Republic's rise to power.

As he was the only remaining true Jedi in the galaxy, it only made sense. The last of the guardians of peace and justice, who were once the right arm of justice in the Old Republic. It seemed Princess Leia still honoured those things, she spoke often in ways on the telecasts that made Per'l suspect so, with his own uncanny Jedi knack for such things. Perhaps it wasn't correct to say Luke was the only one now, but he was the only one that figured into such things.

Luke himself was a powerful master, as Per'l knew such things, and kept such secrets well. His missions, if they were, were always a mystery.

Jedi themselves were still considered somewhat a strange species in the galaxy. How quickly they had been forgotten, when you thought about it. A history only vaguely believed, if at all. So many strange things had been accounted to them, it was easy to discount the stories entirely, even by Per'l from time to time.

He reached out with his thoughts. "Just animals in the area." He said.

Kell nodded. "Okay, I'll call in the hopper." And activated the recall on his transponder belt, a common utility.

He took a few sprays from his oxy-converter. It would slow down any bad particles in the atmosphere. He felt that his constitution had improved greatly with Jedi training, but it was important to use what you had to keep healthy. No need for a mask, however.

He had breathed in the air on that world, home to the Jedi Temple, and felt like he was at a new home. One that, unfortunately, he would not get to see often.

He had been on an adventure with Luke once, all Jedi were to receive personal training from him in that way – making themselves useful at the same time. They had sabotaged a power generator.

Kell watched from a ridge with his macro-binoculars. "Two more fighters on the way," he called on the short-wave transmitter. It would cancel out over a hundred yards so there was no chance of it being picked up by the fighters. It was a standard piece of equipment in the Rebel Alliance, and the storage areas Master Skywalker kept on the grounds were full of them. They worked just as well for a Jedi as a trooper.

"Okay, we'll keep low until they've passed."

The Empire's stink was still rich on these out-skirt worlds where the Rebel Alliance had chased and harried them, giving them nowhere to turn but their illicit allies.

Per'l found his own hopper nearby. They were fast one-man speeders with atmospheric flight.

"What I wouldn't give for an astro droid – it's been years since I've had to get one of these things going by hand." He pushed away the brush.

"Friend to the animals," he muttered, rummaging through the supply pack attached to the back of his cargo swoop, known as a hopper. He patted it like a horse. He tossed some of his protein-bars into the bush, they would have an incredibly rich smell to their pursuers and throw them off, probably keep them distracted for food long after they had gone.

He assembled the last panels with his Force powers as Kell watched. Kell shivered. "Those powers of you Jedi will never stop creeping me out."

Just as well he didn't see me use a mind trick, he'd never trust me after that. He thought, only half as a joke. It was one of Kell's amusing quirks to tease his friend about being Jedi, but it could stop be amusing if he ever took it seriously.

They were being hunted by those TIE fighters.

Kell set up his gun on a controllable remote turret and shot down the fighters as they passed back overhead. It had looked like a half-harness he had just carried on his back, and it hadn't been obvious until now what it was. Along with a portable missile launcher he had carried on the hopper.

The deflector shield on fighters was often weaker from below and the rear, and not always active in atmosphere.

"Ambush!" the pilot of the first fighter cried out, right before his cockpit exploded in fire.

Per'l watched them as they fell out of the sky in fire. They weren't all as easy to take out as that, hand munitions usually made pretty inadequate weapons against their starfighter ablative hull. You usually needed something the size of a proper A-class ground turret at least to stand a good chance in a fire-fight. They were fortunate to have set up a good ambush against their vulnerabilities. The trees kept them well obscured to scanner.

It did give him odd thoughts about the pilots. Blind spots.

Funny to think, you spent your whole life behind the nav-visor of your own body, and you were the person you got to see the least – you couldn't watch yourself unless you spent your life in front of a mirror or a holorecagramme. So you spent every day with a friend you were still getting to know. Thirty years could pass and you still weren't always sure what you even looked like.

The best way you got to know yourself was with a friend, he had always thought, before joining the Order. They had taught him to search himself in ways he had never thought possible.

It was kind of strange. It's not that you couldn't. It's just that most people just... didn't bother. He wondered if that was sort of an odd thing. Temelores, of course, could and did watch themselves constantly, but that's because it was a survival mechanism, they were like spiders in their webs, constantly hunting for predators. And even then, they were such complex beings, who knows what they really saw.

Odd time for philosophy, friend, Jedi or otherwise. He told himself.

They made for the city.

They were ambushed in the city. Surrounded by storm-troopers. Their hoppers had been blasted almost instantly, but they had survived the tumble. Per'l had been separated from Kell in the process.

"We have you surrounded, Jedi," the storm-trooper's leader sneered as he took off his helmet.

Per'l. Per'l was his name.

He took the officer's own name directly from the sneering man's mind – and spoke it aloud, watching the man's face pale.

He knew the type, his will would be difficult to bluff even with the skills of a Jedi – Imperial officers weren't always bright, but they were often ruthlessly reinforced with loyalty to their evil masters. Although he wondered if that simply wasn't an easier link to exploit, they were so single-minded.

But he wasn't alone.

Kell had grabbed a large meta-blaster from the hold, and was firing away at two hundred energy bolts a minute. The storm-troopers fell in the dust, to lasers and light-saber.

It was absolutely devastating fire nothing short of a heavily armoured tank could stand up to.

If Per'l had spoken the thought aloud, he would have spoken too soon.

It appeared from around the corner, it's smooth half circle coming into view like a waxing crescent moon, its turbos whining in the dust. Then it stopped.

"What the-? They were keeping a Jerset in station? I haven't seen one of those in years!"

Defunct to the Empire, you only saw these on a few colonies now, most of them scrapped for the newer hover auto-cannon replacements and as transport turrets, they were easily broken down and salvaged thanks to their very simple origin of design.

A blast of blistering demolishing fire sudden erupted from its forward arc, and their position was soon covered in dust and rubble a they scrambled and leapt for cover. He defended them from a few deadly shards of rubble turned into ballistic fire.

He didn't know if he had a pilot, sometimes a governor would install a remote driver, but he knew where he needed to strike.

He leapt to a ledge, and dodged through an open room with a small fountain and not much out, and leapt out the other side, dropping into the street past a low wall.

The explosion lifted him off his feet, his light-saber flickering out in reflex.

It had anticipated him!

His lightsaber was scattered away from him, he saw it flying from his grasp, deactivated, to a distance unknown in the moment. His deflector shield managed to slow down the shrapnel, but it wasn't designed for physical objects. He felt it as his arms were grazed and torn skin deep, and when he got up, his arms were bleeding. Not good.

Even my reflex was sloppy. I should have relied on the Force, no lightsaber could deflect a shot like that! Might as well take on a surface cruiser.

His shield battery was flickering now, registering its complaint.

He knew where he had to go. Faster than the eye, he dashed for cover. He saw his light-saber, rather than lose time, he called it to him with the Force. He was strong enough to do so with ease, and it was the arm that wasn't tired.

"Are you okay? What happened?" He heard Kell called.

"I took cover, where are you?"

"Same here, staying out of those guns. I don't see any reinforcements, maybe we should just leave it and rendezvous."

"Sound plan. You know where our rendezvous is, let's try and meet up there, each our own way. I don't trust crossing the street with that thing on the look-out."

They split up.

Sometime later, he was avoiding patrols, and making his way eastward. He had to duck inside one of the houses, which, unfortunately, was occupied. But even more surprising, they had made friendly sounds and ushered him in and provided haven. It seemed that even here, there was no love even for the memory of the Empire.

The company was nice, if only for a moment. He couldn't stay here long. They nodded at him, and spoke something in Basshan, he only caught half-snatches, even a universal translator would have trouble keeping up with their patter.

The warm season harvest must have been particularly good –they had meats, and breads and various food-stuffs hanging up. They had insisted he remain for a meal, which they seem to have stored plenty for the upcoming cold times. A cursory examination revealed they were all edible, and so he did. He hoped Kell wouldn't be cross at the delay, but he was going to make sure he didn't repay their hospitality unkindly (after determining their intention). He had left a few credits for them to find, to be sure, hoping it would not cause any complications. It wasn't always easy to guess with all the different cultures in the galaxy.

He took a moment to turn some of the strange meat into bread with his food converter, and pocketed it as meal bars. The concentration was weak, but it tasted interesting. There were some places in the cosmos where you could eat food that was so rich in vitality and balance, that it actually made a lot of other food taste bad. There were synth bars of course, where you could spray tastes, in all kinds of virtually arranged combinations, but they weren't too good for you, besides not actually being food.

In his opinion, the only real satisfaction came from a true meal, where you got to have a varied and unexpected experience that didn't turn your nerve cells into sludge after your fifth try. It might work fine for Tantian double-headed slugs, but humans required a bit of humanity in their life experience, he thought.

There was a saying he liked which was that you could judge a household by its food storage. A full cupboard meant good things for that family. Not that he would know. He didn't even have one to leave behind.

They had a sixteen year old daughter he waved to before he left (or so he supposed, he wasn't too good with the species), sweet thing, she had made up his plate. No doubt she and her family would have a good future here if the Empire took away its remaining shadowy hand. It was for things like that that he had become a Jedi.

He had almost forgotten how he missed family, himself. He wondered how Luke had dealt with it.

Although it was true he didn't have one, he remembered one, and they were good memories.

He managed to infiltrate the inner compound. It was hard to say if it was a compound or a city, there was certainly a lot of urban villages in the area.

(*)

They made it to the port. Several stormtroopers were patrolling the area, but they didn't seem to be particularly suspicious.

"How are you for weapons?" he said.

"This Kazarra is my own special modification," Kell said from inside the storage cell, his voice tinny and strange. He must have been referencing his hand-blaster. "It'll pop a hole in a flying gendarme transport let alone some infantry armour casing."

Pity it only has a few shots at a time, this gun's pushing safety boundaries as it is. 'Fraid I'll lose a hand someday. Kell thought.

The energy carbine was tightly wound, its coil much closer than most, compressing the energy cycles through the relatively fragile wire. Dangerous, but with an effect.

They didn't have a ship in port, they had a couple of hover-sleds with cargo attachments. It was going to be hell getting them to the ship, but he didn't want to lose the supplies. One thing the Jedi temple didn't have was a lot of funds for their misadventurous scouts. Although he had hoped that would change in the future.

There was a shuttle, apparently flying over to the next port, about five klicks, well away from the patrols, to rejoin the larger ships. It was also a great deal closer to their own ship.

Hm, convenient. The Force has many ways.

And that's why they were waiting in these barrels. They would be unwittedly transported along with their hover-sleds right over the stormtroopers. If all went well. And if it didn't, that's why they packed blasters.

They made it to the next port. There was a brief scuffle with storm-troopers there, but apparently they hadn't ranged out this far with their larger patrols. They loaded the barrels onto their ship. It was a small transport, hardly a Jedi flyer, but they had relied on stealth rather than dog-fighting skills.

They escaped the planet.