Eden unbuckled his restraints and stood as the ship came to a dead stop at the port of Mauwag in the Niwago Islands. He had not bothered to stow his pack, so he simply hefted it over his shoulder and waited for instructions.
"Alright," said Eeth, rising from his seat. "We will change into civilian clothes, register our ship with the port authorities and find out whether this place offers any supplies."
They quickly found that, as he had suspected, the port city of Mauwag indeed had some shops that sold spare parts for speeders and ships, most of them second-hand. Since he had some tools and supplies aboard their spaceship, Eeth considered it likely that he would get the repairs done. He took Eden back to the ship and sent a message to the Temple informing the Council of their status and location. Then he told Eden: "I will now perform a first assessment of the damage and the repairs that will be needed. While I do so, attend to your studies. Afterwards, we will go into town, eat and check out the stores." He was also going to put in a workout that afternoon, but saw no need to mention this; he assumed that this was self-understood.
So much for that. Eden stared at him for a moment. Sure, class work wasn't the end of the universe, but he'd have much preferred it if Eeth had not known to assign him tasks. Besides, the man had barely been knighted for two weeks. Or perhaps that was going to be his downfall? After all, the knight would remember what it was like to be eleven better than his fifty-year-old master. That thought process whizzed through the kid's mind in a flash.
Meanwhile, his body had responded for him. He pulled the datapad from his pack and tossed it onto a cushion where he planned to sit and work. Before he sat down, another thought occurred to him. "Hey, I could help you instead. I could write down things that need fixing as you find them?" he suggested, the idea of getting out of school work worth it to him.
Eeth recognised the attempt to get out of class work for what it was. Why anybody would want to do so eluded him, but he had long since learned that not everyone was as diligent as he was. "I am perfectly capable of remembering these things without anyone writing them down," he said firmly. "You attend to your studies. Do you have a schedule for your school work? What lessons do you need to work on next?" It had occurred to him that it might be a good idea to check this, else the padawan in his care might feel tempted to slack off and sell him old work as new.
Eden wouldn't try that; the boy did not hate class work enough to warrant such a level of scheming, as ingenious as he might have thought it. He did, however, frown slightly at being told he was not needed and even more so at Eeth's questions. "I do. Next, I work on Mandalorian," he answered, being as nondescript as possible. After all, this wasn't something his babysitter need concern himself with, at least not in his opinion; he was eleven years old and well able to complete his work without being monitored.
"You need to be more specific than that," Eeth said. "After all, it will be my responsibility to check your progress and help you with any questions you might have. Fortunately, my Mandalorian is adequate."
"This is for five days," Eden replied evenly. He thought that Eeth's comments on checking his progress were, well… Okay, so maybe valid, but equally unappreciated. "You might not want my help, but I'm sure I can manage my workload," he said confidently and sat on the cushion to begin.
Eeth's face darkened. "This might be for five days, or considerably longer depending on how the repairs go," he said coolly. "But even if it was only for five hours, I am both your superior and responsible for you, and I take my responsibilities seriously. I did not doubt your ability to manage your workload but, since I have hardly known you for a couple of hours, I would still like to know what you are supposed to be doing. Now tell me. Specifically."
Eden's jaw squared, and he stood from his cushion to continue a conversation that he deemed utterly unnecessary. Eeth was his superior, though, so despite thinking him a tad over the top, he held up his datapad for the man to take. "My lessons are straightforward and listed on the index, as is my progress if you must know."
"I do," Eeth said, unmoved. He had not lied when he had said that he took his responsibility seriously. He also wanted to establish right from the outset that he was in charge. He checked the list of assignments and Eden's status, nodded and handed him back his datapad. "If you need help, I'll be in the engine room, or possibly in the cable shaft," he said. "Come and get me if necessary, or if there is any kind of alert or incoming communication."
The boy barely refrained from rolling his eyes. He did not need help with his work, nor should Eeth put his duty to get them out of here on hold for the possibility that he might need said 'help'. Still, Eden felt compelled to ask: "How the Force are you going to fit in the cable shaft?"
"I fit into the main shaft," Eeth said, "at least on this type of ship. From there, I have access to all lateral shafts. It will be a tight fit, though, and I'd rather do without it." He turned to leave when a thought occurred to him. "Should I need a smaller person to help me out," he said somewhat stiffly, "I will ask you." With that, he made his way to the engine room.
Despite thinking Eeth might need a tin of lube and a shoehorn, the boy did not question him further; Eeth certainly knew a lot more about spaceships than he did, after all. In fact, Eden didn't even know how to open the hatch! It was then that a thought occurred to him. He didn't know anything at all about spaceships; perhaps he ought to try working some of this out on his own? It was not like researching this ship and figuring out how to do simple things like open the hatch or engage their shields would do any harm, and it certainly wasn't what he considered a waste of his time. Eeth had told him to do his class work. Well, he needed to start a math assignment. Perhaps he would use the design of this ship as his subject? Eden thought this a brilliant idea. He downloaded the schematic of their ship to his pad and started working over the design.
The section Eeth was working in was on the other side, so Eden made a conscious effort to keep away from anything in that vicinity lest he accidentally injure the man. Having to explain that he squashed Knight Koth because he was fiddling around with the mechanics was not a discussion he could even fathom having. It didn't take him long before he had the manual up also and had located the mechanism used to open and close the hatch. Curious, he stood and palmed the release button. Low and behold the door opened. "Brilliant!" It wasn't particularly cold or hot outside, and the air smelled salty. He sat on the step, rested the pad on his lap and leaned into the hatch frame to record his findings.
Unaware of Eden's explorations, Eeth sent a repair droid to disconnect the defective power cell. As he inspected it, the cause of the error became clear immediately: it had been the wrong type, too powerful for this starship. Normally, that should have caused an alarm to go off, but that had not happened because a fuse had blown. Eeth discovered a small area of damage on the outer hull, probably caused by the asteroid belt that surrounded this system on his trip to Antaeus. It had led to the deactivation of a few circuits. He would have detected this before take-off, had he had the time for the customary pre-flight checks. Well, this could not be helped right now. He needed to replace several fuses first and then find out whether the cable circuits were still intact.
He was just going to browse through the collection of spare parts he had found in the engine room closets when a beep alerted him to the fact that the hatch had been opened. Frowning, he went to investigate.
"This," he said sternly when he found Eden sitting in the open hatch, "does not look as if you are doing your Mandalorian homework. Who told you to open the hatch?"
"That's because this is not Mandalorian, it's math," Eden replied, gesturing to the schematic on his pad. Having been raised in the Temple, respect and courtesy were ingrained in the boy. Whether or not he always chose to implement them, however, was another matter entirely. Fortunately, the stern tone was not lost on the kid, so he stood out of formality and made a show of looking left then right. "Unless your sense of the Force is impaired, you would know that nobody could have told me to open the hatch. It's just us here," he replied, his expression slightly patronising.
Eeth's eyes narrowed. "I do not care for your impertinent tone of voice," he snapped. "You will not open the hatch without permission. Why does your math assignment require you to wander around the ship, anyway? And why are you working on math now when the assignment on your schedule was on Mandalorian?"
"You sure do ask a lot of questions," Eden thought aloud, but he knew that continuing to have an attitude after being called on it was probably pushing it. Even if Eeth was a new knight, he was still a knight, and a grumpy knight to boot.
"Okay, I won't open the hatch without permission again. As for math," he shrugged. "I was curious about how the ship worked. I knew I had a math assignment coming up on the list, so I decided to base it on this ship. That way I got to learn about how things worked. Mandalorian will not run away on me. It's still there. See for yourself."
"Is that how your master handles things with you?" Eeth asked evenly. "You get to decide what to do, how to do it and where to do it?" He was not pleased with Eden, but at the same time, he could not realistically expect the boy to stick to rules that he had not known so far. Having acquired quite an impressive amount of teaching experience, Eeth was no stranger to punishing students, but he also knew not to do so unless he was absolutely certain that the punishment was deserved.
Was that how his master handled him? Force, no, but then again, Eeth was not Jay. Eden contemplated that for a moment before deciding that lying wasn't in his best interest. Firstly, it wasn't his style, and secondly, if his master ever found out he'd be in for one hell of a belting. He suddenly began to wonder if being such a smartass had been wise. "Well. No, I'm not permitted to decide how and when I do my work," the boy admitted, because what else could he say? Being evasive had seemed to tick Eeth off more, and lying was out of the question. Eden also knew that his master had told him to treat Eeth with the same respect he gave to him, so, if Eeth made so much as a passing comment that his behaviour had been unacceptable, he was going to be in for it.
"Alright," Eeth said brusquely. "Bend over and touch your toes." Since he had received the task of taking charge of a junior padawan, he had taken precautions. And therefore, he now had a paddle tucked into his belt, hidden from view by his civilian shirt.
Eden blinked, and then he tried to force a swallow as for some reason his mouth suddenly felt drier than a sand hut on Tatooine. A jolt of fear caught him off guard. He was fast to cover it, but probably not fast enough that it would have escaped Eeth's notice. Of all the reactions he anticipated from the knight, this was the least expected. Sure, had he tried to pull any attitude on Jay, he would have expected this, but not from Eeth. While his brain was still busy registering the shock, his body had begun to obey. Another advantage of being a Temple-raised child was that there was no confusion whatsoever on Eden's part about what was about to go down, although he was silently thankful that his trousers weren't. He kept up a brave face, turned side on and bent over. He wasn't a particularly flexible kid, so this position wasn't comfortable. He had to bend his knees a little, but he managed to grab the toes of his boots.
Eeth noticed that Eden had trouble touching his toes, which was unusual for a junior padawan; they usually worked out a lot and both their levels of strength and agility were well beyond those of average children. Well, he could see about that during their workout after lunch. For now, he pulled out the small paddle and said: "I am going to allow you to keep your trousers up this time. I am not going to be so lenient the next time." Then he brought the paddle down sharply right onto the centre of Eden's bottom. Half a dozen solid swats should do, for a start, he decided; his work in the creche had taught him that it would not do to be too harsh for small infractions, else there was not enough room to up the ante for larger infractions
Jay, too, had noticed that Eden had somehow managed to neglect his physical training. It was something they were working on correcting, not that Eden wanted this to become common knowledge. He certainly didn't enjoy it. His superior ability to wield the Force had made it easier for him to win sparring matches and had facilitated physical activities, but this had started to change dramatically since becoming a padawan.
He tightened up as he sensed Eeth's arm rise. He had promised himself that, no matter how much this hurt, he wasn't going to cry or make a sound. No way! "Oww!" he gasped out of surprise. Eden had expected to be met with a hand. Sure, it wasn't going to be a soft or gentle hand, but he was sure as hell not expecting it to feel like a damn board! Biting his lip to keep from crying out a second time, he held his breath, pursed his lips and did his damnedest to keep his hands on his boots.
Eeth slowly and methodically dealt out six hard, but measured swats. He had learned, by now, that humans did not have the same pain tolerance that Zabrak had and that a youngling's age needed to be taken into consideration, besides the severity of the transgression. At the same time, he believed that a token spanking would achieve nothing. It had to hurt in order to have any effect. Eeth not only wanted to demonstrate to Eden in no uncertain terms that his behaviour had been unacceptable, he also wanted to make clear who was in charge. It would not do for Eden to think that he would get away with things that his master would never allow. All this reflected in the force of the swats that was considerable, but not quite as bad as Eeth could have made it.
With each swat, Eden winced, his ass unconsciously inching that tiny bit further away from Eeth's swing. When the last couple landed, what was supposed to be a calm, controlled breath out turned into something that sounded more like a hiss. The last drew a pained grunt. Okay, so that had not been the worst punishment of his life, but he was sure that it was, at the very least, on par with whatever Jay would have meted out. His ass was burning, and he was silently relieved when after six swats no more were forthcoming. Eden wasn't a prideful sort, nor was he usually hell-bent on toughing this sort of thing out, but for some reason, he did not want Eeth to know that his ass stung like a sonofabitch right now. So, he stood stiffly and shoved both hands into his pockets. He was trying to keep a casual expression but the tense way in which is eyes squinted and the stiffness of his jaw gave him away. It had hurt. It was then that he noticed the paddle. Where the Force had that come from? he thought. At least he now had an explanation for the sharp sound that each swat had made, and the pain that followed it.
"You are now going to go back to the galley and resume your Mandalorian assignment," Eeth said firmly. "If you feel you need to work on something else, in a different place or in a different manner than we agreed upon, you come and ask. But keep those questions to a minimum. From what I have seen so far, the repairs will not be difficult, but tedious. The more interruptions there are, the longer we will be stuck here. Now get back to work. I will fetch you in an hour or so to leave the ship and have lunch at the harbour."
Usually, Jay would offer some comfort or reassurance that despite just having had to hand him his ass, showed he'd only done it because he cared; it was his duty. Apparently, this was not the way knight Koth operated. Then again, Eden hadn't exactly been open to or inviting such comforts. He watched with a slight look of incredulity on his face as Eeth tucked the paddle back into his belt. Was he planning to carry that thing around with him the entire time they were together? It looked that way to Eden. It was at this point that he had a sudden realisation: if the man knew to come in 'packing heat', he probably knew a bit more about padawans than the boy had given him credit for. Either that, or he was uber strict with zero tolerance for bullshit. Both seemed likely to Eden as he noted the ominous expression on the man's face. "Yes, Sir," he said in way of compliance and did as instructed.
The next hour was spent doing his Mandalorian assignment, but he was also distracted. It was hard not to be when his ass still hurt and he was switching positions every ten minutes. By the time the hour was up, the sting had faded significantly, but he still knew about it. He was pretty sure that hearing about this would go over like a fart in church with his master. Then again Jay was full of surprises; just when Eden expected him to hit the roof, he came out with some comment about being a boy and testing boundaries.
Not one to hold a grudge, Eden stood as Eeth entered, closed his pad and tossed it onto the table. "Time to eat?"
Eeth nodded. "Yes," he said. "Once we have done that, we will explore this town and the shops at the waterfront together. It might save time to send you to run errands, should I discover the need for a tool or component. Therefore, pay attention to what is where. Fortunately, the local population speaks Basic. That makes our dealings easier."
"I do not need to be reminded to pay attention. I'm not a youngling," Eden felt compelled to remind him in kind.
"You," said Eeth somewhat severely, "are an eleven-year-old junior padawan with very little mission experience. When I give you instructions, mind them. There is no need to talk back." After all, he could not have the boy walking all over him!
"And you," said Eden with equal severity, "are a twenty-two-year-old knight with ZERO mission experience in that role. I don't need to be treated like a youngling."
Eeth was not about to let an eleven-year-old boy make fun of him, let alone give him instructions. On the other hand, from his teaching experience, he was aware that Eden knew neither him nor his expectations. He needed to make them clear and give the boy a chance to adapt to them before he could enforce his boundaries. Therefore, he stepped up to Eden, took his ear in a firm grip and pulled him up close, glaring at him.
"That was entirely uncalled for," he said sternly. "You will not give me cheek and you will certainly not tell me what to do. I doubt that your master tolerates such behaviour. I certainly do not. The next time you try that, there will be consequences. Am I clear?"
It was all Eden could do not to yelp at the grip Eeth had on his ear; it burned! His eyes squinted, and his head tilted sideways to lessen the pain. He managed to meet Eeth's gaze despite his discomfort and did what any sane eleven-year-old would do in this situation, he acquiesced. "Yes, Sir." He didn't like it. As far as Eden was concerned his comment had been entirely called for. Okay, okay, so it was also a touch on the disrespectful side, but he wasn't in any position to start splitting hairs.
Eeth gave a curt nod and let go of Eden's ear. "Let us go, then," he said.
The clouds were gone and the sun was beating down when they left the ship; it was considerably hotter than it had been when Eden had opened the hatch. Eeth did not mind. He came from a desert species, after all. And Eden, with his chocolate-coloured skin, did not look as if he needed much sun protection either.
There was a bunch of small outdoor restaurants and food stalls right next to the speeder port which, in turn, was right next to the harbour. The sitting areas were shaded by palm trees and moderately crowded. It looked rather inviting. "Most of the food seems to involve fish, fruit and vegetables," Eeth said, scanning a few menus. "What would you like to have?"
Eden had never cared much about what he ate, so he replied after barely a glance at the menu. "Fish with gohbar rice, please." Eden wasn't keen on the vegetables. In his opinion, they generally tasted bland. Entirely unwilling to enter another test of wills with Eeth, Eden made sure that he had committed the directions here to memory just in case he was sent back to get food on his own at some stage.
Eeth ordered a steamed local vegetable to go with Eden's order as a matter of principle, and a whole grilled fish on a bed of seaweed for himself. They were served a tropical fruit cocktail along with their food, which was delicious."I see we will not starve," Eeth remarked, "nor will we have to rely on spaceship food." Which was a huge advantage since spaceship food tended to be bland and uninviting.
After lunch, they made a tour of the town which was not very large and mainly stretched along the waterfront. The shops did not have as many supplies and spare parts on offer as Eeth would have hoped. Hardly anything went beyond the components he had on board. That was somewhat disappointing. He would have to hope that there was nothing broken that he could not fix. In its current state, the ship was not going anywhere. The reserve power circuit was still functional, but it might not last them for another take-off, flight and landing unless the destination was very close-by.
"I will try to assess how long the repairs will take by tomorrow morning," Eeth told Eden. "If it is going to take longer than a day or two, it might be better for us to look for lodgings in town. The reserve power is low and I would rather not waste it on ventilation, lights and other needs."
"Makes sense," Eden replied. He walked by Eeth's side for a while before his thought process prompted him to ask: "Is saving a single ship really worth waiting around all this time?" Eden couldn't quite grasp why they were not contacting the Temple and requesting another ship. They had hundreds of them, after all. He wasn't particularly looking forward to doing more class work, which he assumed was going to fill a lot of his time from what he had gathered, but he could think of worse things with which to fill his time.
"It is," Eeth replied. "Sending another ship would cost a lot of resources, including the pilot who would have to fly it. He would need five days to make it here, anyway. Besides, the Temple would prefer us to bring this ship back because ships are expensive. As long as we are in this remote place, with nobody knowing of our whereabouts, we are in no danger. In the unlikely event that I do not manage to repair the ship, we might have to wait for your master to be dispatched home. He could pick us up here which would be fairly ironic. But the important thing was to remove you from the danger zone, and that, at least, I could accomplish."
