Chapter 11: Beginning
The night after Kev died, Jaina slept soundly, too exhausted to do anything else.
She hated herself for it in the morning.
-
The Kestrel was in the base's small spacecraft hanger, outside the area Jaina and her team had explored. The ship had actually been further damaged in transport.
Jaina didn't start work on the ship immediately. She went through Kev's things first, trying to get back the smell, the taste, the feel of him. She felt as if she were trying to catch smoke: she could touch it, but holding on to it was beyond her. Better, whispered something inside her, to start letting go. Jaina couldn't do that yet. She lay on Kev's bunk for an hour, just staring up at the ceiling and remembering, before getting slowly up and heading down to the engine room to asses the damage.
-
These were his tools. He'd held these in his hands. Jaina had her own multi-tool, but all the specialized tools were Kev's. Working on the engine that first day, she used his multitool instead of hers.
The Dathomiri left her alone that first day. She wondered bitterly whether they, with their low regard for men, could even understand what she was feeling.
-
Jaina tried to make herself stay awake the second night, tried to make herself react as she felt she should, but she fell into a dreamless sleep nonetheless
-
On the second day the remainder of the Singing Mountain Clan arrived at the prison. Jaina watched Tenel Ka's dignified reunion with her mother and felt a thousand different things.
How can they be so calm? Don't they feel anything? Why am I so calm? Why can't I feel less? More?
-
The woman with blond hair was arranging to transport the prisoners off the planet in the prison's two prisoner transport ships and taking volunteers to work with her to maintain the illusion that the prison was still up and running until everyone else was off planet. The remaining Imperials were being given to the Dathomiri as slaves. Jaina was sure she should have been against that, but she wasn't, not really. She hated them, all of them, and she knew it would wear off in the face of pragmatism, but that didn't make her feelings now any less real.
-
The second night she didn't sleep.
-
On the third day Jaina worked until noon and past without eating, then just sat in front of the engine doing nothing.
Why did she keep loosing people?
Letting out a scream of… of… of she didn't know what, she flung the calibrator she was holding across the engine room. She stared at it where it fell for a moment, then broke out into sobbing tears. She didn't get anymore work done that day.
-
The third night, as she was lying on Kev's bunk, waiting for sleep to come, there was a knock at the hatch. She stood up sleepily and made her way to the hatch to open it.
Before the hatch was even fully open Jaina received a sharp thwack on the head from what seemed to be a wooden staff.
"What the HELL?!"
"Stop moping!"
Standing before Jaina was an extremely old woman, clearly blind, holding the offending staff in her right hand and supported on her left side by Tenel Ka.
"Jaina Draygo, I have the honor of introducing you to Mother Rell," said Tenel Ka.
"Why the hell did you hit me over the head!" shouted Jaina.
"To make you stop moping. I already told you that. Now let me into your ship, Ms. Solo!"
"My name isn't Solo."
"It isn't? Oh, of course, of course."
"If you would allow us in, Jaina Draygo?"
Jaina stepped aside.
-
They sat in the common room, drinking Jaina's attempt at café, Mother Rell's hand trembling when she lifted the mug to her lips. Jaina stared at her.
"You know, I wasn't expecting you at first," said Mother Rell without looking up from her mug. "I thought it would be your uncle. You're not even a real Jai."
"A real wha-?"
"Don't interrupt! You're not a real Jai, but you will be one day. And you!" She poked Tenel Ka with her stick. "I expect you to be one too."
Mother Rell leaned back in her seat, a scavenged nerf-leather armchair patched with generic synthleather. It had been with the ship since Nar Shaada. She and Kev used to fight over who got to sit in it.
"Stop moping!"
"Ow!" Mother Rell had hit her with the staff again.
"Humph. So these are our Jai! Two women, one not even an offworlder! I've been cheated. The uncle would have been so much more interesting," said Mother Rell. "More polite, too," she added, poking Jaina with the end of her stick.
"Put that thing away or I'm gonna take it away!" Jaina tried to be respectful to the elderly and possibly senile, but Mother Rell was making it very difficult.
"Well," said the relevant old woman, unsteadily climbing to her feet, "I've seen you now." Tenel Ka went over to help her elder up. "Not terribly impressive, but you'll do. Come see me when the nice policeman runs out of things to teach you."
"How do you even know what a policeman is!"
-
It wasn't until later that night that Jaina thought to wonder how the old woman had known Basic.
-
On the fourth day Tenel Ka came back to see her again.
"Did you bring that crazy old woman back?" Jaina asked her from the beneath the repulsor unit she was working on. Frakking Imperials can't even transport a ship without damaging it.
"Mother Rell is a great sage and prophet, well respected by every tribe on Dathomir. And no, I did not bring her with me. Might I speak with you face to face?"
Jaina scooted out from underneath the ship, wiping the grease off her hands and onto her work-pants, and stood up.
"What can I help you with?" she asked.
"I wish to leave this planet with you."
"You wish to what?"
"To leave this planet with you. To become part of your crew, if you will allow it."
"Why?"
"Aside from the fact that Mother Rell has advised me to do so unless I want the galaxy to hit the ventilator, I wish to journey to the world of my father's birth. Even if you will not take me with you, would you be willing to explain what a ventilator is?"
Jaina stared at Tenel Ka. Why the hell should she let this primitive even come with her as far as the nearest port?
Why shouldn't she?
"A ventilator," said Jaina, "is a primitive cooling device.Now come here. If you're going to serve on this ship, you're going to need to at least know what a circuit is."
-
She took Tenel Ka with her when she took the Kestrel on a shakedown run. The woman turned out to be far more useful than her background would suggest. Jaina had her work as her copilot for the run, though she double-checked everything the Dathomiri did. Tenel Ka made very few mistakes. She rarely needed to hear even the most alien concepts explained more than two or three times. She and Jaina went through the power-up checklist twice, and Tenel Ka nearly had it memorized by the second go. They went through the liftoff routine with much the same results. Tenel Ka barely flinched at the turbulence when Jaina turned the inertial dampners down to test the feel of the ship.
-
They sat in the cockpit, staring down at the shining orb of Dathomir.
"You learn fast," said Jaina, her eyes not straying from the planet before her. "And I need a new copilot."
"Do you wish to return to Dathomir? To visit your first mate's grave one last time?" They'd buried Kev the same day they'd taken the base, along with the dead prisoners.
"No."
"Then we need not return. I have said my goodbyes."
Jaina nodded. "Let me show you the jump sequence…"