Fighting with Monsters

Star Wars: The Bergeron Chronicles, Part 2

a fanfic by Sisiutil

Chapter 7

There are only so many holochess games one can play in a row, both Axel and Kilu decided.

Both of them fervently tried, on the four-day long trip to the Azitchen system, to preserve the now-platonic nature of their relationship. But Axel kept finding it harder to repress his feelings, and his emotional discomfort disturbed Kilu's equilibrium with the Force. By the end of the first day, without even discussing it, they both independently decided to spend as much time apart as they could. The relatively small size of the Nomad made that difficult, but they managed. Axel busied himself first with repairs the recent firefight made necessary, then with several maintenance tasks, some of which he'd been putting off for months. Kilu, for her part, spent a great deal of time in her cabin, meditating. They occasionally encountered one another in the exercise area Axel had installed in one of the cargo bays, or in the passenger lounge to share a meal. Then they parted company and returned to pointedly avoiding one another, Axel returning to his ship maintenance, Kilu to her meditation.

But as with holochess, there is only so much time one can spend in meditation. Kilu soon felt as though she would be able to write a new Jedi treatise on the practice by the time the trip ended. She grew restless. In typical Jedi fashion, she recognized and acknowledged the feeling; but rather than set it aside, she indulged it by wandering around the ship. Thus, on the third day of their trip, she soon found Axel. He was sitting in the pilot's chair in the cockpit, staring out the thick windows at the hazy bluish shapes flying by the ship as it passed through hyperspace.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you?" she said softly as she stepped into the cabin.

"Hmm?" Axel said, roused from his reverie. "No, I was just sitting here, staring out the window."

Kilu gently reached out to him with the Force. She sensed less of the turbulent emotions he'd been feeling towards her earlier; she relaxed a little. Perhaps he was, she thought, putting those feelings behind him now, as she had. She decided to stay and talk to him; she'd been missing his company while they'd been avoiding one another. She moved into the cockpit and sat down in the co-pilot's chair, curling up her legs underneath herself.

"You should be careful," she said, half-facetiously. "I've heard that you can go crazy if you stare out into hyperspace for too long."

Axel responded to that remark with a derisive grunt. "Ridiculous," he said. "That's an old wives' tale. I was born in hyperspace. Literally. On this very ship, on one of my dad's passenger runs; good thing one of them on that trip was a nurse. I've probably spent more time in hyperspace than I have in any realspace location. And a lot of that time I've spent right here, looking out the window. Do I seem crazy to you? Don't answer that," he quickly added, and they both laughed softly. He turned his gaze back out the window at the amorphous shapes flitting by. "In many ways... this is my home," he said quietly.

"I didn't realize you were born in hyperspace itself," Kilu said, remembering him telling her during their previous time together that he'd been born aboard the Nomad.

"Oh yes," Axel said. He frowned and pressed his fingertips together. "It raises a significant philosophical issue."

"What's that?" Kilu asked, a bemused smile on her lips.

"Do I actually exist?" he asked rhetorically.

Kilu did not laugh or contradict him, as most people would surely have done. Jedi spent just as much time engaging in spiritual and philosophical research and debate as they did practicing combat skills--more, in fact. Therefore the question was one with which she was very familiar. Nevertheless, rather than posit her own perspective, she was suddenly interested in hearing his.

"Explain," she prompted him. She placed her left arm atop the back of her padded chair and leaned her head against her hand.

"Think about it," Axel said. "When you enter hyperspace, you cease to exist in realspace--in the real universe, as it were. Since I was therefore born outside of reality, how can I possibly exist?"

"That's actually a different question," Kilu told him, smiling. "How any form of life exists in the universe is a different, and much larger, question. As for whether you do exist, despite your existentially questionable origins, you undoubtedly do."

"How can you be so sure?" he asked lightly, his gaze still dreamily directed out of the cockpit windows.

"Simple," she replied. "I can see you, hear you, touch you..." She saw him stir slightly when she said that, so she hurried on past it. "Therefore you exist."

"Ah," he responded, his smile broadening, "but you Jedi are taught to be dubious about the evidence presented to you by your senses."

"True," she conceded with a smile.

"So what other evidence in favor of my existence can you offer?"

"There's one sense that can't be fooled," she said. "I can sense you through the Force."

Suddenly, Axel's expression lost all evidence of amusement. "Can you really?" he asked her softly.

"Yes," she said, her smile fading in response to his changing mood. "Of course I can."

"That's... reassuring," he said with a nod of his head. He paused for a moment, then spoke evenly, but Kilu could sense the strong emotions behind the words. "I am merely one of several billion beings in the galaxy, let alone the universe. I was born outside of reality. I also spend most of my time there. I'm not Force-sensitive. I have no family..." Again, he paused; Kilu was watching him closely now. A wan smile appeared on his lips. "So... it's good to know I do have a presence. For someone."

"You do," she whispered, then reached out to place her hand on top of his. He raised his head and turned to look at her. Their eyes met. Suddenly Kilu felt her heart pounding in her chest. She felt a flush rising in her skin. She swallowed; her throat felt tight. As she watched, Axel leaned towards her, and his lips parted as if to speak, or to...

She pulled her hand back from his.

Axel coughed. Then he laughed briefly--uncomfortably. She did the same.

"Well," he said as he rose from the pilot's chair, "I'm going to go, uh, check on the alluvial dampers," he said, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb. "The ion particle blocking plates were losing efficiency, so maybe the servomotors need... something you don't really care about," he said, his voice trailing off.

"Right," Kilu said, rising from her chair as well. "I'm... going back to my cabin. To meditate." Yup, I've completely put those feelings behind me, Kilu thought sarcastically, like a pod racer leaving behind the starting gate, yes sir...

They both took a step forward towards the cockpit corridor and nearly collided. They smiled at one another abashedly. Axel awkwardly gestured for Kilu to go first, which she did, with a quick nod of thanks. Axel watched her walk down the corridor, or at least he did for a moment before he forced himself to look away from her retreating backside.

"Check the dampers," he muttered to himself, "then another cold shower..." He glanced at the navicomputer's chronometer: six hours until arrival. Surely he could survive until then. Of course, he didn't even want to think about how he was going to mange on the return trip.

"Prepare my ship," Darth Mostrus commanded.

"At once," Captain Wurkun Darr responded, then nodded to a young lieutenant, who promptly saluted and marched off to carry out the order.

"You are uneasy, Captain Darr," Mostrus said once they were alone in one of the many immaculately clean and polished corridors of the Imperial star destroyer Dauntless.

Darr looked at Mostrous and reflected that he always felt uneasy in the presence of the Sith Lord. It wasn't just his high position within the Empire's command structure that was bereft of rank, something that any career military officer such as Darr would find unsettling. With his dark hair, dark eyes, tall, muscular build, and those red and black tattoos covering every inch of his skin, Darth Mostrus looked like something out of a child's nightmare--which he supposed was the point. At least Vader had worn that suit to cover up his disfigurement. Even so, something else was indeed bothering Captain Darr.

"With all due respect, my Lord, having you go in alone..."

"...is necessary, as I have explained to you several times," Mostrus explained, an edge of impatience coming into his voice. He sighed and adopted a voice as though he were explaining something to a small child. "My appearance must be timed for maximum impact. If they detect an Imperial star destroyer snooping about in the system, well, it kind of spoils the surprise, doesn't it?"

"I see your point," Darr conceded.

"At long last!" Darth Mostrus exclaimed with mock enthusiasm. "And remember to stay out of my way until I call for you. Trust me, I am more than capable of handling a mere Jedi trainee and a Force-insensitive freighter pilot on my own," he said disdainfully. The Sith then bestowed his closest approximation to a sympathetic glance upon the Imperial naval officer. "Fear not, captain. When Kilu Branon is once again my apprentice, we will use her like a weapon against the despised Jedi and their rebel friends in the New Republic. Soon, you will have military engagements a-plenty to indulge your penchant for strategy and tactics... and for dealing out death on a grand scale."

"I sincerely hope so, my Lord," Darr said with a subtle bow and barely-repressed eagerness as the Sith Lord walked into the starship's hangar bay and his own personal shuttle. "But what of these rumoured Jedi records?" he asked. "A scanning team could..."

"I suspect it's little more than a rumour," Darth Mostrus said with a shrug. "A rumour that has served my purposes admirably. But if you think the scanning teams could use some practice, by all means deploy them. After I am done."

"Of course, my Lord," Captain Darr said. The Imperial officer then frowned. "May I ask, Lord Mostrus... what if the Jedi refuses your offer?"

Darth Mostrus paused at the bottom of his shuttle's boarding ramp and cast a sideways glance at Darr. "I should think the consequences of that would be obvious," he replied, "to her as well as to yourself." His fingers were upon the hilt of his lightsaber as he spoke.