Laxum was a small moon, orbiting the gas giant Calousan, four parscets from Coruscant. It's name, and even the names attached to the star its master planet orbited are lost to even the best historical records.
It was the first terraforming project that Coruscant ever undertook. Christened by the Lord of the Obsidian Throne, it was finished and made habitable in less than sixty years, a marvel that few terraforming projects will ever equal. Since then, the world was largely forgotten by the ambitions of the Immortal Emperor, the lord Iniquitus, as he turned his attention to the consolidation of the world he viewed as the natural boundaries of his own dominion.
Since that time, the world has become a small hub for interplanetary trade, cushioned as it is between hyperspace routes. Traders, smugglers, farmers, and pioneers came to forge a new life for themselves, and along with them, the inevitable dissidents that fled civilized rule. Both common criminals and political dissidents, along with disillusioned soldiers, found the anonymity of Laxum a welcome cloak.
A refuge for those who do not wish to be found.
Briefly, a light flashed in the space beyond Laxum. For a single instant, it shone brightly in the night sky over Vos Ma'ar, and the three children lying on the roof of a warehouse, staring into the night sky, gasped and pointed excitedly as it lit itself against the fading silhouette of Calousan.
Those three pairs of wonder lusting eyes were the only witnesses to the exile of the will that commissioned this moon, so many years ago.
Above the sky, coaxed by the insistent pull of the moon's gravity, a small ship descended past the small cloud of debree in orbit, and plunged into the atmosphere.
Onboard, at the helm, was a single man. Wrapped head to toe in blackened, badly burnt bandages, with only tufts of thick, greasy hair sticking out at odd angles, the faint smell of burning flesh still lingering around him, he jerked the controls with the frantic, hurried and unfocused pace of the inexperienced. His fingers flipped switches, he hissed and cursed as sirens sounded their meaningless warnings, and pulled on the thruster controlls as he tried to apply his inadequate knolwedge of atmospheric entry into an intellegent action.
Another siren sounded, this one familiar. It had sounded earlier, a few days ago, when his ship had been pounded by a debree field the ship's telemetry had overlooked. He recognized it, one of the most important parts of his ship, the one that made space and hyperspace travel possible.
The shields were failing, and he was still falling far too fast.
He slipped additional power into the port stabilizers, and swung the ship around so the engines faced the direction of his fall. Cringing as the gravity threatened to black him out, noticing the ship's artificial gravity had just failed, he gritted his teeth and hammered on the thrusters. The sudden burn pressed him into his seat, and tried to steal his grip on the thrusters.
A couple of seconds, and it finally happened. The ship's thrusters disengaged, the ship started plummeting to the ground, and the red, fiery aura around the shields dissipated.
Snarling, he disengaged the shields, and engaged the stabilizing thrusters to try and control his descent. He flipped the switch, and nothing happened.
Without stabilizing thrusters, a spaceship in the air is a rocket without guidance, which will throw itself anywhere the wind takes it. The main thrusters were useless without them, and the ship's own terminal velocity would be more than enough to destroy the ship.
In a rush, the bandaged man pulled through a well-used book, as the ship corscrewed through the air. He found the instructions only as the ship fell through the upper cloud cover, and a new siren, signaling his proximity to the ground, began howling in his ears.
He cursed someone he knew, someone loyal to him, for not supplying a pilot when they found him this ship.
He only finished reading what he needed to know when the ship finally broke through the rest of the cloud cover. Shapes in the ground below were clearly defined. Settlements, farmland, and towns were clear to te unaided eye. The bandaged man recoiled in sudden awareness as he realized how little time he had left.
Flicking a switch, he started bleeding the stabilizing engines dry in an attempt to reignite them. He watched the dial, which dissipated quickly from the heat, and then bled new fuel in an attempt to reignite it.
By the time it worked, he could make out individual trees in the forest. He breathed a sigh of relief as the ship straightened itself out, and slowed a great deal before it plummeted into the trees along a hillside.
The shock of the impact stole the light from his eyes, and he went limp and collapsed for a few moments.
When his sight returned, and he was certain he hadn't broken anything, he unclipped his seatbelt, and slowly, grimacing in pain, surveyed the sip.
The damage from the landing was the least and the last of the beating the ship had taken since he had commandeered it on Courascant. Most of the flight circuitry had either overloaded, or was still burning. The life support was inoperable, and the smoke had already overwhelmed the backup systems.
He shook his head in disgust, and pointed his hand at the windows.
Brilliant lightning burst from the tips of his fingers, ripping through the ballistic glass and tearing apart the metal frames they rested in. Shards flew out of the ship, and into the forest beyond it.
For the first time, this sorcerer stopped and regarded his surroundings.
Tall trees, with a canopy fully capable of making one forget there even was a sky beyond it, was broken only by the hole his ship had made into it.
Though he had chosen a forest to keep a low profile, he now regretted the walk he would have to commit to, in order to find the next town.
He stepped back into his ship, and stepped into the engine room for perhaps the only thing of real value left in his possession.
The ship, despite the damage, had managed to keep the hyperdrive safe and functional.
The ship itself was important only to allow a passenger to breathe. Without a hyperdrive, a ship had no real value. A working hyperdrive, however, was worth a small country to any world that had yet to discover hyperspace transportation.
To do that, he would need a new ship. And to find a ship, he needed to find anything that resembled a trade port.
He sat down and closed his eyes, and turned his focus away from his senses. He recalled the techniques he had taught himself, almost half a century ago, to find what he was looking for.
Thinking first of all the hunting animals he had ever known, he had once asked himself what makes them succeed. Certainly, keen eyes and sharp ears were important, but poor tools in a master's hands were far more effective than even the keenest instruments in the hands of the inept. What made a hunter succeed, what drove them, was hunger.
Real hunger was different from the irritating promptings of the flesh. Real hunger came only when one's life was in danger, when you were starving, stripped of options, and everything about you was focused on doing whatever you could to stay alive. That potent urge, real hunger, resonated with the power that he could reach into, and in his distant thoughts he could begin to feel the beat of human hearts, the brittle fragility of their lives, and their capacity to sate his own needs.
He let this old emotion flood his mind again, nearly wept with the potency of it, and turned his eyes to fix on a small settlement. Though miles beyond sight, there was now nothing that could hide even such a small place from him. He could hear their lives as if they were already in his hand. The pulse of their lives fluttered against his consciousness the way wind caressed the skin.
He smiled to himself, despite his circumstances.
"I don't like that." Beriven muttered to himself, as he pulled himself into his pants. It was early in the morning, even for orphaned children used to the harsh realities of life.
"Like what?" Marius asked, confused. The two of them, along with Thug, had been picked to walk through the other abandoned warehouses in the district, to find one suitable for a school.
Marius turned to Beriven, who was staring out the window into the distance. His hands were clenched at his sides, and his face was unusually pale.
"Out there. In the distance, beyond the hills. Something dark. I don't like it." Beriven said again.
"Berry, all I see is a sunrise, green trees, green grass, and a flock of birds. There probably isn't a single storm cloud on this side of the moon." Marius insisted, tying flimsy shoestrings together.
"It isn't something you see that way, Merry. I dunno, I..." Beriven trailed off, obviously uncomfortable with his thoughts.
"You're seeing things?" Marius asked.
"Not like that." Beriven insisted, scowling. "I'm not seeing things that aren't there. I'm not going crazy. It's just..." he paused, for breath. "I can see people."
It was a testament to his friendship that Merry didn't respond with a barbed retort. Instead, he smiled and waited for Beriven to continue.
"I see them like little candles, well, most people at least. If I think about it. Like right now, I can see Thema, Bug, Tha'varr and Mystery all sleeping in the other room. But I don't really see them, I see these small pinpoints of light that I know are them. I know, because I recognize their colours."
"Colours?" Merry asked, as he finished tying his shoes.
"Yeah. Thema and Bug are both bright yellow. There this impression that comes with seeing them, it's like," here, Beriven paused again, in thought. "It feels like hope. Like I'm looking at hope."
"Hope is yellow, and you see it in them. That's neat, Berry." Marius admitted.
"Actually, it's more than that, because when I look for those lights, I can see them through walls, through entire buildings. I don't think it matters how far away they are, except that they get smaller as they're further away." Beriven added.
"Mystery is a little strange, he doesn't stay one colour. He swirls with white and brown. I don't know why. Thug is a kind of reddish brown, and Tha'varr is dark, dark green. Anita, well, she used to be blue, like the sky. Today, it has this black stain in it, and I think it's because of what she went through last night.
"So you can see people through walls. Is that why you managed to warn Tha'varr in advance?" Marius asked.
"No. I've sort of had it for a long time, but it never happened that often, not enough to recognize it. Until last night, when I had that blaster rifle and was coming back for you all."
Marius nodded, and checked the small clock on the wall. "We've gotta go, Berry."
"Right." Beriven said, finishing his own shoes and heading for the door. "But Merry, the wierdest one was you."
"Me?" Marius asked, incredulously. "What was wierd?"
"Your colour didn't surprise me. You looked white, like the way those atmospheric storms get during a solar flare. A bright white film. It reminded me of that time you came through for us when you first found us the warehouse, or managed to get the Boss' goons off their backs. Like having your faith in someone proven to you.
But the weird thing is, you're not a candle. You're more like a fog." Beriven explained. Marius looked at him strangely, not speaking. Beriven promptly hurried to elaborate.
"Well, you aren't just a candle, You shine like one, but you also spread around, and the light kinda envelops around you, like steam. It's hard to describe."
Marius nodded again, and smiling, said "Hey, you know, that reminds me of that story I've been reading. You know, the one in that book I have. Exiles of Tython."
"Oh, yeah. Pali Trivish. She could use her power, that Ashla thingy, to see people from really far away." Beriven remembered. "She saw that evil sorcerer guy from really far away. Like a whole couple of cities. She saw him like he was a blot of ink or something."
Beriven thought for a moment, lost in thought, as Marius said "Hey, that's kinda like you! It might mean your a sorcerer too!"
Beriven sputtered in incredulity, clearly disbelieving, and turned to Marius to say so, but his friend's expression forestalled him.
Marius, he realised with a start, was taking this theory seriously.
"Stop that! Stop it right now! I'm not some sorcerer! I'm not!" Beriven exclaimed, his octave rising with the decibels. Marius smiled at his denial, which only helped to set off his temper.
"You don't know a thing you're talking about! What do you know? You're a kid, on a backwater moon with a book of stories about a planet that probably doesn't exist!" Beriven exclaimed.
"But these sorcerers are real. At least, the two on Coruscant were. One's still alive, as far as anyone knows. The Lord of the Obsidian Throne and the Thousand year Emperor, they both lived for a really long time. How else did they live that long? Technology can't do it." Marius insisted, though Beriven was past hearing his friends reasoning.
Not seeing it coming, Beriven's fist connected with Marius right at the chin. It swung him around, spinning him on the spot, and caused him to sprawl on the ground.
Beriven stared at his fist, horrified, and knelt down beside Marius, who cupped his battered chin in his hands.
"I'm sorry, Merry! I don't know why, I can't-" Beriven began, but Marius cut him off with a wave of his hand.
"Berry, I'm gonna go find Anita. You should cool your head while I'm gone." Marius insisted, stepping out the door.
"Merry! I'm sorry!" Beriven exclaimed, though if Marius heard him, he gave no indication of it. In moments, he was out the door, the flickering haze of his light gradually fading into the blurry haze of people in the market.
His chin glued to his chest, and his gaze fixed on the floor, Beriven left to join Thug to look through other warehouses.
Marius sullenly stomped through the market, holding his bruised chin in one hand. He passed silently through the market, ignoring the stalls and the merchants who shouted to him.
He was halfway towards the Stump, by the time he realized he had no idea where Anita was. He knew she was scouting the merchant quarter for prospective jobs, asking anyone who would give her the time of day, but he had nothing more specific to go on.
With a sigh of frustration, he started scanning the market, looking through one length of stalls to the next, scanning carefully to make sure he didn't overlook her.
It was with more than a little surprise, when he found her, huddled with her arms wrapped around her legs, at the edge of the fountain in front of one of the spacer merchants, with her head buried against her knees.
He stepped up to her, and rested a hand on her shoulder, and asked "What's wrong?"
She jerked away, and raised an arm to defend herself, before she caught sight of him. "Oh, Merry!" She exclaimed, and her features twisted into an expression of grief, before she fell back down to the marble and cried again.
Marius sighed, and sat down next to her. He wrapped an arm around her, and pulled a little, awkwardly trying to hold her.
She didn't resist, and let him hold her as she sobbed.
"I'm sorry." Marius said, quietly.
There was a hitch in her sobs, though it didn't stop.
"I shouldn't have let you go out alone today. That was stupid of me." Marius explained, with a sigh.
"Don't be sorry." Anita said. "You didn't do anything."
"But that's just the thing." Marius said. "I know I didn't do anything. That's the problem. I did nothing. Not when we've all gone through what we did. I did nothing to make sure you were okay today. I didn't think about it. Didn't think about how you, how all of us, were really doing."
He sighed again. "Orphans, just like us, died yesterday. If things had worked out just a little different, that might have been us who died. And then we're given the secret of secrets, and told what happens if we don't protect it. Now here I am, trying to get us all to pretend that nothing's changed, or that we can just pretend it didn't happen."
She cried harder as he spoke. "Merry, I k-killed one of them."
Marius nodded, silently. Eventually, Antia added "I didn't want to kill him. I didn't think I would. I just didn't want him to hurt us. I saw that knife, I saw it and had to hurt him, to keep him from hurting us."
"You didn't murder him, Anita." Marius insisted.
"But I did!" Antia exclaimed.
"No. You didn't. You hurt him. Defending us, from a guy with a knife. You hurt him, bad enough to get him to stop. That isn't murder."
"Killing is murder!" Anita said, though she didn't sound as certain.
"No. You killed someone protecting us. You didn't even kill him, he just bled out because his buddies didn't know how to take care of him. People loose eyes and don't die. A couple of the Boss' thugs are missing an eye." Marius responded, and Anita began to look convinced.
Anita sighed, but her sobs stopped for a few moments. "Merry, it isn't so simple. I killed him. I wanted to hurt him. It's something I don't know if I can accept." She turned to him. "I wanted to kill him, Merry. I wanted him to hurt. And I liked that I managed to hurt him."
Marius bit his tongue, and slumped in his seat. Though, to his credit, his arm stayed firmly wrapped around her.
"That's okay, Anita." Marius said, after a moment.
"No, it's not!" She shouted, pulling away from him.
"Bad word choice." Marius muttered. "I mean, it doesn't change what you are to us. What you are to me. I'm still your friend. You liking that you managed to stop a guy twice your size from hurting us isn't gonna change that."
"You make it sound really silly when you say that." Anita said, holding her head up and looking Marius in the eyes.
"It's cause that's the way it is. You're not some monster that likes hurting people. If you were, I bet you wouldn't be crying right now." Marius insisted.
She sighed and shook her head. Though a smile, faint as a single shaft of sunlight, danced along her lips.
Marius leaned back, and sighed. "You know, I thought we'd get a whole lot of stuff for dinner tonight. A big dinner, like a feast or something. To celebrate the fact that we're all still alive. We could ask the place Thema and Bug work at, if they could whip up an extra roast for us."
Anita smiled, and stood up. She held out her hand, and with a smile on her face, said "That sounds like a good plan, Merry."
He took her hand and she pulled, surprisingly hard. He was jerked upright, and off balance, stumbled forward a step.
For the rest of his life, Marius would remember that smile on Anita's face. Her eyes, still wet from crying, held a glee that set his heart racing, and decades later, could still make his throat dry. Her smile was wide, triumphant, as she wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him soundly on the lips.
The world went dark and fuzzy, and the next coherent thought Marius could muster was that Anita and pulled away again, and was talking to him.
"You should get on that party tonight, Merry. I've got work to do right now." She smirked, and gently pushing him away, turned and skipped away into the market.
Marius sat back down on the ledge of the fountain, his capacity to think broken, and a bemused, charmed stupor lay where his consciousness used to reign.
The extra roast had been a surprisingly simple request, as the owner, now quite a bit pudgier than Marius remembered him being when he had asked for work, happily told him that he had been looking for a way to say thanks, for the help Thema and Bug were providing.
Tha'varr and Mystery were still at the warehouse, and cheerfully took to the task of preparing this party that Marius wanted to put together. It took only a few hours, and some careful manuvering to take the roast back out of their oven again, but they were well prepared by the time Beriven and Thug returned from their mission.
"I think we found it!" Thug exclaimed, as they slipped in through the doors. "Nice warehouse, the power works, it even has a shipping crate full of dishes. It isn't quite as warm, though, since it has more windows."
"Woah!" Beriven exclaimed, staring intently at the ocean of food splayed out in their common room. "What's the occasion?" He asked.
"I figured we'd wait for everyone, but I think we need to celebrate being alive." Marius said.
"Merry, I'm sorry, I really am." Beriven pleaded again, when he caught sight of his friend. Merry was holding a makeshift tray full of baked trashidons, still sealed from the grocery store.
The smile Marius offered had a glimmer of humor in it. "I called you a sorcerer. I got what I deserved."
Anita poked her head through the door, and asked "Why'd you call him that, Merry?"
"Anita!" Marius jumped, nearly spilling his cargo. "When did you get back?"
"Were you a part of this food bonanza?" Beriven asked.
"No. This whole thing is Merry's idea." Anita responded, ignoring Marius' question. "But I'll like his idea, because he helped cheer me up today." She stepped past them and into the kitchen, leaning around Tha'varr and asking how she could help.
Beriven looked sharply at Marius, who only shrugged.
Beriven shook his head, and said "I'm gonna use the shower. Bug and Thema should be back in about half an hour."
It took almost that long simply to get the rest of the dinner laid out, and the others had barely sat down to begin cutting the roast when Thema and Bug returned, with deep grins on their faces.
"I heard! The little old man couldn't keep it a secret! He gave us a whole roast!" Thema exclaimed. "He normally makes almost thirty ducats for a whole one!"
"My mouth has been watering since we left work." Bug admitted.
They sat down and joined the others, trying to contain their excitement as they snatched at their food, and as a group, ate as if they had the first day they found the disenfranchised grocer, and their last member.
Marius, between bites, finally managed to raise his glass in the air, and said aloud "To Odeal, the owner of Miss Vennet's, for the roast!"
The others cheered in assent, though for a few of them, the cheers were muffled slightly by the food in their mouths.
Bug was next to pick up the theme, who swalled hard, and held up his own glass. "To our sleeping bags, for being water-proof!"
The cheer was louder this time, and a little longer, as a few of them started laughing. It had taken a long time to clear the water from the bottom of the warehouse.
As the cheer subsided, Thema held up her own glass, and said "to food!" She cried, and the group fell onto the floor, clutching their stomachs as they laughed so hard they threatened the food stuffed in their stomachs.
A few minutes, and gales of laughter eventually passed, after which could only be heard labored breathing, as they all stopped for air.
The next person to hold their glass in the air was Beriven, who said "To Merry's storytelling! Which you really need to finish soon."
The others voiced similar sentiments, with Thug in particular insistent that Merry wrap up Pali Trivish's story as soon as he possibly could.
Hesitantly, as if afraid to, Anita held up her own glass, and the entire room went silent.
"To friends who refused to sell me out, even when it endangered them to do it." Anita said, softly.
The others raised their glasses high in the air.
"To friends who refused to not let me be a friend." Tha'varr added.
"To the family we make for ourselves." Mystery finished, and they all punched their glasses into the air one more time, and drank deeply.
The night passed swiftly for the, and the days ahead were filled with purpose, as the orphans began a serious attempt at offering their fellows a way off the streets. It was far from perfect, a task that they knew would never be finished, but even at that tender age, they knew to never measure success by how much was left undone.
But as Beriven stared out into the night, his strange new sight would still catch the distant, dark cloud to the west, a dark and menacing presence that felt, disturbingly, like the satisfaction that came from defeating an enemy.