Legend of the Harp

By Hemaccabe

Episode III: The Crucible

Chapter 8: When you're going…

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

*** Jedi Padawan Fio Brown, Castanea ***

I had been making my way across the ground as best I could. Even with the ease the Force gave my movements, it was still hard going. The surface of Dandoran had its bad spots, but this was so much worse.

Dandoran's forests still had paths where a decent person could pass between the trees. This place, everywhere that wasn't the huge building sized base of one of these monster trees was fallen tree, heavy brush, deep mulch and fungus. If not all of them mixed together wet and rotten! On top of that, it was all covered by heavy mist which meant I couldn't see a foot in front of my face most of the time.

I had been through survival training in various ways three times! The first time, in the middle of winter, a record cold winter mind you, and I had never felt this cold. Which was mighty strange as this place wasn't that cold, somewhere around 10 C. But it was so damp! You could see some of the droplets of water floating in the air they were so big. My camo tops were soaked, which wasn't surprising. What was surprising was my thermal layer. It was supposed to be waterproof and good at dispersing my excess moisture. I was soaked through. I was probably carrying an extra 12 to 20 kilos of moisture with me. All of it 10 C. It was that moisture which was freezing me.

I'd been going for a few hours. I didn't want to ever sleep or eat again as I didn't think I'd ever be able to stop thinking about the troopers I'd lost, but I had been through Survival Training. Three times.

So, I pulled out my canteen.

One can draw several simple, basic function, different sized and shaped canteens from the Quartermaster as a member of the militia. I had used that bottomless Credit chip Harp had given me when we first met to go to the special stores and get myself something better. My canteen is shaped like a very standard, 1-liter, military canteen. Its flat oval bottom expands to a larger rounder top with a spout. It has the standard curve to sit better on the hip and a cloth belt carrier. I kept the canteen empty on the ship. What made this canteen special was a little vent it had. The vent was a couple square centimeter rectangle along the bottom. I could stick that vent in anything, a dirty pond, a muddy puddle, pee, it would suck up fluid and my canteen would fill with pure, perfect, distilled water.

I flipped the canteen on now and it drew in mist and began making water. The canteen would self-power, using my movement as it sat on my hip to recharge itself. This made me glad I was in mist. If it was snow, I'd have to jam the snow in the vent.

The canteen had another party trick. Once the water was inside, it would be right around ambient temperature, or 10 C here. If that wasn't cold enough, I could hit a button and it would chill the water right down. I could hit a different button and it would heat the water up to a nice boil.

Which led to the canteen's last party trick. One could add a pellet, a little lozenge about half a centimeter long and a quarter in diameter and give the water in the canteen a flavor. I had some pellets for hot weather that would give the water the flavor of purple an'nav fruit. It would also give the water some carbs, salts and other nutrients that one's body might go through in hot weather during heavy exertion. It might sound flighty, but when you're humping a 45-kilo pack in 38+C and 100%+ humidity, a liter of ice cold water that tastes like purple an'nav can be the difference between success and failure.

I wouldn't need ice water here. So, when the canteen was full, I hit the other button and heated the water up. If one was a real canteen idiot, rather than just buying the flavor pellets like I did with the purple an'nav pellets, I might buy a whole pellet making appliance that sat on my Mom's kitchen counter.

My Mom would make her famous oaf bird and noodle soup, with lots of veggies the way she knew I liked it. I had always loved Momma's soup and it was one of the things that had gotten better the last few years. It used to be veggies were rare and expensive in Korpluck Town. Now, with all those new farms setting up shop, vegetables were a lot more available and a lot more cheap. Not to mention people had money to buy them.

Momma would make a big batch of soup, put it in the appliance, and out would come soup tablets.

I had a collection of little bottles with different flavors I took with me on maneuvers. My Mom had sewed on a cloth strip that created perfect elastic carrying spots for the bottles on the outside of my pack, then a padded flap I could put down to hold them in and protect them more.

I took one of my Mom's homemade pellets and dropped it in the canteen. In moments, I had a hot canteen full of oaf bird soup. I put the canteen inside my thermal layer and let it warm my icy cold body. When the soup was merely hot, not scalding, I took it out and drank it down, letting it take me away from being a cold wet failure to being a safe little girl in my Mom's kitchen begging for cookies I wouldn't get till I ate my supper.

Feeling a little better and a little warmer, I sat down cross legged on a fallen tree log, taller sideways then my Mom's house was right ways and did a bit of meditating.

My meditation was a lot clearer and more intense now that I wasn't forcing it and was letting it flow through me. I realized I could feel the other Jedi! I even had a sense of what direction and how far. Between the soup and the knowledge that I might just succeed in my mission, I got up and began to move.

Every few hours I would stop and meditate again. I could still feel the other Jedi, but the strange thing was, I realized I wasn't getting any closer. It took me a while, but then I figured it out. This was not a two-dimensional environment. The trees all around me climbed dozens of meters into the sky. That other Jedi was up there somewhere. She was far away, and I wasn't sure what I would do when I found her, but at least we would be together. Eventually the Harp and Dodger would notice I was missing and come look.

I was just starting to think I might not always feel like a complete idiot failure when I heard the unmistakable tone of an Imperial Storm Trooper helmet say, "Put your hands up and turn around slowly rebel scum, click, click!"

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Please don't miss that this is the third book in this exciting series. Legend of the Harp Episodes 1 and 2 are also on this site! Episode 4 may be on her way soon!

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