"I'm getting too old for this..." Jes complained while sitting near the escape pod with his head in his hands.
"That, was awesome!" Marin said excitedly.
"We were plummeting to our death with unbelievable speed in a an uncontrollable modified trash can. What is awesome is that we're still alive!"
"Exactly! Lighten up Jes, we made it, I told you not to worry!"
"Easy, Marin. Let me try to get all my organs back into their proper position."
Despite how Jes felt, it had pretty much worked out the way Omega had explained it; After it had launched the pod had stayed in the shadow of the asteroid for a while and had activated about thirty minutes later. The engines had come alive and had given the pod a nudge which caused just enough orbital decay to make the pod gradually plummet towards Ba'an. The engines had performed the occasional small corrections, probably to assure they landed in approximately the right area, and had gradually increased the speed so that the pod had looked like a meteor that was burning up in the atmosphere. It must have been quite a sight from a distance. Inside the pod however, Jes had been positive that they were going to die. Just when he thought they would be crashing down on the planet they pod's thrusters went into full reverse, pulling it out of spin and slowing it down. The g-forces had been so great that they had almost passed out. The landing had not been very smooth either but it was far from the cataclysmic impact Jes had expected. The pod had performed some kind of cooldown procedure which meant there was a lot of extinguishing foam everywhere when they opened the hatch. But they were both unhurt and had safely exited the pod. Marin had seemed unbelievably well after a descent like this while Jes himself had felt like the inside of his entire body had been rearranged, his head felt like it had already exploded and pretty much every joint ached like hell.
"Remind me to get back in shape. I used to do stunts like this every day." Jes groaned and got up.
"Hah, mister special forces is feeling dizzy?." Marin joked.
"Ha-ha. Well I'm glad to see you're doing fine miss."
"Do you think anyone noticed us coming in?" Marin asked on a more serious tone.
"I doubt it, I did feel like a bloody meteor. But I guess we'll find out soon enough."
"Let's see where we are." Jes walked back to the pod.
"With any luck they left the emergency supplies in there when they made the modifications. "
He went back inside and brushed away some of the foam. "Ah, there it is." He opened a small locker under one of the benches and retrieved a small package containing some first aid equipment, a small torch, some water, emergency rations and a pair of macrobinoculars. There was no communication equipment in the pod but then again, there was no one they would want to reach out here anyway. He climbed back out of the pod and used the macrobinoculars to scan the black horizon. It was dark here but the busy skies above the space port showed a lot of drive flares and navigation lights of the ships that were coming and leaving. They had landed about 25 kilometers south-west of the space port. Far enough not to raise any suspicion but close enough to get there before morning.
"I must say, they pulled of one hell of a drop. After all that, we are right were they said we would be. Well, better get going. We want to use the cover of night to get to Par'iva and I don't have the faintest idea how long the day-night cycle is here. "
"Well," Marin said "Guess we'll find that out too."
And they started walking across the rocky landscape towards the spaceport.
"Marin," Jes said after a while. "We still have some time before we reach the spaceport. We need to devise a cover story about who we are and how we got here. Any idea?"
"Well, it's obvious that we should be refugees if we want to blend in. We're both human so we probably want to pick a world where humans are common which has suffered in the war. How about Lynni, in the Abrion sector?"
"Agri world right? Hmmm, not a bad idea. The Abrion sector has been under confederacy control from fairly early in the war. According the holonet reports conditions on some of the worlds there have been diminishing rapidly as the separatists needed more and more resources for the war. Am I right? "
"Exactly! Do you think I can pass as your daughter?" Marin asked.
"Nah, we differ too much I think. How about you're my niece. And my brother wanted to get his daughter out of occupied territory. He himself could not go because of the farm and all. I offered to take you to the core until things calmed down..."
As they walked on towards Par'iva they talked through some of the details of their cover story. Ba'an didn't have a moon so it was pitch black around them. There were some lights in the distance to their right which were probably from a mining complex. In front of them the space port lit up the horizon. Jes thought it looked busier than a space port should be at this hour. There must be a lot of refugees coming in. At least it looked like they would reach Par'iva well before morning...
After a while Marin noticed something in the sky. "Wait... Did you see that?" She said while pointing to the sky above the Par'iva.
"What, one of the ships?" Jes asked.
"No, look! there it is again! It looks like... fireworks!"
Jes put the macrobinoculars to his eyes and zoomed in, his eyes weren't as sharp as they used to be. "Well I'll be, you're right, fireworks!"
Between all the lights and the drive trails of the air traffic they saw fireworks going off. As they came closer to the space port they could also hear them.
"Do you think it's some kind of holiday here?" Marin asked with surprise in her voice.
"I don't know. Could be, I guess. Delta and Omega never mentioned anything about it."
A while later they found themselves in the outskirts of Par'iva. It was still dark. The town had all the trademarks of a remote space port city. Simple pre-fab housing for those who lived there, many warehouses and offices owned by various trading companies and some large hangars for all the transport ships. There were also a few large terminal buildings. These looked like they had been heavily expanded to accommodate the refugee traffic. As they walked on through the residential areas they came to the city's central district. Even at this time of night there were a lot of people about, mostly around the terminal buildings and, in the down-town area, around the bars, inns and other recreational facilities.
"So, where do we go?" Marin asked.
"Well, we want to find a ship that's going somewhere to the mid-rim which is willing to take us with them. My guess is we search the bars in this place. That's usually where you find crew of the ships. Maybe we can find someone to help us. "
"Good point. Let's see what we can find."
After asking around a bit on the street they found a cafe which was supposed to be frequented by freighter pilots, captains and their crews. The place was dark but had more atmosphere than they expected from the plain and simple front through which they came in. There was a large bar with the back wall displaying dozens of colorful bottles filled with strong liquor mostly from the outer rim. In the center of the room there were a few tables and half-hidden in the back wall were a few alcoves which offered a bit more privacy. There were some holonet vid screens on the walls displaying some indistinct news bulletin. There were only a few patrons at the time. Two Trandoshans who looked like mechanics were having a quiet conversation at the far end of the bar and a more formally dressed human was reading a datapad in one of the alcoves. The bartender was a Duros who was eying them suspiciously from the moment they came in. Jes looked at Marin and nudged towards the bar. "Let's see if he can help us." And they walked towards the bar.
"Hello sir." Jes ventured. "We just arrived from a long journey and we were looking for something to eat and drink. Are you serving at this hour?"
The Duros looked them over. "Only if you can pay. "
Jes put some credits on the bar. "Will this be enough?"
"Sure, sure. You cannot be sure enough these days. Damn refugees. They're all hungry but most of them don't have a credit to spend. I gotta eat to you know?" The Duros looked at Marin and then back at Jes. "We only serve the special at this hour. Eopie stew, prices are on the screen. "
Jes decided to ignore the Duros' tirade about refugees and ask Marin: "Eopie stew, how does that sound?"
"Sounds great, I could eat an entire eopie about now. " Marin answered.
"All right, we'll have two. And some water and two glasses please. " Jes paid the Duros the credits for the meal.
"Coming right up. " The Duros said.
"One more thing. " Jes asked. "We're looking for a ride to Andean, in the mid-rim. Know of any ships in port heading that way?"
"Don't know nothing about that." The Duros said pointing at the human sitting in the alcove. "But since you have credits, you might want to ask him over there. Name's Kerrf. he works for the Channel."
"The Channel?" Jes asked.
"You are new here. The Republic Refugee Agency is the organization tasked with handling the refugees. Finding suitable worlds and transports to get them there. Over here we call it the Channel. He might be able to help you."
"Okay, thanks." And they walked over to one of the tables. "Marin, while we're waiting for the food, how about you see if you can find out if there's any news on what happened on Coruscant. The bartender might know something. I'm going to talk to this Kerrf character and see if he can help us find a ride to Andean."
"All right Jes. I'll also check the holonet broadcasts if there's anything we haven't heard yet."
Marin walked over to the bar where the Duros bartender was perfecting the art of looking disinterested . "Hey mister, can I ask you a question?"
"Sure, kid. What is it?" The bartender answered, visibly annoyed at the sudden interruption.
"Heard anything about what's going on Coruscant? We heard some disturbing rumors on the street but our long distance comms were out on our cruiser we came in on."
"I've been hearing about Coruscant all day. What are you referring to? The war being over or the exclamation of the first Galactic Empire?"
Marin thought she must have misheard that... " What do you mean the war being over?"
"Man, you really were in the dark out there weren't you? The clone wars. They say they're over. The Holonet goes on and on about it. The separatist leadership has been defeated and reports are coming in from all over the galaxy that the droid armies are powering down. "
"Wow, we didn't know. But that's great news! Anything on the Jedi?"
"Puh! Never liked those ivory tower idealists one bit. Apparently they staged a coup to take control over the senate and take over the republic. The audio recordings from the supreme chanselor's office were spread all over the holonet. The coup was foiled but the supreme chancellor was badly injured. They Jedi have been arrested and the order has been outlawed. Good riddance I say."
"Yeah... good thing they failed." Marin said a little absent minded. Careful, cannot blow our cover now... "What was that you said about... an empire?" She asked, quickly changing the subject.
"Listen, I'll turn on the sound of the view screen over there, you can see for yourself. They've been repeating it over and over again. I need to get your food ready." The Duros pushed a few buttons on a console behind the bar and the sound of the view screen on the side wall of the room came on. "Thanks." Marin said, and walked over to the screen.
She still couldn't believe what she just heard... the war's over, an empire? What was going on?
When she reached the screen she saw a holonet news bulletin displaying the Grand Convocation Chamber of the Republic senate. There was a figure in a dark robe standing on the central platform next to Mas Amedda. The camera zoomed in... Was that... it almost looked like, it couldn't be... Supreme chancellor Palpatine!? His face looked badly scarred. She could pick up bits of his speech... It was loud, and full of emotion.
"These Jedi murderers left me scarred, left me deformed," Her mind raced, This couldn't be... "The remaining traitors will be hunted down, rooted out wherever they may hide, and brought to justice, dead or alive! All collaborators will suffer the same fate. Those who protect the enemy are the enemy! Now is the time! Now we will strike back! Now we will destroy the destroyers! Death to the enemies of democracy!" The senate roared... He must be behind all of it. But why? And how? How could he possibly have accomplished this? Palpatine went on..."To ensure that we will always stand together, that we will always speak with a single voice and act with a single hand, the Republic must change. We must evolve. We must strive. We have become an empire in fact; let us become an Empire in name as well! We are the first Galactic Empire!"
The Senate went wild.
That was it... absolute power. Total control. The Jedi would never have stood for it. That's why he needed them out of the way. It must be. Marin noticed she was shaking. She suddenly felt afraid. A deep, smoldering fear. She couldn't put her finger on it but she had felt this kind of fear before. Suddenly she knew. She had felt like that before in her vision, when they were going back to the temple.
Afraid to attract too much attention she quickly turned away and sat back down at the table. Soon the Duros came and set down two plates and a bottle of water with two glasses. "Enjoy your meal." Marin's appetite had left her completely. She wanted to thank the Duros to keep up appearances but he had already turned away and walked back towards the bar. Jes came back to the table looking optimistically and said to Marin: "I've got some good news. I've found..." and then he noticed Marin's face. "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Marin told Jes what she had learned and pointed him towards the view screen, which was showing another rerun of the same bulletin. Jes sat back down and looked Marin in the eyes. "I'm sorry Marin. I never thought it could be this bad. It must have been Palpatine who's behind all of it. "
"I'm ok. Nothing we can do about it now but get ourselves to safety." Marin said looking down at the table.
"It's a lie you know, about the Jedi." Jes said after they'd been silent for a while.
"I know, but they say they've been presenting evidence all day." Marin replied.
"Evidence can be easily falsified. Especially if someone as powerful as Palpatine is behind it. But that's not why I believe it's a lie.
You know, I never told you how I came to work at the temple. I still owe you that story. It's not a very happy story, but maybe it'll give you some insight into where I come from. You want to hear it?"
"Sure, I think I would." Marin answered.
"All right. It's about time I told someone..."
"To get an idea what happened," Jes continued, "I must tell you a few things about my time in the CDF. You see, my final few years there were very hard. There was a lot of political instability in the Corellian system and there were a few extremist groups which were wreaking havoc mostly on Corellia and Selonia. Then there were some of the bolder pirate groups which took advantage of the instability in the system to turn their operations up a notch. In that time we were almost continuously deployed on missions. Bombings, hijackings, kidnappings, strikes on public targets, you name it. The things we saw, it was bad." Jes' gaze was fixed on the far wall. As if he was seeing some of those things again….
He continued: "Sometimes there were hundreds of casualties. Military, civilians, woman, children... everything. And these people, they weren't amateurs. Most people think we were some kind of heroes who swept in, killed the bad guys and saved the day. Reality was that these were often high-risk operations. We were trained to fight outnumbered but that didn't mean we always won. We lost many good men and women on those missions, time and time again. People you relied on, people you grew close to. Some could handle the stress better than others. Me, I was fine whenever I could go back into action. When there was a team, a goal, us against them. It was simple. But whenever I stepped back into the normal world, it would eat at me. The things I had seen, the things I had done. The friends who I'd lost. " Jes sighed.
"Then, one time, my team was sent to Selonia where a few high-profile political figures had been taken hostage in a government complex. It did not seem like anything special at the time. A few unknown terrorists who were armed with some blaster rifles and who had possibly had planted explosives in case it all went wrong. We were only called in because some of the hostages were government VIP's. We were to infiltrate quietly, locate the hostages and get them out so the military could then safely clear the complex. What we did not know was that we were set up. Apparently the NSOC operations had caused some very powerful people some very big problems in some of our previous missions. They needed to make clear that they were still more powerful than anything the government could throw at them. So they decided to make a show out of taking out the most prestigious special operations unit in the CDF.
There was a mole somewhere very high in the CDF. They knew who would respond to the mission, who got sent, and when. They had so much information, they could even tap into our live tac-data feeds once we were deployed. Instead of a few averagely armed extremists they had an army in there. And we didn't have a clue. That night I saw three of our teams being shot down or blown up. Some of the wounded were even lined up and executed just to make a statement. I managed to survive by sheer luck. I was wounded but managed to get out together with the only other survivor of my squad. I carried him out but he died in my arms when we got outside. That night broke me. It was the last straw.
I was wounded and in shock for a while and woke up in a military hospital on Corellia hours later. I had lost a lot of blood, I was disoriented and couldn't concentrate, couldn't think straight. Days past but everywhere I looked I saw the battle, I saw my brothers go down. I couldn't sleep. Even when they drugged me I had nightmares. That's when I decided to run. I needed to get away, or it would kill me as well. So I ran. I fled the hospital, I fled Corellia, I fled the system without telling anyone. And I was good enough so that no one found me. I went to work as a security guard for a cargo company but that ended after a few 'incidents'. I ran further and further. But the sleeplessness continued. I became jumpy, always on the edge and extremely violent at the smallest triggers.
Despite my condition I kept traveling, taking jobs that would let me hop planets. Just to keep changing the scenery. After a few more short jobs I ended up on Coruscant. And not the pretty parts I tell you. I lived down on the lower levels. I lived on the street. No home, no nothing. My skills got me odd jobs here and there for some of the more shady organizations. I had jobs in security or simply just as muscle. This is also where I got hooked on the more heavy drugs. Some of the spices made me feel so numb I seemed to forget all my pain. I would be able to sleep for a few hours. At least, that's what it felt like in the beginning. I needed to take more and more of them to get the same results. And in the end they wouldn't help anymore but I just had to keep taking them because I needed them.
I did a lot of stuff back then that I'm not proud of. Hell, I can't even remember half of what I did so it's probably even worse than I can imagine. I used to steel speeders and rob people on the street. Even in the state I was in, it was easy. I was trained to recognize all kinds of people and I could easily take on multiple targets unarmed. I reckon, with my skills and instability, I was one of the more dangerous people down there at the time.
One night. I was sitting in an alley. High on one drug or the other, I can't remember, scoping out my next target. I needed more credits, to get the next fix. I saw a small robed figure approaching. I remember I thought he would be an easy target, but hardly worth the effort. Looked poor, walked with a stick, probably didn't have anything on him. But he stopped next to the alley and turned towards me. This kinda took me of guard. I mean, most people who noticed me back then walked away from me. He walked straight into the alley and stopped right in front of me. I remember thinking that if I took him out there, no one would see it. He was only about four feet tall but something inside me stopped me from doing anything. His hood was down so I couldn't see his face. Then he took his hood off and I saw this green, weird looking face looking me right in the eyes. For some reason, I didn't move. I remember him putting a hand on my shoulder, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. He just stood there for a while and when he finally opened his eyes again he took his hand of my shoulder and said, and I remember this as the day of yesterday: 'Done, you are not. Clean yourself up, you will. And report, you will, to the Jedi temple, tomorrow morning. Work for us, you will. ' He put his hood back on, turned around and walked away. I had no clue what just happened, but suddenly I realized my head was clear. My high was all gone. The blur was gone. the numbness was gone. Just before I had time to get angry about that I realized that also the nervousness had left. For the first time in about five years, I felt completely calm, at ease. I wasn't scared.
One other thing that was very weird: In retrospect, it was like the words he said to me were imprinted in my mind. I was going to do everything he said, there was no doubt about it. So I cleaned up in the back of a bar somewhere and reported to the temple the next day. Apparently I was expected. They gave me simple quarters where I could sleep and I could start assisting in the garage. For some reason they knew that I had some skill in maintaining and flying all kind of craft. I didn't understand any of it, but I was grateful, so I didn't ask. Well, that was about eight years ago. "
"Wow, I never knew. Thank you for telling me." Marin said. " It was master Yoda wasn't it?" Marin added after a while.
"It was. He helped me from time to time. Helped me process some of what happened. So did some of the other masters. Master Yoda saved my life that day. I wouldn't have survived long down there living the way I did. If the drugs wouldn't have killed me, it would have been one of my targets or even one of my employers. "
"Did you ever ask what it was he saw? When he said you weren't done?" Marin asked.
"I never dared to ask and he never talked to me about it afterwards."
Marin stayed silent for a minute, processing Jes' tale. "Do you think it had something to do with this?" Marin said, pointing at the world around her.
"I don't know, perhaps. I know I am here now. And I wouldn't have been here if it weren't for Yoda and the other Jedi. So that is my story." Jes answered.
"I think I understand now." There was a small pause. "I like master Yoda. I hope he's all right." Marin said.
"If I'd have to bet on one Jedi being all right, I'd bet on Yoda." Jes commented.
After a while Jes added softly: "Try to eat something. We don't know when we're going to get a warm meal again. Kerrf couldn't get us on a ship to the mid-rim. But he did have a lead on a republic transport which is docked at Bastion which should be going to the Noson system. That's is where Andean is. I arranged a place to sleep for us for tonight. Well," he added, "where we can get some rest at least. Tomorrow we'll have to find a way onto Bastion"