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Transcendental Chamber, Temple of the Milky Way, Wadarae, 2nd Galactic Empire
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The desert burned.
She had never seen a desert before this. Yet somehow knew she was in one now.
A giant red sun burned fiercely as it slowly rose on the horizon. Heat waves rippled across the horizon in every direction.
The low whine of a twin ion engine was growing from somewhere. She turned until she saw a tiny black shape on the horizon. It was coming closer.
She reached for the weapon on her belt. But it wasn't there. Her master had warned her not to lose her lightsaber. She was so accustomed to its heft that she felt naked without it.
The dot grew into an airspeeder until it was close enough to be recognized as a TIE Fighter. It lined itself up on the unarmed girl. Somehow she could feel the heat of the fighter's chin cannons preparing to blast.
They never did. The TIE screamed over her head so close the wind from its passing felt like a shockwave. She barely stayed on her feet.
She turned around quickly to watch the fighter fly away. It was painted in a black color scheme with a strange red stripe painted vertically across its solar panels. She'd never seen them colored in such a way.
The Jedi didn't have time to dwell on the TIE. Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned to see figures emerging from the wavering heat waves. She studied them for several minutes until she recognized them as Imperial Stormtroopers spread out in a loose patrol pattern. Their armor wasn't painted in the unadorned white of Stormtrooper recruits and naval marines, nor the grey of the 41st Elite Legion that she was more accustomed to. Instead they bore the orange and white markings of the 212th Legion. Strange, she thought. The 212th were the defenders of Mars and she hadn't set foot on the former Imperial capital in years.
A loud boom that sounded of thunder rolled across the desert plain from somewhere behind her. She spun on the disturbance to witness an eerie sight. More troopers, thousands of them, were spread across the horizon. They all wore white armor, though it appeared heavily updated from the armor she was familiar with.
Over the new arrivals heads a dark and foreboding storm brewed. Thunder poured out of the clouds, despite the absence of electrical lightning in a steady beat. She thought the thunder sounded off until she recalled war holodramas and their artificial sound of artillery.
The new Stormtroopers opened fire on the 212th. Within seconds half of them were cut down, sending the others into retreat. The futuristic troopers charged. Their assault carried past the Jedi as if she were never there. Not one of the attackers even looked in her direction.
As the 212th pulled back they ran towards a distant city. She was sure that the city hadn't been there a moment ago. An imposing black tower rose from a city built from red permacrete. Smoke started to rise from the fallen city. For unknown reasons she could see the top of the tower where figures in odd green armor ascended to the peak. Those figures unfurled a massive banner. Six of them attached it to a pole and raised it above the city.
As the flag fluttered in the smoky breeze she identified it as the blue-grey emblem of the Confederacy of Earth Nations.
Footfalls scraped their way through the sand behind her. She turned.
A pale varactyl reared up on its hind legs a mere meter in front of her. Its chirps threatened to permanently deafen her. Blackened smoke poured from its mouth and the ground seemed to catch fire wherever the beast stomped its paws. The ashen reptavian was covered in blackened armor and atop its saddle road a warrior covered in armor darker than the Void itself.
The rider looked down upon her through a tiny vision slit in her helmet. Yellow eyes could be seen on the other side of the visor. The Jedi could feel the hate pouring from the rider as she removed a gruesome morning star from her belt. The rider lifted the hilt above her head and spun the spiked ball.
As the varactyl crashed down on its fore-legs the riders swung the weapon downwards as well. The ball rapidly closed with the Jedi's head and she found herself unable to move or defend herself from the blow. She watched as the spikes raced down upon her forehead just as . . .
B'asia Ti gasped aloud, startling just about everyone else in the Temple's meditation chamber. The rhythmic chanting they had been performing ceased as every eye turned to her.
Her master, Gap-Ido, who had been leading the sacred consecration ceremony peered at her. He raised an eyebrow which further wrinkled his towering forehead. Several of the other knights, nearly all of them from her peer group, scowled at her disturbance of such an important event.
The new Padawans looked surprised that a Knight had broken the gathered concentration around the force nexus. In their eyes, Knights weren't supposed to make such mistakes. She remembered being that naïve once upon a time.
One of the youngling initiates giggled, breaking the silence once more. B'asia looked towards the younglings kneeling on the outer edge of the gathering to see who had found her startled outburst so funny. Cale Hja, a Dathomir youngling, hid his face underneath the hood of his robes.
B'asia turned back to Gap-Ido in the center of the circle. She silently mouthed the word sorry towards the Cerean Jedi. Nearly imperceptibly, except to the trained eye of his former apprentice, he shook his head and then once more placed his hand upon the floor.
Emanating from the spot on the ground where he had placed his palm a blue light of Force energy raced along the cracks in the raised cobblestones. Yellowish wisps of Force energy flickered from the light like flicker-gnats.
Wadarae, a moon of the sixth planet in the Cygnus System, had been discovered seven years ago by Gap-Ido while he had been a mere Knight of the new Milky Way Order of the Jedi. As his apprentice, B'asia had accompanied him on his initial exploratory mission.
Wadarae teemed with all sorts of alien flora and fauna. Its biggest and most well-known feature were its pinkish Wadarae trees which were a hybrid between Earth's cherry and sequoia trees. The fruit trees were hundreds of meters tall and provided an endless pink canopy to the spring-like world. Their petals gently fell in a constant rain upon the Jedi that had moved here.
With so much life, Wadarae had proven to be strong in the Force and after several months of exploration, Gap-Ido had located a vergence, a powerful and unlimited wellspring of Force energy. It had been here that her mother had decided to relocate the Jedi from Mars.
She didn't know how to explain it, but B'asia had once overheard her master claim that he was guided to the planet by the Living Force, which had provided guidance in the form of specters of the past. B'asia hadn't seen any ghosts guiding Gap-Ido back then, but her mother, the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, Ashla Ti, had believed every word of Gap-Ido's story.
That had led to several dull years of tutelage under Gap-Ido's guidance as he had been given the task of constructing the new Temple. So while her Master had supervised the Temple's founding her other peers got to live exciting adventures up and down the Bloodstripe Run. Why couldn't she have gotten Tenel Hja as a master, she quietly mused.
Gap-Ido had once been the first apprentice of Tenel Hja, who had been the first of Ashla Ti's Padawans. Together the three of them were the only Masters in the new order and made up the Jedi Council. Focused on growing the Jedi Order, Ashla Ti had founded the first class of Padawans from the refugees of Tarkin's Fist and trained ten younglings, including B'asia, after the Empire-Earth War. Those ten were the knights of the order.
Some of her peers had been knights for several years now. B'asia had been the last of her class to have been promoted to knighthood, passing the trials only three months ago. She had long felt her mother had held her back.
Her mother always held her back.
Several of her fellow knights had already chosen Padawans and were on the path to one day becoming Masters. Up to just last year, other Knights had been sent on dangerous missions, subduing spice smugglers or battling pirate gangs. Some had even been sent as Sentinels to augment the Royal Guard on nearby Palpatine Prime.
That had been another reason for choosing to relocate to Wadarae. Mars had been a barren planet, and its proximity to Earth, with its force-suppressing form of life, had left it as an undesirable long-term base for the Order. Wadarae was one of the nine moons of Palpatine Prime. The new seat of the Empire and its moons were able to sustain life amenable to the Force under the three blue proto-stars at the heart of the Cygnus System. Palpatine Prime and more importantly, Empress Phasma, were a mere shuttle journey away.
That proximity had been why the Grand Master and Master Hja had been away from the day's consecration ceremony. Though to be fair, this was the twentieth such ceremony this year as the Jedi pulled energy from the nexus into the Temple's walls. The two Masters had gone to Palpatine Prime to confer with the Empress over recent concerns over new smuggling rumors, but were due back at any time.
B'asia was envious of their Padawans who had accompanied them. At least they had gotten to skip the ponderous and banal ceremony.
Finally, after almost three hours of kneeling, Gap-Ido rose and spread his arms out to the gathering of Jedi. "So concludes today's ordinance of consecration. The wellspring is nearly complete. Once the Light Side has filled our temple the Jedi will have finally found a new home in the Milky Way Galaxy. May the Force be with all of you."
"May the Force be with you." The assorted Jedi answered. B'asia thought their mantra sounded like the mutterings of the Christians that had over run the Empire since the war.
"Padawans, report to your Masters." Gap-Ido told the gathering. "Initiates please follow Tholme Solusar down to the lake for Speed Burst instruction."
The gathering quickly broke up with Jedi heading in every direction from the Transcendence Chamber. B'asia turned to catch up to her fellow Knights, Hera Daru and Po Kestis, friends since younglinghood, when Gap-Ido held up his good hand and beckoned her towards him. "B'asia, may I have a word before you go?"
"Of course, Master." B'asia agreed as she watched her friends depart the chamber. "How may I be of service?"
"As you know, we are newly established on Wadarae."
"Yes, Master. I was at your side when we discovered the force nexus here seven years ago." B'asia replied.
"We were fortunate that Master Hja was able to discover the consecration ceremony in her study of Jedi Holocrons. And it was through the blessing of the past Jedi made one with the Universal Force that these consecrations have swelled the power of the Light Side here in the New Order."
"I have felt it as has every Jedi on Wadarae. With every day we become more attune to its guidance."
"So you would understand why such ceremonies are sacred bonds that bring our community together?"
B'asia could recognize a rebuke, even when it was offered by the soft-spoken Cerean Jedi. "I did not mean to interrupt the consecration."
"I know this year has been difficult for the Order, and for you. We have all felt the emergence of something new in the Force. We may not know of its origin but if the Dark Side is growing in strength in the Milky Way then we need to do everything we can to prepare the Order for what may be its greatest challenge."
"The Dark Side? I was aware of the disturbance in the Force. Every Jedi felt it when it emerged last year. But since then it has faded into the background. I did not know we had discovered the true nature of the emergence." B'asia stated.
"The Council is absolutely positive on the identity of the disturbance. And it would be in the Dark Side's nature to fade into the background and strike only when it is ready."
"They hid for a thousand years last time."
"And when the Sith emerged they crushed the Old Order into the dust. Preparation and vigilance must be our watch words these days."
B'asia wasn't convinced of the existential threat to the Order. To her, the older generation of Jedi lived in seeming terror of an old enemy disconnected from what B'asia believed were the Order's more important tasks for the present. While she had been his apprentice B'asia had witnessed many strange things about her Master. Things he kept hidden from most other Jedi, save for the Grand Master. She leaned closer and lowered her voice. "And what do your guides, the ghosts of the old Masters, tell you."
Gap-Ido took a startled step back. He had been unaware of how much his former apprentice knew about his connections with the Force ghosts who had revealed many lost secrets of the Jedi. Finally, accepting there wasn't anything he could do about her knowing his secret, he slumped his shoulders. "They refused to comment on it when I inquired. They have only said whatever may happen is the will of the Force."
"So the Living Force will stand on the sidelines if conflict comes to the Order."
"Apparently. Now tell me what caused you such angst during the ceremony that it caused you to sing out in such a disruptive manner. I could feel the anxiety coming off of you like the sweat of an overburdened ronto."
"I saw something." B'asia hesitantly admitted. She still wasn't sure of the meaning of what she had witnessed.
"In this chamber?"
"No. It was more like a dream."
"Farsight." Gap-Ido gasped. B'asia resisted the urge to cringe at her former master's surprise. She could sense Gap Ido's unease. To him, her receiving visions now, when the Force was in flux, appeared an ominous portent.
"I'm no clairvoyant." B'asia refuted.
"You are a Knight of the Jedi Order. You are one with the Force. If the Force wills you to see something then it will be shown to you."
"Yes, Master."
"Strange. We have not had anyone utilize Farsight since the end of the war, and back then it was merely glimpses of events which had led to the foundation of this very temple. Tell me, what did you see?" Gap-Ido asked.
B'asia laid out what she had envisioned, from the battling Stormtroopers to the flapping Confederate banner. "What do you make of it?"
"Some kind of civil strife inside the Empire, perhaps leading to the CEN retaking Mars. Force forbid. The most troubling thing, in my opinion, was the dark rider. Do you have any idea as to who it might have been?"
"None. I've never seen anything like it. I swear I felt the weapon about to touch my head before the vision passed." B'asia added.
Gap-Ido closed his eyes for a second and then reopened them. B'asia knew what he was going to say before he did, just as she had felt her mother's return several minutes ago. "The Grand Master and Master Hja have returned from the capital. The rest of the Council needs to be told of your vision as soon as possible."
"I'm sure it was nothing. A day-dream at most, Master."
"The Force is in flux at the moment. Something is out there. As the Earthlings say, no stone can stay unturned. If the Force is revealing something to us, then who are we to ignore it." Gap-Ido reasoned.
"I shall mention it to the Grand Master, though I'm still not convinced it was something we should take seriously. I mean, why me?"
"The Force works in mysterious ways. Why was a crippled boy from the back roadways of the Negs chosen to locate the new Temple? Only the Force knows."
"I suppose. May the Force be with you." B'asia bowed a farewell to her former master. Gap-Ido smiled in return. He really did want the very best for his former student, but ever since she had passed her knighthood trials he had placed his focus on expanding the new Temple. He didn't even notice the hungry stares of the initiates that circled him most days looking to be taken up as his next Padawan.
B'asia left her old Master in the chamber. He liked to meditate while he swept up the place without using the Force to manipulate his handicapped arm. It was something that took him back to the days before B'asia's mother had found him, B'asia had learned.
Most of the time, when returning from Palpatine Prime, the Grand Master would head to the sparring gymnasium for a few rounds of lightsaber combat with the PROXY droid GWB-99. B'asia was even more in tune with her mother than Master Ido and could sense the Grand Master was elsewhere in the Temple. B'asia passed through the Temple's gardens and past the Initiate dormitories and Temple kitchens staffed by a wide assortment of service droids.
She was not eager to reveal her vision to her mother. Ashla Ti was a master of many things, but she valued the more physical attributes of the Light Side over the more intangible. The Grand Master had absolute trust in the Force, she just liked it better when things were spelled out clearly. Destinies and mysteries were better left for others like Master Hja and Ido to contemplate.
B'asia passed by Knights with their Padawans training in Push-Feather, blindfold testing, and a sparring room filled with Padawans playing a game of Skorch. B'asia had once been known as a top-tier Skorch player while the Order had been on Mars and wished she could have stalled long enough to join the game.
B'asia arrived at the Yoda Training Dojo just as Master Hja and her Padawan, Wef Iselo, were leaving. The teenage Melbu Jedi spotted B'asia first and waved in greeting to the daughter of the Grand Master. After all, that was how many in the Temple saw her, not as a Jedi in her own right, but as the offspring of Ashla Ti.
"Greetings, B'asia." Master Hja noticed her. "The Grand Master and Padawan Teshlo are inside practicing the stance disciplines."
"Are you not joining them, Master?" B'asia asked the Dathomir Jedi.
"We've no time for it today. I believe Padawan Iselo's and my time is better spent studying a new Kazerath found on Nal Kuat amongst Kuantus Kuat's estate and recently donated to the Temple by Gage Kuat. It's a fascinating piece."
"Good luck to you both then, Master, Padawan Iselo. I won't keep you." B'asia stood aside to let the other two pass.
"May the Force be with you, Knight Ti." Tenel Hja bid her farewell.
B'asia found her mother standing to the side of the auditorium staring up at the figure in the center of the room. Ashla's Kessurian Padawan, Sylphanie Teshlo, stood atop a ten meter tall caber. The one ton pole stood vertically floating several meters above the floor while four more cabers slowly floated in a rotating circle around the young Jedi. Teshlo stood, holding her green lightsaber in the Center of Being position with her eyes closed and the faintest hint of a self-satisfied smirk on her face.
A small Marksman-H training remote hovered around the Kessurian. Without warning the remote unleashed a blaster bolt at the Padawan's head. Teshlo effortlessly deflected the bolt into the absorbent walls of the chamber. Too effortlessly for B'asia's tastes.
B'asia sidled up to her mother's side. "Shien?" She asked, referring to the fifth form of lightsaber combat.
Ashla Ti, the Great Defender of the North, the Sovereign Protector of the Empire and the Grand Master of the New Jedi Order nodded. "It is the duty of every Master to provide their Padawan with the tools and training to best utilize the Force."
"Shouldn't Form I be sufficient?" B'asia asked.
"For the Initiates perhaps. It was not enough for Master Ido? I had great pride when you mastered Makashi despite his adherence to Niman, which he trained his first two Padawans in."
"Perhaps Master Ido knew that, as your daughter, I might be challenged by others and sought to put my focus into the Way of the Ysalamiri." B'asia replied, watching the ease with which Padawan Teshlo utilized Form V above them. The slightest break in concentration would send her and the cabers toppling to the floor. Perhaps that would serve to deflate Teshlo's considerable ego.
"The Jedi Order is in possession of the only lightsabers in the Galaxy. We're the only ones capable of crafting new ones. Who do you think you'll have to duel?" Ashla Ti asked.
"What of the disturbance we all felt last year?"
Ashla Ti paused for several seconds. Her eyes moved away from her training Padawan to the floor and then traveled to meet her daughter's eyes. "I fear you have been under the influence of your Master for too long. Even with his so-called 'spiritual advisors' Gap-Ido has yet to reveal the source of last year's emergence."
"Could the Sith have come here at last?" B'asia asked.
The Grand Master chuckled. "The Sith are too smart to reveal themselves. If there is one thing the Dark Side is good at, it is remaining in the shadows until it is ready to pounce."
"Like Order 66."
Ashla Ti's lip curled slightly. B'asia wasn't sure if it was anger or regret that flashed in her mother's eyes. "Yes. Darth Sidious lured my Master into a trap on that fateful night and murdered him. His apprentice, Darth Vader, a hero to the Empire we now live in, then burned the old Temple on Coruscant to the ground. As far as I know, Yoda's Council never knew of the danger until it was too late."
"So is there a new danger out there, mother?"
Ashla Ti again hesitated. "I do not know. The Empress is concerned with the Confederacy at the moment. Their President is making outrageous new demands of us and threatening us with absurd claims of espionage and piracy that may provoke one side or the other into starting a new conflict. Meanwhile the Senate and the media sensationalists are still concerned with the disappearance of the Convor hyperspace scouting mission that vanished at nearly the same time as the disturbance we felt."
"Could they be connected?"
"No one is positive of anything at the moment."
"You need to send more Knights out to investigate. Dispatch one of us to the hyperspace scouts' last location and send some of us to Luna to negotiate with the Earthlings. You've already placed two Sentinels with the Empress, perhaps we should double or triple her Jedi guard." B'asia outlined her broad suggestion.
"No." Ashla Ti responded flatly. "Now is not the time to spread ourselves thin. That is what Yoda did during the Clone War. He left the Temple too weak to defend itself. Our temple is still new and our wellspring still needs filling."
"Master Ido says that could take several years to complete."
"We are not at war. We have the time. Especially if we focus our energy here on Wadarae."
"The Earthlings have an animal. A bird I believe. It buries its head in the sand when danger is near so that it doesn't have to see it coming. I fear you've become that bird, mother."
"B'asia!" Ashla Ti snapped. High above, atop the cabers, Slyphanie Teshlo opened her eyes and retracted her lightsaber. She didn't lose all her focus and slowly lowered the cabers back to the ground where they slid into shallow holes in the floor so that they didn't topple over. She held her lightsaber at the ready in case her Master called for her. "I will not denude the Temple while the Order is blind to whatever threat may or may not be out there waiting for us."
"You'd rather have us isolate ourselves here on Wadarae with Palpatine Prime right next door to protect us. Sounds like you're exactly like Yoda once was. Relying on the Old Republic's stability to keep the Jedi safe."
"But what threat is there besides the Earth? And what threat can they be now when we already put them in their place twenty years ago?" Teshlo interrupted. B'asia just glared at the younger Jedi. She had a nasty habit of butting in where she wasn't wanted. "The Empire is the strongest democracy in the Milky Way. What could possibly stop them?"
Ashla held up a finger to her Padawan. "The strength of the Empire means very little compared to the infinite power of the Universal Force. You make me repeat myself, daughter, but our primary focus needs to be on succoring the wellspring here on Wadarae as the focal point of the Light Side for the entire Milky Way."
"You don't see it. Do you?" B'asia had felt the truth behind the emergence all along. While the older generations focused on the past it would be the duty of the youth to forge a new path for the Jedi.
"See what. I am trying to do what is best for the entire Order." Ashla Ti cocked her head, misunderstanding what her daughter was getting at.
"Soon, the galaxy will be remade." B'asia claimed which caused the Grand Master and her cocky Padawan to glance at each other in confusion. "And in the chaos we must seize what influence we can. It is not the way of the Jedi to hide, either here under the petals of Wadarae or in the Old Empire's gutters after Order 66. If we are to truly live, I promise you it has to be out there serving the beings of the Galaxy, not a single Empress. And if I die, I will die as a true Jedi Knight."
Her mother sucked in her breath. "This is about you leaving Wadarae."
"I deserve a mission. I have earned the right." B'asia stated.
"You have no right to speak to the Grand Master like that." Teshlo exclaimed. This time B'asia refused to even acknowledge her mother's Padawan. The Kessurian received too much attention already as the Grand Master's apprentice, B'asia thought.
Ashla Ti looked at her long and hard, trying to find any hidden meaning in her child's demands. "Very well. I need you to go to Mars."
"Mars!" B'asia whined a second too early. The memory of her Farsight vision rushed back to her. The Force itself was directing her to return to the red planet.
"Yes. Mars."
"But there's nothing happening on Mars. Most of the population left that place ten years ago."
"I need you to go to the first temple. The one we built out in the Arabia Terra."
"Hasn't it been empty for a few years?" B'asia asked.
"Yes. Except for a few caretaker droids." Ashla Ti replied. "I need you to go back and retrieve some large equipment we left on the site along with some statuary and mosaics that were donated by citizens after we stopped the Earthlings at the Battle of the Crater."
"You mean the time you and Dad settled your first argument with a fight involving a few million soldiers with the winner getting to take the old capital."
"Something like that. And you, for one, should be glad your father and I patched things up."
"Right, well best not to dwell on that icky thought." B'asia shuddered. "Why me?"
"You're the one that is demanding a mission. This is the only mission I have available right now."
"What about finding out the fate of the Convor, or helping the ambassador on Luna?"
"The Empire has not sought our assistance on such matters."
"We could do it on our own." B'asia suggested.
"That is not our mandate. We act as the Force wills. If the Space Ministry or DiploServe needs us then they know where to find us. If you're suggesting we take missions for KDY or Rothana then you had better think again. I will not send our Jedi out to die for a corporate cause. For now I need the old temple cleaned out so that we can donate the land to agricombine farmers."
B'asia was about to tell the Grand Master again about her vision but stopped herself. Obviously the Force was directing the Jedi back to Mars, her in particular. But if she felt that something truly important was about to happen there, her mother would dispatch a more experienced Jedi in B'asia's stead. "Fine. I will take this mission. But only because I believe the Jedi need to get out into the Galaxy and be seen as the heroes we are and not some strange hermits living on an Imperial, back-rocket planet."
"Wonderful. Don't let me keep you. Take one of the Temple's T-6s. You can depart as soon as you're ready." Ashla Ti said coldly. B'asia could tell she wasn't going to get a warm farewell from her mother. Especially after she had to twist her arm to obtain the mission in the first place.
"Wizard. Then I'm off. I will contact you as soon as I arrive at the old temple on Mars." B'asia bowed slightly at the waist in deference to the Grand Master's rank. Teshlo just stared at her blankly; though B'asia could feel the relief from the bratty Kessurian that B'asia was leaving.
As she reached the door to the chamber she heard her mother call out. "May the Force be with you."
B'asia turned her head and met her mother's gaze for a few seconds. Then with a simple nod she turned and left the chamber.
He found her in the Temple's hangar, loudly attaching a fuel hose to one of the Order's T-6 shuttles. He approached her from behind as if she couldn't already feel his presence. Without turning around she said, "You can't scare me you know. I can feel you in the Force."
"You always impress me with your sorceress ways, Princess." Jason Bogan chuckled at his daughter's preternatural ability to detect him sneaking up on her. He had been trying to get her to jump ever since she had been an Initiate.
B'asia turned to her father and gave him a weak smile as she over-exaggerated sealing the fuel hose to the shuttle's reserve tanks, making as much noise as was possible. Her father merely crossed his arms and watched his daughter work out her frustrations on the helpless fuel hose. "What did your mother do now?"
"She's sending me to Mars."
Jason Bogan stepped forward and placed his hand on her shoulder. "That's great. I know you've been wanting a mission ever since you passed your trials. You've been under Master Ido's wing for years now. Time to stretch your own wings and fly."
"It's nothing but a caretaker mission. I'm supposed to go and take an inventory of what we left behind when we moved here and send all the heavy art and equipment back here to Wadarae."
"About time they cleaned that place out. Your mother never could convince me leaving Mars was a sensible decision. Seemed like a great location to me. Only an hour by landspeeder up to the Yos Ocean."
"Mars is a stifling world in the Force. The entire Sol System has been poisoned by its proximity to Earth."
"Hey, might I remind you that you're half Earthling, Princess."
"The sensible half."
"Damn skippy. But you say the Grand Master has granted you permission to leave. That's great. I've been working on her for months now to give you a little more freedom. I was eighteen when I headed off to college. Two years younger than you are now."
"And look what happened to you. You ended up leading an army that very nearly over ran the Empire." B'asia smiled at the image that failed to form in her mind. Her father was Jason Bogan, the Earthling who became a Stormtrooper and eventually the great General Boston who bent the Empire's knee. She knew him as her geeky father who dove headfirst into all lore regarding the Home Galaxy and knew more of the history of the Empire than most Imperials. Defecting in the name of love for Ashla Ti and B'asia, he had gone into hiding among the New Jedi Order after a stint as the Confederacy's ambassador to the Empire. One of the more popular teachers here at the Temple, Jason taught mathematics and physics to the Initiates and Padawans. The Grand Master had decreed that Jedi should be able to do more in the Galaxy than just whip a lightsaber about. Jason and a small squad of instructor droids taught a wide variety of subjects to the young Jedi. Much to B'asia's disbelief her father had told her it was some of the most rewarding work he had ever done. By the Core, she swore to herself, he was such a nerd.
"All in service to a greater cause. Just like how you serve the Order by following your mother's edicts and rules."
A part of B'asia wondered if obeying her mother's rules truly served a greater cause. B'asia opened her mouth to say something, but found the words she wanted to say die on her lips. She felt her pink skin turn a deeper shade of red as she thought about how her conversation with her mother had gone. A part of her felt shame for the emotions she was feeling. A Jedi was supposed to keep their feelings in check. Perhaps, a small voice in the back of her mind insisted, this was why she had been last in her class. She hoped her father wouldn't press her on the subject.
Jason gave her a searching look as he scratched the back of his head. "Your talk with her went that bad, huh?"
"It's complicated." B'asia admitted with a sigh.
"I don't think it's as complicated as you feel." Jason said, not unkindly. "Remember your training. You have to work through these feelings. You can't just sit on them and let them fester. Talk to me."
B'asia looked away for a moment before looking back to Jason. "Sometimes I feel as though Mom was holding me back." She confessed.
"Would it surprise you to know that she worries about that?" Jason asked.
"Really?"
"More than you'd think, Princess." Jason said before taking a seat on the T-6's loading ramp. He looked up at her.
"Ever since you were born your mother has worried about balancing your needs and the needs of the Jedi as a whole. She wants you to succeed. She really does. But she's terrified that if she shows you too much support it will look like nepotism, and that it might alienate the other members of the Order."
"I understand that, but..." B'asia struggled to put what she felt into words.
"But it doesn't feel that way to you, even though you know it's so, am I right?"
B'asia nodded.
"Think about it this way kid. You feel like you're being left behind as the last person in your old class to get knighted, right? So what? Most Jedi in the Old Order didn't get knighted until they were 21. You're 20. You and your fellow Knights graduated early because the Jedi need more Knights to train more students. If you look at it from that point of view, you're ahead of the curb.
"There were also Jedi in the old Order who were Knighted when they were as young as 17." B'asia retorted.
"This isn't a race, B'asia. Yoda was 81 when he became a knight. First doesn't mean best." Jason assured her. "Don't be so eager to run off in search of glory. Believe me, getting yourself killed will do no one any favors."
"I won't get myself killed." B'asia insisted. "But I won't be sidelined in this Temple either. I have potential. I want to prove myself. I want..."
Jason interrupted. "You want to matter."
B'asia grimaced at being cut off, but she nodded.
Jason reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand.
"You do matter, B'asia Ti. You are your parent's child. You have the makings of greatness in you. But you have to be patient! You have to stick to the path ahead if you want to experience that greatness. And the path itself is beset with obstacles. Glory won't fall into your lap. Everyone of worth starts out small, at the bottom, and works their way up. Your path forward starts on Mars."
"But Mars . . . it's just so boring. What's going on out in the other arms of the galaxy? The Jogan fruit farmers on Ro-loo have a wampa infestation. There's that big labor strike on New Ryloth. Alderaan II just had a planet-quake last month that they're still dealing with refugees from. All of those crisis would better suit the Order's time. Yet the Grand Master keeps us all here on Wadarae chanting around the Force Nexus and hording the power of the Light Side! For what?"
"To build the Order's strength, or so she tells me. She doesn't want to dilute and weaken the Temple the way Yoda did. Remember her Master was sent away from the old Temple in the last moments of the Clone War and vanished. She didn't discover until months later, when she was already on the run, that he had been killed and falsely labelled a traitor. If more Masters had been at the Temple then the terrible things that occurred there might not have happened. I'm sure you heard the story of the slaughtered younglings."
"Yes." B'asia shuddered. That story was a nightmare that startled many a new Jedi awake on cold wintry nights.
"Think of it like the fingers of your hand. Separately, and open they are like a slap. That is what the Old Order tried to do to Count Dooku and the Separatists, slap them on the wrists."
"Tell that to the billions who died on both sides." B'asia argued with a tinge of sarcasm. The deaths had occurred before her birth and were merely a statistic. Her mother had lived through it.
"And the Separatists were never truly destroyed. They were scattered to the winds to form that rebellion the Old Empire worried about or were absorbed into the Empire. Now if you take all your fingers and curls them together into a fist, you can do some real damage."
B'asia finally understood what her father was getting at. "Mother has told you about the disturbance in the Force?"
"She has. There are no secrets between your Grand Master and me."
"So she does believe it's the reemergence of the Dark Side and she's gathering the Order's strength."
"She's got a plan. Last night she had a dream I think."
B'asia gasped. "Was I in it?"
Her father simply nodded. When B'asia couldn't find the words to ask what her father knew he muttered. "Mars."
"You two know about my vision?"
"We had a feeling."
"So you know about Mars. Something is going to happen there."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps we need to bring something back from Mars. Something that will help the Order survive whatever is to come." Jason Bogan declared.
"We?" B'asia questioned.
"You didn't think I'd miss a chance to revisit my old stomping grounds? Did you?"
"You know, I could use the company. Mom said there was nothing but a few caretaker droids left on the property and the Arabia Terra is horribly far from Amidala City." B'asia conceded.
"Oh, I know all too well how far things are apart on Mars. Try marching eight million Earthlings across the thing sometime."
"But what about your classes? Won't you be needed here?" B'asia asked.
"I know a trick or two about concealing my whereabouts. GWB-99 can replicate my appearance pretty well. That PROXY droid can even take a few greys off the scalp and a few kilos off the waist."
"But what about teaching?"
"When I was a kid back on Earth we had an outbreak of something called the Corona Virus. Was like a super-flu at the time. All the teachers had to teach their classes from home via remote viewing. I can uplink with GWB-99 and do the same from Mars for the classes here on Wadarae."
"That's pretty neat. Have you already told Mom?"
"Who do you think packed my bag and already stowed it aboard your shuttle?"
"And the ISB? What if they're still looking for you? You are, after all, the so-called Scourge of the North."
"The Imperial Security Bureau never looked for me very hard. I've committed no crimes against the Empire and all my actions during the war were expediencies of the war. The ones that really want to get their hooks into me work for the CIA on Earth and I've got no plans on visiting home while we're back on Mars."
"I guess it's settled then. How are your astrocartography skills?" B'asia asked with a sly grin.
"Why?" Her father crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. He was well aware of the Empire's feelings of Earthlings flying around the Void.
"Well this thing," She jerked a thumb at the T-6. "Is going to need a co-pilot and every Terran I've ever met has trouble finding their home world on a simple map of the Galaxy."
"That was one time."
"The ship you were piloting emerged from hyperspace an entire parsec away from Wadarae."
"Yes. But I only did it once. Don't worry. I'll just aim this shuttle at Earth. Every time I've tried to get back there I've gotten stuck on Mars."
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Up Next- The Admiral on the brink
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So what did everyone think of Bad Batch? Who is your favorite so far?