Chapter 2

Uncharted planet Honoghr, by Kessel

The sunrise of Honoghr was as beautiful as always. First, coming up from behind the distant mountains, shining down on the Kholm-grass plains, getting trapped in the different jungles of the giant continent then continuing onto the different mountains, forests and plains, but Jarl (chieftain) General Niko Shinai's light brown eyes were closed in meditation, sitting in a criss-cross position, drawing energy from the force since he had be on guard duty for the past three days without much rest.

Somewhat refreshed, Niko opened his eyes to see his newest trainees standing at attention. An even two dozen young men and woman of the three species, humans, Noghri and more recently in the past fifty years Mon Calamari, that shared the planet wanting to join the Jarl Guard. The ages ranged from fifteen up to nineteen, but all wore the same simple light grey tunic and leggings, each tailored to their species, were arranged in a half circle on the large square dirt training courtyard that was surrounded by Kholm-grass that ended at the high stone walls of the compound. The high walls of the training grounds that was located a hour walk south from the cultural city of Ulka which a mixture of the three species lived.

That is if, Niko's lips smirked in a half smile, you didn't count his silent shadows/bodyguards, two Noghri named Kahr'corvh and his mate Meewalh of Clan Eikh'mir stood behind him in the shadows of if the walls. Also their camouflage was near perfect. But the force sensitive half of his trainees could pinpoint his guards location, even if their eyes could not.

It was the sixth week of training and his newest crop was shaping up nicely which if you wanted just a group of fit young people but these people were training for their future careers if they passed. If you join the Jarl Guard or wanted to it was stressed that everyone was equal, force sensitivity or not. In fact some of Niko's greatest shields aka trainees weren't ones that were force sensitive at all.

During the past few weeks Niko kept a eye on the newest member who joined a month ago, a human by the name of Nigel Even. He after a few stumbles had a slight grace to his movements in the kata, but to Niko's senses Nigel still had bitter emotions that made his movements awkward.

At seventeen-year-old, Nigel was red haired, ruddy faced youth who, if Niko was being polite, still needed to lose a few pounds, not much, but he clearly liked his desserts. His skin was darkly tanned that matched his dark eyes.

As one of the newest settlers on Honoghr, he could have be excused by his slight rudeness toward the natives if he made amends, but instead he was petty thief that got caught two months ago trying to steal some coins, in the open market at noon. As a force sensitive, the Clan Maitrakhs (mothers) and the Jarl (chieftain) at the weekly assembly turned him over to Niko as his parents asked for him to join the guard or at least the training instead of community service.

Clearly by their pleading, they were at the end of their rope with him. His force thieving skills got him into trouble before. This, in their minds, was the closest to a 'Jedi' training that they could give him. He wasn't force sensitive enough to catch the Jedi Order's attention. But he did have enough for him to need training. Nigel was still angry by the move to an out of the way planet because his parents yearning to distance themselves from the inner rim. Especially since the coordinates of the planet were still kept off of the galaxy's hyperspace routes five hundred years later on the request of the Noghri people.

Niko was lounging on the ground while stretching his limbs and roaring out roll call to get the bleary-eyed awake. As the sun rose on to another hot day, he worked his group in the opening forms for different exercises at the same time, which in reality if any of them and some of them did notice, that the exercises were really katas from the Noghri's martial art Stava which was one of the first steps in joining the Guard. By now, Niko was sitting with his elbows supporting his body.

"Hold." All the trainees froze in place, some more wobbly then others, but Niko was pleased to see all keeping pace with his fellow instructor Jedi Master Jon Antilles, the Jarl's Consigliere for the past four years, and trainee instructor for the past week, Jedi Ky Narc who had slipped into his class while he was doing roll call, who had lead the exercises for the morning.

As a person who survived on a hell-like world and took a wild child, now thirteen years of age, as a apprentice, Ky could be quite terrifying, but a softy at heart as the students learned to enjoy his lessons. Jon was just as terrifying to the students, but Niko thought he was a decent man, just quite solemn at times and 'mysterious.' Which he expected that Jon got a kick out of. Or at least a sly sense of humor. Niko knew that Ky totally did when he dumped his padawan Asajj Ventress to teach when he came to visit. It helped soften her or as at least rubbed down some of her rough edges.

"Alright, you have five minutes to cool down, then back to form." Niko called out brushing a long lock of sandy blonde hair off of his forehead as he rose to a standing position eyeing his trainees as they relaxed.

Ky slipped back into the shadows once more, cloaking himself in the force. He mentally chuckled at the look of relief that all his trainees held once he was 'gone.' As much as Ky was liked, he was harder on the students then Asajj. Ky was getting antsy but to his annoyance his recovery time was slower then he liked. The one time Ky come to visit for a time in between missions without his beloved padawan Asajj and he injures himself.

Niko hollered out, "At least one of you came prepared." He nodded towards the Noghri who held two well care for sickle weapons in his claws. Everyone else was unarmed. He was small for his age, but his black eyes were fierce and proud that went well against the grey of his skin and tunic. His head horns were coming in nicely.

The young Noghri, Ovkhevam of clan Bakh'tor, came forward laying down his two sickles which if Niko remembered correctly was inherited from his father. Niko took up the two sickles and started a kata, a simple one to show the newest and/or youngest of the trainees how your body worked with your weapons.

Once completed, Niko flicked the weapons back to Ovkhevam who caught them with ease. "Now tell me why do the guards of the Houses, Clans and shields of our planet use Stava?"

"Stava isn't a decent form of martial arts. It's just something that these Noghri use. Why do we need to use it? We got blasters. We just need to learn how to shot and throw a punch if necessary." A young, but brash voice called out. But since there was only twenty-eight beings in the compound courtyard, the speaker couldn't conceal his identity. It was Nigel.

Niko smiled warmly as he waved the speaker forward, which made the other trainees inwardly cringe. Niko smiling wasn't a good sign. Ever. "Come forward Nigel. As you are a newcomer to our planet and ways of life, I'll let that first comment slide despite you being in training for the last week. As for why all of us use some form of Stava, I'll let your teacher for the day explain by doing. If you advance well enough then you'll graduate to mock sickles and then to real ones."

"So who's the teach?" Nigel looked behind Niko wondering if the Jarl General's guard would be teaching them which he wouldn't be happy about. Those Noghri were fast. But his teacher pointed to Ovkhevam whose smile made Nigel pale.

If Asajj was there, Niko would have sensed Asajj's dark amusement as she watched Ovkhevam put Nigel through his paces. But to her credit even in her amusement she kept an eye on her 'students', indicating her growth in personality and kindness or Ky was just projecting what his apprentice would have sensed, as evident of the quick smile he let fade away when Niko gave him a quick glance. Niko gently pushed him back playfully as Jon slipped into the overseer's role.

"Ovkhevam please go easy on your fellow trainees not trained as you have been." Meaning anyone who wasn't born Noghri. Their reflexes weren't as fast.

Ovkhevam nodded, not trusting his voice. His claws twitched making Nigel step back a few paces. He could sense he wouldn't be getting any help from his fellow trainees. He remembered his mother's words of his mouth would get him into trouble someday. His mind flashed to his grave.

But as Nigel stumbles through the first few armed katas no one made fun of him, but instead help when necessary. Even Ovkhevam. Deep into his first successful stickle kata, with blunt blades, Nigel a half hour later, didn't notice when Niko slipped away toward the other end of the compound courtyard where the barracks and small dukha were located seeking solace. Only his Noghri Shadows followed as Jon stayed behind in order to finish up the morning class for the day, keeping sharp eyes on the sweaty well worked students. Niko had been called elsewhere by the Jarl and Clan Maitrakhs.

Niko sighed deeply his forearms bracing against the tile as his body was pounded by the hot water in the barracks refresher, holding back a loud hiss of pain from his only deep wound he got while guarding the just turned eight-year-old Anakin Skywalker, the Jarl's selected heir who was deeply asleep at the time since his mother and teachers worn him out with activities all day. His meditation could only work up to a point if he wasn't sleeping properly. If he had more force training maybe, but he was too concerned with other factors to deal with a deep trance to completely refresh his body. That and he didn't like being helpless out in the open.

As the warm water cleaned his wound, his mind flashed back to how he got it. A sudden attack on the side as he gutted a different assassin sent to kill Anakin, the Jarl's heir, in the blackness of night. He had force pushed the man who had wounded him, cracking the man's skull against the stone of the hallway. It took him a while for the battle rage to calm enough to tend to his wound as he almost looped off Ky's head when he came around the corner. Knight Ky insisted on helping bandage the wound as much as he could after he got done finishing off the other two assassins as he had sent his apprentice into a deep sleep

Niko woefully admitted to himself that at age forty-eight he was getting was much too old to do constant guard duty for the Jarl and his family. Maybe it was time for a younger person to step in. The assassins were young, not to far into their adult years. But as Aaron was his brother-in-law he owed it to his sister Lucia to keep her husband safe since she wasn't around do do so. That lead to his hair washing and his make shift barbering with his scissors he kept handy. It wasn't that he couldn't get a proper haircut, he didn't want to. The last person to trim his hair besides himself was his wife gone now six years.

As Niko unravel the small marriage braid that hung behind his left ear, he noticed sadly that Kahlan's last blue ribbon she wove in her husband's hair was faded to light blue and was starting to become more tattered as his beads were long gone by now. The sudden thought of how his hair would look good with green ribbon and different colored beads instead made him scrub his body faster until all the dirt and grime from the past few days were washed away to discourage that line of thinking, of that desire for someone else.

Once dried, a hasty done bacta bandage on his deep cut and dressed in his customary black and dark blue tunics, he slipped his fighting stickles crisscross across his back, nearly hidden in plain sight, as he tucked a small throwing knife in his left bantha hide boot. His blaster hung off his right side as his other held his force blade.

It wasn't like the force blades of the past where the armors had a taxing time making a force sensitive blade, it was a marriage between a lightsaber construction and a vibroblade, a compromise of the two Jedi who came and first settled the planet, that is after they succeed in a peace treaty with the Noghri. The two Jedi would be considered one of the lost Jedi who had left the Jedi Order over differences.

Privately, Niko thought his ancestors left the order because they fell in love with someone outside of the order and at the time of their order five hundred years ago, celibacy was strongly encouraged bar for a few flings without attachment if so inclined. Or at least that's what the history said. The two former Jedi didn't fight in any more combat situations after they desired peace with the Noghri, they did fight in other peaceful ways. Mostly through advisories and the like.

After the two Jedi came, then other settlers or in the case of the Mon Calamari, a ship crash after a navigation malfunction. Speaking of other settlers, Niko thought as he slipped from the barracks and sunk into the force so not to be seen going to the dukha, he hoped that there was a plan to deal with the small but growing revolt that been taking place off and on for the past year. He was troubled so he sought peace in blue and white colored dukha for a little peace and quiet before he had to take over after the lunch break if any of the other students wanted to learn how to use the force properly. The dukha was the formal gathering place of the Noghri and the settlers copied their design for their settlement with the blessing of the Noghri Maitrakhs (mothers and rulers of the Noghri tribes).

The building was built in a hexagon shape with a cone-shaped roof. Pillars, evenly spaced around the circumference of the building supported its structure, and were made of entire tree trunk sections stripped of bark and polished with lacquer or of strong metal polish pillars. The pillars, along with a metal or strong wood support band below the eaves of the dukha were decorated with the intricate carvings of the different traditions and species. In the case of the Mon Calamari, they copied from their home world, but used the dukha in .

Usually inside a Noghri dukha, there was only a single room with a throne chair placed two-thirds of the distance from the double doors to the back of the building. This was the place where the clan maitrakh sat. A concave dish hung over the center of the room from chains attached to each wall pillar, and soft light poured out of the dish against the ceiling.

In the Jarl General's dukha, instead of the throne chair there was a work desk, with benches arranged in front of it, and as Niko sank his tired, but still slightly energized body into the comfortable chair behind the desk, he was glad to have underlings to sort through his paperwork for him as he eyed the larger pile of flimsy paper and data pads scattered on his desk. Didn't he just do his paperwork yesterday?

He was ankle deep in a troubling recon report from one of his off world teams reporting what was happening on Tatooine when a strong but warm force presence brushed his senses. Niko jerked back in surprise at the look that Shmi Skywalker, that is Healer trainee Skywalker gave him. He saved his place letting the data-pad fall in a clatter, crossing his arms.

"Hello Shmi. What brings you to my presence?" He tried and failed not to notice the look into her warm brown eyes as she gently placed her med kit on a open space on his desk. It was a caring look, one that Niko knew once before. It was the one that Kahlan gave him when he did something stupid and he had to explain why he did what he did.

"Anakin informed me this morning, after you broke your fast and left, that you got a huge cut on your side from his would be assassins. I couldn't come until now because of my duties. I got leave for the rest of the day since my mentor, Havoc knows that you respond better to me then any other healer or so Havoc claims." The disapproval from the force bond they shared was disheartening.

So Niko complied to her order to strip off of his tunic and weapons, cursing the meddlesome Mon Calamari Mid-Master Healer, who even if he wasn't force sensitive was a powerhouse to be recon with. At the age twenty-eight in Mon Calamari years, he was smart enough to the two things he wanted to do in life, save lives and design architecture. He claimed that the body and the structure of ships and buildings were all the same to him so it was easy to apply one skill with the other. Niko didn't believe him but since Havoc studied constantly, he could claim his dues.

In fact, Niko gripped privately in his mind, thankful for his body language training, Havoc was trying, yet again to set him up with Shmi or maybe not, he amended as Shmi had just ripped off of his new bandage he put on earlier in the shower and tsked in dismay at what she found making him let out that hiss that he didn't before.

Her hands were gentle as she scrubbed the clotted blood from the wound, which was made by an old fashioned jagged edged blade. It was so sharp he didn't register that he was bleeding until he was getting ready for bed. He wasn't stupid, he did clean and bandage it thank you very much.

She continuously feed force energy into his body as she kneaded the wound back together using the force to speed along the healing and to blunt the needle pain as she sewed. Once done she slapped, none to gently, another bacta patch onto his wound watched him dress himself, not intimately but to see if the wound would split open monitoring it with the force. The thread that she used would help knit the skin and muscle together and provide extra support.

Shmi sighed in relief once Niko was dressed. The wound was deeper then she would have liked but it also missed a lot of the inner organs. "I was worried." Shmi's voice was soft and she now let her hands shake behind her before she gripped them together as she let her worry show in the force and their bond. It was overwhelming the other emotion.

At the intense worry he felt, Niko looked up from adjusting his tunic back the way he liked it to study the woman who was three years his junior standing in front of him. Away from her long life as a slave, with more food, nutritional supplements and all the water she wanted, Shmi had lost most of the desert worn look she held that made her looking a decade older.

She looked well in her dark green healer robes and unisex suit that told that she was part of the world's medical corps. Very well, too well. Instead of her hair down in a low bun that usually had a small braid around it, it was woven back into the style of the single fishtail braid which was woven with small golden silk ribbons and clear beads that sparkled in the sunlight.

It hit Niko suddenly as he stared at Shmi's braid what that fishtail braid meant and his breath caught in his throat making it hard to breathe. In the human's culture that had sprang up when they first settled on Honoghr, a fishtail braid had deep meaning. One of the first Jarls' married a woman who was from Alderaan had her own family customs of hair-braiding that unless she passed it on, which she did to whoever wanted to learn, would be lost since she was the last of her family and couldn't have children. But she adopted as many children as she could do so, especially the forgotten, force sensitive or not.

Not all the humans followed the admitted complicated hair customs, but the higher up clans or at least the ruling clan at the time did. As Shmi's son Anakin was the Jarl's heir, she decided to follow the leaning clan's traditions. The fishtail braid was meant that she was seeking a husband or partner and the women who wore the braid only did so in front of the one or ones she was seeking. It also depended on what kind of ribbon she wove into it. It didn't always mean a sexual relationship. Some people was just content to be platonic partners for life and sought sexual relationships elsewhere or none at all. The clear beads meant she was unattached as well, but looking. The Jedi Council would have a field day when they found out, if they found out what became of a traditional padawan braid throughout the centuries on Honoghr. It was quite different as different cultures started to mix together.

Niko didn't currently have a woman. Oh there was many women before, during and after his marriage who sought his attention, with or without the traditional fishtail braid, but there was only three women in his lifetime that he had truly wanted. The first was pure lust and that relationship burned out quickly in his youth, Kahlan was the second and the third was Shmi, who if he was honest with himself wanted from the start or at least even before he set eyes on her while he sought out fuel for his ship.

He did know that Kahlan would have approved of her. "I'm sorry to cause you concern. Wearing a fishtail braid already? Does that mean you have passed your final exams?" Niko said lightly as his heart thundered in his chest, feeling light headed or that might have been his wound.

Shmi and him, had a understanding between them, she had felt the attraction as he did, a few weeks later then him, but he wanted her to seek her dreams, and he had duties so the deepening friendship the last six years that has be, blossomed into something more recently.

Their strengths and differences complimented each other and they ironically had a lot in common, that is if you didn't count Shmi's bad memories of her slave years.

In response, Shmi laid her hand on Kahlan's last braid and tugged gently opening up her side of their force bond. He did the same and all that he could do was hug her as they were in agreement for the future.

There was a loud coughing sound or whatever the equivocate of the Mon Calamari was, when Niko a short time later, was trying and failing to discover how in the heck Shmi got her hair ribbons tangled around the clear beads. Niko was determined to unravel her hair so he could braid it into a proper engagement braid or something that headed that way.

Havoc was standing beaming at him while the very hyper just turned eight-year-old heir to the throne was hopping from one bench to another using the force. Thankfully he had kept his droid project at home in his room.

"Anakin! How many times do I have to tell you to respect the dukha! No hopping!" Shmi went to gently scold her son while Havoc admired how good he did on Shmi's ribbons out loud.

"You braided her hair?" Niko asked, wonder how Havoc's webbed hands did such a delicate task.

"Not exactly but I was in the room at the time. Aaron was the one to do the braiding and he asked Shmi to inform you of your meeting again. Which it seems that you missed lunch and your afternoon force training for. You'll be gone for an unforeseeable time so Aaron and the Maitrakh assigned another instructor for your class or was it Jon just taking over? I wasn't paying much attention.

Did you know that I have more relatives here now? I can't keep track now that we have more than my family that decided to move here permanently. Who would have thought that crashing onto this planet would bring my family so much joy? You know we might start moving in political circles soon. Set up our own government and such. Or join yours fully. It's so nice that you let us do what we need to do without oversight."

Niko bit back a groan as Havoc cheerfully continued on blabbing as Shmi went and rounded up her sharp-eyed son who was asking the Noghri guard who had followed them out of the compound towards the capital of which was located quite a distance from the Noghri capital of Nystao, about their sickles and when he could start training with them.

Niko was thinking about walking back to get out of Havoc's presence when Shmi mentioned he didn't eat lunch either. Now Niko found himself eating under the watchful eyes of his guards, his intended, his intended's son and Havoc who still kept talking, as they used a speeder to get to where Aaron and the Maitrakh clans waited.

There went his plans for a quick wedding so he could start enjoying his marriage bed again. He felt Shmi's gentle mental laughter at his grumpiness in his head. Her hand was warm against his callous scarred hand. He leaned his head against hers and fell asleep.