By the next morning, and after a long string of Force-healing sessions, Lok was declared fully restored and ready to go home. Eeth had stayed with him during most of the time. He had had to leave to see the Council about their mission at one point, and he had brought their bags to their quarters, unpacked and done the laundry during one of Lok's healing sessions, but apart from that, he had sat next to Lok's bed and kept him company; during the night, the healers had put up a second bed for him. There had not been much opportunity to talk, nor had Eeth felt particularly talkative. He never was when he had to report a failed mission. Of course, he was not to blame for this mission's failure and the Council had told him as much, but it still did not sit well with him.

"How's Flynt?" asked Lok as they made their way to the exit. "You said he was badly hurt. Will he recover fully?"

"Yes," replied Eeth. "He is still submerged in a bacta tank and will be for another day or two. This is sometimes necessary in cases of multiple serious injuries. The Awaré did not set out to intentionally hurt him, but nor did they make much of an effort to avoid it. Since they overwhelmed us by brute force and since they are strong enough to effortlessly break human bones, Flynt suffered quite a bit of damage. None of it will be lasting, though. The healers are sure of it."

"Good," said Lok in obvious relief. He was silent for a moment, but then it broke out of him. "Master, did I… I dunno, I mean, when I left the ship and you noticed, did that - interrupt your rescue mission? Were you distracted or did it, like, delay you? Because I really honestly did not mean for that to happen."

Eeth gazed down on him, brows furrowed.

"Do not give me the line about not meaning for it to happen," he said severely. "You made the decision to disregard your explicit orders and break your promise to me, padawan. As such, whether you meant for any of the consequences to happen or not is irrelevant; you will still have to live with bearing the full responsibility. As for your question: I noticed your injury when we were busy fighting our way out of the subterranean rebel stronghold. Of course it distracted me. Since there was nothing I could do about it at that moment, however, I simply focussed on what I had to do which was fighting off the Awaré so we could get Flynt to the ship. Thus, if you want to know whether you contributed to Flynt's condition, the answer is probably no. You merely caused me considerable worry. It took us quite a while to get Flynt to the ship, and even longer to track you down since you, or rather, the woman carrying you, were moving and you had not taken your comlink. Lakhri found it in a corner of the galley. May I ask why you left it there?"

Lok's cheeks coloured slightly. "I, uh, I flung it there in a fit of temper when I couldn't reach you," he admitted. "You stayed away longer than I'd thought, and what I sensed from you worried me. And then you simply would not answer my calls."

"Of course I could not answer your calls," Eeth said impatiently because this was really among the silliest things he had ever heard from one of his padawans. "First we had to make our way into the Awaré headquarters undetected and then we had to fight our way out of it. Did you honestly think I had switched off my comlink just to spite you?"

"No, of course not," said Lok lamely. They had nearly reached their quarters and the rest of the way passed in silence. As soon as the doors had swished shut behind them, however, Eeth said resolutely: "Alright, padawan. Hang up your cloak, pull off your boots and sit down. We need to talk."

Lok sighed. "Yeah," he said unenthusiastically. "Like in, you need to lecture me. Can't we just skip that part?"

"No, we most certainly will not skip that part," Eeth snapped, pointing a glare at Lok. He knew how fast the boy could develop an attitude and he did not want to encourage that in the slightest.

Lok groaned, but he complied with his orders. Sitting down in an armchair facing Eeth, he said in a tone of rather exaggerated contriteness: "Alright, so I disobeyed your orders to stay on the ship, I broke my promise to you, I put myself in danger and I jeopardised our mission. Does that about sum it up?"

"I am not interested in summing anything up," said Eeth in a dangerously low voice. "I said we were going to talk about it. At length. And since you are the one who is in trouble, you do not get to set the terms of this talk. Now kindly tell me why you thought it was a good idea to leave the ship."

Lok scowled. "Look, I know it wasn't a good idea. Do you have to rub it in? OUCH!"

Eeth had had about enough of this backtalk. He pulled Lok up by his ear, bent him over the back of the adjacent armchair and – not having had a chance to restore his paddle to its customary place in his belt – brought his hand down onto his padawan's bottom, hard. He repeated this twice.

"I did not ask you what you think of your decision now," he snapped without letting up on Lok, "I asked why you thought it was a good idea at the time that you made the decision. Would you care to answer that question, or shall I continue?"

"Ouch! Alright!" yelped Lok. "Look, I didn't mean to disobey! I waited, and I tried to call all of you, and I waited some more. But nobody answered my calls, nobody returned, and it was just driving me mad, not knowing what was going on and not being able to communicate with you. I could talk through our bond with Master Jerad, but I can't with you. So I was frustrated, I had no idea what was going on and how you were doing, and then I sensed this huge surge of anxiety through our bond – you know what I mean?"

Eeth understood immediately because for a moment there, he had really been afraid.

"That must have been when I saw Flynt in the cell where they held him, motionless and all covered in blood, and thought for a moment he was dead," he said, releasing his hold on Lok. "So, you sensed my momentary anxiety. And that caused you to do what, exactly?"

Lok slowly stood up, wincing. "Well, to go looking for you, obviously," he said defensively. "I'm good at concealing myself. You probably don't know that, we've hardly worked on it, but I honestly thought I could pull this off."

"Pull off what?" Eeth asked pointedly, the hint at Lok's hurt pride not escaping his notice; but he filed that away for later use. "And what precisely did you mean to do when you found me?"

"Well, how should I know?" exclaimed Lok. "I had no idea what I would find. You might have been captured for all I knew, and I thought I might be able help. If I had found you were alright, I would have returned to the ship right away."

"Ideally, without me finding out about your temporary absence?" Eeth asked, eyebrows raised.

Lok sighed. "Ideally, yes," he admitted. "And you needn't tell me I didn't think this through. But let's suppose you had really been captured. The Awaré rebels did take over the spaceport, after all. Wouldn't I have needed to make the choice between leaving the ship and being captured anyway?"

"Hypothetically, yes, but neither were we captured nor did you leave the ship because of the rebel attack on the spaceport, did you?" asked Eeth sternly.

"No, of course I didn't," said Lok sullenly. "I've already told you why I left the ship, didn't I? I'm sorry I can't give you any better reason than that."

"So it was an impulsive decision," Eeth said. "Just as impulsive as the decision to leave your comlink behind?"

Lok groaned. "I didn't even think of my comlink," he said. "Force, I was afraid for you!"

"Yes, and we both know that it is never a good idea to act on one's fears," Eeth replied and added, quite relentlessly: "It was clearly bad judgment on my part to allow you to come with me at all. So shortly after having lost your master, you would have had a hard time dealing with your fears. I blame myself for that; but that does not excuse your disobedience and reckless disregard for your own safety, of course. Not to speak of the fact that you dangerously delayed our getaway. No, you need not comment on that. So you left the ship, relying on your ability to hide your presence from others. Did it work?"

"Well, it brought me up to Parliament square and nearly through the barricades," Lok pointed out, and Eeth thought he looked quite smug at what he clearly perceived as a great accomplishment.

"Nearly?" he asked pointedly.

"Well, a shell detonated on the square and a squadron of Awaré disappeared out of nowhere," Lok elaborated. "I couldn't get out of the way fast enough, one of them bumped into me, and then they knew I was there and I panicked, and of course that brought my shields down."

"Which is one of the many reasons for which I would not have wanted you out in the streets of that city, let alone on the frontline, for any conceivable reason," Eeth said pointedly. "With a few more years of training, you will be able to sense impending dangers, you will not panic when caught up in them and your shields will certainly not slip. And when you have reached that point, I will consider taking you on missions that involve danger on the scale that this one did. Not before. Now. Your shields went down, they noticed you and that was why you thought Force-enhanced running was your best option?"

"It was my only option," Lok said with emphasis. "Besides letting myself be captured, that is. And you don't seriously think that was the better option, do you?"

"As things turned out, no," said Eeth. "On the other hand, you collided headfirst with a speeder wreck, which could easily have killed you. And that would not have been the better option in any sense of the word. You have not been cleared for Force-enhanced running without supervision because you cannot reliably avoid such collisions yet. That is why I tried to protect you from getting into a situation where Force-enhanced running was your only option in the first place. Had you listened to me, there would have been no need for you to be injured."

Lok scowled. "Are you done making me feel as guilty as possible?" he asked darkly.

Eeth gave him a long, piercing look. "Just try to imagine for a moment, padawan," he said quietly and firmly, "what it was like for Lakhri and me, returning to the ship under heavy fire, with a seriously injured Flynt who was screaming in pain and urgently needed medical treatment, and me knowing that we might have made a fast getaway – if only you had remained where I told you to remain. So, instead of making that getaway and taking care of Flynt, I had to go looking for you, not knowing where you were and in what state I would find you in, and I was lucky you were mostly conscious since I had to rely on our bond, seeing as you had not taken your comlink. And Lakhri, instead of looking after his padawan, had to take the ship to safety and stand by waiting for my orders. Forgive me for not being amused. I think, under the circumstances, I am more than entitled to making you feel guilty."

Lok clearly did not know what to say to that; he looked at the floor. Eeth did not allow himself to pity him. He had not lied when he had said that he accepted responsibility for his own misjudgment in allowing Lok to accompany him; but that did not change anything about Lok's responsibility for his disobedience. Here was a lesson that almost all padawans needed to learn at some point.

"Look at me, padawan," Eeth ordered. Lok obeyed reluctantly. Eeth held his gaze and said: "Padawan, you need to understand that impulsive behaviour will never do you any good, whatever higher motive you think you are following. Acting on your emotions is unacceptable, always. You cannot allow your personal attachments to cloud your judgment, let alone prevent you from obeying your orders. And until you learn this, I will not be able to take you on critical missions."

"But master," said Lok in obvious dismay, "aren't we taught to follow the will of the Force? What if that conflicts with my orders?"

"You did not follow the will of the Force," said Eeth sharply. "Yes, there might be very rare instances in which following your orders is not an option because of circumstances that those who gave the orders had not foreseen. This was not one of those cases. Nor do you possess the good judgment yet to distinguish between your own impulses and the will of the Force. Stop looking for excuses."

Lok flung up his hands. "Okay, so I messed up. I told you so from the outset. What more do you want to hear?"

"I do not want to hear anything," Eeth said firmly. "I want you to learn from this. And I will make very sure you take this lesson as seriously as you possibly can because decisions like the ones you made can very well prove fatal to yourself or others and I do not want that to happen. For a start, give me your saber."

Lok did not look happy about this order, but he gave the impression that he had expected this. He unclipped his lightsaber from his belt and handed it to his master.

"How long?" he asked in resignation.

"A month," said Eeth matter-of-factly as he attached his padawan's saber to his own belt..

Lok gaped at him. "A month?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes, a month," Eeth repeated with absolute determination. "That is what you get for disobeying your clear orders during a mission and needlessly risking your life. The next time, think of this and make better choices."

Lok looked flabbergasted. But his troubles were far from over.