4 - APPRENTICE

"Quit bleeding on the seats," snapped Jan Ors over the growling engines of the Moldy Crow.

"My ship, my bloodstains!" Kyle Katarn's voice was dampened by the cramped cockpit as he scrambled to staunch the warm flow leaking from his hands. Behind him, the thirty-something human pilot smirked and tugged the accelerators.

"Dank ferrik!" he swore, the gash in his armpit flaring hot, "Watch it!"

"I'm watching everything, Kyle," she said, glancing out the viewport.

Outside the tinted canopy, hundreds of speeders, freighters and cruisers zipped by in an indistinguishable blur. Occasionally, gray towers kilometers high filled one or both halves of the panorama. No sign of any more TIE fighters. Yet. She wasn't afraid of Imperial pilots, but if they took any more fire, the Crow would be lucky to get to a landing pad.

This was Jan's first time in Nar Shaddaa, or, as the locals called it, the Vertical City. The epithet was well earned. Each tower wove into its neighbors, forming a fractal lattice kilometers high. Jan kept ducking to check above and below. Her proximity scanner had started screaming the moment they'd entered civilian lanes. Without the computer, all she had were her eyes and a too-small canopy meant for instrument flying.

Kyle gasped as they banked into another stretch of high speed traffic. Jan's eyes flicked across the holographic signs flashing routes and advertisements at her. If it were just a matter of escaping, she'd seen enough of this district to get the job done. However, there was a complication: one, going on two, pints of hot red stuff leaking out of Kyle.

"If you don't get that under control, we're gonna have to drop in on a very underqualified plastician," she barked.

"I could get it done a lot faster if you'd keep it steady!" he hollered, then gulped, "Just keep us in this lane for a bit."

Jan gave it a second's thought, then yanked back on the throttle.

"Alright," she tried not to remember what happened the last time she hid in a crowd of civilians, "But if any more of your friends show up, I'm gonna need you to hold yourself together."

"Will do," he said, accepting the pun with a sigh and a moan. While the Crow's engines quit their screeching and settled into a bass warble, he grabbed a flat packet from the med compartment. Jan heard a sharp crinkling as he tore it open in his teeth. While one hand fished out the bacta patch, the other kept a death grip – poor choice of words – on his ribs. He tried to lift his left side into the air: anything to alleviate the pressure. The gooey, cadmium-colored remains of the first two patches he'd failed to apply stuck to his pants and made a ripping sound. The stability of the ship was essential here. One bump and he could wind up skydiving. The Moldy Crow was a cozy tandem. It didn't accommodate moving about the cabin.

Still focused on the blur of speeders and starships, Jan asked, "What happened? I thought your imp friend was taking care of you."

Kyle's "imp friend" was a nondescript brown shoulder pad, actually a miniaturized deflector shield.* When Jan really wanted to twist the knife, she called it his "retirement gift". It was, technically, the last thing he took from his post in Imperial spec ops (besides her). It facilitated his habit of taking on small armies single-handedly, which facilitated the exorbitant prices he charged for his services, which, in turn, facilitated the purchase of the very expensive batteries that kept the deflector running. Repeat ad nauseam. At least, until the war ended.

"It wasn't a blaster, it was an axe," he said, trying to figure out how much weight he could put on his left arm. The answer: not much.

"An axe?" said Jan, "You don't mean another –"

"Gamorrean. Don't start," Kyle interrupted, caught between looking at her and trying to use the bandage to staunch the bleeding, "One minute I'm running down a dozen bounty hunters, then I hear oinking, then axe," his left hand slapped a panel for emphasis and he regretted it immediately.

"You heard the oinking and he still got you?" she chuckled, weighing the merits of going down a lane while he was distracted.

"Blind corner. On a stairwell. He had friends."

The third bandage fell to the floor – not soaked with blood, just too crumpled to stick to anything but itself.

"Wouldn't have to walk into traps like that if you had signed on with the Alliance," Jan added, a slight melodic quality in her voice: the product of many years spent playing this particular tune. "Then we'd both be working cushy hero jobs."

"You and I remember my Alliance contracts differently," he bent down to see what was left in the kit, "My other shoulder still has scars from those kell dragons."

"Your knuckles too, I bet." she said, adding, "You never said why this gig was so urgent." Something screamed a kilometer behind them. It was buried under the din of the city, but unmistakable to the ears of an ex-Alliance pilot.

"It wasn't a gig. The droid, 8t88, he said he knew something. Something he was interested in sharing with me."

"Not selling? Some information broker."

"I figured there'd be a catch," he shrugged and groaned loudly.

"Good call," she said, grinning under her goggles. She glanced behind them, glad Kyle's seat blocked most of his view of her. It was hard to pick out any profiles in the current, but – wait – there! The dark spines of a TIE Interceptor. It cut out over the lane, and the banshee wail of the accelerators picked up. They were half a klick away.

She kept talking, hands shifting gears, "You didn't answer the question. What makes this worth bugging out of our little reunion?"

Kyle sighed, for reasons she suspected had nothing to do with the loss of blood, or the fact he had just fished out their last bacta patch from the med kit. She wasn't his handler anymore. He didn't owe her status updates. Still, some part of him wanted her to know what was going on. There was always the option to lie, but she'd taught him everything he knew about deception, and he knew it.

"He knows who killed my father," Kyle finally said, tearing open the last patch.

Jan didn't respond. The Interceptor was a few seconds inbound. Her map said the next exit was still thirty seconds out. She was going to have to do something desperate.

"What happened?" she said, glancing back to check their tail.

Kyle stuck the moist patch between his teeth and ripped off his left sleeve. He twisted in front of her and used the fabric as a compress.

"He said –" Kyle spoke around the bandage, pausing when his words made his hands shake, "He told me it was a Jedi named Jerec."

"Dark Jedi," corrected Jan, "Kyle, sit down."

"What?" he asked, already pulling his restraints on as fast as his good arm allowed. Then he heard the howl of twin ion-engines.

Moments before they came into view, Jan slammed the beak of the Crow down. The crowd of shuttles and speeders vanished in a moment, revealing the ten-thousand meter drop below, criss-crossed by more jammed lanes. Pilot and passenger kept their eyes locked onto the proximity sensor. As the rest of the crowd fell away, it got clearer and clearer. If anything was following them down, it would show up in a few seconds.

Jan shut her eyes and focused on her ears. She listened, trying to make out the TIE scream beneath the Crow's own racket. In front, she heard Kyle breathe wetly around the bandage still in his mouth.

Silence.

They swung around and reentered traffic, and it was quiet for nearly a full minute.

"Do you think 88 was telling the truth?" Kyle finally asked, the last bacta patch firmly sealed on his ribs.

"Could be," she admitted, with veiled reluctance, "Last I heard, Sulon was under the control of Jerec's remnant faction. He could have been there when things went down."

He swallowed, and didn't say anything. That was unusual.

She smiled, "So, how does that arm come into this?"

"What? Oh!" His eyes darted to the thin metal arm dangling in an overhead cargo net. It was nearly a meter long. Its spindly fingers clutched onto a mottled green holodisc with a semicircular golden grip

"88 flashed the disc a little after he arrived. Said he got it from my dad's house," his voice went unfocused, like he'd lost the thread in the story, "Wanted me to decipher it."

"What did he offer?"

"My life."

"Not much, then," she chuckled.

"Jerec wants me out of the picture. He didn't say why," he shrugged. Death sentences were a dime a dozen in his line of work, "That was about when the fighting started."

"I was wondering when that'd happen. There's usually not so much conversation on your missions."

"Thanks for that fancy flying," he said, turning to look at her.

"Of course," she said, saluting, "A rebel pilot always finishes the job."

Kyle sat back, smiling, and reached for a painstim. He gasped dramatically as the spring-release plunger sent a dozen cc's of the good stuff into his veins.

"'Job?'" he asked, with overplayed sarcasm, "I don't recall radioing you for any 'job.'"

"I was just curious," she said, in much the same tone, "When I found out you'd left the Crow at base and hopped some passenger freighter, it got my attention."

"Just wanted the element of surprise, is all," he said, leaning his seat back.

"And how'd that work out?" she asked.

"You surprised me," he mumbled.

"I do that," she said, before adding, "Sit tight, old man, I'll see about getting us high enough to jump."

He was out before she hit the accelerator.


Jan leaned two elbows on the ledge of the observation window. Behind a soundproof sheet of acrylic, she could see the somnolescent body of Kyle. Above him, a ceiling-mounted medical droid reached down and tucked him into the hospital sheets. His face was uncharacteristically – almost cadaverously – smooth. Anesthesia had finally given way to true sleep. His vitals, readable in a dot interface at the foot of the bed, twinkled with a vibrancy she hadn't expected. They were both a decade out from middle age, but they had seen enough violence to wear them beyond their years. She knew he felt it, even if the telemetry said otherwise.

In the comforting white noise of the Redemption's distant engine, Jan remembered past visits to similar medical frigates. She did not think of the people she had lost. She thought of the ones that she still had, despite what they endured. Many had withstood far worse than her. Most hadn't had a choice about. The rest, like her, knew making this choice had damned them. Faces, mud-caked and sobbing, swept the outskirts of her mind's eye – the haunting souvenirs of her time undercover in the Imperial Intelligence Corps. It was worth it, though. She believed that from sole to scalp. If it hadn't been for her time in the ISB, she wouldn't have met Kyle, couldn't have told him about the coverup on Sulon, and wouldn't be alive to be here, staying all through the night to make sure he woke up in the morning.

A sullustan nurse interrupted her reverie with a gentle, "Excuse me?"

"Oh, hello," she said, in a muted, surprised tone, "Am I in the way?"

"Not at all," he said, big black eyes shining like river rocks, "I was just about to put on some jawa juice and I wondered if you'd like a cup."

She smiled and nodded, "Sounds great." Joining the young man, she said, "Can't get into much trouble in bed, can he?""

"Not with M4-0C there," he said, taking the long, swift strides of a man used to hurrying everywhere, "Your friend's the most fun she's had in months. Pity he wasn't a bit more beat up," he didn't bother to check if Jan was up for that sort of gallows humor. This was a former Alliance frigate: a certain casualness was part of the culture. Now that the rebel leaders were playing politics back in the core, all that was left out here were the believers and savants. It was home for Jan.

The nurse, whose name tag said Ng'um M'ien, yanked open a metal cupboard in a corner of the hallway a few doors down. Inside were several rows of stacked rectangular modules. A thin tank of dark concentrate rippled in each of them, half-obscured by their labels. Grabbing a large, insulated pitcher, Ng'um punched an especially worn button and stuck it into the receptacle. He hummed in rhythm with the machine as it spat out a mix of the selected beverage and hot water – piped directly from the engine, no doubt. Filling two mugs meant for hands slightly larger than theirs, he offered Jan a toast by way of a cheerful nod and chugged away. His enthusiasm after so many years with the same stocks made her grin. She wondered, not for the first time, about fitting a similar machine into the Crow. Groaning, she remembered the very large holes in the stabilizers waiting to be patched.

"Something the matter?" he asked, voice like a down pillow, "We've got plenty of other options."

"No, no," she said, bringing her eyes back to him, "Just thinking ahead. It's good." She took an overlarge sip for emphasis and her eyes watered. Ng'um snorted – quite a noisome affair when your nostrils stretched from ear to ear – and took a sip of his own.

Ng'um, she learned, had been aboard the Redemption for six years now and had worked on several other ships before it. He'd been pulled into a cell during the early days of the Rebellion. Some altruistic higher-up he'd apprenticed for had gotten it into their head to bring core medicine to the outer rim uprisings. After more than a decade of service, Ng'um still had the energy of a new recruit. He recited with unvarnished glee the names of all the Alliance heroes he'd treated. He told her how he'd prepped Skywalker for his prosthesis fitting, and done an annual checkup for General Syndulla. He spoke with baited breath, and a certain amount of genuine fear, of his brief stint patching up Saw Gerrera's men. He also mentioned treating Cassian Andor, but acknowledged that was necessarily before he was Cassian Andor: captain of Rogue One. Jan was tempted to let him in on the truth of her and Kyle's involvement in the Death Star affair, but she was enjoying the conversation too much to risk leaving him starstruck.

"All those years going at it and they have you on a fly-in halfway to the remnant?" she asked, as he poured the last drops into her mug.

"I could be off at the core," he admitted, stirring some powdered bitters into his drink, "But I keep waiting for somebody to tell me I don't have to be here anymore, that I could help folks better somewhere else. And you know what?" he tilted his head at her, smiling softly, "The call hasn't come in yet."

She gulped down the chalky leavings at the bottom of her cup. It irritated the back of her throat and the inside of her nose. "No, it doesn't come," she smiled back, not happy, but lacking any other expression to put with the truth, "The call never does come."

While they talked, the pair walked a loop of the observation wing. The ceilings, like the walls and floor, were plated with glossy white plasteel. Black tracks stood out against the gleaming panels: well-oiled paths for M4 and the other droids in the frigate's employ. The observation windows were all either dimmed or empty. The few occupants were teamsters and travelers, taking what charity the New Republic offered in the mid-rim. Locals from the nearest planets and planetoids usually couldn't afford to get out here fast enough for it to do any good.

"You know what I've realized?" whispered Jan, careful not to rouse the sleepers.

"What's that?" Ng'um asked, finishing his own drink and chucking it at the nearest receptacle.

"You make that call yourself." she said, "I don't think folks like us leave the things we're good at, that we hope helps people, unless we realize we can – and should – take that control. There's no more room for faith. We can't lean on leadership anymore. Time to be a person."


She was in the frigate's hangar, taking stock of the damage, when she got the news. It was a short, noisy sprint to the storage lockers, where Kyle was already stuffing a duffel with gear. She sauntered in with a perfectly casual smile on her face. The years undercover came in handy.

"Well, your blessed ship is going to be in the repair bay for the next few days."

Kyle groaned as he dragged a tender arm into his jacket, "How's it look?"

She slapped her work gloves onto a bin nearby and leaned against it, saying, "Nothing that a crate full of money which you don't have wouldn't solve."

He took the jab with a tired smile and finally made eye contact with her, "Like always, I owe you. Can you take care of her for me?"

"You're not going after Jerec, are you?" Surprise and fear edged into her voice. So much for undercover.

"No," he glanced at her for emphasis, "I'm going back to my father's home on Sulon. Can you meet me there when you're finished with the Crow?"

"Of course," the mask was on again in moments, "Is everything okay?"

He shook his head, apparently oblivious to her vacillation, "I don't know, I'll find out when I get there."

Kyle flashed the disc at her, freshly pried from the hydraulic rigor mortis of 88's arm.

"He was there, Jan," he squeezed the disc, protective, angry, "He's been there, and I haven't."

"I know this is – well, it's closer than close to home, Kyle – but that's no reason to walk into the remnant," she said, putting her own hand on the disc and lowering it. She caught his eyes and noticed a glow that hadn't been there before. His hand shook and he pulled away.

"That's not all. Something happened. I just saw –" he caught himself. Slipping the disc into his breast pocket, he bent over the duffel and zipped it up, "Jan, what does he want with my dad?"

"I don't know, Kyle" she said, trying to find in his face what had gone unsaid, "The Imperial records said your dad was a civilian casualty. If I had anything else –"

"I believe you," he tried to slip the duffel on. It bumped his ribs and he swore.

She took the straps out of his hands and angled the duffel to the other side, "I'd offer to go with you, but then we'd both be stuck without a ride."

"You don't have to lie to me, Jan," he gave her a grin too genuine to properly deliver the sarcasm, "I know you like to leave field work to the professionals."

She didn't laugh, but she did smile. They hugged.

"I'll rendezvous as soon as I can," she said, "Can you get yourself to Sullust?"

He chuckled, and she felt him wince in her arms. Leaning back, he winked at her, "Should be easy. I had a great teacher."

"Until I got caught," she picked up her gloves and opened the door.

"That taught me a few things, too," he smirked and let her lead the way.


"This is technically treason," Jan glanced back at Kyle as they made their way to the transfer port. "The New Republic's official policy on the remnant is still negotiation and embargo," she was in mission briefing mode. Hadn't had the chance to do that in a while. Pity Kyle wasn't paying attention. His eyes kept lingering on patches of empty space, like somebody was there that she couldn't see. Whatever ghosts he was chasing, she knew she couldn't talk him out of it. Well, if they were going into remnant space, they could at least get in some recon. Probably some sabotage, too, if their track record was anything to go by.

"Don't start a war," she told him as farewell when the shuttle docked.

"That's your job, not mine," he elbowed her and marched down the umbilical, turning and adding, "I'm not even a citizen."

She waved at him through the porthole. He grinned, all cheek, but when he thought she'd looked away, his face fell flat. He was hurting: inside and out. She knew he had an altruistic streak – not enough to return his checks, sure, but he'd been through more than any run-of-the-mill mercenary. He'd saved the galaxy once, and her twice (she was still up on him by three, but who was counting?), but he never could bring himself to stay.

The first time she'd seen Kyle off by himself, it was just after they'd escaped ISB containment. When her cover was blown, he'd decided to bust her loose – and desert his commission in the process. It was a decision a long time coming. Even before she slipped him certain heavily-redacted files about the death of his father, Jan could see the regret in him. The ISB thought his ill-disguised rage was for the rebels he was purging, but she saw the truth: he wished he was burning with them.

It had taken her some time to figure out why he hadn't left yet. Kyle wanted to believe, she'd ultimately decided. He was fighting every day to subdue the rebel inside, not out of cowardice, but out of fear he might sabotage a higher plan he just didn't understand yet. So he stayed, and rose through the ranks, and never got an answer that helped him sleep at night. Learning about the coverup was the last straw.

In the present, Jan made her way to the frigate's repair hangar – a mid-sized thing, mostly storage for surplus medical speeders. Like the locker room at the bow, it was half-clogged with detritus. She'd had to convince a couple orderlies to clear space enough for her to land the Crow in here. It sat there, in the middle of all those crates and file cabinets, like the most oversized desk in the galaxy. Her toolkit and welding goggles sat on the office chair she'd wheeled over as an impromptu cart. She rolled her sleeves up and got to work on a bent deflector disc.

After the hullabaloo at ISB containment, the two of them vanished into the endless crowds of Coruscant. By dawn, they'd found their way to the quickest, most unscrupulous transports money could hire. That was when she realized Kyle wasn't joining her on the long road back to the Alliance.

The disc groaned as she cycled it on and off. There was a flash of blue plasma and a poof of smoke, and the disc was silent once more. Frowning, she grabbed a hydrospanner and began to remove it entirely. Sometimes pieces were damaged enough that you just had to let them go.

The goodbye at that landing platform had been anxious (anyone could have been watching), but also gnawingly professional. Jan was used to knowing people through a mask, but Kyle was tired of masks – and he didn't even know himself. He had to go on his own. No more factions, no more higher purposes. His community had betrayed his ideals, had killed his family, had pushed him to kill the families of others. No matter how much he wanted to trust her, the selfish play was the only one he could count on any more. He'd been running every day since.

She paused before throwing the disc into the rubbish pile that had formed under the closest stabilizer. Grabbing a hammer and some tongs, she walked to a dusty burner and anvil in the corner. With a sharp hiss, white flames lit up at the mouth, and she stuck the bent half of the emitter inside.

Even when she'd tracked Kyle down a couple years later and convinced the Alliance to buy his services, that wall was still there. The way his foot always tapped and his arms were always crossed when other rebels were nearby. It was easy to see. He was fighting the urge to bolt.

The ringing of a hammer on hot metal bounced off the high ceiling and thudded through the piles of medical surplus. Glowing yellow in the heat, the smart metal of the disc began to fold back into its original shape.

Today, Kyle was different. It was clear enough in the storage room. He was running towards something: something that called him in ways she couldn't hear.

She sprayed tempering oil across the reforged deflector. It hissed and bubbled, forming a clear protective layer that shined in the light of the furnace.

Masks or no, Jan trusted Kyle. If he heard something, it was there. More importantly, if it helped him find peace, it was worth all the trouble they were about to get into to find it.

Her focused face – easily mistaken for angered – was reflected perfectly by the disc. She sighed.

"May the Force be with you, Kyle. Happy homecoming."


*Inspired by MatMoura's "NJO - Kyle Katarn's Gear"

Jedi Knight: Valley of the Lost is an adaptation of Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II and updates on the first Monday of every even-numbered month.