The Journeys of Jon Snow
Book 1: Chapter 2
First Steps Into A Larger World: The Message
Red bolts of light flew through darkness before being batted away by a blue blade.
It had been two weeks since Jon had arrived at The Sanctuary as he had taken to calling it, and in that time he had poured himself into training, studying, and just learning about the family he never knew he had.
While he knew he would need to go into the stars to find Master Skywalker for true training in the ways of the Jedi, his new home was thankfully stocked with more than enough materials to get him started.
As it turned, while many materials including the starship The Ebon Hawk, had been left for him by Satele, the outpost itself was much older according to HK-47.
"Explanation: Your family has always worked to be prepared for events that would drive them into hiding, Master." The Assassin Droid explained. "This facility was originally built around the time of the War against The Eternal Empire almost 3,600 years ago, but your Grandfather Theros Shan restored and updated it when a new Sith-run Empire took control of the galaxy and essentially wiped out the Jedi Order. When the Yuuzhan Vong threatened to do the same, your mother added her own work to it."
After his head stopped ringing because of that particular conversation, Jon began a lot of reading and studying to try and get up to speed.
His ancestors had kindly anticipated the need for their knowledge to be shared through ways other than being spoken from parent to child. At night, Jon would spend hours in bed, reading through journals his family had left behind. For the boy who had longed for a connection to a mother and her family, it was an amazing gift to hear their thoughts, to see how so and so's handwriting was similar to his own, and a hundred other insights into their lives.
Still, it wasn't just the mind Jon was sharpening. Rooms off to the side of the hangar bay he had first entered contained equipment to exercise and practice skills. As with almost every thing in the place, Jon had required HK-47 and M8's help to understand how to use them.
'At least the gym wasn't as embarrassing as the refresher,' Jon thought with a grimace.
While he was still getting used to all the technology in the outpost that was centuries if not millennia more advanced than the rest of the world, Jon was quickly adapting.
One of his favorite new exercises had been in a section of the gym that was largely open. Following instructions written by his grandfather, Jon had begun practicing the initial katas of lightsaber combat.
With a training saber in hand, and a remote floating almost silently around him, Jon shut the lights down.
The only sound in the room was the hum of the lightsaber and the swish of the remote as it darted from point to point. The only light was the blue glow of the training saber, which the remote was set to stay away from.
Jon breathed in and opened himself to The Force.
Swish-swish-swish.
…
Suddenly a bright red bolt flew through the air at Jon's left. He quickly spun on his feet and just managed to bring his lightsaber up in time to deflect the blast into the ground.
Swish-swish-swi-
"Aargh!"
This time Jon had not reacted fast enough to block the bolt and was left with a sting on his right shoulder. With a huff, he turned off the training program and deactivated the training saber.
For all his initial success connecting with The Force, he was having problems consistently tapping into it and listening for the warnings it had provided him earlier on. On this front, Jon had yet to find a journal that could help him. The feel of connecting to The Force was something many had been unable to describe in detail and by its nature seemed to almost defy an instruction manual for it.
'What I need is an actual teacher,' Jon thought.
HK and M8 had been working hard on that front, getting The Sanctuary's long-range communications systems back online and trying to figure out who to try and contact.
When Satele had left them at the outpost for Jon, the Yuuzhan Vong War had still been raging, and the Jedi and New Republic had not been winning. The Jedi Academy on Yavin IV had been decimated, and collaborators around the galaxy were betraying those who had sworn to defend them. The group had no idea if the war was over, or where it was safe to send a communication to.
One evening, while Jon ate one of the ration kits that had been stored in the outpost, HK-47 provided a plan for who to reach out to.
"Recommendation: According to my calculations Master, the best course of action would be to attempt to send out a message to the Star Destroyer Errant Venture. It was being used as a mobile safe haven for Jedi when we left, if anyone is still out there, it will be them."
So the three made ready to contact the Errant Venture. After all the equipment had been checked and re-calibrated, the residents of the hill fortress gathered in the communications suite which overlooked the main hangar.
As HK-47 entered his mother's transponder identification codes into the system, a cylinder popped out of M8's body and plugged into the system, preparing the call.
Blinds closed on all the windows and the room darkened as Jon waited to see if anyone would receive their message.
Lantilles System - Onboard The Errant Venture
Valin Horn sighed as he sat down at the couch in his room on his Grandfather's Star Destroyer / mobile casino / smuggler's paradise, the Errant Venture. Booster Terrik had acquired the ship when he fought alongside Valin's father, Jedi Master Corran Horn, and the rest of the legendary Rogue Squadron back in the days of The Galactic Civil War.
Today, the ship was also serving as the meeting place for dignitaries of Taanab and Norulac with Valin and his sister Jysella working to mediate a peaceful agreement between the two Inner Rim planets over a trade dispute. Normally one Jedi Knight would be considered appropriate for the task, but tensions between these two planets had been boiling on and off again since before the Death Star was a twinkle in Palpatine's eye.
And with the potential for an all-out war in the Unknown Regions between the Galactic Alliance, the Chiss Ascendancy, and the insectoid species making up the Killik Colony, a dustup in the Inner Rim that could choke one of the Galaxy's busiest trade routes, and the planets that relied on it for supplies, was not something the Jedi Order needed right now.
Thankfully, the negotiations had ended up being short thanks to the Errant Venture and Horn siblings putting the dignitaries in a good mood. It turned out that the foreign ministers on both sides considered themselves aficionados of The Bacta War, the conflict Valin's parents and grandfather had fought in and where the Errant Venture was captured.
Chatting with the children of their heroes in the famous captured Star Destroyer from the conflict, along with meeting THE Booster Terrik had put the diplomats in the right frame of mind to come up with a mutually satisfying deal. By the third day, the two had finished the hard details and were simply working out what they could drag out to keep the trip going.
Valin sighed and settled in to enjoy some popcorn and a holovid when his sister came barging into his room.
"Please don't tell me there's trouble in the negotiations," he groaned.
Jysella shook her head. "We're receiving a transmission from a Jedi signal."
"Tell them we're busy and we'll check in later," the 23-year-old knight said, plucking a kernel of popcorn from the bowl. "They're probably just wanting to see how the mission's going."
His sister pulled the bowl and his pillow away from him, ignoring his protest.
"The signal's registered to Satele Shan, who in case you forgot has been dead since the Myrkr Mission almost 10 years ago."
'Well. There goes my evening,' Valin thought.
Shortly Thereafter
"Kid, for the love of The Force don't touch anything else until we come to pick you up!" Valin rubbed the bridge of his nose after hearing Jon Snow's story. A 10-year-old was currently sitting in the middle of a fortress meant to keep out the Sith, the Yuuzhan Vong, and whatever else in the Corellian Hells, with only a thousands of years old assassin droid and an over-enthusiastic astromech to supervise him. That wasn't a recipe for disaster at all. Hopefully it didn't get much worse.
"Does that mean I have to stop training with the lightsabers?"
And it just got so much worse.
Valin looked over at his sister who had a look of horror on her face. He could tell she was running through the thousand terrible scenarios they could find this kid in when they finally reached him.
"Yes that means don't keep training with the lightsabers! Do you have any idea what those things could do if you screw up with one?!"
"Not really, M8 only lets me use the training sabers, he says I'm locked out of the actual armory until I'm older."
'Thank The Force for small miracles,' Valin thought.
"Jon, Valin and I are going to come get you as soon as we can, but we need you to send us your coordinates, can you get those to us?" Jysella asked.
There was a small pause where Jon talked with one of the droids off screen, before turning back to them.
"HK's sending them over right now."
Sure enough coordinates started running across the computer bank in the comm booth they had borrowed aboard the Star Destroyer. Valin plugged a chip into the computer to copy it over for their shuttle, while Jysella ran the numbers.
"Alright, it looks like it will take us a couple days of hyperspace for us to get to you in our shuttle Jon, do you think you'll be able to be OK that long or should I try to reach out to someone who can make the trip faster?"
"I'll be alright My Lady. I'll make sure to be ready when you and Ser Valin arrive."
Valin snorted at his sister being called 'My Lady' the formality and pomp associated with that was just the sort of thing that he knew drove her crazy.
"We told you kid, it's just Valin and Jysella, you don't need to be so formal with us. Though, I will admit 'Ser Valin' does have a nice ring to it."
All he got was a cuff upside the head from his sister for his troubles. To his disappointment, Jon just nodded solemnly. Kriff, everything this kid did was solemn, serious, etc.
'What makes a boy his age seem more like an old man?' Valin wondered to himself.
The image of Jon Snow soon fizzled out and the lights in the booth came back on. Jysella leaned back in her chair and covered her face in her hands.
"When I get my hands on whoever has sucked all the joy out of that child, I will make them wish they were dead."
Valin nodded, "You noticed it too?"
"Of course I noticed it, for Kriff's sake, the kid did not smile once, he was so exceedingly polite you could tell he was afraid of offending us. And I'll tell you another thing, it doesn't take The Force to know there was more to his story of leaving home than Jon let on!"
She sat up and began a new message, this one a text to their Father on Ossus, letting him know what was happening and that they were leaving the wrap-up to the negotiations in Grandpa's hands.
With a dramatic tap, she sent the message off, before getting up and both of them walking out of the suite.
"Who do you think knew about Satele Shan having a kid?" Valin asked as they walked through the corridors leading back to their quarters. Once the two grabbed their stuff they would take off for this planet that so far into Wild Space there wasn't even a name for it.
"Possibly Jaina and Jacen. I'm pretty sure those three were in the same age group at the Academy, but I know they were close. Myrkr was hell on Jaina with the loss of both Satele and Anakin." Jysella said.
Valin just nodded noncommittally. Myrkr had been during some of the darkest days of the Yuuzhan Vong War. Despite the strategic victory of destroying the Vong's Jedi-hunting creatures, it had seen the loss of two of the Order's rising stars, Satele and the third child of Han and Leia Solo, Anakin Solo. Almost seven years after the war and the Jedi were still working to regain their strength from the conflict.
"What about you, did you have any ideas on who would have known?" His sister asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.
"About Jon specifically, no, otherwise someone would have gone to check in on him after the War and see about bringing him to the Academy. As to knowing she was pregnant, I'd guess Master Durron, I think she flew with him during the War."
Jysella made a face at the mention of Kyp Durron, a Jedi Master often at odds with their father. The two had fundamental differences of opinion in how the Jedi best served the Galaxy and The Force.
"I guess we'll find out when we get him back to Ossus," She said as they reached their rooms.
"Let's just grab him before the kid finds a way into that armory."