Saber Forum

After reading Karmack’s tales, Taegins Shadow of the Outcast and now Dutchmans Tarnished Knight, figured I’d finally put down a story I’d had for a while, maybe someone might enjoy it.

It’s set Approximately 700 years before the Battle of Yavin, the Republic is stable and still fresh, the Jedi ascendant and growing.  The first two chapters of part one are here (there are three more chapters).  It’s set up in a similar way to Game of Thrones with each chapter focusing on one person’s perspective.  Might be a little slow as the first part isn’t set in a typical ‘Star Wars’ setting (yet!) and is about establishing characters and their culture so some descriptions and explanations that might be tedious…and probably filled with spelling/grammatical errors despite my checks…Anyway here it is, Children of the Aether.


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Andis stalked silently through the familiar woods beside his farm.  For 60 years he had wandered through them, to the other villages, to the mountains, the dead lands and back.  He didn’t even need the thin light of the stars to know his way, or the currents of the aether broken by the dull life force of the trees, the paths were in his very bones.  Ahead were three lights, only one visible to his eyes, a low orange fire, the others were a greying light that had once shone so bright when he first saw it, and another an small glow like the sparks off a flint ready to ignite a large fire. 

He hated having to leave his daughter alone with her newborn son, but when another Guardian calls he cannot refuse to answer.  As he approached the fire in silence the stars faded from the sky against the ground based light.  The histories told how his people had once travelled and forged kingdoms across the stars, but that was before the Summoning, before the Collapse.  Melron knew the histories better than anyone, had travelled further into the centuries old bunkers and ruins of the dead lands than anyone, yet even he had no more idea why they had all come back to this world during the Summoning, or what had caused the Collapse…either no records survived to be found, or more likely Andis thought, in those times the pressing need to survive the environmental collapse meant none were made. 

Melron sat by the fire cradling the sparking light…a baby.  He looked up at Andis, the lines in his face deeper, the grey in his stubble more prominent than when he had last seen him, Andis knew he looked five years older too no doubt. 
“Ah good you’re here, sit down, have drink” Melron gestured toward a hide flask.

Andis sat and took a swig of the gormin milk flavoured with sappher berries, same old Melron.  “What bring you here Melron”, Andis cut to the chase, he was a straight forward man by nature, and his desire to get back home shortened his temper even with his long absent friend.

“I brought you this,” Melron lifted the child in his arms, “Heard you’re Lyssia had a pup, thought you could look after this one too, got a strong spark, will easily make a guardian” his tone was jovial but in his aura Andis sensed something lurking, a thought Melron didn’t feel he could let loose, but desperately wanted to unburden.

“Where did the child come from Melron?”
 
“Ah straight to the point Andis…do you really want to know”  Melrons aura fell back on itself a little. Andis Just stared at him with his cool blue eyes.  Melrons head fell a little and he sighed.

“the dead lands” he said quietly,  Andis expanded his aura with a questioning feeling, as if to say how, where, when, why?
“Does it really matter?  I just need you to look after him, Aethers Winds there are few of us as it is….you’re the best one to do it, the strongest of us…I’m no good with kids…and what I found, I have to learn more…there were things there…” his voice trailed off, Andis had never seen his friend so doubtful and conflicted.  Like him Melorn was a Guardian of the Aethan peoples, but whilst Andis guarded them from the aetheric predators, the vorynx, cisadda, and the people form themselves by acting as a judge in the villages, Melron guarded their history, their past, by investigating the ruins and recording his findings. 

“Something about the Collapse” Andis spoke.

“Something strange, take the boy Andis, raise him strong,” he got up and placed the child on the log he had been sitting on, “give Lyssia my love, and condolences, Marten was a good man….the winds call me…” Andis sensed his friends aura drawn by the Aether away, and watched him pick up his back pack and walk from the fire.

As Andis approached the child he called out, “What’s his name,”  Melron didn’t even turn just yelled “Aethers Winds name him yourself, do I have to do everything for you,”.
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Andis silently opened the old wooden door, using the aether to still the air so the sound wouldn’t wake his grandson.  Lyssia had sensed Melrons call, and his return.  She stood from the cradle as he approached her, the door silently closing behind him, as warm as he was grave she looked down on the bundle in his arms.  Her aura at first curious, then warming.

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He tasted blood as Jarys wooden training sword slapped him in the cheek.
“too slow!” his brother taunted, come on make a move. 

Balanced on one foot on an old log, he faced his brother.  He could read his brothers movements in the aether, and in his body, but couldn’t decide how best to strike…Jarys was favouring a mid guard, but if Valens struck high Jarys might pivot and sweep low with a kick, if he went low Jarys might jump and strike down to his head.  He knew the moves but couldn’t decide which to u….Smack! another blow, to his chest this time.

‘are you even awake, aura’s glow but no ones home’ Jarys taunted again, Valens shook his head then made a low strike, Jarys countered and the wood rang as they clashed, one, two…now…on the third clash of swords Valens pivoted around and switched to standing on his left foot, altering his centre of gravity and leaning forward to put the tip of his training sword into Jarys sternum, knocking him off the log and into the muddy earth below.  Jarys looked up at him with a sour face,  but his aura was cheery.
‘You planned that didn’t you, didn’t he grandpa,” he turned toward their grandfather who was sitting on the porch reading.
 
“hmmm… Valens keeps a very still aura, you’d do well to copy that” he replied absently
“That’s not what I asked” Jarys pouted,
“No it’s what you should’ve observed first, that’s enough for today, go to your chores”.
Valens got down as Jarys leapt up with an aether boosted backflip, he ran a hand through his glossy black hair, ‘lets get to it then’ he said with a big grin.
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“Its happening soon isn’t it” Jarys poked a sharp questioning feeling at Valens aura to emphasises the words.
“Prehaps….” Valens was not really paying attention, focused on the flow of water in the river before them, their chores done they had raced down to the river and competed in a no aether swim against the tide up to the old dock where they kept their boat,Jarys of course had won.  They were on the banks of one of five main courses of the river, the only river, in the only Valley left habitable after the Collapse. The last place where people could live, protected by the mountains it had avoided the worst  of the desolation with land fertile enough to farm, fourteen villages were scattered throughout, each a bright point in Valens mind as he followed the aether though the river.

“Well I hope it happens before the Gathering….the girls will be much more impressed if we come as full Guardians.” Jarys went on.
They had trained all their lives to be Guardians, the role for those strongest in the aether.  All Aethans could feel the aether and use it, children would play by levitating and throwing rocks and sparking each other with short bursts of aether lightning, but only the most in tune few became Guardians, strong enough to face the predators in the Valleys woods and mountains that used the aether to hunt, and powerful enough to use the aether to control others, suppressing rage to calm disputes, and wise enough through their reading and lessons to act as judges.  Their grandfather was one of only eight Guardians amongst the two thousand or so Aethans, two of whom travelled the dead lands in search of knowledge.

“so…who do you hope to be betrothed to, Shilea or Cilina” Jarys kept on
At the sound of those names Valens retreated back into himself,
“ooh embarrassed huh…better not be so coy at the gathering”
“It will happen tomorrow,” Valens said changing the subject, “I sensed Melron and Maloran coming this way…”  he had always been more sensitive than Jarys in the aether, and the coming of two Guardians could only mean it was time for their tests.
“Well,” Jarys stood and stretched, “best rest up then…bet I can beat you back home, and finish my trial before you!”  He suddenly tried to slap Valens with an aether push, but opened to the aether it passed straight through.  Always a competition with Jarys he thought as he set off after him with the aether in his steps.
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“You’ve trained hard for many years, I don’t doubt your martial, aetheric, technical skills, or knowledge, but you still have weaknesses that must be dealt with”  Valens pragmatic Grandfather Andis said in a stern tone, flanked by Melron and his brother Maloran,

“Melron has devised a test for Valens, and Jarys you’ll go with Maloran.  I don’t know what they have devised, but the essence is this all being have weaknesses, the question is can you turn that to a strength or at least prevent it becoming a threat.  Based on how you perform you will either be declared a Guardian or have to train for a further year before another chance, now go.” Andis turned and headed back inside leaving the two pairs of brothers facing each other, it was traditional for a trainer to outsource the final test to another Guardian, as it avoided potential favouritism.

Valens quite liked Melron, he and Jarys had spent nearly a year travelling the near dead lands with him when they were 15, his depth of knowledge was vast, and he had taught them many things about how to survive in the hostile dead land with his boisterous humour a constant delight.  Still all that time he had sensed Melron felt unsettled by one of them.

Melron lead him wordlessly for four days through the forests to the foot of the thundercloud grey mountains, then up the worn trails and ropes to a cavernous black hole in the mountainside. 

“In there boy, go in and go right down, you’re the smart one, you’ll know what you’re to look for…I just hope its still there! Haven’t been down there since…anyway…should’ve done, but these old bones,…now get!” and with that he plopped down on the rocky terrace before the opening and started drinking from his flask. 

Valens took a deep breath and entered the darkness.
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The cavern was not overly wide, perhaps the size of a large house, but deep, plunging as if into the abyss of time.  There were no ropes, just precarious footholds on granite wet from water that dropped from some unseen flow of water above.  Valens wondered how the water kept dripping…it wasn’t winter so no snow on the cap, perhaps a hidden glacier or….he almost slipped, he needed to concentrate on climbing down and nothing else…that was his weakness, a lack of focus, a curiosity for the world about him that kept him from focusing on the here and now.  Here he had no choice, focus or die. 

He descended for untold hours, his body store, limbs and hands cut from countless sharp edges, the darkness complete he had only the aether to guide him.  He must be well below the ground level, he had come across unusually straight lines over the last…hour was it… perhaps the remains of pre-Collapse bunkers or tunnels, built, it was thought, to hide from devastation above.

He saw the pale blue glow of the bio-luminescent fungi hours before he reached it.  It cast a glow over a still pool of black water.  He crumpled as his feet finally touched near flat ground, aching to the depths of his bones. He surveyed the cavern, larger than the straight descent had been there was a thin shore around the water, that thickened on opposite side.

There silently sat a deep black stone the length of a bed, behind which was the collapsed entrance to a bunker or tunnel of some kind.  Even as he looked at the black stone he felt the emotions of fear, disgust, anger, terror in the aether.  He swam across the pool, his physical pain overshadowed by his curiosity.  The emotions intensified as he approached, the screams and smell of sweat and blood ever more visceral.  What had this been used for.   By the time he stood beside it he wanted to vomit and run, yet beneath that feeling was a familiarity, a sense he had been here before in some dark nightmare…was this his test to stay and learn or turn and run? 

Around the collapsed tunnel and the rock were surgical instruments and old broken handheld machines, and semi-transparent crystalline fragments.  The contrast of the natural rock with the machined items was striking…what had happened here.  As if in answer he felt bodies move around him, phantoms of men and women chanted in a circle, floating above the stone screaming in agony, lying upon it moaning in ecstasy.

The sensations were overwhelming, he couldn’t still himself, and perhaps he didn’t want to.  In the centre of the perfect flat top of the stone was a single blemish, an indented crystal as big as his thumb, the sounds grew louder as he stared at it, the emotions flooded the aether and mingled with his, the line between himself and the visions blurred.  He didn’t know what would happen to him if he touched it, it was sickening in its darkness, the only clear thought was the choice - to touch and know, to turn and wonder.  Indecision was his weakness.

He made his choice.

Oh I LIKE this LSG!  OUTSTANDING setting, exceedingly original, and mysteries begging to be solved  :).  Fantastic narrative device with the single character-multipoint of views^^  I love the "aether" euphemism; fits in a Post-Collapse era.  Your story is replete with excellent world building; this has the weight of an Epic  ;)

I am eager to find out more  ;D

Indeed. TD said it all. His "this has the weight of an Epic" is so incredibly true and I too am eager to read more.

Excellent!  I love the format and the way you verbalize their connection to the force is logical and unique!  I am also liking this setting very much, especially the idea of a formerly technologically advanced planet now regressed to a pre-space-flight society. 

I am intrigued and I hope more is coming soon!  :-)

Thanks for the feedback everyone, appreciate it.  I wasn't sure anyone would be interested, guess I figured the setting might be a bit too out there. And Yeah more is coming currently on Part 3 of 5 (each with 5 chapters), main issue atm is just doing some continuity checks.

They were deep in the forests, three days walk from the farm.  The air was heavy with moisture from the morning dew, Jarys could sense the flickering orbs of life around him as various small animals and insects went about their lives, some hunting with the aether, others hiding their presence by subsuming n the aether, and some even block the aether creating dead spots where it ceased to flow.

Maloran looked around for a moment then said finally “Vorynx”.

Jarys stood for a moment not knowing what to say, then finally, “What about them,”

“You tell me boy,”  Maloran was the surlier of the Guardian brothers but his aura had a hint of humour in it.

“Predators, hunt with the aether and scent, channel the aether through the pearl on their temple…”

“Got it, now go get one,” Maloran turned and walked off

“Wait I don’t have any weapons! How am I meant to…”

“You want to be a Guardian work it out,” he didn’t even slacken his pace.
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Being hunted by a Vorynx was a danger anyone who strayed too far into the forests risked, hunting one was rare.  Though they did kill people, they were as much a part of Aethas as humans were, the cycle of predation between the species was a natural laminar flow in the aether, only when the population was imbalanced was a hunt needed.  This was a test of his strength, patience and guile, it would all these to down one of the beasts.

He moved as quietly as he could through the trees looking for traces he paused for a moment to breath in the aether, too nubile to leave tracks or broken twigs, Voynx could be followed by the effect they had on other creatures.  He took in the sensations of life around him, the currents of the aether flowed about, around, through every living thing.  Valens as better at this kind of thing, another reason Jary had this task he though.  To the east Yalsam gathered, conspicuous by the dead holes they left in the aether like islands in a river, a predator could see the absence but not their place in it.  To the west insects swirled around a black pool in the aether, a corpse, perhaps a Vorynx’s kill.   

But even if he found a Vorynx how would he kill it? With the aether, no Athean was ever unarmed, yet Vorynx could surge crippling brute bashes of aetheric energy as well.  He could hide his presence in the aether, mask his scent with something…but even still once he was in sight…he would have to hit hard and fatally once, without the benefit of the aether to guide his attack.  To work without the aether was something he had struggled with more than Valens, his grandfather taught never to use the Aether unless you had to, even if it was hard.  Perhaps that was his test also.

It took 2 days to pick up the trail, another night to find the rocky croft where the Vorynx took its brief naps. Filthy he stank of the slimy half decomposed leaves he smeared himself with to mask his scent and tired from the painfully slow progress, crawling silently through the underbrush to avoid detection.
But he was finally at the end.  The Vorynx was returning he observed pressed against the lip of the cavern, his hand around a hastily constructed spear of Ambisha wood.  The beast approached sniffing the air, its pointed head, crowned by the pearl between yellow glass eyes.  For second that lasted an age he thought the creature had sensed him, but finally the mottled green skinned creature stalked into the shelter.  Just before its hind legs vanished beneath him he leapt.

Caught in mid turn, detecting the motion, Jarys hit it in the side of its long body, mid-way between its leg pairs.  He yanked the spear free…it had done far less damage than he though against the rough hide.  Tail and tooth came at him, he rolled out then leapt back in tackling the Vorynx core and putting it on its back. Here its reach was limited, he struggled against the thrashing creature, hammering blows to its rib cage with his fists and pushing his mind against its consciousness in the aether.

He was winning the tussle…blood spurted with each blow to the creatures face and core, its scratches bit too weekly at him from this angle…winning…soon the pearly would be his and then…then he felt his stomach drop…he was losing his chance at becoming a Guardian.  Everything was competition with him, he always wanted to win, to overcome his opponent, to crush them, prove his mastery.  That was his weakness, a desire to win at the expense of his rival.  Killing the Vorynx was not the solution, he had assumed Maloran meant just the pearl…

The beast was supine beneath him, crushed physically and mentally by the savageness of his attack.  He flooded his aura into the beast, subsuming it beneath wave after wave of his essence, yet with the back wash of the tide came images in his mind, scents sounds…memories of hunts through the Vorynx eyes, not just this Vorynx, its ancestors…back and back….and….pain…hideous pain, twisting of flesh into new forms, aetheric fire forging a creature taken from its own world into….  He let go and threw himself back his thoughts reeling.
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It took five days to reach home, his exhaustion and the Vorynx injuries slowed him, but the beast was healing with him.  He had overwhelmed its consciousness so thoroughly a mere thought of his would elicit a desired behaviour.

When he did he found the three old Guardians waiting.  Melron had jumped at the site of the Vorynx, Maloran nodded sagely, his grandfather clapped him on the shoulder.  A day later Valens arrived, looking no better than Jarys, though more cuts than bruises.  Something ahd changed he couldn’t pinpoint…it wasn’t that Valens wasn’t himself…rather too much himself…more distant yet more intense at the same time in his aura. But then he had no doubt changed too.  No one asked what had transpired on their trials, such knowledge was for the aspirants to reflect on in solitude.

There was no great ceremony to becoming a Guardian, Aethans were a practical people.  The brotherly embrace from each of the older guardians sealed it for Jarys and his brother. 
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Shilea
Another pin dropped to the floor, just didn’t seem to want to stay in.  she could hold it in place with the aether, but she didn’t want to be distracted during the ceremony.  She flicked it up with a thought and once again it slipped from her light brown hair. 

“let me,”Cilina said coming up behind her.  Her sister pulled back her hair almost painfully and put the pin in place.

“there, now help me with this”, she turned and handed Shilea the ends of her blue waist ribbon.

They were above the main hall in the Central Village, outside she could hear the chatter of people catching up, all the Valley was here for the yearly Gathering when all the adults of twenty seasons would be paired and married.  There was little surprise in who she would be wed to, the formula was designed to avoid interbreeding, a necessity with such a small population, she would be married to either the bold dark haired Jarys or the quiet brown haired Valens her sister to the other.  She had known both of them for years, being of an age they played during the Gatherings, on occasion visited her village of Valleys End.  But those brief encounters hardly made enduring bonds.

“do you think I look too fat in this dress”  Cilina asked drawing Shilea out of her reverie.

“No, of course not”, Cilina ran her hands down her sides and frowned, “hmm…make it a little tighter,”  Shilea rolled her eyes but obliged.  Cilina was no larger than her, they were twins after all, very common amongst Aethans, and in turn often married other twin pairs to cement bloodlines for that generation. 

Blue was the colour of their village, at the wedding their blue waist ribbon would be joined by the black of their betrothed, their children would wear blue and black ribbons to Gatherings to signify which families could and could not consider them as partners for their own children.

“There finished,” Shilea turned to have her ribbon tied. 

“I hope they have have lots of sappher cakes” Cilina said absently,

“I thought you were worried you looked fat?”

“I said too fat! Have to have some fat for winter!  Plus Nelina says it helps with getting pregnant,”

“You don’t even know who you’re marrying yet and you’re thinking of children!” Shilea said shocked

“Uh it’s so obvious, I’ll marry Jarys you’ll marry Valens, everyone know it”

“What makes you say that,”

“UH!” Cilina cried in faux exasperation, “they always put the older brother with the younger sister, plus they always put the most handsome groom with the most beautiful bride!”
Shilea lightly slapped her with the aether,
“Hey!...ooh I should shred your dress!” Cilina would too, when they were children Cilinas favourite trick had been to use the aether to shred a hole in Shilea’s dress.  But the mirth in her voice belied any real anger.

“hmm, I wonder who’ll live at Old Andis farm, me and Jarys or you and Valens?” Cilina went on, “either way we’ll have to visit each season…”

Cilina kept talking but Shilea paid little attention.  It was becoming all too real...soon she would be married…married…and then off to live in a different house, children…it had all been just a thought, an idea you never thought would come true…today it would become very real.
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Cilina had been right, Shilea was to marry Valens.  She stood on the main stage of the amphitheatre in the refreshingly warm midday sun, in a line with eight other girls, Cilina to her left, and across from her, Valens. 

The steps of the amphitheatre were packed with almost every Aethan on the planet, to publically witness their unions.  She had been here several times of the last three weeks to see the six Guardians present (two were in the dead lands) announce changes to the Law, pass judgement on disputes and oversee votes on plans to build a new mine and create a dam.  She had also seen the public announcement of three new Guardians and the presentation of the swords they had forged themselves, Yorna a girl from the Coast, Jarys, whose trailing Vorynx had caused not a little alarm, and Valens.

Valens before her now looked just as distracted and distant as he had then.  Whilst Yorna and Jarys had beemed with pride at being announced Guardians and taking on the light steel armour, Valens had looked at his feet.  She could see the board smiles of Jarys and Cilina, the air between them heavy with excitement.  She wanted to cry.  She had known Valens was a distant, shy person, but seeing him now before her….she could barely sense him in the aether even…just a distant faded whisper against the booming voice of Jarys presence.

She barely heard the words of Guardian Karintha who stood at the end of the row of birdes and grooms, against the drowning beating of her own heart and rushing of her blood in her ears.  She felt on the edge of fainting, it was a strange sensation, to feel like collapsing yet being aware enough to notice the fact.  The others around her raised their arms palms facing toward their partner.  Some hidden part of her managed to lift her arms of stone and step forward so her palms pressed against Valens.  She looked toward him, he was now staring right at her with expressionless eyes. 

“Let their light be one” called Karintha and the air cracked with aetheric lightning as both bride and groom sent fine bolts of energy from their joined hands.  Shileas’ lightning was slow to start, she began to feel less light headed as she focused on sending the energy out, Valens lightning was instant and quickly mingled with hers even trailing up her arms, bonding him to her.  In the fluctuating arcs between their bodies something odd happened, stray arcs seemed to stay in place forming a jagged heart shape between them….This wasn’t her doing…on Valens face was a sad nervous smile.

As they parted the final step began, Valens and the grooms kneeled before their brides and tied their ribbon around their waists.  He tied it gently and slowly.  Perhaps there was something she could learn to love in him.
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After the ceremony and the feast, always a short affair, Aethans ate quickly and efficiently, Shilea found herself with her husband in one of the specially built newlywed cottages west of the village’s public garden.

He closed the door silently as she looked around at the names of previous couples carved in the wooden beams.  He looked at his feet, then sharply looked to the east, staring into the wall, eyes furrowed as if trying desperately to make out some distant object.  She knew what was meant to happen….but doubted whether he would make the first, or any move..  She swallowed hard and walked up to him, placing one hand on his shoulder, she touched his cheek with the other and turned her head to face her.  His eyes only slowly moved away from the wall.

“Valens, are you alright” she asked quietly. 
“ummm…I…I’m…I’m glad, no happy, that it was, it was you…that I, that is we are together, I wanted to say that I really think you’re beautiful and…” he turned to the wall again this his expression changing from nervous to serious in an instant.

“You’re nervous I understand…and I’m happy I was married to you too,” she stroked his face and exuded all the warmth she could into the aether to make him more comfortable, her mother had warned her how critical these moment were to setting the tone for their marriage.  “It’s alright,” She moved closer and wrapped her arm around his waist, her hand trailed from his face to his arm to wrap his around her shoulder. 

For the first time that day he truly looked at her, his presence rushed like a sudden gale into existence, it was a cool steady breeze, but like the precursor to storm there was a troubling waver to it …he was just on edge she reasoned, in time she would learn to read him better.

She pressed her head against his, and tried to blow calm into his mind, slowly his tensed muscles relaxed, it was now or never, she tilted her head and leaned into their first kiss.
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The room was burning, flames licked the walls and turned to steel as they rose, losing none of their heat.  Women and children screamed their auras cyclones of fear. 

The amphitheatre was full of the dead crying out black smoke of rage and vengeance that poured coalesced into a single black stream, she turned to follow it and saw Valens standing on the peak of a mountain dressed in black his eyes alight with aetheric energy, the stream poured into him and his presence grew crushing the stone around him to dust. 
She reached out for him, but her arm was not her own, it was a metal claw of strange flowing design and it grasped his throat. 
His face turned to one of nervous uncertainty as she choked him, he mouthed words, “What” she yelled as the winds of the aether spun around them, as terrifying as the situation was she didn’t want to be blown away from the only other being that seemed to exist. He mouthed again “What!” the wind in her ears grew in volume.  “Wake!! Run!! They’re coming”.

She sat bolt upright as though shocked back to life, Valens was on top of her shaking her, a roaring sound echoed from outside like an unending peal of thunder. 
“Shilea, get up you have to run, get to the mountains,” he quickly kissed her on the forehead then leapt off the bed, she felt herself rise above the bed under his power, as he used the aether to fasten his armour her clothes flew toward her and he dressed her with his powers.
“There’s an old mine north-north west of here once you get inside collapse the entrance,” He drew his sword and gave it a quick spin, she heard the first shriek from outside as her boots tightened around her feet.  The door flung open and he pulled her out with the aether, “what is….”, she tried to ask, “Go…”, he looked to the east where the fires of the village seemed too bright and the thunderous sound emanated,
“I’ll speed you while I can my love…” with a sad look he sent her running. 
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Now that's a nice cliff-hanger.  Lord Gray, I am greatly enjoying this.  Your style is very different than mine, but I like the fragmented feel of the story.  You're giving me just the bits I need to understand what's happening at the next step and nothing more.  That takes a lot of planning and tight execution, and you're pulling it off nicely.

I am very eager to find out what happens, how this is all going to tie into the continued story, and where we end up.  :-)

Thank you and keep it coming!  :-)

I'm still wondering what choice Valens made, and now you add something else for me to wonder about.  >:( What is going on, and what is Shilea running from? This is some really good writing. Very different than I read most of the time, and actually very enjoyable. It may just be the story, but I feel like the style of writing adds to it, and that is that this story seems very dark. I am thoroughly enjoying it though.

These two have said almost precisely what I was thinking  :)

To wit: I remember growing up with Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance, and the Wheel of Time; all I would group in the same genre.  Then I started reading A Song of Fire and Ice which had such a distinct tonal shift but such an incredible story that I was hooked in no time.  LSG, your writing is akin to the latter (compared to Karm's, TR's, and my own stories which are thematically similar, much like my former examples).  And your story telling is brilliant!  The details that come piecemeal evoke a dystopian society that enriches the larger SW universe (much like Karm's and TR's) but from such a different vantage!  And, incredible as these are, they're all found right here for the community to appreciate and enjoy  :D

I sincerely hope that more members are reading your, Karm's, and TR's stories because, if they're not, they are missing out on some truly incredible tales  ;)

Thanks again guys, glad you like it, still!  I think the great thing about writing is everyone has their own style, its great when people really digs in to what they can do with it.  I guess I just try and write what I like to read and go from there, which I get the sense you're doing in your stories too. 

Re Karmack - It does have a fragmented feel, I liked the Song of Fire and Ice style, and wanted to try writing different characters whilst also keeping them together in an overall arc.

Re Taegin Roan - Valens choice is a big mystery for now! I love mystery in stories especially dark ones.  It will be revealed, maybe not as soon as you hope, trying to keep the suspense. I know no one likes it to last too long but some things that happen soon might give you a hint.

As to what Shilea is Running from....Here comes Part 1 Chapter 5...time for a shake up.

The only parts of the Valley not pitch black were the river reflecting the strong light of the stars this close to the core and the village where the people had all gathered.  Viewing the celebrations through his macro binoculars it seemed they were finally winding down and heading off to rest.  They had no idea what was coming.

“Lyr!” came a guttural yell masked by a helmet re breather from behind him.

Lyr’Ca’Njo was not his birth name, he haddn’t used that name since leaving Ryloth.  It was something screamed at him by an Ardorian in a bar that he liked the sound of, apparently it roughly translated as ‘tricky sleemo thief liar’, it seemed apt.  He had been all those things and more, from an orphan on Ryloth he had started as petty thief, moved into weapons dealing to get off world, worked as a smuggler, part time raider, and now was working for a respectable Hutt as a slaver. 

It was a dangerous world he lived in, by keeping his ambitions modest, his self respect and pride low and his fawning of superiors high he had managed to carve out a good place for himself. 
He stood up and turned around careful with his steps standing so close to the peak of the mountains to the east of the village where they had based themselves. 

Behind the Gold and Silver armoured Mandalorian who had called his name hovered three salver skiffs, the conglomerate crews of Weequay, Gamoreans, Rodians, the odd Twi’lek and human shivering at this high altitude.

“We on?” asked Kobar Neen, the Mandolorian in command of the military side of things.  Whilst Lyr was head of Myzm the Hutts slave operations, Lyr had no problem delegating the command of the fighting to someone more experienced.

“Yes, yes, lets get out of here, my lekku are about to freeze off” he replied, it was true he had already lost sensation at the tips of his light green lekku. 

The planet had been found by Ugnaught miners exploring the Core worlds where the high gravity increased the likely hood of finding deposits of heavy minerals.  Hutt slave scouts often followed looking out for isolated populations to enslave.  Whilst this world had little value for mining with so many radiated deserts and blasted craters it did have a small valuable population.

The scouts had captured a native in a rad desert, who knows why the mad old man was out there, he had put up a good fight though.  It required bringing in a Dathomiri Nightsister to crack him and find out the small population were all force sensitive, better still once a year they all got together in one place.  A single force sensitive slave was worth at least 100,000 credits, here they could capture upwards of two thousand, a fortune for Myzm and a nice bonus for Lyr awaited.

He leapt lightly from the peak to the platform of one of the skiffs, on the other side of the mountain from the valley, above the grey ash desert fifteen more assault skiff waited, with dozens of light fighters and eight larger slaver transports.
 
Lyr had no desire to underestimate the resistance they might face from a force sensitive population, stun collars were stocked and ready, overall he had a force of seven hundred and fifty lead by a seasoned Mandolorian.  They would hit fast and hard, sure there would be losses, but so long as he wasn’t oe of them he was happy to cop them.

“Move out” Neen yelled into his comlink and the swarm of skiffs, speeders and transports began to ascend over the top of the mountains down toward the village.

"Tricky sleemo their liar." OMG I literally had to Lol with this.  LSG, by your own admission you are going for ASoFaI feel; that is precisely what your writing evinces me of!  And I mean that as the highest form of compliment  :)

You expertly weave SW canon details into a unique narrative; I really can't wait for the threads to converge! 
But I will just have to be patient  ;)

Until next installment friends  :)

Saw this last night, but haven't had a chance to read it till just now. Great job. I knew I wanted to come back to it (other than because it is awesome), because when I first saw it, all I saw the name, and then Mandalorean somewhere. That was enough for me. Anytime there is a Mando, I want to read it. ;D Great job. A little shorter than your other ones, but still incredible. Can't wait for more.

[/b]

Thanks again for the comments! While I finish off Part 2 (haven't had as much time this week) thought I'd offer this up.  Its a chapter I wrote mostly for my own development of the Aethan culture, and bridges the gap between the Andis and Valens chapter, didn't include it in the main arc as I felt it slowed it down and doesn't overtly lead anywhere. 

Anyway if you're interested in a little more of the back story while I polish part 2 take a look.


[/b]
She had never asked her father where the child had come from, as the daughter of a Guardian there were many things she knew that most people did not, but there were also some things Andis didn’t even trust her with.  Nonetheless her trust in her father was absolute.  Twins were very common on Aethas, no one would think twice about it. 

Her father was living permanently with her now, with Marten gone she needed the help with the two boys.  After she had married Marten she hadn’t seen him as often, he often followed Melron into the dead lands during those years.  But as Marten sickened, and Lyssia fell pregnant he had returned rapidly sensing her worry across the mountains that separated the life giving valley form the blasted dead lands.

Disease was generally uncommon on Aethas, but when it hit, it hit hard.  It had been a silly cut at first, but the infection had left Marten ill for a fortnight.  He had seemed fine after that, but the disease was in him by then.  Apart from old age it was infections following cuts or other haemorrhages that killed the most, but not swiftly, Aethan biology was too strong for that.  Before the collapse there were medicines for such things, now long lost, this was a key role of Guardians like Melron, to find that lost knowledge.  The greatest risk for any Aethan was child birth, the unavoidable exposure it brought meant many women died within five years, those stronger in the Aether lasted longer, but it always a risk.

She looked over her sleeping boys.  Already at the age of three their personalities were starting to form, the bold adventurous Jarys who would chase after anything new or unusual, as if afraid he would miss out on something if he didn’t catch it, and the quieter Valens who would focus intently on the smallest oddest things as if trying to discern some hidden meaning in shape of a tool or pattern of dress. 

Her sons were her life, they burned so bright in the aether, she hoped she would seem them Guardians and married happily.  She felt a short stab in her breast, and prayed by the Light of the Aether the disease she had incurred brining her biological son into the world would hold off until then.
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The breeze was light and cool beneath the clear skies, the Gathering was winding to a close.  She sat by the banks of the lake watching Jarys and Valens running about with the other children.  As always Jarys was in the fore leading them about, Valens hanging slightly back.  She noticed two of the little girls with blue ribbons amongst the group, blue was a colour she could match with. 

She slipped into the aether to sense them, though not strong enough to be a Guardian she had been close.  One of the girls was lively and bubbly, her presence sparking like the crackers Guardian Taran would make for children, the other strong and warming like a welcoming hearth on a winter’s night.

“Lyssia?” the voice shocked her out of her thoughts,
“Oh,” she turned to see a woman with blue and red ribbons, “sorry I was just…”
“It’s fine, you’re boys are what seven now, of an age to be looking for a match, I’m Kassyndra,”
“From Valleys end right,” she had seen Kassyndra about the place, there were few stranger with such a small population, but being a little older and living at Valleys end than her was not someone she really knew,
“That’s right…so tell me about your boys,” there was little dancing around when it came to working out a match
“Oh well Jarys has the dark hair and is all storm, Valens the lighter brown is more calm,” she adopted the wind terminology Valleys end people tended to use when speaking of the aether,
“hmm, my girls are Shilea, the warm one, and Cilina the glimmering one“ Kassyndra reciprocated with Lyssias terminology of light and temperature.

They spoke as the sun set and the children tired comparing the personalities of their children to see how well they would suit each other.  Kassyndra was determined to do the best for her daughters, and she couldn’t do much better than Guardians in training.  By the time the day was done Lyssia had good matches for bother her sons, the pain in her chest all but forgotten in her joy at the happiness her children would one day have.
********************************************************************************************
“No Its not…I don’t, arrgh,” Jarys stormed out of the room tears barely held back, Andis gave Lyssia a look, and she returned a gentle nod, he went after him. 

She had fallen sick a week ago, but only now did she really how close her time was, Valens sat beside her his hand in hers weeping quietly, Jarys had not taken it as well.  They were twelve now, the personalities they had shown as babes were now set, while she was proud of how they had progressed in their education and training se worried about them.  Jarys was headstrong and hated to lose at anything, he hid it well, but she feared he might find himself persisting in a fight he could not win.  Valens was too reserved, too distracted and indecisive, forced to make a choice. She feared he might overcompensate for this and make a bad one.

Andis lead Jarys back in and he sat on the other side of the bed taking her other hand.
“My boys,” her voice was ragged from laboured breathing, “I’m so proud of you, I can see one day what strong Guardians you will become,”
“You’ll see it yourself Mother,” Jarys protested, she just smiled at him, he truly believed it, that she could fight off this disease, Valens she could sense too believed there was some way, some hidden code he could crack to find a way to solve it.  Nothing in the aether was random, perhaps by her passing into the aether she would teach them both a lesson her father never could.
********************************************************************************************
The boys were both asleep, they had been at her side for nearly three days, Andis levitated them off to their own beds gently then sat beside her.  He was always a stoic man, a Guardian chiselled from the very stone Melron often joked. 
But here he was openly showing his grief,
“My girl, my beautiful little girl,” he stroked his hair and she took his hand
“It’s alright dad, it’s the course of the aether,” she softly intoned
“So I taught you, but I hated it when your mother left, and I’ll hate it when you leave…”

How long they sat in silence after that she didn’t know, suddenly she felt herself slipping into the aether, like when she meditated, but this time it was not intentional, she was dying.  Andis felt it and held her tightly as though if he could just hold her tightly enough she would not slip away. 

Lights filled her eyes, a brightness drowned out the world around her, shapes coalesced in it, bodies, her sons, opposite Kassyndras daughters,
“their wedding,” she said aloud
“Lyss….” Her father whispered, she knew it was common to have visions of the future just before death, for many it was a blessing, showing them their loved ones future happiness, for others a dread portent of suffering they could not prevent.

Jarys silhouette twisted slowly into an animal like shape, snarling, Valens darkened and grew smaller as though he were galaxies away, and the brides, Valens bride turned burning red, Jarys’ dulled but within her womb burned a light like a sun.  And above all four of them was…

She cried out loud
“Lyss its alright”  her father was crying, pushing all the love he could into her as she slipped into the aether,

....a figure, feminine shrouded by flames that seamlessly blended into fiery hair, blazing eyes, white perfect face yet….impassive....
A Goddess?

This one is really interesting. Definitely different from the rest, but that's okay. I like how you delved more in depth into the Aethan culture, getting into how they don't have a lot of tech or medicine. I see why you say it doesn't fit in anywhere, but I still feel like it is necessary to the story, if only because it explains why Valens and Jarys don't have a mom. I also like how you did a lot of time progression. Not something I like all the time, but it really fits this part of the narrative. Good job. Like I've said multiple times in Karm and TD's stories, I like story, to me it is more important that action, though action is needed as well. Can't wait for more.

LSG you have a gift for exposition without being pedantic; the solemn underlying sorrow throughout the timeline is palpable (ha! I didn't mess up this time  :P ;D). This is damned fine writing^^

TR is absolutely right: the story has facets, each new chapter contributing unique perspectives that build and supplement^^  I am eager to see where you are taking us  :D

Until next installment friends  :)

LSG, thank you for sharing!  I can only echo the others on how much I appreciate the depth and clarity of your imagery.  Nicely done!

I am getting echoes here of Tolkein, both in the style and the way you're building such a deep background.  There's a lot of work here and its comprehensive.  The craftsmanship is evident and the foundation for the overall narrative of the actual story makes that story all the better.

Hmm...

So if you're Tolkien, does that make the rest of us Lewis, Williams, and Barfield?  ;-)

Thanks All,
Yeah this was a hard one to cut because of the need to show just how close to collapse their society is, population of 2000, restricted to one valley, and worried about a single cut killing them (which makes Jarys / Valens trials all the more risky for them to undertake). Lyssia was a character I wanted to do more on, but felt overall it just wouldn't quite fit. 

I think this is something no doubt we've all had issues with our respective characters.  Anyways as promised....worlds collide....

[/b]

[/b]
His world was ending.  Houses all around the village were burning, strange black metal things floated in the sky, creatures the like of which he had never imagined charged in pack through the streets loosing blue and red bolts from weapons he had only read of in the histories. 

Wordlessly he charged toward them, sword in hand.  It had been years since he had raised his sword to kill, now he knew he would never put it down again.  His grandsons scream in the Aether had woken him and the rest of the village just before the metal things had arrived.  It had given them time, but not enough.  The attackers were everywhere at once, firing from their metal craft that hovered above, buring houses, targeting everyone, the old, the young, women, children.

There was no time to ask why, his people were being attacked, he had to kill them, and if he could take some alive for questioning later.  There were eight before him, as they opened fire he leapt and twirled landing in their centre with the aethers grace, he spun to cut through them, severing arms and torsos with a blade that crackled with the aetheric lightning he poured onto it.  He had no time to study the anatomy of these creature, he guessed by their human like form the head was still the best target, with what concentration he could spare he crushed in the heads of those not sliced by his blade.  But even as these fell he heard an alien shout and more charged toward him. 

He leapt to dodge their blasts and felt danger from above. Darting behind a building veranda he saw blue lightning crackle toward the metal ship the floated nearby followed by an armoured figure and a Vorynx flying towards it.  Jarys.  The threat from above nullified he turned to his attacker, guided by the aether he dodged all but one of the blue blasts, it struck hard, but didn’t break his stride.  He felt an internal injury, a disruption to his nervous system weakened only by his connection to the aether.  Any other Aethan hit by such a blast would not fare as well.  In his right hand he wrought bloody death with his sword, from his left poured aetheric fire more copiously than he believed he could. 

A large green alien caught alight, burning from without and within, a smaller teal alien was pierced in the face by his sword.  A wrinkled brown one swung an electrified pole toward him, he pivoted away pulling his sword through to cut it in half…but it didn’t, the poles metal was too strong.  His sword stuck, the brown creature tried to wrench free, in anger he mentally grasped the creatures face and pulled, tearing it free from its skull.

As he pulled his sword out he surveyed the battle in his mind. Jarys and his Vorynx was above, alien auras blinking out one by one, Karintha and Yorna were on a rooftop nearby unleashing waves of lightning against smaller craft that darted about.  Of the other guardians present, he only sensed Taran, Yira and Corba on the other side of the village, Kiso…Kiso…was a fading candle of hate beneath a flood of alien auras.  All around he sensed regular men and women fighting back, the aether alive with lightning and crushing pushes, the air filled with blocks of stone lobbed at the metal ships. 

He reached to find Valens, there to the West near the cottage a metal ship exploded in blue fire leaving only a figure lit by the starlight in its wake.  Satisfied he headed forwards. 

Peering around into the main street he saw bodies of men, burned holes in their chest of head, and aliens putting rings around the necks of women and children.  On the ground sat two of the metal ships, he sensed eighty or so alien auras.  In their midst was Gold and Silver armoured creature pointing and giving orders – their leader.  He couldn’t take that many alone, he sent a thought coursing through the aether, power, control, come, attack.  He felt instant acknowledgement from Karintha and Yorna, a boisterous scream of determination from Jarys, and steely so be it from Taran.  Another explosion lit up the night to the south and Yira’s light winked out of existence.  In the fiery glow he saw more, even larger ships approaching.  Expanding his awareness he tried to estimate their numbers….hundreds….it struck him how dim they were in the aether, they had not yet attacked them with it…he couldn’t understand what were they doing that for….were they were pooling their energy for some kind of mass attack…or integrated into a battle meditation?  Perhaps Valens could sense something, either way they had to hold back some energy in readiness for an aetheric attack. 

Melding his aura into the aether he connected with the others, felt their position, their resources as an over consciousness melded their thoughts began to direct them.  Yorna started, sending a razor thin blade of aetheric force straight into a group of aliens, in an instant severing them in half at the waist.  Taran and Karintha unleashed a dozen concentrated balls of aetheric fire down on alien heads with pinpoint accuracy, burning them alive.  Andis felt the call and charged out, from the other end of the street came eleven other Aethan men armed with swords and axes, from above Jarys leapt down into group of aliens. 

Andis plunged into the bloody melee, cutting, electrocuting, burning, crushing any who stood between him and the armoured leader.  But Aethan deaths also came thick and fast each one diminishing the battle meld, their expanded consciousness sensed more metal ships laden with troops closing around them, they were surrounded.  Taran fell first, shot to pieces from above, Yorna second, too drained to dodge the oncoming blasts. 

Two large ships sped above the street, yet before their crew could fire Valens landed atop one of them and unleashed a terrifying combination of lightning and fire obliterating the crews, but leaving him drained and unable to leap off as the ship exploded from the damage. 

Andis cut and wove till he saw the leader, currently locked in combat with Jarys, his Vorynx tearing chunks from any aliens who tried to come to their leaders support.  Jarys swung in precise arcs, but his sword could not pierce the armour, he tried to fire lightning but was too drained. As the fists of the leader began to pummel him, Karintha tossed him to safety, only to be struck by red bolts form behind. 

Andis surged forward and the leader turned toward him.  With his every cell he pulled in all the anger, fear and rage about him, infusing himself with the aether till his skin glowed. He had pushed past the point of no return, he would not survive this.  Ten paces from the leader the first shots hit him, blue and red energy bolts each taking chunks from his useless armour and flesh, one hit his left calf, another his right thigh and he stumbled, the leader drew a pistol and fired directly at him.  His enhanced aetheric power instinctively deflected the bolts, but he was using up too much power too fast, he took three more painful steps, more bolts tore at his back, the aether alone held his body together now. 

As he was ripped apart by the sustained fire he sent a final concentrated though of pure hate at the metal man before him, with grim satisfaction the last thing he saw was the armoured man exploding outwards against the backdrop of his ruined ships crashing to the ground.

Wow....

Remind me NEVER to mess with your force users!  ;-)

Seriously, that was a great scene!  Tragic, heroic, horrific...  Everything a battle to the death should and would be.  Well done.
I also love the descriptions of the aether (force)...  how the characters interact with it and within it.  How they use it.
Also how it uses them.  Having a set amount of endurance in the force is something I hadn't really considered before, either, or being able to channel it TO heavily, to the point where the power flowing through you would actually destroy you.

And I am on the edge of my seat (metaphorically) wondering if the guardians were able to win the day?  And even if they did...  Well, as you said.  The population was very small.  Even a victory at this point, with so many dead, would be an ending of their culture.

So I am very interested to see how this resolves.  :-)

And as always, excellent!

Indeed, Karmack put his thoughts into words better than I could. Your "Aether" kind of reminds me of Egyptian Magic, where the magicians have access to it, and can even see inside it, but if they use too much, they could easily overtax themselves and completely fry their brains if not kill themselves. It is really cool how they have fire powers too, not just the normal lightning and telekinesis. I have to say though, Andis was one of my favorites already. :'(

Wow that was intense LSG!  Excellent action sequences; reading, I could feel the dirt from the explosions, the burn of the blasters, the electricity in the air.  Andis' almost preternatural determination (and confusion as to why the invaders would not utilize the "aether" in their attack; understandable given the perspective).  Heh, I think Karm hit the proverbial nail on the head: do NOT mess with your Force users  ;D  Speaking of....

Another departure that I enjoy (and appreciate) is the "raw" and almost primordial nature of your Force users, almost like...
...yes, TR's example is perfect^^ 

And let me second the sentiment: Andis is...was a favorite of mine as well  ;)

Until next installment friends  :)

Thanks All,

This was the chapter I was most concerned about, glad it came through well.
 
Karmack/Taegin - glad you picked up on the destructive element of the Force/Aether use
One thing that I had in mind was in the Expanded Universe NJO the example of Luke using the force to move a Vong black hole weapon and Jacen becoming one with the force to kill Omini – both these things dramatically drained them, they displayed overwhelming power but the mechanics as I understand it is they are accessing a near infinite amount of power in the force, but it is channelled through a very finite body, essentially I think there is only so much power a finite set of cells can channel before it is destroyed utterly.  Still this is a concept that I’ll be returning to….

Dutchman – the confusion re invader not using the aether was something I really wanted to get across glad it worked

I’m glad I got the rawness of their power across, the Guardians are trained, but not like Jedi or Sith, it is a practical power, it has nothing to do with a philosophy or morality, only outcomes – hence Andis uses “all the anger, fear and rage about him” to achieve his goal. Having said that you'll see more of their subtle powers as the story progresses....

Andis was a solid character but this is called Children of the Aether….

Just hoping the next chapters can live up to your expectations.  Appreciate your support as always!

[/b]

The hum of the ship was constant, punctuated every six seconds by a metallic clank.  Everything smelt of the gritty oil that coated the tiny cell.  It was barely big enough to sit in so she was forced to lean, the collar around her neck rubbed her skin raw and left her head reeling whenever tie livered its electric shock.

She wanted this to be a dream, to wake up the day after her wedding and tell her new husband about her vivid nightmare.  But this was all too real.

After Valens had sent her out she had caught up with seven other new brides, including Cilina, propelled by Valens aetheric power as well as her own she had managed to get nearly six paddocks from the village as it burnt behind her.  She had heard explosions, and felt the death and terror reeling from it, but dared not turn to look.  They had found her nonetheless, a metal flying machine crowded with creatures of nightmares they could  not outrun circled in front of them, they fought as best they could, loosing bolts of lightning, hurling aether sped rocks, flinging the creatures off, but it was not enough, the blue bolts they fired downed them one by one.

She had awoken on the hard deck of one of their ships, the collar around her neck, in the middle of the ruined village.  Burnt out houses and broken bodies lay all over the main street, the main hall in which she had dressed for her wedding the day before crushed by a fallen ship that still slowly burnt. 

Dozens of Aethans were tied and collared like her, along the street the elderly were marched, lined up and shot with red bolts, cutting the air from their auras in an instant.  Some of the men tried to fight back, but were just shot with the blue bolts.  Jarys, the only Guardian Shilea had seen amongst the nearly four hundred Aethans that had been rounded had been especially violent, at least a half dozen times he would break his chains and attack the aliens, every time he would kill one or two, only to be shot and tied again.

Her sister wept quietly beside her then, and wailed so loudly when four huge green aliens pummelled her husband, the nearby guard had shot Cilina with another blue bolt to shut her up.

Group by group they were loaded onto the huge metal squares that sat atop what once were houses, and pushed into the cells where she now found herself.

She had searched the aether for others, her father, mother, aunt….husband…but could sense none of them…she hoped they were on other ships somewhere.  Cilina was in a cell five down from her sleeping restlessly. 

How could things change so much in one day?  Who were these aliens, why had they come, what did they want with them…Why Her?  She had just gotten married, not even a whole day with her husband…just an afternoon and evening…as she looked at her new confines she silently prayed by the Winds of the Aether and the Burning Eyes of the Lady she wasn’t pregnant.
******************************************************************************************************
Time had little meaning in the constantly lit cell.  She tried counting the times a hairy creature with a collar like hers would bring around a thick gooey paste for them to eat, but soon gave it up.  At first she vomited it all back up, unused to such…she didn’t want to call it food.  With no room to move she was forced to stand in her own filth until, less regularly they would spray them with water.  Anyone who talked was subject to a collar shock from the reptilian guard that prowled the walk way between the cells.
 
At first everyone had stayed silent in the aether fearing a similar retaliation.  But gradually they had realised their captors seemed not to notice any feelings they sent through the aether.  There were fifty of them on this deck in twenty five cells in two rows, above and below were another fifty making one hundred and fifty on this ship.  Most were women and children, the men had largely been killed in the fighting, and none seemed older than forty.  They began to realise only one thing made sense, they were being taken as slaves. They did what they could to comfort each other emotionally through the aether, it was false hope at best, delusion at worst.

Shilea had read of slaves in the histories but never imagined being one, but then she never imagined beings still travelled the stars, or there were such strange creatures in the universe.  They spoke a guttural tongue, that with the aid of the aether in reading the airs of their meaning she was gradually understanding. 

It was of little use, no one could fly the vessel, they could sense at least a hundred aliens on board with them, any sign of trouble and they would be shocked, and the poor food kept them too weak to gather the energy for any real attack.
******************************************************************************************************

She didn’t know how long it had been but they ship landed somewhere, a planet with a turbulent aetheric wind.

Aethas has such a beautiful aetheric feeling, it surrounded you like a shadow that cools you on a hot day, or warm like a blanket on a cold night, dark and comforting, here it was distortion, twisted, confusing.  She felt sick.

They were taken in small groups through a labyrinth of rank tunnels to new, larger cells, relatively clean, a bowl kept filled with water, a thin mattress and worn one piece suit they were to change into.
 
The cell was fronted by a transparent material, on the other side strange beings in opulent outfits would come each day and gawk at them, taking them away one by one.

By the time Cilina was taken by a hideous cream coloured creature with a gigantic head her tears had run dry and she had accepted her life was over.  Her only hope was to somehow remove the collar and gather strength enough to aetherically burn herself to death.  Horrors that awaited her till then terrified her.   

A minor consolation was when her cycle came and she knew she wasn’t with child.

One day the creature came.  Of the many disgusting creatures she had seen this was one of the worst, it had a triangular head and hideous tentacles for a mouth. With it came a repulsive scarred woman with intricate white and black tattoos all over her face, her left arm cut off at the elbow, and as usual the green skinned thing with two long tentacles on the back of its head. 
The latter one she had seen so often she assumed it was the seller. As usual Shilea had crawled into a ball, trying to make herself as small as possible, and retreated her aura.

But this time was different.  For the first time she felt the breeze of the aether from one of the aliens, the tattooed woman’s air was moist and dark like the deep forests only the Guardians dared venture into.  It pressed her.  She was terrified she would be chosen, but the tattooed woman moved on pressing the other remaining Aethans in turn. 

Finally the tattooed woman retuned to Shileas' cells and mouthed words behind the barrier.

Shilea didn’t need to hear them to know what she had said –

“That one.”

Excellent LSG; each chapter offers more of the wonderful community of Force-users you've created. Reading, I could feel Shilea's utter despair underscored by the fact that everything is so alien (heh figuratively and literally) to her experience. And, once again, I find myself at the end of the chapter too quickly, wanting more  :)

Well as you said: it is children of the aether so I know that more is forthcoming...but I hate the waiting  ;)

Until next installment friends  :)

LSG, this was no doubt a hard scene to write.  It was hard to read, but it was meant to be hard.  Like most of my fellow Americans, I love a happy ending, and going through what amounts to a genocidal event is heart-wrenching.  That being said, I care about this person, because you shared enough of her life with us to help us identify with her.  Also, we mourn with her at the loss of her entire life.  And yet, still, a sliver of hope remains.  :-) 

As Dutchman said: the CHILDREN of the aether.  The question I find myself pondering: is Shelia one of the children in question?  Or the mother of those children?  :-)

Looking forward to the next installment!

Karmack

Thanks Karmack, actually it was surprisingly easy to write, the harder bit was knowing what was going to happen in the first place...but once OK with that it sort of flowed.

Glad you identify with her, that was why I kept the first part so focused on their little world, it makes the destruction all the more galling and devastating for the reader.

The galaxy I see as a very brutal place for a lot of people...

The cold was manageable, the lack of food survivable…but the shocks…every few seconds he would be given an electric shock to keep him from focusing long enough to use the aether to fight back.

Since the battle he had tried to escape and killed so many aliens he had lost count.  Now only they most hardened of their warriors guarded him, he couldn’t sense much off these creatures with their strange auras, but he knew many of them feared him. With good reason, given the chance he would delight in shredding each one of them to pieces slowly, but in the situation would happily settle for quickly immolating them from within.

The screeching sound of his chains against the mental floor also annoyed him as he was dragged into a far cleaner part of the building he had been taken to after the transport ship.  Mostly he had been rendered unconscious, during the brief times he was awake, first he tried to rip a hole in the ships fuselage with the aether, second to dominate the mind of one of the guards, but the strangeness of the alien mind had made it difficult, it was more complex than the Vorynx, it had ended with the fat green thing a mindless drone.

They dragged him through an overly wide hallway, brightly lit with hideous what he guessed was alien art work on the walls, and through an oversize set of oval doors.

Behind them was the most hideous creature Jarys had seen yet.  On top of a long lounge at the other side of the large chamber, big not just to impress and awe but also, Jarys mused, possibly necessity for its owner, surrounded by a gaggle of creatures was a massive fat brown slug like creature with wide hideous black eyes. 

It was freely drooling, stains down its equivalent of a belly, and shoving huge eyes from a pot into its maw with stubby hands.  Jarys could not imagine what environment would, through natural selection, birth such an abomination.
<Master this is the fierce one> said the green skinned humanoid with tentacles on the back of its head beside the great slug.  Jarys had gradually picked up the language these foul creatures spoke, the aether coloured by the dye of meaning had helped with this, the only thing he could manage in the aether amongst the shocks.

The slug made a hideous slurping sound as it downed another eye then stared straight at him. 

<It’s smaller than I thought it would be> the slug droned in hideous gurgling accents <you say this killed forty?>

<At least master, we have to keep it sedated it is so fierce…there is no prospect anyone would buy such a beast….>
Jarys almost laughed at the irony of that, thing, calling him a beast.

<You think it would win?>

<I…think we will profit more from it in the arena than at the markets>

The slug laughed in a guttural manner
<uh uh uh…very well, let us see how it fares, still seems to small>

Jarys sniggered and spoke, <Untie my chains and you will see how I fare beast>

The pommel of a guard staff slammed him in the head as all eyes turned on him for having spoken out, another guard moved around in front to beat him but was belayed by a sound from the slug.

<hoooorrrrm….it speaks, I didn’t think they spoke the beautiful tongue, Lyr?> the slug bellowed
Looking slightly unnerved tentacle head rubbed his hands <They are quick learner’s master….just like we have told all our buyers….>

The slug looked back at Jarys with a wet disgusting smile

<If I released you what would you do>

Jarys didn’t miss a beat despite the blood trailing down his skull and onto his mouth <As you like them so much, I would rip out your eyes and feed them to you, then I would shove everyone of your servants eyes into your mouth whole till you rupture> Jarys stared at tentacle head <starting with him>

There was a deafening silence in the room, Jarys thought he would be killed instantly. The slug bellowed in laughter.
<take him away, put him in the arena…I will watch myself> as they dragged him back out the slug added to tentacle head <if he loses I will eat you Lyr>.
***************************************************************************************************
They had first stuffed him with food, taken off his shock collar, then quickly pushed him into the tunnel.  The walls were solid, the door behind him thick, in front was a grated gate, beyond that a vast empty circle of ground.  He could sense thousands of dim lit alien beings above him in roughly a circle, and below them other beings who wetted the aether with flows of despair, anger and violent rage.

The gate began to rise and the aliens above shouted.  He had little choice, so stepped out.  It was just like the Ampitheatre on Aethas in shape, but made of the aliens metals.  A transparent reddish glow separated him from the crowd watching him…he realised what this was, from the histories he had read of games where doomed prisoners were set to fight each other to live another day and provide entertainment for the masses…now he was one of them.
 
Was that to be his world now?  Win in the arena or die, obey his captors or live in pain. 

He looked around the arenas patrons and saw above the rabble, boxes with better clothed creatures, some even human like him…yet none had the buoyancy and Aethan should in the ocean of the aether.  Soon enough he spotted the slug and tentacle head, talking with a hideous creature he dubbed tentacle face. 

He would win, he would survive, as he stared in hate at the slug the primitive instincts to live welled in him, deepened by the connection with his slain vorynx had left behind.

On the other side of the arena another gate opened and four creatures came out, two like tentacle head, but bigger, one with a bizarre T shaped head and another spindly thing with six limbs, all were armed with rusty metal, and variously attired in thin worn out leathers.  A sudden clash sounded all around the arena and the four charged. 

He weighed the threats with the instinct of a cornered animal, the tentacle heads looked strong, but humanoid posed less uncertainty, the six limbed thing worried him as it tried to flank him, T head jumped up and down on the spot for no reason he could determine.  He raced to the six limbed thing, meeting it mid rin it swung at him with a rusty blade, Jarys skidded  and rolled beneath it grabbing its leg limbs and pulling, the creature balanced on its mid limbs as Jarys released, rolled, sprang up and reverse leapt onto its back, his weight forcing it to go on all six limbs to steady, but Jarys had his arms about its spindly torso and with what aetheric might he could muster squeezed hard to crush its organs, hideous brown goo oozed out and it collapsed. 

The tentacle heads came at him next, one with an axe, the other a spear.  Spear was smart enough to pace around him, axe edged forward, soon they were on either side of him, it was then T head charged.  He was caught in the centre of the tringle his opponents had made, backward and to the side were covered by axe and spear, he had to go into the charging beast.
 
He charged with a primal scream. 

Letting the aether flow he increased his speed as T head bore down to smash him, as he reached closer he leapt into the air and grasped the tow side of the T, performing a back flip the momentum of the T creature powered them in a circle, Jarys landing on his feet behind the charger, the charger lifting up over Jarys head flung as he released it into the side of the arena with a bone crutching crash.  Axe and spear charged from opposite sides, he could feel their movements in the water of the aether, a spin kick just before they reached him put axe out as spears overextended to put his spear through axe.  As he realised what he had done Jarys was upon him, pulling his tentacles as he put his foot in his back, he was rewarded with a wet crack as the creature died. 

The crowd cheered wildly, Jarys tugged the limp body toward him, reached around and squelched out the eyes. Raising one in each had in triumph he stared very deliberately at the slug far above him.

The plot thickens!  Jarys survived.  Somehow I do NOT think that Jabba is going to profit from this slave...  ;-)

Well given its 600 years before the Battle of Yavin Jabba might not even be born yet… The Hutt as per Lyrs chapter is named Myzm…Lots of characters to remember sorry, but only about another 3 main ones to remember.

But keep the 600 years before in mind, it’s important for a character coming up.....

An important character from 600 years BBY? Sounds like only one character I know of. ;D

Great job on this one though. And the last one as well. It seems I didn't comment on that one. However, I didn't need too, Karm and TD said everything. Can't wait for your next part. ;D

Yeah I figured it would be interesting to look at a character much younger, perhaps not quite as wise, as you're used to seeing, also helps bring your characters and story into the Universe, much like you've done with an Inquisitor, Vader, and Dutchman and Karmack have done as well.

Aha.  Yeah, forgot that little detail.  LOL

Still, the hutt is probably in far more trouble than he realizes...  :-)

The ringing alarm brought Yoda out of his meditation.  He slowly opened his eyes and returned from the still of the force to the activity about him.  Returning his breathing to normal he stood and moved to the cockpit.  With practised ease he brought the ship out of hyperspace. 

As soon as the reversion to real space was complete he felt it.  Pain, loss, anger, fear, the force was full of it here.  He was too late.

For the last few months he had been pursuing a group of slavers working in the deep core.  That the Hutts felt bold enough to operate so brazenly in the deep core had concerned the Republic, who had then requested the Jedi investigate.  It rankled Yoda more than a little that the depredations of the Hutts on the outer rim for decades had not elicited any response, but three worlds in the deep core was met with immediate action.

This system was uncharted, disconnected from the Republic as many deep core systems were, black holes and gravitic anomalies made travel difficult, it had taken a number of bribes and more than a little force suggestion on Ebaq to find out where the slave ships were headed and the navigational co-ordinates from Urganaught explorers.

The disturbance seemed to gape wider as he approached the 5th planet in the system.  No other ships were in orbit that he could detect.  Whatever had happened must have been close to a genocide to create such a wound….yet surely such a small force of slavers could not capture so many?

He settled into orbit over the fifth world, but found little but radioactive deserts ad craters on his scanners.  He turned to the force, silently opening himself to the pain that echoed off the planet.  It hurt to open himself so fully, but as a Jedi his compassion meant embracing and understanding such emotions, and that compassion allowed him to retain control in the face of their strength.  His hands guided by the force adjusted the instruments to fly toward the source of the pain.
***************************************************************************************************
He landed his Kuat Drive Yards LN-2 a short walk from the large village. 

As soon as he stepped out he felt it, the strength of the force in this place was nearly overwhelming, the pain, the fear, enveloped him, he needed to be very careful here.

It was an unusual world, so barren except for this valley, but stranger still was what he found.  Amongst burnt out wooden buildings that belonged to a pre-space flight culture were the wrecks of slaver skiffs, speeders and barges, some partially opened as if someone were trying to deconstruct them.  Beneath hastily erected shelters sat dissected bodies of Weequay, Gamoreans, Rodians, even a Twi’lek.  There were signs of a vicious battle here, scorch marks, blaster holes, but no other corpses, someone had moved them.

It was unlikely the natives possessed weapons to counter the slavers, so what caused this damage, a fight amongst slavers after a raid was not unheard of, but on this scale?

He sensed no life apart from the plants and insects about the place, so sat to meditate in a large open street where the force seemed to be pooled the most.  The force was so strong here, almost suffocating…he tried to peel back the layers of recent trauma, to the underlying currents of life, there was something there, something quiet, hidden…something…

He felt the steel against his neck and his ear pricked up to the barely audible sound of breathing.

“Away put your weapon, no harm do I bring,” he said calmly, “a survivor are you” strange he did not sense the approach, perhaps he had been too focused on the underlying currents of the force, even at three hundred years old he still made the odd mistake as Soryu liked to remind him.

He tried to exude a calming presence, but felt nothing in the force in response, neither worry, nor calm…as if it were a blank.  Then he felt it a subtle probing in the force against him, teasing out his intentions.  Yoda did not try to resist, he left himself open to the analysis…at first the other retreated back, fearful of a trap, then tentatively searched him.
“Who are you?” asked the male human, judging by the voice, behind him with a sword to his throat, his accent was strange and archaic but comprehensible.

“Yoda, Master Jedi of the Republic am I,” he turned his head to look at the other and grinned gently, “For you loss sorry, but pleased to meet you I am.”
***************************************************************************************************
The man’s name was Valens, Yoda judged him around twenty years old.  He had a quiet demeanour and a presence in the force that was strangely distant.  It was clear he was force sensitive, but the extent of his abilities and training were hard to tell.   

He wore a recently repaired suit of steel armour, carrying an elegant board sword, with a tattered blue ribbon tied around his right arm.  He had no distinguishing features, but then many humans looked alike to Yoda.

Valens brought him to a small building he had been living in for the last few weeks, providing Yoda with a selection of earthy wholesome foods, Yoda realised it had been a long time since he had eaten so well, he was getting too used to the pastes that were standard fare on long space journeys.

He told of him of the attack, it had come during a gathering of his people, they had resisted as best they could but the surprise and strangeness of their enemies overwhelmed them.  Valens himself had been knocked unconscious by and exploding barge and buried beneath it. 

“How destroyed you the barge?” Yoda inquired
Valens looked at him as if he had asked something so obvious that Yoda must be a dullard to ask
“With the aether of course.”
Overextended and injured from the fight he hadn’t woken for days, when he had the slavers were gone.  He had proceeded to bury the dead of his people according to their rites, then disposed of most of the slaver bodies, but set about studying them and their technology.
He was not at all typical of other human males of that age Yoda had met, very calm and considered in his actions, yet there was a troublingly cold edge to him.
“Other survivors have you found,” Yoda asked
“None…we were all here for the Gathering….if there were others they would’ve replied by now to my signals,”
“signals?” he queried
“In the aether, like so”
Yoda felt a surge of meaning in the force, a beckoning call, come, safe, return, and understood, the ‘aether’ was this cultures word for the force.  That he assumed others could respond in kind…all Valens people were force sensitive.
***************************************************************************************************

“Your plans now Valens”
Yoda and Valens walked quietly along one of the gardens about the village,

“There is little I can do, my people are gone, killed or scattered across your Republic…”

“Illegal in the Republic slavery is, other systems and territories they may be found” Yoda corrected

“Indeed, forgive me, the extent of your civilization is still unknown to me…I want to find my people if I can, but I have no knowledge of the galaxy into which they have been lost…and here I am alone…”

“With me you wish to go,”

He looked away to the mountains weighing up leaving a dead world against some unforeseen reason to stay, “If I could,” he said quietly looking at the ground,

“To learn and live, or to seek and punish,” Yoda probed

“they need not be mutually exclusive” that reply left Yoda a little stunned, there was a flicker across Valens face as though a different personality had occupied it for a brief moment.

Sensing Yoda’s disquiet he continued, “but I realise I cannot undo the damage done, perhaps I could find some of my people, but I must learn about the galaxy first.”

Yoda knew he could not leave him here alone, on that he had already decided, but he wanted Valens to come for the right reasons.  He suspected he would get little further with this line of questioning.  Valens had been through a great trauma, he needed compassion now, and charity.

“Correct you are” Yoda offered as a bridge, “join me you may.  To the Jedi temple we will go, there about the galaxy and force you may learn, assistance we can offer,”

“Thank You, Yoda, you are a credit to your Jedi order, I look forward to learning more about them.”

Out-standing!

The past two chapters with Valens, Mary's, and Yoda were two of your best, yet^^  LSG, I am REALLY enjoying your writing style and the way that the narrative intertwines, bringing together not only these incredible characters that I am now fully invested in but also an excellent interpretation of canon beings (the Hurt and his retinue and, of course, Yoda).  What I also really like is that instead of being confined by canon, you've opened up the wide galaxy of SW while infusing it with an excellent and unique (collection of) stor(ies) that add to and enrich the whole  :D. I am VERY glad that you decided to share this with us!

Oh and I think you are SPOT on with Yoda's diction  ;)

Until next installment friends  :)

Yoda.   I did NOT see that one coming.  :-)  Excellent tie-in, and I am thrilled that Valens also survived! 

Your story crafting is top-notch.  I am intrigued by the very concept of Yoda on a mission.  We all know him at the end of his life, as the very head of the Jedi order, but here he is out in the field as it were, on a mission. 

Like I said...  I think our friend the Hutt is in BIG trouble...  :-)

Thanks again guys.  You'll be pleased to know I'm finalising Part 5 as we speak, so on track to get you guys part three next week, then four then five.  Also have another couple of interludes between parts to pick up some loose threads.

The intent was always to bring the Children of the aether (Cilina, Shilea, Valens, Jarys and. ++XXXXXX++) into the larger galaxy, but in very different ways. Yoda especially as I wanted to try and imagine how a) a Younger Yoda would act compared to his much older wiser self, b) how said younger Yoda would interact with someone who can use the force just as well (better?) than him but with a very different philosophy.

Have to ask though Dutchman, who is MARY??? - "The past two chapters with Valens, Mary's, and Yoda"

“Another win for your boy!” called Rgnal as he grabbed his cup and emptied its contents,

The holo-player was showing the live stream of the Nar-Shadda Mid-Tier Arena where the violent slave that had threatened him and Myzm with eye gouging – nicknamed “The Beast” for the ferocity and savageness with which he fought, notably in tearing out opponents eyes – had just won another match, this time against a black furred wookie.

“And you too” Lyr replied pointing at the datapad by Rgnals side that showed the credits rolling from his bets on the beast, for the win and first blood.

“Must be making a killing off that one, pun intended” 

“Well someone is”, Lyr sarcastically added.  Whilst he had been well paid for the raid that capture him, and elevated to Major Domo of Myzms household on Nar Shadda, he hadn’t seen any returns for his efforts in the arena…perhaps he should just be thankful he hadn’t been eaten.  The raid on the planet where the beast had been taken was overall a disaster, two thirds of the mercenaries and the commander dead, only the high prices the slaves had fetched had redeemed the expedition.

“A little Kowakian tells me Myzms been in talks with the Quarren,” Rgnal made his living off selling information, in some ways a far more dangerous occupation for his fellow Twi’lek than Lyr’s, but like any good broker he kept the major players drip fed just often enough to avoid teetering into the realm of being a complete liability.

“What of it,” Lyr dipped a sliver of some ocean creature into a sauce lightly accented with refined Spice, “His credits are as good as anyone,”

“ha perhaps, but you know he’s a few fuses short of a circuit…all those hockey religious type he meets, weird things he buys, let alone that witch he keeps around,”

“So he collects antiques and dabbles in the esoteric, it’s not my business what our customers do, even with our products…bah” he slurped up the silver feeling instantly the heady rush of the Spice, “so long as he pays his bills,”

“Bills for what exactly,”

“oh, come on, you think I’m telling you that easily, you’ll be out of business soon if you’re that obvious in probing for rumours.  It’s no secret he buys the odd slave,” 

“Eh, just be careful, from what I hear he has an eye on something that could bring a lot of unwanted attention to anyone that helps him out,” Rgnal downed another glass.
***************************************************************************************************
Stumbling back to his, now far more luxurious quarters, Lyr was troubled by what Rgnal had said, though dared not show it at the time.  The Beast was on a streak, but would not win forever, perhaps it was time to cash out on that one while a buyer could be found easily. 

The Quarren though was more the worry, he didn’t have a name, just called the Quarren, they said he was heir to some kind of fortune from processing, or mining, something somewhere, and a cultist of some kind, he was well known for purchasing odd antiques from places like Byss, Korriban and Dormund Kaas.  All Lyr cared about was he paid handsomely for any force sensitive slaves they could offer, he had bought six in the last few months at half a million credits a piece.  What he did with them was not his problem. 

Recently though the Quarren had been asking around for mercenaries for some unspecified wet work, Myzm had instructed Lyr to see if he could act as middle man and take a cut, both of the hire fee and any booty.  It was unusual, the Quarren hadn’t ever gotten into that kind of business before, there had been rumours he’d hired some thieves to steal some odd antiques but little else.

But who was he to worry, so long as he managed a good profit for Myzm, and a nice cut for himself, he had no qualms about working for anyone…so long as they paid.

He nearly tripped entering his room, where his concubine Rshi…was that really a better word than slave…stirred from her sleep by his noisy entrance she reluctantly came to attend him.

She ought to be more thankful, he didn’t ask that much of her.
***************************************************************************************************
“4 million,” Lyr countered,

The holographic image facing him smiled wryly,

“I could by twenty for that price” the Falleen replied

“And he could kill them in under a minute,”

“3.5 million,” came the counter offer

Lyr was tempted to take it, he didn’t want to push too hard or lose out on the sale altogether.
 
“3.7 million,” he came back

The Falleen pursed his lips, negotiating across holonet was deliberate, he had no desire to be subject to the potential influence of Falleen pheromones when doing business.

“3.65 million,”

What was five thousand credits, “Done,” Lyr was satisfied with that, honestly he would’ve been satisfied with anything over two and a half million for the beast, “I’ll send through the contract within the hour, it will execute after tomorrows match,”
“A pleasure” the Falleen said then swiftly disconnected.
 
Lyr sighed heavily and waved over Rshi to massage him, Myzm would be satisfied, he may have enjoyed having a winning gladiator for these past months, but he would be more satisfied with the credits.  He looked forward to the next call less.  After what happened to Neen he doubted the Mandolorians would be cheap. 

The Quarren would pay them 7 million to arrange ships and men to perform ‘high opposition’ raids mainly along the Braxant Run and Hydian Way.

The holo flickered into life revealing a blunt helmet. Mando’s he sighed.

“What do you want,” though speaker distorted it lost little gruffness

“Hunik, so pleased to see you again, keeping well I trust, how is the climate on Mandalore at the moment, coming to spring I think isn’t it”  Lyr very deliberately kept Rshi massaging him in view of the receiver, having Hunik consider him a fop could only help. 

“Shove your pleasantries up your exhaust port you snivelling green drop of snot, what’s the job, how many and how much,”  just what Lyr wanted

“Well my friend” he preened, “I know you have the best boarding crews around, we have some tasks over the next few months that would make good use of your talents, and will be highly rewarded,”

“How many and how much” Hunik grated

“Well I don’t want to underestimate your ability, doubtless even one of your warriors could succeed…” he could almost feel the annoyance coming through the signal waves, “perhaps four or five fully armed raiders over ten months,”

“6 million no less” came the irritated reply, Hunik hated haggling, with a Sleemo like Lyr even less, but he wanted the work, for eighty Mandolorians with raiding craft and gear 8 million was a steal,

“Oh sir, you under value yourself, 6.2 million I insist!” Lyr waxed

“Done send me the details” the holonet cut off.

He lay back in his chair and reached around to absently fondle Rshi as she massaged him, he’d done good work today, sold the Beast for 3.5 million, and hired Mandolorians for 6.5 million…Well those were the numbers he’d report to Myzm anyway….

You know, I remember reading/hearing some time ago that Lucas wanted to do a TV show spin off of SW and that it would focus on smugglers, villians, and in an  underworld setting. I was immediately disinterested.  This was before Disney bought Lucasfilm IIRC.  Now, if a show was released, the only way that I would watch it is if it directly followed your narrative, LSG  ;)

Once again, your deft manipulation of (seemingly) disparate threads weaving together is testament to your world building my friend  :D. Heh, I wonder what "the Beast" will have to say about upcoming events (more loss of eyes I'm thinking  ::)).

*Sigh. Damn autocorrect  >:(  :P. Sorry, that--and early morning haste--once again proves my point: I really MUST proofread my posts  ;)  ::).  I had originally typed "Jarys" (aaaaannndd now just did the "Touch-to-save" option, so now I can type "Jarys" with impunity  ;D).

LSG, I want to echo Dutchman - your use of very diverse threads and settings is excellent, and I like this glimpse into the seedy underworld.  While I wouldn't want a steady diet of it, there is no doubt that such an element would be a big player in any SW tableau.  And as always your characters are very interesting.  :-) 

I'm liking these stories very much!  Thank you for sharing and keep it up!  Your universe building is very interesting and this setting and timeline era are places I have little exposure or experience with in the SW universe.  And I cannot wait to see your younger Yoda and his interactions with your Children of the Aether!  :-)

Just because I didn't reply to your Yoda post, doesn't mean I didn't read it and enjoy it. I did, very much so. I have just been busy, but your last two posts have been awesome. I love how Yoda is old enough to accept things (like how others use the Force, but it is not as a Darksider or a Lightsider, just using the Force), but also firmly believes in the Jedi order. Very good writing. As a person, I don't like Lyr, but as a villain, he is great, I also like how he doesn't care what happens as long as he gets paid. It seems to be a common theme around smugglers/bounty hunters, but that is probably because it works so well. I also really like how you keep incorporating "the Beast" tearing peoples eyes out. Because you keep bringing it back, it shows that you are paying attention to detail, and detail is something I like. Great job.

Thanks again guys, will keep it coming.  that's cool Taegin, don't worry about it, I'm just looking forward to the next chapter of your Shadow of he Outcast!

Yeah Lyr is sort of a bridging character rather than a main event, a little comic relief, sort of there to show some things that you can't do with other characters because it wouldn't make sense for them to know what is happening across some situations. 

One of the advantages of many viewpoints is you can get a lot more packed in, but it has to be balanced against making them different enough and keeping them connected....with Jarys, Shilea and Valens so far apart and so lost in the big galaxy I needed another character to keep them together in a very broad way.  Hoepfully its working!!

[/b]

Another interlude to pick up on a character and mystery from the start that vanished a bit.

He should’ve just left it there.

That’s what he told himself, every morning when he woke up, and at least once an hour when he was awake.

He struggled up out of his sleeping bag, the wool old and thin.  His bones cracked as he stood, he was far too old for this.  The shelter was a good one but the wind still blew in, carrying the gray dust that covered the dead lands and dried his throat.  He took a swig of gormin milk to wet it.  His stocks were good, at least another month if he was careful. 

He should’ve just left it there…but if he had would he be sitting here thinking ‘I should’ve done something’.  Aethers winds he was too old to make silly mistakes…ah no one was too old to make silly mistakes…

He looked around at the corroded metal and cement ruins half buried in the grey dust. To the far west he could see the clouds building, decades of wandering the wastes told him a dust storm was coming. Behind him to the East stood the high mountains that shielded the valley.  The peak of the mountain he was interested in was clouded, but he had looked on those mountains enough years to know which it was.  He was travelling in a direct line from the mountain out west, searching.

He should’ve asked the others before touching it, what right did he have to decide just on his own to touch it.  He didn’t know how much time he had though, he had to act.  He couldn’t just leave a baby there…

He judged if it were a straight line the other entrance couldn’t be far, ahead were a score of ruins that might be where it was.
*********************************************************************************************
Even with the aether to bolster him digging was slow going, and getting slower each year.  He found as he aged his strength in the aether grew, but not in a way that made him more able, it was the connection was stronger, easier, but no more powerful.  He heaped piles of dirt out of the hole with his mind and his shovel, gradually clearing what had once been a hallway before the Collapse. 

Chances were it would lead nowhere, most ruins when excavated were just that, ruins.  Occasionally he’d found the odd basement, some old broken down technology, but little of value.  Even in the odd locker or chest he found was little of worth, sometimes papers, wills, lover letters of the dead, fiction books, small papers with pictures of people on them, the faces of his ancestors.  It was the stuff of everyday life back then, and useless to him now. 

For sixty years he had searched, and in that time found four really useful thing, a science text book, a mathematics one both in the same basement amongst children’s things, a cabinet full of medical records, and sheets of schematics along with working electronic devices, simple things like lights and power tools.

As to the fifth thing…well perhaps the baby he had left Andis would turn out to be the greatest find yet.

This ruin had looked promising, thicker than average walls, painted beneath the sands with red arrows and code like R-54, R55, suggested military in its simplicity and directness.

Perhaps he should’ve taken it, but he certainly never should have sent the boy back there.  He had hoped facing his past, his origin would be a good test for the boy…yet something about that didn’t make much sense, he’d never told the boy he’d been found there…or how he’d found him, static in that strange crystal cocoon on top of a hideous black altar…

Sometimes he was sure there was something…hidden….influencing his thoughts…maybe it was just senility.
*********************************************************************************************
It was his lucky day, or had been till the storm came in.  He had unearthed a sealed metal door deep in the ruins at the bottom of a stair case, but when the storm had hit he had to retreat.  It lasted three days, and by the time it was over the corridors and stairwell were half filled again. That was life on the dead lands.

He set to work again, halfway through he threw his back out. 

“Kriff the Aether,” he shouted to no one, “Ladies bloody eyes, I hate this,”  it was an old curse, the ladies eyes, no one remembered who the lady was or what was so dangerous about her eyes. 

But he did hate it, he hated all the years he had spent away from his family, he hated more returning with nothing to show for it.  He hated he hadn’t been there when his Illy died with their daughter in childbirth, he hated he had never found anything to stem the decline.  Every year more women died, be it in child birth or a few years after, they were dwindling.  When he had first been made Guardian there were thirty of them, nearly three thousand in the Valley…now there were eleven, only three new ones in twenty years. 

They would soon be gone.  He had started with such high hopes, he’d volunteered to take the path of the dead lands to search their history, he had been filled with dreams of finding some bunker, some secret base with a space ship, medical equipment, a thinking machine perhaps all intact.  Sixty years later he had little to show for it. 

He kept going to spite this world, and the bloody aether.
*********************************************************************************************
The metal door had been fitted with a typical aether lock, the latches and bars inside the door with no way to open it unless you could move the bars with your mind. 
Inside it was musty, the dust of aeons caked the floor.

He lit a torch and moved slowly through each room.  First had been some kind of check point, then a barracks of some kind, filled with old half rotten clothes, leather dried to cracking.  He found weapons, real weapons from the old times, ‘guns’ they were called, small round spheres, armour of a baroque design, and odd long cylinders.  This was the greatest find anyone had made…well ever. 

He felt giddy as he searched through, but kept himself restrained enough to write down and catalogue what he found.  Some passage ways were blocked by cave ins, but he had found enough to call or a major expedition.  We would gather twenty, no fifty men to excavate, this could be the start of a rebirth of his people.

It was getting toward midnight, he would open just one more room.  Inside was simple, like the others, rotten linens on a beds and beside it….Books.  Dozens of books.  He had to be careful, he didn’t want to disintegrate them.  This was too much to keep to himself, he opened himself to the aether fully to send a message to the other, a beacon to guide them here.

Just as he did he felt another, a scream of fear and warning in the aether, it had a distant tinge behind it, Valens.  He fell to the floor as the first deaths flooded his senses.  For hours he sat there crushed by the weight of his sorrow and helplessness as he felt his friend’s, his peoples deaths in the aether. 

Sixty years he’d searched for this and the day he found it was the day his people had died…he was too far and too old to get there in less than three weeks. 

“Ladies forsaken bloody burning eyes,” he whispered quietly as his torch died.

[/size]
Make sure not to miss the interlude on Page 3 of the post!
Everything about Coruscant was bright, big and busy.  The lights all over the traffic and building prevented any true night from falling, the buildings taller than the mountains that had surrounded the valley, and the traffic, vehicles and people, never stopped.  

As he followed Yoda toward the Temple though he noticed just how dark the people were.  None of them seemed to have any real presence in the aether…or Force as Yoda called it.  They all seemed dim, blind, the odd one slightly brighter, but compared to even an Aethan child they were….nothing.  

Over the course of the trip Yoda had spoken at length about the Republic Coruscant and the Jedi.  In the spirit of reciprocity he had shared some information about Aethan culture and the Guardians, and his role as one…but only some.  He knew the Jedi were few in number and all force sensitive, he had thought this was much like Guardians, the strongest became Jedi.  But this was different, the Jedi were simply the ones awake to the force in a sea of billions dead to it.  

He could barely comprehend how such beings could live such empty lives, to be bereft of the sensation of the aether, the knowledge the information it brought…it must be like being blind, deaf and unable to feel touch.  Was this the Galaxy?

“The temple,” Yoda said as they came to an overlook, across the plaza was a square building with half completed towers on each corner, and a larger cylindrical one covered with scaffolding in the centre, “yet to be finished it is, but still enough to house the Jedi for now,”  

There he sensed the aether.
*********************************************************************************************
Inside the temple was vast, Yoda had first taken him for a medical check-up, he had no qualms about it, though found it odd, then through the busy hallways, full of students, brown robed knights and masters, workmen and other non-Jedi volunteers who helped the Temple run, to a small room which was to be his for his stay.
 
After being shown where the basic facilities were nearby Yoda took his leave to report to the council, leaving Valens alone in the room.  He had little choice but to come here, he could not achieve his goals trapped on Aethas.  But this was a strange and potentially dangerous place to be. He needed to learn the extent of the Jedis powers, and to do that quickly.  He had come this far, he had made his choices, at the altar, at the wedding, after the slaughter, it was too late to turn back now.  He had to keep going, it wasn’t about choice, or morality, it just was.

Entering into a deep meditation he project himself outward to listen to the force around him.  The thoughts of workers were the usual worries and concerns he had heard in farmers minds on Aethas, finishing work on time, their families….he moved to the trainees, padawans they called them.  He sifted through the minds, he needed to find humans, he would need far more practice to interpret alien cognition.

One struggled to master a force push, another hoped to catch the eye of a fellow padawan, and another bitter about the master they had been assigned to.  Then there it was, one padawan going over her masters teachings nearby, meditating on lessons, she was close to knighthood, connecting to the force, letting it guide her.

He pulled back from her mind, the longer he stayed the more risk he ran of being detected.  He tracked the girls’ aura to a small room two floors above his.  He knocked lightly on the door then darted back around the hall corner.
“just a minute”.  The door slid open to reveal a human girl, perhaps a year or two younger, black hair and blue eyes.  He felt a pang of loss, the blue ribbon wrapped around his arm beneath the utilitarian jump suit Yoda had given him reminding him of the necessity of what had to be done.  

She looked around for a moment then tried to use the force to sense anyone, masked in the force he felt the pressure of her mind sweep through as though he were not there.  As she turned to go back inside he struck, slipping into her mind he pulled her thoughts from her rendering her unconscious. Catching her as she fell back, he pressed the door closed.  He lay her on her bed and grasped her head in his hand.  

Pushing into her memories he began.
*********************************************************************************************
The scale of the Temple never ceased to amaze him.  He followed quietly behind the chief librarian, an old Cerean call Ha’Siri’Kum Yoda beside him.  

“And these are the restricted archives, he pointed to large metal doors on either side of the hallway past the main banks of glowing blue data slates a wooden desks  

“As yet most are empty as you will see,”  he had a dry voice, and a drier aura, he was a Jedi knight, but Valens could see his connection was marginal at best.  “As the transition to Jedi Temple continues we are gradually moving more volumes from our other libraries here, as well as various artefacts and sundry goods,” he droned as they entered one of the open vault rooms where a few half unpacked pallets of old manuscripts lay.  

“Much to be done before the Temple is complete,” Yoda said as Valens moved toward one of the books, follow a thin black thread in the force,

“Yes…we down here are unfortunately neglected, my assistant Mertis….” Yoda politely nodded as the Cerean blathered on, Valens ignored them drawn to the book, he flicked through the pages of esoteric script and strange diagrams, before finally arriving on a page with a drawing of a black altar….

“Ah yes” Kum said beside him, “an interesting specimen there, nearly a thousand years old that one, unfortunately the language is a mystery, it resembles a hybrid of post-Korriban Sith but with Aurebesh vowel indicators and other unique features”

“better perhaps its mystery remain so,” Yoda added, “much dark knowledge reside in such tomes, much dark power,”

“Knowledge is power Master Yoda,” Kum agreed,

“No…the precise and effective use of knowledge is what gives it power, without application to the real world knowledge has little value,” Valens added turning the page.
*********************************************************************************************
The Jedi Council sat in a simple round room, quiet with odd circular chairs, the ten councillors themselves a menagerie of aliens excepting one brown skinned human, Valens doubted they were really the same species, there was something off about the humans here, something different…a memory of the reason was on the edge of his mind but he couldn’t quite catch it.

“It is an unusual circumstance” the thoughtful Iivs Kimar a horned Ikotchi stated

“Without precedence it is not, many Baran-Do Sages now Jedi joined as adults,” Yoda noted, he stood beside Valens in the middle of the Jedi.  

“Yes….from your report I can certainly see the similarities in philosophy with your Guardians, but as I understand it your function was specific to your race?”  Kimar directed his question to Valens

“That’s true, but we also did not have any awareness of any other sentient species…and were on the brink of extinction for many years,” he replied carefully he had gained a workable understanding of each Masters personality from the Padawan Sofa’s memories.

“And you believe the Jedi path is merely an extension of your previous calling?”  Kimar pressed,

The trap was subtle, saying yes would imply he saw the Jedi as little more than another club, to say no would imply his previous ‘calling’ is not as in line with the Jedi as he had just proposed,
“I believe they stem, historically, from a common root, the Jedi are simply, larger, that is with greater size and knowledge the more correct form”,” he stumbled over his words “they serve they whole galaxy rather than just one species, and through the relationship with the Republic…a link to civilian authority that, in my culture wasn’t there.”  he kept his words jumbled  “Service to the Force as a whole binds the two philosophies.”,

“Well spoken,” Kimar sat back and pressed his thick fingers together, of all of the Master Kimar was trying the hardest to read him in the force.  Valens kept himself so deeply concealed to avoid their scrutiny that the next stage would be to use the Yalsam technique to create a void in the force.

“I propose that Master Soryu over see an examination and initial training regime, given your prior experience this should be largely refining what you already know I expect?” Kalim continued

Another subtle trap, “I am happy to commence as though I were any other novice, master” he added with all the sincerity he could,

“Indeed, the focus will be more on the nature of what it is to be a Jedi, and a citizen of the Republic, given your background you have much to learn,”

The Ikotchi clearly didn’t trust him, but could not find a way to turn him down, Valens simply bowed.

Not one but TWO excellent installments!  I love how you weave the interquel/interlude chapters into the main narrative.  The only problem is: now I'm vested in these peripheral characters as well  :D. The casual inner dialogue of Melton makes a perfect juxtaposition for Valens^^  Furthermore, Valen's duplicity at the Temple is understandable given what led him there.  Plus I am thinking "Once a Guardian, always a Guardian." And some good old fashioned revenge  ;)

You know LSG you should consider amalgamating your chapters for a book or graphic novel; it's that good  8)

Side thought: what mechanism triggered an entire species adept in the Force?  Secondly: such a high morality rate + a small population is a negative feedback system; with so many deaths, there would soon be a scarcity in genetic diversity.  Maybe the impetus for genetic recessive traits to reinforce and become the new norm?  Sorry, it is just that you posit a VERY interesting scenario my friend  :D. I can't wait to read more!

Until next installment friends  :)

Good question Dutchman...there is an answer coming, but from the canon the obvious one is force sensitive parents tend to have force sensitive children....but what kind of society would mandate such selective breeding and why?

Every moment was pain.

She hung naked, chained at the wrists, her toes barely touching the floor.  Her existence was a rough tapestry of blinding light, piercing jolts and alien voices.

Why would they buy her just to torture her?

“What is you name” the tattooed woman asked

Pain flashed across her body, her muscles seize and spasm, her chains cutting ever deeper in her wrists. Was this now, or before, or to come.

The white and red pain was filling her entire existence

“What is your name”

Was she hearing it?

The creature came in, or had come in, or was coming in, the triangular headed thing, the Quarren…it had no other name…maybe neither did she.  They were telling her things, things she needed to know, things someone else needed to know who shared her sense of hearing?

“What is your name”

They carried something, it was dark, not in the room, the room was too bright, not in herself, she was full of blazing red pain.  The thing was dark, it exuded darkness the way a star exuded heat.  The put it on her left arm, and undid the chain on that wrist. 

Needles jutted into her forearm, the dark thing was on her, and it was seeping into her.

“What is your name?”

There was a fight inside her, the red white pain against the seeping darkness, only one could win.  What was left of her, the thin blue ribbon of sanity observed with calm detachments as they fought.  But then they stopped fighting.

They mingled into a blood red, corrosive and coursing though her, it was pushing her out.  The breeze of the aether blew the blue ribbon away to rest on someone else.

“What is your name?” the tattoed woman asked again

“SEVRA” another voice screamed from her mouth.

Sevra gently twirled her claw around, ever fascinated by the sheen upon it that seemed to suck in the light.  The compartment was dim, the rattle of the hyper drive the only sound.  She and the Night-sister were silent.

“You will kill these men,” the Quarren had said handing her the holo flimsy, “you will then take their ship and fly it back to me,”  The orders were simple enough she figured.  Why she needed the Night-sister to escort her she had no idea. 

Those two, the Quarren and the Night-sister were the only people she knew, strange to think she would kill the next two people she met.  They had always been there those two, the Night Sister taught her, the Quarren gave her orders.  They had been simple at first, kill this animal, run across this, steal that without being found.  Again kill this bring them that.  Then there was the unending sparring with the Night sister, she would often wake to being beaten and had to fight back, he nights were spent mostly waiting for an attack, or practising with her rusted sword.

When she did sleep she dreamt of strange things, green places, tall mountains, places and people she had never seen yet felt she ought to know.  But they were boring.  Much more interesting were the various items about the Mansion, they seeped power, dark and delicious, like her claw.  She had once found a cabinet with an empty compartment that looked like her claw would fit there…but that made no sense she had always had it…hadn’t she.

She often wondered why the Quarren had so many object like that when he was so weak in the force, barely a light breeze compared to the black torrent of the night sister.  Yet she obeyed him, perhaps he had power she could not sense, the strong should serve the weak.

“We’re here,” the Night Sister said in raspy tone, like the Quarren she had no other name, the ship buckled as it touched down, the hatch popped open with the hiss of escaping gases.

The night sister proffered a Tremor sword, “Show no mercy,” Sevra took it and leapt out.

**************************************************************************************************
The hangars security was easy to crack compared to the locks in the Quarrens mansion she had been trained on.  Inside a simple cone shaped brown craft.  She crouched and deftly moved toward it, on the other side were a pair of feet by some crates that were being loaded in.

She crept silently along the length of the craft peering around its bulbous rear.  That was the first target, human male.  He was dressed in an odd brown robe.  She could feel him in the force as she approached, a little breeze that might one day make a true wind.  She readied her blade and drew near as he lifted another box.

A flash in the force, he had sensed he, he turned and stared at her.  Speed was of the essence.  Boosted by the force she surged forward sword tight against her but pointed out.  Before the box even dropped to the floor she embraced him, her sword plunging through his back, the gentle vibrations of the blade mingled with his dying tremors in a satisfying rhythm. 

As she pulled out she sensed danger behind her, the second target, a Mon Cal in a white robe looked stunned as he stood in the ships door way.  With practised ease a metal object flipped from his belt to his flipper hands.  A Snap-hiss birthed a blade of pure blue light.  She darted back but he was fast upon her, a swipe to her right nearly cut her at the shoulder, she pivoted to keep her left flank toward her opponent who was coming through the swing for another stroke.  The blue blade arced down and she put her claw dead in its path.

The blue blade hit, flickered, and died.  Kortosis she had heard the Quarren call it.  As if they could be any bigger the Mon Cal’s eye bulged in brief astonishment as she rounded and with deathly grace grasped his face with her claw.

She pulled.
**************************************************************************************************
The ships biometric locks only required the severed Mon Cals hand to unlock.  She had loaded the rest of the boxes and was now on her way back to Nar Shadda.

The artefacts she had been tasked to steal interested her.  Some were little more than worthless blobs of metal or wood, but some radiated with a power that was both compelling and repulsive.  There were weapons, armour, banners, strange books and devices whose use she could not fathom, much like the Quarrens other collections.  She wondered what he was doing with them all, he certainly didn’t seem to have the strength in the force to wield such things even if he knew what they were.

She toyed with the two cylindrical light swords she had taken off her quarries corpses.  She idly wondered how the Quarren would look with a blue blade through one eye and the green through the other.

Wow...   Total immersion into an alternate identity... 

I am totally egrossed in this story, my friend!  The style and pacing are excellent.
Going back to the interlude...  The crystal stasis field, left on a Sith altar?   So Valens isn't of the People?  Hmm.....
And he's able to fool a room full of Jedi Masters.  This guy has some serious Force-chops.

And now his wife is an Assassin...  Stealing Sith(?) artifacts ... from the Jedi.

When all this finally comes together it is going to be one major fur-ball! 

*makes some popcorn* 

:-)

What is your name?

Four seemingly simple words, yet delivered with absolute ruthless detachment.  Worse: the complete loss of IDENTITY.

This is what pathos reads like!  Another excellent chapter in your ever-expanding universe, LSG^^ 












Now I've got the mental image of lightsaber eye surgery  ::)

Karm and TD stated it perfectly. Such a powerful story, so full of goodness, yet so dark. I am extremely interested to see what happens to Sevra (cool name BTW). So excited for more.

Survival was everything.  The ravenous echoes of the Vorynx pulsed through his consciousness as he plunged his hand into the gaping wound.  Kill or be killed.  This was the law of the universe. 

Absolute simplicity in its demand, infinitely complex in its attainment.

There was only one left now, it stared at him, hid he dodge or charged…no time it was charging him.  He leapt up onto its back and with the aether empowering his hands dug them into its flesh piercing the tough hide.
His hand found a bone, or whatever equivalent this creature had, he pulled.  It did not come out cleanly blood surged out all over him as the hulking dirty yellow three legged beast finally collapsed.

Loping like a beast he jumped off and rounded on the beasts front and tore out the black slit that was its equivalent of an eye.  Standing triumphantly upon its corpse he looked across the blood stained sand littered with thirteen other corpses, his chest heaved with exhaustion in time with the roaring of the crowd. 

He lived, they died, simple.  How to make sure he lived and make them die, complex.
*****************************************************************************************
As he lay awake, his third different cell so far, each an improvement in terms of amenities as he killed more and more, they came for him. 

He no longer resisted in any meaningful way, on an alien world, in an alien culture where could he really run to.  He heeded the echoes of the Vorynx, to simply survive was the end in itself. 

They took him through the maintenance corridors, up to an armoured transport.  The trip was short to the opulent hangar, then through purple and white marble lined corridors, heavy with perfumes in the dim light, finally to a medium sized chamber where the air was filled with a greenish aromatic mist.  The guards here were different, arrayed in deep blue scaled armour and tight helms, unlike the ramshackle outfits of his previous captors, these were uniforms. 

Beyond the smoke was the figure of a Falleen, he thought that was the species, male, in thin but doubtless expensive silks

“Welcome,” the Falleen rose and approached him, “To your new home,” 

The revulsion Jarys felt as the creature touched his arms and back as if sizing him up for butchering sorely tempted him to snap its neck with a thought.  One day perhaps…

“My friend, they call you the beast of the arena,” the fallen circled him, “savage, untameable, a hunger for blood,” he came directly in front of him meeting Jarys gaze, “and eyes,”

Jarys didn’t move an inch.

“Now you’re mine.  I assure you I will treat you far better than the Hutt, and in return all I ask is you occasionally satiate your blood lust upon the arena floor, now”  he clapped his hands and from a side door various aliens, and a few humans wearing slave collars and little else came out to stand in a line. 

“I make sure none of my fighters are kept hungry in any of their appetites, choose whichever you please and they are yours,”

He looked over the blank faces, felt their helplessness, grey stagnant water of their aura broken by concession to their fate.  Toward the end of the row was a human girl with light almost silver hair, she could be no older than he was.  A pang of loss shot through him as he recalled those brief hours he had with Cilina…A tear mingled with the droplets on his face left by the perfumes and humidity.  He pointed straight at her.
*****************************************************************************************

His new accommodation was another step up, a clean light grey cell with a bed, refresher, platter of whole foods rather than just the nutrient pastes he had been used to.  The room didn’t even have bars or a window, doubtless more subtle monitoring devices were in use.

He sat on the bed beside the slave girl as she slept.  He had used the aether to put her to sleep soon after being left alone…he wondered what the guards watching would make of that.  He watched her as she slept, a part of him wanted to reach out and touch her…he had embraced the drive to survive, the drive to reproduce was close second…yet she was not his..Cilina was…he would never see his bride again.

In his reverie he barely noticed the approach of something in the aether, then the tapping on a grate near the ceiling. 

“You, hey you, kill-man-beast,”

He looked up to see a pair of large eyes peering down at him from behind the grate,

“You yes you, me Tiiko, Tiiko stop camera, Tiiko friend, Tiiko help kill-man-beast, kill-man-beast help Tiiko,”

Jarys tilted his head, there were no red waves of deception in the creature, only a sense of injustice, and a churning hate.

“And why should I listen to Tiiko, I don’t know who or what Tiiko is?” he replied standing to get a better look.

“Tiiko friend, Tiiko slave, Tiiko hate green master…Green master make Tiiko work, Tiiko make beautiful circuits, beautiful code for ugly green master,”

Again no deception, waves of passion, of dreams unfulfilled, of hate un-satiated.

“And what does Tiiko want me to do?”

“Tiiko see you on holonet, Tiiko see you stare at fat-brown-glooba thing, Tiiko help you kill him,”

“how?” he asked, now this was interesting

“Tiiko make beautiful code, beautiful machine, kill-man-beast use, shield on arena go down, you kill green master for Tiiko! Kill him dead, cut his eyes, smash his bones Kill kill kill, hehehehe” Tiiko giggled

“And then what,” 

Tiiko blinked, “Then what, what then what?  Green master dead, Tiiko happy, brown-fat-glooba dead kill-man-beast happy?”

“We don’t escape,”

Tiiko shuffled in the duct, “Nar Shadda no escape for slaves, catch Tiiko if Tiiko help kill-man-beast…but Green master dead, VERY dead hehehe.”

“If not freedom we can at least have revenge,” Jarys agreed, Tiiko made a strange squeal.

“Tiiko like, Tiiko like much!”
*****************************************************************************************

The upper arena, like his new cell was a cut above the old.  Here not only slaves competed, but also professionals.  There were less dregs in the audience, more private boxes and holo cams floating around, the lights were brighter, the stadium cleaner and the body count higher. 

He waited at his side of the arena for his opponent armed in a garish purple thin armour with an impractical scythe like weapon, gifts from his new master, Xixze.  He had visited him just before, enjoining him to stay safe, Xixze loved all his "friends"; and longed to see him win.  He had a sticky oleaginous presence in the aether that Jarys found repulsive, and seemed deranged enough to believe his slaves were his friends. 

On the holoscreen above he saw himself through the eyes of the camera bots, just below were the current odds, The Beast 3:1, Arym The Weeper 1.5:1. 

The metal door opposite hissed open, the weeper strode out.  Humanoid, with small horns crowing his head, the weepers name was obviously from the black ooze dripping from his eyes down his red tattooed face, armed with two sword Jarys could feel in the ripple of the aether this was a dangerous opponent.

As They circled each other as the nasal voiced announcer cried out the details of the match, proclaiming how it would be an event to remember, and most important get your bets in.  Jarys allowed himself to sink into a battle state, freeing the basic drives to survive, to fight, to kill, latent in all life forms.  This was how he survived, yet each time he plunged into this state it became harder to come back out of it, with each death he was becoming….it didn’t matter, he would survive.

Then came the word he was waiting for “Fight”.  Jarys and the weeper charged at each other.  His swords a whirl of death spinning about him.  As they neared the flow of time, the flow of the aether slowed in Jarys mind, the swords became visible rather than a blur, the movement predictable, patterned.

With a predators precision he saw weaknesses, saw the opening.  He swerved left dodging his opponents right blade, he dodged right into a crouch dodging the left blade, he swerved back dodging the right again as he did he loped the scythe round cutting the weeper off at the knees.

Jarys rose over the mewling creature, his fingers gouged into its eyes.

He lived they died.

Simple.

Simple.   *shudder*

That little word carries a lot of weight in this section.  Nicely done! :-)  It is good to know that Jarys still has a core of humanity left, to redeem.  When that is gone...

*sigh*

The character arcs are still descending.  I am admittedly anxious to see when (if?) they manage to pull out of the death spiral and finally begin to claw back up.

But however it goes, well done!  :-)

Descending in an interesting word...it implies some kind of 'higher' that is what, 'better', who makes that distinction??  Ha, just getting philosophical!

Anyway figured the best way of thanking you all for your comments was another chapter!

Also you made a good pick up re the altar...but is an altar a sith altar just because it is in a book the Jedi have labelled Sith?

Hmm....   I was going by the description - black and creepy...  But hey, it could be something else.  :-) 

As for "descending" character arcs...  What can I say?  I'm a Gray who follows the Light...  ;-)

Oh YES PLEASE!

Fantastic, just incredible.  Each description is visceral, the ambiance: deadly, unforgiving.  And yet, Jarys "surviving" may not be what he needs to live.  But that's another story  ;)

Keep them coming LSG!  These are so enjoyable (I feel as if I'm getting my G.R.R.M. fix again  ;D)

Hi guys, just on the half way point through the story.  Been/will be a bit tied up at work but will get into some Hide/Seek and Tarnished Knight when I can. Anway here is one I prepared earlier...a bit more contemplative...and the last major character to be introduced.

Also in the interim would love to hear any feedback re: who would you like to see more/less of, any themes or bits I've done well or could do better at, types of scenes that you'd like more or less of?
Thanks


The living force was strong in the under levels of the temple.  Most of the new Temples construction was only occurring on the outer shell, with re-enforcing works and access tunnels the only internal change this far down in the multilayered structure.

The Council at the time, some 50 years ago had locked off some of the structures beneath the new main temple very deliberately, Soryu couldn’t see why really, there way so much energy and life down here.  He had taken both his Padawans down here often to feel the flow not just the energies of the temple, but of all Coruscant, the living force from every being on the planet seemed to flow through here in some way.  And for that reason he had brought the aspirant Valens down here.

Valens was the most unusual and exciting student he had seen in 20 years as a master.  He had spoken to Yoda at length about him before Yoda had departed on an assignment to Boz Pity.  Physically he was more than capable, but it was his connection to the force that amazed Soryu.  As he watched him leap through a Padawan training course, over beams, through small tunnels, red track markers beeping green as he passed them in time, he could feel how naturally the force flowed through him. 

For most Jedi, even Soryu himself, he felt more like a funnel, channelling the living force by pressing it into the shape he desired, by for this Valens and very rare others, they were more like an ancient sailing ship, they used forces natural winds and tides without having to try and change them.  To truly be in sync with the living force like that was what Soryu aspired to, not for power, but to live more fully as one with all life.

Valens raced down the final stretched, then did a small leapt before placing foot after foot on the thin pillars separated by half a metre and barely wide enough for one foot, off the last one he did a roll through the low red marker, it switched green with an affirmative ding.

Soryu checked his chrono - 3 minutes 12 seconds, it wasn’t a record, but it was in the top ten, for a first attempt it was exceptional.  Valens walked over his breathing slowing, his presence in the force slowly retreating back.  That was the other thing Soryu thought fascinating, how distant Valens felt in the force, making him near impossible to read.  He couldn’t be sure if it was intentional or natural.  There was so much about the force no one knew, so much this young man could teach.

“Well done”

“Thank you Soryu,”

“please sit, have a drink,” he offered a bottle of water, “So what do think of this place,”

Valens looked unsure, “The temple or the planet or….”

“Oh,” Soryu chucked, he forgot how new all this was to Valens, “This room below the temple,”

“Oh…its different down here, the aether feels freer, brighter,”

“how so?” Soryu questioned, noting his use of that word, Aether,

“Well above…its bright but mingled with the lights of the Jedi and other people, their thoughts…here…there are beams coming from…well everywhere, above, outside…and especially below…but none are as distinct, they meld into a single glow better…the further you are from two lights the more they combine…if that makes sense…” he replied in an uncertain manner

“It does it does, on Jedda it is similar, outside the cities, away from the temples the force that flows through them is less distinct, but combines in the background to be a more pure flow of the force,”

Valens nodded, “Yes on Aethas, we go to the mountains for the same reason…through distance you’re not, I guess separating yourself so much as seeing the aether as a whole better,”

“Ah truly, truly, I would very much like to visit your world…Yoda’s descriptions were fascinating,”  Soryu checked himself, he needed to get back on to the examinations, much though he wanted to discuss these things in more depth. 

“When the code says there is no emotion there is serenity, what does that mean,” he changed the subject abruptly
“I though it read there is no emotion there is peace, and there is no passion there is serenity, or do I have it wrong,”
Soryu was slightly knocked off course by that, Valens was right, the similarity of the two lines often went unnoticed by apprentices when probed,

“You are correct,” he repositioned, “What do you think the difference is,”

Valens brow furrowed, “hmm…well emotion is an intrinsic biological reality for most species, but it is different across species and for individual situations…but what unites these differences is peace, that is the backdrop upon which emotions are the difference…like…peace is a kind of lake, an emotion might ripple it like a rock thrown in,”  He looked up and around the room, Soryu felt him open more to the force, “to recognise this, to acknowledge yes our biology leads to emotions, but peace underlies it, and can be returned to that is its teaching….it is not that you don’t feel emotions,, but you make the effort to revert to that peace,”

It was a slightly clumsy explanation…but it was accurate and better than either of his own Padawans had given, “and passion,” he pressed on

“Passion…is more of a choice, it is a desire, a drive for something I guess, but ultimately all of us die, all ends in the force…that is the serenity, to check your passions, do they ultimately all flow with the force to which all things truly move towards…perhaps it’s also about needs and wants, a passion reflects a want, but the need, for all life is the force that sustains it, and the force doesn’t have a passion to create life, it is the serenity that underlies life,”

Soryu nodded and couldn’t conceal his smile, the answer was again jumbled, but for someone who had only known about the Jedi even existing for about three months it was exceptional insight.  What he lacked in eloquence he made up for in understanding.
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Soryu found it hard to meditate in his chamber on the upper level…he wished there were a mountain like Valens had described…but he knew he had to meditate in all environments, the force was the force, he had to adapt to its variations, his preference wasn’t what mattered.

The particular issue this time was the lingering emotions of the room next to his, Yoda’s.

Yoda had not been happy as he left, he had wished to continue his operations against the Hutt slavers, but following a meeting between a group of Senators and the Council they had put a stop to those operations.  Kimar had then reassigned Yoda in front of the council rather than just catching up with him in the halls.

There was no love lost between those two, they had two very different approaches to what it meant to be a Jedi, for Kimar it meant adherence to the code and obedience to the Republic, for Yoda it meant compassion and following the force even when it diverged from what was politically expedient or in keeping with the letter of the code.  and Soryu suspected Kimar reluctance to even consider Valens for Jedi training was more due to his antipathy toward Yoda than anything else…though the argument that he was so much older and inducted in another tradition was strong.

There was also the issue of membership of the council, for most Yoda was an obvious choice, but Kimar and his supporters kept putting off the vote to increase the council from 10 to twelve which would allow Yoda and another to join.  Soryu had been on the council five years now and didn’t like the factionalism that he had seen growing.

There is no passion there is serenity…these things didn’t matter, the life of the force flowed still even here. 

He turned his thoughts to the examinations of Valens…there was such a natural flow of the force around him, such sincerity to learn and follow the living force, so much to be learnt on both sides…and focused on his memory of Valens reciting the code earlier that day…the rhythm of the words as they passed his lips whilst he floated various weights with the force, his eyes closed, a smirk on his face…

What…a smirk, that hadn’t been there had it, he couldn’t recall it, surely he would’ve noticed it at the time…he focused on the image in his mind again, it was gone…strange…perhaps he was simply confusing some other thoughts.

He shook his head…too unfocused, even a Jedi master found it hard to meditate sometimes.
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Soryu rubbed his chin, the small stubble there the only hair on his head anymore!
Valens and a Togruta padawans sparred in front of him as part of a training competition, eleven padawans and Valens faced offed against each other, each in turn in two rounds, first to three points, each hit was one point, two for the torso, three if knocked of their feet. 

So far Valens had lost all his matches…and he was losing this one too…Soryu shouldn’t have been surprised, but still it seemed odd to him, from what Yoda said he had been trained as a warrior…but given the situation Yoda had gleaned about his home world, Aethas, there weren’t many people to train with. 

Valens made clumsy upper slash with his training blade, the Togruta pivoted in a low spin and knocked his feet from under him, a full three points, he was out.

As Valens dusted off he went up to him,
“Ah don’t worry Valens, remember they’ve been doing this for years, want to sit out the next rounds?” he didn’t want him to become too dispirited
“That’s OK Soryu, I’ll keep going,” Soryu clapped him on the back appreciating his tenacity, another good Jedi trait.

The next round began, Valens facing a Duro who had pierced him twice in the torso before.  The beep sounded and the six matches began.  The Duro came in hard aiming the tip of his blade right at Valens like he had before, Valens looked uneven on his feet, the Duro stabber forward, Valens clumsily batted it aside and then…suddenly spun into a crouch sweeping the Duros feet from under him…full three points.

Soryu might have put it down as fluke, except Valens won every single match from then on winning the round 11-0.

After it was finished and happy handshakes exchanged Soryu went up to him,

“Quite an improvement,” he said,

“In battle,” Valens said suddenly very serious, “You don’t often get an opportunity to study your opponent thoroughly, this time I did,”

Soryu clicked, “The first round you were just studying them….just your opponent or,”

“No all of them at once of course…I only have two eyes and two ears, but within the aether…there are no limits,”

Soryu stared at him…the realisation dawned on him, it had been growing in the back of his mind without him even noticing it, now it broke through…Valens didn’t need the Jedi, the Jedi needed him.

Wow. Just wow. This was fantastic. I love how after only three months of being with the Jedi, Soryu is already seeing how little he knows, and how much Valens can teach them. I also love how nobody seems to know how to react to Valens. He is so much more powerful than them all, and he knows it, and so do they. But still, they try to teach him whatever they can, but still hoping to learn more from him than they know they can teach him. Very well written, and definitely interesting.

As to feedback on particular things I like, I am definitely liking Soryu. Valens and Jarys are just all around awesome characters with so much depth, and we still know so little about them. I definitely want to see more with them. But I also don't want to see you neglect Shilea/Sevra. She has an important arc as well, and I really want to know more about her alternate personality thing, and how that happened. Cilina too. I still have no idea what happened to her. Themes I have liked of yours are the power of the Aether and the Aethans more than that of the Force. How they don't deny their emotions, but still don't let them control their actions. Training scenes have always been something that I have loved. Episodes of shows where they are centered on someones training, or where they learn something, are always great for character growth, and that is something that I will never get tired of seeing. Like these last few scenes with Valens training in the Temple, they are wonderful. Right now, I can't think of anything that you are not doing well, but if I do think of something, I'll be sure to let you know.

(BTW, Karm and TD's stories have been amazing lately. Lots of nice twists.) Don't worry about us, we'll be here waiting for the next chapter once you have a little more time on your hands.

Excellent chapter LSG.  I feel that Valens (both his approach to the Force as well as his opponents) represents what's wrong with the Jedi: they tend to forget or outright ignore that which does not fit into their ideology.  That is one of the key facets to your narrative that is so enjoyable (and exciting): Force users making use of, while ALSO being aware of, their environment(s).  Taking the time to know his opponent, free of ego and judgment of others, Valens makes the most of the contest.  No wonder Soryu is amazed.  Still: even an old dog can learn new tricks  ;)

My favorites (and I am in complete agreement with TR  ;)): Valens, Jarys, Shilea/Sevra for the main.  I have to give a personal favorite though for that oily snake-oil salesman Lyr'Ca'Njo  :D

As far as less?  LSG, I wouldn't presume to tell you that, especially in your own narrative  :)  Besides, the outlier characters help to flesh out the story, even if it's "only" peripheral  ;D

Thanks for the endorsement TR  8)

Let me echo: This was a great chapter.  Soryu is a nice addition, someone we can view the coming clashes through as a Jedi point of view without compromising the Canon character of Yoda.  Nicely done!  :-)  I am also very much liking the way Soryu is waking up to just what he doesn't know.  The arrogance of the Jedi is something that was hinted at in the prequal trilogy, something that frankly I think Lucas neglected or at the least did not develop properly (I was very disappointed in the prequal trilogy for its lack of character-development all around, but I digress...) and I like the way you're pulling that in here.  The Jedi have forgotten what they DON'T know, and they tend to think of themselves as the pinnacle of power in the force.  Someone like Valens or the other Aethans, who are much more purely force-sensitives in the first place, are naturally far more powerful in the force.  I suspect that Valens would, even partially trained, mop the floor with most of the Jedi Knights around him, and even some of the Masters.  He's not a Jedi, but he's POWERFUL...

And he's already well trained in the use of the force.  Something I think Soryu is only beginning to appreciate.

Overall, sir, I have little to critique.  What I am really enjoying in this story so far is the deep character development you're building into this.  I am drawn along by the depth of these people.  They feel "real" in the sense that they're acting and reacting to the things that are happening the way exceptional but flawed people would react.  These are not ideals or characatures.  They're viscerally real.  I love that.  :-)

I do hope that some of these disparate threads start to merge soon, but if you're about half-way then I am confident that is going to happen.  :-)  I will await this with as much patience as I can muster! 

TR: Thank you!  Thanks for reading and sticking with it!  :-)  Being able to share with others who are enjoying the experience makes it worth while! 

Thanks Everyone.  I really appreciate your feedback and opinions, I want to be able to bring you guys the best I can while staying true to my overarching story.  Really glad Soryu went well, he was the last character I added in, I was concerned it would add too many different view point characters, but as Karmack noted there is only so much I can do with Yoda, and as you all noted it gives an alternate insight into the Jedi.

As to some of your specific questions….
TR yes we will find out what happened to Cilina,
Karmack – yes they will be brought together fairly soon….

The Quarrens mansion was one of the more isolated on Nar Shadda, jutting on a rocky outcrop that hadn’t been completely levelled for buildings.  It had a dark history, it was said to have been the site of some kind of sacrificial cult to a Hutt deity centuries ago.  Likely why the Quarren bought it.

He had been waiting in the audience room nearly an hour, with nothing to look at but the copious antiques the Quarren had collected.  They all had a nauseatingly brutal look to them, no doubt to intimidate guests.  The rumours about the Quarren were varied but consistent on one point he had a penchant for the esoteric.  The strange symbols filling the tapestries, if nothing else, confirmed this for Lyr. 

He finally entered flanked by the night sister Lyr had seen before and another woman, much younger with short cropped hair, yellow eyes and pale skin, dark ornate armour and a metallic claw covering her left arm.  Lyr was sure he had seen her before but couldn’t quite remember where.

The Quarren dressed in absurdly intricate black lace robes made a short bow, “Welcome to my domain,”

“It is my pleasure to be here, The Beauteous Myzm the Hutt extends his greetings and wishes to advise he has approved our…partnership in full and advises that all resources are in readiness for you to begin operations at your leisure,”

“This pleases me greatly, extend my thanks to your master.  Inform him I will be in contact very soon,”

Lyr bowed carefully, “My master also extends as a token of friendship a fully catered suite at both the High Arena and Grand Races,”

“My thanks again, may the darkness keep you” the Quarren replied observing all the courtesies, “I will be sure to partake of you masters generosity.” With that he turned and left.

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It took four slaves at once to properly bathe Myzm, watching them scrape and moisturise the underside of a Hutt was not a spectacle Lyr especially enjoyed, no matter how ‘Beauteous’ Myzm was. Nonetheless Lyr found it to be the best time to raise difficult issues with his master as he was already relaxed.

“It’s a lot of Hoomas in one pouch….” Lyr continued,

“hrmmm, no risk no reward,” Myzm grumbled

The deal with the Quarren left them exposed, he had paid a 1 million credit deposit, but instalments would come only after each of the operations he had planned, pirate runs basically.  Until then they had a 6 million credit exposure.

“Perhaps but he is not really known for operations like this, a 7 million total spread would make sense for one of the Vigos or Hutts, but an antique collector?”

“He wants to collect more antiques from people who don’t want to sell, so what,” Myzm blinked slowly at him “You’re not usually so cautious Lyr,”

True he wasn’t, but something about the Quarren unnerved him, all his weird antiques, bizarre outfits.

“Let’s say I have a bad feeling about this, the kind of antiques he deals in attract some very dangerous people,”

“Bah so what, worse comes to worse we sell him out to them!  We’re just arranging the Mandolorians and mercs.  I’m not worried after all Lyr you’ll be right there to personally make sure those Hoomas pupate! You’re going on their first raiding trip – arranged it myself!” Myzm’s wet smile spread across his face.

Lyrs eyes nearly exploded, he swallowed hard and tried to keep his face from shattering.
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Mandolorians were a tough practical people, always in armour, no frills interiors for their craft.  Lyr hated it.  He had been stuck on the bucket heads ship for three days along the Braxant run waiting to ambush a ship out of Dubrillion.  It was a ship designed for boarding actions, heavily armoured with multiple assault ports and ion weapons to disable ships.  It was tight and uncomfortable with 20 smelly armoured Mando’s who only seemed to talk in Mando’a and spent all their time pummelling each other for ‘training’.  He felt soiled, Rshi would have her work cut out for her bathing him when he got back.

There were five ships, four boarding ships and the larger carrier, along with a gravity wave emitter to catch ships out of hyperspace.  Spies Lyr had arranged on Dubrillion through Rgnal had advised the departure time of the ship they were after, carrying a shipment of antiques for some private vault to Coruscant, it was just a matter of time.

Worse still the Quarren had sent his metal clawed vixen and witch along with them to ‘oversee’ things and ensure the ‘sacred relics’ were genuine.  He elt sick any time he was too near them, like they exuded bile. 

Shouts in Mando’a started to echo through the ship, he felt the ship exit out of its orbit around a small moon and start to move.  Suddenly the small central compartment was filled with armoured Mandos checking weapons, tightening armour straps while the witch and the vixen looked on impassively.

There was a stillness, then a sudden crash as they forcibly docked.  A hazard stripped door on the left of the compartment suddenly lit up with red blinking lights, the Mandos expectantly lined up in front of it, Lyr stood as far as he could to the other side.

The lights flashed white and it was on, the front two Mandos fired toxic smoke grenades then charged forward followed by two more.  He heard the clatter of close quarters fighting, then a strange humming sound. 

The other Mandos started to look at each other, clearly passing some comment across their private com link.  The Witch and Vixen suddenly went on edge drawing their weapons.  Then Lyr saw it, through the smoke two bright long lights, one yellow one blue.  Lightsabers.  That insane Quarren sleemo had set them against Jedi.  This was bad for business.

The Mandos opened fire, but their red bolts were quickly hit back, Lyr crouched for safety as they switched to close quarters weapons, he could hear the shouts in Mando’a through their helmet. The lightsabres were getting closer. The blinding flash and piercing shriek of stun grenades disoriented him, his vision blurred, but just enough remained to make out the silhouette of the Vixen pushing the armoured Mando’s aside and charging toward the two lights, her dark sword and claw an almost poetic foil for their light. 

As his hearing returned to normal the hums of sweeping sabres intensified, the Mandos had stopped firing, the yellow light vanished, a panicked shriek, then the blue.
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The Mandolorians dutifully carried the last of the twelve crates onto the carrier.  Of their contents Lyr was unimpressed, old knickknacks and books, most probably fake, the kind you could find at a hundred dealers in the mid-levels of Nar Shadda. 

This was a poor return for raising the Jedi’s ire.  They had sent a distress call indicating a hyper drive malfunction then scuttled the ship into the nearby gas giant, but Lyr had no illusions this would fool the Jedi when they came looking.

His annoyance gave him the courage to walk up to the witch, who was staring at a black fist sized orb the same way Lyr would stare at Rshi when he had her dance. Crazy witch.

“Are you insane! Ambushing and killing Jedi, do you have any idea what will happen if they find out!  Your master has a lot to answer for!”

Her raspy voice came back, “Silence, you’ve been paid, do not disturb me again,”

He wanted to come back at her, but one look at the witch, and the vixen toying with the lightsabres made him think twice.  They were contracted for six more raids like this one…no doubt on other Jedi targets.  Lyr didn’t know much about the Jedi other than this, Jedi attention was bad for business, bad for Myzm…and most importantly bad for Lyr.

It was going to be a long trip.

Yoda watched on as Soryu, a seasoned master and arguably the best swordsman in the Order sparred with Valens.  Whilst Yoda had been off world attending other duties for nearly four months, Valens had been training with Soryu.  He had passed every trial, and shown a deep understanding of the Jedi.  “As if he’s been a padawan all his life” Soryu had commented.

The Force had brought them together for a reason, and Yoda felt a strong pull to follow the path.  As Valens matched the older human blow for blow he though back to his conversation with Kougal, the Gotal Chief Medical Officer of the order regarding Valens medical examination results.

“He is of the human genus but with modification”

“unusual for an isolated population this is not” Yoda had replied

“no, you’re quite right but this…this isn’t just evolutionary change, there is certainly that, his lungs, muscles and immune system show signs of having adapted to survive in very harsh conditions…but there is also intentional modification’ 

“cloning?”

“no…genetic editing…I’ve seen it before in humans and other species amongst the wealthy who design children to avoid genetic illness, but not on this scale…”

“the purpose of these modifications” 

“Honestly, it is hard to tell where the modification starts and ends…he was designed by someone, that much is clear more than that I don’t know”

He would have asked Kougal to investigate further, but at present he was busy with the coma patients.  Over the last few months five humans, with no other commonality or interaction had all been found in deep comas, first a female Padawan Sofa Neirai, followed by a senior maintenance technician, then Rys Hora a retired Corellian pilot who trained Padwans, Mestri Kiba a senior librarian and then Doctor Yrish Bm’Ka who wasn’t even working on the coma patients.  It was highly troubling they still hadn’t worked out the cause, though Sofa showed signs of recovery.

It was not unusual either for a whole species to be force sensitive, but he had never heard of it in a human population, let alone to the level Valens descriptions, and actions, seemed to imply. And Valens world, Aethas, showed absolutely no signs of any technology remotely that advanced, the ruins Yoda had flown over were centuries old at least.

Valens leapt in a graceful flip over Soryu’s head, Soryu turned to drive into Valens as he landed behind him, but Soryus slash met only open air.  Soryu paused then dropped his sword.  Yoda turned his attention back to the fight to see Valens levitating fixed in the air above Soryu, his practice sword against the wide eyed Soryu’s throat.

********************************************************************************************************
“This latest attack has forced us to step up our timetable,” Kimar began as the briefing following the attack along the Braxant Run began. “Whilst it is possible this was simply a random pirate attack, the fact two Jedi were killed and three other teams are overdue to report in suggests against it,”

“To that end we will reassign thirty Jedi to the Archives Project,”

As the temple was completed the Council had decided to move numerous Jedi, Sith and other Artefacts and books from depositories in various Jedi facilities to the temple, in as clandestine fashion as possible to avoid unwanted attention from black market traders and dark side cultists.

Kimar listed off the masters and knights present and their new assignments,

“Yoda, you will finalise his list of purchases,” Yoda nodded and stepped forward to take the data pad.  A secondary part of the Archives project was the purchase of various Sith artefacts and manuscripts held by private collectors across the galaxy.  It had taken months of work, but with the assistance of auction houses and a substantial contribution from the Republic, nearly 500 items had been located and negotiations to purchase them had begun.  Though costly, credits were a small price to pay for removing some of these objects from circulation.

“I note your foundling has made surprisingly good progress,” Kimar added, “Soryu waxes lyrical about it, ‘as if he was born a Jedi’ he says’,” with Kimar there was always a caveat, often very subtle, “Do you intend to take him as an apprentice Master Yoda,”

“Intend to follow the will of the Force wherever it leads I do,”  Yoda replied, he was not overly fond of Kimar, few people were, none doubted his wisdom, but he lacked flexibility in his interpretation of the Jedi code, and had none of the reassuring humour and friendliness of other masters.  “Perhaps on this assignment I might take him, to observe, with your permission,” Yoda continued

“hrmph, very well,” Kimar turned and continued the briefings
********************************************************************************************************
A green glow suffused the cabin, the force flowed naturally from the crystal to the owner.  Yoda made a few short practice swings, nodded approvingly and handed it back to Valens.

He had passed all of Soryu’s trials and been approved, very grudgingly it must be said by Kimar, to be inducted as a full Padawan.  Yoda was amazed when he had spoken to Soryu of just how difficult he had made the various tests, by he was more amazed still by how Valens had performed.  “Sometimes I swear it’s as if he’s done it before, like he knows what’s coming” Soryu had said.

“Fine blade it is, different to your former weapons to wield,” Yoda asked

“I’m getting used to it, much less weight,” Valens replied, he was competent speaking on technical or conceptual matters, but fumbled on small talk.

“But Soryu is a good teacher….I wanted to thank you for, taking me away from there…not that I don’t like the temple I mean bringing we with you on this trip,”

“Welcome you are,” and Yoda meant it, he felt he could learn much from Valens, not just techniques in the force, but also more generally from his different perspective.  Over recent years Yoda had begun to worry the Jedi were becoming too inwardly focused, too dogmatic, a new perspective would benefit all Jedi.

“Understand do you, why Jedi a Lightsabre carry,” he queried

“Well, basically because although devoted to peace and compassion, there are those that a Jedi might come across who are, incapable, or completely unwillingly to reason peacefully…it’s for self-defence in those situations as well as defending those who cannot protect themselves….” He paused

“On Aethas, people would avoid Vorynx territory, predators that use the aeth…Force to hunt, but sometimes there would be too many born in a season and they would hunt people…Guardians would have to cull them, because you can’t reason with them, they breed beyond the resources that nature can provide for them….it’s not about using violence for spite, it was, keeping that balance.”

Yoda nodded, appreciating the further insight into Valens culture, the example was not perfect but it was closer than the majority of Padawans would give.

“And if know you do an attack will come on your people, pre-emptively hunt them?”  Yoda searched, Valens morality was hard to determine, he said the right things, Soryu affirmed this but Yoda was not fully convinced.

“You can’t perfectly predict anything…but if it’s been a warm summer with plenty of…” he stopped himself, “but then this isn’t about that situation…its more general, you want to know if I think you can extend concepts of defence to include a pre-emptive strike against a potential threat….”

Yoda had known some Padawans to pick up on this, but again not many

“on a purely pragmatic perspective one would, but by that stage you’ve already failed on a deeper level,” Valens shifted in his seat

He hadn’t really answered the question by using a caveat of pure pragmatism, and was shifting the conversation away, but perhaps this wasn’t intentional, Yoda probed further

“Failed in what way?”

“Failed in that you are in a position to be threatened, either you have left yourself too weak, or allowed another to become too strong…a better path is to avoid that situation, maintain a position of strength that acts as a deterrent,” he held up his sabre, “everyone knows a Jedi carries a lightsabre, and knows how to wield it, that knowledge is itself the pre-emptive strike, and avoids more conflicts than it creates, perhaps that is another reason we carry them,”

Yoda nodded grimly.  He understood, almost too well.

To quote the warrior-poets James and Lars: "To secure peace is to prepare for war."  I am sure that Valens would agree, well at least as an axiom.  I like how Yoda recognizes that the "Jedi morality" of the Republic is (erroneously) applied to Valens and his culture.  After all: it's "human nature" to quantify things, especially that which it doesn't fully understand.  Sorry, I'm not trying to get philosophical; LSG, this is another fantastic installment^^  IMO, THIS is the way one should write "gritty" SW stories.  Oh, and Soryu as a Yoda proxy is PERFECT: an unadulterated look through the eyes of a period Jedi Master that both acts as audience surrogate AND a barometer for prevailing thought at the Temple...but NOT (thankfully) reflective of Grand Master Kimar.

Yes!  Always a pleasure reading my "guilty favorite" Lyr  :D. Again: THIS is the way to write a likable antagonist!  And--as promised--were seeing more characters colliding; hmm, "When Lyr Met Sevra"  ;D

OMG the mental visual of Myzm--actually, ANY Hutt--getting a sponge bath...brain bleach please  :D

I finally remembered!  Have you (any of you, my friends  :)) read Joe Haldeman?  Well one of his Short Stories reads (to me) exactly like LSG's writing! I mean that as a compliment  :D

Until next installment friends  :)

“Welcome you are,” and Yoda meant it, he felt he could learn much from Valens, not just techniques in the force, but also more generally from his different perspective.  Over recent years Yoda had begun to worry the Jedi were becoming too inwardly focused, too dogmatic, a new perspective would benefit all Jedi.

I love this.  We see some of this in the prequel trilogy, Yoda worried about the ossification of the Jedi code and attitudes.  Apparently he wasn't successful in reforming his fellow Jedi enough to stop the rot.  :-) 

These are great installments!  I have to echo TD, the Lyr character is fun and you write him well.  He's a nice addition, thank you! 
Also agree on the whole Hutt sponge bath thing ... *shudder*  Though the idea of a Hutt obsessive about being clean and presentable is intriguing!  :-)

Looking forward to the next installment! 

So far things had progressed well. Over the course of the last two months they had journeyed to eight different worlds collecting various objects from collectors.

The wealth on display at some of the mansions and apartments had been galling, to be paying them for a few of their ‘trinkets’ did not sit well with Yoda, these were people who did not need the credits.

Worse still not all the items were genuine, some Yoda could sense in the force as soon as he came near a building, others were simply counterfeits, or old relics with no inherent powers.  Nonetheless the Jedi had to honour the agreements they had made.

Valens had done well, he showed a great interest in learning about each world, their histories and culture.  He had also proved himself well suited to the task, one object a wooden statue of a robed warrior Yoda had thought devoid of any worth, until back on the ship Valens had shown him how wrong he was. 

“Don’t try to sense from the object, rather sense the effect it has on things around it. An objects power is about how it affects other things, not in the thing itself,”

Yoda closed his eyes and focused on the space around the object, a difficult thing to do to focus on the emptiness, but after a few minutes he could sense it, a dark swirling jigsaw like pattern about the statue, as though it fitted somewhere, a small part of something much bigger. Neither of them could guess what, but Yoda hoped whatever this object was, it was never fitted back into its intended place.
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Zuum was one of the friendliest Jedi Yoda had ever met, a blue Chagrian with a huge smile and welcoming presence.  They had rendezvoused on Telos and would proceed further along the Hydian way to the Corporate sector where most of the contacts on Yoda’s list were located.  To keep things low key they both flew small ships, Zuum would return with the first load to Coruscant once his was full, Yoda with the second lot. 

With the recent attacks they were trying hard not to attract attention, they wore plain clothes in the space port, they saved their robes for the actual transactions.

“Well met friends” Zuum beamed, “How goes the hunt,”

“Pleased to meet you Knight Zuum, well it goes, my apprentice, Padawan Valens this is,” Valens gave him an oddly blank side look at the title.

Zuum clapped his hand on Valens shoulder, “Strapping lad, good Jedi this one’ll be I can tell, hungry!” Zumm turned round and produced three bowls of an oddly off smelling stew,

“Made it myself just for you,” Yoda graciously accepted but couldn’t keep his nose from scrunching as the smell got closer,

“My own secret spice! Ah it’s wonderful to meet new Jedi, often heard my own Master Rorshn speak of you Master Yoda, glad to finally meet you !”  He ushered them to some crates beside his clean lined Hapan light freighter.

Yoda tasted the stew, it was not…terrible.

“Much success have you had,”  he inquired

“Ah yes, to business,  Sunnia’s half full already, yours,”

Yoda looked back to his LN-2, “Few objects, mostly small so far they have been,”

“Ah well I expect we’ll find lots on Bonadan, you know I…”

He stopped, they all sensed it, danger.

Valens shifted, Zuum gently lowered his half eaten stew, Yoda held his bowl tightly.  Then it began. 

As the first red bolt screamed toward them Yoda jumped, spinning around he threw the bowl behind him hitting a helmeted figured in the face plate…what a waste, Yoda mused.  Mandolorians.

In the same instant Zuums blue blade deflected the shot, but more came. Valens leapt from the crate and up…and up, onto the top of Sunnia.  Yoda ignited his blade in his right hand deflecting the blaster bolts whilst sending back two, three, four grenades to their owners.  Behind him Zuum was working his way forward, Yoda could sense five nearby three in front of him, two behind…there must be…Then he saw it coming in above him, three drones overhead speeding toward them crackling with electro nets and equipped with gas canisters. 

As he prepared to leap at them before they could unleash their pay load a flying green lightsabre sliced through them with precision that Yoda would’ve struggled to match,

Then he heard it, not just heard, felt.  The crackle, the metal taste in the air, the dark pool at the back of his mind as Sith lightning was unleashed. 

From the top of the Sunnia Valens stood with hands outstretched to either side of him unleashing torrents of lightning at either group of Mandolorians.  Before Yoda could say anything he felt their lives snuff out and the smell of charred flesh smoke out from beneath the armour.
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Zuum stared wide eyed, Yoda intently.  Valens looked down at his feet before them.  The authorities had taken away the bodies and were investigating, Yoda had informed the Council, if not before, it was clear now the attacks on the Archives Project were co-ordinated. 

But with Valens he had a larger problem.

He knew Valens had been trained in very different circumstances, but to unleash such lightning so quickly, and so powerfully on command….  Yoda had not seen that kind of power used for many years, when he had it was rarely strong enough to kill instantly.

“To avoid the temptations of the dark side, such techniques, avoid we must,”

Though his face was down cast, he knew Valens was unconvinced,

“Though…” Yoda struggled for words and composure, “effective, risk too great it is.  Understand I do, when threatened revert to your…” he didn’t want to say old and imply it was outdated or wrong…”previous training, but in the future control exercise you must,” 

Valens raised his head slightly, “My apologies master, I didn’t think…I thought…well…everyone could, and did….”

Yoda laid reassuring hand on his shoulder, “Alright it is, unexpected to me this was…” he thought for a moment “To learn to channel such power in other ways, this your greatest challenge in becoming a Jedi will be,”

He looked slightly less uncomfortable, “I will do as you say Master,” he replied, then looked to Zuum.

Zuum was expressionless for a moment, then beamed “What did I tell you, a good Jedi this one.  Ah what a fight eh, lets get some stew!”

Yoda pursed his lips at the thought of more stew, but smiled and followed Zuum into the Sunnia.

Wow.  What a fight indeed!

I like Yoda's reaction to the force lightning.  It is so .... Jedi!  :-)  And its intresting, Yoda himself was thinking how ossified and stagnant the Jedi ways had become, but his instinctive reaction to Valen's using the lightning is to tell him to stop, that it is a conduit to the Dark Side.  And in all honesty, the proverb springs to mind: Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

So in that sense Yoda is right - having access to that kind of power requires equally powerful self-control.  The phrase I have always liked better, though, is a rip-off from Stan Lee.  With great power comes great responsibility.

Valens has a great responsibility. And now, so does Yoda...

Hmm.

No wonder he was reluctant to take on the Skywalkers for training.  Either of them.  :-)

Thanks,
Yes I wanted to put Yoda in a really difficult situation and I amended it a bit based on your prior observations...I think there is a tension that though Yoda wants to avoid the Jedi ossifying, when faced with what that really might mean...it scares him more than a little.

Yes!  And it's this pathos that lends itself to both great storytelling and great tragedy.  So much of what the Jedi held as doctrine--dogma, really--is incongruous with natural, not to mention HUMAN (oid), survival.  Valens has combat pragmatism.  Like Karm said: Yoda vacillating between these two schools of thought is testament to good writing  :)  Still, I wonder when the cracks will widen to chasms  ;)

That combat pragmatism may end up being a key factor in Valen's moving away from Jedi doctrine.  But there's more to come, and these characters all have long and hard roads to walk.  :-)

For everyone wondering what became of her, especially TR....


The shrill call of the alarm woke her. She rose gradually and looked over to the cot, Milaea was sleeping soundly.  It was a small mercy, she had thought that she could keep her, until she discovered from one of the other slaves it was only because their master intended to sell her later.  

But for the fact she was pregnant Cilina would’ve killed herself, and as many of the alien filth around as possible long ago.  She had Milaea now, born on an alien world, without the aether of her home to welcome her, and Cilina bereft of her parents, her sister…at least the doctor had been a type of human…for Milaea she had to live.  

The question was how long.  She hoped Jarys was out there somewhere looking for her, she would not allow their daughter to be raised a slave.  Rather than be parted she would kill her daughter first.

As she put on her fresh white dress that she cleaned herself last night, she wondered how it had come to this.  Everything had seemed so beautiful, so right at her wedding…now she was enslaved to a ‘Bith’ creature and contemplating killing her child to save her from the same fate.

She checked the pale blue roster on the wall that listed her tasks for the day in an ugly language that had far too many curves in the letters.  Standard fare, prepare refreshments wait on guests in the audience room. With apathetic steps she went about her tasks leaving Milaea to sleep.
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The hideous old Twi’lek ‘female’, with a name Cilina refused to try to pronounce was already busy cooking.  The filthy old bat had tried to be nice to her, but Cilina knew it was all for show…but for Milaea…she’d be one of the first necks she would snap.

“We’ll need a plate of Tugi Puffs, one of Frenage crisps and two jugs of Koolah,” Cilina scrunched her nose at these alien dishes, “You should be thankful our duties are so light,” the old creature had told he, she supposed having to cook and clean wasn’t so bad a task…better than working in a mine or something…but it wasn’t the point…why should be thankful for being forced to work less hard than someone else – she was still being forced.  

She hated it, the stink of the aliens, their food, the icky feel of the aether here…she wanted to escape but where could she go…what would she do?  Every night she would send out a beacon in the aether hoping someone would respond…but nothing…

She sighed heavily and set to work.
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Audiences were boring.  She would have to stand there holding a tray of hideous food stuffs trying to look pretty so her master, the fat headed Bith filth, could look rich and successful, sitting on his opulent chair having his guests stand to address him.

She indifferently blew a stray strand of hair from her eyes as todays guests entered.  Immediately she felt something was different.  For the first time in months she could feel something in the aether stronger than the breath of a child, one strong breeze and another…a stillness, no a negative space, that was familiar.

Behind a hideous little green creature with tufts of brown hair in an ugly robe that only made it look more like a vagabond followed, in a similar robe, the familiar face of Valens.  Her eyes widened.  She didn’t know what to do.

“Welcome Master Jedi, please take some refreshment,” her master oozed clapping his hands, one of the other slaves, a disgusting red twi’lek beside her moved toward them her tray out, Cilina remained frozen.  Only a look from her master and his anger rising in aether made one foot follow the other.  

The green creature dismissed their offerings, Valens dismissed the twi’lek, as Cilina held out her tray he looked straight into her eyes, but his face was impassive.  Had he come to rescue her?  She lingered as he moved his hand over the small pastries, her heart pounding, she stared at that hand more intently than her own daughters face, as it quickly pointed toward her master, then clenched into a rapid fist before rising and turning to wave her away.

“Thank you for you hospitality we do,” the green thing spoke with appalling grammar, “to deliver the credits and collect the items we have come,”

“Of course of course. Tyggon” he yelled and clapped, from the side door came Tyggon a nasty brute of a creature all covered in fur carrying a large crate in one hand and a datapad in the other.  He placed the crate beside the green alien and handed him the datapad.  The green abomination pressed his thumb transferring funds as she understood it and Tyggon shuffled back off to his squalid coroner

“Thanks you the Jedi order does Maester Corfulin,” the green creature said with a short bow,

“My thanks as well, please feel free to stay for lunch,” her master pressed, he loved any opportunity to show off his wealth with extravagant dishes, she could tell this ‘Jedi’ creature was having none of it,

“Our thanks again, but go we must,” he turned and left, Valens lifted the crate with unnatural strength and gave Cilina one last unblinking look before he followed the Jedi thing out.  After the door had closed she felt a quick thought pierce her mind in the aether.

Soon
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She could barely sleep, not just because Milaea was fussing, but the excitement of her imminent rescue.  Everything she had suspected was confirmed, the Guardians would find them, take them back home and Jarys would finally see his daughter, Milaea would feel the welcoming dark warmth of the aether on her home world.


There was so much to be done, but what could she do?  Her first sleep was fitful, her second worse, finally she settled a bit, perhaps tonight was not the night, planning was needed...but when...she couldn't wait much longer...she just couldn't take it anymore...
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She choked up as she felt a hand across her face, her instinct was to scream but some force kept her unnaturally calm.

“It’s alright, I’m here”  she heard Valens whisper. He let her go, and gestured toward Milaea who was sleeping unusually soundly.

She picked her up and he gestured her to follow, she looked about the other beds but the other ‘females’ if such could be said of the filthy aliens, were gone.  

She followed him through the halls to the audience chamber, which from the hall she could see was lit.  Wasn’t he trying to be quiet?

If she hadn’t seen her people enslaved and murdered before her eyes, what she saw now would be the most horrific thing she had ever seen.

The bodies of her master, all his paid servants who lived in the mansion, the guards and other alien slaves were splayed across the room in strange patterns of limbs and organs.  It reeked of blood and foetid fluids she had no name for.  The Biths head was on the limbless Tyggons body on the throne chair.  

It was terrifying

It was glorious

A statement of what would become of those who dared offend an Aethan, she regretted she hadn’t done it herself.

“Did you make them suffer?” she whispered, trying not to giggle with glee as pressed herself against her brother in law, there wasn’t a drop of blood on him.  It felt so good to know her new family was there for her.

“There wasn’t enough time, we have to go,”  Cilina was disappointed but understood
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The ships dorm was small but comfortable.  Things had moved rapidly after her escape.  Valens had taken her to the starport then had her, under his instruction, break into the ship he shared with the ‘Jedi’.  This convinced the green Yoda thing that she had escaped her captivity and of the need for her to leave soon.  

Whilst Valens and Yoda were to travel onto another world, she would go with a ‘Jedi’ thing called Suum, or Zuum, or something who was taking various things they had bought off her happily deceased Bith master and others back to Coruscant where Valens would return to her later.

Like any Aethan she trusted the judgement and plans of the Guardian implicitly.  She only hoped she would find more of them there.  Valens had been circumspect about any others he had found.

Milaea blurted and cooed contentedly, she could no doubt feel how happy and safe Cilina now felt in the aether and responded in kind.  She was happy Milaea was so young and these horrid events would barely form a memory.  Cilina was already crafting a story to tell her of how the filthy evil aliens got their comeuppance.

The still breeze of the aether in space rumbled, the ship shook violently, the lights went off, she hugged Milaea close to her.

Zuum appeared at the door, “Stay in here and don’t open the door, try and keep your little puppy quiet if you can,”

She wrinkled at the alien even acknowledging her daughter, but closed the door behind him.  She reached out with the aether, Zuum was a blue clouds on its winds, and near him…brownish smogs, two, three…the ship shook again and the warning sirens began.  Milaea screamed at the noise.  Cilina frantically enveloped her in an aetheric field to lessen the sound waves that reached her, she was never very good at protective arts.  

The horrid sound of blaster fire erupted, she balled around her daughter in the small pace between the bed and the wall.  A humming sound, more bolts, a clash, then…a dark red wind blew through the aether sweeping Zuum away.

Cilina trembled, Milaeas eyes were wide and wild with fear.  The sirens went off, the silence punctuated by heavy boots on the metal deck. She cradled Milaea in her left arm and stretched her right arm out toward the door.  

Clattering, electric sparking just outside.  It opened.  She fired all the aetheric fire she could muster, a stream of burning blue enveloped a huge armoured man, seeping into the joints of his armour and burning him alive, he waved his limbs but soon crumpled down.  

There was a shout, arguing in the guttural ‘Huttese’ so called language, the red wind approached the door.  She fired again but as it reached the figure it was snuffed out like a candle. Cilina looked up to the figures face.

She saw her sister’s widest smile beneath the eyes of a stranger.  

Outstanding!  So Cilina comes face to face with Sevra...I wonder which warring emotions she'll have when she realizes someone else is wearing her sister's face. 

Great seeing Valens outside the controlled setting of the Jedi Temple. More a "force of nature" than "magic monk"  ;)

I am worried about Milaea though; how much could Lyr get for a Force sensitive infant...

Until next installment friends  :)

Wow, great chapter.  Not the reunion she was expecting I'm sure.  :-)

This could be ... interesting.  The Jedi buy artifacts back ... and now they're being stolen yet again!  What are they after?  Just how important are these things?  That hint, that there seemed to be a puzzle in play, to which the artifacts were pieces...  Why do I think we're going to eventually see that puzzle assembled?  Or at least an attempt at that? 

Hmm...

Meanwhile, I agree with Dutchman.  Poor Cilina and Milaea...  And poor Lyr!  I suspect attempting to separate mother and child will have catastrophic consequences....

Just caught up on this, and I gotta say, these were some intense installments. So much happening, and somehow it all has to fit together. Not yet sure how you are going to do it, but it'll be good. The reunion between Cilina and Sevra will be strange, and I'm not sure how it will end, but even more so, I'm wondering what would/will happen when Valens meets Sevra. I also love how the first thing that TD thought of was what would happen to Lyr. :D

These two chapters Go together, for reasons you'll soon see....

As satisfied as he felt when he was enjoying the slave girl, he felt equally guilty afterwards.  He longed for the Arena at times, to slip back into that primal state where survival, the death of his rival was all that existed.   

Outside of that were thoughts he did not want, his failure to save his people, his betrayal of his wife, physically if not emotionally, his acquiescence to his new life.  In his bloody victory, in the challenge of the fight - such things were mercifully forgotten.

The familiar tapping came from the grate,
“Kill-man-beast, Tiiko back, Tiiko have good news!”

He sighed and left his sleeping…lover? Whore?

“Alright let’s hear it,”

“Two days big fight, kill-man-beast fight Crazy-Nagai-thing, fat-brown-glooba thing and evil green master be there.  Tiiko has device ready, Tiiko make beautiful device, Tiiko write beautiful code, green master make bet, code snuggle into system, kill-man-beast hit button,”  a small remote slipped through the grates, Jarys caught it with an indifferent hand, “shield come down, exit lock up, kill-man-beast kill kill kill till all dead Yes?!”

He looked at the device in his hands.  This was it, his chance to finally end this nightmare, and at least die killing his real enemies rather than another arena slave.  Yet the will to survive at any cost had brought him so far, to use this was certain death.  He couldn’t win, not this time.  At least he could die showing them what a Guardian of Aethas ought to do.

“Yes…” he replies with more enthusiasm than he felt, “We’ll both get our revenge,”

Tiiko squeaked in his version of laughter, “Tiiko like, Tiiko happy, many years sad, Tiiko happy!”
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The rhythmic beating of the crowd as he stepped out pounded in his head.  The white skinned Nagai was waiting for him.  Both were armed the same, basic hardened synth leather armour and a vibro blade.  It was meant to be a fair a fight as possible.  Since being purchased by the Falleen he had fought more ‘high tier’ matches like this than the flood of untrained desperate slaves under the Hutt.  They were all the same, just more aliens to slaughter.

The Nagai was highly rated, tipped to beat him in fact he had heard the other slaves in the cages of the arena chatting as he suited up.  In the stands he could see the Hutt, Myzm was his name, opposite him above the Nagai in the stands again with the green Twi’lek.  The Falleen was to his left in a private booth toying with some poor Duros slave boy.  Behind him…behind him he sensed something, there was a Quarren and a tattooed woman, and another, much younger with a black metal claw for a left hand.  She looked familiar, felt familiar, but not quite…he didn’t have the time to probe.

The announcer called out, the signal chimed and it began.  The Nagai stalked around in an arc, he looked ferocious.  But this wasn’t his day.  Jarys had held off on doing this until it was totally needed, now was the time.  He raised his free left hand and pointed straight at the Nagai, he fell into the depths of his instincts, that part that knew only two things, kill or be killed. He let ‘Kill’ loose. 

Aetheric lightning poured from his finger tip straight into the Nagai, shocked he crumpled as his muscles contracted, his skin peeled in burning strips, the shouts of the crowd died in an instant.  With a thought he flicked the switch on the remote hidden in the back of his boot.

He dropped his sword as the shield around the arena fell, he brought his hands in line then moved them up.  He unleashed.
Lightning poured from him like a tsunami blanketing the screaming crowd, most collapsed unable to move as their muscles contorted due to the electrical impulses, others with different biologies scrambled to flee but only found themselves squashed into the locked down tunnel exists. 

He swept in a broad arc all around the stadium, the smoke from burning flesh rose in its wake.  A feeling of relief and release came over him as all the hate, anger and frustration poured out of him onto the crowd, like a dam bursting, drowning them in burning arcs.

Once he had finished a full 360 he summoned the vibroblades to his hands and leapt into the stands.

The aether was an ocean of fear rained upon by storms of blood, the floor littered with melted and charred flesh. he waded through it with grace, dispatching fleeing spectator with all the mercy a starving Vorynx would show its prey.

He reached the Falleens box, his four guards were armoured, well trained and would be more than a match for any warrior.  Not him.  With a bloody wave in the aether their chests imploded, with an indifferent spin their heads were severed.  The Falleen was haemorrhaging fear pheromones as Jarys stood over him.  With swift strokes from both sword he cut him in three, then pulled his eyes out with the aether.

He could almost hear Tiikos squeak of laughter.

The Hutt was gurgling like mad, his twi’lek friend had vanished, a few fat Gamorreans stood in front of him.  Jarys stalked over indifferently loping off the heads of any spectator within reach along the way. The aether was now saturated in blood, he was floating in it, killing by pure instinct, his consciousness only barely guiding him to his target

By the time the guard saw him coming it was too late, he twirled in a vortex of death through them, stopping to face the Hutt.  He thought he should say something grand like in all the stories, but a monologue was a waste time. 

With precision he reached into the aether and pulled the moist quivering eyes from the Hutts head, and then threw them into the mouth wide with pain.  He smiled viciously as he sheathed one blade and placed his hand on the Hutts massive stomach, Aetheric fire flowed out into the Hutt, immolating him from within, the smoke and blue flame rose from the holes of his mouth, nose and eyes. 

Emergency lights came on, sirens blared, Tiikos beautiful code had run its course, he felt the turbulent flow of people fleeing the now open exits.

He turned and surveyed his work, hundreds of bodies bleeding, melting or fleeing, except one, the woman with the metal claw just stared at him.  He sized her up against his strength…he was worn from the lightning…perhaps another day. 

Survival was all that mattered now.  Loping over the bodies he used the aether to scoop up a cloak, a few blasters and some opulent purses and jewellery from the corpses then vanished into the tunnels amongst the fleeing crowd.

“Protect me! Protect me!” The Quarren screamed as the arcs of lightning neared.  How pathetic, he couldn’t even protect himself from a little force lightning.

It seemed to Sevra there were only two people in the arena not panicking, one was the man unleashing a torrent of death below, the other was her.  In fact she felt strangely at home, as though the breath of death coursing across the spectators was a familiar summer breeze.

The night sister’s full attention was on blocking the lightning, standing in front of Sevra and the Quarren. Sevra shrugged and plunged claw into the night sisters spine grasped it and pulled.  She didn’t know why she did these things sometimes, it was like some strange ghost moved her limbs for her.

Sliding it out she swung round to the astounded Quarren who just stared at her with his beady aquatic eyes, he made to say something but the bloody claw was deep into his skull before he could. 

She couldn’t even remember lifting her arm.

She stared down at the blood gurgling corpses. Seems he didn’t have some kind of hidden power after all.  Perhaps he was what the Mandolorians and the Twi’lek whispered, just an insane cultist with more money than sense.

She watched as the beast of the arena carved a bloody path toward a Hutt.  He was impressive, so familiar, she felt an impulse to reach out to him blow through her, but she left it. 

She stood for a while longer, as order returned and what passed for security tried to usher the few survivors out of the charnel house, wondering what to do next.
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The Mansion had always been empty, but now without its usual denizens it felt even more so.  The only other life form, a small swirl in the force in the back rooms, the prize that had most delighted the Quarren on their last raid. 

He knew the Jedi were transporting relics, but to find a child the Jedi had collected for training was a real boon.  The mother had seemed strangely familiar to Sevra and had screamed strange things at her when she had found her,
“What, sis…what’s happening, I don’t under…” Sevra had knocked her out to shut her up, the Night Sister had taken her and the child she was hiding.

She wandered the halls looking at the Quarrens prized collections.  The warm embracing feeling she got when she touched some of the objects was so intoxicating, she truly understood why he had had her kill so many of these Jedi to get them. 

She had obeyed him for a reason she didn’t know, she had killed him for reasons she didn’t understand.  She was aware of herself and her actions, but the force behind them was lost to her.  The call to kill was so strong at times, and the Quarren had directed her to the Jedi to satiate that, eight so far, their lightsabres arranged in a neat little display case in the main audience chamber. 

She felt disconnected, like she was watching some kind of play through the eyes of a character called Sevra, her actions guided by some overarching story that she was just watching play out.

She would sometimes see things, usually faces or clothes, blue and white ones mostly, in the crowd as she had escorted the Quarren about, that reminded her of things, of something…a word, a name…”What is your name”…the question repeated on her, she woke each day with it unresolved on her mind.

The answer was just on the tip of her tongue, and she just couldn’t seem to find it, as though it had been very deliberately buried in her mind. 

The closest she would come to remembering was when she was filled with the force, fighting or inspecting some of the strange devices the Quarren had collected.  Perhaps somewhere in that hoard was the answer...”What is your name?”

In her aimless or invisibly guided wandering, she had come just outside the nursery where the nanny droid attended to the sleeping girl.

 The mother had been apoplectic when she came to on the way back, the Night sister had to put her under again. 

When they returned she had been taken somewhere in the under levels.  What had become of her since Sevra didn’t know, she had been sent on another raid, and when she got back the mothers raging cyclone in the force was just gone, they had left for the arena only an hour later.   

She looked over the small sleeping child, her claw digging grooves into the wood of the crib.
“What is your name?” she asked aloud, a part of her hoping the child would answer.

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The dungeons beneath the main mansion were a complex labyrinth of tunnels built over centuries.  Colours and styles changed hall to hall, but the dank dripping along the walls was a constant feature.

She had awoken from a typically fitful sleep and been drawn down here, her body as usual moving her without her conscious input.  There was a whisper in the winds of the force down here, something sorrowful. 

Like an insect to a light she wandered in crooked paths toward the sound. 

She had been dreaming about her last fight with, against two Jedi, a Duros and a Kel Dor, the Mandolorians had as usual used a gravity generator to drop it out of hyper space, used ion cannons to disable then boarded.  The Mandolorians didn’t even bother to try and enter first after their previous losses, they just handed Sevra a few smoke and gas grenades, she would chuck them in then charge.  The Kel Dor she had killed first, quickly and easily, but the Duros…the Duros had held her back with the force, for a few moments, then as she bashed her way with the force through to it he had tried to affect her mind. 

“Why are you doing this,” he had asked,
She had simply ducked under his yellow blade ripped his chest open….but now she wished she had talked to him…perhaps the Jedi held the answers she sought.

Aware of her external surroundings again she was in a large room with chains hanging from the ceiling, old dried blood spattered on the floor, wheeled cabinets with strange painful looking implements littered about, and toward the back a faint blue glow coming from a large rectangular box.

The whispers seemed to intensify as she neared it, still to indistinct to interpret.

She peered into its transparent top, beneath was the cut and bloodied body, held in stasis, of the mother she had captured.  Her face was bruised and bloody, there were holes from brutal needles in her arms, drawn measurement lines on her breast and large lacerations as though someone had tried to implant something very sharp there.

She felt a whirlwind of rage within her….but she was looking on at this rage from somewhere outside…the feelings trembling her body, the anger and grief that through the force was causing the building to quake, the chains to rattle and the cabinets to implode, were being felt and caused by someone else…that invisible person who occupied her body in a silent way she couldn’t comprehend.

She was crying.  She wept for a woman she didn’t recognize, for a past she couldn’t remember…And to those invisibly motivated tears she added her own. 

She knew then she had lost something, something had been taken from her. 
The woman lying before her had known what that was.
Somewhere amongst the winds of the aether someone else must know.

The Aether…she checked her thoughts….what was the aether?

Sevra's duality comes full circle now: the body she occupies dong things on instinct while primal emotions leech through her "conscious" as it were.  Now that is just terrifying.  Speaking of...
Again, the Aethen Force Users remind me of Shakespeare's Tempest: able to control, DOMINATE, the atmosphere around them.  Seems that their relationship to the Force is more primordial.  Perhaps testament to what Jedi (people) could do...if they didn't "unlearn" things as they age.
It's incredible: three disparate authors (you, TR, Karm) yet ALL outstanding, unique, and interesting stories; it just amazes me that you've congregated here in one place.  Funny thing is: none of this reads like "fan fiction"  ;)  LSG, the skill of weaving these separate threads and then having them come together is a HUGE payoff!  And it's working  :D

Until next installment friends  :)

I have to echo Dutchman.  The power these guys possess is terrifying.  And Sevra's duality is very interesting.  The Night Sister apparently wasn't as successful in eradicating Sevra's personality as she thought.  I am hoping that she rescued her sister.

At any rate, I am certainly hoping there is one more chapter or epilogue?  :-)

And thanks Dutch for the compliment!  I don't know if my work is at the level you credit, but I have GREATLY enjoyed the works you, LSG and Teagan have put forth.  They are excellent stories with great character and movement yet extremely disparate in style and approach.  As Dutch said, they don't read like the typical fan-fic pieces.  I am honored to be among this group.  :-) 

Looking forward to great things ahead.  :-)

I thought I commented on these last ones, but I guess not. And now I don't really need to. TD and Karm have both said it all. I love how TD always leaves out himself when talking about the different stories. He should know by know that his story is just a great as yours LSG and Karm. But back to this story, it is amazing what you have done. How you have tied everything together, yet kept the same style of it as a look through different people's eyes. Having as many characters as you do, it has to be hard keeping track of what goes where, but you are doing an excellent job at it. Can't wait for more.

Thanks again All.  I think Jarys last Chapter got shifted to the page before so make sure to check that out if you missed it.
After this there are another 9 Chapters to go (maybe with an interlude), so they are mostly being brought together soon.

Re Karmack....


To be clear, the body Sevra found at the end of the last chapter was Cilina's...so not much rescuing to be done I'm afraid....?


Lyr shuffled nervously on his feet.  He had felt uncomfortable enough the last time he was here.   

But where else could he go, with Myzm dead he had to get out there, he didn’t want to be around as the other Hutts carved up the mansions furnishings, and worse looked into, Myzms finances.

“Your previous employer”

“The filth”

“Yes the filth, disgusting creature, I hated him myself….”

Her already merciless complexion took on a predatory hue, Lyr felt very much like a nerf dropped in a rancors cage. 
He swallowed hard, it would take all his deceptive skills to pull this one off.  He had come to the Quarrens mansion to see if he could collect on at least some of the outstanding amounts and pocket them himself, he hadn’t realised the Quarren had been killed by the Mad Beast of the Arena as well, and his psychotic vixen now ruled.

“That is that filthy creature had agreed to pay us a very large sum of credits, which as his, uh…beneficiary, we humbly request you perhaps, consider honouring that particular agreement….maybe,”

She stared at him with eyes that burnt like yellow suns

“Who are you more afraid of in this moment,” she asked, “Me or your master,”

He choked back the answer but it came without his conscious will, “You,”

“not your master?”

“ah well my master…is…is,” the truth was like water behind a failing dam, about to burst, it was a new terrifying experience to be so honest,

“dead…very very dead” he was sweating, it kept coming, “I was just trying to get what credits I could out of you, I thought I could…ma…ma…”

“manipulate” she coached

“manipulate you,”

“How brave…”, she twirled a light sabre in her claw

“I propose a different transaction, you need a master, I need a manager of the filthy things affairs, how does 5% sound,”

“Sounds like more than I’m worth,” the damn truth really hurt!

With a devils grin she smiled, “Done then!”
********************************************************************************************************
The extent of the Quarrens holding was far larger than he would’ve imagined, and far more profitable.  Whilst a number of debtors refused to pay, most just kept the dividends flowing.  One absentee owner was little different to the next 

He had even managed to bring across upwards of 40 million credits from the feeding frenzy over the corpse of Myzms operations and settle accounts with Hunik, few things were more dangerous than a Mandolorian who felt you had cheated them.

Yet now that he thought about it…all the people he dealt with were dangerous

For everyone in the Outer rim, and Hutt Space there was no goal greater than surviving another day, credits in hand if you could, and no law other than the barrel of a blaster.  This was the world he had been born into…and could never escape.

He looked around the hideous black and red décor of his new office…the Quarren and Myzm had both lived in this world, both had been cut down with as little mercy or consideration as they had treated their slaves and enemies.  Who’s standing now was rarely who stood tomorrow…you took what pleasure you could while you could take it, paying in credits if you could, or pain and blood if you didn’t.

His new desk was a rich dark wood with a glossy semi reflective varnish, he looked at his reflection in it.  He was just another scammer, another killer, he paid for his lusts with credits only because he wasn’t as good with a blaster...he’d killed, beaten and tortured people…but it was easier to cheat and lie to them.  He used Rshi for his entertainment, and half a score more before her...used up then dumped when he could buy something better. 

All these things the face looking back at him had done…and yet…he didn’t feel any remorse, or guilt.  Perhaps he felt bad that he didn’t feel bad about it and should.

He got up and walked away from the desk, catching his reflection in the glass cabinets dotted about he imagined some dark figure behind him, knife in hand plunging it into his back…one day that was how it would end.

He sneered at himself…might as well enjoy himself while he could.
********************************************************************************************************
Ylorens was full of the cream of Nar Shadda society, that is the most ruthless and cunning crime bosses in Hutt space.  Sevra had accepted an invitation to a dinner at the overly opulent restaurant, carefully arranged by Lyr to get them back in the game of wheeling and dealing.  The artefacts stolen from the Jedi were hot, as hot as could be, he needed to sell them and fast before the Jedi came looking.

He was feeling good everything was going well so far…even Rshi had been unusually….he wouldn’t use the word enthusiastic…amiable toward his desires of late.  It certainly wasn’t the décor of the new accommodation, so it must’ve been the strangest thing yet about the new arrangement…the child. 

The child had been captured during their last raid, he shuddered to think what the Quarren had been planning to do to it, but the incident at the Arena meant he never got a chance.  Lyr didn’t know what had happened to the mother though…He had set Rshi to look after the child and it seemed to make her…could a slave be happy with their work? 

It didn’t really matter he supposed.

They were at an overly catered table, their host an opulently dressed Nikto who had been top of the list of the Quarrens personal contacts in the ‘collectors’ community, and most likely one he could offload them on.

“It is really a small piece, of little worth to anyone but myself….”

He was discussing with Lyr an old wooden statuette, Sevra was not really interested in anything except the lightly charred nerf steak she was holding in her real fingers. 

“Indeed, but it is the only one of his kind, and the fact you collect these…” he left the implication hanging

“I think 40 is a reasonable price for us both,” the Nikto replied

Lyr nodded, 40,000 was a fair offer for a little bit of wood, “Lady Sevra,” he had to have some formal name for her after all…

She suddenly stared at him with an intensity that made him jump in his seat, he felt like he would melt beneath her gaze and not in a good way before she turned to the Nikto,

“What does it do?”  she asked

“What does what do,” the Nikto seemed confused

“You know what I’m talking about, tell me,”

He started to shuffle in his seat….”It’s just a collection of ancient Dejarik pieces…it doesn’t…urrck…” 

He started making gurgling sounds

Her voice was impassive…distant…

“You’re going to take me to the other pieces you have, NOW”

He nodded blankly grasping at his throat…only the fact murders were fairly common in the restaurant with so many crime lords meant no one else really cared.

It was the strangest trip Lyr had ever been on, in the Niktos luxury speeder to his lavish apartment, the Nikto looked drunk and slurry under Sevras power, while she went from intense to bored.  They finally arrived and the Nikto lead them to his collection room, much like the Quarrens filled with various antiques, in the centre 6 little figures made of wood stood in a circle meant for 12.

“They connect…the dark side…connects them,” he slurred

“Yes…” Sevra went up to them, here head moving rapidly side to side as though analysing some unseen lines…”A Map,” she said finally…”A Map to Dormund Kaas and the Sith empire…each figures is one of the highest Lords under Vitiate,” She shrieked with diabolical laughter that made the apartment tremble. 

She turned on the Nikto, “You fool…this is worthless, trinkets for Sith Nobles long dead…” she slammed her claw on the table shattering one statue, “what did you think, it held some secret, some mystical power, show you the future make you a Sith”

“I…wanted to collect them…” he said gurgling slightly, without any warning her claw slashed into his stomach, black blood oozed out

“What for? They don’ tell you what your name is!” She smashed another one

Lyr was getting very worried now

She dug her claws into the Niktos head, blood started flowing out, she looked around the room, “Useless, all useless, none of them tell me what the name is!” with a sickening crack his skull shattered

Lyr didn’t know what distributed him more, how unstable she was, or that she wasn’t the craziest person he had ever worked for.

LSG, thanks for the clarification.  I went back and read it again.  Bummer.  I was thinking she was still alive and being adjusted as Sevra was.  :-/

9 more chapters?  Wow.... 

I've got to hand it to Lyr: he may be an unscrupulous, selfish, opportunistic, sleemo but he isn't stupid  ;). Excellent characterization, he recognizes the depravation of his profession but sees the landscape for what it is.  And Sevra? That woman scares me!  Doesn't help that she is--literally--of two minds.  And with that last scene?  She seems more...an agent of entropy than any Sith I've seen  :D

Ah, Cilina's child; now that's one character that is truly an unfortunate innocent (although much the same could be said about the Aethans that were absconded as well).  Definitely interested in what happens next with the child^^

Until next installment friends  :)

Oh.   And this last chapter?  Wow....  Sevra is ... disturbed.  Seriously.  And she's obviously looking for something.  Her own name?  Someone elses?  The Night Sister is gone... Maybe with the final pieces of her own sanity?

Wow.  Just wow.  Nicely written and I am just falling further into the story.  :-)   I thought I saw a resolution coming very soon, but you were just putting the pieces into place.  Now the Adventure begins!

Thanks again guys, I wanted to really play on the tortured nature of Sevra, what happens when you try and brainwash someone and it doesn't fully work...they end up ripping out your spine....

One of the issues I think I've got with the story is the sheer size has gotten away from me...some of the foreshadowing is a bit lost because of it and I can't expect you to remember all those little bits like I do (you know given I am the author I have an advantage)
...but if you reacquaint yourselves quickly with Shilea's 3rd chapter you'll see where that thread started...but yeah so many intervening chapters loses it a bit.

Anyway that is something I can try and improve on in any future stories.

Its very hard to keep track of everything, especially from the perspective of what the READER knows.  I have a long story (totally different universe) that is novel length that I've started and restarted and written and re-written to many times.  I've totally lost track of the bits and pieces.  I'm in the process of working through it with someone else trying to fix it. 

Don't despair!  We may remember more than you think!

The quiet beeping of the life support machines pervaded the small ward, it gentle tone and the soft white lights belied the sadness here.  There were six bodies in two rows of three, all in coma’s of unknown province.  It had started with young Sofa, an earnest and gentle woman who would make great master one day, his friend Rys Hora, a crack pilot, a librarian, maintenance technician, a doctor, and lastly a knight, found a few hours after thirty or so Jedi left on missions for the archives project.  Elyssia Kor was forty years old, an experience knight, and of no real relation to any of the others.

There was something about this rash of comas…Soryu just felt he had to do something about it…like he was…not responsible…but he felt he had done something that had…and this was strange…permitted or condoned it somehow.

Soryu sat on the floor amongst them all trying to find the trace that bound them…somewhere in the force, in the flow of their life energies there must be something….

He reached into the force, feeling the life around him…but it was an empty life, sustained not lived…except for…Sofa, there, there was a little spark as if something were returning. 

He tried to sense any thoughts or dreams but there were none…it were as if their very consciousness had been stripped off them…there was a linger about them…darkness….yet not darkness like the Sith.…no not darkness at all…he just couldn’t quite pin it down.

There is no emotion there is peace

He sought out the peace…yes peace they were all at peace but it was not a happy one…it was the peace of the void.  He focused more on Sofa…a little spark…he drew in the life of the force, let it flow through him, channelling it into her.  A small spark responded…a distant cry.

He kept focusing on her, he wished he knew more of the Grey Jedi’s techniques, perhaps one of their singers could elicit something from the sparks that flew from Sofas mind, find some rhythm beneath it…but Kimar had long since put an end to what little co-operation there was between the two traditions…Soryu feared Kimar might one day make things worse if he gained too much power over the council.
He returned every day for the better part of two months, each time Sofa became more and more responsive, Doctor Kougal detected more brain activity on the scans.

Then finally it happened…as Soryu meditated, the sparks coalesced into a single light, it was as if a sun were being reborn…he heard a gasp…Sofa was awake.  He rushed to find Kougal.
*******************************************************************

“How are you feeling?” he asked

“Sore…restless…tired,” she replied with a sad smile,

Whilst awake now, she had been in a coma for nearly six months all up, and so was still in the hospital to recover fully…fortunately Kougals muscle stimulation meant she hadn’t lost much mass, but she did look gaunt, her eyes sunken and her long dark hair unkempt.

“Now you know what’s coming?” he tried to be informal,

“I guess….”

“So…”

“I really don’t know…all I remember was I was meditating…I think there was a sound…maybe a knock on the door…then it’s a jumble…I know its cliché…but it was like my life flashed before my eyes…then I woke up here…” 

Soryu thought about it….it seemed counter intuitive when he had sensed an absence of self, or memoires in her and the others.

“hmmm….perhaps when you are stronger you can meditate on it…I don’t want to rush you…”  he looked across the others still unconscious

“I know master,” she answered an unasked question, “I wish I could be of more help…”

He turned back to her with a warm smile,

“It’s alright we’ll figure this out, I’ll leave you to rest,”

“ugh.…I think I’ve had more rest than I’ll ever need,”

Soryu stood and chuckled, “ha…wait till you’re my age and even that will never seem enough!” 
*******************************************************************

“Another issue I would raise is The Hetti Corp is experiencing issues with attacks on their ships transporting goods to Core worlds, I have the dossier here, they would like the Jedi to investigate and if possible put an end to these pirates,”  Supreme Chancellor Kommasa slid a thin data card across the ornate table to Kamir.

Kommasa’ office was richly furnished with art work from his native Commenor, as well as pieces of Mon Cal art, giving truth to the rumour he was involved with the Mon Cal Senator.  To request help for Hetti Corp amidst such opulence irked Soryu.

“Is it not the case Hetti Crop is in dispute with the Rim Manufacturers union regarding the outsourcing of their factories to Hutt Space….”  Jedi Master Gurrlum asked, Soryu was almost annoyed he hadn’t asked first, Kamir gave the Gado Gurrlum an ugly look at questioning the Chancellor.  But what was the point of these briefing if not to ask?

“I don’t see what relevance that has to this situation Master Jedi,” one of the bolder member of the gaggle of advisors seated to the side chirped

“Perhaps these attacks are not due pirates rather workers who dislike being replaced by slaves,”  Gurrlum continued, Soryu beamed inwardly, but at the same time he knew Gurrlum would not be invited back to another briefing with the Chancellor for speaking so openly.

Every month three Jedi masters met with the Chancellor formerly to discuss various issues, always Kimar, typically with Soryu and Master Hyden, one of Kimars supporters, only that Hyden was absent on the archives project was Gurrlum invited instead.  Soryu owed his place to being outside the factionalism, a netural player Kimar thought a concession to those who wished to open the council up. 

“That is mere conjecture,”  Kimar interceded, “We will investigate,” he picked up the data card,  Soryu did not like the ease with which Kimar had agreed…but it was better a Jedi in the field investigate such matters, if it was the unionists, the Jedi would then be able to inform the Republic of the truth of the matter.

“Any progress on your archives project,” Kommasa asked

“Things are progressing well,”  That was lie, now four teams had failed to report in as many weeks, but Kimar would never admit any weakness in the Jedi to anyone outside,

“Good, 75 million credits is a large investment from the Republic, I sincerely hope what ever you find is worth it,”

“The damage avoided,” Kimar said carefully, “can only benefit the Republic,”
*******************************************************************

As they strode along the halls of the senate Soryu spoke up, Kimar was often difficult to catch, and didn’t like interrupting meetings with ‘administrative issues’ this was the best time.

“One of the coma patients has awoken, Sofa Neirai, the others remain unconscious,”

“Did she remember anything?’  He sounded only half interested,

“Just that her memories flashed before she went unconscious,”

“a neural virus no doubt”  he rounded on Soryu, “I’m sure there are more important matters you could be attending to,”

Soryu accepted the rebuke, he had spent a lot of time with the patients,

“I think there is something more to it, the flow of the force when I meditate near them…I’ve never sensed anything like it…I think we should convene the master to meditate with hem, together we might….”

“Honestly Soryu,” he sounded exasperated, “not every flow or eddy in the force needs a master convocation to investigate it, these things need not concern us, delving too deeply into your ‘living force’ is bound to find all kinds of odd threads on a planet with this many people,”  he gestured to the transparent wall that looked out over Coruscant,
“When you sense something darker than a Padawan cheating on a math test, or a ganger selling death sticks, that we can investigate.”

“I understand, but it doesn’t’ feel dark…its…different a new feeling,”

“New well it was probably Yoda’s foundling.” He joked “We need only concern ourselves with keeping strongly to the light and the code, and hunting down any who stray too far from it…the Republic needs us here and now, we can’t waste time pondering the intricacies of the force, the Light and the code is enough,”

Soryu nodded, there was truth in Kimars words…yet also a troubling certainty.

Another excellent post!  And thank you for the easter egg.  *bows*

I really enjoyed this post.  Some bits of mystery begin to unravel, but as usual questions answered lead to more questions.  And I love the ending!  Truth in his statement indeed!  But not the truth they expected, I think.  :-)  As always, you leave me eagerly anticipating the next installment and greatly looking forward to seeing how this all plays out.  Keep 'em coming!  And thank you for sticking with it!  :-)

Jumping to the correct conclusion for the WRONG reasons is an excellent device.  You can see the narrow views of the Jedi exemplified in Grand Master Kimer.  He is more politician than altruist; excellent foil for Soryu  :)  I like your periphery characters (Gurrlum, Kommasa); it's attention to details like these that really make your narrative substantive (and makes me want to be a better writer  ;)).

Another thing I really enjoy: the easter eggs  :)  Just something that really makes this community so incredible.

LSG, your writing is incredible.  Keep it up^^

Last Chapter for Part 4....
The ship glided gently through the atmosphere out of Bonadan, he began plotting the jumps to Coruscant for the return trip to the Temple.

The more practice flying the better, the memories he had extracted from the Corellian pilot were comprehensive, but no substitute for actually flying.  He needed to work on extracting procedural as well as declarative.  He knew all the hyperspace lanes, the different types of ships, how to fix hyper drives, how to confuse orbital scanners on a smuggling run, yet still fumbled on occasion with his hands guiding the stick.

He had wanted to go with Cilina and the baby, but knew to do so would cause the Jedi to become suspicious. 

“The future” his grandfather whispered and he nodded in agreement.  That baby was the future of his people.

The Jedi had some strange rules around intimate relationships, they were hermit like, restricted in their view of the force as much as their interactions with the world.  To protect them from the ‘dark side’. 

“Nonsense,” Andis commented from somewhere…all around him

Yoda had been assisting in ‘guiding him to the path of the Light’, Sofa’s memories had assisted him in that.  His grandfather would never have tolerated such pontificating on morality and philosophy, the aether was just the aether…a word he hadn’t spoken in a while.  That saddened him.

The console beep suddenly brought him out of his reverie.  Data streamed in, Emergency alert transmission on Jedi Frequency 74-25, Hydian Way near Serenno, The Sunnia.

Fear gripped him, his stomach tightened, heat poured off him in panic

Cilina…he needed to find her he had to find her…if she were dead, if her daughter…he had to keep his people alive…he needed them…or at the very least enough of them to clone….

“Find her, Kill anyone who dares threaten our people,” Andis tone was stern

“Calm you must remain, you’re friend…find out what happened to her we will” Yoda’s voice came through, only then did he realise how exposed he was, he wasn’t closed off in the aether, Yoda had sensed his emotional state. 

“Master I…” he stammered as Yoda sat in the co-pilots set a firm but compassionate expression of his face.

“Understand I do, along our route this was, another attack on the Jedi returning to the archives, investigate we must.”  He turned to the console “A message indicating this I will to the council send, closest ship we likely are. These attacks,” his eyes hardened, “continue must not,”

***************************************************************************************************

Klatooine was an ugly world. All dust and deserts.  The sun baked into his back as he lay prone looking down on the staging post to the east.

Over the last two weeks he and Yoda had found the site of the attack, the Sunnia crashed into a moon, found and interred what they could of Zuum, and using the information they recovered from the Sunnia gained a fair idea of what they were looking for.

The readouts indicated the attacking ships profile consistent with Mandolorian designs, as expected given the attack of Telos.  On their way past they had received a report from the authorities there on the attack, the Mandolorians had armour with insignia belonging to known mercenary Gisar Hunik.  The Jedi intelligence networks indicated he operated out of Hutt space with a staging post on Klatooine, granted to him by the Hutts who made frequent use of his mercenaries.

His macro binoculars scanned over the various ships and prefabricated buildings, he wondered how the Mandolorians fared in this heat with their armour on.  There were fifteen down there, a few ships, a token force - this far into Hutt space there were no real threats and it was only a jump and refuelling point. 

He could sense Yoda on the far side of the camp meditating.  They would move in at night, Yoda then Valens.  Valens would prepare a distraction with a few smoke grenades if he sensed any trouble whilst Yoda broke into their systems for information.

It would be much easier just to rend their memories from their mind of course, another technique the Jedi either didn’t know or failed to use. Valens was tempted, the Mandolorians were competent warriors, feared across the galaxy…if he pulled the memories from an experienced one….

“A Guardian turns from no knowledge or weapon that will serve the Aethans,” he had been hearing his Grandfathers voice more and more lately, he guessed it was to remind him to stay true to his people against the path of the Jedi…but that seemed too simplistic.  But maybe he was overthinking it?  He crawled back to a rocky alcove and sat to meditate on it whilst he waited for nightfall.
***************************************************************************************************
He had crawled to within 300 metres of the camp, the grenades positioned at intervals to the north and south, primed to go off with a touch of the aether. He sensed Yoda moving silently through the dunes.  The scanning equipment was effective but nothing that couldn’t be avoided by a Jedi Master…or a Guardian for that matter.

He fell into the aether to sense events.  Yoda’s star moved swiftly, waves of light extended to nearby guards making them drowsy, or turning their attention to more pleasing thoughts than concentrating on watching a black desert scape.  Only five were even awake at this hour, all fairly dull, except one inside a prefab building who seemed a little too alert.

As Yoda movement stalled outside a comms room the alert one started to move outside, Valens could just make him out, he seemed to be stretching and having a brief walk around the prefab.  An old fable came to mind, “Nothing escapes the masters eye,”  He focused in the aether at the alert one, saw the lines that connected him to the others, the way it all joined together…shatter point the Jedi text books had called it, apparently it was a rare ability

“Ignorance” his grandfather sneered

The thread he walked took him perilously close to where Yoda was working, but his attention was on one of the other guard, his head tilted as he approached, the threads grew larger, stronger…and shattered.  Anyone else might’ve just thought this was a lazy guard, but not this Mandolorian, he had a suspicious, jaded aura, a true veteran…

The Veteran punched the sleeper, Yoda noticed and tried to hurry, the lock must’ve opened but it was counterproductive.  The thread linking Yoda to the other ruptured open as the hissing of the door caught the Veterans attention.

The Veteran tilted his head and started talking into his helmet comm link. Valens pulled the grenades and leapt into action.  He sped across the sands the aether speeding his leaps, and shielding his sound over the small fence and on to the top of the prefab where the most sleeping Mandolorians were, he surged aetheric disruption into the sleepers minds and moved toward

Sirens and lights exploded across the camp, Weapons clacked and the guard formed up around the Veteran, Yoda was heading toward a group of newly awakened Mando’s.  Valens leapt forward.

As he flipped over the main body of Mandolorians he unleashed a blast of aetheric energy down onto their heads, they crumpled and flattened, except for the Veteran who rolled back into a fighting stance as Valens landed.  It would be easier, not easy, to slay him with his sabre, but Valens needed more.  The Mando drew a short vibro knife and came at him, Vales dodged left, then right, ducked waiting for his chance he threw odd punches here and there. 

He sensed confusion in the Mandolorians aura that he was fighting unarmed.  It faded quickly with his next strike.  He could see the lines in the helmet, the thin patterned cracks that ranged through the arrangement of the atoms, and in their centre a point, that point he struck with an aether charged punch.  The helmet cracked apart like an egg.

Before the dumbfounded Mandolorian could strike back Valens grabbed his head and burst into his mind, and as he would pull a lightsabre to his hand, so he pulled the memories to his own mind. 

Decades of fighting, under alien skies and in the empty voids, interspersed with fractured relationships with women on Mandalore and prostitutes on a dozen worlds. Friends and acquaintances came and went, hopes and dreams unfulfilled, lessons learnt in bloody failure followed by the thrills of a strategy well executed.

It all flooded in.  He sensed movement behind him as the other Mandolorians recovered, but dismissively flicked them through the air with the aether, bones cracked as they slammed against walls and posts, broken but not dead.

The Veteran collapsed his eyes blank.
***************************************************************************************************
The interrogation was swift, it was interesting to see just how powerful a Jedi Master could be,

“Attacks on Jedi who ordered,”

“The Quarren…” came the groggy response of the second in command, the Veteran was still unconscious, took a blow to the head Valens had told Yoda.

“Location of this Quarren,” Yoda was a true master at force persuasion, Valens took careful notes, his own techniques were more poised to playing emotions than the Jedi’s dulling of higher functions, a combination of the two approaches would be very potent.

“Nar Shadda, same old mansion…”

“The intent of these raids,”

“Some antiques or something, the vixen and the witch always wanted the antiques,”

Antiques, the archives project…this Quarren was stealing them…Valens wondered….

“How did you find out the Jedi course plans,” he asked mirroring Yoda’s technique,

“Didn’t just got told by the witch,”

“More about this witch and vixen tell me?” Yoda went on,

“Witch is a psycho, one arm, fights like a Jedi, tattoos, the vixen has a claw, kills Jedi like they were nothing…real weird, like she’s not really there though,”

Yoda’s eyes narrowed in thought.

They left the Mandolorians to attend to their wounded but disabled their communications and ships, Valens had appropriated a few items off of the Mandolorians, a beskar combat knife, disruptor blaster, a few hacking and infiltration tools, and the best set of armour there. 

The Veterans memories were already paying dividends.

The more I read about the aetheric interpretation of the Force, the more amazed I become.  You've really added to the mythos of SW with your excellent brand of narrative.  What's even more incredible is that you intersperse canon throughout, creating a dynamic, yet familiar setting (Klatooine, shatter points, Mandalorians just to name a few  :)). 

Valens takes "combat pragmatism" to the next level with his aetheric syphoning; fantastic mechanism for the Power it delivers!  Although, I wonder just what cost these actions will incur, both to Valens as well as his victims  ;)

Until next installment friends  :)

The Jedi had some strange rules around intimate relationships, they were hermit like, restricted in their view of the force as much as their interactions with the world.  To protect them from the ‘dark side’.

“Nonsense,” Andis commented from somewhere…all around him

Yoda had been assisting in ‘guiding him to the path of the Light’, Sofa’s memories had assisted him in that.  His grandfather would never have tolerated such pontificating on morality and philosophy, the aether was just the aether…a word he hadn’t spoken in a while.  That saddened him.

I think you encapsulated the view of the Aetherian's right here.  Valens isn't trying to become a Jedi, he's learning about them and learning from them ... but not accepting their core beliefs.  I love the way you're building this.  I don't know if I can or would agree with Valen's ethics, particularly since his memory extraction method appears to put his targets (victims?) into a deep and nearly permanent coma.  So far one Jedi Master has pulled one Jedi out of it ... with great difficulty.  The native power of the Aethens though is amazing!  Far beyond what most Jedi possess.  This is more like what Anakin in his "raw" form might have been capable of...

...Anakin...

Hmm....

Ahem.  Anyway.  Sorry, mental side-track...

Another thing that struck me about Valen's view: it is consistent with tribal peoples on a very basic level - We are People.  Everyone else (not of the tribe) are ... less than People.  One thing I learned many years ago that interested me was that nearly every Native American tribe's name meant "The People" in their native language.  If you were part of the The People you were treated with respect and consideration.  If you were not...  Now, they didn't generally restrict membership in "The People" to blood ties, you could be adopted in, but you still had to become a part of The People to gain the rights of those People.  Others could be treated as you wished with little regard. 

Valens seems to be taking a very similar view.  He's out to preserve his People.  Everyone else is just a tool to use to that end.  And since you've paired him with Yoda, I'm starting to feel a tension build.  I know Yoda will survive whatever comes, because he's Canon.  He HAS to.  LOL    But right now I cannot see this resolving without conflict between them.  And since they're BOTH very powerful (I suspect Valens may be underestimating Yoda's strength because of the perceived limitations of his philosophy) that conflict could be very interesting indeed.

At any rate...  Excellent entry!  I am SOOO looking forward to the next installments!  :-)

Karmack

Karmack you are spot on about….pretty much everything.  No other way to say it ,the example of the Native Americans people concept is exactly what I had in mind, there are Aethans and there are objects.  I’m stoked that I’ve been able to get those concepts and personalities, and the way they clash, the moral ambiguities of Valens actions in particular (hero of his people?), across in my story exactly the way I wanted to!  There is just one piece you're missing from the puzzle that will be coming in the final chapters (planning to release  part 5 all at once next week sometime). till then.....

[/b]

As this has been a long story, some little hints earlier on about something important might have been forgotten, so I would recommend having a look over Andis first chapter, Shilea’s first chapter for her vision toward the end, the Lyssia interlude for her vision, and Melrons chapter to refresh on some threads about the Aethans that will be important at the end…some Mysteries from the start will be revealed others…This should at least solve the mystery of something from the vey start of the story...partially!

PS I do have other interludes to add to Dutchmans excellent Interlude specific thread in the future, this particular one is specific for building up to the end of this series though so wanted to keep it together.


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The sensations were overwhelming, he couldn’t still himself, and perhaps he didn’t want to.  In the centre of the perfect flat top of the stone was a single blemish, an indented crystal as big as his thumb, the sounds grew louder as he stared at it, the emotions flooded the aether and mingled with his, the line between himself and the visions blurred.  He didn’t know what would happen to him if he touched it, it was sickening in its darkness, the only clear thought was the choice - to touch and know, to turn and wonder.  Indecision was his weakness.

He made his choice….
.He grasped the altar

Everything stopped.  

Light, sound, emotion, the aether itself.

His mind, or his perception of his mind was all there was, was that anything.  

Gradually his body was there, then the altar, then Her.  

He knew Her, knew her so well it was as if he looked through her back onto himself.  

Yet she was so far away on the other side of the altar, why wasn’t he with her? Or she with him.  

Her white, refined features bordered by flowing long hair, an elegant feminine body were suffused by a gentle red glow.  She spoke, no she thought meaning into his mind.


He almost spoke, but such a form of communication seemed like an insult to her, he thought back to her,

Who, why, love, desire


The last thoughts seemed to slip out, unfiltered from his very soul  

She pleaded, he knew her, but he couldn’t…it was right there, just at the edge of his consciousness…

[/size]

It came slowly, like a glacier advancing, aeons passed but the movement was unstoppable.  

His past, his true past, his true life, before this, disruption…his knowledge, his feelings, they had always been there, he had always been himself, Valens…no not quite..Valas..Valan…


Her voice echoed through to the edges of a universe that encompassed only them.

Yes that was his true name, he knew now, he had returned, his mind, his memories, his power intact, no not just intact enhanced beyond imagination, beyond all their hopes.

[/size]

He called out to her!

But her face shifted, the red darkened,


Her tone, her essence her was firm uncompromising


More insistent, with a sharp edge of desperation.

The world crackled with red lightning, she grew and burned in black fire as she screamed with a voice that was sound, light, aether…existence itself.


**************************************************************************************
He awoke lying on the altar, his hand closed around the crystal, the skin of his palm cut from gripping it too tightly.

He was shaking, his body flooded with stress hormones.  He tried to shake it off, but it was difficult.  Memories of lives once lived slowly trickled into his mind, it could take month. years perhaps to fully recover them all.  

But as he rose even the knowledge he could grasp slipped back from his conscious mind…but it would remain, working its way out slowly, quietly, in him over time.

He replaced the crystal then levitated to the centre of the pool and stared up at the chasm, the aether flowed strongly from the altar helping him recover, its warm darkness seeping into him.  

He flew back up the shaft to return to his grandfather, his brother, and in a few months his new bride and family…..

I am intrigued. Who is this person he is supposed to free? And what will happen when everything comes back to him? I feel there is still more to this story, and I hope that you plan to answer it soon. But if not, then at least before the book is over. Anyways, great job. I didn't get a chance to reply to the last one, but that also was amazing. I also thought of the "People" thing, but I'd have had no way to put it into words, so thanks Karm for doing that for me. Wonderfully written both of these, and I can't wait for more.

Congratulations to Karm!  As TR stated, his articulation of the "People" dynamic is perfect!  But that's also testament to your writing LSG.  "There are Aethans and there are enemies" seems to be the maxim, at least with our characters (not that I blame them: abducted, absconded, and abused; yes, the parallels are telling).

LSG, you're a prolific writer; like you said: I have to go back, reread to fully appreciate the nuanced storytelling you've conceived!  My writing is episodic; your's is EPIC!  That's why I appreciate the feedback I get from you guys: you've all made such incredible narratives, I enjoy learning to progress and improve.

And thanks for the "heads up," now I can go to the necessary chapters and fill in (a little) of the mystery you've hooked us with  :)

On a completely serious note, have you thought about publication for this incredible story?  As I have said before, it's better than most of the published SW books I've read!  Just a thought, my friend   ;)

Until next installment friends  :)

LSG, that was a great post!  Its enigmatic and mysterious and I am SURE it will make sense once we get more from Part 5, but right now?  LOL

AS for who needs to be freed....  I'm thinking its the crystal itself...  But I'm biased.  :-)

Looking forward to more! 

Thanks for everyone who has had a read of my story, it’s been fun to write, I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Especially thankful to (in no particular order apart from Gray…) Dutchman, Karmack and Taegin for your comments and support, keeps me inspired to keep writing, and the stories you guys are producing yourselves have given me new ideas and set a high standard that pushes me to improve.

Below is the final Part with all chapters in one hit so you can read the full course of events in one sitting if you like.

[/b][/b]


[/b]
When he arrived back at the Falleens mansion after hiring a ride with a full stolen purse as payment, the captain of the guards was calling frantically for information on his commlink.  He had looked confused as Jarys walked up the steps toward him - he had looked terrified when he had blown through the transparent doors with the aether.  He had looked like a scared child when Jarys had taken his head.

He went through the mansion finishing off the Falleens remaining guards and unlocking the rest of the slaves.  There were far more than he had imagined, all species all genders, all with the same downcast look of having been inured to Xixze’s depredations so thoroughly they had no idea what to do when freed.

He had found Tiiko, a short orange thing, his eyes huge due to strange magnifying glasses, his bulbous head had a number of ugly looking scars and small slivers of metal, mechanical devises implanted and removed in a rough, non-consensual way.

The slaves looted the place before scurrying off into the darkness.  The news holo was filled with the Beast of the Arena slaughtering over six hundred, and a sickeningly false eulogy of Myzm the Hutt by his brother Mrma, who wept at the loss of his beautiful generous brother.

The silver haired girl he had…been with…left with a male twi’lek hand in hand. She hadn’t said anything as she left, just looked at him sadly and nodded.  He hoped it was of forgiveness.  Her name he learned from Tiiko was Mayghan…he had never asked her himself.

“We go now, all others go, we go we go we go!” Tiiko screeched, his back overloaded with sacks full of what looked like decrepit machines and a few bits of plunder.  Jarys sat staring at the corpses of the guard he had piled up, go where he wanted to ask.

As if in answer Tiiko went on, “We hide, many dark hole to hide, many many, wait, wait, wait, Tiiiko find way off world, we sell trinkets, go, go home,” his eyes glistened with childlike exuberance, “Home!”.  

Home…he had no idea where his home was in the galaxy…and what was there to go back to for him…a dying world now finally dead…
No…he had survived perhaps they had too.  He stood up and threw a heavy robe around him, he would find what others he could, he was still a Guardian.

He had forgotten that for too long.  

“Let’s go”
*****************************************************************************************************
It had taken less than an hour in the under levels of Nar Shadda for Jarys to realise why Tiiko had stayed with him.  A bunch of wheezing Gan thugs had tried to rob them barely a few klicks into the black streets where the sun never reached and the stench never died.  

Jarys, armed with weapons and equipment from Xixzes’ armoury had dispatched them easily enough, but before they reached the ‘safety’ of a bar they had been set upon twice more.

They sold some of their loot for just over 12,000 credits, enough to get off world, but they needed to lay low first, as Tiiko explained half of Nar Shadda wanted Jarys dead, the other half wanted to “make big kissing and licking, lots of lots of hate brown slug thing, lots of lots of kissing kill-man-beast!”

The bar had a few floors of rooms, little better than the first cage Jarys had been put in when first captured, to hide out in.  Tiiko spent most his time tinkering with his various machines, Jarys tried to learn from him but Tiiko…Tiiko was Tiiko, frantic, obsessive and deranged even for an alien.  He wished he was better at memory absorption.

Jarys turned his thoughts to finding other Aethans.  At first he had tried to sense them, but the aether here was so confusing, so turbulent it was impossible.  He had used the holonet to try and look up slaver stores to find records of sales but had little success, he didn’t understand how things worked here.

After two weeks of boredom and horrid food he had to get out, robed and masked he stalked along the streets and lifts to the mid-levels.  The sheer number of beings astounded him, he could hardly believe that he hadn’t known about it all that time on Aethas, how could such a huge city be kept secret…only by the vastness of space.

It angered him, why would such a vast civilization, with such technology and buildings go out of their way to enslave and destroy his people.  He hated them all.  As many as he had killed in the arena, he wished he had killed more.  

He stalked through the slave markets, species of all kinds in chains, behind transparent windows, some raging, some depressed, he imagined Cilina, Shilea or Valens in one of those cages and could barely keep from tearing up.  The sight of the buyers, dressed in fine clothes, some in mining outfits, others little better than the slaves themselves, stoked his rage further.

The trade was winding down for the day when he approached a floating blue thing, Toydarian they called these aliens, who oversaw one of the larger stores.

“Hey, What you looking for, buy or sell,” came the ugly accented voice

It rankled him to speak to such filth, “Just inquiring,”

“Inquire, fine inquire quick,”

“I’m looking for Aethans, have any come through recently,”

The Toydarian looked at him blankly, “What’s an Aethans,”  Jarys realised none of the slavers knew the name of the peoples they had terrorized…they didn’t care,  

“People who use the aeth…the …what is it, Power, Focus…Force the force,”

The Toydarian didn’t look very interested, he was now typing things on his datapad, he obviously thought Jarys was some kind of idiot. “Force sensitive, no not for long time, can get, Gotal, Ikotchi,” he replied absently engrossed in his data pad.

“No human, human force sensitive,”

“Human…human rare…, some ages ago, all sell, hah,” he chuckled, “Yeah almost a year ago, bunch sold by that dead Hutt, big problems though, lots of em crazy, killing other slaves, masters and themselves, had to be put down some.  Some say they even burst into flames some times, but I don’t believe ‘em. Eh Just a bad batch,”

Jarys tried to control his anger but it was building, he could feel it seeping out of his pores, “Do you know where they were sold,”

“Eh upper tiers, Myzm old place, hey you don’t look so good,”

That was enough information, he lightly held some of the creature’s organs in the aether and walked away.  As he turned down a street he noticed a strange snouted creature, a Rodian, watching him.  Another damn mugger he thought, but it didn’t follow him.  A few levels down just before he lost the stream in the ocean of the aether he squeezed the organs till they popped.

Somewhere in the slave markets above the Toydarian had just dropped dead in an oozing stinking mess of his own fluids.

******************************************************************************************************

As soon as he entered the bar he knew something was up, it was too quiet, the aethers waters were tense, the waves of emotion controlled but trembling.  

There were eight others, the owner, two Rodians, a Twi’lek, three burly Chagrain, and a hooded humanoid in the corner.  

By instinct he rippled his concentration through the aether to lock each of them as a target, ready to inundate them with crushing telekinetic blows should he be able to match them in normal combat.

He proceeded with measured steps to the turbo lift to his room, halfway there the fight began.  He spun and lurched back to dodge the missile, green bolts whose heat he could feel as they passed. The aether brought his pistol to his hand, guiding his arm as he dived to the ground loosing a bolt that hit a Rodians shoulder.

Dull thumps echoed and electro nets flew toward him expanding out in crackling arcs, they wanted to keep him in a small a space as possible, rolling under a round table he fired at the legs you could see scoring one hit.  

The nets landed either side, he had a wall and tables 5 metres behind him and the rest of the bar in front.  He should’ve dropped back.  He charged forward rising and firing, he hit the second rodian between the eyes, the Chagrain behind an upturned table fired more green bolts and he made hi way toward them twisting to avoidthe blasts.  

A hiss signalled a rocket from the side, the Twi’lek, without looking he used the aether to twist its course toward the Chagrain, he was about to mentally crush the twi’lek when its aura vanished…the Humanoid had shot it.

The Chagrain dived out of cover to avoid the missile.  The explosion was small but enough to catch one in the leg, two rolled to the left, the other to the right.  Jarys came up before the one on the right and landed a heavy kick into his face smashing bone.  He pivoted toward the others and saw red bolts from the humanoid hit one of them as Jarys dodged a bolt and shot the other.

Only the Rodain he had hit in the shoulder remained alive.  The cloaked humanoid was over him, blaster pointed down, without any fanfare he fired.

“Slaver scum,” came a gruff voice.

Jarys had his blaster trained on him, and the aether primed to rip him to pieces.  He threw back his hood revealing heavily scarred bald human face.

“Well met brother” he said, Jarys couldn’t sense any malice or ill intent, but remained wary, he increased the distance between them.

“I’m not your brother,” he replied curtly,

The humanoid chuckled,

“Anyone who was a slave, is a slave, or kills slavers is brother to me and all the Sons of Kessel,”

He hit the cooler on his blaster, flicking it open and making it inoperable as a weapon till he reset it, Jarys could sense he was trying to build trust and calm.

“One of our men noticed you in the market,” the Rodian there Jarys thought, “You’re a famous man, a strong warrior, the Sons would be happy to help you out,”

“And what would these Sons want in return?”

“Free slaves and kill slavers, that’s all we do and all we ask.” He stretched out his hand  “So how bout it ”
If he was to find what remained of his people…this was his best chance…
He took his hand, “Let’s get out of here,” he said
******************************************************************************************************----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“This is not acceptable…You had no right entering Hutt Space!” Kimars fury came across the hologram vibrantly

“More Jedi to die before finding out who was responsible were there?” Yoda replied irritated

“That is not the point, we cannot risk upsetting the Hutts they…”

“Beholden to the Hutts are we now, the Republic and our fellow Jedi I thought we served!” Yoda was tired of tiptoeing around the crime lords, and even more tired of the Republic and Jedi like Kimar who turned a blind eye to their activities.  

“Your…information has proven….useful, but we do not approve you going to Nar Shadda in pursuit of this ‘Quarren’…The council will prepare a formal request to the Hutt…”

“Request the Hutts to deliver a wealthy thief to us, doubtless comply they shall, such good citizens of the Republic they are,” Yoda was surprised at his own sarcasm. Yoda was well aware of the need to plan a co-ordinated response to these attacks, that was why he had contacted the council, but to avoid acting now would only put more Jedi at risk.

“And what would you suggest instead Master Yoda,” Kimar oozed annoyance

“To Nar Shadda I will proceed, investigate this Quarren then report, with other Jedi determine a method of reclaiming the Artefacts we shall,”

If the Quarren was willing to hire Mandolorians to steal off Jedi he would not part with the items peacefully. Yoda knew Kimar realized this, as much as Kimar did not want to antagonize the Hutts, he knew it was too dangerous to allow anyone possession of some of those objects, and even more dangerous to let such blatant attacks on Jedi pass without a firm response.

“Very well, but you are not to engage this Quarren directly in any way, be as discrete as possible,” Kimar paused, “I will dispatch a task force to assist,” to make sure Yoda toed the line more like, “Soryu and a few others perhaps.  Any other matters?” he asked uninterested,

“Good progress my apprentice is making,” Yoda knew Kimar disliked Valens, but couldn’t resist the stab.

Kimar sneered, “May the Force be with you Master Yoda,”

“And You Master Kimar,” the connection terminated.

******************************************************************************************************
It was difficult to find a disguise that fitted properly, even amongst the polyglot crowd of Nar Shadda docks.  The best they could manage was an Urganaughts jump suit cut to size and smeared with even more grease than they had found on it.  Valens wore the Mandolorian armour they had taken on Klatooine, with his hair messed up and some ash on his cheeks he looked convincingly the part of a young Mandolorian mercenary.  He certainly acted it very well and had a surprising command of Mando’a for only studying it for three days.  

Valens never ceased to amaze with the rapidity with which he learned things, Jedi force techniques, lightsabre combat, piloting, slicing, ship repairs and now Mandolorian language and customs.  It seemed unnatural in a way, there was something to it Yoda couldn’t quite work out…something that unnerved him.  Perhaps a Guardian force technique.

Yoda stayed in the corner with a fluoro blue drink that smelled more than a little acidic while Valens spoke to some Mandolorians in black and yellow armour across the bar.

Collecting information on Nar Shadda was difficult, one couldn’t simply walk around asking ‘have you worked for the Quarren, know where to find him’ you had to build a rapport, skirt around general issues like delays on different runs, complaining over bad contracts, and pick up titbits along the way.  

So far he had discovered only that the Quarren was known by no other name, lived in a mansion outside Nar Shadda proper had an interest in the occult, money to burn and did deals with the Hutts.  It wasn’t much to go on.

He heard Valens laugh out loud, it was an odd sound to hear from his usually taciturn student.  Yoda reflected on that word, he was understanding, more than with any other apprentice he had had what the saying ‘to be able to teach one must be willing to learn’ meant.  The difference in having a student trained in another tradition he felt would only make him a better teacher in the future.  Valens pointed in Yodas direction, the Mandos chuckled at something then waved goodbye.

Valens dropped heavily into the seat beside him,

“Anything of interest discovered have you,”  Valens slapped him lightly on the back and burrowed heads, not just to overcome the noise of the crowd but to keep up the appearance of a rough and ready Mandolorian out on the town.

“Confirmed it was Hunik, a Hutt who was killed recently acted as a go between, this Quarren isn’t a crime lord, what you learned seems consistent with the story I’m getting about him.” He looked around then drew in closer,

“Hunik is here on Nar Shadda, doing some other work on the upper tiers… “Schoomzing at Ylorens” but apparently he was raging drunk last night when he found out about Klatooine, feels like this Quarren has brought the Jedi down upon him,”

“hrrmmm…” Yoda thought, “perhaps from this Quarren he will seek compensation,”

Valens nodded,

“Find this Ylorens we will, track him, see if this Quarren he visits,”

******************************************************************************************************
Yorlens was an upper tier restaurant full of what passed as high society on Nar Shadda, mostly Hutts and a conglomerate of other characters that Yoda had no doubt was also a who’s who of the Republics list of Corrupt business men that companies should avoid doing deals with.  

There was no way to get in such a place, but they didn’t need to, Yoda looked down from his idling rented hover car through the tall glass windows.  Below Valens in a black jump suit was stalking along the parked speeders and pleasure skiffs on an open landing pad.  He came out from behind them and round beside a valet. The valet turned startled but soon settled down, they started chatting.  

Yoda had no doubt he was using force persuasion on Valens, but one thing he had noticed was unlike most force users Valens never used his hand or gestures when using the force.  It often helped provided a physical focus for Jedi, but it seemed absent in him, perhaps due to his peoples innate connection to the force.

After a few moments Valens slunk away and the Valet drooped as if half asleep.  He proceeded along the transports.  Then Yoda noticed them, three black figures loping up onto the platform from beneath…he reached out in the force and sensed greed, desire, desperation…thieves.  They stalked quickly and with intent –experienced thieves, directly toward where Valens was heading.

He hoped they were not heading to the same vehicle.  Yoda flashed a warning in the force toward Valens….there was little more he could do, suddenly dropping onto the platform would give them away…he needed to trust his apprentice.

The three dark shapes stopped, each beside a different vehicle, the middle one started working on it, the other two were look outs.  Valens paused, he was looking at the nearest lookout who stood behind the most boxy utilitarian vehicle there….Yoda should’ve guessed that would be the Mandolorians by the simple look of it.

Valens edged closer, Yoda wasn’t sure he could do it…perhaps if he waited…but if the thieves set off an alarm…

What happened next shocked Yoda Valens stood taller and went straight toward the lookout who promptly pulled a blaster, Valens had his hands in the air and started to mouth words.  The other thieves looked at him.  Yoda felt the entire operation on a knifes edge.

Then the lookout nodded, Valens approached and the two of them set to work on the boxy transport.  The finished placing their equipment, a tracker for Valens, a tracker and a control override for the thieves then went their separate ways

When they met up Yoda asked, “How with those thieves did you deal,”

Valens shrugged, “on Aethas they say gormins always lick gormins…say you’re a thief and a thief will help you out…with a little help from the force.

Yoda nodded, he knew Jedi knights who wouldn’t do as well as that.

******************************************************************************************************
It was one of the darkest dankest hangars Yoda had ever seen, barely used on the mid-levels, perfect for meeting up with the Jedi Kimar had sent.  

The bronze angular craft jetted in slowly.  He felt a quick flicker of distaste from Valens as he used the force to scan the occupants.  Only when the ships ramp descended did he realise why.

Kimar had come himself, along with two of his more loyal supporters and Soryu.

He looked annoyed but determined.

“Well Master Yoda,” he stood hand on hips dominating the space around him “what do you have to report to me,”
******************************************************************************************************
Yoda hadn’t really been outside the main city of Nar Shadda before. It was quite mountainous out here past the industrial zones, dotted with isolated fortresses.  They had obtained two light skiffs, Kimar and his men on one, Yoda Soryu and Valens on the other.  

With details on the mansion they had obtained from an information broker called Rgnal the plan had been set.  Valens would be dropped off near the base of the cliff to enter through the tunnel network, Soryu and Yoda either side of the mansion, whilst Kimar and his men landed on the main pad.  

The hope was Kimar could negotiate with the Mandolorians and the Quarren for a peaceful hand over, but if not, then the others would be ready to deal with them from the back and sides.  

The slid in quietly taking a long loop around to avoid the Mandolorians spotting them, they stopped near an alcove on the cliff face the opened to a hidden hangar, Valens force leapt across, Soryu then dropped Yoda off on the decaying eastern wall before heading for the west side.  As he moved into position as best he could – it seems the map they had been given wasn’t up to date for some of the more recent additions and seemingly abandoned construction platforms, he switched on his commlink to listen in as he saw Kimars skiff land.

“We’re here to see the Quarren,”

“Go frell a nerf Jedi scum,” replied a Mandolorian without missing a beat

“I have no quarrel with you Mandolorian, do not make one,”

Yoda may not like Kimar personally, or agree with him often, but he respected him nonetheless.

“You’re Jedi, you have a quarrel with everyone who doesn’t wear white robes and live like a monk,” the Mandos laughed, this was worrying Kimar was no fool, but didn’t take well to affront to the Order.

“Step aside,”

“Or what cast a spell on me like you did on Klatooine,” Yoda heard the dull thump of someone pushing Kimar

“I warn you,”

“Eat my barrel Jedi,”  

He heard blaster shot, the snap-hiss of igniting lightsabres.  The fight had begun.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An unhappy Mandolorian was not a pretty sight, though Lyr couldn’t decide if the anonymity of the helmet made them more or less threatening…depended what was under it he supposed.

Hunik stood hand on his hips towering over Lyrs desk,

“Where’s your new damn boss you snake, I want to see him now, he owes me big time!”

“Ah you mean the Quarren,”

“No I mean the bloody Queen of Hapes, of course the Quarren!  I’ve got damn Jedi on my tail because of him, and you.  You said the Jedi would only go after the Quarren, you tell that to my brother, unconscious for weeks now after some Jedi cast a spell on him!”

“You see the Quarren isn’t my employer or the owner here anymore…he passed away recently…”

“Cut the kriff, someone owes me and I want my losses recouped, you arranged the deal, you’re responsible!”

“Well if you’ll refer to the contract Myzm only provided administrative services, and as his…company is now….closed down….”

“Don’t try and fob me off, we both know how deals work around here, Myzms dead, Quarrens dead and I’m out of pocket, that leaves you Lyr, you can wave around all the contracts you want, I’ve got twelve of my best men here more than happy to debate you on it.”  He slammed his fists into the table…Lyr hoped it didn’t leave a dent…..

“Now are you going to pay up, or do I have to loot the place….your choice,”

Lyr sighed, better to make this just go away, “how much,”

“1 million,”

“Oh that’s ridiculous, the Jedi didn’t kill anyone did they, surely we can….,”

BOOM. An explosion rang out through he room,

“What the frell,” Hunik turned and muttered into his commlink

Lyr slowly started to move his chair away from his desk reaching for his blaster,

“Jedi, frelling Jedi!” Hunik yelled and turned to storm off, before he left the room he spun around faster than Lyr though possible in that much armour and pointed an accusing finger at him,

“Stay right there, price just went up!”

Lyr had no intention of obeying.

******************************************************************************************************
The holo feeds from the security cameras showed the Mandolorians holding three or four Jedi at bay, just, on the main landing platform.  He should’ve listened to Rgnal and never gotten involved with the Quarren…but still that wouldn’t have saved Myzm…

He tentatively opened the audience chamber door, Sevra sat cross legged before her bizarre assortment of candles, antiques and two stasis medical pods, one with a young woman’s corpse in it.  She looked like Sevra, he thought, though the bruising made it hard to tell. 

“Uh…Mistress a moment if I might,”

“What is it,” she said softly with the voice of nice Sevra, over the two months he had worked for her he had noticed three distinct tones in her voice, aloof, nice and psycho.  Oddly he preferred the aloof one. 

“Two minor issues, one a Mandalorian Hunik came by asking for money…he was the commander of the Mandalorians you previously…worked with…and also it seems some Jedi are outside fighting with Hunik and his Mandalorians,” he paused expecting a response but none came for too many beats

“Likely they will be after some of the artefacts the Quarren had you…acquire,” he glanced at the lightsabres arranged on the floor, collected from Jedi he had seen her kill, and more he hadn’t.

He straightened up, “Perhaps I could arrange something with them,”

“Perhaps you could…but the Jedi are not here to make deals….I suggest you leave quickly Lacryn Keeshaw, this will not end peacefully.”  She turned just enough he could make out half her face, it seemed sad…

“She won’t let it,” she finished and turned back.

He was more than a little flabbergasted she had spoken his real name…he hadn’t even told Rshi that….but he didn’t need to be told twice.  He could already hear the crisp sounds of blaster fire and the hum of Lightsabres drawing near. 

He was out of there.
******************************************************************************************************
The tunnels beneath the mansion were confusing and only dimly lit by old emergency lamps with half dead betteries, but Lyr made a habit of studying all escape routes very carefully, it never failed to come in handy.  He should’ve gone back for Rshi, or the child…but he had no desire to risk getting in between Mandolorians, Jedi and Sevra.

The rooms to the sides of the halls he was traversing were full of torture devices, and more than a few withered body parts.  He had a sickening feeling this was where some of the slaves he had sold the Quarren over the years had met their end.

He rounded a chipped stone corner then stopped dead.  There was a Jedi in a brown robe right in his face.  If ever he needed to talk his way out of something it was now.

“Uh…so good to see you fine Jedi, finally someone to save me from that insane woman, I’ve been here for months…”

He wasn’t buying it, he was just staring at him.  The Jedi seemed unusually young, human, male and felt somehow familiar.

“I know you,”  he said quietly

“uh…have you ever been to Nxana’s place on Ryloth?”

As he continued to stare, Lyr felt slightly faint, his eyes starting playing ticks on him, thin lines appeared all around him, then thicker ones, all converging on him as though he were the centre of some strange map of star lanes.

He started to feel a probing in his head, it was similar to how he felt when evil Sevra made him tell the truth, but this was somehow both less brutish and more distressing at the same time.

“If you weren’t the centre of a shatter point…” the young Jedi said with an eerie detached voice, “I would make you suffer a long, long time…be thankful I can use you,” 

Lyr was trembling, he suddenly fell to his knees as the force in his mind became even stronger, it was both pushing commands in and pulling knowledge out, his consciousness on a torture rack, the middle of the psychological tug of war.

“You’re going to work for me from now on Lyr’ca’Njo,”

Soryu raced through the labyrinthine corridors trying to get to Kimar and the other Jedi, he could sense the rage polluting the force, he hope he could get to them in time.

He had overheard how quickly the situation had escalated…it sadden him that this would end in a fight…but then given this Quarren had likely killed dozens of Jedi already perhaps he had been too optimistic.

Oddly he had found no doors locked with anything more than basic security, perhaps due to the isolation, but the dank air stank of neglect.  He finally came across a main corridor that was not filled with dust, along the sides were various display cases with strange objects, on the falls tapestries and rotten banners that had a dark air…in fact as he paused to take in his surrounding the whole place had a sick feel to it…

He opened himself to the force to feel its flow, but it had a repulsive feel, he struggled to centre himself amongst so many competing energies…if there was any doubt before, there was none now that the artefacts had been brought here.

Through the dark haze  was Kimar and the Jedi, fighting with dropping Mandolorians, there Yoda to the east, a few other life forms about…he couldn’t sense Valens, but then even when he was right next to him he found it difficult to, and there deeper…

A sick, twisted presence, light and dark wrapped around each other…cutting and tearing…it was like nothing he had felt before…and then nearby a frightened presence, and another, a light one, small but strong…a child?

He had little time to investigate, doors crashed open behind him and three Mandolorians charged toward him.  He barely had his sabre switched on before the first bolts reached him, they fanned out taking cover in doorways.  He could tell from the speed of their movements these were veterans, they knew better than to face a Jedi close together, and the grenades that sailed toward him confirmed they knew how to fight Jedi too. 

He used the force to catch the two explosives, open a door to the side and send them in, smoke and electrical flashes billowed out as he jumped from door way to door way closing the distance.  It left him with a sticky feeling, as though something amongst those objects was trying to latch onto him…he had to be careful and only open himself fully to the force when absolutely necessary…it would make the fight harder…but the risk of being infected by the dark energies was too great.

He rolled and flipped, bouncing back the odd bolt, he needed to get closer.  But as fast as he moved they did too, switching places, falling back behind each other’s cover fire down the long hallway.   He couldn’t try to flank them he didn’t know the layout well enough, his major worry was if Kimar was beaten he would have more coming in behind him. 

Another grenade lobbed toward him, again he sent it trailing into an empty room, the oily feel stronger this time, he heard glass shatter and wood crack as it went off.  He rolled out of cover low and sprang up green sabre forward he bounced bolts back then sent a surge of the force toward he nearest Mandolorian, the door way cracked and splintered with his telekinetic blow, but missed the entrenched Mandoloiran, but the disorientation gave him time.  He came round and landed a high kick into the stunned Mando’s helmet, followed by a bone cracking stomp on his back and kicked his rifle away. 

Danger!

Almost too late he turned to deflect three well placed shots at his back from one of the Mandos across the hall, but where was the third?

The door crashed open and he flew back, only just managing to regain his balance, the third Mandolorian was far better equipped, but his brutal hit had knocked Soryu out of seconds firing line.  Third had two electro surge gauntlets glowing blue ready to pummel him, Soryu formed up and met his charge.  Third went high, mid, mid, low, high, each Soryu with the gluggy force was able to deflect, interspersing it with deflection of occasionally red bolts from second who showed high skill to fire that accurately into a melee. 

He was strongly pressed, this Mandoloiran was powerful, he could end this quickly with the force but to expose himself anymore to whatever was around him….

A cry and the hum of another lightsabre solved his issues, second was flat on the ground as Yoda came in blade glowing, the Mandos rifle split in two pieces bubbling where it had been cut.  Third payed little mind as Yoda raced up behind him.  The Just as Yoda leapt off the ground, Third spun and electro fist slamming into his friend sending him flying.  His spin carried him around and smacked Soryu in the side of the face, only that Soryu was already pivoting prevented the twisting of his neck going too far.  He rolled back tasting blood  Third headed toward Yoda,

“You’re the little scum that cast a spell on my brother.”  He yelled pulling a blaster,  There was little choice, Yoda struggled to right himself and Soryu let fly, his sabre arching into Thirds shoulder , followed by Soryu himself, charged with the force slamming his knees into his back. 

Even on his face the Mandolorian pushed to get up but Yoda was on him, tugging off his helmet as Soryu pinned him.  They pushed and struggled, bolts flew randomly smashing cabinet before Soryu disarmed him, he and Yoda both took glancing blows from the gauntlets before the helmet was off and Yoda pommel struck him unconscious.

******************************************************************************************************
“You alright,” he asked

“better I have been,”  Yoda looked around, “difficult here to fight,”  referring to the force here

“Very…I think we should meet up with Kimar before we face,” he gestured in the general direction of the swirling conflict in the force, “whatever that is,”

“Agreed we…”  A scream interrupted Yoda’s sentence, a woman, nearby, they rushed toward it. 

In an empty room a red skinned twi’lek was crouched hiding something as a Mandolorian grabbed at her,

“Hand it ov…,” he saw them and loosed a stream of bolts, Yoda deflected while Soryu flanked him, he tried to pull out his vibro-sword, but not before Soryu had landed a hard kick to the back of his knees, followed with a pommel strike to the top of his head.

He approached the crying Twi’lek,

“It’s alright, I’m here to help,” he placed what hoped was a reassuring hand on her shoulder, she turned and he opened himself a little to exude some warmth in the force, oddly the riot of dark energies was somehow stilled here…she turned and in her arms was a small grey bundle with a white tiny face…the child he had sensed.

Yoda came close, he could sense it too, the child was putting out by instinct alone a barrier of force energy protecting itself from the confusion of powers around it, creating a small island for itself. 

“A child of the Aethans this is, the mother near I hope,”  He turned to Soryu, “With the child stay, assist Kimar I will,” he gave the child another thoughtful look then left.

She didn’t know why she had made the shrine.  It consisted of the babies mothers body in her medical pod, an empty medical pod next to it, she had no idea why she placed that there, surrounded by various candles and the lightsabres of all the Jedi she had killed in a row in front of the pods. 

She had no clue why she would bring the baby in here sometimes, but she did it anyway.

Her disorientation was only getting worse, she watched with calm detachment as she had less and less control over her body.

It seemed to her there were three ‘people’ in her.  First this part of her that knew what was going on, second was some violent angry person who killed things for no reason, obsessed over force artefacts, ordered the Twi’lek about and did all the talking, and a third that seemed more reasonable, but scared and confused, full of memories just out of reach and doing queer ritualistic things like making a shrine and visiting the baby.

It didn’t matter now, the violent side of her had taken control of her body and her voice, as soon as it had sensed the Jedi.  It knew no restraint, and this time she wouldn’t win, the Jedi had come for her, by now they likely knew what to expect from her. Of the four she could sense, one had been killed by the Mandolorians and three were not like the others she had faced, these were far stronger, far more controlled, potent precise hurricanes that could be aimed at her.


She had her claw, ten lightsabres and two tremor swords, and the aether….
That word again, it kept creeping up on her…
The force…she had the force
But she had no name….

It was very subtle at first, and even when she noticed it she could be forgiven for ignoring it, the probing in the force from the Jedi behind her…it was tentative even gentle…affectionate?

She stood, her back to the intruder. 
“Well here you are Jedi,” she used the force to lift and ignite nine of the sabres, another flicked into her hand glowing yellow, the tremor sword spun in the air beside her.

Without further preamble she sent the sabres flying at her enemy as she spun around. 

Immediately she could feel a surge in the force, the gentle air became a cyclone in an instant, battering the sabres she had launched on different vectors, she tried to realign a few, but he batted them off with his own green sabre, following through with clean cuts through the hilts.

As she charged toward the brown robed male human she launched her next attack, her claw raised spewed lightning, her eyes blazing, and firing overpowering fears and terrors toward his mind.

But as suddenly as he had surged into the force he vanished leaving her mental attack with no target, the lightning twisted form and caught it on his blade turning it a bright white and energies clashed.

The light let her see his face more clearly, and he hers, he looked somehow familiar, and she saw a sudden shock on his features, as if she had turned into a rancor before his very eyes.

“Shil….”before he could finish speaking she was on him, her claw lashing him he ducked, her sabre cutting low he rolled back, coming up with a high guard to meet her next blow.  She lunged forward to catch his sabre in her claw and let the kurtosis disable it, but he seemed to sense her intent and telekinetically knocked her claw to the side, she had to bring her sabre in to protect her exposed torso.

She pushed back with the force, but it met a protective field she hadn’t even sensed he was there…This one was a cut above the other Jedi she had faced

“Stop we don’t,” he spoke, perhaps the conscious part of her would’ve stopped to listen, but that other part of her that longed to kill was in control of her actions.

She slashed ferociously, and tried to get her claw at him, but he used the force to kept it pinned outstretched.  There were three fights all at once, Lightsabre against lightsabre on her right, that she was winning driving him toward the wall, force push against force push on her left, that was deadlocked, and will against will in their minds.  There he was trying to calm her, delay her, her resistance was half hearted, but even as he won it did no good, the mind he tried to calm had no control of the body.

High, high, low, mid, high she struck with the sabre, his back was to the wall now, only a metre away, she diverted her power from unnecessary mental defence to regaining control of her claw, it did the trick it was almost free.  Suddenly he seemed to realise his mental efforts were no use, he cut the attack and simultaneously released her claw.  Suddenly free her claw swung forward uncontrollably with pent up moment unleashed in an instant, he ducked down and around cutting into her unarmoured arm pit, severing the muscles on the front of her shoulder.

She felt the pain, it was light, but the effect was devastating, it had cut into her teres muscles rendering them useless, the heavy claw sank…she could no longer raise her arm.

As he came up she smashed her sabre forward in a vertical strike down to his left, but he raised his horizontal to catch it.

She held the sabre parallel to her, holding back her enemies that ran perpendicular.  They pressed ever closer as she drove him into the wall, they were so close she could smell his sweat, his tears.
He wept, “Don’t make me do this Shilea,”
Shilea.
That was it
That was the word
Her name.

The seal was broken, the winds of the aether coursed through her, what she was, what she is, what she might be all blew through her mind.  She finally recognised the face pressed so closely to hers, once in love, now in war.

She wanted to fall back into his arms, to sleep, to awaken from the nightmare…but she couldn’t, her body would not obey, she could feel it, the dark tendrils from the claw controlled her body if not her mind.  But it was trying, trying to seep back into her head. 

“Valens…” she whimpered…”It…” she glanced down at the claw, then back into his eyes.  She could feel his understanding, he pushed her back with his sabre giving himself more room, her body surged forward recovering from the disorientation her name had caused sabre ready to cut him down.
Before she could reach her left arm flew up and outstretched, and with a furious primal power he used the aether to tear the claw from her arm shattering it to pieces.  Skin and muscle ripped off with it.

“NO!” he yelled. At what she thought…she shuddered and looked down, a yellow glowing blade pierced out from between her breasts.

Her eyes widened as she stared at her husband, his despair blew through the aether like a tornado. She tried to speak, but fell instead.

Shileas body flopped to the floor, behind her stood Kimar yellow sabre a glow.  Valens fell trying to get to her,

“What are you doing” the Ikotchi yelled,

He cradled her, poured the aether into her trying to heal her, small parts of the cauterized wound around the skin started to repair…but…it would never be enough…he could not regrow a heart and half a lung with the aether…

He slumped over her, staring into her ever more vacant eyes, they faded from yellow to their natural green as the last of her life left her body.

“Why would you try and save a wretched thing like that?” Kimar asked nonchalantly,

He remained silent for a moment then looked up at Kimar.  The Jedi looked bored, as if he had just swatted an insect.  He could feel the hate raging within him, his breathing faster…all he had to do was…

“Not now…not yet,”  He heard his mother’s voice beside him, Kimar obviously sensed something as he went back on alert,

“There will another time, another place, you know this,” Lyssia pleaded. He did know it, but it didn’t make it any easier.

By the Aether I will see you and every one of your people suffer for this he thought

“Show them what becomes of those who harm an Aethan,” his grandfather’s voice added.

He had barely noticed Yoda and Soryu arriving, both looking a little worse for wear, and in Soryus arms…

“A child of the aether” his mother’s voice whispered descending back into the aether.

******************************************************************************************************

He had placed Shileas body in the empty medical pod, beside Cilina…he had no idea what had made Shilea make the shrine, and could only guess in her disturbed state she had somehow forseen the need for a second pod.  The claw lay shattered on the floor, its dark powers slowly seeping into the void.

Yoda sat beside him - after seeing Cilina’s bodies and recognising the similarity to Shilea he had quickly realised what Valens had just lost. Soryu attended to the child whilst Kimar and his surviving knight searched the mansion to collect the artefacts and called in a transport to begin ferrying them back to Coruscant

“No words such grief may relieve,” Yoda said his hand on Valens shoulder, “One with the force now, at peace she is….little consolation now but in time….”

Valens stared at the wreck of his wife.  He hadn’t recognised her at first, even in the aether, the sith device had overwhelmed her presence, and the cut hair and gaunt features made her face barely recognizable compared to when he had last seen her…long brown hair, full cheeks…

He looked toward Soryu who held Cilinas baby, Milaea, attended by a female twi’lek slave who had brought a bottle for her.

“Master…” he turned to Yoda….”Please can I,” he could barely say it through his tears,
“please let me take them back, to bury them according to our peoples ways…and the baby…to bless her birth in the waters, air and earth of her home world as her mother would’ve according to our traditions….”

Yoda nodded, Valens knew Kimar would object, but Yoda would prevail on compassionate grounds.  “Once rested…depart for your home we shall, than to the temple we can return….strong in the force your niece is, with the other younglings raised she can be,”
******************************************************************************************************
He stood at the foot of the Black Altar, over his  left shoulder his dead wife, in his right arm his baby niece, and behind him his sister in law.  His face was set in stone between utter rage and utter despair.  

He had found Melron waiting for him at the entrance to the cave, he hadn’t spoken, just sorrowfully embraced him and helped him get the bodies down.  He didn’t know how, it didn’t matter, but Melron knew the truth of it, the truth of all of them.  

He lay Shilea and Cilina’s naked bodies upon the altar, he had cleaned their bodies as best he could.  Milaea was half asleep, her consciousness shutting down to protect itself from the strength of the aether here.  He placed the child upon her mother’s breast.

He placed his hand on either side of the altar and felt the energies in it surge once more.  

In a cracking voice he called, “These are the last, the last of your children…..bring them back!”

From the echoing darkness, light of the Aether began to gently suffuse the cavern, the ghosts of his grandfather Andis, his adoptive mother Lyssia, all those he had known throughout his life on Aethas crowded behind him, waiting for the answer.

Slowly on the other side of the altar she appeared…the Lady, the Phantom, The Goddess.  A red vision of female perfection, her gaze settled upon him.  With his hands upon the altar he knew her, knew her secrets, even if his memory had not fully returned without the altar to boost it, still she was crippling in intensity.

Free Me

It was half demand half request, he looked at Milaea.  She was the last child of the Aethans…their survival rested upon her…she was so small and vulnerable…in this galaxy…he alone could not protect her…

“We have an agreement,” he replied, the ghostly red figure nodded slowly, the spirits of the Aethans glowed in grim agreement.

Red lightning crackled from his fingertips.

Once again before this altar…He made his choice.

********************************* Children of the Aether **********************************************
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“Master Yoda, you can't die.” Luke said, half in jest not wanting to believe it himself

“Strong am I with the Force,” Yoda replied “but not that strong.”

Part 5, CH.1 Jarys

To do justice to this incredible story, I'm commenting on them one chapter at a time as I read them  :)

After months of planning (and 1-2 years of slavery) I wonder if Jarys best course of action is to get in with the Sons...but, then again, without Valens' skill at memory absorption, he's literally left to his own devices.  "Stranger in a strange land."

I remember LSG and Karm discussing the "non-shock" of the many deaths.  Again: Jarys has just killed 600.  I am reminded of a saying: "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."  LSG, you deftly avoid this by creating an atmosphere of decadence, villainy, and people of I'll repute. More like "laser-guided karma" or that's just my take  ;). Still: I'm not trusting the Sons, either.

Until next installment friends  :)

Whoa....

I read through them, and I am a little overwhelmed, but the ending... 

What is striking me right now is that you didn't really end the story.  :-)  This feels like a "back-story" more than a story, a massive set-up for another story that you want to tell.  I am reminded of Tolkien.  (Yes, I just compared you to Tolkien.  Favorably.  ;-)  )  Anyway...   If you're familiar with JRR Tolkien, you know that his two works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are backed up by MILLIONS of words of back-stories and supporting stories.  The Simmarillion is only part of it.  And a lot of it is like this - the story of a people, struggling to survive and somewhat failing, but putting forth a single thread or ember that is destined to have a huge impact in the future.

A future that you jumped to with your final cut scene between Yoda and his last powerful student - Luke Skywalker, a student he must have felt was much like Valens had been.  Much as his father had been as well. 

A child of the Aether...

I am not implying that the Skywalkers are Children of the Aether.  But that is definitely a possiblity.  :-)

No. I think Milaea is still alive.  And I think we'll be hearing more about her soon. 

LGS, this was a great story!  Very dark, very forboding, and certainly not in the normal "happy ending" mold that we generally like to fit into.  But it is tight, it is true to the canon characters you touch, its plausible, and it is a great read!  Well done! 

It would be fun to gather all of these stories up and publish them.  But I think we'd get sued to oblivion...  :-)

And I REALLY hope I'm right and there's a sequel coming! 

This, so much^^

Thanks guys appreciate you reading it and your comments,
Look forward to more of you're thoughts as you get through it Dutchman!
And Karm you have, again, hit on some of the points I wanted to get out - as I've said before if it wasn't for you leading the pack on this forum this would never have been written!   

I'm going to be doing a bit of a review on my own story over the next few weeks so might PM you guys for some feedback.

Anyway the best way I can say thanks to you is by removing some suspense....









[/size]

Oh HELL yeah!!!  I can't WAIT for your sequels!!!  Awesome LSG  ;D

LOL  I LOVE IT!  A teaser-trailer!  :-)

Okay, just finished Part 5 Chapter 6, and all I can say is wow. Just wow. Karm put it best in his comparison to Tolkien (great comparison BTW), and I've got to say, he is spot on. This "goddess" is something that I think you will be touching on more in stories to come, and I look forward to seeing where you go with it. Also, Karm's notion that the Skywalkers may have originally come from the Aethans, very interesting, and yes, a good possibility. I also loved that little reference to ROTJ. Fit so well, and it almost seems like that is where you were headed the whole entire time.

Also, I was going to say this even before I finished, but now that I have finished, I feel the need to say it even more. A couple of days ago, Kathleen Kennedy was was interviewed on The Star Wars Show, and one of the things she said has really stuck with me since I watched it. And that is "we're also looking at working with people that are interested in coming in to the Star Wars world, and taking us to places we haven't been yet. And that's exciting too, because it's a vast galaxy far far away.... The possibilities are endless." Reading your story, I get the sense that this is what they would be looking for. So after hearing that, I would strongly encourage you to get in contact with LucasFilms, and try and get them to at least read this story after you have done your editing. Try and get them to bring it into canon, because I know it would be well received by quite a few fans. So please, please do this. I'm sure it may be a bit daunting, but I think it could really go well with everything else.


Oh yeah, and that little teaser trailer there was great.  ;D Really looking forward to what is to come.

Part5, CH.2 Yoda

One of the (many) enjoyable components of your story has been the addition of "young" Yoda.  It really is a pleasure getting us perspective as an "active" Jedi agent.  Plus, he makes a great foil to Valens.  And Kimar is a wonderful antagonistic protagonist; truly the definition of a bureaucrat (something that the Prequels didn't really show but is PERFECT given Jedi propensity towards dogma and sloth)!  I remember Karm saying that characters make the narrative (paraphrasing) well YOUR characters are incredible!  TR is RIGHT: you should submit this!  It IS that good  :)

Oh, and I really loved the "Farscape" easter egg  :D

Until next installment friends  :)

Part 5, CH.3  Lyr

Always a pleasure to see that self-serving sleemo Lyr!  He takes "survivor" to new depths  ;). Sevra's fracturing psyche is as well written as it is terrible to contemplate; and I can't wait to see what she has in store for those dark artifacts...

Valens' restraint is commendable considering he neither killed Lyr nor "drained" him completely...but I know that's not out of mercy  :D

Until next installment friends  :)

Thanks Taegin, you're right re the Luke/Yoda quote, that was actually part of the inspiration for the whole story, that Yoda will die as he is not that strong got me thinking about what if someone was that strong what would they become....what would other people call them...and where would they come from in the first place?

In the EU some characters do live exceptionally long via various means (Darth Addendu, Karness Muur, Darth Kyrat, Emperor in Dark Empire) but its always with great cost.

I leave the canon writing to the professionals, I'm just in it for the fun. Plus the story isn't over yet.....

Part 5, CH.4 Soryu

It never ceases to amaze me how you take these completely disparate threads and perspectives and bring them together flawlessly.  I LOVE fight scenes like this: dynamic, perfect pacing, and engrossing!  Nice seeing Soryu cut loose; shows why Jedi are feared  ;)
And Yoda's characterization is spot-on!  It's such a pleasure seeing him as more than just the "sage" but rather an active force to be reckoned with. 

But the BIG development: the child.  Aethans primal Force connection really shows here; no wonder they're so powerful given their innate ability.  Wonderful!

...he could sense the rage polluting the force
LSG, I have got to steal that line from you!

Until next installment friends  :)

Thanks Dutchman, your comments are certainly comprehensive, appreciate it, but don't feel you have to comment on everything, wouldn't want to use up your praise supplies!  the last few chapters after Soryu all group as one arc so i'd suggest reading them together.

Anyway I've been doing a review of my story in preparation of the sequels and identified some things to improve on below.  would love any other Critical feedback (be brutal please it only helps!  On the flip side if there is a chapter or scene that you think I really did well let me know that example to - whilst I have the sequels man plot points worked out now I have to work out how to deliver it!  So please feel free to post or PM me with any thoughts or suggestions and especially criticism.


Too many characters too far apart – become disjointed in places shifts between people too far away leads to one line dropping and swapping to another in a jarring way.  Some threads were just too far apart in terms of chapter to follow easily e.g. The Aethan red Lady/Goddess.

Limited action scenes, too much off screen action (e.g. Lyr hearing Sevra fighting rather than seeing, Kimar v. Mandolorians off screen)

Some scenes had little purpose other than just discussing a character thoughts at a point in time, not progression of story, need to integrate these things into actual events better.

Some characters served as little more than windows to look at other characters at times notably Lyr and Soryu

Few female characters. 

Jarys story felt a bit disconnected against main Sevra/Valens arc.

A little too subtle on some important points made some things get lost

Aethan characters came off over powered at times


Key concepts came across clearly – Aethan culture, Jedi inability to understand them, Jedi arrogance and stagnation, Aethan moral ambiguity and drive to survive

Chapters with strong emotional focus tied to events – notably Shilea’s second chapter seemed to get a really positive response, and Jarys chapter ‘Simple’ concept running through it.

Overall characters seemed to be well developed based on comments received

Honestly, you hit squarely with your "Weaknesses" and "Strengths" list.  Although, I would respectfully disagree that Jarys was too removed; his thread was organic in that his trajectory was further from Valens and Sevra/Shilea so IMO he would be more isolated.
However I would agree that some things might have gone unnoticed as they were too subtle (or might be me being oblivious  ;)).  Granted that can be tough since you don't want your foreshadowing to be anvilicious  :)
Also, not sure about "overpowered" but perhaps more concise consequences as a result of...maybe Force manipulation? 

Again LSG, your narrative is incredible with its uniqueness and ambitions. I can't wait for more!

Oh, and thanks for the heads up; I'll read the final chapter in one read-through  ;)

One of the chapters I really liked was the first one with Soryu where he was watching Valens and seeing how much he didn't know. That IMO was one of the best written chapters. I also loved pretty much every chapter for Jarys. His utter brutality in his fight to survive really shows through. You can tell he is powerful, and also that if your going to mess with him, you'd better be prepared to face the consequences. I don't think the Aethans were too OP, and that is because they were born extremely powerful, and then raised their whole lives to be Guardians (the most powerful of them all). Even if they didn't make it like Cilina and Shilia, they still had the training, and the power. Another thing that I really liked was the training scene where Valens was fighting other padawans in the temple. He would study them, and then easily defeat them the next time. He even stated that he liked to do that if he could. It is such a useful tool to be able to use when fighting (if you have the chance) that when you put it in there I was extremely happy.

As for things I didn't like, there weren't too many that I can think of (at least right now). In your weaknesses, you say that you don't have enough female characters. I don't necessarily agree or disagree. I feel like the characters you did have (Shilia, Cilina) were both great, you just didn't focus as much on them as I might have liked. I think Shilia/Sevra you did just about perfect, but I think you may have left Cilina out for too long.

Personally I don't mind the fighting in the background, and I don't think you overdid it. Every time you see some characters (i.e. Jarys) there is a fight going on. On that is both realistic and gory, but at the same time, really gives us a look into the characters. And with Jarys, you said his story was a little disconnected from Valens' and Shilias's, but what I see is that he had a different arc to live out, and that in the sequel, the story could very easily be focused more on him than anyone else.

If I think of anything else, I'll let you know, but those are my thoughts ATM.

Thanks mate, that is exactly the kind to feedback that will help me make the sequel better than the first, you've helped confirm what I should focus my writing towards!

LSG...

That is incredible writing.  I can see why TR and Karm likened it to Tolkien: the initial narrative is full of characters, themes, and pathos that we become invested in...yet there is clearly so much MORE than what we've seen.  Who is the Red Lady/Goddess?  What is the purpose of the funerary rite; ceremonial or something else? Why are the Aethans primal Force powers/connection so potent, not to mention how an entire populace can be Force sensitives?  And what will come of the child, Milea? 

Also: the "off-screen" fighting works as a narrative device; consider: who's perspective we were viewing from at the time.  Each chapter is set as a third-person, singular point of view.  IMO, that tracks.

I have to say that I am SERIOUSLY looking forward to reading your upcoming stories! 

Until next story friends  ;)

Don’t mind me! Just bookmarking! :) I’m loving what you have so far, LSG!!!! I’m about to go into a gig (already late, but traffic is awful >.<) but I’ll finish up when I get home.