Yoda
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.
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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.”
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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.
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“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.”
