Entry Five

Inside the shuttle transporting Vox, Vima, Meetra and me from a spaceport to the Jedi Temple, I sat on my knees and pressed my palms and nose to the viewport, admiring Coruscanti cityscape. Lines of widely cross-hatched speeder traffic, as though on transparent highways, navigated air lanes between polished skyscrapers. The kilometers-tall structures curved inward at the tops, tapering to soft points, and smooth grooves on the surfaces served as balconies.

Meetra, sitting beside me, chuckled and teased me for being a country girl in the big city.

I told her to shush and carried on goggling elegant architecture and the uniformity of a vast populace.

The shuttle entered the Industrial Zone where structures were shorter and flatter and traffic was thinner. Factory smoke fed the clouds. Cranes moved gigantic crates while spindly droids welded parts in shipyard trenches.

A while later, we landed on a pad. Our Republic pilot escorted us down the ramp and across the pad to a bridge. Vima and Meetra walked beside each other behind the pilot. Vox strode a few feet back from the two women and I followed yards behind him, my attention on the Jedi Temple at the other end of the bridge. The building was massive, the tallest one in the zone, but plain, its most distinguishing feature a single slender tower at the front.

The pilot stepped aside and bowed his head as the entrance swished open. We entered into a corridor. Some six men could have walked shoulder to shoulder, and its ceiling was five times as high. Mineral veins spread chaotically across the gleaming floors and walls. I heard voices echo from somewhere and the sounds of our heels clip-clapping.

Vima and Meetra led us a distance down the corridor, then we turned a corner into a lobby where the ceiling itself was a warm light source. Cushioned chairs were placed in loose circles near the corners and small trees and shrubs grew from circular openings in the floor, giving the air an aroma of greenery.

There were people in uniforms behind a long desk at the far wall. Several lifts lined another wall, portals or stairways the alternate. A protocol droid hobbled about. A Jedi stepped from a lift and nodded to a receptionist.

Vox turned around and looked down at me. "Sit down and wait for an attendant to retrieve you."

"No," Vima said, stepping up beside him. "Let her enter and witness the proceedings. This is a chance for her to see first-hand how the Jedi Council functions."

Meetra smirked. "Get ready to see the Jedi punish us, Basti."

The three Jedi strode for a stairway and I trailed after, growing worried at what might happen to my new comrades.

"We can expect an admonishment at worst," Vima said. She exchanged waves with a Twi'lek male Jedi coming down the stairs as we went up.

Vox huffed. "You essentially experimented with the Dark Side on a planet-wide scale, Vima. It was reckless, if not borderline stupid."

I caught up to Meetra and took her hand, lacing our finger together. "The Council should give the three of you medals. Why would they punish you when you did a fine job of fighting the darkness?"

"You have a lot to learn about the Council, little girl." Meetra gently squeezed my hand.

- - -

"We summoned you before us so that you may explain your actions." A middle-aged balding man whose voice and face I thought must be specially tuned to make others feel disappointed in themselves, gripped the arms of his chair. "Make your case convincing, or else you three Jedi might leave this chamber as padawans again." In my mind I nicknamed him Crab Apple.

"We cautioned you against going to Ambria." A second man stroked his thick mustache. "Yet you persisted anyway. Why?"

The four of us stood in a chamber where Jedi Masters sat in a ring of seats facing a short stone pillar at the very center. Lovely Meetra had switched off her glowing disposition for a countenance one would wear at a funeral, Vima was now so weary that she seemed to have aged years upon stepping inside, and Vox kept glancing out the windows as though planning an escape. I wanted to display my bravery, thus stood a bit apart from the rest while in clear view of the surrounding masters.

I had practiced breathing meditation on the way to the top of the tower and found that I didn't need to be sitting with my eyes closed to find a peaceful center. Though, I felt my calm dissipate as the tension in the chamber grew.

Vima cleared her throat. "Master Thon lived a paradigm of Jedi philosophy. The Force was like an active ingredient in his cells. We wanted to use that light to drive away the Dark Side from Ambria, in honor of his example."

"So you charged blindly ahead," Crab Apple said. "Narrowly averting disaster. And yet even this was the result of placing your peers and that child in danger."

"Master Vrook is right." This Jedi, whatever his name, was halfway handsome with his square jaw and defined nose and cheekbones. "Your intentions were noble, but you acted rashly. And in doing, you put your life in danger as well as your own apprentice."

"Administer my punishment so that we can be done with this," Vima said. "I think the Council has more important matters to attend than any one averted disaster."

The room fell silent for several seconds. Shifts in external feelings told me that the Jedi were deliberating through the Force.

The one with that mustache looked up. "Vima Sunrider and Meetra Surik. We're reassigning you to the Dantooine enclave. There you'll assist Master Zhar Lestin in the training of new students. Your time there should reaffirm the virtue of patience for you both."

Meetra straightened. "Masters, forgive my intrusion. I humbly request that you consider sending this girl, Bastila, along with us to Dantooine."

I gasped and locked gazes with the blonde beauty. How wonderful it would be to spend my days training with her; someone whose every tiny act toward me conveyed that she understood me.

"Step forward, youngling." Crab Apple was warmer than before.

I took a deep breath and stepped over to stand in front of him.

"You retrieved her, Vox Aben. What say you on her behalf?"

"The girl is headstrong and defiant," Vox said in his harsh quarren voice. "She shall grow to be a danger to those around her, unless she begins learning the Jedi disciplines."

My stomach turned with anxiety. I feared they think me too dangerous to accept as an apprentice. I would have to draw out the truth of my own worth. "I try my best in everything I do. And for someone my age I've achieved quite a lot, haven't I? Please tell them, Vox."

Vox continued. "She manipulated her mother's plants to grow out of season. She was able to control and command small animals, turning them into soldiers. Bastila has great potential, true, but..."

I tried to detect the masters' response through their facial expressions and emotional currents in the Force, but found them remarkably muted in both categories. "Yup. I helped my mum's flowers grow. I led a pack of tookas. Tell me I traveled lightyears and almost died for a reason."

Vrook shook his head, sighing faintly. "You believe you possess the patience needed for years of rigorous training. But I see within you an impatience to the level of recklessness." He looked to the mustached Jedi. "Zez Kai-Ell?"

"Her future is. . . problematic." Zez Kai-Ell sagged slightly as if some weight had descended on his shoulders. "Darkness closes in from all sides."

"The same could be said for every child," Vima said from behind me.

Vox let out a watery groan. "It's in their nature to overestimate themselves, admittedly. At any rate, I would excuse myself from business outside my own. Thus..."

Another pause, more elongated than the last. I closed my eyes and did my breathing meditation, pretending I was lightyears away from that chamber.

"No, Vox Aben." It was Vrook speaking. "Stay and listen. We're assigning you to the Dantooine enclave, as well. You are to take Bastila as your apprentice."

Vox issued a series of gurgles that resembled those of some dying aquatic animal and his tentacles were throwing a fit when I turned to my friends. I rushed to them and gave them each a firm hug.

Vox was rigid. Vima gave me a casual embrace, then adjusted my pigtails the way my mother would. Meetra competed with me for squeezing strength and undid my pigtails, ruffling my hair.

"Don't worry, Basti," Meetra said as we entered the lobby soon after. "You can train with me when Vox isn't paying attention. Which I assume will be the majority of days."

[Then we skip forward seven years...]