Entry Six

Two months ago, a fellow apprentice asked if I wished to accompany him for a stroll on the lake shore. He said that he had waited so long to invite me because my beauty and dueling skills gave boys worthiness issues. Many young women had whispered of nudity and kisses during their outings with him.

I accepted his invitation and ran to my quarters to bathe and dress in a nicer, form-fitting set of robes. I met him on the bridge where we were to begin our walk to the lake. Then a second girl joined us. I was offended at this, wanting to be the star female of the show, but kept my complaints quiet. We locked elbows with him. I listened to his suggestive humor and forced myself to giggle, but contributed little else to the conversation as we traveled over the Dantooine plains and hills. He and the other girl struck a natural rapport and we were barely at the shore when the two of them stripped to their undergarments, dove into the sparkling waters, and broke the surface to lock lips. He beckoned me to join, almost as an after-thought. Feeling out of place, I returned to the Enclave.

The two apprentices were found dead in their separate quarters the next morning. Healers determined the cause to be brain-devouring ameba in the lake water that had entered their nasal passages. Ever since, I preferred to use Vox's tank for water meditation.

Vox had obtained a new starship, a duplicate of the original left behind on Ambria. He seldom flew the vessel, keeping it docked within a cavity in the side of a plateau. I jogged to the ship every break of dawn, practicing my acrobatics on boulders, logs, and cliffs (someday I hoped to put my skills to the test and explore every noteworthy cave or tomb on the planet). From morning to noon I floated in the tank, my limbs loosely crossed and my head down. The Force became my source of breath, continually reverting the carbon dioxide in my lungs to oxygen. That had taken a few years of practice until it became automatic. If you believe my mind was far away from my body in those hours, or my spirit had transcended space and time, you'd be wrong. A common misconception. True, there are Force-sensitives who have viewed the future with what turned out to be astonishing accuracy, but I proclaim that they triggered those visions by staying firmly rooted to the present.

"Now is when destinies unfold," Meetra often said. "The past is the present is the future." The galaxy-changing truths translate to what sounds like gibberish to an outsider, but the Force is more flexible than our stiff tongues.

I stayed awake last night dreading the test Vox would administer this afternoon. He and I were going to decide my future. Was I prepared to be a padawan? Vox complained daily of my supposed petulance. He criticized my personality out of habit while the other masters and instructors praised my abilities after every training session. Even Master Vrook found his own unique ways of complimenting me, though less intuitive people may mistake it for insult. "It's a wonder you've done so well in your training and that you've managed to not completely fail us."

I transitioned from light trance into deeper stages of awareness, where sense of self faded and the surrounding world opened to reveal misty forms dotting the landscape outside the ship. These drifting things were indicators of life confined to physical matter. And as I slipped further, I saw and felt the threads connecting them.

Meetra spoke to a group of younglings. Vox hiked through tall grass, making for his starship. Master Tokare pruned a shrub in the gardens. A couple of apprentice boys wrestled on a mat. A vibroblade match had pit one student against two, their movements predictable to me. A pack of kath hounds used their tusks to tear at carrion in a canyon.

A Zabrak man in dark robes wielding a red lightsaber leaped out and swiped at... Vox and me.
I opened my eyes, shocked out of my meditation, and realized I still floated in the tank.

- - -

I reasoned the vision as a dream formed by my fears of the Dark Side, but I did not dismiss it on the slim chance the Sith Zabrak represented a literal threat. Dantooine was safe, I thought. I had dressed and brushed my hair by the time the ramp lowered and Vox entered. I stepped out and curtsied to him.

"I am ready for my test, Master Aben."

He slid his hands into opposite sleeves and stared at me with his crystalline eyes. "Your soul was a power conduit for the Force, my apprentice. Why did you stop meditating?"

"I wanted to be at attention when you arrived." My vision was my concern. Masters cautioned their apprentices against overactive imaginings that could lead to delusion. I wanted to present myself as normal and submissive today, fearing Vox might look for a reason to bar me from promotion.

He hissed. "The test deems today special? How convenient."

I crossed my arms over my stomach and bit my tongue. On average days I rebuked him for over-analyzing my every choice, but today was in fact special.

"There is no emotion..."

I put my arms at my sides, raised my chin, and softly cleared my throat. "There is peace."

Vox traced a repeating circle around me in the cramped corridor. "Describe your emotions at present."

Keeping my front facing the entrance to the cockpit, I tried to ignore his efforts to intimidate me. "Emotions? I am at peace, master."

My master stopped behind me, brought his mouth close to my ear. "Self-delusion. Imagine you answered these questions correctly at a superficial level, but I say that you failed the test. Would you be at peace then?"

"Doubt it." I shivered. "A student who fails the initiation must review the basics for months until their master gives them a second chance."

He relocated to in front of me and leaned in so that his ugly squid face almost touched my nose. "Or the master deports their student to a far-away planet where they can live as a lowly farmer for the rest of their life. You've expressed interest in agriculture before, haven't you?"

I stared him in the eyes, trying to hold back my revulsion. I was halfway successful. "I'm too promising to waste, Vox Aben. Fail me and the Council is sure to countermand you."

Vox returned to his normal posture, nodded, and turned his back to me. "You hold your breath for extended periods of time while meditating. Promising, but your worth is yet to be truly seen."

I accidentally released a snort. "Save yourself the agonizing wait, master. Ask a seer to look into my future and find my worth. Shouldn't we move on with the recitation already?"

Vox pivoted on a heel and glared down at me. "There is no ignorance..."

"There is knowledge."

"What knowledge do you pursue on a daily basis?"

"I meditate in part to learn how people are connected in the Force."

"Go on."

I considered how best to describe my personal journey toward enlightenment, and tried to channel Meetra Surik in both my speech and tone. "Thoughts, feelings, and destinies form a web together in the spiritual plain. I want to follow those threads to their beginnings and ends, to discover the pattern of the universe."

Vox was silent for several seconds, then grunted. "There is no passion..."

"There is serenity." Though I could feel my heartbeat in my ears.

"There is no chaos..."

"There is harmony."

Vox made to place his hand on my cheek, but then stopped himself. "You spoke of a pattern to the universe. It's outside your perception, yet you sense that it's there. Find it... and you find harmony."

I felt a flutter of affection for my master.

He returned to his hard exterior. "There is no death..."

I took a deep breath and exhaled through my mouth. "There is the Force."

Vox turned his shoulder to me and waved a hand. "If I were wise, I'd delay your promotion by another year. But when you're a padawan, you'll spend more time training with Meetra and less time pestering me. Very well. I hereby name you a padawan."

"That's why I respect you as my master." I mentally relieved tightness in my muscles, a side-effect of trapping my more passionate side for so long. "You're willing to overlook your personal doubts when my future is at stake."

Vox grumbled under his breath and walked for the cockpit.

I followed him. "Now it's time to construct my lightsaber. I've deliberated on this for days and I've decided a yellow crystal best suits my personality. Do you have the supplies available?"

He sat down in the captain's chair, crossed his arms, and lowered his head.

Annoyed at him for so abruptly introverting, I fell back into the co-pilot's seat and knocked my heel on the deck a few times. "This is Bastila Shan calling to Vox Aben. Speak to me, master."

He made spitting sounds before he spoke. "The Jedi influences the crystal, and the crystal influences the Jedi. You want to grow into a calmer, more thoughtful individual. As your master, I say that you'll use a green crystal."

I tilted my head and squinted at him. "Excuse me?"

"And your lightsaber shall be short, to teach you humility."

My mind whirled with the possible insults I would have to endure from my fellow padawans. He was incidentally correct in that I wanted to cleanse aspects of my personality and become a mature-acting adult. But the restrictions were insane. "Those restrictions are insane. Why are you trying to make me a walking joke of a padawan? Do you truly resent me so much that you would sacrifice your reputation as a mentor?"

Vox huffed. "The lightsaber is a tool. A symbol. Such a thing doesn't make a Jedi. In fact, if you carry yourself as you should, you'll rarely find need for it and others will rarely find need to laugh at your expense. What truly protects a Jedi is the Force. You'll do well to take that to heart."

I bit my tongue, screaming on the inside until I was confident I could talk again without ranting. "Fine, then. Let's get on with constructing my rubbish lightsaber."

- - -

Stationed at the workbench that folded out from the wall of the crew quarters, I used a hydrospanner to insert and adjust circuitry components within the small hilt. The design was far from my personal ideal, but I was going to make sure that this weapon was the best of its kind. A padawan of my talents deserved better, I thought. I would need to depend on my personal charisma to win respect from people, while skipping out on sparring matches.

Vox sat at the table in the lounge watching Underground News Net. He would tell me to keep working when he sensed I was paying more attention to the news anchor than my project. I constantly heard reports of Mandalorian activity in the Outer Rim, sprinkled with the name Revanchist.

I snapped a diatium power cell into place, attached a mounted crystal to the top, and then put the shell of the hilt together, screwing it closed. "Done and done!"

I held the weapon in one hand and pressed the activation button. An emerald blade emerged, noticeably thin, short, and pointed. Two knobs on the hilt were turned to their maximum; one controlled blade intensity, the second length.

How could I test my lightsaber? I twirled the blade with my dainty fingers and sliced the wall behind the workbench. The gash sizzled at the edges.

Vox stepped into the quarters. "Girl, learn to think before you act. The Council was gracious to fund my purchase of this ship and you repay them by scarring the walls."

I waved my lightsaber a few feet from his face. "Forgive me, master. I had a strong urge to slice something."

"Turn that off already. The thought of you wielding one of those gives me nightmares."

Crestfallen, I switched off the saber and clipped it to my belt.

My stomach then felt filled with fluttering bugs. A sense of longing stretched from there to... a short distance from the plateau where the ship was settled. Meetra Surik was on her way.

"What are you smiling for?" Vox said.

I bolted into the corridor and pressed a button on a panel to open the ramp.

"--- publicly executed the official earlier today..." The news played in the lounge.

I ran across stone and dirt floor of the docking bay to one end of the wide mouth and turned onto an outdoor path leading down.

Meetra waved to me from far below.

I quickened my pace until skidding to a halt on a flat area. The other woman soon stood a few meters across from me.

"Where have you been this week, Surik?" I put a hand on my hip and arched a brow.

Meetra put a hand over her mouth to cover a fake yawn. "Mistress Vima invited me to a High Council meeting on Coruscant. We discussed rules and regulations related to newly-appointed padawans." She must have spotted the lightsaber at my belt.

"Oh?" I drifted closer to her. "And what did you self-important wankers decide?"

The woman gave me a look of pity. "You're banished for being too hot-headed." She strolled to me, graceful movements putting Cathars everywhere to shame.

"Or because someone was jealous of my stunning beauty." I slid my tongue slowly across my upper lip while smiling in the most wicked way.

- - -

A week before, I had asked Vox for his opinion on Jedi maintaining intimate relationships, a disguised plea for his blessing.

"Love is an endless minefield partners traverse hand in hand," he had said. "Trigger but one and you're well down the dark path. You are thankfully too young to have to face trials of the heart."

"Say you found me kissing a girl. Or boy. Would you discipline me?"

"The Code is clear. I expected you to possess basic reading comprehension. If you wish to engage in carnal activities, I hope you would have the wisdom to do so far away from me."

I was stupid to ask that and put him on alert, but the damage was done. Meetra hardly seemed to care if Vox suspected us and told the Council, knowing her prestige in the Jedi ranks would likely allow for a faint blemish on her record. And she could depend on Vima Sunrider to run interference for us.

- - -

Vox, Meetra, and I sat at the round lounge table, each with a cup of tea. I preferred to savor the taste of Meetra on my tongue, thus left my cup alone. Quarren black brew was notoriously repugnant to human taste buds at any rate.

A recap of a swoop race played on the holo-screen next to us. Vox, hating sports, had muted the volume.

"I find your foot odor sickening," the alien rumbled. "Stop playing at each other under the table and put your stockings back on." His kind smelled through two orifices at either side of the neck.

I rolled my eyes. "Are you certain it isn't your own feet that stink?"

"His ship, his rules." Meetra winked at me. We used our practiced toes to help each other slide our stockings back on.

A minute later, Vox reached up to the screen and returned the volume to normal as the next UNN segment began.

"--- more casualties than can be reasonably accounted for." A reporter commentated over a scene of an encampment where several humanoids stood in the foreground, each adorned in body armor and a stylistic t-visored helmet that curved from the shoulders toward the neck then up to a point above the head. Sheets of drizzle blurred the backdrop of battered tents, plasteel shelters, and drooping tropical trees. "The Mandalorian occupiers have released a video challenging the Republic to take firm action against them. Be advised. The footage you are about to see is of a graphic nature. It may not be suitable for all viewers."

As my heart thumped faster, I remembered that I was only fifteen years old and starkly innocent to the wider galaxy.

My stare flitted to Meetra, whose face I found locked in hard readiness.

A Mandalorian put a heavy arm around the shoulders of an aged man in torn colonial wear. "Tell the Republic Senate the same thing you told us after we razed your farm to the ground." He sounded. . . joyous.

The cam zoomed in on the colonial, his face cracked and sickly. "You attacked our world unprovoked." He was a man at the edge of tears, pushing out his last ounces of bravery. "You murdered my son when he dared to speak against you. I fought against Mandalorians in the war with Exar Khun, and they were at least better than your ilk. Well, I'm not standing for it any longer! Let's see if your Mandalorian Code of Honor has any weight to it. I challenge you. Fight me, one on one."

The armored one laughed and shoved the veteran off cam. "Our valiant hero and his opponent are each equipped with a vibroblade."

The cam drew back to show a circular patch of soil, crates lining its edges. The old man climbed to his feet, a blade in his hand. His armored and masked opponent entered across the crude arena.

The two fighters struck repeatedly at each other and blocked or parried in the same motions. But the match lasted a minute.

The younger, stronger, taller, healthier man amputated the veteran's dominant hand.

"Die with honor!" The Mandalorian swept the tip of his blade across the old man's belly.

The defeated fell dead on a pile of his own gore.

The UNN reporter started talking again as another clip played of armored grunts using pikes to herd prisoners across the camp. "The rule is that if a civilian acts like a soldier, they are to be treated as one. For every poor soul we see here, the question becomes whether they should die in a fixed duel or go on suffering in this Hell." I saw humans, Twi'leks, Bothans, Zeltrons, and even two Wookiees, all with their hands bound in thick rope and their bare flesh or patchy fur wrecked by blood, bruises, and mud.

I heard Meetra grind her teeth and I looked over to find the beauty's ethereal glow diminished. She gripped the edge of the table and stared at the screen, though I had the sense she now saw past the ship hull itself. I got up from the table and stepped close behind her where I dropped to my knees and put my chin on her shoulder.

She pressed her cheek to mine. I felt it grow warmer.

I wrapped my arms around her. She grasped my wrists and leaned her head back, nostrils flaring in my hair.

"Away with the both of you," Vox said.

Meetra sighed and readjusted herself in the chair. I let my arms fall to my sides as I stood.

Vox took our three cups by the handles and went to dump the cold tea in the sink. "Aren't you giving a lecture this afternoon, Meetra? Why do I need to remind a teacher when it's time to teach?"