STAR WARS: Surviving pirates as a jedi padawan

Order 66 (1)

Runner, Dura, and himself carefully navigated the swamp guns drawn, marching across the marsh as quietly as armored soldiers could. The swamp was littered with trees and occasional lakes that were more akin to puddles with knee-high plants congregating around their banks. Karu hovered a hand near his lightsaber in calm anticipation. It was too bright and would give away their position immediately so he was waiting until the very last minute to ignite it. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t tempted to reach for it every time he heard as much as a tree swaying though.

They were getting close to the ruins now, Karu could feel it in the force. There were bits of stone sticking out of the muddy ground now and as they walked they only seemed to become more prominent. With the fog and the stones though they had to be careful not to trip. It felt like any noise could compromise the mission.

He felt a warning in the force to stop and as he looked around to see what had caused the force's reaction, he saw a lightsaber half buried in the mud. He probably would have tripped on it otherwise and the force gave a 'not quite' feeling at that thought, but he brushed it aside to examine the relic. It was rusted around the edges and in the crevices, plus caked in mud, but being as old as it probably was, this was comparably in great condition. He pulled it out of the ground with the force and hovered it in front of him to get a better look at it while shaking off some of the looser mud.

"Awesome," He said breathily. A lightsaber once as loved and cherished as his own, but left behind in the scene of war due to the death of the one who once wielded it. Untouched for centuries only for him to be the one to find it once again by the will of the force.

Karu reached out to grab it and was hit with an imprint of emotions. Justice, sorrow, and hope. He couldn’t read objects like those who were gifted in psychometry, but if an object had been carried around enough he could feel what he called ‘imprints’. He wiped off the more stubborn mud and after checking to see how rusted it was, he opened the lightsaber with a squeaky twist and a tug. The crystal inside was perfectly untouched and preserved. It was a striking silver and definitely wasn't purified so that meant it must have been synthetically made.

Even if any of the smugglers had found this one, it would have been passed over because of that. Most smugglers didn't care as much about synthetic kyber because it didn't fetch as much on the black market, but it was great as an energy source. Then again it wasn’t like many smugglers knew the difference between synthetic and organic kyber anyways. Gunfire echoed in the distance and Karu whipped his head in the direction. He turned back to where Dura and Runner were and-

"Blast," Karu said under his breath.

Somehow in his nerding out, he'd gotten separated from them. He needed to catch up stat if he didn't want Wasp chewing him out at the end of this. He activated his commlink and tried to call for either of his group but was met with no response. A feeling of dread started to creep up on him in the force, but he paused and placed the lightsaber on his belt next to his own.

He remembered what his master taught him to do when he felt his panic start to creep up on him and breathed in to gather all his negative feelings together before breathing out to feel the tension leave his body and into the force. He started to run in the direction of the gunfire and finally had a breakthrough comming Master Niamari.

"Master! I heard gunfire, are you ok?" Her face was distorted by static and the audio quality had tanked, but was still recognizable.

She was running with the sound of clones yelling and gunfire echoing in the background "Karu- bzzt something wrong-zzrt-clones. can't feel-bzzzzrt-ve turned on us- back to the ship"

“You’re cutting out. I fell behind Runner and Dura, but I’m less than a klick away.”

“It’s not safe czzt hurt bzzrt too zzzrt-n’t let that happen to you.” She deflected blaster fire and dodged behind one of the ruined structures.

Karu kept running and finally could see the faint flashes of blaster fire in the fog “What’s the situation? I’m rapidly approaching now Master.”

“NO!” the com glitched. Her face became clear and he could see the desperation. He reached for his training bond and found a swirling mix of protection, fear, and betrayal coming from her side. This finally made Karu stop. He hadn’t felt this strong of emotions from his master’s side of the bond since when they first met. And even then those emotions had been positive. Not even the death of Lae-Laeto had let her emotions breach her shields.

There was distorted yelling and Niamari turned to face- wait clones? The clones were the ones who had been firing at her. But not just any clones; it was Wasp, Runner, and another obscured by the fog he couldn’t make out firing. She deflected their blaster fire, deliberately making sure not to hit them. Karu could only watch as they soullessly fired at the woman who had cared for them and protected with her life. A blaster bolt made it through her defense and hit her square on her rught shoulder which was her dominant side. She cried out, the cry cracking out before she hit the ground. The comm ended.

Karu stared at his comm as his heartbeat echoed in his head. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t move either despite how desperately he wanted to. She couldn’t be dead too. She was just hit in the shoulder and fell. She couldn’t be, right? Why would they betray her? But the clones had fired at her with no sign of stopping so she… she probably is. Furst his liniage brother. The one who had introduced him to Niamari all those years ago and now Niamari herself.

This felt unreal, like a bad dream that he couldn’t seem to wake from, but the force confirmed that he was very much awake. He reached out to try and read anything from her end of the training bond but there was nothing and even her force signature, that comforting presence he could feel almost everywhere was so obscured by darkness he couldn’t even start to wade through to find it.

He was probably in shock right now since he was still thinking semi-rationally and not breaking down to cry like after he heard the news that Lae had passed. He needed to keep thinking this way because he was very alone and in great danger so he physically couldn’t let himself cry. He didn’t know if he could stop himself if he did.

What happened? One minute they had been joking about Fleece and then Wasp was leading the execution of his master. Was it just her group? No, it couldn’t be because Runner had been there. Is that what the warning from the force was? He reached out and felt melancholy affirmation from the force. Then he had a thought. If the force couldn’t warn Master Niamari, maybe it had warned him because the warning had been after whatever caused this to happen? Yes, the force seemed relieved at that realization as it washed over him. He had already been in the back of the group when he felt the warning after all.

He shook his head to push the idea of his master dying away and blinked back the tears he didn’t even realize had started threatening to form away, he needed a plan. It might be all clones that had whatever had happened to them, so he needed to avoid them and get back to the ship. Think, Karu, think. He couldn’t get himself to focus on planning and it was taking all his emotional energy to not think about what just happened, but he realized he had 3 options.

His first option was to sneak back onto the ship and knock Mags out if needed since he didn’t think he could stomach killing Mags even if he was trying to kill him. He started to feel queasy even at the thought. Karu also didn’t have much flight training and normally flew with another person and if Master Niamari was… gone and Mags was out of commission it might be a bad idea especially if it takes too long to figure mechanics out and Wasp got back before he was in the air.

The second option was to go into town and take shelter there, but that would require a local taking him in. He might be able to since he had the excuse of his mentor possibly dying. It should be the safest but he didn’t have the best feeling about it from the force. There was no guarantee the clones wouldn’t search for him.

Or 3rd, go further into the ruins and see if he could negotiate with the smugglers to get safe passage until he could get back to the temple. Whoever they were, they seemed only interested in the kyber and he did have his and the old lightsaber’s crystals to barter with, as well as himself. He had in the past right before the break had to pose as a jedi bodyguard for hire to great success surprisingly.

It might just work. If he bartered his crystals, despite how much he despised the idea, he could get new ones the next time the initiates went to Ilum. It was a small price to pay in comparison to losing his life. And if he needed to work for smugglers briefly the council could deal with it once he got back and explained what had happened. He only needed to get back to the temple after all.

←+→