Home Again
Rating: PG-13 for Violence, Sci Fi action, and Mild Cursing
Chapter 1
Sodi Katan, a pale, small young woman with flowing white hair and small-pupiled yellow eyes, stood on the peak of the Jedi Temple roof, surveying her busy surroundings. Before her, the golden yellow sun of the planet Coruscant rose slowly, only trackable by the genetically enhanced eyes of the young wraith hybrid knight. To her left, right, and directly above her, busy grav-cars hurried along designated passage routes throughout the planet’s atmosphere, bustling along with their hurried, innocent little lives. Tapping her silvery-accented lightsaber against one black-clad knee, the Jedi sighed, breathing deeply in the crisp, early-morning air, all alone atop the world…
…Or so she thought.
A pair of large blue eyes peered over the gable of the roof, watching the Jedi Knight’s every move – or lack thereof. Barely visible, a head of black hair moved closer to the white knight, trying to get a better look at the infamous knight’s face. The young padawan had shadowed the knight for weeks now, trying to figure out who she was, trying to get close enough to ask. Slowly and quietly, young Xavier crept over the gable, pausing momentarily on its ridge to regain his balance on the narrow ledge. Suddenly his boot slipped on the slick surface, and the padawan let out a yelp as he began to slide down the slippery slope toward the edge of the roof.
With lightening speed and killer reflexes, Sodi leapt forward, uttering an incomprehensible curse from her home planet, Saxet, as she grabbed onto the human’s booted ankle and landed in a crouch. Their situation was precarious – the young padawan dangling headfirst over the whining highways above and below, the hybrid Jedi knight clutching his ankle kneeling casually on the roof, a vaguely annoyed expression on her papery face.
“Honestly,” she said, shaking her head at the sight of their combined predicament, “What were you thinking, kid?”
Unlike the other, more sophisticated worlds, the colony of Saxet often spoke in the old way, referring to younglings as “chiles”, “childern”, or “kids”.
“I…I wanted t-to see wh-what you were d-d-doing!” Xavier cried, terrified as he stared at the traffic below, and registered the huge distance between him and the ground. “P-please, Master Knight,” he begged, “Can you pull m-me up now?!” the Dantooine native was terribly afraid of heights, and staring at them only made him panic even more.
“Xavier?” a female voice called, a hint of concern in the deep voice. The Jedi Master swept a lock of chestnut hair out of her face nervously as she swept the area with her eyes and the force, looking for her stray padawan. Her emerald eyes landed on the pair on the edge of the roof, and she walked over carefully. “Hang on,” she said, “I’m coming over.” Hooking her legs around the gable spire, she reached out, grabbing Sodi’s belt with a strong hand and hauled the two of them up back onto a less sloping part of the roof.
Sodi let go of the Padawan’s foot after making sure they were on higher, firmer ground, and stood up straight, looking up at the Master from her impish height of 4’ 10”.
“Master Gamal,” she recognized the woman before her with a smirk, “I think you lost something.” She gestured casually over towards the young Dantooinian, who was probably just thankful to be alive. She had heard of the padawan’s master – Dina Gamal, a ferocious young auburn who had a lot of skill and stamina in her 5’ 9”, wiry body. Sodi had never gotten the chance to talk to her though.
“He was spying on me, I think,” she added with the hint of a smile, giving the boy a little nod of acknowledgement.
“I apologize for my Padawan’s behavior.” Dina said, sending a look of stern disapproval at Xavier. “I hope he didn’t disturb anything.” She turned to the young boy who now stood solemn and penitent.
“What were you thinking?” Dina asked him firmly, “I have told you a billion or so times to NOT GET ON the ROOF. Why do you continue to do so?”
“I…I was…” Xavier fished for a good comeback. “You are always telling me to confront my fears.” he said, “I was trying to confront my fears and expel them through the force like you do, Master. I-”
“Well you can ‘confront your fears’ somewhere a little safer than the top of the Jedi Temple!” Dina said. “Go rock climbing, or climb the trees in the gardens. Do your practice in a place that has taken the proper precautions.”
Xavier looked down at his scuffed boots. “I’m sorry Master.” The twelve year old said, and clamped his hands behind his back.
“Hey, don’t be too hard on the kid, Gamal,” Sodi pleaded the boy’s case, “He was just trying to do something productive. Besides,” she continued with a puckish smile, still handling her elegant, single-bladed lightsaber in one black-nailed hand, “It could’ve been worse. One time, I decided to ‘confront my fears’,” she used air quotes, “and ended up battling the biggest baddest iratus bug in the history of human kind. Or maybe it was an engineered strain of iratus,” she added as an afterthought, “Either way, it was much worse than going bungee jumping off the Jedi Temple roof without a cord, though I admit it is a close catch.”
Dina looked from one to the other, weighing the responses. Her thick lips curled in a small smile, and her eyes twinkled. “Xavier,” she said. “I want you to go back inside, where it’s safe. I think you’ve had enough fright for today. And we won’t take the climb this evening.”
Xavier relaxed visibly, and smiled. “Yes Master.” He said, and scampered across the roof and though the door to the stairs. Dina watched her Padawan retreat from the height, and sighed in relief. Xavier could be such a pain at times.
She turned to the Knight. “Thank you for rescuing him,” she said. “I felt his fear, but by the time I would have arrived he would have probably been a crumpled mess.” The master extended a grateful hand. “I’m afraid we haven’t met before. You’re name is…?”
“Sodi Katan,” the part-wraith replied, accepting the hand with a smile, “Jedi knight. I’d be a master by now, only I doubt they’d trust me within about ten miles of an apprentice.” Her echoing voice was more like a whisper, although it was somehow managing to carry with it Sodi’s good cheer.
Sodi Katan’s race was something of an enigma with the Jedi Order. She had been born human, and somehow managed to kill a man three times her size by the age of three with her mind. Over the years, she’d been a bit ‘out there’, until her thirteenth year, whereupon she began to mutate and change, over time, into what she was now, part insect, part human, and part something else. She was the troublemaker among the Order, and the Council often feared that she would cross over into the Dark Side, though for some reason still yet unknown she did not.
Dina’s eyebrow’s shot up to her hairline. “Sodi Katan?” she said, “I’ve heard a lot about your…shall we say, antics from the council. You have a reputation rivaling with Master Qui-Gon Jinn, may he rest in peace.”
“Oh, really?” Sodi asked, a bit flattered and shocked at the same time, “I’d never heard that. He was great guy though. Great guy.” She trailed off a bit. Jinn had been one of those people she could relate to – one of the few.
Too sentimental. The small woman gave a slight shrug of indifference.
“Ah well. What’s done is done.” She smiled up at the master. “So, how’s life treating you?”
She really didn’t know what else to say.
Dina turned to go back inside. The heights were getting to her a little too, to be real honest. “As good as can be expected.” She said, “Battles fought, missions accomplished, and then new ones are assigned…life goes on. Xavier’s training takes up much of my time.” She smiled. “He can be quite the troublemaker when he wants to.” She turned to Sodi. “And you?”
Sodi shrugged in response. “Nothing much,” she admitted, “Nowadays my life mostly involves hanging out at the local ‘establishments’ drinking beers and picking fights. Not that I wouldn’t appreciate the slightest little random happening –“
Suddenly, there was a big KABOOM!!! as the embassy building across the street exploded into a great big ball of fire, bits of rubble, and the occasional body part. The two Jedi whirled around and looked down at the great mess, stunned for a moment, until Sodi said in a hushed voice:
“Holy shnizit…did I just do that?”
Chapter 2
Dina stared at the rubble that was the embassy with wide eyes. “I don’t think so,” she said, ignoring the joke. “I think our assistance is needed.” She said, and jumped off of the roof, using the force to cushion her landing. “Well,” she said, looking up at the Knight, “You coming?”
Sodi looked down at her fellow, auburn-haired Jedi. “Coming!” she shouted down, then took a skipping leap off of the roof and savoring the inertia-induced feeling as the wind tore at her black tunic, whipping it around her small torso. With a small smile, Sodi thanked whoever was out there that most Jedi wore pants, and then with a single swift thought slowed her pace just in time to make a smooth landing right beside Dina Gamal.
“The explosion was that way,” she gestured with a pale hand and took off running due west. Now on the ground, it was harder to see the way to the Talaxian Embassy Building – or what was left of it – but most Jedi, especially those with an wonderfully instilled, wraith’s sense of direction, it only took a little bit of reorientation to get one’s bearings straight.
Dina fingered her lightsaber and took off after the Wraith Knight. She could feel the pain from the victims, and the fear from everyone who had witnessed the explosion. As they rounded the final corner they were able to assess the extent of the damage.
Sodi gave a low whistle. “Whoa,” she said, “This thing really got leveled.”
A more accurate description there couldn’t be. What used to be the Talaxian Embassy was now nothing but a ratted, gutted mess with few conscious survivors. Squinting through the smoke left behind and the steam rising up from the now-junk pile, Sodi tried to ignore the moans and wails of the dying and the relatives of the dead as she looked around for any sign of the perpetrator of the attack.
“Sunnuvabitch,” she muttered, her blood boiling for a fight.
Dina began to sift through the rubble, searching for any other survivors than the ones that managed to get out on their own. “Can you feel any trace of his motives in this havoc?” she asked as she moved aside chunk after chunk of permacrete.
“Uh…attention?” Sodi asked, “Or maybe he was just trying to start a fight, just like…” she started to say, ‘just like me’.
“No idea,” she went on with a noncommittal shrug, “Probably terrorism. The Talaxians did just get into the Galactic Senate, ya know. They just got finished with a really big war and decided they were all through with it.” Kicking a piece of rubble with one foot, she knelt by a hopelessly dying Talaxian and put him to sleep, the hybrid concluded, “So maybe it was their enemies, coming back to haunt them or something. It’s despicable, either way you put it,” she commented, standing and putting her hands on her hips as she again surveyed the mess that was left behind.
“Well, either way, we need to be extra cautious.” Dina said, carefully lifting a small child from the rubble and handing it to a healer. “Last time I dealt with terrorists was on Bil’idga. They put two different charges on the building. One was automatic, and the other one was set to detonate when the attacker flipped the switch,” she frowned with concentration as she lifted another, larger hunk of wall, “or it could have been an automatic delay detonator…we never found out for sure. Here, help me lift this.”
Sodi nodded compliantly.
“Count of three,” she said, “One, two, three!”
Together, the two Jedi managed to budge the piece about three feet into the air. True, it was heavy, and extremely bulky. But for some reason, it was tethered down to the planet’s surface like it was made there.
“I’m gonna go check for survivors,” said Sodi, “You hold it for me.” With that, she let go of the force she was ‘forcing’ under the block, leaving it up to Dina as she dove towards it.
There were two Talaxian females underneath, both shaken and terrified, but unhurt thanks to them doing the smart thing and getting into the first sublevel instead of staying on the first level. The elder one looked up at the hybrid and gave a frightened shriek.
“Death!” she cried, “It’s Death!”
Sodi repressed a rather out-of-context chuckle as she offered the girls a hand.
“Close,” she replied, “but not quite. Here, lemme help you up.”
Shaking with fear, the other girl extended her hand first and Sodi grabbed onto it.
“How’s it going, Dina?” she called back.
“It’s HEAVY!” Gamal yelled back. Her legs were shaking under the weight, and she had nowhere to put the humongonanimous piece of rock. “You got the people out yet? I…” she paused. “I sense danger, Sodi. We need to get out of here.” The danger felt familiar…like she’d felt that presence before.
“Okay!” Sodi called back, then turned back to the two young girls, hauling them out, using a bit of Force influence to push their spotty little keisters out of the hole a little bit faster. As the two Talaxians landed out on top of the pile with a sharp, startled gasp, Sodi scrambled out of the way and yelled back, “You can let it go now, girlfriend!”
In retrospect, she figured that calling a fellow Jedi ‘girlfriend’ might just imply something that was to gross for her to think about right now.
Dina let the rock down slowly, setting it gently back where it was on the pile with a thump. It was like playing Kal Toe all over again. Remove the wrong stick, or put a stick in the wrong place or too hard, and the whole things collapses in front of you. Difference here was that the sticks were huge boulder sized pieces of permacrete, and they were standing on the game board. Just as Dina relaxed, her force sense sent of red flags everywhere. “Sodi, watch out!” she yelled s she activated her lightsaber, deflecting a volley of shots from a nearby apartment complex.
“Holy shniz…!”
Cursing again, Sodi activated her own lightsaber, a beautiful vibrant purple blade, and began to spin it in skillfully laid-out spirals as she deflected bullets pointedly aimed at her and Dina. As she backed up to her fellow Jedi, her six facing the other’s six, she commented wryly, “Somebody doesn’t like Jedi.”
Quickly, she swung her blade, deflecting one yellow bolt toward its original source, and was rewarded with a delicious scream as it took its sniper out with a small flash.
“Bring it on, y’all!” she yelled out bloodthirstily, much to Dina’s chagrin, “I love this stuff!”
“Sodi…you don’t have to act like a bloodthirsty bounty hunter while you DEFEND yourself!” Dina yelled as she continued to deflect energy blasts back towards the attackers. A shot slipped past her defenses, grazing the Jedi’s right leg. Gamal winced as she stumbled, throwing herself off balance momentarily, and thus giving Sodi a jab in the back, the hybrid uttering an even more potent oath than ever before. Dina recovered quickly however, and aimed the next shot back where it came from. The sniper went down with a bloodcurdling scream, and everything fell silent. The passers-by who had been watching now started to filter off, taking the wounded victims from the bombing to the nearby hospitals.
“Sodi, you alright?” she called to her new friend. She could sense that Xavier was worried, and sent a comforting message of ‘all’s well’ to let him know the threat was over for now.
“After jabbing me in the back with so much as an ‘if you please’?” Sodi demanded, appearing to be angry, “After getting stuck in a flipping fire fight instead of what I’d hoped to be a peaceful morning? Nearly getting my ass shot to hell over some stupid sort of tribal dispute between two equally funky races!?
“Yeah,” she answered her own questions, beaming amiably, “I’d say I’m doing pretty good. Let’s do it again!”
Dina rolled her eyes in disdain. “You are horrible Sodi…you know that?”
“Yup,” the hybrid replied, “Been told that a hundred times, and still counting.”
Gamal groaned, and turned to leave the scene. She had a padawan to tend to, and a leg to wrap up. She was just stepping of the last chunk of permacrete when she ran straight into Obiwan Kenobi. She fell to the ground, and gritted her teeth as the gash from the blaster bolt hit the sharp edge of the rubble.
“Master Kenobi.” She said, suddenly nervous. “Wh…what are you doing here?” Lovely…just lovely…
“Master Gamal,” Kenobi acknowledged, looking with wonder at the site. Obiwan Kenobi was a special case, the speedily graduated padawan of Master Qui-gon Jinn, now a master to the young, force-strong little boy Annikin Skywalker, skipping the rank of Knight to go straight to a full-blown Master. His cracked-glass eyes looked upon the mayhem that surrounded him, Gamal and the approaching Katan with more than a hint of amazement.
“What happened here?!”
“Well, ya see,” Sodi chirped in, flicking back a lock of snowy white hair at the sight of the handsome, golden-haired newcomer, “Dina Gamal and I were talking on the roof when all of a sudden there was this big KABOOM!!! and then –“
“No, we were heading inside when the embassy exploded.” Master Gamal interrupted. “Then we headed over to investigate and evacuate any survivors and --”
Obiwan looked from one to the other in confusion.
“And then,” Sodi interrupted the copper-haired master, “These really rude and annoying dudes decided to play snipe and take pot shots at us, and then –“
“Just…tell me what happened?” Obiwan asked, raising a weary hand to stop them.
Sodi looked from Obiwan to Dina, and then said, “Oh.”
Dina pulled herself up and dusted off her now thoroughly filthy uniform. “We saw the explosion and came to see what we could do to help the victims. At first glance, it was your typical terrorist bomb, but just as we were getting the last survivors out of the rubble, a couple snipers started taking pot shots at us. We took up the attack, defeated the snipers, and then, you arrived, and asked what’s going on, and I --”
“Yes, yes, I know all that,” Obiwan cut off his fellow master with a nod of his head, “Do you have an idea who caused it?”
“Nope,” Sodi replied en lieu of her companion, “We don’t. Just a couple of nasty snipers as far as we could tell. Somebody who had wanted to destroy the Talaxian Embassy, I take it. Possibly even kick them out of the senate.”
Obiwan acknowledged the part-wraith Jedi uneasily. Like most of the Jedi people, he had heard of Sodi Katan’s strangeness and how she was often on the very verge of crossing over.
“What was the casualty rate?” he asked.
Dina growled at herself for her babbling. A habit she needed to fix. “The casualties were actually fairly low…slow day at the office I guess.” She frowned. “My padawan is calling me. I am late for a training session.” That said, she bowed to Master Kenobi and Knight Sodi Katan, and then headed back to the temple. The situation was under control, and Sodi was busy ogling at her latest crush – Dina wasn’t stupid enough to not see that.
Sodi shot Dina a murderous glare – how dare she leave her alone with such a looker! – and turned back to Kenobi. She didn’t have a padawan to use as an excuse…
“I’d, uh,” she thought for a moment then continued, “I better run. I’ve got a date – uh, I mean, I gotta meet somebody at the Wormhole,” she referred to the local joint, “Um, bye!”
As the wraith hybrid ran off at break-neck speed, Obiwan stared after her, then went on to inspect the pile of rubble with a slight, confused shake of his head.
Chapter 3
Sodi Katan sat alone in the large, vacant gym inside the temple that midnight, holding her purple-bladed weapon and going through all of the basic practice moves. Throwing in a couple of her own moves – namely, throwing away the lightsaber while it was deactivated, then doing a sudden, Force-inspired back flip to get it back, coming up with it activated without leaving a deep gash in the tile floor like she’d done last time she’d tried it – Sodi certainly got her exercise.
Coming to a stop, panting and just a bit exhausted, Sodi paused to look at herself in the wall-length mirror, contemplating the pallid, almost sickly tone of her skin and her long, silky white hair that poured down over her thin wiry shoulders. It had only been seven years since her transformation. Before then, she’d been really beautiful – rich, honey-blonde hair, lapis lazuli colored eyes, a small thin body and an elven, impy little grin. How she missed that face…but she always made sure to make it appear like she didn’t care. She didn’t want them to know she cared – that would be admitting to weakness.
Dina walked stealthily into the gym, making sure not to wake the other Knights sleeping in the adjoining quarters. She had woken from her slumber in a cold sweat, a feeling of fear for her padawan. She had had the dream before – a desperate fight, strangers fighting alongside her and Xavier, the screams of the dying, the pain… The sudden glimpse of her Palawan’s face as he was killed right in front of her…
Every time she had the dreams she would wake up, gasping for breath, and a huge knot in the pit of her stomach. She would get up and go into the northwest gym and work out her fears with the help of the force. But the North West gym was closed for repairs due to Kenobi and his Padawan’s latest antics. Something about blowing up the northern wall…
As the Young Master entered the South Gym, she noticed Sodi standing in front of the mirror, staring wistfully at her own reflection. Might as well join her. Dina had to tell her the news someday anyway.
“Am I interrupting?” Dina asked sweetly.
Sodi turned to Dina with a scathing glance, leaving her ghostly reflection to itself once more, embarrassed at being caught in an apparent act of vanity.
“Did you seriously think you could sneak up on me like that?”
“No,” Dina replied simply. “I was just wondering what you were doing up at this hour. You’re going to need your rest for this assignment.”
“Bullshit,” Sodi replied, “I seriously doubt tracking some bomb-weilding dude is going to require much of my energy. Hybrids have a bit more stamina than normal folks, didn’t you know that?” She began swinging the activated purple sword in lazy figure eights with her arms, then began tossing it from one hand up in the air to the other, appearing to be unconcerned with the assignment Master Yoda had given them this evening during their session in the Council Chambers.
Master Gamal rolled her green eyes in frustration. If talking didn’t work, then…well, at least she would have a partner for this workout. Force jumping over the knight, Dina activated her emerald lightsaber and parried Sodi’s figure eight, stopping her repetitious swinging and grabbing the hybrid’s attention, who gave a muttered, “Geezus!” and juggled the falling lightsaber in a panicked effort to keep it off her toes.
“Yes, you will.” She smarted, and lunged at Sodi’s midsection. “We’re going to Talax.”
“Holy shit!” Sodi yelped and quickly blocked, then brought her saber around in a smooth around-and-down stroke.
Dina blocked the strike at her legs with a downward lunge, parrying the blow with a neckward slice of her own, blocked by Sodi, who, by the skin of her teeth, managed to bat the green saber away with a flick of her wrist and a snap and hiss as the blades knocked together. Sodi then came around and sent a flying kick at Dina’s side as she went with her saber towards the other woman’s right shoulder.
Xavier sat bolt upright in his bed, woken by his dreams of his Master fighting for her life. He frowned. “Master?” he called, walking into Dina’s room. Finding the bedroom empty, he headed toward the gym, hopeful that his master would be there, safe and calm.
As he neared the room, his stomach fell to his feet at the sound of sabers sparking and screams of determination. Master?! He thought frantically, and ran into the gym, to come face to face with the dueling duo.
Dina flipped out of the way of yet another slash aimed at her legs, landing on the spectator’s level. “Will you stop it, Sodi?” she yelled down at the Hybrid, “I’m just the messenger, and beating up a Master is NOT the way to gain brownie points.”
“You started it!” Sodi yelled back, and with a classic, Saxetan “rebel yell”, she did a smooth back flip over her foot-larger opponent and slashed at the back of her knees.
Dina jumped just in time, and swung her blade around to catch Sodi’s in a tight embrace. She circled, twisted her saber and brought it down, stopping just before she touched the Knight’s silver neck.
“Dead.” She said.
Xavier gaped in awe and a tiny bit of terror at the two Jedi. “Master? Is everything okay?” he stared with wide eyes at the two fighting women.
Ignoring the youngling, Sodi gave a sly grimace and said, “Not quite dead yet!” Bringing up a knee, she rammed it into the other Jedi’s abdomen, pushing aside the arm holding the green saber and coming around for a quick chop to the junction between the Master’s neck and shoulder blade. Taking this opportunity to escape fairly certain ‘death’ at the hands of the hasty brunette, Sodi Katan did a smooth cart wheel away from the Master and reactivated her lightsaber.
There was a moment of hesitation, during which Sodi stuck out her tongue tauntingly at Dina Gamal.
Dina whirled around to face the hybrid, glaring. “That was underhanded, Katan.” She hissed. Seeing Xavier in the doorway, she ran at Sodi. Slipping around, she pinned the girl’s arm behind her slender back. Twisting the Hybrid’s arm, Dina grinned as the purple blade clattered to the floor. She brought her own blade up to her neck. “Now you ARE dead.”
Xavier just stood in the door way, still too stunned to say anything except the small squeaks at every vicious punch and slash that the two Knights aimed at each other. At times he even wondered if the blades were even dulled or still at their full killing capacity.
Sodi glowered angrily and used the force to grab her saber from the floor and swung it back to snick Dina’s neck from behind. As she held the blade there, yellow eyes meeting Dina’s green ones with utter contempt, she said dryly, “And now so are you. Nyaaah,” She stuck out her tongue again.
Breaking away from the other Jedi’s hold, she turned toward the young padawan who had been watching them, bug-eyed.
“What’s with you, kid?”
Xavier snapped out of his shocked reverie, and quickly bowed, almost losing his balance in his haste. “I-I’m sorry if I interrupted Masters,” he said, stuttering slightly. “I heard the noise and came to see what was wrong…everything is alright, isn’t it?” he looked questioningly at his Master who stood behind Sodi, shoulders back, her eyes flashing green fire.
“Of course Xavier,” Dina said, her voice a mere echo of her normally gentle tone, “I was merely delivering a message and we decided to…practice a little.”
“’We’!?” Sodi barked in indignation, “It was you who started it! There was no ‘we’! I was just playing around and you jumped at my throat!”
“I most certainly did not.” The Tikroni woman quipped back. “You were ignoring me completely! I merely tried to grab your attention away from your bloody reflection!!”
“I …” Sodi felt a wash of uncomfortable exposure. The last thing she wanted was a rumor to get around that she was some kind of self-absorbed, maniacal freak, and with Xanatos or Xavier or whoever standing right there by the doorway, that was exactly what was going to happen.
She took a breath and continued.
“I wasn’t staring at my god-damned reflection,” she corrected Dina in a low, dangerous voice, “I was just explaining to you that I was not bothered by having to chase some idiot bomb-boy onto god-forsaken water world, and that I was fully prepared. I didn’t need your idiot damn saber at my throat to tell me that you’re just as crazy as I am.”
With that, Sodi pushed Xavier aside and left the gym before Dina – or herself – could embarrass her any more.
Chapter 4
Xavier lounged in the pilot’s seat of the small intersystem speeder he, Master Gamal, and Master Katan had acquired. One long finger twirled his long Padawan’s braid as he watched the stars, slumping sideways in the seat, his long, gangly legs hanging over one side, his head resting on the opposite armrest, cradled in the crook of his arm. Both Masters had been on a no-word basis ever since the night in the gym, and so the fifteen year old was doing what any other Padawan would do bored stiff on a speeder with two grumpy Knights – plotting their making up.
He stretched out a small finger of force through his bond with Dina, careful not to wake her if she was asleep. She was. He grinned and retreated from the contact. If only Sodi didn’t have those damnable shields so high.
Just then, the devil herself walked into the room. The Knight looked just as bored as Xavier felt. The snowy-haired wraith hybrid took a seat in the copilot’s position and slumped down comfortably into the efficiently padded chair. Breathing a doomable sigh, the hybrid folded her arms across her chest and played dead for a few seconds to express her utter, contempt boredom, hoping to coax a laugh, or at least a small smile, from the ennui-encompassed Padawan.
Xavier glanced over at Sodi, a thick eyebrow cocking at the sight of her all limp and slumped over – sort of like a Mummy from the Gerik system. He tried in vain to stifle a chuckle, finally clenching his free hand into the cushion of the Pilot’s seat. “Surely a Jedi Knight can’t be bored on a trip like this…can they, Master Katan??”
Opening her yellow eyes again, Sodi gave a weary groan and looked over at the Padawan.
“Don’t kid yourself, Xave,” she told the young boy, sighing and straightening up, “A lone Jedi Knight is no match for the cruel, evil tyranny of the great, grizzly monster most of us like to refer to as Boredom.”
Xavier laughed, still slouched in the chair. “But you said that you wouldn’t need any extra energy.” His blue eyes danced with mischief.
“If we keep this dreary pace up, I most certainly won’t,” Sodi told him gloomily.
“We’re going at the top recommended speed for this bucket of bolts,” Xavier stated, jabbing a finger at the smooth ceiling of the craft.
“Well, isn’t there a much less ‘recommended speed’ that we could use?” Sodi questioned him, “Something that’ll be just a little bit faster than an Albedarian tortoise?”
Xavier rolled his eyes at the Knight’s comment. “If you and Master Gamal hadn’t denied me the Virgin cruise for the speeder me and Annikin were fixing up, there would be!” he frowned and crossed his long arms sulkily, remembering the heated conversation between him and the two older Jedi in the hanger bay.
“Well, Excuuuse me!” Sodi replied resentfully, “It ain’t my fault that Dina got her high and mighty self set on this ugly excuse for a junkyard scrap pile. If y’all had just listened to me, we could’ve been there by now.” Before leaving, Sodi Katan had offered them a trip in her Wraith-made dart ship.
“At least mine was more legal, and had a LOT more ROOM than your one-man pin-dart!” Xavier snapped, and whirled his chair around, hoping to stop facing away from Sodi. Sadly, his feet didn’t quite reach the floor in time, leaving him to spin in circles.
Putting out one leather-booted foot, Sodi stopped the spinning and looked Xavier in the eye resentfully. “I could’ve transported y’all into the pattern buffer. It’s pretty roomy in there, it being made to harvest about twenty humans at a time, kid.”
Xavier brought himself to his full 4’8”, and glared at her. “Sure,” he muttered, seething. “And have our atoms scattered around in deep space when we SUPPOSEDLY rematerialized?!” he snorted. “Annikin’s told me about THAT stuff. Darned foolish if you ask me.”
Sodi stood too, and pointed one pale gray finger at him in contempt. “Don’t tempt me, kid! I would just as soon scatter you all the way from here to Qo’noS if it suited me. And ya know the best part? NO PHORENSIC EVIDENCE.”
Dina peeked around the doorframe, one eyebrow up in her hairline. Her shipmates – how she hated that title – were up at each other’s throats, and her Padawan was actually being aggressive!
Xavier stopped, his face an unreadable mask. He bowed quickly to Sodi, and left the cockpit, brushing past Dina in the doorway. Dina felt a wave of fear and hurt pride as he passed her, and she stepped into the room.
“Did I interrupt something?” she asked tentatively.
“Oh, no, Dina,” Sodi answered sarcastically, flopping back down in the copilot’s seat, “We were just about to start ripping each other apart like a couple of half-crazed hound dogs. No, I don’t think you interrupted anything, Dina. Not at all,” she finished dryly, braiding a lock of hair in complete and utter boredom.
Dina rolled her eyes and took the pilot’s position. Silence reigned as she checked the status of the engines and their trajectory. All was in order. She glanced over at Sodi. Normally, she would speak to the younger knights, telling them to let go of their grudges and trust the force. But Gamal was afraid that if she tried to tell that to the Wraith, that Master Dina Gamal would end up as oatmeal for tomorrow’s breakfast.
“So what were you and Xavier talking about while I was sleeping?” she asked, an attempt at conversation.
“Ships, boredom, transporters, speed, velocity…” Sodi replied calmly, continuing with the braiding job, “You name it. Nothing a prim and proper little Master like yourself would be interested in. Say,” she said thoughtfully, “You think I could speed up this trash bucket a little bit?”
Dina tugged at her ear with one hand, mulling the thought over. “Hmm, let’s see…nope.” She decided. “What was Xavier so upset about then, if you two were just ‘talking’? I’ve never seen him so perturbed.”
“It was the transporters,” Sodi answered noncommittally, “Poor kid’s an antitech.” She shrugged and gave Dina Gamal a wry smile, “You should’ve seen him.” Faking Xavier’s young male voice, she mimicked, “’Have our atoms shcattered around da galaxy!? No way! Anikin’sh told me all about dat! It’sh bad for you!’ Seriously,” she concluded in her normal tone, giving the Jedi Master an indicative glance.
Dina frowned at Sodi. “I admit that Xavier has a lot to learn about technology and its benefits. The crèche Masters are very much against technology of any sort. But he’s coming around, with little help from his friend, Annikin.” She smiled, sending a small wave of comfort to her Padawan. He was upset – that much was clear.
Sodi snorted, unconvinced. “Sure. Annikin’s got him freaked out over anything over the sun. Annikin, the super pilot. Annikin, the engineer. Annikin, the miracle worker. Annikin,” she annunciated dramatically, “The chosen one, by golly! Seriously,” she returned to her normal self again, “That kid’s gonna be trouble. I can just smell it.”
“Of course not,” Dina said matter of factly. “Annikin has shown promise, and excellent skills for one of his age. I would have given anything to have been his master… except for his love of speed of course. And reckless behavior – poor Obiwan.” She shook her head, smiling. “He got stuck with a hard piece of meat to swallow.”
Sodi Katan made a spiteful sound. “I’ll say. It’s ridiculous, the way that kid thinks he’s the whole god-damn world or something. I can smell it, Dina. Trust me, that kid’s nothing but trouble. And it’s no joke when I say I can smell it. We hybrids have that much from the Wraith.”
“You have a lot of things from the Wraith, both good and bad,” Dina muttered under her breath. She opened a channel to the airway patrol on Talax as they approached the atmosphere. “This is Jedi knight Dina Gamal, requesting permission to land.”
After a moment’s silence, a simple male voice asked, “Why?”
Dina glanced over at Sodi, a puzzled look on her face. “We are here at the request of the Talaxian ambassadors from Coruscant. May we have permission to land?”
“Oh yeah…” said the voice, “That bombing! It was all over the news. How many people were hurt?”
Sodi stifled a snicker at the sight of Dina’s bewildered expression.
Dina frowned. She lifted a hand and calmly said to the voice at the other end, “You don’t want to ask any questions right now. We have permission to land.” She hoped it worked – it had gotten her out of a lot of nerve racking conversations before.
Sodi elbowed her and gave her a disaprooving glance. “That’s cheating,” she muttered sideways.
“Well!” said the Talaxian, obviously feeling a bit put out, “It was just an honest question. I’ve heard about you Jedi, too. You wouldn’t be waving your hand over the microphone right now, would you?”
Sodi looked at Dina’s hovering palm indicatively, and whispered, “Let me handle it. Talaxians like to talk.”
Dina jerked back from the comm. system. “N-no, of course not,” she stuttered, taken aback. She hadn’t been told that Talaxians were Force insensitive. “But I don’t have time to talk right now, and am not at leisure to --”
Sodi wheeled her chair over and bumped Dina’s chair aside, sending the Jedi master spinning across the bridge as she took over the negotiations.
“Look, pal,” she said, “We’d really love to talk, but we’ve got stuff to do before it gets dark. You know, getting accommodations and stuff. Tell ya what. After we’ve finished our mission, I’ll give you a couple of juicy rumors to spread around.”
“Give me something in advance,” the Talaxian ordered skeptically.
“Umm…” Sodi fished around, then said, “Annikin Skywalker’s in love with –“
At that moment, Dina force pushed the upstart Wraith away from the console, taking over once again. “Annikin is not and will not be in love with anyone any time real soon, and if I hear a peep of this, I will know where it came from, do you understand?” she glared at the microphone in disgust.
The Talaxian was silent for a moment, then asked, “What’s going on in that ship of yours!?”
Sodi’s swivel chair copiloted its way into Dina again, sending her flying into the bridge door at an awkward spin as she said into the microphone, “Don’t you know? Jedi like to play Bump ‘Em with their swivel chairs.”
“That’s great!” the Talaxian said gleefully, “You guys certainly have permission to land now!”
A high male voice came over the comm. Xavier had decided to take over from there. “Thank you very much, err…what’s you’re name? We didn’t get it.”
Dina sighed with relief. Now there was nothing Sodi could do.
“I’m Karix, Karix Keno,” the Talaxian replied, “And are you going to land or what? Or are you too busy playing Bump ‘Em?” he asked kindly.
“The Masters have everything transferred to my station,” Xavier replied, a gleeful ring to his voice, “We are landing as we speak. Thank you for your cooperation Sir Keno.”
Dina and Sodi glared at one another for a few moments. Then Dina let out an angry yell and sent her chair flying into Sodi’s with a vengeance as the sleek Jedi speeder began to land.
Once the ship had landed on the landing platform, Dina Gamal, Sodi Katan, and Xavier all opened the door and eagerly stepped out … to be greeted with an icy cold sensation as millions of streaking raindrops pummeled them the second they left the simple little craft. Sodi gave out a shriek of dismay.
“GAHH! Sheesh!” she cried out, bolting back into the speeder, “S’cold!”
Xavier grinned back at her, soaked to the bone and having a great time as he danced a little jig through the puddles. “C’Mon Master Sodi,” he said, “You’ve got to admit, it’s fantastic!”
Dina, who had been born on the jungle planet of Zikron, merely brought her cloak higher up around her face, and motioned for them to go inside a nearbye hotel across the way. The rain was fine, but the chilling wind was absolutely out of the question.
Sodi stood there, shivering like she was having an epileptic seizure or something. After a moment’s silence, she voiced what all of them were thinking.
“Well, this sucks.”
“Indeed,” Xavier giggled, mimicking Yoda expertly despite the freezing rain. He then ran inside after his master and shook himself dry like a wet dog just to annoy the Hybrid behind him.
“Hey! Ack! XAVIER!!!” Sodi shrieked as she suffered through another drenching rain, “Aw, frak! That’s cold!” Quickly scrambling out of range of the Padawan-rain, she asked, “Y’all got any towels hidden someplace I can’t find?”
“Not unless you have secretly enhanced Xavier’s pockets to contain shelves,” Dina said smugly.
Xavier just grinned.
A young Talaxian approached the trio, her bright orange hair braided primly down the back of her head. Big blue eyes met Sodi’s furious golden ones with sympathy. “You have reservations, Jedi guests?” she asked cheerfully. “If you don’t we can get you in half the time. You are all soaked to the bones!” she exclaimed, grabbing a towel from a hidden cupboard behind the counter. “Here,” she said and handed one to each of the doused Jedi.
“Thanks,” Sodi nodded in gratitude, throwing a towel over her head and rubbing her scalp furiously until her hair stopped dripping. Then she lowered it and wrapped it, still shivering, around her wiry shoulders, shooting the padawan, who had taken one look at her and started rolling on the floor and laughing like there was no tomorrow, a dangerous glare.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
“You – you look like – like a WOOKIE!” Xavier gasped between sobs of laughter.
“Rawr,” Sodi glowered dryly, her echoing voice dripping with sarcasm as she turned to a mirror behind her and nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Oh my GOD!” she cried in horror, then turned quickly to Dina, “Got a hairbrush?”
Dina finished wringing out her own, waist length hair and turned to Sodi. “Nope,” she said, “But I do have a ticket for a two bedroom suite for us to change in with some sort of privacy.”
“To the hotel room!” Sodi commanded and headed up the stairs, then paused as Dina cleared her throat.
“Sodi…It’s the other way.”
Xavier burst out in another fresh peal of laughter as he bounded up the other flight of stairs, leaving wet puddle-prints in his wake.
“Oh no you don’t!” Sodi called after him, bounding after the padawan faster than any human could have, “Ain’t no soppy Puddle-wan gonna get to a clean set of clothes before ME!”
Dina followed after the pair of misfits, shaking her head and shivering.
Once the Jedi were out of earshot, the Hostess pressed a green button on her consol, pulling up a comm system.
“Have the Jedi arrived yet?”
“Yes, they have,” the Hostess replied in a whisper, “They have checked into the assigned room and are settling in nicely.”
“Good,” said the steely, deep voice, “Be sure to make them very…comfortable.”
More coming soon!
