IN THE SHADOW OF THE MANDALORE

Chapter one (Part 1)

There’s this thing here on Substack where writers give each other prompts for stories, and challenges. BRILLIG was such a challenge. That was the story I wrote about the kid fighting the Jabberwocky. They also have this thing called SCI-FI FRIDAY. I’m on the list of writers being challenged to write a SCI-FI story. I just happen to have such a story.

I started writing a STAR WARS story a few years ago. I searched through all the STAR WARS data I could, and actually found a time period where there was relative “peace in the valley” as the saying goes. Only in that Galaxy, there was never peace. I’d decided that I was going to write a collection of about five books following the life of a Jedi Padawan up until he becomes the Master of the Jedi Order. But I also wanted to follow a Sith Acolyte up through the ranks as well, and decided to make him a Mandalorian as well.

But Star Wars being Star Wars, it’s something you either love or hate. I saw the first STAR WARS, the original, when I was 19. It was 1977, and I went with my ex-brother-in-law, who also happened to be my room mate at the time. It blew my mind. It had everything you could want in a movie, and then some. I was hooked.

Move ahead 30-40 years, and STAR WARS has exploded into something no one could have imagined. They had more movies, and comic books, and novels. I wanted to write one myself. But I had a different view of that Galaxy; I had a different take on things. It would be STAR WARS, if it was made into a movie by Tarantino. It would be violent, and have sexual tension, and be everything STAR WARS was NOT. I just needed a time line to put it in. When I found it, I started writing.

Now if you like this, I’ll keep putting it up. I have 47,000 words: 8 chapters. But if you like it, I’ll keep writing it.

Let’s see how it goes, Okay?

Long ago, in a Galaxy far, far away…

Photo by Cade Roberts on Unsplash

1295 ATC (After the Treaty of Coruscant)

(2358 BBY)

      CHAPTER ONE

   TARIS

       i

Dax could sense the incoming PCD droid dropping to his left even before it arrived; slipping down from the ceiling in stealth-mode it was able to hide its heat signature in a series of sensor array panels and data control units built into the room, rendering it completely invisible.

Smart, he thought.

Smaller than a dinner plate, and elliptical, it packed a mighty sting with it eighty bit charge. Armed with four blasters and shielded, it was the most advanced practice droid in the Academy. Even so, there were subtle changes in the air—a disturbance in the balance of the Force around him—warning Dax of its approach. He adjusted the blast shield on his helmet one last time before engaging his lightsaber. The snap and hum of the blade was a strange comfort to him.

Assuming the Form V opening, he anticipated the blaster shot before the droid even fired, signalling the other droids the game was afoot. He felt the familiar wash of the Force as it bound itself to him. His senses were highly tuned; he felt it surging through his body, wrapping itself around him in a soft cocoon of pale warmth. He could hear his heart pounding out a slow, rhythmic beat, and he began counting in his head as a means of tracking time—the same way Kashiefi had taught all those years ago—as he waited for the first of the five droids to attack.

He preferred using Shien as a defensive posture, because it guarded against blaster fire and enemy strikes without compromising one's ability to launch a powerful counterattack. It was an offensive stance, Kashiefi told him, adding that if he was going to master one form, make it the Shien. It was also the best defence against multiple attacks. There was a reason Shien was dubbed the Perseverance Form. The Shien opening stance was a high guard position, allowing movements with liquid, split-second reactions as deadly as a lightning strike.

The PCD’s one failure as the perfect practice droid, was that it lost its cloaking ability every time it used its blasters. Capable of releasing thirty bolts per second as it rotated, it would appear as a strobing disc of light in the peripheral of his vision—even with the helmet’s blast shield down.

Dax’s lightsaber caught the droid’s first blast dead centre, directing it back at the droid. The droid’s shield caught the blast, but Dax could sense that it sustained damage. The other blasts that followed came in quick succession—appearing like a long line of arcing light through the helmet’s visor—he was able to direct them all back at the first droid, shattering it. He heard the impact in the sterile silence of the room, feeling the concussion of the slight explosion in the air around him—smelling the cordite and burnt wiring.

That’s one down.

I wouldn’t’ve made that shot five years ago, he told himself, preparing for the second droid coming in from his left a split second later. The three remaining droids followed close behind it, separating in an attempt to surround him. He could hear the light buzz of their power supplies as they circled. They were looking for an opening, a weakness in his defence as they whirred about, darting in and out and sending blaster bolts at him in rapid succession.

I am one with the Force.

His weapon was a blur of light as he let the Force guide him. He sent each charged bolt back at the droids. They were quick though—quicker than he thought possible—somehow evading the redirected shots he sent back at them, and able to deflect them with their shields. Finally, springing up and twisting in mid-air, he came down with a slash and dispatched the second droid, landing in a squat and redirecting the third droid’s shots at the fourth. He leaped up again, twisting in mid-air and destroying the third droid in the split second it took to destroy the fourth.

Two...three...and four.

The last droid almost caught him unawares—and maybe it would have when he was younger—but once again, he sensed the shot before it came. He slashed up and sent the shot into a corner, leaping and twisting himself in mid-air and landing on the other side of the room in the split-second it took to get his bearings straight. He sensed the droid coming down at him from the ceiling.

You can’t hide from me up there.

The droid veered to his left at the last possible moment, and he caught the clustered shots with his blade, sending them harmlessly aside. He dropped the point of his lightsaber and reached out with the Force, sensing the invisible droid and smashing it into the wall before crushing it with a closed fist and tossing it to the side.

And five.

Lifting the blast shield up, he took his helmet off and looked at the smoking remains of the five practice droids. A cleaner bot zipped out across the hard wooden floor from somewhere behind him, followed by four others, and in a moment the five droids were gone.

He was in the hi-tech gymnasium of the new Jedi Training Academy on Taris, smiling at his reflection and suddenly feeling smug with himself. And why shouldn’t he? Five years ago, he would’ve left the room with a body full of welts—the result of multiple blaster wounds. He disengaged his lightsaber, hanging it on his utility belt, and hung the helmet on a hook on the wall.

His breath came in slow, shallow gasps, and he felt the sweat drop off the tip of his nose. The droids had made for a good workout. Hard, fast, intense; it was the kind of work out that would’ve left him gasping for breath when he first started using practice droids seven years ago.

It was something he would’ve never been able to do three years ago. Two droids maybe, but certainly not at maximum settings. He picked up his towel, wiping the sweat off his chest, and found himself thinking about the past, his family, and everything today should mean to him.

It’s been years since the last time I saw them. Will they even know who I am? Will I know them?

He wondered.

With the strong, chiselled features of a father he didn’t know, and barely remembered—and wouldn’t if not for the pictures his sister sent him through the holofeed—Dax looked at his reflection in the floor to ceiling mirrors. He was taller than his father, he’d gathered that little bit of intel from Galactic records, as well as the three brothers he barely remembered. His sister assured him she was looking forward to the trip out from Araxis, even if the others felt obligated to come for the sake of their father. Rev and his family were staying behind, and he wondered if that was by choice, or simply a matter of someone having to mind the store while the family was away.

His matted hair was a dark tangle of curls except for the Padawan braid hanging limp on his left shoulder. He ran the towel over his hair, almost as if he was hiding from his own reflection, he thought. At twenty-two, Dax was prepared to take the next step on his way to becoming a Jedi. He’d passed his final test, jumped through all the hoops and obstacles they threw his way, but he still couldn’t bring himself to feeling anything even close to emotional when it came to his family’s imminent arrival for his graduation ceremony.

It just isn’t there. Not the way it should be.

He stared at the mirrored reflection of the city lights where they spread out behind him, shining through the dark transparisteel windows. It made for a ghostly reflection. The room was mirrored in the blackness of the windows which reflected the mirrors, while it seemed as if the enchantment of a million lights holding the night at bay had somehow lost its magic. He was a reflection in a reflection, a mirrored spectre standing over the dark void of an endless cityscape; an ethereal vision.

There was still a sheen of sweat on his arms as well as his chest and shoulders; he wiped the sweat off slowly, letting his mind wander back to when he’d first began using droids. Kashiefi told him to start simple, and he used one droid, but with a twenty bit charge. Make it hurt, she said. Pain should be its own reward and something you learn to control, like anger.

Seven years ago, I had a dozen welts on my arms and back—and I was only using one droid.

He looked at his Padawan braid in the mirror and thought of how it would be coming off soon. The braid would always be a symbol of his youth, and reaching a hand up, he wrapped his finger around the braid the same way he’d been doing since he first started braiding it. There were more than a dozen years worth of memories in the braid, and everything it meant—everything it stood for—was not lost for a moment.

It made him think about the last time he saw his family. As a Youngling, he’d been living in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, and yet, he still remembered the feelings of apprehension at being sent home to Araxis to witness the Internment of his mother. It was the last time he’d see any of his family, until they arrived later today. He wondered if he’d known then that it would be the last time they’d be together, if he would’ve tried reaching out to them sooner. His remembered how his father had looked lost that day; his brothers weeping; his sister standing silent beside their grandfather, clutching the old man’s hand and refusing to acknowledge him even though Dax knew she could hear him calling out to her with the Force.

Dax knew then that he was a stranger to them; he couldn’t wait to get back to Coruscant and the Jedi Temple. And three years later when he was twelve—having built his own light sabre from scratch—he was selected as the Padawan trainee to Jedi Knight and last of the Journeyers, Alyssa Po’h. His friends said they were sorry for him, but he knew that was a lie.

Master P’oh was a Twi-leki female.

The road to Jedi Knighthood lay through the new Jedi Academy on Taris. As a Knight, Dax would serve as Master P’oh’s Apprentice for four years, the difference being that now he’d be putting his training to use in the field. She was the last of the Journeyers. The Jedi Council decided Padawans would train for another four years, and instead of training at the Temples on Tython, they’d take their last test on the Rogue moon of Taris.   

And I made it.

There was a genuine sense of relief accomplishing what no one else in his family had done before him. He knew he should’ve been proud of what he accomplished. He was the first. He was certain there’d been others who had been Force sensitives—he was certain his grandfather would’ve tested high—but the man had gone unnoticed for most of his life. It was obvious to him that his sister had abilities, but Dax was the first that had been recognized as a true Jedi in the family’s history. It was a history that had been traced back countless generations.

One of the most important lessons he’d learned returning to the Jedi Academy on Coruscant was the meaning of the word sacrifice. As a Youngling having witnessed his mother’s internment, he knew he’d have to put his family behind him. He might not have understood the significance of it at the time, but after more than ten years of hard study and even harder training, he thought he understood.

He told himself he was ready.

Weak and scattered thoughts lead to Darkness; strength and concentration make up the Force.

It was the first rule of Jedi Order.