IN THE SHADOW OF THE MANDALORE
CHAPTER 7, Part iii
I know, it’s SCI-FI FRIDAY and I’m late. That’s because I was distracted last night and forgot. When I remembered, it was way too late to get this out. And now it’s mid-morning (how many times do we get to say THAT!)
But things are starting to get interesting. There isn’t a lot left in this, and I’ll start working on it again as soon as I finish with Locksley and my CAMELOT story…
iii
Alyssa entered the Council Chambers where Setti stood in front of a tall floor to ceiling window, holding an empty teacup and lost somewhere in a trance. She sidled up beside him and then looked down at the city rolling out as far as she could see. The smoke belonging to the morning’s crash hung low on the skylight, thick and heavy even at this distance, she noted. She turned away from the crash site and let herself be distracted by the steady stream of speeders zipping in and out of sky-lanes at their different altitudes. And even though it appeared that traffic was at a crawl as a result of this morning’s crash, they were still dropping from lane to lane in an effort to beat the congestion. But that’s what it was like using the emergency NavCom protocol. They were the ones picking the best routes and using whichever lanes were available.
And standing where she was, it all came back at her once she remembered the last time she’d been in this room. She was looking out over the city then too; a day just as distantly clear as this one.
That was twelve years ago, she reminded herself, the day Setti told her he was leaving for the High Council on Corescant and the day Dax became her padawan.
She slipped her hands into the sleeves of her Jedi robe, did an abrupt turn around and leaned against the window, waiting. He’d address her in his own good time, and she knew that. Patience, as something someone tried to teach you, was next to impossible; ironically, it took time. It was never something she’d excelled at in her youth. Dax was supposed to fix that. She thought maybe he had.
If I could only get Dax to understand as much.
She looked around the room, none of it looking familiar, and yet remembered her sense of urgency the first time she faced Setti after his election to the Jedi High Council. She was a young knight then—barely twenty-six. She’d been a Journeyer for eight years, learning from different Masters at different temples. She had dreams of becoming a Ranger, and from there, perhaps the Republic Special Forces and deployment somewhere out there? It was a reckless living and an irresponsible lunge at freedom that was leading her down a dark course.
And now, at thirty-six?
Does it really matter that I’ve had countless lovers, or that I’m a regular visitor to the Basement?
Maybe she did drink too much Mandalorian ale, and too much Felucian wine, but was that ever an issue? She readily admitted that sometimes she ate too much Spice, but once you tried it, who could say how much was too much?
And then, there was that one thing, and she remembered Dax saying how all the other students thought she was on her way to joining Phanius on the Dark side. And maybe she would have, she thought, but Setti understood the pain she carried, the family she’d lost, and told her about the young apprentice she was about to take on.
Dax was exactly what I needed.
“Alyssa,” he said, turning and holding his arms out to her. She snapped out of her fugue and moved toward him, feeling the comfort of his embrace as the memory of their years together melted into a nostalgic wave of emotion.
He still has that effect on me.
“Kashiefa.”
He released her and guided her to one of the Council chairs, telling her to sit as he took his place in the Master’s chair.
“It’s still D’Alaquan, is it?” he asked.
“Thank you, yes.”
He pushed a button on his chair and a service droid entered, short, squat and square. Setti turned and smiled at Alyssa as the droid stopped in front of her and slid out a large mug of steaming, hot tea.
“I took the liberty of preparing it for you.”
“I’m flattered.
Then the droid turned to Setti and gave him his Golani.
“Why is it the older you get, the more beautiful you become? Whereas I, on the other hand, just get older?”
“You’ll always be the handsome man you were when I was your padawan, Kashiefa.”
“I see you finally learned how to flatter an old man’s self-esteem,” he smiled. “I may have taught you something after all.”
“You taught me more than I could ever hope to pass on to Dax. I suppose that’s why you were elected to sit where you are.”
He waved the comment off as he blew on his tea. A protocol droid entered a moment later, its silver casing bright. It gave Setti a data pad and waited. Setti scanned the pad and put it down on the table beside him.
“Send her up.”
The droid bowed stiffly before turning to leave.
“It seems your padawan has been busy in the archives.”
“I asked him to forward whatever information he found, here. I wanted to keep you updated, for the sake of Keegan Voss’s memory.”
“He was reckless,” Setti said with a note of regret in his voice. “You know it, and I know it. Given time, he probably would’ve been elected to the Council.”
She laughed a quick laugh. “He should’ve never gone in there alone, not without knowing what type of enemy we faced.”
“And will you be putting that in your report when you submit it to the Council on Coruscant?”
She sat back tapping her ringed fingers on her mug as she considered the question. “Do I detect a note of reluctance on your part? Can’t you just come out and tell me to leave my personal feelings out of it?”
“I have to take everything into consideration—especially the abilities of the Jedi I send out as his successor. I can’t leave that sector without Jedi representation.”
“What do my feelings about his recklessness have to do with that? He might have gotten us all killed,” Alyssa said softly.
“Why is it whenever I say something to you in a subtle manner, you dismiss it, and when you say something to me, it’s never subtle? I’ve always come away from our talks feeling like I’m going to give you whatever you want.”
“Kashiefa, please,” she said in a matter of fact tone that sounded dismissive; the hint of a smile touching her lips.
Setti laughed gently and shook his head as he sipped his tea.
“I hope you’ve trained you padawan with as much—what’s the word I’m looking for here—diplomacy?”
“Dax is with Dye in the Archives. If he’s going to learn anything about diplomacy, it won’t be coming from me.”
“And how is Dye? I really should try seeing her this time out.”
“Are you telling me, or apologizing?
“Apologizing—I just don’t have the time. This downed ship and the Sith—an obvious infiltrator. How? How’d he hide himself among us and we not know? Not sense it? Is he that powerful?”
“No. He’s an Acolyte at best.”
“At best? Is that being optimistic? What’s your worst?”
“An Acolyte with an agenda.”
“Fitt?”
She nodded.
“And because I didn’t want Dax with me when I spoke to his father, I sent him to the Archives with Dye to try and trace the armour the man wore. And the Baselisk. I’d love to try one of those out.”
“Too bad you broke his ship.”
“I didn’t do that. Dax did.”
“Did he? Cross the line?”
“Hard to say. We were too late. On the one hand, it’s his sister. I thought, maybe, Dax seeing his father, he might blame him. He might be too emotionally engaged.”
“And why’s that?”
“Her grandfather contacted me and said he thought she might be Force sensitive.”
“And how would he know?”
“Because he says he is. I think he might be right about her. There was definitely something about her. Strong. Raw. Untouched.”
“How did the Searchers miss someone like that?”
“The Grandfather says he and the mother hid her. He taught her how to hide it. As far as I know, she hasn’t been trained.”
“So he can turn her?
“I felt his power. He’s young, ambitious, secretive—but they all are. This could lead us to whoever’s behind the blockade. Mandalore the Most High denies any knowledge of it. If the Sith are behind it somehow—and you know they are—we might stop a full scale war before it happens.”
“Have you spoken to Fitt?”
She nodded, took a sip of her tea and looked out over the city. It seemed so calm from up here. It was centralizing to her being, the way the light reflected off the metal speeders a hundred feet below. She could see Setti in the reflection of the window, he was calm, reflective, his attention drawn to the morning’s destruction.
“I bow to your decision when it comes to your padawan. You know him best,” he said, turning his attention back to her. “Did Fisk say anything about the attack?”
She shook her head.
“Not much and none of it true. He’s definitely hiding something.”
“Do you think he’s guilty of something, or is he simply lying to protect his son?”
She smiled as she shook her head again. “Protect him from what? The man’s arrogant and self-serving. And he’s guilty. I just don’t know what he’s guilty of. But he could lead us to who knows where if we tail him for a while.”
“Still, I’d love an afternoon rummaging through his head and seeing what exactly he’s trying to hide,” Setti admitted.
She sat back again, looking out at the city in front of her as she took another long sip of her tea. Distant towers faded into the golden haze of the afternoon sun as Lundi – the smallest of the three Sisters – crested the Northview Tower. At more than a hundred kilometers away, two hundred and forty Standard years old, and more than a thousand stories tall, the Tower had stood as a focus point for generations of Jedi.
“People like Fisk don’t fully understand the ideologies involved with using the Force,” Setti said slowly. “To them, we’re savants, more closely attuned to tricksters, if you will. They think the Force is something used for parlour tricks. You lift a guest off the ground and feign boredom as you do it. I’ve seen it performed a hundred times by Force Sensitive beings who had no idea of what they possessed.”
“And you believe that’s what Fisk thinks about us – about his own son?”
“He’s a collector of Sith artefacts.” Setti shrugged his shoulders as he took a sip of his tea. “As for his son, I doubt if he has any feelings.”
“Did you read my padawan’s report referencing the manuscript page?”
Master Setti nodded. “I did. But Fisk has more than just the one manuscript page. He has ancient weapons and armour, other manuscripts, even a holocron. He’s been a person of interest to us for several years now. If the Sith are looking for one page, there’s no way of knowing which one it might be if he doesn’t tell us.”
“How does a man like him come into possession of a Sith holocron?”
Setti shook his head. “A man with that much money can purchase anything he wants.”
“You think his daughter was taken because this mysterious Dark Lord wants whatever’s on that page?”
“I do. And like you, I also believe the man you saw is this Dark Lord’s Acolyte – this Mandalorian everyone’s talking of. His Sith Master wants the manuscript, but the question remains, why? We need to know why.”
“Do we know what’s on it?”
He shook his head.
“I doubt if Fisk even knows. These collectors are all the same. They have no idea that these artefacts they’re so avid about collecting, are in a dormant state. It only takes one Dark Lord to reanimate them. If a person is Force Sensitive, they can be controlled and manipulated by the very artefact they hope to put on display.”
“Then why take the girl?”
“What better way to manipulate him?” Master Setti picked up the data pad, passing it to her. “Your Padawan also sent this.”
She looked it over quickly, and then looked up at Master Setti.
“Ryloth?”
Master Setti nodded slowly. “The armour was purchased through an agent on Ryloth, and then picked up several weeks ago by another agent here. It’s the same story with the Basilisk. Dyatha-Lun ran a galactic trace on the name of the agent they found on Ryloth, and it went back to one of Fisk’s holding companies.”
“Fisk? I don’t understand. Is he being used by the Sith, or are they forcing him to work for them? You can’t think he’s hired them for his own reasons. You can’t think he hired someone to force his own craft down, and then kidnap his daughter.”
“No, but the fact he has dealings with them in Sith Space doesn’t help his case. Did he say anything to you?”
“Just that the man said he would be in contact with him. He promised me he would let us know.”
“And was he lying?”
“No, surprisingly.”