IN THE SHADOW OF THE MANDALORE

CHAPTER 5 (Part 2)

My piece for SCI-FI FRIDAY, the 2nd half of Chapter 5.

If there’s something about this story that doesn’t work for you, let me know in the comments below, or contact me, and maybe we can sort it out together.

Alyssa quickened her pace, her red cloak floating behind her like a pair of wings. She appeared lost in concentration, her brow damp with sweat, her eyes set firm behind the small tinted goggles she wore. Her dark Farlenian boots echoed on the coarse tiles of the Third Level of the Temple courtyard, Second Strata.

The day had dawned a brilliant yellow. She remembered watching it while she meditated — as was her habit — sitting in a small swatch of sunlight that broke in from the left, coming through at an angle between the Four Towers. She sat naked — also out of habit — feeling the warmth of the sunlight on her skin. The morning light broke through the poisoned sky, magnified by the thick plate glass windows of her apartment, but it would only last a short time before it was lost behind the surrounding stratoscrapers of the city. The light sometimes made it too hot to concentrate, but she sat calm on her small mat in front of the floor to ceiling windows, looking out over the city as she searched the Force.

And the day had started with so much promise, she told herself.

She might’ve believed that if it hadn’t been for the sense of failure she felt within herself,  trying to deal with Voss’s death.

I should be able to put this away from me.

She could hear Dax following several paces behind, lost in his own thoughts, she was quite sure. She could sense his anger and understood she should be trying to help him control his rage—but she was having a hard enough time dealing with things herself. She wasn’t one to face the loss of a friend with the same stoical calm other Jedi seemed to project—and she knew Dax understood that about her. She tried telling herself it was because she was a woman, with feelings that were more in tune with the world around her. When that didn’t work, she told herself it was because she was a Twi’leki female, and the Twi’leks were an emotional race of beings. Finally, she conceded that Voss had been more than a friend—but a one-time lover who had thrown his life away recklessly.

He should’ve waited for us.

“You’ll have to keep up,” she said, the testiness in her voice lost in the muffled filters of the mask she wore.

“Forgive me for seeming a little distracted,” Dax said, a little too quickly. “I mean, with everything that’s happened…my sister being taken; my father disappearing, yes, I’m a little distracted,” he added.

Is that his idea of an apology?

Dax had stopped walking.

The street was full of droids and service ‘bots. The sounds of shunting pistons and pressurized steam screamed in the distance, along with the rumble of sky-crawlers—heavy machines that scaled the outside of nearby buildings cleaning the acid-stained durocrete. Auto-trams thundered above, their transparisteel rails glistening in the sunlight. Civilians tried to avoid the surface as much as they could, and with the Archangel plunging into the planet’s surface anyone who was outside was probably doing something at the crash site. She could see the Jedi Towers in the distance and looked up at the tens of thousands of fliers overhead, their shadows dappling the street like silent raindrops.

“I told you, I’ll do everything I can to get her back,” Alyssa said with forced patience. “We’ll do everything we can.”

“Just not right now?” Dax said.

She sighed, walking back to him until she stood in front of him. She looked up at him, putting her hands on his shoulders, feeling the fury and anger building up inside of him. She rested her forehead against his chest, listening to his heart pound—feeling it—and reached out to him through the Force. Melding with him. She felt the tranquillity of the Force wrapping around them both in a refuge of reason. She could feel his heartbeat slowing, feel the tenseness in his shoulders leave him as he sagged and put his arms around her, holding her.

“Dax. Please. You have to understand. Don’t think I’m not any more angry than you are  about what happened; I am.”

She pulled herself away and looked up at him.

“Keegan Voss was more than just my friend, and now he’s dead, and a part of me with him one would assume. But so are thousands of others—maybe even tens of thousands. I know you want to tear this place apart, but you can’t. We can’t go looking for her until we know what we’re up against.”

“You know what we’re up against. A Sith. Just one,” he added.

“You have to learn patience. This is supposed to be your Ceremony Day. That’s why they were coming to see you in the first place, remember? You have to look to the Force, now more than ever. Your sister’s fine. He’s not going to hurt her. He needs her to get your father to do whatever it is he wants him to do. We have to find out what that is, then maybe we can anticipate this man’s next move; but we can’t do anything until after the Ceremony. Then you’ll be a Jedi, with the full authority of the Jedi Council behind you.”

“And how do you expect me to keep myself focused on the Ceremony, when I’m wondering where my father’s gone off to? If he’s not a part of this, why did he run? What does he accomplish running?”

“He’s just confused; I sense that much about the man. You should be able to sense that much about him; and he’s afraid,” she added softly.

“I can feel that much,” Dax admitted.

“He’s afraid; for her; himself—even you. And even if he doesn’t understand what’s happening any more than we do—or why—he still blames himself.”

“So if we’re not going after them, where are we going?”

“We are going after them, but first we have to know where to look.”

“I thought you said we were reporting to the Jedi Council? Something about them wanting a full report, or something, something? Don’t tell me we’re going inside the Manse so I can meditate and get ready for tonight?”

“Meditate? You won’t have any time for that. You’re going to the Jedi Hall of Records.”

She began walking again; this time Dax kept pace.

“I’m going to see Master Setti,” she smiled. “That doesn’t mean I’m going unprepared, though. I thought I taught you better than that?”

“And why am I going to the Hall of Records?”

“The Mandalorian War, the Jedi Civil War—whatever you want to call it—happened more than a sixteen hundred years ago, but it only lasted thirteen years. It left the city in chaos. They bombed the planet; released the Rakghoul Plague in the Undercity—and its still there in spite of what the politicians say. Everyone’s been more or less left to fend for themselves down there.”

“What’s that have to do with any of this?”

“Did you see the armour he was wearing?”

Dax nodded and gave a so-what type of shrug. Alyssa smiled, knowing she had his attention.

Now all I have to do is keep it, she told herself.

“Mandalorian armour is the best made armour in the Galaxy—some of it capable of withstanding a lightsaber, definitely blaster shots.”

“You have to know where to hit them,” Dax said with a slow nod.

As long as he’s willing to let me lead, wherever that takes us; and gods knowing, that it’s the right way.

“Where?” She snapped the question at him.

Test him, always test him.

She could hear master Setti’s calm voice echoing like a ripple across her memory. She smiled.

“Under the armpit.”

She nodded as they rounded the corner and the Jedi Complex came into view.

The tram line connecting the four Towers looked like a thin ribbon of wire from where they stood. Ships were leaving the four separate spaceports—Transport ships, military vehicles; Councillors and Senators—the tiny ships looking like hawk-eels in the distance.

Alyssa stopped as she realized Dax was no longer following her. She turned around to see Dax looking up at the four Towers.

“What?”

Dax smiled.

“Nothing. It’s beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” She turned around and looked up at the complex of buildings and slowly shook her head. She could never see the beauty in any city, least of all Taris. She still clung to memories of her home planet Ryloth. Childhood memories, but memories all the same.

“I’ve only ever seen it from above, or from the tram. I’ve never seen it from ground level.”

“And what does it look like now?” she asked.

“I’ve lived here practically all of my life, but I’ve never stood here. It sort of takes your breath away, don’t you think? The size of the Towers alone—how long do you think it took to rebuild them?”

She shrugged, and started walking again. He ran to keep up with her.

“Thirty years,” he said. “That’s how long it took. It has to have a big base the lower you go, of course, which means they knew it would take that long to build it before they even started. Thing is, they rebuilt it a thousand years ago. The Jedi were still in their self-imposed exile, a thousand years ago. There were no Jedi here.”

“Then why did they build it?” she asked.

“Good question. It wasn’t as if they knew where the Jedi were. That was never revealed because Ossus was always a well-kept secret. All the same, I think the Senate would’ve refused to even send an ambassador to speak with them, or try to negotiate their return.”

“Because they didn’t know where they were?”

“Doesn’t matter. The Jedi knew where they were. The Jedi were the one who refused to meet.”

“And you believe that?”

“Yes.”

The Jedi Complex was built on two levels of the city. The Four Towers, at almost fifteen hundred stories, had been built into a bombed out section of the city. The whole Academy was built in and around a bomb crater. The Towers began on the Second Strata, Level Four, Sub Station Eighty. The Academy itself was a low, distended building in the centre of the bomb blast, spreading across three acres. The combined Archives and Jedi Hall of Records was an egg shaped building forty stories high, standing in the Southeast corner of the Academy; it stood next to the only public spaceport in the area.

There were countless dormitories and living quarters; a mezzanine and cafeteria, restaurants, museums and shopping centres, as well as produce markets serving three hundred and fifty different species. There were three libraries in and among the Jedi College and Science Wing. All the surrounding buildings were constructed of transparisteel and glass, some buildings thin and needle-sharp, others squat—like the Archives—and burnished with sheets of stained glass reflecting the sun like a beacon in the smog infected sky.

“Do you think he was trying to put it down here?” Dax asked.

“Why do you think that?”

“It’s only two or three kilometres away. It makes sense.”

“It’s better not to think about things like that.”

She could see him nodding, maybe telling himself it made sense not to think of what might have been. Don’t beat yourself up over things you can’t change, she wanted to say, but instead changed the subject.

“Have you forgotten about my appointment?”   

“I still say it’s too early for us to give a report.”

“Not us. Me. Grand Master Settee’s going to want to know what happened, and he’s going to want me to tell him.”

“You? Why you?”

“Because Grand Master Setti, was my Kashiefa—”

“What? Grand Master Setti was your Master? All this time I thought he was—I mean—I know they have the same name, and all, but I never realized. I thought they were two different people. And you never told me? ”

“I didn’t tell you? Imagine that. You really do learn something everyday, don’t you?”

“How could you not tell me something like that?”

“I thought I had. I guess I just assumed you knew.”

“I would have, but not if you didn’t tell me.”

“Well, the other students then? Surely you talked about who you wanted as Kashiefi? Everyone does that. I did that.”

“Oh that. Yeah, well, everyone was afraid of getting assigned to you because they all thought you were one step away from the Dark side.”

“They did?” It was a shock hearing him say that.

“When I was assigned to you, a lot of them said they were sorry. Secretly though, I think they were jealous. You were the only Twi-leki female. And you were young—still are,” he laughed. “As far as I’m concerned, I won the lottery.”

“I’m flattered, I think.”

She paused, lost following a thought.

“Do you still think I’m one step away from the Dark side?”