Makeb - as good a place as any

[Sorel Crieff]

It was a mid-rim planet, somewhere in the edges of Hutt Space. Formally it was neutral but everyone knew the crime lords ran everything from the government to the refuse collection. Anywhere money was to be made, a Hutt would invariably have a part of it.

Located in the Aida sector, it had a breathable atmosphere but there was heavy electromagnetic interference. And the gravity was below standard. Most of the surface was water and yet much of the land was elevated with a flat top and sides that were steep cliffs. Oddly it was a characteristic landform of arid environments. The odd gravity created giant stone pillars and caves – which were home to both Makeb’s native wildlife and numerous deposits of minerals.

Its major claim to fame, however, was the fact it was a major source of isotope-5, one of the rarest minerals in the galaxy. Isotope-5 was a mineral found only on Makeb, and it was actually the reason behind Makeb’s unique atmospheric and gravitational conditions, as the mineral had powerful warping effects on electromagnetic and gravitational fields.

Its other interesting facet was the fact it was in a region of the galaxy far from major hyperlanes. Which made calling for back-up a challenge – and why Sorel chose this planet for her first assignment.

 

[Sorel Crieff]

“We ought to shoot you where you stand!”

The negotiations could have started a little better. Typically, a Jedi kept the peace between two groups that were at logger-heads. The fact that one side wanted to kill her was not an auspicious start.

She kept her face as impassive as she could and repeated her opening words. “I’m here,” she said, aware that her frustration was leaking out in her speech. She had arrived late - her speeder broke down due to the unique conditions of the planet and she’d been forced to walk the remainder of the journey. For three hours. No ships were permitted at the negotiating area, on the basis that there was no way of telling who or what might be on board. A speeder was the largest vehicle permitted. Glancing around as she’d arrived, she saw a number came on local beasts of burden. At least the ions couldn’t tamper with their mechanisms.

“Just show me to the talks, please.”

The guards didn’t lower their rifles.

“You’re not who you’re supposed to be!” Stepping between the guards and Sorel, the woman flashed a hand-held light in the Jedi’s face. “And if you were, you were supposed to be here over two hours ago.” She turned her back on Sorel and spoke softly. “Where is your ship?”

Sorel stifled a sigh. It came out as a yawn - hardly any better to generate any kind of rapport. “I’ve already said, my speeder broke down and I walked here.”

The woman turned sharply. “Based on where you said your speeder failed, it would take you six hours to get here. Yet you managed it in three. Therefore, you’re lying. Where is your ship?”

“What does it matter? I’m here,” Sorel started and realised she was not going to get past the guards without a full explanation. This was not how she expected negotiations to pan out. It was her first test and she felt as if she’d failed before she started.

The quartet of guards raised their rifles. Her instinct was to use the Force – but the miners that had asked for her help had made it clear they preferred she didn’t share the fact she was a Jedi. They’d got the corporation to agree to her involvement as a trained counsellor. The prospect of Jedi mind tricks was too risky. And the only reason that they’d approached her was that the miners had no money – and she was the only person who would work for free.

She couldn’t even say the negotiations were short, it looked as though they wouldn’t even start!

 

[Sorel Crieff]

Being a Jedi meant more often than not you were charged with making the lesser of two bad decisions. It was rarely a case of black and white - of a good outcome and a bad one. And that was her current predicament in a nutshell. If she shared the fact she was a Jedi, the miners would lose face and the talks might well be off. If she didn’t, it was likely she’d be turned away and in all likelihood, the talks would be off.

If only there were another way.

She considered using a Jedi Mind Trick on the woman in charge. It might get her past the guards - but she knew that her action would be identified sooner or later. And the talks would be off.

Three options considered, and they all had a negative outcome. So she remained calm whilst she thought of another way out.

 

[Sorel Crieff]

“Madam Crieff,” a voice called from behind the cordon of guards. Sorel recognised the voice as the leader of the miner’s unofficial union, that had first sought her out to help them.

If patience had a virtue on this occasion it was that her delay had allowed a new option to present itself.

Sorel bowed politely to the new arrival. “Yes, I was just coming to join you. My apologies for the late arrival, my speeder broke down.”

A tall and wiry man stepped through the guards and paid them no heed, even though - as he approached Sorel - their rifles would have been pointing at his back. His face hid the concern he obviously felt, and the lines around his mouth and eyes conveyed a broad smile as well as his advancing years. What little hair he still had was white and his skin reflected dual aspects of working underground for a lifetime - being both pale and worn.

He linked her arm and started forwards, daring the guards or the woman in charge to challenge them. “Come, we need to make up for lost time. It’s in both parties’ interest to come to a resolution, yes?”

His charismatic smile was now for the woman that had challenged Sorel and the young Jedi understood why he was in the position he was. And she learned a valuable lesson - the truth and logic only got you so far. As did the Force. Sometimes it was sheer force of personality that got you over the line.

 

[Sorel Crieff]

Sorel considered her previous three months. Since her first stab at negotiating, she’d learned a lot more about her role as a Jedi. Diplomacy was one facet she’d had to work on – being too transparent with her views, either vocally or visually, was rarely advantageous. And she’d learned the value of patience – when a battle lost was necessary to win the war.

But right now, patience was not a virtue, nor was diplomacy.

She reached the sentries by dropping off the side of a small overhang that was adjacent to the opening to the cave that represented the entrance to the gang’s hideout. She was sure there was an emergency exit, but finding it could have taken days, if not weeks - and time to locate the abducted girl was running out.

She cleaved the muzzle of the nearest guard’s weapon in two with her lightsaber. A fraction of a second later, she did the same to the sentry himself. Given what was at stake, and the time afforded her, she had no chance to debate or ask for those present to surrender.

“What the...?” A second guard stumbled backwards and pulled his blaster. “Jedi!”

Leaping out of her cloak, Sorel leaped, vaulting over the first guards’s falling body and diving for his companion. A comlink flew from the man’s hand, landing somewhere in the darkness of the desert. As the second sentry turned his blaster towards her, the young Jedi thrust her lightsaber into his body. The man’s cry of pain was still on the air when the third and final sentry collapsed behind Sorel, slain by a reverse thrust as he attempted to sneak up on her with his vibrosword.

Three deaths. She’d come to terms with the blood on her hands later. Right now she had a young girl to rescue.

 

[Sorel Crieff]

Sorel looked out from the cockpit of her ship. She’d been on the planet for six months now. She’d never spent this long in any given place. But doing her apprenticeship as a Warden was something she’d committed to, and before she could hold her head up high and request to look after a sector, she needed to demonstrate she could perform the role for a planet – and a quiet one at that.

Typically, a Warden progressed through the ranks in tandem with their Jedi progression. Sorel was a Knight but in Warden’s terms was still an apprentice. But her time here demonstrated to her the need to consider the two ranks separately. If her performance on this world was any indication, this sector had completely forgotten any good that the Jedi might ever have done. Centuries ago, the Jedi had pulled back when the Republic did, conserving their numbers to prevent an all-out Sith assault on the Core Worlds. If not for the efforts of Sorel, there wouldn’t be any Jedi activity in this system at all. And she only had time for small scale actions and rarely anything with far-reaching ramifications.

But this latest mission was something more, or so it promised to be.

Necessary for thermal detonators and other weapons, baradium wasn’t something a crime lord could openly trade for. The shortage of it acted as a logistical roadblock to evil ambitions. Many of the warring princelings had long since exhausted any commercial mines developed during earlier times, taking instead to stealing whatever supplies their neighbours had. But if the intelligence reports Sorel had recently received were true, a local mining company had found the largest baradium strike in more than a century.

Which was not a major issue in and of itself, except the mining company immediately changed owners following the news and Sorel’s understanding was that the new man in charge was a Sith Lord. And following the news, security became so tight at the mine, that Sorel knew she would have no chance to infiltrate the operations overland.

So the mission was simple. Striking first at the transport hub for the mining company, she would steal one of the massive ore transports heading to the planet. There, she could knock the baradium shipping depot offline before a kilogram of the stuff made it to any of the Sith’s munitions factories. It wasn’t a permanent solution, but she didn’t have the luxury of waiting for one.

 

[Sorel Crieff]

As she headed for the mine in the borrowed ship, Sorel meditated. It was something she did, as a rule, to fill the time. But this time was different. As much as she tried to empty her mind, thoughts kept popping back into her consciousness. In fact, the more she tried to calm her mind, the stronger the memories became. In the end she simply allowed them to flow, assuming the Force, or just her own mind, was tryign to tell her something.

She was a young Padawan and her Gran Master was teaching her about behaviours. She went with him to the menagerie in Coruscant. Here were collections of animals from countless worlds. Shrieks, chitters, howls, and a pungent animal stink greeted their entrance.

“You know why I enjoy these animals so much?”

Sorel shook her head. “Because we can learn from them, Master?”

“Learn what?”

Sorel shrugged and her Master smiled cryptically, almost conspiratorially. “Come on.”

Her Master put a hand on her shoulder and steered her through the maze of habitats, cages, and tanks, until they reached the transparisteel cube of the kouhun tank. A thick layer of sand, dotted with a few loose rocks and some loose fur, was all that was visible. The segmented arthropod, its body as long as a man’s arm, lay hidden somewhere underneath the sand of the tank.

Sorel walked around the tank, trying to spot any sign of the kouhun. Nothing.

Meanwhile, the Jedi Master lifted a feeder rat from a nearby cage and held it over the kouhoun’s tank.

“It’s been fed, Master,” Sorel said, noting the feeding times noted on the side of the tank.

“I know.”

The Jedi dropped the rat into the tank and it froze the moment it hit the sand. It sniffed the air, whiskers twitching.

The sand near it bulged.

The rat squealed with fear but before it could move, the kouhoun erupted from the sand under it, seized the rodent in its scissor-like mandibles, and bit it in half. Blood spilled, painting the sand red.

The kouhon crawled fully from the sand, its head all mandibles and dead black eyes. Dozens of pairs of legs propelled its segmented body over the bloody bits of the rat. But it did not eat, and after a moment it burrowed back into the sand, leaving the rat’s carcass unmolested.

“Why do you think it killed the rat?” her Master asked. “It was not hungry. As you said, it was fed not long ago.”

“Instinct?” Sorel suggested. “It’s a savage creature.”

“Good, my young Padawan. Good. Indeed, the kouhon kills for no reason. Does that make sense to you?”

“No, but...it’s an animal.”

Her Master kneeled to look Sorel in the face. “Right. And you’re not. The kouhon teaches us that senseless savagery is the province of animals, not men. Do you understand?”

Sorel considered, then nodded.

“You are a Jedi, never forget that,” her Master said.

 

[Sorel Crieff]

“This is my favorite,” her Master said.

“The viirsun?”

Sorel had always found the avian uninteresting. A small ground bird with drab, brown and black feathers, it did little of interest other than care for its offspring, a male that was soon to leave the nest.

“Not the viirsun, no,” the Gran said.

“Then what, Master?”

The viirsun’s habitat – native plants, a single tree, a few rocks - was built behind a transparisteel wall. As they watched, the mother regurgitated some partially digested insects into the mouth of her nearly grown offspring. Veradun had seen the same thing a hundred times, but her Master watched intently, as if he’d never seen it before.

“What are you looking at, Master?” Sorel asked. She saw nothing unusual.

“Watch.”

After devouring the insects, the offspring stood and strutted about the habitat, testing its legs. The mother watched, preening her feathers. In time, the offspring returned to the mother, stood over her, and began pecking at her with its beak. At first Sorel thought it wanted more food, but the pecking became more and more violent. Wings flapped, feathers flew. The mother attempted retreat but the offspring pursued, seized her neck in his beak and shook violently, once, twice. The offspring dropped her to the ground and began to feed.

Sorel had never seen anything like it.

“The offspring isn’t a viirsun,” her Master explained. “It’s a mimnil. In its immature state, it looks like a juvenile viirsun. It kills the original offspring and replaces them. When it’s ready to moult, it attacks its adoptive mother. I’ve been watching this one for a while."

A mimnil. Sorel had never suspected.

“I...still don’t understand, Master.”

“Often things that pretend weakness await only the right moment to show strength. Do you understand, now?”

Sorel considered for a few moments, then nodded.

“You must trust no one,” her Master said. “Least of all those who appear weak.”

 

[Sorel Crieff]

After watching the mimnil devour the viirsun, her Master had taken her to a new cage that must have been a recent addition to the zoo, for Sorel had never noticed it before – and she was a frequent visitor. A tarpaulin covered it, concealing the contents.

“What’s in it?” Sorel asked.

Her Master looked sombre. “Your final lesson.”

Sorel’s gaze went from her Master, to the cage, and back to her Master.

“I think you’ll be a good Jedi, Sorel,” her Master said. “An asset to the Order.”

Sorel heard the sadness in the words but did not understand them.

“You have much potential in the Force.”

“I’m honoured by your praise, Master – but I don’t understand.”

Her Master kneeled, embraced her, stood, and walked away.

“Where are you going?” Sorel called. “What about the third lesson?”

“Look in the cage,” her Master said. “Perhaps you’ll figure it out yourself.”

Sorel watched her Master go, then turned and revealed the contents of the cage the way she might unveil a secret – slowly, carefully, and with a sense of trepidation. She let the heavy cover fall to the ground. The cage was entirely empty. For a moment she wondered if her Master had made a mistake.

But her Master never made mistakes. So she stared at the empty cage for a long while, considering. Finally, as darkness fell, she thought she understood. And today, here in the cockpit of the transporter that neared the mine, she was sure of it.

Sometimes the cage was simply empty. Sometimes there is no answer, at least not a satisfactory one. Was her Master teaching her a life lesson or did he foresee his own death – when his terrible secret was revealed, that he used the dark-side of the Force when he felt it necessary.

All her life she’d been looking for an answer. One that would neatly explain his actions. No – justify them. That was what she sought. But in the end, she now realised she was simply re-enacting her time in that zoo. She was gazing into an empty cage, looking for something that simply wasn’t there. There was no rhyme or reason for her Master’s actions. He simply did what he did because he could. It was in his make-up. There was no redeeming reason, just his behaviour.

And as the navi-comp lit up to indicate she’d been granted landing permission, she was at last at peace. With herself and with her former Master. And, as it always did, the Force played its part in allowing her to finally understand who she was, where she’d come from and where she was going. She exhaled deeply and despite the memories, she felt as refreshed as if she’d meditated deeply. She was a Jedi and she had a job to do.

Sometimes it was no more complicated than that. If ever.



If ever it were that simple...

“When you look at the dark side, careful you must be. For the dark side looks back.”