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by
Ian Brazee-Cannon
The warm rays of sunlight shone through
the halls of Lost Echo. The residents of the Ithorian herd city were
preparing for a new day. With in one of the rooms of the city lay Bren
Clakston.
"Time to get up," Majon, a young Ithorain
male said. "they are about ot start serving the morning meal."
Slowly Bren sat up on the side of his bed.
After a moment Bren pulled his light brown hair away from his eyes and
looked around the room, blinking rapidly.
"I sometimes find it hard to believe that
you are a Jedi in Training. Master Zrant must be a very linient to
allow his student to get away with sleeping this late."
"Never get up before sunrise, that's my
motto," Bren replied.
"And is that a family motto? I would
think that being a tenth generation Jedi would make one more disciplined."
"Actually it's living up to the family
name that makes me so tired."
The two young men had formed a strong friendship
in the short time that Bren had been on Lost Echo. Master Zrant had
brought Bren to Ithor in order to teach him the power of life. For
the last few weeks Bren had been shown all the wonders of Ithor, from the
well known Falls of Dessiar to the hidden Crystal Garden of Refarria that
only the high priests and special guests are allowed to view. And
of course they were shown all the untouched forests in-between.
Master Zrant, being well respected among
the Ithorians, was given special status and in the company of the high
priests he and Bren were allowed the privilege of going to the surface.
This was something unique since it was custom that only the High Priests
be allowed to set foot on the surface of Ithor. Bren himself had
had to follow in a solar powered glider. Zrant was respected enough
to be allowed the honor of touching the ground. But even from his
elevated view Bren had still been amazed at the beauty of this preserved
world.
"You might want to hurry," Majon said as
he opened the door to leave. "We are suppose to have crit cakes today,
with fresh yolsem if they are ripe."
Bren licked his lips as he jumped from
the bed and started to change clothes.
Several minutes later Bren hurried down
the corridor to catch up with Majon.
"Well, are the yolsems ripe?" Bren asked.
Before Majon had a chance to answer the
sound of something hard clattering against the metal floors. The
boys turned to see the crustacean form of Master Zrant heading towards
them with the High Priest of Lost Echo and several other Ithorian priests.
Both boys gave bows of respect.
"Another late start I see my Padawan,"
Zrant remarked in his soft chattering voice, his two sets of thin arms
crossed. "We have a lot to do today. We must prepare the ship."
"Where are we going Master?"
"A settlement of Fragians on Brask III
have been having problems with pirates and have asked for assistance from
the Jedi. I have volunteered us to help."
"Pirates? Sounds like a fun adventure."
Zrant looked at his student with a cold
stare from his pure black eyes. "Duty should never 'sound fun'. Jedi
are not about adventure and games. You must treat our missions with respect."
"Yes Master," Bren replied, his head low.
"Now come along my boy, we'll miss morning
meal. I understand that we are having Crit Cakes and the yalsom is
ripe."
After eating Bren and Master Zrant returned
to Zrant's ship who's name translated into basic means 'The Path to True
Reward Through Sacrifice'. It was a beat up old shuttle which looked
much older than it's age. A scar of wielding separated the ship in
two. The front cockpit area colored a darker gray than the cargo
hold half of the ship, making it obvious that the body was that of two
different ships. The wings were a patchwork of repair plating, leaving
little evidence that the original wings ever existed. Bren was often
amazed that the ship could fly at all..
While waiting for clearance Bren decided
to use the time to practice with his lightsaber. He was not paying much
attention when Majon came running up to the ship.
"You should be careful. You might hurt
yourself," Majon remarked.
"Majon, what are you doing here?" asked
Bren as he flicked off his lightsaber and returned it to his belt.
"I have been talking to his parents and
we have decided it would be good for the boy to accompany us in our travels,
from time to time," replied Master Zrant.
"Are we ready to depart, or are you going
to stand there like an over stuffed Hutt?" Joked Majon.
"I have nothing in common with the Hutts,"
Bren defended.
"You do eat like one sometimes," snapped
Majon.
Master Zrant started laughing, "He's
got you there my Padawan. Now let us get on board and get going.
We have a long day ahead of us."
The three of them got on board the shuttle
and were on their way.
Master Zrant never missed a chance to work
on training exercises. As soon as they were in hyper space he put
on the auto pilot and started in on the exercises.
"Now concentrate on the ball. Move
it slowly around the corners of the wall," Zrant quietly instructed as
Bren sat in the middle of the storage hold with a small cup in front of
him and a ball floating through the air.
"Good. Now sense the cup. The
force is flowing from the cup. It is also flowing from the ball.
They are connected through the force. Use that connection to bring
the two together and place the ball inside the cup."
The ball floated above Bren and stopped.
Then it slowly started to come down in line with the cup. Suddenly
the ball dropped, hitting the side of the cup and bouncing down towards
the cockpit.
"You must learn to concentrate," instructed
Master Zrant, "Only by learning control and concentration, will you be
able to master the Force."
"But it gets so hard."
"For one as young as you many things are
hard. You will grow into it. Come, we are nearing Brask III."
They headed into the cockpit, where Majon
was sitting watching the stars streak by.
Bren rushed to follow and stepped on the
ball, losing his balance. He fell back, hitting his head against the wall.
"Another thing I still have to teach you
is to pick up yourself," Joked Zrant, "Here let me help you get up."
Zrant and Majon helped Bren to his feet.
In an outburst Bren lifted the ball into his hand and looked at it for
a moment. Bren concentrated on the ball and it flatted into a disk.
"You must control your anger and not let
into these childish fits of pointless destruction," Zrant lectured
when he saw what his student had done.
"Yes master," Replied Bren, throwing
the flattened ball back into the cargo hold.
As soon as they landed in the city of Mikdia
on Brask III. They were greeted be several of the tall, green, long necked,
three fingered, inhabitants.
"Welcomed to Mikdia, Master Zrant.
We hope you will be able to help us," The obvious leader of the group remarked.
"All of our abilities are at your disposal,"
Zrant replied.
Zrant, Bren and Majon were lead to the
center of town. The Mikdia military leaders were all ready in the
midst of a meeting.
After a short discussion it was decided
that the best way to deal with the pirates is to lure the pirates into
the open and capture their ship. A supply ship that is due on that
day was chosen for bait and Zrant volunteered to use his shuttle as the
final decoy in the trap.
Within an hour the three of them had joined
up with the supply ship the Lost Soul and prepared for their part of the
plan. The captain of the ship was an older man who knew how to run his
ship. The crew was hard working and efficient. Bren had no
doubt that the trap would work.
"Captain, we are now entering the atmosphere
of Brask III," reported the young navigation officer.
"O.K. people. You know the plan.
Now let's do it," inspired the captain.
The bridge was silent except for the constant
beeping from the piloting station. Bren looked through the monitor
waiting to see an old remodeled freighter, the type pirates were known
to use. Yet nothing appeared.
"Approaching Mikdia, sir," reported
the navigation officer, "No sign of the pirates."
"Looks like you Jedi made a mistake," The
captain commented to Zrant.
"Yes, I apologize for the waste of time.
We were sure the pirates would have tried something," replied Zrant.
"Let's just consider it a test of my crew
under pressure," remarked the captain.
Suddenly two shapes appeared in the sky.
Both were barley visible.
"Now, what the hell are those. Battles
stations, possible hostiles here," Commanded the captain.
As the crew rushed to prepare for a possible
fight, Bren got a good look at their adversaries. The ships were
silver in color and were a perfectly smooth cone shape. light reflected
off them in a way to make them barley visible to the naked eye.
"Bren come with me to my shuttle.
We must prepare it for a decoy," Zrant said as he left the bridge.
"Majon, you coming?" Asked Bren.
"No. I want to stay here and see
how this turns out," He replied, not taking his eyes off the strange
ships.
"Okay," Bren remarked as he left
the bridge. With his hand on his lightsaber, he calmed himself down and
ran down the corridors to catch up with Zrant. The corridors were
full of crew members running to their post preparing for a possible attack.
As Bren and Zrant neared the ships docking
bay Bren asked, "Why don't we just use the force and bring the pirate's
fighters down?"
"For many reasons. Our powers were not
meant to be used to destroy or kill. Remember also that we are over a heavily
populated city and we can not risk endangering those we have come to protect,"
Master Zrant said as he sat down in the pilots seat of his shuttle, "We
also are not sure if they have hostile intentions. You must remember,
control is the must important lesson a Jedi is to learn. For with
out control over one's self, one would become an agent of the Dark side."
"But all we would have to do is concentrate
and disable the ship."
"We do not know the workings of those ships.
Some times it is easier to just pick the ball up and place it in the cup.
Part of being a Jedi is to know when not to use the Force."
"Yes Master."
As the two of them were finishing up preparations
for the decoy flight a loud thundering explosion came from the front of
the ship. From over the loud speaker came, "All crew members report
to the bridge. Repeat, we need all hands to the bridge."
"Master, I need to go check on Majon,"
Bren said as he flew with amazing speed out of the shuttle and into the
corridors of the freighter.
"Go on. I can finish the preparations myself,"
Replied Zrant as Bren disappeared down the passage way.
Bren neared the bridge and slowed down.
The corridors were full of debris, panels had fallen off and wires hung
out from all sides. Bodies lay beneath hunks of metal, and wounded
crew members sluggishly tried to get to their feet. Bren entered the bridge
to find it in even worse shape.
"Don't just stand their like a damn Bantha.
We need someone to man the weapon controls," Yelled the captain who was
holding a ripped piece of his shirt to his fore head, trying to stop the
bleeding.
Bren turned his head looking around the
bridge until his eyes fell on the body of his Ithorian friend. Majon's
face had been struck by shards of glass, his head looked as if it was about
to fall off.
Bren turned to the main view screen.
The two sleek silver ships were coming at them for another pass.
Bren stood there staring at the on coming fighters as if in a trance, with
a look of pure hatred on his face.
"What in the dark side do you think your
doing," Asked the captain in a loud cry, "We're about to be fired on.
Now sit down at weapons and help us."
Suddenly Bren snapped out of his trance,
walked up to the view screen, clenched his hands into fists and focused
on the attacking ships.
Without warning, both of the ship's main
engines stopped, causing the ships to fly out of control.
Bren stood and watched as one of the ships
went into a noise dive. As the ship neared the ground Bren noticed
that it was headed for the city's main power station.
Meanwhile the other ship's pilot seemed
to gain some control and aimed his ship on a collision course with the
Lost Soul.
A hugh explosion from below filled the
air with an immense cloud of smoke. At the same time the ship that was
on the collision course hit the freighter, causing all the systems to go
dead.
Bren stood, still starring out the view screen, as the Lost Soul plummeted to the fiery ground below. He was starring at the spot where the first ship had crashed, which was now the center of an immense crater that used to be a town.
Five hours later Bren awoke finding himself
surrounded by rubble and dead bodies. He crawled out from under the
debris and found that his left leg was broken, he also noticed that the
little finger and ring finger of his right hand were missing.
When he finally crawled to a barren spot
were he could rest without worrying about a cave in, Bren bandaged his
hand and started working on a splint for his leg. He felt pain from every
point on his body.
Overhead the sound of a ships engines could
be heard and a hot rush of air could be felt.
Bren grabbed for his lightsaber which was
no longer at his side. He quickly picked up a piece of wood and prepared
to fight to his death.
As the ship came in to view Bren dropped
the stick and relaxed. The familiar shape of Zrant's shuttle landed
before him.
After a moment Zrant slowly came out of
the shuttle and ran up to Bren.
"Thank the force. You survived that crash,"
Zrant said as tears filled his eyes, "Here let me help you. We must
search and see if any others also survived. I can still fell life
somewhere in all that debris."
"Master Zrant. What have I done?" Bren
asked as he froze in horror, realizing that his own emotions where responsible
for the destruction he saw all around him.
"You made a mistake. You are forgiven,"
Zrant said softly as he helped Bren with his splint. "Now we must search
for other survivors."
Zrant helped Bren to his feet and they
walked slowly back into the shuttle. While in the shuttle Bren finally
got a good look at his face, a large cut ran down the left cheek with smaller
cut covering the rest of his face.
After searching for most of a day Zrant could no longer feel life from anywhere in the debris. The two of them where the only ones that had made it out of the battle with their lives.
That night they stayed on one of Brask III's
inhabitable moons. Against Master Zrant's wishes, Bren did not go
in for bactia treatment for his wounds. He felt he did not deserve
healing.
After reporting what had happened to the
local authorities, Zrant returned to the shuttle to find that Bren had
left.
Zrant found a message left for him on Bren's
computer pad.
"Sorry. I just can't forgive
myself," was all that it said.
Zrant looked out into the sky, "Good-bye
my student. I hope you find some form of salvation. May the
force be with you." Zrant let a single tear flow from his round black eye
and let out a cry that his race was known for. It was a soft, low
pitched cry that had a calming effect on all who heard it.
Bren was standing at one of the viewports
of the passenger ship that he was traveling on, looking out at the moon
he had just left and at the planet on which he had lost his purpose in
life. He stood leaning on his crutches, rubbing the spot where his
fingers should have been, knowing that he would never forgive himself for
his moment of weakness.
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