Yoda, Dark Rendezvous

by Sean Stewart

  and none of the challenges he was facing were the ones he'd been preparing for.

  Apprentices always thought the life of a Jedi Knight was all lightsaber battles

  and high-level diplomatic negotiation, because that's what they were trained

  for. There was no classroom work to simulate running into a servant who claimed

  you were some sort of long-lost prince of Vjun.

  After the cleanup crews had made their sweep through Taupe Corridor, he and

  Maks Leem had met with Fidelis, the droid who claimed to serve Whie's human

  family, and his partner, Solis. At least it was clear to Jai that they were

  partners; he wasn't sure the Padawans had figured out that Tallisibeth's trip to

  the purser's office had simply been a ruse to allow Fidelis to get Whie alone.

  It was a curious business all in all, and certain to be distracting for the boy.

  Jai had felt a fierce hope that the droid would be able to give them

  information about Dooku and his movements, but its information turned out to be

  strictly secondhand; it had not been back to Vjun in a decade.

  Still, the droid's descriptions of Château Malreaux did match the glimpses

  Jai had gotten during his brief interview with the hated lapsed Jedi, Count

  Dooku, and his despicable lapdog Asajj Ventress. Jai had asked Fidelis for

  complete schematics on the château and its surrounding terrain, so they could

  prepare a plan of escape in case Master Yoda's negotiations with Dooku went

  badly. Exasperatingly, the droid had all but ignored him; he would only take

  orders from Whie. He certainly knew Jai and Maks were Jedi—a term that he

  clearly found roughly interchangeable with cradle-robber or kidnapping cultist.

  It was one of the things they never quite mentioned in the Temple —how many

  people, even in the Republic, viewed the Jedi with distrust or even outright

  fear and hostility. The sentiment had grown during the Clone Wars, to the point

  that Jai hated going on the missions to identify new Jedi; as much as he knew

  the children they found were going to lead better, richer, and more useful lives

  than they would otherwise have had, the whispers of "baby-rapper!" bothered him,

  as did the heartbroken eyes of the parents who watched their children being led

  away. Less painful but still ugly was the relief in the eyes of a different kind

  of parent, the ones glad to be rid of the burden of an extra mouth to feed.

  One couldn't see that without wondering which kind of baby one had been

  oneself.

  And now "Palpatine's Secret Police" was a whisper he was hearing more and

  more often—even, painfully, from schismatic Jedi who had left the Order.

  But however unpleasant it was for Jai to see the word Jedi fill people's eyes

  with fear and distrust, instead of hope and gratitude, he was at least used to

  it. Maks Leem, who rarely left the Temple , and especially the young Padawans

  had been shocked to see just how mixed the public's feelings about the Jedi

  truly were.

  And on top of all that, for Whie, there was the issue of the girl.

  Tallisibeth was pushy and smart and pretty in an athletic way, and she was

  weak in the Force. A more disruptive combination it would have been hard to

  imagine, Jai thought wearily. Presumably Master Yoda had his reasons for

  bringing her along, but a stronger Padawan with a little less personality would

  have made life a lot easier. For one thing, Whie couldn't stop looking at her.

  This was normal, of course, in a thirteen-year-old boy forced into close

  quarters with a pretty girl for days on end: but it wasn't helping anybody

  focus. Scout didn't seem to have noticed the boy's habit of stealing glances at

  her, but to judge from Master Leem's affectionate little smirk, Whie certainly

  wasn't fooling his own Master. This would have been nothing but fun and games at

  the Jedi Temple —adolescence had its laughs at the expense of a few Padawans

  every year—but out here, on a mission to confront Count Dooku, it was one more

  distraction Jai didn't want.

  Jai liked the girl, too.

  He didn't want to, to be honest. With the war going as it was, Jedi lives

  were being risked far more frequently than at any time since the Sith War. A

  girl like Scout Enwandung-Esterhazy, he reminded himself; don't fall into the

  familiarity of nicknames, Jai—a girl like that was going to be dead within a

  year.

  That was going to hurt enough already. He didn't need it to hurt any more.

  Whie had slipped into his robes. The room door slid down almost to the floor,

  revealing a dim hallway outside. The corridor lights had blown out when the fire

  alarm went off, and though Maintenance had taken out the hugely excited security

  monad, they hadn't gotten around to fixing the lighting.

  Jai watched the boy step over the stub of door and close it again.

  Jai would bet ten credits the boy was bound for the gym. Jai was pretty sure

  he had put in a few midnight workouts of his own as a Padawan, trying not to

  think about some girl . . . who was it? Jang Li-Li's red-haired friend.

  Politrix, that was her name. Killed in an ambush two months after Geonosis.

  Plasma grenade.

  He remembered the fall of her hair, red ringlets around her shoulders. The

  smell of it one day—they had been sparring in the exercise room, she pinned him

  and laughed, her hair dangling down to his cheek.

  Gone now.

  Jai felt a tear on his cheek and let it come. Grief, too, was a part of life:

  no use denying it. From a calm center he watched it, this grief. So much sorrow.

  So many of his childhood friends already gone.

  It was getting harder now, to feel the grief without giving in to it. What

  had Master Yoda said once? Too long sorrow makes a stone of the heart.

  So he tried not to like Scout so much, and at the same time he could feel

  himself pushing her, pushing her: willing her to be stronger and faster and more

  deadly because that's what she would need. She was brave enough, by the

  stars—even he would give her that. But brave wasn't enough. He'd been brave,

  standing before Dooku and Asajj Ventress. It hadn't kept him from failing.

  Jai's breath came out in an exasperated hiss. So much for his Jedi serenity.

  He lay in the dark a little while longer, then gave up all hope of sleep,

  slipped into his robes (far more quietly than Whie had managed), and followed

  the boy out into the ship, leaving Scout's strangely touching little-girl snores

  behind.

  As predicted, he found the boy in the workout room, going through the Broken

  Gate unarmed combat form—swing, stamp, strike, throw! He was good—better than

  good, he was quicksilver, letting the Force ball and surge in counterpoint to

  his movements, suspending it in a high flip, and then calling it down like a

  thunderbolt in the last stroke. Where the boy's feet had landed, the floor mat

  burst open, spewing out rockets of foam.

  "Excellent," Jai said quietly.

  Whie spun, flipped, and landed in a fighting stance, his open hands up,

  cupping the Force like chain lightning in his palms. "What do you want?"

  Jai blinked. "Is that how you speak to a Jedi Master, Padawan?"

  Whie stared at him, chest heaving.

  "Padawan?"

  "Woul
d you kill another Jedi?" Whie said abruptly. "If you thought he had

  gone over to the dark side?"

  "Yes."

  "Just like that? Aren't we all supposed to be family?"

  "Because he was family," Jai Maruk said. "A Jedi who has turned to the dark

  side is not a common criminal, Whie. His gifts and abilities give him a great

  power for evil."

  "You wouldn't give him a chance to reform?"

  "Once the dark side has you, boy, it doesn't let go." Jai cocked his head.

  Carefully, he said, "I hope, Padawan, you are not confusing a moment's weakness

  with a wholesale embrace of the dark side. We all have our vices—"

  "Even Master Yoda?"

  "Even Master Yoda! Or at least so he claims. I don't know what they are,

  though I will say that when Master Yoda is hungry, his temper does not sweeten."

  Jai grimaced. "My own temper is not well regulated. It might be described as

  angry and resentful. I am too quick to condemn and too slow to forgive. I have

  struck men in anger." Casually, now, careful not to place too much emphasis, "I

  have had feelings for women. This is natural. But though the dark side draws

  much of its power from such feelings, merely having them is not to have chosen

  the wrong path. Do you understand? It is the decision to dominate, to crush, to

  draw your strength from another being's weakness that signals a turn to the dark

  side. Dark or light is not a feeling, but a choice."

  Some of the furious energy was draining slowly from Whie's tense body. His

  shoulders relaxed, and his arms fell to his sides. "I always thought I was a

  good person," he said quietly. "I could never see the point of . . . stealing

  food from the kitchen. Or cheating on exams. I was a good boy," Whie said

  heavily. "I thought that was the same as virtue."

  "Amazing how easy it is to resist other people's temptations, isn't it?" Jai

  said dryly. He felt an unexpected surge of pity for the young man—one part

  sympathy for Whie, and one part compassion for his own remembered self at this

  age: pent-up and furious and barely aware of the fact. After a lifetime of

  pretending to be good, the boy was only now coming alive to the difficult

  choices of life—the ones that every shopkeeper's son had to face, let alone a

  would-be Jedi Knight. "Don't worry," Jai said. "There are ways Master Yoda and

  Master Leem know you better than you know yourself. Even I know a few things

  about you, young Whie. Life in this world is never easy, but all of us still see

  in you what you thought you saw in yourself: a fine man, who one day will make a

  fine Jedi Knight. Make your choices, Padawan. They won't all be right, but most

  will be, and none of your Masters has any fear that you will turn to the dark

  side."

  Cautious hope came into the boy's face, along with relief. "Thank you," he

  said.

  "Will you come back to your cot? You have some dreams yet undreamed this

  night."

  It was not a happy turn of phrase. Whie's face darkened again. "N-no," he

  stammered. "I think I'll just stay up, thank you." He adjusted a weight machine

  currently set for a body type with flippers. "What about Scout? Do you think she

  would ever turn to the dark side?"

  Jai shook his head. "Forgive me for putting it this way, but she hasn't had

  things as easy as you, Whie. She has lived with her temptations for years—to

  cheat, to peek at other kids' tests, to conspire against quicker students to

  make herself look better. She may not play by the 'regular' rules, but she has

  committed her whole soul to living with honor, despite her limitations. She will

  be fine, as long as she remains in the Order. If she were to be cast out,

  perhaps bitterness might drive her to the dark side. If she felt we betrayed

  her."

  "That's what I thought, too," Whie said. "I always thought she'd be sent to

  the Agricultural Corps, but now I see why she wasn't. It's not just that Master

  Yoda feels sorry for her. It's that she's already passed the test the rest of us

  will be facing, with this horrible war."

  "Scout told me yesterday that she found it very irritating that a boy so

  young should be so wise," Jai said. "I begin to see what she means."

  Whie snorted and settled into the weight machine, pushing hard through ten

  fast repetitions. No use of the Force to move the weights: this was all the old

  animal body, burning in his legs, his breath getting deeper as his cells called

  for oxygen. It was good to push like this, meat on metal. The truth was, he'd

  had another prophetic dream, the worst one yet. Far worse than the vision of

  himself and Scout, bleeding, in a room with Asajj Ventress‑

  No. Push the weights. Don't think don't think don't think.

  But as soon as he took his rest between sets, the images of his dream flooded

  back.

  "Master Maruk?" he said, as Jai turned to go back to the cabin.

  "Yes?"

  "Are you afraid of death?"

  "That is the one thing I do not worry about," the Jedi said. "It is my job to

  live with honor, to defend the Republic, to protect her people, to look after my

  ship and my weapon and my Padawan . . . My death," he said, with a little smile,

  "is somebody else's responsibility."

  Phindar Spaceport, Gateway to the Outer Rim. The Phindians, known throughout

  the galaxy for their dour sarcasm, were tall and thin and mournful looking, with

  yellow eyes streaked in red and exceedingly long arms, so their luggage scuffed

  along the floor as they milled about the crowded space station. A vendor sold

  them balls of air-puffed flat bread and the stimcaf came in low-g squeeze bulbs

  instead of cups. Even the recycled

  space station air smelled different, and the bland synthesized voice that

  came over the speakers spoke Basic with a sarcastic drawl that made their own

  Coruscanti pronunciations seem clipped and brusque. "If you want your droids

  seized and searched by all means let them wander around unaccompanied."

  "Hear that?" Scout hissed, pinging the R2 unit on the head with her

  fingernails. "So be good."

  A muffled and rebellious snuff leaked out of the little droid's casing.

  They were standing in line waiting to buy tickets for the next leg of their

  journey, from the Joran Station to Vjun proper, this time as the Coryx family.

  "Business or pleasure?" the attendant asked in a bored voice as Jai Maruk

  stepped to the head of the line.

  "Pleasure, mostly."

  "On Vjun?" the attendant said. "Oh, sure."

  "I hope," Jai Maruk added, with a well-delivered falter. "I'm a water chemist

  by trade, and I've always wanted to study the famous acid rain. The kids are

  just coming along to, ah, play on the beach and so forth . .

  "Gee, that will be fun," the attendant said, glancing at Scout. "Can't hurt

  her looks, anyway. By the way, I only see one kid. Am I blind, or can you not

  count?"

  "My son went to use the, ah, facilities," Jai said. "But I have his ID card

  here."

  The attendant took their does. It was good work, best Jedi forgeries, but

  Scout felt her heart speed up as he frowned and thumbed through the stack.

  "If you want your droids seized and searched, by all means let them wander

/>   around unaccompanied."

  "Everything is in order," Jai suggested.

  "Wow, imagine my relief," the attendant said, handing the card back. "Put the

  droid on the scale next to your bags, please."

  Scout jumped at a touch on her shoulder and found herself facing the

  well-worn droid she had met on Reasonable Doubt. "Stuffy!" His head tilted back.

  "I mean, Solis!" Scout said. "Shipping out?"

  "In a manner of speaking. Actually, I was wondering if you could do me a

  small favor," the droid said. He pointed to the food court on the concourse

  above them. "I am supposed to meet a friend up there. It's no more than a

  five-minute walk, but apparently there was a Trade Federation attack at the

  Greater Hub spaceport two days ago, and consequently the Phindians are taking

  security very seriously at the moment." Scout looked blankly at him. "I would be

  traveling through the spaceport as an 'unaccompanied droid,' " he explained.

  "Oh!" Scout said. "I hadn't thought of that."

  "Phindar is notable for, among other things, the SPCB—Sentient Property Crime

  Bureau—given to the enthusiastic collection and resale of personality-bearing

  artifacts such as myself. As I would much rather not be seized and resold, I was

  wondering if you would walk with me to my rendezvous?"

  Jai Maruk was busily lifting their indignant R2 onto the weigh scale at the

  ticket counter, but Scout caught Master Leem's three eyes. "Go ahead," the Gran

  said, smiling. "It will be your good deed for the day. And collect your brother

  on the way back, if you catch sight of him."

  Solis bowed. "I am greatly obliged."

  They set off at a brisk walk across the crowded concourse, Scout slipping

  through the throngs of Phindians with the droid at her side. "You're the same

  model as the droid who claims to be Whie's servant, aren't you?"

  "You have good eyes."

  "Did you—Wait a sec. Can droids get offended?"

  "Not usually," Solis said ambiguously.

  "Mm."

  "Try me."

  "Well, I was just wondering if you got, urn, scrapped by your owner, and that

  was why you didn't have the shiny paint and so on. I have a morbid curiousity

  about this kind of thing," she hurried on. "I very nearly got sent to—got kicked

  out of the school I go to," she finished.