Shakvail: Beginnings/Chapter 1: Foundling

Lantillies System Lantillian Sector Mid Rim 47 BBY

Blasterfire impacted the bulkheads in a brilliant storm, red rain sizzling and popping as it discharged massive quantities of energy. The air crisped, heated, and charged, until everyone’s hair stood on end. Over the fiery din could be heard the crueler sounds of battle, the screams of pain and death as plasmatic power found all-too-vulnerable flesh.

“Hold position men!” Captain Lorthan’s voice stood steady against that furious cacophony, rising through his shoulder-mounted comlink to reach his fellows. “We can’t let them push us out into the open!”

The strong words were in contrast to the situation, one growing more dangerous by the moment. Trapped in a long corridor, ricochets were claiming as many hits as aimed shots, and the rate of fire seemed sure to doom all combatants on both sides soon enough.

Z’meer dared a glance around cover, letting her eyes add to the sensation she was already feeling, the myriad cauldron of brutal emotions pervading from the pirates beyond, and the steady, tightly wound resolve of the Sector Rangers who fought to push through this final defensive line. Too many had fallen to reach this point, this final redoubt of criminality, for her to stand idly by. Yet she demurred, uncertain of the course to take, of what she could do to shift the deadlock and bring victory.

Her heart cried out for a heroic charge to break the jumbled line of covered crates that protected the pirates, but her head refused such foolishness. Even a Jedi could not wade through such a concentrated firestorm.

“Captain!” Z’meer shouted, drawing a quick nod from the distracted officer, his attention consumed by directing fire teams. “How do we break through?”

“Have to…flank…these kriffers…get close enough…for grenades…” Lorthan’s voice was hoarse, his focus elsewhere, and Z’meer knew she must find a way to implement this plan alone.

Grenades.

A fallen Sector Ranger lay near, a young man stolen from life too early, but his belt contained several of the deadly little cylinders. Scrambling, Z’meer ripped it free, heedless of the sanctity of the dead in these desperate straits. She palmed one of the explosive devices, feeling the weight, grasping the essence of the thing in the Force. It had a vile feel, crude, random, almost sadistic, but its efficacy was without doubt.

Seizing on a tiny, momentary gap in the oncoming barrage, she popped up and threw, letting the Force impart an impossible strength and speed to the toss.

Some pirate shot it halfway.

The explosion ripped through the corridor, sending chunks of roughly hewn asteroid in every direction, clouding and obscuring everything for a few seconds.

Both sides fired through this haze regardless, not daring a slack moment.

Z’meer bit her lip in irritation, very un-Jedi like, but she failed to so much as notice. There had to be another way.

She considered several options, but quickly dismissed them all as juvenile, the product of her limited understanding of tactics.

“A crate, Jedi! Throw a crate!” the captain had seen her action, and he had his own suggestion. Feverishly he pointed to one of the large plasteel boxes his men hid amongst, this one now protecting only a corpse.

It was over fifty meters to the enemy position. Could she throw such a large object so far? Z’meer had never done it before.

She would, she decided, because she must. That was all.

Reaching out with her strength in the Force she grabbed the crate, surrounding it in a halo of energy. It rose from the floor at her command, and began to move.

It was not fast enough, she saw almost immediately, her pull was insufficient. It had to be stronger, quicker. It had to rush down on them!

That was the answer, Z’meer saw in the next instant, and her image shattered, reforming in the same continuous moment to a new, alternative conception. Everything moved together, all of them spinning through space inside a modest conglomeration of rock, held in place by a mighty invisible grasp of power called gravity. She need not pull or push to increase speed, but simply to borrow a little bit from elsewhere, so the fit was changed ever so slightly.

Barreling down faster than a combat airspeeder, the crate rammed toward the pirate defenses.

They shot it; they hit it with their grenades; they launched a towing cable at it.

It shattered into pieces under this attack, but did not stop, did not slow, for Z’meer’s will maintained its momentum. A flying shell became a flurry of shrapnel, all the more deadly for its dispersion.

The screams slid into the Force upon impact.

A wash of cold poured over the Jedi, and her concentration broke beneath that overwhelming icy wave. Gasping for breath and blinking wildly she barely processed as the captain bellowed his next command.

“Charge!”

The sector rangers surged forward, and Z’meer, still numb and buried beneath this strangely beautiful and terrible revelation, struggled to follow.

Her focus was restored a moment later, as the invasion of an oncoming blaster bolt jolted her into the present once again.

She raised her lightsaber to block, and the attack flashed harmlessly into the ceiling.

More attacks followed, but they were few, and diffuse, and with Jedi speed the distance was covered in mere moments. Z’meer’s glowing blade cleaved through an outstretched arm that tried to raise a blaster against her, and then pivoted to cut down a man reaching for a grenade. She turned to cut through to other pirates, men pulling long vibroknives from the floor. Blasterfire echoed around her as the sector rangers attacked.

Then there were no more targets, the pirates broke and ran.

“Push! Push them!” Lorthan waved his men ahead, exhorting them to further effort, building on the sudden rush of victory, the moment of break-through.

Armored commandos ran ahead, deeper and deeper into the base. Z’meer ran with them, at the head of the charge, her brilliant azure blade lighting the way.

Occasional fire from desperate pirates flashed back, only to be batted away by the Jedi’s blade and swiftly silenced by a flurry of targeted counterfire. With no time to mount a concerted defense, the onslaught could not be resisted.

“Jedi Bothu!” Lorthan called as they came to a branch in the path through the asteroid base. “Take Squad Two and advance!”

“Sir!” Z’meer assented, never pausing, leading the adrenalin-infused lawmen further into the bastion of their broken foes.

They blew through crew quarters, then briefly traded fire in the cafeteria before the Jedi launched a table into a cluster of opponents, and cut onward into engineering, where a lightsaber slipped through tight gaps among power generators to sever the weapons of the last holdouts.

The fight was gone from the pirates then, and they fell to the floors, leaving their weapons. Rangers moved over them quickly, slapping on binders and huddling them against the wall. Z’meer felt the euphoric feeling of victory slide through the Force, washing over her and buoying her up with great strength.

Yet it was tinged by a strange, darkened feeling.

“Jedi Bothu,” Lorthan’s voice came over the comlink, sounding oddly rushed. “They’re surrendering, but the captain and his XO had a secret tunnel, they’ve made a break through it to the cargo bays.”

“I’m moving,” Z’meer launched into motion, already understanding her objective through the insight of the Force without needing further explanation.

“You’re the only one who can backtrack in time to cut them off,” the captain concluded as the Jedi drew deeply on the Force, pulling strength into muscle and tissue, powering her legs in great running bounds as she sprang over bulkheads and stacked pallets to make a beeline for the entry, now so far behind them.

“We’re repelling down the tunnel now,” the captain updated, his breathing heavy. “They must have a ship secured in one of the holding areas; wall they can blow out to break free.”

The tunnels of the asteroid twisted and contorted in strange directions, compelled by the arbitrary grasp of localized gravity generators into frightful three-dimensional mazes that defied a traditional construction. Z’meer, impelled by the Force to hurry, feeling a terrible rising dread she did not fully comprehend, swam through them with ease, flashing past confused Sector Rangers from the secondary containment unit.

The horizon, confined to only a few dozen meters at best in most of the tunnels, opened up into a vast space as she returned to the hangar bay. This expansive field several hundred meters in length had been blasted into the side of the asteroid, and now smoldered with the shattered hulks of pirate vessels. Abandoned to the toxics released by the violent incursion of lawmen, only a handful of pilots stood at station inside their vessels now.

Z’meer paused for a single breath to take control of her breathing, excising Jedi techniques to purify the air before it passed her lips. Then she ran onward.

A wide, square passage led down from the hangar bay to the cargo regions, lower in the asteroid than the living quarters recently seen in battle. Largely ignored in the attack plan, they had been monitored by nothing more than a pair of Rangers.

The Jedi saw the bodies of both men as she entered, cut down by a swift surprise attack. There was no sign of the enemy, only a high vaulted room, roughly blasted free of the stubby celestial rock, flattened and paved by conscripted droids, and piled high with stolen goods in large containers. Somewhere, buried deep inside one of those bulky durasteel blocks, Z’meer knew a hidden starfighter was secured, the final escape plan of the cornered pirates.

She needed to know where.

Without a trail to follow, the Jedi turned to the other resource available, the Force. Stretching her awareness out widely, she reached across the cargo bay, feeling for the concentrated, vibrantly sparkling crystallizations of energy that marked sentient beings.

Her eyes went wide at the abundance.

“Captain, be advised, there are people down here,” Z’meer called into the comlink, rushing ahead among the towering piles.

“Say again, Jedi Bothu, say again,” Lorthan’s confusion was readily apparent. “People?”

“Yes sir,” Z’meer’s mind was elsewhere, searching, seeking, and trying to discern the foul presence of two pirates amid this unexpected profusion of life. “Dozens, perhaps over a hundred, hidden somewhere down here.”

“More pirates?” the ranger’s worried voice carried in the electrical static.

“Negative,” the Jedi could feel the intent, and it was frightened, positively terrified, and not hostile. “Probably captives of some kind.”

“All commands, be advised that we have civilians in the cargo bay, there is the possibility of a hostage situation,” Lorthan transmitted on the wide channel, the words clear in Z’meer’s ear. “Jedi Bothu,” he continued on the private link. “Have you found the captain?”

“Not yet,” Z’meer cautioned, her eyes momentarily closed as she struggled to focus. Then, feeling the energy of the moment as she had before, she caught a whirl in the flow, and following it to a dark core of menace. “Wait…” she paused momentarily, tapping her wrist display, struggling to recall the commands for the mapping program the rangers used. “North side…point one-four-eight!”

“Move men!” Lorthan’s challenge could be heard audibly now, echoing off durasteel from deeper in the cargo bay.

Z’meer dared not wait; she could sense the pressure of time upon them all. She must act, and now.

She dashed ahead.

The many lives pushed closer.

“There you are!” The Jedi came to a halt beneath a pile of massive containers, each half the size of a light freighter, all dark black and filled.

The pirates were at the top, six blocks above the floor, a full thirty meters high.

Z’meer’s cry was met by a precision burst of blasterfire.

Crouched atop his high perch, the pirate’s Trandoshan XO let loose with his prized sniper rifle; a weapon that had, according to official security reports, claimed over seventy lives.

Z’meer was ready, and her lightsaber activated in the path of the oncoming bolt.

The red bolt struck the blue blade at an almost perfect perpendicular. It deflected back in a straight line, just as it had come.

Reflected back to its source, the particle beam discharge traveled up the barrel and into the core of the sniper rifle at the speed of light.

The detonation flung the now-headless Trandoshan a dozen meters.

A second, far larger explosion followed the first.

“Kriff!” Z’meer let loose a rare obscenity as she scampered backwards, using a Force-assisted leap to put a container between her and her target.

The topmost container disintegrated in a massive fireball. At the same moment a small, sleek starfighter, one of the newer Headhunters, blasted free.

Bright red and painted with a leering, toothy maw on the side, the fighter launched a pair of missiles within seconds of emergence, sending them directly at the far wall of the bay.

The wall disintegrated. What had appeared to be rough blasted brown asteroid stone was in nothing more than a layer of cleverly painted foamy plastic overlaid atop a slender durasteel partition. The missiles pierced this as if it were flimsy.

Z’meer saw this out of the corner of her eye, for it was not her focus. Even as the howling wind of decompression rose through the vast hole now exposing the cargo bay to space, her attention was elsewhere. Her eyes sought, and then identified, a large jagged edged piece of wreckage from the burst container.

Size matters not. Master Yoda had said this many times. In that moment, fire raging against unnatural wind, she saw its truth in full.

Exerting the fullness of her will she grabbed the durasteel shard, aimed, and invoked a single massive burst of power.

The Headhunter, swinging around to pass through the opening it had just created, never saw the attack.

Metal struck metal with a hideous howling tearing wail. One engine buckled, screeched, and died. A second sputtered, sparked, and then burst apart in a shower of flaming debris. The fighter wobbled drunkenly in the air, struggling to stay aloft. Huge portions of the fuselage were gone, and the cockpit canopy was puckered with holes.

Life remained within, the Jedi could feel it.

A moment more, and she was struck by a surge of utter darkness. A terrible malevolence built within the pirate captain, cruel, vengeful, and utterly amoral, channeling immense potency.

Somehow the pirate pulled his fighter around for one final pass.

Z’meer felt puzzlement, then horror, when she realized what was about to happen.

The headhunter was pointed directly at the containers full of living souls.

“No!” Z’meer shouted, lungs aching from the strength of her scream. She raised her hands, eyes rolled back, grabbing for everything she could in the Force.

Missiles fired.

A great hand of power, strong, warm, and protective, interposed itself in front of the starfighter.

Two concussion missiles impacted it only to be smashed aside, hurled harmlessly outward into space.

The Jedi collapsed to the deck, drained, but smiling.

The Headhunter’s path continued unabated.

No words escaped Z’meer’s mouth this time, as she tried to grab with the Force, only to find her strength gone, her hands empty, the moment lost.

Impelled by the despair of villainy, the Z-95 impacted a container.

The explosion knocked Z’meer off her feet, throwing her hard against nearby containers as all shifted and shook. She struggled to rise.

“Jedi Bothu, come in! Come in!” Lorthan’s voice over the comlink restored Z’meer to her senses.

“I am here captain,” sadness laced her words, a melancholy seeping deeper with each moment. “And it seems I am whole.” She felt no injures to her body, only her spirit.

“What about the civilians?” the sector ranger demanded.

“They are…” she started to say ‘lost,’ only to feel something else. Many lives had indeed gone dark in the fighter’s impact, but the glow remained elsewhere. She could feel it, there were survivors. “There are survivors captain!” the Jedi surged to her feet. “Hurry, I will point the way.”

In great bounds, the Force filling her, Z’meer rose up, heedless of flames and superheated shrapnel, or the rapidly draining atmosphere. She landed atop a container three ranks above the floor, one filled with life. Terror radiated from it, and pain from the recent tremors, but those within were whole. Hope surged in her. She had not failed entirely.

“Containment!” Lorthan ordered. “I need every spare hand to seal this hull breach. Move people, lives are at stake. Move!”

“I will do what I can to preserve air here,” Z’meer echoed the concerns. The container she rested upon was not sealed; decompression could still kill these lucky ones.

Sitting down cross-legged, in the classic posse of meditation; Z’meer closed her eyes, banishing the rest of the galaxy, of all her emotions, regrets, and preceding events. For now there was only her, the rectangular durasteel box, and a great mass of oxygen and nitrogen. She would maintain the togetherness of this tableau as long as it must be done.

&	&	&

“You sure you’re good to go?” Lorthan asked Z’meer again.

“Yes captain,” the Jedi responded, trying to hide the fatigue in her voice. “I will be fine.” Privately she acknowledged she was anything but. Two hours holding herself in the Force to preserve atmospheric integrity of her little corner of reality had left her drained such as she had not experienced since the end of her Trials, but she would not slink away to a bunk now; she dared not miss what was about to happen.

The Sector Rangers had managed to patch the hull breach with firefighting foam, emergency sheeting and large quantity of commandeered agricultural plastic from one of the plundered containers. There was still leakage, but the seal would hold for long enough to conclude operations. Most of the lawmen were dispersed now, rounding up pirate survivors, slicing the raider’s networks, and inventorying seized criminal property. Those not presently occupied with such duties, or collapsed into their own well-deserved rest, waited near the Jedi.

Everyone wanted to help crack open the container.

The burnt and shattered ruins of the destroyed receptacle were nearby, a horrifically grim sight of ruined bodies and torn limbs. Over forty individuals had been identified already, and Lorthan’s men estimated there might have been twice that. “Raid victims,” the corpsman assigned the grim duty had explained with heavy eyes. “Taken to be sold as slaves no doubt, it’s mostly women and young men.”

Now they would see what the other contained.

“Crack it,” Lorthan gave the command, knowing they had waited long enough. A pair of engineers wielded deft plasma cutters on the bolts and bars, slicing through cleanly and carefully, so as to avoid damaging anyone who might be pressed against the door. Medics were standing by, knowing there would be injuries, though Z’meer could feel that there was no one dead within. She suspected the inside was heavily padded, as the other had been.

The door opened. Crying filled the cargo bay.

“Kids…there’s nothing but younglings…” the engineer gasped as his glowrod passed over them all.

Z’meer rushed forward, confirming these words with her own eyes.

All those within were children, very young indeed, the oldest could not have been more than ten, and most were much below even that. They were packed together in auto-cribs and cradles, held in tiny spaces in the dark, divorced from contact and left to shiver in fright at every shift and shock. The Jedi’s mouth hung open, unable to believe this madness, and astonished that she had failed to notice it in the Force. The sensation of fear and pain must have overwhelmed it, or so she must assume.

“Stang, that was one sick Sithspawn kriffer,” the captain’s profanity-laced comment struck Z’meer as entirely appropriate. “Sergeant,” he called to one of the engineers. “Get word planetside right away. Contact Lantillies Security HQ, tell them what we’ve got, and get some kind of specialized unit up her on the double.”

“Sir!”

“Get those kids out of there, now. Move it people!” The orders came quickly, and soon rangers were at work dismantling the various apparatus and carrying small children up out of the desolate bay toward their dropships. Most began screaming the moment they came into the light.

Lorthan turned to Z’meer, his face wan. “We’re not equipped for this sort of thing,” he looked plaintively at the children. “Anything you can do?”

“There are Jedi with considerable skill in childcare,” Z’meer offered weakly. “But I am not one of them.” She could not look away from those sorrowful faces, however, and her fatigue faded, steadily replaced by a need to act. “I will do what I can despite that, until help arrives.” Raising her head high, she walked forward into the container.

Though the sound was completely different in source and nature than the rage of blasterfire that had assaulted the ears earlier, the interior of this cruel lightless box was an auditory assault equally if not more terrible. Little throats, and other nameless auditory organs belonging to alien species, wailed, hollered, and moaned, a deafening attack that was more emotional than physical. It took every ounce of Jedi calm Z’meer possessed to remain silent and focused at the moment.

Most of the rangers were far less controlled, and a steady stream of brutal profanity, consigning the pirates to a series of inventive and exhaustive post-mortem torments, soon filled the thick air.

The rangers were quick, efficient men, and driven now by an impulse to treasure and protect the young common to the vast majority of the galaxies sentients. The heavily male-dominated attack team bounded forward, a visceral expression of paternal feeling. Constraining cages and barriers were ripped apart, strong arms were thrown gently around small bodies, and the little screamers were passed from hand to hand like the precious parcels they were.

Z’meer did not join in this, having little to add to the enthusiasm of the lawmen. Instead she walked all the way into that darkened chamber, past the dozens of crouched forms. She estimated close to seventy in all, representing almost half that many species. “Leftovers,” the word slipped her mouth in sick disgust, as her emotions overwhelmed her resolve. She had to suppress despair at the thought of all those others, captured on brutal raids of little-known systems, sold into cruel bondage no doubt in nearby Hutt Space. The loss struck to her core, and she vowed to fight harder in the future, to prevent such tragedies and strengthen the weakened Republic.

Brutal though it was to do, the Jedi expanded her awareness around the space, taking her impressions of the younglings. She searched for deep pain, wounds beyond bruising or fright, and the signs of serious injury, whether physical or mental. Healing was not her gift, but she could soften the hurt and direct the needy to professional attention.

Her hopes that there would be nothing were soon dashed, and she made one trip, and then two more. One internal hemorrhage, the second some sort of dangerous virus, and the last some sort of hideous social phobia Z’meer’s human psychology could not even properly comprehend; all were found on younglings not more than five. The Jedi passed these on to the corpsman with the best notes she could, and then charged back in, hurrying lest her willpower fail.

Mercifully, nothing else stabbed at her senses. Instead, she was left standing in the darkness as the rangers moved on to the last of the children. Most of these did not scream, only murmured and moaned weakly, too neglected, tired, and dehydrated to vocalize strongly.

Armored in the Force, with her senses heightened, Z’meer noticed everything, and oddities most of all. So she was the first to discover that one of these children was silent.

She laid on the floor, in the second-to-last row, a female child in a rough smock and nothing more. She could not have been more than two years old at most. Though silent, the child did not sleep, and Z’meer looked down upon her only to be met by a bold stare from strange, intermixed blue-black eyes. The infant’s body was humanoid, and had a clearly human frame and structure, but with subtle differences. Her rough scraggly mop of hair was an oddly mingled combination of matte black and crimson red, randomly assorted. Her skin was a pale, faded orange-yellow, reminding the Jedi of nothing so much as the ancient paper documents hanging in the Archives. The eyes were the most notable discrepancy, shaped to horizontal pendant raindrops, long and wide in the head.

Even as she studied this unusual outcast, the Jedi could not shake the impression that she too was being measured.

Carefully Z’meer reached down. She unstrapped the child from the barely functional autocrib that held her, prying away the improvised restraints with a few quick Force-enhanced tugs. The body was astonishingly light as she lifted it, a clear sign of malnutrition, and the Jedi stifled a grimace at this harsh treatment.

The girl did not make a sound even as Z’meer’s clothed arms wrapped around her, continuing to stare deeply at the Jedi instead. It set strange bells of recollection ringing inside the Jedi’s mind. She hurriedly brought the child out with the rest.

“Corpsman,” Not possessed of any concrete intentions, Z’meer passed her bundle of oddities over to the medic along with the rest.

“Is this one hurt too Jedi?” the ranger, his spirit clearly flagging at the onslaught of suffering that had been foisted onto his shoulders in such a short span, looked at her wearily.

“No,” Z’meer gave a single, understated shake of the head. “She appears generally whole, but I would like to have a copy of her blood work if possible.” The impulse teased at the Jedi, and she knew investigation was essential.

“Alright, I’ll get to work,” the overstressed officer responded.

There was nothing more for Z’meer to do, much as it pained her and left her feeling helpless. She fingered her lightsaber, clipped again to her belt, and wondered. Speculation brought no easy answers, only the recognition that now was not to the time to meditate. Instead she went in search of the captain, for the day was far from done.

&	&	&

“Awful mess, wasn’t it Bothu?” Lorthan muttered idly, looking out into the sprawling mess of the cargo hold. Dozens of children rested there, mostly on makeshift cots and piles of emergency blankets. They were tended by overwhelmed medics, medical droids, and a bevy of well-meaning but poorly trained volunteers from the rest of the crew. The med bay had nowhere near the space needed for an operation of this capacity, and so an excess of ranger assault gear, ship’s stores, and repair parts had been pushed against walls or stacked dangerously high to make room in the hold.

Providing space for seventy-nine children, all young and most in need of considerable medical care, was a challenge the Lawarm had not been designed to meet. At least the Corellian Corvette, designed to accommodate Lorthan’s assault unit, had enough space. Most Sector Ranger vessels were far smaller.

“Shame about the parents, kriffing pirate scum,” the captain amended. “But you saved the kids at least. That’s something.”

It was not enough, and Z’meer could not entirely hide her shame and regret at the failure to anticipate her enemy’s true cruelty. She did not say anything, finding no need for words.

“Slavery and all the associated charges’ll get added to the usual piracy, grand theft and the like though,” the lawman’s voice was icy cold. “Lantillies doesn’t much like pirates, got a strong set of spacer’s fellowship here. With the slavery, well, our boys are liable to eat the bolt.”

“Will that help?” Z’meer was curious, not judgmental, even though the Force would counsel mercy.

“Maybe,” Lorthan shrugged, his ambivalence revealed. “Some say it’s a deterrent, and maybe the threat keeps a pirate here or there from going over to slaving for a quick score. Who can say what motivates beings who cross those lines though?”

This struck the Jedi as a fair point, and one worthy of greater examination in the future. So many, slain by the pirate leader out of nothing more than spite; perhaps understanding might armor her against future mistakes, vile though it was to contemplate that mindset.

Not wishing to delve the problem deeper with the stinging sense of loss so fresh, Z’meer looked outward, changing the topic. “When will someone come for them?” She nodded toward the children.

The captain blinked, the question was unexpected. “Ah, a few hours or so. We’re working with the locals to get a liner up here with social services people. It’s a big mess to sort out.”

“I see,” Z’meer turned, and walked down from the elevated rail, heading into the chaotic refugee of the hold. Lorthan followed, though the Jedi had not asked or expected it.

“All these kids are orphans now, more or less,” the captain mumbled, vocalizing unsorted thoughts. “The pirate’s data files are a mess, and they managed to purge a lot of data before trying to escape. No way to tell where all these kids came from, who their parents were, all that. My team’s sorted the bodies and the debris, but there’s only a few clues. Anyway, it all becomes Lantillies’ problem soon enough, not our job.”

Jurisdictional problems were commonplace in the life of the Sector Rangers, and of the Jedi. Z’meer made no pronouncements. It struck her that Lorthan was not dodging responsibility here; his men were not child caregivers.

“Word’ll go out over the ‘Net, try and get in touch with next of kin, see if anyone’ll claim some of these kids, but I doubt it,” the captain rambled, a numbing cynicism creeping into his speech, the words of a career officer who’d seen too much of a vast, coldly empty galaxy. “They’ll end up in social services here, most like. Not so bad I guess, decent planet all around, lots of way worse worlds.”

Infants, toddlers, and children watched them as they passed, though just as many looked away, or stared at nothing. Some were surely old enough to understand Basic, and the Jedi wondered if any recognized what was likely to be their fate now. It was a raw wound in her, for had she saved their parents as well, most would likely have been returned home.

“Jedi Bothu!” Z’meer caught the corpsman’s hail from halfway across the cargo hold. She hurried to respond, dragging the captain in her wake.

Z’meer did not speak as she approached, but waited for the man to make his point. He did so rather hesitantly. “Um…I have the blood sample that you wanted,” he muttered.

“And?” Z’meer took the datacard the man proffered, but sensed there was more; it was obvious enough that the Force was not required in the slightest.

“Well…” the corpsman hesitated, but a gesture from the captain opened his mouth. “It’s just, there’s a lot of species here, and some seem to be kind of rare. The database has come up blank for a full six. If there…well…”

“Sentientology is not my field,” Z’meer answered, her lip quirking a bit. The assumptions made regarding Jedi knowledge could be very strange at times. “However, if you have the bioscan data I will forward the information on to the Jedi Temple and request a search of the Archives, our records are unmatched.”

“Thank you.”

“Tell me,” a flash of insight prompted the Jedi’s question. “Is the girl I spoke to you about one of the unidentified.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I see,” Z’meer paused, and then quickly appropriated an idle datapad from a nearby station. She plugged the datacard the corpsman had given her in and entered a simple command. At the same time, she walked toward the girl she had rescued hours earlier. Searching was not needed; she could already recognize the presence in the Force.

The girl lay in her crib, asleep now, but strangely at ease, only lightly touched by loss. Too young to understand, Z’meer guessed, looking at those raindrop eyes.

The Jedi brought up the readout. It confirmed her suspicions. “She is Force-Sensitive.”

This drew the expected gasps from the rangers.

“An orphan, and still very young,” Z’meer opined, considering aloud though her mind was essentially made up. “She must go to the Temple.”

“How’s she gonna get there?” Lorthan was a practical man, and reasoned readily. “We’ve got to depart for Contruum for resupply and reassignment as soon as we get these kids off-loaded, and I doubt Lantillies will do it.”

It was a brutal calculus, but essentially correct, and left the Jedi with only one real option. “I will take her there myself,” she determined. Carefully, Z’meer turned to face Lorthan, raising her body fully upright. “I apologize, but I must leave your service for a time Captain. I hope to return posthaste.”

The ranger saluted. “Been good to have you Bothu, we’ll miss you. Get back out here soon as you can, the Rim needs Jedi.”

Z’meer nodded.

A moment later she turned back to the child. “Did we recover anything?” she asked the corpsman. “Identification?”

“Her species is unknown, but one of the bodies had the same features,” the medic explained, examining his own datapad for the record. “No hard data, but we recovered a flat print with her picture on it wrapped around a card. The explosion corrupted all the data, but it had ‘Shakvail’ written on the back.”

“Shakvail,” Z’meer whispered, looking down at the child. She felt the resonant echo in the Force at the expression. “Yes, that is her name.” It was a small solace, but she took it. “It seems you have a new destiny Shakvail.”

&	&	&

“We’ll be jumping to hyperspace in one minute Mistress Bothu.”

“Thank you MD,” the Jedi told the droid. “Please secure our passenger, I am fine.”

“As you wish.”

Z’meer suppressed a sigh as the droid turned and traveled into the small bedroom of this little cabin. The MD-5 was a perfectly competent medical droid of course, well respected in much of the galaxy, but it was hardly optimized for childcare purposes. Nevertheless, it had been the best the Jedi could find in a short time and with a limited budget. It would keep Shakvail alive and comfortable until they reached Coruscant, a relatively shortly journey thankfully. After that the Jedi Fosterers would take over.

Sitting at her terminal, Z’meer pulled up her messages. The council had responded affirmatively to her request to seek training for her small charge, as she had known they would. They were all too eager to take anyone who met the requirements these days, strange origins or not. There was also a large set of files forwarded from the archives, detailing the request she had made regarding alien species from the corpsman’s genetic typing. This she forwarded on happily.

Pausing, the Jedi looked at the file in greater detail, and then opened the report she knew corresponded to Shakvail.

Species: Safol; near-humans native to Dalenspir in the Sevetta Sector of the Outer Rim; discovered in 2322 BBY. Status: Extinct; xenocided by Sith Lord Syrin Clavine in 1315 BBY.

“Extinct?” Z’meer’s mouth fell open in horror. “Impossible!”

The Jedi gathered herself together after a brief interlude. Of course it was impossible, Shakvail was alive, and therefore her species was not extinct, but must survive somewhere in the galaxy. Some hidden colony was likely found in the surrounding sectors.

Blinking, Z’meer recalled what she knew of Syrin Clavine, one of the more powerful Dark Lords of the New Sith Wars. A man who claimed descent from the original Sith Species, he had proclaimed all near-humans and humanoids to be abominations born of inbreeding and worse, and set out to purge them from the galaxy. Though eventually crushed by a group of alien Dark Lords who objected to this practice, he’d claimed to exterminate over one hundred species before his death.

History had proven those claims exaggerated, and many of those species had been rediscovered in subsequent centuries. The Jedi supposed Shakvail was simply the most recent. It was a pity they had no way to know where the other survivors might be.

“A torment to carry, for most,” Z’meer considered, thinking on the idea. “But for a Jedi, perhaps a blessing.”

No family, no species, no homeworld; though it had come at brutal cost, Shakvail was free of those basal attachments.

What kind of Jedi might she become? Fanwork Segments