Shakvail: Beginnings/Chapter 3: Padawan

Diado Lifh Sector Mid Rim 26 BBY

The tracks led north over the snowpack, rising up the ridge to a distant point in high above, where the rising sun was just now edging over the mountains. The light reflected off that pure white-blue escarpment was brilliant and blinding. Absent protective goggles it would have been almost impossible to see anything.

Modern technology was capable of many minor miracles, however, and inside the swathing of her cold-weather survival gear Shakvail felt perfectly fine. Pausing briefly to mark this track sighting on her datapad, she stashed the unit in the outer pocket of her parka a moment later before striding forward across the snow. As she moved to follow the track line upwards she waved back, indicating the sign.

A terse nod of acknowledgment came from a similarly en-wrapped figure a few dozen meters down the slope. Chuckling silently, Shakvail checked her straps and began to climb the ice-covered mountainside. That her otherwise serene and unflappable master hated the cold was a continual source of amusement. Doubly so give that, with Z’meer’s impressive control of the Force she could have walked about naked and never felt the slightest chill. Though her padawan had nowhere near that level of mastery, Shakvail was somehow far more comfortable in these surroundings.

“I don’t like snow,” Z’meer had said the first night time they traveled to a frozen landscape. She had never elaborated otherwise, not once, and her student had long since stopped asking. She had never ceased to find it hilarious despite that, and embraced such polar assignments with greater gusto because of it.

There was little time to waste on such thoughts this morning. Shakvail swiftly returned her focus to the difficult task of tracking delicate paw-prints in the snow crust while she processed the dangerous approach. This was wild territory, and signs of habitation were few and far between. They had left the nearest settlement behind two days past, and now traveled lands abandoned to the creatures of this mountain tundra. Nothing but survey posts, transmission towers, and the occasional herder’s hut marked the mostly barren landscape.

Vast cushion plants, some taller than two meters, mounded the landscape, growing on any level space between the washes of gravel and ice among the stones. Limpid wildflowers grew from tiny cracks, and strange fungal epiphytes hung loose from the ice itself. Tiny scaled creatures scurried among the stony ground, gathering bits and pieces to survive, though the air was empty, nothing on this planet having evolved flying locomotion.

Most cushion plants bore the signs of grazing, massive heaping bites taken by the local mountain nerf. A small herd could be seen grazing in the distance to the west, several kilometers from the ridge. They were the first Shakvail had seen this trek, and she suspected they must be wild. The herders had all deserted this area of late.

The sun rose, and the Jedi struggled up the slope, fighting to keep purchase on icy surfaces and scrambling over rugged sections. It was a challenging approach, but Shakvail remained confident they were proceeding in the right direction. The pawprints only grew in number, and they were joined by clawmarks on some of the stones, and eventually gnawed nerf bones could be found in drop middens. The last was an unnatural phenomenon; ice cats were territorial creatures, and did not work together in packs at any time.

Beyond this mundane evidence, there was the Force, a beacon that led them higher, further, drawing their eyes to a dark blot somewhere high in these mountains. It would have been enough by itself, but Shakvail was glad to have the physical evidence, the confirmation of the stories that led them here. It was an impulse her master might well rebuke, but she’d never found the Force to be all that good at solving puzzles all by itself. She rather wished it was, things would be a lot easier that way, but she’d never been much for relying on wishes.

They paused to rest at midday; high on a saddle where a great swath of tracks converged in the snow. Z’meer bent down to look at the great paw prints as she chewed a ration bar. “How many do you count?” she asked her padawan.

“Twelve, fourteen, or fifteen,” Shakvail answered quickly, having been prepared for this question. “It depends on how many are same-size individuals repeating paths.”

“Fourteen,” Z’meer answered emphatically. “Look closer; see the flavors of residue in the Force, the indicators that go beyond the mundane.”

Though she doubted a second look would improve her results, Shakvail looked again, hoping to find the streams of essence her master always talked of seeing everywhere. It was not easy. Her eyes tracked patterns of prints back and forth, seeing and measuring the impressions in so many ways. She built a mental image of each, letting the Force wrap around them, comparing one to another to find those identical pairings that resonated in her mind. One, then two, then five, eight, nine, eleven, and then… Then she stopped, unable to differentiate further.

“I can only see eleven, master,” she admitted to failure, as expected, though it still hurt.

“Three mated pairs,” Z’meer corrected, no rebuke in her voice, but one was not necessary, everything shown in her feelings. “These ice cats must mate only with one of the same size as their own, and it seems they…smell…the same. You focused too much on the physical, and missed this difference.”

“Yes master,” Z’meer’s explanation matched that of the research Shakvail had done for this assignment, and in light of that explanation her mind opened and she could see the fourteen different trails perfectly. It was obvious, and she cursed the blunder. “Focus not so much on-“

“Details, or you will miss the full picture,” Shakvail completed the common refrain. She had heard it time and again. She caught Z’meer smiling at her interjection, and turned away, blushing with sudden embarrassment.

Her master’s face grew serious a moment later. “I have told you that many times, but it seems a hurdle you cannot clear. You must focus on it deeply; should you master that truth, you would be a Jedi Knight.”

Shakvail was very glad her mouth was masked at that moment; it prevented her jaw from dropping off in shock. “Yes, master,” she managed to mumble a moment later. Her focus blurred and she struggled to internalize the import of those words. It was a clear admission of proximity. She was almost there. Her heart raced at the thought.

The reasoning portion of her brain splashed cold water over her hopes a moment later, as she recalled that Z’meer had first spoken those exact same words to her within hours of taking her as a padawan. The admonitions and exhortations upon the topic were legion now, so much so that Shakvail did not need a reminder; she could supply several dozen of her own.

Z’meer finished the ration bar a moment later and shouldered her pack again. “Fourteen is a dangerous number,” she noted. “And this is a dangerous place. We must press ahead, to confront whatever this menace is before night falls.”

“Yes,” Shakvail agreed completely.

They trudged onward. Each step was hard-won across that frozen expanse, high in thinning air. Progress was slow, but steady, and Shakvail had measured the distance carefully in setting the pace. They could make it all the way to the summit by nightfall, and surely the hideaway must be closer.

There was little discussion as they climbed; both women moved in general silence. The only speech was the occasional warning call or terse directions; they said nothing more than the essentials. Shakvail, having little to think on during the climb, noticed this, and gave a soft chuckle. She knew she’d acquired her master’s tendency toward silence, a trait that was practically legendary among the Jedi. The padawan was content with that habit, for it allowed her considerable freedom to explore her own thoughts and interests.

So it was that neither Jedi voiced the obvious pattern in the tracks, more abundant with each crest and saddle. ice cats did not group in this fashion, nor did they leave such regularly obvious sign on heavy crust. The trail before them was deliberate, a lure, and the whole pack was waiting above. Waiting with whatever it was that controlled them.

Surprise was surely lost, a deficiency the padawan felt unfortunate. Their overland trek had begun in the hopes of catching their quarry unsuspecting, daring the snows on foot rather than waiting for speeders flown in from the south. The raids had already crippled all the local vehicles.

Shakvail had keen sight, Jedi enhancement to her senses, and eyes that offered greater peripheral vision than any human. She was confident they had not been physically observed by any sentient agency. No ice cat had sighted them either; the reptomammals were extremely dangerous, but showed up readily on any bioscan.

Ergo, the enemy above was using the Force to anticipate their arrival, which the vague cold presence resting ever just a little above the limits of sight strongly supported. The only real remaining question was: ambush or trap?

That would be dealt with when it occurred, even as the duo moved swiftly across any truly vulnerable points. These were few, for the ridge was narrow, and difficult to traverse. ice cats were large animals, and it would require a considerable expanse for them to swarm effectively. Shakvail, examining the terrain, was certain such an arena did not exist naturally. Satellite scans suggested nothing, so the inevitable answer was a facility inside the mountain itself.

To her considerable disappointment, Z’meer found it first.

“There,” the Jedi Master paused in her trek, and motioned for Shakvail to follow her arm.

It was difficult to see, tucked into the side of the cliff-face on the eastern edge of the ridge, and now deeply in shadow as the sun moved to the west. It was a square hole in the side of the mountain, one free hanging, isolated from any obvious access. A small shelf, composed of the readily recognizable gray of duracrate, extended outward a few meters, no doubt a platform for aircraft approaches.

“They are coming in through that crack,” Shakvail noted, pointing out a jagged break in the stones to the far side of the entrance. “Looks like someone just hacked into the rock with a plasma torch.”

“Yes,” Z’meer agreed quietly.

Examining the cut further, Shakvail thought it more or less impassable for a human. Though it was only a distance of twenty meters or so from the crest of the ridge, even a skilled climber would not be able to free-climb the distance. Aid climbing would work, but it would be astonishingly vulnerable.

ice cats, of course, could make such an assent with limited difficultly.

“How would you defend that position?” Z’meer asked her padawan.

“I’d mine the platform,” Shakvail answered immediately. “Then I’d have shooters in ambush just inside.”

“Mines could be troublesome,” the Jedi Master tsked.

There was no need to mention shooters, because there would be none. With a visual guide to enhance their focus, both Jedi could look out into the Force and sense what awaited them. A single dark presence accompanied a great swarm of sharp predatory feeling. Shakvail closed her eyes to seek further, searching for the electromagnetic signatures that presaged functional droids, but found nothing.

“We will have to land without landing then,” Z’meer determined.

“Mines could be detonated by remote, other traps if a different method is used,” Shakvail offered cautiously.

“We must be swift then.”

The padawan nodded, wishing she had her master’s confidence.

Then they ran.

It took only seconds for the Jedi, at full speed, to bound over the ice so they stood above the duracrete platform.

In the next moment they dropped.

Shakvail fell close to the rock face, wrapping the Force around her and strengthening muscles, tendons and bones. At the final moment, aided by the Force’s flow through her senses to match her movement and effectively slow her perception of time, she slammed her climbing pick into the stone. A jarring break followed as she clung to the impaled spike and flipped about in midair before vaulting into the darkened chamber beyond, arms aching.

Z’meer dropped freely in space, taking the twenty meter fall as nothing. The Jedi Master did not land, but instead stopped softly half a meter above the snow-covered duracrete, standing on air. With a careful, almost casual, flap of her arms she brushed into the clouds and flowed forward to rendezvous with her padawan.

Seeing it all happen in her mind’s eye, Shakvail promised herself that one day, she too would manage such feats.

To the padawan’s surprise, no attack came to interrupt her thoughts.

“Odd,” she muttered, confused. The Jedi stood in twin fighting crouches in the center of a worked passage, a squared expanse roughly five meters to a side. It was not a finished space, showing clear signs of blasting to carve the way and only plastered over with a thin film of bonding paving.

“It seems our foe has decided to press the confrontation further in,” Z’meer was outwardly calm, but Shakvail could sense her master’s nerves in the Force. She was holding the tension she always displayed before battle tightly wound.

“This was something like a hangar, once,” Shakvail noted, pointing to power hookups and fuel line ports along the walls. No doubt there were tanks buried below them. The space was not large, but it would be sufficient to shelter two, or perhaps four, modest airspeeders, and protect them from winter storms.

“A considerable time has passed since,” Z’meer added, eyes traversing the ceiling. “This is an old place, and a dark one. We must be cautious.”

Considering these words, Shakvail paused to take a closer look at the couplings. “This tech is pre-Ruusan, but I don’t recognize it otherwise. It’s not Republic standard, probably a Hutt design.”

Z’meer put a hand to the floor, her eyes closed, and her head slowly moving back and forth. “This place has old scars,” she whispered. “Once a refuge, it was lost, but now claimed by a recent interloper.”

“And a band of controlled ice cats,” Shakvail added practically. That was the really dangerous part. “Sith?” she asked, not afraid, but filled with worry that they might be outmatched.

“No.”

That single word, spoken with confidence and assurance, was deeply comforting to the padawan. There were some things she had no wish to face, especially not on their own ground.

“But there is a dangerous darkness here,” her master continued. “One not fully vanquished long ago. We must be cautious.” With these words Z’meer reached to her belt and pulled her lightsaber free of its clip, holding it openly.

Shakvail, knowing her master almost never carried her weapon until blows were struck, quickly grasped her own, though neither yet ignited the energy blades.

The hallway was dim, but neither Jedi reached for a glowrod. Emergency lighting, green and wan, had sputtered to life when they entered. It left the passage cloaked in grim shadows, but there was more than enough light to see.

Distant during their approach, the predatory presence was almost sweltering now. Shakvail could she her, for it was a female entity for certain, clearly, hungry and waiting. It rested amid a concentration of life, powerful and eager; no doubt the controlled ice cats.

“There’s only one passage,” the padawan took a brief reading with her scanner after it became certain no attack would be forthcoming. “It proceeds to the left and upwards into the mountain.”

“It seems she is content to wait for us,” Z’meer’s voice was cold. “Well, let us not prolong this.”

Shakvail nodded, and moved to take point, as she often did. There was no question of what they were up against. The ice cats had been responsible for a reign of terror in past weeks that claimed over three score lives and had utterly ruined the local pastoralist economy. Bloody messages on the dead had demanded tribute; the people had requested Jedi instead.

They marched through the passageway carefully, constantly on guard for the trap that was designed to defeat them. This stronghold was not highly refined, empty halls paved with bonding and little rooms to the side, mostly empty. They grew more complete over time; building had apparently proceeded from the deepest sections first. Nothing could be gleaned from what remained, to Shakvail’s disappointment, the ice cats had been allowed to roam freely, and now the alcoves were filed with dead nerf parts, scratching marks, piles of debris, and a considerable quantity of shed fur.

The padawan could glean only one thing about the mysterious builders. They had been skilled engineers; this place was designed with high efficiency and a strict minimalism. It was strong, and built to last, with ideally placed couplings, connections, and cables. If it had finished, it could have been quite the fortress. She wondered who had constructed it, and considered asking Z’meer, but she could sense her master’s curiosity in the Force, and realized she did not know either.

At last they reached a single fork in the passage. To the right was an empty tunnel filled with the hulking forms of failing machinery, humming dimly in their slow dying of many centuries. To the left their enemy waited around a final bend.

Still silent, Z’meer moved to even with Shakvail, and they advanced.

Seven steps past that turn, Shakvail felt a tremor in the Force.

Seized by the immediate intuition that comes to all Jedi she jumped, exerting her strength and focus to carry her body back the way she had come, half a step behind her master, engaged in the same action.

They were too late. A great slab of stone, dropped from a concealed double-ceiling above, crashed down on a dead drop to wall up the way the only egress.

As it hit, the stone unleashed a great wave of electrical charge, setting the air to blue and sparking. This plasmatic discharge passed over the Jedi, tingling and twisting, but producing nothing more than a mild sensation on the skin.

Deeply concerned, Shakvail immediately moved to check her various electronics against this surge. Most were unharmed, but one highly significant piece had been unexpectedly crippled.

Her lightsaber.

“Stang!” Shakvail almost never swore, but she could not contain herself in that moment.

“Hold, padawan,” Z’meer cautioned, and the Jedi Master turned from the blocking slab to face the other way, where their enemy awaited.

An enemy who was now laughing.

Three more steps carried the Jedi around the final corner, opening on a wide, empty room with a single central dais emerging from the floor. It appeared to be a grand stone sarcophagus, sealed and molded in duracrete.

The laughter came from the woman atop it. She was roughly human, but hairless with pale gray skin, and sharp charcoal-shaded tattoos on her face and arms. She wore red wrappings of animal hide, died bloody, and the cold did not touch her. All around her appropriated throne the ice cats strode and bayed, ready to strike. They were terrible to behold, massive creatures with feline faces and toothy maws on splayed reptilian legs with long and deadly claws. Blue fur matted with died blood and bits of pale flesh covered them. Their eyes showed yellow with the corruption of the dark side, as did those of their mistress.

“Nightsister,” Shakvail whispered, having heard of these beings. She felt a tremor of fear, and stubbornly kept pressing the activation button of her lightsaber, hoping to coax life from the somehow crippled weapon.

“Your name?” Z’meer asked, unperturbed. The Jedi Master was an oasis of calm, a most impressive feat, and one Shakvail could not share. They were surrounded by enemies with no way out and, most importantly, no weapons. The woman on the rise did not appear especially strong in the Force, and she lacked the focused potential of even a modestly trained padawan, but fifteen to two odds were bad in all circumstances. Dread crept up the back of the padawan’s neck, and she began to wonder if she was starring at death for the first time in her recent memory.

“I am your death,” the nightsister retorted, all pride and fury. “That is all you need to know.”

“Is that so?” Z’meer’s unshakable composure was a thing to behold, and Shakvail took solace in it. Her master felt no fear, so she must not either. She struggled to banish her misgivings and stare at the battle readily, looking not for death, but for victory, which must be possible, somehow. “I suppose that means you will refuse my offer to surrender then, will it not?”

“Surrender?” the nightsister scoffed. “Are you blind Jedi? You’re trapped, and your precious lightsabers are useless to you.” She pulled a long, serrated sword from behind the granite coffin she adorned. “Look around you, this room is pure and free of debris.”

Shakvail’s eyes quickly canvassed the room, and indeed this proclamation was true.

“There is nothing for you to throw or launch with the Force, no weapons, and only my precious pets, oh so hungry for blood,” the nightsister laughed. “But maybe I will be generous. Maybe you can surrender to me. I promise to let you live, even keep all your parts, as much as my lovelies hunger for a taste. Then your Republic can ransom you, hmm…”

“If you will not surrender, then we are obligated to take you by force,” Z’meer’s voice remained calm, if anything it was somewhat disappointed. “I cannot guarantee your survival.”

“Insolent wretch!” the nightsister leapt down from her perch, sword in hand.

Shakvail, acting on instinct alone, jumped in front of her master.

The jagged blade clanged against the shaft of the padawan’s climbing pick, chipping the polycarbonate fiber and pressing down hard.

“Oh? Eager to defend your master?” the nightsister’s breath stank, vile and filled with the odor of raw flesh. Her eyes were ragged and bloodshot, and her skin puckered with black lines. “Maybe I’ll kill you while she watches!”

It took all of Shakvail’s strength, and everything she could draw upon from the Force, to hold that blade away from her flesh. She abandoned herself to that effort, hoping desperately that her master had a plan. Fourteen ice cats circled, awaiting a single command to pounce.

Z’meer Bothu, with a move as casual as if she was standing in front of a mirror in her temple quarters, reached both hands up and snapped off her earrings. The Force surged in her.

The nightsister lurched back, confused.

Z’meer put both hands forward, palms up. The magenta spheres rose several centimeters and began to spin in a tight circle, taking on incredible velocity.

“Kill her my pets!” the nightsister shouted.

An ice cat lunged; mouth wide, barring fangs the length of a man’s hand.

The pinkish orb in Z’meer’s left hand shot free.

At speed that could be followed only with the aid of the Force, Shakvail watched as that little object, which she suddenly discovered weighed close to a full kilogram, struck the great predator full in the forehead with an ear-splitting crack.

Then it kept going.

Flesh yielded, crumpled, and tore, and the spherical bullet passed through surface skin, skullbone, braincase, spinal column, and back out the dorsal spines, powered by the Force to gain speed rather than loose it.

With a great ringing noise it struck the far wall, reversed direction, and returned to Z’meer, who extended her left hand up to catch it floating a handspan from her skin and set it spinning again.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!” the nightsister screamed in rage.

“Padawan, if you could occupy our irate quarry,” Z’meer’s voice, filled with iron-clad control, mentioned almost idly.

Then the chamber exploded into chaos.

Thirteen feline reptilian bodies lunged in a storm of predation made real, seeking the life on one small human woman. The Jedi Master moved to counter them, wielding her twin spheres as lethal missiles, spinning in a fluid three dimensional dance that saw her bounce, jump, and whip her hands about with the speed and skill of a professional shockball champion. Those deadly orbs struck flesh bone, and stone, always bouncing and careening onward, their paths a vector web of terrible potency. Z’meer slid within that pattern, casting her bullets from foe to foe, slipping away from deadly teeth and claws, her flesh always one millimeter too far for natural blades to reach blood.

Shakvail would have loved to watch this display, the mastery of the Force unveiled, but even as her master fought for their lives, she was engaged in a desperate struggle for her own.

“I’ll rip you apart!” the nightsister brought back her sword and pressed the assault, unleashing great sweeping blows with tremendous strength.

Shakvail countered with her tool, the only weapon available to her with her lightsaber useless. She scampered backwards, dodging predators and trying to remain beyond the edge of that terrible blade.

The nightsister, all strength and no finesse, beat upon her guard with terrible potency.

The stakes could not be higher, the feeling smashed down on the padawan in time with the sword strokes. Shakvail had to hold out.

Both fighters knew it.

A massive overhand blow forced the padawan to dash to the side, even as the escape pressed her closer to the corner.

A sense of inevitability settled over the Safol, as that blade bit into her little implement, breaking off the pick, and then hacking a sizable chunk out of the increasingly ragged shaft. She could not maintain this deadly dance, and soon that blade would find her life. That would mean her master’s end as well, for Z’meer’s dance was a delicate, vulnerable thing, and a single shove in the Force from this monster would disrupt it and doom them both.

The padawan needed a way around her foe’s guard, a means to riposte these brutal attacks that sent shockwaves of pain and tremors of weakness through her limbs. Her awareness crept up to desperation, and she knew she could will it to break through, to find a weakness, but what good would hitting her enemy with a blunted stick accomplish? Would this fallen creature, so empowered by the dark side it fouled the very air around her, even feel that?

Focus not so much on details.

In that desperate moment, as the serrated edge scrapped against her hand and left Shakvail feeling blood beneath her gloves, almost dropping her weapon and ending it there, the padawan finally understood.

Not a weakness in her guard; a weakness in this whole scenario.

A path to victory.

Shakvail let her body have its way.

Chemicals poured into her bloodstream, neurons supercharged and ions poured down the pathways of her brain, overriding stops, blockages, reasoning power, imposing a connection between her lower, reptilian, animal awareness and her decision making process no human possessed. Barriers between consideration and action vanished, hesitation crumpled, and the irrational became the inevitable. Probability gave way to an overriding command to find the one path, the essential possibility that led to survival.

Shakvail jumped; the full strength of the Force behind her.

It was madness, and her opponent made her pay with a brutal crossing cut that landed below both knees, ripping through padded gear and soft tissue to slash muscle and expose bone.

The padawan did not even feel the pain.

She spun in midair, flipping as she turned, on a singular path to a specific, chosen landing point.

Her enemy turned and made her own flying leap in response, blade out, ready to skewer her as she came down.

The Force channeled through Shakvail’s body, striking down through her legs, amplified so that it hit with all her power when she landed. Her boots impacted on the top of the stone sarcophagus, poured duracrete in a single form, ten centimeters thick.

It shattered into countless tiny shards. Shakvail fell half a meter further, onto a pair of bodies that lay entwined within.

The nightsister’s momentum carried her into this collapse, and she stumbled coming down on millennia-old bones that crumpled at her touch. She had to jerk back and throw out a hand for balance before she could thrust.

The pair of foes stood as two had centuries ago, locked in combat in this room; the dark side attuned lord who had built this refuge, and the Jedi Knight who had braved it to destroy him. Their bones were now cracked and brittle, and broke apart at this intrusion, clothes dissipating in the same moment.

One object remained, and Shakvail called it to her hand.

A smooth, refined metal cylinder, with a fine grip and jade inlay, it gave a satisfying snap-hiss as the padawan’s finger descended to the activation stud.

A transparent green blade burst to life, sending new brightness across the shadow-filled chamber.

The nightsister’s eyes widened, but she thrust her sword in anyway.

Shakvail brought her borrowed lightsaber across and sliced the weapon in half.

She did not pause, but her motion continued, and a crossing motion brought her gleaming weapon back over and forward, taking the nightsister’s head. She did not hesitate, or pause, only ended the conflict, swiftly and completely.

As the tattooed body fell to the floor the surviving ice cats howled and raged, thrashing wildly.

They were soon silenced by strikes of bloody magenta spheres.

Shakvail did not see this, or even the nightsister’s fall. Her eyes were cast downward, to tomb below her feet. There the dust swirled and shifted, the decay of centuries giving way to a strange flicker in the Force that she saw without seeing. A moment later a pale luminous pulse began in those desiccated remains, only to rise up slowly.

It formed into the transparent image of a woman, seemingly human but with odd marks around the eyes and altered ears. She wore Jedi robes in a style thousands of years old, and had a wise, carefree face. Her eyes, bright green and sparkling, glanced deep into Shakvail’s as she floated higher.

The ghostly manifestation placed her hands around the padawan’s, and Shakvail felt not cold, but soft, diffuse warmth. A strange joy came over her then, and a feeling of grace and contentment. The ancient Jedi smiled silently, and wrapped her hands about the lightsaber and Shakvail’s hands as one.

Then she faded away softly into nothing once more.

Shakvail stood silently, dumbfounded and confused, her body recovering from the aftereffects of her breaker trance, as she tried to comprehend what had just happened.

A hand closed over her own.

“Master?” still shaken, Shakvail turned to look upon Z’meer.

The Jedi Master was covered in blood and viscera, but in the Force it was clear none was her own. “The dead can confer their trust as well as the living, for the Force is not strictly bound by time. Accept this, and do not ponder it further. It simply is, that is enough.”

“Yes master,” The Safol, in awe at the eerie feeling the moment had invoked, acknowledged this wisdom. She preferred the mysteries of the living to daring those of death.

“A pity she bound the ice cats so closely to herself that they could not survive the loss,” Z’meer continued, softly, and lightly regretful. “So does the dark side hurt the innocent even in defeat.”

Shakvail could muster little care for the fate of the ice cats. Their will had been consumed by their master; they were already dead before battle had even begun. “And her?” she gestured to the fallen nightsister.

“A lesson in the corruption of the dark side, and the false rewards of power,” Z’meer demurred, and did not look at the body. “That is how it always ends.” She turned back to Shakvail. “But no matter, her crimes earned this penalty many times over; we should look to other problems. You are wounded, take care of that. I will see about a certain stone slab that blocks the way out.”

“Yes master,” the padawan winced, feeling the pain at last, and it was brutal. Only constant exertion of will kept her standing.

As Z’meer turned away she said one last thing, so softy only the aid of the Force allowed Shakvail to hear. “It seems you finally understood me, didn’t you, Shakvail?”