Revenge of the Jedi/Part 29

Zaella wasn't sure whether Tirien had never had much faith in House Pelagia's spies, or if the arrival of the Republic agent had just tossed another log onto the dying fire of his optimism, but the strike team stepped up training in the days that followed. None of them went to bed without bruises or lightsaber burns anymore, and Zaella got the distinct impression some of them didn't go to bed much at all. She was pleasantly surprised when the team started taking the threat of the Sith seriously, though.

"Raise your hand if you've ever Force-healed yourself," Yan said.

A few of the Jedi raised their hands, though Baron Kaivalt was the only non-Republic Knight to do so.

"About what I figured. Mastery of Force healing is a gift, and if any of us had it, we wouldn't be here.  But every Jedi should be able to keep herself alive long enough to get to help or a bacta patch."

"Jirdo served in the Medical Corps," Tirien said, "so he's going to give us a primer—or a refresher, as the case may be—on self-triage and containing injuries."

Zaella suppressed a groan, but she gave Gaebrean a look that shared her feelings, glad that he was back to commiserate; he had returned only the day before, having finally obtained the false transponder codes for the Second Chance. He gave her that roguish smile in return—half-nobleman, half-pirate, all trouble—but said nothing. ''Calm thoughts. No mental holes. Calm thoughts. Shields up.''

Jirdo wore a muted training uniform, something more than a track suit but less than Jedi attire. Of course, he still had that wispy little beard, like he had cut off a few locks of hair and glued them to his chin, so Zaella was inclined to let the uniform slide. Clearing his throat, Jirdo said, "Healing others is challenging without the gift, that's true, but self-healing is within everyone's reach. We all know our own biology, Human and non-Human alike.  Focused healing is really just a form of concentrated meditation…"

Zaella tuned him out as he droned on. She understood the key component: Force healing was a Jedi skill, and there was a reason Sith couldn't use it. She wasn't inclined to care too much, and when Jirdo set them to practicing on their bumps, bruises, and burns, she passed the time poking Gaeb to distract him. He kept his eyes closed and concentrated hard, but one side of his mouth twitched up.

"Does everyone feel like they have the hang of it?" Jirdo asked.

There was a noncommittal muttering among the Jedi, and Yan added, "Nobody made themselves worse, did they? No colds or festering sores you didn't have when you started?"

A few Jedi chuckled, but as usual these days, Tirien's face might as well have been made of stone. "Self-healing takes time to master, but it's worth the effort, because in the field you may have minutes, not hours. The crucitorn technique we practiced last week can assist when healing serious injuries; without it, the pain might be incapacitating, and you'll be unable to focus on healing."

"So how 'bout a more realistic test?" Yan asked, and she took the lightsaber hilt off her belt. Every sound died as she dialed it down to training safety, then deliberately clicked it one level back up, then another. "Nothing that'll take off a limb, but sparring intensity won't quite get the point across."

Past the snap-hiss of the blue blade, Zaella heard Raina hissing at Raven, who snapped something inaudible back at her. Jirdo stared with wide eyes; Zaella suspected the Jedi Knights had not briefed him on this part of the curriculum. Raina flicked her fingers at her brother and stood. "I won't participate in this, and neither will Renata. It's barbarism."

"It's reality," Yan replied. "But since you'll be safe here while the rest of us are in danger, that's fine."

Zaella snickered as Raina looked like she might blow fire. "What's next, the Burning?!"

"Why, got some blasters we can use?"

Raina whirled, appalled. "Tirien?!"

Tirien looked at Raina, then Yan, then Narasi, who firmed her jaw and nodded. After a moment of thought, he said, "Practice or don't as you wish; no one here will assault a fellow Jedi. But the Sith won't be so merciful."

He untied and discarded his tunic, pulled off his tank top, clasped his arms behind his back, took a deep breath, and nodded to Yan. She wound up and slashed across his chest; at full power the blow would have cut him apart below the shoulders. Several Jedi gasped as Tirien squeezed his eyes shut and hissed through his gritted teeth. Smoke poured through his fingers as he sank to one knee, and Narasi darted to his side; Zaella thought she couldn't help herself. But Tirien pressed her away with one char-marked hand, dropped into a cross-legged sitting position, and covered his wounds with his palms, concentrating.

Yan traced an infinity arc with her blade, then asked, "Anyone else?"

Narasi bared her fangs. "Me too."

Narasi let loose a feline snarl that would've made a nexu balk when Yan raked her upper arm, and she spent several seconds controlling the pain, but eventually she sat beside Tirien, clasping her arm as she tried to mend it. Kobold Baliss went next; Zaella thought he didn't want to decline where a Padawan had accepted. Lord Wisté refused and excused himself, taking Baron Kaivalt with him, but Amaani agreed, and of course Gaebrean couldn't resist a challenge like that. As he dropped, clutching his smoking rib cage, Yan asked, "Tirien, are you still actively steaming?"

"No." Tirien's voice was strained, but it didn't crack, and when he took his hands away from the red and black line of char on his blue flesh, Zaella saw the cut was still open but no longer smoking. She thought Yan had known the result and meant it as a challenge for the others.

Raven and Raina were in the middle of another argument, but this time Raven waved her off and submitted to the lightsaber. Harshee crossed her powerful arms. "Seems a little unnecessary, doesn't it, Yan?"

"Theory's one thing, Harshee; reality's something else."

"I've had my fair share of reality," Harshee said, and she rolled up her sleeves and tugged down her collar to show the scars on her arms and upper chest. "I'm good."

Yan shrugged, then asked, "Zaella?"

Zaella grimaced. "I'll pass."

"What's your excuse?"

No one else had been asked for an excuse; what was the Arcona's problem? Why had she singled out the one dark sider? Or was that the point—to make her admit her skill set was unequal to the task? Zaella glanced at Tirien, but saw he was deep in meditation. She would not be so weak as to beg him to rescue her, but she crossed her arms and said, "I've actually been through the Burning. Once was enough, thanks."

"Practice makes perfect."

Zaella grimaced, but before she could reply, Raina snapped, "Did you lose your hearing along with your moral compass? She said no!"

For a second it was hard to tell whether Yan or Zaella looked more baffled; Raina Kaivalt was the last person Zaella had expected to come to her defense. Then Yan's lambent eyes narrowed. "She's a big girl, Raina, she can speak for herself."

"Then perhaps you should listen."

Renata gawped from Raina's shadow, and Jirdo, who had been examining the various wounds the Knights were trying to contain, glanced up nervously. Tossing her lightsaber from hand to hand, Yan said, "Only the strong survive in the field, Raina, and you only get strong in the training ring. But if people want to take the risk—"

"Oh, for Force's sake, get over yourself, Razam," Zaella said, rolling her eyes and wrapping her apprehension in a sarcastic tone. Put that way—that the exercise separated the strong from the weak—she could no longer hide behind the Burning she had experienced before. She had learned early on Ryloth that past achievements meant little when they couldn't be duplicated and increased. Draping her lekku down her back, she pulled the straps of her tank top down and arched her neck up. "If it'll make you feel better about my survival chances, do it."

"Not…the breasts…" Gaebrean grunted, half in a meditative daze. "That would…be like…spitting on…an original Barsholi…"

Someone laughed, then groaned when it hurt whatever burn he had taken. Zaella kissed at Gaebrean while Raina shook her head in disgust, but Yan slashed one-handed without hesitation or warning, and Zaella cried out in pain as the fire seared across her chest from shoulder to shoulder. The pain was so intense that, like Tirien, she dropped to one knee, clamping her hands down on the wound. The touch set off another wave of pain; the blade was intense enough for a mix of second- and third-degree burns. Zaella tried to channel herself calm, happy thoughts, but the fire across her chest made those elusive, somehow.

"Who's administering yours, Yan?" Raina asked. "Or is 'realistic training' for others, not you?"

"You know, there is no emotion, there is peace, Raina," Yan retorted. "And as bent out of shape as you're letting this make you, I've got clear eyes here. We train realistically in safety so we live when things aren't safe.  And that applies to all of us."

And she raked the blade over her triangular head, a snarling scream issuing through her teeth. As she half-sat, half-collapsed to tend to it, Raina shook her head and stormed away, snapping, "Madness, all of this…"

Harshee did not follow her, but she did go to check on Narasi. Zaella squeezed her eyes shut, but the burn on her chest was so frustrating that peace eluded her. That inability to focus only made her more frustrated, and as her anger grew, she thought the pain of burn intensified rather than abated. She tried to channel some of the pain-dampening techniques Tirien had gone over, but that only took some of the edge off.

Jirdo strolled around, offering encouragement here and advice there, but after a moment Zaella realized he was meandering her way, just trying to be subtle about it. The last thing she wanted was him gloating over his ability to heal injuries while she couldn't so much as stitch up a burn, but when he reached her, he knelt beside her and muttered, "I can help you."

"I didn't ask for your help!" she hissed.

"No, but you need it."

"Says who?"

"If you could do it, you would—if only to prove that you're better than people who can't." He raised his eyebrows, and Zaella had to admit that did sound like her. "But your Sith training's getting in the way. Force healing is a light side technique."

Zaella grimaced; she did not like having her theory confirmed, least of all by Jirdo. "So what, you have to be a Jedi?"

"I don't know about that—would you say I'm still a Jedi?" He frowned to himself, then refocused. "But you have to not be a Sith."

Would you say I'm still a Sith?, Zaella thought, but she didn't ask; she wasn't sure she could stand one more person adding to Kaelora Kaivalt's fire.

Jirdo put a hand on her shoulder. Zaella tried to shrug away, but even his touch dulled the pain—from torturous to horrible, but even that slight improvement made her gasp with relief. "It's up to you; I'm not going to tell anybody. You can trust me."

She didn't, not even a little. Zaella could count on her lekku the number of beings she trusted, and both of them were currently dealing with burns of their own. But she couldn't heal the injury on her own, and if she didn't accept help, all she would accomplish would be everyone realizing that instead of just Jirdo. "Do it."

He made a face, and Zaella's lekku twitched. "What, do you want me to beg?"

"Would it kill you to show a little—" He stopped himself, shook his head, and said, "Forget it.  Just hold still, and try not to think too sulfurous of thoughts."

He set to work, and as she turned her mind inward, Zaella could feel the Force mending the burn, dulling the pain in seared nerve endings and stimulating blood flow and cell division to regrow tissue. As he labored over her, Jirdo occasionally said things aloud, like, "Focus a bit more," "Yes, like that," and eventually, "Now you're getting the hang of it." Zaella, who had never wished him any particular good and had occasionally wished him grievous harm, didn't understand his motivation, but when she felt the cracked and blistered skin under her fingers start to stiffen, she stopped caring.

Movement caught Zaella's eye an hour or so later, and she watched Tirien stand. The line across his chest was raw and angry, but Zaella was surprised how much of it was in shades of blue—not Tirien's normal blue, admittedly, but not black or red, either. He arched his neck and glanced around; his eyes lingered on Zaella and Jirdo for a moment, but he made no comment.

The Jedi trickled away one-by-one, and Jirdo moved on lest he give her away. The moment he took his hands away, Zaella felt the healing process stop, and even when she tried to replicate his thought patterns and recapture the energies he had harnessed, it came to nothing. Eventually she admitted defeat and accepted one of the bandages Bernius was handing out.

Later, as they sat knees-to-knees at the far southern point of the island, listening to the waves caress the shore, Tirien said, "Jirdo did good work on your chest."

"How do you know I didn't…?" Zaella started, wrongfooted, but his knowing look stopped her. In their first days on Guudria, that look had tempted her to bash his head in with a rock; at the moment she remembered why.

"Did you?"

"…no."

Tirien nodded, but he seemed lost in his own thoughts. "Jirdo…maybe I wasn't too harsh after all…"

"Just to get on record, I approve of harshness toward him."

"Do you still?"

He sounded legitimately curious, so much so that Zaella frowned. True, Jirdo had done her a favor, and thus far kept it to himself, but that didn't make him any less of a coward or a doormat. But she shrugged and said, "Doesn't matter. Mind patching?"

"Let's try something different today. See if you can get some healing going."

Zaella sighed. "I can't—"

"—because you won't let yourself," he cut her off. "They're different skills, but they require similar mindsets. Try the same meditative techniques we've been working on, but focus your energies on your burn instead of your mind.  I'll work on my burn too, you can feel how I'm doing it."

And for the next hour or so, he did indeed feel much the same as usual during their sessions; if there was a difference, it was that his intent was turned inward. Zaella tried not to think about healing, even as the lingering pain in her chest sought her focus; maybe healing would happen automatically if she was calm enough? She tried to concentrate just on the waves, their soothing, lulling slosh against the seawall; she imagined a wave of the Force washing over her chest, wiping away injury…but not seawater, the salt would sting…she was thinking about it too hard…

Tirien drew his hands away to poke the burn on his chest; it was now scabbed throughout, but no traces of black lingered. "Any improvement?"

Zaella pulled the dressing away. "I…it doesn't look any different…"

"But?"

"It doesn't hurt as much. More throbbing than sizzling, you know?"

"It may be unconscious pain suppression with your mind at peace," he said, but Zaella recognized his look of intellectual curiosity.

"Or?"

"Or you may have started healing below the skin and worked outward. Keep working at it and see what you can accomplish."

By evening it was throbbing enough to be distracting, so Zaella gave up and got an application of bacta paste; the ninety percent purity rating still boggled her mind, especially because she knew it would be fully healed by morning.

Several Jedi had cheated too, but others persisted in working at their burns over the next few days. One day's lightsaber training was a barrage of training remotes, firing on them from all directions; Zaella saw Tirien deflect a blaster bolt by hand, but given the mild desperation on his face as he wheeling his lightsaber one-handed in all directions, she thought it might be because he didn't trust his blade to do the job. Harshee came out with only a few glancing singes, and Yan reflected some bolts back into remotes, but most of the Makashi stylists went away with new burns to be healed; Zaella and Narasi hadn't been this close to the best in the group since the first days of hand-to-hand fighting.

Jirdo participated, and though he got shot up as badly as any Form II Knight, he didn't quit for a change. Raina, on the other hand, absented herself from training, and kept Renata out with her.

Another day, Yan pushed multiple-on-one sparring to its logical extreme with team fights and melees. The fencers suffered again with enemies on all sides, but this time Zaella struggled along with them—Juyo was slightly better at multiple enemies, but not by much. Without Raina to join Raven, no pair in team fighting clearly dominated; Tirien and Narasi clearly knew each other's moves, but Zaella suspected they hadn't often fought together against other Force users. Zaella herself got paired with Gaeb once, but her need for kinetic space and his flair for showmanship got them both 'killed' in short order.

Force training moved away from healing into direct confrontation with aggressive powers. The Jedi labored to fight while being Force choked, and Zaella had one of her best days' showings as they sparred throughout.

"You're good, Zaella," Harshee noted.

She shrugged. "I have a lot of experience being choked."

Gaeb, who was passing by, leaned in to whisper, "Yes, I suspected as much last night when—"

Zaella held out her thumb and forefinger, and Gaeb coughed. Smiling sweetly, she breathed back, "Just remember, the next level up is Force Crush. And it doesn't just work on throats."

Gaeb cleared his throat with effort. "Right. Very good.  Oh my, would you look at that, Tirien's calling me…"

Zaella could tell something was different the next day, because it was Tirien the group circled. He said, "On Guudria, Narasi, Zaella, and I encountered the Mind Shard power. Have any of you ever dealt with it?"

Zaella couldn't survey the group; just the name made her flinch, and her lekku coiled in apprehension as Tirien went on, "Psychic pain is a different matter than physical pain, and different skills are needed to resist it. We'll work on resisting it alone first."

"We could hear back from Captain Oraska's team any day," Yan reminded him. "We should add in—"

"Knighthood before mastery, Yan."

She flexed her clawed hands, but didn't protest. No Knight but Tirien had enough experience to attempt Mind Shard, and if Lord Brascel could do it, he didn't volunteer. One by one the Knights faced Tirien, who jabbed at their mental defenses. Raven took the blow with only a grunt and squeezed eyes, while Gaeb cried out and fell over backward. Zaella might have teased him under any other circumstances, but all she could think of was the feeling of her eyeballs being torn into her skull—someone plunging a lightsaber through her head without killing her. Tirien struck at them all, speaking only twice—once to ensure Narasi was ready, and once to apologize in advance to Harshee.

Zaella was shivering by the time her turn came. The others were scattered around the courtyard, some watching, others rubbing their heads or even trying Force healing. She was too well-trained to run for it and betray her weakness to everyone, but she thought her quick breathing might do that anyway.

"I can feel your fear, Zaella," Tirien whispered. "Calm your mind. It's just another day of practice."

"Yeah. Right."

"I can dial it down if—"

"Don't you dare take it easy on me!" Zaella warned him; anger steadied her trembling hands. "Don't you shame me like that."

"Calm your mind. Rage is as useless a defense as fear."

"Right. Happy thoughts." She gritted her teeth. "Get it over with."

She wailed as the pain hit her, clutching the bases of her lekku, but she stayed on her feet. ''Happy thoughts happy thoughts happy thoughts! Calm! I'M SO KRIFFING CALM RIGHT NOW!''

She found her way to pressing back against him, and after a second the pain disappeared. Her jelly legs gave out and she dropped onto her butt, where she sat, panting. Tirien advanced and laid a hand on her forehead; she sensed him probing her mind. "Impressive."

"Why? If it was a real fight, I'd've been dead."

"And if it was a month ago, you'd have been flat on your back, shrieking like you were on fire." His eyes were narrow and his voice impatient. "That was the same intensity I used on everyone else. The point is, the patching is working."

It took a moment for that to cut through the residual ache in her brain, but when Zaella caught up, her eyes widened. "You fixed it?!"

"It's being fixed. There's still a long way of recovery to—"

She threw herself on him, hugging him without thinking. She felt him tense in her arms, but he relaxed after a couple seconds and patted her back with one hand, grunting, "You're welcome."

When she pulled back, grinning, she noticed Gaeb with a hand over his heart and a wounded look on his face, but she also saw a strange look on Narasi's. Skipping over to her friend, she whispered, "It's working!  He's fixing me!"

"He's…oh. Oh.  That's…that's great, Zaella!"

She gave a strained smile; Zaella wondered how badly the psychic attack had hurt her. Jirdo went down screaming under Tirien's Mind Shard, and they both winced in sympathy.

After lunch that afternoon, Zaella set out to find Narasi, hoping to get in more hand-to-hand practice. As she crossed the lawn toward the landing pad, though, she turned at the sound of her own name and saw Jirdo jogging toward her. Rolling her eyes, she said, "What do you want?"

He sighed. "Yeah, always a pleasure. Look—"

"Make it fast."

"I need a minute. A word."

"Oh, for Force's sake, 'thank you'—is that what you're so bent out of shape about? 'Thank you for healing my burn'.  Not that bacta couldn't have done the same thing faster, but it helped me save—"

He waved the comment aside impatiently. "I don't care about that, this is serious."

"Is there a point coming here?"

"It's the others. Tirien, Narasi, all of them.  I think they're in danger."

"…go on."

"All right…I feel like…well, have you felt…well, both our lives have been marked by Sith influence—"

"Okay, I was a Sith. You were a Dark Jedi at best, and you sucked at that."

He gave her a dour look. "Just for reference, it's not an achievement that you were better at being a bad guy. Although…well, my point is, we both have experience with the dark side—you even more than me."

"Yeah, pretty much every Jedi here's been happy to remind me." Zaella crossed her arms. "Point? Somewhere?  Maybe?"

"All this training we've been doing—the way we've been preparing for this mission. Is it just me, or does some of this feel…familiar?"

Zaella frowned. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying—well, I'm asking—am I the only one who feels the dark side here?"

"You…what, you think they're all Sith? Tirien and the others?" Zaella wasn't sure whether to be offended on their behalf, or laugh in Jirdo's face at the absurdity of it.

"No, of course they're not Sith…"

"So what, the training? Yan with the lightsaber burns, and Tirien's Mind Shard and all?" Resisting the urge to shudder, Zaella said, "Believe me, I've gotten both of those things from real Sith, and it was not a controlled, 'everybody step up and take your turn' experience."

"But the light side is supposed to be about calm—defense. Jedi don't do these kinds of things, even in training."

"Maybe you just didn't get to that lesson—maybe it's a 'Padawans and up' kind of thing."

Jirdo looked like he was having trouble banishing some dark side emotions himself. "I was MedCorps, remember? I did all sorts of healing training, and never once did we injure people just to practice patching them back up again."

"Maybe you should've—it's a hard galaxy, pain and suffering happen. Experience with them sharpens—"

"That's my point—you say that because you're…Sith-trained." Zaella suspected he edited that one mid-thought, but she let it go. "But that's not how Jedi do things! And if we start doing Jedi work the Sith way…I'm worried for all of us, but especially the strike team.  They'll be in danger."

"How?"

"How long did you train before Tirien and Narasi captured you on Circumtore?"

Zaella fought the urge to look away—divulging even this factoid made her uncomfortable. But past his self-righteousness, she could see the depth of Jirdo's unease, and though her Sith training told her it was a weakness she could exploit, the idea, however stupid, that Tirien or Narasi could be at risk dampened her self-preservation. Just a little, but enough. "Nine or ten years."

"I was on Guudria about the same time. And you said it yourself—I was barely even a Dark Jedi, if that.  Were you a full Sith Lord?"

Zaella's lekku curled up; tchun still felt unnatural a few centimeters shorter than tchin. "No."

"So a decade and neither of us became a Sith Lord. If I'm right and the others are starting to…let's say 'dabble', then they have even less than either of us.  But Gasald?  She's an Overlord, she must've trained for decades.  And if the Council of Five put her over all those Lords and Acolytes, she's probably more powerful than all of them!  If they try to match Gasald with the dark side, who do you think's going to win?"

Zaella saw, then, the real concern—or at least one that would concern her, if he was right. "You're saying it's like training with a stun stick your whole life, then getting into a knife fight with a knife expert."

"…sure, close enough."

"I still don't buy it. I've seen the dark side, and this isn't it."

"You've seen people who are committed to the dark side heart and soul. When you were a little girl, did you start off by murdering and torturing people?"

Zaella grimaced. "That's not how it works on Ryloth."

"Because sometimes the dark side starts small! But even a small hole in the armor is still a hole.  And if they go up against Sith masters with holes in their armor…"

Waving a hand, Zaella said, "Tirien's a Jedi—it's kind of nauseating sometimes, actually. And the Tapani…well, the way they talk about me being a Sith, I'm pretty sure they're on the Jedi team too."

"And Yan Razam?"

"Narasi told me about the different kinds of Jedi—Razam's a Guardian, right? They're all fighters, I'd expect her to be rougher around the edges than Tirien and the rest."

Jirdo shook his head; Zaella felt his concern and frustration. "Look, just…think about it, all right? Keep your eyes open."

"If you're so concerned, why don't you talk to Tirien?"

Jirdo lowered his eyes. "He…I don't think any of them take me seriously. I guess I could tell Raina, but she already seems like she thinks they're all flying with an empty navicomputer; I'm not sure even Raven listens to her anymore."

Zaella, who also didn't think any of the Jedi took Jirdo seriously and sympathized with them for it, snorted. "You washed out of Jedi training, deserted the backup Jedi squad, conquered a planet of defenseless primitives, and almost resurrected some Sith ghost. You think maybe there's a reason they're not taking tips on the straight and narrow path from you?"

She had expected annoyance, perhaps even real anger, but when he met her eyes again, she was startled to see concern, bordering on fear. "That's exactly what I think. And…and they're not wrong.  I screwed up, Zaella, real bad.  But that doesn't mean I'm wrong.  I can sense the dark side at work here; this isn't just a hunch, I can feel it.  And that's why I came to you—you're more powerful, they respect you more, and you know the dark side better.  I get that they don't trust me, and yeah, that sucks.  But I don't want them to get hurt…or worse."

A lifetime of training seized on his admission of weakness, but that very sincerity caught her off guard. After a moment's reflection, she realized it was because the concession served no purpose for him; he was not trying to elicit her pity, and certainly he knew her well enough by now not to mistake her for a friend to whom he could confide a weakness. All that remained was a sincere fear for Tirien, Narasi, and the others, and hope that Zaella could do something about it—something almost like trust.

Suddenly uncomfortable, Zaella said, "I…all right, I still think you're wrong, but I'll keep it in mind."

"Thank you." Jirdo blew out a breath. "I can feel it, Zaella—there's so much danger here…"

"You think?" Zaella rolled her eyes and turned away, leaving him to his ominous portents and struggling to put his concerns from her mind. It wasn't that she didn't think some of the Jedi might be Sith under other circumstances—Razam, maybe, and definitely Narasi if she'd been raised on Zygerria instead of Coruscant. But for an accident of birth on Ryloth—if her parents had fled to the Republic before Hadan took over, for instance—Zaella might even have been…

She winced at even the thought, trying to put it aside as she passed the last of the towering trees. It was safer and far more interesting to consider things the other way. Tirien was a Jedi through and through, but if he wasn't…? Watching him battle the possessed shell of Bras in the square in Marekka had been awe-inspiring enough, but if Tirien had those same powers at his command? That would be nothing short of glorious; even Tarni Hadan couldn't stand against him.

The clean sea breeze helped clear concerns and imaginings from her head, and she was smiling by the time she found Narasi playing fetch with Gizmo beside the Second Chance. When Gizmo chased his ball under the cargo bay, something occurred to Zaella. "So are we going to offload the superbomb before we leave?"

"We'll have to," Narasi replied without looking at her. "Can't risk them picking it up on the sensors."

Zaella cocked her head. "Everything all right? You sound…"

Narasi turned, raised her eyebrows. "Tense? We all are."

"How's your burn?"

"It's getting better. I think I'm getting the hang of this healing thing." She sighed. "You looking for Tirien?"

"What? No, we're not working on my shields until later.  Why?"

"Oh. I just figured…"  Narasi trailed off and started again. "He's kinda busy right now anyway."

She pointed, and Zaella saw a distant figure at the southernmost tip of the island. Enhancing her vision with the Force, she watched Tirien waving his hands before his body, as if to tell the ocean, Move along, move along. "What's he doing?"

"I think he's trying to control the water. It's a whole Jedi discipline—manipulating the environment."

"Oh. Like when he made it rain in Marekka?"

"Yeah, exactly."

Zaella watched Tirien usher invisible speeders along for a moment. "Is something supposed to be happening?"

"Waves, I think. But remember what he said in Marekka?  Bras—well, Brokkodd, I guess—brought the storm with him already.  This is probably harder."

"I guess it would be." Zaella had never tried, but she figured there was more to it than just Force-pushing water. She had heard of powerful Sith Lords creating sandstorms in Ryloth's deserts; she wondered if environmental manipulation wasn't just a Jedi technique. But that got her thinking about Jirdo all over again…

"So, what'd you need?"

"Huh? Oh.  Well…"  Though she had hoped for more sparring with Narasi, who was a good challenge—she had good technique along with her Zygerrian strength, and she wasn't just a brawler—Zaella had trouble forcing Jirdo's fears out of her head. She was out of her depth even with the concept; Sith didn't periodically need to get angry over nothing to purge themselves of happy thoughts. Narasi wasn't turning to the dark, of course—she had accepted every training challenge, but never seemed enthusiastic about violence—but if droids needed periodic preventative maintenance, maybe Jedi did too.

"I was wondering…Tirien's busy, and most of the others wouldn't give me the time of day if I was programming their chronos for them…would you go over the Jedi Code with me again?"

Narasi's brow scrunched together. "Don't tell me you're switching teams after all?"

One, Zaella reflected, she would've sounded optimistic; now her voice was wearier and warier, as if she didn't want to get her hopes up. Wrongfooted, it took Zaella a second to reply. "I just…want to understand it better."

Narasi still looked doubtful, but Gizmo hopped over and nudged her leg with the ball he had wedged in his enormous mouth. Her face lightened, and she knelt to throw the ball for him. As he went bounding after it, she patted the ground in front of her. "Okay. Jedi 101 it is."