Flashback.
Sitting by the viewport, I pressed my temple against the glass, enjoying the coolness in the stuffy cabin of the small ship. My legs were numb from the long trip, and a dull ache pulled at my knees. In fact, my whole body felt uncomfortable—no surprise there... Flying across a third of the galaxy in a ship barely larger than a shuttle bus.
Mist formed on the glass from my heavy breathing, giving the massive city-planet a somewhat mystical look.
Without moving, I flicked my gaze toward the magnificent view outside, feeling my breath catch. Giant skyscrapers piercing the clouds, massive buildings inhabited by thousands, tens of thousands of beings.
Long roads with strings of trains and trolleys cutting right through houses and disappearing into the darkness of slums and streets.
Avenues stretching for kilometers, going so deep that the city-dwellers living beneath them sometimes never saw sunlight.
Millions of air-taxis and starfighters of all kinds piercing the space, organizing true living streams of steel. Like full-flowing rivers, they flew along the same routes wherever you looked.
And, of course, people... Billions of beings of the most diverse species wandered, lived, killed, and "devoured" each other in this giant jar filled with the most dangerous and venomous spiders in the galaxy.
That's right. We had arrived at Coruscant.
An ecumenopolis—the largest and probably the oldest in the galaxy. The true center of the known world, where all roads and paths converge. In the rays of the rising sun, through the thick clouds shrouding the spires of the high-rises, it appeared before us in all its glory... Hiding all the shit and filth that accumulated deep below.
The ship swayed gently. Flicking its wings, Dooku began to pick up speed. Apparently, the Jedi gave me a little time to adjust and realize the scale of the city.
Banking into a steep turn, practically putting the ship on its side, he began his landing approach, his fingers deftly working the instrument panel while simultaneously talking on the radio... and keeping an eye on me.
And he had reason to. From that very moment on Jabiim, I had tried to escape more than once or twice. Jokingly, of course, but... it was enough for Yan, so the Jedi, who was graying before my eyes, kept me constantly in his field of vision, which was extremely annoying.
My leg began to tap out a rhythm against my will. Without noticing it, I squeezed my own knee hard, feeling that even after a couple of minutes, the pain still hadn't arrived.
"Shit..."
"There is no need to be so nervous," Dooku said, calmly piloting the ship, waving a couple of fingers at the window in greeting while nodding to a ship flying nearby. The Jedi was as relaxed as could be, and the closer we flew to the cyclopean pyramid, the better he seemed to feel. It felt as if Yan was growing younger before my eyes, experiencing delight and pleasure at the mere sight of his home. "It is only a conversation..."
"People don't chase someone across the entire galaxy for just a conversation..."
"Simple people." Putting the full weight of irony into those words, Dooku made a final turn and, under the dispatcher's commands, began to fly into a spacious hangar, not even half-filled, though at first glance it was full of people. "Those who possess the power to fight the Hutt Cartel and seize densely populated planets... are politely asked to come and chat."
"Hm..."
Grunting at the Jedi's words, I met his gaze in the reflection of the windshield. We looked at each other for a few seconds before I turned back to the viewport, watching the many technicians, guards, janitors, and other people who worked and lived under the patronage of the Jedi.
But it wasn't them that caught my attention...
It was two tall xenos dressed in thick cloaks, with only masks visible beneath them. With their hoods pulled down so they hung over half their faces, the two strange Jedi stepped forward, heading confidently straight toward us.
My keen eyes caught how both of them simultaneously moved their hands toward their belts, freezing in one position.
"A conversation, right?"
Without waiting for Dooku's answer, I was the first to scramble out of my seat as the glass canopy opened fully. Dressed in my favorite red cloak, feeling a slight fatigue from the long journey, I jumped down right in front of the pair of Jedi, straightening up to my full, considerable height.
"Well, hello..."
Tossing my head, I expected some kind of action or words from this pair, but...
Their gazes were simply piercing. Every moment, I felt my body being scanned and investigated by every possible method for such work.
This continued for nearly ten seconds before Dooku appeared beside me, gently placing a hand on my shoulder and pushing slightly forward.
"Let us go, we should not keep them waiting any longer."
It was unpleasant. I felt like a criminal being led to an interrogation... A damn familiar feeling that made my hands start to itch. True, as soon as I thought about it and lowered my hand close enough to my weapon, the pair standing before me tensed up, expressing their attitude much more openly and clearly.
"I'm starting to like this less and less..."
Taking the first step, I walked past the Jedi as they stepped aside, following me with the long stares of their eerie masks. Looking back one last time, I curled my lips in a smirk, because now, besides the Jedi, absolutely everyone within a hundred-meter radius was staring at us.
"Wonderful..."
The Jedi Temple—how much meaning is in that phrase? Some grew up on it, on stories of their feats, the great victories of the warriors of the past. Of eternal wars with their ancient enemies, victories and defeats with the sacrifices accompanying the scale of the conflicts.
Others despise and hate them, calling them biorobots, impotents, cold-blooded killers, and scum who steal children. In the Outer Rim, the attitude toward Jedi is, for the most part, extremely negative... And if one of these famous knights found themselves alone on a remote planet, they would likely face death.
The bright, spacious corridors met us with desolation. Despite the fact that the Jedi were going through far from their best times, I couldn't have imagined how few of them there were—barely enough to even protect this planet, let alone the entire galaxy.
On the way to the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, we encountered only rare passersby, most of whom were already adults. Only a pair of thirteen-year-old teenagers whispered near a window, watching our strange company pass, but otherwise, the temple seemed deserted.
"Was there no direct way to get here?" Deciding to test him, I asked Dooku a question, while also continuing to carefully examine the temple's decor. "What back alleys are you dragging me through?"
"The kind that ensure you do not run away..." Pausing for a second, Yan let out a tired sigh. "Few here know how much you enjoy dropping onto planets."
Suppressing a chuckle, I couldn't help but smile, even quickening my pace slightly. It became a bit clearer. Apparently, the local head of security specifically asked to complicate the route. The only question was, why? To make it harder for me to escape? Or do the Jedi fear that we might one day stand on opposite sides of the barricades?
"They'd be better off watching the Senate instead of the rabble from the end of the galaxy."
I felt like spitting, but a droid passing by gave a dissatisfied beep as soon as I turned my head to the side. Damn manners.
The journey through the temple would have been memorable if not for the diverse views and the dreary state of the inhabitants. It felt as if the pyramid was a living organism, an ancient giant that long ago allowed tiny humans to live inside it... But now it was abandoned, forsaken, and left to live out its days in loneliness and staleness. A dismal fate.
"Behind this door, my teacher awaits you, the Grand Master of the Jedi Order and perhaps the best of us." Turning me to face him, Yan leaned his face a bit closer. With one hand, he gently gripped my shoulder, while the other remained hanging by his side, dangerously close to his lightsaber. "Be polite, and not like you usually are... Please."
It was amusing to see this pompous aristo ask for something like that, but I'm not a total prick myself, so I just nodded in agreement to his request and then walked forward with a confident stride... Calculating in my head how much Tibanna I had with me, whether one thermal detonator would be enough to blow a wall, and if my cable was long enough to rappel down on a hook.
The swinging doors greeted me and closed just as automatically as soon as I crossed the threshold.
A soft twilight filled the room, with only rare beams of sunlight breaking through a local version of blinds, though for some reason they were vertical.
A completely empty, circular room, painted in several tones. Minimalism in all its glory, with only a few pieces of furniture that clearly served practical purposes rather than decoration.
In the center of the hall was a small depression filled with sand and stones of various sizes, some of which were currently floating, each on its own axis, while grains of sand flowed around them in streams.
In the farthest corner, among the shadows and away from the sun, stood two very ordinary armchairs with soft upholstery, in one of which he sat.
Yoda.
My mouth filled with thick saliva. The realization that this extremely colorful character was sitting before me now hit my brain, and my ragged breathing only confirmed that, despite everything, I was nervous.
One step, two, then more and more. Stepping softly on the floor, rolling from heel to toe, I approached with a smooth gait, feeling that despite his closed eyes, the Master was looking right at me.
The green xeno's left ear twitched slightly, and his aged lips pursed, after which the shorty grunted the way only grumpy old men can. He didn't stop frowning, and it made me a bit nervous, considering he only started acting so pointedly upon my arrival.
"Coincidence? Definitely not."
His three-fingered hand crawled out of his sleeve and slowly pointed to the neighboring chair standing opposite him. Meanwhile, the Master himself tilted his head to the side, continuing to move his ears and knit his brows.
Following the invitation, I lowered myself into the chair without any hesitation, feeling fatigue and bliss replace the tension. Just a few seconds in this expensive chair and all my thoughts were occupied with how not to fall asleep here, which was clearly not normal.
"Make it I had to." A quiet voice with a characteristic accent and the signature word-swapping echoed in the empty hall we occupied for our conversation. "Doubts, fear, anxiety... Ready to make a mistake you were, long before realizing it."
"Just standard vigilance..."
"To play with words no sense there is, feel your emotions I do... That tension with which ready you were, to bring fire and death upon the temple." Poking a crooked, clawed finger in my direction, Yoda hid it back in his sleeve, then bowed his head forward, chewing his lips again. "To know you I wanted. To see, to evaluate. To understand who you are. Hm? And an answer there is, though unpleasant it is."
I was starting to dislike all of this. I was already seriously considering sending an emergency signal to Somnia and preparing to flee the temple, but the shorty finally opened his eyes, looking in my direction with a mocking glint.
"Your friends here needed they are not. A conversation we have, hm? No more." A sarcastic smirk crawled onto his face, after which the green old-timer waved his hand, lowering the floating stones and sand into the basin. "Despair, slight fear, resignation, readiness... Dangerous traits for a person... But not a soldier, m?"
"Is that a question or... I really don't understand half of this."
"Heartening it is to know that so dangerous a man not very strong in mind he is." Laughing at his own words, Yoda stretched his whole body, straightening his back and closing his eyes for a second in pleasure. "Much I have already understood, and you?"
I wanted to roll my eyes. It felt like we were in a lesson, simultaneously competing in eloquence... And in both cases, I was hopelessly losing this match.
We spent a couple of minutes in silence, each thinking our own thoughts. The Jedi was giving me time, or maybe he had forgotten about me entirely, as the shorty closed his eyes again, possibly sinking into meditation.
"Heard I have of your deeds, young man." Slowly, with a soft intonation, Yoda began the dialogue again, breaking the agonizing and awkward silence. "A question, also, ask I wish. How your freedom, do you understand?"
That was unexpected, to say the least. Right to the point. Now I slightly regretted that the prelude to the conversation had lasted so briefly.
"Freedom..." Carefully choosing my words, I shifted my gaze to a sunbeam stretching across the floor. "It's the right to live the way you want. Not to be a toy in the hands of the powerful. To be equal to everyone else."
The old man's attentive eyes stared at my face again. Looking me over from head to toe, lingering especially on the spot where the thermal detonator was hidden, Yoda gave no sign that he had noticed it.
"But the price, high is it? M?" The shorty's serious tone was alarming; not a trace remained of the light beginning of the conversation with smiles and jokes. "Life for freedom, give it are you ready?"
"Yes." Shrugging, I answered even before I had time to think the question through. My eyes noticed how the Master's eyebrows twitched in surprise, so I hurried to supplement the answer. "I've seen what they do to people under oppression, and I can't stand aside. Everyone deserves... the right to life."
He nodded solidly, pretending—or perhaps actually—as if he understood what I was talking about. Though, this green grandpa is nearly a thousand years old; surely all kinds of shit could have happened to him in that time.
"Your passion I feel." His attentive gaze slid over my face, interrupted by rare sighs during which he closed his eyelids. "But after passion, control follows—yes, necessary it is."
Yoda spoke slowly. Confidently and softly, as if to a child whose trust he was trying to gain. Not that such a tone surprised me much, but it was unusual to hear it addressed to me... Not after years of war.
"I know, but sometimes emotions are the only thing you have." My chest filled with pain from memories, my breathing began to falter, and only by an effort of will was I able to bring my body under control.
"Emotions, a powerful force." More nods... It was starting to get annoying. I hoped he did it out of habit and not to provoke those very emotions in me. "But where does it lead, when in anger you are?"
I understood that proving anything to Yoda was pointless. To him, I was just another kid with a fire under his ass who sees the whole world in one color. Any answer I gave in this situation was a loss. The old man would simply consider it a gesture of despair or, conversely, an acceptance of his position.
"I don't know." My careless answer made the shorty wary. "Sometimes to victory, sometimes to defeat... Either way, it's better to do something and, if necessary, break the 'chains'."
I would have liked to say that was a perfectly thrown stone into the Order's garden. But considering what I saw walking through the temple... In the company of guards, yeah.
"But can you be the one who..." As I said, the Master seemed to let it go in one ear and out the other. He barely flicked an ear; that was the only reaction. "...Who will liberate, without catching the innocent? In this, a great trial it is."
"To be free, you have to fight." I wasn't going to back down here. "Even at the cost of sacrifices..."
Looking into my eyes with a bated breath, Yoda let out a sad sigh.
"In your life, much blood there is..." Glancing toward the window, the Jedi pulled a wooden cane out of nowhere. "But freedom... to protect it are you able? A young man, strong passion, but power over such to darkness leads... Dangerous it is, especially for ones like you. Have you the strength to oppose it? The will? Experience?"
Poking his stick in my direction, Yoda hopped off the chair and, tapping his cane, walked toward the sand basin.
"Experience?" Dozens of deaths instantly flashed before my eyes, perhaps hundreds, the most vivid and horrific of them. "Experience comes with loss, Master. I know that better than anyone." My lips compressed into a thin line, and a grim rasp was added to my voice.
Yoda shone his small, wise eye while the other remained closed. He turned to me, standing against the backdrop of the sand basin, and his tone became softer. "Yes, agree I do. Cases, heavy ones, many there are. But... in the struggle for freedom, the responsibility itself—on your shoulders it is. Democracy you praise, for Republic laws you fight. Dangerous words..."
"And what, in your opinion? Does it matter to the Jedi?" Clenching my fists tight, I felt emotions overflowing, but I still didn't give them free rein. "I don't fight for theories, I fight for people."
A slight smile appeared on the old man's face, softening his features.
"For people, you say? A worthy goal." After a pause, Yoda coughed into his fist, shaking his head. "But listen, young man, how you act will determine who you become."
"And who will I become if I kill slave traders? Certainly not a Jedi who allowed this filth to multiply." I didn't like this conversation at all, and so the words had already begun to burst out of my mouth without thought. I didn't like high-flown speeches. It would have been much easier if I had just fought this annoying old man—even if I lost, it would have been easier than listening to all these veiled questions and answers.
"That is what fear I do. Power you have. Strength. Opportunities. A danger you begin to represent." Smiling, Yoda stepped closer and stopped, leaning on his cane. "Strict control is needed. Discipline. Tempering..."
"A leash." My hand reflexively moved toward the blaster on my belt, and I caught a quiet rustle behind the door.
"Not at all." Following my gaze, the Master suppressed a tired sigh, then spoke again in a brisk voice. "Glad I am that to the conversation you agreed. Much I have learned from you... And about you, hm."
With a wave of his hand, the doors opened, and the green shorty walked toward them with measured steps. Before disappearing around the corner, Yoda turned to me one last time.
"Watch over you we will. Evaluate, reflect... But not interfere, until the final hour."
Leaving behind these final words, which settled in the air like a heavy burden and a hint, Yoda left our meeting room, leaving me alone with my thoughts to wait for Dooku.
***
Read early on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Granulan