Post by ender on Aug 5, 2009 19:55:33 GMT -5
A Souvenir Part 3
As Corran watched Ender and Tigeress’ transport ship leave the hangar of the {Jedi} palace, he could not help but wonder if this whole ordeal was really worth it. Who knows? Perhaps it was. Corran absently set his ship to escort mode and assumed the task of studying his fingernails. Corran supposed that there could not be anything dangerous of visiting an old Jedi temple that has been abandoned for who knows how long. It still bothered him, though. If it was on Coruscant, one would think the Horowitz Crystal would have been uncovered by now. Out of the billions of people and the thousands of years that have passed, one would think that someone would tripped over it.
His ship silently followed Ender and Tigeress of its own accord, gliding through the atmosphere and breaching the black emptiness of space. The stars glittered brightly in that way that made Corran comfortable; he loved the feeling of space. It was a sense of freedom and openness. Even time seemed to have no hold on Corran here, for there was no schedule that open space followed; neither day nor night. It was a calling to go anywhere in which he pleased. Behind {Jedi}, space was a second home.
But today, there was a keen destination in mind, and in all improbability, was designed to strike at an object no bigger than Corran’s hand. He watched as the ship he was escorting began to swing its nose to target the center of the galaxy, physically and politically; the planet of Coruscant. Corran supposed he should be somewhat happy to go there; it was not often he had the chance to stand in a city with the history that it did. He may even have the chance to explore an old and ancient temple. It was truly a shame that the Temple has been so carelessly guarded over the last centuries; he would rather have attempted to sneak past high security into a temple that still contained its priceless possessions rather than walk right into a barren building. Corran sighed and leaned back in his chair, staring out as stars turned from points to lines as they blasted off into lightspeed. It would take a while before they reached Coruscant, so Corran may as well attempt to think of things that Tigeress and Ender may have missed.
Care the padawns of this age have not. That was yoda’s first line. What did it mean? Apparently Yoda was upset of how the Jedi trainees of the time were acting; that was the basic meaning. Nothing deeper than that? Perhaps it was an introductory of his concerns of what may happen after his death, that much of the knowledge of the Jedi Order may be lost. Perhaps he wished for his crystal to be passed to one that could figure the meaning in this journal and appreciate it. That crystal will give wisdom and serenity to the one who gains it, or power, both of which to degrees that would take a century to learn. Perhaps Yoda felt that such traits should be accessible to at least one that was worthy of it. That sentence could possibly mean that Yoda was concerned enough with the issue to the point that he would be willing to pass on his crystal to another that could take his place.
To what purpose did Yoda mention Count Dooku? Why would he include his old apprentice in this text? Did he simply insert him in that it would be a convenient way for the passage to conform to the text around it? That sounded most plausible, but it also may indicate that Count Dooku had once been a choice of Yoda’s for the Crystal, but in the next line, it indicated that he failed the trials. At first glance, Corran had assumed that it meant the Trials that padawans endured in their tests to become a Jedi. Obviously, Yoda had really meant the trials to be worthy of the crystal. Why Yoda did not choose him was something that Corran did not know, but as indicated in the next line after that, there was darkness in him that Yoda dared not entertain with such a powerful crystal.
The fourth line seemed to indicate most strongly what Corran had already theorized about Yoda wishing to pass on the crystal; that his teachings will not be in vain, that one intelligent enough to decipher the meaning will be permitted the crystal’s accessories.
Corran ran a hand through his hair as he studied his feet. The fifth line must be about Coruscant. Still, that did not narrow the search very much. Corran didn’t see why Yoda didn’t just say “Jedi Temple”, or just “Temple” to keep the code consistent. Why “Tall and reaching city?” It would have saved them a lot of time. That would be something that would have to be investigated further once they reached Coruscant.
Corran sighed. The next two lines made no sense. “Choices that will affect all”? Listen to the wind? What did that mean? Perhaps he was referring to his own time, when Anakin Skywalker betrayed the Jedi Order. His choice certainly affected the entire galaxy. But he chose to write that in the passage about the crystal. Why would he do that, unless he wasn’t even referring to Darth Vader? And why listen to the wind? Why not listen to the Force? It seemed rather superstitious for someone with the prestige of one such as Yoda.
Corran grunted sourly as he absently ran his gaze across the grooves and markings on the ship he was escorting. Some parts had greater depth, and other parts had greater elevation. It was uneven, inconsistent; it was not level. It was like the hunt for this crystal; some ideas seemed to elevate their chances, while others plunged it down a canyon to its grave. There was no consistent or level guideline in which to follow. There were too many “could’s” for Corran’s tastes. There could be more than one journal. The crystal could already be in some person’s collection. It could have been destroyed. It could have been misplaced. It could have been moved. Anything could have happened in the course of a century, let alone millennia. There must be a way to make this a level field; give them a steady chance, rather than a hopeless bantha fodder chase.
Corran leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He pictured the passage in his head and embarked on a thorough study of it. He studied each and every line carefully, looking for any and every possible hidden meaning.
When he made it to the fifth line, it felt as though an iron pole had hit him in the face, hard. Tall and reaching city? Did that mean the buildings were tall and reaching, or the actual city itself? Corran felt his heart racing. Buildings did not necessarily make a city.
Corran opened his eyes, sat up, and contacted Tigeress and Ender.
“So what are your thoughts, Tigeress?” asked Ender, sitting in front of the controls to make sure that automatic pilot was still on course. There have been times in Ender’s career that his automatic piloting had gone haywire without him realizing it until he was about a hundred feet away from an enemy base. Those Pazaak games were quite distracting.
Tigeress, standing over Ender looking out into space with her arms folded, sighed and toyed with her lightsaber, “I don’t know Ender. We haven’t put much thought into what we are actually going to do once we reach Coruscant. It’s a monstrous place to find a tiny crystal. That passage was quite vague.”
“Well,” Ender replied, “I brought the book with me. You can check to see if there are other passages referring to the crystal.”
Tigeress shook her head, “I’ve already looked through it. There is nothing else there, at least not encoded like it was the first time.
“Well,” Ender said, “I guess all we can do is just look through it again. There are plenty of restaurants on Coruscant that we can go to eat while we take another look through the book.”
Tigeress gave Ender a blank stare, “You and your eating habits, Ender, are no better than a bantha’s. We just ate an hour ago!”
“We did?”
“I would smack you across the head if I didn’t find it so improper and unqueenly like.” She gave him a sniff and turned her attention back to studying the lightspeed affects outside.
Ender sat there for a moment with a blank stare on his face. He was just about to say something when the intercom blared, making Ender jump. Tigeress leaned over towards the controls to answer, “Yes Corran?”
His voice came in through the speaker, “Stop the ship, we are going the wrong planet.”
Tigeress and Ender gave each other confused glances. “What do you mean?” replied Tigeress.
“We need to go to a different planet. Stop the engines, we need to turn around.”
“Ugh…fine. This better be good Corran.” Ender pressed some buttons and braced himself.
As the engine swiched off from lightspeed, the bright white lines quickly changed back into white dotted stars across a black void of space. Tigeress was breathing in heavily to conjure her most annoyed sigh yet, when all of a sudden the entire ship lurched as if struck by a canon, causing her to lose her balance and go into a coughing fit while Ender nearly fell out of his chair. Ender regained his poise and turned off automatic pilot. He assumed control and turned the shields on to maximum. His mouth dropped open when he looked outside, “You can’t be serious…”
Turbolasers and canons deafened space as they were repeatedly fired in incoherent directions. Ranging from capital ships to small fighter planes, everyone seemed to be trying to blast someone else out of the sky. It was difficult to tell if there were only two sides or if there were seven. As far as Ender looked, he witnessed explosions and a hail of red and green lasers zipping through space, almost to the point of blinding vision. They had dived headfirst into a full fledged war.
“Ender…” Tigeress said worriedly, “This ship…is…designed for battle…right?”
Ender ran a hand through his hair and chuckled, “yea um….well…”
He winced when she bent down as if to take off her shoe and throw it at him. Instead, she ran both of her hands through her hair and yelled in frustration.
“You idiot! Why didn’t you take our normal ship out of the hangar!?” The ship lurched again as it was struck by another attack.
After they had regained their balance, Ender yelled, “This ship was closer, and I didn’t think Corran would tell us to stop in the middle of a damn battle! I mean seriously, what were the chances!?” Tigeress looked as though she wanted to wrap her hands around his neck in a very unkindly manner.
“You know,” Ender said as he sent the ship dodging this way and that, “When Corran told us to slow down, you could have tapped your foot irritably. You could have sighed a bit longer. You could have hesitated, anything to have stalled and place us three or four hundred thousand miles away from this place! Now we are in a forsaken battle because you had to agree to slow down too soon!”
Tigeress screamed in exasperation, “Just shut up and pay attention to what you’re doing!”
“Corran!” Ender said into the intercom, “You have any ideas?”
“Of course, Ender. This is my specialty, remember?” Despite the chaos, he seemed perfectly amused that he would ask such a question, “Just hang on for a few moments and I’ll clear a path for us.”
“To where?”
“That capital ship over there.” A beep on the radar indicated a ship to their right. Ender and Tigeress looked to see a monstrous ship that fired more canons than any other ship on the field, making a rather large death sphere around itself in which nothing survived. It couldn’t possibly look any deadlier had it grown spikes all over its hull.
“Are you out of your flaming mind? That thing will kill us faster than just jumping ship! Why can’t we just leave the battle and jump to lightspeed?!”
“If you can see a perimeter of this battle that we can safely get to,” Corran mused, “Then please, point it out.”
Ender looked around. He was right; there wasn’t anywhere where the battle was remotely thin enough for them to safely jump to lightspeed. Ender sighed, “Ok, so why do you wish to head to that ship?”
“It will be our transport out of this battle.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Why,” Corran said, “We’re taking it over of course.”
“What!” Ender and Tigeress yelled at the same time.
“Just follow my lead.” And his fighter ship blasted off towards the capital ship.
“Well, now we know that Corran’s finally cracked,” Ender said resignedly, “I knew he shouldn’t have held it all in…”
“We’re going to lose Corran if we don’t follow, Ender.” Tigeress said.
“If Tchdwn ever finds out about this, he is going to go through the roof….” Ender sighed for what must have been the hundredth time that day, and sent the ship flying towards what must have been the quickest way to die.
As he was following Corran, he noticed that he wasn’t flying his normal ship, “Hey Corran! Where’s your other ship? Why didn’t you bring it with you?”
“You think I would risk my best ship on one of your adventures, Ender?” Corran said. Ender could almost feel the sarcastic smile on Corran’s face.
“You’re lucky I’m not close to you, Corran. So what did you want us to do, head to the hangar?”
“Precisely sir.”
“Alright, how do you plan on getting us there?”
“With this.”
All of a sudden Corran’s ship emitted a missile that zoomed across space faster than most of the laser beams. Violently, it made contact with the ship, and the sound of the explosion almost overlapped everything else.
“The shields are down for thirty seconds. Hopefully others will see this as a chance to take it out. This way the canons and turrets will be occupied. You have to move fast Ender. Get to the hangar as quick as possible.”
“What are you going to do?” Tigeress asked.
“I have other plans.” And with that he headed off in another direction.
“Look Ender,” Tigeress pointed to the main turrets guarding the hangar, “They are busy. We are not very far away now; just a few more seconds’ distraction and we will make it.”
Ender could feel sweat coming from every pore as he concentrated on not getting killed. Every second seemed to drag on and on, as though time were traveling through jelly. He moved his clumsy ship this way and that, surviving for just a few moments more. So long as those main turrets did not target him, he should be alright. Just one more second and...
“Yes Ender! You made it!” Tigeress said excitedly as the ship landed softly into the hangar, “You aren’t so thick headed after all!”
Ender breathed heavily, “Usually,” he said between his gasps, “when entering an enemy hangar, you usually end up crashing and completely destroying your ship. At least they always do in those holocroms I see ah….Sweet mother of Jabba the hutt! Get out!”
Ender desperately pressed the emergency escape button and both he and Tigeress force leaped out of the ship just as it was completely decimated by a very large rocket fired from the other side of the hangar. Once they finished their roll, Tigeress thrust out her hand to force push debris heading in their direction.
“I will not have my clothes getting dirty,” Tigeres said as though that were more important than getting stuck in the head by a flying piece of metal.
Just then, thirty troopers with rifles burst out of several doorways and took positions to fire. From the markings on their uniforms, they were from of one of Sith’s clans.
“Well, sorry Tigeress” Ender sighed once again as he ignited his double bladed red lightsaber, “Looks like we’ll have to do some killing after all.”
very good. keep it up.
