Fiach’s Jedi Trials

[Fiach Dubh]

The siren blared, then clanged, announcing the start of another day. A day like yesterday. A day like tomorrow. If you survived it.

She had been here only five days, and it felt like a lifetime.

The factories on Nar Shaddaa rose hundreds of stories and were spread out over hundreds of metres. The spice went through a multistep processing system. It could not be exposed to light, so the slaves lived in perpetual darkness. Much of the spice was off-loaded from ships that had made the Kessel Run. Other spice was cut in huge underground caverns. All of it was ferried up to the processing levels where the spice was dried or frozen, then processed into blocks.

Enormous power plants supplied energy. At the end of the long day, the workers filed out from the darkness, almost blinded, only to walk under a sky thick with toxic fumes. Taking a deep breath of the grey, particulate-laden air could lead to a long coughing fit.

Security was constant. The slaves were guarded by patrolling natives of Nar Shaddaa as well as droids. Escape was impossible. Even if one could manage to elude the guards and security devices, there would be nowhere to hide. The native citizens of Nar Shaddaa benefited from the slave trade. If they dissented, they were either threatened or bought off with huge bribes. The spaceports of this moon world were tightly controlled by Pestana. There was no way to break out and nowhere to go.

The whole operation ran incredibly smoothly, Fiach thought in disgust. Greed did not make Pestana sloppy.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Fiach glanced up from her duties. The pirate Pestana stood on a platform a hundred metres high. Standing next to him was the diplomatic ship’s captain. What was he doing there? Weren’t they bitter enemies? After all, Pestana had attacked his ship!

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Fiach was so exhausted that she craved her sleep-mat, on the hard ground in the large durasteel warehouse that served as slave quarters. The slaves were packed tightly in rows, and the rain came through leaks in the roof that made puddles that never dried. Sleep-mats were thin and tattered, and the cold and damp seeped up from the ground to chill bodies that had already been pushed to their limits.

No matter how much she craved sleep, it was elusive. Fiach lay awake long after others around her were breathing quietly, huddled under thin blankets, some pressed close to one another for warmth. She stared up at a tiny sliver of sky she could glimpse through the roof. She could not see a star, but she imagined one.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Fiach did not know how or why but one morning she was rudely grabbed whilst working in line and taken to a security area. The guard informed her of her fate as he locked her in. “Seems they worked out that gadget of yours was a lightsaber. Given you’re a Jedi, you’re here to await execution.”

She was locked together in the lowest level of Pestana’s complex in a high-security cell. Fiach put her palms on the door as if she could force it open.

Instead, she focused on the Force and the mechanism. Using her Jedi abilities, she shorted the lock for a few moments – long enough to open the door.

There were no guards in the corridor.

“I’m glad these pirates trust high-tech security too much,” Fiach muttered.

She quickly scoured the area and found a weapons locker. Opening it was simple, and inside she found her saber. In truth, she had sensed it there.

Then she headed to where the slaves were. The time for subtleties were over. She would soon be discovered as having escaped, so she had to think fast.

Activating her lightsaber, she was upon the droids before they could respond to the attack. She leaped high in the air and then came down, slicing her lightsaber through the droids and splitting them in half. As the third droid kept up blaster fire, it retreated to the console desk, no doubt to raise an alarm. Fiach cut down the droid and then buried her shaft in the console communication panel. It sizzled and smoked.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Fiach gathered the team of slaves to set explosives. She had destroyed a small squad of guard droids with a combination of the Force and his lightsaber. The victory over the guard droids had caused a giant cheer to rise among the slaves, and soon they stripped the droids of weapons and fashioned their own. The rebellion spread.

Fiach stopped only long enough to ensure that the explosion had worked and that the slaves had the upper hand in the battle.

Fiach raced from the factory toward the turbolift. If she knew Pestana, she guessed that the pirate would not remain. As soon as Pestana knew the rebellion could not be put down, he would head for his transport. Fiach intended to stop him.

She burst out on the landing platform in time to see Pestana hurrying toward his ship. The pirate carried a blaster in one hand and a vibro-ax in the other.

Fiach raced from the opposite end of the platform, her lightsaber already activated. Pestana saw her and quickened his pace.

But Fiach was faster. With a leap, she landed in front of Pestana.

“It is time to pay for your crimes,” she said.

“Not by the likes of you, girl,” Pestana sneered.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Fiach attacked. She felt no fear. There was something in her blood, something strange, as though ice now moved through her veins. It was not anger, she told herself. It did not feel like anger. It felt like justice. Purpose.

All the lives below in the factories, all the lives she had known on Klatooine. All who had suffered, they were in her hands now. Everyone she’d known and lost.

She slashed out at Pestana. The pirate was quicker than she expected. Blaster fire singed the sleeve of Fiach’s tunic. Fiach reversed and kicked out, hoping to dislodge the weapon from Pestana’s meaty fist. But the pirate absorbed the blow and held on.

The ping of blaster fire followed Fiach as she somersaulted and landed to Pestana’s left. The pirate dodged the first lightsaber pass and Fiach tossed the lightsaber to her other hand and came at him from a surprising angle. Pestana bellowed as the lightsaber grazed him.

He lifted the vibro-ax as though it were a toy, and came at Fiach from below. Startled, Fiach twisted away, but not before the vibro-ax grazed her wrist. The pain was blinding. If Pestana had been a centimeter or two closer, he would have severed her hand.

Fiach tossed the lightsaber back to her good hand. She leaped around Pestana and attacked from behind. Pestana turned and aimed the blaster. Fiach dodged the fire and moved forward, forcing Pestana to back up.

She felt righteousness pump through her. From now on, she would make no mistakes.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Memories pounded in her, of so many slaves. She began to match Pestana’s viciousness with her own, driving him back toward the wall. She saw the first flicker of fear in Pestana’s eyes and she found she was enjoying it. What was happening?

“You will die, Pestana,” she said through her teeth. “You will die at the hands of a girl.”

Pestana was too exhausted to answer. His hair was wet and matted, and his powerful arm shook as he tried to raise the vibro-ax against Fiach.

Fiach had him now. She would show no mercy. Pestana deserved none. There was no capturing him. There was only killing him.

Fiach raised her lightsaber to deliver the fatal blow.

The lightsaber slashed downward. Fiach stopped a few centimetres from Pestana’s chest. The pirate’s mouth opened and he locked eyes with Fiach.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“I am no executioner,” Fiach said, deactivating her saber and reaching for a set of cuffs for the pirate.

“You lack the backbone to kill me. I think you’re still afraid of me.”

Fiach smiled a small smile. It was not one of humour but perhaps of pity. “No. You underestimate me or overestimate yourself. Or perhaps both. You will pay for your crimes and be tried in a fair and just system. Your punishment will be handed down by a court of justice. What you did, you will atone for. It is not for me to judge you or to hold you accountable. I…I forgive you.”

“You what?” Pestana’s voice was incredulous.

“I cannot harbour thoughts of injustice against me. That is not the Jedi way. So I forgive you. Not for what you did to others but what you did to me and how I view your crimes. I don’t expect you to understand. I suspect you never will.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“Make no mistake, I believe he is an evil man, but unless I forgive, my perspective is one of revenge. Vengeance. And that cannot be the Jedi way.”

Fiach was being debriefed.

The Master nodded sagely. “You have shown wisdom here. Not only in capturing the pirate and exposing the fact the diplomats were in league with them, but in putting aside your emotions. No, going further, setting aside personal thoughts against someone you could easily have wished dead. And for this, the Jedi Council have decided you have passed the Trial of Forgiveness.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

JEDI TRIAL: PROTECTION

“I am a Jedi. I’m one with the Force, and the Force will guide me.”
– Ganodi

“Well Missy,” the mechanic drawled, running a filthy rag between his blackened hands. “You’ve done quite a number on your ship here.”

“I didn’t do anything to my ship,” Fiach said wearily. “A power flux ripped it out of hyperspace. It fried the drive, cooked the backup, and melted the stabilisers and motivator on its way out!”

The pasture of some smelly, indeterminate ruminant ringed the landing site that passed for a spaceport. More ominous, Fiach noted, were the rusted swoops and ancient, gutted freighters which littered the cramped landing pad. She doubted anything in the port had operated under its own power in the last sixteen years. And the mechanic she now faced was likely personally responsible for the state of disrepair.

The man withdrew a datapad from a grimy pocket. “This is the inventory of replacement drives we can get.”

As she reviewed the meagre list, she wondered if she could simply contact the Order and get them to send a replacement. But she was supposed to be under cover.

She looked back at the list. There were all very old, and very overpriced. There wasn’t even a quick-and-dirty substitute that was safe enough and cheap enough to get her to a decent shipyard.

“We don’t have anything else,” he said, without a hint of sorrow in his voice.

“How long?” she asked.

“A week.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

With a deep breath Fiach plunged into the throng of peasants and animals crowding the market square. Squeezing between an oversized vegetable cart and a booth of wheel-sized cheeses, Fiach then swerved to avoid a shaggy something smelling vaguely of nerf. When a gap-toothed woman in shapeless black thrust a squawking bird in her face, Fiach wondered if she’d last a week.

“Fight!”

Fiach circled around. Two quarrelling men, one as short as the other was fat, had attracted a crowd. Words and spittle flew, with fists sure to follow, to the smaller man’s disadvantage.

“Friends,” Fiach found herself saying. “May I assist you?”

A hush fell as all eyes turned to the Jedi woman. “Who are you?” the larger man demanded.

“Jedi!” someone called from the back.

“Don’t look like no Jedi,” the man snarled.

She placed a hand on each man’s shoulders and within a few moments, she was on her way, the men miraculously agreeing to settle their differences amicably.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

The repair was almost completed and Fiach was waiting for the mechanic to ideally speed up, if at all possible. She was not so much under a time restraint, but she did not care to wait around settling trade disputes over the price of fruit for another few days if she could help it.

A timid, “Uh, excuse me,” so startled Fiach that she fell off the rock she was sitting on.

Fiach took in the simple brown robe he wore and the metal handle at his waist.

“Can I help you?”

He straightened with her challenge but stumbled over the words. “Yes, I’m Bradley.”

“You can call me Fiach. Tell me Bradley, do you know what this is?” She pointed at some char marks between couplings on a part that the mechanic had removed from her ship.

He shook his head.

Fiach pulled a magnifier from her front pocket and began crawling up the length of the drive shaft. There. Between the eighth and ninth couplings.

She handed him the magnifier.

“It looks like a…wire?”

“It’s an old saboteur’s trick. You create a complete circuit by connecting the couplings of a hyperdrive. A piece of wire as thin as a hair will do the job. Then send a spark up the drive shaft and it’ll arc, from one coupling to the next. Fry the entire system.” She waved at the drive’s far end. “Somewhere in there I’ll find the remains of a relay or battery that generated the power surge.”

Bradley cleared his throat. “Do you know why?”

Fiach slowly stood. “Yeah. Probably. Someone didn’t want me to get where I was supposed to be.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“Why are you here exactly?”

“The Force.”

Fiach nodded. There was no arguing with that.

“Couldn’t we have caught a shuttle?” Fiach asked from the passenger seat of Bradley’s rented landspeeder.

“I didn’t know where to find you,” Bradley responded. His eyes wandered about the bucolic landscape. “Everyone within a thousand kilometres was talking about a woman that was doing good and I sensed the Force at work.”

Fiach drummed her fingers on the console. Someone had sabotaged her ship, known her route, and set the drive to blow in the first inhabited system. But who? And why?

They turned right and drove through a battered and ancient gate.

Feeling the speeder steadily accelerate. Fiach glanced at Bradley. He was staring ahead. She had felt a growing anxiety since they drove on to the property.

They rounded a blind turn and the farmhouse was only a few metres ahead. Fiach was out of the speeder before Bradley coaxed it to a stop. She yanked out her saber and ran to the farmhouse. The door was open, ajar and askew. There was the sign of a struggle and at the door’s threshold lay a Jedi robe.

“If they were looking for you, I fear they found my Master.”

Fiach looked at him.

“They may have thought once your drive failed you would go to a more populated area,” Bradley said. “And when you didn’t, they looked the same way I did. A planet is a big place to search for a single person.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“I can take it from here,” Fiach explained.

When Bradley smiled, years seem to fall from him. “It’s hard to explain, but the Force guided me here. I’d like to see it through.”

The mechanic ran out to meet them when they pulled up at the port. Ignoring Bradley’s reprimanding frown, Fiach again jumped out before he stopped the speeder. “What’ve you found?” she asked, forcing calm into her voice as they jogged to the port building.

“Not much, missy. I got a couple reports of a skiff going really fast heading north.”

She and the mechanic pushed into the tiny port administration building. “How long ago?”

“Couple of hours.”

Bradley’s voice came from the door. “Why did they notice the skiff at all?”

The mechanic eyed the Jedi, as if weighing where his loyalties lay. “It was big, new, fast. Nothing like that around here.”

“Okay, I need to slice into the spaceport records. I’m looking for the incoming ship registry.”

The mechanic blanched, looking from Fiach to Bradley and back again. “But missy,” he stammered.

“The only way to figure out where this young Padawan’s Master has gone is to look at where they probably took her.”

The mechanic nodded reluctantly, still eyeing the young Jedi skeptically. Bradley winked and held out his hands in a “Who am I to argue?” gesture.

Fiach scooted up to the data console. After several minutes of work she was scrolling through the port entries.

“I need to see the ship names,” Bradley announced suddenly, crowding them at the terminal.

“And I need to see what flight plans and cargo they registered.”

The mechanic keyed a command and three columns of information appeared. Fiach began anxiously searching.

“There!” Bradley suddenly exulted.

“And why do you think so?”

“Just the name, Zephyr,” Bradley hedged. “I have a feeling about it.”

“A feeling?” Fiach turned back to study the screen. “I don’t suppose your feeling noticed the Zephyr arrived the day after I did, and made no customs declaration, even though a ship that class has over two thousand metric tons of cargo space?”

“Missy,” the mechanic said, new worry colouring his tone. “See that blinking indicator? The Zephyr filed clearance to leave.”

“How long? “

“An hour, maybe two.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Dawn was less than an hour away. Fiach followed the speeder’s map through the city to the spaceport and an alley that ran along the back of the port. She manoeuvred the speeder down the narrow passage, weaving back and forth between the trash and broken, pitted pavement. She eased the speeder into a sheltered alcove and shut it down.

The back port wall loomed above them, slimy, dirty and a full five metres high. Scanning up and down the alley, Fiach found the hoped-for service entrance.

A quick pulse with the Force and the door opened.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“We should be within a bay or two of where the Zephyr’s docked,” Fiach commented. They hid behind a trash heap in the alley. The port’s back wall towered above them.

“We’re going to have to hurry,” the young Padawan said, turning toward her. His serious countenance suddenly changed, a smile appearing where solemnity had been. His eyes flickered up to her face.

“What is it?” Fiach asked, brushing a loose strand of hair away with her elbow.

“There’s something you should know.”

“What now?”

“There’s a big smudge of dirt on your forehead.”

Fiach wiped her forehead and saw a large smear of black grease. Groaning, she remembered working on the ship’s drive a lifetime ago. “It’s been on there since you met me at the ship, right?”

The smirk was now a full-blown grin. “Uh-huh.”

“You could have said something,” she accused, still wiping.

“I just did. And you missed a spot.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

She quickly scanned the port. “There.” She pointed at a hulking freighter two docking bays over.

They ran quickly, it was a race against the coming dawn and prying eyes. Fiach leaped to a rung on the ship’s hull and climbed up to the Zephyr’s top hatch. The young Padawan was right behind her.

Bradley gave the hatch lever a strong pull. It didn’t move. “It’s locked!”

“Of course it is.” Fiach used the Force once more. She heard the gentle whirring of gears, then a soft snap.

With her left hand on the hatch. Fiach drew her saber with her right. She popped the hatch open; warm, yellow light poured out.

The dropped soundlessly to the floor. Bradley glanced around quickly, then pushed a pressure plate on the wall. A door slid open and they scurried into the dark cabin. “How should we look for her?” he asked.

“Given you’re her Padawan, can you sense her?”

“No, I’ve tried.”

Fiach put a finger to her lips and eased the cabin door open as heavy footfalls moved passed. They slipped out silently and Fiach activated her saber with a snap-hiss.

“That’s right,” Fiach said softly. “Put your hands up and away from that nice blaster at your side.”

“Now, are you going to tell me where the Jedi is?”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

When she and the young padawan burst into the cabin, the Jedi’s exclamation of “Bradley!” encompassed relief and a question, all in a single word.

Fiach pushed her captive into a chair. “Sit.” To the Jedi she said, “Got anything to tie him up?”

“What they used on me will work admirably on him,” the Jedi said, snapping a length of cord in her hands.

There was an ugly bruise across the Jedi’s face, but she was mobile. “You okay?” Fiach asked.

“Nothing that a week in a spa won’t cure.”

They all jumped as a new, commanding voice burst into the cabin. “Report!”

The Jedi pointed at the comlink affixed to the man’s collar.

Fiach strode to the bound man, tore the gag from his mouth and held her saber hilt squarely between his eyes. “You are going to answer your comlink. Don’t even think about being cute.”

The man nodded. “What is it?” His voice was rough but otherwise normal.

“Where are you?”

“Tell him you’re here,” Fiach mouthed.

“I’m in my quarters,” the man rasped.

“Good,” the other voice barked. “Stay there. We may have been boarded. We’re searching the ship now.”

The other voice clicked off. As Fiach crammed the gag back in the man’s mouth, the Jedi plucked the comlink from his uniform and affixed it to her own collar.

“Fiach,” Bradley called.

“Yes?”

He was studying the cabin wall. “This is an exterior bulkhead, right?”

Fiach smiled and soon the silence was broken by the low hum of two sabers.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Fiach started the count. On her “Three!” the hull plate buckled, then clattered to the ground. Fresh air and light streamed in. “Anyone around?” she asked.

Bradley shook his head. “For now, no. But we don’t have much time.”

They jumped and landed in the shadow of the Zephyr’s underbelly, concealed by a landing skid.

Bradley gestured to the docking bay’s entrance on the other side of the landing pad. “I think that’s the only way out.”

“And it’s in the line of their laser cannons,” Fiach noted.

They had covered half the distance between the ship’s bow and the docking bay exit. Fiach was beginning to think maybe no one would notice when Fiach heard the ear-splitting whine of laser fire. She turned and indicated the others should proceed.

Laserfire poured from the Zephyr’s forward guns. And Fiach’s saber parried every one.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Out of the corner of her vision, Fiach saw movement, flickers at the top of the Zephyr’s ramp, inside the ship. She hoped the Jedi and Padawan were making short work of the security door.

Her mind had been ticking off the seconds. She knew, rationally, they had not been under fire for more than a minute. It seemed an eternity.

The wail of repulsors suddenly filled the docking bay.

Fiach glanced up, wondering why it had gone so dark. A freighter hovered overhead. It was obviously piloted by someone who was really angry, and a friend, Fiach concluded with surprise, as the ship poured cannon fire into the Zephyr.

The Zephyr shuddered, helpless on the ground. Fiach stared again at the ship, noticing the distinctive bow markings. What was her ship doing here?

Fiach’s comlink burst to life. “Missy, hope you don’t mind. I figured you might need some help.” He underscored the point with another deafening volley into the grounded ship.

The roar of the Zephyr coming to life drowned out any more words. The Zephyr’s repulsors screamed, blowing dust in the landing bay. Threatened from above, the ship abandoned her victims on the ground and surged up. Fiach felt her heart stop as the Zephyr swerved and narrowly missed her hovering ship. Free of the docking bay, the Zephyr shot into the sky.

“It’s all right Missy. She’s running now. I’ve called customs. They’ll intercept.”

“Actually...” Fiach began.

Frowning, Bradley asked, “What?”

“Well, they have no way of knowing about that hole we cut in the hull. If they get too high up…”

Fiach yelled into her comlink. “Back off! Tell customs not to chase them. That ship’s not spaceworthy. She’ll blow if she goes much higher.”

In the sky, they saw a flash.

And the Zephyr was gone.