More silly fanfic
Oct. 24th, 2005 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kayshaperoOk, Ok, I'm continuing it! Any title suggestions?
Part One was posted awhile back.
Ch 2 – A few answers... and a lot more questions
In due time I wake up, and for some reason have no trouble at all remembering where I am. I’m still in that acceleration couch. It’s comfy, and I’m neither overheated or chilled which is a nice change. I open my eyes and look out the front viewscreen at lotsa pinpoints of light coming towards me and passing to the sides.... I jump a foot (well as best I can with the seatbelt on) “Holy Cats! I’m in Outer Space!”
I hear a giggle behind me. A familiar one. “Go ahead and take off the seatbelt, we’re well away,” the voice adds, so I do and turn around. Nothing.
“Ahem.”
The slightly fuzzy image of a pale woman of indeterminate age, black hair neatly braided, wearing a tan jumpsuit composed largely of pockets full of unidentifiable.. stuff.. (looking amazingly like the mental image I got the first time I saw the term “matrix mechanic” in a Darkover book) appears before me. I feel the impulse to giggle, myself. Jedi geek? I blink quickly, catch the image briefly behind my eyelids. Figures. “You’re still in here,” I say as sternly as I can manage, pointing to my head.
“I’m sorry - I didn’t intend...” regaining her composure. “It was an emergency. I didn’t have much choice.”
Well, well... so even Jedi get flustered occasionally. Of course it’s a wonder I’m not climbing the walls and biting pieces out of the ceiling. “Ok, so whyforhowcome I have a Jedi in my head - and when are you leaving?”
“I’m really sorry.. I was supervising a group of students in the Tatooine outback and.. maybe I’d better just give you the memory.”
“The wha..”
I can’t feel Kendath Sett in the Force at all which is very odd. He’s good, but not enough to mask himself to his instructor. Not yet. The other three are obvious though at least Sengath Fian is trying and I probably wouldn’t know he was there if I weren’t looking for him. Brin Setath and Issitht might as well be shouting “Here I am”. I open my eyes and of course don’t see any of them, just dirt, rocks, and a couple of tiny plants improbably growing in the bottom of the cut I’m following up the hillside. I am careful not to step on them. Any life on Tatooine deserves all the consideration it can get. That and it marks where there must be at least some water retained against all odds from the occasional floods that created this cut in the first place. It’s the dry season, so at least that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about.
I note a tiny spill of dirt next to the plants, look forward a stride and, yes, there are the vaguest traces of footprints. Track back a bit. Someone has come through in a hurry but still careful of where they plant their feet. Nearly stepped on the plants, saw them in time, sidestepped, landed a little clumsily, left a tiny trace. In too much of a hurry to stop and sweep it out. Kendath trying to get well ahead of me? Hmm... we’re near the top, maybe he’s on the other side of the ridge and there’s something shielding him in the ground.
I advance cautiously, leaving even fewer marks than my predecessor did. The cut steepens, then vanishes into a vertical slab of rock which leads to the top of the ridge. So much for this path. I check the ground, see no indication of which way to go next so trust the Force and go to the left.
That won’t work; the water that created the cut also washed around the edges of the slab and brought all the dirt in with it, so that past the edge of the slab is a sheer, steep slope. It did pile up some dirt here before continuing on and in it I find deep gouges, as though someone passed through running. No skid marks on the slope, so I go back the way I came and on to the other side of the slab, finding more running marks. The other end has a number of rock outcrops so that dirt piled around them instead of all going down. And the marks are plain; whoever passed was far too busy to hide their tracks. About a dozen meters, around a boulder... and lying on the ground is what’s left of Kendath. He’s not only dead, there is no Force sign about him whatsoever. It’s like he’d been dead for a month but he was alive this morning. This cannot be an accident.
I call the others “Scrub the exercise; back to base immediately!” and scan the area intently for any sign of life at all. No sign.. but there’s something strange upslope. I climb up a few meters. Force screen! Someone’s using a Force shield of some sort to hide.. to hide what? Something I should probably find out.
I’m nearly at the top of the ridge now, so I continue carefully up until I can stick my head over the rise. There’s a valley on the other side, a landing field with a ship on it, Tatooine–style pit buildings, and a very strong Force signature over it all. Someone’s here, and they really don’t want anybody to know it.
I start to withdraw, carefully... and the Force shield drops. For a second I can see the entire installation, and then it’s as though a heavy curtain has fallen on me from overhead. Totally nonphysical, totally confusing. There is a strong feeling of.. suction for lack of a better word. As though something is trying to remove me from my own body. I feel the others.. none of them has gotten far enough away, and one by one they lose their grip and fly into whatever it is. NO! I can’t let myself get sucked in too. I have to get this information back! I grab onto my essence, everything I am in the Force.. onto the Force itself for that matter and search frantically. There! Like a narrow hole into a bright light, away from the tornado that is sucking at me. I dive through it and... whumf. No more suction, but nothing else either. This goes on for seconds/minutes/hours no idea really, and then I’m once again embodied.. but I’m sharing it with someone else.
“And then there we were on the road to Mos Eisley. When we got close enough I was able to alert XV–74 and you know the rest.”
“Except the answer to my second question.” I reply, shaken.
“I don’t know either. We’ll have to wait until we get back to the base and see if the others can help.”
Sometimes there are just no suitable words. Fighting down an unpleasant mix of fear and fury I manage to reply calmly. “How long will that be?
“A day at most.”
“Long enough to introduce ourselves anyway – I’m Kay, who are you?”
“Oh! My manners! Jedi Instructor Selina Ashan.”
Part One was posted awhile back.
Ch 2 – A few answers... and a lot more questions
In due time I wake up, and for some reason have no trouble at all remembering where I am. I’m still in that acceleration couch. It’s comfy, and I’m neither overheated or chilled which is a nice change. I open my eyes and look out the front viewscreen at lotsa pinpoints of light coming towards me and passing to the sides.... I jump a foot (well as best I can with the seatbelt on) “Holy Cats! I’m in Outer Space!”
I hear a giggle behind me. A familiar one. “Go ahead and take off the seatbelt, we’re well away,” the voice adds, so I do and turn around. Nothing.
“Ahem.”
The slightly fuzzy image of a pale woman of indeterminate age, black hair neatly braided, wearing a tan jumpsuit composed largely of pockets full of unidentifiable.. stuff.. (looking amazingly like the mental image I got the first time I saw the term “matrix mechanic” in a Darkover book) appears before me. I feel the impulse to giggle, myself. Jedi geek? I blink quickly, catch the image briefly behind my eyelids. Figures. “You’re still in here,” I say as sternly as I can manage, pointing to my head.
“I’m sorry - I didn’t intend...” regaining her composure. “It was an emergency. I didn’t have much choice.”
Well, well... so even Jedi get flustered occasionally. Of course it’s a wonder I’m not climbing the walls and biting pieces out of the ceiling. “Ok, so whyforhowcome I have a Jedi in my head - and when are you leaving?”
“I’m really sorry.. I was supervising a group of students in the Tatooine outback and.. maybe I’d better just give you the memory.”
“The wha..”
I can’t feel Kendath Sett in the Force at all which is very odd. He’s good, but not enough to mask himself to his instructor. Not yet. The other three are obvious though at least Sengath Fian is trying and I probably wouldn’t know he was there if I weren’t looking for him. Brin Setath and Issitht might as well be shouting “Here I am”. I open my eyes and of course don’t see any of them, just dirt, rocks, and a couple of tiny plants improbably growing in the bottom of the cut I’m following up the hillside. I am careful not to step on them. Any life on Tatooine deserves all the consideration it can get. That and it marks where there must be at least some water retained against all odds from the occasional floods that created this cut in the first place. It’s the dry season, so at least that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about.
I note a tiny spill of dirt next to the plants, look forward a stride and, yes, there are the vaguest traces of footprints. Track back a bit. Someone has come through in a hurry but still careful of where they plant their feet. Nearly stepped on the plants, saw them in time, sidestepped, landed a little clumsily, left a tiny trace. In too much of a hurry to stop and sweep it out. Kendath trying to get well ahead of me? Hmm... we’re near the top, maybe he’s on the other side of the ridge and there’s something shielding him in the ground.
I advance cautiously, leaving even fewer marks than my predecessor did. The cut steepens, then vanishes into a vertical slab of rock which leads to the top of the ridge. So much for this path. I check the ground, see no indication of which way to go next so trust the Force and go to the left.
That won’t work; the water that created the cut also washed around the edges of the slab and brought all the dirt in with it, so that past the edge of the slab is a sheer, steep slope. It did pile up some dirt here before continuing on and in it I find deep gouges, as though someone passed through running. No skid marks on the slope, so I go back the way I came and on to the other side of the slab, finding more running marks. The other end has a number of rock outcrops so that dirt piled around them instead of all going down. And the marks are plain; whoever passed was far too busy to hide their tracks. About a dozen meters, around a boulder... and lying on the ground is what’s left of Kendath. He’s not only dead, there is no Force sign about him whatsoever. It’s like he’d been dead for a month but he was alive this morning. This cannot be an accident.
I call the others “Scrub the exercise; back to base immediately!” and scan the area intently for any sign of life at all. No sign.. but there’s something strange upslope. I climb up a few meters. Force screen! Someone’s using a Force shield of some sort to hide.. to hide what? Something I should probably find out.
I’m nearly at the top of the ridge now, so I continue carefully up until I can stick my head over the rise. There’s a valley on the other side, a landing field with a ship on it, Tatooine–style pit buildings, and a very strong Force signature over it all. Someone’s here, and they really don’t want anybody to know it.
I start to withdraw, carefully... and the Force shield drops. For a second I can see the entire installation, and then it’s as though a heavy curtain has fallen on me from overhead. Totally nonphysical, totally confusing. There is a strong feeling of.. suction for lack of a better word. As though something is trying to remove me from my own body. I feel the others.. none of them has gotten far enough away, and one by one they lose their grip and fly into whatever it is. NO! I can’t let myself get sucked in too. I have to get this information back! I grab onto my essence, everything I am in the Force.. onto the Force itself for that matter and search frantically. There! Like a narrow hole into a bright light, away from the tornado that is sucking at me. I dive through it and... whumf. No more suction, but nothing else either. This goes on for seconds/minutes/hours no idea really, and then I’m once again embodied.. but I’m sharing it with someone else.
“And then there we were on the road to Mos Eisley. When we got close enough I was able to alert XV–74 and you know the rest.”
“Except the answer to my second question.” I reply, shaken.
“I don’t know either. We’ll have to wait until we get back to the base and see if the others can help.”
Sometimes there are just no suitable words. Fighting down an unpleasant mix of fear and fury I manage to reply calmly. “How long will that be?
“A day at most.”
“Long enough to introduce ourselves anyway – I’m Kay, who are you?”
“Oh! My manners! Jedi Instructor Selina Ashan.”
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