Chapter 40 (Patreon)

“So... yeah.” Karray stared at the enormous box, trying to imagine just how big the cake inside must be and how much chocolate it contained. The Jedi boy had turned out to be a decent guy after all, not a cheapskate like some members of his Order.

“Thanks.” Karray wasn’t stupid. One look at the boy, several years older than her and concentrating hard on keeping his bulky load balanced, told her she should accept the gift, but doing it right here in the corridor was probably a bad idea.

As for the gift itself... She looked at the young blond’s face, happy and serious at the same time.

Yeah. He meant it.

Which meant...

“Come on, hurry up. That’s gotta be heavy, right?”

Ignoring the Padawan’s raised eyebrows, Karray scampered toward her private workshop. It wasn’t far, and the young chimerologist could easily have carried the oversized sugary token of the Jedi boy’s gratitude herself, but... She was a girl, right? And a boy had given her a cake to make her happy! Besides, she was so very delicate. Dad still wouldn’t let her start tinkering with her own body.

“‘Better not start making changes until your body’s fully developed,’” she muttered, mimicking Dad under her breath. Karray understood the reasoning, but it was still interesting! She didn’t believe for a second that he couldn’t deal with any negative consequences. Dad was just busy.

And lazy.

Anakin was huffing and puffing right behind her, so Karray hurried to pull open the door to her inner sanctum and let him go in first.

“Put it right here... yeah... just don’t squash it!” The boy set the box down with obvious relief. “Careful, Ani! There’s a cake in there!”

“A huge cake!” the Padawan breathed, looking around. “Whoa. This is just like Master Siith’s.”

“Of course it is.” The girl tilted her nose proudly into the air. “This is my workshop. I study and work here! Dad says you should never skimp on your workspace. That’s how you end up making really stupid mistakes. And the huge cake is chocolate, right?”

And then the dummy went and opened the box! She almost smacked him. Half the fun of getting a present, after the present itself, was unwrapp...

“Wooooow...”

“I heard you wanted a sarlacc. I don’t have a real one, so...”

“No waaaay!!!”

Young Skywalker smiled with satisfaction as he watched the sheer delight spread across the girl’s face.

The cake was a genuine work of art, one Anakin had ordered in Jabiim’s capital. The top had been made to look like desert sand, with a deep pit in the middle and the maw of a gigantic monster peeking up from its depths. The sides and interior were made from layers of chocolate cream in different shades and the softest sponge cake.

The cake itself was huge, and then there was the rush delivery on top of that. Jedi weren’t allowed to own personal property, but flying around with no credits at all would have been stupid and inconvenient. If only his Master would bring a little more money on missions.

In the end, Anakin had spent every credit he had on the cake.

Though compared to what Master Siith and his apprentice had done for him, the gift still felt like such a small thing.

“And that’s not just decoration,” Anakin said with a chuckle, pointing at the maw. “There’s an actual chocolate sarlacc buried inside the cake.”

“That is so coooool...” the girl breathed in awe, then slapped the Padawan on the shoulder. “I’ve never eaten a sarlacc before. Not even a chocolate one! Thanks!”

The boy actually grunted in surprise. Well...

“Actually, I’m the one who should be thanking you,” he said, shaking his head.

“You know...” The girl suddenly looked at the Padawan with complete seriousness. “I lost my parents when I was very little. All I remember is their scent, their warmth... vague images...”

Karray fell silent and stared at the cake. A few seconds passed before a sly glint appeared in her eyes and she looked back at Anakin.

“Have you ever fed a rancor by hand?”

“You mean with my hands? As you can see, I still have both of them, so no,” the Padawan snorted, holding up his intact hands.

“Come on, I’ll introduce you to Pancake!” the little witch lit up, grabbing Anakin by the sleeve and dragging him toward the door. She was already reaching for it when she glanced back at the cake.

“We need to hide it!”

The young Padawan found himself released while Karray scampered over to something that looked like a safe twice her height. She shielded the password interface from view, tapped it a few times with one finger, and the obviously heavy door began to swing slowly open. A breath of cool air drifted out.

Boxes stood on the shelves inside. Anakin counted six of them, all different sizes.

“Put it right here, please,” Karray said, pointing to an empty spot on the bottom shelf.

Without a word, the teenager picked up his gift and set it in the designated spot. Then he raised one eyebrow and looked at the little witch.

“You did not see the strategic cake reserves,” Karray said with a solemn little face, waving one hand in front of Skywalker’s eyes while using the other to hit the button that activated the closing mechanism.

The boy’s eyes widened at first, but when he felt no touch of the Force, he burst out laughing at the girl’s utterly serious expression. Then he pulled himself together, wiped the grin from his face, and stared blankly off into nowhere.

“I did not see the strategic cake reserves in the refrigerator with the vault door.”

His composure lasted all of a few seconds before he started laughing again.

The little menace gave him a sly grin, snorted, grabbed him by the sleeve again, and dragged him toward the door.

“Now we’re going to see Pancake. Just don’t be scared. He’s nice, and really smart. Way smarter than an acklay. He even understands what people say. Dad told me they ride rancors on Dathomir,” the little witch chattered as she towed Anakin toward the animal enclosures. “He promised that once he’s sure Pancake is safe, he’ll let me ride him too.”

The Padawan was about to say a few words about how dangerous ambitions like that could be, but the little chatterbox cut him off.

“Just imagine it! Me all in black, hood up, riding a rancor to the pastry shop! That’s epic levels of epic!”

“Exactly, Master! Just imagine it. Us in flowing robes, lightsabers ignited, charging the enemy... on rancors!”

“Anakin...” Obi-Wan Kenobi wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We are not training rancors.”

“More’s the pity,” his Padawan huffed, pretending to be offended. Kenobi knew him far too well to believe it. “It’d be epic levels of epic!”

“Quite an impression Pancake made on you, young Skywalker?” Grand Master Yaddle asked with an amused but tired smile. She was sitting with the others in the ship’s common room.

“Oh, definitely.” The young Jedi scratched the tip of his nose. “A giant monster obeying a tiny squirt without question is not something you forget. And when Karray made him wear a sheet like a bib before we started feeding him... I’d read that rancors were semi-sentient, but still. It was amazing. There’s a lot of interesting stuff there in general.”

“Master Che?” Kenobi tried to change the subject, turning to the healer, who had fallen deep into thought. “You’ve been awfully quiet. Is everything all right?”

The blue-skinned Twi’lek slowly raised her eyes to the Knight. It was obvious she still wasn’t quite with them.

“What?” the Jedi Master and head of the Healing Halls asked in surprise, as though only just realizing she was sitting there with everyone else.

“All right, are you, Vokara?” Even Yaddle was beginning to worry. “Deep in thought, you seem. About what?”

“Ah! Yes, I’m fine.” The healer smiled a little sheepishly and made a reassuring gesture with one hand. Then she looked seriously at the Grand Master. “Yaddle, we need to send someone to Jabiim to study. Please support me when I bring it before the Council.”

“Not so skeptical of them anymore, are you?” Skywalker asked with a faintly teasing grin.

After they had arranged for him to see his mother, and after Master Yaddle had been healed, Anakin had come away with a very favorable impression of the mages. And then there was the fact that Dziha had bought his mother from Watto, taken her away from Tatooine, freed her, healed her, and given her safe work she genuinely enjoyed.

After that conversation with his mother, Anakin felt calm and happy, perhaps for the first time since leaving Mos Espa. For the first time, he understood the peace of mind the older Jedi spoke of so often.

His mother was safe. He no longer had to fear that some drunken mercenary might shoot her in a fit of rage and settle things with Watto afterward for a mere handful of Hutt credits. Or worry that some failing machine might explode and maim her. Or... there had been so many things to fear. Far too many.

Young Skywalker couldn’t even remember how many times he had woken from a nightmare with his mother at the center of it.

So Anakin felt deeply grateful to Master Siith. And he liked little Karray too. The energetic girl was a little cheerfully unhinged, just like her adoptive father, but as the Padawan had already realized, that was perfectly normal in their strange family.

“Well... he didn’t adopt me. I dadopted him,” the little squirt had giggled as she told Anakin how she and her sister had been taken out of the orphanage. “The moment I saw him, I decided that the cool red-eyed guy was going to be my dad. He still puts up a fight and won’t call me his daughter, but I’m not stupid. I can tell how he feels.”

Listening to Karray’s stories about all the crazy things that happened in her life, Anakin had thought he wouldn’t mind having a fun adoptive father like that himself.

And life with mages just seemed more... eventful, somehow. With a touch of chaos and mild insanity. Something was always happening. Things exploded, extra asses grew where they shouldn’t, limbs got torn off and then reattached by a grumbling headmaster... One of the local students, nicknamed Deadman, had even managed to die four times. Compared to the Jedi Order’s usual solemnity, there was definitely no chance of getting bored here.

But he also remembered what Master Che had said about the Jabiim mages and the doubts she had voiced about them. He remembered, and it bothered him a little. The teenager knew he shouldn’t feel that way, but he couldn’t help it.

“Anakin,” Kenobi chided his Padawan, but Vokara only gave a quiet snort.

“I stopped thinking of them as clowns when Quinlan Vos came back with a working arm instead of a stump, young Padawan.” The Twi’lek smiled faintly at the young Jedi’s challenging look. “I’ve spent many years devoting myself to healing my brothers and sisters. And I didn’t become a Master Healer through stubbornness alone.”

Then, as if she had forgotten what she was saying, Vokara fell silent. Her fingers traced the seam of her robe, and her gaze wandered around the common room.

“What I saw was a miracle, Padawan Skywalker.” The healer’s sharp, intelligent gaze settled on the blond Padawan, taking some of the wind out of Anakin’s sails. “The work of our healers is a miracle too. It’s just that our miracles are different. There are things the sorcerers do less effectively than we do, and vice versa. Their methods are different. They don’t work with the Force the way Jedi or Sith do. Until recently, I would have considered what Siith was doing impossible.”

“It was also extremely unappetizing,” Obi-Wan said with a grimace, remembering the operation on Grand Master Yaddle.

“If it means my brothers and sisters don’t die in my arms, I’m willing to do a great deal. Even sort through every organ one by one, the way Dziha does.”

“There is no Death,” Yaddle said calmly.

“There is only the Great Force,” the healer agreed with a nod. “But I see no reason to rush off and meet It.”

For a while, the Grand Master stared thoughtfully at her palm. Back then, on Mawan... If not for Kenobi and that Jabiim artifact, she would not be sitting in this common room now, listening to this conversation.

She had gone to her death knowingly. Her life in exchange for the lives of two young, promising Jedi and an entire city behind them was a fair price. It was difficult to put into words what she had felt when, after being revived, the turmoil in her mind and senses had finally subsided.

Life... was wonderful.

She had always known that. But to understand that simple truth in all its detail, to see the countless shades hidden within that one small word, life, to savor its full taste and feel every letter of it, she had needed to die.

And no, the Jedi Master was not afraid of death. It was hard to fear something you understood and were prepared for. But she had realized just how much she loved being alive.

And if, as Vokara said, Master Siith and his methods could save even one mortally wounded Jedi, then Yaddle simply had no right not to support the healer. More than that, the Council’s lack of urgency on the matter no longer seemed prudent to her. It seemed criminal. And in the eyes of the head of the Medical Corps, Yaddle saw her own thoughts reflected back at her.

Regrowing Master Vos’s arm in such a short time, then attaching it successfully, had already dealt a serious blow to Che’s skepticism toward the JMG. Fast, effective, cheap. It sounded like a scam or a fairy tale.

That was why the Twi’lek had practically tortured the Kiffar with analyses, tests, and examinations. And she had found nothing.

The arm was as good as his own. No defects. Not even a scar. The healer had found nothing suspicious, nothing worrying, nothing that gave her pause. Quinlan felt perfectly fine and was already putting his newly restored limb through its paces, while complaining every day about the atrocities committed by the Order’s healers.

And now Yaddle. They had literally taken her dead body apart organ by organ, put her back together, and revived her. And, as Dziha had put it, “patched up a few minor things as a bonus.” According to Vokara, the Grand Master now had the healthiest insides in the entire Order.

“How do you see this working?” the Grand Master asked, turning her attention back to the Twi’lek.

“Send two Padawans to Jabiim to study: Barriss Offee and Aubrie Wyn. They’re the most gifted healers of the younger generation. If they can master the art of magic as well, then...” Vokara Che let the thought trail off, but the pleased, almost dreamy look in her eyes said everything for her.

“Hmm... Young, they are, Vokara,” Yaddle said doubtfully. “And their Masters, Unduli and Sirrus... Two Masters spending years sitting in Jabiim’s rain is not an idea the Council will approve. Nor will they send them there alone. What may come of Siith’s influence if it proves less than beneficial, we do not know. See Jedi fall again, neither I nor the Council wish to. Knights, perhaps. Only Knights could be sent, Vokara.”

“Mmm...” The Twi’lek closed her eyes briefly in agreement, accepting the logic of Yaddle’s argument. “Then Knight Stass Allie and Knight Rig Nema, who currently serves as a healer with the Medical Corps. Allie is already close to earning the rank of Master, and Nema’s talent never ceases to impress me.”

Yaddle smiled at the flicker of displeasure that crossed Vokara’s eyes. The Master Healer took any weakening of the Medical Corps very personally, and this proposal of hers... One might say she was practically tearing Knight Nema away from herself. It was a sacrifice that showed just how seriously her friend took the matter.

“Very well.” The Grand Master nodded. “At the next Council meeting, your proposal I will bring up for discussion. Support you, I shall. Speak with Oppo, I will, and with the Grand Master as well.”

“Um... Grand Master, with all due respect,” I said, staring at the hologram of the little goblin with a mixture of confusion and mild irritation.

My colleagues were right: if you’re going to do good, do it in such a way that people only come to you as a last resort. Apparently, I’d overdone it showing everyone what wonderful, upstanding people my mages and I were. As if I didn’t have enough to do already without teaching Jedi.

Although...

Hmm. How would magic behave in the hands of Force-sensitives? Hmmm...

And besides, getting the students into diagnostic rituals would be ridiculously easy. I could study the whole phenomenon of Force users while I was at it. Looked at that way, they were practically handing me experienced Force-sensitives who already knew what they were doing.

“Master Siith?” the little old Jedi reminded me of his presence, eyes narrowing in amusement. “Still with me, are you?”

“Mmm... Yes, yes. Got lost in thought. So, Grand Master. In principle, I don’t mind, but I won’t take more than three. Two would be better. We don’t teach chimerology at the Academy, so it would have to be personal apprenticeship. And I’ll warn you now: it’ll be expensive, take a long time, and be very, very miserable...”

“Hmm? We were planning to ask you to take two. Why would the students be miserable?” the little goblin asked, raising his eyebrows.

“I’ll be miserable,” I sighed, scratching my beard mournfully. “It’s the time, Grand Master. I hate giving up the time. I just hope they’re not children?”

“No.” The goblin’s good-natured smile returned, and somehow it still irritated me a little. “Both are Knights. One nearly a Master is. Strong healers, both are. Master Che recommended them. Trouble for you, they will not cause. Speak with them, I will.”

“Then we have a deal, Grand Master. I very much hope the candidates know how to listen to their teacher. Otherwise, no hard feelings, but I’ll send them straight back to Coruscant. Chimerology has no patience for carelessness or foolish stubbornness.”

“Good. Acceptable, that is.” Yoda nodded gravely.

We talked for another hour or so. About this and that: the students, the problems that came with them, Grand Master Yaddle’s condition, the state of the galaxy in general, and the separatist sentiment spreading everywhere.

That last point, incidentally, had Alto seriously worried. Our Commander-in-Chief had been grumbling about the trouble it might cause. Jabiim had only just begun clawing its way out of crushing poverty, chronic shortages of practically everything, and a miserable standard of living when unrest started brewing across the Republic, and the reports from our analysts were anything but reassuring.

Stratus had even, astonishingly enough, wished the Jedi luck in restoring order during one of our conversations. Whatever his feelings toward the Temple and the Senate, Jabiim’s well-being always came first for him.

Yoda, as it turned out, was just as concerned about the situation, and so was Chancellor Palpatine. The diminutive Jedi shared no classified information, but according to him, both the Order’s diplomats and the Senate’s diplomatic staff were being run ragged trying to stabilize the Republic.

“A will behind all this, I can feel. An evil, dark will,” the Jedi said with a frown. The Grand Master gave me a sharp look and worried his lower lip for a moment, as though hesitating. “Certain we are that the Sith are behind it. The heirs of Darth Bane are stirring up trouble across the galaxy. Unseen, they taint everything their schemes touch. Even the Order can feel the foul breath of the Dark Side. More Jedi are falling. Master Yaddle’s condition, too, was the result of unseen puppet masters and their intrigues.”

The Grand Master let out a heavy sigh and spent several seconds staring grimly at some point beyond the hologram.

“Old I am, Master Siith’khara’Dziha.” He smiled, but not as he usually did. There was sadness in it, and a trace of bitterness. A couple of seconds later, though, he gave a quiet huff and let the mood go. Or perhaps merely hid it, his usual good-natured, faintly sly amusement returning to his face. “With age comes the urge to complain, especially in the company of the young. Pay it no mind. Know I do that you understand the burden of command. Only the scale differs between us.”

So the goblin and I spent a while grumbling like a pair of old men. Truth be told, talking to him, or to Yaddle for that matter, still catches me off guard sometimes. I’m too used to members of his species being short-lived back in my world. There were exceptions, obviously, but still. And their conversations usually revolved around three things: fucking, drinking, and fighting.

Some part of me probably still expects Yoda to start bragging about how many young Knights he’s managed to bed over the past fifty years.

Yeah. Mental inertia.

All right, that was all well and good, but today I had a meeting with another Jedi. A former Jedi this time, one who had left the Order and gone back out into the world, so to speak.

The Count of Serenno, Sev’rance Tann’s patron, had struck me as a very respectable representative of the aristocracy. We hadn’t spoken for long, just enough to arrange our upcoming meeting, but I found both his manners and his calm, friendly way of speaking quite pleasant.

And his beard was almost as good as mine.

A man with a beard that well groomed simply couldn’t be a villain.

I smirked at the absurdity of the thought as I made my way toward the conference room at an unhurried pace. Right then, a message popped up on my datapad informing me that the Count was already waiting.

Everything was lining up perfectly.