Chapter Twenty-Six (Patreon)

In addition to the ten standard months per year, there were three festival weeks. One between the third and fourth month, one between the sixth and seventh, and one after the tenth. The last was always the most hectic in the Jedi Temple. Combined with the three Festival Days it made up the New Year. While many planets payed the Galactic New Year only lip service, preferring their planetary feast-days, it was still a wide-spread celebration. Any planet that had a controlled climate--from the ecumenopoli of Coruscant, Alsakan, Axxila, Denon, and Taris to the agriworlds of Chandrilla, Salliche, Taanab, and Broest--tended to celebrate the Galactic New Year in full, as did more space-faring people (other than the Mandalorians, who celebrated the holidays of the Taung). It was a time of renewal and revival, a celebration of endurance and survival. Those who did not know their date of birth often took the New Year as theirs, wrapping their personal celebrations into the greater whole.

The Jedi Temple was not immune from the celebrations. Every year scores of Jedi who had not been seen in years, perhaps decades, returned for the celebrations. Lineages hosted elaborate dinners, Knights and Masters extolling their padawan’s (and former padawans’) virtues to others. They danced and sang and ate and laughed. Joy flooded the Temple in those days, so potent that it could overwhelm the crechelings--precisely why the celebrations were off-limits to anyone not of Padawan age.

Ali’ya, however, had no lineage. Her master was still busy on Denon. And while Ug’otor, Mace, and Kirana had all invited her to join their lineage dinners for the week, she had gently turned them down, at least for the first few days. With everyone else distracted it was the perfect time for her to sneak back into the depths of Coruscant.

Leaving the Temple was embarrassingly easy. Togorians were not a common species in the galaxy, especially not on Coruscant’s upper levels. At almost a 190 centimeters (6’4”) tall, Ali’ya passed as an adult. Dressed in casual civilian clothes, it made perfect sense for the Temple Guards not to flag her departure, but instead excuse it as the action of an adult Jedi. She found it similarly easy to go beneath the surface, simply taking one of the thousands of public elevators that worked between the top levels and the 4,000th level. It was then that things became tricky. More than a thousand levels deep and the cracks in Coruscant’s infrastructure started to show. Where more than ten thousand public elevators operated on the upper levels, only eleven hundred worked the much more crowded lower levels, mostly between 4,000 and 3,000. Many of them were under the implicit control of local gangs, a fact that only increased the deeper she went. Ali’ya took the publicly-run elevator down to Level 3,276, a quiet residential area that (although too deep to see the sun) was still free of the industrial chemicals that littered the true depths of Coruscant. Ali’ya did not linger there long amidst the reminder that even in poverty there are those well-off and those who are not. Instead taking a series of side-streets, Ali’ya looked around the dimly-lit walkway. The paved walkways were clear of anything save a few spare bits of litter. The street lights were on, but only just. The stop light was off, and no sign of speeders could be heard.

Ali’ya grabbed hold of the walkway’s railing and jumped. She fell, past bright-lit cantinas and sleepy neighborhoods, past clubs with flashing lights and a small schoolhouse that glowed only in the Force. She fell past shuttered warehouses and unused factories, past ponds of chemicals and block parties. Ali’ya heard the Force as she fell, and heeded it. She leveled out, using the Force to slow her descent. Moving herself, gently easing the acceleration until, now facing west, she landed neatly on her feet.

Level 114. There were no signs but Ali’ya knew it immediately. Home. Though she landed in an ill-lit alley Ali’ya could see childhood haunts. The bar, crowded with people finishing up a shift. The streets, where a hundred different races leaned against each other to talk. The library, distant and hopeful. They all seemed so much smaller now. Then they had been her introduction to the larger world. Her gateway to science fiction and fantasy that once she had only read. Now they were reminders, bitter-sweet, of the life that was before the kriffing System fucked it all up!

Ali’ya breathed heavily, letting her anger go. It served her no use here. Not when she was already at risk, the Quest and her blood alike demanding that she hunt down Ebor. She was here after all.

No, Ali’ya thought. Not yet. If she killed him now all she would cause was chaos. Chaos that could end well, could end poorly, and in the meantime would hurt those already struggling.

Ali’ya turned down familiar streets. They were different than she remembered. Grimier. More rubbish on the ground, more toxins in the air. There was a sense of decay in the Force, something eating away at the Level while life just barely clung on. Perhaps it had always been there, and Ali’ya simply missed it. Perhaps things had gotten worse. Judging by the sight of Ebor’s guards (two humans in purple tunics carrying heavy blasters) that stood at the half-functioning elevator, it could well be both.

Her feet carried her on as Ali’ya thought. All too soon she arrived at the house. What remained of it. A pile of rubble, cheap duracrete, and rebar. Ali’ya knew she would see that. But the Force–the emptiness, the absence of love-cherish-family that once permeated her home–that sent Ali’ya to her knees, sobbing tears upon the broken floors.

Ali’ya was not sure how long she sat there. How long she mourned the passing of her father (well intentioned, attentive and loving when he had the time, desperate to provide), of her mother (busy, exhausted, yet always there when Ali’ya needed her, always struggling to make their family safe), of her uncle (brave, stout, ready to defend them all), of her great-grandmother (wise, endless in knowledge and compassion, so happy to teach), of her cousins (young and foolish and full of life). She felt their impressions, let in the Force long after the home they built was gone. She felt the impressions of others, of the Twi’leks who lived above them and the humans above that. She never knew them in life yet in death she found herself growing close to the child who raced around the room pretending to be a starfighter and the mother who watched, lekku twitching with amusement as she leaned against her wife. To the humans who struggled and labored and found what they needed most in each other. Ali’ya wept for them. She mourned for them, for if she did not who would?

“Ni su’cuy,” she began pulling on old knowledge gained during the war with the Huk. “Gar kyr’adic. Ni partayli gar darasuum. I’m alive but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.” It felt right somehow, in her soul and in the Force, to grant her family this Mandalorian remembrance. Reluctantly she stood. Empowering her limbs with the Force she hefted off the rubble. She moved small stones, brushed aside powder, shifted giant chunks of duracrete and removed bent rebar. She found a child’s toy, a model spacecraft made of plastic, badly damaged by the building’s fall. When she found the child’s skeleton she reunited them, hoping it might bring his soul some relief. She found shattered alcohol that she knew once belong to her cousins. She found her Great-Grandmother’s books, damaged and covered in dust. She put those in her bag, for they were more precious to her than corusca gems. She found an ancient sc’rath, made of a strange alloy she could not quite identify. She had not yet earned the right to wield it, but kept it. It was a family heirloom, though not one she had seen before. Most likely locked away with her uncle’s most precious belongings. There was an insignia on the hilt, a four-legged reptile with long legs and massive teeth. A Tyrannosaur, the apex predator of Togoria. They had little in common with the extinct Tyrannosaurs of her old home save fir their viciousness and lethality, being both four-legged and possessing equally-long forelegs and rear legs and feathers nowhere in sight.

At last Ali’ya found her uncle’s skeleton, half-decomposed clothing hanging off the bones. She bowed to him, silently asking permission. As the Force lightened slightly she stepped forward, reaching into the pocket where he kept the deed.

The deed was written on paper--real paper, not the mess of flimsi--and covered in clear plastic. Lamination, a process not used for centuries. It was small, a set of three cards. On this day, the 22nd Day of the 4th Month in the year 312 After the Ruusan Reformation,   Juur Tyran of Clan Tyran   has purchased apartment  18   on   Narrow Street   on Level 1 1 4.

Ali’ya flipped the cards. The second one said the same thing, only in Togorian. The third--Ali’ya hid a small gasp. The third was another translation, this time in Mando’a. Is that why the Mandalorian remembrance felt right? Ali’ya wondered. But how could this be? Why would Mandalorians come to Coruscant, especially with Togoria much closer? What happened?