Chapter 43: We're Not In Trouble Yet
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Hyenanon
stims neurodivergently into oncoming pedestrians
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There comes a time in every writer's life where they have been fantasizing about a scene or an extended sequence for months, and going through the grueling work of getting there. Once they get there, they then spend the next 12 hours straight typing until 8:30 AM in the morning. I have hit that moment; everything from here on out exploded out of me, so I actually will be uploading a chapter per day until the arc is complete. Go figure!
Chapter 43: We're Not In Trouble Yet
Nerim and Tetha entered the Wellspring together, and Tetha craned her neck around to see the interior. "Whoa. Definitely better than the Lucky Worm."
As she was speaking, Arwain's voice carried from around the doorway to the quarters. "Where have you two been?"
"We're only fifteen minutes late..." Nerim said defensively.
Fae walked around the corner of the storage room. "And that's not an answer."
"Fifteen minutes!" Nerim repeated. "That's barely a meditation session!"
Fae's eyes moved to Tetha, who stood perfectly still with her arms crossed, staring back at her with an utterly blank expression. They held each other's eyes as Arwain came hopping down the hallway on one foot, trying to work a new boot onto her other foot. She stopped when she got halfway down, and sniffed. "...Do I smell that disgusting local drink on you?!"
"Spelska Nagram is nice!" Nerim objected, gesturing to Fae. "It's nice, right?!"
Fae shrugged, finally breaking eye contact with Tetha. "I have no idea, I didn't pay any attention to it."
"I think you're in the minority on this, Jedi Boy," Tetha said dryly with a slight smile.
"Spast, let's just—" Nerim sighed and waved his arms. "Let's just move on."
Arwain finally got her boot on and made it into the main room, and then turned to them. "Tetha, what in the Corellian Hell are you wearing?"
Tetha stood there in an outfit primarily made of that extremely black hue of the Saarkanians, which the vendor had assured them was considered very sexy in Saarkanian society, giving the appearance of nudity to them. It was primarily made up of baggy pants and a short jacket, made of that particular material that sounds very tracksuity if it rubs against itself. It had pink and red accents, which mimicked the colors of friendliness and aggression, making it common wear in the dance scene. Underneath, there was an ultra-black leotard.
"The better question is why Nerim is still wearing that sleemo poy," Tetha said, gesturing to his Jedi uniform.
"We were late!" He frowned. It true in a very technical sense, but he primarily just used that as an excuse to chicken out.
Arwain stared at Tetha with a pained expression. Fae smiled. "Remember when—"
"Let's go," Arwain cut her off, "We don't want the Dark Siders to get away."
"Oh, now you listen to my orders," Fae chuckled, following her towards the cockpit.
As the two masters left the room, Nerim and Tetha found themselves alone among the plants. She exhaled quickly, in something that wasn't quite a laugh, looking around. "Well, this actually seems like the place for Nature Priest clothes."
"I think you look fine," Nerim helpfully offered.
Her eyes sliced towards him, and she smirked. "I know you do."
He crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. "Anyways, what was it like with the Nature Priests?"
"Fine. They were annoyed at me sending you letters. Or any holonet connections, really," she sighed. "They had a lot to teach, but your time in this life is limited, y'know? Or well, maybe you don't."
"What do you mean by that?" Nerim asked, puzzled.
"Aren't your Masters immortal? Age wise, at least."
He shrugged. "Uh, maybe? I guess so. Why?"
"...They haven't taught you how to do that?"
He shook his head.
"Why not?"
"I don't know," he said, puzzled. "I never asked to learn it, I guess."
She sighed heavily and leaned back against a wall. "Damn it all, Nerim, I was hoping to poach that from you."
"Hey!" Arwain's voice carried from the cockpit. "Get in here, derelicts!"
Nerim nodded his head towards the cockpit and began walking, and Tetha shrugged and followed after. It was relatively spacious, with observation seats along the walls, although the pilot seat was occupied by a droid.
Nerim sat down opposite of the Masters, and Tetha sat next to him to his right. "What's our move?" He asked.
"Impromptu inspection of the Anatra Survey," Arwain shrugged. "And we hope that the strange woman you didn't arrest isn't leading us on a wild bantha chase. Any questions?"
He thought for a moment. "Should we inform the Governor? This is exactly the type of thing he wants us investigating, he would surely lend any help he can."
Arwain sighed. "I've been dreading that. I'd rather not get entangled in political affairs more than we have to. Such entanglements often prove...restraining."
Fae slowly nodded. "I have a similar instinct. Not only would he try to direct our attention to his whims, but in working with local authorities, we would be bound by the rules they must follow, which are far more constraining than the acts of lone Jedi."
"If we suspect corruption, which we ought to, any security forces he sends with us could just prove to be extra enemies at our back," Arwain added. "And if incompetent, they could destroy or displace evidence before we can find it."
"Okay, okay," Nerim raised his hands defensively, "You've made your points. I just think that we shouldn't underestimate their utility. If, for instance, a vital piece of evidence is placed on a shuttle and ejected, we aren't really capable of holding our own blockade. The Saarkanian System Defense Force would be."
"The Wellspring is easily capable of following such a vessel itself," Fae said as the ship began to gently lift from the hangar. "It's a sensible concern, but I think we're better off on our own."
Nerim shrugged, obviously outvoted. Tetha very slightly raised an eyebrow. "Real mavericks, huh?" She commented.
"Loose canons, definitely," Nerim joked.
Arwain smiled. "Do you have any questions, Tetha?"
"Yeah. So this Master Fay, what's her last name?"
Fae almost imperceptibly tilted her head backwards in fatigue, and closed her eyes. "It's just Fay. I don't know if she even had a surname, or if that was her surname."
"What if she's named Fay Kovin?" Tetha asked in a dry tone that belied no facetiousness.
"I find that exceptionally unlikely," Fae said, and sighed silently.
Tetha crossed her arms. "I just find it strange, in retrospect, that Jedi even keep their surnames at all. Aren't you supposed to break all ties with your former family?"
Arwain chuckled. "It's actually more for the former family's benefit, really. So that they can point to a Jedi with the same surname as them. It makes it a little easier to convince them to surrender their children for training. Also makes record keeping easier, since less Jedi share full names."
The Wellspring shook as it exited the atmosphere of Saarkane, the sky growing brighter around them until it darkened into open space. Fae opened one eye lazily. "What is your full name, Tetha?"
Tetha shrugged. "I'm not quite sure. My father registered me as Tetha Rhissa, but that was just so I was legally his daughter. We're not all that related, genetically, and I don't think I want to wear his name. Ah, although according to the witness protection program, my name is Meetra Taranni. Not that I've ever used it for anything but legal papers. I'm a little more attached to Tetha. It's what my friends call me..." She trailed off, staring into the distance out the cockpit window. Then she turned to Nerim. "What's your last name?"
Nerim blinked. "Nerim," he said simply.
She stared at him blankly for a moment. "I've...been calling you by your surname all this time...?"
He nodded.
"What's your first name?" She asked, her expression suddenly more intense, twisting in her seat to face him.
He shrugged. "I never got one. I was taken away from my parents very quickly."
"How quickly?!"
"The Jedi who recruited me was also the nurse who delivered me," he stated. "I got curious and read about it in the Archives a couple months ago. I was born on an airbus in the upper levels of Coruscant, which a Jedi happened to be taking. My parents relinquished me before naming me."
Tetha donned a rare, horrified expression. She turned to the Masters. "You're insane. You are crazy people."
"To be fair, they don't sound like they were the most responsible parents," Arwain meekly defended her Order, unable to make eye contact.
"Enough with the litigation of our recruitment procedures," Fae said. "It's time to set course."
The droid spoke in a halting voice, like each word was being manufactured on an assembly line as it was exiting his vocabulator. "The Anatra Survey Site is hosted in a distant asteroid field at the edge of the system. Conventional travel would take four days. We will be taking a short hyperspace jump to it instead. Charts clear, systems optimal. Affix your seatbelts. ETA 10 seconds from jump. Jumping to lightspeed in ten...nine..."
Nerim clicked his seatbelt in place. Nobody else did, and he silently frowned.
Arwain leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. "...Anyone else have a weird itch?" She asked, eyes narrowed in thought.
Tetha grimaced. "I have a bad feeling about—"
Suddenly, Nerim felt as if a lightning bolt directly struck his spine, and his entire body jumped at the sensation. "Spast!" He shouted in surprise. "What was that?!"
They snapped to hyperspace, the ship smoothly transitioning into a superluminal state. Fae's single open eye closed, and she kept her head tilted back, as if she might fall asleep. "At least Nerim's source didn't mislead us. We are definitely heading directly into the jaws of the Dark Side."
The cockpit was silent for a tense, long moment, until Nerim shakily spoke up. "We've been in hyperspace for a lot longer than ten seconds."
The droid responded to him. "Apologies. Hyperspace unexpectedly tangled. Currently navigating to safe location. Calculating possible routes. Five trillion...Six trillion...Route found."
"Only one viable route in six trillion attempts?" Tetha asked in disbelief.
Arwain slowly sat up. "This is a trap," she said in breathless recognition. "We're being funneled."
"We must have been meant to hit a mass shadow," Tetha argued. "There's not a lot of computers out there that can calculate as fast as this droid. Any slower and we would've been paste. We're going to be dropping out through the one correct path. It will catch them offguard."
Arwain leveled her gaze on the young woman. "This is a trap meant for Jedi."
"Hold on to something," Fae said, inexplicably raising one of her arms straight up in the air.
Suddenly, they dropped out of hyperspace, coming to a crashing stop as the ship reversed thrust as hard as it possibly could. Nerim was tossed by the inertia, but his seatbelt kept him safely in place. Tetha, on the other hand, was tossed out of her seat and directly into him, clinging on for dear life. Arwain was shunted to the side and barely managed to grab onto anything, banging her head against the wall and grunting in pain. Fae was thrown out of her seat entirely head-over-heels, landing in a perfect cartwheel on her hand and then revolving back to her feet, sliding slightly from the momentum.
The Wellspring kept up the harsh maneuvers, and Nerim glanced out the window. There were flashes of turbolasers and glints of light as debris and other ships swarmed in circles around a large central structure floating in deep space. It was hard to make out at first, the entire station being a dark hue and shaped almost like a diamond, or two pyramids placed against one another's base.
And beneath it all, there was some deeply wrong sensation emanating from the surrounding area. It was as if everything was slightly off from where it should be, disconnected from the greater Galaxy, nonsensically arranged in a spiritually non-euclidean fashion. It felt like a wound in the Force.
"We have returned to realspace. Location: Unknown. Making contact with nearby st-st-st—rrrrrrrrrrr..." The droid slumped over. Arwain jumped up and moved to it, pulling its cranial plate off and looking at the small display inside.
"Sithspit," she cursed, "It's been sliced. The station appears to be broadcasting some sort of virus."
Nerim unbuckled himself and carefully placed Tetha back down. "Is there a battle going on out there?"
Fae's expression darkened. "There are multiple Dark Siders in conflict here. And..."
Tetha untangled herself from Nerim after a second, and moved to the front, pushing the droid out of its seat and taking the controls as it clattered to the floor. "The Jedi are the last to arrive, as always. Are we going out or in?"
Fae moved forward and placed a hand on the shoulder of Tetha's seat. "In."
She hit the thrust and the ship started moving quickly forwards, and Nerim saw the slight distortion of the deflector shields angling forward, although none of the ships appeared brave enough to provoke The Wellspring. There was an open hangar, and Tetha wasted no time heading directly into it. The ship's landing gear extended, and it skid slightly across the durasteel interior, kicking up sparks as Tetha came to an emergency landing, drifting until the nose was pointed towards the exit, ideal for a quick egress.
The entire maneuver was so quick that Nerim barely had time to see the interior, and now that the cockpit pointed outwards, it became clear that the station was surrounded by a great field of dangerous debris.
Arwain placed a hand on her lightsaber hilt, and looked to Fae. "Are you sure? This feels uncharacteristically brash of you."
Fae turned and walked out, towards the exit, back straight and hands folded behind her back. "We are not the only ones in danger, here."
Arwain sighed and turned to Tetha. "Emergency beacons?"
"Jammed," Tetha confirmed.
"Great. Keep the engine on," Arwain said, gesturing for them to follow.
Tetha turned to Nerim, a concerned expression on her face. "Are we in trouble?"
Nerim pursed his lips, quickly moving with her through the ship towards the boarding ramp. "Not yet. You'll know we're in trouble if Fae turns on her lightsaber."
Arwain shuddered at the thought. "She hasn't turned that thing on since..."
They made it to the boarding ramp as it hissed and slowly lowered. Fae Coven faced away from them towards the ramp, ready to disembark. Nerim suddenly noticed her lightsaber held firmly in her hands behind her back, a platinum-white, slightly long and elegantly thin hilt, smooth and bereft of imperfections.
He shared a glance with his Master. Arwain's concerned eyes stared back at him, with a clear warning. Be on guard.
