(previously on 'Road Movie to Naboo')

        Out of danger for the moment, everyone had a chance to stop
and breathe.  The Queen's Protectors put away their weapons, and one
of their number with medic training took stock of their injured
comrade.  Padme and Rabe got the Queen's assurance that she was all
right.  The Hyelian Jedi stood aftmost of the group, looking back at
the cliffs and the palace of Theed, her violet eyes narrowed as if she
could still see the frustrated Marines lining the cliffside.
        Achika and Len stood to the side of the Queen and her
handmaidens, staring at each other with looks of total astonishment.
        "Achika, I - " said the Jedi, finally.
        Achika's face changed from astonishment to anger.  Without
warning, she slammed Leonard to the deck on his back with a solid,
unadorned right cross.
        "You son of a bitch!" she snarled; then she turned on her
heel, found a companionway and went below decks.
        "I see," said Padme with wry amusement, "that you have already
met the Special Envoy from Jyurai."


                    Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

                              presents:

                UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
                    -=WARRIORS OF THE OUTER RIM=-

                         Road Movie to Naboo
                           Part 2: Journeys

                         Benjamin D. Hutchins

         with the invaluable assistance of the Usual Suspects
                     and thanks to all the sources

                (c) 2002 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


        "Padme," Queen Amidala admonished her handmaiden.  Then she
addressed Leonard: "We are indebted to you, sir.  What is your name?"
        Len picked himself up off the deck and bowed as best he could.
"Leonard Hutchins, ma'am, of New Avalon."
        "I am Queen Amidala of the Naboo.  These are my handmaidens,
Padme and Rabe, and my Protectors, led by Captain Panaka."
        "Are you a Jedi Knight?" wondered Rabe, a faint touch of awe
in her voice.
        "Well - "  Leonard was about to say, as he had many times
before, that he was not really a Jedi Knight, but only a Padawan in
training; but then he had to stop himself and remind himself, for the
hundredth time since the previous week, that he -was- a Jedi Knight
now.  "Yes, yes I am.  I and my companion both."
        "M'yl'ya, of the Clan Kyn'o'bi, Your Majesty," said Emmy,
returning from the after rail to bow to the Queen.
        Amidala's eyes surveyed first the darkening bruise at the
corner of Len's jaw, then the red, angry burn on his right shoulder
where an Earthforce blaster bolt had clipped him during the melee.
        "Padme," she said.  "Attend to the Jedi's wounds as best you
can."
        Padme nodded deferentially and led Len to the spot where the
medic Protector had laid out his aid kit.
        Emmy watched them go, then turned back toward the disappearing
shore, scanning the horizon as she turned.
        "Due respect, Your Majesty, I hope you're bound somewhere
nearby," she said.  "We're like a bug on a plate out on this ocean.
The enemy will have an aircraft along any minute now to end our boat
ride."
        "Don't be fooled by her pleasure-cruiser appearance," said
Captain Olie as he came aft, having set the cruiser's autopilot.  "The
Sun Queen is fitted with the most sophisticated ECM equipment money
can buy.  Now that we're out of sight of land, they'll never find us."
        Emmy looked up at the sun and noticed for the first time the
slight glory effect around it - an indication that the ship was
covered from the air by a holographic cloak.  From above, she would be
all but invisible, hidden under a holographic projection of more sea.
With her narrow keel and strakes she left no wake.  The illusion would
be almost perfect, if the cloaking projector were calibrated well -
certainly well enough to deceive Earthforce.
        "Captain Ric Olie, the royal yachtsman," said the Queen,
nodding to Olie.  "This is M'yl'ya Kyn'o'bi - she is a Jedi Knight."
        Olie cocked an eyebrow.  "A pleasure," he said, extending a
hand.  "You're Hyelian, aren't you?"
        Emmy allowed as she was.
        Olie grinned.  "I haven't been to Hyeruul in a decade or
more.  I hope it's still as beautiful as I remember."
        Now it was Emmy's turn to cock an eyebrow.  Outworlders on
Hyeruul were exceedingly rare.  Her homeworld was in an isolated part
of the Far Rim and had little trade with other worlds; it was fairly
unusual for an outworlder to even recognize the Hyelian species.  She
wondered if this fellow were putting her on, but she could feel no
guile in him - just good cheer and a bit of worry, the latter of which
was quite natural given their situation.
        That being the case, she smiled and said, "I've been away for
five years myself, Captain, but the last time I saw it, it was."
        Olie made a satisfied nod.  "Glad to hear it."  He turned to
Captain Panaka.  "Well, Major," he said, "shall we see about getting
your troops situated?"
        Emmy realized after Olie and Panaka had walked away that she'd
forgotten to ask them where the Sun Queen was bound, and when she
turned to ask the Queen, she saw that Amidala was conferring with her
remaining handmaiden.  It would have been rude to interrupt, so she
resigned herself to finding out later.

        Len half-heartedly tried to protest as the Queen's handmaiden
sat him down on the deck with his back to a capstan, unfastened his
belt and deftly, gently pulled open his tunic, easing the sleeve down
and lifting the shoulder so that it did not drag across his burn as
she exposed his arm.  He was feeling too muddled to make a good job of
it, though, so Padme ignored the protest, gently pushed aside his
hand, and broke out the antiseptic spray from the first aid kit.
        Leonard gave up the protest and submited meekly to the
handmaiden's ministrations.  He wasn't paying too much attention to
anything around him, anyway; his mind was six years and a thousand
light-years away, reliving what had undoubtedly been the worst day of
his young life.  Padme worked silently, her face set in a
slight frown of concentration.  He didn't notice her at all until,
with a murmured apology, she gently turned his head so she could
swab the trickle of blood away from the corner of his mouth.
        He was struck then by how young and yet self-possessed she
was.  It was obvious to him that the Queen's handmaidens had been
selected partly based on their resemblance to the Queen - to provide a
balanced-looking court, he supposed - and none of them could have been
far out of their early teens, if at all.  Still, during the clash with
the Marines, they had handled their blasters with authority and shown
no fear.
        Len tried to remember what he knew about Naboo, and shortly
concluded that it amounted to nothing.  He'd seen it on star charts a
couple of times, traveling the Outer Rim.  He knew it was one of the
more civilized worlds in the Territories, customarily supplying the
Outer Rim's representative to the Federation Senate.  It made a
convenient waypoint in a hyperspace course between Ruusan and Zeta
Cygni, which guaranteed it exactly no traffic, since Ruusan was
unknown to all but a handful of people in the galaxy and no one before
Leonard had probably ever needed to traverse that particular course.
        His unceremonious arrival hadn't given him much of a chance to
appreciate it either.  After putting down what was left of Helldiver
in a patch of woods not far from the palace (the Force alone knew how
he and Emmy both had managed to survive the crash without major
injury), there had followed an hour of sneaking through the forest,
wondering why no Federation troops came to search the woods.  Then the
sight of the invasion force's transports passing overhead, and the
realization that the great palace-like building by the falls had to
be, in fact, a palace.  They'd made for it not knowing exactly what
would await them there, but hoping they could beat the Feddies to it.
        And what awaited them there was, in part, Achika.
        "Damn," Leonard muttered.
        Padme glanced at him at the expletive, then looked away and
continued working.  Len felt her interest and curiosity, and realized
she was dying to know the story behind this incident, but couldn't
bring herself to pry.
        It was with a touch of surprise that he heard himself saying,
"It was six years ago."
        Again the quick glance.  "What was?" Padme asked, though she
had to know he meant whatever had turned the Special Envoy from Jyurai
against him.
        "Achika and I grew up together," Len replied, not really
looking at her or anything else as he spoke.  "We were born a day
apart.  All along, growing up, we studied together - I studied my
father's kenjutsu form and she the fighting style of the Jyuraian
royal family.  We were sparring partners, joined the kendo team at
school, did kata demonstrations.  It was part of who we were... "
        And six years before, he had nearly killed her.  He could
still remember everything about that day in vivid, photorealistic
detail, as if it, not the fight with the Earthforce Marines, had just
happened.  The slant of the sun across the dojo floor; the familiar
smell of polished wood and effort; the horrible smacking crunch as his
wooden blade had slammed into the side of Achika's head.  Red lights,
men and women in uniforms, being roughed up by a New Avalon police
sergeant with an axe to grind with the city's immortal elite and who
thought Len had tried to kill his girlfriend deliberately as part of
some kind of stupid high-school-sweethearts' tiff...
        ... the call from Aeka, the guilt, the shame, the headlong
dash to be anywhere but there - and straight into the welcoming arms
of the Force.
        "I was on my way home to finally deal with all I left
unresolved," said Len, "but apparently I wasn't to have the
opportunity to face up to my failure at a time of my own choosing."
He smiled ruefully.  "Master Gajic would tell me that it's the will of
the Force."  He blinked, seeming to realize for the first time all
that he had just told this complete stranger.  Only Master Gajic and
Emmy had ever heard the tale of his horrible blunder from him, before
this.
        Padme picked up on his realization and glanced away, reddening
a little.  He smiled (a bit sheepishly) at that.  She seemed like a
nice kid.  Len's talents in the Force were mainly on a cosmic sort of
scale, and he hadn't the razor-sharp acuity with the immediate that
Emmy had, but he was a fairly accurate judge of character even so.  He
decided on the spot not to worry about anything Padme knew.
        "You're a good listener," Len told her.  He craned his neck to
examine his shoulder wound; she had cleaned it, daubed it with
antiseptic, and then sprayed a synthflesh bandage over it, followed by
an old-fashioned gauze wrapping to protect the tender synth until it
had a few hours to cure.  "And a good medic," he added.
        "You don't have to worry about what you've told me," said
Padme.  "I'm trained to keep confidences."
        He nodded.  "Thanks."
        She packed up the first-aid kit, returned it to its Queen's
Protector owner, then excused herself and went below, leaving Len to
turn to the rail and gaze out over the sea, lost in thought.  Naboo's
sun was sinking slowly in the east, painting the sky and sea with
pastel colors; the scene was so peaceful, one could almost forget one
was traveling with a ruler whose realm was in chaos and who was
fleeing for her life.
        Around him, the royal yacht's company began to settle in for
the night.  The Queen and her other handmaiden went below, and the
Queen's Protectors went to their assigned quarters.
        The Sun Queen was either a very big boat or a fairly small
ship, depending on how you wanted to measure it.  Below decks, she had
a wardroom that doubled as the ship's library, a well-appointed
galley, a dining room that could seat twenty-five with only moderate
cramping, and an audience chamber for the Queen that, while tiny in
comparison with the enormous throne room in the palace at Theed, was
nonetheless sufficient.  The deck below that held a rather modest
stateroom for the Queen, adjoining cabins for four of her handmaidens,
the captain's cabin, and quarters for up to four visitors.  The lowest
deck contained a dozen small cabins for the Queen's Protectors and a
slightly larger one for Captain Panaka.
        Emmy, seeing that it wasn't a good time to be asking Len to
serve as an Ambassador of Goodwill, accompanied the Queen below by
herself.
        "I hope you and your companion will be comfortable in our
guest staterooms," said Amidala as they reached the second deck.  "The
rooms are small, but comfortable."
        As the Queen spoke, Rabe opened the polished wood door to one
of the said guest cabins.  It was indeed small, with a permanent bunk
built into one wall, a small storage compartment above it, and a tiny
desk fitted with a retractable washbasin wedged into the other end
below the porthole.  A second bunk could be unfolded from the wall
opposite the permanent one; when it was extended the two bunks very
nearly met in the middle of the room, obliging its occupant to get up
on the desk or step out into the corridor to close it again.
        Everything was made of the same polished dark wood that
characterized the ship's interior, with the same spotless black
non-slip deck coating.  Emmy, who liked small places, found it very
cozy and pleasing, and informed the Queen as she removed her cloak and
hung it on the brass hook next to the door.
        "I must go to prepare for dinner," said Amidala.  "I trust you
both will be joining us?"  With a small, almost shy smile, she added,
"Rabe's cooking is quite excellent."
        "Of course.  Thank you, Your Majesty."
        "The honor is ours."
        "Your Majesty, I don't want to seem pushy," said Emmy, "but
may I ask where we are going, and for what purpose?"
        A troubled look flickered across Amidala's face, only for an
instant; then she collected herself.  "You have every right to ask,"
the Queen replied.  "I should prefer to explain it to you both over
dinner, though, when we have more leisure to discuss it."
        Emmy nodded.  "As Your Majesty wishes."
        "Thank you for your patience," Amidala said.  "We will eat in
two hours."  She inclined her head, and then she and Rabe departed for
the Queen's stateroom.
        Emmy took off her field pack, put it on the desk, and then
went up a deck to await Rabe in the galley.  Maybe the Queen's chef
was the sort who would appreciate a little help.

        Padme stood in the doorway to the wardroom, where Achika sat
at the corner table, looking out a porthole.  The Special Envoy's
flash of anger had passed, and now she sat long-faced and glum,
staring at the same sunset as Len.
        "Excuse me, Your Highness," said Padme softly.  Achika looked
up, bleakly, and gestured vaguely for Padme to enter.  "Dinner is in
two hours," Padme continued.  "Do you need anything?"
        "Just for my life to make sense," Achika replied wryly.
        Padme smiled a little.  "I'm sorry, Your Highness, I don't
think I can help with that."
        "You know, for all the things I expected to happen on this
trip, what just happened wasn't even on the list.  Len's back, and I
just totally blew the reunion.  And the funny thing is, I thought I'd
accepted it all - dealt with it, squared it away in my mind - years
ago.  I had about a hundred things I was going to say, and 'You son of
a bitch' was not any of them."  She shook her head sadly.  "Even if he
is a son of a bitch."
        "He seems to care for you a great deal," Padme ventured.
        Achika looked up and met the handmaiden's eyes.  "He has
strange ways of showing it.  Look, Padme... I know this is awkward for
you, having two of the Queen's guests be... estranged - but I wasn't
expecting to see him here, not in a million years.  Seeing him again
so unexpectedly, I... I just lost my temper.  He hurt me once, very
badly, and I thought I was over it, but seeing him standing right in
front of me brought it all back.  I need time to sort through it all
so I can think calmly."
        Padme nodded.  "I understand."
        "I don't think it would be a good idea for us to share a
dinner table tonight," Achika continued.  "I'll just have a sandwich
or something in my cabin.  Can you make excuses to Queen Amidala for
me?  I don't want to insult her, but I think I'd probably end up doing
something worse... "
        "It's not a problem," said Padme.  "Her Majesty is a
pragmatist.  She'll understand.  But you'll have to address it sooner
or later - this trip may turn out to be a long one."
        Achika nodded.  "I know.  I will.  But... I need tonight to
think it over."
        "I understand," Padme repeated.  "Don't worry.  I'll take care
of everything."
        Achika smiled gratefully.  "Thanks, Padme."

        Padme's next stop was the galley, where she found Rabe and
Emmy deep in culinary conference.  Much to Emmy's delight, Rabe had
turned out to be exactly the sort who appreciated skilled aid in
kitchen matters.
        As His Grace K'yr'wan Kyn'o'bi's third daughter, the youngest
of an unusually prolific royal house, Emmy's options were uniquely
open early in life.  The dukedom's lineage was quite secure, so there
was no arranged marriage to contend with; on the other hand, she could
not expect a soft life unless she married wealth, which she had no
intention of doing.
        With that in mind, before the time had been right for her to
answer the call of the Force, she had pursued and excelled at a craft
which she both admired and enjoyed.  On the repute and recommendation
of her teachers, she could have found lucrative work as a chef
anywhere on Hyeruul, even in the royal palace itself.  It was the most
wistful (and not just a bit selfish) hope of certain of her relations
that she would come back from her sojourn in the Outside and do just
that.
        Emmy had no intention of doing that either, but she enjoyed
exercising her culinary talents nevertheless.  As Padme entered the
galley, Emmy and Rabe were bent over a large pot of something
savory-smelling.
        "If I only had some k'lyy'bri," Emmy was saying, "I could make
a doj-r'shol'yk that would make an Androgum cry."
        "I'm afraid we don't keep Hyelian spices in a mere shipboard
kitchen," said Rabe matter-of-factly, scanning the spice cabinet with
a critical eye.  "Ah!  We do have lorta, though," she soon declared,
pulling down a jar and handing it to Emmy.
        Emmy unscrewed the lid, sniffed cautiously, eyed the ground
greenness judicially, and finally pronounced, "Yes ... This should
work."
        "Fine, then - you get started on your dodge-rashollick, and
we'll serve it between the snabs and the roast belgad.  Oh - hello,
Padme.  I didn't hear you come in."
        "We have two royal chefs now?" wondered Padme with a smile.
        "Only for the duration," Emmy replied.  "I couldn't join your
corps, I'm afraid - my hair's the wrong color, and the ears just don't
fit in."
        Padme chuckled at that, and then fell silent, sitting at the
table and quietly watching the two cooks work their trade for several
minutes before speaking up again.
        "Jedi Kyn'o'bi - " she began.
        "Please," the Hyelian replied.  "'Emmy' will do fine.  You
make me feel like someone's talking to my Uncle J'er'nyth."
        "Emmy, then," said Padme.  "I mean no disrespect, but -
shouldn't you talk to your partner?  He's very upset, and it seems odd
to me that you don't try to help him."
        Emmy smiled.  "You don't know Len Hutchins like I do," she
replied without rancor.  "When he gets into this kind of mood, he
doesn't let me help him, not at first.  He has to have a few hours to
stew before he's ready to be talked to.  Trust me... I've lived at his
side for five years and I know this mood well.  He told you the
story?"
        "Well... yes."
        The Jedi nodded.  "He's always this way when something happens
to remind him of that day.  I'll do what I can, but it'll be a while
before he's ready to let me."
        Padme considered this, then nodded.  "I see... "

        Dinner was a rather strained affair even without Achika and
Len both present.  Everyone was on edge from the tumultuous day, or
preoccupied by worry of what would await them at the Forbidden Island,
once the Queen had explained their errand to them all.  Fortunately,
everyone present was tactful enough to acknowledge this and accept the
uncomfortable silence that resulted, rather than making the situation
worse with forced chatter.  At the meal's end, the Queen thanked
everyone present for their courage and diligence, made certain to
thank especially the Jedi for their timely and continued assistance,
and then retired with her handmaidens.  Captain Panaka posted two
Protectors outside the door to the Queen's stateroom, then went below
to make sure the others were turned in for the night.  Captain Olie,
all the crew the Sun Queen needed, went to his cabin, which doubled as
a belowdecks control room.
        At the door to his cabin, which was across the hall from hers,
Len parted from Emmy without a word.  She let him go and took no
offense.  A bit down the companionway, on the same side as Emmy's
door, she saw Achika look out of her door in time for her to see Len
disappear into his cabin.  She looked then at Emmy, who looked back
for a moment, her expression neutral.
        Then, "Good night, Lady Achika," she said, and entered her
own cabin.

        An hour later, Len was sitting at the bow rail of the Sun
Queen, his feet hanging down either side of the ship's forepeak,
looking up at the starry night sky.  With his naked eyes, he could
pick out the gleaming, fast-moving specks of the orbiting starships,
and it seemed amazing to him that they couldn't see him too.  He could
probably see the sun he grew up under from here - Zeta Cygni had been
enclosed by a Dyson sphere for only fifty years or so, and it was many
hundreds of light-years from Naboo - but he didn't know where to look.
        Hours after the shock of seeing Achika again, he still felt
off-balance and faintly unreal, as if he would wake up soon and find
himself in his bed in the back bedroom of the little house on Bonadan,
still a Padawan learner.  Surely he couldn't be the same man that
Master Yoda had decided was ready to go out into the galaxy on his own
as a full-fledged Jedi Knight.  That man would have handled the
situation somehow, made clear his remorse and sorrow to Achika, rather
than standing there like an idiot gaping while she strode furiously
away.
        He felt a familiar presence and heard a soft sound behind him,
and then a warm hand fell gently on his shoulder.
        "Leonard," said Emmy's voice softly.  "The Dark Side is not
only anger."
        "Bah," Len replied irritably.  "Isn't a man entitled to be
miserable when something like this happens?"
        "An ordinary man, maybe," Emmy replied.  She knelt down behind
him and put her arms under his and around him, pressing herself
against his back.  "But you made the decision long ago not to be an
ordinary man, Len.  You chose to be more than that, to take on more
responsibility.  That means you're -not- entitled."
        "It's all so unexpected," Len protested.
        "I know," Emmy replied, her words a bit muffled since the side
of her face was pressed to his shoulder blade.  "I know, and it's
thrown your balance off.  You feel lost and confused.  You don't know
what you were expecting - only that you didn't get it.  Master Gajic
warned you that this would be your biggest obstacle toward true peace
of mind."
        "Emmy, I - "  Len paused, then fumbled in the dark to take one
of her hands in his.  "I don't know what to do.  For the first time in
six years I don't know what to do."
        "Relax," Emmy replied.  "Trust in the Force."
        Len strove to relax, and in doing so made it worse.  This was
all the more frustrating, since normally, giving his worries up to the
Force was easy for him.  He could feel the beauty and cosmic order of
it all, just outside his perception, but trying to look at it only
pushed it out of focus.
        Then he heard a soft, sweet sound, and he realized that Emmy
was singing.  It was a song she'd sung for him many times before, a
slow and rather sad-sounding one in her own language.  She'd never
told him what it meant, and he'd never asked.  He listened to it, felt
the slight movement behind him whenever she snatched a breath between
notes.  He sank slowly into the cadence of it, the beautifully strange
rhythms of an alien language, and suddenly the Force was with him.
        He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and found his
balance returning.  Slowly, he extricated himself from Emmy's arms and
stood up, drawing her up with him.  Without a word, he hugged her
properly, kissed the top of her head, and went below.
        If he noticed that her face was wet with tears, he didn't
mention it.
        She watched him go, then turned around, sat down where he had
been, and said with feeling, "Ayy j'ttata."  Bucking him up had left
her feeling drained, as though to lift his depression she had taken it
into herself.  Maybe that had something to do with the song she sang
for him.  It was one of Hyeruul's most ancient surviving pieces of
music and of poetry, a piquant lament for a lost love whose closest
analog in human literature, as far as Emmy had found, was Edgar Allan
Poe's "Annabel Lee".
        Not that she would ever tell Len what it meant, or know how to
answer him if he ever asked.  It had been obvious to her from the
start that his heart belonged irretrievably to another, and so she had
never allowed herself, except in the most utterly private of moments,
to consider what might have been.  Besides, she'd said jokingly at one
point when their conversation had come uncomfortably close to it, he
wasn't her type - he was much too tall, and his ears were too short.
        Anyway - and this part was true - their friendship was deeper
and broader than what a great many lovers called love.  They'd been
Padawan learners under the same Jedi Master.  They'd seen the darkest
recesses of each other's souls, and respected each other anyway - all
the more for it.
        It hurt Emmy to keep a secret from one so close; but it would
have hurt him more to know it, and so she suffered to keep it
private.
        Emmy closed her eyes and tried to follow her own advice, clear
it all out of her mind and get her own balance back.  She had no one
to sing to her, but the sound of the ship rushing across the
glassy-smooth sea was enough to soothe her spirit and return her to
the peace within.
        As she meditated, Emmy began to feel another's presence
nearby, one she didn't recognize but felt, oddly, that she should
have.  She reached out for it, trying to feel its shape and color, and
found only an obscuring darkness.  She should have felt threatened by
such close proximity to one so obviously touched by the Dark Side, but
instead, she found the darkness clouding his(?) presence oddly
comforting.  But how could that be?  She had always believed that
darkness was the enemy, its only purpose to extinguish the light she
and her ancestors represented.  It disturbed her that she did not find
this shadowed hollow in the Force threatening.
        Who are you? she asked it.
        The presence seemed to chuckle.  You know me, it said.  You
have always known me.
        What?
        You have always known me, the presence repeated.  Its 'voice'
was deep and rich, and Emmy could have sworn she had heard it before,
but the memory slipped away when she reached for it, and then her
attention was drawn away from the search as the voice added:
        We will meet soon enough.
        A rush of terror ripped through Emmy's slender frame as she
finally recognized the voice, and she recoiled from the contact, an
involuntary noise of horror and hatred welling up in her throat.  Her
heart pounded.  The present day was torn away like wrapping paper, and
the "gift" beneath it embodied some of her happiest and most painful
memories together.

        Of all the many members of her unusually numerous family,
M'yl'ya liked her Uncle J'er'nyth best.  Of course she loved her
parents - they were her parents - and her brother and sisters, too;
but J'er'nyth was the only relative she had who she thought really
understood her.
        Duke K'yr'wan was not an uncaring man, but his personality had
little warmth - like so many powerful men, he was convinced that his
family -knew- he loved them, and there was no need for him to waste
his time -and- theirs by telling them things they already knew.
Duchess Yz'myr'yl'da loved all her children, but it was her son and
eldest daughter who had to be carefully prepared to continue the
family's noble house, so they required the most attention.  The
Duchess would not have admitted it, but she had always felt there was
something a little... well, -odd- about her youngest daughter.
        M'yl'ya was only thirty, years away from beginning the slow
climb from child to woman.  She was small for her age, spindly and
graceless, and so introspective that her tutors initially wondered if
she might be... the polite term they used when discreetly broaching
the subject with the Duchess was "backward".
        But they all learned sooner or later that M'yl'ya could not be
"backward".  She might be quiet, and given to gazing off into space
with her mind on unfathomable distances rather than the study material
in front of her, but she saw, heard, and remembered everything around
her with unnerving precision.  She did not repeat lessons because she
did not need the material repeated.  It was as though she took extra
care to lock away her official lessons in her mind as fast as possible
so that she could have more time to ponder the things she would not
speak to her teachers about.
        It was true she would never discuss her thoughts with her
teachers or her parents.  She had tried, once, to describe the things
she could see, hear, and feel, and had received a battery of
psychological and neurological tests in return for her forthrightness.
Before long, it was a commonly established rumor around the courts
that Duke K'yr'wan's youngest was "strange".  She heard voices, the
courtiers whispered, and saw things that weren't there - things that
had happened long ago, or only in legend, or not at all, things she
claimed were happening far away, or even that hadn't happened yet.
        Hyeruul had seen its share of seers in its time, but the
traditions of magic had died out in recent generations, as contact
with the technologized universe relegated the ages of sorcery to the
province of myth.  Perhaps things would have been different if the
child's "strangeness" had been reported to Queen Tz'ldah, who knew
better, but it was not.  To save herself from the ridicule of
strangers and the more irritating concern of those who believed that
what M'yl'ya thought of as a gift was actually a mental illness, she
stopped speaking of them and presented the appearance of a dutiful but
rather sullen little girl.
        Except to her Uncle J'er'nyth, because he knew the reason why
she saw, and heard, and felt these things.
        J'er'nyth was the younger brother of Duke K'yr'wan, and though
he was tolerated in the household and treated with respect, he was
essentially the black sheep of the Kyn'o'bi clan by any lights but
M'yl'ya's.  At some point in the past, as those who remembered the
time of the Jedi Knights became fewer and fewer and finally vanished
altogether, the Jedi and their philosophy had gone from respected
icons to quaint relics in the public consciousness.  That J'er'nyth
had rejected the nobility and studied the ancient ways was considered
very strange by his peers, though it had earned considerable respect
from Queen Tz'ldah.
        This respect and his blood relation to the duke ensured that,
however strange the household considered him, J'er'nyth was welcome in
his elder brother's home.  He arrived that day with a pack on his
back, a lot of wear showing on his traveling boots, and exotic gifts
from the farthest-flung hinterlands of Hyeruul for all the children.
Strange or not, it was impossible not to like J'er'nyth Kyn'o'bi.  He
was settling gracefully into middle age, his brown hair and beard
streaked with gray, and he carried his maturity with an easier grace
than the tz'yda'rr-like smoothness of his youth.  He had a smile for
everyone and had never been known to raise his voice in his life.  He
never needed to; however softly he spoke, his voice always commanded
attention.
        As usual, M'yl'ya was not to be found in the group that
tumultuously greeted J'er'nyth in the hall.  This neither disappointed
nor offended J'er'nyth.  He knew that his niece held her affection for
her uncle to be a private thing, not to be displayed before her
immediate family - almost as if to do so would be vulgar.  Nonetheless,
as the other children and their mother dispersed to allow the duke and
his brother some private time, J'er'nyth commented on her absence,
because he knew his brother expected him to.
        "That girl," K'yr'wan said, shaking his head sadly as he put
his arm over his brother's shoulders and ushered him into the study.
"I don't know what I'm going to do with her, J'er'nyth.  She's
becoming more and more impossible all the time.  She has no friends.
She makes her tutors nervous.  She speaks to me and her mother only
as much as she can and still be barely civil.  Lately, Or'lyn'do has
taken to tormenting her.  Pulling her hair, taking her things, just to
try and get a rise out of her."
        "Does it work?" wondered J'er'nyth, a look of great interest
on his face.  The two men seated themselves in the study's two deepest
leather chairs.
        "No," replied the duke.  "She just stares at him with this
look of reproach - not as if she's hurt, but... I don't know how to
say it... as if she's disappointed.  Yes, that's it.  A look of
disappointment.  As though she expected better.  Yesterday he pushed
her into a mud hole in the yard, and she didn't say a word - just gave
him that sad stare until -he- ran into the house crying.  I should
punish him, but I empathize with the boy.  She's frustrating.  No one
can tell us what's wrong with her."
        "Nothing's wrong with her, K'yr'wan," replied J'er'nyth.
        "Don't start with that Jedi nonsense again, J'er'nyth," said
the duke in a warning tone.  "M'yl'ya is not your daughter, she's
mine, and she is -not- touched by your 'Force'.  She's... she's sick,
or something like it, and eventually she can be cured."  K'yr'wan
frowned and continued, "Though I fear we may have to send her away for
a specialist to examine before - "
        J'er'nyth sighed.  "How can you be so blind, brother?" he
said.  "The Force is real and M'yl'ya can feel it.  There is no other
explanation.  If you would open your heart instead of indulging
yourself in this jealous pettiness simply because the Force is not
with you, your daughter would be a much happier person.  Don't you
-want- her to be happy?"
        "Of course I want her to be happy!" K'yr'wan spluttered.
"She's my daughter, and whatever her faults, I love her."
        "Then let me talk to her," J'er'nyth said.  "If you can't be
bothered to understand her, at least stop trying to interfere with her
destiny."
        "No.  You won't make a Jedi of her.  I forbid it.  Do you
understand?  I won't let you turn any daughter of mine to a life of
wandering and danger.  You sleep in fields and caves and people's
barns, you travel the galaxy in cargo holds, you eat whatever you can
catch.  How many times have you nearly been killed?  It's no life for
a respectable person to lead."
        "I'm content.  I enjoy the life of a Jedi."
        "That's beside the point."
        "Is it?  You said yourself you wanted M'yl'ya to be happy."
        K'yr'wan stared at his brother for a moment.  Twice, he opened
his mouth as if about to speak, then closed it again without saying a
word.  Then he slumped in his chair.
        "Talk to her," he said.  "But, J'er'nyth, please - will you
respect my wishes?  I don't want you making a student of her.
She's... she's too young."
        J'er'nyth heard the rationalization, but knew he had won as
much from his brother as he could in this round.  K'yr'wan had to be
brought around slowly, accept his daughter's destiny in small steps,
and one step was enough for today.
        He nodded.  "You have my word, K'yr'wan.  I won't train her
until you give me permission."
        M'yl'ya backed a step away from the study door, turned, and
ran to her bedroom, her eyes burning.  From her brother Or'lyn'do, her
teachers, the other children - from them she expected betrayal.  But
J'er'nyth?  She should have been filled with joy to hear him confirm
her suspicion that the strange feelings that overtook her sometimes
came from the Force, but his promise to her father was all that she
could hear as she threw herself on her bed and cried.
        The next thing she knew, she was being shaken gently awake.
She turned over and sat up, rubbing her eyes, and then focused her
awareness on her visitor.
        It was J'er'nyth; she scowled at him, then turned away as if
determined to go back to sleep.
        "You heard me talking with your father," he said softly.  She
said nothing, did not acknowledge that he had spoken.  "M'yl'ya, your
father is a difficult man to deal with," J'er'nyth went on.  "He
cannot accept what you are to be all at once - it will have to be done
in stages.  He does not understand your talent, and so it frightens
him a little.  He is a powerful man, and his power has misled him to
believe that he can be rid of things that frighten him merely by
refusing to acknowledge them."
        "You told him you wouldn't teach me," she accused.
        "Until he tells me that I may, yes," J'er'nyth replied.  "But
one day, M'yl'ya, he will.  One day he will be ready to believe in
your gifts and admit that they cannot be denied.  When that day comes
you will be trained."
        She turned again, looked at her uncle skeptically.  He had
never lied to her in her life - he had never lied to anyone, as far as
she knew - but she found this news hard to absorb.
        "I will?" she asked cautiously.  Having had her hopes so
recently dashed, she hardly dared raise them up again.
        "You will," J'er'nyth replied.  "Come.  Wash your face and put
on your shoes.  I want to show you something."

        "What is this place, Uncle?" she asked, standing at the top of
the worn stone steps and gazing up in awe at the towering arch of the
doorway.  The building was in ruins; the roof was gone, so the sun lit
the inside just as the outside.  Grass was growing in a grid pattern
through the cracks between the faded, ornate floor tiles.  Several of
the columns of the portico had fallen, their segments leaning
drunkenly against one another where they had tumbled to the floor.
        "What do you feel that it was?" J'er'nyth responded.
        M'yl'ya looked around for a moment; then she walked into the
front hall of the ruined building.  Along the walls of the great,
vaulted chamber was a series of frescoes, faded and chipped but mostly
intact; they were portraits of a great number of beings, many Hyelian,
many not.  All wore robes similar to her uncle's.  Those whose belts
could be seen wore lightsabers.  She had never seen so many outworld
species depicted in once place before, except in a "Peoples of the
Galaxy" storybook.
        She turned slowly around in the center of the room, looking at
all of them.  It struck her suddenly that the south wall of the room
had these portraits painted on it just like the others.  That was odd;
superstition beyond ancient prevented even most modern Hyelians from
putting portraiture on the south walls of rooms.
        One of the portraits on the west wall caught her eye, and she
went to it and looked up at it.  It was a Hyelian man about her
uncle's age - in fact, he looked very like her uncle, with the same
kindly eyes and the same short beard - but his hair had gone
completely white, and he looked tired and rather sad as well as kind.
She reached out a hand and gently, timidly touched him, feeling an
indescribable connection to this faded portrait of an ancient Jedi.
        She turned to her uncle and murmured, "This was the Jedi
Temple, wasn't it?"
        He nodded.  "Yes, M'yl'ya.  For generations, Jedi Knights
lived, worked and trained here."  He pointed with his chin toward the
painting she had touched.  "He was our ancestor, Master O'bi-Wann
Kyn'o'bi.  He is shown here as he was at the end of his life.  The
last few paintings were done just before this place was abandoned,
during the turbulent days of the Santovasku emperor's final campaign
against us - almost three thousand years ago.'
        M'yl'ya looked back at the painting.  "That's why he looks so
sad," she mused.  She looked close to tears herself.
        J'er'nyth put his hands on her shoulders from behind and
regarded his ancestor with her.  "That's part of why he looks so sad,"
he told her.  "But also because this painting was made as he was
preparing to fight a battle he would have given anything to avoid."
        M'yl'ya gazed at the kind, sad face of her forefather for a
few more moments; then, moved by an impetus she couldn't explain, she
walked across the room to the south wall and stopped squarely in front
of another painting.
        This was a very different kind of man, huge and brawnily
built, with black armor under black robes.  Some kind of electronic
control panel was shown on his chest, and his head was covered by a
hideous black helmet - a casque reminiscent of a warrior's helm, and a
face mask like some hideous technological death's head.  It gave her a
thrill of horror just to look at him.  Though he was just a faded
painting on a crumbling wall, she almost felt as if he would reach out
of the plaster and crush the life from her with his gauntleted hands.
        She took a step back from him, her breath catching in her
throat, and backed into the reassuring presence of her uncle again.
        "Who - who is he?" she whispered, unable to take her horrified
eyes off him.
        "The scourge of the Jedi," J'er'nyth replied softly.
"O'bi-Wann's renegade student, who turned to the Dark Side, joined
forces with the Santovasku emperor and helped him destroy the Order."
        As soon as J'er'nyth had started answering her question, she
had realized she needn't have asked it.  Who else could this creature
be, whose mere image could strike such fear and loathing in her?
        "Darth Vader," she murmured, the name like bile on her tongue.
        The unlucky south wall, she realized, must be reserved for the
Fallen - a term which to a Jedi did not mean the dead, but those whose
fate was worse: those who had been consumed by the hatred and
aggression that was the Dark Side of the Force.
        J'er'nyth's hands were on her shoulders again.  He gently
steered her down a corridor and into a much smaller room, one where
the ceiling and window were still intact, and Darth Vader's hideous
presence did not oppress the atmosphere.  As she came out of her
horrified trance, M'yl'ya saw that it was a bedroom, a small and cozy
chamber with a desk along one wall, a bookshelf on another, and a
narrow cot.  Then she realized that the cot was a modern folding camp
bed, and that there were books in the bookshelf and some modern items
on the desk.  She looked up over her shoulder at her uncle.
        "I stay here sometimes," he confirmed, "to feel closer to my
roots.  This was O'bi-Wann's room when he lived in the Temple."
        J'er'nyth sat M'yl'ya down on the edge of the cot, then knelt
before her so that his eyes were on a level with hers.
        "M'yl'ya," he said, "waiting for your father to relent in his
refusal will be hard, but you should take it as a training exercise of
a sort.  Becoming a Jedi requires the most serious commitment a person
can make.  The training is difficult, and the life of a Jedi Knight is
not an easy one.  Your father wasn't exaggerating - I do sleep rough
most nights, and I've been in more than my fair share of tight spots.
Protecting the innocent means placing yourself in the way of those who
would do them harm."  He gave a rueful chuckle and added, "I probably
won't die in bed."
        M'yl'ya nodded, her big violet eyes wide and serious.  "I
know, Uncle," she said.  "But... it's all that I've ever wanted to be,
since I was old enough to understand what you are.  You told me once
there has been a Jedi in every Kyn'o'bi generation since the Order was
founded, even during the Dark Times."
        J'er'nyth nodded.  "That's true."
        "Well... after you, who else is there?"  She scowled.  "Not
Or'lyn'do, that's for sure."
        "Don't hold your brother's behavior against him," J'er'nyth
cautioned his niece.  "It's - "
        "It's not the Jedi way to hold grudges," she said.
        "Yes.  That's right," said J'er'nyth, hugging her to his chest
with a proud smile.  "Now," he went on, holding her at arm's length by
the shoulders, "will you promise me that you'll be patient, that
you'll wait?"
        "What if Father never changes his mind?" she asked timorously.
        "He will," said J'er'nyth; but seeing her eyes remain worried,
he added, "but even if he doesn't, you won't be a child forever.
Someday you'll be an adult, and then you can do what you want, even if
your father forbids it."
        "You promised you wouldn't train me unless he said it was all
right," she said, as if wary of being tricked.
        "That's right, I did," said J'er'nyth, feeling another surge
of pride at her powers of observation.  "But I am not the only Jedi
Knight in the galaxy.  Almost, perhaps, but not quite.  If I cannot
train you when the day comes, I will make sure another does."
        "You promise?"
        J'er'nyth nodded.  "If you keep your end of the bargain - if
you will be patient, attend to your studies, and keep the peace in
your father's house until the time is right for you to be trained - I
promise you, you will be a Jedi Knight."
        "Then I will," she replied.  "I'll do anything you say as long
as you make me that promise."
        "Well, then," said J'er'nyth with a fond smile, "it appears we
have a bargain."  He slipped his pack off his back, rummaged in it,
and removed a rectangular case, perhaps two feet long and two inches
in cross-section, made of polished silver metal.  "To seal our
agreement, I want you to have something very special, but you mustn't
tell your father you have it."
        "I won't," said M'yl'ya.  "What is it?"
        J'er'nyth worked the two small, intricate locks on the case
with care, then opened the lid and took out a gleaming silver
lightsaber.  It was beautiful, much more beautiful than J'er'nyth's
own, which was a drab, functional length of silvery-gray metal with a
couple of buttons along its side and a hanger ring at the butt end.
This saber was made of polished silver, with geometric cut-outs filled
by some notched black material.  Its pommel end sported a dull black
ball ringed by small square blocks of silver metal, jutting out like
abbreviated spikes on a mace.  Positioned perfectly for a wielder's
thumb was a knurled red button.
        "This is Master O'bi-Wann's Kyn'o'bi's lightsaber," said
J'er'nyth.  "Every generation of Jedi in our family since him has
learned the ways of the lightsaber with this in their hands.  When the
time comes for you to be trained, you'll need it, won't you?  But you
mustn't activate it until your master, whoever it is, tells you to.
You mustn't play with it or show it to anyone.  It's dangerous in
untrained hands, so just keep it safe until the right time.  All
right?"
        M'yl'ya nodded gravely.  "All right."
        "Do you want to hold it?  Just this once?"  She nodded.
"Here.  Take it, then," he said, holding it out to her.
        She reached out, her small hands trembling just a little, and
took it reverently.
        Suddenly she wasn't there in that small room with her uncle
any more.  She was somewhere else, somewhere made of darker stone with
higher ceilings and tapestries: the Royal Palace, she realized with a
start.  And she wasn't holding the lightsaber any more; the man
standing next to her was - a white-haired man in Jedi robes, with his
face set in calm determination.  With another shock, she recognized
him as Master O'bi-Wann.
        At the other end of the hall, the doors opened, and a giant in
black swept into the corridor, his cloak flying behind him with his
long-legged stride.  Anger radiated off him in great rippling waves.
He visibly seethed as he strode down the red-carpeted corridor toward
the door to the throne room, his path blocked only by O'bi-Wann and
Emmy.  The sound of mechanically-assisted breathing rasped
rhythmically as he approached; the armored suit he wore, with the
blinking lights on the chest, must contain a life-support unit.
        Darth Vader slowed and then halted a dozen paces from
O'bi-Wann, and the two men regarded each other for a moment.
        "So," Vader boomed, his voice impossibly rich and resonant.
"You have come home to die, old man.  The circle is complete.  When
last we met, you did your best to end me, but in the end you left me
alive."  Vader ignited his lightsaber, raising the red blade to the
en-garde position, and told his old master, "I will not be so
careless."
        "You can't win, Darth," Kyn'o'bi replied, bringing his own
saber to humming blue life.  "If you strike me down, another will take
my place."
        Vader replied flatly, "There are no others."  His saber
clashed against O'bi-Wann's, but despite Vader's taunting "old man",
there was nothing weary or frail in the Jedi Master's saber
technique.  The powerful Sith Lord had perhaps a foot of height and a
considerable breadth of chest on his opponent, but could not drive him
back easily.
        "Are you so sure?" Kyn'o'bi asked, his eyes twinkling with
merriment that seemed inappropriate to the situation as far as M'yl'ya
was concerned.  "Are you that confident that you have destroyed all of
us?"
        "I ground the Council beneath my heel," Vader replied, the
contempt in his voice obvious, as he and his old master fenced up and
down the corridor.  "Jynn, Windu, Koth - I destroyed them all.  You
are all that remains."
        Though pain flickered through his eyes at the names of his
dead comrades, Kyn'o'bi kept his tone merry, even slightly mocking,
and smiled a little as he said, "And Yoda?"
        Vader snarled and drove his blade against Kyn'o'bi's so hard
that the Hyelian almost lost his footing.  Disengaging, Kyn'o'bi took
several rapid steps back, rolling the tip of his saber gently in a
circle, and smiled.  "I thought not," he said.
        "You should worry less about Yoda," Vader growled, advancing
wih two great strides, "and more about yourself!"
        The conversation ended there; neither combatant had breath for
it.  The battle had started out as an almost playful sparring session
with some light conversation, but O'bi-Wann's barb had escalated it to
an all-out war.  M'yl'ya was treated to a dazzling display of
swordsmanship as Jedi Master and Sith Lord fought up and down the
throne room corridor for nearly ten minutes, but Emmy began to realize
that her ancestor was fading, his strikes and parries losing their
precision and speed, while Vader kept at him like a machine.  The
only sign of exertion Vader displayed was a faster tempo to his
metronomic mechanical breathing.
        All the terror the painting of Vader had hinted at was
magnified a thousandfold in the living presence of the Sith Lord.  His
strength was incredible, his speed astonishing - and that was before
one considered the fact that he was a man kept alive by a support
suit.  His skill was equal to his vicious intent.  M'yl'ya had read
descriptions of ancient warriors and gods, and she had always wondered
just what a swift and terrible hand was; now she knew.  The swift and
terrible hand was Darth Vader, and it belonged to the Dark Side of the
Force.
        O'bi-Wann Kyn'o'bi was haggard by now, his face bathed in
sweat; he stumbled several times and only saved himself by sheer
exertion and good luck.  It was clear that he couldn't last much
longer without a second wind, or a rest, or reinforcements, and none
of the three seemed forthcoming.
        Then, suddenly, his face changed, clearing and smoothing as if
he'd just received a message that filled him with satisfaction.  He
even smiled as he stepped, faltering only a little, back from one of
Vader's strikes, then hurled the Sith Lord back with the strength of
the Force from the palm of his outstretched hand.
        Vader skidded to a stop where he had begun this battle, a
dozen paces from the Jedi Master, and as the Sith Lord gathered
himself to return to the fight, Kyn'o'bi did a very strange thing.
        He switched off his lightsaber and hung it on his belt.  Then
he looked, not at Darth Vader, but right at M'yl'ya.  Their gazes met
across three thousand years; O'bi-Wann smiled at his descendent with
guileless eyes, then folded his arms, closed those eyes, and bowed his
head.
        With a roar of rage, Darth Vader charged, bringing his
lightsaber around in a great arc.  M'yl'ya screamed - 
        And O'bi-Wann Kyn'o'bi was gone.  Not crumpling to the floor,
his flesh rent and his life extinguished; literally gone.  His empty
robes, cut in half by Vader's strike, collapsed to the floor, covering
his lightsaber.  M'yl'ya's scream was cut off by a yelp of surprise,
and Vader himself recoiled in shock, his saber flickering out.
        The scene vanished, and M'yl'ya was back in the small room in
Hyeruul's Jedi Temple, holding her ancestor's lightsaber - that same
lightsaber! - in her hands.  She looked from it up to her uncle's
eyes; he did not look startled or worried, and she realized that the
whole experience must have taken only a second.
        Why had she seen it?  What was the significance of her
ancestor's death at the hands of his renegade pupil, that the Force
should make her a spectator to it?  Had Master O'bi-Wann really seen
her, really smiled at her, or had she just imagined it?
        She shivered at the memory of Vader's ruthlessness, his rage,
his hideous competence.
        "Cold?" her uncle asked, although she understood later that
he must have known she'd felt -something- in the Force when she took
hold of the saber.  "Let's go home, then."  He took the saber gently
from her, put it back in its case and handed it to her.  "Remember
our bargain."
        "I won't let you down, Uncle," she said firmly.  "Or Master
O'bi-Wann, either," she murmured, surprised at the afterthought for
having come.
        "I'm sure we'll both be very proud of you," said J'er'nyth,
and he meant it.

        "Jedi Kyn'o'bi?" said an unfamiliar voice.
        Emmy blinked, gasped, and tried to fit her consciousness back
into the real world.  She took stock of herself and realized that she
was standing on the forepeak of the Sun Queen, in a battle stance, her
shortsabers in each hand poised to strike.  She shut them down and
returned them to her sleeves, then turned to see Achika looking
quizzically at her from the deck rail.
        "Are you all right?" said Achika.  "I thought I heard a
scream."
        "I... "  Emmy blinked again, then nodded.  "I'm fine, Lady
Achika.  I, er... I was practicing a lightsaber drill.  I must have
made the noise inadvertently."
        Achika looked puzzled.  "It didn't sound like that kind of
shout," she mused.  "Almost like a scream of terror, or pain."
        Emmy gestured vaguely around herself.  "Well, as you can see,
there's nothing here to cause me either of those."
        "No, I suppose not.  I must've been mistaken.  Good night,
then."
        "Good night, Lady Achika," said Emmy as she watched the
Jyuraian go below.
        Shaking her head, Emmy waited a few moments, then followed.
She was overtired, imagining patently impossible things.  Soon enough
she would know who she had contacted - but it couldn't be -him-.  Only
her weariness had given her such a wild notion.  Darth Vader had been
dead for three thousand years.  He couldn't hurt her.
        To bed, then, and another day.

        The next morning, Len awoke last.  He washed his face in the
head at the end of the companionway, then stopped by the wardroom for
some toast.  Presently, he emerged on deck, ready to face whatever
came his way.
        Whatever came his way would appear to be Achika, who was
standing by the rail near the hatchway below decks.  He stopped at the
top of the stairs and waited for her to realize he was there.
        For a moment, there was silence, save for the sighing of the
wind across the deck, the rustle of the waves, and the faint hum of
the repulsorlifts holding the Sun Queen out of the water.  Achika
turned and regarded Leonard with eyes filled with equal parts of scorn
and longing -- although longing for -what- wasn't as clear as it could
have been.  He looked back, silent and sad, for several long seconds.
Everyone else crowded sternward or went below, keeping a respectful
distance.
        Finally, Leonard spoke, quietly but firmly: "I'm sorry."
        "You're sorry!" Achika announced.  "Well!  That makes
everything all right, then."
        Leonard was silent for a few more seconds, then cocked his
head quizzically and said, "If you still hate me, why are you talking
to me?"
        Achika looked shocked.  "Hate you?  Is that what you think?!
Don't be an idiot, I don't hate you.  I'm absolutely -furious- with
you, I'd like to throttle you with my bare hands, but I don't hate
you.  I've never hated you."
        Len shrugged.  "You certainly have every reason to.  I nearly
killed you."
        "You sure did, but not the way you think!" Achika snarled.
        Len blinked, surprised.  What could she mean by that?
        "Look, what happened to me was just an accident, a stupid
accident.  It was as much my fault as yours!  But when I woke up, and
they told me you were gone, I couldn't understand it.  I mean I
-literally could not understand- that you had -left-, that you were
out the door and off to gods know where without even waiting for me to
wake up and telling me goodbye.  I read that damn letter you left me
until the words stopped making sense and I still couldn't grasp the
idea that you were just... just... gone."  Glaring at Len's mute
incredulity, she shouted, fighting back fresh tears, "Well?  Aren't
you going to -say- anything?!"
        Leonard swallowed, tried to speak, coughed, and started again,
his composure broken.  His voice emerged only reluctantly and hoarsely.
        "I... I... I didn't... I thought you wouldn't want to see me
again after what I did."
        "You idiot!!" Achika raged, leaning into his face like a
disgruntled umpire.  "That was an accident!  Even as the world
exploded around me and I saw myself falling toward the floor, I knew
it was just stupid luck.  Do you want to know what the last thought I
had was, before everything went black?  Do you?"  When Len could not
reply, she continued, "It was, 'It doesn't matter, I'll be all right.
Len is with me.'"
        Turning on her heel, she stalked a couple of steps away, then
turned and spat, "But you weren't, were you?"
        Tears began tracking down Len's cheeks, but his voice was calm
and steady as he said, "I called 9-1-1, but they wouldn't let me ride
in the ambulance with you because I wasn't related.  When I told them
I did it, they assumed I meant 'on purpose'; I spent the night at
Police Headquarters.  In retrospect it's just as well; it kept your
mother from putting my lights out.  I would have preferred that, I
think, to the fact that she got me home in the morning."
        "She was worried sick about you!  She thought you might try to
kill yourself or some dumbass thing like that."
        Len took a breath and soldiered on.  "Your mother took me back
to the house and looked at my hand - "
        "Your hand?"
        "It's not important... she wouldn't leave me alone until I
convinced her I was all right.  I would have said anything to make her
go away, I couldn't bear company.  She was so... so nice to me... I
mean, here I may have just killed her daughter and she was worried
about -me-!  It was more than I could take."  He struggled for a
moment to regain control, forcing himself to breathe regularly,
fighting down the shaking in his hands, and continued more calmly, "As
soon as I found out for certain that you would be all right, I had to
leave."
        "And I don't understand how you could do that!  I thought,
stupidly enough, that you loved me."
        "I did - I do, to this day," Len replied.  "But I felt you
deserved far better than a man so clumsy he would smash your head with
a wooden sword."
        "I think that's for me to decide, thank you very fucking
much!" Achika yelled, her color rising again.
        "If we had been practicing with live steel - "
        "Then I'd be dead!  I'm well aware of that.  But we weren't
and I'm not and you left me behind six years ago.  We don't live in
the world of what could have been, Leonard, we live in the world of
what was."
        Her piece said, Achika seemed at a loss for what to do next,
so she turned and stormed past Leonard, down the companionway, and
into the first cabin she found.  Since that was the wardroom, that
meant brushing past Emmy, who tried, unsuccessfully, to voice some
protest or comfort, she couldn't tell and didn't care which.
        Entering the wardroom, she summarily ignored Padme and threw
herself down in a chair, wondering just why the gods had seen fit to
visit Leonard on her before she was ready to deal with him.
        Glancing up, Padme scowled at her arrival, then decided to
nettle her a little.
        "Goodness," said the handmaiden offhandedly, "it must be nice
being a trained diplomat."
        "I beg your pardon?" Achika inquired.
        "I wish I had your way with people," Padme continued.  "A man
spends six years out on the Far Rim being trained and tempered in one
of the toughest disciplines in the galaxy because he thinks it's what
you'd want him to do, and when you run across him again, you tear into
him like a grue in the dark for -guessing wrong-?  Sorry!  You didn't
read my mind correctly, you lose."  The handmaiden folded her arms.
"Yes, indeed, you're quite a prize.  I can certainly see why he was so
desperate to make amends with you."
        Achika's face darkened.  "Look, Padme, I don't think I like
your - "
        She didn't finish the sentence; instead, it chopped off short
as a blank look spread across her face, replaced just as quickly by a
slowly dawning light.
        "You know," she murmured, "you're absolutely right.  I've been
going about this all wrong," Achika replied, getting up and heading
for the door.  "Thanks."
        Padme watched her go, then smiled and said to the empty room,
        "You're welcome."

        Len was climbing to the top of the cockpit to have a better
look around when he heard Achika call his name; dropping back to the
deck, he turned, steeling himself inwardly for some more well-deserved
abuse.  He already found it hard to believe that he'd blown it -that-
badly.  To make -that bad- a call...
        Well, let's just say he was feeling like a truly prizewinning
chump and leave it at that.
        Achika walked toward him at a brisk, but not angry, pace, and
stopped a few feet off, looking him over with a different expression,
through different eyes.  She was sizing him up, physically and
psychically, seeing if she could gauge how far his six-year journey
had brought him from the last time she had seen him.  At length, she
smiled, but it wasn't a dangerous smile this time.
        "I'll make you a deal," she said.
        "What kind of deal?" Len replied, interest piqued by her
sudden change of mood.  Achika was not, by nature, moody; this radical
a change must mean she'd had some kind of epiphany.
        Padme emerged from below, going to the Queen's side and
consulting briefly with Rabe.
        "Show me what you've learned out here in all the time you've
been gone.  Face me, blade to blade, the way you used to do, and let's
see how far we've both come and where we are today.  When we know
that, we'll know what happens next."
        Len paled.  "I - I couldn't possibly... "
        "Come on, Len.  You can't let this rule us for the rest of
our lives!  We have to find some kind of common ground and put this
thing behind us or we can't go on knowing one another, and we've got
too much history to stop now."
        "I haven't practiced kendo since... since that day," he
replied.  "I don't have any equipment."
        "So?  What's that on your belt?" said Achika with her
mischievous grin, the long-forgotten twinkle returning to her dark
eyes.  "Looks like a Jedi lightsaber to me."  Len blushed like a
thirteen-year-old whose mother has uncovered his stash of Hustlers.
"I saw you handle it against the Feddies.  Now let's see how you
handle an opponent who can fight back."
        "You want me to - to duel you with a live lightsaber?  Good
gods, Achika!  I - no.  No, I can't."
        "And just why not?"
        "A Jedi seeks understanding, peace, knowledge - not conflict,"
Len replied firmly.  "I can't fight you."
        Achika put a hand on her hip and gave Len an oh-gimme-a-break
look, but not one which carried much scorn.  "Len," she said gently,
"you can and you will.  You know it's the only path to understanding
we have left open to us."
        Len regarded her for a moment, and as he did, he could feel
himself recentering.  There is no emotion; there is peace.  There is
no ignorance; there is knowledge.  There is no passion; there is
serenity.  There is no death; there is the Force.
        "I could tell you I hate it when you're right," he said, and
then he cracked his first smile of the meeting.  "It'd be a lie,
though."
        He shed his outer cloak, leaving himself dressed in his gray
Jedi robes and boots.  Then, taking his lightsaber from his belt, he
walked aft, found himself a good spot, and stood, slack, muscles
relaxed, waiting.  Emmy came the rest of the way up the companionway,
smiling privately, and herded the royal entourage under the cockpit
overhang and out of the way as Achika cleared a few loose items off
the wide expanse of deck aft of same.
        "What's going on?" demanded Captain Panaka.
        "Just stay quiet, please, and don't interfere," said Emmy
calmly.
        "Your Majesty - ?!"
        "Do as she says," said Queen Amidala, a touch of nervous
energy in her voice as she looked rapidly from handmaiden to
handmaiden, counting up her entourage.
        Achika, smiling, stepped into line with Len about ten feet
away, rolling her shoulders and shaking out her arms.  Then she
removed her focus hilt from her belt, holding it relatively loosely in
her right hand.  Standing straight, she squared shoulders and feet and
bowed; Len followed suit.  Then, as both assumed ready stances,
Leonard lit his lightsaber; the white blade hissed out and hummed in
the air with the characteristic, strangely soothing thrum only the
real Jedi lightsabers can make.  Achika nodded, and her own blade
sprang forth.

       /*  Bad Religion  "Sorrow"  _The Process of Belief_  */

        They stood, silent, unmoving, for several seconds, watching
each other watch.  Len's ready stance was different from the last time
Achika had seen it: he stood a little straighter, held his arms a bit
more loosely.  He still had that same habit of moving his saber's
point in small circles, though, rolling his wrists gently as he sought
the perfect balance, physically and mentally.  The Force rolled around
him like an eddying river, his influence and Achika's intersecting in
curious ways.
        She moved first, as he had expected she would.  Of the two,
she had always been the more aggressive.  She came at him with an
overhand strike which he blocked easily, then started trying to flank
him.  For fully a minute, she backed him around the deck, hammering at
his defenses with increasingly rapid and violent strikes, as he, face
impassive, moved solely in defense.
        "What's the matter with you?" she finally demanded, not
slackening her pace.
        Leonard said nothing, continuing to block and dodge for a
moment; then, smiling, he said, "Just checking a few things."
        With an indignant "hmph," Achika sent her blade at his
unprotected right - only to have him suddenly leap over it, straight
up in the air, then tumble over her and land behind her.  She whirled
as he did, their blades crashing into an X inches between their faces.
        "That's more like it," said Achika with a grin, and kicked his
right leg out from under him.  Taking the blow, he dropped to one
knee, then rolled to the side and sprang back to his feet, Achika's
blade helicoptering under his feet as his passed over her head.  He
landed and feinted to the right; having none of that, she parried his
real strike and drove him back a few inches in a shower of sparks.
        Now, as both parties started getting into the swing of things,
the conflict became less a battle than it was a dance.  Back and forth
across the afterdeck they danced, blades crashing, sparks flying.
Emmy and the royal party stood in awe as they moved, faster and
faster, missing by smaller and smaller margins, cutting the time
tolerances on their parries finer and finer.  The hiss and snap of
colliding energy blades blended into a continuous barking roar, as
honest sweat poured down the faces of both combatants.  All else was
forgotten but the pattern, intricate and improvised and yet intimately
known to both of them.  All around them the Force sang a silent hymn
which few of the observers could hear.
        Alone among the observers, Emmy watched their technique with a
critical eye, her arms folded, hands in her sleeves.  She and Leonard
had tested themselves against each other's blades and that of their
master countless times during their training.  She knew his rhythms
and moods as intimately as she knew her own.
        Achika's technique, on the other hand, was familiar but
different.  Emmy could see from the way she fought and concentrated
that her discipline was an offshoot of the Jedi arts, diverged long
ago but still recognizable.  She found the thought pleasing, that as
decimated as the Order had become, had Master Yoda failed to keep its
feeble flame alive into the twenty-fifth century, some echo of it
would have survived in the fighting ways of the Jyuraian royal court.
        Now, Achika said to herself.  He's ready.
        Closing her eyes, she turned on the ball of her foot and
struck, deliberately overextending.  In half a second, she was out of
position and in the path of deadly white danger, her own blade
flickering and dying as her concentration broke.
        Expressionless, but with his eyes twinkling as the Force sang
to him, Leonard whirled and struck down, still flowing in the pattern.
        Inadvertently, Queen Amidala gasped, turning away, unable to
watch.  Most of her party followed suit, except Padme, who looked on
with rapt fascination.  Captain Panaka winced.
        Emmy smiled.
        There came the thrum of a lightsaber strike, but where there
should have been the snap of blade on blade or the hiss of the blade
biting into flesh, there was nothing but the hum of an idle saber.
After several seconds, Amidala slowly, tentatively, opened her eyes.
        Leonard stood before Achika, his body frozen in the posture of
a fully extended strike.  His blade stood perhaps an inch from
Achika's face, so close its light threw shadows on her features.  His
eyes were closed, his face perfectly composed; Achika stood before
him, frozen in her finishing position.  She, too, was silent, her eyes
closed.
        "Well now," Achika said softly, not opening her eyes.  "Do we
understand each other?"
        Leonard did not look at her either, but smiled and replied,
"Yes... I think we do."
        Then he thumbed a control, and the white blade hissed away
from Achika's face and was gone.
        Captain Panaka let out the breath he was holding.  Amidala
glanced nervously at Padme, who smiled as if to say, See?  Nothing to
worry about.

        In his meditation chamber aboard the Conqueror, Darth Vader
sat motionless.  An observer, had any dared to enter the chamber,
would have thought him asleep, at least until he took action against
them for intruding.  Vader was quite awake; he rarely slept and never
when something as interesting as this was going on.
        His awareness was focused well beyond his ravaged physical
shell and its metallic surroundings, on the two bright sparks of life
down on the planet below.  To one as sensitive as Vader, the
repercussions of Leonard and Achika's duel still resounded in the
Force.  They told him much - not who the combatants were, but where
they had come from, in a sense.  One of them, the Jedi he had felt
aboard the small ship they'd shot down, confirmed Vader's assessment
of him as a fully-trained, traditional Jedi Knight.  The other had a
familiar feeling, but touched with a flavor of the exotic - trained,
perhaps, in a foreign discipline that had once been the Jedi way in
ages past.  And, unless Vader missed his guess, a second Jedi had been
present, not taking part, but watching and sensing the duel.
        Vader savored all these revelations, and though doing so was
painful, he smiled under his mask.  All was proceeding well.  It was
almost time for him to take action.  He felt the surge of anticipation
rush through his body, and welcomed it.  After all those years entombed, 
he had been idle far too long.

                          TO BE CONTINUED...