Chapter 17

Jorel woke with a groan, head pounding, regretting his life choices.

His muscles ached, his throat felt like it had glass in it, and, as consciousness slowly spread, he found his arms were raised, shackles around his wrists holding them raised above his head, metal pressing into his skin. Opening his eyes and looking around, he found himself in what looked to be a jail cell right out of the Outer Rim, not something in the Colonies.

Dark and dingy, the only light came in from a barred window set into a metal door at the far end of the room. There was no bed, no toilet, and Jorel didn’t like what that implied.

“Good, you’re awake,” came a familiar voice to his side, and, swinging his head over, he saw Sergeant Hisku was similarly restrained. She didn’t appear happy. “I told you we should have left.”

“That you did,” Jorel agreed, nodding, head swimming, even as he turned his thoughts inward, connecting to the Force to help heal himself in preparation of whatever came next.

Following that odd thought, the one he hadn’t been able to shake, the two of them had found themselves wandering deeper and deeper into the city. Their surroundings had gotten dirtier, the buildings in increasingly poor repair, and everything all around worse, but something had pushed him to go deeper.

Then, suddenly, outside of a building that practically glowed with the Force, with the Dark Side subtle, but present, he had stopped, having arrived at his destination. The Sergeant, a little unsure, had asked if he’d wanted to go inside

However, before they could, the sound of blasterfire had rung out from within the building, causing her to draw her sidearm, and for him to pull his saber. He had faintly been able to feel the small, black blossoms of death from inside, though they were weak, small disturbances in the Force instead of the in-your-face blast of malevolence he’d felt when killing someone himself. Those still on the street fled, except for a Rodian from across the way, who’d pulled a blaster pistol and started to walk for the building, but had hesitated, before striding towards them.

“Leave,” the gunman had ordered in Huttese, language of criminals everywhere, weapon waved in their direction.

Sergeant Hisku, looking him over, had replied in Basic. “No.” Then, when the, likely criminal, Alien had pointed his weapon towards her, she shot him, the blue ring of a stun-bolt dropping him. “We should leave,” she had urged Jorel, still mostly calm, as if what she’d done was perfectly normal. “That man wasn’t law enforcement, and we don’t-”

More gunfire had rung out, followed by an explosion, which blew out the fourth story windows. However, Jorel had still had a feeling they should stay, and had shaken his head no. More gunfire had been heard, then a window had broken, two people falling from the third floor as glass rained down on the street below.

Following his instincts, the Padawan had grit his teeth, thankful for his master’s training as he was able to slow both of them, having to firm his stance to keep them from hitting the glass-covered ferrocrete. He managed it, barely suspending both of them a couple feet off the ground.

Pulling them over to safe ground, he’d twisted them about, so they could stand, and got a look at them. One had been an older woman, wearing a large coat that was peppered with blasterburns, and with an empty bandolier over body armor, a blaster pistol in her free hand, the other holding onto a young girl. The girl, closer to the Sergeant’s real age, and dressed in rags, had been shaking like a leaf, holding onto the older one, both of them looking at him with wide eyes, though the older woman got a hold of herself, shock quickly fading.

Trusting his instincts, he had pointed down the street as he commanded, “Sergeant, fire,” even as he turned on his lightsaber, blocking a bolt from the window the pair had just left, protecting them. Turning to look at the rough looking man who’d tried to kill the pair, Jorel hadn’t trusted his proficiency with Shien to send his next bolt back at the attacker with his saber, so had merely pulled the man, who fell out the window, and lacking Jorel’s assistance, hit the ground that might’ve well have been covered with knives with a wet crunch.

His death was not muted in the Force, but Jorel, knowing it was coming, allowed the feeling to pass by him as if he wasn’t there.

The Sergeant had fired, non-lethally at first, before switching to normal bolts, killing a few more who shot at them. From the other side, a speeder had rounded the corner, the older woman saying, “No! He’s with us!” as Jorel had turned to face the new attack.

It had been driven by a man, maybe Jorel’s age, maybe older, with a nasty scar across his face that almost formed a pattern. He had pulled up, glancing at Jorel’s saber, before his eyes went to the pair. “Mom! Did you, Kandra!”

“Ga-Gavin?” the girl had asked, the first words she’d spoken, her voice high, but hoarse.

The older woman had helped the girl into the back seat, nodding to Jorel. “You have my thanks, Master Jedi.”

“Mom, what about the others?” The man, Gavin, had asked.

“I could only get your sister,” she had said, taking the passenger seat. “Now go!”

The speeder had taken off, leaving a very confused Jorel, who had mumbled, “But, I’m just a Padawan. . .”

“We need to go,” Sergeant Hisku had insisted, once more by his side, shooting another man who’d moved to the open window, killing him before he could shoot them.

Jorel, however, had hesitated. The feeling that he’d followed? It was gone, but. . . but the woman had said there were others. She might not’ve been able to save them, but. . . but Jorel had thought that he possibly could. The building was well and truly on fire by that point, and he had felt death, and fear, from within it.

He had searched for that feeling, that suggestion of what to do next, but it had left along with the woman, leaving just him, and him alone.

“We’re going in. If there’s someone we can save, we should,” he had decided, striding forward. He wished he could’ve gone through the window, to save time, but that kind of forty foot jump was something only a Master could do.

“This is a bad idea,” Sergeant Hisku had declared, but had followed him anyways.

What had followed was a flurry of fire, both blaster and the burning kind, that led to them finding others locked in rooms as the fire raged, both of them getting the prisoners, mostly teens, out. Whatever had happened beforehand had left most of the criminals inside injured or dead, and some of the ad-hoc prison cells had been opened, those inside having escaped, but the older woman had obviously, after finding the girl she’d been looking for, left without saving the others.

He would make sure to save them all.

Jorel didn’t have any talent in the rare pyrokinesis, so had been forced to fall on Tutumenis to brave the flames, furiously diverting the thermal energy from his own body, while Sergeant Hisku had stuck to the areas not yet on fire. Those on the top floors were dead, but they'd free’d nearly three dozen, getting them away, before they’d been forced to flee as well, the Force clear in its warning that they were out of time.

Staggering out as the building finally collapsed behind them, both of them carrying a prisoner that’d been burned and unable to leave themselves, coughing, they came face to face with the local law enforcement.

“Thank the Force you’re here,” Jorel had wheezed, lightsaber in his free hand waving towards the stunned criminals. “We’ve taken down a few kidnappers, and these kids need hel-”

He’d had a moment of danger, as one of them had raised a blaster rifle and fired, deflecting a bolt, while one had called, “No, stun!” and a barrage of stun shots had washed over them, Hisku killing one before they fell, blue-lined darkness enveloping them.

And now they were in what was very obviously not the local jail cell, captured by what was just as obviously not the local law enforcement. He knew their capture was his fault. That they should’ve left earlier, or gone out the back, or something, but. . .

“I’m not going to regret saving those kids,” Jorel rebuffed, no longer feeling like he’d gargled nails. “Though I have no idea what they were even doing here.”

“Trafficking, most likely,” the Sergeant shrugged, chains jingling. “There was a nearby pirate stronghold, and slaves were one of their products, as you know. It’s very likely the people we pulled might not even be locals. That is why I instructed them to go to our rally point if they needed somewhere safe.”

He hadn’t heard what she was saying to the ones they’d saved at the time, focused on getting the others as he was, assuming she was just telling them where the exit was, but that had been. . . “Smart,” he nodded. “Do you think they could point Er’izma to us?” He could feel his Master’s presence, far away, though it was faint. While the man didn’t feel happy, he didn’t seem worried, or as angry as he’d been when Jorel had gone to talk to the pirates. He tried to reach out, through the Force, but it was like trying to speak with a numbed tongue. The Padawan knew he got his master’s attention, or at least he was pretty sure he had, but that was all.

She shook her head. “No. Whoever was running that either had coopted the police, or had the planning and resources to pretend to be the police. We’re probably far away from where they stunned us.” The Chiss woman sighed. “Not even on leave for a day before we almost get ourselves killed.”

“But we’re not,” Jorel offered with a smile, causing her to shoot him a cross look. “From what the records say, this is, well, not that out of the ordinary for Jedi. Sorry,” he offered with a half shrug.

“Should’ve never taken this job,” Hisku muttered, but he could tell she didn’t really mean it, she was just annoyed. “So, ‘Master Jedi’, what does the Force say we should do now, after it got us here in the first place?” she requested, a little mocking.

“It wasn’t the Force that got us here, just a feeling,” the Padawan replied. Only Masters heard the Force give them warning past the next few seconds in combat, after all. The Temple teachers had told him so. Repeatedly. It was only as the Sergeant stared at him, unamused, that he realized how dumb that sounded, now that he’d said it aloud.

“Oh, um, I guess it was the Force,” he admitted, not sure what to do with that information. He’d known they’d been wrong about his Mental Shields, or at least Er’izma had said they were. He wondered what else they were wrong about. But that was for later, for now, they needed to escape. Closing his eyes, he searched for that feeling, that thought-not-his that suggested a course of action, only to come up empty. “Yeah, I got nothing.”

With her completely red eyes, it was harder to tell when she rolled them, but the head motion was enough for Jorel to pick up on the gesture anyways. “Of course.” Grunting a little, she pushed herself up against the wall, until she could reach her head with a chained hand. Leaning forward, she pulled something metallic from her dark hair, and dropped back down, holding the thin, black device.

As he watched, she manipulated it, the item extending slightly, as she tried to maneuver it into the keyhole of her manacle. “Are you. . . picking the lock?” he asked, unsure.

“I’m trying,” she bit out, brow furrowed in concentration, before it slipped from her hand, clattering on the ground. “Oh, Sithspit,” she swore, muttering to herself, “This is what I get for not practicing since basic.”

Jorel, pointing towards the item with his bound hands, lifted it up with the Force, once more thankful of Er’izama’s training, manipulating those large iron rods. Compared to those, this was as easy as lifting a pen, and he easily moved the device to the lock she’d been working on. He wasn’t familiar with the lock itself, but, as he tried to visualize how he remembered they worked, it reminded him a little of the training tool the Temple Initiates used, moving components in a glassteel encased box. He couldn’t see the lock, but used the tool to feel around the insides to get a sense for them.

Concentrating, it was harder than doing it physically, lacking the direct tactile feeling of his own hands as he rummaged around, but the Force had a feeling of it’s own, and he got a sense for them. Removing the pick, Hisku instructed, “Just give it to me, so I can-”

With a twist, the components of the lock turned, and it popped open.

Assuming the locks were mass produced, he tried the same thing on his own right hand. It opened easily. Attempting the same pattern of movements on the left shackle, it just rattled, until he flipped the motions, mirroring what he’d done on the right, and his left manacle popped open as well, repeating the process with her left shackle as well.

She rubbed her wrists, which had started to chafe, and he poked her in the shoulder with her lockpick. Giving him an unamused look, she took it, folding it back up, and clipping it to her hair, parallel to the strands, causing it to practically disappear.

“So. That was a useful little thing. . . Did you expect for this to happ-” Jorel started to ask, only for the woman to sigh.

“No. It’s standard kit for anyone with hair long enough to hide it,” she informed him primly. “Nothing of today has been expected. So, ‘Master Jedi’, what now?”

Jorel stood, stretching, warming up muscles that’d stopped aching, but had started to set. “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

Her look, even as she subtly stretched herself, could’ve frozen a reactor. “Should I?”

“I mean, I’d prefer if you did,” he offered, trying to joke, walking over to the door. They were in a hallway, the far wall bare. A dirty lighting strip ran the length, and he was pretty sure that was a bit of dried blood where the floor met the wall. “So, ideas?”

The Sergeant patted herself down, which he did as well, finding his saber gone, which made sense, as well as his identification and credit-chit. “They’ve taken all our gear,” she announced. “Even my holdouts. Can you open the door with the Force?”

“I can’t see the lock,” he said, shaking his head, trying to stand up on his tiptoes and get a better angle, only to have nothing. “If there was another across from us, I might, but it’s like typing on a datapad you can’t see, only in three dimensions.”

“And you can’t tear the door off?” she suggested. At his flat look, she shrugged. “General Er’izma could.”

He wanted to say that was doubtful, but, having felt the man’s full Force Presence on the pirate base, maybe it wasn’t. The man’s Master had been able to hide his Presence to the point that he disappeared, the fact that his student held back around the Temple, while pretending to be just another Jedi, when he was anything but, made sense. While not on the level of Master Yoda, he was close. “I’m not a Master, or even a Knight. I’m just a Padawan, and this,” he knocked on the metal door, “is more than I can handle.”

“Know your limits, I suppose,” the Chiss muttered, as she paced the room, examining the dirty, bare walls.

Jorel started to respond, but the sound of footsteps drifted down the hall. Unsure, he looked to the Sergeant, who sharply motioned him to the back of their cell. Grabbing the manacles, she almost clipped them back on, her hands ‘forced’ at waist level as she stood, and he followed suit.

“Do we have to kill ‘em? The blue one looked like she’d be fun,” a man’s voice grumbled.

“You heard Jido,” a woman’s voice responded. “They’re vigilante’s, and we can’t let ‘em get away. Safer just to put a bolt between their eyes. And the boy doesn’t look half bad either. Pity.”

The man, a human with shaggy blonde hair, didn’t even glance inside as he tapped something, showing the door’s lock to be electronic. Opening it, he walked through the door, looking over his shoulder, even as the woman behind him, a yellow-skinned Twi’lek, looked at them, eyes widening as she looked at them, hand going to her side. “Nej, they’re awa-” was as far as she got as Sergeant Hisku launched herself off the wall at a sprint, manacles popping off her arms easily.

Jorel followed half a second behind her, Force Control giving him supernatural speed and strength, slamming into the man as he reached for Hisku, trying to stop her. This allowed the Sergeant to tackle the other woman as she pulled a blaster. The Twi’lek reflexively fired, the bolt going wide, as Hisku slammed a flattened hand in her throat, cutting off her cry of alarm.

The man Jorel had hit was bigger, but that meant nothing when one had the Force. While not as proficient with hand-to-hand as he was with a Lightsaber, Jorel had wanted to be a Guardian, and that mean knowing how to fight. The man tried to slam a fist into Jorel’s head, opening his mouth to yell, only to find the blow blocked, his breath forced out as the Jedi slammed a fist into his solar plexus, making his cry of “They’re escaping” a weak, nearly unintelligible, wheeze.

Taking a half step back, the Padawan gave the man room to double over, easily dodging the weak grab he tried, slamming a haymaker into the man’s head, knocking him out cold. Feeling the Dark Side bloom of a nearby death, Jorel’s head snapped over to see the Sergeant getting up from the fallen Twi’lek, a knife buried in the dead woman’s neck.

Dusting herself off, Hisku started to check the dead woman’s pockets, grabbing everything she could. Glancing over at the fallen man, she asked, “You didn’t kill him?”

“I didn’t have to,” Jorel replied. “He’ll have a headache, and maybe some temporary short term memory loss, but he’ll live.” He hadn’t done it consciously, it’d just been how he trained, and how the Force had guided him. He also didn’t hold Hisku’s actions against her. She wasn’t a Jedi, she couldn’t do what he could do, so holding her to the same standard would just be wrong. Hesitating, he started to search the large man’s pockets, taking his holdout blaster for his own.

While some considered the weapons uncivilized, Jorel knew you could defend yourself almost as well with a blaster as a saber, and it was better than nothing. Dragging the man over, he locked him in the manacles, Hisku dragging the dead woman and doing so as well, pausing before taking the knife, wiping it clean on the man’s clean-ish shirt, and pocketing it.

“All right, now what?” she asked archly. “I’d suggest we exfiltrate as quickly and quietly as possible, but you haven’t cared for my suggestions very much today.” she checked the small datapad she’d taken from the dead Twi’lek. “Make that yesterday.”

He knew he shouldn’t be arguing, but he had to respond, “I had to save them, alright? I’m a Jedi. It’s what Jedi do.”

“Even if it gets you killed?” she questioned sharply. “If we’d waited and called for reinforcements, they would’ve been able to protect us.”

“We didn’t have time!” he shot back. “And you had a commpiece too, why didn’t you do it?”

That caused her to pause. “I. . .” she looked away, “I didn’t think of it.”

“And neither did I, so we’re both dumb, but we saved those people. And if we died, then, fine, but we would’ve done so helping people, instead of wasting it working in the dirt!” he declared, aware he wasn’t remaining calm, not keeping proper Jedi decorum. Seeing those blasters firing at him, some part of him, a part of him he hadn’t been aware of, had been alright with it, and that scared him. Taking a centering breath, he continued, repeating what he’d been taught, “Jedis, they are guardians of the Republic. If we die, then we are returned to the Force. If we live, we keep helping.”

Sergeant Hisku looked at him in confusion. “I wasn’t aware that you were suicidal,” she finally commented sarcastically, but obviously still unsure.

He sighed. “I’m not,” he said, while wondering if that was a lie. “It’s, just. . .” he tried to parse it in a way a non-jedi would understand. “Sometimes, you try your best, and your best isn’t enough, and you die. But, if you are following the Will of the Force, then it’s because your death is what is needed. It sucks, but, well, that’s how things are.”

“You’re a soldier, you should know,” he tried, as she still wasn’t getting it, though he was processing it as well. “Sometimes you lose people to win. It’s unfortunate, but you trust your commander. A Jedi’s commander is the Force itself.”

Again, she stared at him, before shaking her head. “That’s. . . You know what? I don’t care. My mission is to protect you, and if the Force says it’s time for you to die, I’ll stun you and carry you to safety myself. Regulations state that we are to ensure the survival of our squadmates, unless orders from on high state that the mission priority trumps that general order. If the Force disagrees, it can file a complaint with the General,” the Sergeant stated, standing up straight, and looking at Jorel challengingly. “And that means we need to leave, before someone discovers these two haven’t come back.” She thumbed the blaster-pistol to its stun setting. “Does the Force have a problem with that?”

“No Ma’am,” the Padawan replied, finding himself smiling, and a little bit intimidated, which just made him smile more for some reason. Once he focused on leaving, though, he got the barest of feelings. “Though I think it does suggest we go a certain way.” She gave him an aggrieved look. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be stealthy.”

“Do you even know how to use stealth?” she demanded, exasperated, “Because all I’ve seen is you blundering into trouble.”

Jorel smiled. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew in the Temple. Trust me, if I can sneak by the Masters, I can sneak by some thugs. How about you, Sergeant? Do you think you can walk without proper, marching form?”

Giving him a flat look, she, nearly silently, stalked out of the room, walking almost on the balls of her feet. Grinning, glad to have a way forward, something to focus on, and the Force to guide him, the Jedi followed, even quieter.